The Geek Beat: A Myth Wrapped in a Legend Shrouded in a Potato

A Geek Beat One-Shot: Maybe he's Caught in the Legend...

Rex Quondam, Rexque Futurus. 

Nope, dear reader, don't go jumping to any crazy conclusions. That's not The Geek Beat humbly apologising for skipping a week whilst cunningly using Latin to make our apology sound a little more classy. It isn't even some ancient crone-like-soothsayer's dire warning delivered through muddled prophecies and puzzling riddles - for that particular job we have Met Weather and they do a great job of making no sense when it comes to predictions (where is the sun by the way - isn't it supposed to be July? How can it be hot enough to melt the polar icecaps and yet not be warm enough in the UK to merit a frappuccino?).

The answer to my parenthetical iced beverage-based question is of course that Britain is a special place. Not only do we have our own meteorological conditions that defy all laws known to man (with the amount of water that falls from the sky each year we should all be living in some underwater Atlantean rainforest, but rainforest conditions would require a bit of sun and there's precious little chance of that...) but we're also an island and a small one at that as Bill Bryson once famously pointed out. The maximum length of America's largest lake isn't that much smaller than the entire length of our whole nation; if Sean Connery and his band of Scottish loyalists had succeeded earlier this year, Scotland would have left the Union (thus making James Bond the biggest defector of all time), the length of our diminutive nation would have diminished to something approaching the size of that lake. No bigger than an American lake. Bet the Scottish Nationalists didn't take that into consideration when they thought about ditching us.

 

Defector? Codswallop! 007 and Her Majesty have been pals since forming the Tuesday Night Basejumping Club back in 2012.

Anyhoo, the point I'm trying to make is that here in Britain we're very much an island and in a lot of ways we still have that island mentality. You only have to look at the British media's obssession (and therefore, our obssession) with migrants and asylum seekers to see that to some extent, there's still an attitude of (*engage thick, rural West Country accent*) we don't like strangers around here; our ongoing in/out relationship with Europe is another example of our inherent suspicion when it comes to other countries. Where am I going with this? Not entirely sure yet - forgive my rambling and all will soon become clear enough.

I don't tend to worry about the migrant issues for a couple of reasons. The underlying irony here is that we're a mongrel nation; a historically sceptered isle of migrants: Romans, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Vikings, the slave trade and the days of the British Empire; Poles, West Indians and Afro-Caribbeans; Asians, Africans and East Europeans: for two millennia and more Britain has been shaped by external forces - along the way we've benefited in myriad ways, from irrigation to chicken baltis. Easy win if you ask me. The other reason I don't worry? That piece of Latin at the blog's beginning translates roughly as The Once and Future King. It's talking of course about Arthur, the fabled mythological hero who united Britain during the Dark Ages against the Saxon threat and was immortalised in medieval literature. The general idea is that after being gravely wounded whilst freeing Britain from hordes of Nazi zombies (or something), he's spirited away into the magical mists of Avalon to sleep until Britain has need of him again. So, until I see with my own two eyes this legendary hero of antiquity arise from his mystical repose and soar over my head (hopefully atop a sparkly unicorn) whilst wielding his magical blade Excalibur, I'll know that Britain is doing okay.

You may scoff and say that that's a pretty ridiculous belief system and hey, you'd probably be right. However, it's no crazier than zombie sons of Gods coming back to life post-crucifixion or the alien overlord Xenu murder-bombing a load of extra-terrestrial thetans to create human life. (Scientology is utterly bananas!) 

Anyway, I digress. Arthur (let's drop the King; historians tend to agree that his sovereignty is an embellishment of later literature) is this world-renowned mythic figure, not only here in the UK but across the world. Even our American cousins whose all-conquering Hollywoodland has taught the world the values of truth, justice and the American way are lacking in immortalised mythological characters of this stature: they have the immortal Hulk Hogan and although it seems that he's been around since the Middle Ages, hitting the legdrops on all types of dastardly villains, that really isn't the case. Not many people know this but Mr. T used his A-Team construction/montage skills (there was always welding! So much welding!)to construct Hogan from some nuts,bolts a few panels of corrugated steel and a bottle of peroxide ahead of their tag team match with Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff at the first Wrestlemania.

 If you can afford to build a robo-Hogan, you can afford your own clothes T. Hit the jump to see the build.

Maybe that's why American (and therefore) global culture has become so obssessed with comic book superheroes; it's building a new mythology for the twenty-first century: replacing the yawning historical/cultural vacuum that existis pre-US culture with new heroes and adventures, new morality tales, fables and deeds of great renown.

Anyway.

Arthur. I'm writing about the guy not only because he's always interested me but because there's a new movie coming out next year featuring the legend himself. Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur is currently in production and is set for a July 2016 release. Guy Ritchie is directing and Sons of Anarchy's Charlie Hunnam is playing the titular hero. I've long been a fan of Arthurian texts and whilst it seems to me that although he's done pretty well in literature, it's long past time that the 'Once and Future King' got an awesome movie. 

The cool thing about staging an Arthurian retelling is that there are so many angles from which to approach it, and understanding of the mythology is so replete amongst audiences that creators are free to follow or subvert as freely as they wish. This is evident in Arthurian fiction where some stories focus on the characters supposed celtic heritage; others (like Rosemary Sutcliffe's Sword at Sunset) on his purported Romanic roots. Bernard Cornwell's excellent Warlord Chronicles aim to place the tales squarely within an accurate Dark Ages Britain whereas Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series is much more fantastical and feminist-centric. All are great and these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Arthurian literature. T.H White's The Once and Future King series is next on my list; there's even the Le Morte d'Arthur if you're feeling hardcore and Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court if you're not. 

Sadly, Arthur has fared less well in other media. Although he featured in a couple of half-decent RTS strategy simulations over the last few years that hasn't really ever been an amazing Arthurian video game. Capcom's 1991 Arthurian-skinned side-scroller Knights of the Round was a stirling effort in a similar vein to Golden Axe and Final Fight. It even featured a few RPGesque systems where the characters weapons and armour developed to reflect their growing status. Since then though? Very little else of quality - and when it comes to movies Camelot's Protector has struck out pretty often too. 

"Is that one of Stark's?"

Although there have been a few good Arthurian movies, there have been some pretty rank ones too. John Boorman's Excalibur (1981) is pretty good but 2004's King Arthur is a uninspired mess. Then there's Richard Gere as Lancelot and Sean Connery as Arthur in 1995's First Knight. For some reason unbeknownst to me, Connery seems to get a hard time in this blog but in fairness, he really doesn't help himself with efforts like this one. It really is as bad as it gets. As it stands, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is your best Arthurian movie, and whilst that's totally cool because it's a great film, it seems odd that there isn't a definitive re-imagining of the Arthurian legend.

And so we arrive at 2016's Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur. The movie is set in Londinium which hints at a focus on the post-Roman civilization that Britain had become by the fifth and sixth centuries. Londinium had all but fallen into ruin and disuse by this point without the protection of the now-returned Roman Empire and perhaps this is the angle they'll go for; Cornwell certainly portrayed the city in such a way in the Warlord Chronicles and there's a writer who always strives for historical accuracy. Guy Ritchie though, isn't the sort of director who seems too bothered by anachronisms - 2011's Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows is full of them. To me, the inclusion of Londinium rather than say, Camelot or Hadrian's Wall affords Ritchie the opportunity to bring back a hallmark of his movies, the brash Cockney banter that typified his feted earlier films.  

What's this you say? Banter? Cockney? It doesn't sound very Arthurian!

Well, truth be told, it isn't. This certainly won't be one for the purists. The British director has already stated his intentions to make Arthur into a 'kickass action hero.' He also doesn't seem to be too worried about being too faithful to the Arthurian mythology: raised by prostitutes and battling giant snakes, war elephants and more, this isn't going to be the loyal re-imagining that one might hope for. 

   That doesn't mean that it won't be ambitious though. Charlie Hunnam is a fine actor and has proved during his run as the lead character in Sons of Anarchy (which is essentially Hamlet on two wheels) that he can go from angst-ridden, soul-searching hero to charismatic leader to violent psycho with entertaining ease. Reports that David Beckham is getting a cameo suggest that the whole thing could be completely pop-culture referential to the point of ridiculousness, but hey - let's give it a chance. If the film is making nods to modern popular culture then I say let's have some roles for the other Sons around that famous round table. Let's see Chibs and co. in there too; maybe have them as a biker gang? Ooh, I know - let's radically change the setting... California, maybe?

Or maybe I should just go watch the last season of Sons of Anarchy.

That's all from The Geek Beat this week folks. This has been a Vertigo production.

Head back this way next week for something else... maybe an update on The ANA Project.

Until then be sure to follow me @VertigoDC but remember: I don't roll on Shabbas. Later Potatoes.

  

      

The Geek Beat: Celluloid Saturdays - The End!

It's The End Of This Blog As We Know It...

(and I feel rough)

Hey all and welcome to this week's blog. It was a late night and early morning so I'll be keeping The Geek Beat tighter than a Peaky Blinder short back and sides today. A month or so ago I mentioned that the next edition of Celluloid Saturday would be the last - and so it has come to pass. I do have one or two projects lined up for later in the summer but I'll blog about those as and when. In the meantime, I've been busy beavering away to make sure that the final filmmaking blog of mine (at least for the present) has a few interesting tidbits to say thank you for reading along - I know out of all my blogs it's perhaps the least interesting so if you've been along for the ride, this is for you. 

Celluloid Saturdays started out as a lazy excuse to reprint an older filmmaking blog and give myself a weekend off from blogging once in a while - usually though I'd end up writing just as much as usual around the older blog. Today marks the final reprint of that older material; the last blog that I completed as a filmmaking noob. Without any further ado, let's have it:

Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Week 7

A hearty welcome to the final entry in my weekly blog; throughout the course of the last seven weeks you have softly trodden through the forest of my thoughts, frolicked in the silver-flecked stream that is my mind’s musings and made daisy chains upon the grassy plains of rumination. Now youngling, ‘tis time for you to go home. All that remains is for me to bid you a fond farewell.

Only first we have to talk about Health and Safety.

Oh yes, no blog is complete without it. Alongside the equally maligned entity that is Political Correctness, Health and Safety usually gets mauled by Joe Q. Average as being the chief cause of all of the world’s ills when in actual fact people should be pointing fingers at the Prime Minister and his implacable band of Lizard People. I on the other hand happen to believe that Health and Safety plays an important role. Part of this could be that one day I might just want to work for myself, maybe even employ or collaborate with others and being responsible for the welfare of others is a big deal.

Especially when they can sue you...

Like most aspects of Health and Safety, monitoring and regulating the welfare of others primarily comes down to common sense. A small amount of thought preceding a shoot can easily reduce any significant risks and lower the risks involved for everybody. As part of my day job I’ve had to fill in Risk Assessment forms before (haven’t we all? They’re like death and taxes) and whilst they often elicit a groan from the person charged with scribing such documents, their importance cannot be denied. Whether by alerting the assessor to potential new risks or forcing them to consider controls for ones that are already apparent, the purpose of a risk assessment is undeniably useful. That’s why they are standard practice across the media production industry.

For me, the application of controls is the simpler part of the process. Once I’ve figured out what the actual hazard is, determining an effective precaution is relatively simple; the part that I find tricky is deciding which hazards stand a real chance of occurring- an example being the zoo/wildlife park scenario that we discussed in class. I wouldn’t in a million years have thought about the possibility of a pregnant woman causing the animals to act differently. I suppose what I’m saying is that it isn’t possible to adequately assess every discernible risk although that in itself doesn’t negate the purpose of the Risk Assessment itself.

I did find an interesting form online that outlined the functions of different roles within a production company with regards to Health and Safety. Whilst most of the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the Producer or whoever heads up the organisation, there is a whole host of duties that cascade right down to the least experienced member of the team such as ensuring they have adequate protective gear or taking reasonable care of themselves. That in itself is pretty daunting. It makes sense though.

Anyway. Random Thoughts over.

Thanks for tuning in for the last few weeks. Hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Excelsior!

The Noob

That's right - my final blog was on Health and Safety. Talk about exciting! But don't worry dear reader: I'm not going to leave you like that: it may be the last Celluloid Saturday (yes, I'm aware that today is Sunday) and I may be seriously sleep deprived but I'm not going to say farewell like this. Instead I'm going to leave you with three videos that give you a taste of my filmmaking experiences. I've tried to choose a range; one was a large group collaboration that that I produced and later edited; another was a team effort with just myself and the talented Mr Andy Evans; the other one is all me. One is action; one is a music video; the other is a kind of human interest piece. One is old, one is newish and one is getting its world premiere right here, right now.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that they're all different in lots of ways. Just like people are different really, only the films don't bomb each other just because they don't look the same. Or maybe they do. Did I say I was sleep deprived?

The point then, is to give you, dear reader a slice of my moviemaking pie, from past to present... and leave you then to wander into that great blue yonder. (Figuratively, not literally; it's raining outside and I'm not really dressed for it.)

Here we go then:

Film 1: *World Premiere* Tokyo Flash Rogue Advert

This one is brand new. The footage is actually pretty old - I shot it with a bunch of student filmmakers and apart from designing and storyboarding the concept, played no further part in its completion apart from at a production level. O the night of the shoot I was so hands-off I even got to play one of the ninjas! Eventually, I got a hold of the rushes and decided to have a go at recutting it with the aim of making it look closer to my original intentions. 

Actually, that's a fib. I just wanted to have a go at editing a fight scene. If you only watch one of the vids, watch this one. Enjoy.

Film 2: Alexandra Jayne's I Won't Break

Shot a couple of months ago in Worcester and released last month - this was a collaboration with Andy Evans and the very talented Alexandra Jayne. It's a simple setup - much simpler than Troubadour, our last creation together. Nuff' said. Enjoy.

Film 3: Every Blade of Grass: The Nick Amos Story

I don't do everything in black and white. Honestly, I'm not some try-hard auteur who does it for the sake of it. This film proves it. It's colour and was completed back when I was still studying. I just like it because the legendary Nick Amos, star interviewee gives a great account of life in the lower leagues of the sport as well as just being really interesting to listen to. It's a bit rough around the edges but this was very much a solo project and I was still learning back then so back right off man! Oh, for some reason the sound doesn't work well if you're listening to this on an iPhone. So there.

Anyway, hope you liked them. I'm of to catch some Zzzzzs. And thus ends the mighty saga of Celluloid Saturdays, at least for a little while. I'll be back next week to sitter on about something else. So long.

That's all from The Geek Beat this week folks. This has been a Vertigo production.

Head back this way next week for something else... maybe an update on The ANA Project.

Until then be sure to follow me @VertigoDC but know that this aggression will not stand, man. Later Potatoes.

  

The Geek Beat: RETRObituary - June 2015

Welcome to RETRObituary: June Edition

Written by @VertigoDC

Welcome one and all to this week’s edition of The Geek Beat, your weekly shot in the arm of gamma-powered geekness. This week heralds the return of the RETRObituary and although I’ve somehow managed to just miss the boat because June is gone, we’ll be looking at classic releases of yesteryear, all released in the sunshiney month of June. Traditionally, the summer months have been a dry season for video game releases; publishers have historically shied away from releasing blockbuster titles during the summer – conventional wisdom dictated that this was the season where plucky young rapscallions were out in the sunshine, getting into scrapes and adventures whilst drinking lashings and lashings of ginger beer; these days however that’s proven to be something of a myth: today’s average gamer is in their thirties and is way past the young rapscallion stage… and as for the sunshine theory, the actual teenagers of today are far too busy flaming each other on Zoella’s YouTube comments page or maybe sending each other pictures of their naked body parts on Snapchat to have time to actually go outside or play video games.

Not that it matters – in many ways the youth of today are just ahead of the curve: in a few years virtual reality and 3D printing will have progressed to the point when nobody will need to go outside anymore, not even for a bottle of milk; you’ll simply simulate the trip via a virtual interface and print the milk through your food synthesiser, which presumably will sit proudly atop your kitchen work surface next to your Mr Fusion and the tractor beam that keeps the robo-cat from jumping on the worktop.

You may notice that Mr Fusion is actually just a coffee maker...

...that first starred alongside John Hurt in 'Alien'. Can you spot it?

We all know the digestion problems that coffee gave him...

...which is why Elisabeth Shue had to fill in for Claudia Wells, who opted to go decaf and AWOL.

Speaking of quasi-futuristic gadgets, I was seriously considering selling my Xbox One this week to make a little loot that I could put towards an Apple Watch. The Xbox One is little more than an expensive brick that sits squat and hulking atop my entertainment centre, watching me with a baleful, unblinking eye like some Orwellian nightmare machine (as a friend once coined it) as I cavort instead with its hated rival, the PlayStation 4. Apart from the rather future-feeling voice controls which I’m pretty adept with now (I can’t believe I used to pause Netflix by actually pressing a button, ugh, how primitive.) the Xbox One serves pretty much zero purpose in my house. It didn’t start out that way: I brought it with the intention of picking up some of the Xbox exclusives and trying out some of the next generation Kinect games; most of my buddies are on PSN so I knew that I’d be picking up any multi-platform titles for the PS4 – but I figured that something’d come along eventually for the Xbox that’d float my boat… that was eighteen months ago and still I’m waiting.

Anyway, finally something did.

Kind of.

Only not really.

I’m quite interested in what’s happening in the VR space at the moment. I’m old enough to remember Virtuality’s ill-fated attempt to bring VR into the commercial sector back in the early nineties. Along with my RETRObituary co-collaborator Mr Shaune Gilbert (who has left me to it this month - cheers mate) I remember queuing for what felt like (and probably was) hours to experience the mind-blowing future that VR promised to be whilst at the GamesMaster show at the NEC back in 1992. Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man had just released that year and blown our tiny minds as to the possibilities offered by virtual reality. If you haven’t seen it (and why would you? Even King successfully sued to get his name taken off it) it’s a pretty lame movie attempt to harness the short-lived craze for virtual reality experiences. I was no more impressed with my actual experience at the GamesMaster convention. The graphics were terrible, the controls unresponsive; perhaps given more time and more realistic expectations Virtuality would have lived up to its massively overhyped potential; instead it fell prey to the exciting generation of consoles that were launched into homes around that time such as Sony’s first generation PlayStation. Although these machines couldn’t do VR, they did take 3D gaming to exciting new levels and that was for most gamers, enough. Perhaps if Virtuality had had just another couple of years to tweak the hardware they’d have had something ready for the home market but alas, it wasn’t to be.

In the nineties, this was how we saw the future. 

Yeah, I know.

And now we have the second coming of virtual reality.

Sony’s Project Morpheus isn’t setting my world on fire so around E3 time when I heard that Microsoft and Oculus had partnered up and were bringing the capability to stream Oculus’ virtual reality system through an Xbox One I got quite excited. Maybe this would be the reason to keep the Xbox that I’ve been looking for? Then I actually read the article and realised that all it lets you do is create a virtual living room and virtual TV to play your original 2D Xbox games on. Boring… and faintly ridiculous if you ask me. So as yet, I’m watching proceedings with interest whilst the Xbox One is watching me… probably with disinterest (I’m not terribly exciting to watch; I fall asleep randomly, find food in my beard sometimes) and for now it’s earned a stay of execution. But for how long? That Apple Watch is still singing its sweet siren song…

Anyway. On with this month’s games – I’ll keep ‘em short this time as I’m flying solo this month and it isn’t even June anymore!

2010: Alpha Protocol (Multi)

Full disclosure up front: I’ve never played this game although I kind of wish I had. I did find it once in a bargain bin at GAME or somewhere and considered it, intrigued by its RPG approach to the globe-trotting spy genre but after a quick Google on my phone decided it wasn’t worth a punt. It makes you wonder how game developers make any money at all these days now we can access critical opinion anywhere.

I remember when I was a kid, the only real access one had to video games reviews was through gaming magazines: you could spend three quid on a copy of C&VG and check out what was worth picking up but this was the era of the budget title; a glorious time for Spectrum, Amstrad and Commodore owners where the princely sum of two or three pounds could buy you an entire game! For three quid! That doesn’t even buy you an alternate hairstyles DLC pack for most games these days. Bear in mind however, this was the age of the bedroom programmer so quality control in games was non-existent. You pretty much either brought licensed games based on movies or whatever (although that was no guarantee of quality and by the time a licensed game dropped to budget status you knew through a primitive sort of pre-internet form of communication called ‘the grapevine’ whether it was decent or not) or you scrutinised the one or two paltry screenshots on the back of the cassette packaging to try and divine some higher understanding of the game’s purported qualities. On a few occasions I made the schoolboy error of choosing a game after being seduced by the box art and lived to rue the loss of my precious cash. Anyway, being forced to choose between buying a magazine that talked about computer games or actually buying a game itself was no choice at all. As such, every kid had a stack of crappy budget games sitting on some dusty shelf whereas each game magazine was a rare and precious tome, a sacred codex containing precious information to preserve your stash of pocket money.  

 But I digress.

Despite not investing in the game due to pretty shocking critical opinion, I was (and still am) intrigued by its bold premise. As you know, RPGs tend to focus almost exclusively on fantasy or sci-fi games so a title centered around modern global espionage was a fresh twist on a pretty narrow genre. Osbidian, the game’s developers have actually got a pretty great pedigree when it cones to RPGs – they released Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Knights of the Old Republic II, all of which are considered good to great entrants into their respective franchises… of course, all of them also build upon original intellectual properties and proprietary game engines created by other studios; when it came to creating a fresh IP using their own engine, reviews of Alpha Protocol suggest that Osbidian dropped the ball. Whilst the story is supposed to be engaging enough, the gameplay was deemed by most reviewers to be sub par with enemy A.I. being a major issue – I don’t know though… dopey guards wandering blindly into your line of fire? Foolhardy opponents charging you with naught but a blade whilst you gun them down from range? Sounds exactly like a James Bond action sequence to me.

'Alpha Protocol' means 'First Protocol' right? Shouldn't shooting, spying & espionage be at least the second resort?

Another 007 influence that’s present and correct in the game is the ladies. Alpha Protocol’s protagonist Michael Thornton may owe more to Jason Bourne than James Bond but that doesn’t stop him from getting into some hilariously ridiculous scenes of intimacy, just like everyone’s favourite double 0 agent. Actually, come to think of it – the poor guy is a victim of non-consensual sex perpetrated upon him by a woman wearing pink-lensed sunglasses: clearly she’s a dastardly villain as she’s committing two serious transgressions of the law at the same time, one being some serious sexual molestation whilst the other is a crime against fashion.

Hit the jump if you're one of those 'Fifty Shades' types. 

Not a lot else to say here except I really wish this game had been good. Ambitious failures in one of my favourite genres are encouraging to see but ultimately only diminish developer’s appetites to take further risks. Whilst a new-gen espionage-based RPG would be something I’d love to see, critical failures like Alpha Protocol only decrease the risk of us seeing such brave endeavours.

Honourable Mentions: Transformers: War for Cybertron (Multi)

2005: GTA: San Andreas (Multi)

This game proves that there definitely are benefits to age. The youth of today may have their skinny jeans and possess the possibility of being alive when hoverboards finally become a real thing but they what they don’t have, what they’ll never have? Whenever I stick on a Grand Theft Auto game, I dig it not just because of all of the many merits that it possesses individually, but having been there since the series’ bird’s-eye beginnings back in 1997, I can really relish tracing the game’s slow evolution.

Not exactly a hoverboard but you take what you can get, right?

Every GTA title attempts to broaden horizons; innovation has become one of the franchise’s hallmarks throughout the last couple of decades, but never was the series so stretched to the limits of its creative possibilities than with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Understanding why GTA: San Andreas holds such a special place in the series’ canon needs an appreciation of the creators’ intentions. San Andreas marked a turning point in the series; a shift in tone that would define future instalments irrevocably. Previous GTA titles had used the cities in which they were set as protagonists: it could be argued that GTA: London 1969 and GTA: Vice City used iconic cities during celebrated eras as their central characters. Even the modern-day New York, lampooned by Rockstar into the crime-ridden Liberty City in GTA III uses a seminal location that has more character than Claude, its mute protagonist. The idea behind this was simple – the central tenet in those earlier GTA games was freedom; Rockstar really wanted you to feel like you could go anywhere and do anything (as long as it was ultra-violent): wanna be a cabbie with little or no regard for your own safety and even less for your passengers? Go do it! Wanna run around a shopping mall in your pants with a chainsaw carving up terrified shoppers? No problem!

Just another day in the hood.

The problem was that as Rockstar sought to bring more and more of their filmic influences to bear, the disconnect between the tighter narrative structure they were trying to develop and the randomness afforded by player agency grew. Put simply, they’d be trying to create an angst-ridden moment where Tommy Vercetti, the game’s protagonist would be struggling emotionally with the betrayal of his closest friend whilst the player would be running amok and punching hookers before dressing in their best golfing outfit to go steal a tank. I mean, it’s possible that this dichotomy was the result of Rockstar wryly commenting on the role of anarchy in easing the paradoxical duality of man’s nature, fragmented as it is by the onslaught of post-modern American-centric, symbiotic/consumerist cultural imperialism.

Or it could have been that they just really wanted you to have that tank.

In GTA: San Andreas this contradiction became more pronounced than ever. Set in Los Angeles during the nineties to a backdrop of gangsta rap, gang violence and race riots, the city and the era were an ever-present character in the game’s narrative; this time however, Rockstar aimed to tell a much tighter, more ambitious story using CJ the game’s protagonist as the central focus. This was reflected within the game in a number of ways: RPG-like elements were introduced – if you ran a lot, you gained stamina; if you ate too many burgers, you character got fat. More so than ever before, the player was encouraged to understand that there were consequences to their choices, a gentle nudge towards immersing one’s self into the character’s world, seeing things through their eyes and becoming more involved in the narrative. In addition to this, Rockstar creator Sam Hauser also ruled out casting a Hollywood star to voice the lead character (as had been the case with Vice City where Ray Liotta had brought Tommy Vercetti to life); reportedly, this is because he wanted no barriers between player and character – all the better to create an immersive story.

This didn’t mean that San Andreas didn’t want you to go bananas though – it totally did. Rockstar were pushing the limits of their virtual sandbox further than ever before and created a world that dwarfed anything that had come before it. Better still, there was so much insane stuff to do… base jumping from an airborne mountain bike launched from the peak of Mount Chiliad; taking wing in a Harrier Jump Jet and soaring into the skies; endless character and vehicle customisation; jetpacking around Las Venturas whilst wielding twin UZIs, always one step ahead of the law.

And then there was Hot Coffee,

The only way to fly.

Personally, my favourite activity after a long, hard day of living CJ’s angst-ridden life trying to restore the Grove St. gang to their former glories was to become Justice Gimp, a leather-besuited, sex toy-wielding, police-bike riding crusader of the night – I’d take on Vigilante missions from my stolen Interstate Patrol motorcycle, chase down criminals by moonlight and dispense righteousness with the purple Dildo of Justice whilst moralising on the ill-gotten gains of a life of crime, CJ’s true voice muffled not by a ridiculous Batman growl but presumably by the unyielding resistance of a ball gag. Or something.

In short, the game was a hot mess… but it was the most beautiful of hot messes and perhaps that’s why I remember it so fondly. Tonally it was all over the place and ultimately, that’s why Rockstar, when presented with a new generation of consoles to work with, opted to go for something much more focused and stripped back with its successor, Grand Theft Auto IV. That game was all about mood and the journey of Nico Bellic’s character and as such, a lot of the incongruent craziness departed the franchise before beginning to slowly creep back in during the latest addition to the series, GTA V, where Rockstar one again took us back to the state of San Andreas. The persistent rumours of a jetpack secreted within the game are a nod to fans’ desire for the return of some of the franchise’s zanier elements.

So remember, the next time you and your buddies are breaking the law with impunity on GTA Online, pancaking cop cars in your tank or fleeing some heist astride a stolen Sanchez, don’t get too cocky because atop that skyscraper you’re barrelling past or maybe pulling from a shadowed side alley right in your blind spot is Justice Gimp.

He’s out there.

And he’s watching.

Unless the zippers on his eyeholes are done up. (Insert joke about blind justice here.)

He likes to watch.

Honourable Mentions:  Tekken 5 (PS2), Killer 7 (PS2, PC), Battlefield 2 (PC), Destroy All Humans! (Multi), Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition (PSP)  

Note: Did I say I was gonna keep ‘em short this month? These retrospectives are longer than ever! Must try harder!

2000 – Excite Bike (N64)

Flippin’ awesome.

Honourable Mentions: Mortal Kombat 4 (N64), ISS Pro Evolution (PS1), Rampage Through Time (PS1), Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption (PC), Iron Soldier 3 (PS1), MDK 2 (Dreamcast), Omrikon: The Nomad Soul (Dreamcast), South Park Rally (Dreamcast), Vagrant Story (PS1), Deus Ex (PC)

1995 – Super Return of the Jedi (SNES)

Okay, perhaps that last review was a smidgeon too short. 1995’s Super Return of the Jedi was the concluding title in JVC’s Star Wars trilogy for the SNES. It used the same brand of platform-based mayhem as the two preceding games, only this time you got to play as Leia too. Although I remember playing this game first time around on my friend’s Magicom and loving it for all of its little Star Wars flourishes, having gone back and played the games again for the purposes of this review, it strikes me that whilst clear efforts were made to make the game seem as Star Wars as possible, the core gameplay experience just doesn’t feel that way. Being attacked en route to Jabba’s palace by a crazy assortment of aliens I can kind of accept, but Leia doing spinning, double jumps and becoming an acrobatic whirligig of death just pushes the envelope a little too far.

...and still with the sexual perversions. This month's blog is going to some dark places.

Still, the sound and graphics are gorgeous and the presentation is as slick as you’d expect from a title of this magnitude. The platforming levels are augmented by vehicle sequences using the SNES’ Mode 7 chip to create that faux-3D effect that was so impressive back in the day – in fact the very first level sees you speeding towards Jabba’s palace in a race to save Han Solo form the clutches f the vile gangster. Like in Super Star Wars where Luke slaughters an entire sandcrawler’s worth of jawas for daring to defend themselves as he trespasses upon their property, the early levels of this game see you leaping through levels, decimating the local wildlife of Tattooine for the sole crime of defending their natural habitat. Makes me wonder why Luke and the gang didn’t just pilot the speeder a little further and preserve the Dune Sea’s eco system.

Young Skywalker and his fellow rebels sure are a bloodthirsty lot in this game. Makes me wonder if it’s actually some sort of Empire propaganda game they make prospective stormtroopers play to indoctrinate them into somehow thinking they’re the good guys. “Play this, see how your enemy slaughters the natural habitants of this peaceful planet: go do the galaxy a solid and blast him.” “What? Shooting practice? No, you don’t need that – you’ve got eyes haven’t you? A finger to pull the trigger? How hard can it be?”  

Honourable Mentions: Virtua Racing (Saturn), Earthworm Jim (SNES)

1990 – Paperboy (Sega Master System)

Hmmm… not sure if this is a case of bad Googling on my behalf but apparently, it took five years for this game to port over from the arcade machine original to Sega’s lil’ Scrappy-Doo of a console. Apparently, it also holds the honour of being the first Master System game ever developed here in the United Kingdom so perhaps that explains its late arrival. Nothing moves fast in this country: we invented test cricket which can take five days per match and still have no winner; our broadband speeds are the laughing stock of Europe, to the point where our Prime Minister walks into an EU meeting in Brussels and all the other European leaders stop talking; he thinks it’s because he’s important and it’s an awed hush but it’s actually because moments before, they were mocking him for only having just got 4G. The rebuild of Wembley, our national football stadium took four years longer than it should have… and since then they’ve struggled to grow grass on the pitch… that’s right - grass. You know, that green stuff that grows frickin’ everywhere?

Still, at least it set up a platform of failure that our national team could go on to endlessly perpetuate endlessly. Did I mention endlessly?

 Pictured: Fail

So like I was saying, the wheels turn slow around here but that’s not the case for the titular hero of Paperboy, an American anarchic, free-wheelin’ free spirit, a bit like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, only with less drugs and more newspapers. Viewed from above in a sort of isometric perspective, the game had you quickly pedalling Paperboy through the picket-fenced suburb that comprised his daily round. The object of the game was to deliver papers to the houses that subscribe to it whilst vandalising the ones that didn’t. Our hero’s round was further complicated by all sorts of dangers such as cars backing out of driveways, wasps, and general neighbourhood weirdos.

Pretty rad. (Surely it's time to bring 'rad' back. Vastly underrated adjective.)

I didn’t actually get to play the Master System version, I could only lay hands on the arcade original but the isometric graphics are clean and colourful and still hold up nicely thirty years later whilst the occasional burst of digitised speech is a nice addition too. Unsurprising really as the game was developed for the arcades by Atari – although the company was collapsing in on itself due to the great E.T debacle and the subsequent North American video games crash, the games division was the only part of the business running in profit. From 1983’s Star Wars through to 1987 Atari Game Inc. released a glut of arcade classics including Paperboy, A.P.B, 720°, Marble Madness, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Road Blasters and Gauntlet II. Makes you wonder what they’d be making if they were still around today… E.T. has a lot to answer for – he killed Atari, showed up uninvited in The Phantom Menace and continues to fill my heart with childlike wonder every time I see his stupid, little face. Thanks for nothing you little monster.

You ruined 'Episode I' you little shit! Wait... no, it was screwed well before you showed up.

Honourable Mentions: Chip’N’Dale (NES), Thunder Force 3 (Mega Drive), Twin Hawk (Mega Drive), Well Trix (Amiga), Columns (Mega Drive)     

  

That's all from The Geek Beat this week folks. This has been a Vertigo production.

Head back this way next week for something else... maybe Celluloid Saturday.

Until then be sure to follow me @VertigoDC but know that I don't roll on Shabbos. Peace Out.