My wife likes chocolates, shoes and shiny jewelry as much as the next woman. But the truest way to her heart involves things far nerdier than such pedestrian items.
See, I married a gamer. She carries dice in her purse, she knows the ins and outs of many character classes in a variety of games and she’s got very well-reasoned opinions on what’s worth playing and what’s a waste of time. She blogs about these things. And then there’s the fact that I met her playing World of Warcraft.
So when it came to picking something up for her in celebration of Singles Awareness Day (her name for the holiday commemorating St. Valentine), I knew I had to think beyond the normal bouquets of flowers and boxes of sweets. Of course, she’d just finished Mass Effect and its sequel was released late last month, so it was obvious what she really wanted. Even if she hadn’t reminded me in her signature subtle fashion. (That’s what we call “sarcasm,” kids)
I brought the game home last night, along with a box of chocolates, because hey, some traditions aren’t all that bad.
Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart. I know it’s actually tomorrow, but you prefer spontaneity in your gifts, not obligation.
I’m not going to mince words. Robert Heinlein is the reason I got interested in writing fiction. Granted, it was his novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls that started the wheels turning in my head, but Starship Troopers was also evocative and fascinating to the nascent mind of this young writer twenty years ago or so. While the book was released and is still enjoyed today by youth, Paul Verhoven’s film adaptation is decidedly not for kids, what with the ludicrous amounts of gore and the gratuitous nudity. But is it good? The short answer is… “mostly.”
“Um… sir? Did we remember to pack that bigass can of Raid?”
In the future, veteran soldiers have revamped global society so that citizenship is determined by civil service in the armed forces, meaning that rights such as voting, procreation and higher education are earned, not given. Growing up in this society are Johnny Rico (Casper Van Diem), Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards) and Carl Jenkins (Neil Patrick Harris). The three friends graduate high school and enter the service just before the malevolent aliens known as “arachnids” or “bugs” wipe out their home town of Buenos Aires with a meteor strike. Carmen enters the fleet as a skilled but unorthodox pilot, Carl disappears into the dark cloister of military intelligence, and Rico, unskilled at math but a determined athlete with a decent head on his shoulders, signs on for the Mobile Infantry, the Federation’s hard-nosed badass rapid-deployment “do or die” answer to the United States Marine Corps.
Best reason to join the Mobile Infantry? Right there.
What begins as a near-future high school romantic drama turns quickly into a near-future war story. Unfortunately, this transition isn’t a one-way street. Instead of focusing entirely on the horrors of war, the shadow cast by the society in which these characters live or even the nature of the arachnids, the film keeps looking back over its shoulder at the romance plots and the beautiful people caught up in them. The transitions between themes aren’t terribly smooth, and it makes the pace of the film a little disjointed. The writing is fine, based as it is on tried and true science fiction tropes, and the characters are, for the most part, reasonably fleshed out with a few exceptions. It feels a bit like this movie is trying too hard to be too many things at once, which leads to what I feel is its biggest flaw.
Everything that is good in this movie is counter-balanced by something that could have been better. Good performances by the likes of Dina Meyer, Neil Patrick Harris and Michael Ironside are almost cancelled out by the wooden efforts of Denise Richards and Patrick Muldoon. The boot camp sequences that hearken to films like Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead are undermined by plodding, procedural CG sequences of space travel. Any rousing feelings evoked as the Mobile Infantry unit called the Roughnecks pay back the bugs for assaulting our race are watered down with audience-generated questions like “Why are they still using bullets in the future?” and “Why are their weapons so huge and cumbersome if the Mobile Infantry is meant for rapid deployment?” If the film had focused solely on the Roughnecks instead of constantly cutting back to Carmen’s fleet antics, the whole thing would have been a bit more coherent and the overall product would have improved. Yes, we would have had less opportunities to check out Denise Richards, but she’s little more than eye candy in this, and Dina Meyer completely outdoes her in just about every regard.
Dr. Horrible visits Himmler’s tailor and kills bugs good. Would you like to know more?
The best part about Starship Troopers, in my opinion, is its undercurrent of fascism. Heinlein wrote this as a cautionary tale against militarism overshadowing democratic process while still being supportive of military action, but screenwriter Ed Neumeier and director Verhoven take a more satirical approach to this aspect of the story. The framing device of “Federation Network” broadcasts that play like old wartime newsreels display a deceptive wholesomeness which conceals an underlying message that one class of society is valued more than another by the government. Even the supposedly helpful prompts of “Would you like to know more?” seem just as much an opportunity to misinform and propagandize as they are an aspect of interactivity. There are all sorts of political and societal ramifications of this sort of structure and the particulars of those ramifications could spark some great debate. But the best part of the film is also something of a disappointment, in that there isn’t more said about it or done with it. A FedNet bit here, a few lines of dialogue there and it’s right back to the violence and tits.
Still, I’ve seen worse adaptations than Starship Troopers, and when it works, it works rather well. When I saw it as a younger man, I thought it was thrilling and exciting despite the fact that Heinlein’s power suits had proven too problematic for the special effects of the day. Then again, maybe that was due to seeing Dina Meyer shirtless (not once, guys, but twice). Having watched it again with a more critical eye, I still enjoyed the majority of it, but some of its flaws are rather glaring, Denise Richards’ performance and the constant cuts back to her side of the story being the biggest two. But if you can get over that and forgive Verhoven his love of excessive gore – this is the man who brought us RoboCop, after all – Starship Troopers does manage to entertain. It does for movie watchers what Halo does for game players for better and for worse. It’s decently produced and nice to look at, but there’s aspects of it that keep it on the level of “average” and hold it back from being excellent. Being available on Netflix’s Instant service, you can watch it just about anywhere, but at over two hours and containing bare breasts and bloodshed aplenty, it’s not recommended for lunch break viewing at work.
Starship Troopers isn’t bad, in fact it’s pretty damn good in places, but overall it’s not that great either. Unless, of course, you’re a political conservative. If you are – and I have no idea why you’re reading this stuff if that’s the case – you are going to love this film. A future where political and military power are practically one and the same, and doctrine both at home and on the battlefield are determined by a select few who survive warfare and have mostly the interests of the military at heart? After watching this, I think quite a few conservative pundits in my country would have to consult their physicians because they’d suddenly be unable to get rid of their erections.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
From all outward appearances, not much is happening around here.
Apparently the region has been ‘paralyzed’ by the recent snowstorm. It’s gone by many names – “Snowmageddon”, “Snopocalypse”, “Snotorious B.I.G.”, “The Reveblizzation of St. John”, “Snonarok” – but through the wonders of the Internet and due in no small part to the supply of tea in my cupboard, I’ve managed to stay at least somewhat productive.
Now, I’m as lazy and easily distracted as the next writer. I’m fully aware of my tendency to procrastinate. However, like snow that comes up to one’s knees, it’s not as complete and insurmountable an obstacle as it might seem. It’s just a matter of suiting up, taking up the right tool for the job, and heading out into the environment.
Sometimes it isn’t rejection or constraints of time that can blanket the landscape of your literary journey. Sometimes it’s the knowledge of previous attempts. This is the sixth or seventh time I’ve tried to get this particular work – “The Project” as I have enigmatically dubbed it – off the ground. Every time, I get a little bit further, and every time something comes up that makes me stop and rethink the entire endeavor. It could be any number of things: a contrived plot point, an expository conversation, a character who needs a rewrite to be less of a personal mouthpiece or an entire scene or group of characters the story can do without.
This is why, in choosing to focus on the Project, I essentially started over, and broke the story down to the barest essentials of its plot. I’m very thankful to everyone who chimed in on the Story Bible, as I now have a solid foundation that will help keep things going when I feel I might be writing in the wrong direction. Once the foundation was poured and dried, I began setting up the major and minor characters that would help shape the story. Not everybody needed a full dossier, but mention’s been made of most of the primary “speaking parts” that will come and go throughout the novel’s narrative.
Last night I took a look through some of my previous attempts at this, and it appears I already have a fair amount of material written on the world, its history and its inhabitants. The time may come when I need to stop and compile a new document to keep it all in one place, but an odd thing occurred to me last night while speaking to my wife. I gave her a bit of advice I realized I should be following myself:
“The only way to write is to start.”
So I’ve tracked down a decent, no-nonsense word meter to include somewhere on the site, and tonight after the conclusion of another day of working from home, I’m going to plow forward on the narrative of The Project itself.
I need to finish digging out my car, too. Poor Vera’s been under the snow for days.
Like my review of Mass Effect, this is in preparation for my acquisition of Bioshock 2, which was released in stores yesterday. Now, I know a whole lot of people are all over this sequel and you’ve probably already moved on yourself, but until I too have gained enough of that arbitrary capitalist-fuel bank-managed digital data called “money” – because, let’s face it, most wealth is measured in 1s and 0s than it is in bullion these days – I’m still playing older games since I can’t afford the new ones. Except Star Trek Online.
Yes, I know that makes me dull, shut up already.
Our story begins in 1960 with a spectacular plane crash. The protagonist, Jack, is the only survivor. Amazingly, at no point does the perspective shift away from that of Jack, keeping us immersed in the experiences of living through a traumatic event, struggling to survive in the vastness of the ocean before we pick up anything resembling a weapon and the discovery of the vast underwater city known as Rapture. Once we descend into the hidden metropolis, accompanied at first only by the chilling introduction of the city’s themes and philosophy by Andrew Ryan, we are confronted with an environment both alien and familiar. There’s something special about Jack, and only by surviving the experience of wandering through Rapture and encountering its inhabitants will the truth be revealed.
Stuff I Didn’t Like
What? Pipe Dream? Rapture runs on Windows 95?
I know the game has a water theme going on, being at the bottom of the ocean and all, but circuitry is still circuitry even in a vaguely steampunk setting. Did the hacking system really need to be a clone of Pipe Dream? I mean it’s nice for all of the gibbering Splicers and menacing Big Daddies to wait for me to finish rearranging the flow of water (or whatever it is) to hack a turret so it’ll tear them to shreds, and it looks as good as anything else in the game, but considering how much of the game is focused on the action, including this kind of simplistic puzzle-solving is, to me, a little cognitively dissonant.
Speaking of action, this game is billed as a ‘spiritual successor’ to System Shock 2. I loved the hell out of System Shock 2, and not just because it was an immersively atmospheric shooter. There were elements of role-playing as well, from the beginning where you picked your branch of service to the specialization that came from collecting cybernetic modules. If you wanted to use the BFG 9000, and weren’t a Marine, you’d better’ve hoarded those modules since the start, mister. In BioShock, on the other hand, Jack can pick up and use any weapon or psi-power (“Plasmid”) he finds in Rapture no matter what it might be. A Chemical Thrower is every bit at home in his hands as the magical heat-seeking bees that live there after you pick up a particular Plasmid. It keeps the game flowing in an action-related sense but it could have added another layer to the game.
The Vita-Chambers that restore you to life are another hold-over from System Shock 2. However, in the previous game you had to find missing components on the level in question and install them at a specific location in order to essentially unlock a spawn point. In BioShock, Vita-Chambers are sprinkled liberally throughout Rapture, and using one doesn’t cost you a dime, while bathroom stalls charge you for their use. In an objectivist utopia, you’d think that a machine that does something so otherworldly as bring the dead back to life would cost you a fortune. But no, you just pop out of the thing after that Big Daddy stomped your face into the floor.
Jack: “MY TURN NOW, BITCH!”
Me: “Okay, now I’m kinda bored.”
There’s a moral choice system at work in the game, but your choices are “Savior of the Universe” and “Absolute Bastard.” There’s no room for you to be a normal, flawed guy just trying to survive.
The third act of the game is kind of disappointing, for me.
Stuff I Liked
“Why’s he shooting at us, Daddy? I just wanna play with him!”
The inhabitants of Rapture are a varied and interesting bunch. It comes to a point where you can pick out what’s waiting for you around the corner if you listen for a moment. The sound design in BioShock is top-notch. Like the aforementioned predecessor, a big part of the atmosphere is in the sounds made by the structures and creatures. Also, like Fallout 3, there’s some soundtrack dissonance to be had as something swing-era and gentle plays while you’re backing away from the Splicer hurling obscenities and bullets at you as you attempt to defend yourself. And the occasional public announcement really adds to the somewhat disturbing atmosphere.
The undercurrent of Ayn Rand’s philosophy running throughout the game makes the experience even more interesting. I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers, so I’ll just say that this feeling lasts for a very long time, up to and including your encounter with a pivotal character in Rapture’s history. After that encounter the game moves into its third act which, as I said before, kind of let me down.
Stuff I Loved
Rapture itself makes up for a lot of shortcomings.
I’ll begin my gushing with the art direction. A lot of games rendered for current consoles look good, but BioShock‘s setting, characters and sequences all feel remarkably fresh and hauntingly nostalgic at the same time. There’s an old-fashioned sensibility about Rapture, the clothes people wear there and even the weapons you pick up that really reinforce the period feel of the game.
The storytelling in this game is outstanding. From the overall arc of the plot (even if it does waver a bit at the end) to the characterization of major NPCs, the game is written extremely well. If the art and sound design weren’t enough to draw people in, the plight of the people who speak with Jack and the emotions they convey drive the point home and yank us into the experience.
Jack begins as your standard-issue silent protagonist. But the more we get into the game, the more we realize that he is a fully-realized character, and there’s that one sequence that helps us feel moments hesitation and even fear despite facing down Big Daddies and surviving quite a while in Rapture’s hostile environment. He many never say a word, but we get to know Jack pretty well, and our connection to him begins to extend beyond his role as a player surrogate.
The Big Daddies and Little Sisters. Not only are these folks icons for the entire game and its dissonant themes and mood, but they’re extremely well realized characters that, again, need very little dialogue. We never see the face of a Big Daddy, as they convey emotion through body language and whale-like sounds alone. Little Sisters, barefoot in pretty dresses, are all the more menacing for their unassuming appearance, especially when they start screaming for our blood when we open up on their colossal protectors. We need them, though, and the mysterious substance they collect from the dead, and as much as you might hate them and choose the ‘Harvest’ option every time, seeing them sobbing over the inert body of a Big Daddy, for me, tends to give a moment’s pause. How much is survival worth? Is it enough to merely survive, or should we struggle to do something more, to be better than an animal vying for the right to exist? It’s a question that is posed to the player without a single mention of such a line of thought in any of the written or spoken messages in the game. Then again, that could just be me.
Bottom Line: I adore BioShock. In spite of the things I don’t like about it, the little bits from System Shock 2 that could have made the game even better, this is a solid, well-produced and fantastic shooter that manages to be more than just another run-and-gun title. It’s got something to say. It’s actually about something. And that’s more than most shooters could ever hope to claim.
If you haven’t bought it already, it’s worth the money.
I know, I know, the original quote is “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” I’m enough of a Heinlein buff to remember that. But I’m also aware of the fact that posting stuff on here requires an investment of time, and for most people, time is money. Just like money buys information, information is power, power is corrupting, and corruption (according to some) is just a matter of time. See what I did there? It’s circular.
Anyway.
More than once I have been told “You should get paid to do this.” It’s a sentiment I really appreciate, and Polymancer Studios will indeed be paying me, but not for my Netflix posts. I’ll be following up with them after I wrap up this little update, which includes an expansion of my site.
That little link you might have overlooked? Look again. IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! now has its own page.
I have a little bio page up as well, but that’s beside the point. One of the things that brings people here and keeps them interested definitely deserves to be featured on its own apart from my daily dribbling about writing, gaming, kittens and generally being a dull, uninteresting nerd. It includes a list of ICFN! posts, how I got started doing them and how readers like you can contribute to keep it going even longer.
I have no idea how this is going to turn out. My inbox for suggestions/donations might just sit around collecting dust and cobwebs or I might get a flood of requests for movies I’d normally have zero interest in watching. I guess we’ll just have to see once I get all of this posted.
Like any entertainer worth their salt, I’m doing my best to be aware of what my audience wants. Maybe someone out there wants me reviewing more comedies and less sci-fi. Perhaps there’s a gem of an old fantasy movie that so far has gone unnoticed and unreviewed. It’s likely that a person reading this is thinking of a favorite film that they believe will become a favorite of mine as well.
I’ll make you no promises save this: I’m willing to watch just about anything. I can’t promise I’ll like it, and if I don’t I’ll make damn sure you know it. I try to act like something resembling a professional in this space, which is why I do my utmost to post every day. I know I’ll get some stick for doing that, since in reality I’m about as Peter Pan as someone can get without donning pointy shoes and a fetching green hat, but dammit, I can pretend.
