It’s important to have goals, in just about everything you do. The somewhat tricky part is that not everything will have defined goals laid out for you. The deadlines of a dayjob, the billing dates of utilities, the expiration on a gallon of milk – these give us tangible goals. Other goals aren’t usually as well defined.
Take gaming, for example. People are under no obligation to reach a particular level in World of Warcraft, Mass Effect or EVE Online. In fact, EVE has no “end-game” content to speak of. There’s no sprawling story structure of quests and rewards – just you, your starting vessel and the vast emptiness of space. To keep things interesting you have to set goals for yourself – get this skill to a certain level, earn enough money for that class of ship, be good enough to be invited to the Awesome Express corporation.
Mass Effect, being a single-player experience, has the goals of the story missions, side quests and DLC, but beyond that you really don’t have any obligation to play it more than once. Yet I find myself contemplating doing just that. I’ve beaten both games on standard difficulty (as an Inflitrator) and Hardcore (as a Vanguard). But the Insanity difficulty taunts me. I also never hit the maximum level in the first game. So at some point, I’ll be revisiting it, and maybe I can put together a review of ME2’s DLC while I’m at it.
As for World of Warcraft, my main character’s plunging into the final end-game raid of the last expansion. I’m also getting him geared up for the arenas, which are pretty much the pinnacle of player-versus-player skill. Meanwhile, I have two other characters I’m working on, one for the purposes of change-of-pace gameplay (tanking as opposed to DPSing) and one for role-playing purposes. It’s difficult to portray a charismatic, powerful villain when you’re only half as powerful as everybody else in terms of level, after all.
Outside of my various electronic distractions, other goals approach as well. I’ve been doing podcasts for IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! for almost a year, and in a few months I’ll have been getting blog posts up for over 365 days. The editing process of Citizen in the Wilds proceeds, I’m trying to get a hold of Polymancer again and in a few weeks I’ll know the end result of my efforts to place in the Blizzard fiction contest. Once these goals are met, however, I know I can’t stop – new ones will have to be set, otherwise I’ll just be puttering around in games all day.
I mean, more than I usually do.
What sort of goals do you/have you set for yourself? How do you reward yourself when you reach them?
I quietly introduced this feature yesterday. In case you missed it, take a look to the right of my main content area, just below the grinning face in the Classholes advert.
This is an opportunity for you to participate in my weekly IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! feature without having to make a donation or call me out in a public podcast. Every week, after I do my thing, I’ll choose a few movies on my queue that seem interesting, bring back memories or look like they need a good paddling. Once the new poll is up, you can vote on which movie you’d like to see & hear me review.
I think this works better than my old, static list. I set the polls to expire so I’ll be prompted to keep new ones coming. More than that, though, folks who actually have an interest in seeing how this series is evolving and improving can become a part of that process. Or just push me towards reviewing more bad movies.
What do you guys think of the poll? Do you love it? Hate it? Want me to get different movies in there?
Ours was a Transformers house. G.I. Joe wasn’t on anywhere near as much when I was growing up. In retrospect, this might be why my initial impression of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies was a little bit rosier than my overall take has become. So I went into G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra expecting a dumb, flashy action picture more in line with those movies than the colorful inventiveness of Iron Man or the “introspection coupled with action” brilliance of Equilibrium. I didn’t quite get what I expected, and I mean that in both the best and worst possible ways.
Following a very brief scene in 17th century France to give us the family history of the man who would be Destro, we open to find that man, James McCullen, showcasing a new weapon for his NATO investors. His arms company, MARS, supplies most of the world’s militaries with weaponry, pursuing his family’s policy of never getting caught selling arms to both sides. His new weapons’ warheads, which dissolve metal upon impact and self-replicate to encompass city-wide destruction provided a kill switch isn’t triggered, are left in the hands of a special ops unit ambushed and assaulted by a highly advanced force. Before the weapons can be stolen, however, a different highly advanced force comes to the rescue. The latter is G.I. Joe, an international black ops outfit formed of the best & brightest from around the world provided they can deal with silly nicknames. The mysterious bad guys still want the warheads, though, touching off a conflict that will define both teams forever. Oh, and don’t be fooled by the word “international” in there: G.I. Joe is still as American as baseball, apple pie and questionably motivated military interventionism.
“A Real International Hero” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue the same way.
When you go into a movie like G.I. Joe, there are certain expectations. There will be explosions, one-liners will be dispensed and you’d better bring your own batteries, as they are not included. However, this movie seems aware of this. It has some fun at its own expense. I’m reminded of the scenes in You Only Live Twice or Thunderball where James Bond dispenses a cadre of henchmen or breaks out a neat gadget and you can’t help but smile because you know it’s the result of invoking the Rule of Cool. This movie has a level of camp that never becomes overly silly, but it seems aware of this for the most part. I mean, it opens with the words “In the not too distant future.” And in another move that distinguishes this from Revenge of the Fallen, the fights are relatively clearly shot and paced so you never lose track of combatants or where the action is headed. As I mentioned, I didn’t expect a level of inventiveness I’d attribute to Marvel. But how often have you seen people doing parkour on moving cars? Or a dogfight under water?
Now, in a movie like this, you can’t expect top-flight actors to give their all. That said, most of the performances fall on the “passable” side of “phoning it in.” The Joes we’re introduced to during the first real action sequence are actually a well-balanced team, and Rachel Nichols in particular tries to give Scarlett a little bit of depth and nuance. I really liked her, Snake Eyes, Breaker and Heavy Duty. Dennis Quaid seems to be here just to be the gruff leader and Brendan Frasier has a cute little cameo. They’re not ground-breaking characters and lean towards cliché, but what do you expect? It’s G.I. Joe! There’s kickass energy weapons, cool vehicles and freakin’ ninjas! We’re here to have fun, right?
He knows war is good for business, and knowing is half the battle.
On the Cobra/MARS side of things, I have to say there were times I didn’t quite buy Christopher Eccleston’s Scottish accent. Still, he gave McCullen a sort of cultured gravitas I wasn’t expecting, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s role had a touch of mad menace I really appreciated. This is Cobra we’re talking about, so of course things lean towards the sort of malevolent camp that makes Blofeld look like a Machivellian genius, but it’s more fun than laughable where these two are concerned. Oh, and Arnold Vosloo just owns the Zartan role. He’s a very bright spot in this film. Again – having fun’s the order of the day.
There was a lot of potential in G.I. Joe. I was on board for some of the action-aimed fun and I found myself really wanting to like it. When the movie’s firing on all cylinders, it’s a fast, fun and inventive little action flick. But like a date who chats you up pleasantly for an hour at the local pub only to duck out for a “phone call” and never come back, sticking you with the check and refusing to respond to your texts afterwards, this movie let me down. I could point to the overuse of action clichés, the occasional bit of dodgy CGI or the fact that there’s a reason why ice floats (I’m looking at you, climactic action sequence). So what makes me feel like G.I. Joe is so full of potential but ultimately a let-down? The answer lies in some spoilertastic territory, so fairly be ye warned.
A scene from G.I. Joe, or Halo? Hard to tell, isn’t it?
Let’s start with Channing Tatum. You don’t really need to do a lot to carry an action flick as the hero or main protagonist. Kick ass, take names, crack wise and show a bit of emotion here and there to inform the motivations of the character. Tatum as Duke does kick ass. But he doesn’t seem interested in taking names, his one-liners are utterly flat and he has the emotional range of a brick. Considering the ways we see Rachel Nichols, Saïd Taghmaoui and even Ray Park show emotion here and there, I don’t think I can legitimately fault director Stephen Sommers or the writers – for this. Tatum feels like a beefier, even less emotive Hayden Christensen. He’s not having fun, and since he’s our main protagonist, it waters down our fun as well. On the other hand, I think I’ve found the perfect guy to play Master Chief in the inevitable Halo movie! Michael Bay, give Channing a call! I’m sure he’ll be excited to be a part of it. Not that you’ll be able to tell.
Then, there’s Marlon Wayans. I haven’t liked anything a Wayans brother has done in terms of acting since In Living Color, save for maybe Blankman or Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood. Half the time Marlon as Ripcord just looks sort of lost. The other half, I just struggled to take him seriously. To me, it feels like he’s trying and failing to channel Will Smith. His jokes never really made me laugh, I didn’t buy him as either an action hero or the sort of guy to figure out the connection between the attack on the Joe’s base and McCullen – his line felt like it should have belonged to Breaker. He just feels superfluous, along for the ride, sort of tacked on. He’s not having fun because he’s trying too hard. I’m really not sure how to articulate why his presence made me so uncomfortable past my personal lack of affinity for the Wayans brothers in general and Marlon in particular. So let’s move on to the real deal-breaker.
I’m going to get this out in the open: I dig Sienna Miller. She smoldered in Layer Cake and completely nailed the selfish Victoria in Stardust. I think she did the most with what she was handed in this, and for the most part she pulls off a classic femme fatale in a black catsuit with kickass guns and the coolest pair of Transitions lenses ever. The problem I have here is the exact opposite of the one I have with Channing Tatum. I feel Duke would have been fine in the hands of another actor. The Baroness, on the other hand, bothered me because she was assaulted in the writer’s room and never really recovered.
You see, for most of the film the Baroness is a cunning, smirking, damn fine looking kicker of ass who loves every minute of being the bad girl. She especially delighted in playing her rich scientist husband for a sap, and watching Storm Shadow and McCullen vie for her affections. For some reason, though, this sort of strong female antagonist seemed to intimidate the writers, who worked in a relationship with Duke right from the beginning. As much as I loved seeing a black-haired Sienna blowing things up and complimenting other girls on their shoes while she points a gun at them, in the back of my mind there was a sinking feeling as I felt I knew where this was going. Sure enough, towards the end the Baroness pulls a High Heel Face Turn. But wait! It gets worse! It turns out she was brainwashed into working for MARS the whole time, so all of her awesome villainy wasn’t even her fault! She’s really a sweet girl who missed Duke and was ready to forgive him for the pain he caused her! Seeing an interesting character and a strong female one at that completely undermined in this way just made me sick. At that point I very nearly turned my back on the whole affair, but I was already on around the 110th minute so I figured I might as well see it through to the end. It never got better. I’m sorry, but this sort of character derailment just isn’t fun for me, and while some of the characters are bad or flat, this sort of thing is just completely inexcusable.
Like I said, I wanted to have fun watching G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but going back to my baseball analogy: One, two, three strikes – you’re OUT!
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.
It’s difficult not to be envious of those more successful than you. People you like, respect and appreciate do things that earn them a great deal of traffic, if not a full-blown career, and you wonder, “Well, why can’t I do that?” After all, I have opinions about games and movies; I love to write and, by some accounts, am pretty damn good at it; I even occasionally say funny things and can doodle a little.
So why am I not doing these things more often? Why don’t I try taking IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! to a different format? Why am I not chasing down every dragon that bangs down the door of my imagination, be it breathing fire or sporting a beard or wearing a very fine hat?
Simply put: You can’t chase every dragon.
The one that’s been taunting me since I was a teenager is becoming a novelist. It’s taunted others and they’ve found their roads to bringing the beast down. Good. I’m glad to see talented people succeed. I could try following the same road they followed, but in the end, how much originality would there be in that approach? And wouldn’t that road be just another dayjob, no different save in the name and the mean details?
I continue to be an amateur, aspiring novelist, while undertaking a daily job to try and keep the bills paid. As the sole source of income for my household, my responsibility to the others in that household come first. I can’t short-change a bill to supplement my coffee habit, I can’t leave the cupboards bare to pre-order a new game, and I sure as hell can’t take a flying leap out of a semi-stable position to go chasing another dragon when I’m already hot on the tail of the biggest one of my life.
I look at my peers with a mix of appreciation and envy: appreciation that they’ve not only chased but brought down some of their dragons, and envy that I don’t have quite as much time to do the same. But we all take different roads. We all see the heights we wish to reach. We all climb out of valleys of darkness. And we all face barriers between us and our goals.
We can’t all use the same sledgehammer to break those barriers down. It’s all on us. Nobody can do it for us, and while we may draw inspiration or encouragement from others, in the end the hammer’s in our hands, not theirs.
I might not be successful right now, or even in the near future. I may continue to struggle. I know I’ll still have to make difficult decisions, turn down things I crave and live with questions for myself of what I could have done differently, what others might have done, what could have been.
I have a tendency to take my games seriously. Like James T. Kirk, I don’t like to lose. I tend to find being on the wrong side of a die roll or an enemy stratagem to be very frustrating. But rather than taking the opportunity to learn from my mistakes, my habits lean towards venting those frustrations in an immediate, vocal manner. I’ve been making efforts not to do that, and have been successful when it comes to board games or Magic duels. However, one place that saw me continuing this bad habit was World of Warcraft.
Thankfully, Wil Wheaton‘s around to show us how it’s done.
A little background information: Not only did my wife and I meet on World of Warcraft, she is also better at it than I am. She’s shown me how to theorycraft, the ways to look for new gear and telltale signs to be wary of when grouping with people. Just like her editorial skills can improve my writing (if I can ever get up the gumption to let her tear what I write to shreds), her high standards help me be a better player than the ‘bads’ with which neither of us wishes to associate.
I’m a hunter. My ability to do damage and, by extension, contribute to the group revolves around my ranged weapon. I’ve been in need of a new one for some time now, and the most viable way to get one is in defeating a creature called Ick in the dungeon known as the Pit of Saron – abbreviated PoS, insert obvious metaphorical joke here. The system by which WoW generates random numbers determines what loot drops from its creatures, and after 16 attempts at this lumbering monstrosity on heroic difficulty, that system had yet to come up with the result linking to the crossbow I’ve been after.
My wife’s been very patient. I, less so. It got to the point that she was reluctant to be in certain situations in-game with me for fear of a display that’d put the Angry German Kid to shame. After her admission of this and Wil’s pep talk, I’ve resolved to change my ways. In a sense, I wanted attempt #17 on Ick to fail. I wanted to make sure I could do this – to prove I could take my losses in stride with my successes because a) it’s just a game and b) I’m spending time with my wife doing something we both love. Not every couple can claim that.
I also wanted to be honest about my feelings. My wife (along with many others I suspect) has an internal bullshit detector, and even if I didn’t feel entirely okay with the likely outcome of another encounter with Ick and the random number generator, I wanted to at least convey the sentiment with enough honesty to avoid a scathing look. My goal was to be within a tolerable range of at least two or three decibecks*.
So after waiting around 15 minutes in the queue for a tank to show up, we entered the PoS. Skip the first group of mobs, take out the workers and a proto-drake rider, drop the first boss. Head around the quarry, don’t fall in, don’t stand in the toxic waste. Once the trash was clear, we were staring at him, the pustule-decorated lunk with an annoying spikey-haired gnome on his shoulder telling him what to do. It was a somewhat disorganized fight, a bit moreso than usual, but like sixteen previous attempts, eventually Ick succumbed to my comrade’s blades and my bullets.
And like sixteen attempts before, my crossbow did not drop.
I heard my wife apologize. I didn’t say much. I’m not sure what she expected, if anything. The first chance I got, I got up from my computer, walked over to her desk, and kissed her. I thanked her for being patient with me and told her I love her.
Later, I ran another dungeon, the Halls of Reflection on normal difficulty. There was a bow available at the end, and while it’s not as high a quality as the crossbow Ick is hoarding, it’s still a better weapon than my hand-made epic rifle. Breezing through a normal difficulty dungeon was actually kind of refreshing, and much to my delighted surprise, the bow dropped on the first try.
I’m going to do my utmost to practice this good habit. I want to do more with my wife. We’ve discussed story ideas and means to continue playing that maintain our now-mutually high standards, and I want to prove that I’m a partner upon whom she can rely, not just in Azeroth, but in the real world as well. So I’ll keep my temper in check, laugh at our mutual misfortune, point out the bads and praise her when she saves the group with her fantastic healing prowess. We’re in this together, after all, and we play to enjoy it, not to get worked up over the electronic equivalent of a toss of the dice. Maybe I can keep that in mind from now on.
And maybe that stubborn Ick will drop that crossbow someday.
*decibeck (n): A measure of falsehood within a statement, based on the notion that one out of every ten syllables spoken by Glenn Beck is absolutely false.
