blogging
The return of Sarah Michelle Geller?
So it seems that a new pilot has been ordered in the US for a show staring Sarah Michelle Geller. The AV club has a good post on it, explaining most of what seems to be known. But to recap their article,
The one-hour drama will find Gellar playing a woman on the run from the mob (still a prevalent and menacing force in TV land, apparently), and whose efforts to evade them involve pretending to be her wealthy twin sister. Unfortunately, she soon discovers that said twin sister is also being targeted…
This brief synopsis doesn’t fill me with interest, it has to be said. But it is also being written by a couple Supernatural writers. So there may be something there. Or it could just end up being lots of shots of Geller running across various American cities in different outfits to represent each character. We will just have to wait and see, but it doesn’t sound like much of a Buffy replacment to me.
New TV goodness?
There seem to be a lot of sci-fi or sci-fi inspired shows out there at the moment. My personal favorite is the current season of Fringe. It’s dark, it’s complex and it leaves me wanting more. How cool is Walter? Seriously, check out season 3 it’s great.
Over on io9.com they’ve got a heap of info on a new BBC show call Outcasts. Basically the premise is that Earth becomes uninhabitable so a brave group set off to a new world to start again, doing it right this time. Only it’s never that easy, is it? Check out the trailer and detailed synopsis. It looks good.
2010 in review
Floating around somewhere is a post I did early last year saying what I wanted to acheive in gaming in 2010. I would link to it, but I can’t seem to find it. Regardless I thought I would sum it up here:
- I spent the better part of 2010 writing, in collaboration with two others, a 66 person LARP called Al Shir-Ma. It’s set in an Arabian Night-esque world which borrows from Al-Qadim. It was done for the yearly KapCon gaming convention here in Wellington, and it’s first run through is happening next weekend. It’s been a really interesting experience and has I think made me a better scenario writer. But man, has it been a lot of work.
- I wrapped up my campaign, using the Green Ronin A Song of Ice and Fire rules, in a not hugely satisfiying way. By the end I’d kind of lost interest and time, and it all got a bit too railroady. It showed me that I really want to run long term games that leverage off character backgrounds and story rather than some over arching plot I’ve come up with. Means less work for me too.
- I ran Peril in King’s Landing a pre-written scenario for ASoIFRP. It’s one of the few times I’ve actually run a pre-written scenario and while I liked the low prep of it all, I found that I had the most fun when I was adding in new elements passed on player actions.
- I played a lot of Xbox 360. Notably Alpha Protocol, Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Fallout New Vegas. Some of these games, like Mass Effect, I played through for a third time so I could carry my character into the new game. Yes I am that much of a geek.
- I played a lot of table top and LARP games. For the first time I played more than I GM’d and it was great.
- I discovered some great new table top games like Prime Time Adventures and Apocolypse World.
So from a gaming perspective 2010 was great. Though as the silence from June on might have told you, other stuff wasn’t. Now though it’s time to look forward to 2011!
Dragon Age 2 – not long now
I’ve spent more hours than I care to think playing Dragon Age and I’m pretty excited that Dragon Age 2 is coming out in a couple of months. I have hoped to have a PC to play it on, but I may have to just stick with the old Xbox 360.
IGN have a nice preview article, outlining some of the changes made to the follow up. They all sound great to me, especially the more Mass Effect-esque character acting and dialoge.
Also, here is some eye candy.
They just need girl time…
While I’ve never played Zelda and I haven’t player Super Mario since the Sega days this is pretty funny.
Need something to read?
The great people over at i09.com have released a list of the 15 best speculative fiction books of 2010. While I admit that I haven’t actually read any of these yet I think I may try to make my way through the list.
Check out the list if you’re in need of something new to read.
Hot War: Transmission
Hot War hasn’t been getting much love here recently (but let’s be honest, nothing much has. That’s real life for ya!) so I thought I’d quickly mention the Hot War Transmission series that have come out over the last few months.
So far there have been two Transmissions. Issue 1 focused on the work of Nigel Kneale, creator of the Quatermass series which was a huge influence to Hot War creator Malcolm Craig. Issue 2 focuses on UK politics in the early 1960s and how they might have flowed into post-apocalyptic London.
Each Transmission also includes a pre-written game set up, with appropriate characters so you can give Hot War a go with minimal set up.
They’re both well written and useful for Hot War games. So go check them out.
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.