The Gaming Den

Lilu is Heart, not Captain Planet.

The techno-opera scene where Lilu kicks a lot of butt did indeed rock my socks.

I'd like to think that the River Tam character was a love letter to Lilu.

Cielingcat wrote:Lilu is Heart, not Captain Planet.

Except she's not useless, which means she can't be Heart. I mean, all the Heart kid could do is take a monkey on a plane without going through customs/quarantine.

Everyone is talking about this movie or that show that rocked them.
What about the effect of being rocked?
Has anyone else ever finished something epic (movie, book, video game, whatever) and spend the rest of the day in some kind of shock, because the world will never be quite the same again?

It happened to me after Dark Knight, after any number of book (seventh Harry Potter, but that was mostly because it was finally finished and set in stone rather than me actually liking it that much), the first time I read Girl Genius (to the most recent comic, anyway), and a few more times.

By the way, w00t. First post.

Dark Knight? Again? Really? WTF?

Some people sure are easily impressed/taken in by the PR machine.

I'd hate to imagine what would happen if they watched Citizen Kane or something, you know, half decent.

Only book that really shocked me as far as I can remember was "Lucifer's Hammer" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

Read it on vacation and the tropics this last March. I could have built a house I shat so many bricks.

PhoneLobster wrote:I'd hate to imagine what would happen if they watched Citizen Kane or something, you know, half decent.

That massive plot hole of a movie? Where no one was around to hear him say 'Rosebud'?

I only said half decent. It is rather dated. But it was arguably similar to bat man and about 3000 times better than Dark Knight (not hard).

Your plot hole criticism is also rather lame. Especially in defense of Dark Knight.

Finishing the Sandman series left me a little numb for a while. Seriously awesome comic and an awesome ending. The sixth Harry Potter (Half-blood Prince) was damn good too, but it's a lot harder to describe.

Some songs, when I listen to them at the right moment, can give me goosebumps. The theme for requiem for a dream for example, or Tristania's Beyond the Veil.

Speaking of awesome, does anyone else know that feeling when you are playing a FPS and suddenly, after having played for hours, you are in the zone - everything is clean and clear and you just know what will happen before it actually does? Sidestepping shots without thinking (and never sidestepping when not shot at), headshotting people while rocketjumping over them, gibbing other players with almost contemptous ease. Damn that is awesome. Other games work too of course - I once got into the zone after playing Soul Calibur for 4 hours straight. The friend I played with got into it too though. It was utterly ridiculous - throws dodged left, right and center, at exactly the right moment, just-in-time-combos getting pulled off again and again, entire series of attacks getting blocked, countered ... we had several matches that went to time, and we play anything but defensively.

I had a similar 'in the zone' experience with Halo 2 when I fought the final boss on the hardest difficulty. After I did that, I reloaded and started doing the silly stuff, like jamming a banshee into the room so I could fly around squashing everything like insects.

Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol remains one of my favorites, up there with Sandman.

Motherfuckin' Portal.

Portal when presented with a number of puzzles that made me think... Can I do that? And afterward making me think FUCK! That was so god damn awesome!

PhoneLobster wrote:Dark Knight? Again? Really? WTF?

Some people sure are easily impressed/taken in by the PR machine.

I'd hate to imagine what would happen if they watched Citizen Kane or something, you know, half decent.

Dark knight was pretty good, and it definitely got me pumped, but really it wasn't a great film.

Citizen Kane was pretty awesome though, I really enjoyed that.

About being "in the zone", I can't do FPS, I have the reflexes of a snail. However, I get like that playing Mario sometimes.

Portal itself (i.e. discounting the challenge levels) is actually easy. I finished it in a day (while at work), and my mad reflexes are just enough to press spacebar for pause in Planescape et al. So try it, it's awesome.

I have fond memories of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Certainly there were a lot of flaws with the game, but it managed to pull off a fairytale atmosphere that I really liked.

Also you could jump onto people's shoulders and then jump down on the other side and stab them in the neck.

A Hammer wrote:I have fond memories of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Certainly there were a lot of flaws with the game, but it managed to pull off a fairytale atmosphere that I really liked.

Also you could jump onto people's shoulders and then jump down on the other side and stab them in the neck.

That palace was really immersive. I'd like to be able to go around it without all the saws and spikes.

Koumei wrote:

Cielingcat wrote:Lilu is Heart, not Captain Planet.

Except she's not useless, which means she can't be Heart. I mean, all the Heart kid could do is take a monkey on a plane without going through customs/quarantine.

Doesn't Heart let you magically guilt-trip most people into doing what you want?

Heart is the greatest power the Planeteers have access to. It includes precognition, telepathy, and goddamn mind control. However, like the rest of those stupid kids, Ma-Ti simply doesn't use his powers to their fullest for no good reason.

There's been a tendency to attempt to recast Ma-Ti as 'badass, but doesn't know it' lately, probably for the same reason people were in denial about 3E fighters until 4E told people to hate them.

wikipedia wrote:Ma-Ti became the Planeteer of Heart, able to communicate with people and animals telepathically and feel and convey emotions directly. Though not powerful in the way of action, Ma-Ti's power was mentioned to be the most important by Gaia in the first episode. It keeps the Planeteers together and helps them to be in tune with nature and the people with whom they interact. Ma-Ti's power can also influence the feelings of others, enabling him to draw aid from creatures in the surrounding area. This is more akin to empathy than mind control; Ma-Ti's powers can only influence behavior by drawing out what kindness already exists in a being's heart; as such, most villainous people are barely influenced by the power, and it has no effect at all over beings of pure evil, such as Zarm. Furthermore, when he is heard telepathically communicating with animals, any call for aid he makes always takes the form of a request, rather than a command. His power can, however, serve to protect him from external psychic manipulation.

It's not a useless power by far; if I was working for the government and wanted to hire people Ma-Ti would be first on the list and Kwame would be an extremely, extremely distant second. However, it's not really all that good for solving fights; the 'dude it's liek mind control hurr' is just people in denial about the fact that Ma-Ti just doesn't bring home the bacon when it comes out to flat-out asskicking. Which is what people want. Which just goes to show you how shallow the action-adventure is, really.

Hmm... movies that seriously had me awestruck. -- Voyage to the moon, battleship potemkin, and History of Violence.

Voyage to the moon was just awesome for the length and the hand coloring.

Battleship Potemkin for the awesome war story and the epic shots.

History of Violence - realistic sex scenes, interesting story, and just the way the movie plays itself out so sweetly.

This:

Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru was pretty good. So was Seven Samurai.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Which just goes to show you how shallow the action-adventure is, really.

It's Captain fucking Planet, a kids' show about a magical man created by elemental bukkake parties who goes around slapping up people who cut trees down but ignores murderers. What the cock do you expect, a masterpiece about a torture-survivor from the Stalinist purges trying to make a living selling his story in East Bavaria?

I hate to think what you thought of the Sooty show. "Oh no, not enough insight into the human condition, I feel I don't really know enough about these people and the timeline."

Sorry, I omitted a word.

I meant to say action-adventure genre.

Regardless, it's shallow. Much like video games, roleplaying games, and most forms of entertainment. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but let's not forget our motives here.

Koumei wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Which just goes to show you how shallow the action-adventure is, really.

It's Captain fucking Planet, a kids' show ...

Wait a minute, there was a whole lot of plot and character development in Reboot, also a kid's show even though the general premise was just as simple as Captain Planet.

The thing is that Captain Planet was a propaganda tool, so everything else other than the propaganda wasn't given half a thought. It's not the fault of the genre per se.