Free Candy For Everyone

In a follow-up to my viewing of Alien earlier in the year I watched Aliens this weekend. You can go check out my impressions of the first movie, but basically I felt that modern movie pacing and technology rendered the film a little hard to appreciate. Commenters made me think I might enjoy the second movie more. And I’m here to tell you… they were not quite right.

Here’s the thing - I don’t like suspense movies. I like action movies, I do. But drawn out sequences where you’re not quite sure what’s going to jump out of which corner and how many people are going to die tend to keep me on the edge of my seat. That might be a good thing for some, but for me, I find it crazily stressful. I sat on my couch with my blanket clutched up to my mouth, humming with tension.

Ultimately, I’m glad I saw the thing. Again, this movie has had a big influence on movies and video games. It’s been mentioned as a reference time and time again, and now I know what everyone’s been talking about.

One thing that I find fascinating in old sci-fi movies is their vision of the future. We’ve all gotten used to obsolete versions of the future with ridiculously primitive technologies on their spaceships. But what was really of interest to me was the fact that of course the interpersonal interactions were informed by the time the movie was created.

There’s a scene where Sigourney Weaver’s character asks if she can help the space marines while they’re loading up a ship. She ends up getting into this mechanical robo-suit thing, sort of like a futuristic forklift, and two of the male characters are totally surprised and impressed that she can use the thing.

Here’s the thing. There are female space marines, but that surprise moment, where the men are not expecting a woman to be able to operate heavy machinery jumps out as an archaic viewpoint. There’d be no surprise in a sci-fi piece today at a woman doing something like that - I mean, look at today’s Battlestar Galactica, Starbuck is played by a woman. She’s the best pilot in the fleet. And that’s just cool.

So what I’m wondering is what kinds of things we’re doing in tv and movies today will jump out as archaic in 20 years? We spend so much time thinking about how the technology will be different and how doors and computers will operate. But what about how people will be different? Does anyone think about what kinds of ideas we have today that we might not even realize are close-minded that will become completely different in 20 years?

I guess sexism isn’t so surprising that we’ve come forward on it. I just wonder if there are other undercurrents of discrimination and stereotyping that we are going to come far from in the future?

Yeah yeah, I’m reading it all the time. People keep talking about how no one has the motivation to raid anymore because the normal drops in BC will be better than all the ridiculously hard to get epics now available in WoW. What a tragedy, raid attendance is down.

Ooh, a mistake on Blizzard’s part, yada yada. I say who cares? Here’s the big question: are these people that are no longer raiding canceling their accounts? Are they stopping playing WoW entirely? A lot of people are maybe just leveling their alts up to 60 in preparation. Or perhaps, like me, they’re just playing a whole lot less. But you know what, I’m still paying Blizz the same amount per month. So where’s the catastrophe here? I have absolutely no doubt that I’m going to buy the expansion and play it when it comes out. I’ll probably remain a subscriber for many months to come while I try to get through that expansion content. Yes, right now I’m not completely enthralled with WoW anymore. Is it because I’m aware of the expansion pack’s imminent arrival?

For me, no. It was just time to play something else. It’s been 16 straight months of almost all WoW gaming and it was time for a break. I tend to think that maybe other people are just doing the same - recharging their WoW batteries so they can be fresh and good to play for 10 hours straight when the expansion hits in January.

Now lets just hope that the servers can handle the load, shall we?

I saw the movie The Prestige last week. I had been completely excited about seeing the movie. I wrote a brief post about the trailer when I saw it this summer. I could hardly wait to see it. Well, I finally saw it and it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

Don’t get me wrong, the movie was good. But it was really quite dark and disturbing. There were very few likeable characters in the film and I was never sure who to root for. If I hadn’t felt so much anticipation for the movie I’m sure I would have thought it was good enough. It’s just my hopes and expectations that left me a bit disappointed.

I went back to read my original post on the movie and was surprised to read that I had claimed David Bowie was going to be in the movie. Huh. Bowie? I don’t remember seeing Bowie!

Bowie! That’s Bowie! Can you believe it? If you look really close, you can kind of see him in there. But he did a very good job. I had no clue it was him. A far cry from his Labyrinth look.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve started playing Final Fantasy XII and it is quite good. I’ve been playing several hours a day and have most definitely prioritized it over World of Warcraft. In fact, I had plans to play WoW with some friends on Thursday and things didn’t quite come together so I just watched some TV. And then played FFXII.

For the first time since August 2005, I’d rather be playing something other than WoW. The spell is broken, perhaps? I started blogging shortly before I started playing WoW, which means I have a chronicle of my addiction. Here’s my first post written after I’d started to play. I definitely don’t feel that kind of excitement over WoW anymore. I think I really need a break. Maybe a 60-80 hour break - about how long it might take me to get through FFXII.

I’m still playing WoW once a week, but only once a week. I have the Crazy Cattle’s weekly instance run to show up for. But other than that it’s all FFXII, all the time until I finish it out. Which might take a while since I’m a total completionist and have to explore every nook and cranny before I’ll move on. But it’s fun to play a game with a tight story and an ultimate end.

I got a fun email this week from my new friend Jorge asking me to post info on a new game for him. Jorge works for one of these creepy grassroots marketing firms, m80im.com. I won’t dignify them by actually linking to the site. You can go visit if you want, but I’m not going to help the effort. He says to me:

I just found your Empire Earth II-related blog entry: http://tara.teich.net/blog/archives/warcraft-wow/ and I think you may be of some help to me. I’m reaching out to you on behalf of M80 & Sega regarding Medieval II: Total War game. Since you blogged about Empire Earth II, I thought that you might be interested in posting the press release or posting a review of the game on your blog? You seem like a reputable influencer, so I think you’d be a big help to us. For your help or review, I would be happy to send you a copy of Medieval II: Total War game.

Who knew, I’m a reputable influencer! I sent him back a snarky remark that he should actually read the blogs he’s contacting. Considering I worked on EE2 and still work in the games industry, it would be entirely inappropriate to do take payment for advertising for a game. But it reminded me that this is going on out there. How many folks who blog about games are getting contacted by these creepy grassroots marketers? How many of the blogs out there that mention games are doing it because they’ve been paid to do so in one way or another?

I write about games that interest me because I feel like it. People stop by and know that I’m just some person talking about her ideas. But considering that these grassroots companies exist, it must mean that lots of people are taking them up on their offers. What does that say to our readers that perhaps we’re not just talking about what we want, but what others want us to say? Boo to that. I write on what I want, when I want to. I hope that other bloggers do the same and don’t fall for these creepy requests to taint what’s ours.