Man of Steel

I don't have much for this, but there were a few points I wanted to throw down, so we should be through this quick. The movie's good. Not great, but good. It's good enough to be a starting point for something more if DC can get their heads out of their collective ass and make it happen. Though I fear that this will be done in a rush and we'll end up with a lot of shit over the next couple of summers. The downside to DC being so far behind Marvel is that an attempt to do the Justice League movie will have to be done before the inevitable burst of this superhero movie bubble. That means fast-tracking things that should be done with precision and care. We'll see what comes of it.

I had a friend who said he preferred Iron Man 3 to Man of Steel and I think I felt the opposite, which is weird because I don't much care for Superman. That could have something to do with it, though. I was much more invested in Iron Man 3 than I was in Man of Steel, so it's possible that the inconsistencies of the former would bother me more than the latter. Perhaps.

And now, bullet points... (sorta)

-It's too damn long. There had to be some edits that could have gotten this down closer to two hours. The problem with the final fight was that we all knew it was coming. Of course it was. That's how these movies are structured. Prolonging the fight or doing some half-assed fake out is pointless. We all know Superman vs Zod is going to close out the show. The longer the movie goes on, the less we care and the more we just want to see the thing we know is coming. Other downside to a Superman movie is that Superman fights tend to be more or less the same thing. Packing in a couple long ass fights gives us a chance to see a lot of cool stuff, but it also gives us more chances to see a lot of the same stuff (that stuff being punching). The fight in Smallville could have been trimmed down a couple of minutes, at least, and still had the same essential effect. Well, most of the fights. Superman vs the World Engine. The struggle to turn on the escape pod so it could be used as a bomb. All of these things could have been trimmed, and we would have gotten the exact same movie with less "cool" stuff in it.

-Speaking of Zod, Michael Shannon seemed a lot less evil than I expected. Though I get that his character wasn't "evil," at least not from a certain point of view, but he was the antagonist. He was ruthless, and I expected more overall menace from him. Seemed like three-quarters of the time he was just going with the flow, not all that interested, and then the other quarter he cranks up the Insane-O-Meter to a rockin' 11. Those parts are awesome. The other parts were kinda dull.

-Jor-El was a badass. This is not a bad thing. But after that opening, I did kinda hope it was just going to be a whole movie of Jor-El kicking ass on Krypton.

-Lois should have kissed Superman. It doesn't seem to make sense for Supers to lead into it, too. I'm all for him joining in if she initiates, but it seemed weird for him to make the move first, or for them to do it at the same time, as he hadn't seemed too interested before that. There were a couple of spots, but most of the movie was Lois Lane being all school girl crush on the hot quarterback. Superman was... preoccupied. And it didn't seem like Clark had spent a lot of time with the ladies in his travels, so I'm guessing he's not all that suave or smooth. Just seems far more plausible that a strong, independent woman like Lois would make the first move and then Superman would be like, "This is cool" and join in.

-I liked this Lois Lane. Aside from Jor-El, she seemed to be the most interesting person in the movie. Up until closer to the end when she just turned into helpless woman falling out of an airplane.

-The ending. Gods damn this ending. Despite some minor grips, I was on board with this one until the end. It was more or less the movie I expected, and that's a good thing. It wasn't disappointing. Until the end. I bitched about this with Iron Man 3, and I'm going to again here... superheroes need to stop murdering people. It's fine for Wolverine and Punisher because that's what those dudes do. It's part of their schtick. And it serves a purpose, to some degree, of informing their character and their motivations. This is not true for most superheroes, who tend to avoid murdering villains because it's crossing a line into villainous terrain. Murder is wrong. We all know that. Now this isn't Superman's fault. He was written into a corner. But there were still other options. Superman could have blocked Zod's heat vision with his own hand. Or could have flown them both up into space or some remote area of the world where innocent victims would not be an issue. He could have even just turned Zod's head to redirect the heat vision, as opposed to turning it 360 degrees to snap his gods damn neck. Even within the scene itself, there were other options. But that scene didn't have to happen. There were an infinite numbers of possibilities for an ending to this movie. And even if Zod had to die, there could have been the self-inflicted death (ala Green Goblin in the first Raimi Spider-Man movie) or something akin to Liam Neeson's death in Batman Begins. Not that Superman should have let him die, either, but something where Zod's own recklessness causes his demise and Superman is unable to stop it, for whatever reason. Superman is supposed to be the ideal. He's the one we look up to. The one we strive to be. He's supposed to be better than us. A normal person with the kind of power Superman has would abuse it. What makes Superman such a great hero is the fact that he doesn't. That's what we look up to. That's what we admire. But now he's just a murderer, like us, (humans in general, that is). And I'll give this movie credit for at least acknowledging that it was wrong. Superman shows true remorse for killing Zod, which is more than we get from most superheroes. That would be fine if this was the "end" of the film. If this was the lasting impression, then I'd be a little more OK with it. I still wouldn't like that Superman murdered Zod, but at least if I walk out thinking he feels like shit for it, I can deal with it. Instead we get treated to seven more scenes of Clark Kent doing Clark Kent stuff and going on about his business like none of it matters. So whatever emotional impact could have been gained from Superman showing remorse right after the murder, is lost in the ensuing rush of "hilarious" gags, making it pointless and meaningless and leaving me with the impression that he wasn't that remorseful after all.

-Speaking of those endings, Perry knows that Clark is Superman, right? Because he just hired this dude and threw him in the bullpen with his two best reporters (Lois Lane and dude whose name was said once but I don't remember it and it doesn't matter because he's still the only other reporter we see at the Daily Planet). Now it didn't look like Clark had gone to get his Journalism degree in those flashbacks we kept getting, so as far as I know, he has ZERO journalistic experience or training and just got thrown right into a partnership (or whatever) with a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. That would be quite the accomplishment for even a seasoned journalist, let alone some dude whose last job was as a crab fisherman... even though that's not on his resume because he was using a fake name. So does Clark even have job experience on his resume? Not like he can claim to have worked at all those places if he didn't give them his real name. Not that crab fishing lends well to a job as a reporter, either, but at least it would be something... Ugh. So, either Perry knows that Clark is Superman and he's helping him out, or he's the most incompetent editor/manager/hiring personnel on the planet.

-Smallville got fuuuuuuuucked up.

-Metropolis got fuuuuuuuucked up.

-That tweet. There've been talks that Man of Steel opens the door to the larger DCU. Other people with super powers see Superman "come out" and then find the courage to take up after him. So that's how we end up getting The Flash and Wonder Woman? It isn't clear, and a lot of it is just shit that the writer and director of Man of Steel talked about wanting to do, but I think that's as far as it goes. Nothing official, just some hopeful dudes wanting to do more. With that idea, though, I think it would be cool to see this as Luthor's motivation for hating Superman. Sure, Zod caused a lot of that damage to Metropolis, but he was there to find Superman to begin with. And Smallville was all Superman smashing shit. The movie was quite clear that Superman does not care about collateral damage because smashing through crumbling buildings looks fucking cool. I'm sorta OK with that, because it DOES look cool. But it would be so awesome if Lex Luthor looked at that and said "This is a dangerous man that must be stopped." And then he tries to do that. Sure, he's a villain, so he'll do it in a villainous manner, but the core idea that he wants to keep Superman from ruining another American city is solid. And even if we want to accept the argument that all those people made it out of the buildings safe and sound... that's still millions of dollars in property damage. Those are homes and businesses that have been obliterated, and I doubt insurance covers "alien brawl." So Luthor has a solid foundation to stand on. Then it's just a matter of making him take it "too far."
 

Marvel Heroes

To be honest, I hadn't planned on doing a blog for awhile, (except that I had planned to write a blog about how I wouldn't be writing blogs for awhile), but I've been surprised at just how disappointed I am in the few hours I spent checking out Marvel Heroes. I remember seeing this back at PAX and it seemed cool. Sorta forgot about it for a bit and then I started getting e-mails (encouraging me to purchase overpriced character packs) as the game geared up for launch.

It should be no secret that I'm a big ol' annoying Marvel fanboy, so once these fellas reminded me they had a game coming out, I reminded myself to get kind of excited. The weird thing is, I didn't realize how much I was looking forward to this game until it landed and I went through the first two or three hours. I had so much fun I just finished uninstalling the damn thing from this computer. Which brings us here.

For those that read Penny Arcade on a regular basis, this might be a bit of a rehash. My experience was almost identical to theirs. Which I guess I should have expected, but didn't. The thing (ha!) that I find so strange is that here we have a big ol' Marvel MMO written by Brian Michael Bendis and created by the dude who made Diablo or whatever, so the pedigree is solid, and this game should be perfect for a Marvel kid like me... but being such a huge Marvel fan is the precise reason that I don't like the game.And that is just so damn disappointing.

I am almost positive that all Marvel video/mobile games have had the same exact plot for about a decade or so now. Dr. Doom steals (insert powerful Marvel artifact here) and recruits/tricks all the super villains of the Marvel U to aid him in distracting the superheroes while he puts his plan for world domination in motion. SHIELD puts a generic call out to all heroes to help stop the impending doom (ha!). There are some small variations here and there, but on the overall, this seems to be the go-to excuse for pulling all of Marvel's heroes together for the purposes of a game.

In this particular game, Doom has stolen the Cosmic Cube (that would be the tesseract for those who watched The Avengers movie) and hired (?) Hydra to instigate a breakout at The Raft (think Arkham Asylum for the entire Marvel U). With super villains free and running about causing mischief, Dr. Doom can go about his cosmic cube business while the superheroes are distracted with rounding up the super fugitives.

So that's what I know going into this. The game gives an option of five free characters to choose from, (the others are available for purchase, because that's how F2P works). I have a choice of Daredevil, Storm, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, or The Thing. Now I'm all about mutant and proud, so no question I'm picking Storm (plus she's got range attacks and I tend to go ranger classes in most MMOs). I grab Storm and get into the game and find out that Nick Fury (voiced by Keith David, so finally we got that right) has made his usual call and needs me, Storm, to go to The Raft and help get things under control.

It has taken about three seconds for this game to annoy me. In fairness, Storm was on the Avengers roster for a short time and was married to T'Challa, so she's a bit more involved with the larger Marvel universe than most of the X-Men, (excluding Beast and Wolverine). But the X-Men in general tend to get left out when shit like this happens in the comics, (part of the reason Scott was being a prick in AvX), so it's a bit out of sorts for Storm to go running about doing SHIELD's bidding. Had I known (or thought for two seconds about the usual Marvel game formula) I would have chosen one of the other characters more suited to SHIELD-centric work. (It should be noted I would have had a similar issue had I gone with the back-up choice of Daredevil).

OK. Let's ignore that and move on, though. Whatever. For some weird reason Storm is helping out SHIELD and she's on The Raft and killin' dudes with lightning and wind and shit. It's kinda fun. The controls are odd and I couldn't figure out how to get them how I wanted, but that's just because I'm MMO illiterate. Now because this is the introduction area or whatever no one else is in here. So it's just me running around to get the power back up and running so SHIELD can start containing this situation. One thing I dig is that loot drops out of enemies, so I just walk over and pick it up. It's a small thing, but it works better.

"Oh, look there, I punched MODOK so hard he dropped a shiny bauble. I wonder what it does."

This is much better for me than DCU Online, which forced an extra button press to loot the corpses of the dead enemies.

"Quick, while Joker's unconscious we can loot his pockets for spare change. Oh, and get his wallet. I bet we can check his license for his real name. Reginald?! Oh, shit. No wonder he kept that a secret. What a loser. Robin, grab his sneakers, too. Those are some wicked fresh kicks."

It doesn't seem like much, but it's one of those minor touches that makes a big difference for me. It's not very superhero to loot the bodies of the dead. The Raft is a good intro piece to the game. It's a little dull... run down a hall, lightning bolt lightning bolt wind gust, run down another hall, lightning bolt lightning bolt... but that argument could be made against most games. Overall, I enjoyed the first half hour or so going through The Raft. The gear management is a pain in the ass, but again, that's a complaint I have for a lot of MMOs/RPGs so not something I'll hold against this one in particular. I beat down Living Laser and Green Goblin, (these boss fights are where the lackluster combat was more obvious, in the one-on-one situation, but I was also low level so not a lot of powers to use), and get things back in order enough that SHIELD can finish clean-up, and move back on to Avengers Tower for the next mission.

Which is where things take a big downward turn.

Up until this point I was running solo. Just Storm out doin' a little superhero work. Now I come back to Avengers Tower and the MMO gates have been opened. The tower is like a hub where people can get the next mission and sell shit, craft some stuff, whatever. A smaller version of a town in other games. It's sort of jarring just because I wasn't expecting to be dumped in with all these people. Last time I was in Avengers Tower, it was just me and Vision chillin' like non-villains, then I come back from the mission and the place is overrun with Avengers.

But if seeing a room full of unexpected characters is a surprise experience, imagine what it's like to see a room full of the same characters. Avengers Tower was overrun with clones of The Thing and Hawkeye. There were a couple of Scarlet Witches and Daredevils in there, too, and one other Storm, but for the most part it's The Rock and Arrow Show all over the gods damn place. This is... bothersome.

See, now for as much as Marvel loves their "Dr. Doom stole this thing and will use it to boil the seas" idea, DC loves the "Lex Luthor and/or Joker did some heinous shit in an alternate universe, so Lex Luthor and/or Batman must come to the 'real' DCU and recruit the Justice League to set things right." That's their go-to video game move. Which, for as much as I hate that line, it at least gives an excuse for twelve Batmans to be in the same room, or even better, twelve Batmans to be fighting each other. No such veiled excuse is given here.

One of the things Marvel will harp on end over end, whether it be the comics or movie universe, is character. Each of their characters is unique and individual, with a distinct and believable personality. This is what sets them apart from the competition. Peter Parker is (dead) a real person with real feelings and you get that from reading Spider-Man. You can identify with Peter and it draws the reader in more. Same for Wolverine, or Captain America, or whoever. These are superheroes, of course, with exaggerated problems, but at the core they deal with emotions and issues just like real people would. Stark was a drunk. So was Carol Danvers. Sad Hulk is sad. Turns out Charles Xavier is a huge fucking douche. Peter Parker could never catch a break. Luke Cage was forced to choose between doing what he loved and doing what was best for his family.  Dr. Strange is a creeper who sleeps with his students.

Real people. Real people problems. Also super problems. Because comics.

I'll admit, it gets old hearing Marvel writers and promoters emphasize how important it is to make these characters feel real, but it's true. It is important. It makes them so much more interesting to read about. It's one of the things I love about Marvel characters. For all their heroic attributes, these are still regular people, and like regular people, they're kinda fucked up.

And while seeing a dozen Things lingering around a warp portal together is kinda fucked up, it does nothing to support the realism and truth of character that Marvel is all about. It's one of the more anti-Marvel things I could think of. Let alone the more game-centric problem that it's unreal and illogical and just blows a big ol' fuckin' hole in immersion.

But I still want to like this game. I want it to be good. So I go to the next mission part. Rhino and Shocker are up to no good in Hells' Kitchen, and Daredevil doesn't like it when people start making trouble in his neighborhood. So we get this neat motion comic of Daredevil foiling their plans. He stops Rhino, but Shocker makes a run for it. Time to go track him down...

Before we get too far, let me note that the idea of doing the cinematics/cutscenes as motion comics is a cool ass idea. Also, the few that I saw were done in different styles. This one for Daredevil had a sort of muted color palette near the beginning, similar to some of the Maleev DD covers. Which I liked. Until I thought more about it and wondered how I would feel if I were playing as Daredevil. I think it still works, but some of the effect is lost. There was a similar problem I'll get to in a minute.

OK. Storm and I go through the subway to track down Shocker and kick his ass, and find out that Doc Ock is going to steal a magical tablet or something from Kingpin. I ran into a couple of other people as I was going through this mission, but just a few, so it wasn't too jarring. So far I'm back into giving the game a chance. Another motion comic comes up, this time with some Avengers looking over one of Kingpin's "legitimate" businesses (a nightclub). Cap, Black Widow, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, I think. There's some talk of going in and checking things out, and it turns out Black Cat is also there, not with the Avengers, breaking in to steal some shit because, uh, Black Cat. Cool. So I get out of this neat little Oeming looking scene and I'm just Storm again, left out of the cool kids club and doing all the actual work while the Avengers... go to a dance club? It just seemed odd to have this scene with a particular set of characters, and then dump me back into Storm's skin. It's almost as if two separate things are going on at once. The "main" Marvel characters are off running this show and I'm doing the grunt work. It just felt odd.

There are a couple of weird things, but I'm still willing to push through and see if I can get into this. I kind of like where it's going, I'm just not sure if I like how I get there. So I'm working over to this nightclub and I still haven't run into more than one or two other heroes, so I figure if this is how things go I can attempt to ignore the chaos at Avengers Tower. Then I noticed that a car I hovered over had an interaction icon. So I clicked on it. And Storm walked over and picked up the car.

Storm walked over and picked up a car.

And just in case this wasn't clear, Storm, the normal human sized, bad ass but not at all super strong (ex) queen of Wakanda, walked over to a normal sized automobile and lifted it above her head with her never been enhanced, regular people muscles. And then threw it.

I logged off.

I considered not going back in. But I wanted to like this game. I wanted to like this game enough that I had an excuse for purchasing Captain Marvel, (whenever the hell that skin comes out), and running through as Carol because that would be fucking rad. Even writing out these complaints here makes me think they're ridiculous. It's a lot of little things adding up to a poor experience, but individually, each one is a small gripe I think I should (as a gamer) be able to ignore (for the sake of having fun).

Whatever. I'll give it one more chance. I log in and get dumped back at the Tower. I see one Punisher run through a crowd of Daredevils, Things, and Scarlet Witches. I noticed a couple of Deadpools mixed around, but all the red made me think of DD at first. Hit the teleport and warp over to Kingpin's club.

The club is populated with some random NPCs. Some of them wearing nice suits and... baseball caps? Da fuck? Who wears a suit and baseball cap combo? And in what nightclub? Is this a Super Bowl after party or something? Anyway... I walk upstairs and there's this dude standing menacing over someone, like he's berating them after he punched them, or he's threatening to punch them... or something. And this person he's threatening is lying on the ground and looks to be begging for mercy, and I can't tell if it's a man or woman, but I'm a mother fucking superhero so I better step in. Except I can't talk to either of them. There's no interaction here at all. Just a random line of text from the dude that I don't even remember, and then back to angry animations of a threatening nature.

"Excuse me, sir, what's going on here?"

"Oh, I'm about to smack a bitch. No big thing."

"Do you have super powers?"

"No, ma'am. Just Average Joe beat the fuck outta my wife powers."

"That all seems in order then. Carry on. I'ma go find this mystical doodad in the back storage room they surprisingly keep unlocked."

So I leave this scene and roll to the back of the club, where a door is just sort of wide open and I can walk right in like it ain't no thang. I fight a couple of dudes here, but the further I go, the more dead bodies and less live enemies I see. Then I walk out the back of the club and into the narrow, kind of closed off streets again. That's the important thing to note about these environments. This isn't a huge open world like WoW or Guild Wars or TOR or whatever. In those games, you can shove 20 people on the same map and there's all sorts of room to run around and kill shit. This is a comic book environment, so it's all alleys and closed in streets and occasional warehouse buildings. Small, intimate environments that make kicking ass interesting in comic books. TOR manages this with special rooms for story progression that are unique to each player (or group), so the parts of that game that are closed off and intimate like this are sectioned off just for you when you enter. Not so much here.

As I walk down this narrow street, Scarlet Witch runs past me and blasts the shit out of a group of Maggia in front of me. OK. I walk over their dead bodies and then another Storm rushes past me and joins Wanda up ahead for some good old fashioned ass kicking. Remember how I said I couldn't figure out how to adjust the controls? Yeah. No idea how these peeps figured out how to run better than the point-and-click bullshit I was using... but whatever. These two bad asses are occupied with a group of dudes a little further on, so I sneak off to the side to pick off a group I noticed hiding in the corner.

And this is when I see a counter at the top left of the screen that shows which characters are in the area. There are two circles there. One for Storm and one for Scarlett Witch. And then a circle appears for Daredevil. And then The Thing. And there are numbers in those little circles. Four Storms. Six Things.

That's when the swarm hit. A group of them came rushing up from behind me, and it was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in a game. It was almost like a superhero tornado, with this swirling circle of Things around the outside and two Storms in the middle. It started as a group rolling up behind me, moving in unison. Then the blob extended, the Things moving forward like a spear that struck out at the enemies in front of me. The Things rushed past me and crushed their targets, while lightning from the Storms behind us added extra damage. And as quick as this amalgamated monster had struck, it retreated. The Things ran back to form up around the Storms and the whole big mass of them moved on to the next area.

I sat and stared at the screen for a minute. Then I logged off. This morning I uninstalled the game. I don't know that I'll ever go back. Perhaps, in a couple months, I might step back in and see if it's quieter. If I can move around without a swarm of Things creeping up behind me. I hope so. I never want to see that again.