Apocalypse POW!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Triptych: And Speaking of Transformers...

"Throne of Screams" (t-shirt) by Brinkerhoff

"Tatakae Chou Samurai Seimeitai!" (t-shirt) by NinjaInk

"Transformers: The Movie" by Caz Lock

Triptych: Slime Creatures From Outer Space

(Click for full-size)
"Maquinitas" by Andrés Ariza

(Click for full-size)
"Foot Soldier Beat Down" by Bobby O'Herlihy

"Ancient Ninja Xenomorphs" (t-shirt) by Billy Allison

There's been a lot of uproar lately over Michael Bay's appropriation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and his decision to mess around with the canon, and while I don't have a lot to say about it due to the fact that (while I have very little faith in Bay and the touted 'co-creator' involved, Kevin Eastman, is the slightly douchier of the Eastman and Laird duo) it feels like a bit of a tempest-in-a-teacup situation, I feel like I should say something.

So the issue at stake here is that Michael Bay is producing a reboot of TMNT. The director on-board is one Jonathan Liebesman, responsible for such cinematic masterpieces as Battle: Los Angeles and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. The title of the film - or the working title as of this writing, at least - is "Ninja Turtles", and the summary on IMDb reads: "Aliens invade Earth and inadvertently spawn a quartet of mutated reptile warriors, the Ninja Turtles, who rise up against them to defend the world." Already, you can see why the TMNT fanbase has been provoked:

1. Michael Bay is not known for respectful treatment of source material;
2. This Jonathan Liebesman bloke is hardly a subtle or adroit filmmaker;
3. The "Teenage" and "Mutant" parts of TMNT have been dropped (in favour of being, one presumes, a more edgy 20-something-ish and alien);
4. "Aliens spawn mutated reptile warriors" sounds like the plot of a direct-to-video Asylum mockbuster of TMNT, rather than a legitimate TMNT summer blockbuster.

While all of this is more than valid, I think the one big takeaway here is that Michael Bay clearly does not understand, or care, how fan culture works. The man is not a geek - he's the furthest thing from a geek imaginable. He does not love Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles any more than he loved Transformers. To him, Transformers and now TMNT are properties to be exploited, and the worst part is, the world has proven him right. Michael Bay made millions, and grossed Paramount BILLIONS, with his execrable Transformers franchise, and paying homage to the classic animated series, or lip service to the now 20- and 30-year-olds who grew up watching it, was never part of his equation. So my question is not, "How DARE Michael Bay pervert the Turtles that I know and love?!" My question is, "Why do you keep expecting something different from Michael Bay, and what right do you have to be so outraged?"

This bears repeating: Bay's first Transformers movie grossed over $700 million dollars worldwide. Do you know how much the animated Transformers: The Movie made, back in 1986? $5.8 million. Accounting for inflation, that's a little over $12 million, meaning that Bay's Transformers reboot made FIFTY-EIGHT TIMES as much money as the original animated Transformers. And that's just the first of his unholy trilogy... The two sequels grossed $836 million and $1.12 BILLION worldwide, respectively.

The argument could be made that Bay would have made just as much, if not more, money by sticking to the script and paying heed to Transformers canon. My response to that is: bullshit. He didn't do that because he didn't care, even a little, about the fans. He knew that the formula ("Giant CGI Robots" + "Big Explosions" + "Hilariously Stoned Parents") x Established Toy Franchise = Success. Now, this makes me just as furious as anyone out there, because it means that something I love from my childhood has been exploited and prostituted in the interest of crass commerce, but let me just say this:

MICHAEL BAY IS NOT GOING TO STOP DOING THIS.

He's going to keep pimping out everything you love until the world stops paying him more money than you or I will ever see in our lifetimes. He will remake, reboot, warp, degrade and poison anything and everything with the slightest sheen of nostalgia that he can get his hands on, because the movie-going populace is proving him so, so right. Frankly, I'm surprised that he even condescended to respond to the TMNT fanbase with some nonsense about how the Ooze was originally from outer space and besides, he's got Kevin Eastman on board with this so everything's kosher, guys. I'm surprised because it seems out of character for him, but I'm also surprised because it indicates just how little he thinks of the fans he's so thoroughly discounted his entire career. He is pretending to care about the fans, when he has been given ZERO reason to do so up until now, and now that he's said his piece, he's going to ahead and just do whatever he wants regardless.

Stop thinking that there's any hope for TMNT. It was dead the minute Michael Bay got ahold of it. The only thing you can do now is refuse to pay to see it and hope that enough other people in the world feel the same way. To a man who understands things only in financial terms, critical feedback is meaningless, so instead of trying to reason with Michael Bay's brain or appeal to his heart, go for his pocket. Your internet outrage only proves to him that he's getting attention. Stop paying for his movies and direct your anger at anyone who does. Make it a genuinely shameful thing to have seen a Michael Bay movie.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Triptych: This Is Not My Beautiful Spaceship, This Is Not My Beautiful Metroid

"In Super Troidicolor" (t-shirt) by Ross Sauby

"The Ancient One" by Hex Carter

"Samus It Ever Was" (t-shirt) by MangaKid

Triptych: Mega Mashups

"Work In Progress" by Vincent Bocognani

"Mega Man War Asset" by Burton Durand

"Metroid Man" by 1up Apparel

Friday, April 6, 2012

Games To Play Before You Die: #13 - ActRaiser

ActRaiser (1991)
Publisher: Enix

(“I know it’s unexpected, but our people in Fillmore have something to tell you.”)

ActRaiser isn’t particularly innovative, nor is it an overlooked masterpiece by any means, but it’s conspicuous for being the first truly accessible console-based god game, a subgenre of artificial life\simulation games pioneered the year prior by Peter Molyneux’s Populous for the PC. The reason for this is so simple, it almost feels like cheating: the potentially off-putting simulation portions of the game were seeded with a copious number of side-scrolling platformer levels, effectively making ActRaiser appealing to two very different subsets of gamer.

God games differ from real-time strategy games in a number of ways. To begin with, RTSs enlist the player as an active participant, requiring them to direct units to harvest resources, construct buildings and attack enemies. God games, by contrast, place the player in a more passive role, wherein they may only interact with their burgeoning civilizations at a remove. In god games, in other words, the player quite literally become a god, and gameplay typically revolves around the utilisation of god-like powers and observing how their people respond, and hopefully thrive, in the face of these miraculous acts. In this sense, god games bear more in common with artificial life games, in which a set of user-controlled environment variables dictate the behavior, proliferation and survivability of a culture of digital organisms, than they do simulation or strategy games.

Not unlike Maniac Mansion and Monster Party, ActRaiser was the victim of Nintendo’s staunch censorship policies: in this case, the inclusion of any overtly religious material. In the original Japanese version of the game, the player is quite clearly labelled God and the overarching nemesis Satan; for the North American release, these names were changed to The Master and Tanzra, respectively, and in the game’s English documentation, a point was placed on the fact that The Master was eminently mortal. This runs counter to the exceptional - and exceptionally divine - supernatural powers acquired by the player, not to mention the underlying basis of the game, but in practice does little to detract from gameplay. As The Master, the player must assist worshippers in rebuilding a world wracked by evil forces, and this is accomplished in two ways: by clearing each region of demons and monsters with the assistance of an archery-inclined cherub, thus allowing the populace to thrive, and by descending into heroic statues scattered throughout the land and personally taking up arms against said creatures.

Besides the frequent interjection of side-scrolling levels, ActRaiser presents a user-friendly face by simplifying the god game engine, resulting in something that could be described as Populous Lite. Taking control of the Angel, the player defends earthbound worshippers from flying skulls and bats, keeping these threats at bay so that the hapless peasants below may survive long enough to make their way to monster-spawning portals and close them off. At the same time, the player may make use of The Master’s accumulated powers, including sending windstorms, rain and other natural phenomena to the benefit of the huddled and struggling masses. There is a direct correlation between The Master’s strength and capability to combat the forces of Tanzra and the success of The Master’s worshippers: a higher population and level of technological advancement in the god game segments of ActRaiser contribute directly to the number of hit points available to The Master’s sword-swinging avatar in the side-scrolling segments.

Some games are brilliant; ActRaiser is a combination of two pretty great games that complement one another. Each of the two halves of the coin, simulation and side-scroller, are critical to the other, and the switch from one to the other breaks up any monotony that might be inherent to one or the other form. ActRaiser spawned a sequel in 1993, also for the SNES, which did away with the world-building aspect of the original: tellingly, the first ActRaiser sold about 620,000 copies worldwide, while the second, only about 180,000.

ActRaiser is currently available on the Wii’s Virtual Console. A mobile port was released by Macrovision in 2004, containing the first three platformer levels and skipping the game’s simulation aspect completely. Like ActRaiser II, this port is largely considered a critical failure in comparison to the game that spawned it.

(The game’s soundtrack, composed by Yuzo Koshiro, received GameSpot’s Best Music award in 1993. A portion of the score was arranged into a medley by Koshiro and performed at the second annual Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig in 2004.)

Triptych: Truly I Am AMAZING

"Doom Be Doom Doom" by Chito Arellano

"You Wormbaby" by Samy C.

"ZAGR: Steampunked?" by Jasmine Alexandra

So maybe you already knew this, but scratching the surface of the internet reveals that it is full of FREAKS and WEIRDOS. I learned this today while I sifted through art websites looking for Invader Zim artwork to post. Not only did I learn that the majority of Zim fan-art is awful (seriously, just really, really terrible) but I also learned that there's this whole creepy subculture of people who like to draw themselves in Irken form, and then inject themselves into the Invader Zim universe and interact (sometimes in... questionable ways) with established characters from the TV show. It's like a cross between cosplay, slash fic and manic, hardcore fandom and even though it's not nearly as explicit as some other fan followings, something about its single-minded obsessive fixation really grosses me out.

I love Invader Zim as much as the next guy. I think it was a great show, and rewatching it lately, I'm reminded at how hilarious and surreal it was and how there's really nothing else like it on TV nowadays. But these Rule #34 nutjobs are just ruining it for the rest of us. I don't want to come off as mean-spirited and I can respect dedication to a cult TV show or comic or whatever that ended too soon, but no matter how fervent a fan you are of Invader Zim, for the most part you got over it as time went by. The only people left were the fringe element, who fetishized their obsession and went in a really weird direction with it. Sometimes I wonder what Jhonen Vasquez thinks of this, if he thinks about it at all.