Tag Archives: Warcraft

Review: Source Code and a WoW Rant

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Review: Source Code:

So I recently rented the sci-fi time travel thriller, Source Code. I’d heard a lot of good things about it, but it didn’t quite live up to expectations.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This was a good movie. But it wasn’t as good as it could have been.

Source Code follows a soldier–Coulter Stevens, ably played by Jake Gyllenhaal–who mysteriously awakens in a time machine, where he is forced to repeatedly take over the life of a man who died in a train bombing. His mission is to discover the bomber’s identity before he can strike again, which is complicated by his becoming attached to Christine–a women who also died on the train–and the obvious stress of repeatedly dying in the explosion.

The movie does stumble out of the gate with the pseudo science behind the time machine, which is so ridiculous it makes me pine for Star Trek technobabble. Basically, the idea as I understand it is that you can plug someone’s brain into a dead guy’s brain and thus create a magic time portal to an alternate universe.

The other main issue with this movie is that it is not nearly as long as it should have been. This is a very complex and intriguing story, and cramming it into 90 minutes made it feel quite rushed. I didn’t feel as much regret over Christine’s inevitable and repeated deaths or as much of the pain of Coulter living through that horror again and again as I should have.

But I’m being more harsh than the movie deserves. This is a very good premise, and there are some pretty good twists. The acting is good all around. The ending is a little too neat and tidy for my tastes, but also very enjoyable in some ways–I can’t be more specific without getting into major spoiler territory.

One surprise pleasure of the movie is the interactions between Coulter and Goodwin, the woman operating his time machine. Goodwin begins the movie as a very cold and mechanical-seeming character, but as time goes on and she bears witness to more of Coulter’s trials–well, you’ll see. It’s an interesting progression.

When you get down to it, Source Code is a good movie; it’s just that it could have been a brilliant movie with a few small tweaks.

Overall rating: 7.9/10

Rant:

I originally intended to devote this entry entirely to my Source Code review and my graphics, but my recent trials in World of Warcraft have required me to vent.

There seems to be something about leading a raid that robs people of all humanity and decency. I’ve always known this, but lately, the problem seems to be getting worse.

Half the time when you whisp someone who posts a looking for more message in Trade, they just ignore you. I can’t comprehend the immense rudeness that allows people to do this–on the rare occasions I’m a raid leader or assist, I respond to every single whisper I get–but that’s not the worst of it.

A few nights ago, someone asked for a ranged DPS for Cho’gall. I asked if a rogue would be acceptable–probably a stupid question, granted, but all they have to do is say no. But apparently this was a grievous insult on my part, because the raid leader only responded to call me a troll.

Then today I spotted someone LFM for a Nefarian raid. Lately I’ve been having trouble with people who say “LFM” when they mean “LFG,” so I asked how many people he already had–not a step I normally bother with, but I was short for time and didn’t want to wait on finding eight more people. But I guess this is a no no, since he got snippy and refused to tell me. I let my anger get the better of me and made a somewhat snide comment in Trade about how he would get more people for his raid if he answered questions, and proceeded to get insults heaped on me from many more players. My ignore list, once seldom touched, is growing quite large as of late.

Ignored, badgered, and insulted. This is why I will never join a raiding guild. I enjoy raiding, but the culture it creates is abysmal–second only to PvPers in awfulness.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. Wait, what?

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Mists of Pandaria:

Yesterday, someone over at MMO-Champion stumbled across evidence that Blizzard has trademarked the phrase “Mists of Pandaria.” Unlike most internet rumors, this seems legit. Furthermore, people have done some digging and determined that this was trademarked in relation to a software product (as in a video game, and not a novel or tie-in comic), and it’s also worth noting that Blizzard generally doesn’t trademark its patch titles.

So, all signs point to Blizzard making a game called Mists of Pandaria.

Now, a little backstory here. Pandaria is an established place in WoW lore. It is the homeland of the Pandaren brewmasters, a hero class introduced in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. They were a group of giant, drunken, fire-breathing, bad pun-spouting, kung fu-practicing panda-men, and in my opinion, they were possibly the Best Thing Ever.

I Bring Pandemonium:

Perhaps not surprisingly, the prospect of an entire WoW expansion of drunken panda bears has caused quite a stir. It’s sparked polar-izing and grizzly debates on the official forums. People are positively bamboozled! Alright, sorry.

My feelings are mixed to say the least. Much as I loved the Pandaren, I fear an entire expansion of them would make it impossible to ever take anything seriously in WoW ever again. And making them playable might well ruin them in the same way that the Goblins and Gnomes have been. It seems to me that the Pandaren are best left as an amusing but minor footnote in Warcraft lore.

That said, there’s no guarantee that Mists of Pandaria will be all pandas, all the time. Two other significant possibilities are immediately apparent.

1: Mists of Pandaria is not a WoW expansion. Some people have suggested it may be a minor game intended for consoles or cell phones and will thus have little relevance to the Warcraft universe as a whole. In which case, we can rest easy. Pandaren fans will have their fix without the whole of WoW having to smell of bamboo and booze from here on in.

2: Mists of Pandaria is simply set in Pandaria. Pandaria might be a new, Asian-themed continent to explore, but the Pandaren themselves will not play a central role, perhaps having been brought to the brink of extinction by either the expansion’s baddies (my money is on Naga) and/or the environmental effects of the Cataclysm. In this theoretical version, the Pandaren would likely not be playable and only appear as a minor neutral faction similar to the Tuskarr in Northrend.

Of the available options, I think I like the last the best. An Asian-themed continent would be pretty cool, and it would theoretically allow us to enjoy the silliness of the Pandaren without them becoming over-exposed.

No matter what, monk is looking more and more likely to be the next hero class. It’s not my first choice, but it’s better than the most popular alternatives. As awesome as demon hunters are, there are several reasons why they wouldn’t work, and I don’t even know what a runemaster is–despite having it explained to me several times.

If nothing else, the revelation of Mists of Pandaria made for a particularly hilarious day on the official Warcraft forums, with silly threads like this one popping up all over.

And what do you think, dear reader? Are you eager to make yourself a Pandaren toon and start bring pandemonium? Do you wish all this talk of pandas would just go extinct? Is Warcraft lore about to get trashed, or will you raise your glass to the brewmasters? Please, share your thoughts, and bear with me as I bring new updates as they become available.

…Sorry.