DVD, Smallville S2 (Witness) (2)
A conventional Smallville High School episode on the face of it, complete with 'monster' of the week, not terribly inspiring, and peppered with teen soap overblown feelings out of all proportion, indeed it could just as easily be called 'Jealous' for all the stuff revolving around poor Lana. And yet, for all that I was still drawn to this episode, it retained a warmth and positivity even amongst all the downers, something subsequent seasons increasingly failed to do, so although I wouldn't class it up there with the strong episodes, this was still a good watch and not the initially poor example of the series at its worst that it seemed. The school student who's using refined meteor rock to increase his strength along with a couple of other criminals reminded me of the tattooed guys from Season 1, except without all the adrenaline rush of chucking Whitney in front of an oncoming lorry, and they were the weakest part of the story since they had no real role other than to be a threat to Clark and his family. The lad is mainly a pawn in the growing adversity between Father and son Luthors and has no sympathetic backstory to his misdemeanours. That whole plot of them stealing the green bars and making a Kryptonite cocktail to inhale for super strength wasn't well developed and only makes its mark in the way the Kent parents are put in serious jeopardy.
Then when you add Chloe's final straw of blowing up at Clark and his not trying to make up as he usually would since he does have a lot to do with Lana at the moment and doesn't need his old friends as much, it could make the episode come across as quite a negative experience. I must admit, I do feel annoyed with people that say they'll do something by a certain time and then don't show up, I'm with Chloe on that, it's just that she comes across as ridiculously jealous of Lana. Clark for his part should have tried to be more understanding, but since we haven't had much of the Clark, Chloe and Pete gang this season, it doesn't have quite the same impact this would have done in Season 1 when they were always uncovering things together. That's one thing in this episode's favour: Chloe and Pete both contribute a little more - I do wonder how he and Clark transported the Kryptonite bars to the woods since the latter doesn't even stand close when Pete's burying them so they couldn't have shared a car to take them there (Clark probably ran, Pete drove, I expect). He's also there when Chloe finds them looking up the bad guy on the Torch's computers. It was tough on her to discover the school newspaper's office had been smashed up, but her reaction suggests it was more than that because we'd already seen the place destroyed at least once (the fire in 'Hothead'), maybe more, so her reaction was a bit much, but she was obviously at a vulnerable time.
And who should take advantage of that time than Lionel Luthor. I didn't really recall anything about this episode so it's no surprise I'd forgotten all about any connection between him and Chloe, especially this early in the series. I think it was just good to see him again after a few episodes absent. I think the implication is that he had some people mess up the Torch so he could come in and fund a rebuilding, which in itself is weird since surely the school has budget for such things? And are there no CCTV cameras at all? Anyway, she's at her lowest ebb, a time when Clark isn't there to warn her against Lionel, and he plants the seeds of cooperation by dangling contacts at the Daily Planet, and so the episode ends. Again, the implication I'd take is that Clark would be at risk more if Chloe was working for Lionel in some capacity so I suppose it was somewhat of a cliffhanger, though it's all very vague and about potential rather than definite reality. The other Luthor has some good screen time, too, for a change without Helen, verbally sparring with Dad as he used to. Funny how Lionel came when she was away, especially if she is actually working for him secretly as that would be a good time to visit Lex and make him seem much more distant to Helen, so a good plan. The moment I really liked about Lex was when he's talking casually to Clark, who's obviously got a bee in his bonnet, and then when he hears the bad guy he posted bail for has hurt the Kents he immediately snaps to the caring Lex we know, one who doesn't want harm to come to them.
There was a lot of potential drama right there, as if Lex had been responsible for loosing a criminal on the Kents and Martha had lost the baby or something else horrible like that, he'd never have forgiven himself. I'm glad he wasn't responsible for anything more than scaring them really, but still it was a shocking moment when Clark goes to the barn and finds them tied up high. His fight with the villains might be described as a little lacklustre, but I just liked the fact that he took them on, three to one, knowing they had the same strength. I suppose they didn't have his resilience since a bunch of pipes banging on his head wouldn't have mattered (as we see with the concrete block!). But if the other guy has the formula why couldn't he push himself out of the pipe Clark bends round him? For that matter why aren't any of them surprised to see him, especially the student guy, since they all chucked him in a furnace! It also makes zero sense that they never said anything about him to the authorities, why would they protect him? They wouldn't, is the answer to that one. All I can think is they felt foolish that Clark had been able to stop all three of them, but they must already realise he's special since he survived the furnace. It's because we, the audience know Clark can survive all kinds of things so they simply didn't think through what a natural reaction would be - cutting corners narratively.
The other side of the episode are Lana's problems. She's already caused her best mate Chloe's jealousy and now she finds out how jealous her real Father, Henry Small's wife, is. It's really nasty, but it's not like she was threatening to divorce him unless he ignore Lana, since it was by chance she saw the woman. I suppose she feels a kind of responsibility in some way that she came to talk to Lana, or was it merely guilt? I liked seeing Henry again, but he does seem as clueless as his wife warned he was earlier in the season. She was saying he moved from interest to interest rather than he was dim, but still, there were clearly problems even then, but he hasn't noticed so he does come across as someone with their head in the clouds, which is strange when you consider he's a practical man when it comes to law, an expert and activist, but his character is flawed. I don't know if this is his last ever appearance, a shame if so as that ended on a low point and I don't think he ever returned to the series later on, so it's one of those dropped plots that could have continued to add the personal touch and the intimate trouble rather than taking the series bigger and more fantastical as they did. It's like when Jonathan mentions taking Martha to a doctor in Metropolis and says he'll probably stay with Clark's Grandfather - they didn't get along and how is he going to explain leaving Clark at the mercy of these thugs?
Martha wasn't in it much, but there was one standout thing she said: about not allowing the knowledge of Clark's secret to be used to intimidate them into silence and doing what they should do, which was a good, moral point to make, though in the end they find a way around Clark getting involved, yet still informing the police about what happened. Ultimately it's the positive qualities that stood out to me on this occasion, where in the past I'd rated the episode quite low. It wasn't even that I had low expectations as I didn't know what to expect from the title. There was the self-sacrifice of Lana recommending Henry needs to talk to his wife and concentrate on her, there was obviously Lionel's contribution to proceedings (I couldn't help thinking of the last time he confronted a broken beam as he does at the Torch: when it was poised to skewer him at the Luthor Mansion during the storm at the end of the first season!), and generally a bright, upbeat tone despite all the soap and misery, and that's what makes the difference: for all that happens, at least things are happy between Clark and Lana, Clark and Lex, Clark and Pete, etc. But I really think Clark should have waited until Lex had finished his phone conversation before he clonked him on the back of the head as you'd think the person he was talking to might be suspicious!
***
Tuesday, 18 January 2022
Bem
DVD, Star Trek: The Animated Series (Bem)
A promising episode let down by a confused ending, but I'll get to that. The Bem of the title is an outlandish alien who looks like a cross between a Cardassian, a Talaxian and an Orion (if the first couple of races had existed in Trek back then, which they didn't), and is an independent observer from the planet Pandronia, or was it Pandro, I forget. Anyway, he, or they as might be better to say when we find out the nature of him/it, is quite alien and unknown to the Enterprise crew because of being part of a recently contacted race, a handy idea so they can get away with not knowing the race's true nature in the story, but in reality it's hard to believe Starfleet would allow an outsider as a visitor on the ship for any length of time without first vetting the species - they could be allies of the Klingons, or have dangerous attitudes that could get others killed! However this came about, and I do like the idea of guest observers on starships for all its security implications, it was always interesting when done in later Trek (I think of the Benzite, or Riker doing an officer transfer on a Klingon ship, both in 'TNG'), it sets up the pattern of the episode: Bem has his own ideas about testing Kirk and is dishonest from the start.
It was amusing to see the Transporter make a 'mistake' and when the Landing Party beams down (inadvisedly comprised of the first four command-ranked officers going by who takes the Bridge when Kirk's away: Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Sulu), Kirk and Spock materialise over open water while the others appear on solid ground. It's an idea that at first seems fun, then you think the Transporter would surely have programming to prevent such a potentially embarrassing, at the least, deadly, at the worst, eventuality from occurring. Fortunately it was down to Bem's interference with the technology, all done so he can sneak the Captain and First Officer's Phasers and Communicators away and replace them with duds as part of his test. This is where the episode first betrays its wacky intentions: Bem, as Spock later describes, is a 'colony creature' made up of various parts which can come apart to operate independently. If this wasn't a cartoon I'd be complaining it was cartoonish, but it is a cartoon, so you just have to accept its silliness (one reason it remains important not to acknowledge 'TAS' as canonical, other than the bits and pieces worth making so).
Bem deliberately disobeys orders and runs off on this planet of aboriginal nappy-wearing Gorn types with the intention of seeing how Kirk reacts, I suppose, it's not entirely clear exactly what he wants to see, other than how they survive without their technology. The plan was a little bonkers, just as Bem is, or shall I say alien in his thinking (and even in speech - although even that is confusing because if Bem is actually a group of creatures why does he/it still refer to themselves as 'this one,' other than so as not to give away its nature to Kirk and crew?), because it relied on Kirk and Spock being separated and choosing to pursue him on their own. It does happen, for dramatic purposes, but it needn't have. Anyway, once they're all captured it's still not really clear what Bem wants to see from Kirk, is he disappointed the Captain was captured, does he want to observe his interactions with the native race? At least there is a little wry commentary on Kirk and Spock's penchant for being held captive: Kirk actually wonders aloud how they always end up like this, Spock replying, I assume ironically or even a touch sarcastically, that it's fate, because I'm not sure he'd actually believe in such a concept which is why it seemed more likely he's as close to being flippant as a Vulcan would be. Still, we get a great line from him after Kirk considers changing careers to that of librarian (perhaps in reference to his Academy days when he was thought of as a stack of books on legs?), and Spock replies that job would be no less challenging, but a lot less dangerous!
There was a puzzling situation about the hierarchy of the Enterprise - as I mentioned before, the four top officers beam down (a real no-no, I'd have thought), so it's not clear who was in charge, though Uhura's the one they talk to on the Bridge, even though she stays at her post instead of taking the Captain's Chair. Until a little later when she does hover near it and we see M'Ress has taken her comms station, so she does seem to be the boss. It's odd, because Scotty wants to go after the Captain when he follows Bem, but Uhura is adamant that his orders must be obeyed and wants Scotty and Sulu (who appears right from the Briefing Room scene at the start and throughout, but never gets a single line), to beam back. But once Scotty's back aboard he's in charge, we see him in the Captain's Chair, so is he only in command when he's aboard ship? It's an intriguing little set of hierarchy questions and even though it's irrelevant to the story I found it to be one of the more interesting parts of the story. Both Uhura and Scotty, or I should say Nichelle Nichols and James Doohan, get more to do than usual, with Nichols as the voice of the Organian-like non-corporeal guardian of this world who oversees the aboriginal population and ensures no outside harm comes to them, while Doohan as usual performs multiple roles: he's the main guest character, Bem, as well as Arex, and as Scotty talks to himself through both of those characters, which is always entertaining!
Scotty also suffers with light coloured hair during his beam down for Kirk and Spock's rescue - did losing his Captain turn him prematurely grey? Or was it the fact that he couldn't find the Phaser Rifles which we earlier heard him ordering a security team to be equipped with, but when they actually beam down it's just standard Phasers, disappointingly? The message at first seems to be that Starfleet shouldn't be so arrogant to think they can go around the galaxy classifying planets and peoples as much as they like ('this planet is not for your use'), effectively trespassing on other races' homes, and that is a subject that could do with some exploration in Trek - in 'Beyond,' before it came out it seemed as if it would be about the final frontier pushing back and not happy about the Federation being so nosy or spreading their ways, but of course it degenerated into something far less engaging. It's a subject I can't remember being much examined, but then it wouldn't work too well if Starfleet decided to pack it in and stay within their own borders, and anyway, we know what they do is with the best intentions and sometimes even for a planet's own good, though I suppose that's drifting into Prime Directive territory which is where this angle usually goes. I suppose there was supposed to be parallels between Kirk classifying the planet and Bem testing him, but it's not all that solid.
The ending is also a little bit confused (or maybe it was just me), with the idea that Bem becomes guilty and remorseful for getting them into this mess in the first place and decides what I can only assume was meant to be a metaphor for suicide, that he, or they, should 'disassemble' as punishment. Was it that he felt bad for getting Kirk into the mess or was it that he got caught at the end by the reptile people? It was a bit extreme to suggest suicide as a punishment! The God-like Uhura voice says punishment is only necessary where learning cannot occur without it, but I'm not sure that's entirely true, the punishment itself can be a learning experience, and punishments come in all sizes, you don't have to leap to extremes. It could be read as an anti-suicide message, I suppose, but the ending was the weakest part of the episode. Perhaps episode writer David Gerrold (he of the Tribbles), was overreaching himself for what was possible in a children's cartoon? On the whole it's a reasonably entertaining story with a fun alien design, but I don't think it was capable of fully exploring the ideas that Gerrold wanted to and it comes off a bit messy. The best things about it are the technical ideas: the Transporter mistake, the ship hierarchy and a way to boost Communicators by connecting two of them together (though even there, would a powerful entity only respond when Kirk uses a boosted device to call it: 'entity, this is Captain Kirk, please respond' - that was comical).
**
A promising episode let down by a confused ending, but I'll get to that. The Bem of the title is an outlandish alien who looks like a cross between a Cardassian, a Talaxian and an Orion (if the first couple of races had existed in Trek back then, which they didn't), and is an independent observer from the planet Pandronia, or was it Pandro, I forget. Anyway, he, or they as might be better to say when we find out the nature of him/it, is quite alien and unknown to the Enterprise crew because of being part of a recently contacted race, a handy idea so they can get away with not knowing the race's true nature in the story, but in reality it's hard to believe Starfleet would allow an outsider as a visitor on the ship for any length of time without first vetting the species - they could be allies of the Klingons, or have dangerous attitudes that could get others killed! However this came about, and I do like the idea of guest observers on starships for all its security implications, it was always interesting when done in later Trek (I think of the Benzite, or Riker doing an officer transfer on a Klingon ship, both in 'TNG'), it sets up the pattern of the episode: Bem has his own ideas about testing Kirk and is dishonest from the start.
It was amusing to see the Transporter make a 'mistake' and when the Landing Party beams down (inadvisedly comprised of the first four command-ranked officers going by who takes the Bridge when Kirk's away: Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Sulu), Kirk and Spock materialise over open water while the others appear on solid ground. It's an idea that at first seems fun, then you think the Transporter would surely have programming to prevent such a potentially embarrassing, at the least, deadly, at the worst, eventuality from occurring. Fortunately it was down to Bem's interference with the technology, all done so he can sneak the Captain and First Officer's Phasers and Communicators away and replace them with duds as part of his test. This is where the episode first betrays its wacky intentions: Bem, as Spock later describes, is a 'colony creature' made up of various parts which can come apart to operate independently. If this wasn't a cartoon I'd be complaining it was cartoonish, but it is a cartoon, so you just have to accept its silliness (one reason it remains important not to acknowledge 'TAS' as canonical, other than the bits and pieces worth making so).
Bem deliberately disobeys orders and runs off on this planet of aboriginal nappy-wearing Gorn types with the intention of seeing how Kirk reacts, I suppose, it's not entirely clear exactly what he wants to see, other than how they survive without their technology. The plan was a little bonkers, just as Bem is, or shall I say alien in his thinking (and even in speech - although even that is confusing because if Bem is actually a group of creatures why does he/it still refer to themselves as 'this one,' other than so as not to give away its nature to Kirk and crew?), because it relied on Kirk and Spock being separated and choosing to pursue him on their own. It does happen, for dramatic purposes, but it needn't have. Anyway, once they're all captured it's still not really clear what Bem wants to see from Kirk, is he disappointed the Captain was captured, does he want to observe his interactions with the native race? At least there is a little wry commentary on Kirk and Spock's penchant for being held captive: Kirk actually wonders aloud how they always end up like this, Spock replying, I assume ironically or even a touch sarcastically, that it's fate, because I'm not sure he'd actually believe in such a concept which is why it seemed more likely he's as close to being flippant as a Vulcan would be. Still, we get a great line from him after Kirk considers changing careers to that of librarian (perhaps in reference to his Academy days when he was thought of as a stack of books on legs?), and Spock replies that job would be no less challenging, but a lot less dangerous!
There was a puzzling situation about the hierarchy of the Enterprise - as I mentioned before, the four top officers beam down (a real no-no, I'd have thought), so it's not clear who was in charge, though Uhura's the one they talk to on the Bridge, even though she stays at her post instead of taking the Captain's Chair. Until a little later when she does hover near it and we see M'Ress has taken her comms station, so she does seem to be the boss. It's odd, because Scotty wants to go after the Captain when he follows Bem, but Uhura is adamant that his orders must be obeyed and wants Scotty and Sulu (who appears right from the Briefing Room scene at the start and throughout, but never gets a single line), to beam back. But once Scotty's back aboard he's in charge, we see him in the Captain's Chair, so is he only in command when he's aboard ship? It's an intriguing little set of hierarchy questions and even though it's irrelevant to the story I found it to be one of the more interesting parts of the story. Both Uhura and Scotty, or I should say Nichelle Nichols and James Doohan, get more to do than usual, with Nichols as the voice of the Organian-like non-corporeal guardian of this world who oversees the aboriginal population and ensures no outside harm comes to them, while Doohan as usual performs multiple roles: he's the main guest character, Bem, as well as Arex, and as Scotty talks to himself through both of those characters, which is always entertaining!
Scotty also suffers with light coloured hair during his beam down for Kirk and Spock's rescue - did losing his Captain turn him prematurely grey? Or was it the fact that he couldn't find the Phaser Rifles which we earlier heard him ordering a security team to be equipped with, but when they actually beam down it's just standard Phasers, disappointingly? The message at first seems to be that Starfleet shouldn't be so arrogant to think they can go around the galaxy classifying planets and peoples as much as they like ('this planet is not for your use'), effectively trespassing on other races' homes, and that is a subject that could do with some exploration in Trek - in 'Beyond,' before it came out it seemed as if it would be about the final frontier pushing back and not happy about the Federation being so nosy or spreading their ways, but of course it degenerated into something far less engaging. It's a subject I can't remember being much examined, but then it wouldn't work too well if Starfleet decided to pack it in and stay within their own borders, and anyway, we know what they do is with the best intentions and sometimes even for a planet's own good, though I suppose that's drifting into Prime Directive territory which is where this angle usually goes. I suppose there was supposed to be parallels between Kirk classifying the planet and Bem testing him, but it's not all that solid.
The ending is also a little bit confused (or maybe it was just me), with the idea that Bem becomes guilty and remorseful for getting them into this mess in the first place and decides what I can only assume was meant to be a metaphor for suicide, that he, or they, should 'disassemble' as punishment. Was it that he felt bad for getting Kirk into the mess or was it that he got caught at the end by the reptile people? It was a bit extreme to suggest suicide as a punishment! The God-like Uhura voice says punishment is only necessary where learning cannot occur without it, but I'm not sure that's entirely true, the punishment itself can be a learning experience, and punishments come in all sizes, you don't have to leap to extremes. It could be read as an anti-suicide message, I suppose, but the ending was the weakest part of the episode. Perhaps episode writer David Gerrold (he of the Tribbles), was overreaching himself for what was possible in a children's cartoon? On the whole it's a reasonably entertaining story with a fun alien design, but I don't think it was capable of fully exploring the ideas that Gerrold wanted to and it comes off a bit messy. The best things about it are the technical ideas: the Transporter mistake, the ship hierarchy and a way to boost Communicators by connecting two of them together (though even there, would a powerful entity only respond when Kirk uses a boosted device to call it: 'entity, this is Captain Kirk, please respond' - that was comical).
**
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Precipice (2)
DVD, Smallville S2 (Precipice) (2)
I didn't remember much about this one other than the axe in the train carriage, but I did remember I liked it. A lot. And I still do, it's one of the highlights of the season, a chance to see a different side to several of the characters, the introduction of the prickly Sheriff Adams who sets the cat amongst the pigeons with her topsy-turvy view of the town, and some resolution on the ongoing storyline of Lex and Dr. Bryce. One thing that wasn't a factor when I last watched it, but has now become a big point of interest was the guest star: Anson Mount, who'd go on to become TV's Captain Pike in 'Star Trek: Discovery' (and soon to get his own spinoff), about fifteen years later. I knew there was a reason I never fully warmed to his version of the classic character - all these years I'd seen him in the role of Helen Bryce's ex-med school colleague with creepily amorous intent! It wasn't completely out of the blue, I'd heard in a podcast Mount was in a Season 2 episode, but it was still entertaining to see him. What I really loved about the episode, however, was the issue of injustice versus the law, and if I was going to call this episode anything else, it would have been dubbed 'Injustice.' 'Precipice' works well, as that's Lex' position at the end of the episode where he almost gives in to his feelings of vengeance, but it doesn't apply quite as much to anyone else, though I suppose it could be argued that the other two plots were on a cliff edge to some degree as well.
Lana's close call with the odious Andy who causes so much stress for her and Clark, and the Kent family who could be sued for what he did to beat up the guy and his friends. No, I take it back, 'Precipice' is a good all-round title, as Clark was just as much on the edge as Lex was, giving in to his ability to teach these punks a lesson they deserved to learn. But the episode comes down heavily against vigilantism and makes you think about all the times Clark's been in that position (a hero complex, says the Sheriff), and has generally managed to hold back and do no more than was necessary to save or protect victims. This time it was Lana at stake and he felt especially protective, but you can see the gleam in his eye when he confronts the thugs in the back alley, that he feels he has right on his side and so he should do what he feels he can get away with. But life isn't as simple as that, and if nothing else it highlights the litigious society we've allowed to strangle the modern world, where perhaps in the past a hard lesson for offenders would have been accepted. But it's a murky issue and not easily unravelled. We love to see the superheroes like Batman dealing out justice, especially when it's for helpless victims, but at the same time the rights and wrongs aren't always as clear cut.
In a way it was a case of unjust law enforcement, but then Adams is coming to a tight community as an outsider who doesn't know the people and so could be impartial when Sheriff Ethan was a bit more liable to leniency, but even he, hat in hand and in an embarrassed way, would hold up his badge of office and not play favourites, it's just that Adams is so cantankerous and caustic in comparison, a sharp, hard older woman who's probably seen it all. Clark gets on the wrong side of her, but it's difficult to see a good side to get on! I couldn't help thinking that Lana would be able to bring charges against Andy, especially with Clark as a witness. Sure, he had the backups to swear against it, but the evidence was there: the smashed shelving and Lana's bruises, as well as her and Clark's good name in the community, whereas you feel pretty sure Andy and his mates would have been in trouble with the law at some point, probably many times. I suppose they didn't have as much CCTV in those days, either. And as for suing the Kents, surely some kind of official medical diagnosis would have been essential before such a suit could be brought to court, and Andy's story would have fallen through as soon as he was checked independently, wouldn't it? I felt the same thing about mad Paul - they could have just checked his motel room, found the broken mirror with his blood on it and understood he'd caused his own injury, but the progress of law can be slow, too slow to keep up with unlawfulness, another lesson perhaps that shifts the balance in favour of taking it into your own hands. In fact there are points on both sides so it's not a simple case.
I really liked seeing Lana take back some of the control she has over herself and her surroundings by learning some karate. I don't remember it being a continuing story, but it makes sense after all the times she's been in danger from various troublemakers, and it was important to stress that it's not about becoming a crime-buster or seeking out trouble, merely a form of defence when there was no other way out, and she performed admirably - it was fun that in her own way she saves Clark for once. Perhaps it was going too far to outright say that in dialogue, but it was still a pleasant turnaround. Clark is punished for his rashness in dealing with the bullies and it's a reminder that you need to be as wise as a serpent when dealing with evil people because they'll always find a way to hurt you, malevolent as they are and comfortable to lie and cheat to get their way. It was tough for Clark because the litter-picking was one chore he couldn't use his abilities to speed up as it was in front of the whole town. On the other hand, if he'd thought it through maybe he should have gone out after dark, whipped round the town picking up all the litter, then when he actually came to do it officially in the daytime there'd be little or nothing left… Too devious for him? There was a slight sign of the traces of Evil Clark of the Red Kryptonite in the threatening behaviour he pulled on the bullies - it's always been a question of what he can get away with and how close he is to doing someone serious damage, which is why he can't do sports, and this was like the next level up from that.
As he grows and becomes a man it's the kind of issue he needed to be clear on, not to give in to even just feelings that would endanger those who deserve it, but to keep a level head at all times. At the same time, like the Dark Side of the Force, it's beguiling and seductive to give in to such impulses even if at first they're for the sake of good, and that's the same position Lex is put into. Now that I think about it, and Lionel is pointedly absent again, could Paul's arrival on the scene have been a deliberate ploy by his Father to bring Lex closer to Helen and make him realise how much he cares for her? I'd never considered that before, but it's plausible for Lionel to use an uncontrolled unfortunate to carry his plans forward. It's gratifying to see Lex continue to choose right - sure, I could imagine him instructing his man to beat up Paul, and that would likely have been the plan eventually, but even while this man takes every opportunity to kill him, he just can't pull the trigger, and it was all for the affections of Helen, whom he knew couldn't accept him if he'd killed her ex-friend, no matter how insane he was, which would only make him fall harder when the truth came out in Season 3, a cruel and disturbing turn of events that helped to stop Lex being that fascinating character walking the tightrope between his dual natures which made him so compelling in the first two seasons.
And he really is fascinating, pleasing the way he threatens Paul (that's not a threat, this is a threat!), and thrills the way he looks like he'll do anything and stands up to the Sheriff when all she seems to be doing is preserving the rights of the wrongdoers in the town, stalking away from her, coat tails flapping. And it was a well directed episode, about the only negative I could say about it is the continued lack of Pete especially, and Chloe, who barely register. I feel in the past they'd have found ways to involve them, perhaps Chloe would've been the one to find out Andy was faking his injury, and Pete would have accompanied Clark on his community service (okay, maybe just for a short while, he probably wouldn't want some girl thinking he was doing time!), but the point is they'd have been included. Even the parents could have done with more, but Jonathan gets to show a different side, the same as Clark, Lana and Lex, when he orders Clark to sit down, clearly master in his own house when the Sheriff comes a-calling. Nice callback to the 'destiny' of Clark to rule these flawed humans, the attitude he immediately sinks to in his disgust at the injustice that's been dealt him. It's good to see people put through an ordeal if they have a chance to learn from it, and I felt all three of the main characters did that, it was a valuable set of life lessons, something that comes more easily in episodic structure - even though there are serial stories travelling along through the season, most episodes are largely self-contained and have the chance to do something, instead of merely moving a plot along.
****
I didn't remember much about this one other than the axe in the train carriage, but I did remember I liked it. A lot. And I still do, it's one of the highlights of the season, a chance to see a different side to several of the characters, the introduction of the prickly Sheriff Adams who sets the cat amongst the pigeons with her topsy-turvy view of the town, and some resolution on the ongoing storyline of Lex and Dr. Bryce. One thing that wasn't a factor when I last watched it, but has now become a big point of interest was the guest star: Anson Mount, who'd go on to become TV's Captain Pike in 'Star Trek: Discovery' (and soon to get his own spinoff), about fifteen years later. I knew there was a reason I never fully warmed to his version of the classic character - all these years I'd seen him in the role of Helen Bryce's ex-med school colleague with creepily amorous intent! It wasn't completely out of the blue, I'd heard in a podcast Mount was in a Season 2 episode, but it was still entertaining to see him. What I really loved about the episode, however, was the issue of injustice versus the law, and if I was going to call this episode anything else, it would have been dubbed 'Injustice.' 'Precipice' works well, as that's Lex' position at the end of the episode where he almost gives in to his feelings of vengeance, but it doesn't apply quite as much to anyone else, though I suppose it could be argued that the other two plots were on a cliff edge to some degree as well.
Lana's close call with the odious Andy who causes so much stress for her and Clark, and the Kent family who could be sued for what he did to beat up the guy and his friends. No, I take it back, 'Precipice' is a good all-round title, as Clark was just as much on the edge as Lex was, giving in to his ability to teach these punks a lesson they deserved to learn. But the episode comes down heavily against vigilantism and makes you think about all the times Clark's been in that position (a hero complex, says the Sheriff), and has generally managed to hold back and do no more than was necessary to save or protect victims. This time it was Lana at stake and he felt especially protective, but you can see the gleam in his eye when he confronts the thugs in the back alley, that he feels he has right on his side and so he should do what he feels he can get away with. But life isn't as simple as that, and if nothing else it highlights the litigious society we've allowed to strangle the modern world, where perhaps in the past a hard lesson for offenders would have been accepted. But it's a murky issue and not easily unravelled. We love to see the superheroes like Batman dealing out justice, especially when it's for helpless victims, but at the same time the rights and wrongs aren't always as clear cut.
In a way it was a case of unjust law enforcement, but then Adams is coming to a tight community as an outsider who doesn't know the people and so could be impartial when Sheriff Ethan was a bit more liable to leniency, but even he, hat in hand and in an embarrassed way, would hold up his badge of office and not play favourites, it's just that Adams is so cantankerous and caustic in comparison, a sharp, hard older woman who's probably seen it all. Clark gets on the wrong side of her, but it's difficult to see a good side to get on! I couldn't help thinking that Lana would be able to bring charges against Andy, especially with Clark as a witness. Sure, he had the backups to swear against it, but the evidence was there: the smashed shelving and Lana's bruises, as well as her and Clark's good name in the community, whereas you feel pretty sure Andy and his mates would have been in trouble with the law at some point, probably many times. I suppose they didn't have as much CCTV in those days, either. And as for suing the Kents, surely some kind of official medical diagnosis would have been essential before such a suit could be brought to court, and Andy's story would have fallen through as soon as he was checked independently, wouldn't it? I felt the same thing about mad Paul - they could have just checked his motel room, found the broken mirror with his blood on it and understood he'd caused his own injury, but the progress of law can be slow, too slow to keep up with unlawfulness, another lesson perhaps that shifts the balance in favour of taking it into your own hands. In fact there are points on both sides so it's not a simple case.
I really liked seeing Lana take back some of the control she has over herself and her surroundings by learning some karate. I don't remember it being a continuing story, but it makes sense after all the times she's been in danger from various troublemakers, and it was important to stress that it's not about becoming a crime-buster or seeking out trouble, merely a form of defence when there was no other way out, and she performed admirably - it was fun that in her own way she saves Clark for once. Perhaps it was going too far to outright say that in dialogue, but it was still a pleasant turnaround. Clark is punished for his rashness in dealing with the bullies and it's a reminder that you need to be as wise as a serpent when dealing with evil people because they'll always find a way to hurt you, malevolent as they are and comfortable to lie and cheat to get their way. It was tough for Clark because the litter-picking was one chore he couldn't use his abilities to speed up as it was in front of the whole town. On the other hand, if he'd thought it through maybe he should have gone out after dark, whipped round the town picking up all the litter, then when he actually came to do it officially in the daytime there'd be little or nothing left… Too devious for him? There was a slight sign of the traces of Evil Clark of the Red Kryptonite in the threatening behaviour he pulled on the bullies - it's always been a question of what he can get away with and how close he is to doing someone serious damage, which is why he can't do sports, and this was like the next level up from that.
As he grows and becomes a man it's the kind of issue he needed to be clear on, not to give in to even just feelings that would endanger those who deserve it, but to keep a level head at all times. At the same time, like the Dark Side of the Force, it's beguiling and seductive to give in to such impulses even if at first they're for the sake of good, and that's the same position Lex is put into. Now that I think about it, and Lionel is pointedly absent again, could Paul's arrival on the scene have been a deliberate ploy by his Father to bring Lex closer to Helen and make him realise how much he cares for her? I'd never considered that before, but it's plausible for Lionel to use an uncontrolled unfortunate to carry his plans forward. It's gratifying to see Lex continue to choose right - sure, I could imagine him instructing his man to beat up Paul, and that would likely have been the plan eventually, but even while this man takes every opportunity to kill him, he just can't pull the trigger, and it was all for the affections of Helen, whom he knew couldn't accept him if he'd killed her ex-friend, no matter how insane he was, which would only make him fall harder when the truth came out in Season 3, a cruel and disturbing turn of events that helped to stop Lex being that fascinating character walking the tightrope between his dual natures which made him so compelling in the first two seasons.
And he really is fascinating, pleasing the way he threatens Paul (that's not a threat, this is a threat!), and thrills the way he looks like he'll do anything and stands up to the Sheriff when all she seems to be doing is preserving the rights of the wrongdoers in the town, stalking away from her, coat tails flapping. And it was a well directed episode, about the only negative I could say about it is the continued lack of Pete especially, and Chloe, who barely register. I feel in the past they'd have found ways to involve them, perhaps Chloe would've been the one to find out Andy was faking his injury, and Pete would have accompanied Clark on his community service (okay, maybe just for a short while, he probably wouldn't want some girl thinking he was doing time!), but the point is they'd have been included. Even the parents could have done with more, but Jonathan gets to show a different side, the same as Clark, Lana and Lex, when he orders Clark to sit down, clearly master in his own house when the Sheriff comes a-calling. Nice callback to the 'destiny' of Clark to rule these flawed humans, the attitude he immediately sinks to in his disgust at the injustice that's been dealt him. It's good to see people put through an ordeal if they have a chance to learn from it, and I felt all three of the main characters did that, it was a valuable set of life lessons, something that comes more easily in episodic structure - even though there are serial stories travelling along through the season, most episodes are largely self-contained and have the chance to do something, instead of merely moving a plot along.
****
Retrogaming Review of The Year 2021
Retrogaming Review of The Year 2021
In the second Year of The Virus I was resolved to have a little more fun and make time for games when in other years I might have been working on things, so certain titles became regular entries into my Wii's drive - and that was the whole idea of the Wii, I believe, to get gamers playing little and often, picking things up and putting them down, though I also got the chance to delve into deeper games, too. A shame the Amiga didn't play a prominent part as I hoped it would, but at least I kept the gaming going overall and never lost the enjoyment with generally good choices.
Awards:
Surprise of The Year: WSC Real '08
Disappointment of The Year: Animal Crossing
[Ratings reflect total, historical experience, not just the enjoyment level I got out of them this time.]
January: The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (2005, GameCube) - Took a while to get into, and could be frustrating getting used to controlling four Links, but eventually I came to enjoy it. The music was sometimes repeated too much for different levels, making it seem a little rushed or lazy, but in spite of any flaws it still leaves you slightly moved by the end where you fly around Hyrule revisiting the different places you battled through, thanks to the owl or the fairies that we follow during the credits. Even then, the series had become far too derivative of itself, but it's hard to criticise traditionalism in a game that very much broke the mould. With four players I expect it would have been more fun. ***
January - December: WSC Real 08 (2008, Wii) - I'd played this before, but hadn't got very far, not even winning a single match against the computer. Until this year when I picked up the gauntlet and chose to get into it - I did, more than I could've ever imagined! It became easily my most played game of the year, an involving, engaging revelation that was about as close to a real match as I can imagine, the Wiimote coming into its own as an intuitive and natural cue that worked like no gimmicky operation in other games. I battled up to 2nd in the world (still to overcome Ronnie O'Sullivan's lead and take the top spot so I'll be back on it this year!). It's not quite five-star material, there were some minor annoyances, such as the audience looking like civilians from 'Body Harvest' (the characters that ran around with about three frames of animation and no texture), and the players all seemed to be on an extreme diet! The match length keeps resetting to 25% at the start of each season, and I prefer the full-length version; there's no score on screen when the opposition's at table (unless you pause and go into stats in the options screen), no ability to see a ball from any angle, it's always from the cue ball and you need to be able to look around the table freely; and at first I found the positional aids sometimes disappeared for no apparent reason until I realised it was all to do with whether you were putting enough power in the meter. The positional aids themselves were essential and aren't cheating, they're actually part of the game, encouraging improvement to your stats so you can trade points for a better quality of aids, in an RPG style. There's great immersion, too, where you really get into matches (fortunate that you don't have to complete all frames in one sitting), the commentary from the brilliant John Virgo, with support from Steve Davis and John Parrott, helping that end of things immensely - it can be jarring and misplaced sometimes, but they do converse on occasion and though repetitive it adds to the realism. Realism doesn't go too far, either, with no kicks or miscues like the real game, so it's not complete simulation. It may be inaccessible until you dedicate to it, but it rewards patience. Disappointingly, it doesn't keep records of your career, so once a season's done it's gone, no record of how much money you earned (no way to spend it either), the head-to-heads only appear for players when you play them, you can't go over the details of an event to track your progress; who played; frames won; century breaks; etc, so room for improvement. It would also have been nice to be able to see what happened on replay before you commit to taking a shot or forcing a continue on your opponent, but it's a full, deep game that a year of play hasn't exhausted, and that's without even going into the Pool side of things (and Billiards), two-player, and incentives, and comes as close as I can imagine to naturally reaching a level where you can compete with the top players, at least virtually. ****
January - November: Wii Sports (2006, Wii) - Like the snooker, I wanted something that I could do regularly, and this was specifically used for supplementary exercise, the boxing especially requiring effort. Most of the games had their merits and it continues to be a good source of regular, almost weekly, attempts to better high scores in certain disciplines while also getting the exercise. ***
January - November: UFO: Enemy Unknown (1993, Amiga 1200) - With 2022 to mark twenty years of continuous play, 2021 wasn't anything special, other than keeping the tradition alive, and in a year when I failed to get back into Amiga games as I'd planned, this was my only example of that great machine. One day I'll wrap up this file… *****
May - July: Body Harvest (1998, N64) - I'd looked forward to revisiting this, and associated as it had been with the summer of 2001, returning to it almost exactly twenty years later was a real joy and probably the best gaming experience I had all year, tied in with watching the Euros and reading the 'N64 Anthology,' all three representing the summer for me. There aren't many games left that I haven't returned to, to wring a full measure of nostalgia from it on the N64, but this was one rare example that I'd never replayed and it didn't disappoint. The quality of the front end and graphics of a game have never been of highest importance in my estimation, and though this game looked a bit shabby (even when it came out!), its freedom and storytelling was far more telling, controlling so many varied vehicles from motorbikes to tanks, boats to chinooks, it was well worth the time I spent with it. Maybe it'll be back in the slot for the year 2041…? ****
August - September: Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (2008, Wii) - The one that didn't impress, and I'd had a similar experience with 'Harvest Moon' on the GameCube, the last full-priced game I ever bought I think, I still went into this hoping it would be the typical wondrous Nintendo extravaganza. It was the first in the series I'd played, never having been able to find the 'Cube version for a reasonable price, and I paid the most I had for any game this year, but it was a real disappointment. It was a little more interactive than 'Harvest Moon,' I'll give it that, but not much more involving, so after trying for a while to get some kind of purpose to it, it soon degenerated into a hunt for bugs that could be sold to get money… for no good reason. It struck me as quite a girly game, something that was less about doing and more about living within, gossiping with the neighbours, trying on different clothes, arranging furniture, going shopping… All things that don't appeal, and with no real progress or delights I finally found myself heading off for something more worth my time. **
October - December: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007, Wii) - It took a little time to get into, and the controls were finicky and far from the precision needed to have confidence in this type of game, but I've got over irritating controls before (such as in 'Hitman 2'), and though it could still be uncomfortable after prolonged play I was glad to be able to experience the next title in the series after I'd enjoyed the first two on 'Cube - it made me want to go back to the beginning and I will definitely return to 'Metroid Prime' in the next year or so. ****
December: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006, GameCube) - I never felt this was one of the best in its series, it felt too much like a reaction to 'Wind Waker,' a desperate attempt to return to what made the N64 classics work. It looked good, but also like a slightly higher-res 'Ocarina of Time,' with a larger game world, but the gameplay was very familiar, perhaps too much so. There was too much busywork to artificially inflate the playing time (88 hours on my original run back in 2006-2007!). It's such a tough line to walk in crafting a new gaming experience within the confines of a much-loved existing franchise and few have succeeded. It is marginally better than its predecessor, partly because of the return to 'realistic' style, but also for horse-riding being more fun than sailing across empty oceans. I went in without high expectations since I remembered being disappointed that it didn't quite live up to its billing as the last big game of the 'Cube era (much like the 'Cube itself ended up as slightly underwhelming compared to the experiences I'd had on the N64, the king of consoles), and I can't say I've enjoyed it more, but have taken it for what it was: a continuation of the 'Ocarina' style that brought the series into 3D, and a fairly enjoyable return to puzzles and exploration. ***
December: Mario Kart Wii (2008, Wii) - I'd been given it a year or so ago and had never got the interest up to taking it out of the plastic wrapping, but multiplayer at Christmas finally encouraged me to have a go after my original experience (back in 2008 when my cousin brought it round and thrashed me every time since I couldn't get the hang of the imprecise physical steering), had left me unenthused. But finally giving in and using the 'Cube Controller made it typically great fun, and as well as multiplayer I worked to unlock the other tracks and options so spent plenty of time with this - one thing you notice, apart from the fact that there's a lot more to do than the average Mario Kart instalment, is its love of its own heritage. I could point out the cynical direction of that at a time when the Wii's Virtual Console was encouraging players to buy old versions of games like this, but it was a good marketing strategy. I wonder if subsequent iterations have continued that trend as I did feel as if there weren't enough really strong new tracks, but the leafy one stuck out and it was lovely to return to some older ones, though my favourites like Koopa Troopa Beach and Sherbert Land were omitted. A game I'll likely dip back into this year to finish unlocking everything, though I'll never get used to Wiimote handling and will always stick to classic 'Cube control! ****
Honourable mentions: In July I played 'ExciteBike 64' (***), which was quite a short experience before I'd won all the championships. Good physics, and some great extras, but I didn't warm to the single-player and didn't have the impetus to win first place on every track (***), whereas I really got into some multiplayer gaming over Christmas, with 'WSC Real' (****), 'Mario Kart Wii' (****), 'Mario Kart: Double Dash!!' (*****), 'Burnout 2' (*****), 'Wii Play' (***), 'Shaun White Snowboarding' (**), and 'Colin McRae's Dirt 2' (**), all featuring and most working well (though the last game not allowing 'Cube Controller was a real loss).
Next Year - I'd really wanted to get back into the Amiga by bringing the 1500 down from the loft, but it never happened, and while I've done most of the big Wii games now and revisited some 'Cube (fulfilling my goals of 'Metroid' and 'Zelda'), I'm not finished yet, so in 2022 I'd like to:
- Get the Amiga 1500 down, specifically for 'Flashback,' my favourite 2D platformer ever
- DOSBox didn't get a look in and I do have titles I want to try ('Command & Conquer;' 'Mega-lo-mania;' 'Space Hulk')
- A dark game for Winter on the 'Cube, either 'Splinter Cell' or 'The Lord of The Rings: The Third Age,' but there's also 'Lego Star Wars,' 'Starsky & Hutch,' and of course 'Metroid Prime'
- N64: 'Top Gear Overdrive' for racing, 'Goldeneye 007' and possibly 'TWINE' in preparation for 2023 and the return to 'Perfect Dark'
- To continue my Christmas 'Zelda' tradition with the Wii's entry, 'Skyward Sword'
- Maybe 'Age of Empires 3: The War Chiefs' as it's been a while?
Happy New Year!
In the second Year of The Virus I was resolved to have a little more fun and make time for games when in other years I might have been working on things, so certain titles became regular entries into my Wii's drive - and that was the whole idea of the Wii, I believe, to get gamers playing little and often, picking things up and putting them down, though I also got the chance to delve into deeper games, too. A shame the Amiga didn't play a prominent part as I hoped it would, but at least I kept the gaming going overall and never lost the enjoyment with generally good choices.
Awards:
Surprise of The Year: WSC Real '08
Disappointment of The Year: Animal Crossing
[Ratings reflect total, historical experience, not just the enjoyment level I got out of them this time.]
January: The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (2005, GameCube) - Took a while to get into, and could be frustrating getting used to controlling four Links, but eventually I came to enjoy it. The music was sometimes repeated too much for different levels, making it seem a little rushed or lazy, but in spite of any flaws it still leaves you slightly moved by the end where you fly around Hyrule revisiting the different places you battled through, thanks to the owl or the fairies that we follow during the credits. Even then, the series had become far too derivative of itself, but it's hard to criticise traditionalism in a game that very much broke the mould. With four players I expect it would have been more fun. ***
January - December: WSC Real 08 (2008, Wii) - I'd played this before, but hadn't got very far, not even winning a single match against the computer. Until this year when I picked up the gauntlet and chose to get into it - I did, more than I could've ever imagined! It became easily my most played game of the year, an involving, engaging revelation that was about as close to a real match as I can imagine, the Wiimote coming into its own as an intuitive and natural cue that worked like no gimmicky operation in other games. I battled up to 2nd in the world (still to overcome Ronnie O'Sullivan's lead and take the top spot so I'll be back on it this year!). It's not quite five-star material, there were some minor annoyances, such as the audience looking like civilians from 'Body Harvest' (the characters that ran around with about three frames of animation and no texture), and the players all seemed to be on an extreme diet! The match length keeps resetting to 25% at the start of each season, and I prefer the full-length version; there's no score on screen when the opposition's at table (unless you pause and go into stats in the options screen), no ability to see a ball from any angle, it's always from the cue ball and you need to be able to look around the table freely; and at first I found the positional aids sometimes disappeared for no apparent reason until I realised it was all to do with whether you were putting enough power in the meter. The positional aids themselves were essential and aren't cheating, they're actually part of the game, encouraging improvement to your stats so you can trade points for a better quality of aids, in an RPG style. There's great immersion, too, where you really get into matches (fortunate that you don't have to complete all frames in one sitting), the commentary from the brilliant John Virgo, with support from Steve Davis and John Parrott, helping that end of things immensely - it can be jarring and misplaced sometimes, but they do converse on occasion and though repetitive it adds to the realism. Realism doesn't go too far, either, with no kicks or miscues like the real game, so it's not complete simulation. It may be inaccessible until you dedicate to it, but it rewards patience. Disappointingly, it doesn't keep records of your career, so once a season's done it's gone, no record of how much money you earned (no way to spend it either), the head-to-heads only appear for players when you play them, you can't go over the details of an event to track your progress; who played; frames won; century breaks; etc, so room for improvement. It would also have been nice to be able to see what happened on replay before you commit to taking a shot or forcing a continue on your opponent, but it's a full, deep game that a year of play hasn't exhausted, and that's without even going into the Pool side of things (and Billiards), two-player, and incentives, and comes as close as I can imagine to naturally reaching a level where you can compete with the top players, at least virtually. ****
January - November: Wii Sports (2006, Wii) - Like the snooker, I wanted something that I could do regularly, and this was specifically used for supplementary exercise, the boxing especially requiring effort. Most of the games had their merits and it continues to be a good source of regular, almost weekly, attempts to better high scores in certain disciplines while also getting the exercise. ***
January - November: UFO: Enemy Unknown (1993, Amiga 1200) - With 2022 to mark twenty years of continuous play, 2021 wasn't anything special, other than keeping the tradition alive, and in a year when I failed to get back into Amiga games as I'd planned, this was my only example of that great machine. One day I'll wrap up this file… *****
May - July: Body Harvest (1998, N64) - I'd looked forward to revisiting this, and associated as it had been with the summer of 2001, returning to it almost exactly twenty years later was a real joy and probably the best gaming experience I had all year, tied in with watching the Euros and reading the 'N64 Anthology,' all three representing the summer for me. There aren't many games left that I haven't returned to, to wring a full measure of nostalgia from it on the N64, but this was one rare example that I'd never replayed and it didn't disappoint. The quality of the front end and graphics of a game have never been of highest importance in my estimation, and though this game looked a bit shabby (even when it came out!), its freedom and storytelling was far more telling, controlling so many varied vehicles from motorbikes to tanks, boats to chinooks, it was well worth the time I spent with it. Maybe it'll be back in the slot for the year 2041…? ****
August - September: Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (2008, Wii) - The one that didn't impress, and I'd had a similar experience with 'Harvest Moon' on the GameCube, the last full-priced game I ever bought I think, I still went into this hoping it would be the typical wondrous Nintendo extravaganza. It was the first in the series I'd played, never having been able to find the 'Cube version for a reasonable price, and I paid the most I had for any game this year, but it was a real disappointment. It was a little more interactive than 'Harvest Moon,' I'll give it that, but not much more involving, so after trying for a while to get some kind of purpose to it, it soon degenerated into a hunt for bugs that could be sold to get money… for no good reason. It struck me as quite a girly game, something that was less about doing and more about living within, gossiping with the neighbours, trying on different clothes, arranging furniture, going shopping… All things that don't appeal, and with no real progress or delights I finally found myself heading off for something more worth my time. **
October - December: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007, Wii) - It took a little time to get into, and the controls were finicky and far from the precision needed to have confidence in this type of game, but I've got over irritating controls before (such as in 'Hitman 2'), and though it could still be uncomfortable after prolonged play I was glad to be able to experience the next title in the series after I'd enjoyed the first two on 'Cube - it made me want to go back to the beginning and I will definitely return to 'Metroid Prime' in the next year or so. ****
December: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006, GameCube) - I never felt this was one of the best in its series, it felt too much like a reaction to 'Wind Waker,' a desperate attempt to return to what made the N64 classics work. It looked good, but also like a slightly higher-res 'Ocarina of Time,' with a larger game world, but the gameplay was very familiar, perhaps too much so. There was too much busywork to artificially inflate the playing time (88 hours on my original run back in 2006-2007!). It's such a tough line to walk in crafting a new gaming experience within the confines of a much-loved existing franchise and few have succeeded. It is marginally better than its predecessor, partly because of the return to 'realistic' style, but also for horse-riding being more fun than sailing across empty oceans. I went in without high expectations since I remembered being disappointed that it didn't quite live up to its billing as the last big game of the 'Cube era (much like the 'Cube itself ended up as slightly underwhelming compared to the experiences I'd had on the N64, the king of consoles), and I can't say I've enjoyed it more, but have taken it for what it was: a continuation of the 'Ocarina' style that brought the series into 3D, and a fairly enjoyable return to puzzles and exploration. ***
December: Mario Kart Wii (2008, Wii) - I'd been given it a year or so ago and had never got the interest up to taking it out of the plastic wrapping, but multiplayer at Christmas finally encouraged me to have a go after my original experience (back in 2008 when my cousin brought it round and thrashed me every time since I couldn't get the hang of the imprecise physical steering), had left me unenthused. But finally giving in and using the 'Cube Controller made it typically great fun, and as well as multiplayer I worked to unlock the other tracks and options so spent plenty of time with this - one thing you notice, apart from the fact that there's a lot more to do than the average Mario Kart instalment, is its love of its own heritage. I could point out the cynical direction of that at a time when the Wii's Virtual Console was encouraging players to buy old versions of games like this, but it was a good marketing strategy. I wonder if subsequent iterations have continued that trend as I did feel as if there weren't enough really strong new tracks, but the leafy one stuck out and it was lovely to return to some older ones, though my favourites like Koopa Troopa Beach and Sherbert Land were omitted. A game I'll likely dip back into this year to finish unlocking everything, though I'll never get used to Wiimote handling and will always stick to classic 'Cube control! ****
Honourable mentions: In July I played 'ExciteBike 64' (***), which was quite a short experience before I'd won all the championships. Good physics, and some great extras, but I didn't warm to the single-player and didn't have the impetus to win first place on every track (***), whereas I really got into some multiplayer gaming over Christmas, with 'WSC Real' (****), 'Mario Kart Wii' (****), 'Mario Kart: Double Dash!!' (*****), 'Burnout 2' (*****), 'Wii Play' (***), 'Shaun White Snowboarding' (**), and 'Colin McRae's Dirt 2' (**), all featuring and most working well (though the last game not allowing 'Cube Controller was a real loss).
Next Year - I'd really wanted to get back into the Amiga by bringing the 1500 down from the loft, but it never happened, and while I've done most of the big Wii games now and revisited some 'Cube (fulfilling my goals of 'Metroid' and 'Zelda'), I'm not finished yet, so in 2022 I'd like to:
- Get the Amiga 1500 down, specifically for 'Flashback,' my favourite 2D platformer ever
- DOSBox didn't get a look in and I do have titles I want to try ('Command & Conquer;' 'Mega-lo-mania;' 'Space Hulk')
- A dark game for Winter on the 'Cube, either 'Splinter Cell' or 'The Lord of The Rings: The Third Age,' but there's also 'Lego Star Wars,' 'Starsky & Hutch,' and of course 'Metroid Prime'
- N64: 'Top Gear Overdrive' for racing, 'Goldeneye 007' and possibly 'TWINE' in preparation for 2023 and the return to 'Perfect Dark'
- To continue my Christmas 'Zelda' tradition with the Wii's entry, 'Skyward Sword'
- Maybe 'Age of Empires 3: The War Chiefs' as it's been a while?
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, 14 December 2021
Visitor (2)
DVD, Smallville S2 (Visitor) (2)
Traditional 'Smallville' on the face of it, at least at first, and I had the impression this was going to be a weaker episode of the season. But that was probably the result of not really liking the story in the past, and perhaps that lessened my expectations, because this time I found it to be quite a lovely instalment that threw up various ideas, was beautifully shot, well acted, and kept me guessing all the way through whether Cyrus was an alien or not. It starts with a spot of bullying in class, that's the main reason it seems classic 'Smallville,' but instead of Cyrus turning out to be a vengeful psychopath with murderous tendencies, and whom Clark has to deal with, it's quickly apparent that he's not on the list of meteor freaks that have required intervention. In fact it soon becomes apparent that Cyrus could actually be a fellow Kryptonian. Now I didn't think that was likely, but I did wonder if he might be from another planet - hey, if Clark can drop on Earth and grow up a farm boy, why couldn't a similar thing have happened to Cyrus? Obviously Clark finds it hard to believe, but you soon realise he wants to, he wants a connection to the newly discovered world he was from, which Dr. Swann (who gets a mention), had informed him about in only the previous episode. I like that he has various people to talk to him about the situation from various degrees of understanding: his parents are one angle, Pete is another - he knows the secret, too, and he's someone Clark can discuss things with who isn't in authority over him and can talk man to man.
If only there had been more scenes for Pete like the one he gets in this one. It's not that it's anything special, but it does illustrate the point of having him be there as a confidant. Chloe is next in line, she's part of the gang, but not on the inside, so doesn't know Clark's point of view, and then there's Lana and perhaps Lex, who are on the periphery and have the good or the bad side when it comes to Clark. The good, in that Lana was slyly hoping Clark would offer to stable her horse at the Kent Farm, the bad, in Lex showing girlfriend Dr. Bryce his secret room that contains the car that smashed into Clark and various pieces of evidence about him and his family. That's another fascinating situation being developed: Helen clearly seems to want to be around Lex, unlike a lot of people, but at the same time she's garnered Martha's trust for not giving her boy away after the strange blood sample he'd given. Jonathan doesn't trust her, yet Martha, whether through the difficulties and changes in herself from pregnancy, goes against his wishes and confides in Helen, and it's putting the doctor in a very delicate position: two opposites both trusting her and being willing to invest that trust. I have the feeling she turns out to be a spy for Lionel (who doesn't appear again this time), so it may not be genuine affection for Lex, but even if she were working for the other Luthor, she's still at a kind of opposite ends of the spectrum at the same time.
It was these little character developments that were popping up in the episode that enamoured me with the episode, but it was also the story of Cyrus, this outsider who believes he is from another planet where his real parents are waiting for him, the traditional wish of the orphan, and just the idea that he and Clark could in some way be connected is a huge thing at this point in the series when it was so much more realistic and you didn't have all kinds of Kryptonians popping up, which got ridiculous. It was a small, personal story, and yes, there is another of those weird non-meteor rock powers, like Ryan had: Cyrus can heal, but it's not, seemingly from the meteor rocks, unless he was outside when they fell, which is how Clark explains him being able to draw the ship that brought him. It doesn't really need explanation I suppose, it's more important that he uses the healing and is put in a position where he could have refused to save the nasty bully that had caused so much grief. He chooses to set aside his own compelling desire to be at the top of his tower where he believes he will have that one chance to rejoin his kind, in order to sacrifice it all to save the life of someone that doesn't deserve it. It's an inspiring moment, worthy of the kind of quality inspiration that 'Star Trek' used to do so well before it became mere shoot-'em-up fantasy in recent years, and I respected it and enjoyed the episode so much more because it was able to successfully conclude the episode.
I even loved the moment Clark pulls the tower back upright and the vehicle trying to topple it is pulled along, too. It was a simple, but great use of his powers. When the lads surrounded him and Cyrus at school you really want him to go all 'Karate Kid' and beat up the four or five of them, however many were there, but you also know that's not the right thing to do, not because violence breeds violence, or that he couldn't explain his being able to do that, but because Clark is a man of peace and it wouldn't fit with his character - even in the hallway when the bully jibes at him or mocks Cyrus, the ordinary reaction, especially if you were big and tough as we know he is, would be to give the bully a piece of his mind, a tongue-lashing, if not an actual physical assault to make him think twice, and I feel like if the series had been made today that's what the audience would demand, but that's not the right course and I really admired his restraint in all things. I feel like TV and film has turned a corner in the years since (maybe even during), the series, with anti-heroes more and more popular, and evil getting an upper hand over other evil more desired than true heroism: not being baited, not giving in to revenge, doing good even to those that do evil to you, it's practically Biblical in its message here.
For all those reasons I really took to this episode, it seemed especially well presented, I don't know whether it was the direction or just that sense of beauty in so many shots, gorgeous lighting and an impression of goodness even in the landscape. I noticed that whenever Cyrus was there and things seemed so uncertain, the camera would be a lot more jittery, bobbing around to emphasise the mood in stark opposition to other serene images in the episode. And the way Lex just turns up at places and has that slightly sarcastic smile or tone, it really went back to Season 1 in him seeming like an unknown quantity: is he after the Kents, is he a good guy, is he serious in what he says to Helen…? It could be that with lowered expectations it stood out more, or that I hadn't watched something as uplifting for a few weeks, but whatever the reason it did work for me this time and I was completely wrong to dismiss it before. Sometimes you need a gentle, positive story, and this had no violent death or major issues, it was about identity and the give and take of secrets and trust. Even though it almost ends with Helen put in that difficult position, having said there should be no locked doors between her and Lex, at the same time she's keeping deep, dark secrets from him, it still took the time to end more positively with Lana and Clark in the barn looking at the stars. It may still be uncertain, since she confesses if Cyrus had really been an alien she'd have been unsettled, but it's not an all-out horror at the concept, so maybe Clark should have opened up at that point, the perfect opportunity?
***
Traditional 'Smallville' on the face of it, at least at first, and I had the impression this was going to be a weaker episode of the season. But that was probably the result of not really liking the story in the past, and perhaps that lessened my expectations, because this time I found it to be quite a lovely instalment that threw up various ideas, was beautifully shot, well acted, and kept me guessing all the way through whether Cyrus was an alien or not. It starts with a spot of bullying in class, that's the main reason it seems classic 'Smallville,' but instead of Cyrus turning out to be a vengeful psychopath with murderous tendencies, and whom Clark has to deal with, it's quickly apparent that he's not on the list of meteor freaks that have required intervention. In fact it soon becomes apparent that Cyrus could actually be a fellow Kryptonian. Now I didn't think that was likely, but I did wonder if he might be from another planet - hey, if Clark can drop on Earth and grow up a farm boy, why couldn't a similar thing have happened to Cyrus? Obviously Clark finds it hard to believe, but you soon realise he wants to, he wants a connection to the newly discovered world he was from, which Dr. Swann (who gets a mention), had informed him about in only the previous episode. I like that he has various people to talk to him about the situation from various degrees of understanding: his parents are one angle, Pete is another - he knows the secret, too, and he's someone Clark can discuss things with who isn't in authority over him and can talk man to man.
If only there had been more scenes for Pete like the one he gets in this one. It's not that it's anything special, but it does illustrate the point of having him be there as a confidant. Chloe is next in line, she's part of the gang, but not on the inside, so doesn't know Clark's point of view, and then there's Lana and perhaps Lex, who are on the periphery and have the good or the bad side when it comes to Clark. The good, in that Lana was slyly hoping Clark would offer to stable her horse at the Kent Farm, the bad, in Lex showing girlfriend Dr. Bryce his secret room that contains the car that smashed into Clark and various pieces of evidence about him and his family. That's another fascinating situation being developed: Helen clearly seems to want to be around Lex, unlike a lot of people, but at the same time she's garnered Martha's trust for not giving her boy away after the strange blood sample he'd given. Jonathan doesn't trust her, yet Martha, whether through the difficulties and changes in herself from pregnancy, goes against his wishes and confides in Helen, and it's putting the doctor in a very delicate position: two opposites both trusting her and being willing to invest that trust. I have the feeling she turns out to be a spy for Lionel (who doesn't appear again this time), so it may not be genuine affection for Lex, but even if she were working for the other Luthor, she's still at a kind of opposite ends of the spectrum at the same time.
It was these little character developments that were popping up in the episode that enamoured me with the episode, but it was also the story of Cyrus, this outsider who believes he is from another planet where his real parents are waiting for him, the traditional wish of the orphan, and just the idea that he and Clark could in some way be connected is a huge thing at this point in the series when it was so much more realistic and you didn't have all kinds of Kryptonians popping up, which got ridiculous. It was a small, personal story, and yes, there is another of those weird non-meteor rock powers, like Ryan had: Cyrus can heal, but it's not, seemingly from the meteor rocks, unless he was outside when they fell, which is how Clark explains him being able to draw the ship that brought him. It doesn't really need explanation I suppose, it's more important that he uses the healing and is put in a position where he could have refused to save the nasty bully that had caused so much grief. He chooses to set aside his own compelling desire to be at the top of his tower where he believes he will have that one chance to rejoin his kind, in order to sacrifice it all to save the life of someone that doesn't deserve it. It's an inspiring moment, worthy of the kind of quality inspiration that 'Star Trek' used to do so well before it became mere shoot-'em-up fantasy in recent years, and I respected it and enjoyed the episode so much more because it was able to successfully conclude the episode.
I even loved the moment Clark pulls the tower back upright and the vehicle trying to topple it is pulled along, too. It was a simple, but great use of his powers. When the lads surrounded him and Cyrus at school you really want him to go all 'Karate Kid' and beat up the four or five of them, however many were there, but you also know that's not the right thing to do, not because violence breeds violence, or that he couldn't explain his being able to do that, but because Clark is a man of peace and it wouldn't fit with his character - even in the hallway when the bully jibes at him or mocks Cyrus, the ordinary reaction, especially if you were big and tough as we know he is, would be to give the bully a piece of his mind, a tongue-lashing, if not an actual physical assault to make him think twice, and I feel like if the series had been made today that's what the audience would demand, but that's not the right course and I really admired his restraint in all things. I feel like TV and film has turned a corner in the years since (maybe even during), the series, with anti-heroes more and more popular, and evil getting an upper hand over other evil more desired than true heroism: not being baited, not giving in to revenge, doing good even to those that do evil to you, it's practically Biblical in its message here.
For all those reasons I really took to this episode, it seemed especially well presented, I don't know whether it was the direction or just that sense of beauty in so many shots, gorgeous lighting and an impression of goodness even in the landscape. I noticed that whenever Cyrus was there and things seemed so uncertain, the camera would be a lot more jittery, bobbing around to emphasise the mood in stark opposition to other serene images in the episode. And the way Lex just turns up at places and has that slightly sarcastic smile or tone, it really went back to Season 1 in him seeming like an unknown quantity: is he after the Kents, is he a good guy, is he serious in what he says to Helen…? It could be that with lowered expectations it stood out more, or that I hadn't watched something as uplifting for a few weeks, but whatever the reason it did work for me this time and I was completely wrong to dismiss it before. Sometimes you need a gentle, positive story, and this had no violent death or major issues, it was about identity and the give and take of secrets and trust. Even though it almost ends with Helen put in that difficult position, having said there should be no locked doors between her and Lex, at the same time she's keeping deep, dark secrets from him, it still took the time to end more positively with Lana and Clark in the barn looking at the stars. It may still be uncertain, since she confesses if Cyrus had really been an alien she'd have been unsettled, but it's not an all-out horror at the concept, so maybe Clark should have opened up at that point, the perfect opportunity?
***
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Wii, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007) game
'More of the same' isn't a bad deal when it comes to high quality titles like the 'Metroid Prime' series on GameCube, but at the same time this third and final instalment in the trilogy was on a new console so you can't help but feel it should have tried to break a little new ground, create greater immersion or do something that would surprise. In reality, while it does try to inject some unique gameplay elements in the control scheme, it boils down to gimmickry and was a game I'd much rather have been able to play through with a 'Cube controller rather than the awkward Wiimote and Nunchuk. I don't know whether it was the fact I was using a third party control handset and sensor bar, or whether this was the experience for other players at the time, but I had the same issues I experienced with other games on the Wii, most relevantly 'Red Steel.' It seems the setup simply wasn't suited to first person shooters, but then it also didn't seem suitable for 3D platformers as I found with 'Mario Galaxy' - perhaps the Wii wasn't suited to traditional gaming styles in general? Not that the controls take too much away from the experience, it's still got the typical lonely, empty, and creepy settings, the progression with areas and abilities slowly being shared out in the usual dungeoneering that shares more with the 'Zelda' series than FPS'.
At the same time there is no doubt that the occasionally imprecise control method and strain placed on wrists in long play is a detriment to an otherwise enjoyable game to the extent that I almost took off a star in the rating for it. The immersion of interacting with the environment was there, but it was also few and far between, almost an afterthought to justify it being on this particular console. There were times it could be a real pain, too. Again, I may put it down to third party accessories, I've not used an official control setup on the console, so I can't say, but there was one moment in particular that I needed to do several physical actions in tandem with an ally to be able to activate something: pull this out, twist it, push it back in. But I found that while the Wii would recognise the turning motion to great effect, pushing in and out of the screen was hit or miss, often miss, so that was incredibly frustrating, though I eventually muddled through. You're also given your ship in a much more hands-on way, where you use it to solve puzzles, sit in it to travel to destinations and generally have the feeling it is your ship. It would have been nice to be able to actually fly it to various planets, perform some space combat and use the various controls that seem to have no practical use. Maybe it would have taken too much away from the exploring desolate environments so I can see why it wasn't implemented, but it's the kind of greater immersion a new game on a new console could have done with.
The game is very much like a stripped down 'Zelda,' as with the previous 'Prime' games before it: there aren't any side quests, other than the collecting of the power cells (though it turns out this is essential to final progression), there are few characters to talk to, it's mostly you going about your business of shooting, scanning and puzzling: a dungeon here, then onto the next one, no over-worlds, no shops, just pure exploration. I must say it took me a while to get into, mainly for the controls, which are fiddly with the placement of buttons (you have to keep flipping between normal view and your other visors, mainly the scan visor, by pressing '1,' which is slightly awkward). But there's a good sense of story being told in log entries you find along the way, the impression of doom and desolation is strong, and like most games of this ilk, it's the moments when you've unlocked maps and locations, backtracking to use a new ability to get to collectables such as missile expansions, life extending energy tanks, or power cells, that enhance the experience.
Once you've been to the Chozo Observatory and been given the locations of all pickups on the maps it does take away something from the challenge in the sense that it's very easy to see where to go, and this is certainly the easiest game in the series - I never even got stuck once! It's good that you have reminders of what you need to do and where to go to do it whenever you fire up the game, or if you've been wandering around for a while, and the ability to mark rooms on the map for future reference was helpful, but it does all make everything so much easier. At the same time it was wise to remove the frustration of wandering around hoping to find something you're not even sure is there, to the extent that when you don't have that option in the last proper level, the Pirate Homeworld, it is disconcerting to have no guide, forced to rely entirely on your eyes. And even with the mapped collectables you still have to solve the puzzles in each area to get at the pickups, going there is only part of the work.
I stupidly failed to scan the first power suit upgrade I came across, walking into it and picking up before I realised, which meant I could never get 100%. I could have simply restarted as I was only a little way in, but I foolishly kept going, even though from then on I scanned at every opportunity, despite knowing I couldn't get full marks. In the end, however, the game didn't appear to acknowledge the scanning - it didn't grade me on how much I'd scanned. Because I knew I'd missed at least one thing it can't be included in the percentage of the game as a whole or I wouldn't have been awarded the 100% completion I achieved, so does that mean it didn't have any bearing? The scanning is a very big part of the series and shows that there's an element of skill in how you keep track of what may need scanning - going back to previous areas, always keeping the scan visor up if you can (I made it a habit to have it on before stepping through a door so as not to be caught out by anything fast moving - similarly, you have to take risks by scanning enemies and bosses at different stages of their defeat so as not to miss scans), showing that despite the relative ease of the game, if you miss something it's gone for good, as once you've operated on things they change and need to be scanned again in their new state. The downside is that you don't always get the full sense of the visual wonder they were trying to achieve because the scan visor dims your display to show up scannable items more clearly.
Otherwise, while not any jump up from the 'Cube's visuals, it's still good looking. The music is a touch generic, the puzzles aren't exactly taxing, and the enemies aren't too tough either, apart from some of the big bosses which can take time to deal with, though it can also be partly down to the controls making things harder than they need to be at times. The variable speeds of doors opening can be a source of frustration, but I think that's another oddity carried over from the previous games. I'm not quite sure why they do that, whether it's to inject a greater sense of unease when you need to exit a room quickly to escape something, or anticipation when you're about to enter a new location, I don't know. To me it can get annoying and I wasn't sure if it was affected by where you hit the door in accuracy or distance or if you had no effect on it either way and it was completely random. Other annoyances were I never won any of the green tokens you need to unlock certain parts of the bonus content of storyboards and the like, so how are you supposed to get those? (I subsequently learned they only come from Friend Codes online!). And also, it offered me the chance not to save after the final battle, which I did, meaning my file is now inaccessible and has to be overwritten! The option to go back into a file should always be there without sacrificing the 'complete' finality of completion - I would have backed up the save file on SD card if I'd thought about it...
I would say this is a game well worth playing, whether you'd completed the first two, as I had, or not, it stands alone, especially as it is a continuation in style. The highest tribute I can give it is to say it made me want to play the original 'Metroid Prime' again just to see how it all began, and enjoy more precise control, which is always a compliment to a new game in a series. I don't know if further games have continued Samus Aran's story on subsequent consoles (the story ends with a shot of Samus flying off into space, then a mysterious 'X'-shaped craft powers up stealthily to follow…), not having kept up with the Nintendo production line, but I would love to play a version on the Switch with the latest graphics, sound and immersion in the environment to see what they could achieve now. Saying that, it's really not the visuals that are the best thing about the games, it's the involvement of the player and sense of progression and achievement that stand out. On a negative note I do find the 'sci-fi' trappings occasionally irritating as it's very magical and 'videogamey' in the manner in which things don't really make physical or technological sense (and follows the typical gaming pattern of the final level being a weird alien land that's more difficult, linear, and ends with a big boss fight that goes on for a while), I'd prefer to see a much more 'realistic' approach as sometimes shown in the great puzzles of gears and mechanics rather than a magical fantasy style, but perhaps that would make it less accessible. As it is, this was a rewarding experience that I could imagine playing through again in future (a higher difficulty mode was unlocked on completion), and is one of the better games I've experienced on the Wii. I was thinking for much of the time it doesn't quite show the system could cope with all genres as well as its predecessors, but it won me over before the end when I realised I kept wanting to get back to it!
****
'More of the same' isn't a bad deal when it comes to high quality titles like the 'Metroid Prime' series on GameCube, but at the same time this third and final instalment in the trilogy was on a new console so you can't help but feel it should have tried to break a little new ground, create greater immersion or do something that would surprise. In reality, while it does try to inject some unique gameplay elements in the control scheme, it boils down to gimmickry and was a game I'd much rather have been able to play through with a 'Cube controller rather than the awkward Wiimote and Nunchuk. I don't know whether it was the fact I was using a third party control handset and sensor bar, or whether this was the experience for other players at the time, but I had the same issues I experienced with other games on the Wii, most relevantly 'Red Steel.' It seems the setup simply wasn't suited to first person shooters, but then it also didn't seem suitable for 3D platformers as I found with 'Mario Galaxy' - perhaps the Wii wasn't suited to traditional gaming styles in general? Not that the controls take too much away from the experience, it's still got the typical lonely, empty, and creepy settings, the progression with areas and abilities slowly being shared out in the usual dungeoneering that shares more with the 'Zelda' series than FPS'.
At the same time there is no doubt that the occasionally imprecise control method and strain placed on wrists in long play is a detriment to an otherwise enjoyable game to the extent that I almost took off a star in the rating for it. The immersion of interacting with the environment was there, but it was also few and far between, almost an afterthought to justify it being on this particular console. There were times it could be a real pain, too. Again, I may put it down to third party accessories, I've not used an official control setup on the console, so I can't say, but there was one moment in particular that I needed to do several physical actions in tandem with an ally to be able to activate something: pull this out, twist it, push it back in. But I found that while the Wii would recognise the turning motion to great effect, pushing in and out of the screen was hit or miss, often miss, so that was incredibly frustrating, though I eventually muddled through. You're also given your ship in a much more hands-on way, where you use it to solve puzzles, sit in it to travel to destinations and generally have the feeling it is your ship. It would have been nice to be able to actually fly it to various planets, perform some space combat and use the various controls that seem to have no practical use. Maybe it would have taken too much away from the exploring desolate environments so I can see why it wasn't implemented, but it's the kind of greater immersion a new game on a new console could have done with.
The game is very much like a stripped down 'Zelda,' as with the previous 'Prime' games before it: there aren't any side quests, other than the collecting of the power cells (though it turns out this is essential to final progression), there are few characters to talk to, it's mostly you going about your business of shooting, scanning and puzzling: a dungeon here, then onto the next one, no over-worlds, no shops, just pure exploration. I must say it took me a while to get into, mainly for the controls, which are fiddly with the placement of buttons (you have to keep flipping between normal view and your other visors, mainly the scan visor, by pressing '1,' which is slightly awkward). But there's a good sense of story being told in log entries you find along the way, the impression of doom and desolation is strong, and like most games of this ilk, it's the moments when you've unlocked maps and locations, backtracking to use a new ability to get to collectables such as missile expansions, life extending energy tanks, or power cells, that enhance the experience.
Once you've been to the Chozo Observatory and been given the locations of all pickups on the maps it does take away something from the challenge in the sense that it's very easy to see where to go, and this is certainly the easiest game in the series - I never even got stuck once! It's good that you have reminders of what you need to do and where to go to do it whenever you fire up the game, or if you've been wandering around for a while, and the ability to mark rooms on the map for future reference was helpful, but it does all make everything so much easier. At the same time it was wise to remove the frustration of wandering around hoping to find something you're not even sure is there, to the extent that when you don't have that option in the last proper level, the Pirate Homeworld, it is disconcerting to have no guide, forced to rely entirely on your eyes. And even with the mapped collectables you still have to solve the puzzles in each area to get at the pickups, going there is only part of the work.
I stupidly failed to scan the first power suit upgrade I came across, walking into it and picking up before I realised, which meant I could never get 100%. I could have simply restarted as I was only a little way in, but I foolishly kept going, even though from then on I scanned at every opportunity, despite knowing I couldn't get full marks. In the end, however, the game didn't appear to acknowledge the scanning - it didn't grade me on how much I'd scanned. Because I knew I'd missed at least one thing it can't be included in the percentage of the game as a whole or I wouldn't have been awarded the 100% completion I achieved, so does that mean it didn't have any bearing? The scanning is a very big part of the series and shows that there's an element of skill in how you keep track of what may need scanning - going back to previous areas, always keeping the scan visor up if you can (I made it a habit to have it on before stepping through a door so as not to be caught out by anything fast moving - similarly, you have to take risks by scanning enemies and bosses at different stages of their defeat so as not to miss scans), showing that despite the relative ease of the game, if you miss something it's gone for good, as once you've operated on things they change and need to be scanned again in their new state. The downside is that you don't always get the full sense of the visual wonder they were trying to achieve because the scan visor dims your display to show up scannable items more clearly.
Otherwise, while not any jump up from the 'Cube's visuals, it's still good looking. The music is a touch generic, the puzzles aren't exactly taxing, and the enemies aren't too tough either, apart from some of the big bosses which can take time to deal with, though it can also be partly down to the controls making things harder than they need to be at times. The variable speeds of doors opening can be a source of frustration, but I think that's another oddity carried over from the previous games. I'm not quite sure why they do that, whether it's to inject a greater sense of unease when you need to exit a room quickly to escape something, or anticipation when you're about to enter a new location, I don't know. To me it can get annoying and I wasn't sure if it was affected by where you hit the door in accuracy or distance or if you had no effect on it either way and it was completely random. Other annoyances were I never won any of the green tokens you need to unlock certain parts of the bonus content of storyboards and the like, so how are you supposed to get those? (I subsequently learned they only come from Friend Codes online!). And also, it offered me the chance not to save after the final battle, which I did, meaning my file is now inaccessible and has to be overwritten! The option to go back into a file should always be there without sacrificing the 'complete' finality of completion - I would have backed up the save file on SD card if I'd thought about it...
I would say this is a game well worth playing, whether you'd completed the first two, as I had, or not, it stands alone, especially as it is a continuation in style. The highest tribute I can give it is to say it made me want to play the original 'Metroid Prime' again just to see how it all began, and enjoy more precise control, which is always a compliment to a new game in a series. I don't know if further games have continued Samus Aran's story on subsequent consoles (the story ends with a shot of Samus flying off into space, then a mysterious 'X'-shaped craft powers up stealthily to follow…), not having kept up with the Nintendo production line, but I would love to play a version on the Switch with the latest graphics, sound and immersion in the environment to see what they could achieve now. Saying that, it's really not the visuals that are the best thing about the games, it's the involvement of the player and sense of progression and achievement that stand out. On a negative note I do find the 'sci-fi' trappings occasionally irritating as it's very magical and 'videogamey' in the manner in which things don't really make physical or technological sense (and follows the typical gaming pattern of the final level being a weird alien land that's more difficult, linear, and ends with a big boss fight that goes on for a while), I'd prefer to see a much more 'realistic' approach as sometimes shown in the great puzzles of gears and mechanics rather than a magical fantasy style, but perhaps that would make it less accessible. As it is, this was a rewarding experience that I could imagine playing through again in future (a higher difficulty mode was unlocked on completion), and is one of the better games I've experienced on the Wii. I was thinking for much of the time it doesn't quite show the system could cope with all genres as well as its predecessors, but it won me over before the end when I realised I kept wanting to get back to it!
****
Tuesday, 30 November 2021
The Pirates of Orion
DVD, Star Trek: The Animated Series (The Pirates of Orion)
A packed episode in terms of characters and voices, and though one with various visual and audio gaffes, one of the stories that had the closest feeling to the series it was based on: Dr. McCoy is especially prevalent for a change as he has a most important patient, his own First Officer, Spock, who has contracted a deadly virus that will finish him off unless they can get a specific drug. But the nearest supply is just out of range for the time the Vulcan has left! It's a good scenario, written by Howard Weinstein who was very young at the time and whose success at selling the script led him to write Trek novels, including one of the earliest in the Pocket Books range from 1981! You can see how much of a fan he was by how close the characters and situations are to 'TOS,' while also seeking to expand upon existing lore and weave in connections with what had come before. We see a whole different kind of Starfleet ship, as well as a fearsome alien vessel, Kirk gets to be the hero, but at the same time everyone else is involved, even Nurse Chapel, and the dialogue between Spock and McCoy, their eternal friendly feud coming naturally from the story, making it quite enjoyable.
Perhaps the only flaw with the story is the way the Orions look, nothing like the glimpses we saw of them in 'The Cage' and 'Whom Gods Destroy,' though they certainly behave in nefarious fashion as demonstrated by the example from 'Journey To Babel,' who committed suicide when his plot to destabilise relations failed. That episode is clearly a touchstone for this story as Kirk refers back to it directly (and pleasingly), saying that Orion neutrality has been in question ever since that affair - updating the status of races and their politics is one of those aspects regular viewers love about Trek, solidifying this world we visit, and revisit, proving that even when we're not seeing the individual pieces in every episode or story the wheels keep turning and the galaxy isn't standing still. Hence we have Orions showing up as pirates. They're about as pale green as you can get, almost turquoise or very light blue, so perhaps this is where 'DSC' got its inspiration from when they included them in Season 1. Thankfully the modern era eventually changed them to be much darker green, as it was almost like they were ashamed how green they used to be, so at least they saw sense in that regard (even if they don't like giving us the kind of details we see in this episode). It's actually their uniforms that are really green, which only makes their skin seem paler. Perhaps this is a particular branch of the race who make up for their pale skin by wearing the brightest green possible?
Their name was one of the gaffes of the episode as both Lieutenant Arex and Captain Kirk pronounce is as 'Orry-on' rather than the usual 'Ory-on,' which is a little disconcerting, but I suppose comes from them being audio lines recorded with no expert on hand to explain proper pronunciation. It's not like they were a commonly used race on 'TOS' anyway, so Doohan and Shatner wouldn't have remembered the right way to say it. I must say I was impressed with Doohan's versatility as while he was recognisable to varying degrees in most of the guest voices he did, even though he does have a good variety (Arex sounding completely different from Scotty, for example - just watched an episode of 'Taxi' where Andy Kaufman switches between Latka as himself and then an American version, which was somewhat similar!), for some time I wasn't sure it was him as the Orion Captain, though in the end I settled on it being him. But there were at least a couple of other guest voices who weren't part of the regular cast, Captain O'Shea of the SS Huron (or is it?), and the other Orion crew-members, I think. Majel Barrett gets to portray the good old Enterprise computer again, but also what appears to be the Helmswoman for the Huron, and Nurse Chapel herself. And even George Takei plays another crewman on the Huron as well as Sulu. Only Nichelle Nichols sticks purely to Uhura.
Another way you can tell this is written by a fan is that we have a different set of characters who beam over to the Huron - when do we ever see Kirk accompanied by Scotty, Uhura and Chapel on a Landing Party? It was fascinating to see another starship, both its external, which had more of the look of a converted cargo vessel than a Federation starship, and its Bridge. In fact we get to see three different Bridges and as many different View-screens, all unique: the Huron's has the usual horizontal lights flashing along, but vertically in this case, and the screen's a square shape, while the layout of the Bridge is quite different, smaller and simpler. I can't say it was an attractive design, but at least we got to see a proper starship. The questions is, is it the SS Huron, as spoken in dialogue by Kirk and its own Captain O'Shea (complete with a rare beard), or the 'USS' Huron, as depicted on screen? A case of the animators not paying attention to the script, or the voice artists not realising it was written wrong, who knows? It would depend on whether the audio was recorded first and then animated, or the reverse, but even so you'd think it would be defined in the script! At least they got the idea right of each starship having its own unique insignia badge: rather than the arrowhead chevron we know from the Enterprise, the Huron crew have a pointed star that looks almost like the later combadges we'd see from 'TNG' and beyond.
One thing I noticed about the animation was they did seem to be playing for time by hanging on establishing shots of ships for longer than usual - it's rich of me to point that out when I'm always chiding modern Trek for not caring enough to have decent external views of ships and preferring everything to be seen through the ridiculously giant windows that came from the Kelvin Timeline and thus have no place in the Prime, and I didn't mind it, but it was noticeable as if they were saving a few precious seconds of expensive time. The reuse of footage, something I'd always had the impression of from my previous viewings as a child, but which on this run through I hadn't found as common or obvious, was clearly evident, especially in the shots after Spock's collapse as we see a phantom McCoy in both instances when he's supposed to be in Sickbay! The first time you see him next to Kirk's chair, then Kirk calls down to Sickbay for a medical alert and McCoy isn't to be seen in any other shot of that scene. Then exactly the same mistake happens again later on, only this time it's even more glaring as McCoy is contacting the Bridge from Sickbay to tell them to send Spock for his next shot, and then he collapses and phantom McCoy is hovering by Kirk's chair again! It's so brief you'd easily miss it if you weren't paying attention, but it still looks pretty lazy! If they were going to reuse it they could at least have coloured McCoy's shirt as another division so it wasn't as obvious!
What isn't lazy is the story's attention to detail, such as reiterating that Spock has copper-based blood as opposed to humans' iron-based. I was really hoping the Orions were going to be revealed to have copper blood too, maybe they'd have to give Spock a transfusion and that might help to explain their green colouring, but that never came up, sadly. I did wonder if they meant pneumonia is no longer a dangerous illness in this time as Kirk said something about the virus outbreak coming under control and now being not even as dangerous as pneumonia, which would suggest it's easily cured. And it was good to see McCoy practically pulling rank on Spock about halving his duty shifts - I always like it when we get to see a Doctor overrule command personnel on medical grounds as it adds a whole other level to the hierarchy of a functioning starship. And Spock behaves as Spock-like as ever, knowing he's dying, but preferring to carry on with his duties, as stoic and dependable as ever. Even the ending is fun with McCoy adamant Spock has to cave in and admit his physiology would have been better if it were human, which of course he doesn't, so it's very much in the 'TOS' vein.
We even get scenes in the Briefing Room with its Tri-screen, and when Kirk beams down to the asteroid to meet with the treacherous Orion Captain, and Spock is incapacitated, Scotty gets to have command again, sitting in the Captain's Chair as we've seen a number of times. The Orions see the only way to protect their perceived neutrality is to blow themselves up in this explosive asteroid field, taking the Enterprise with them, but this goes a little far for the sake of protecting their piracy! It's like the Ferengi giving up a valuable hoard so no one will ever know they were greedy! But it does fit with the Orion spy from 'Journey To Babel,' and gave the race a hard edge (all unsuccessful Orion missions end in suicide!), especially for a Saturday morning cartoon, though Kirk makes it clear he's not going to allow it, the Captain will stand trial for his actions. I'm not sure there was a strong enough message at the heart of the tale to make it one of the best of 'TAS,' but it's certainly one of the better stories by virtue of using the whole cast rather than just Kirk and Spock. We even learn (if this were canon), that McCoy has been a doctor for twenty-five years, in a moment that was closest to exploring an idea: he expresses disgust with his profession that with all they know he still can't save Spock's life and it's all no use, then Kirk says he wouldn't have been a doctor so long if he truly believed that. Finally, it would have been nice to see the USS Potemkin which is the starship which delivers the drug to the SS Huron, but there were probably enough starships for one short episode (and the Orions' looked a bit Vulcan, as in the T'Plana-Hath, the ship that made first contact with Earth - maybe they took their inspiration from that?).
**
A packed episode in terms of characters and voices, and though one with various visual and audio gaffes, one of the stories that had the closest feeling to the series it was based on: Dr. McCoy is especially prevalent for a change as he has a most important patient, his own First Officer, Spock, who has contracted a deadly virus that will finish him off unless they can get a specific drug. But the nearest supply is just out of range for the time the Vulcan has left! It's a good scenario, written by Howard Weinstein who was very young at the time and whose success at selling the script led him to write Trek novels, including one of the earliest in the Pocket Books range from 1981! You can see how much of a fan he was by how close the characters and situations are to 'TOS,' while also seeking to expand upon existing lore and weave in connections with what had come before. We see a whole different kind of Starfleet ship, as well as a fearsome alien vessel, Kirk gets to be the hero, but at the same time everyone else is involved, even Nurse Chapel, and the dialogue between Spock and McCoy, their eternal friendly feud coming naturally from the story, making it quite enjoyable.
Perhaps the only flaw with the story is the way the Orions look, nothing like the glimpses we saw of them in 'The Cage' and 'Whom Gods Destroy,' though they certainly behave in nefarious fashion as demonstrated by the example from 'Journey To Babel,' who committed suicide when his plot to destabilise relations failed. That episode is clearly a touchstone for this story as Kirk refers back to it directly (and pleasingly), saying that Orion neutrality has been in question ever since that affair - updating the status of races and their politics is one of those aspects regular viewers love about Trek, solidifying this world we visit, and revisit, proving that even when we're not seeing the individual pieces in every episode or story the wheels keep turning and the galaxy isn't standing still. Hence we have Orions showing up as pirates. They're about as pale green as you can get, almost turquoise or very light blue, so perhaps this is where 'DSC' got its inspiration from when they included them in Season 1. Thankfully the modern era eventually changed them to be much darker green, as it was almost like they were ashamed how green they used to be, so at least they saw sense in that regard (even if they don't like giving us the kind of details we see in this episode). It's actually their uniforms that are really green, which only makes their skin seem paler. Perhaps this is a particular branch of the race who make up for their pale skin by wearing the brightest green possible?
Their name was one of the gaffes of the episode as both Lieutenant Arex and Captain Kirk pronounce is as 'Orry-on' rather than the usual 'Ory-on,' which is a little disconcerting, but I suppose comes from them being audio lines recorded with no expert on hand to explain proper pronunciation. It's not like they were a commonly used race on 'TOS' anyway, so Doohan and Shatner wouldn't have remembered the right way to say it. I must say I was impressed with Doohan's versatility as while he was recognisable to varying degrees in most of the guest voices he did, even though he does have a good variety (Arex sounding completely different from Scotty, for example - just watched an episode of 'Taxi' where Andy Kaufman switches between Latka as himself and then an American version, which was somewhat similar!), for some time I wasn't sure it was him as the Orion Captain, though in the end I settled on it being him. But there were at least a couple of other guest voices who weren't part of the regular cast, Captain O'Shea of the SS Huron (or is it?), and the other Orion crew-members, I think. Majel Barrett gets to portray the good old Enterprise computer again, but also what appears to be the Helmswoman for the Huron, and Nurse Chapel herself. And even George Takei plays another crewman on the Huron as well as Sulu. Only Nichelle Nichols sticks purely to Uhura.
Another way you can tell this is written by a fan is that we have a different set of characters who beam over to the Huron - when do we ever see Kirk accompanied by Scotty, Uhura and Chapel on a Landing Party? It was fascinating to see another starship, both its external, which had more of the look of a converted cargo vessel than a Federation starship, and its Bridge. In fact we get to see three different Bridges and as many different View-screens, all unique: the Huron's has the usual horizontal lights flashing along, but vertically in this case, and the screen's a square shape, while the layout of the Bridge is quite different, smaller and simpler. I can't say it was an attractive design, but at least we got to see a proper starship. The questions is, is it the SS Huron, as spoken in dialogue by Kirk and its own Captain O'Shea (complete with a rare beard), or the 'USS' Huron, as depicted on screen? A case of the animators not paying attention to the script, or the voice artists not realising it was written wrong, who knows? It would depend on whether the audio was recorded first and then animated, or the reverse, but even so you'd think it would be defined in the script! At least they got the idea right of each starship having its own unique insignia badge: rather than the arrowhead chevron we know from the Enterprise, the Huron crew have a pointed star that looks almost like the later combadges we'd see from 'TNG' and beyond.
One thing I noticed about the animation was they did seem to be playing for time by hanging on establishing shots of ships for longer than usual - it's rich of me to point that out when I'm always chiding modern Trek for not caring enough to have decent external views of ships and preferring everything to be seen through the ridiculously giant windows that came from the Kelvin Timeline and thus have no place in the Prime, and I didn't mind it, but it was noticeable as if they were saving a few precious seconds of expensive time. The reuse of footage, something I'd always had the impression of from my previous viewings as a child, but which on this run through I hadn't found as common or obvious, was clearly evident, especially in the shots after Spock's collapse as we see a phantom McCoy in both instances when he's supposed to be in Sickbay! The first time you see him next to Kirk's chair, then Kirk calls down to Sickbay for a medical alert and McCoy isn't to be seen in any other shot of that scene. Then exactly the same mistake happens again later on, only this time it's even more glaring as McCoy is contacting the Bridge from Sickbay to tell them to send Spock for his next shot, and then he collapses and phantom McCoy is hovering by Kirk's chair again! It's so brief you'd easily miss it if you weren't paying attention, but it still looks pretty lazy! If they were going to reuse it they could at least have coloured McCoy's shirt as another division so it wasn't as obvious!
What isn't lazy is the story's attention to detail, such as reiterating that Spock has copper-based blood as opposed to humans' iron-based. I was really hoping the Orions were going to be revealed to have copper blood too, maybe they'd have to give Spock a transfusion and that might help to explain their green colouring, but that never came up, sadly. I did wonder if they meant pneumonia is no longer a dangerous illness in this time as Kirk said something about the virus outbreak coming under control and now being not even as dangerous as pneumonia, which would suggest it's easily cured. And it was good to see McCoy practically pulling rank on Spock about halving his duty shifts - I always like it when we get to see a Doctor overrule command personnel on medical grounds as it adds a whole other level to the hierarchy of a functioning starship. And Spock behaves as Spock-like as ever, knowing he's dying, but preferring to carry on with his duties, as stoic and dependable as ever. Even the ending is fun with McCoy adamant Spock has to cave in and admit his physiology would have been better if it were human, which of course he doesn't, so it's very much in the 'TOS' vein.
We even get scenes in the Briefing Room with its Tri-screen, and when Kirk beams down to the asteroid to meet with the treacherous Orion Captain, and Spock is incapacitated, Scotty gets to have command again, sitting in the Captain's Chair as we've seen a number of times. The Orions see the only way to protect their perceived neutrality is to blow themselves up in this explosive asteroid field, taking the Enterprise with them, but this goes a little far for the sake of protecting their piracy! It's like the Ferengi giving up a valuable hoard so no one will ever know they were greedy! But it does fit with the Orion spy from 'Journey To Babel,' and gave the race a hard edge (all unsuccessful Orion missions end in suicide!), especially for a Saturday morning cartoon, though Kirk makes it clear he's not going to allow it, the Captain will stand trial for his actions. I'm not sure there was a strong enough message at the heart of the tale to make it one of the best of 'TAS,' but it's certainly one of the better stories by virtue of using the whole cast rather than just Kirk and Spock. We even learn (if this were canon), that McCoy has been a doctor for twenty-five years, in a moment that was closest to exploring an idea: he expresses disgust with his profession that with all they know he still can't save Spock's life and it's all no use, then Kirk says he wouldn't have been a doctor so long if he truly believed that. Finally, it would have been nice to see the USS Potemkin which is the starship which delivers the drug to the SS Huron, but there were probably enough starships for one short episode (and the Orions' looked a bit Vulcan, as in the T'Plana-Hath, the ship that made first contact with Earth - maybe they took their inspiration from that?).
**
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