Postal (2007)

Postal (2007) is a film adaptation of the video game series of the same name. Identically to the video game series, Postal (2007) is all about the humour and gratuitous violence; It does this very well and is by far the most true to source game adaptation I have ever seen and as such would be my personal favourite game adaptation. Admittedly the film is rather corning, but it is supposed to be and I for one find it hilarious.

“

And you shall know when the final day of reckoning begins, because on that day a tiny entertainer will be RAPED BY A THOUSAND MONKEYS! ... Bring on the Monkeys!

”

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time is a film adaptation of the well know and loved Prince of Persia series that contains almost a record number of games that stretch back all the way to 1989. Overall I would say that it is one of the best game to film adaptations I have ever watched, but unfortunately that still only translates into a average fantasy action film; But if you are a fan of either the action genre or Prince of Persia I would recommend giving it a try (and as a fan of both I rather like it).

Like the game, the protagonist is a prince who comes across the Dagger of Time and the Sands of Time and must stop some apocalyptic catastrophe from happening, which was set in motion because of his actions and the Sands of Time. But what the movie is mostly about is the action with the prince and others fighting in many situations and the prince in particular showing off quite impressive acrobatics throughout.

One thing to note is how non ostentatious the film is. Even with some magic thrown in, the film is just not as flashy as you normally see nowadays. The graphics, special effects, and even fight scenes are very good and enjoyable but often stay within the realm of realism, so much so that I have encountered problems finding good screenshots. Now I think I better explain further, I think this is a good thing and that even in fantasy films filled with magic there is still a place for realism. And it is not that it takes away anything from the film while you are watching it, it simple never goes over the top.

Pandorum (2009)

Now I don't normally write about non-game related media on this blog but this is a special case. First, what game lover does not enjoy a little scifi? and secondly my opinion of this movie is radically different from any other I have heard thus far.

Pandorum is one of the very best scifi films of all time and also simply a great movie. It has a horror scifi plot that keeps you guessing right up to the end. And for some reason it is almost universally hated.

“

Boom. Oh, how the whole world cheered to the thunder of earth's mightiest creation, Elysium.

”

First off, and most importantly to me, there are no major logic holes in the film.

Secondly, and just as uniquely there are actually parts of the film you will not only not guess within the first few minutes but until they happen.

Now, I am not going to ruin the plot for anyone, so I suggest just going out and watching it.

Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40K Movie (2010)

Recently watched the 2010 film Ultramarines and, especially for a game turned movie, it was quite good. And I am not just saying next to these piles of crap it is good, I would say it is at least an average film and I very much enjoyed it.

“

They [The Space Marines] are more than mortal, they are steel and they are doom. They are the champions of mankind and the greatest of them all are the Ultramarines.

”

Warhammer 40,000, for anyone who does not already know, is primarily a scifi tabletop wargame in the same vein as DnD. But it could also be said that it is primarily a universe, as the creators has put in a huge amount of backstory into it and numerous books, two video games, and other assorted spin-offs have been created.

“

Everything has a purpose, the Emperor ordains it so.

”

“

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.

”

The basic story, at least what I know of it, is there are the protagonists the good, but totalitarian, genetically engineered Space Marines who fight for the humans and their nemesis, Chaos, primarily seen as Chaos Marines and Demons. Add to this a hoard of militaristic alien races and picture them all locked in a never ending struggle and you might have an idea of what this is all about.

“

Chaos breaks mens souls. Chaos brings the pestilence of daemons. Every time we march from our beloved fortress home on Macragge, we march to face down Chaos, and banish it. (Macragge is the home world of the Ultramarines)

”

So back to the film. My favourite part of the film was the awesome quotes in the dialogue, some of which I have included in this article, but overall their were more things that could really do with improvement then impressive features. For one, the graphics were nothing special, not bad but nothing more then that. Secondly, no interesting tactical manoeuvres were shown, which is a mainstay of the tabletop game, so I was looking forward to their being some. And their was not even any particularly great action sequences.

“

I am steel! I am doom! I march for Macragge! And I shall know no fear!!

”

The Name of the Rose

The boardgame based on The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose was originally a novel written by Umberto Eco. It tells of a historical murder mystery set in a Italian abbey in 1327 and of William of Baskerville's search for the truth accompanied by his novice Adso of Melk. In addition to the book their are many other works that have been based on the story. One of the best adaptations in my opinion is the 1986 film by the same name; This film is one of my all time favourite films and very accurately portrays the original story. Another adaption considered to be very good is called The Abbey of Crime and was originally released for the Amstrad CPC 6128 but has since received many ports to both old and new hardware. Less illustriously their are also numerous plays, a boardgame, and a 2008 graphical adventure game titled The Abbey.

What started my love affair with The Name of the Rose was the film; Which I liked so much that I searched out the other media. So in addition to the film I have read the book and played both of the video games. In this article I plan on discussing these adaptions and the original work.

So where else to start but at the beginning with the novel. It is 1327 and Europe is clouded with superstition and filled with the poor and religion and the inquisition rain supreme. William of Baskerville, a Franciscan friar, and his young novice Adso of Melk are travelling to a remote abbey to take part in a debate between representatives of the pope and of the Franciscans; The Franciscans are arguing that Jesus advocated poverty and so the church should not horde wealth, an opinion that that pope feels is heretical (as the church has one of the biggest concentration of wealth in the world).

Arriving at the abbey they learn that a monk has just died under suspicious circumstances and that the devil is suspected. Because William is renowned as a investigative genius he is soon asked to investigate this death. William approaches the investigation, and all of life it seems, with an unusual logic and an almost omnipotent gaze that seems to pick up on the details other men miss. In this he is very much like Sherlock Holmes, with Adso taking the place of Watson. William soon uncovers the circumstances of the death but that only leads him to a larger more sinister mystery as more people start dieing.

The movie is by far the most accurate adaptation of the plot, and also simply a great movie. It stars Sean Connery as William who portrays his part very well, along with the other less famous actors. I am a pretty big movie fan but The Name of the Rose (1986) is actually my favourite film of all time. Their do not seem to be any noticeable differences from the novel, other then the absence of some of the less important scenes. And everything in the film just looks right, I completely believe that that place could of existed, their is not a single element that did not seem right. And in its visuals I think their is even an improvement over the novel, as a description can only go so far; Actually seeing the dirty and squalid conditions that was the everyday life of the peasants in scene after scene really adds to the stories' impact.

The Abbey, or Murder in the Abbey in north America, is a third-person point and click graphical adventure game based on the plot of The Name of the Rose. But in this case loosely based, and it really does not even follow any of the basic themes, it simply has some very specific similarities. So it is not really an adaption so much as that it steals some chunks of plot from the original story. I have never been a fan of unnecessary changing adaptions, and would always prefer a completely new idea to a completely changed old idea, but in this case it actually makes sense (they wanted to mitigate the possibility of getting sued for copying Umberto Eco's work).

Compared to the original work The Abbey really seemed uninspired and simple, but held up on its own it really is not a bad game; Actually, I would say it is a decent game. One of the best parts of the game is its nice cartoon graphics that really make the game look like a children's movie, which I have not seen done before quite so well in game. The problem is that it also emulates some of the less appealing parts of some children's stories, which is to say the absence of some common sense and realism. While some parts of the game stick to the realistic importance and strictness of religion in this medieval world, huge parts of it completely ignore this with the protagonist often committing sins without batting an eye and with sometimes no one else even batting an eye. But one of my biggest problems with the game is the novice. In The Abbey the novice is portrayed as someone with obvious and extreme mental disabilities, or retardation; It seems like they made him like this to add a few laughs the the game, but personally I thought they went far too overboard and it was not funny in the least. Additionally, he is treated very strictly by his master, the protagonist and named Brother Leonardo in this game, and often forced to go against his conscience to preform sinful actions and constantly and harshly berated. All of this really makes Leonardo look like a egotistical bully, and I do not even think that it was intended by the developers.

Unfortunately, the flaws in the game are not limited to the script. Their is also a very annoying issue with the camera/visuals in some situations. For one, when you are trying to open the Hospital door the keyhole is completely invisible, even though you have to find it to open the door; And earlier in the Abbott's office the camera does not swing to show you the inside of a cupboard even though you must take items from it.

The Abbey of Crime, originally La Abadía del Crimen, is an isometric graphical adventure made for the Amstrad CPC 6128 in 1987 but was ultimately ported to the ZX Spectrum, MSX, MSX2, Amstrad CPC 464, Game Boy Advance, Java, Dreamcast, Spectrum, Linux-X86, Linux-PowerPC(PS3), PS2, WindowsXP , Mac_OSX, and PC Windows. The game is apparently considered one of the best of its era and for the most part the game seems to follow the general plot of the novel, but does not seems to get too involved in the details.

But to be honest it seems to be too old of a game for me to be able to play and enjoy it. For one even though the environment is moderately small and the game is played through a third-person perspective the screen changes its orientation for every area making orienting ones-self nearly impossible. Additionally, it seems that the most challenging parts of the film are mundane tasks that are only made challenging because of lack of instructions. Throughout the game you have to watch your obedience meter which depletes whenever you do not imitatively follow the rules and orders of the abbot, and when this reaches zero you have lost the game, but their are some rules that when broken will immediately land you a game-over. Right off the bat, seconds into the game, you must follow the abbot; The only problem is that the abbot walks at full speed and the controls are rather clunky so any mistakes, which you will make, will cause the abbot to turn around and scold you (taking some of your obedience bar for good measure). After this, and repeatedly throughout the entire game, you must attend mass and meals which require you to stand at very specific locations that are not told to you before hand. Which leads me to my other complaint, far too much time is spent at masses and meals; Every 5 to 10 minutes real time you much rush to the imminent mass/meal and if you miss it, guess what, you instantly lose the game. This is far too much time dedicated to a completely useless activity. And when not attending or walking to a mass their is absolutely no direction given to the player. Even with a walkthrough I was not able to make it far into the game, how anyone is supposed to play (let alone enjoy it) it is beyond me.

Babylon 5

Babylon 5 is a science fiction TV series created by Joseph Michael Straczynski. Overall it has a similar concept to Star Trek, particularly Deep Space Nine. But in practice it is quite unique.

While Star Trek can be overly preachy for some I believe Babylon 5 asks far more questions then it tries to answer. Star Trek can also be accused of being overly human centric and pro human, I do not think this can be said (at least very strongly) of Babylon 5. One thing they do share in common are quite a few actors, including Lwaxana Troi and Pavel Chekov.

The Babylon 5 universe spans two TV series (Babylon 5, and Crusade), 7 movies (The Gathering, In the Beginning, Thirdspace, The River of Souls, A Call to Arms, The Legend of the Rangers, Voices in the Dark), numerous novels and even a few games; And manages to be a very complex, interesting, and diverse universe.

I really love the different races and groups in the Babylon 5 universe. While all of them are interesting I found two of them particularly interesting, the Telepaths and the Technomages. In Babylon 5 telepaths come from almost all races, but the ones shown are almost all Human. They are often looked upon with fear and hatred by non telepathic humans and are derogatorily called teeps. Because of this fear the Psi Corps was formed to control the human telepaths. Technomages are a multi raced group of cyborg technicians, they employ technology to simulate magic. They are very well done and have many interesting tricks while never doing anything outrageous and unexplained.

Personally, I am a huge fan of complex fictional universes that take many books/films/TV series to outline properly. And while I have seen many, Babylon 5 is my overall favourite universe of all time.

Tarboy

Tarboy is a short animated film made by James and Hania Lee (married). It is simply the best short film I have ever watched. Not only does it have great graphics, voice acting, score, and design, the plot was designed and implemented outstandingly well.

The story is short enough that it would take less time to watch it then to explain it, so I entreat you to just go and watch it now, but I will spend a little time talking about the setting. Tarboy is set in a world populated totally by robots; This is used mostly as a graphics device, as the robots tend to act similarly to how you would expect a human to act. The main protagonist is aptly names Tarboy, as he is made of tar and he is out to get the tyrannical leaders ("fat cats") of this mechanical world.

Currently, Tarboy 2 is in production. As far as I know no release date has been given, and only a few details have been provided.

While little can be found online about James Lee, the talented Hania Lee (pronounced "Haa-nya") has many active electronic abodes. Primarily she is a musician, and has a quite a few award winning songs on newgrounds. as well as some videos of her singing and playing piano on youtube. In addition to her selection of free songs, she has a commercially available album titled Cuddle Punch!. She also manages to do the music for a lot of projects; Most recently she worked on the audio to a nice little internet video called Ballgina Safari.

Getting down to the basics, her musical ability; I just love her music and voice. Her collection is surprisingly diverse, while quite a bit of it is romantic/love songs she also has a bunch of songs for comedic/general flash movies and even a few games; She even has one song about necrophilia, which is very creepy. Out of her magnificent library of songs, for me, one stands slightly above the others in at least memorability. This is Come Closer, a romance song with very memorable lyrics.

In addition to Tarboy, the development team has also done a few less ambitious films: Popstar, Roller Coaster Junkie, Purged, and Make Snacks not War. Popstar and RCJ are both very good satirical flash films; While Purged is more of a serious short film and MSnW is pretty much an advertisement for Doritos.

Pixel Art

Pixel art has always been a favourite of mine, particularly in games, and after watching a recently released short documentary about pixel art called Pixel - A pixel art documentary I decided to write about a few games and a video that I think show off some really amazing pixel art (with lots of pictures included, of course).
Note: The still images do not do any of these games justice and I encourage you to play then all.


INDEX:

1. Small Worlds
2. Canabalt
3. Cave Story
4. Hero Core
5. DAN the MAN
   

Small Worlds
Small Worlds was made by David Shute, and is a short atmospheric exploration game.
The game always shows all the uncovered map and therefore zooms out more and more as you play. The amazing art and music of Small Worlds inspire the player to explore the world. I found it very reminiscent of Knytt, and it is the only other game, I have played, capable of competing with Knytt in pure atmospheric exploration.
Images(click to enlarge):












Canabalt
Canabalt is a simple running/avoidance game. The main difference from a normal avoidance game is the number of different types of obstacles, some not even instant death if hit, and the beautiful graphics that almost seem to tell a story as you play, even with the procedurally generated environment.Images(click to enlarge):





Cave Story
Cave Story is an amazing 2D action platformer that has been ported to just about every platform. It has tons of upgradeable weapons and abilities, as well as many diverse enemies and bosses to fight. Cave Story, deservedly, has been called a perfect game. It has an amazing story, great gameplay, fantastic music, and terrific art work.
Images(click to enlarge):





Hero Core
I have already written about Hero Core is a previous blog, but I thought it had too unique of a art style to not write about it again. To reiterate Hero Core is a retro science fiction action adventure game, reminiscent of Metroid. Not only are the graphics done in pixel art style, but it is in black and white. Nonetheless, the games visuals do nothing but improve the overall enjoyment of the game.
Images(click to enlarge):





DAN the MAN
DAN the MAN is a video made to look like a video game. It has many stereotypical elements, but goes past the defeat of the final boss and rescue of the princess to the unexplored realms of living a normal life after being a hero. Dan the MAN was made by studioJOHO, who have a few other interesting videos already out.
Images(click to enlarge):