My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 15

Thursday is theory day now. 

This is the fifteenth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 15. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

Prometheus: Using the wrong formula

It seems to become a bit of a bad habbit to nag at the storyline of games and movies on this blog, but watching "Prometheus" on DVD left the same bitter taste in my mouth as when I left the cinema back in the day, so I want to talk about why this movie simply doesn't work. Of course, "Prometheus" is by no means a bad movie. Ridley Scott knows his ways around the business, after all, and the pacing and compilation of scenes is almost flawless. Problematic is the underlying structure: Scott is using a formula in "Prometheus" that worked well for the first three "Alien" movies and doesn't work at all with these movie, despite covering essentially the same universe and basic storyline. Why is this? The key word is believability. 

Depicted: the best scientific mind of his generation

The Boiled Leather Audio Hour #17

She’s Like the Wind: Analyzing the New Sample Chapter from “The Winds of Winter”

2013 gets its first case of the BLAHs! Once again, George R.R. Martin has posted a preview chapter from The Winds of Winter, on which I presume he’s merrily plowing along in between announcing the publication of novella-length stories no one had any idea he was even working on. And once again, Sean and I take to the airwaves to pick the thing apart. This time out the focus is on Arianne and her journey to a rendez-vous with Jon Connington and, ostensibly, destiny. At first glance this seems much smaller beer than the previous sample chapter, but as Sean and I read and re-read and talked, we were surprised how meaty the thing really is, and we think you will be too. From the mind of Doran Martell to the sex appeal of Gerold “Darkstar” Dayne to the traitor in Arianne’s midst to the growth of Arianne herself, we tackle it all.

One quick meta note: Don’t hold us to this but we have some hope that we’ll be able to record these suckers a bit more frequently, at least for a while. Hope to see you around then — dig this in the meantime!

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Home blog here.

A Flight of Links

- Race of the Iron Throne has Eddard VI. Nice to see they come at a steady pace now.
- James Purefoy and Kevin McKidd rule out a part in Game of Thrones. Apparently, they are still pissed about the cancellation of "Rome". Man, they killed Hinds' and Menzies' characters, and they come over, too.
-  MovieBob talks about whether the Hobbit is too long. 
- Why Bioshock is in the way of Bioschock.
- Sean T. Collins reviews Contagion.
- I'm very fond of people destroying medieval myths, this time in some ASOIAF meta about bathing. 
-  A short analysis of Kevan Lannister.
- This is just creepy: Senator Alan Simpson does Gangnam Style.
- There's not only my criticism hurled at Diablo, obviously. The leaving of lead developer Jay has ignited some more. 
- A French Foreign Legionary has made himself a mask just like the Ghost of Modern Warfare. Obviously, France is not pleased, but luckily for him, they can't identify the guy. Might have to do with the mask. Seriously, guys, stop that shit.
- Alyssa thinks "Spartacus" really is a great series. I never watched it, but you may want to give it a try.
- Alyssa comments on Obama's demand to research violence in video games.
- Olympus has fallen sound like it's really shitty. 
- The idea channel talks about artsy video games
- I finally caught up with "Stormsongs" a bit and can recommend some posts: Increasing the magic, Martin's ranking in comparison to Tolkien, The Hobbit review (hearing you there, man), ASOS reread Catelyn II.
- Illustrated Timeline of Robots.
- Some information about the Blade Runner sequel and possible recurring roles.
- Zack Snyder may have switched Jimmy Olson's gender in the new Superman movie.  
- Gaming grammatically. Really good thoughts in that one, never thought about it before that way. I experienced the same thing in boardgames, by the way. I easily grasp the rules of a new boardgame due to my experience, and I can never understand people who don't.
- Why J. J. Abrams is a bad choice to direct a Star Wars movie. 
- Hotline Miami is nuts, and FTL is a gamble. Can't say anything about the former, but FTL really rocks. Buy it today.
- A brief history of the J. J. Abrams empire. 
- MovieBob reviews Hansel&Gretel.
- Paul Giamatti reads lines from romantic movies. Hilarious!
-  This is officially the worst trailer ever. It's so fucking bad, it's almost art. Even the main writer of the game distanced himself officially from the voice-over.
- io9 has the most imporant Game of Thrones theories. Special mention goes to the "amazing fan theory" Southron Ambitions, so I allow myself a content smile.
- 11 preposterously manly fantasy series. 
- What we want from the new Star Wars.

Pic: Winterfell Direwolves

Go Direwolves!

Pic: Young Sandor Manga

My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 14

Thursday is theory day now. 

This is the fourteenth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 14. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

Ill bodings for Heart of the Swarm's story

Back in 2010, there was nothing as eagerly anticipated as StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. It was high time that the torch was taken from StarCraft's hands into a more modern game that displayed more than 640x480 pixels. While its multiplayer was almost flawless, the Single-Player-Campaign left much to be desired for. In comparison to StarCraft I, it paled considerably. In my eyes, there were two main reasons for this, one in the structure of the story itself and the other one in a game design decision that never really payed off. Let's start with the latter one, work toward structural problems and finally discuss the upcoming "Heart of the Swarm" expansion that, against earlier promises, will be a full-priced game rather than an expansion. 

I sense...revenue...

Final review of Assassin's Creed 3

After making an extensive recap of the Assassin's Creed 3 game that covered almost exclusively the story of said game, it is time to do a proper review of the title. It is no secret that I really wanted to play the title, and I preordered it a year before it came out in some special super special duper edition. I gave it enormous credit beforehand, because of the previous titles that managed to really mean something (opposed to, say, the Modern Warfare series). However, Assassin's Creed 3 left me really unsatisfied, both on a storytelling and on a game mechanic level. At first, let give me a brief summary over my grievances with the story, which you can read in great detail in my recaps.

Looking at his nemesis: a critical review

A Flight of Links

- Zack Snyder is a making Star Wars movie that does not belong to the new trilogy. It will be a recreation of "The Seven Samurai". I'm definitely interested.
- Race to the Iron Throne has Jon IV. I think I answered Steven's question rather well, by the way ;)
- Someone made the insult fights of Monkey Island into a browser game.
- More information on the upcoming Steam Box. 
- Fantasy Flight Games test an open level generator for Descent. I own much of the Descent first edition products (all, I think), but I never quite liked it the way I liked its predecessor, Doom. Never tried the second edition, though.
- Another piece about Far Cry 3 and what it tries to achieve. 
- A whole dumpf of ASOIAF meta from "Nobody suspects the butterfly" (partially only reblogs, but read them anyway).  Why Tyrion is responsible for Sandor's cracking, Is Tyrion a bad person, The possible origin story of Penny, A long analysis of the Unkiss, Why Sansa didn't go with the Hound, Same Topic, chart analysis, Is Tywin a Bad Person.
- 10 decent movies that were doomed by Memes. I plan to write something about Dredd in the near future.
- Our 10 favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger roles.
- Apparantly, they make Terminator 5. I don't know why everyone dislikes Terminator 3, I rather liked it. Terminator Salvation was the one sucking without comparison.
-The Death of Mario.
- 4 things you need to do for a good Die-Hard-movie.  
- Listen to Mircale of Sound, they make great music based on video games!
- MovieBob has "Broken City" reviewed. The statements about the small screen he makes in a throwaway sentence are in my opinion very important and right. 

Pic: Happy New Year!

Slow week

I have to apologize for not updating the blog this week, but I have an important exam on monday which I need to be prepared for. Next week it's hopefully back to the usual. In the meantime, check out the other sites I linked to in the sidebar, there's cool stuff to be found there.

A Flight of Links

- The World is Quiet out Here outlies in detailled terms why Catelyn's treatment of Jon is no sign of bad character.
- Of House Adama does the same  for Sansa and Tyrion.
- Season 2 for the Telltale Games' The Walking Dead announced!
- Yahtzee has the five best and worst video games of 2012. I'm pleased he put Spec Ops: The Line on position 1.
- Jimquisition, whose style I don't particularily like, does a great piece on video game violence and how it influences mass murderers.
- Yahtzee reinforces his point about senseless console wars.
- MovieBob about Spidermann #700.
- Real Life Physics looks at the opening sequence of Walking Dead Season 3 and asks whether all these headshots are possible. 
- Race to the Iron Throne got us Bran IV! Love those. Also, Eddard V is up. Yay!
- You will have heard by now, but George R. R. Martin released an Arianne-chapter from "The Winds of Winter".  
- So, if you want to know why the story of StarCraft II sucks so much, perhaps read the Q&A sessions of its lead writer. There are so many problems contained in all of this, and many are conflicting themes and motivations.  Perhaps I'll do a greater article about it in the future.
- Two articles about the joy of suffering in video games - high difficulty levels.
- The new Star Wars comic seems good. 
-  An analysis on Steam and the next generation of consoles. Very interesting what's happening there.
- Zero Dark Thirty review by Alyssa. 

Pic: The evolution of famous people

My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 13

Thursday is theory day now. 

This is the thirteenth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 13. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

Tower of the Hand`s chapter ratings - this is, eh, interesting

The Tower of the Hand conducted a poll under its readership, asking them to rank the POV characters of "A Clash of Kings" after favorites and to rank each chapter individually. 129 members took part in the survey, and the results are...interesting, to say the least. Now, as the authors of the Tower are quick to point out, 129 members isn't exactly a number to get all scientific about, but it's better than nothing, and there really isn't that much empiric material out there anyway, so we should take what we get. The first and obvious thing is that Tyrion is the highest rated character. He's been the fan favorite all the time, so this isn't surprising. His dialogue is always sharp, witty and entertaining, and therefore, he's an easy and enjoyable read. The lowest ranking isn't surprising, either: it's Daenerys, who really hasn't that much to do in "A Clash of Kings" and is merely pushed around by whiny Xaro Xoan Daxos.

Assassin's Creed 3 Recap, Part 5: Desmond

For Desmond, the adventure starts right where we left him in "Revelations": in the back of a truck at their final destination. I honestly can't tell you how he knew where to go, but obivously he did, and conveniently, the cave was located in North America, only an hour's drive away. With the apple, we open the cave (which has some graffiti on it, nice touch) and find a temple (?) of the Precursors. Before we can start, the game forces us to do an ugly tutorial in the Animus' engine. It's not skippable, but thanks, I really wanted to know how to walk in the game. Unfortunately, they switched some controls from "Revelations", which upsets muscle memory. In the cave itself, we find some sort of console for which we need to find certain keys and are encouraged to explore. Said exploration is finished quickly, however, since there's not much to do, and the game kickstarts the Haytham-sequence (see part one of the recap), another extended tutorial. 

Yay, Tutorial!

A Flight of Links

- 6 places you recognize from almost every movie. Hilarious.
- 10 incredibly stupid ways super heroes and super villains died. Holy shit, they're stupid.
- An essay about Django: Unchained, containing spoilers. 
- The 11 elite rules about hacking in movies.
- MovieBob has the 10 worst movies of 2012. 
- Yahtzee talks about the upcoming console wars, which he considers pointless.
-  Race to the Iron Throne has us Daenerys III. 
- The night is dark and full of turnips talks about Theon's Stockholm Syndrome.
- Lowgarden tackles the question whether Cersei is a sexist character. 
- Unwinnable takes a deeper look at FarCry3. I wouldn't concur, necessarily, but the logic is interesting enough and shows once agains that talking about video games becomes more and more sophisticated.
- What killed Star Trek?
- Agency and Morrowind
- 13 best worst movies of SciFi
- Rock Paper Shotgun has a Preview of the games of 2013; there's really, really interesting stuff there. Part 2 is online, too, as well as part 3.
- Why do so many villains get caught on purpose? It's starting to become a tiresome trope, yes.
- Why a gun loaded with blanks can still kill you. Interesting.
- A devestating review of Assassin's Creed 3 I wholeheartidly agree with.
- Why Alien3 is the best movie of the franchise. 
- 77 fantasy and sci-fi movies that come out 2013. 
-  Unwinnable talks about Worlds without End and the question why modern narratives don't really end.
- The generic batman face. 
- Why can't anyone get Irene Adler right? 
- 18 predictions from comics and scifi for 2013. 
- They're taking the hobbits to Isengard, live.
- MovieBob takes on the torture-discussion of Zero Dark Thirty.
- Critical Intel examines the depiciton of drone strikes in video games. More articles recommended: The Less Obvious Histories, The Medal of Honor Curse and King Washington the Wicked.
- Last for this week: great thoughts about weirwoods from the Butterfly; make sure to read her other linked posts on the topic, too. 

Pic: This is Wong

Pic: Game of Thrones Manga Style

After Spec Ops: The Line, nothing will be like it was, Part 2/2

Continuation from part 1. 

This really is the turning point. I don't want to get into much more detail here, but give you a general outline: everything the game did lead to this point. It threw you in a generic opening, utterly not special in any way, and let you fight your way gradually deeper into a hell. Remember the objective that was given to you in the beginning? Make contact and then leave. We made contact, over and over and over, but all we did was moving deeper into Dubai. Walker constantly changed the objective. Find out what happened to the 33rd. Rescue a soldier. Rescue a CIA agent. Help the CIA. We then help the last remaining CIA agent to destroy the city's water supply, condemning everyone to die of thirst in the next four days. Walker then talks to Konrad over radio, promising him to kill him for what he's done. To evacuate the city, our next objective, we need to get to Radioman and use his equipment. When we finally arrive there and Lugo murders him in cold blood, Walker states over the comm that he will rescue the people, but first, he will destroy the 33rd. And so we move on, and on, and on, killing as we go. 

Oh, glorious battle.

My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 12

Thursday is theory day now. 

This is the twelth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 12. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously. 

The mess that is "Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome"

Spoilers for the pilot of "Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome". 

After the cancellation of "Caprica", which surely was flawed but still a decently entertaining series, fans didn't really get their hopes high in seeing a return to the colonies anytime soon. It came as a bit of a surprise that yet another new pilot for a series was to be shot: "Blood and Chrome", set in the time of the Cylon War and featuring young Bill Adama as the main character, serving aboard the Galactica as a viper jock. The cast looked decent enough, and there were many people working at it who had worked on the re-imagined series beforehand. However, bad news came coming in. Apparently, SciFy had decided not to make a series out of it after an initial two-hour pilot was shot. Talk was to do a movie, and that idea got scrambled, too, the final product being released as webisodes on Youtube. Now, all ten parts are available, and so we can look at the final product and decide on its merits. Let's just start with one assessment: it`s no wonder they pulled the plug. 

They got the look right, though.

After Spec Ops: The Line, nothing will be like it was, Part 1/2

So I picked up "Spec Ops: The Line" the other day, after much fuzz was made on portals like the Escapist about how this game really challenges conventiones of the genre and takes shooters to a whole new level. OK, I though, let's try for yourself. So I started playing, entirely un-impressed at first. A generic cover-based shooter. Gears of War in the Middle East. I'm an American elite soldier shooting guys with turbans, frentically shouting in Arabic. After a while, though, something starts to feel wrong, and you can't really put the finger on it. And then, suddenly, the infamous chapter eight happens, and you're all over the place. The impact is comparable only to Modern Warfare 2's "No Russian", but it is much more meaningful and thoughprovoking and not all going just for the cheap scandal of it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I give you a fair warning now: if you plan on playing "Spec Ops: The Line", stop reading now and return later, because there will be spoilers, and you don't want to be spoiled. If you read on, consider stopping at any paragraph and playing it for yourself. You really don't want to be spoiled. If you don' intend on playing it, say, because you never play video games, please read on. This is just too fascinating to pass over simply because you don't play. 

US flag code: Never fly the glag upside down, except cases of dire emergency.