Film Review : Tron Legacy

 Culture  1 Response »
Dec 302010
 

Hollywood often takes flak for needlessly rushing out sequels and remakes of perfectly good films, which is why I applaud the recent trend of producing bewilderingly belated remakes (Clash of the Titans) and sequels (this) to frankly terrible films.

Tron certainly didn’t need a sequel. But what it lacked in plot and characterisation (and pacing, and coherence) it made up for with a strong visual and audio aesthetic. Nothing looked and sounded like Tron, it struck out in its own direction and its subsequent lack of commercial success ensured that nobody bothered to follow it. It stood proud and alone, an all-but forgotten time capsule of early CGI and 80′s computer slang.

Tron Flying Ship Thing

Tron Legacy is not a great film, but is does have some of the same styling has the original, perhaps wisely watered down for more popular appeal. It certainly looks fantastic, with sleek lines and imaginative action sequences. The characters are weak and the plot is simplistic, with an ending that is not so much telegraphed from the first act as teleconferenced with a detailed powerpoint presentation. But plot is not why people go to a Hollywood blockbuster, and Tron Legacy’s 2 hours feel like the drumsticks in KFC Quarter Packs – tasty and they pass quickly.

The credits say that the producers commissioned Daft Punk to write the soundtrack for Tron Legacy, but honestly it could have been other way around – Daft Punk’s whole career was basically an audition tape for this job. The traditional Daft Punk sound is augmented with an orchestra and it sounds great. Or maybe GREAT!, it sure is LOUD but a film this visual needs a strong soundtrack to go with it.

One of the things I am most enjoying about the recent crop of 3D movies is that directors are finally being forced to hold shots steady for more than 3 seconds. Action movies were becoming almost impossible to watch due to the incredibly fast cutting that seemed to be mandatory for any fight scene, it was bad enough in 2D but positively nauseating in three dimensions as audiences’ eyes struggled to keep up. Despite the excellent special effects, Tron Legacy looks very old fashioned in terms of shot length and placement, with all the action happening safely mid-field, something that my middle-aged eyes find refreshing.

According the the IMDB, the same director is readying a remake of another terrible film with a strong visual flare, The Black Hole, for deployment in 2012. I am almost looking forward to it… (hopefully they manage to recreate the insane original ending.)

Tron Legacy : Recommended if you can see it in 3D

Game Review : Light Speed

 Games  No Responses »
Oct 252010
 

A lone asteroid tumbles slowly through the inky vastness of darkness of deep space, as it has for millions of years. Suddenly a ship winks into existence just a couple of hundred metres away – emerging from hyperspace in a purple flash. Milliseconds later it is joined by another, and another, completely surrounding the lonely rock. The Empire has sent a fleet to liberate the rare ores that are urgently need for the war effort. But the purple bursts have been interspersed with bright blue flares – the Federation has also sent a fleet. Lasers flare, this will all be over in seconds…

Light Speed describes itself as a real-time space combat table top game – sounds impossible but this simple little game manages to fit a lot into a very small package. Each player (up to 4) starts with a deck of cards, each representing a particular class of ship. Each ship has a number of lasers, a hull rating (life points), a speed rating and possibly some shielding to protect it. The battle begins by all players drawing a ship from their deck and placing it on the table in a hopefully advantageous position where its lasers will do the most damage to either the asteroid or to an opposing ship. Once a ship has been played it cannot be moved. Once a player has placed a ship they can draw and place another one as quickly as they like without waiting – the game ends when the first player has warped in his entire fleet so everyone needs to be paying attention. If a player still has cards in hand the un-played ships do not take part in the battle.

Once the ships have popped out of hyperspace (this takes about 30 seconds), a huge battle commences. This constitutes the scoring and takes a lot longer than actually playing the game. The smaller, speedier ships fire their lasers first but tend to have less powerful weapons and little shielding. The more powerful ships have massive armament and are well protected, but only get to shoot at the end of the battle meaning that they might already be fatally damaged before firing a shot. Space battles are not for the careless, friendly fire is a distinct possibility. Players get points for destroying enemy ships and mining ore from the asteroid (with the multipurpose lasers).

Light Speed is well named, being both light and speedy. The rules are simple and the play fast-paced. Even the scoring, a purely mechanical process, is quite fun as the battle turns on a few well placed (or misplaced) cards. There is certainly an element of luck, but quick thinking and cunning rules the day with plenty of opportunity for table talk.

Highly recommended, especially since it only costs US$5.00!

Book Review : The City and The City

 Culture  4 Responses »
Oct 172010
 

By China Miéville

There has been a brutal murder, and it is up to the suitably jaded but dogged Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad to investigate. But this case is different than most in the city of Besźel, as the crime was possibly somewhere else both close by and impossibly far away – Ul Qoma.

Besźel and Ul Qoma are two cities that occupy the same geographical location, literally intermingled in all senses except by the behaviour of their citizens. Some blocks and streets are totally in Besźel, some totally in Ul Quma, but many are "crosshatched" – belonging to both cities although under different names.

The inhabitants of each city are conditioned from birth to never interact with anything in the other city, carefully averting their gaze and ignoring ("unseeing") as much as possible the sights and sounds coming from the foreigners around them. Driving on crosshatched roads is a pretty hairy experience. Strict rules penalise anyone breaching the imaginary boundary between the two locations. In fact the crime of “breaching” is much worse than the murder Borlú is trying to solve – transgressors are quickly dragged off by mysterious figures, never to be seen again.

Solving this crime will take Borlú into the seedy underbelly of Besźel, where gangs nationalists opposed to even the slight contact between the cities struggle violently with unificationists who want to end the separation. But could the answer lie in Ul Qoma, a city with an underbelly of its own?

China Miéville showed a Dickens-esque ear for language in his excellent fantasy novels, and here he puts it to great use writing what is a great whodunit police procedural set in a slightly strange place. The City and The City is a genre piece, but the genre is gritty crime novel rather than fantasy and the book follows all the usual rules and doesn't cheat by introducing new rules at the last minute although, of course, misleading clues abound. There is very few good whodunit/fantasy crossovers and this is by far the best I have come across.

Reading around the Internet, I see that people have taken the split (or joined, depending on how you look at it) city as a metaphor for all sorts of things. Does unseeing represent class distinctions, racial separation, a method or Orwellian control, or something totally different? Miéville isn’t going to provide the answers in the book – the best allegories are those where no one has any idea what you are getting at, or even if you are getting at anything at all.

Highly recommended

Book Review : The Player of Games

 Culture  1 Response »
Oct 042010
 

A book by Iain M. Banks set in his nigh-utopian “culture” society that features a strangely named misfit with a unique skill who gets manipulated into performing a mission of great danger and importance. Who could have guessed?

In this case, the weirdo is Jernau Morat Gurgeh, who is very,very good at games. So good that he the perfect choice to travel outside of the Culture to the Empire of Azad to play the greatest game he has encountered. The game is simply called Azad, and is based on (or forms the basis for) the tenets of the Empire’s society. Those that play the game well gain power, prestige, and government posts, even the emperor is selected this way. Those that play and lose fare badly. Azad (the game) is fantastically complex, so much so that actions that take place on the room-sized boards are supposed to represent the core philosophies of the players, making it a fantastically useful HR tool. Anyone who wants to get anywhere in Azad society devotes their lives to the study and practice of the game.

Although Jernau is only supposed to be the token Culture participant, he finds that his alien playing style confounds the natives and he does better than anyone predicted, although at a cost to his somewhat fragile psyche. Eventually, as he learns more about the game and Azad society in general (linked as they are), Jernau comes to believe he could go all the way to the final and play for the empire itself.

The Player of Games is one of Bank’s more approachable books, not having any of the stylistic or structural gimmicks of some of the other Culture novels. The story is pretty straight forward (there is a twist, but it is fairly transparent) but told in the usual imaginative style. The Azad are vividly described, seeing them through the eyes of somebody both living amongst them and playing against them is an interesting literary device. The book’s main point that games are a window into the soul of a society is well realized, if maybe a little heavy handed. But you know what you are getting yourself into when you pick up an Iain M Bank’s book, I suspect he types with concrete gloves.

Recommended if you like this sort of thing.
        

Book Review : I, Claudius

 Culture  4 Responses »
Sep 132010
 

Born into the leading family of Rome in 10 BC, Claudius seemed ill-favoured right from the start. Afflicted by disabilities and a bad stutter, he was an embarrassment to most of his family and kept out of the public eye for most of his life, weathering several personal tragedies and busying himself with his writings. Being discounted as an idiot by his relatives in power allowed him to survive several deadly purges and eventually rise to the position of emperor by default, everyone else being dead.

I, Claudius cover illistrationI, Claudius by Robert Graves is an historical novel that proports to be the secret autobiography of Claudius from his childhood up until his surprising assumption of power. Grave’s Claudius states up front that he is writing a true history for the ages that will not be found for hundreds of years so he can include information that is damaging to either his family or the political body of the empire. Claudius was apparently a keen student of history, and this is reflected in the clear, dispassionate narrative that Claudius/Grave weaves around what must have been stressful times for the protagonist.

This book is a treat for fans of irony. Claudius himself harbours republican sentiments, but ends up being made emperor and dictator-for-life pretty much against his will when all he really wanted was a quiet life away from the limelight with his writings. As a fan of history, Claudius recounts a conversation as a young man with two famous historians about the merits of writing entertaining histories that contain inaccuracies, or dull and/or unpleasant histories that contain only the truth. Claudius states he sides with the truth but the whole passage is an invention of Graves, who was of course writing an entertaining novel.

Grave’s matter-of-fact style makes for a slightly dry read, but the story is well-told and the characters that swirl around Claudius are so larger-than-life that it is hard to put the book down. Highly recommended.

Game Review : Citadels

 Games  2 Responses »
Jul 172010
 

Citadels is an easy but fun card game where the players compete to construct the most impressive city by amassing wealth to spend building various districts (docks, university, cathedrals, etc). The game ends when a player plays an eighth district then everyone’s city is scored (and certain bonuses added) to determine the winner. Simple.

Or not so simple. There are 8 role cards, each player will get one of these each turn which will enable certain actions. For instance, the Magician role can swap hands with another player, the Architect can build more in a turn, the King gets first choice of roles for next turn, etc. Because there are more roles than players and the roles are chosen secretly in turn, the way to win lies in choosing the correct role at the correct time. Some of the more expensive districts also confer additional bonuses apart for score such as more money or protection from certain attacks so thinking several turns ahead is required.

Citadels can be quite a sneaky game – many of the roles allow you to ruin your opponents plans by stealing cards or money, or even destroying their hard won districts from under them. But it is hard to get an unassailable lead and the way the roles work means that no player can really feel ganged-up on. It is also one of the few games I have played that actually works better as a 4 or 5 player game (haven’t tried 6 or more) without leaving some players in an unwinnable position.

The game itself is attractive and the cards are well designed. The one flaw is that the role cards get constantly handled and can get bent or scuffed up, which is a problem since they are supposed to remain identical to maintain the secrecy required. The basic game is flexible, the official website has a whole bunch of alternate rules to turn it into a children’s party game or a drinking game (although hopefully not at the same time). With 4 or 5 players the game takes about an hour to play.

Highly recommended.

Card Game Review : The Spoils

 Culture, Games  1 Response »
Jul 152010
 

I think it is best to say two things right up front : firstly, The Spoils is a collectable card game just like Magic the Gathering. If you are not familiar with this form of gaming the rest of this review is going to be impenetrable, but in short each player builds a deck of cards from a much larger pool and then plays this against the opponent’s deck. Different cards have different effects, the skill in deck building lies in picking cards that compliment each other. The collectable part comes from the method of acquiring these cards, instead of just buying a full set you typically purchase small packs containing a random selection of cards, so each player is building decks from a different subset. Vast secondary markets exist for players wanting to trade surplus cards with others, sometimes for surprising sums of money since some card are deliberately printed in small numbers.

Secondly, The Spoils is a collectable card game just like Magic the Gathering. Seriously, it is basically Magic with a quick paint job and the VIN ground off. This is not necessarily a bad thing – I like Magic the Gathering, but the similarities are pretty blatant. I can almost imagine playing a Spoils deck against a Magic deck in the same game, most of the rules work in exactly the same way, only with different keywords (cards don’t get tapped, they become “depleted”, etc.)

Having said that, Spoils does differ in a few interesting ways which seem to be designed to make the decks play more consistently. A common problem with Magic is that sometimes you just don’t draw enough land cards of the correct type to play your hand full of spells. In The Spoils, you start the game with two staple resources (basic land) cards of your choice already in play – this hugely helps if you are running a 2 colour deck since you can ensure that you have both colours available.

Additionally, the costs for all cards are colourless – you can tap (sorry, deplete) any colour to pay for them. However, most cards have a “threshold”. A certain character (creature) might have a threshold of 3 rage (red) with a cost of 4 – to put this creature into play you must deplete 4 resources (of any colour) but you can only do so if you have at least 3 red resources out (depleted or not). Along with the staple resources there are special resource cards that still produce a single mana but count for double when calculating threshold, as a special bonus the card art for these special resources features scantily clad ladies for no particular reason.

You can play any card in your hand as a resource by playing it face down. These work just like regular resources but do not count towards threshold at all. Although you can usually only play a single resource a turn, you can deplete 3 resources to put another resource into play at any time.

Combat works much the same as it does in Magic, the big difference is that characters have an extra Speed statistic. This works much the same as first strike but with multiple levels, the faster character hits first and suffers no damage if it kills the other character outright.

These changes do make for a smooth game – it is almost impossible to imagine getting screwed by a bad starting hand in Spoils (especially since the mulligan rule is very forgiving.) On the other hand, one of the things I like about Magic is the unpredictability that forces you to have backup options in your deck if you don’t get what you want, Spoils is more forgiving but I think less flavourful. You could get much the same effect in Magic with a couple of house rules.

The card design is good without being brilliant, the art is perfectly OK if sometimes a little tacky. It may seem like I am damning The Spoils with faint praise, but there is actually a lot to like. It is just that The Spoils has little reason to exist in a world that already contains Magic the Gathering.

Film Review : The Holy Mountain

 Culture  3 Responses »
May 312010
 

A Christ-like fool of few words wanders around Mexico having surreal adventures before ascending into a tower to find a wise alchemist who becomes his guide on a journey to the titular mountain. Is it a Christian allegory? Is it a celebration of hippy mystical excess? Was it made in 1973? Is it social satire? Did the production crew take a lot of LSD? Was John Lennon’s money well spent? Is this movie worth watching?

The answers to all these questions are unknown, except for the ones about 1973 and LSD. The answer to both those questions is: “Hell Yeah!”

The Holy Mountain starts promisingly – a main character awakes in a pool of his own urine and gets into a fight with a deformed dwarf whom he soon befriends. Heading into town they make money from tourists by staging historical mock battles with reptiles and toads. The fool gets into various situations before which may or may not be intended to mirror the life of Christ or the cards in a tarot deck or both or neither. In any case, this part of the film has some eye-popping imagery and is nearly silent so you can make up your own story.

Things start getting a bit ropy when the fool meets the alchemist. The film basically slams to a halt as the fool is taught various rituals whose symbolism is only outweighed by their tedium. Things get worse when 7 other people are introduced – the rituals get even longer and less interesting. Finally they all set off for The Holy Mountain, meeting various temptations along the way.

This is a film I really wanted to like. I don’t mind the bizarre imagery, nudity, occasional graphic violence and ham-fisted social commentary. The first few scenes set things up nicely, but The Holy Mountain becomes so tedious once the story starts that it doesn’t even hold up as a slice of history.

Not recommended. Maybe it’s better if you have access to drugs, but you would probably be better off just taking the drugs.

Game Review : Cutthroat Caverns

 Games  No Responses »
Apr 142010
 

A motley band of adventurers descends into the inky darkness of the caverns in the quest for the fabulous artefact rumoured to lie somewhere deep within. Working together they should be more than a match for the terrifying creatures that wait in the shadows, but each member knows that only the most glorious amongst them will be able to claim the prize; perhaps a little backstabbing may help things along.

Cutthroat Caverns (boardgamegeek, publishers site) is a clever little game where players fight monsters as a team to gain “prestige”, the player at the end of game (usually 10 encounters) with the most prestige wins. Combat is handled by cards (there is no board), during each round the players each play one (or sometimes more) attack cards face down. These are then revealed to determine how much damage the current creature has suffered. If the creature is still alive, it gets a chance to retaliate in kind, usually striking a random player for some damage of its own.

The fighting continues until the creature’s health is reduced to zero – the twist being that only the player that struck the killing blow gets all the prestige regardless of how much damage they did over the course of the rumble. This scoring system provides the tension in the game; you usually have a range of attacks in your hand but there is no point playing your strongest cards unless you are sure that you are going to be the one who makes the kill. On the other hand, someone is going to have to do some damage to the monster or else it will make mincemeat out of party.

In addition to attack cards, there are also “items” that can be picked up along the way (representing potions and magical amulets, etc) which confer certain benefits. There are also “action” cards that can be played at certain times to aid or disrupt attacks, hopefully in ways that will be of benefit.

So far so good, Cutthroat Caverns neatly encapsulates the cheesy DnD hack-n-slash games without all the bother. What really makes the game fun is the variety of the monsters, each one is almost a different game. Some attack randomly, some can not be damaged by certain attacks, some attack the players that attacked for the most damage (or least damage, or simply who hit first) last turn, others damage everybody equally at the end of each turn. It is this randomness (10 creatures are drawn each game out of a larger pool) that ensures that each game is totally different.

Although the game has a high random component, it seems remarkably well balanced. Most of our games have ended with the party very nearly dead at the end of the 10 creatures, which leads to some very tense final encounters. It is possible to get killed, which removes that player from the game, but this will normally only happen towards end so it is not too unfair.

Cutthroat Caverns is obviously aimed at players who enjoy the trappings of role playing, but the game is simple and fast-paced enough to appeal to nearly everyone. If anything, playing it reminds me of Magic the Gathering, it is a much easier game but supports the same fast paced shifting of strategies and crazy reversals. 3 to 6 players are able to play, the more the merrier.

Highly recommended.

Film Review : A Boy and His Dog

 Culture  4 Responses »
Apr 122010
 

World War IV blasted the surface of the Earth to a barren wasteland across which roving bands of scabby bandits compete for sparse food supplies. Vic (Don Johnson!) is a young man who has teamed up with a telepathic dog to survive – Vic finds food for them both while the dog make itself useful sniffing out women (in short supply) for Vic to rape.

Yes, rape. What is it about 70s Science Fiction and rape? I have noticed this trend – up until the late 60s scifi was all space ships and aliens with heroic main characters. Not that they all portrayed woman as equals and complex characters in their own rights, but the protagonists at least had good intentions.

Then sometime just before 1970 somebody decided that scifi had to be all dark and twisted and a lot of stories started to appear where the main character basically rapes people. Sometimes this can work as social commentary but often it just comes across as exploitative and nasty. Was this a reaction to feminism? I don’t know, but it sure is irritating. Thankfully, not too many of these stories got made into films.

A Boy and His Dog almost gets away with the rape device since Vic is not very successful and is eventually taken advantage of by his supposed victim. A second point in the film’s favour is the humorous script and a light touch. Nothing is treated particularly seriously as the gormless Vic gets into one bizarre predicament after another in his quest for sex. Indeed, the general plot of the film and particularly the closing scene point to the whole exercise being conceived as the world’s most elaborate shaggy dog story, with the joke being on the audience. The second male lead actually being a shaggy dog may also point to this interpretation being correct.

What could have been a horrific and repellent story is redeemed by a well realised film that is a ropey in some places but pitched so perfectly that its flaws can be overlooked.

Recommended, but only if you like this sort of thing. Otherwise avoid.

Film Review : Fantastic Mr. Fox

 Culture  No Responses »
Apr 112010
 

Mr. Fox was a world class chicken thief but gave it all up years ago for a quiet middle-class existence when his child was born. He still yearns for some old-time larceny and naturally jumps at the chance for one last big score. Things do not go entirely to plan and Mr. Fox’s grand schemes may have grave consequences for his family and friends. Is Mr. Fox as fantastic as he believes himself to be?

Fantastic Mr. Fox is on the surface a fairly straight-forward children’s tale of talking animals vs mean humans. But director Wes Anderson infuses the story with his own brand of obsessive observation and the result is a mixed if enjoyable bag. The stop-motion animation is a throwback to the stiffly animated kiddy shows of the past such as the old Wind in the Willows show – it makes Wallace and Gromit look positively realistic. I found this to be charming, but heaven knows what anyone born after 1990 would think of it.

Some of the scenes may be a little talky for young children and a lot of the humour is wry rather than slapstick gags. Also, identifying with the main character is fairly hard, the film does not shy away from showing Mr Fox’s flaws. This makes for an interesting plot, but I doubt we will see Mr Fox’s face showing up on kids lunch boxes.

It is actually quite hard to see who Fantastic Mr. Fox is aimed at – it doesn’t have the universal appeal of Wallace and Gromit, nor can I imagine teenagers really liking it. If I was paranoid I would suspect it was aimed directly at me.

Recommended if you like this sort of thing.

Film Review : Avatar

 Culture  4 Responses »
Jan 032010
 

James Cameron has always been an interesting film maker. Although on one level most of his films could be classified as pulpy genre-related fare, they usually have a more interesting subtext lurking below the explosions. Previous Cameron films have investigated such themes as mother/daughter relationships, humanity’s fear of the unknown, musings on fate and predestination, and whether it is morally acceptable (and perhaps even admirable) to slum it with a good looking lower class boy for a few weeks before you get married even though an ocean liner might not be the best place to do so. So it is with a heavy heart that I have to say Avatar is a slight disappointment.

avatarThe planet of Pandora (Who names these planets? What were they thinking?) has some stuff that humans want to mine. Unfortunately, the best place to get it is right on top of where the indigenous population (8 foot tall skinny blue people called the Navi) live in harmony with their world. The Navi are distrustful of the humans, so in order to investigate the Navi a bit more, the humans create the titular avatars – mindless Navi bodies that certain individuals can “drive around” remotely. The main character is just such an individual, and he (or his avatar) quickly becomes involved in the local tribe. Although the humans would prefer that the Navi move on without violence, it is clear that a military solution, led by a crazed marine, might be more expedient…

It is almost impossible to spoil anything about Avatar’s plot, no doubt you have already guessed the direction it which it unfolds. It is a shame that for all the risks involved in making what is apparently the most expensive movie ever made (it certainly looks like it), the story is as safe as an after-school special. The film could have made some interesting points about colonialism, or environmentalism, the military, or even feminism, but instead chooses to unspool a conventional yarn where the good guys are selfless and the bad guys are crazy and evil. It is not that is it a bad story per say, just something we have all seen many times before.

I saw Avatar in 3D, it is by far the best 3D experience so far. The lush jungles and mist-shrouded peaks of Pandora look amazing – Avatar is simply the greatest visual treat I have ever seen. The contrast between the sharp grey lines of the human base with the colourful, glowing environment outside is very well rendered. James Cameron has always been interested in portraying technology and Avatar is no exception – a nice touch is that all of the displays that the humans use during the movie are also in 3D. There are a thousand little details like that I loved about Avatar, it is just a shame that the whole thing isn’t as great as the sum of its parts. However, anyone who shares Cameron’s love for helicopters and giant robots and things being blown up by helicopters and giant robots will be thrilled.

Highly recommended if you can see it on the big screen in 3D. Otherwise only recommended if you like this sort of thing (but who doesn’t?)

The Phantom Menace Was Not a Very Good Movie

 Culture  5 Responses »
Dec 172009
 

I own all of the Star Wars DVDs except for one – The Phantom Menace. Even the weakest of the others have a certain charm, but TPM was stupid through and through. Even the title is stupid! I have yet to work out exactly what the titular menace actually was. Although the story includes several menaces, none of them seem particularly phantomastical. Unless the menace was supposed to be Palpatine’s amazingly convoluted plan, but that plot point doesn’t really bear fruit until the second film.

Anyway, I haven’t given The Phantom Menace much thought since it first came out but this guy certainly has:




Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Even if you ignore the affectations of the reviewer, he has some pretty insightful points about how TPM fails as a movie.

Catan – The First Island

 Computer  1 Response »
Nov 032009
 

Catan ScreenshotI love the Settlers of Catan board game, so when an iPod version appeared in the App Store for $6.49 I grabbed it straight away. Dubbed “Catan – The First Island“, the app includes everything in the core game, I assume more games based on the Catan expansions are on the way.

The app plays a pretty good game, the interface is fairly straight forward and trading between players is handled well. Some rule variants are supported, like starting with a city instead of a settlement or different point targets. There are even different ways of distributing the resources for wusses who can’t take random chance. The computer players put up a fair challenge, and you can play hot-seat multiplayer but there is no internet play – an obvious omission.

Unfortunately, Catan also has some fairly annoying flaws. Firstly, the game is buggy. On both my first two games the computer player refused to finish its turn, leaving aborting the game the only option. The other 3 games I have had have worked smoothly so I still don’t know what I did to trigger that bug. Loading a saved game also sets some of the options back to the default, which is a pain but not game breaking.

Speaking of saved games, Catan does not automatically save your progress when you dismiss the app to go back to the iPod main menu. When you re-enter Catan it pops you back at the title screen with no way to resume unless you manually saved the game, something you can only do during your turn. This is intensely annoying, not to mention against Apple’s App guidelines and I hope the fix this if nothing else in an update.

The graphics are just OK, they get the job done without being very attractive and the board animation looks terrible. The whole package seems just a little unpolished – it works but needs just a little more attention to detail. The only thing that really saves Catan as an App is the mechanics of the game itself, which still shine. Perhaps after an update or two “Catan – The First Island” will reach its potential, but right now it is only for die-hard Catan fans.

A disappointment, only recommended if you like this sort of thing.

Space Ace

 Computer, Games  3 Responses »
Jul 302009
 

Remember Space Ace? The massive machine at the back of the greasy arcade you used to frequent? The one that played a cartoon that you had to react to? The one that cost twice as much as any other game? Of course you do. Well now it is back, and it’s just as bad as it was back then.

Space Ace

Space Ace (like its older brother, Dragon’s Lair) was/is on the very edge of the graphics/gameplay scale. The graphics were amazing, consisting of several minutes of action packed hand-drawn animation. But all it was really doing was playing video clips straight from a laser disk which meant that interaction was limited. Every few seconds something on the screen would flash, which was your cue to move the joystick in that direction. React too late and the hero would die in some amusing way. There was nothing quite like it.

Space Ace has just appeared in the iTunes store, and I felt oddly compelled to shell out the $6.50 asking price and suffer through the 280Mb(!) download. The animation is just as I remember it, unfortunately so is the gameplay. It is basically Guitar Hero, but “controlling” the beats of action on screen rather than beats in a musical score. This is not in itself a terrible idea, but there is only so much video you can fit on a laser disk circa 1982 so the plot is very short and once you have learnt the patterns the game is very easy. The onscreen joystick works OK, but is quite picky so you have to be exact with your fingers.

Space Ace

Despite these limitations, Space Ace is in its heart an imaginative and silly game. I find myself enjoying revisiting it even though I will probably finish it in the next few days.

View Space Ace attract sequence on Youtube.

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