algroth

I just came back from seeing Rogue One and I'll reckon I'll be the most positive one so far. I thought it was really, really good. For the sake of avoiding spoilers I'll just hide everything, but here is roughly what I thought: With this said, the dialogue is still particularly problematic, being very on-the-nose and expositional of feelings and ideas as well as sheer actions, and the performances are of widely varying quality, Donnie Yen resulting particularly irksome to me. I do agree that the CGI-reconstructed characters looked very weird too, Peter Cushing looking particularly fidgety, his eyes having a strangely disconnected look to them, as if he was never focusing on any one thing. The music, made this time around by Michael Giacchino, also pales in comparison to John Williams' excellent work, made all the more problematic as it tries to ape his style and his original leitmotifs, only further revealing that what we are listening to is not, in fact, John Williams. It's a shame because this aspect aside I don't feel like the film is slavish to the established style and world the way the likes of The Force Awakens was - it is very clearly its own thing within the Star Wars world. Also it is a testament to the film's strength that it was able to win me over despite the absolutely horrendous projection I had to see it in. The picture was extremely dim and slightly out of focus, the framerate also wonky through several sequences (seeming oddly sped up, as if being projected with the motion enhancers one usually finds in HDTVs). I'm eager to see it again just to see how the experience may change when projected properly.

Probably familiar to some, but still priceless:

A friend of mine pranking his mates on GTA (NSFW, mind):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-eMt3SrfFU Trailer for Chris Nolan's latest, Dunkirk. Looks very interesting.

It's worse.

Been giving the new LoL champ Camille a test run today... It's pretty damn strong, and great fun to play too. I'll be using her a fair bit, most certainly.

Why is there no dislike button? Pro tip: Use the report button as dislike button. Mods love that. Ha. Unfortunately the other forums I tend to work on either punish you for incorrectly reporting, or punish the one being reported automatically without actually checking the post's contents. I would rather avoid getting myself or Ferg into any trouble.

Why is there no dislike button?

Can't speak for most MOBAs, only those I know, but... In all honesty I'm not seeing how you're reaching the conclusion that they haven't changed in ten years. If nothing else I mentioned earlied how much progress and change there's been in LoL through the last year/year and a half. It may have started off as a WarCraft 3/DotA knockoff but it has since revamped its aesthetic, gameplay and characters and made its own thing out of it. Even now as new characters are being introduced several older ones are being reworked and given new, more diverse and unique functions within team compositions, not to mention being reimplemented into the game's lore (which, fair enough, is not what the eSports scene cares about, not I for that matter). On top of these I can't say the likes of Smite or Paragon to name some others are the same gameplay, graphics and characters than Warcraft 3, and HotS, while sharing some of the characters, is pretty clearly its own thing as well. With regards to pushing a game as an eSport, I can't say for certain what it is that Blizzard is doing that is killing the competitive scene for their games because I don't follow them as closely. Based on a few interviews I did with pro Overwatch players I know they were pretty critical of the way the national rosters for the World Cup were formed, with them being a blend of pro players and streamers. This aside I'm pretty much repeating what I've heard of people I've spoken to in the business, but even so, when you look at the likes of LoL and how Riot has been pushing and supporting the competitive scene since its release, they've done a fantastic job in making it thrive, and even nowadays it still continues to grow. Also the "readability" of the spectator client in top-down MOBAs certainly does help in making the game accessible to a viewing audience. Overwatch for one looks like absolute chaos when spectated, or so it seems to me. Even as someone who doesn't play Smite or DotA I still felt I had a decent idea of what was happening in the game. Of course, multiple kills on the enemy team are crowd-pleasers but they are not the important aspects of the game and the audience by now understands that. Acquiring objectives is more important and are usually as cheered, if never quite as satisfying in terms of entertainment value as seeing a full 5v5 teamfight, and the audience likewise understands this.

From what I've heard of pro players and other analysts and reporters, it's mostly because Blizzard never pushed the competitive scene to the extent the likes of Valve or Riot did with DotA and LoL. Or rather, they just didn't keep up with it. It seems like they're trying to promote this angle for Overwatch right now but even so their HotS competitive scene is in the dumpster, as is their StarCraft scene nowadays. Hearthstone is the strongest competitive scene they have, and even that seems to run mostly parallel to the company, from what I hear. I know for one that the owner of Isurus is opting not to make an Overwatch team based on his past experiences with Blizzard games. But I wouldn't know since I don't really follow WarCraft 3 myself. As for LoL, which is what I play the most regarding competitive multiplayer games, I find that not only is it a very fun, skill-intensive and diverse game, but that it also seems to be still growing and improving at a crazy rate, to the point the game as it exists now is entirely different to how it was a year ago, and not merely in terms of balancing either. It manages to keep itself fresh and new with every patch, and that helps a lot with regards to extending the playerbase and audience's interest in the game. I'm not sure how much attention Blizzard still puts into updating WarCraft 3 and adding new content to it, if at all.

I spent last Sunday with some LoL pro teams including Cloud9 and its sister Challenger team. Pretty swell dudes all in all, though the one that left the biggest impression on me was their Challenger toplaner, Licorice. He was a pretty top-notch and laid-back fellow, pretty humble and so on, and helped me a lot with the interview I had to do twice with him due to an audio error. The event I was at was the Logitech G Challenge, and also featured the CNB sister team (from Brazil), and two of the biggest LoL pro teams in the LAS region in Furious Gaming and Kaos Latin Gamers. I'm doing a fair bit of work with a professional eSports organization here too, that being Isurus Gaming. Their LoL team is also right now bootcamping in Korea, making them the first team in LAS to do so. We'll see the fruits of that this next upcoming split.

Long live the 80s

Can't say I was too fussed with Tropa de Elite myself (found it too caricaturesque), but Sicario I did love, and it's currently my favorite film of 2015. Its style and tone did remind me a heck of a lot to some of the past "war on terrorism" films like Zero Dark Thirty and Syriana too, which I also loved. Quite dark and disturbing, extremely tense, and Benicio del Toro's incredible in this. There's also a sequel in the works right now. Not sure I'm looking forward to it, but we'll see how it goes. Weird. I thought Sicaro was mediocre. It was kinda like... I don't know, it just went on. And then suddenly it became the story of a dude who wants revenge for his family. At the end of the movie I thought this is one of those that I will never watch for a second time. It's the mood and the tension that made it for me more so than the strict storyline, which is largely rather typical war on drugs fare. Taken plot point by plot point I can agree that there's not much to it, but it is the style and the virtuosity with which the story is portrayed that made it into a great film for me.

You might find that Robin Hobb books get better the more you read, while RA Salvatore do the exact opposite. Been ages since I've read Salvatore, but I remember his writing improving as the series went on? Or am I just completely misremembering?

Can't say I was too fussed with Tropa de Elite myself (found it too caricaturesque), but Sicario I did love, and it's currently my favorite film of 2015. Its style and tone did remind me a heck of a lot to some of the past "war on terrorism" films like Zero Dark Thirty and Syriana too, which I also loved. Quite dark and disturbing, extremely tense, and Benicio del Toro's incredible in this. There's also a sequel in the works right now. Not sure I'm looking forward to it, but we'll see how it goes.

Can't say I cared much for the Spiderman trailer, but War for the Planet of the Apes looks pretty good. I enjoyed Rise though I haven't yet seen Dawn.

R.I.P. Greg Lake

And some more Finnish goodness, coz why not:

One of my favorite modern-day Finnish bands: Happy Independence Day!

Yeah, I basically called it Mummy: Impossible on a Whatsapp chatroom when we were addressing it. It doesn't look very good, and also Russell Crowe looks possibly like the least Dr. Jekyll-like Dr. Jekyll you can cast in the role. Mostly at this point I'm hoping it does badly and sinks another would-be cinematic universe. The last thing I want is for all blockbusters to get further enfranchised and become more and more a product devoid of any semblance of artistic vision or innovation. And sure, it's arguably not the place in which to look for either, but both elements exist and are largely what make the best blockbusters what they are.

Well... I dig the metal chicks at least.