PAD #21: Of Zombies and Dragons (and Vampires, too)

I was able to get out and see How to Train Your Dragon 2 yesterday, and it was just plain awesome.  The movie really did a lot of expand on the lore of the dragons, to the point where even details of the first movie make a bit more sense.  The villain I feel could have been handled a little better, but he was over-all as menacing as he needed to be.  Hiccup goes through the movie convinced that if he can talk to Drago, then he can convince him that his methods are wrong, and that there's no reason to fight this war.  After-all, he was right the first time everyone disagreed with him, so he's certain that he's right this time.  Needless to say, part of the crux of the movie is Hiccup learning that some enemies simply cannot be reasoned with, and the means by which he learns this lesson will definitely leave an impact with some people.

I was browsing at Half-Price the other day.  Technically I was looking for the first How to Train Your Dragon, since my dad hadn't seen it and I wanted to get him up to speed before we all went to see it the next day.  It most certainly wasn't a convenient excuse to watch the movie again (or maybe it was).  Anyway, I ended-up just having to get the movie at Best Buy (it was on sale, so score on that), but while I was browsing at Half-Price I stumbled across a gem that I can't believe I hadn't gotten up until now:  Shaun of the Dead.  Screened it today to make sure that some jerk hadn't sold it to Half-Price to unload a broken disc (it's not exactly feasible to screen every movie they get, so it can happen).  It works just fine, and I was able to add a movie that needs to be in any zombie movie collection.

So yeah, that's two awesome movies I got this weekend that I should have gotten ages ago.  I've always been kinda slow about buying DVDs (and I guess these days, Blu-rays).  I guess I just don't watch movies at home all that often, so it never feels like a priority.  Still, it's nice to have a good collection of seasonal flicks, like zombie movies for May, or horror flicks for October.  Not the kind of horror you're likely thinking about, though.  No slasher flicks, and not even that many ghost-type flicks.  They're too cliche and just tend to not work.  Rather, I like movies like Let Me In or 30 Days of Night.  Let Me In because it tells a love story where the couple winds-up together in the end, but it can hardly be called a happy ending because of the ominous implications about their lives that the movie alludes to, and 30 Days of Night because it's just so visceral.  I suppose it could be classified as a "slasher", but it does so in a way that works.  Most slashers are so sloppy about introducing characters that it's hard to give a crap when they get picked-off, and the villain's motive is usually bland.  Granted I haven't seen any of the classics yet, but the slasher genre has never really done it for me; with 30 Days of Night being an exception.

Well, that'll wrap things up for tonight.  Thanks for joining me for today's PAD, and I'll see you tomorrow.  Until then, game well.

PAD #20: [Edit] Whoops, Forgot the Title Again

Looks like a big debate right now (or non-debate, depending on who you ask) is about framerates.  The debate comes about with games in the next gen still running in 30 FPS (Frames Per Second).  That, in and of itself, probably wouldn't have gotten too much controversy going, except that in response to people noticing this, some developers have started stepping-up to defend their choice to stay with 30 FPS by claiming that it's better.  In one case in particular, the studio insisted that they opted for 30 FPS because they wanted the game to have a "film-like" aesthetic.  My personal opinion?  They're doing the same style of backtracking that Bungie was doing when Halo only allowed for 2 weapons.  The only difference is that "tactical decision-making" has been replaced with "better aesthetics".  Don't get me wrong, I get it.  After all the hype of the "next generation" of gaming, it's only natural that people are going to be disappointed that we're still running on yesterday's framerates, so of course developers are going to start finding ways to justify the decision.

Looks like another hot debate was kicked-off by Ubisoft.  The short version is that responded to the question of a female playable character in the next Assassin's Creed by saying that it would be too much work to include.  They later replied to the controversy by pointing out that the narrative of the game would include strong female characters; they just wouldn't be playable.  Now, I will grant that adding an extra gender to a game definitely is more work.  If nothing else, there's the matter of a different character model.  The real meat of the controversy is whether or not adding extra animations and costumes is as much work as Ubisoft claimed.  Honestly, it feels to me like Ubisoft is getting caught in a lie.  Animators who have worked on games that feature both male and female playable characters have been chiming-in to say that it isn't as much work as Ubisoft makes it sound.  So it begs the question, were playable female characters ever a part of the plan?  If they were, then it's sounding like Ubisoft is mismanaging their resources if they really do feel that women were so much extra work that they just had to be cut.  Meanwhile if women were never on the agenda, then wouldn't it have been a better PR move to come up with something better that other studios couldn't call you out over?

Pulling my head out of the gaming'verse for a while, I watched How to Train Your Dragon today to get caught-up before seeing the sequel tomorrow.  I absolutely love that movie.  I'll be honest though, when I first heard about the movie I had my doubts.  The trailers didn't really do a good job of showing the human characters, so they looked kinda half-assed, and the plot wasn't really explained all that well.  Even the shots of Toothless in the commercials I saw didn't really do a good job of giving him that awesome/cute vibe he has going on.  It just seemed like a movie that was getting hastily slapped together for the sake of the easy "it doesn't have to be good because kids will make their parents see it anyway" cash grab, and that I would be obligated to hate it for somehow managing to make dragons look bad (something that should be illegal).  Thankfully, I decided to go see the movie anyway, if only because it was getting a lot praise from reviewers.  I absolutely feel in love with the movie.  The jokes were clever and generally worked, the story had great emotional weight, and the dragons (especially Toothless) were completely awesome.  Needless to say, when I saw a the teaser for it last year, there were no words to be had.  Just slack-jawed wonder.

I'll definitely be posting my thoughts on the movie when I come back on Monday.  Thanks for joining me on today's PAD, I'll see ya guys in a couple of days.  Until then, game well.