Joy of the Jedi

A LOOK AT DARK FORCES 2: JEDI KNIGHT

It hits you right at the start, after a beautifully-orchestrated live action cinematic flies you through a complex maze of vertical skyscraper edges embellished with the occasional passing whale of a commerce ship, and after meeting the man who you'll be playing, Kyle Katarn, having harsh words with criminal thugs in a grimey downtown bar, you're thrust into gameplay in the dark streets of Nar Shadaa, a location of Star Wars un-addressed by the films, but already known to hardcore fans of the Expanded Universe of books based beyond the events of Return Of The Jedi.

Jedi Knight brings its own fragrance to the darker edges of Star Wars. Playing through will give us glimpses of the cold world of machines and industrialism forged by the now-dying Empire, with steel corridors of always vertigo-inducing surroundings, onto more outdoorsy landscapes such as Kyle's family home of Sulon.

My own fondness and memories of this game go deeper than the apparently now-dated graphics engine, which evokes more atmosphere in my mind than any new and spangley 3D console title you dare to mention. The pixelly hard polygon shards that go to form the scenery are beefed up by some hauntingly-retro (and often funny) sound effects, which provide the game with a tough edge that is sorely lacking from its sequels.

When I play this game, I am struck by how the game manages to truly immerse you in scenarios, despite its age (released in 1997, I believe?) - for instance, take how it can concoct a magic in feeling like a superhero as you slowly accumulate 'Force Powers' such as 'Jump' (which allows you to hold and press a key to launch you into a fantastically extra high jump) to 'Speed' (does what it says on the tin!) and 'Pull' (the amusingness of snatching a Stormtrooper's gun through the air via mindpower, leaving him confused and terrified still makes me chuckle). Then there's the small but enjoyably-balanced array of weapons you find hidden at rare checkpoints, 10 in total, which give a feeling of glee in how they let you to adapt to the situation. All of course tools in a child's toybox, for us, as we suddenly realise we can empower ourselves to our hapless evil foes in the ever-changing geometry of later levels. Your low-yield Thermal Detonator is a simple grenade, which can be dropped down a sewer vent before you follow (to flush out those pesky Grave Tuskens), equally fun to bounce around corners is the Bowcaster (an energy crossbow, similar to Chewbacca's) which you steal from them. Picking up the Rail Detonator will let you fire a sticky-rocket on a 3-second fuse at a passing enemy's head, and watch them flail around in surprise at being glued to an inescapable fate, whilst the joy of exploiting 'Sequencer' Magnetic Mines in a plethora of different ways has to be seen to be believed. (Don't get me started on the antics of Lightsaber-duelling!)

Then there's those enemies. The A.I. - compared to today's standards, leaves a lot to be desired, but it does the job of creating a story-driven world full of sinister soldiers. Indeed, the sound design takes over here in creating character, as does the brightly coloured palette of the foes, which are instantly recognisable - and have their own distinctive connotations upon coming face-to-face with one. The Three-Eyed 'Gran' alien is a common replacement for the Stormtrooper in earlier levels, and will attack you with guns, grenades, or lethal cranium punches. The piglike Gammorrean Guards will try to slice you in two with an axe, whilst Imperial Probe Droids hover out from shadows menacingly and do more damage to you than you do to them. The menagerie persists, as you soon bump into the toughened Trandoshans which hang around the fuel depot, lizards carrying enormous cannons and hissing sinisterly as they see you, to the monsters of the wide outdoor maps, such as Mailocs, frightening mustard-coloured mega-insects that fly from miles up in the sky down to meet you just so they can slap you with their thorny tails.

Jedi Knight puts on a marvellous display of excitement using so little, enlisting its crude early 3D technology to create a real sense of a world that induces story, fun, and thought in the Player that it's hard to see how any clever artist could have squeezed so much juice out of what they had. Not only does it do that, but it has the backup of the rich mythology of Star Wars itself to draw on, as a result you always want to think big about where you are and what you're doing in-game, almost automatically, moment to moment, a feature that complements Jedi Knight's success as a classic PC game.

-Des

Eyes aflame for Prometheus

Preview of Prometheus



So Ridley Scott surprised us all a year ago by making good on his promises to 'do an Alien 5' and 'revisit the origins of the Alien/Space Jockey', his tempting musings were later confirmed by the announcement of the quizzically-titled Prequel 'Prometheus'.

Having said he was 'done with' the Xenomorph creature as a concept, as Scott had seen his terrifying beast un-enigmatically jump through hoops for audiences in 3 sequels and 2 terrible spin-offs, and emblazened in the kid-friendly surroundings of Disneyland (much like the dumbing-down of, I suppose, the Daleks - so when's the new Hitler stuffed toy coming out?), but in the DVD commentary for his 1979 arty sci-fi horror masterpiece, Alien, he said that the mystery of the Space Jockey scene was still unexplored.

Now if you know the film Alien, you will know the scene he's talking about. In the spooky 45-minutes of non-event that provide the prelude to the film, 3 astronauts are tricked into visiting a derelict crashed spacecraft on a remote planet. On board they discover the frightening skeleton of an Alien creature known from then on as the 'Space Jockey' - but never seen in the series ever again. Of course, we are introduced to the plague spawned from the eggs (or perhaps, bombs?) that the dead Space Jockey was carrying in his ship, the Xenomorphs, the 'Alien' acknowledged by the film's title, but in none of the subsequent sequels do we ever understand what the Space Jockey was, or why he was carrying his impossibly dangerous cargo of killer hive animals.

That, from all we can assume about the Trailers now released, will finally be addressed in Prometheus, a not-entirely-direct prequel that ignores the Xenomorphs completely, but builds upon both the established mystery of what we *don't know* about the Alien Saga's universe, and expanding on the already well-known antagonists of 'The Company', Weyland-Yutani Corporation, a business-full of immoral suits and their advisorial androids (Synthetics) who seek to exploit the newly-explored Galaxy's secrets for their own superiority.

I'm looking forward to it. In June this year, on a planet illustrated by the black sands of Iceland (a well scouted shooting location, with a dark Alien sheen!) we will get to see whether or not Ridley Scott can make his comeback to sci-fi and create a serious extension of the layered horror he created in the late 70s.

(And apparently, with minimal use of CGi? Which is always the preferable option!)


-LMF

Reacting at Goons

Right so I think a few things going on right now are a bit abberant and need commenting on.



Live Animal imports (for biological testing) blockades to UK

Recently it has emerged that Animal Rights Activists (similar to PETA) have succeeded in intimidating airlines charged with importing live animals into the UK from breeding houses abroad (mostly mice) from flying into the UK, and essentially a transport blockade is in place.

The animal cruelty protestors are trying to stop cosmetic products used in the make-up industry from being tested on the animals, which is seen as torture.

What the protestors don't see is that a large amount of the mice do not go to the cosmetics industry, but to the UK scientific community who use the mice for biological testing in many varieties of ways, from behavioural science, to brain research, to most importantly our primary way of testing medicines and disease treatments.

The protestors have essentially cut off the majority of UK's imports for this and have kept it secret until now. There are only 2 flights still operating that transfer mice from the breeding facilities overseas to the UK (the mice cannot be cost-efficiently bred within the UK).

Many scientists have now stepped forward to speak out against this blockade, including a politician, Lord Drayson, who was the former Science Minister. The cut-off of live animal imports will stop us developing new medicines and health treatments and, if left unchecked will leave us behind the rest of Europe in research.



Nuclear Power boycotts

Very recently it was the 1-year Anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear reactor meltdown that happened on east-coast Japan after an ancient design of Nuclear Power Plant was struck by a Tsunami that overwhelmed its' sea-wall defenses.

After the event, foodstuffs farmed in an exclusion area around the plant had to be frozen from being traded, although many of the Farmers around the plant have stay put to look after their animals and crops, which so far have not been seriously endangered.

As an immediate consequence of the meltdown, and steam explosion, Japan shut down 50 other nuclear reactors across the country for safety checks, and Germany shut down 8 of its older reactors permanently. Italy and Switzerland have ceased plans for any future reactors. The US and UK have paused progress, but intend to resume building their powerplants in future after a period.

This is all due to fears over the world's 400 or so Nuclear Fission Reactors, which all have an average age of 27 years, and do not always have reliable backup systems against unpredictable natural disasters.

Because of Climate Change, many countries wish to focus on renewables instead of Nuclear, which has always provided the bulk of our energy needs, but you would need a massive amount of Windfarms/Wave-farms/Solar Power Plants to make up even a fraction of the electricity that Nuclear Plants deliver.

As a result, China, India and France are carrying on with Nuclear as before.

Other countries may need to rely on more dangerous power, such as burning coal (which I gather has killed more in mining and accidents than any other power source).

It is my view that *newer* Nuclear Fission Power Plants are a lot safer (and with more backups in cooling) than the ageing reactors of the 1970s/80s that are still around today, such as Fukushima Daiichi, but we need to allow funding for Nuclear Fusion reactors (notice I have not mentioned this name in my article up to now, it is different from any Nuclear power we have ever used).

Nuclear Fusion is a way of creating the conditions of our Sun down here on Earth at a smaller scale. It only takes a few seconds of a contained Fusion Reactor to generate vast amounts of power for a city's electricity. So far it is in the experimental stages, with prototype power plants such as K*Star, the Z-Machine, and ITER giving us early research into the technology.
The theory has been around for many years, since the 50s even, but the application is slow-going and we've only just gotten close to implementing it safely.

As for renewables, there is no way they are going to reach the quantities needed to provide for the world.



A dumb internet hype train called KONY 2012

A charity group called Invisible Children attempted to harness the Internet recently to target Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) which covers several countries, Kony attempting to convince groups of people that he is their ruler as appointed by God.

Invisible Children aimed an emotive campaign at the world's social networking network, including a video over popular social sites like Vimeo, Youtube and Twitter, to persuade audiences of the social media generation of 18-24 year olds to be engaged by the colourful and distracting message of the Warlord's ruthless activities.

These activities included abduction of 66,000 or more Children to become soldiers and sex-slaves since 1986.

I think that the audiences of this video in some places got taken in by it and spread the message virally as intended by the Producers, but others were wise to the fact that although it was for a good cause, they were being media-manipulated. The campaign itself was made to play on people's emotions and rally masses of minds without using the correct information, for example the location of Kony and overblowing the size of his force, which is said to be quite small, but also the ability of the 3 countries, Central Africa/Uganda/South Sudan to co-operate in arresting him, when the countries themselves do not get along. Not only this but their armies have been accused of similar attacks on people, which the United States has been condemned for sending in military advisors to support in the search for Kony.

The video oversimplifies conditions in the region, and the difficulties of tackling the task. It also has been called 'irresponsible' for not painting a picture of the present day, but the Uganda of 6-7 years ago, shown as if they were now.

It also distracts a large fraction of the young social media-savvy generation who have less interest in the News from knowledge of more devastating conflicts going on presently such as the massacres in Syria.


-Des

New Journal

Bonjour!

So, I was looking for a more pleasing design of Blog to host my more coherent journals, all opinion, nothing intensely personal. Basically 'articles' containing my views in more of a magaziney format.

So here it is.