Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Rant: Transformers- War For Cybertron (PS3)
Fun game when it works; shitty networking code sees to it that it frequently doesn't. I probably need to play more of these things but, otherwise, this is the worst networking and matchmaking system I've had to deal with in terms of lost connections and lag. When you can't even stay connected, let alone connect, to the matchmaking "Lounge" consistently something's seriously fucked.
From what I can tell the problem is that there's not so much dedicated servers as a system of players individually acting as hosts once the matchmaker declares them as such. This means your ability to stay connected to the game often relies on the bandwidth available to someone else's PS3 or, if you're really lucky, being declared the "Host"; in which case you'll likely be able to play to your hearts content while others get the joy of being kicked from your piddly ass connection throughout the match or crawl along as Laggzilla. Oh, and when your Host rage quits after getting spanked for the 10th consecutive time? Out to the lounge ye all go...
Yeah, that's there's the height of graceful failure code design.
Otherwise, you get kicked a lot and it won't really matter if you DMZ, Port Forward, or just slap your PS3 at the business end of your modem and pray because the game simply can't handle 10 players for significant stretches of time unless you luck into someone with a T1 into their house. You are gonna spend a shit ton of time trying to connect to a match, and even more being kicked out to try and get back in again.
Which is really unfortunate because the multiplayer is solid otherwise.
From what I can tell the problem is that there's not so much dedicated servers as a system of players individually acting as hosts once the matchmaker declares them as such. This means your ability to stay connected to the game often relies on the bandwidth available to someone else's PS3 or, if you're really lucky, being declared the "Host"; in which case you'll likely be able to play to your hearts content while others get the joy of being kicked from your piddly ass connection throughout the match or crawl along as Laggzilla. Oh, and when your Host rage quits after getting spanked for the 10th consecutive time? Out to the lounge ye all go...
Yeah, that's there's the height of graceful failure code design.
Otherwise, you get kicked a lot and it won't really matter if you DMZ, Port Forward, or just slap your PS3 at the business end of your modem and pray because the game simply can't handle 10 players for significant stretches of time unless you luck into someone with a T1 into their house. You are gonna spend a shit ton of time trying to connect to a match, and even more being kicked out to try and get back in again.
Which is really unfortunate because the multiplayer is solid otherwise.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Reviews from the Pad: The Last Airbender
Ooooohhhhh.... where, oh where to start on this one.....
Clusterfuck.
Yeah, I think that's an nice summary.
This will probably go down as a textbook example of how to poorly adapt material from one medium to another because what came out here is a disjointed mess of a film that makes the last Harry Potter movie (Half Blood Prince), look like it was executed by Spielburg in his prime. What's wrong you ask?
1) In attempting to cram the entire ~8 hours worth of events presented in the first season into the "child friendly" runtime of 1 hour 40 minutes Studio's demand the film ends up being a bullet point version of the first season. There's no story flow, no time for character development, and absolutely no sense to be made of what's going on here. This, folks, is where you either decide to make more films, make longer films, or tell your own damned version of the story that gives you time to hit the high points and establish who these people are while skipping that side trip they took over here to do that thing... you know... that only some purist is going to demand you stick to. Sometimes your Tom Bombadil's need to get tossed at the shredder.
2) The film is far too serious. The thing about Avatar (the show), is that the characters were kids but they were dealing with things in the same way kids do. Aang spent most of the first season hiding his internal turmoil behind a veil of humour. Sokka is the kid who wants to be treated as an adult, having been thrust into it by all the adult males leaving for war, but is in deep over his head and still hasn't grown emotionally past the phase where a "yo mamma" joke is the height of humour. Katara is in the same position but has gone through the kinda mirror imaging of Sokka that TV + Society tends to throw teen girls out of where she's gonna be the "mature one", who takes everything seriously but still is a kid underneath.
The film throws all this out. Aang starts in serious mode and never really gets out beyond the 30 seconds he gets to pretend he's still part of a massive tribe at the Southern Temple. Sokka is locked into "leader" mode far too early in his development. Katara is whiny female protagonist. Whether this is a failure of script, director, or actors, is something you can't really do from this end but it just doesn't work either way; the charm and relatability of the characters got gutted is the result.
3)Too many characters introduced results in wasted screen time. One of the other things the TV show was wise to do was to treat the Fire Lord as someone who had palpable effect on the world, yet wasn't an active participant until it was time for him to be the threat. It allowed you, and them, to build to the end game while focusing on the immediate threats to Aang et all within the current season. M. Night's mistake is to throw this out, forcibly insert him into the first film and create a bunch of moustache twirling scenes for him while depreciating screen time for the characters that needed to be introduced and elements that should have been explained now; like what exactly the "Avatar mode" is. Zuko and Zhao were meant to be the threats in this film; the Fire Lord could've been introduced (and cast), much later.
4) Flip side: wrong Characters introduced when others were necessary. Instead of meeting Aangs predecessor Roku to learn who, and what, the Avatar is we end up stuck with a spirit dragon, presumably adapted from the one Roku rides, who does neither; instead just spitting out gobble for Aang to sort.
5) Show, don't tell. Oh, god, does this movie trip over that axiom. On multiple occasions we get these tedious monologues telling us whats going on for the scene that should be being acted out in front of us. Mind you, Katara droning on about how Sokka and the Northern Princess "became friends immediately", got the largest laugh of the film. Which would be great, if it were intentional...
The sad thing is you begin to get the feeling we get these monologues not to hit runtime or because the scenes weren't shot, they're often being acted out in front of you while she drones, but instead because they just turned out like crap.
6) The action of the series was dynamic and energetic.... The movie.... not so much.... In fact, multiple scenes are just the actors doing the same thing to different targets and there seems to have been very little thought given to how to shoot large action scenes within the bounds of what these characters are capable of doing.
7) The movie itself has more kid gloves than the series it was based on. It frequently pulls it's punches: perhaps best exemplified in the final act which I'll only say deviates entirely from Aang, in his anger at the murder of the moon spirit and neophyte skill with his abilities, going full Avatar and rampaging through the Fire Nation forces as a giant water elemental to sweep them from the city in favour of... something less Hulkish and far more Ghandi-esque....
All this said, I'm gonna make the following suggestion: these days $15 gets you a 1 hour 40 minute movie. $26 will likely buy you 8 hours of the first season. Spend the extra $11. You'll have much more fun.
Clusterfuck.
Yeah, I think that's an nice summary.
This will probably go down as a textbook example of how to poorly adapt material from one medium to another because what came out here is a disjointed mess of a film that makes the last Harry Potter movie (Half Blood Prince), look like it was executed by Spielburg in his prime. What's wrong you ask?
1) In attempting to cram the entire ~8 hours worth of events presented in the first season into the "child friendly" runtime of 1 hour 40 minutes Studio's demand the film ends up being a bullet point version of the first season. There's no story flow, no time for character development, and absolutely no sense to be made of what's going on here. This, folks, is where you either decide to make more films, make longer films, or tell your own damned version of the story that gives you time to hit the high points and establish who these people are while skipping that side trip they took over here to do that thing... you know... that only some purist is going to demand you stick to. Sometimes your Tom Bombadil's need to get tossed at the shredder.
2) The film is far too serious. The thing about Avatar (the show), is that the characters were kids but they were dealing with things in the same way kids do. Aang spent most of the first season hiding his internal turmoil behind a veil of humour. Sokka is the kid who wants to be treated as an adult, having been thrust into it by all the adult males leaving for war, but is in deep over his head and still hasn't grown emotionally past the phase where a "yo mamma" joke is the height of humour. Katara is in the same position but has gone through the kinda mirror imaging of Sokka that TV + Society tends to throw teen girls out of where she's gonna be the "mature one", who takes everything seriously but still is a kid underneath.
The film throws all this out. Aang starts in serious mode and never really gets out beyond the 30 seconds he gets to pretend he's still part of a massive tribe at the Southern Temple. Sokka is locked into "leader" mode far too early in his development. Katara is whiny female protagonist. Whether this is a failure of script, director, or actors, is something you can't really do from this end but it just doesn't work either way; the charm and relatability of the characters got gutted is the result.
3)Too many characters introduced results in wasted screen time. One of the other things the TV show was wise to do was to treat the Fire Lord as someone who had palpable effect on the world, yet wasn't an active participant until it was time for him to be the threat. It allowed you, and them, to build to the end game while focusing on the immediate threats to Aang et all within the current season. M. Night's mistake is to throw this out, forcibly insert him into the first film and create a bunch of moustache twirling scenes for him while depreciating screen time for the characters that needed to be introduced and elements that should have been explained now; like what exactly the "Avatar mode" is. Zuko and Zhao were meant to be the threats in this film; the Fire Lord could've been introduced (and cast), much later.
4) Flip side: wrong Characters introduced when others were necessary. Instead of meeting Aangs predecessor Roku to learn who, and what, the Avatar is we end up stuck with a spirit dragon, presumably adapted from the one Roku rides, who does neither; instead just spitting out gobble for Aang to sort.
5) Show, don't tell. Oh, god, does this movie trip over that axiom. On multiple occasions we get these tedious monologues telling us whats going on for the scene that should be being acted out in front of us. Mind you, Katara droning on about how Sokka and the Northern Princess "became friends immediately", got the largest laugh of the film. Which would be great, if it were intentional...
The sad thing is you begin to get the feeling we get these monologues not to hit runtime or because the scenes weren't shot, they're often being acted out in front of you while she drones, but instead because they just turned out like crap.
6) The action of the series was dynamic and energetic.... The movie.... not so much.... In fact, multiple scenes are just the actors doing the same thing to different targets and there seems to have been very little thought given to how to shoot large action scenes within the bounds of what these characters are capable of doing.
7) The movie itself has more kid gloves than the series it was based on. It frequently pulls it's punches: perhaps best exemplified in the final act which I'll only say deviates entirely from Aang, in his anger at the murder of the moon spirit and neophyte skill with his abilities, going full Avatar and rampaging through the Fire Nation forces as a giant water elemental to sweep them from the city in favour of... something less Hulkish and far more Ghandi-esque....
All this said, I'm gonna make the following suggestion: these days $15 gets you a 1 hour 40 minute movie. $26 will likely buy you 8 hours of the first season. Spend the extra $11. You'll have much more fun.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Infodump: Troubleshooting
- Is your Macbook Pro behaving as if the Left Click is always on? If yes, proceed to:
- Does your trackpad not click anymore; behaving as if there's a huge dead spot in the middle and only responding on the absolute corners? If yes, proceed to...
- Is the undercover pushing away from the body? If yes, try removing cover, remove battery.
- Replace cover. Do not replace battery.
- Is your trackpad clicking/behaving normally now? If yes, proceed to
- Is the OS still behaving as if the Left Click is on? If no, proceed to...
- Your battery is likely defective, bulging, and applying pressure on the underside of the trackpad; compressing it and simulating a click. Do not continue to use battery: take the laptop in for confirmation and replace immediately (preferably under warranty).
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Link Storage...
Big Red Kitty, of Hunter-crafting fame, has popped out of retirement to fiddle with the Alpha at the request of the Design Team apparently. The resulting blog is amusing in it's own way.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Infodump...
No servers + no TV makes Davey go somethin... somethin...
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page finds that the government's plan to keep people in jail longer (and more people as well), has the potential to cost lots of money. No shit. This is a basic hospitality equation:
Take A people per room, divide that outta B (total occupants), each grouping staying an average of C days, and over that period you will need X rooms and Y amount of staff to service/maintain/operate them.
Now, when you start playing with C that whole equation starts to implode or explode really quick because you can't adjust A, unless you're prepared to go back to 1800's style room cramming, B isn't going to change (and the intent of the act is to increase it) so, when your A's who used to book January to June are now staying until September instead.... well, all of a sudden your A+2's need a new room to stay in for three months just to manage your current load.
Which means more rooms. More staff to run them. More expenses overall. Especially when you start adding the word "Security" in front of them.
This is fucking first year Hospitality Management stuff and we've a government that wants to pretend it won't happen because admitting you're about to double operating costs and send a massive bill down the road to the Provincial Parliaments you're not prepared to fund goes against message and might not float with people who would otherwise be on side. But, hey, expecting honesty and accountability from a politician is probably too much to ask.
Now, Leverage-ing...
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page finds that the government's plan to keep people in jail longer (and more people as well), has the potential to cost lots of money. No shit. This is a basic hospitality equation:
Take A people per room, divide that outta B (total occupants), each grouping staying an average of C days, and over that period you will need X rooms and Y amount of staff to service/maintain/operate them.
Now, when you start playing with C that whole equation starts to implode or explode really quick because you can't adjust A, unless you're prepared to go back to 1800's style room cramming, B isn't going to change (and the intent of the act is to increase it) so, when your A's who used to book January to June are now staying until September instead.... well, all of a sudden your A+2's need a new room to stay in for three months just to manage your current load.
Which means more rooms. More staff to run them. More expenses overall. Especially when you start adding the word "Security" in front of them.
This is fucking first year Hospitality Management stuff and we've a government that wants to pretend it won't happen because admitting you're about to double operating costs and send a massive bill down the road to the Provincial Parliaments you're not prepared to fund goes against message and might not float with people who would otherwise be on side. But, hey, expecting honesty and accountability from a politician is probably too much to ask.
Now, Leverage-ing...
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