• 2Oct 08

  The net is indeed vast and infinite.

  That is a quote from Motoko Kusanagi from the movie Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society.

  

  I. ****ing. Love. This. ****. Best show on the planet!

  Last night I watched Solid State Society*, which is a movie set after the second season of Stand Alone Complex (which I haven't seen yet). Luckily not much of the events of 2nd GiG (what the second season is called) truely reflect in the movie, except a quite large plot detail (of 2nd GiG) which is only really explored right at the end as the case is "solved", and you only really need to know the gist of (kinda ironic).

  Ghost in the Shell is a futuristic police thriller dealing with the exploits of Motoko Kusanagi, a member of the covert operations section of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission, Section 9, which specializes in fighting technology-related crime.

  The setting of Ghost in the Shell is cyberpunk or postcyberpunk. More than other cyberpunk authors, however, Shirow focuses more on the ethical and philosophical ramifications of the widespread merging of humanity and technology, the development of artificial intelligence and an omnipresent computer network set the stage for a reevaluation of human identity and uniqueness. Kusanagi and her colleagues face external threats and also suffer internal conflict over their own natures. (Wikipedia)

  Anyway, as usual a brilliant plot is created with various deep themes presented and explored as the team tries to solve a case that almost always goes deeper than they originaly thought. Using a mix of cyber-hacking, traditional investigation work, brute force and cute self-aware tachikomas, the team must deal with their own issues and loyalties.

  Once again I was left baffled by the end of a GitS production and quickly scrurried to Wikipedia to find some answers. This only encourages me to watch the episode (movie) again. =)

  

  This series is the only anime I truely like, and the only show on the planet that could get away with minutes and minutes of just talking--mostly discussing politics or background stories, motivesof certain characters actions, results of actions etc etc, but it also has a great mix of action thrown in also.

  I give this movie a 10/10 (biased, but if you consider I barely like anything this must be good, right?).

  Now I have to see the first and second movies, and entire second season.

  *I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link that or not, so if I should take it down someone tell me, thanks.

  (Both images are taken from the official sites)

  Enjoy!

  • Posted Oct 2, 2008 5:29 pm GMT
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• 28Sep 08

  Bank Gothic

  Random (and very long) blog post today which will start off with the font called Bank Gothic. You can see an example of it in my banner and blog header images. I have to say it is my favourite font, I have no idea why, so I was surprised to read this:

  Bank Gothic is a commercial hit in the science fiction genre as demonstrated by its frequent use in the Matrix movie series and The Day After Tomorrow. The typeface is used in the closing credits for the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica TV series. It is also used in the program 24 and in the video game Goldeneye 007. 30 Seconds to Mars uses the font in its logo. The font is also used on all the computers in the TV series Stargate SG-1 and on the video games Descent: Freespace, FreeSpace 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and more recently the movie Hancock, for its posters and its advertising.

  This typeface was used in the game Hitman: Contracts and was on the book's cover of WarCraft's first series. It was also used in the British television programme Robot Wars. The typeface was used extensively in packaging and advertising of Bungie's Marathon series, and entire manuals were laid out in Bank Gothic. It is also used for the titles of cult comedy programme Spaced. (Taken from Wikipedia)

  It has been used in quite a few things I view regularly, or as regularly as possible, and I never noticed. surprisingly. The history of certain type faces is slightly interesting, as is, I think, the development of a lot of things, and seeing how they go from crazy ideas, to ideas on paper, to working ideas out there in the world.

  ---

  Anyway, with the fast innternets came the power to download and play Team Fortress 2, and the demo for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, as well as the Crysis Singleplayer Demo, and the mod Oblivion Lost for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

  Team Fortress 2.

  This game is okay. Getting into a game and finding players is easy-as-pie and there are a couple of Aussie servers set-up so game-play is just dandy--at least on the technical end. But on the player end... well... I suck, and a lot of the time there is no sense of team play. Everybody wants to do their own thing and get kills, but (particularly) the teams I play on seem to forget that without a medic or two they'll just get chopped down, which means I usually l have to be a medic, which means I become a target. =/ Still, I hope to improve in time, and the game is still pretty fun, especially when you get a good team together and actually work together to take down defences and make your way into a base. It's great seeing the other team in confusion and getting mowed down.

  I've had lots of fun with this game, which finally brings me to the end of The Orange Box. That product is the best deal in gaming history. Every single game is near perfect. If you haven't got it yet GO AND GET IT RIGHT NOW. You can't be disappointed.

  ---

  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

  I'm well aware this a demo, but I will assume it reflects the full game. It starts off great. The map/briefing thing zooms in right into the gameplay where you are confronted with a blown up apartment block with gun fire raining down hell. In the sky columns of smoke arc upwards and anti-air bullets light up the sky. You run forward and duck behind a car (at least I did) and the glass shatters as it gets peppered by gun fire. The tires pop and you realise it's time to move onto the objective. You run down a flight of stairs, turn on your night-vision goggles and proceed through the building taking out enemy soldiers. Once the building is clear you get to the other side and you're confronted with more and more soldiers, a column of tanks you easily take care of, and then, for a few seconds, there is calm, until you finally get to "War Pig" the final objective: a broken down tank under heavy enemy fire. Well, all you have to do here is kill kill kill until you take down an anti-air gun and two Apache gunships can clear out the RPG-7 riddled infantry.

  It might sound boring (or exciting) but it's bloody brilliant! There's just so much going on you'll be hard pressed to find a boring moment. But I had a problem with that. With so much fighting I didn't feel all that excited going to the next engagement, nor did I want to help the expendable friendly NPC squad mates who would be waiting for me there, and kills weren't all that satisfying or unique when there's just so much to shoot.

  I decided to play through it again, and I could copy and paste that entire description, because that's what it is. EXACT same experience. Which makes me wonder... does each level have it's own uniqueness, or is it more kill-kill-kill to the objective, kill-kill-kill to the secondary objective, with some snow, or instead of an urban setting a forest? Because if it is ... Good thing I played a free demo.

  That said, it wasn't a bad experience, so long as you don't go in expecting anything but that and don't play the game again for several months so that it is almost a "new" experience for you. It had no multiplayer, but I'm sure that would be fun.

  ---

  Crysis.

  Crysis is a different story. It starts of fairly slow, there is fog/smoke/dust and doors open and white-blue light shines out. What is it? I don't know, but I'm sure we'll find out... (Actually I do know, but as far as the demo goes I don't) Then you come to Prophet (the commanding officer of the US Navy mission) talking about something-or-other, Chinese, or Korean soldiers on an island and a rescue mission... I forget, point is, I don't think it's that important, and it shows because I usually pay attention to the story.

  Anyway, everyone gears-up and jumps out of the plane. It's pretty fun watching the group skydive, but then everything goes wrong: Jake Dunn's (the player controlled protagonist) parachute malfunctions and he plummets into the ocean with a bang, and his HUD system goes haywire (hardly need it at this point anyway). Skip forward a few minutes, and two head-shotted guards later and we come to... I forget... a few dead soldiers (Koreans) and one dead US soldier hanging upside down in a tree, all of them torn a part. Does it have anything to do with the blue light? Most likely, unless a game of happy-sack went horribly wrong.

  More and more and more guards later, a transmission radio tower, and a command station, a small outpost with a machine gun the guards were too stupid to use, a long hike up a rocky pathway, and Prophet says something or-other, and you see a yacht or fishing trawler of some kind covered in ice and snow. There is a bang (machine-like roar), and a large alien thing with tentacles bursts through the boat, picks up a fellow soldier and the demo ends.

  As you can see I haven't been so nice about the story. It's fairly uninteresting (in my opinion) and not much worth noting happens. Basically you get lost/stranded and have to make your way to the L-Z and along the way go to the command station and get some information on where the hostages are. Oh, did I mention it was a rescue mission? Yeah, I forgot in-game too, but that doesn't matter because they aren'tin the demo

  What matters though is gameplay. I can't say much. It's not bad, but it's not spectacular. I think most of the bang comes from the graphics and physics which I couldn't utilise without having a fire extinguisher on hand for my computer. What this says about gameplay... I will let you decide, but I think the only real way to enjoy this game is, sadly, but having a $5000+ computer.

  NB: Neither of these demos is bad by any means, and playing them will be quite fun, but I would have serious doubts about buying the full-game products.

  ---

  Oblivion Lost

  Best. Mod. Ever.

  It takes an 8/10 game riddled with bugs and fixes them. And then it adds some new weapons, a new HUD, some great new textures and gameplay features, and makes STALKER look more like a 4/10.

  It's a fantastic mod. If you have STALKER, and not OL, get it. If you don't have STALKER but plan to, I suggest just playing it with this mod straight out of the box, or if you really want to enjoy the upgrade play the vanilla version once, and then install the mod.

  ---

  Next I hope to maybe play the Bioshock Demo, or download the EVE Online 21 Day Free Trial and take that for a spin, or just play more TF2. I don't know yet.

  Wow, that was a lot of writing and it's probably riddled with typos and spelling errors. Sorry, I am too lazy to fix them up. =( In any case...

  Enjoy!

  • Posted Sep 28, 2008 8:48 pm GMT
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• 26Sep 08

  Welcome to 2008.

  Not as fast as I was hoping, but still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than what I had.

  

  If you have Steam let me know.

  Enjoy! (I know I did)

  • Posted Sep 26, 2008 4:27 am GMT
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