ELFSAR BLOG

Some people simply amaze me.  This Kid constructed an absolutely unbelievable 1:1 scale framework model of the USS Enterprise (Enterprise-D) out of Minecraft cubes.

If you looked up “Dedication” in the dictionary it would link you to this video.

Also: “Asperger’s syndrome.”

This Ain’t Avatar XXX has been released on DVD and funny enough Blu-ray today (September 28th).  It even has a two-disc set that includes both a 2D and 3D version of the film.  Here is a teaser:  (Surprisingly SFW.)

What are they drilling for?  Viagratanium!

Haha who knew that this would be so funny.

The Walking Dead fan Daniel Kanemoto couldn’t wait any longer for the Frank Darabont adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s comic book series, so he created this spectacular spec title sequence for the AMC show “using artwork ripped from the pages of the comic, originally illustrated by Charlie Adlard and Tony Moore.” How cool would it be if something like this was used.

INTRODUCTION
Heavy Rain is the latest game from the French developers who are known for past games like Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) in 2005 and Omikron: The Nomad Soul back in 1999.  The hype generated by Heavy Rain was due to the idea that this would be the game that would at last bridge the gap between the game and movie mediums, creating an interactive game with the story of a Hollywood-esque “whodunnit” crime drama.  I found the overall experience of Heavy Rain is enthralling and kept me on the edge of my seat from the start menu all the way through to the end credits.

STORY – 9/10
This is hands down one of the best stories in video games.  I think it can even stand up to many mystery TV shows, and probably even some lower quality novels.  The characters are nicely developed.  I’m giving it a (-1.0) for some minor plot holes.  But overall I thought it was very nicely done.  Some people might not enjoy the plot twists but I thought they were interesting.  Some might complain that you are not given the tools so you can deduce who the culprit is on your own.  But I don’t think this is your typical “whodunnit” mystery.

GRAPHICS & ANIMATION – 8/10
The character models look good.  They look great in the up-close shots on the loading screens, but this doesn’t translate 100% into actual gameplay. Moreover, there’s a clear graphical quality gap between main characters and supporting characters.  The animations are also good, but I see room for improvement.

VOICE ACTING – 6/10
This is probably where the biggest improvement could be made.  Most of the main characters are decent, but some of the supporting cast are downright atrocious.  Especially the children in this game.  The hint of french accents are all over the place.

MUSIC/SOUNDS – 9/10
Really high movie quality music that sets the mood perfectly. (-1.0) for glitches which sometimes causes the music to restart or cut out completely.  The sound of the rain was perfect.  Trust me, living in Vancouver we hear the rain all the time.

IMMERSION – 9.5/10
This is where Heavy Rain shines.  This is a game that literally puts you in the shoes of your characters and you on top of it you get to follow 4 different characters with their own motivations.  You control the action, whether it’s something as simple as brushing your teeth, or something as intense as driving your car into oncoming traffic.  The QTE’s (Quick time events) are cleverly designed to mimic the physical and psychological difficulty of the action you are trying to perform on screen.  When you are stressed, the QTE buttons shake.  When you have to do something physically demanding, you may have to button mash or press many buttons at the same time quickly.  You can even press buttons to hear your character’s thoughts.  All this creates some very intimate and intense moments.  After spending so much time in such close proximity to your characters and their thoughts, feelings, and struggles, I genuinely cared about what happened to them at the end.

Recommendation 1: I definitely recommend playing this game on the hardest difficulty setting (which is also the default).   The easier difficulty settings have less QTE’s and they are also easier to perform.   This takes you further away from the action and leads to a less intense experience.

Recommendation 2: Try playing this game while a friend watches.  Even though only one person is controlling, you will both probably get really into it.  My wife and I played this together and it was fun to see her shout during intense sequences or yell at me for missing a QTE.

Recommendation 3: Not that you can control the weather but I recommend that you try playing this game while it is raining outside.  It certainly added to my experience and the tiny pitter-pattter of rain outside helped me immerse myself further into the game.

(-0.5) for the walking controls, which can sometimes be a struggle to work with, and thus break the immersion a little.  Also some of the QTE’s were a little hard to see which was probably on purpose but I found it a bit annoying.

CHOICES & CONSEQUENCES – 10/10
Finally a game where your actions have severe consequences on the outcome.   Apparently ever since Indigo Prophecy, Quantic Dream’s ambition has been to make a game where the player’s choices and actions had real influence on the outcome of the story.  I think Heavy Rain has achieved this better than any other video game to date.  While it is true that a many of your actions don’t affect anything at all, there are also many actions (and non-actions) that can cause you to miss scenes or key information.  An important thing to note is main characters can die, which always make you feel a sense of vulnerability when in a particularly sticky situation.  The game’s plot will shape around these instances and will change the experience significantly from one player to the next.  There are many different possible endings and some seemingly minor decision you make during the game can have an impact on what unfolds in the game’s epilogue.  Importantly, many of the choices are not obvious, and require some careful thought by the player in order to get the desired outcome.  Really nothing I can complain about in this area.

REPLAYABILITY – 7/10
This game definitely tempts you to go back and try doing things differently, to see how the story might change.  A handy feature that helps you do this is “Chapter Select”, which lets you start playing from any chapter.  All the choices you made in previous chapters are in effect, but the choices you make in your selected chapter will propagate forward into later chapters.  The only problem is that using Chapter Select erases future decisions, forcing you to play through the future chapters, which can be time consuming. Another problem which diminishes replayability is the inability to skip dialogue and cutscenes.  It can be very time consuming just to implement a single change in order to see how that affects the story.

SUMMARY
I think David Cage and Quantic Dream have finally achieved what they were trying to do, but failed, with Indigo Prophecy.  They have, in my opinion, crafted the first true “interactive novel” that maintains a high quality from start to finish.  Heavy Rain is a unique gaming experience, and that experience is truly incredible.  Although the quick time event driven gameplay will alienate some gamers who prefer the more traditional approach, the story is Heavy Rain’s draw and it will keep you hooked until the credits roll.  I definitely would like to see more games like this in the future.

MY FINAL VERDICT – 9/10

The wounded video rental giant Blockbuster made the long expected move of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  As expected the troubled chain has a pre-packaged plan in place, which will reduce its nearly billion dollars in debt to around $100 million.  Blockbuster also announced that it has set up $125 million in debtor-in-possession financing fund from its senior bondholders to maintain operations.

Major creditors including studios such as 20th Century Fox, which was owed over $21.8 million, may receive equity in the restructured company. According to Home Media Magazine, holders of the company’s 11 3/4 percent senior secured notes will receive equity in the new entity, but Blockbuster’s stockholders, whether they held preferred shares or common stock, are SOL.  The company’s stock, which had been selling for as little as six cents a share as bankruptcy loomed, is now worthless, and  holders of its subordinated debt are also out of luck under the current bankruptcy plan.

Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes, who according to irate company stockholders is working to enhance the interests of investor Carl Icahn, said the Blockbuster’s more than 3,000 brick and mortar outlets will remain open for the time being as the company examines its options.  Industry analysts expect that Blockbuster will end up shuttering hundreds of stores.

The company announced that it is restructuring around a multi-platform approach to entertainment rental, but it has a long way to go to be able to compete with online rival Netflix in the Internet arena.  But Duluth, Georgia-based NCR, which produces the kiosks that Blockbuster is using in its attempt to compete with Redbox, has expressed its support for the reorganization plan.

Absolutely Brilliant!
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”.. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”.. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

A Kingdom Come-like directors cut of the new DC Universe Online (DCUO) “Who Do You Trust” cinematic trailer just came out on Comic Book Resources.  A new game for the Sony Playstation and PC .  The trailer explains the sudden influx of super heroes and super villains in the DC Comics universe.

Anyway, in this video, Jim Lee (comic book artist and DCUO creative director) and Tim Miller (Blur Studios director) discuss the creative process behind making the short film and provide more details from DC Comics’ Geoff Johns’ original script that established the back story of DC Universe Online. They also walk through the video to point out each iconic character, highlight hidden details in the environments and discuss the significance of each characters’ actions within the trailer.  However they did not explain why Superman screams Batman at Luthor  – my best guess is he was pissed and thought Bruce was dead.

So, do you remember that alleged Pokémon live-action adaptation trailer I showed you last week? Turns out it was as I thought, fan-made.  But now that the full HD version has been unveiled.

Click here for an more in depth interview.

My heart goes out to a past co-worker of mine who is primarly responsible for turning a lot of Elfsar’s customers on to Wildstorm and it’s publications.  I got word yesterday that shortly after their big bi-coastal restructuing announcement, DC Entertainment has also announced the ending of Wildstorm, the imprint my idol, Jim Lee created and that dates back to the founding of Image Comics.  Oh and that’s not all, also Zuda, DC’s beleaguered online comics imprint that shut down its website earlier in the year is cancelled as well.  The Wildstorm Universe titles and characters are being folded into the mainstream DC Universe and will be reintroduced at a later date. 

As Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee said on the Source blog: 

After taking the comics scene by storm nearly 20 years ago, the WildStorm Universe titles will end this December. In this soft marketplace, these characters need a break to regroup and redefine what made them once unique and cutting edge. While these will be the final issues published under the WildStorm imprint, it will not be the last we will see of many of these heroes. We, along with Geoff Johns, have a lot of exciting plans for these amazing characters, so stay tuned. Going forward, WildStorm’s licensed titles and kids comics will now be published under the DC banner.  

After this week, we will cease to publish new material under the ZUDA banner. The material that was to have been published as part of ZUDA this year will now be published under the DC banner. The official closing of ZUDA ends one chapter of DC’s digital history, but we will continue to find new ways to innovate with digital, incorporating much of the experience and knowledge that ZUDA brought into DC.  

We’ll be further expanding our digital initiative and making a lot more news in this space. As part of that transformation, the WildStorm editorial team will undergo a restructuring and be folded into the overall DC Comics Digital team, based in Burbank, which will be led by Jim Lee and John Rood. With nearly two million free downloads and hundreds of thousands of paid downloads, our digital foray is already reaching a new audience worldwide. We could not be more excited by the successful launch of our Digital Publishing products in June, which exceeded all sales forecasts and will be building on our early success with new applications for DC material on all major formats and hardware, partnering with Warner Bros Digital Distribution. It has extremely been rewarding to hear anecdotal stories of lapsed readers returning to the art form and of brick and mortar stores gaining new customers who sampled digital comics.

 

While the closure of Zuda is sad, the cancelation of Wildstorm is particularly depressing.  There was a time when Wildstorm was the cutting edge of the comics industry, and this is something of an shameful end. 

You can view the full statement from DC Comics co-publishers Dan Didio and Jim Lee on The Source. Lee and Didio express a desire to let the Wildstorm characters cool off for some time before reintroducing them to the comics-buying public, and even tease a possible revival courtesy of Geoff Johns down the line.