The Irradiated Future

As has been established, I love 30s to 60s culture. I'd have to say it's because of the almost childlike hopeful attitude that is so prominent at the time. Life and the economy were good (after the Great Depression and in particular after WWII, of course), and everyone seemed to think that everything was uphill from there, like they had found perfection and it would last forever. Untrue, of course, but that naive enthusiasm for the future has a certain charm to it.

When I think of this kind of culture, I think either the great USA versus the evil Nazis and twisted Japanese or the last island of capitalism in the shark-infested ocean of communism. It was riddled with new advances driven by fear and war and tons of propaganda, usually given in campy little PSAs, like Duck and Cover, mostly because the future looked frightening, but people wanted to fool themselves and others into thinking it would all turn out alright.

In stark contrast, Fallout is grittily dystopian with everything having hit rock bottom and no real sign of the next hill in sight. This contrasts so vividly with the utopian views of the cold war culture, it's like ebony and ivory. It's so darkly humorous to see, say, old, faded posters proclaiming the glory of the future hanging on the walls of filthy, half-destroyed buildings in the middle of a wasteland, it's hard to imagine someone not appreciating the atmospheric contrasts.

For an example of the contrasting atmospheres, just look at the below montage to see what I mean.



I've heard that Fallout was based on Wasteland, Mad Max, and other such things (which I have peered at but never really gotten into, myself), but when I think Fallout, I think three things: gritty, atmospheric, and violent. A vague list, maybe, but I think that anyone who has played Fallout 1 and 2 has to admit that the game is essentially those three things.

As far as CRPGs go, Fallout is classic, and any self-proclaimed roleplaying game fan will most likely have played at least one game in the series. It has spawned a cult following, though I would recommend avoiding much of the fan community, as they are, in my experience, a bitter and unpleasant lot.

All the buzz (and concern, I suppose) has been about the newest game in the series, Fallout 3. With Bethesda at the wheel, it's hard to say whether it will be a credit or insult to the original material. As much as I liked Fallout 2, though, I do hope that the third cuts down on the immersion-breaking pop culture references.

I think that one of the hardest things to pull off will be the immersive, believable atmosphere. Naturally, that's the hardest part for any storyteller, but I think that it will be particularly difficult for someone who's never created the game to find that sweet spot of atmosphere concurrence. In Bethesda's credit, I think that they are really, honestly trying, and that they have the right idea in mind. Look at their diaries, hell their website design, if you have any doubt of that. It's obvious that they know what they're doing. For a good example, see the E3 '08 trailer below.



Ahh, such a fantastic job. The intro PSA looks exactly like something someone would see in the 50s. I couldn't ask for it to be better, and their choice of music is superb as well. My only real concerns come with the game footage.

As I have described, one of the main points of Fallout is the violence. Some complain that Fallout's graphics are dated, but I beg to differ. There is an enormous amount of detail packed into those sprites, and I really don't think that more is necessary, or even worthwhile.

Even the talking heads, simple as they may be compared to rendering a 3D model on the fly, don't break immersion in the slightest (if anything, they add to it).



In fact, it's done so well, I think that Bethesda will have a bit of trouble recreating it in full 3D. The nice thing about sprites (and the talking heads are more or less sprites) is that they are just a number of images that are shown in succession, and displaying an image takes practically no system resources. In contrast, stuffing that kind of detail into a 3D model is very taxing for a computer to render, plus the detail has to be uniform. In the case of the talking heads, there doesn't have to be a great-looking back of the head, because no one will see that. In Fallout 3, the quality has to be the same on all parts of the model, which may mean that the model has lower-resolution textures, less polygons, etc.

Another thing that concerns me is atmosphere. When the entire game is a bunch of images overlaying other images, all seen from a high isometric perspective, it's easy to make it look like there is more detail than there actually is. When you can actually walk up to something in first person and observe it up close, though, any lack of detail becomes glaringly apparent. Additionally, something looks a bit... wrong with the in-game footage. Maybe it could use the barrel distortion techniques employed in Mass Effect, which I will be sure to discuss in detail soon enough.

Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation mentioned Fallout 3 in his E3 overview, but I have to clarify one point; you won't always see a long, cinematic death for every enemy you fight, it's controlled by the fight mode you have selected, so at least there's an option to disable it should it become tedious (Final Fantasy VII in particular suffered from that, especially when the attack cinematics clocked in at around half a minute or more).



All in all, I think that Bethesda is on the right track to capturing what made Fallout great, though I do hope that they polish the graphics a bit before release, in particular the much-hyped death shots. Unfortunately, you just can't realistically pack the kind of detail into a 3D model for a game necessary to make it really look like someone's just gotten their side blown out or arm shot off. Sprites are great with that, because they can do whatever they like--they're just a succession of pictures. 3D models are limited by geometry and how it interacts with the environment and itself. In particular, I get the feeling that I'm just looking at a full 3D model that was chopped up into parts, then glued back together in the case of the player going at a mutant with a gatling gun; they fall apart like they are some kind of toy.

What The Hellboy? pt 2

NOTE: This article contains satire and is not to be taken seriously.

WARNING: This article contains EXTREME SPOILERS.

Please read part 1 before continuing.

I guess it looked stylish back in the 1800s.

So this troll market is apparently located beneath the Brooklyn bridge. Why has no one found it, you ask? Why, because they didn't have excessively complicated clockwork goggles to see through the cloaking aura of trolls to find one to take them to the market, of course! I mean, isn't it obvious?

Again, I like clockwork steampunk quite a lot, but this all feels over the top and not very well thought out. Why do they have to be these 1876 clockwork goggles? Why not a new scanning device? What is it about "four crystal diopters" that allow one to see through the "cloaking aura of glamor" of trolls, which makes them otherwise appear to be homeless ladies? Homeless ladies which, by the way, are afraid of canaries and eat kittens. I guess it made sense to the writers.

So they find a troll and, because Hellboy loves kittens, beat the shit out of her when she tries to eat one, by which I mean he shows her a canary in a cage. Seriously, could the writers think of no more likely thing for her to be afraid of? At least vampires being afraid of garlic and werewolves afraid of silver kind of makes sense. It harms them, right? What the hell can a canary do?

In any case, the troll reveals the entrance to the market--a sliding panel inside a meat packing plant. From there, it looks like we stepped into that street in Harry Potter after Hagrid taps some bricks with his umbrella. Seriously, it's a whole nother world in there. It may have worked if the first Hellboy movie had fantasy themes, but it didn't. Now, it just feels like they were desperate for a story and couldn't come up with a plot that didn't include fantasy creatures, so they suddenly made this huge, elaborate world that was never even hinted at before. It's like how everyone was revealed to be a pirate on some council in Dead Man's Chest, even though there was absolutely nothing that led up to it. Also, this is the first time that the movie uses a split-screen effect to depict someone on a radio or phone.

"See, this way the audience can tell that we're talking with one another. Isn't that dandy?"

Am I the only one who thinks that this looks really, really corny? And, to make it worse, it's followed by a screen-wipe scene transition.

Also, Manning discusses how Dr. Krauss is this super-efficient guy who always obeys the chain of command, and one assumes that he's been this way for a long, long time, as he's a ghost. This will be important later on.

Before they can fall down the rabbit hole, though, they have to enter this big vault-like door with a complex combination lock. Here, Hellboy really does beat the shit out of the troll-lady, but Krauss simply possesses the lock to get it to open. As has been revealed, he can possess anything, creature or object, alive or dead. Again, Krauss is able to speak even when outside of the suit, which begs the question of why the suit is necessary at all, or, at least, why it has to have a big, metal-and-glass globe for a head. The vault door, like everything else, is excessively elaborate, and Krauss welcomes them to the troll market.

I guess I should be impressed here, but, honestly, I'm not. At all. I don't see any fascinating creature designs or elaborate detail. It's not that it's bad, just very mediocre. Hellboy comments about how no one stares at him in the troll market because they're all equally freaky, but Krauss demands that he keep chatter to a minimum, which is fine with me. One little thing that bugged me, though, is after he tells Liz that he'll talk to her later, she says "Alright. Over and out." That made me cringe.

For those who don't know, "over" is a radio expression that means "I'm finished talking, please respond", while "out" means "I'm finished talking and do not expect a response." So, what "over and out" is saying is "I'm finished and expect a response, but don't respond." See? It makes no sense. It's a cliche', and a mistaken one, at that. I admire films, shows, etc. that just end a radio call with "out", because they know their stuff. "Over and out" is just a testament to the ignorance of the writer.

So, while they're walking around, Abe randomly glances over and sees the twin of the Pale Prince and notices the seal on her braclet from like a mile away and then calls Red for another of those lovely split-screen radio transmission things. Ugh. Also, for a guy who seems like he knows what he's doing so far, Krauss is suddenly totally lost and is unable to get help until finally coming across two particularly ugly specimines of bad character design.

"I'm not a baby, I'm a tumor. Because cancer is funny. Hyuck, hyuck."

I have to admit, these two are some of the worst modern special effects I've ever seen. They're not CG, note, which may please some, but their lip-sync is pretty far off, and they are almost completely inexpressive. Krauss asks them about the tooth fairies, they know nothing, but when asking about the seal found on the containers holding the tooth fairies, they both gasp and look at one another in a completely unrealistic way and insist that they don't want to talk about it, so Hellboy pops up and beats the shit out of them until the one with the baby (no, it's a talking tumor--seriously, was that supposed to be funny?) talks. They say that the fairies were bought by Prince Angst and say that there's talk of war with the human world since the truce has been broken. This is getting more and more far-fetched.

Abe follows the Pale Princess into a shop where she reveals her identity to the owner, who was apparently keeping a cylindrical metal map-holder behind a ceramic beehive-like wall that he has to shatter to get it out. Why? I don't know. Then, Abe comes in and the Princess demands to know why he's following her. He tries to bullshit, but she doesn't believe and instead demands to see his hand. He holds it up (gloved, mind you), and she touches it and reads his mind. Similarly, he reads her mind. That's kind of funny, since, although it is shown that Abe has some psychic powers in the first movie (doesn't he? it's like they forgot about that up to now, because he's not used it at all), but he always had to take off his glove for it to work. Oops! Or is it just because she's psychic as well, they are able to trade thoughts through his rubber spandex suit? Because, of course, all of one's personality actually resides in their palms. You know, where your brain is.

Then there's an awkward, cheesy scene were the two fall suddenly in love with one another. Pale elf woman and freakish blue fish-man? It's a match made in heaven.

Are those Jawas in the background?

Just then, Mr. Wink breaks into the shop to interrupt what would probably otherwise have been an awkwardly forced make-out and sex scene. Apparently Mr. Winks is angry because... he's... because he looks evil. No, I guess he's actually after the Princess, but totally forgets about her in order to fight first Blue, and then Hellboy, who beats the shit out of him and then tricks him into being pulled through a grinder (which is just randomly in the middle of the market--I can't see what the point of its being there is, but it's there--how convenient). Some little two-headed creature runs to the Prince to report that Wink is dead, and he seems pretty devastated for some reason. I guess the two were lovers, or something.

Meanwhile, the Princess shows the crown piece and map (which leads to where the golden army is stored) to Krauss, Hellboy, and Abe. Krauss suggests that she hand the crown piece over, but she insists on keeping it in the oh-so-safe little compartment in the metal thing on her belly. "Where it goes, I go." May I ask why? It would be far more rational to hand it over, since it will be revealed in just a bit (by her) that her brother knows everything she knows, and thus is aware of the location of the Bureau, where they take her. Great thinking there, Princess. Nothing like granite-solid female logic in a time of crisis. She claims that because her father died it somehow makes it a good idea for her to keep the piece, but whatever. Abe vouches for her because he's sporting a slimy fish-boner for her white rose, and, even though Krauss doesn't seem particularly satisfied with that (it's nice to have a voice of reason), Hellboy's insistence on defiance at last wins over.

Suddenly, the Prince is there, saying that Hellboy will pay for killing Mr. Wink. What a lose-lose situation, I mean what else were they supposed to do? He was kind of a thousand pounds of lumbering cyborg troll. To get them back, the Prince releases a bean (after vaguely whispering "kill him" to it--like the bean knows who the Prince is referring to) that rolls its way to water (while everyone stares dumbly) and suddenly grows into a huge plant elemental. Did you see that coming? Because I totally didn't.

So this elemental grows to building-size in a few short moments, bursting out of the street and sending all kinds of people fleeing. One woman who is forced to run from her car, almost looking hesitant to leave, seems to have forgotten her baby inside (seriously, she stares forlornly into her car, but doesn't really complain when she's urged away). Thankfully, Hellboy takes the baby out moments before the car is crushed by the elemental. Hereafter, the entire fight scene between Hellboy and the elemental is done with Hellboy carrying the child in one arm. In his stone arm, no less. I'd think that, during all his strenuous fighting, he'd accidentally tighten his arm just a bit too much, but then what do I know?

Anyway, after Hellboy has beaten (or rather shot with his pistol that seems to fire shotgun shells) the elemental into submission, the Prince is suddenly there to taunt Hellboy about how he may not actually want to kill the elemental, because, like himself and Hellboy, it's the last of its kind. Well, after a moment of thought on Hellboy's part where we get a good look at his beard, the elemental attacks again and Hellboy kills it (with a shot to the head, as is brilliantly recommended by his allies--who woulda thunk it?) after Krauss has been yelling for Hellboy to do just that for what seemed like forever.

Climbing buildings and defeating gigantic monsters while holding a tiny infant? Now that's badass. What a great parent Hellboy will make.

Then, oddly, Hellboy returns the child to its mother as she is meanwhile accusing him of stealing or hurting her baby, and everyone in the crowd begins to suddenly throw rocks and insults at Hellboy, and a cop even almost shoots at him, completely unprovoked ("He's got a weapon in his hand!" "No, that IS his hand!"). What? What the hell? The crowd was there the whole time, and Hellboy was fighting up on the sign of a building, where he's clearly visible. It's perfectly obvious that he saved the baby and defeated the elemental, so why are all the people acting like they didn't see it? They clearly saw what he did! Anyway, Hellboy gets all "shucks, I guess I'm not really appreciated/wanted" and emo and shit. It's like Dark Knight, except it feels really, really forced here. There's absolutely no reason for everyone to hate him like that, and yet they do. Bad writing.

The dead elemental for some reason sprouts into a bunch of pretty foliage and flowers. Why? Iono. There's probably some subtle message here, but I don't get it.

Then, there's back at the base and we get a glimpse of some news reporter discussing the new debate of interspecies marriage. I guess between Liz and Hellboy? Well, it was never implied that they were married or getting married, and hasn't this already been brought up concerning some lesbian and her dog or something? Anyway, Hellboy mopes about his unwarranted existentialism, but Liz has the perfect way to cheer him up; she tells him that she's going to leave him for awhile so she can think. What a way to cheer up an already depressed guy, huh? Way to go, Liz. You're really a top-notch significant other. "Red, why are you with me? Do you need everyone to like you, or am I enough?" What? He's probably with you because it'd be pretty damn hard to find another girl who would date a demon. Size queens are difficult to find you know. The scene ends with a not-so-subtle image of Hellboy leaning forlornly against a television that happens to be playing Bride of Frankenstein. Yeah, we get it.

Then, we cut to the Princess pondering over her map while Abe puts in some contacts. Again, why? I don't really know. Is it a joke or something? Like when Mike from Monsters, Inc. puts in a huge contact? It just seems like a pointless little thing. Then, as the Princess is reading a poem aloud, Abe suddenly walks up to her and cites the poem and author, because he's edjumicated and acts like a faggot. Oh, and again he's not wearing his breathing apparatus.

"I feel strangely attracted to you. It's like some stupid plot device demands it." "Wow, me, too!"

This is where the link between the two twins, both in mind and body, is actually cited. The Princess says that, since she knows where the Bureau is, her brother now knows as well. Shouldn't she be able to know exactly where he is and what he's plotting, then? "It's something I cannot explain," which is just a convenient way of saying, "it makes no sense, but the writer didn't want to think up anything that was more logical, so here we are." Also, she comments on how she can see his eyes now (as though she only just now noticed he wasn't wearing goggles) and they stare deeply at one another as Abe blinks sideways, because his eyelids are on the left and right sides of his eyes, rather than at the top and bottom. Yeah, that's not freaky at all. Apparently fish totally turn this girl on.

She shows him a map that she took out of the cylinder and, as he looks it over, she comments on how brave he was to vouch for her. Not really. I mean, what did he have to lose? It was Hellboy who was really brave, standing up to Dr. Krauss. Abe just wants to get into her dress. Probably literally. God, he acts so prissy and gay, it's kind of annoying.

After a scene where Hellboy stares at himself in a mirror as "Beautiful Freak" plays (I guess I'm supposed to be feeling something for him? because I don't--at all), he and Krauss meet in the locker room and the good doctor chews out Red, insisting that he will learn to obey. Ja! Befolgen Sie, folgen Sie, reichen Sie ein, Sieg heil!

I've got to ask: what's with the rosary beads? It's not like Hellboy is particularly religious in any other way. Is he trying to protect himself... from himself?

Then, the big conflict! I mean, how dare Krauss say that he knew Hellboy's father (who designed his suit--seriously, did his father do everything? wasn't his father a paranormal expert?) and try to connect with Hellboy! "Stop it, right now." "Ooor vhat? Are you sreatening me? Becoos I sink I keen take you." Well, to cut an interesting scene short, Hellboy punches Krauss hard enough to shatter the glass top of his helmet, but Krauss gets back, oh yes. He possesses the lockers, causing them to open suddenly and smack Hellboy repeatedly. Zhat'll shoo heem!

Honestly, Hellboy gets the shit kicked out of him by all kinds of gigantic creatures and gets up without a hitch, but he's somehow brought down by flimsy locker doors? And besides, in order to hit him the way that they do, the lockers have to be hinged opposing one another. Who would build a locker system like that? It makes no sense. The lockers would all be fastened on the same side. And again, Krauss talks, moves, and interacts with things just fine in his gaseous form, so what's the point of possessing the suit and fumbling around with those big glove-fingers all the time?

Oh, snap. Don't fuck with Dr. Krauss, he'll slam a locker in yo face.

And then there's probably the worst pun in the entire film. As Krauss strolls away in his fog-form, singing some German song, Hellboy quips, "Glasshole." Ugh.

Continued in part 3.

Quicktime to Anger

I hate Quicktime. Honestly, it's the new RealPlayer. Sure, others have ranted extensively on what sucks this crappy program, but I feel I have a few new contributions to add.

First of all, I don't like secondary players. I use Media Player Classic, a very nice little stand-alone media player, for all my video needs, and Winamp for all my audio needs. Why? Well, a large part of it is familiarity. I will jump through hoops to get one familiar program to run everything I need, rather than go between a bunch of other programs, just because I like familiar program GUIs.

Second, I'm a very minimalistic guy. I like my desktop tidy (save for some temporary files which are regularly cleared), my menus small, and my experience unimpaired by huge buttons and other pointless crap. Quicktime is the mother of unnecessarily gigantic user interfaces.



Another complaint is that I like to view images in Firefox, my preferred browser. If I want to check out an image in full-size, Firefox does a very nice job of letting me do that. However, since installing Quicktime (due to the demands of some dumb website or another--use Flash!), Firefox will automatically assume that I want to either save or open the file in another program, which is completely unnecessary since I could just view it in Firefox! True it's only a few seconds' inconvenience, but it's a damn annoying one, regardless.

Conversely, Firefox doesn't prompt me to instantly download or open media links I click on, such as a link to a podcast mp3, but instead it is opened in my browser, under Quicktime, and automatically starts playing. Now, let me get one thing straight; I despise autoplay. Even if I'm viewing YouTube videos, on the video's main page, I despise autoplay. Why? Because I'm usually juggling tabs, multitasking, and I don't want to begin media until I'm ready to focus on it. Sure, load it for viewing, YouTube (and all other media players, for that matter), but don't play it until I say so!

Where was I? Oh, yeah. So having to then right-click and pick "save target as..." is just a little more inconvenient, but it's an unnecessary inconvenience, which is why it pisses me off so much.

Finally, why is Quicktime even necessary? There is a lovely Quicktime Alternative, but that unfortunately doesn't work for embedded videos, yet why are there still embedded Quicktime videos? MOV videos are way, unnecessarily huge, so why doesn't someone just use a divx or xvid-codec avi, or even a sucky wmv? For that matter, why not a Flash wrapper? Sure, MOV files may be good for editing, but not streaming! Stop that shit!

A Basket of Complaints

Even though I'm a bit burned out from writing my extensive point-by-point review of Hellboy 2, I found that I really rather enjoyed the experience. I suspect that I'll be writing quite a few more of those, though the waits in between articles may be increased. If I get the urge, I'll be sure to add more articles on random subjects as they come to me.

What The Hellboy? pt 1

NOTE: This article contains satire and is not to be taken seriously.

WARNING: This article contains EXTREME SPOILERS.

In order to avoid pretentiousness, I feel I should point out that I don't consider myself in any way to be a witty critic, so if this article gets a "well, DUH" attitude about it, please disregard said attitude.

During my enjoyment of WALL-E, I couldn't help but notice posters for a "Hellboy 2: The Golden Army", a movie I had never heard of. I made it my business to see the original before the sequel came out, if for no other reason than the poster art looked so damn cool. The first certainly wasn't a disappointment. Sure, there were some odd bits here and there, but by and large, I really liked it. I thought it was fun and interesting, which is really all I can ask of a movie.

In light of that, I will be reviewing the movie step by step, so if you haven't seen it and don't wish to have it spoiled for you, please wait until after you've seen the film to form your own opinions.

The films opens with a brief explanation about who Hellboy is, how he came to be, etc. That's fine, but then suddenly we're transported to a trailer where Hellboy and his "father" live during Christmas eve in '55. We see the inside of the trailer, with Hellboy watching Howdy Doody (which is kind of funny, since Christmas Eve was a Saturday in '55, and Howdy Doody aired on Monday to Friday at 5:30 to 6:00 PM from '48 to '56). Then, we get our first view of Hellboy as a child, and holy shit, is he one ugly summabitch. His father demands he go to bed, he demands a story, blah blah. This whole boring sequence is really just an excuse for the father to tell a story that (gasp!) is the premise for what the movie is about.

What is that story, you ask?

It is said, that at the dawn of time, man, beast, and all magical beings lived together under *blah*, the father tree, but man had been created with a hole in his heart. A hole that no possession, power, or knowledge could fill, and in his infinite greed, man dreamt of expanding his dominion over the entire earth. The blood of many an elf, ogre, and goblin spilled in their *garbled*, and king Balor, the one-armed king of elf-land, watched the slaughter in dread and despair, but, one day, the master of the goblin blacksmiths offered to build the king a golden, mechanical army, seventy times seventy soldiers, that would not know hunger and could not be stopped. Prince Nu-something begged his father to agree. "Build me this army," the king said. So, a magical crown was forged that would allow those of royal blood to command the golden army if unchallenged. "I am king Balor, leader of the golden army. Is there anyone who disputes my right?" and in his throne room, no one challenged his word.

"Phew, and you thought I was ugly when I grew up!"

Here, the extremely annoying and ugly (especially when brushing his stupid buck teeth) young Hellboy interrupts about whether or not someone could make a challenge for control of the army (think that will be important later on?), and this scene is already way too long.

And so the world was changed, and the next time the humans marched, they felt the earth tremble beneath their feet, and saw the sky darken with monstrous shapes. The golden army had no remorse and felt no loyalty or pain, and King Balor's heart grew heavy with regret. So, he called a truce and divided the crown in three pieces, one for the humans, and two for himself. In exchange, man would keep to the cities, and the magical beings would own the forests. This truce would be honored by their sons and the sons of their sons until the end of time but Prince Nu-something did not believe in the promises of man, and it is said that he went into exile, vowing to return the day his people needed him most. So, the golden army lay dormant, locked inside the earth, waiting, and there it is to this day, awaiting the day the crown is made whole again, silent, still, and indestructible.

After that mess of run-on sentences, I'm sure you're wondering, like I did, just what the hell is going on. For reference, all monsters in the original Hellboy were explained as either a paranormal anomaly (which apparently exist, by the way, and are held in the supah-sekret Bureau of Paranormal Research & Defense's gigantic, stone-slab headquarters building... shhhh) or brought from Hell. As the young Hellboy says, "come on, those things can't be real." That's just what I was thinking: "there's no way they're really combining Lord of the Rings with Hellboy." Well, they didn't. They combined Lord of the Rings, Men in Black, and Harry Potter with Hellboy. Hell, they even rip off They Live later on.

Two things are already apparent about the movie at this point. First is that the movie is way too dark. You can barely see anything. Why? I guess it's in order to depict the angst that the whiny

Sorry, the budget ran short, so we're going to shroud this scene in darkness to hide how much it sucks.

characters go through? I don't know, but I really wish that they would adjust the contrast. Also, the sound is horribly garbled. Maybe it was just the theater I saw it in, but I often found myself wondering just what the characters are saying, because their speech is so badly compressed.

This entire story sequence is depicted with CG mannequins. Now, I don't consider CG in live action films to be an annoyance, but God this scene is crap. I guess I can tell why they did it, but it still stands out as very, very poorly-done in my mind. Then, to celebrate that shitty scene, we get an overly elaborate sequence where we see gears working in some big machine. Now, I love steampunk, but is it really necessary to watch gears turn for half a minute? It may not sound like long, but in the theater, it felt like forever.

Marilyn Manson as an elf. With painted-on ab muscles.

Next, we cut to the subway tunnels where some pale elf (which, at this point, we assume is the aforementioned prince) practices his fighting moves on water droplets. I assume that this guy is partially CG, because something just looks fake about him. One thing I can point out is that his ab muscles look painted on. Also, he looks like an angst-ridden hippie. I guess an elf has to have long, girlish hair. It's a law, or something.

So, anyway, we then move on to see an auction for rich pricks who are bidding on various historical artifacts, such as a fertility goddess and, you guessed it, a piece of the crown. Apparently the sons of the sons of man didn't do such a good job keeping track of the single artifact that kept the golden army from being unleashed and slaughtering all of mankind. Prince Angst shows up and kills a bunch of people, assisted by what looks to be a cross between a Lord of the Rings troll and Hellboy himself, save with a mechanical hand, rather than a stone one (called "Mr. Wink", I guess because it's a stupid name), and steals the artifact after unleashing some horrid creatures and even more horridly-written lines on all the bidders. Apparently no one has a gun, and isn't the elf price, supposedly of some kind of enlightened race, a bit violent? I mean, sure, humanity likes its electronic toys, but is it really worth killing someone because they enjoy their iPods? You know, now that I think about it...

Then, we're taken to the Bureau, where we see the fish-guy, Abe, acting gay. And being ugly. He's shown some pictures of Hellboy taken in public, and Manning (the bald guy from Washington who's really annoying) whines about their cover being blown or something. "Officially, we do not exist." Frankly, I wish that you literally didn't exist. Then, he delivers a line that made me cringe. "I suppressed each photo [and] cellphone video, and they show up on YouTube. God, I hate YouTube." You know what I hate? When movies reference modern pop culture just to cater to the audience. I really, really hate it. Besides, even though the movie probably is meant to take place in 2008, it seems to only take place a few months after the previous movie, which took place in 2004, before YouTube was even founded. I suppose I'm nitpicking about the timeline, but Christ do I hate references like that. Then Manning says that Hellboy hates him and shows a picture of himself that has been used for target practice. I can't say that I blame Hellboy. As good as his actor, Jeffry Tambor, apparently is, I dislike the character with the same passion that many have for Jar Jar. That's probably just the reaction the viewer was meant to have, though.

The fish-man (who doesn't have his breathing apparatus on, which I thought was kind of weird--sure, maybe he doesn't have it on all the time in the first film, but he had it on most of the time;

Selective fire: it's discrimination, for death.

in this one, he barely has it on at all) and Manning then walk through the building on their way to Hellboy's vault as all kinds of odd creatures make noise and cause trouble in the background, and these two act like it's business as usual. Maybe it is, but they barely even react when they're nearly smashed by a flying door. Then, we get a "delicious" taste of the trouble that Hellboy and Liz have been having. By the way, something that bothered me, even from the first movie, was that, even though Liz can be covered in flames, it never singes her clothes, nor Hellboy's clothes, nor anyone who's standing nearby. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see any more of Hellboy's big, plastic-looking beefy body than I already do, but they don't even attempt to explain this. Also, you'd think that standing next to her while she's completely on fire would be like standing a foot away from a bonfire. It would at least be a bit uncomfortable, but no one seems to notice the heat.

Suddenly, it's a red alert and everyone makes their way to the scene of Price Angst's slaughter after Manning squeezes a promise of discretion out of Red with a cuban cigar bribe. They go into the building of the murders, Red and Liz exchange some relationship babble, and Abe explains that the seals on the containers holding the creatures that Prince Angst set free are symbols of war or something. As the team searches, we get glimpses of these creatures scurrying in the walls. It's revealed that the flying creatures are "tooth fairies" (as Hellboy incredulously exclaims, "Hah!") from some forest or another. Yet another kind of fantasy

They're cute only as long as they don't chew on your teeth.

creature that's a bit hard to swallow, considering Hellboy's setting. Anyway, we are told that they eat calcium from one's body, often going for the teeth first.

As soon as it is revealed what they are, some scurry noisily through a wall near Abe and Liz, and Abe randomly places his bare hand (with all the super-sensitive listening things on it, I guess) onto her abdomen, then says, "Oh, my God. Liz, you're pregnant!" Without a beat, she denies it, but Abe insists that it is so. Personally, I don't realy want to imagine the physics of Hellboy and Liz doing the deed, as he's big enough to gobble her forearm whole. Then, we finally get a glimpse of the tooth fairies, which unsurprisingly kill everyone except the main characters. Eventually, Blue retreats to a vault of some kind while Liz lets herself explode with flame, causing Hellboy (who she warned to

"Talk to the hand, because I can't hear you otherwise."

move) fly out a window and land near the crowd of onlookers below and makes a scene of being a hero. Apparently he forgot or didn't care about the promised cuban cigars.

In the next few scenes, we see Prince Angst on his way to his people's council chambers. Let me pause to point out that this is where one of the big annoyances of the film first shows itself. That is, this film uses way too many damn scene trasitions. Sure, a screen wipe is commonly used in films, but Hellboy 2 has them far too frequenty, along with more noticable transitions, like a diagonal screen wipe. I understand the need for transitions as a storytelling device, but I, the movie watcher, should never notice or be distracted by them. Good transitions are ones that I don't recall ever happening, but if they stand out like they do in Revenge of the Sith, I feel more like I'm watching a powerpoint presentation than a real movie.



So the Pale Prince finds the council chambers after being in exile for what I assume is thousands of years. Funny how he doesn't have any trouble finding it, and how it is conveniently located in the same city as everything else. In this scene, we see another odd thing; sometimes, there is text at the bottom of the movie translating what is being said, and sometimes they just speak English. Why don't they do just one, or just the other?

We find that the Prince has sought out his father and twin sister in order to take the pieces of the crown that they each have and demands them so that he may unleash the golden army on the humans. "The humans have forgotten their Gods, destroyed the earth, and for what? Parking lots! Shopping Malls! Greed is burning a hole in their hearts that will never be filled; they will never have enough!" Okay, we get it. Humans are greedy and evil. Christ, not too subtle, is it? Besides, for someone who doesn't trust the promise of man, he seems to be the one about to really break the truce. What, did they expect that man would never cut down any trees? How else would people build houses? His father refuses outright and orders his death in order to stop him from breaking the truce, so Prince Angst, being the loving protector of his waning people that he is, slays all the guards and murders his father in front of everyone in the council chambers. What patriotism! Also, it is revealed in this scene that he and his sister share a link so that if he's injured, she suffers the exact same injury, and vice versa. I guess because they're twins, and that's how twins work. Duh. That's probably also how he knew where to find them, as it is later revealed that whatever his sister knows, he knows as well. Why, then, do they not at all prepare for his coming? Anyway, his sister runs away and he has to rush to find her. I guess that shared knowledge thing only works when it's convenient for the plot.

Back in the Bureau, Manning tells Hellboy that he's called in a professional, Johann Krauss, to lead the team and keep an eye on him. Let me say that I think that Johann is a really neat character with a kick-ass German accent and fantastic voice-acting, but I'm consistently puzzled by his character design. First of all, he looks like a biohazard suit with insect mandibles on the front and constantly vents some smoky gas. Why? I have no idea, and it doesn't explain. We find out, though, that he is actually a ghost of some kind, made up of that smoke (ectoplasm, I guess). However, even when he's outside of the suit, he's able to talk and manipulate objects, and even possess people and objects. What, then, is the point of the suit in the first place? And what's with those damn mandibles? They're distracting.

"Aygeent Heellboy, I eem yew fezzer!" *krrsshhh*

Krauss possesses the dead body of one of the tooth fairies in order to get it to explain what it knows about this and that. By the way, it seems that merely seeing the creature's corpse is enough for Krauss to determine that it was bought and sold on the black market and sealed in an oppressively small container. I suppose he could have deduced the latter from seeing pictures of the containers they found at the slaughter scene, but how the hell did he know where it came from? Couldn't the Pale Prince have captured them from the wild (since realism and this movie are experiencing the same awkward relationship trouble that Hellboy as Liz)? Also, apparently Krauss can speak tooth fairy chatter. How would he have learned that? Regardless, the creature explains that it came from a troll market or something, then chokes to death as Krauss loses control of "its limbic system." If he was only controlling the creature's limbic system (mental capacities of emotion, behavior, and long-term memory), how did he get the rest of its body to function?

Continued in part 2.

The Irradiated Past

I've mentioned it a number of times in the past, and I'm going to say it again now: I love Fallout. I consider myself a fan, even if I've never completed Tactics (I've heard that many don't consider that an "official" game, anyway) and called the Vault-Boy Fallout-Boy (which, it seems, is a hangable offense amongst true fans).

I didn't actually come across Fallout and Fallout 2 until they had been out on the market for some time. I got them in a dual-CD discount game case at Wal-Mart, and it was probably the best ten bucks I've ever spent. The games are a testament to how good sprite-based CRPGs can be. The stories are deep, the side-quests are engaging, the gameplay is fun, the graphics (even now) are quite pretty, and, most of all, the atmosphere is wholly immersive.



Having been introduced to the culture of the 30s to 60s musicales and soforth early on in life, it was easy for me to get into Fallout's retro-future style. I've always liked how, during the economic golden age that existed just after World War II, there was a lulling sense of America being a utopia. Even with the fears of the Cold War, people seemed comfortable and happy, and their culture depicts that. Fallout combines that with a post-apocalyptic theme, to make a retro-future post-utopian dystopia.



The game has a gigantic cult following, including a team working to create a fan-made expansion pack for Fallout 2 and webcomic. I can't say that I'm a part of that following, as I have a poor history with some of the guys in charge of some of the biggest forums, websites, etc. Regardless, I highly recommend the Fallout games to anyone who loves a good story, deep atmosphere, and just plain fun.

Oh, and it's deliciously violent.



Another thing that was pretty neat about Fallout were the "talking heads" of certain NPCs. I'm not exactly sure how it was done, but I assume that they were pre-rendered videos of some kind that were clipped together as you chose options, as I'm certain that real-like 3D rendering wasn't this good in '97. However it was done, these talking heads managed to lip-sync with surprising accuracy and respond to the dialog choices that were made with emotions, such as looking angry, sad, happy, etc. Yet another great feature to add to the immersion of a great game. It really helped make already-memorable characters even more so.



With Bethesda Softworks working on Fallout 3, rather than the original Interplay team, some are pretty worried that they are going to completely botch an amazing universe. Personally, I'm pretty enthusiastic about how they are doing, and I'll discuss why soon.

Fallout & Fallout 2

• DOS or Windows 95


• Pentium 90 MHz


• 16 MB RAM (32 MB for DOS)


• 600 MB available HDD space


• DirectX-compatible SVGA card


• DirectSound-compatible sound card


• DirectX 3.0a or 5.0

That's the beauty of sprite-based CRPGs: if done well, it looks great, and it's extremely easy on the hardware

Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel

• DOS or Windows 95


• 300 Mhz Processor


• 64 MB RAM (32 MB for DOS)


• 700 MB available HDD space


• 4 Mb Video Card

If you would like to see what Fallout or Fallout 2 are like (they ran the same game engine), give Fallout's demo a try.

Happy Birthday to Beatrix Potter

I had actually forgotten about the children's books I used to read by Beatrix Potter until I noticed that Google was featuring her birthday today.

I'd say, out of the bunch, my favorite book was definitely The Tale of Samuel Whiskers. Thanks, Beatrix, for all the wonderful tales.