Always Ready to Learn: Jurassic Park: The Game

So, sometimes, I like to take a look at things that I've heard dubious things about, quality-wise, to try to figure out what went wrong. So, when I found out that the Playstation Store was having a 99 cent sale, I picked up a few things, one of which was TellTale Games Jurassic Park: The Game.
     Jurassic Park is one of my all time favorite films, and when I originally heard that Telltale games, who have a reputation as able story tellers, where making a game based on the film series, I was looking forward to it. After about a dozen or so "meh" to "terrible" reviews, I decided to hold off on making the purchase.          Recently, though, I've been interested in studying a Tell Tale game and how it executed their infamous serialized format. (Before this, the only major TellTale game I've played more than one episode of was Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, which was barely serialized, but hilarious) I figured I could take a look at it through this game, as well, as try to figure out where they went wrong with a property I'm incredibly fond of and confident in its ability to produce interesting and fun thrill rides.... with dinosaurs.
    I just finished all four episodes over the past few days, and, it turns out, the reports of its sub-par quality were pretty accurate. I had a lot of complaints with the game play alone, but that's not what I want to talk about today. Today, we shall go over a few things I think this game needed to make itss story better.

Some signs you may be building a personal library.

     So, maybe you don't suffer from compulsive library building like I do. Maybe you are a normal, well adjusted person who can simply see a film once, enjoy it immensely, and then be content to wait until whenever it comes on TV to watch it again. Or maybe someone loaned you a book, you loved it and consider it one of your favorite books that you ever read, but you waited until you found a beat up copy at a garage sale five years later to actually purchase it. However, maybe you do suffer from this strange condition that often leaves you staring at your bookcase, playing Tetris in your mind and trying to make these books just FIT, DANG IT!
    There are some of us who enjoy having our own personal library. Whether it be of books, movies, or video games, there's something about having a brimming catalog of options to choose from when you want a bit of entertainment. Or maybe you like to think of them as resources on hand for you to learn from and to refer back to when you get in a jam. To find out if you are one of these crazy people, just read on and see if the following points could be applied to you:

You go to a store with a mental list of things to keep an eye out for. 
     Whether it's Gamestop, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble's, Wal-Mart, Books-A-Million, or your favorite used bookstore, whenever you go to one of these establishments for any reason, you have a mental checklist running in your head of things you should be checking for. In a Gamestop you've never been to before? Better double check to see if they have that old PS2 game you missed out on when it was released. Best Buy? Hey, wasn't there an ad that mentioned a few blu-rays were half off? Better check to see if that one film you wanted was there. Used Bookstore? Better check every aisle for a good deal on any books you ever might have possibly considered owning at some point.

You make an actual list online of things you would like to add  to your collection.
     If you don't have at least two or three Wishlists on Amazon full of stuff you intend to get at some point, I'm not sure you're even trying.

You don't purchase an item you like, even if it's on sale, because you want a different edition of it.
     This ever happened to you? You find a copy of a book you love, for dirt cheap, only to loathe the cover of said edition? No, just me? Very well, if you'll need me, I'll be waiting to purchase the Indiana Jones movies on Blu-Ray because I want Steelbook editions of Last Crusade and Raiders.

You purchase an Item you don't like on sale because you consider important to own anyway.
      I briefly considered purchasing Once and Future King at a used bookstore because it was, like, three dollars. I didn't really enjoy that book very much at all, but I would like to own it at some point, so I can refer back to it if I ever were to need it. Obviously, I require serious psychological help.

You purchase an Item you already have because you found a new edition you like even more.
     Maybe you got a nice little Paperback copy of "Pride & Prejudice" that you can read for fun whenever, but then you walked into Barnes and Noble and saw their hardcover classic edition of it and loved the idea of that sitting on your bookcase, solidifying for all who saw it your love of Jane Austen. Or maybe you loved The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, so when a portable version for 3DS came out, you grabbed it so you could play Master Quest on your lunch breaks, even though you just got the Wii Virtual Console Edition a couple of years ago. I for one, have repurchased both Inception and The Dark Knight Rises because I found their Steelbook editions for fair prices.

You don't feel too bad when you purchase something and don't like it because it might come in 
handy later.
     So you've got your eye on some book or movie or game or whatever. It looks good, maybe you read a couple of reviews, maybe some friends recommended it, maybe you like he people who made it, whatever. Point is, you really like the look of it, so when you come into some extra cash, you splurge and get yourself a copy. Now comes the problem: you don't actually enjoy it as much as you hoped. Maybe it was different than what you were expecting, maybe you find parts of it offensive, maybe the ending stank, it doesn't matter. A normal person would sit there with Buyer's Remorse and weep for their wasted time and money, not so with you, my friend. Oh, sure maaaaybe you're irked for a little bit, but now you have that work on call whenever you need it! Are you a writer? Maybe you're writing something and you want to ensure what you write doesn't end up like that, so you refer back to it when writing similar stuff. Maybe you know someone who also is interested in taking a look at this "masterpiece." Well, now you can do service to your fellow man and lend him the stupid thing and save him some money! The point is, you'll find some use for it, even if it's just to criticize it better.


     Whatever the case may be, I hope you realize that there is more to life than just stuff, having a "complete" collection of anything won't fulfill you, that said, as long as your priorities are in place, I don't think there's any harm in wanting a vast catalog of resources easily accessible. So how about it folks? any other signs that I'm missing? Got any experiences hat line up with the examples? Let me know!



and seriously, if anyone gets word on Indinana Jones Steelbooks coming out in the States, shoot me a line.

Always Ready to Learn: The Avengers

      So, one thing I've come to learn from all the research I've done and researching the creative people whose work I admire, is that you should always be willing to learn. No one's ever perfect, and no one's ever achieved all the knowledge in skill in the universe, the best master, is still a willing student, always ready to learn. So I figured I'd briefly catalog some stuff I've learned from my research or consumption of media, in this specific case: The Avengers.

      Now me and Mr. Joss Whedon don't really agree on much politically.... or probably socially.... definitely not religiously. But of the two major film releases he's made thus far (besides Much Ado About Nothing, which I haven't seen yet) I can re-watch both of them almost endlessly without tiring, and they both can make me giggle like a school girl with glee. Both Serenity and Avengers do such a great job of both telling their own story while also paying off stories started elsewhere. Both also weave multiple character arcs all at once into a coherent narrative and still are the most fun you'll have in awhile. One thing specifically I've noticed about Mr. Whedon and his works (I haven't yet seen the majority of his work in television) is his brilliant subversion of the audiences expectations and his management of tension.
     I've always thought of tension as a bow and arrow. As you build tension, it's like an archer stringing the arrow and pulling back slowly. If you release the tension properly, it's like an archer letting the arrow go and hitting his target. That's satisfying because that's what you're anticipating. If you deflate it too slowly with too little fanfare, it's kinda like the archer dropping the arrow, then slowly easing the string back in place before simply picking the arrow up, meandering over to the target and then sticking it in the bulls eye by hand. Which you weren't really anticipating that and it's also kinda in the exact opposite vein of what you wanted to see achieved.
  What Whedon does so well, is get the audience excited for one thing, and then giving them something not only unexpected, but also a little better and that feels true to what you wanted to see. Take lessons, for example from the Hulk/Loki..... "confrontation" from The Avengers. It ratchets up the tension and then pays it off beautifully.
     We start with Black Widow, on a alien space chariot, being chased by Loki, also on a hover space chariot, and calling to Hawkeye for help. Hawkeye, an archer who has a serious grudge with Loki, aims an arrow and lets it fly right. towards. his. face. EXCEPT OH SNAP Loki catches the arrow without missing a beat. He shoots Hawkeye an amused glance as if to say, "Are you kidding me?" EXCEPT OH EVEN MORE SNAPPIER THE ARROW EXPLODES IN HIS FACE. Loki is knocked clear of his hover-chariot doohickey and tumbles onto the balcony for Stark Tower. As he steadies himself, he finds the Incredible Hulk lunging straight at him, knocking both into the interior of the tower. Loki picks himself up again, but before the Hulk can proceed he lets out a commanding shout of "ENOUGH!" Hulk is stunned for a moment as Loki proceeds to lecture him. "You are all of you beneath me, I am a god! and I will NOT be bullied by-" It's at roughly this point that one of the greatest thirty second intervals in film history occurs. Ya see that? it just keeps getting better.
     In my illustration of an archer, what Whedon does here is like the archer pulling back his string, and then being suddenly launched backwards thirty feet in the air, letting go of the arrow, hitting the target anyway, which triggers a net that catches him, then trampolines him into the drivers seat of an awesome convertible.  It just keeps getting better and it plays off the tension established earlier.Of course, just as the archer tries to start the car only to find out the battery is dead, because that's funny, but you get my point.
     Anyway, I really hope to continue learning and also share some of what I've learned with you guys. And I also am really looking forward to Age of Ultron. Though does it have it's work cut out for it OR WHAT?

I mean, it's got to simultaneously got to give Hawkeye a bigger part, and also not kill him off. Because Hawkeye is awesome and needs to be in more stuff.

On Endings, again, and on Captain America: The Winter Soldier

     We have a short post this week because I've been participating in the dress rehearsals for my church's Passion Play this weekend and so most of my time was spent doing that. I do want to mention a couple things, though

     First, a clarification on my previous post, in it I pretty strongly suggested that knowing your ending as soon as possible was key for a story to have a satisfying ending. I have heard it argued that the problem for the finale for How I Met Your Mother (Which I will remind you all is a show that I don't watch but the uproar surrounding it is partially what inspired my post last week) was that the writers planned their ending too far in advance and therefore ignored the developments that occurred later on in the show's run in order to have the ending as originally intended, regardless of what it would do for the character arcs. I would argue, admittedly based more on principle and what little I know of the show as opposed to experience with the series, that their problem was not over preparing their ending, but instead not preparing the audience for said ending properly.
     Regardless, I do want to mention that I admit that my advice was more given to those planning to write fiction of a one and done sort of deal. Ongoing fiction, such as comics or television series, can rarely be properly planned out. You may design a five season plan for your show, only for it to be cancelled halfway into season 3. On the flip side, you might figure that your show would last no more than three or four seasons, and write your stories accordingly, only for the show to take off and run for eight seasons. Predictability, in that case, is out the window, so in a situation like that, endings are a bit tougher to figure. You're on the bubble, do you gamble and go for a jaw dropping cliff-hanger that creates a stunned silence wherever it's seen? or do you wrap up a few  longstanding questions, so that if this is the end, at least there will be some closure to be found? I can't answer that directly, though I usually prefer somewhere in the middle.

Finally, I'll briefly mention that I also took the time to see Captain America: Winter Soldier this weekend. Excellent film for the most part, and thought the titular Winter Soldier was only in a handful of scenes, he did not fall into the trap I've seen far too many other Marvel villains fall into of being disposable, a la Whiplash in Iron Man 2, or Malekith in Thor: The Dark World. The film certainly made a perfect balance of pushing the Marvel universe forward in interesting ways while simultaneously telling a compelling stand-alone story, something I really think more comic book movies should aim for. I still really want to know what Hawkeye's been up to all this time, maybe Marvel will make my idea about him and the Hulk traveling across America and righting various wrongs like the best action shows of the 80's into a movie after all.