The Breather

Whee, quiet.

I guess it must be because Christmas is looming. While there is some work to be done, none of it is particularly pressing, so it’s one of those days where things can be a little more free n’ easy.

Dragon Quest VIII has been finished. Sort of. I mean, I leveled up to 50, and I killed off the final boss, but of course, that’s the not the REAL ending, since once you beat it, the game goes into a pseudo “New Game +” mode where it creates a save file just before you fight the final boss and now opens up some new dungeons so that you can really go to town and get the absolute best stuff in the game.

I also still have a bunch of comics to read. Normally, this would be a happy, or at least pleasant affair, but it is for work and I find it closer to slogging than recreation. I am of course, talking about the comic based on an MMORPG that is based on comics. I’m talking about City of Heroes. The artwork is passable, in a 6 out of 10 sort of way, and the writing… I almost get the sense that the writers are, in fact, not too bad. But they are hamstrung by the limitations forced on them by the material. Try to imagine Franz Kafka or Salman Rushdie being forced to right an episode of Full House under the watchful gaze of the network and you begin to understand what I’m getting at. There are some occasional moments of promise. Of almost good lines, or almost interesting characterization… but it gets pummeled by the need to keep the story recoginizably “City of Heroes-ish.” And the problem with that, is it’s a game where all the players are super heroes, and what’s more, they can’t die. When they get badly injured, they end up instantly teleporting to a hospital. Because the city isn’t one seamless environment like GTA, they have to hide the loading into other areas by forcing players to take the train.

All these signature features appear in the comic, and it makes for some pretty odd reading. And not in that Grant Morrison, Holy-Hell-Did-That-Really-Just-Happen sort of way.