Jack is Whack

He's back! With Season 9! And people were already saying that the series downward spiralled after season 5, so that's good. This is a twelve episode run, although it's still going to cover 24 hours, so maybe they'll actually get some sleep for a change?

Actually this is a rather slow start. Only one notable explosion, and hardly anyone gets killed. What's up with that? Yes, there are national level catastrophes happening, but... I have to say, this show is feeling small. Cramped? Possibly we are spending too much time indoors with only a few people for long periods, but there is the impression of not much happening.

Still, we do get some new faces... and now it's simply a matter of waiting to see who in the CIA will turn out to be a traitor. Even with only twelve episodes, someone will be. Odds are on Yvonne, as she has the action chops, but they did the main female lead being a traitor last time (Starbuck). And yes, Stephen Fry was indeed the British Prime Minster, although not a large role (televisually speaking).

Of course, I will watch more. Although my usual 24 route is to get the DVD then binge watch so this will be a different experience. Still, only ten more episodes to go, we'll see how this turns out...

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Heavy Duty, Man

I got me the Danger Mouse 25th Anniversary set, which has every DM cartoon evah! Including many I haven't seen. Including... Heavy Duty.

This is a weird story. I first thought about writing about it because it has land sharks that can swim through concrete! Take that SyFy! They can do this because a mad scientist created a formula to make the sharks extra dense and thus be able to swim through normal matter... which makes more sense than what SyFy comes up with.

But... this is a long episode (22 minutes), with distinctly odd character beats, and more padding that usual and... most unforgiveably... long stretches of unfunny segments. I can see they are trying, but it just doesn't work. Strange because most scripts are eye-rollingly bad, not just straight bad.

This video may or may not work for you... but you can look up "Danger Mouse Heavy Duty" for yourself to watch and see.

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Tagnled

I keep hearing people say good things about this, but I'm too jaded and cynical, so of course I wasn't going to get excited over it.

At this point, I usually give some form of plot recap, but when I was watching this so many logic problems were ringing through my brain. Why did Gothel tell Rapunzel about... well, anything! Why teach her English? Why teach her about the outside world? Why tell her when her own damn birthday was? Frankly, that's just begging from trouble from the lanterns. Did Gothel disappear suddenly before Rapunzel before Rapunzel was able to lower her down on her hair, because Rapunzel never knew about the passage down? How was her hair able to stay so manageable? (Magic!) And exactly what length was it anyway, because that changed from scene to scene as well. And why did no-one recognise Flynn in town? Was his nose that out of it? AND WHY WAS THE HORSE ANIMATED AS A DOG??? If you wanted a dog, put a damn dog in there!

As I said, this was during the movie, so it's not like I'm thinking back on it now and coming up with stuff. There's fridge moments, and then there's being distracted from the movie before your eyes.

Otherwise it seems fine, but can I move on now?

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Infected

I've mentioned Hidden Object games before, and this is the latest one I played. Infected: The Twin Vaccine. Indeed, the Collector's Edition. Although I'm not sure what the collection is.

The storyline is that young (six year old!) twins got the infection first, one died the other didn't but has gone missing. So it is up to you to hunt around various locations and track her down. And do some very stupid puzzles.

Like... seriously stupid. For example, the fire hose is behind a tile puzzle, which is locked behind getting four keys, which is locked behind three fetch quest puzzles, which is... who does that? Who sets all that up? Who decides that a fire hose should be hidden away? That's just ridiculous. There is a point when the plot should provide some basis to continue the game mechanics, but in this case the game mechanics are there first, and the plot bends in inane ways to allow instances of the mechanics.

And there's a lot of backtracking. Like go three or four screens, get one piece, then go four screens back, then repeat... which, while annoying, is made worse by long loading times. This game isn't huge, and computers are advanced these days, the whole thing could probably be loaded into memory and the player should be able to speed through quickly. That's just unforgivable!

And in this collection, there's a bonus chapter of more story, and art and a behind the scenes movie. In all, three hours to get through the game and that. (And I only had to look something up once, and otherwise didn't use any hints at all.)

The stupid logic and repetitive gameplay get in the way of really enjoying it.

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A Job to the Nuts

What do you get if you mash two different plots together and throw in Psy? This movie!

Surly (because that's a name for the hero) is a squirrel that is out for himself, and ends up evicted from the park and has to make his way on his own... fortunately the park is across from a nut store, so that works out nicely. But the park animals need food and so they must all get together to raid the store. So yes, this is a heist movie. Which is clear in the the other plot, in which some psuedo-comedy robbers are tunnelling to and raiding the next door bank.

And that's the... one of the biggest problems in this movie. The two stories do not inform each other. You could have the human storyline without the animals, and absolutely nothing would change. And what the humans are doing are just obstacles for the animals, but what the human are doing, ie a similar heist, is completely irrelevant. They could have been a family of accountants for all it mattered! And that's terrible writing.

The other... one of the other problems is the comedy. In that I didn't even smile once, never mind even laugh. Events happen because that's what the script says, not because there's any reason, not because there's any connection, and not because there's any jokes being set up or paid off. The bad guy the animals face is just the bad guy because the script says there needs to be a bad guy. Did Liam Neeson not actually read the script before the recording? I wouldn't be surprised if no-one did.

Just... no. I'm not sure what caused this movie to come into existence, maybe it was another foreign idea done with American redubbing, but no. Just... no.

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The Man Who was written by Reed Stephens

I'm a big fan of Stephen Donaldson. His Thomas Covenant series is absolutely my favourite series ever, and I will reread them before hitting the final trilogy (currently in four books). Inbetween his fantasy works, he wrote some detective novels, The Man Who series. A style I refer to as 'pulp noir', for reasons I'll get to later. The thing is... his publishers insisted he wrote it under a pen name, of Reed Stephens, so that was a whole set of novels I didn't know about, because it didn't come up under an easy search of his name.

Then I got a three book collection of his: The Man Who Killed His Brother, The Man Who Risked His Partner, and The Man Who Tries To Get Away. (There's another one The Man Who Fought Alone, but I don't have this). Yay! More Stephen Donaldson to read!

...but this is bleak. Like, really bleak. Donaldson isn't known for writing cheery stories, and people are anti-heroes, at best, but this just beats up on the characters. The main guy, the narrative I, is an alcoholic, but drags himself around and does his deeds because he feels major levels of obligation, but he keeps going on about it. Uh, I had to read other things after the first book because it was so depressive...

The third book is the best, mainly because it could be considered the most traditional and straight forward (which isn't to say it doesn't have moaning and over complication).

I will read the last book at some point but yeah... onto something else please...

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Minerva

Since I have Half-Life 2, and people put out free mods for it, I availed myself of one, by the name of Minerva.

The game sees you as J. Random Shootering McShooterson, and you are infiltrating (where stealth = shooting the other guys before they get you) an island base where some weird things are happening. You progress down through the levels until you find the big thing... and then you blow it up. Sounds exciting, right?

There are a number of connected areas, and I can't recall a lot of loading screens, but I'm sure there were separate chapters. But what happens in each area is basically: go through the area, solving a very simple puzzle, which may be as basic as pushing a button, then fight your way out as guards suddenly appear. And this basically repeats for the entire game. Even the final level is just running back through the entire map from end to start. With shooting.

While the story is minimal, and works in its minimal way, the maps do take some slogging through. More than once I got lost as to where I was supposed to go next, and only got through because I tried going everywhere. And yes, I threw on a basic cheat because endless dying and respawning is not fun.

So the basic story is all right, and the feel is Half-Life-y, but the maps get in the way and repetitive nature of each area works against it.

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