TV Watch: Dollhouse, Epitaph One

The thirteenth episode of Whedon's Dollhouse was never apparently part of Fox's studio deal, but for foriegn release was highly desired, so Whedon apparently responded:

'I'll tell you what. I'll shoot a post-apocalyptic thriller that's all on our sets in six days with a cast of four other people, then we'll pepper it with different bits from our regular cast, and we can do it all during the schedule. It'll cost you half. I can do this.' And I was so in love with the idea that I just came up with off the top of my head, and that's what it turned into. It's one of the best episodes we've ever made."

-- Dollhouse Wiki: Epitaph One

So viewers can now either get the DVD set, or download the episode from iTunes or Amazon on Demand. The episode is well worth it by any means. Not only is it impressive that one of the best episodes of the season isn't technically in the season and cost half as much, it offers some great points on the problems and ideas raised by Dollhouse's premise. Rest assured, this doesn't feel like a tacked on piece of filler - there's a lot of meat to be had here.

Without going into much detail, what I think is most interesting here is the willingness to show the dark side of some "post singularity" concepts about the mind, body and immortality in general. It's a specific and unique kind of apocalypse being built up here, and shows a lot of expansion for the show to grow into.

Highly recommend, especially for Dollhouse fans waiting for the second season.

New iPhone iVerse App "Pending"

While it's around, check out the iVerse homepage for screenshots on their upcoming iPhone app. Looks like what fans (myself included) have been asking for is arriving, namely a unified place to find comics as well as more viewing options.

Let's hope "pending" translates to a fast approval process.

Book Read: Little Brother

I know I'm at risk at coming off as some kind of anti-Doctorow nut here, with several back posts complaining about his complaining about DRM, a very recent panning of Someone Comes To Town and now a review of his latest. That's not really fair, as I truly enjoy his shorts and thought Magic Kingdom was quite good.

However, Little Brother doesn't really get added into that particular pile.

Spoilers contained herein.

There is, at least, a focused plot and a consistent theme - so that's a major improvement over Someone Comes To Town. Doctorow has managed to couch his preachings into a character where such dialogue makes sense. While there are times when the book reads as if the main character, Marcus, is suddenly overwhelmed with the need to speak to some kind of literary fourth wall - the themes are still relevant to the novel in general.

Whether you find the technical soliloqouies of value is another thing, however, and completely depends on your personal level and/or tolerance for such geek topics as basic cryptography and Live Action Role Playing (though Doctorow probably deserves credit for probably having the first character who LARPs get laid in a mainstream novel). The setting is modern and much of the technical topics are pretty lightweight - and remembering that this was published by Tor Teen, the book is something of a primer for being a technogeek for tweens.

Occasionally the technical aspects backfire completely, however. At one point it is indicated that Microsoft started giving away the next generation of Xbox, called the Xbox Universal, for free. In Cory's world, this is an evil corporate trick to sell DRM controlled software at high prices, which of course (because Cory controls Cory's world) backfires completely and everyone ends up playing free community developed games on unlocked Xboxen instead.

Yeah. Right. This particular technofantasy would be more innocent if it didn't become such a central aspect of the story. Still, unlike Someone Comes To Town's regression into WiFi - most of the Xnet subplot doesn't hijack the novel in general. An often repeated portion, sure, but can be somewhat sidetracked with applied suspension of disbelief.

No, the real problem of Little Brother is the lopsided support for the "rebellion" that becomes Marcus' prime motivator. First, it requires the reader to blindly accept the fact that the United States government turns into a brutal dictatorship willing to torture and disappear high school students in less time than it has taken to read this post so far. In other words, that the government is already capable of doing this and is just waiting for an excuse to start flying minors to Syria.

And while many of Marcus' attempts to fight the Department of Homeland Security work quite well narratively, the story just assumes you're onboard with the entirety of the argument from the first word.

A semi-major spoiler - but I think an important lynchpin to the book's central fault ... at one point Marcus launches a city wide plan which causes multiple traffic problems and is later reported to cost the city more than the original terrorist plot. Marcus takes this as a measure of success.

Let's examine that carefully. This plan doubles the cost of a city after a terrorist strike, changes nothing in DHS policy except that the DHS ends up getting stronger in the long run, in some ways could be seen as a terrorist attack itself ... and the reader is supposed to cheer on the main character?

In other words, Little Brother fails at creating any kind of discourse or dialogue on the potentially thorny questions about security, privacy and the use of technology in a post-9/11 world. It dives in with both feet with all of its assumptions on page one and ignores all contradictory evidence. Actually, in many ways Marcus' actions make matters worse for San Francisco, do not resolve any major issues with the DHS, and only by intervention of the media and some insanely convenient legal deus ex machina at the end does he emerge a hero. Not exactly a shining example of technical liberty.

In the end, Little Brother is an somewhat entertaining exercise in talking about modern topics which really do deserve discussion ... but not a particularly good one. Not highly recommended, though as usual Doctorow offers his book for free online if you want to check it out yourself.

Game Play: Duke Nukem 3D (iPhone)

Duke's days of being forever may be over, but he can still live on in the world of ports, including over to the iPhone.

Sadly, it does not both kick ass and chew bubblegum. It looks like a Duke, sounds like a Duke - but does not walk like a Duke. The controls are abysmal and suck all of the original action out of the title. The developers tried to compensate with a wide variety of options - but none really work. It speaks to the difficulty of doing a good 3D shooter on a buttonless platform, sure, but that's hardly justification for purchase.

Trick someone else into buying it, maybe, and look over their shoulder. Otherwise a pass.

Book Read: Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town

A friend of mine at an old job introduced me to Doctorow, chiefly Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom, which I thought was a fairly brainy transhumanistic tale>. Since then I've mostly grown accustomed to Doctorow's writings on Boing Boing, which sadly often show a lack of basic understanding about the things he loves to complain about, most notably DRM and copyright, even down to the completely absurd.

This review will contain some spoilers.

Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town is Doctorow's third book. There's a bit of all the above in this novel. Early in the book you are introduced to some unique fantasy elements, reminiscent of Gaiman in some ways - even in positive ways, and throughout the book there are several hints that a deeper mythology might be at work. The main character, Alan, is the son of a mountain and a washing machine. Alan responds to any name beginning with A, and his brothers likewise are named in alphabetical order and so will answer to Bart, Charlie, Darren, and so on.

At just about the time that this seems to have the structure for something interesting, Doctorow spends about a hundred pages talking about wi-fi and blanketing a large part of Kensington Market in Toronto with free access. This second topic completely murders the book. Not only is it relatively uninteresting, the fact that none of the seemingly technically proficient characters seem to understand the access points do in fact extend the range but do nothing to actually increase the amount of bandwidth available to said range - hence the promise of "free" Internet being in actuality the same problem facing many a municipal plan, is completely overlooked. It pretty much just translates into many pages talking about the Internet as free speech, the value of undervalued hardware, and a lot of wasting of the reader's time for an effort which is not only futile, but embarrassingly boring and inept.

Every section of the novel which is entertaining, about Alan's past and other magical beings such as himself, gets stabbed by anything related to the "ParasiteNet" subplot. Doctorow divides the book up oddly, so you'll get a little motion about Andy's schoolboy days - only to end up reading about recompiling a distribution for a computer made from dumpster parts.

Not only does it undercut the basic plot and premise, it makes several of the aspects feel silly and unrealistic. That Andrew will respond to any male name beginning with "A" leaves people with questions, Doctorow not only decides not to risk offering any explanation - but all of Andy's dumpster diving net nuts gladly alternate his name without any indication that it might be slightly odd.

It's as if the depth and potential of the fantasy elements were too overwhelming for the book, and instead you get a lot of crap about public Internet access. Ultimately, the story about Andy's family feels shallow, unresolved and disorderly. There's actually a twist in the end, which is allowed so little time to breath or room for discourse that you might just blink and miss it.

The wikipedia listing for this book notes its literary significance as being "anti-cyberpunk", for lacking any virtual reality or high tech goods. Honestly, I'd love to know who added that to the listing - as a search for the phrase comes up with only self-referential connections. It's like the guy who tries to give himself a nickname.

The book is, thanks to Doctorow's love for the Creative Commons, freely available online - so you can check it yourself. I'd say that's about the right price. I've enjoyed most everything else I've read of his about ten times more than this one.

America, Apocalypse and Anime

There are some spoilers here pertaining to the movies Cloverfield, Watchmen and Knowing, so if you haven't seen them be warned.

When 9/11 hit, certain taboos became self-evident in the media. Sensitive of the national tragedy, any imagery involving the World Trade Center, attacks on major cities - and especially New York, and terrorism in general became hot topics. No longer could terrorism be a blanket kind of bad guy, a default motive for any villain in an action movie - now it was all extremely real to American culture. An interesting example is Man On Wire, which is particularly more potent because of the focus of the two towers, even from a relatively serene, stoic, pre-9/11, stance.

Cloverfield probably most famously crossed over this line, rampaging and destroying Manhattan in full monster movie trappings. New Yorker friends of ours still haven't seen the movie for exactly the fact that destroying the island doesn't hold much entertainment value for them.

Yet in one weekend, we saw Watchmen and Knowing to see the theme re-addressed all over again. Watchmen underwent a specific change to the ending from the graphic novel, removing a lot of graphic carnage from a giant squid for a massive blast instead. Recall that the script was being done when 9/11 was still new, and yet it is interesting that the World Trade Center is prominently displayed in one scene. Knowing seems to direct the action to Manhattan specifically for some apocalyptic scenery.

What I'm wondering is if we won't see more and more of this line being crossed. The analogy here is in anime, where the dropping of the atomic bombs set a tone for the genre which still persists today (not to mention, to be a little circular, monster movies in general where radiated creatures lay waste to urban landscapes). Whether revisting the carnage is cathartic or exploitative is probably a topic for a whole other post, I don't see much reason why American media would diverge from the Japanese direction, and it seems to be following suit. And we've seen this before - science fiction owes much to the Cold War, not only in general themes but having some ancestry in the way aliens and robots are portrayed as well.

I would also expect, especially given the growing similarities between large scale game development and movie production, that games will pick up this trend as well. inFamous comes to mind, for sure.

Demo Play: Ghostbusters

I'm a bit torn about this demo. On one hand it seems like a far smarter extension to the franchise than we probably could have hoped, and yet on the other it feels weighted down by some over-engineering of game mechanics.

Take the PK meter. The demo nags you regularly to use the thing, but the googles somewhat obstruct the player's vision and also locks up important controls - like weapons. The end result is a sense of powerlessness which isn't terribly entertaining, especially when you end up fumbling for a weapon when you think you might be attacked. It's reminiscent of the Doom III's flashlight, in all the bad ways.

And my encounter with trying to actually trap a ghost was an exercise in fumbling around controls and wonder what the game was trying to tell me (literally at times) to do - and so the whole process felt extended and annoying.

Still, it's an attractive game that plays up the existing characters and franchise quite well. Not that being better than Ghostbusters II is exactly a difficult bar to reach, but it might be enough of an achievement to warrant a rental.

Movie Watch: Watchmen

Alan Moore is a guy who has had a pretty rough road with movie adaptations, quite probably culminating in the completely dreadful League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but the basic trend of Hollywood running slipshod over his material.

So it is a bit of a shame, I think, that he decided in the end to "spit venom", as I believe he put it, on Zack Snyder's adaptation of the much revered graphic novel Watchmen which has, if anything, been critiqued for being too loyal to the source material.

The end result is anything but a standard comic book movie, but that's precisely what fans of Moore and Gibbon's work would have wanted. The story is a subversive and not exactly slightly deconstructive look on the genre in general, a story of "masks" running headlong into culture and history and the gritty outcome of the conflict for the characters and the world in general.

Snyder has put the somewhat sprawling novel onto the screen with a high attention to detail. The decision to avoid big name actors works extremely well and every performance in the movie is top notch, with Rorschach being particularly outstanding. The plot survives fairly intact, the major points remaining the same and no embarrassing changes to the ending or softening of some of the more controversial portions of the subplots. Moviegoers are seeing the novel here, there's little doubt of that.

So I find myself having trouble saying anything bad about the film. It's a beautiful adaptation of a great work in comics, highly recommended.

Even if you're Alan Moore.

US PS3 Sacred 2 Patch May Be "Soon"

Confirmed here and here, a US PS3 patch for Sacred 2 has been submitted to Sony and should be available "soon".

ESA Sues Chicago Transit Authority Over Advertising

The latest update in the CTA's decision to ban certain game ads is the ESA announcing they've filed a lawsuit against the CTA over the matter. The CTA has responded saying that the ban coincides with their ban on tobacco and alcohol products.

So a couple of things here. Let's remember that this all started when Fox News got into a tizzy and decided to kick up a fight about it. I live here in Chicago and there certainly isn't any public outcrying about the ads. The backstory here is that there was a week of violence which made the press and the ads were a convenient way for Fox to get a little more filler.

Chicago has a problem with violence. A GTA IV ad here or there isn't going to change that. It does, to a certain extent, make city officials defensive though, so while I think the CTA is very clearly in the wrong here - I also don't want to make it sound like they're unfounded. There's real cause for concern, especially in some communities, and steps should be taken. This just isn't one of them.

First and foremost we need to remember that the CTA is an organization with deep financial troubles. They've gone through periods essentially threatening riders with "Doomsday" ads about shutting down services if they don't get more cash. To complain to the public about not having any cash and then going down a route which probably not only reduce ad revenues but will probably cost taxpayers thousands in legal fees is simply idiotic. It's feel-good politics, but bad governance.

The claim that the ban is inline with banning tobacco and alcohol ads not only defies logic in general, it won't hold up in court. It's the same distinction that the state tried for limiting the sale of mature rated games to minors and the state got their teeth kicked in for it. And let's not forget that CTA allows R rated movie ads, like the kid friendly Dark Knight with all its animated puppies and whatnot. Oh no wait, that was Bolt, Dark Knight stabbed a guy in the eye with a pencil.

Eventually lawmakers, Fox News, and self-righteous nutjobs like Thompson will realize that while video games might make for a decent scapegoat culturally - they suck as scapegoats financially. Sadly, they probably won't realize this until a couple more increases to some lawyers' bank accounts are made.

For Sunday: Surrogates Trailer

Nice.

Fate Of PS3 Sacred 2 Patch Seems Uncertain

While we love Sacred 2 here at Cathode HQ, there is quite a bit that we'd love to see fixed, not the least of which being to actually trade items with each other in offline coop. A European patch was rumored to have been released, but a recent post at the forums for the US publisher, CDV, indicates no release date and please stop asking since they have no control over it.

When I tried to contact Ascaron, the developer, on it, I got rather swift, possibly automated, and somewhat ominous reply:

Dear Customer

the support for this game will be terminated on the 29.05.2009.

Sincere thanks to everyone who has supported us. We have had a fantastic time, and could not have done it without all you.

Your Ascaron Technical Support Team



so long and thanks for all the fish ...

Since there is planned DLC for the PC version, I wonder if they dropped PS3 support.

Update: Looks like a patch was submitted to Sony. Ascaron maintains console patch status in a forum post (even if you can't them via email)

Futurama Voice Actors Being Recasted

Fail.

Twentieth Century Fox, which is still producing the series even though new episodes will air on Comedy Central, is recasting the major voice roles for the show. That means no more Billy West (Fry, Professor, and Ziodberg), Katey Sagal (Leela), John DiMaggio (Bender), Maurice LaMarche (Kif Kroker, among others), or Tress MacNeil (Mom, and several others). Worst!

Fox released a statement saying "We love the Futurama voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their salary demands. While replacing these talented actors will be difficult, the show must go on. We are confident that we will find terrific new performers to give voice to Matt and David's brilliantly subversive characters."

-- 'Futurama' getting new voices for Fry, Leela, Bender, and others

I just don't quite see that working. Willing to give it a chance, but a lot of those voice actors were those characters.

Rundown of iVerse Comics on iPhone

With work as it is, I've had less time for actual gaming and more time for flipping artistically rendered panels on the iPhone. iVerse has been trying to push the digital envelope for comics and some of their titles are pretty interesting. I think at this point I've read through most of their library, so here's a quick review of each.

Atomic Robo
It's an interesting blend of old school comic plot structure with a great deal of humor and the occasional dose of humanity, played up well since the lead character is well, made of metal. First title to hook me into reading comics on the phone and well worth the read.

Proof
Proof is one part X-Files, one part fantasy and a dash of crime drama. You get your titular character - a Sasquatch adapting to life without Sasquatches helping a world inhabited by more mythical creatures (cryptids as they're called) than anyone realizes exist. It shares much of the same space for me as Atomic Robo with strong character design that feeds well into the plot. Definitely recommended.

Neozoic
Great art design, interesting premise of an alternate future where mankind struggles against an Earth where dinosaurs still roam. There's clearly a well thought out backstory here and the writing doesn't make the mistake of feeding it all to the reader all at once. It's action packed and a great read.

Hexed
This may be my favorite title so far, which is a bit painful since only two issues have been released for the iPhone. The story is edgy but contrasted by the main character's complexities - Lucifer, the female thief of the comic, seems almost soft until she pulls some stunt with a demon or breaks a nose. Hopefully the next two issues will get released soon.

The Red Star
A fascinating blend of religion, technology and magic - The Red Star offers a great tale of a vicious war where tanks, fireballs and gods seem to clash into each other. Very unique, very well done.

Chance of a Lifetime
This two parter will surprise the reader. The cover lends to a kind of average Silver Age sort of read, but the story of a normal person being suddenly gifted with powers making him one of the first superheroes on the planet isn't entirely straightforward. There isn't a great deal of depth here, but the length of the two issues feels just about right, this isn't a typical hero plot - but a short story about a person in extraordinary circumstances.

White Picket Fences
A great blend of 50's sci fi and Cold War fears make Fences a very worthy read. It also has a great sense of humor and plays its child protagonists quite well. Great to see a title without capes or superpowers, a very excellent read.

Armor X
Armor X's saving grace is the internal conflict of the main character, a loser high school kid with more than a few sociopathic tendencies. Without this twist, it would be more of a "boy meets alien device, gets girl" affair, but the lead and his interactions with the world kick it up a notch. Not my favorite, but worth a look.

Abyss
I didn't have much interest in Abyss as it seemed like a pretty standard hero setup, but the upside is that Abyss is actually pretty darn funny, walking a fine line between parody and homage to the genre that it plays off. It's not a great read, but it is certainly entertaining.

Update: Now that Abyss' is completely out, I should note it really pretty much sold me by the end. It sticks to this homage/parody line very well, and makes for - despite my earlier comment - a great read.

Dynamo 5
Pretty generic in a lot of ways, Dynamo 5 does at least use the premise pretty well. A squad of superheroes with only one thing in common - their now deceased superfather, tries to fight crime under the tutelage of his authoritative and manipulative wife. There's a lot of possibility here, so I certainly would like to see more than the two currently released issues.

Super Human Resources
A deeply funny parody of the superhero genre, SHR is punchy and entertaining. Combined with office jokes, the title might not appease the the hardcore comic reader - but should if they have a sense of humor.

SuperFogeys
Funny, not hilarious and often pretty sophomoric, SuperFogeys might tickle your funny bone and worth a try. I liked it and hope to see more out of the title, but didn't enjoy as much as SHR.

ShadowHawk and FX
It's not that these are necessarily bad titles, but they're really not for me. Fairly generic rehashes of Spider-Man in their own ways, these might be good for people looking for more standard superhero stories as reading material.

Wind Raider
There's something missing to Wind Raider's backstory to really make me suspend disbelief around a group of warriors who can summon the wind, but the post-apocalyptic landscape is well done if only marginally cliche. This is a title I'm hoping will pick up in future issues, but it has bit too much Fist of the Northern Star meets Mad Max for me right now. Course, that may be your thing.

Star Trek
I'm just going to lump all the Star Trek material together for brevity's sake. The prequel to the recent summer movie is certainly worth reading, but for the most part if you're a Trekkie, there's plenty to like here.

Flash Gordon
Better than I expected for a story which has been done and redone several times. The art is quite magnificent and the source material used extremely well.


Well, that's more or less it. I haven't read much of the manga and stayed away from the other TV adaptions (Ghost Whisperer and Eureka), but if iVerse doesn't get more material through the review process soon, I may give in there as well.

EA Hosts GLAAD Event

EA was kind enough to send this along:

This Saturday, EA is hosting an event for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy organization. GLAAD is facilitating a panel on Homophobia & Virtual Communities which will spotlight key issues and include the perspectives of both gaming companies and LGBT gamers. Discussion will revolve around the state of the problem in these communities, policy solutions that have been developed to address homophobia – what’s working as well as what’s not, plus challenges and opportunities.

Confirmed panelists include:

Flynn DeMarco (Alias: Fruite Brute), Founder of GayGamer.net
Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer in the Maxis Studio (Electronic Arts, Inc.)
Cyn Skyberg, VP of Customer Relations at Linden Lab
Stephen Toulouse (Gamertag: stepto), Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement on Microsoft's XBox LIVE
Moderator: Justin Cole, Director of Digital & Online Media, GLAAD

Event details are as follows:
WHAT: Homophobia in Virtual Communities - Highlighting the Problem and Working Towards Sustainable Solutions
WHEN: Saturday, July 18th, 2009, 11am-1pm
WHERE: Electronic Arts, 250 Shoreline Drive Redwood City, CA 94065

The event is free of charge and open to the public. More information can be found at: http://www.glaad.org/digitalevent

Online registration is closed, see the link in the quote for more information reserving still. Event will be recorded, so it may be interesting to see it afterwards as well.