And then I would’ve had to seriously apologize.  Whoever this person was, they were obviously a visionary and a prophet. 

Predators, simply put, rocked.  Or at least, I loved it. 

I first heard about it and was so incredibly apprehensive, I didn’t think I’d even go see it.  Something kicked me in the pants and I made it to the theater.  It begins with a bang, a man falling through the air trying to get a parachute to open.  It’s almost nonstop from that point on.  I won’t give any sort of spoiler but this movie may just surprise you, especially if you’re going in with low expectations.

There’s a dark quality to the way that the characters interact that granted them realism.  I was able to care about them which is pretty tough in a movie you can be sure will be a cast trimmer in the ancient tradition of Freddy and Jason movies.  There weren’t quite as many crazy one liners as you got from Arnold or even Danny Glover but that’s probably a good thing.

With an R Rating I expected extreme amounts of gore.  I’m no slouch when it comes to witnessing that crap but this was surprisingly tame in that department.  There was a lot of profanity so if you’re one of those crazy people that can handle seeing a kidney do the waltz but the ‘F’ word sends you into a tizzy, you might want to go in prepared.

The bottom line about Predators is simple: it was an awesome fun and kick ass movie.  If you enjoy action movies that don’t make you feel like an idiot or like any of the actors that showed up, you’ll enjoy this movie.  If you have a problem with profanity or can’t handle the Predator pigeon coo, this might not be for you.  Otherwise, you don’t have a good excuse not to see this movie.  Get out there and be shocked at the ridiculous shape Adrien Brody is in.  *drool* 

I think he’s in the casting call for the next 300 movie.  Lord above!

 Frankly, some of the comments I didn’t get.  The pacing was fine.  The dialogue had a few rough patches but for the most part, they were decent.  There was emotion… action… excitement… drama.  It was based on an Anime and still made sense.  That should win it an award.  Instead, it got a rating worse than Eragon. 

I guess plagiarists aren’t that bad huh?

 Whatever.  This felt like an old school kung fu movie.  Lots of tai chi, angst ridden kids, some serious ass kicking and a plot that was passable.  If you’ve watched a movie where people use martial arts to solve their problems, then you’ve seen this movie before.  The question is less about whether or not this movie was fantastic and more about whether you like that kind of thing or not.

 And considering that there’s not a lot of blood and gore, you can take kids to hang out and watch it.  I know that several of the people who reviewed the movie were teenagers (I saw a lot of teen pictures at least so unless the folks were old adults dreaming for youth, I guess their opinions count).  Therefore, maybe it was that bad.  Maybe I was tainted in such a way that I could look at it from eyes unhindered by expectation.  Maybe it desecrated the source material. 

 Or maybe it was just entertainment and people should stop taking it all so seriously.  You want serious, go to a play.  Get some culture.  Read a book.  You want a fun time, go to the movie theater.  I’m not saying that it’s only made for giddy laughs but I am saying that not everything that is shown there should or will challenge your deepest sense of self.

 And if you were hoping that The Last Airbender was going to change your paradigm?  You should probably lay off the Skittles.  Personally?  I was just grateful that there wasn’t a twist… maybe someone clicking off the TV at the final scene and running out the door to go to school.  That would’ve been worthy of an 8%… or at least a good guffaw.  

 I’ve always said that they have to answer one very important: why should I quit playing this game that I’m established in and have invested so many hours in to play your game?  More on that in a moment.

I seem to be severely ADD because I’m always looking for a new gaming fix.  Each time a new MMO comes out that even vaguely appeals to me, I give it a try.  All the way back to Ultima Online (sheesh, am I really that old?) on up to Star Trek Online (I just couldn’t pass up inventing my own version of the Star Fleet uniform.  Red… leather… wow…).  The thing I learned rather quickly is that there’s just a little something about a game that will keep a person coming back over and over again; even if you take off for a while, an inexorable pull drags you back.

 I’d say that it’s the lure of the character.  You spend enough time hanging out with someone and you’ll miss them (unless they smell bad.  Then you might just give them a call).  In my case, I invest a lot into these characters and after the 300^th orc dies by my hand, I start to think up a story.  The moment that happens, they’re a person to me and I don’t like to think about them stagnating without me.

 There are hundreds of other potential arguments as to what draws a person back.  The flow of the graphics, the systems in place for you to kick ass with, the monsters you fight, the reality of the world, the friends cultivated, the guilds, etc.  Whatever it is, each game has had its ups and downs, its pros and cons.  I’d like to just offer some thoughts on a few of them here.  Beginning with…

 Ultima Online

 Now, I know that the very original Neverwinter Nights on AOL could technically be considered an MMO but considering how people reacted when Ultima Online came out, I prefer to start there.  I like to imagine myself a common citizen of Britannia in that game when it finally released.  I’d write a diary about the day that all the adventurers came.  It would look like this:

 Day 1: The adventurers arrived today and I use the term loosely.  Unlike the Avatar sightings that my grandmother spoke of, these immigrants are terrifying.  They run through the streets without pants, attack and kill whatever they please.  They scream out terrifying phrases that make no sense.  Truly, they are like demons descending upon the world, consuming and returning nothing more than chaos and anarchy.

 Day 2: Things have begun to settle down.  Many of these so called adventurers have migrated to other worlds.  As they meander about looking for things to do, there is still a vulgarity about them that I have never seen.  They treat each other with disdain even as they head out to the wilderness to slaughter whatever they find.  Worst still, they kill each other and steal their goods!  Men roam the streets in the gray garb of the newly dead begging for change, even as you can see the armor glint under their clothes!  Surely, this cannot be the heroic era we were promised?

 And so on.  Ultima Online was the wild west of MMOs with Player Killing and violence so fierce that if you weren’t hard core, you weren’t playing.  Travel in packs because you WOULD be attacked otherwise.  Eventually, they added a nice zone where people had to get along and a free for all player versus player zone.  I didn’t play much into that.  There wasn’t enough to do.

 Quick sum up for Ultima Online:

1)      No levels, only skills that you could increase

2)      Only humans, no other races in the game.

3)      No quests, just sort of… live in the world and do stuff.

4)      Open PvP for the first VERY long time.

5)      Housing available for the extremely dedicated (and lucky enough to find a place to put it).

 EverQuest

 EverQuest.  Oh my LORD I can’t believe I ever got anything done when that game came out.  It’s funny… they add some classes, add some races, give you a leveling system and no matter the fact that there’s nothing to do, people played the living hell out of this game!  Thing is that in UO, you could kinda run around and do stuff alone.  In EQ, fat freakin’ chance.  Hell, after level 5 you were pretty much forced to find some friends.

 The social aspect of EverQuest worked out very nicely.  Frankly, I don’t remember putting anyone on my ignore list throughout my five plus years playing.  I met countless adventurers and sat in the same spots with them while someone ran off to pull monsters back to us so we could kill them.  It was cheesy and silly looking back but at that point, it was great entertainment.  I played a cleric and had managed to earn some decent respect from those I played with. 

 So like UO, there was little to do.  But you could run around and group with anyone you wanted to and kill loads of critters.  Of course, that got old and money was hard to come by but that was fixed!  The Lost Dungeons of Norrath were the best things ever.  Random dungeons that you could join a group, take care of an objective and leave richer and with some decent XP!  In fact, I leveled my ranger from 34 to 50 in like… three weeks.  I was dedicated.

 All good things come to an end and they eventually nerfed that down to size.  Still, it was great fun for a long time.  I still can’t believe that no other game has stolen this idea, not even EverQuest 2.  It would be brilliant. 

 Quick sum up for EverQuest:

1)      Level based game with tons of cool loot to find

2)      LOTS of races, great expansions that came fast & furious

3)      A couple of quests that were hard to find (at best) but branched to better. (heh… EverQuest has no real Quests.  Oops).

4)      PvP but you had to opt in.

5)      Great social interaction!  Lots of conversation and killing.

 The Interim

 Many MMOs came and went.  Dark Age of Camelot was probably EverQuest’s real competition.  Frankly, I really wished that I would have played it instead.  Not that I didn’t love EverQuest and its world but DAOC was willing to do a lot of new stuff.  They introduced a lot of interesting concepts and the Realm vs. Realm play really took off.  I did play the game for a while and got a character up enough to travel to Camelot and other places but I got in way too late and it was already winding down.  Le Sigh.

 Earth & Beyond.  OMG, a Sci Fi MMO.  It came out around the same time as EVE Online.  You know which one’s still here.  Earth & Beyond was a fun game.  There were three factions and you could cruise around the galaxy doing all kinds of stuff.  I had a blast with it.  Unfortunately, it was a little odd.  I don’t know what it was… but there was just something lacking.  A lot of people would say ‘Avatar Combat’ and they’re probably right.  Still, for the time it was out, I loved it.

 EVE… I already have a job, thanks.  Don’t need to pay to do another one.

 Anarchy Online, Asheron’s Call, Asheron’s Call 2, Neocron, Shadowbane, etc.  These games all tried to do various things to make a name for themselves.  They either felt clunky, tried the same formula already being done better or simply tried to hit at the wrong time.  They were interesting but not enough so that I played them for a vast period of time.  I know that when the servers were turned off on one of the Asheron’s Call games, people were very sad and the developers rewarded them with one last crazy adventure.  I love those guys.

 There were other games that tried and failed, even after the WoW, EQ 2 era began.  Tabula Rasa (Richard Garriot… making an interesting game that just didn’t have what it took to survive), Pirates of the Burning Sea (awesome graphics, nice boat stuff if a bit slow and semi-okay Avatar stuff.  Still going so that says something about it!), Auto Assault (LOVED the idea but wow, execution was crap).  I could really go on forever.  There were a LOT of these games.  Everyone saw a gold mine: 14.95 a month!  People will pay it!  We’ll get 10 to 30 grand a month!  It’ll be great!!!!!!!!!

 No.  You’ll spend a lot of money, realize that there aren’t enough people to play ALL these games!  They WILL pick and if they don’t pick you, you’ve got a lot of content that only a few people will enjoy.  Therefore, it’s time to step into the conversation about… EverQuest 2 and WoW.

 EverQuest 2

 Hot off their long time success and domination of the scene with EverQuest, Sony decided to put out a sequel.  At first glance, it looked like they were going to continue their reign as MMO masters.  They created something that was gorgeous and expansive.  The familiar world of Norrath was torn apart and only two major cities remained (at launch at least).  Freeport and Qeynos both became hubs for all races.  After a tutorial on an island, you got to go off and start your adventures in those lands.

 EQ2 brought back a ton of races and this time, they made the class thing dynamic.  You began as a basic class and focused as you leveled.  I personally love this approach (they eventually changed it so you pick your class right off the bat).  They added collections—pick up seashells and feathers and other crap, combine them together, turn them in and get rewards.

 The interior decorator in me was thrilled that everyone gets a house.  You can go in and put stuff in it, arrange the place anyway you want, etc.  It was super neat.  This has been improved upon greatly and guild houses can be designed by multiple people, creating a truly massive place for players to chill out and chat.

 In the beginning, everyone had a voice—they gave every character dialogue that was spoken.  And there were quests!  This is the first time that I can remember having a quest log in a MMO.  You run off and do what they ask, come out and get XP and loot.  Super fun and super easy!  From the moment I bought the game, I was hooked!  Frankly, I had picked EQ2 over WoW, which was to release a bit later in the month.

 But there are always problems in paradise, right? 

 EQ2 suffered under the weight of its own graphical ambition.  They created a game for the future, not for the now.  Many machines couldn’t run it.  Worse still, there were memory leaks that made it impossible for some people to play the game for more than a half hour.  Of course, all new games have problems but these were severe.  No one wanted to wait until the future to enjoy the game for what it could do.  So when WoW came out, an exodus began.  It wasn’t enough to destroy the game of course but it was certainly substantial.

 Furthermore, the beginning zones were not very diverse.  For 20 levels, you wandered around an arid wasteland or plush fields.  There was very little in the way of change up.  Sure, after 20 you went to a new zone but then you were stuck there for a while too.  Even with adventure packs, they were going to have a rough time fighting with WoW who offered different climates all over the world.  

 EQ2 has since done a lot of upgrades and when I cover WoW, I want to discuss something else that occurred to me about it.  They’ve added new continents, added more races, more quests and better housing.  Sadly, they had to sacrifice the spoken words for every player… but that’s not a big shock.  They have some neat incentives to play too… like a challenge to get to 20^th level in 14 days or less and the ability to pay for only three days if you don’t play every day or all the time.

 Quick Sum Up for EverQuest 2:

 1)      EverQuest 1 style leveling, characters & classes

2)      Quests!!!

3)      Lots of loot.

4)      Amazing housing.

5)      Plenty to do, even if the lands were boring at the beginning.

 World of WarCraft (Or, the behemoth cometh)

 Blizzard.  The overachievers of the gaming world.  Who the hell hasn’t played Diablo, WarCraft 1, 2 or 3, StarCraft or Blackthorne?  These guys have earned a reputation as not putting something out without serious polish.  They stand by their products in a positive way.  The only thing I’d criticize them about would be announcing things far too soon.  I mean, StarCraft 2 was announced ages ago with a tag line of ‘It’s about damn time!’ and they should’ve just said ‘It’s going to take a long freakin’ time’.

 Anyway, aside from that WoW changed everything.  Wisely, they went with a gorgeous platform that ran on everyone’s computer (pretty much at least, there were some dinos that couldn’t pull it off).  It looked great, cartoonish but nostalgic for those of us that played the WarCraft games.  Technically, it went off without a huge hitch.  They did a great job of preparing it for many people to jump on board and play. 

 WoW started with something for everyone.  Night Elfs were pretty, humans were traditional, Dwarfs started in the icy mountains, orcs & trolls had the tough desert living, tauren were weird and undead were evil.  Literally, if you couldn’t find something to play in WoW right off the bat, then you simply couldn’t be pleased.  And furthermore, even after you played the game for a month or a year, there were six starting areas for you to enjoy with totally different quests!

 It wasn’t too hard, not too easy and the questing system was just like EQ 2.  The twitchy parts of EQ 2 were not in WoW because WoW was fluid and smooth; a well made game from the get go without the bugs and glitches.  Sure, there were still problems but they weren’t as graphically obvious as the EQ 2.  Atmosphere was a huge part of WoW and while Norrath had some, Azeroth felt more alive.  Diversity of the world was enough to set it apart.

 World of Warcraft didn’t stray from the standard fare of levels and classes.  They did add talent trees so that any two characters wouldn’t be identical.  They also made it so that the trade skills were entertaining (though EQ 2 tried to use the same convention as fighting in theirs, WoW just made it convenient).  Though WoW hasn’t ended up with as many expansions, they’ve really fine tuned the game beyond what it began as; something exciting and well built.

 WoW has a mainstream appeal unlike any other game.  It can drag anyone in with PvP, PvE or Raiding.  You pick how you want to play.  Group up or run it solo.  You can go from 1 to 80 all by yourself.  It’s inclusive instead of exclusive and that’s what other MMOs never really learned or learned far too late.  Many games have come after WoW but none of them adequately answer the question of why you’d leave WoW for them… other than you’re ADD and need some time away from WoW so you can appreciate what you have again.

 Quick Sum Up for WoW: 

1)      Ran on every computer

2)      Quest system like EQ2 only smoother

3)      Engrossing world that felt alive

4)      Refinement vs. Expansion

5)       Inclusive and not Exclusive.

6)      Multiple ways to play: PvP, PvE, Raiding and there are rewards for each.

 Lord of the Rings Online

 Who wouldn’t want to try this game?  You can play a freakin’ Hobbit!  And then they have PvP where you can also play a damn spider!  This game rocked.  I loved it.  It felt alive.  It was the middle of the road with WoW and EQ2.  Great graphics but they were still stylized. Ran pretty well but pushed the limits of high end systems for those who really want bad ass looks.  Diverse classes… multiple starting zones… this was a well made game!

 And frankly, it seemed to really compete.  A lot of people played the hell out of it.  They had some great little features and the Epic Story quests were truly epic.  You felt like you were making a difference in Middle Earth.  They released updates, expansions, additional content, holiday events… it was all around what you’d expect from something as well loved and widely built as Middle Earth.

 I played a bad ass crazy elf and she was neat.  Hunters in the game got a lot of love and bows hurt people.  Best of all, they took away the concept that everyone has some kind of Buddhist style pact with the Spaghetti Monster and made it so that instead of dying or having hit points, you have Morale.  This morale goes away during a fight and you are ‘routed’ not killed.  I loved that idea and the best thing is that your ‘healer’ was a minstrel urging you on with rousing songs! 

 Get your ass into the fight

I’m wearing cloth that is too tight

Tank it now, tank it hard

I’m just a low down stinkin’ bard

Anyways, sorry about that.  I think that LOTRO (as it’s called)  has done a lot of great work and as they move their model toward free to play, I think that they’re going to keep up a nice following.  This game really was the marriage of EQ2 and WoW in some ways because they even have housing now.  Hop over and check out all they have to offer.  I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

 Quick Sum Up for LOTRO:

1)      You’re in Middle Earth!

2)      You can play a Hobbit!

3)      You can play an Elf!

4)      There’s Housing!

5)      There are ringwraiths!

6)      You can visit the Shire or Tom Bombadil!  Or freakin’ Rivendell!! OR WEATHERTOP!!!!!!

7)      Lots of cool classes, starting areas, fun. 

8)      Quests like WoW.

9)      No dying—only routing.

  Other Games

 Other games have come on the scene with good and bad points. 

 Vanguard: Saga of Heroes tried to appeal to the ‘hard core’ gamer but I don’t think there were as many folks desiring that as they hoped.  I tried the beta and it was a little too old school for me.  I had been spoiled by conveniences that this just didn’t have.

 Warhammer Online arrived from the makers of Dark Age of Camelot.  They kept up with Realm vs. Realm combat and they introduced a lot of neat characters.  Sadly, each class looked identical from the start and customization is sort of a given nowadays.  Public Quests are brilliant though and anything that encourages folks to play together is a good thing in my book!

 Age of Conan was brutal and gory with an awesome single player element to level 20.  But after you leave the opening island, the game goes from alive to VERY dead as all voice acting simply… goes away.  The place feels like some crazy Twilight Zone episode where everyone is mute and no one moves.  Nice graphics couldn’t really save it for me in terms of long term play.  Just seemed dead.

 Champions Online hit in a way that really excited me.  This was customization.  I made like 27 costumes before I entered the game world.  Truly, an exciting experience!  I loved that part of it.  This suffered from the same thing other super hero games suffer from though in the fact that ‘gear’ isn’t really focused on.  Yes, CO has stuff you can get but it’s not as tangible as a sword the size of a semi-truck that glows red, writes your grocery list and paddles kobolds pink and blue.  Still, it was a great game and though I didn’t mention City of Heroes/Villains, this was truly a nice spiritual successor to those (especially since the same guys made them both).

 Star Trek Online was also made by those Cryptic guys and I think I mentioned my love of having a leather Star Fleet uniform.  Unfortunately for me, they dropped the ball on the chance to have a WoW style beginning: multiple starting locations with plenty of PvE content for different factions.  That’s really what MOST of these games were missing.  This also devolves quickly into a need to PvP but it had a lot of really neat stuff (like having a crew that would go down on landing missions with you to kick ass).

 Games I’m looking forward to

 The Old Republic—Star Wars done right (I won’t even speak of Galaxies.  You can’t make me).

Dark Millennium—Warhammer 40k the MMO.  Yes, I like 40k.  If they have Sisters of Battle, you can count me in!

 When I think about World of WarCraft, I want to go back and play.  Yes, I have taken a long break and yes, I really needed it but in playing other games, even when I have fun, it feels a little difficult to continue going back.  EverQuest 2 now feels exclusive to me, not because they don’t cater to new players but because it’s so vast now, it’s hard to fathom how far you have to go.  And without any resources, the auction houses and places to buy things are not friendly to the ‘newb’.

 On the other hand, there’s just something polished about WoW.  Rather than putting out 6 decent expansions, they put out two great expansions and instead of killing their game with a sequel (as EQ did to some extent—though EQ 1 is still going strong with 48 expansions or something), they are releasing an expansion that will alter the world.  This will add functionality and keep players playing their original characters all while offering the chance to play some brand new races and character combinations.

 Overall, I think that WoW is better thought out than any of the other games.  It lacks some of the fluff some of its competition puts out and it is the ‘mainstream’ game now but by and large, there’s a reason they have as many players as they do.  Anyone can jump in and play WoW.  The conventions are simple to understand and within 6 minutes of getting the game installed, you’re killing stuff.  This is what the current world of gaming is looking for. 

 If a game truly wants to take away WoW’s market share, it has to do the following:

 1)      Make the game accessible to everyone and their mom (literally, moms are playing WoW!)

2)      Give players many different things to do.

3)      Encourage replayability by putting in different beginning zones so that there’s always a new set of low level quests to experience.

4)      Polish the game so that it really shines—it can’t be clunky because only hard core gamers put up with that sort of crap.

5)      Build it for today with expandability for tomorrow—not the other way around.

6)      Try to make something original for God’s sake!  How many fantasy games can we come out with???????

 Until a game company has the sense to embark along these lines and truly cater to the mass player base (not the finite one of hard core gamers), WoW will continue to dominate.  It will be impossible to overtake that beast for so long as no one approaches this from a different angle.  Until then, I’ll continue my own ADD flit about to different games, always drifting back toward my loyal and trusted friend.

This was a FUN MOVIE!!! It was the kind of experience you walk into and feel like you’ve had a breath of fresh air.  You could walk in from the gloomy rain outside and lose yourself in a gorgeous desert with colorful characters and charm.  This is luscious story telling about a world that was once ruled by Sinbad.

                Cynics and skeptics, curmudgeons or those who don’t like cinema are going to find fault in this.  Frankly, it’s too entertaining for most people.  I saw someone say that it was forgettable.  Was that person taking something for depression?  I found it to be mesmerizing and my ‘oh, shiny’ nature was well placated.  That’s not to say this is an ADD kid’s dream come true but it clips along at a nice pace.

                Let’s look at some of the comments that were made to disparage this movie:

It was based on a video game:  So what?  That just means that the source material is around the same length as a decent book.  There are some games that don’t have enough story to pull a movie.  Prince of Persia was not one of those.  It’s got plenty of character, charm, lovability and a place you can freely invest yourself in.  You won’t come out disappointed unless you go in with a supremely negative attitude; one that would make you hate Casablanca given half a chance.

It was entirely too silly:  Prince of Persia had light hearted moments but it wasn’t silly.   Blades of Glory was silly… the Anchorman was silly.  Prince of Persia was an adventure movie in the style of old swashbuckling films.  The ancient Zorro movies would be proud.  Frankly, just like when the Wolfman got trashed, I have to say that there must be some unrealistic expectations regarding these movies.  The ‘classics’ that are often held up high were an older generation’s popcorn cinema.  Don’t blow things out of proportion and you’ll be entertained.

                The reviews for this movie read like the reviews in the video game ‘The Movies’.  I half wonder if people didn’t just plug in the appropriate characters in the game, make a movie called ‘Prince of Persia’ then copied their comments straight from the quotes in the follow up screen.  Seriously, they complain about the director not being ‘an action guy’.  They draw attention to Jake Gyllenhaal (since he doesn’t usually do this kind of movie either.)  I half expected to see someone say ‘we’ve seen these used up sets too many times’.

                Okay, that reference might have been a little too old.  Sue me, I’ve been around. 

                Bottom line here is simple: Prince of Persia was a movie that made me feel.  I felt suspense, happiness, sadness, excitement, romantic… it was what entertainment should be.  Fun, special and engaging.  I didn’t experience the existential lift that I might have gotten from a tragic filth fest that involved evisceration, uncomfortable relationships and an ending that makes me want to drown myself in the toilet.

                I would normally do a ‘if you like this movie, you’ll like this one’ schtick but this time, I’ve got a more direct approach.  If you hate fun, you shouldn’t see this movie.  If you’re boring, there are plenty of documentaries for you to watch.  And if you get annoyed by excitement and joy, then stick with Michael Moore.  He’ll depress you almost as well as Somerset Maugham could.

I’ll have more updates soon