Game Review: Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic

It's been quite a while since I've had time to play video games, let alone review them. Fortunately, my summer workload is finally starting to break up, which hopefully means a lot more content starting next month. In the meantime, let's have a look at a game from the "Star Wars" franchise: BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic.

Admittedly, my expectations for this game may have been slightly unrealistic: I've always imagined the distant pre-narrative history of "Star Wars" to be so much grander and more interesting than the "present" of the Lucas films, but what happens in the very first scene of the game? A small Republic transport comes under fire by the warships of the Sith Empire; the last few survivors crash on a fringe planet without hope of rescue; one of them carries a secret which can change the course of the war. Oh, and the Empire has a mysterious superweapon.

It's a rather blatant reiteration of the set-up to the first "Star Wars" film. In itself, this is hardly a major offense - if the idea is to instantly place the player in a familiar context so you can get to the actual story without further delay, that's fair enough. However, the overt similarities don't end there. When the opening scroll mentioned a Sith Empire, I imagined an army where even the grunts could use the Force. Instead, Sith Troopers are basically Stormtroopers with shinier uniforms, and this Empire is ruled by Darth Malak, a Sith Lord whose lower jaw has been cybernetically replaced. More machine than man, perhaps? Hmm.

It may seem strange for me to castigate a game because it strongly resembles its source text... but again, I chose "Knights of the Old Republic" assuming that it would tell a different story within that framework. Instead, it turns out that things haven't changed much in four thousand years.

Theoretically, the player's ability to influence the plot via various choices throughout the game is meant to counteract the overly familiar plot elements. And it could have worked - I've heard enough about "Dragon Age: Origins" and the "Mass Effect" series to know that BioWare has almost perfected that aspect - but in practice, "Knights of the Old Republic" falls short of the ideal. To demonstrate, I'll explain a bit about the character I created and why I ultimately lost interest in the game at a very early stage.

I went into "Knights of the Old Republic" determined to create and roleplay a character neither Lucas nor his successors have ever really provided: a competent, powerful female villain. Someone who wields the Dark Side of the Force without degenerating into a moustache-twirling caricature, and whose evil acts serve a higher purpose than self-indulgence.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Alia Sha'tir:



Bonus points if you can figure out the significance of her anagrammed last name. And yes, those are a pair of lightsabers she's wielding.

So Alia begins as a soldier in the Republic, and pretty soon the game starts offering those morality-based choices to determine where she is on the Light/Dark scale.

Said choices are utterly ridiculous.

My greatest disappointment with "Knights of the Old Republic" is the way in which it takes the Jedi/Sith binaries beyond even the simplistic extremes of Lucas' films: playing a dedicated Dark Side character will force you into courses of actions that are not simply evil, but obnoxious as well. It's one thing to be ruthless in achieving your goals, it's another to act like a prat "for the evulz".

Moreover, your actions will draw constant criticism from your companions - and since their alignments never change, you can either put up with a neverending stream of disbelief and outrage (forgotten as soon as the conversation ends) or play the entire game with characters whose position on the moral scale is closer to yours, and who probably won't be as helpful as a Light Side Jedi who can heal the party.

The most problematic aspect of this particular mechanism, though, is the fact that the game practically requires you to be consistent in your approach. I tend to be more aggressive than defensive in RPGs, which suits a Dark Side character just fine, but abilities such as Force Lightning and Life Drain become more costly and less effective the further you get from the Dark end of the morality scale. So to get the most out of my chosen set of powers, I had to sink to the utter depths of depravity for the first eight hours of the game, at which point I detested Alia so much that I stopped playing.

And more's the pity, really, because from a purely technical standpoint I could have enjoyed "Knights of the Old Republic" - the game allows you to pause during battles and arrange attack patterns and sequences for each party member (adding a bit of tactical thinking to otherwise-straightforward fights), the environment and character designs hold up despite somewhat antiquated graphics (what a difference half a decade makes) and the voice acting is mostly solid, if lacking in real standouts.

But no other video game genre is so dependent on sympathetic protagonists as western RPGs. Twats like Kratos, Prince Arthas and Duke Nukem are tolerable because we control them from a distance, and never really think of them as extensions of our own selves; Western RPGs like "Fallout" or "Knights of the Old Republic", on the other hand, present tabula rasa protagonists whose appearance and personality are determined by the player. And if the end result is a character so reprehensible that the player can't stand her... well, there's something fundamentally wrong with that process, isn't there?

Diana: 1, Dramaddicts: 0

And now, a personal entry.

I'm rather proud of my conduct today.

A few days ago I was acquainted with someone whose criticism of "Twilight" amused me, who admires Storm - and sees the problems in her current incarnation as Mrs. Black Panther - as I do, and who generally seemed like a nice person. We chatted a bit on his LiveJournal, it was all well and good.

Things took a rather ugly turn this evening, resulting in him attacking me for politely disagreeing with his rather unfortunate generalizations about straight women as authors of gay fiction.

(Cliffnotes version: he believes straight women fetishize gay characters to the point of misrepresenting them - I certainly accept that this is true for specific writers such as Laurell K. Hamilton, whose lack of talent goes hand-in-hand with using the medium to foist her kinks on unsuspecting readers, but I do not agree that it's true of all heterosexual female writers, or even most of them. Because the implication there is that if you're a straight woman you flat-out can't depict a normal gay relationship, and that's exactly the same line of strawman thinking that leads people to believe that if you're a man, you can never create well-rounded female characters - it's a convenient notion that just isn't true.)

After being told in no uncertain terms that as a heterosexual woman I had no right to an opinion on the matter, that I was "privileged" and had to sit down and shut up... well, I apologized for upsetting him and walked away.

And when I did that, I realized that I really have changed.

Six months ago, I might've engaged in a long, tiresome war with this person on his own blog; I'd have taken the accusations of "privilege" and "racism" to heart instead of recognizing them as easy outs when you're losing an argument (because when everyone's "privileged" except you, you automatically win), I'd have gotten upset and the whole thing might've dragged on for days.

Now, though, I just stepped away from the whole mess, quietly took him off the Friends list and let matters lie. Maybe it's just me getting older, but the prospect of an extended fight with this person I barely know doesn't interest me at all. I'm past the point where I need online vindication - and in the history of Internet Drama, I very much doubt that many opinions have actually changed as a result of flame wars.

Unlike your typican Old West town, the Internet actually is big enough for the both of us. So I'll bid him adieu and get on with my own business.

Movie Review: Batman - Under The Red Hood

There's a rather unfortunate trend going on when it comes to Batman: as the song goes, "can't read his, can't read his, no you can't read his poker face." Whether it's comics or direct-to-DVD animated movies like this latest WB offering, Batman has become a complete and utter cipher in recent years; beyond secretive, beyond unexpressive, beyond stoic. And, in my opinion, this has stripped away the character's most endearing quality: his humanity.

It's certainly true that Batman has never been the kind of superhero who wears his emotions on his sleeve. But what made him so appealing to me was precisely the fact that every now and then, the mask would slip. (Can't find any clips, but basically, any early episode of the Timm/Dini series that featured Two-Face demonstrates this quite nicely.)

That doesn't happen anymore. And "Under The Red Hood" is a perfect example of the result. Spoilers ahoy.

On paper, this should've had an emotional payload that would put "Mask of the Phantasm" or "I Am The Night" to shame. Jason Todd, Batman's second sidekick (and his self-proclaimed "greatest failure") was brutally murdered by the Joker. Five years later, the titular Red Hood emerges to wage war against Gotham crimelord the Black Mask, as well as Batman himself. He's fast, he's smart, and he knows every move Batman makes. A DNA sample just confirms what Bruce already suspects: Jason, his lost Robin, has been resurrected. And he's out for blood.

In terms of straight-up action, this one does quite well for itself, much like the previous "Crisis on Two Earths": the best and most effective scenes are the ones where the Red Hood effortlessly evades Batman's standard attempts to capture him, showing an awareness of the Dark Knight's tactics that's beyond even his oldest enemies.

The voice talent is a bit uneven - I'll admit my difficulties in accepting anyone other than Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as the voices of Batman and Joker, respectively, but Bruce Greenwood acquits himself quite well. John DiMaggio's Joker is quite different - the manic edge is intact, but there's a much darker and threatening undertone to this version, which suits the plot and atmosphere perfectly. I'd say the only real weak link is Jensen Ackles' Red Hood/Jason: he just doesn't reach the emotional high notes that the dialogue demands, especially in that pivotal scene where Jason finally reveals his real motives.

And that actually leads me to the biggest problem with this whole movie: there's no emotional core. The setup is there, and there are some very poignant flashbacks (the very last scene is the only one that moved me, as it really drove home the underlying tragedy of the whole story), but Batman doesn't react - at all - to the impossible return of his surrogate son. He's not horrified, he's not upset, he's not the slightest bit grateful that Jason's back. Even that critical moment where he explains why he didn't "avenge" Jason's death is delivered in the same flat monotone used when analyzing clues at a crime scene.

Bearing in mind that I haven't read the original storyline, I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that that utter lack of emotional response to the situation is something that was drawn from the comics themselves; if that's the case, then more's the pity. The failure of "Under the Red Hood" is that it promises a story that cuts to the heart of Batman the person, rather than just Batman the superhero, and it doesn't deliver any of that. So much more could have been done on that level, and instead we get explosions and shoot-outs and violent physical combat. Exciting, yes... but dramatically satisfying? Not even close.

Triumph

Ladies and gentlemen, today is a day of great victory for both geek culture and the human spirit.

Both Ethan and myself were dumbstruck at the news that SDCC attendees organized a counter-protest that chased Fred Phelps and his hate-spewing cult away. No violence, no police intervention, just enough utter conviction in a message that's infinitely more powerful than "God Hates (Insert Victim of the Week Here)".

And you know what instantly popped into my mind when I saw the photos?

This.

So we raise our glasses to you, people of Comic-Con. Well done.

For the bloody WIN

Courtesy of deadwalrus, on the matter of Joe Quesada's "One Moment in Time":

Wait just one fucking MINUTE now.

Peter missed his wedding because a fat, Hispanic man fell on him, suffocating him, trapping him under his bulk, and restricting his movement?

...Isn't that, like, what happened in real life?

Bravo, good sir. Bravo!

Much Rejoicing in the House of Diana

Nickelodeon has just announced a sequel series to "Avatar: The Last Airbender".

My reaction was more or less this.

Here's what we know:

The Legend of Korra takes place 70 years after the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender and follows the adventures of the Avatar after Aang – a passionate, rebellious, and fearless teenaged girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra. With three of the four elements under her belt (Earth, Water, and Fire), Korra seeks to master the final element, Air. Her quest leads her to the epicenter of the modern "Avatar" world, Republic City – a metropolis that is fueled by steampunk technology. It is a virtual melting pot where benders and non-benders from all nations live and thrive. However, Korra discovers that Republic City is plagued by crime as well as a growing anti-bending revolution that threatens to rip it apart. Under the tutelage of Aang's son, Tenzin, Korra begins her airbending training while dealing with the dangers at large.

Now, the cynical part of my brain was distressingly quick to point out the many ways this can go wrong: what if the creators fail to meet their own standards? What if the network demands that Korra be Chickified? Oh, they were comfortable enough with Katara, Toph and Azula being progressive female characters, but then, they weren't the titular protagonists. What if the future world of the Four Nations is just a faded xerox of the original? What about the loose ends from the original that couldn't be covered in a 70-year gap (ie: Ursa's fate, to name just one example)? And worst of all, what if this new series takes cues from the Shamayawningalready movies?

And yet... and yet. There's something about this that feels right to me, like it could be another "Batman Beyond" in terms of the relationship between the parent and spin-off series; even based on the preliminary information, Korra sounds like a very different protagonist than her predecessor - she's already most of the way through her training, and I'd never use the words "passionate" or "rebellious" to describe Aang. The fact that the world has moved from medieval to steampunk makes a lot of sense given that the War has been over for a century, and the Fire Nation under Zuko presumably shared its technological advancements with the rest of the world. Even the central conflict is different this time: it's not a war story. Maybe it's what comes after a war story. I don't know... and I can't wait to find out!

So I'm going to be optimistic about this. And overjoyed at the possibility of revisiting one of my favorite stories.

Does Whatever a Spider Can

Andrew Garfield has been chosen to play Spider-Man.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is an excellent choice.

I've mentioned before that Garfield's performance in "Boy A" broke my heart into little pieces; he's the woobie to end all woobies, instantly sympathetic, and "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" shows he's got comic timing as well. And, of course, he's adorable, which certainly helps.

All in all, he's perfect for the role of Peter Parker. And yes, I'm actually going to see it when it comes out, thanks to this bit of news.