Tyler F.M. Edwards's Blog, page 32

Review: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Season Two

As you may recall, I initially had a hard time getting into the Netflix/BBC adaptation of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. It was a strange, seemingly obtuse show with little connection to its source material. But by the end of season one, I’d been converted.

[image error]A year later, season two has appeared on Netflix, and I’ve been more than converted. I’ve been absolutely floored.

Compared to season one, season two’s plot is a fair bit more straightforward, but I use the term loosely. It’s still so bizarre and complex that I’d have a hard time knowing where to begin summarizing.

I can say it involves magic, scissor-wielding knights, pocket dimensions, a holistic method actress, a boat that fell from the sky, a purple people-eater, an epic gay love story, and the best worst cops ever.

Oh, and you might just learn the how and why of Dirk Gently’s existence along the way. Before, I disliked the attempt to provide an explanation for Dirk’s abilities, but seeing how it now fits into a greater mythology, I’ve come to appreciate the idea.

Much of season two deals with events in an alternate reality, a fairytale kingdom called Wendimoor. A surreal place of rainbow colours and childish ideas, Wendimoor initially seems like a place of utter silliness and absurdity, but I guarantee you that by the end of the season, you’ll be taking events in Wendimoor very, very seriously.

That said, while the show can still go to some fairly dark places, season two does have a lot more levity than season one. There’s more jokes, more humour, and a more whimsical tone in general, as well as some genuinely heartwarming moments.

[image error]A real highlight of season two comes in the form of two new characters, Tina Tevetino and Sherlock Hobbes, the only two cops in a tiny Montana town that lies at the heart of Dirk’s latest “case.” Bored out of their minds from their life in a town where absolutely nothing ever happens, Tina and Hobbes become almost frighteningly eager to assist Dirk’s friends on their exciting adventure.

They’re the worst cops ever, breathtakingly undisciplined and unprofessional, and yet almost overwhelmingly lovable and entertaining. They’re the best part of season two, and that’s saying something in a season that’s virtually flawless from top to bottom.

And truly, this is a season of television that has it all. Humour, drama, action, mystery, suspense, shock, horror… Name an emotion, and season two of Dirk Gently will make you feel it.

As before, the season begins seeming like chaos, like nonsense. Weirdness will be thrown at you hard at fast, and none of it will make any sense. But with each passing episode, more pieces will fall together. Everything will come together, and (nearly) every question will be answered. Anarchy becomes a symphony.

These are the kind of stories that both inspire and depress me, because I want so badly to be able to write like this, but I know I’m just not that good. Maybe one day I’ll become a good story-teller, but I’ll never be this good.

If I have one small complaint, it’s that Dirk himself takes something of a dark turn this season. He spends much of it in a state of depression, his confidence shattered and his sense of wonder replaced by cynicism. Now, this makes perfect sense given all that’s happened in his life, but it just doesn’t feel the same without Dirk’s usual manic enthusiasm.

[image error]In every other way, this is about as good as TV gets.

In researching this post, I was very saddened to discover that the BBC has cancelled the show. My hope is that Netflix may pick it up for a third season themselves, because this is definitely a show that deserves to continue, but if not, the silver lining is that season two does have a mostly conclusive ending, so it’s not like we’ll be left with an unfinished cliffhanger at least.

Regardless of what the future holds, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a show that has now earned my unequivocal recommendation. Season one took some getting used to but was worth it in the end.

Season two, on the other hand, is a masterpiece.

Overall rating: 9.6/10 Whether you know it or not, you need this show in your life.

Review: Star Trek: Discovery, “The Wolf Inside”

Well, this is better than last week’s disaster, even if that’s not a high bar to clear.

[image error]“The Wolf Inside” sees Burnham continue to struggle to maintain her cover in the Mirror Universe. When she’s ordered to massacre a group of rebels, she seeks alternate solutions, seeing the multi-racial insurgents as a pale shadow of the Federation of her own reality.

I really enjoyed this hopeful, idealistic Burnham. I wonder if she’s met the Michael Burnham who started a war with the Klingons out of blind racism.

This is another episode that hearkens back to Star Trek’s traditional identity — full of adherence to an idealistic morality — and it’s nice to see, but it’s starting to just feel like paying lip service. It’s like every few episodes the writers are like, “Oh, right, this is a Star Trek show. Better throw in a couple quick lines of moral pontificating.”

Because there isn’t a whole lot of depth here. The Mirror Universe is too much a cartoon parody of evil for this philosophizing about the potential for darkness within us to have any real resonance. One or two instances of the protagonists demonstrating basic decency does not a profound message make. Any claims to diversity or inclusiveness have been rendered moot by Discovery’s consistently shabby treatment of anyone who isn’t white or Burnham.

Also, the Tyler/Voq arc is still a mess. They’ve really painted themselves into a corner here. They can’t wrap it up too fast because it’s too integral to the both the main plot and the character arcs, but I really find nothing at all appealing about it, for all the reasons mentioned in my last review.

[image error]A betrayal story works best when the traitor is someone who should know better. Someone who was once good, or appeared that way, but fell from grace. Their bonds with the other characters need to be real for severing those bonds to mean anything.

There was never anything decent in Voq. It was all just smoke and mirrors. The stolen memories of a dead man. He’s just a monster. He can’t truly betray the Discovery crew because he was never really one of them. Emotionally, it all falls flat.

Once again, the highlight comes from Tilly. Oh, her story is boring and predictable in the extreme, but Mary Wiseman plays it so well.

She is too good for this show.

It occurs to me this reads as another very critical review, despite the fact “The Wolf Inside” was really a pretty decent episode. But that’s the risk in an arc-based series like this. If the entire arc is based on fundamentally weak premises, it kind of sucks the fun out of everything.

Other Star Trek shows had rocky first seasons, too, but in those cases you could just shrug and move on after every bad episode. Each week brought a fresh start.

[image error]Discovery doesn’t have that luxury. Its stumbles just keep accruing, threatening to sabotage the whole series. To paraphrase the great Sir William Talent, Discovery dug a hole so deep it’s going to drown in its mistakes.

Overall rating: 7/10

SWTOR: The Hunt Is On

The journey comes to a close. It may have taken around two years, but I have now completed all eight class stories in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Last but not least? Bounty hunter.

[image error]I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into the order in which I tackled the class stories. I mostly just went for whatever seemed interesting at any given time. However, as an Imperial loyalist, I did want my last class to be an Imperial, and that led to my Nova-inspired bounty hunter being the final one.

One last time:

Bounty hunter is neither the best nor the worst class story. It has a lot of great elements, but also a lot of rough patches and filler. It most reminds me of the Sith inquisitor story, in that it’s a plot that peaks very early, but its end doesn’t disappoint quite so badly as the inquisitor’s did, and some great characters help carry it through.

Chapter one is the highlight. The Great Hunt isn’t a particularly interesting premise on paper, but you have a good emotional investment in it via Mako and Braden (more on that later), and you encounter some very entertaining characters and situations along the way. It’s a good ride.

Chapter two, meanwhile, is pure filler in the truest sense of the term. It’s not interesting, and it doesn’t very little to advance the story. It’s just a waste of time.

Chapter three is more mixed, and to discuss that I need to back up a bit and examine the character of the bounty hunter themselves.

[image error]Something I’ve found frustrating from the outset is that Bioware clearly intends you to play your BH as a bloodthirsty sadistic thug. You can find more reasonable or diplomatic options, but even trying to play neutral, let alone good, is like navigating a minefield.

I’ve got no problem if people want to role-play their BH as psychopaths, but that wasn’t what I had in mind. I envisioned mine as a polished professional. A bit mercenary, a bit greedy (she is literally a mercenary after all), but not cruel or malicious. Just someone trying to make a living in a hard and unforgiving galaxy.

I won’t say it was impossible to achieve that, but it was harder than it should have been.

And it’s in chapter three this comes to a head. In chapter three, your character is a bad person. You don’t get a choice. There is no choosing the lesser of two evils. You just do awful, unpardonable things. Even the Sith classes almost always have the option to be kind and noble, but not the bounty hunter.

And that did not sit right with me. My BH was not a saint, but she wasn’t a monster, either. Not until the game made her one.

But then the ending turned it around. It’s hard to explain without spoiling things, but you do get your shot at redemption… or at least vengeance. It could have been handled better — I would have liked some opportunities along the way for my BH to express regret over what she’d been forced to do — but on the whole it proved a satisfying ending and at least somewhat absolved chapter three.

[image error]Speaking of characters…

The hunting party:

Bounty hunter is another class story where one of the companions ended up stealing the show for me. In this case, it’s Mako. I took an instant liking to her, and my appreciation only deepened with time. The fact she’s basically just Five from Dark Matter minus the blue hair probably contributes.

To me, Mako feels like the real main character of this story, especially early on. She has the emotional investment in the Great Hunt. She’s the one with a real arc, with real growth. The player BH just feels like a goon, whereas Mako is allowed to be a real person.

I quickly made it my head canon that Mako was the real brains of the operation, while my character was more the hired muscle. In every choice where Mako offered an opinion, I took her advice.

I have heard some people complain Mako is too soft to be a bounty hunter, and I kind of agree, but that’s what makes her an interesting character. She isn’t cut out for this life, but she doesn’t have much choice. This is all she’s ever known.

[image error]I was frustrated by how incomplete her story is, though. She has this great mystery building all through the game, and then it just ends without any answers or a clear conclusion. They must have meant to finish it post-launch, but then companions got abandoned until KotFE. Maybe they’ll finally finish her story if/when she gets reintroduced to the story.

Moving on from Mako, Gault is another great companion. Yeah, he’s a bit of a scumbag, but he’s just too much fun. He’s basically a dude version of Vette, and I’m very okay with that.

Unfortunately it’s all downhill from there on the companion front. First there’s Torian Snorian, who is the answer to the question, “What if drywall were a person?”

Then you get Blizz, an obnoxious cutesy mascot shoehorned into the class where an obnoxious cutesy mascot is most out of place, and Skadge, who is Tychus Findlay. Seriously, it’s the same voice actor, and essentially the same character. I didn’t like him in StarCraft, and I don’t like him here.

But at least your first two and most developed companions are awesome. That still averages to better luck on the companion front than some classes get.

[image error]As an aside, I tried something a little different with my companions’ appearances this time, as you may have noticed from the screenshots. Rather than giving everyone their own unique style, I tried to design all their outfits around a similar theme, a kind of uniform for the squad.

Of course Blizz kind of ruins it. Stupid space squirrel…

* * *

So bounty hunter won’t go down as my favourite class story, but it was a decent note to end on.

Stay tuned, though, as I will be doing at least one more post looking back on this entire journey.

Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

It is by now well established that I am not much of a Star Wars fan, my time in SWTOR notwithstanding. But I did see the last movie, so now I’m kind of invested in the new trilogy, and it’s such a huge franchise I kind of feel like I have to keep watching, if only so I can enjoy the inevitable memes and parodies.

So, okay, let’s do this.

[image error]I found The Force Awakens hard to rate, and The Last Jedi is harder still. I can see why the reviews are so mixed. This is a weird, inconsistent movie.

For one thing, there are, like, three climaxes. More than once you’ll think you’re watching the end of the movie, and then it will keep going for another hour. They’re all pretty powerful “endings,” but it does get a little overwhelming after a while.

This being Star Wars, logic is often left by the wayside. This time the most egregious act of dumbery is the fact that the First Order has somehow overthrown the Galactic Republic overnight, reducing its entire military is down to just four hundred people.

What.

The writers also still have no concept of linear time. Rey’s story appears to be take place over the course of many days, perhaps even weeks, while all the other action — which is clearly happening concurrently — is explicitly established to be taking place over the course of about twenty-four hours.

I really wish it didn’t have problems like this, because in a lot of other ways this is closer to a good movie than Star Wars has ever been, but it’s just so hard to get into the story when the bedrock of it just fundamentally doesn’t make sense.

[image error]It’s just simple laziness. These problems would have been so easy to fix. Give me a short montage of the Republic falling, a little exposition on how the First Order got so big so fast, and a few dialogue tweaks so the timeline actually works, and it would have been a much better movie.

I also would have liked to see more of Rey. She was by far the best thing about Force Awakens — really she was the only thing that saved that movie — but here she’s just a vector for Kylo Ren’s story. She’s in a decent number of scenes, but she doesn’t actually do much of anything.

Also, Poe is now suddenly a complete asshole for some reason.

On the other hand, there is a fair bit that I did like.

My favourite thing about The Last Jedi is that it surprised me, more than once. It’s not a predictable movie, and it’s not just a retread of what’s come before. It’s charting its own course, telling a new story, and offering some genuine and enjoyable twists.

Surprisingly — unbelievably — Kylo Ren turned out to be a highlight of the movie. He’s been fleshed out a lot more and now has a reasonable and compelling motivation beyond just “rawr evil.” Frankly I think he’s probably seeing things clearer than any of the other characters, though his methods for achieving his goals are still… less than ideal.

[image error]I suppose in a way he has taken the Sith Code to its ultimate conclusion, its purest form. “The Force shall set me free.”

It’s hard to get past his prior portrayal, though. I love the story they’ve given Kylo Ren, but I’d love it much more if they’d given it to a better character. The fact remains he spent all of the last movie acting like a spoiled emo child, and it’s hard to take him seriously in the face of that, even with his portrayal so much improved.

Meanwhile, Finn continues to be a lot of fun, and this time he managed to find a balance where he has a lot of personality, but is no longer so hammy about it. His new companion, Rose, is also a real delight.

I was happy to see a film finally acknowledge the failures of the Jedi, but I don’t think it did enough in that regard. Too much time was spent on Luke’s personal regrets and not enough on how fundamentally flawed the entire Jedi system is.

And of course, this is an absolutely gorgeous movie. Not just in the quality of the special effects, but they’re used with some real artistry, too. That moonlit chase scene was breathtaking, as were the bright colours of the final battle.

Oh, man, how I wish SWTOR could capture just some of the beauty and spectacle of the movies. Or the movies could be half as smart as SWTOR.

[image error]They’re such opposite extremes. The Last Jedi was — at least for me — the most powerful Star Wars movie to date by far, but it’s still nothing compared to confronting the Star Cabal or the showdown with Valkorion at the Eternal Throne.

On the other hand, SWTOR is ugly to look at and bland to play. It has no sense of spectacle. It’s emotional, it’s thoughtful, and it’s smart, but it has no flair, no style.

If I have to choose, I’ll still prefer The Old Republic. It has twice the heart and a thousand times more brains than the Star Wars films. But boy I wish there could be a happy medium.

But back on topic, The Last Jedi is, like its predecessor, a mixed movie with a lot to like, but also serious flaws. I’m a big defender of numbered reviews, but this is one case where just slapping a number on something is never going to capture the complexity of it all.

However, for consistency’s sake…

Overall rating: 7/10

Review: Star Trek: Discovery, “Despite Yourself”

I keep wanting to call this episode, “Trek Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself.”

[image error]So the speculation was correct: Following a malfunction with the spore drive, the Discovery has arrived in the Mirror Universe. This puts not only the ship in danger, but all of the Federation, as Discovery is the only ship with the intel needed to defeat Klingon cloaking. Desperate to return home, the crew hatches a daring scheme to infiltrate the Terran Empire and gain information crucial to finding a path back to their home universe.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Tyler’s mental state continues to deteriorate, putting the mission in jeopardy.

I was a little suspicious of Discovery going to the Mirror Universe so soon in the series, and it seems I was right to be concerned. Really, is rehashing old TOS plots all this show can do?

More importantly — and this is a weird thing to say, but it’s true — Discovery is way too dark to make the Mirror Universe work. Yes, it’s the evil universe, but it’s always been the goofy, cartoony vision of evil. The Mirror Universe is supposed to be Star Trek at its campiest. It’s a silly “what if” with no consequences. It’s just for fun.

Discovery’s grim tone sucks all of the fun out of the Mirror Universe. Its lost its all its colour and personality.

[image error]But the problems don’t stop there. “Despite Yourself” is a great summation of everything wrong with Discovery.

First, we got plot holes. Of course we have plot holes. It wouldn’t be Discovery without them. Sure, Stamets can’t run the spore drive in his current condition, but what’s stopping them just bio-engineering someone else to pilot it? Yeah, there’d be risks, but is it any less risky than going deep cover in an empire you know next to nothing about?

And why didn’t Discovery just transmit its findings on the cloak to Starfleet? And why is Tyler still on duty despite his obvious mental instability?

Next, we’ve got Discovery continuing to treat its non-white crew members as expendable. This show started with a great diverse cast, but at the current rate it’ll soon just be Burnham lost in a sea of white people. Nice infinite diversity you got there, Discovery.

The next issue is a big one, and it’s a spoiler, so if you haven’t seen the episode yet, you may want to skip the rest of this review. Though at this point you can hardly call it a surprise.

This is a dummy paragraph to give you time to leave if you don’t want to be spoiled.

Okay? Okay.

[image error]So, yeah, Tyler’s a Klingon.

Damn it.

Let’s enumerate all the ways this is a terrible idea, shall we?

Well, first, it completely ruins all of Tyler’s character development to date. He was one of Discovery’s more layered and compelling characters, but now he’s just a villain with some screws loose. Either he gets killed off later, or he gets somehow redeemed and goes back to being a part of Discovery‘s crew, which would make no sense on any level. Either way, it’s a waste.

Also, his seeming sexual abuse at L’Rell’s hands is now revealed to be a lie (albeit a lie he himself believed for a time). Considering how actual victims of sexual assault are continually doubted and accused of lying, this is a deeply problematic decision, and breathtakingly tone-deaf in the current climate. It’s stupid, it’s insensitive, and anyone with half a brain should know better.

And oh, yeah, let’s not forget that the only character of South Asian descent has turned out to be a sinister sleeper agent from a violent religious sect. I’m sure that kind of narrow-minded stereotyping is exactly what Roddenberry had in mind.

Frack me.

[image error]In the end this is a very disappointing episode. I’m really starting to think Discovery’s writers just don’t understand anything about what Star Trek is supposed to be, and if I hadn’t just paid money to watch the rest of the season, this might have been the final straw for me.

Overall rating: 4/10 It seemed okay while I was watching, but the more I think about it, the less I like it.

I really wish they hadn’t cancelled the DLC for Andromeda.

Song of the Month: Foster the People, Pay the Man

This month, I’ve picked a song from another of my all-time favourite bands, Foster the People. I was a little underwhelmed by their recent album as a whole, but one song is a great example of FtP at their best, and it is Pay the Man.

I resent Mark Foster. No one man should be allowed to be that handsome, likable, and talented. It’s unfair to those of us who are none of those things.

Cheating on WoW: A (War)Frame Job

The story of Warframe is an interesting one, and I think other game developers would be well-advised to study it. A smaller game from a relatively unknown studio, it’s clawed its way into the public spotlight with little more than a slow build-up of positive word of mouth.

[image error]That positive word of mouth was enough to finally convince me to give the game a shot. I’d long ignored it for any number of reasons that now seem silly (I think I somehow had it in my head it was a PvP game for a while there).

Before we go on, I’d like to note again that I’m not a big shooter fan. I don’t hate shooters — indeed, some of my all-time favourite games have been shooters — but all things being equal I prefer a good RPG or RTS.

Also, much like bhagpuss, I’m going through a phase of wanting to stick with more familiar games rather than chase the next big thing, and I decided to try Warframe more out of a sense of professional obligation than any genuine desire for something new. So I may have been predisposed to judge it more harshly than it deserves.

So keep all that in mind, but if I’m being honest, I greet Warframe with a hearty “meh.”

The trouble with shooters is that they all end up feeling kind of samey, at least to me. This whole post could just read “it’s pretty much like Destiny,” and that would tell you most everything you need to know.

Of course, there is the element of being able to switch between different warframes (the game’s equivalent of classes), but I didn’t get far enough in the game to have access to anything but my starting warframe (it’s never a great idea to put your game’s defining feature behind a grindwall).

[image error]Instead I need to look to more subtle elements that set the game apart. Like the fact the enemy AI is dumb as a bag of rocks (I’ve gotten stealth kills on enemies that were ten feet away and looking right at me), or the fact it has way too much loot, to the point where I seem to spend more time cracking open crates than doing anything else.

On the positive side, I do like that Warframe offers some weapon choices that are fairly unusual for a shooter. My arsenal consisted of a staff, throwing knives, and a bow.

Man, I loved that bow. Accurate, lethal, and with just enough arrow physics to grant verisimilitude without being too much of an inconvenience. It’s the closest I’ve ever seen a game come to capturing the beauty of archery in the real world.

The frustrating thing about playing as many MMOs as I have is that there’s always at least one feature in all of them I wish I could import to my preferred titles. It would be so amazing if archery in ESO felt like it does in Warframe.

Beyond that, the main things to set Warframe apart would be its setting and art style, both of which are rather… strange.

Warframe’s visuals — especially the warframes themselves — are certainly different, I’ll give it that. And I hesitate to be too harsh, because the world does need more games with unique art styles, and from an objective standpoint, I admire Warframe’s originality.

[image error]Subjectively speaking, though?

Dis game ugly.

I’m especially baffled by all the effort that’s spent on different ways to customize your warframe, none of which stop them from looking utterly bizarre and awkward. You can have any look you like, as long as you like being a technicolour robot space bug monster from a bad acid trip.

(To be fair, the Plains of Eidolon are gorgeous.)

As for the lore, it’s very much a game that throws you into the deep end and expects you to swim, which makes it a bit hard to judge from the small part I’ve seen.

It’s definitely a unique-feeling setting, and it’s clear that a lot of love and effort went into the world-building.

The trouble is the game doesn’t give you any reason to care. Your character is literally faceless and voiceless, so it’s very hard to get invested in them. Or anything else, for that matter. There are no characters to care about; there’s nothing to fight for.

So while I think Warframe’s lore could prove pretty interesting if you invest enough time in it, I lack the motivation to get that far.

[image error]And that’s about all there is to say. For all the negativity in this review, it’s a pretty solid game, and it plays well enough. But it’s just lacking any special spark to make me care.

But that’s fine. I needed another MMO to play like I needed a hole in the head. Maybe I’ll give Warframe another try if I ever really need something else to play. For now, it’s back to the old favourites.

Filed under: Games Tagged: sci-fi, Warframe

SWTOR: That’s Not How Ya Vwing

After a significant hiatus, I have returned to finish my goal of completing all of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s class stories. Just two to go. First up, Jedi knight.

[image error]If you ask most people what the best SWTOR class story is, most people will say agent, but second place is usually given to the knight story, which also receives almost universal praise.

I disagree with that praise, but I kind of understand where it comes from. You see, the knight story is the truest of all the class stories to the feel of Star Wars. It’s just like the movies.

That is to say the characters are paper thin, the acting is spectacularly wooden, and the whole thing is riddled with massive plot-holes. It’s pure spectacle, full of action, adventure, and excitement, but no brains and no heart.

Just like the movies.

/troll_face

Let’s start at the beginning, with chapter one. Oh, wow, chapter one is something else. I guess it’s a welcome case of faction equality. Normally you need to play Imperial to watch your character’s superiors achieve this level of cartoonish evil and clownish incompetence.

[image error]Chapter one of the Jedi knight story is such an utter mess it starts bleeding into the realm of “so bad it’s good.” It reminds me of Attack of the Clones. Unintentional comedy, but effective comedy nonetheless.

My favourite part is the Deathmark. A terrifying superweapon that can shoot dead anyone on the planet with no warning… as long as an assassin can get within 10-20 feet to target them.

In other words, it’s a “superweapon” that’s significantly less effective than a conventional sniper rifle.

Sure, okay.

Also, it’s a satellite. Why couldn’t we just shoot it down? Why was I running up and down Alderaan trying to find the control centre? My ship has guns on it…

Chapter two also makes the Republic and Jedi out to be idiots, though by then they’ve been upgraded to well-intentioned idiots. Still, as I’ve said before, it’s hard to be invested in a story that derives all its drama from the incompetence of its protagonists.

[image error]Chapter two is also later undermined by revelations in chapter three. If droids are immune, why didn’t we just send a droid army in the first place?

As for chapter three itself, it’s… not bad, actually. A little by the numbers, but it works, mostly. Kind of too little too late by that point, but it’s something.

Trouble is it’s not just the main plot that’s the problem. The Jedi consular story faltered near the end, but it still worked because by then you were invested in the characters. The knight story offers no such emotional hook, having one of the weakest companion line-ups of any class.

T7 joins Jorgan, Kaliyo, and Khem in the ranks of awful first companions. It’s pretty hard in the first place to form an attachment to a beeping metal box, but even if he weren’t a talking toaster, T7 still would have been a terrible character. What an obnoxious, over the top Mary Sue.

I thought I was going to like Kira because she’s played by Laura Bailey, who’s one of my favourite voice actresses, but to be honest she’s just kind of a flat character. A one-dimensional “bad girl.” Her backstory is pretty interesting — much more interesting than the player’s, in fact; like Elara, I wound up wishing we were playing as her — but the whole thing wraps up way too fast.

[image error]Also, while I think Jedi concerns over falling to the dark side are usually dogma and paranoia, I have to say Kira is one person who may actually be at serious risk of going full Vader at some point. I particularly liked the part where she casually mentions how it’d be cool if the Jedi overthrew the Senate and turned the Republic into a theocracy.

Okay.

Then there’s Doc, who is just unctuous and insufferable on every level, and Rusk, who somehow manages to be even more of a robot than the actual robot on the crew.

Finally, we have Lord Scourge, who is actually pretty cool. He’s a little too hardcore Sith even for my taste sometimes, but on the whole he’s a pretty interesting character. Twisted, yet not without a certain strange nobility.

It’s a shame he didn’t show up during the Fallen Empire/Eternal Throne arc. Seems like he should have.

Interestingly, the most compelling character of the knight story by far isn’t a companion at all, but Tala-Reh of Voss. She is easily more likable and more interesting than all the knight companions combined, and it’s a crying shame she was relegated to a one-off character for a single planetary arc. I know I’d much rather have a beautifully tragic warrior-poet on my crew than Microwave Mary Sue, Sergeant Killbot, or Dr. Nick Riviera.

[image error]A bit of a tangent, but since we’re on the subject, how many dumptrucks of money do I have to drive up to Bioware to make Voss a playable race? Yes, I know that would be problematic from a lore perspective, but I’m willing to handwave that. I want to be a Voss. They’re just too cool.

With all of that ranting, though, I still haven’t gotten to the worst part of the knight story: The knight himself.

His voice acting is just so utterly lifeless and monotone throughout. It’s utterly impossible to inject any kind of personality into the character, no matter what choices you make. It sucks all of the soul out of the story.

I suppose I could have rerolled as a female, but from what I’ve seen, the female knight voice isn’t much better. I think “the knight has no personality” may have been a deliberate design choice on Bioware’s part, because I know the female knight is voiced by the same actress who did Kirsten Geary in TSW, and while I think Geary is a bit overrated, I could never claim she lacks for personality.

(Plus she also voiced Madame Roget and Bong Cha, and those are characters I liked just fine.)

As for good news? Well, I enjoyed playing the class as much as I ever enjoy anything in SWTOR. The spec I chose has a really tight combo at the heart of its rotation that feels really satisfying to use. Being a DoT spec seems to mitigate the pain of SWTOR’s button bloat a bit. No point in using every DoT on weaker enemies. There’s actual decisions to make in the rotation.

[image error]So it’s not all bad, but in short, the Jedi knight story failed to impress. I still wouldn’t say it’s the worst class story, though. I don’t think anyone’s depriving trooper of that honour at this point. The knight story was many things, but at least it wasn’t boring.

One more to go.

Get your boots on, Mako. It’s time.

Filed under: Games Tagged: excessive snark, sci-fi, Star Wars, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Review: Bright

Netflix’s urban fantasy Bright is a movie that combines two things I almost always like: Elves, and Will Smith, who is one of my favourite actors.

[image error]Mind you, I don’t think he’s a brilliant actor or anything, but he’s very charismatic, and he’s very hard not to like.

So his involvement plus the subject matter was enough to make me want to give Bright a try.

Described as “Lord of the Rings meets Training Day,” Bright is an action-packed cop movie set in an alternate version of the modern day where all of the fantasy races are real and co-exist, though not always peacefully.

It has a difficult tightrope to walk in that it has to dump a great deal of world-building on the viewer without slowing the movie down too much. I’d say it did a respectable job of that, though a little patience may be required.

It’s aided by some impressive visual story-telling. There’s an incredible eye for detail, with the background of nearly every shot filled with graffiti and signage unique to this bizarre modern fantasy world, and the make-up for the non-human races is fantastic. I particularly liked the sharp teeth of the Elves, a subtle hint that beneath their beauty they are a hard and dangerous people.

Smith plays Daryl Ward, an embittered cop assigned to be the partner of Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton), the first Orcish police officer in United States history. There’s great tension between the two due to a past incident where Ward was nearly killed, as well as a healthy dose of racism.

[image error]There’s a great deal of very thinly veiled social commentary in this movie, with Orcs serving as stand-ins for real life minorities. The Elves, meanwhile, are effectively the 1%, and humans serve as a middle class.

I have mixed feelings on Bright’s handling of racial politics.

On the upside, it does feel — to me, as an outsider on the issue — like a realistic portrayal of racism, despite the fantastic trappings. Often the media tends to sugar coat racism, showing it as bad but in a distant and sanitized sort of way. Bright pulls no punches in depicting the utter cruelty with which Jakoby and his people are treated.

On the other hand, the Orc racism ends up being almost totally irrelevant to the main plot of the movie, which prevents any really good points from being made and makes the whole film feel a bit unfocused.

The actual story sees Ward and Jakoby run afoul of a group of Elven terrorists who are hunting for a magical wand and its owner, a troubled Elven woman named Tikka (Lucy Fry).

In this setting, magic exists, but is rarely seen. Wands are tightly controlled by the government, and they can only be wielded by a rare individual with magical talent: a Bright.

[image error]Most of the movie takes the form of an extended action/chase sequences as Ward, Jakoby, and Tikka attempt to stay alive and keep the wand safe from its many pursuers: Elven terrorists, Orcish gangsters, human street thugs, and more.

Despite the fantastic elements, this is actually a fairly ordinary story. Bar the magic-laden climax, this really could have been any other cop movie. There’s potential for real originality here, but it’s unrealized.

Still, as action movies go, it’s decent. There are certainly worse ways to spend an evening.

My biggest complaint would be how under-utilized Lucy Fry’s Tikka is. She puts on by far the best performance of the movie, infusing every word and movement with an alien grace that truly sells her as something more than human, but she spends most of Bright just sitting there looking scared. It’s a waste.

Show of hands: Who’s surprised I wanted to see more of the Elf?

No one?

Didn’t think so.

[image error]Jakoby and Ward, by comparison, are just okay. Their rivalry feels a bit forced, as do all their interactions, but they serve their purpose, I suppose. Smith’s aforementioned charisma is the only thing making Ward bearable, as he’s actually kind of a douchebag when you get down to it.

So Bright is a bit inconsistent, and it doesn’t fully utilize the uniqueness of its setting nor its characters, but it manages to provide a mostly satisfying ride all the same.

Overall rating: 7.3/10 If the sequel gets made, I’ll watch it.

Filed under: Reviews Tagged: Bright, fantasy, movies, review

Links Before the Holidays

As is my tradition, I will be taking a short break from blogging over the holidays. I expect to be back at it late this month or perhaps early in the new year, depending on how I feel.

[image error]Coming up when I return: A journey through the remaining class stories in Star Wars: The Old Republic, a review of season two of Glitch, and much more.

To tide you over during the break, I’ve got a few more articles up at MMO Bro. First, I take a look at the best non-fantasy MMO settings, for those weirdos who prefer space ships and superheroes over Elves and wizards. Then, I rank some of the best MMOs for solo players, for those of us who aren’t always social butterflies.

Also, if all goes according to plan, Moiren will be doing her annual Lovecraftian Christmas caroling livestream tonight at 9PM Eastern. It’s basically the only holiday tradition I have these days, so I’ll be tuning in.

It’s beginning to look a lot like fishmen…

I wish all of my readers a happy winter solstice. May you be spared the predations of Krampus and the wrath of Robot Santa for another year.

Filed under: Misc., My writing Tagged: Off topic, video games, writing