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Oct. 4th, 2014 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficNon-Stop: Am I the only one who thinks it weird that there’ve been more movies where the villains are evil Iraq War veterans than movies where the villains are evil jihadists?
Halo: Reach: Perhaps I’m allowing myself to be distracted by a highly noticeable flaw rather than less obvious virtues, but the co-op is really poorly integrated in this game. I’ve played Gears of War four times, they have four player co-op where every player is controlling a character with their own personality and unique look.
The single-player, I take it, is bad enough. You play a Master Chief wannabe (Apprentice Chief?) who rarely talks and has no characterization. Yes, they let you customize the model and play as either a man or woman, but since you have like five lines of dialogue, what’s the point? The real main character is the squad leader, who you don’t play by the way, and he’s just another stubbly white guy. This story is supposed to be more of a character piece, but everyone in it is just a government killing machine—hard to care when they get picked off one by one. The biggest difference between all of them is the color of their armor; you can’t even see through their faceplates (making this whole game basically Power Rangers with guns). Then in co-op, you just have another player randomly following around who NEVER talks or has any impact on the plot, just shows up for the gameplay. That strikes me as really damn lazy in comparison to how well-integrated the co-op was into GOW’s gameplay.
I’m not even asking for the cool co-op stuff GOW does, like having one player control a spotlight while the other moves through a darkened arena, but this is a game where they give you a co-op vehicle segment and instead of it being one character running, the other gunning, you just get two vehicles to drive. What’s the point?
Legend of Korra – Wouldn’t this traumatic angsting be more justified if Korra had been forced to kill Zaheer to win? As it is…
Korra: The world doesn’t need an Avatar! I AM CONSUMED WITH EXISTENTIAL ENNUI!
Bolin: You’ve saved the world, like, three times.
Korra: *grows hobo-beard*
Arrow 2x01 – You know, I haven’t seen a lot of people get upset with the MCU for having Captain America or Iron Man kill people. I think most are willing to accept that, hey, Steve Rogers is a soldier, he’s firing a gun, people are checking out. DC, on the other hand, has this very weird stance where they’ll give their characters no-kill policies… but have them kill someone (or over twenty someones) first, which doesn’t seem to accomplish much except piss both sides of the debate off. Or, you know, give DC an obligatory dose of grim and gritty ‘maturity’. “KILLING IS WRONG—BUT OUR HEROES DO IT ANYWAY, BEFORE THEY LEARN BETTER!”
So, Arrow season two starts with the conceit that, because of Tommy’s death (THANKS, LAUREL), Ollie has decided not to kill people anymore. So, what, he’s just going to use his arrows to shoot people’s guns out of their hands and pin their clothes to the wall? That seems kinda lame for a guy whose name is Green Arrow. You don’t see Blade just hitting people with the flat of his sword. Also, the sequence that got us here seems oddly inert, dramatically speaking.
-Ollie fights Merlyn, possibly or possibly not killing him. (I get that it’s a TV show, and they want to keep their options open as to whether to bring John Barrowman back or let the season finale be the last word on his character, but DAMN—lazy.)
-Ollie goes to find Tommy dying. They don’t say one word about murder, but Ollie is struck by an earlier conversation where Tommy called him a killer. He also says that he didn’t kill Malcolm, but later people refer to Malcolm as being dead, so, what—did Ollie stick him in a box with Schrodinger’s Cat?
-Ollie vows not to kill anymore.
Wouldn’t it make more sense if Ollie straight-up killed Merlyn, admitted as much to Tommy, had Tommy call him a murderer with his dying breath, and then that motivates him to use nonlethal force from then on?
Oh, one more thing.
Ollie: Laurel, at last we’re reunited! I’ve spent five long years dreaming of seeing you again! Truly, our love story is epic!
Shado: Hi Ollie!
Laurel: Who’s this?
Ollie: Uhh…
Like, damn, girl, at some point, YOU’RE the side ho, know what?
Halo: Reach: Perhaps I’m allowing myself to be distracted by a highly noticeable flaw rather than less obvious virtues, but the co-op is really poorly integrated in this game. I’ve played Gears of War four times, they have four player co-op where every player is controlling a character with their own personality and unique look.
The single-player, I take it, is bad enough. You play a Master Chief wannabe (Apprentice Chief?) who rarely talks and has no characterization. Yes, they let you customize the model and play as either a man or woman, but since you have like five lines of dialogue, what’s the point? The real main character is the squad leader, who you don’t play by the way, and he’s just another stubbly white guy. This story is supposed to be more of a character piece, but everyone in it is just a government killing machine—hard to care when they get picked off one by one. The biggest difference between all of them is the color of their armor; you can’t even see through their faceplates (making this whole game basically Power Rangers with guns). Then in co-op, you just have another player randomly following around who NEVER talks or has any impact on the plot, just shows up for the gameplay. That strikes me as really damn lazy in comparison to how well-integrated the co-op was into GOW’s gameplay.
I’m not even asking for the cool co-op stuff GOW does, like having one player control a spotlight while the other moves through a darkened arena, but this is a game where they give you a co-op vehicle segment and instead of it being one character running, the other gunning, you just get two vehicles to drive. What’s the point?
Legend of Korra – Wouldn’t this traumatic angsting be more justified if Korra had been forced to kill Zaheer to win? As it is…
Korra: The world doesn’t need an Avatar! I AM CONSUMED WITH EXISTENTIAL ENNUI!
Bolin: You’ve saved the world, like, three times.
Korra: *grows hobo-beard*
Arrow 2x01 – You know, I haven’t seen a lot of people get upset with the MCU for having Captain America or Iron Man kill people. I think most are willing to accept that, hey, Steve Rogers is a soldier, he’s firing a gun, people are checking out. DC, on the other hand, has this very weird stance where they’ll give their characters no-kill policies… but have them kill someone (or over twenty someones) first, which doesn’t seem to accomplish much except piss both sides of the debate off. Or, you know, give DC an obligatory dose of grim and gritty ‘maturity’. “KILLING IS WRONG—BUT OUR HEROES DO IT ANYWAY, BEFORE THEY LEARN BETTER!”
So, Arrow season two starts with the conceit that, because of Tommy’s death (THANKS, LAUREL), Ollie has decided not to kill people anymore. So, what, he’s just going to use his arrows to shoot people’s guns out of their hands and pin their clothes to the wall? That seems kinda lame for a guy whose name is Green Arrow. You don’t see Blade just hitting people with the flat of his sword. Also, the sequence that got us here seems oddly inert, dramatically speaking.
-Ollie fights Merlyn, possibly or possibly not killing him. (I get that it’s a TV show, and they want to keep their options open as to whether to bring John Barrowman back or let the season finale be the last word on his character, but DAMN—lazy.)
-Ollie goes to find Tommy dying. They don’t say one word about murder, but Ollie is struck by an earlier conversation where Tommy called him a killer. He also says that he didn’t kill Malcolm, but later people refer to Malcolm as being dead, so, what—did Ollie stick him in a box with Schrodinger’s Cat?
-Ollie vows not to kill anymore.
Wouldn’t it make more sense if Ollie straight-up killed Merlyn, admitted as much to Tommy, had Tommy call him a murderer with his dying breath, and then that motivates him to use nonlethal force from then on?
Oh, one more thing.
Ollie: Laurel, at last we’re reunited! I’ve spent five long years dreaming of seeing you again! Truly, our love story is epic!
Shado: Hi Ollie!
Laurel: Who’s this?
Ollie: Uhh…
Like, damn, girl, at some point, YOU’RE the side ho, know what?
