Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Series finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender so awesome it hurts
Some of you may remember me raving about how awesome the early episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender were and how disappointed I was when shortly thereafter the show fell to the level of your average good kid's show. Sure, the animation still kicks the stuffing out a lot of American TV programming, but art direction and execution by themselves are hardly ever a reason to watch something.
Well, I did really like Avatar's story, but since there was no way I was going to wallow through the mediocrity I was sure would be the second and third seasons, I decided to watch just the season 2 and 3 finales. 2 was certainly worth watching but didn't come close to living up to the show's early promise, but I see the 4-part episode that rounds off the series as almost living up to - and even in some ways equaling and surpassing - the quality of the show when it first began. Some parts of it were so awesome it hurt. Now take that with a grain of salt, because my expectations were low going into it - also one of the reasons why I was so blown away by James Cameron's Avatar.
And can we talk about music, briefly? *VERY minor spoilers possible, use no caution whatsoever unless you're like me and extremely uptight about that kind of thing* Avatar's score when it's at its best is very impressive, and a beautiful complement to the action. Since I didn't watch hardly any of seasons 2 and 3, I can't say how much of it was new for the episode, but the overwhelming majority of the music that accompanied the action scenes I don't recall having heard before. The Avatar's theme(s) are used very effectively, both what I'd like to call his "epic journey" theme and his otherworldly "Avatar state" theme that sets the tone for some prominent action at the end of season 1. I guess the soundtrack was done by Benjamin Wynn and Jeremy Zuckerman, and they did a really great job. I look forward to exploring any other work they might have done in my spare time.
-R
Well, I did really like Avatar's story, but since there was no way I was going to wallow through the mediocrity I was sure would be the second and third seasons, I decided to watch just the season 2 and 3 finales. 2 was certainly worth watching but didn't come close to living up to the show's early promise, but I see the 4-part episode that rounds off the series as almost living up to - and even in some ways equaling and surpassing - the quality of the show when it first began. Some parts of it were so awesome it hurt. Now take that with a grain of salt, because my expectations were low going into it - also one of the reasons why I was so blown away by James Cameron's Avatar.
And can we talk about music, briefly? *VERY minor spoilers possible, use no caution whatsoever unless you're like me and extremely uptight about that kind of thing* Avatar's score when it's at its best is very impressive, and a beautiful complement to the action. Since I didn't watch hardly any of seasons 2 and 3, I can't say how much of it was new for the episode, but the overwhelming majority of the music that accompanied the action scenes I don't recall having heard before. The Avatar's theme(s) are used very effectively, both what I'd like to call his "epic journey" theme and his otherworldly "Avatar state" theme that sets the tone for some prominent action at the end of season 1. I guess the soundtrack was done by Benjamin Wynn and Jeremy Zuckerman, and they did a really great job. I look forward to exploring any other work they might have done in my spare time.
-R
'Splosion Man - Totally 100% worth the $2 I paid for it
Sorry, I've been very busy at work.
'Splosion Man was recently on sale for 240 (or maybe 160, don't remember) microsoft points, which seemed too good a deal to pass up.
I stopped playing the game today, hopefully for good. I hadn't even finished it.
At around World 3 the game stops being even remotely fun. Remember Battletoads? Well there was a reason the novelty wore off fast. I am a big fan of punishing difficulty under the appropriate circumstances - i.e. when it actually revolves around developing transferable and generalizable skills - but when it consists of rote button-pressing and memorization of level layout - a la Ninja Gaiden (NES not the more recent incarnations) - it is NOT fun. There were definitely some bad levels in worlds 1 and 2 but the game took a nose dive straight into the concrete in world 3. It had enough good times to make it worth my investment though.
One interesting thing about the game is the adaptive scoring used. Since this is theoretically supposed to be a music blog, you probably know that adaptive scoring responds to the player's input and the on-screen action. Well, in this case, every time you EXplode (I'm sorry, I was a loyal follower of Homestar Runner for a while and certainly found "your head asplode" amusing, but eliminating a syllable really does nothing for the game), a guitar part comes in. And maybe the volume increases. Since embarrassingly enough I didn't notice this aspect of gameplay until shortly before I stopped playing the game - I just thought the guitar was awkwardly cutting in and out due to sound overload or something, because while interesting it is not very effective - I didn't notice any other changes than the guitar. I'd like to do some adaptive scoring some day soon, that'd be fun.
-R
P.S. Daniel and I are working on Episode 2 of Shafted, hopefully to be released by the new year (we're both pretty busy).
'Splosion Man was recently on sale for 240 (or maybe 160, don't remember) microsoft points, which seemed too good a deal to pass up.
I stopped playing the game today, hopefully for good. I hadn't even finished it.
At around World 3 the game stops being even remotely fun. Remember Battletoads? Well there was a reason the novelty wore off fast. I am a big fan of punishing difficulty under the appropriate circumstances - i.e. when it actually revolves around developing transferable and generalizable skills - but when it consists of rote button-pressing and memorization of level layout - a la Ninja Gaiden (NES not the more recent incarnations) - it is NOT fun. There were definitely some bad levels in worlds 1 and 2 but the game took a nose dive straight into the concrete in world 3. It had enough good times to make it worth my investment though.
One interesting thing about the game is the adaptive scoring used. Since this is theoretically supposed to be a music blog, you probably know that adaptive scoring responds to the player's input and the on-screen action. Well, in this case, every time you EXplode (I'm sorry, I was a loyal follower of Homestar Runner for a while and certainly found "your head asplode" amusing, but eliminating a syllable really does nothing for the game), a guitar part comes in. And maybe the volume increases. Since embarrassingly enough I didn't notice this aspect of gameplay until shortly before I stopped playing the game - I just thought the guitar was awkwardly cutting in and out due to sound overload or something, because while interesting it is not very effective - I didn't notice any other changes than the guitar. I'd like to do some adaptive scoring some day soon, that'd be fun.
-R
P.S. Daniel and I are working on Episode 2 of Shafted, hopefully to be released by the new year (we're both pretty busy).
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Golden Apple Productions Presents Shafted! - Episode 1: My Feet on Dry Land
Hello Partygoers,
DCB and I have completed the first episode of our new radio play. Have a listen at the website.
Cheers,
-Leo
DCB and I have completed the first episode of our new radio play. Have a listen at the website.
Cheers,
-Leo
Golden Apple Productionz Presentz...
Our Minecraft radio play ought to be done LATE tonight. seriously. that it ought to be done i mean. not actually egregiously late. but late.
-R
-R
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Walking Dead - new best thing on television?
First, I said today DCB and me would be releasing the first episode of our minecraft radio play. It's not gonna happen. Daniel was really sick for a day or so which is gonna end up pushing the release date back about the same amount, expect it tomorrow or the next day - ostensibly that's the reason but I'm hoping to also do some last minute music work since the pilot in its current incarnation has almost no music.
I am very impressed by AMC's The Walking Dead (and when did they start making quality original programming? It seems like suddenly there's a rash of good TV on AMC a channel had never previously faulted for creating a single good TV program). Since I had (sort of) originally envisioned this being a music blog for Spiral Cheese Horizon, let's talk turkey. I dig the music. Some of the aesthetics remind me of a better executed version of Left 4 Dead 2's instrumentally intriguing but unremarkable soundtrack, and one episode (I forget which) ends with a VERY clear nod to John Murphy's classic In the House In a Heartbeat from the superb film 28 days later, as well as its decidedly lackluster but still decent sequel 28 weeks later. Actually the difference between these two films is pretty comparable to the difference between Bioshock I and Bioshock II, but that's a story for another day (I never did write my 18-page letter to Y2K Marin chewing them out for everything they did wrong with that game, but it looks like someone was listening to my inaudible protests because they are mercifully not handling Bioshock Infinite, which actually has some promise of being on the same level of its progenitor). The song was also featured in one of the best scenes of the movie Kickass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYYEDXaGo0
(If you have not watched the film, do NOT listen to this track. WATCH THE FILM.)
My guess is actually that they would have used In The House In a Heartbeat for this particular episode (sorry, watched the series in mostly reverse chronological order and I'm drawing a blank) but it was either too long, they couldn't afford the rights for such an emblematic song, or perhaps most likely, they were worried about media saturation of the song and the diminished effect on the audience. What they definitely DID do was lift another lovely track of Murphy's from the movie Sunshine, which is only fair given it's out-of-placeness in what ended up being a fairly mediocre film. It's a little over the top for the scene it's featured in but still does the job nicely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWlXU2DeYkQ
(If you have not watched the film, do whatever the hell you want. It doesn't live up to its promise.)
Since I brought up Bioshock, I should perhaps mention that I was very impressed with both the skeletal score of the first game and the full flesh and blood soundtrack of the second. Indeed, soundtrack and gameplay were the only elements of the game I felt improved in the sequel - the story is utter garbage by comparison. Not an exaggeration. I'm happy to discuss the matter in detail another time.
Anyway, the Walking Dead shows a lot of promise at this stage in the game - but so did Lost, Dexter, and Battlestar Galactica in their first seasons. Two of those went on to become unwatchable, and one of them degenerated from genius to "good TV". I am referring of course to Dexter, the story of a vigilante-by-necessity serial killer which took a big hit in quality as soon as it started deviating extremely from the source material in the second season. The show floundered about in its second and third seasons but was still worth watching, and made a strong comeback that ultimately fell short in the fourth season but still reminded us why we watch the show in the first place. Lost and BG on the other hand became overwhelmingly tedious and trite after their second seasons.
*SPOILERS for TWD, Lost season I, and Battlestar Galactica seasons I-II from here until end of post* The Walking Dead actually shows some distinct similarities to Lost's incredible first season...a group of people brought together by a disaster, whose talents and jobs in the pre-Zombocalypse just happen to perfectly meet the demands of their harrowing day-to-day; a very significant chunk of character exposition through past-tense narrative (here spoken rather than flash-backed to); and a ruthless backdrop that doesn't seem to really care whether the dead guy is an extra or a main character. This is the kind of ruthless realism that killed Boone and Shannon in Lost's first season, and took only a few seconds of screen time to blast a few regular pilots into oblivion in Battlestar Galactica. When you don't sense the almighty hand of the network hovering like a shield over the show's most popular characters, when anyone can take a bullet and die at a moment's notice, when a main character gets blown away and isn't given even time for a dying-last-word, let alone a dying-last-speech, it does wonders for an immersive experience - after all, catastrophes don't play favorites. To be honest, main characters should be getting popped off and replaced far more often on the networks, but I don't expect this to happen anytime soon.
I am optimistic for the season finale of The Walking Dead, but if I'm being honest I don't expect much from it long term. I sincerely hope it turns around, smacks me in the face, and continues delivering a brutally candid perspective on what life would be like after zombies overrun America's great cities, but I'm not holding my breath. If network television is any indication, this show's sweet spot is gonna be a real ephemeral thing, so get it while it's fresh - not rotting and trying to claw your entrails out.
-R
(Speaking of entrails, watch episode 2 again when Rick and Glenn are suiting up zombie style. Rick's wearing an intestine necklace in one shot. It's gone in the next. It's back in the next. Gone in the next. And then, when he and Glenn are leaving the building - there it is again!)
I am very impressed by AMC's The Walking Dead (and when did they start making quality original programming? It seems like suddenly there's a rash of good TV on AMC a channel had never previously faulted for creating a single good TV program). Since I had (sort of) originally envisioned this being a music blog for Spiral Cheese Horizon, let's talk turkey. I dig the music. Some of the aesthetics remind me of a better executed version of Left 4 Dead 2's instrumentally intriguing but unremarkable soundtrack, and one episode (I forget which) ends with a VERY clear nod to John Murphy's classic In the House In a Heartbeat from the superb film 28 days later, as well as its decidedly lackluster but still decent sequel 28 weeks later. Actually the difference between these two films is pretty comparable to the difference between Bioshock I and Bioshock II, but that's a story for another day (I never did write my 18-page letter to Y2K Marin chewing them out for everything they did wrong with that game, but it looks like someone was listening to my inaudible protests because they are mercifully not handling Bioshock Infinite, which actually has some promise of being on the same level of its progenitor). The song was also featured in one of the best scenes of the movie Kickass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSYYEDXaGo0
(If you have not watched the film, do NOT listen to this track. WATCH THE FILM.)
My guess is actually that they would have used In The House In a Heartbeat for this particular episode (sorry, watched the series in mostly reverse chronological order and I'm drawing a blank) but it was either too long, they couldn't afford the rights for such an emblematic song, or perhaps most likely, they were worried about media saturation of the song and the diminished effect on the audience. What they definitely DID do was lift another lovely track of Murphy's from the movie Sunshine, which is only fair given it's out-of-placeness in what ended up being a fairly mediocre film. It's a little over the top for the scene it's featured in but still does the job nicely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWlXU2DeYkQ
(If you have not watched the film, do whatever the hell you want. It doesn't live up to its promise.)
Since I brought up Bioshock, I should perhaps mention that I was very impressed with both the skeletal score of the first game and the full flesh and blood soundtrack of the second. Indeed, soundtrack and gameplay were the only elements of the game I felt improved in the sequel - the story is utter garbage by comparison. Not an exaggeration. I'm happy to discuss the matter in detail another time.
Anyway, the Walking Dead shows a lot of promise at this stage in the game - but so did Lost, Dexter, and Battlestar Galactica in their first seasons. Two of those went on to become unwatchable, and one of them degenerated from genius to "good TV". I am referring of course to Dexter, the story of a vigilante-by-necessity serial killer which took a big hit in quality as soon as it started deviating extremely from the source material in the second season. The show floundered about in its second and third seasons but was still worth watching, and made a strong comeback that ultimately fell short in the fourth season but still reminded us why we watch the show in the first place. Lost and BG on the other hand became overwhelmingly tedious and trite after their second seasons.
*SPOILERS for TWD, Lost season I, and Battlestar Galactica seasons I-II from here until end of post* The Walking Dead actually shows some distinct similarities to Lost's incredible first season...a group of people brought together by a disaster, whose talents and jobs in the pre-Zombocalypse just happen to perfectly meet the demands of their harrowing day-to-day; a very significant chunk of character exposition through past-tense narrative (here spoken rather than flash-backed to); and a ruthless backdrop that doesn't seem to really care whether the dead guy is an extra or a main character. This is the kind of ruthless realism that killed Boone and Shannon in Lost's first season, and took only a few seconds of screen time to blast a few regular pilots into oblivion in Battlestar Galactica. When you don't sense the almighty hand of the network hovering like a shield over the show's most popular characters, when anyone can take a bullet and die at a moment's notice, when a main character gets blown away and isn't given even time for a dying-last-word, let alone a dying-last-speech, it does wonders for an immersive experience - after all, catastrophes don't play favorites. To be honest, main characters should be getting popped off and replaced far more often on the networks, but I don't expect this to happen anytime soon.
I am optimistic for the season finale of The Walking Dead, but if I'm being honest I don't expect much from it long term. I sincerely hope it turns around, smacks me in the face, and continues delivering a brutally candid perspective on what life would be like after zombies overrun America's great cities, but I'm not holding my breath. If network television is any indication, this show's sweet spot is gonna be a real ephemeral thing, so get it while it's fresh - not rotting and trying to claw your entrails out.
-R
(Speaking of entrails, watch episode 2 again when Rick and Glenn are suiting up zombie style. Rick's wearing an intestine necklace in one shot. It's gone in the next. It's back in the next. Gone in the next. And then, when he and Glenn are leaving the building - there it is again!)
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