Caught up with the manga yesterday, I'd actually bought the first 7 volumes, translated by Dark Horse into English. Time between releases was really long, so I forgot about it. Turns out the've only released one more since. Ended up reading the rest via fan translation, it's a little wonky because (at least in the Japanese collections) they changed the number of chapters per volume from like 6 or 7 to 10. Whatever, chapter 90 is the last that's been published in its original form.
Endless, bloody, brilliant war. The London battle between Hellsing, the Millenium order and the Vatican's agents continues in extended, typically brutal fashion. At this point the only character who seems safe is Seras, pretty much everyone else is either dead or certainly could die, at this point. Granted, I'm fairly certain Alucard will survive in the end, but it at least feels like he could die. It's not so much the position he's left in (which is ominous, indeed) as it is the take-no-prisoners vibe that's been building. I would be surprised if the story doesn't end after this battle, and while I could probably enjoy many more volumes, almost everything/everyone that's been established (including the irregular prequel series, The Dawn) has been addressed/killed, or will be soon. Unless he's going to establish a whole new storyline, which seems unlikely, this is it.
It's probably just as well, since Hirano is insanely slow, at least compared to the typical weekly manga series. It started over 10 years ago, and there are 90 chapters plus 6 chapters of The Dawn so far. Less than 10 chapters a year makes Bryan Hitch look positively industrious. Granted, the artwork is 2-5x more detailed and pleasurable than most other manga, so he certainly has some justification.
Also caught the 4th Hellsing Ultimate OVA, which was released a month ago in Japan. Unfortunately, due to Geneon shutting down, it'll probably never be released in the US. It was good as usual, although a little light on action, but it is the part of the story that leads into the big London battle, which dragged on pretty long in the manga as well, so yeah.
There's not enough good action horror stuff out there (in any media), and pretty much none of it is as good as Hellsing. Sad.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Walking Dead rpg/Dead Rising 2
In case you're unaware, The Walking Dead is a brilliant comic about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, and how a group of people survive. The emphasis is on character development and interaction over the long term, something which is scarcely seen in zombie fiction. Go here for more. Dead Rising is a brilliant survival horror game by capcom featuring zombies and sandbox-style gameplay. Its great aesthetic achievement is the massive number of zombies which can be present at any time, and the very realistic design and interactivity of the mall it takes place in. Aside from simple survival, one of the main gameplay activities is bringing other survivors back to the safe area. Go here for more.
Since I played through Dead Rising, I've had a lot of ideas for what might be in a sequel or spinoff. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I'd like to take the engine that runs DR and its moment-to-moment gameplay (both of which are very effective generally), and make it about long-term survival and community-building. This reminded me immediately of The Walking Dead. It would be really cool to not just deal with an immediate escape from the zombie menace (which is what most zombie fiction and games are about), but explore what a group of survivors does to try and stabilize their new reality.
In DR, I like how each individual survivor has its own AI and capabilities. Some are helpful, attacking nearby zombies. Some are trouble, walking slowly or requiring assistance constantly. I was thinking I'd like to expand upon that when it hit me: Suikoden! Suikoden is a fairly traditional Japanese rpg which has a particular shtick: you can recruit up to 108 characters to aid you in your quest, and they all live in your castle. Where it gets interesting is that many of them have a functionality within the castle, such as running the library or opening a store. I envision a similar structure for survivors. At some point in the game you establish a new home. If you rescue a doctor, you would then have access to healing or at least first aid. If you rescue an electrician you could have lights outside the building for protection at night,etc.
The degree and depth of simulation to include, along with the level of individual character customization, is an interesting question. If you failed to rescue the electrician, or he was killed on an outing, perhaps you go to a bookstore or library and scavenge a book on electronics, and have a survivor with sufficient intelligence study it. Do the survivors get tired or sick? Is there a strict accounting of necessities like food and fuel? Will food go bad without a form of storage or preservation? The extent of home management and realism will have a strong effect on how play time is spent. In DR, aside from using food to recover health, these types of mundane concerns are just story elements, not things the player deals with directly. Most of the player's time is spent going from place to place and/or killing zombies and psychopaths. Heavy simulation elements would probably take up a lot of time for the player. Personally, I would definitely enjoy survivor customization quite a bit, but it's hard to say just how much simulation would stop being fun and start being drudgery.
When you need to go out in the world, you decide which survivors to bring with you, like a standard rpg. The beauty of the DR engine is that it's designed to handle many, many characters onscreen at once (reportedly up to 800 zombies simulataneously), so normal party limits wouldn't apply. Want to take 20 people out with you to clear the zombies out of Wal-Mart to get more food? No problem. I would probably make them individually uncontrollable, just like in DR, but perhaps group commands could be given, or maybe allow the player to shift which survivor he controls at a given moment. There are a lot of possibilities for interesting gameplay and strategy. Do you take 20 survivors to overwhelm the zombies, risking the death of some, or take fewer which can be handled more precisely and easily, but with a much tougher fight?
Whether or not to include a traditional story element is a decision DR kind of side-stepped. There is a story, but aside from the beginning, which sets up the situation, the rest can be completely ignored if you choose (in fact, it's relatively difficult to get all the story on the first playthrough). Both the main story and various sidequests do include special content such as boss battles, which can relieve the inevitable boredom of killing zombies. I think I would approach it similarly, in that there would be story elements that will be discovered as time goes on, but it's up to the player to pursue them. However, I would also throw some degree of randomness into the mix as well. Maybe you encounter an evil group of survivors, or someone who can control zombies, etc. I don't have any particular story in mind right now, obviously.
This is very half-baked, not to mention very wishful thinking, seeing as I'm not an employee of Capcom or any other game publisher or developer. I think it's a cool idea anyway. As always, input is welcome.
Since I played through Dead Rising, I've had a lot of ideas for what might be in a sequel or spinoff. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I'd like to take the engine that runs DR and its moment-to-moment gameplay (both of which are very effective generally), and make it about long-term survival and community-building. This reminded me immediately of The Walking Dead. It would be really cool to not just deal with an immediate escape from the zombie menace (which is what most zombie fiction and games are about), but explore what a group of survivors does to try and stabilize their new reality.
In DR, I like how each individual survivor has its own AI and capabilities. Some are helpful, attacking nearby zombies. Some are trouble, walking slowly or requiring assistance constantly. I was thinking I'd like to expand upon that when it hit me: Suikoden! Suikoden is a fairly traditional Japanese rpg which has a particular shtick: you can recruit up to 108 characters to aid you in your quest, and they all live in your castle. Where it gets interesting is that many of them have a functionality within the castle, such as running the library or opening a store. I envision a similar structure for survivors. At some point in the game you establish a new home. If you rescue a doctor, you would then have access to healing or at least first aid. If you rescue an electrician you could have lights outside the building for protection at night,etc.
The degree and depth of simulation to include, along with the level of individual character customization, is an interesting question. If you failed to rescue the electrician, or he was killed on an outing, perhaps you go to a bookstore or library and scavenge a book on electronics, and have a survivor with sufficient intelligence study it. Do the survivors get tired or sick? Is there a strict accounting of necessities like food and fuel? Will food go bad without a form of storage or preservation? The extent of home management and realism will have a strong effect on how play time is spent. In DR, aside from using food to recover health, these types of mundane concerns are just story elements, not things the player deals with directly. Most of the player's time is spent going from place to place and/or killing zombies and psychopaths. Heavy simulation elements would probably take up a lot of time for the player. Personally, I would definitely enjoy survivor customization quite a bit, but it's hard to say just how much simulation would stop being fun and start being drudgery.
When you need to go out in the world, you decide which survivors to bring with you, like a standard rpg. The beauty of the DR engine is that it's designed to handle many, many characters onscreen at once (reportedly up to 800 zombies simulataneously), so normal party limits wouldn't apply. Want to take 20 people out with you to clear the zombies out of Wal-Mart to get more food? No problem. I would probably make them individually uncontrollable, just like in DR, but perhaps group commands could be given, or maybe allow the player to shift which survivor he controls at a given moment. There are a lot of possibilities for interesting gameplay and strategy. Do you take 20 survivors to overwhelm the zombies, risking the death of some, or take fewer which can be handled more precisely and easily, but with a much tougher fight?
Whether or not to include a traditional story element is a decision DR kind of side-stepped. There is a story, but aside from the beginning, which sets up the situation, the rest can be completely ignored if you choose (in fact, it's relatively difficult to get all the story on the first playthrough). Both the main story and various sidequests do include special content such as boss battles, which can relieve the inevitable boredom of killing zombies. I think I would approach it similarly, in that there would be story elements that will be discovered as time goes on, but it's up to the player to pursue them. However, I would also throw some degree of randomness into the mix as well. Maybe you encounter an evil group of survivors, or someone who can control zombies, etc. I don't have any particular story in mind right now, obviously.
This is very half-baked, not to mention very wishful thinking, seeing as I'm not an employee of Capcom or any other game publisher or developer. I think it's a cool idea anyway. As always, input is welcome.
Vision Quest
It amazes me that someone would take a perfectly good game engine paired with reasonably good gameplay, and then shackle it to a rigid concept of how people should play.
Burnout Paradise is a giant piece of shit, really, but Criterion had to go out of their way to make it happen. There isn't anything inherently wrong with open world, sandbox design, as long as the overall game is made better for it. Very much not the case here. It's fine to have a big, well-constructed city in which to race, and secret routes and stuff to destroy is fine too, but forcing your players to drive around to each individual event is mind-boggingly stupid. Not having a restart option during events is almost as bad.
Supposedly, their goal was to do away with load times, thus the persistent world with no menus. However, having to spend a minute or two driving to an event is much, much worse than a loading screen. It's goddamned drudgery. Was I motivated to drive around the city, finding the shortcuts and whatnot? A little bit, but I don't need it shoved down my throat. When I just want to do an event, the game should let me. Loading screen? I'll get a drink or hit f5 a few times. Unlock events/cars/music/paint colors/fig newtons through exploration, great, cool. People will want to do it on their own. At its core, Burnout is a racing game, so let people fucking race.
If the gameplay was some master stroke, it still wouldn't justify all the bullshit, but then I could say "but at least the gameplay..." I'm not even gonna get into the lack of a real crash mode, although if I was, I'd start out with something like "Way to create a fresh, fun kind of gameplay and give it a golden shower." Sending this shit back to Gamefly tomorrow, hopefully I don't have to wait for Culdcept (expect a lot of posts about it).
Loco Roco is a fun, clever platforming game with brilliant art design and music. Probably keep it until my girlfriend gets tired of it.
Games I would design if I were a game designer-
Naruto mmo
Transformers fighting game
Dino Crisis 4
The Walking Dead rpg/Dead Rising 2
Burnout Paradise is a giant piece of shit, really, but Criterion had to go out of their way to make it happen. There isn't anything inherently wrong with open world, sandbox design, as long as the overall game is made better for it. Very much not the case here. It's fine to have a big, well-constructed city in which to race, and secret routes and stuff to destroy is fine too, but forcing your players to drive around to each individual event is mind-boggingly stupid. Not having a restart option during events is almost as bad.
Supposedly, their goal was to do away with load times, thus the persistent world with no menus. However, having to spend a minute or two driving to an event is much, much worse than a loading screen. It's goddamned drudgery. Was I motivated to drive around the city, finding the shortcuts and whatnot? A little bit, but I don't need it shoved down my throat. When I just want to do an event, the game should let me. Loading screen? I'll get a drink or hit f5 a few times. Unlock events/cars/music/paint colors/fig newtons through exploration, great, cool. People will want to do it on their own. At its core, Burnout is a racing game, so let people fucking race.
If the gameplay was some master stroke, it still wouldn't justify all the bullshit, but then I could say "but at least the gameplay..." I'm not even gonna get into the lack of a real crash mode, although if I was, I'd start out with something like "Way to create a fresh, fun kind of gameplay and give it a golden shower." Sending this shit back to Gamefly tomorrow, hopefully I don't have to wait for Culdcept (expect a lot of posts about it).
Loco Roco is a fun, clever platforming game with brilliant art design and music. Probably keep it until my girlfriend gets tired of it.
Games I would design if I were a game designer-
Naruto mmo
Transformers fighting game
Dino Crisis 4
The Walking Dead rpg/Dead Rising 2
Sunday, February 3, 2008
B. Maximum
New blog, same old me. As before, gonna be writing mostly about media and games. Entertainment would be more succinct, I guess.
Mainstream superhero comics need to change (for the rest of the entry, I'll just say 'comics'). Basically, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They (by which I mean the publishers, editors, some writers) want to keep their characters and universes entwined tightly with continuity, yet not to the point where various logical consequences, specifically character aging, are necessary.
To be fair, I think lots of writers and editors don't care for strict continuity at all, because of how restrictive it can be. However, the publishers feel compelled to keep titles entrenched in it, for two main reasons I can see. First, current comic customers were raised on continuity, as far as they are concerned continuity is an intrinsic part of comics. This developed over time, I would guess sometime in the 80s, as the customer base solidified away from being children who would read for a few years and then stop (to be replaced by the next generation), and towards dedicated fans who began as children and never stopped. Second (and certainly related), major storylines and company-wide events, which are responsible for almost all top-selling books these days, depend heavily on continuity.
Of course, none of this was planned, particularly. Comics are basically an evolution of old pulp stories and serials. The thing is, neither those old stories nor comics were expected to last 40+ years, and the pulps didn't. So now comics are a bizarre frankenstein genre: neither true serial nor finite story. Essentially, things are exepcted to happen and change, but only up to a certain point, and for the most part, while past events happened, their real-world historical or temporal context is willfully ignored. Obviously this creates a great many inconsistencies and paradoxes, and the more time passes, and the more stories that are written, the worse it gets.
I'm not going to go into detail here, but obviously the One More Day fiasco is an extremely ugly symptom of this problem, a deliberate rollback of some parts of Spider-Man's history, while leaving others intact. The problem is that they've done their job too well, fans care so much about continuity that changing it without an extremely detailed and rational explanation (relatively speaking) of exactly what has changed and how it all interacts under the new timeline, results in feelings of betrayal and disrespect for previous stories and history. It also destroys the illusion that characters are not in fact locked into a specific status quo.
Basically, comics were created without thinking about the long-term, they stabilized into an illogical but seemingly workable paradigm, but now enough time has passed that it no longer holds up. If the paradigm doesn't change, this conflict will keep happening again and again.
What to do? Well, there's 2 obvious choices, each of which has some serious problems. First, convert into more of a traditional, rigid serial form of storytelling. No real changes, even minor, and little or no reference to past events. Both Marvel and DC (hard to believe I went this far without naming either of them) do in fact have low-continuity comics which are aimed at children (which, ironically, used to be the vast majority of their readership, now it's a niche with no respect from most fans). Interestingly, I think the publishers would prefer this to be the norm, since it synchs up well with non-comic portrayals such as movies and tv. However, as noted above, they've bred the modern comic fan too well.
The other choice is to embrace continuity fully and logically. Characters age and die appropriately. A particular story or character may have a natural beginning, middle and end. Personally, I think this is by far the better option, and not to nutride the Japanese, but I agree with the reasoning that kids like manga (as opposed to comics) because things change, stories advance in meaningful ways, stories end. A story has a lot more punch if you don't know what's going to happen. I'm actually surprised that they haven't tried it yet, since out of continuity stories set in the future (wherein characters have aged naturally and died) are very popular as a rule.
Bottom line: they can continue as they are, with the stories and characters degnerating more and more under the increasing pressure of pseudocontinuity, or they can try and fix it. Either way is apt to be painful (at least in the short-term) both for them and the fans, but I believe that if they make a change and stick with it, everyone will be happier in the long run.
The above is hardly a definitive or complete analysis, but I think it works, even if some of my assumptions and facts aren't dead on. As always, I welcome alternative opinions or corrections.
Mainstream superhero comics need to change (for the rest of the entry, I'll just say 'comics'). Basically, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They (by which I mean the publishers, editors, some writers) want to keep their characters and universes entwined tightly with continuity, yet not to the point where various logical consequences, specifically character aging, are necessary.
To be fair, I think lots of writers and editors don't care for strict continuity at all, because of how restrictive it can be. However, the publishers feel compelled to keep titles entrenched in it, for two main reasons I can see. First, current comic customers were raised on continuity, as far as they are concerned continuity is an intrinsic part of comics. This developed over time, I would guess sometime in the 80s, as the customer base solidified away from being children who would read for a few years and then stop (to be replaced by the next generation), and towards dedicated fans who began as children and never stopped. Second (and certainly related), major storylines and company-wide events, which are responsible for almost all top-selling books these days, depend heavily on continuity.
Of course, none of this was planned, particularly. Comics are basically an evolution of old pulp stories and serials. The thing is, neither those old stories nor comics were expected to last 40+ years, and the pulps didn't. So now comics are a bizarre frankenstein genre: neither true serial nor finite story. Essentially, things are exepcted to happen and change, but only up to a certain point, and for the most part, while past events happened, their real-world historical or temporal context is willfully ignored. Obviously this creates a great many inconsistencies and paradoxes, and the more time passes, and the more stories that are written, the worse it gets.
I'm not going to go into detail here, but obviously the One More Day fiasco is an extremely ugly symptom of this problem, a deliberate rollback of some parts of Spider-Man's history, while leaving others intact. The problem is that they've done their job too well, fans care so much about continuity that changing it without an extremely detailed and rational explanation (relatively speaking) of exactly what has changed and how it all interacts under the new timeline, results in feelings of betrayal and disrespect for previous stories and history. It also destroys the illusion that characters are not in fact locked into a specific status quo.
Basically, comics were created without thinking about the long-term, they stabilized into an illogical but seemingly workable paradigm, but now enough time has passed that it no longer holds up. If the paradigm doesn't change, this conflict will keep happening again and again.
What to do? Well, there's 2 obvious choices, each of which has some serious problems. First, convert into more of a traditional, rigid serial form of storytelling. No real changes, even minor, and little or no reference to past events. Both Marvel and DC (hard to believe I went this far without naming either of them) do in fact have low-continuity comics which are aimed at children (which, ironically, used to be the vast majority of their readership, now it's a niche with no respect from most fans). Interestingly, I think the publishers would prefer this to be the norm, since it synchs up well with non-comic portrayals such as movies and tv. However, as noted above, they've bred the modern comic fan too well.
The other choice is to embrace continuity fully and logically. Characters age and die appropriately. A particular story or character may have a natural beginning, middle and end. Personally, I think this is by far the better option, and not to nutride the Japanese, but I agree with the reasoning that kids like manga (as opposed to comics) because things change, stories advance in meaningful ways, stories end. A story has a lot more punch if you don't know what's going to happen. I'm actually surprised that they haven't tried it yet, since out of continuity stories set in the future (wherein characters have aged naturally and died) are very popular as a rule.
Bottom line: they can continue as they are, with the stories and characters degnerating more and more under the increasing pressure of pseudocontinuity, or they can try and fix it. Either way is apt to be painful (at least in the short-term) both for them and the fans, but I believe that if they make a change and stick with it, everyone will be happier in the long run.
The above is hardly a definitive or complete analysis, but I think it works, even if some of my assumptions and facts aren't dead on. As always, I welcome alternative opinions or corrections.
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