Final Fantasy 13-2 will....

Suck. No, this isn't me jumping the gun, I don't need to see the full version to know it's going to suck hard. How do I know this?

Well, I've just watched a preview from E3, hosted on Blistered Thumbs. This video doesn't show much of the game, only the battle system from 13 (which I quite liked for it's strategic value) and 'Cinematic Action Sequences'. Wait, what's a cinematic action sequence? Well, as the square employee explains, it's where the game 'brings up a button prompt that you have to react to'...

THAT'S A QUICKTIME EVENT YOU MORONS!!

Excellent, that's just what final fantasy 13 was missing. Motherf**king quicktime events. I don't care if Square Anus are removing the linearity and putting in NPCs to talk to and adding towns to explore (and I don't believe for a second they know how anymore), they not only decided to include quicktime events but seem to think it's something new to final fantasy. What about Final Fantasy X, where we all had to stroll across the thunder plains hitting a button to dodge lightning? The fact that you've included a lot more in this doesn't mean it's new or good.

This is the equivalent of someone making a new 3rd person hack'n'slash game ala God Of War, and cheerfully stating they've added in a camera that gets distracted by floor tiles while you're in combat.

Oh well, maybe 15 will be worth something, assuming the company survives long enough to make it.

A month in review

And so, a month of inactivity. Damn, that wasn't supposed to happen. And what a month it was. People around the world proving what idiots they are in what they will believe, how depressing.

Over here in the UK, we had a referendum on the Alternate Vote and apparently, we didn't want it. So instead of a system where you can vote for a losing party but still get something similar to what you wanted, this country decided that it really really liked the system where no one but the Tories or Labour win. Because...I have no idea. This scheme gave more power to the people and the people pissed it all away. As Robert Byrne put it, 'Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least' and apparently Britain agrees. Well I bloody don't. The whole campaign against the Alternative Vote was a handful of confusing scare tactics, didn't that give people a clue that it might just be unfounded? "Oh but if we have the Alternative Vote, the BNP will get into power". HOW? Are you saying that a majority of the country votes for the more extremely right-wing party as their SECOND choice?

And while the country was deciding it didn't want more choice in it's government, it was also deciding it didn't want the Liberal Democrats. It seems that the people who voted for the Tories were glad when they started acting like Tories but the people who voted for the Lib Dems were shocked that they didn't stop the Tories acting like Tories. Did no one see this coming, does no one understand the terms of the compromise. The Lib Dems are not responsible for the cuts the Tories are putting into place, the Tories are, and voting elsewhere just takes what little power the Lib Dems had in the compromise. You've screwed them and empowered the Tories due to your own bitterness, well done.


And while politics is going down the drain on this side of the Atlantic, Faith is jumping into a septic tank on the otherside, with the followers of Mr Harold Camping. For the few who don't know, the world ended yesterday in accordance with Harold Camping's predictions. What's that, you didn't see it happen? Well, that's actually because Camping is actually full of crap! He doesn't know when the end of the world is coming anymore than I do. He's just a mildly popular and very evangelical radio DJ who bizarrely, some fools have started listening.


Now, I'm not the most anti-religious person around. You try to sell me your snake oil, I will tear your philosophy apart with my bare hands and teeth BUT if you leave me alone and hurt no one with your religion, I do not mind really. So what is my problem with Camping? Let me explain.


Camping has predicted the end of the world and the Rapture of Christians. So what did some of the Christians who believed him do? They sold everything they owned in preparation for the end of the world. Houses? Gone. Children's education fund? Spent. Life savings? Up in smoke. Why keep it if you're going to heaven in a months time. Yes, they were stupid enough to make these decisions based on the mad ramblings of a DJ but it is Mr Camping who has given them these ideas. And if I remember rightly, we arrest con men these days.


Funnily enough, Camping hasn't been seen since yesterday. Raptured or suicide, I'm taking all bets!

A Game Of Thrones: So it begins...

Well now, it seems we have a four day weekend. This is good, more time off to do important things such as plan fights for my players, listen to podcasts and sit in the sun. Bugger your caravan holidays and your theme parks, you waste your money all you want!

But anyway, on to the actual topic for this post. A Game Of Thrones, book one of my favourite book series and my favourite book in the series, has just been turned into a TV show by HBO and is showing (in the UK anyway) on Sky Atlantic. As this is the weekend for 'very important things', I have just spent the morning watching the first episode and drinking coffee (gave it up for Lent. Dayum fool thing to do...) and let me give this understated and truly objective review: I love it!

Let us never be apart again!

This is by far the most faithful and well acted adaptation of a book I have seen since Lord of the Rings. This probably shouldn't come as such a shock, considering the author George R.R Martin was consulted when making it, but the author for Legend of the Seeker was consulted when making that show and according to one fan, it rewrites much of the series. So thank the Gods (all Seven on them) that this time, the producers listened.

The story is near identical to the book. It begins with the prologue of the Nightswatch outriders being ambushed beyond the wall, by vicious blue eyed phantoms and the walking dead, setting up a bad guy we don't get to see again for a very long time, then moves further south to the city of Winterfell to focus on the Stark family, occasionally jumping across the sea to Pentos and poor Daenerys' wedding. Some of the scenes have changed, such as how we're introduced to Tyrion or Cersei and Jaime but I think that's actually an improvement. You have to make some changes for TV, because you have to Show, Don't Tell.

The first episode ends on a cliffhanger and fans can probably guess which one. Hint: "The things I do for love". But this gives me hope, for the series and for Television in general. Lets keep up this effort and see this series get really good. I will say one more thing on this though. What truly surprised me is that almost none of the actors are big names that I recognise, with the exception of Sean Bean as Eddard Stark or Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, and yet despite this, the acting is very good indeed. All of the characters are well represented and their personalities show up nicely without being so obvious as to feel like a punch in the face. From the first episode, these are the stand out characters for me so far:
Joffery - Ah Joffery, what a git. It can't be denied that this is one of the nastiest characters in the series, though not the most dangerous. But he doesn't play much of a part in the first episode, he doesn't have any dialogue or even get introduced by name, and yet his blonde hair and expression all show us exactly who he is. Very well done.
King Robert - A jolly fat man with a beard that suits him and a crown that doesn't. The character of a man who wants to spend his days satisfying his lust for life and feels the responsibility of his office is something to avoid really shows through, but he's still so likeable.
Viserys - A pity Viserys and Joffery never meet, as they are clearly cut from the same cloth. A vicious and spiteful little man, but subtle in how he (and the actor) shows it. Good to see the actor giving it his all, since he won't have to do that for too long. Gah, a spoiler!
Sansa - Oh dear. Sansa Stark is almost a definition of the TVTrope Break the Cutie. For the first three quarters of this book, she's so happy and content and then her world gets shattered, like a pane of glass being hit by a freight train. Because of her naive idealistic view of an obviously uncaring world, people often hate this character from the book and they're probably going to hate her from the show, for all the right reasons. Don't worry, she gets better.

Glare...

Khal Drogo - How much dialogue did this guy get? Six sentences? Six words? I can't remember, and it's not important. Right now, this guy is supposed to be mysterious and imposing, an impenetrable character to Daenerys and to us. Good job sir... wait a sec, that's Ronon from Stargate Atlantis. Nice to know he's gone up in the world then.

So that's the characters who stand out so far, the ones where every part of them is truly in tune with their book counterparts. That's not to say that rest of the actors do a bad job, far from it! However, I have two criticisms there. First, something should've been done to make Jon stand out from Robb and Theon. You have three dark haired boys in their late teens in medieval dress here, can you tell them apart? I'm having trouble. Luckily, it won't matter much as soon the trio will be split up permanently. Second, the scene with the direwolf cubs and the children adopting them felt a bit rushed. One second, Eddard is saying kill them. A line of dialogue later and he's saying they need to take care of them, and that's about it. That could've done with a little more weight to it, particularly because they're bloody important. But that's only a minor complaint, overall I'm very happy. Lets see this continue.

Books: War, Peace and those Wacky Russians

Sorry but as a bibliophile at heart, I want to talk about this book. Next post will be on roleplaying, I promise.

So, War and Peace. Almost everyone has heard of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace but not really in a good way. It's become a placeholder for 'really big book' in modern culture, and as such, is almost a cheap gag. If a TV show needs to show that a book is really big, compare it to War and Peace and how it's almost as long chortle chortle. If a character needs to look like they have time on their hands, have them start War and Peace chortle chortle. If someone needs to look like a stodgy academic, well, you get the idea.

A piffling 800 pages? Pah!

I suppose on the one hand, it does increase awareness of a book which most would know nothing about otherwise, but it's a real shame because while it's true it's a big book, it's also a good one. Using it as a prop 'big book' puts people off reading it, even people who have read longer books themselves. Lord of the Rings has the same page count in total, but more people are willing to read it. More recently, we've had The Wheel of Time series and the Song of Ice and Fire series, both stretch way beyond W&P's meagre 1500 page count. But anyway, let's talk about the book itself.

The writing style is unusual compared to modern books, mainly because Tolstoy wrote it in his apparently horrible handwriting,  furious scribbles with almost overlapping sentences written in both Russian and French (he used both, because Russia used both languages at the time), which his wife somehow translated into a working novel as he wrote, which was then translated to English. For something that's gone through the linguistic wringer, it does hold up pretty well though. One other thing I've noticed is sometimes Tolstoy forgets to add context for the part he's writing. In a recent chapter, he started by describing an older lady going to visit her friend the countess and her daughter who are having a birthday party, and spends two paragraphs talking about the two of them, then begins a paragraph with "he addressed the arrivals as". Now, he couldn't be talking about the countess or her daughter, but he hasn't described any other male characters thus far, except for a brief mention of the family friends son, and it's not likely to be him. Who is it? It's the Count, who's roaming the party talking to people, Tolstoy just forgot to mention him it seems.

But don't be fooled, that's no bad thing. Tolstoy's characters are rich, detailed and vibrant so I can easily forgive him for forgetting a few details along the way. It's in characterising that Tolstoy really shines. Every mention of a character gives us some insight into them, making each unique and memorable. Granted, I might forget some of their names sometimes so thank god there's a brief list at the beginning, but I can remember that one of them is a patriotic socialite obsessed with ettiquette, one is an outspoken young man and fan of Napoleon who's still finding his place in the upper class world, one is his gloomy friend who is unsatisfied with married life in general and so on. The story is by comparison fairly simple so far but being built around these characters, becomes a lot more complex. Helpfully, it's written from all points of view so the reader gets a good idea of what most characters think about what's happening.

There's also a subtle sort of humour running through it all. Tolstoy has created this intricate upper class setting but clearly finds parts of it silly and pokes fun at it occasionally. In a recent chapter, a count is on his death bed. A prince related to him is talking with one of the count's daughters, trying to ask "where's the new will that cuts us out, I want to destroy it" so he can inherit, but at the same time so uncomfortable with saying it outright, he only hints at it, over and over, and naturally she gets completely the wrong idea about what he means.

Wait, they did what??

Characters also make reference to some students from an earlier scene who, for a drunken prank, tied a policeman to a bear and threw them both in the river, so think about that next time someone says students were well behaved in the old days.


Anyway, that's my thoughts on it. Next post, back to roleplaying. My Hunter: The Vigil campaign will have finished by then and I'll have more thoughts on Savage Worlds and possibly a long rant on my roleplaying club.

Starting at the bottom, working my way upwards...

Hello! And welcome to my new blog, my first attempt to share my thoughts with the internet at large. First attempt for a while at least.

So rather than jumping in headfirst with every thought I have, lets start at the basics. First, what's the blog name about? Well, a while back, writer Stephen King wrote a series of novels called The Dark Tower series. The genre was best described as 'epic post-apocalyptic fantasy-western' and it was truly epic. Until book 6 where it started to drag and the final book 7 where things fell apart, and it ended badly. More on that in a later post methinks. But anyway, up to and including book 5, I loved this series and that's part of the reason why I chose the name.

The other reason is sarcasm, or 'snarking'. While I haven't quite decided what to focus this blog on, or even if I should focus or just make it a generalised blog for my thoughts, I can guarantee that each post will feature some sarcasm. Whether I want it to or not perhaps. Years of living in a modern society, going to a British public high school and working in customer services, while enjoying the comedic styles of many different people, has given me a habit of being very sarcastic most of the time, so much so that my friends have started to differentiate me from others with the same first name by adding 'sarcastic'. Am I happy about that? Meh, sort of. Being funny is a good thing, but it does sometimes get in the way when you're being sincere and people who know you are not sure you are. But I digress.

Hmm, those buttons at the bottom of this post box keep flashing every time it autosaves. Bit distracting but I'll live with it. So, what will I be talking about with this blog, besides being bitter, cynical and ironic? Well, things that interest me. You've probably guessed that I like books and you'd be right, I do. Current reading: War and Peace. No, really. And it's actually very good. The writing style is odd, the setting is not something I've tried before (upper class society in Napoleonic Russia) and the characters are a little hard to keep track of, but I do like it. Which helps, it's over 1400 pages in small font.

Another interest of mine? Roleplaying. Now, if you don't know what that is, let me explain. To truly comprehend the nature of what is today called "Modern Roleplaying", we must first step into a time machine to Ancient Greece... well, maybe not. Roleplaying is part board game, part improvised acting. Like acting, you have a character and they have a backstory, goals, attitudes and desires, but like a board game, they have numbers and rules that represent their abilities and how well they do things, and these are tied together by dice rolling that adds random chance to the game. And I love it so I will also talk on that. By the way, well done to those who got the reference at the beginning of this paragraph.

Finally, I will probably talk (at length) about my life and the world in general. Economics (my university subject of choice), philosophy, politics, science, working in customer services, religion and more, all of it will come under my half-arsed scrutiny and be subject to my over-analytical personality. And the sarcasm, oh believe me, those will get plenty of sarcasm.

Well, with the first post out of the way, lets move on.