blogging
Green Ronin bags another licence
But is it one too many? I was surprised to read that Green Ronin had signed an agreement with DC Comics to release a series of four books as part of their Mutants and Masterminds line. It makes me wonder how many licensed products are sustainable for a small publishing house like GR.
Joss and The Avengers?
So a little under a month ago shock waves of glee hit the geek community. Our demi-god, Joss Whedon, would direct The Avengers movie!
Now unlike many geeks I’ve never been that into comics, and those comics I have been into haven’t been the Marvel/DC variety. However Joss Whedon directing and no doubt being involved in the script of a superhero movie had to be a good thing, right?
Unfortunately though, during a conversation with a friend, doubt started to creep in. Joss was going to make the most amazing Wonder Woman movie ever as well… but due to “creative differences” with the studio it got shelved.
And as we all know he often has ‘creative differences’ with the studio, and there are only so many times this can happen before you really have to ask. Is it Joss or the studio that’s being difficult?
I think anyone who has read this blog will know I’m a huge fan of what Joss creates. Buffy, (most of) Angel, Firefly, Serenity and Dollhouse are all fantastic. Hell I even liked Alien: Resurrection. But I can’t help but feel that there is a measure of diva in what drives him and that diva means that he has a habit of throwing his toys.
I hope I’m wrong and that The Avengers is a fantastic movie that hits our screens in 2012. But I’m keeping a certain level of healthy cynicism till then.
What do you think? Am I being too harsh on The Whedon? Or is there merit in what I say?
Iron Man 2 – a few thoughts
I took myself off to the big leather seats of the Embassy Theatre here in Wellington last weekend to check out Iron Man 2.
As you can tell from the trailer this movie is pretty unabashed and it’s title character is also convinced of his own greatness.
I enjoyed the explosions, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Junior and the total over the topness of the whole thing. I thought they were a little heavy handed in the way they tied it all in with the upcoming (and potentially Joss Whedon directed, though that’s a whole other blog post) Avengers movie.
For a bit of mindless fun about a narcissistic genius who dons a shiny suit and flies around, you should totally go see it.
Fallout: New Vegas gets some screen time
So Fallout: New Vegas has been getting a bunch of screen time this week. With a new first impressions being posted on a bunch of different blogs and sites.
I’ve been pretty keen for this to come out since it was first announced last year. I liked Fallout 3, I mean it was no Fallout or Fallout 2 but it was a pretty solid game and I’ve recently been wanting to go back and have more of an explore.
But when it was announced that Obsidian would be developing this game under licence I was pretty stoked. Knights of the Old Republic 2 (despite the ending) was a great game and I’m also really looking forward to the long over due Alpha Protocol.
So I look forward to more news about this next part of the franchise, and the ability to zoom in for those messy and devastating headshots through V.A.T.S.
I added this blog for a really bad reason
I just subscribed to Game Stooge entirely because of this. I am an idiot.
Serenity Now
While we all wait for what Joss does next, the A.V. Club has an extremely insightful discussion of Serenity in it’s ‘New Cult Canon’ feature. The line is basically this: it’s a love letter to fans that doesn’t hit the highs of the show and here’s why. And I more or less agree.
I travelled with a friend down the highway to Geelong to watch Serenity in a pre-release screening. I had a good time, liked the film, saw it once again in the cinema on general release with another friend and bought it when it came out on DVD in order to help boost sales and convince them to make more. We now know that that’s never going to happen but what the hell. At least I have it on DVD right?
But here’s the problem: I’ve never watched the DVD. Beyond that, I’ve never revisited the original Firefly series (which I also own on DVD). I’m currently watching (extremely slowly) Buffy with my highly horror adverse wife and I’m enjoying it – we’re only two episodes in and it’s still astonishingly amateurish but it’s fun. When I think of Firefly now I think of it being (a) slightly forced and (b) unfinished. Now I know that (b) is not Whedon’s fault but (a) certainty is. Firefly, I suspect, is not going to go down in history as one of the great shows. If Fox hadn’t canned it in mid-stream, the reasons it is so missed would have been removed. Hopefully it would have provided new reasons to be missed, but I don’t think we’d seen them yet.
What next for Whedon?
Since the cancellation of Dollhouse I’ve been thinking a lot about why it’s creator, Joss Whedon, seems to keep making the same mistakes. Some people have commented that it’s because he’s a bit of a diva, or perhaps it’s just that he is a victim of his own hype and success.
I haven’t blogged much about Dollhouse’s cancellation, mostly due to a lot of other people already what I had to say. As a series it was deeply flawed and didn’t always get it right, but the thing it always had underpinning it was that it was just so different. That difference in approach to a theme is classic Whedon, as much as the layered characters and pithy dialogue. It wasn’t Buffy or Angel and it certainly wasn’t Firefly. It was it’s own beast, with it’s own issues.
Did the US network, Fox, step in and mess it up? Maybe. Did the show tiptoe around it’s loaded subject matter? Of course it did. It was about human slavery, prostitution and a person’s hunt for self when they’re stuck in that world. It’s heavy stuff, too heavy no doubt than a lot of everyday TV watchers.
The fans watched though. Us rapid fan boys and girls who lap up anything “The Whedon” does and then sit around for months and years afterwards talking about how good it was. How it was canned too soon. Despite the fact that we fans meant the almost guaranteed success of the internet musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog we are not enough to keep a major US TV network happy.
So what next? There is that episode of Glee that is coming up, but that won’t be a Whedon show. It will be an episode of Glee directed by Joss Whedon, not written. Then of course there is the much rumored follow up to Dr. Horrible. They’d be mad not to really. Will Joss Whedon go back to TV? I’ve heard it said that he’s not interested, at least not in it’s traditional format.
I’ve talked about this with a few people and I reckon there are two formats that would suit a Whedon style story down to the ground:
- Mini-series format – Torchwood did it for their Season 3 and it was amazing. I reckon Joss Whedon could really blast this format. 5 x 1.5 hour episodes, back to back and really concentrating on the story. Though he’s have to work on that slow build up thing of his that seems to happen in every series , bar Firefly.
- Online streaming – This is the other format that has been mentioned a lot. A regular show, with proper production values which is shown only on the internet. Anyone who wants to watch it pays a subscription, and then at the end of the season the DVDs are released as normal. No networks exerting control or pulling the strings. The technology is there and the fan base as well, pretty much all of whom are very internet savvy.
So those are my vague thoughts on the matter. It’ll be interesting to see what comes next, whether it be ‘net based, TV or another movie.
Monday Musings: A gaming conundrum
In the last few years I’ve come into contact with a heap of different table top roleplaying games some of which I’ve played and others that I’ve just wanted to.
Recently though I’m finding that the games that I play which demand a high level of player buy in and direction are the ones I’m enjoying the most. This doesn’t just mean “dirty hippie indie games” (or small press games, or shared narrative games or what ever you want to call them) but also more “traditional” games in which the players take an active role in trying to develop the plot, rather than just waiting for the GM to tell them what happens so they can react to it. This often means that I get disappointed as both a player (when a GM refuses any input from me into the outcome of an action or scene) and as a GM (when the other people I play with want me to tell them exactly what I want to happen, with no input from them) because I see this roleplaying thing we do as a a shared story telling experience.
I really enjoy shared narration games. I love how they promote more player buy in for their characters, especially in the compressed time frames of Con games. The fantasic play experiences the I’ve had with these games have made me expect more from the people I play with, and made me fight against the idea that as a GM I’m just here to “bring the fun”. Being GM doesn’t stop me from being a player, it just means I have a different role.
So what to do about this? How am I going to continue to play in and run games where I feel that I’m getting out of them what I want? Well for starters I’m going to write games where that kind of buy in is needed. Some times that means mixing more traditional games with shared narration ideas, like I did in a recent Mongoose Traveller scenario I wrote, Still to Come. Other times it will be to ask the players for the things they want to happen, and if they don’t focus on those who do. As a player I’m going to offer ideas to the person running the game and if those ideas are consistently ignored or sidelined I’ll find myself another game.
All these things are easier said than done. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, so expect more posts of my random game related musing.
2010 – A year in gaming
With KapCon now behind me I’m starting to look forward to what kind of gaming experiences I want to have in 2010. Essentially a list that I can look back on later in the year to see how I’m going.
So with out any further ado. The List!
- Actually finish my KapCon SDC entry this year. I’m going to tidy up and polish Still to Come.
- Stop being so soft on the players in the A Song of Ice and Fire game I GM. It’s a tough world and sometimes, people die.
- Continue to overcome the distrust I have of LARPing.
- Play more of the games I look at and think “I really want to play that!”.
- Blog more, not just re-posting cool stuff from elsewhere.
- Get a new PC so I can play all these awesome CPRGs on the platform they are meant for.
I think that’s it really. There are other things, but these are the main ones. What about you? Do you have any gaming goals for the year?
Another one for the real life files
I know that the push for ratings is tough, but this might be taking things just a little bit too far. A crime TV host is accused of actually ordering killings so that his team could be there first with the scoop. Before the police even… read a little more about it here.