Mindhive

Ghost in the Shell 2 mini-review

Call me a heretic, but I've never liked the original Ghost in the Shell as much as everyone else apparently did. The movie felt rushed and confusing -- not without reason, of course, since cramming untold volumes of manga into a two-hour movie is an impossible task. Still, even though the original GitS does not deserve the title of "best anime evar", it was a pretty good movie, especially considering the amazing (for its time) visuals and the excellent technological designs. I mean, the holographic UIs alone would be worth it... And then there's that battle tank at the end ! Sw33t.

Ahem. Yes. So, naturally, I was quite excited to learn of the second movie -- Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. I was especially looking forward to seeing the Tachikomas (from the GitS: Standalone Complex TV series) on the big screen; these little blue skating spidertank philosophers are simply the coolest anime characters I've seen so far.

New World of Darkness mini-review

The original World of Darkness (WoD) books by White Wolf were, to put it simply, the best tabletop RPGs on the planet. As everybody who understood the previous sentence knows, the WoD universe consisted mainly of three core rulebooks: Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage, all of which shared the same basic game system. Pretty much everything about these books -- the writing, the art, and of course the dice system -- was exceptional, especially compared to other RPGs on the market (*cough*D&D*cough*). Most of the setting was presented in-character, from a first-person perspective. Instead of the usual dry historical notes and what not, White Wolf chose to write actual stories, narrated by characters who had interesting personalities (the 2nd edition Mage book, Digital Web 2.0, and the Corax changing breed book were especially well-done). The stories were illustrated with high-quality art; and, while some of it was (inevitably) pretentious and ugly, the majority of the illustrations were right on target. And of course, there was the unique D10-based dice system -- simple and elegant, a far cry from the "bag of dice, book of tables, advanced calculus" approach taken by most other RPGs (*cough*Earthdawn*cough*). True, it was a bit buggy, but it was nothing a house rule won't patch (a roll of 10 counts as two successes -- there, problem solved).

Unfortunately, as time passed, White Wolf's offerings got progressively worse. The writing got more and more melodramatic, the stories got more and more random, and the rules got more and more contrived (thougn Werewolf 3rd Ed. wasn't actually too bad). Finally, in a somehwat anticipated move, White Wolf ended their World of Darkness -- in a literal, Apocalyptic kind of way (though I haven't read all the books about it yet). Right after that, they fired most of their writing staff, and started work on a new World of Darkness, similar to the previous one, but set in a parallel universe or something to that extent. Needless to say, I was a bit apprehensive about buying their new core book, which is why I borrowed it from my friend Tony. Heh.

Slow News Day

Well, it's a slow news day, so here are some random panoramic sky shots. Despair ! Also note that, as always, if you want Zazzle posters of any of these photos, all you need to do is ask (via comments). Despair !

Millennium spotlight

A while ago, Slater finally convinced me to watch Millennium: a crime/mystery/horror TV show from last century (1999), which was cancelled somewhere in its third season. Originally, I wasn't going to review it here, since TV series are sort of out of scope for my blog -- but then, I watched the first few episodes of the show, and thought, why not ? Expanding horizons and all that.

First, the good stuff: the intro music for the show is great. It makes a heavy use of cello, and has that creepy/sad, Clint Mansell feel to it (though the actual composer is Hanz Zimmer). The only negative thing I can say about the theme music is that it's so short... if anyone knows of an extended-length version, let me know.

Ok, that was the good stuff. Now, let's move on to the rest of the show.

PAX 2004

So, as both my blog readers probably know, I went to the Penny Arcade Expo (a.k.a. PAX) last weekend, with my sister Sveta. I've never been to a gaming convention of this magnitude before, so I was quite excited. Additionally, my sister won the coveted chance to compete in the Omegathon -- the penultimate gaming tournament, encompassing a wide spectrum of games, from the tabletop Diceland to the shiny Mario Kart Double Dash. Not wanting to be left out, I also signed up for the Soul Calibur 2 tournament. It's not as cool (Omegathon contestants are called Omeganauts, whereas I am just called "that guy"), but it has Kilik, so it all evens out in the end, right ?

Anyways, due to administrative mishaps and generally poor planning on my part, this PAX trip was way, way too expensive and hectic; still, this was the most fun I've had in a while. I've posted a few photos on my site (not all of which are linked from this post), but sadly (for my blog loyalists), I was too busy actually doing stuff to document everything properly.

Update: Sveta posted her own PAX report; you can read it here.