Thought Bubble: The Self-Hating Game Designer

Heavy Rain from Quantic Dreams

The Playstation 3 exclusive Heavy Rain hits store shelves tomorrow. Much to-do has been made over the game from developer Quantic Dreams. Since its debut at E3 2006, Heavy Rain has been lauded for its revolutionary graphics, and with good reason. To say that the game looks gorgeous would be an understatement. But the appeal of Heavy Rain has not been purely graphical. Part of the reason the game has been receiving so much attention is due to Quantic Dreams’ own hype. The developers have emphasized the game’s characters and their realistic performances. After seeing the game in action a few months ago and having played the recent demo, I can see some of what they’ve been talking about. The characters are disturbingly realistic (though not always convincing) with eerily familiar facial expressions, which can cause the characters to lean into the uncanny valley at times. Visually, Heavy Rain is without question one of the best looking games of this console generation.

My own issue with Heavy Rain has more to do with the pedigree of Quantic Dreams. Their first game, Omikron: The Nomad Soul was released in 2000. It was an interesting cyberpunk adventure that many now consider ahead of its time, The game let you travel freely around a bustling futuristic cityscape, plus it combined the adventure and first person shooter genres in a way that really had not been tried before, Another intresting element of Omikron was its soundtrack; the music was composed by David Bowie, who also made a cameo appearance in the game. Omikron was a very promising start for Quantic Dreams. It was the company’s follow up to Omikron, Indigo Prophecy (known as Fahrenheit in Europe) that would start the developer on the path to Heavy Rain.

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Spider-Man: Never Too Old to be Young Again

I have a lot of sympathy for Spider-Man. After a remarkably successful eight-year run, hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars grossed, three major villains vanquished (along with a few minor ones to boot), and tolerating Kirsten Dunst for three whole movies, he’s finally been exposed. Peter Parker never finished high school.

We know what this means: Sony wants to make sure Spider-Man can use his handy webslingers to reach out to the younger crowd. I have no real means of assessing the wisdom of this. Teenagers always seem to be the ones trying to bum cigarettes off me because they spent their allowance money earlier in the week. But I’m sure there’s some sort of wisdom at play, even if it’s of the conventional sort. Out with the old, in with the prepubescent.

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The Absolute Best of the Century (Thus Far)

When it was first suggested that each Dork Shelfer (we’re kinda like the Maple Leafs that way) write a blurb about their favourite comic book, video game and movie of the past decade, reactions were mixed. It’s the general consensus that the only thing more arbitrarily reductive than declaring the ‘best’ of the year is pretending to know what was the ‘best’ of the last ten years (if you’re thinking to yourself ‘what about the best of the last one hundred years?’ then you’re a smartass who’s missing the point). I mean, who am I to tell you that Wild Hogs will become the under-appreciated Citizen Kane of our generation?  Of course, this is by no means what we’re trying to do, but merely attempting to relay our personal impressions of what stuck out as our favourite sources of entertainment since recovering from the Y2K scare (I still keep all perishable food items at least 10 feet away from my computer at all times, just in case).

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Thought Bubble: Event Fatigue

DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths

The past few years have had comic book fans go through blockbuster after blockbuster event that change things in their respective universes forever. Of course, if I were to detail the big comic book events of the past decade this piece would be about thirty pages long. I’ll forego that and allow you to peruse the various comic book wikis out there. Instead I shall review the pros and cons of the “event” format and offer some suggestions for the publishers and readers going forward.

Pro: Events are cash cows for the publishers. If the publishers do well then the readers do well… isn’t that how capitalism works? Plus they get to sell tie-in merchandise, action figures, clothing and what we’re all really after: jewelry. Am I right?

Con: Price. Publishers can charge more for event books, since they are pitched as “must read” comics.

Pro: Dream Teams. You get to see a popular writer/artist work together on a dream project.

Con: Nightmare Teams. If the event book features an artist or writer who you don’t like, then you’re out of luck. The even may also involve characters you have no interest in as a result. If you do not like the direction they are going with the title or the universe you may be stuck. Slogging through bad stories just for some kind of resolution is not fun.

Pro: Holy Shit Moments. Events are usually pretty traumatic in the scope of things.  This “holy shit moment” can be an incredibly powerful incident that can change the entire dynamic of the story and even the universe.

Con: Holy Shit moments falling flat. Big moments meant to have impact and gravitas end up being pointless or just plain offensive. For instance the Blob eating the Wasp in Marvel’s Ultimatum; Totally unnecessary. Shock for the sake of shock which can ruin a good story.

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Zack’s Decade in Review

Comics

I would best describe the last decade in comics as “aggressively making up for the 90s”. Sure, not everything was gold and a lot of the “major events” featured strong openings with weak conclusions (well, except perhaps 52) but there was undeniably this open window of embrace for comics as a creative means instead of a sales means. The comics I tended to favour most were the ones that really had a knack for embracing story with visuals, treating the two as a pair, not playing favourites to either or. It could be a great story, or, it could have great art, but a great comic book means both will stick with you in the long run. Top choice, of course, goes to Paul Pope’s 100%. The gloomy yet fantastical portrayal of a future-punk NYC, and the dreaming artists, strippers and misfits that crawl around it’s streets. Like a Moulin Rouge that your parents don’t own the soundtrack to, 100% feels alive, the illustrations pulse crowded unheard sounds, and the heroes are so believably lost that you eventually sink into the same romantic hole they dwell in.

Taking a few steps to the side, but not too many steps, is DC’s Solo series. Short, too short in my opinion, but a successful experiment in showing what certain artists will do when you loosen their chain. Some still did superhero stories, some didn’t. Sergio Aragones, Mike Allred and the aforementioned Paul Pope all did personal anecdotes, refocused in the lens of a comic. The series was as creatively pleasing as it was enlightening to see how individual artists view their world and the effects it has on their craft.

Last but not least is a newer entry, and I really hope this won’t come off as superbly pretensions to drop something this obscure but its totally worth a hound down, I’m talking to the culture junkie savages I assume to peruse this site. LOSE #1 by Toronto local Michael Deforge is a stroll down a struggle that I can all too relate with. The constant clash between an artist’s personal creativity and their media, Saturday morning cartoon saturated mind that they sink with.  Deforge in almost an escape from the pop junk world begins to scratch back, mutilating and mutating Rocky and Bullwinkle. It’s a route many online one offs have taken, but this is the first one that feels like it nails it square over the head.
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James Cameron and the Test of Time

James Cameron on the "set" of Avatar

What makes a film (or any work of art for that matter) memorable for years after it first appears? What are the films that we go back to again and again? The ones with the amazing special effects? The big stars? Or the ones with the great stories that still resonate?

James Cameron makes blockbuster hits. He didn’t necessarily set out at the beginning of his career to do so, but that’s what it has become. From Terminator to Avatar, most if not all of his films have engaged the most up to date effects and techniques and have made (and cost) substantial amounts of money. Despite lukewarm reviews (for the story at least), I expect Avatar will end up being the hit of 2009 (though even its substantial tickets sales will probably barely be enough to cover the costs).

So his movies are popular in the moment. And a few of them have continued to be popular years later. Terminator and Aliens are considered (rightly so) classics of their genre. The Abyss has a loyal following, and even True Lies is shown on television now and again (and personally I do like it).

But with the exception of the first two mentioned above, what will Cameron be remembered for? Mention Titanic, and mostly you will hear about what it cost to make and the ‘King of the World’ Oscar speech. And considering the praise for Avatar has been about its effects, will that be remembered much in the future? Better special effects always come along and the old ones are forgotten (remember the fuss over Tron or Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)

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Thought Bubble: Meditations on Comics

The Thought Bubble is a place where Jeff shares his random thoughts and observations on comics and the comic book industry.

Zombie Comics

You, Me and Zombie

Is this genre is dead? Pun intended.

The only zombie book I look forward to is The Walking Dead, and its not even really a zombie book. I am hoping that a little book from local talent Agnes Garbowska called You, Me and Zombie gets picked up. Seriously Boom get on this book! A while back Frank Cho did a zombie book that sadly was banned… Due to some zombie on cow love there will be no reprint. Writers are constantly bringing new and exciting ideas to the genre, or barring that Bill Murray cameos.

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Revisiting the High Nineties: Cannibal Double Feature

It seems that I slept through all those timely Halloween horror film recommendations last month. However, this double feature is just is applicable now as it was then, which is why I’m making these my Yanksgiving (what us Canadians call American Thanksgiving, or at least should start) family viewing picks. Because nothing says ‘Thank You’ to your fellow man more than seeing to it that his leftovers don’t go to waste.

The 70’s and 80’s saw cannibal films become a big horror sub-genre popular with the cult crowds. The early 90’s had the subject break into mainstream movies with the Best Picture winning Silence of the Lambs, though most would agree this movie has little in common with the aforementioned underground movement. A couple years later Alive was released, which was a true story with an awesome plane crash and a stranded soccer team doing what needed to be done to survive. It would be almost a decade before Hollywood returned to Thomas Harris novels for subsequent Hannibal Lecter sequels, re-makes and prequels, leaving a period in between where I can think of few man-eats-man movies other than these two often overlooked treats: Cannibal: The Musical and Ravenous.

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Cronenberg looks under King’s Dome

This past Thursday night I was treated to a very special surprise: last minute tickets to an evening with Stephen King. I estimate that no one has written a larger portion of my lifetime’s reading than this man. And as an added bonus, he was interviewed by my favourite Canadian filmmaker, David Cronenberg. I didn’t even know this event was happening in here in Toronto, where I pride myself in usually being ‘in the know’ about this kind of thing.   I’m not sure where they advertised it, but I suppose not much publicity was needed to sell out the 2200 seat Canon Theatre for this once in a lifetime opportunity.

After being introduced by George Stroumboulopoulos (this guy’s everywhere!), King came out in a typical dressed-down writer’s attire which included white running shoes, a red t-shirt and faded blue jeans that were a little too short. He then expressed his nervousness caused by having to read excerpts from his new book to a bigger audience than he had ever read to before. It’s ironic that the author who has written about nearly every supernatural fear you can think of is still subject to the most common fear of all: public speaking. Perhaps this was an attempt to make himself more relatable after entering a stage on which the cover art of over 30 bestselling novels had just been projected one at a time to continually growing applause. He then mentioned that he had dropped his pages while they were putting his wireless mic on, and then proceeded to read them out of order, as he had feared… the horror! I felt a certain poetic justice in watching the man squirm a bit after my experiences reading It when I was 13 years old. Under the Dome is a return to those 1000-plus page yarns he was spinning in the 80’s, it’s been flying off thankful bookshelves for about two weeks now.

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War Stars 101

Every day, new people are born into this world. There’s a good chance most of these people have parents, and there’s an even better chance that their parents watched at least one Star Wars trilogy while growing up. These new parents are faced with all kinds of important decisions during their children’s formative years, none more divisive and controversial than the one I’m going to address today: What order do you show your offspring the Star Wars saga in?* Do you stick to the chronology in which they were made, dictating the order be episodes IV through VI followed by I to III? Or does one honour the ‘logical’ sequence of I through VI? I have come to the conclusion that neither of these billings are satisfactory, and the best solution is to use the zig zag narrative structure popular in today’s storytelling (my theory is that this was caused by a generation of writers heavily influenced by House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ ).

Those stuck with this task can now rest easy, as I’ve done their thinking for them.  Come with me as I show you the path and why it must be this way.

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Jeff: Back from the Dead

Fear this!

I am not dead. I actually just joined the Sinestro Corps and have been battling the Black Lanterns in a far off sector.

But in all seriousness, to avoid getting into the heavy details and making this post uber-bloggy, I will summarize by saying that my day job has been deliciously kicking my ass. However, the craziness is over and I shall get things back on track. I want to thank Will, Joel, Lucas and Raj for keeping us posted on the upcoming Thor and Green Lantern films and various comic related things.

So with that I’ll recap some things I’ve taken note of these past months I have been away: Read the rest of this entry »

Revisiting the High Nineties: The Indian Runner

They told us what to watch then, now it's my turn.

Welcome to the first installment of what is sure to become the biggest thing on the ‘net since it stopped making those NIN-inspired up dial up noises. This will be an ongoing series of articles in which I recommend a film from the decade that gave me the love of the medium. The nineties were by no means the golden age of cinema, but it was a pretty damn good era to come of age in. I will try to find titles a lot of people may have missed, but I’ll also be encouraging you to take a second look at movies you may have dismissed the first time around while hopefully helping you discover some bargain bin gems. Our first nineties notable was directed by a man who made his name acting cool in the eighties.

Before Sean Penn was milking the Academy for a yearly performance nomination, he made his directorial debut with an extremely savvy, underrated film called The Indian Runner. The few films he’s directed since (The Crossing Guard, The Pledge and Into the Wild) have generally been well received as mature, realized projects, but I still feel this often overlooked first film is his strongest.  The year was 1991, and the barely 30 year old actor demonstrated that he was a lot more than just that, and was in fact very well versed in cinema, its past masters as well as its capacity for artistic expression.

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