Avengers Tangentials: Whedon, Firefly, etc.

With the Avengers' movie coming out, I'm finding that I'm particularly more reserved regarding Joss Whedon compared to the rest of the geek community at large. Please don't misunderstand me here -- I like his stuff. He's got talent, his work is solid, and he's definitely been a hit with the geek crowd. I'm in no position to say he is bad in any capacity. However, it's his notably high popularity in the geek crowd that makes me wonder about his inclusion in The Avengers. I assume the movie will be fine, and that Whedon's style will fit well with the team-based story at work. I just can't shake the feeling that he was included so they could brandish his name around to attract more viewers. Again, this is likely not the case, but it's just that nagging though in the back of my brain.

I can understand that someone could say the same of George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, and I'd a agree to an extent -- especially in the former. Whedon and Lucas are both creators of highly popular franchises, so they both carry the associated baggage with their name from other projects. Maybe it's just because of the people I hang out with and the sites I visit, but Whedon's name always snags people's attention, almost instantly getting people to instantly wax nostalgic over Firefly and Buffy. The same applies for Lucas and Star Wars., although there is often a hint of animosity with the Star Wars "purists" (another post? I think so). Spielberg's name, while it gets your attention, isn't associated with any popular franchises* and instead gets you by individual titles, like E.T. and Schindler's List. Franchises just seem to be what sticks to the mainstream, which isn't a bad thing at all -- Firefly, Star Wars, Pokemon,  Twilight, Game of Thrones, The Avengers, and Batman are but a few modern examples.

Sci-Fi Ideas: Savoring the "New Toy Smell"

We all know the sensation -- that satisfying smell when you crack open a game for the first time, the lingering scent of a new car, opening a bag of Legos for the first time. It's that sickly sweet smell that permeates the air after opening a package, giving us the satisfying, sensual reward of spending our hard-earned money. We often use it as an argument against digital distribution of games and music. Consumers love it so much that they will actually purchase fragrances to make things smell as though they were new, which is made even more ironic given the nature of these fumes. So what's the deal with that "new toy" smell?

Naturally, part of this smell comes from our own projected expectations -- something about opening the mint copy of a game you've searched years for is different than opening a new copy of Microsoft Office for Windows 7. Still, there is a tangible element of the smell created by the off-gassing of plastics, including chemicals like formaldehyde, phthalates, esters, and industry-made fragrances -- for example, the famous "new car smell" is actually a product of the glue they use to hold parts of the cabin together. Multiple studies have shown that these chemical cocktails are detrimental to your general health, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying the scent of Sharpies or heavily scented candles. These chemicals mixed with our expectations produce a unique unboxing for any given car, game, disc, or toy.

My thought: what if box-opening eventually becomes something similar to wine-tasting? If you look at it in the broad sense, there are plenty of parallels. To me, it seems to all stem from the concept outlined in this XKCD strip. Even if it doesn't pan out in the real world, it's definitely an interesting sci-fi premise to explore.

Prognosis: Stay Alive (2006 film)

 
To say the least, Stay Alive is quite a... curious film.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s a fairly formulaic horror flick with the now memetic tagline “If you die in the game, you die for real.” Essentially, a group of teens and twenty-somethings play a survival-horror multiplayer game together. As each character dies in the game, they die in an almost identical fashion in the next hour. It’s a neat idea with no big surprises here. What’s so disappointing about this movie is that it should have been pretty good. The premise was original, the late-movie twists were good, and there was lots of fairly creative direction. When you watch the film you can see that most of the pieces of a quality film are there. All things considered, this should have been a B- movie. Sadly, the final cut feels sadly more like a struggling D+ by the time you get to the credits.

So where did Stay Alive go wrong?

Read more on RedShirtCrew.com »

"Avengers" Tangentials: the Hulk

I'm really excited for the new Avengers movie coming out this summer. Honestly, with all the buildup and foreshadowing they've had in the past several Marvel movies, I really can't help it. We get to see significant interaction between superheroes for the first time, the convergence of several very different plotlines, the first action role of Nick Fury, and generally a lot of exciting things.

While this is the case, it does bring several of my thoughts on the genre and the general state of science fiction to the forefront of my mind. It reminds me of how superheroes have contributed to the recent surge of nerd popularity, my general dislike for the Hulk, my impressions of Joss Whedon relative to the rest of the science fiction community, and how this massively successful genre has helped reshape how blockbusters are written, directed, and produced. I'll use the next few Mondays to use The Avengers to expand on these thoughts, starting this week with my thoughts on the Hulk.

Deus Specs: Concerning Adam Jensen's Glasses

While revisiting some of Yahtzee Croshaw's older Zero Punctuation videos on a slow afternoon, I pulled up his review of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, having forgotten most of his talking-points on the game and cyberpunk in general. When he brings up Adam Jensen's shades and how willingly they slide in and out of his skull, I began to wonder. Like he said, that's a ridiculously intrusive surgery for something that comes across in-universe as cosmetically badass at most. However, I think the shades are higher-tech than we can reasonably guess at first glance.

Quick disclaimer before before we start: I have played Deus Ex, but I have not played DE:HR. While this conundrum may already be addressed in the game and its supplements, my main goal here is to show you how close to this level of technology we actually are.These truly are exciting times we live in.

Regarding RTS Balance

To get things started, I figured I'd give a quick defense of my first GameRx review. After an associate of mine read my review of Dark Colony on the RSC blog, they mentioned that having identical sides shouldn't be a feature of an RTS. I agree with this to a point, but I also think that this overlooks some important changes in the gaming world over the past fifteen years, especially in the genre of real-time strategy.

Feel free to disagree, but I don't think this is a very consistent standard. It's not a perfect comparison, but I don't think anyone would call chess, checkers, or backgammon unfair or dull specifically on the grounds that both sides are evenly matched. Similarly, the first two Age of Empires have essentially equivalent teams with the exception of high-tier unit availability. The first two installments of the franchise are right up there with Dune II in terms of shaping the genre. Sometimes, there's something to be said for balance through simplicity.

Hello, world!

Doc Watson here from www.redshirtcrew.com, and it's nigh time this blog went up.

I started working with Chase (aka MaristPlayBoy) at RedShirtCrew in 2011, and since then I've found I have more things that I want to write about than he'll let me post! I'm setting up the GameRx Clinic to let me let off some steam away from the blog and get a little bit of rambling of my own done.

The stuff I cover will be pretty much the same as on the RSC blog. It'll be games, movies, history, humor, art, and whatever else you all want me to talk about, but being a little more open-ended than the articles I write for the blog.

For those of you who are worried, this is by no means a separation from my roots! My two review columns, GameRx and Prognosis, will both still be on www.redshirtcrew.com, along with a bunch of other swell writers. Be sure to give the site a look when you have the opportunity.

If you want to get in touch, go ahead and leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter @DocWatsonMD. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!