"Somewhere in the heavens...they are waiting."

My Saturdays tend to fall into a pattern: my lovely wife Karli and I enjoy a leisurely morning together, including breakfast in bed, then she often goes shopping or to a movie with her sister Stefanie while I stay at home, do laundry, and play games on the computer.

Today, when I logged into Steam™ to continue my Fallout 4 replay, I was happily surprised to see that Marathon, Bungie’s classic 1994 Macintosh first-person shooter, had been added to the site as a free download - an opportunity which I instantly took advantage of.

First in the eventual Marathon trilogy, Bungie's 8-bit masterpiece holds a special place in the hearts of old-school Apple fans. Developed solely for the Macintosh platform, Marathon provided Mac users with their own version of Doom - and, as with Doom and Doom II, Bungie followed up on their success with Marathon 2: Durandal, and Marathon Infinity, continuing the elaborate storyline established in Marathon.

When I launched Marathon, I was surprised by how much I remembered, considering that this was a game I hadn't played for over 25 years.  Full credit goes to the developers, who created a distinctive environment with dynamic lighting, unique sound effects*, and (for the time) elaborate graphics.  I even had some recollection of the maze-based maps that helped to make the game a challenge.

Bungie might have been a minor entry in the early history of games development were it not for their better-known sequel to the Marathon games: Halo, which became Microsoft’s award-winning flagship game for the Xbox debut in 2001.

Apparently there's an updated version of Marathon being planned, which, sadly, will be a team-based extraction shooter** rather than a first-person game.  Personally, I'd love to just see the original Marathon given the Halo treatment - why mess with success?

- Sid

* The first time I shot one of the alien Pfhor, I laughed a bit - I hadn't heard that combination of sound effects for such a long time.

** In an extraction shooter, your team must successfully make its way to an extraction point without dying in order to keep whatever loot you've collected from either the map or the opposing team. 

Chekov's Jukebox.

There's been a jukebox on the bridge of the TARDIS since day one of the new Doctor - why haven't we heard any music?

(When titling this posting, I realized that I've unintentionally created a series of Chekov's Gun spinoffs:  Chekov's Fire Axe, Chekov's Volcano, and now this - maybe I should number them.)

- Sid

Carnac the Magnificent: "Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and Spacehunter."

"The question is: Name two great movies and a dog."

A recent successful bid on the Heritage Auctions website added movie posters for Silent Running, Outland and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone to my modest collection. I received the package today, and I'm pleased with my purchases - well, mostly pleased, to be honest.

Silent Running? A favourite film for me, and a great transitional role for Bruce Dern. Outland - a well executed science fiction remake of High Noon, with a strong performance by Sean Connery.  Spacehunter?  Yes, well, Spacehunter...

As far as I can remember, Spacehunter wasn't in the original auction listing but seemed to make an appearance later, and there was never a photo of the poster, the image above is taken from another listing.  It's entirely possible that this item was grouped with the others so as to get the damn thing out the door, for all I know it had been collecting dust in the back room at Heritage for some time.

Faint praise aside, I have to admit that I did in fact see Spacehunter in its 1983 commercial release, back when the original Cineplex multiplex was located at the north end of the Eaton Centre in Toronto. This places me in elite company: the film only grossed $16.5M on a $14.4M budget.*  The film was produced using a two-camera technique called "Native 3D", and I do vaguely remember the 3-D effects, particularly the cyborg villain's metallic claws coming out of the screen.

On paper, all the pieces are there for a successful film.  The film was made in 3D as part of the shortlived craze of the early 80s, and has a reasonably noteworthy cast. Peter Strauss, who takes the leading role of Wolff the bounty hunter, was a workmanlike actor with a solid television resume and some previous big screen experience, and Molly Ringwald, whose appearance as Niki the Zone Scav is only her second movie role after Paul Mazursky's Tempest, went on to fame in the John Hughes trilogy of Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink. Ernie Hudson and Michael Ironside have supporting roles, and Ivan Reitman was the film's executive producer. 

Regardless, none of that was enough to save the film from mediocrity, and the result is one of those bad movies that isn't quite bad enough to have achieved cult status. 

Part of me says that it must be streaming somewhere, and that I should re-watch the film as part of due geek diligence, but I somehow can't bring myself to invest another 90 minutes of my life on the outside chance that it's not a bad as I remember.

- Sid

* I was honestly a bit surprised to discover that it made back its costs.

"Let's Twist again, like we did last summer."

Mrs. Flood: “Never seen a TARDIS before?”

Doctor Who, The Church on Ruby Road

Okay, so first we have Mrs. Flood, Ruby's TARDIS-aware next door neighbour, breaking the fourth wall in the 2023 Doctor Who Christmas Special.  Then there's actor Susan Twist, who has done one-off cameos in every episode of the new Doctor to date (plus one of the 60th Anniversary David Tennant episodes)*.  And, AND, if that wasn't enough of a slap in the face, there's that musical number at the end of The Devil's Chord featuring the lyric, "There's always a Twist at the end." 

Damn it, one of these women had better be the new Master.

- Sid 

*In case you somehow haven't picked up on this (for example, my wife suffers from face blindness, so it's not impossible), Ms. Twist appeared as Mrs. Merridew with Isaac Newton in Wild Blue Yonder, the third 60th anniversary special; shows up in the flashback audience in The Church on Ruby Road; was Comms Officer Gina Scalzi on the Space Babies space station; a canteen employee who dishes out spendy tea to the Doctor and Ruby at EMI/Abbey Road Studios in The Devil's Chord; the helpful Welsh hiker in 73 Yards; and, hard to miss, the face of the Ambulances in Boom. 

"Ch-ch-changes."

In recent years, the world has experienced significant disruptions—the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Israel and Hamas conflict, extreme climate disasters, the surging cost of living, and global supply chain interruptions.

Predicting the next big upheaval may not be possible, but it is crucial to explore possible disruptions and anticipate potential future scenarios. Even seemingly distant or improbable events and circumstances can suddenly become reality, while overlapping disruptions can lead to compounded societal impacts..

Kristel Van der Elst
Director General, Policy Horizons Canada

Looking for ideas for an apocalyptic near-future novel?  Look no further, the Government of Canada has your back.  

Demonstrating admirable foresight, the federal Policy Horizons department has released a report detailing what they see as the top disruptions in Canada's immediate future. It's a sort of disaster bingo card listing 35 possible crises split into five categories, such as AI running wild, scarcity of vital natural resources, democratic systems breaking down, or an American civil war: and, as with bingo, there's a very real possibility of filling a row by having more than one event occur simultaneously, or for events to domino, one event precipitating another and then another.

It's an interesting little document, which breaks out the various disruptions by likelihood, timeline and impact.  If you're interested, you can read it online at https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2024/disruptions/index.shtml#report, or download a PDF version.

The odd thing is that they're all negative, with the possible exception of the development of Northern Canada.  I realize that the document is intentionally biased toward the cautionary, but I'd love to see a companion document - Synergies, perhaps? - with 35 possible changes or developments that would improves lives and make the world a better place. Not that I'm against building shelters against the gathering wind - but you know, windmills are also a good response.

- Sid

"And honey...I know how I look."

Hello! I’m Steven Moffat and I’m back to write yet another episode of Doctor Who.

The reason I came back is, I thought, “What if you put the Doctor in incredible danger, in the middle of a battlefield, and you removed from him one thing that he always does, one thing that he always relies on?"

Steven Moffat, BBC interview

Donna Noble : He saves worlds, rescues civilizations, defeats terrible creatures and runs a lot. Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved.

Doctor Who, The Doctor's Daughter

In a noteworthy return to Doctor Who as a writer, ex-show runner Steven Moffat gives us Boom:  an eloquent, well-written script, tight, emotional, loaded with clever exposition, and full of tension. It's a bit of a relief, really, after having a couple of less than inspired episodes to start the season off.  

As per his comments on the story, he wanted to take away the Doctor's ability to flee from danger - in other words, no running - as part of a situation where the danger was both immediate and terminal. The resulting man-on-a-land-mine storyline succeeds on every level.

The story takes place during a war - or does it? The Anglican Army, previously seen in A Good Man Goes to War, has established a beachhead on the planet Kastarion, but the Kastarions have proven to be an elusive foe. The Anglicans are supported by the Villengard arms corporation, which takes an oddly economical approach to combat: soldiers deemed not worth saving are euthanized by robotic AI ambulances rather than treated (in order to maintain predicted casualty rates), and instead of using explosives in its landmines, the Villengard version creates a chain reaction that uses the victim's DNA to create the detonation.  

As the Doctor and Ruby arrive on Kastarion, they hear the screams of a soldier being euthanized.  As they run to investigate, the Doctor steps on a mine: he manages to not trigger the explosion, but can't move without setting off the chain reaction.  The balance of the episode revolves around the trapped and immobile Doctor finding a way to disable the mine and save a wounded Ruby from being terminated. 

It's interesting to see Moffat working with the new Doctor's style as a performer.  For example, the Doctor delivers the following speech:

"I am a Timelord. I am a higher dimension life form, I am a complex space-time event. I am a much bigger bang than you bargained for. I am a lot more explosive than I look, and honey...I know how I look. Put a quantum chain reaction through me and I will shatter this silly little battlefield of yours into dust. All of it. In a heartbeat. Into dust."

It's hard to imagine any of the previous Doctors commenting on how explosive they look* - especially with the endearment of "honey" as a prefix.  But for Gatwa, it perfectly matches the persona he's using for the character, while combining it with a very Doctor-like warning about potentially destroying the arena.

Varada Sethu, who makes an appearance as Anglican Army soldier Mundy Flynn, is reported to be joining the show as a companion. Given that the episode features another cameo by Susan Twist, it's hard to say whether Sethu's appearance is just what it appears to be, a guest spot by an actor, or another piece of this season's big picture puzzle.  It could easily go either way - after all, Peter Capaldi and Karen Gillan coincidentally appeared together in The Fires of Pompeii in Season 4 before making the eventual jump to Doctor and Companion.  Time will tell, as they say...

- Sid

* Okay, maybe David Tennant...

Although Mondays and Fridays get all the press.

"This must be Thursday," said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. "I never could get the hang of Thursdays."

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I've just been reminded by a fellow fan that Thursday was the day that the Vogon Constructor Fleet destroyed the Earth in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 

- Sid

And Now, For Your Viewing Pleasure, The Gay Black Scottish-Rwandan Libran Doctor.

Yes, the new Doctor is gay.  And Black.  And Scottish (again).  And Rwandan, which is new.  And a Libra. He may or may not be left handed, the Internet was not informative in this area.

And, honestly?

So what.

Good grief, Jodie Whittaker was apparently an actual woman - an actual woman - when she became the 13th Doctor, and she met another incarnation of herself who was an actual Black woman (with really great taste in vests) and guess what, the universe didn't come to an end.  (Well, thanks to Chris Chibnall it sort of did, but you know what I mean.)

If I were being charitable, I would say that the people who have expressed their outrage regarding the new Doctor's gayness/Blackness/Scottishness/etc.*(and the old Doctor's woman-ness, for that matter) just have too much time on their hands, but I suspect that the problem goes deeper than that.

But let's try to look at this rationally, as from within the Whoniverse - if you're a enough of a fan of the show to complain about it in the first place, you should be able to work within the framework of the Doctor's zeitgeist. 

Remember in Hellbent, when the 12th Doctor shoots the General?  Following their regeneration, the General has gone from being an older bald white man to a short-haired young black woman, who first comment is "Back to normal, am I?  The only time I've been a man, that last body. Dear lord, how do you cope with all that ego?"  This suggests that gender and race are known to be fluid through regeneration, although there may be some kind of bias, as demonstrated by the long run of white male Doctors (and female Generals, apparently). 

If we accept this to be the standard for regeneration, and recognize that Time Lord society may have a commitment ritual not unlike marriage (as per the 10th Doctor commented on being rubbish at his own wedding) then at any given moment, a Time Lord must be prepared to have their life partner come home as a completely different gender and colour after being hit by a bus or some mass transit equivalent on the streets of the Citadel. 

What happens then?  I suppose there's a possibility that Gallifrey has legislated a policy of instantaneous post-generation divorce - that, following their rebirth, it's a clean slate in all ways.  (Drastic way to clean up your crippling credit card debt, but possibly worth it.)  

More logically, I suspect that the Time Lord in question kisses their reborn partner on the cheek, joins them in cursing bus drivers in general, and asks them what they want for dinner.

Because, if your entire species is genetically coded to become a new person on a regular basis, then you'd accept that a new face is only that, a new face, like wearing a different suit or dress, and ultimately makes no difference in who the person is. And as such, your love for them would be constant regardless of sex, colour, or Scottishness - although that last one might be a bit puzzling to the average Gallifreyan spouse.

I haven't watched any of the new season that's just started streaming on Disney+ (although I hope to get a start this weekend) but the impression that I get from trailers is that the new Doctor and Ruby Sunday are having fun, that's there's singing and dancing and a jukebox on the TARDIS.  

And, honestly?

That's great. Fun is great. 

The Doctor has been through so much, it's been a grim time for the (sort of) last Time Lord, let's open things up, let's wear some period costumes and show Ruby dinosaurs and the Beatles and go behind the scenes at Bridgerton, let's have some fun while we save the universe - it's about time.

- Sid

* I suspect that they're okay with the Scottish/Libra etc. part, which is at least someplace to start on the road to tolerance.

Sadly, it's not bigger on the inside.

My department at work is doing some massive renovations to our space, so I've been temporarily relocated to an empty office in Accounting.  Frankly, I was touched by the greeting that they extended, how kind is it for co-workers to do something so personal?

- Sid

May the 4th: Welp, there it is.

"You know, I called him Mr. President, he said, "You can call me Joe".  I said, "Can I call you Joe-bi-Wan Kenobi?"  He liked that..."

Mark Hamill, White House Press Briefing.

If you were looking for an indicator of the massive degree to which Star Wars has penetrated the cultural matrix, look no further. 

- Sid

(And, as a bonus, here's Mark Hamill following up at the White House press briefing.) 

Or Bella Ramsey, if that's your thing.

I had to detour around the end of the world to get to work today - I hate it when that happens.

Apparently the apocalypse is being hosted in Vancouver for Season 2 of The Last of Us, which has been filming in various British Columbia locations since February 12th.  Fans of Pedro Pascal, keep your eyes peeled.

- Sid

P.S. Confirmed that it's The Last of Us - the contact e-mail on the shooting notification that we received is for megaswordprod@gmail.com, which, according to Wikipedia, matches the working title being used by The Last of Us for Season 2. 

A far green country.

Gandalf: I will not say "Do not weep", for not all tears are an evil.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

I'm saddened to announce that Jaq the Cat, aka Jaqen H'ghar, lost the fight and succumbed to stomach cancer early this morning.  Under the circumstances, it's tempting to quote something from Game of Thrones, but I would rather leave a gentler farewell to our little friend: 

Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way.

Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass... And then you see it.

Pippin: What? Gandalf?... See what?

Gandalf: White shores... and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Pippin: [smiling]  Well, that isn't so bad.

Gandalf: [softly]  No... No it isn't.

Goodbye, Jaq.  Rest in peace, and may there be open doors, chewy grass, cosy blankets and fresh tuna in that far green country.

- Sid

Updates.

And now, a few updates for recent postings:

"It's Alive!"

 

In an impressive long-distance maintenance accomplishment, NASA has managed to remotely rewrite Voyager 1's code and return it to near-normal functionality.  Which is all very well and good, but damn it, NASA, we had a movie plot riding on this!

"All Roads Lead to Amber."

And so, The Adventure of the Walotsky Portfolio comes to an end with the delivery of the Ron Walotsky Amber series cover portfolio that I had purchased on eBay.  The portfolio package itself was a bit the worse for wear, but the contents were in reasonably good shape, and I've added a favourite to the decor in our second bedroom.  I'm pleased with my purchase, but I'd still like to get a full set of the prints - perhaps the Walotsky Adventure will have a sequel...

"Unite the League."

I also received the Alex Ross Justice League poster that I unexpectedly won with a low bid on the Heritage Auctions web site.  It's an impressive piece of work, but the sad truth is that, at 24 x 65 inches, it would probably cost me four or five times the purchase price to have the damn thing framed - and I'm certainly not going to use thumbtacks.

"Nice fourth-wall break back there!"

I'd like to thank all the people involved in the decision to feature the remains of Toronto's CN Tower in the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer - there's a certain logic to that, given that both the characters are Canadian.  And, as I've commented before, it's hard to find a really good post-apocalyptic Canadian image.  (But not impossible.)

 

"It's Alive (2)."

Having just added a new purchase to my Electronic Arts launcher, I was surprised to note that Battlefield 2142 was available as a download option - an unexpected option given that the game servers have been deactivated since July of 2014.

A little digging around on the interwebs took me to a link on a modder site, which offered a patch and application combo that would bypass the BF 2042 server access requirement.  I'm always cautious about this sort of thing, but since I rarely use my Windows configuration* for anything except gaming, I decided that I would take a chance on the download.

I cautiously followed the instructions for the mod, and to my extreme happiness (and mild surprise) it worked seamlessly, and I was able to log in and access single player mode with no problems at all. Not only that, but the mod download included a wide selection of single-player versus bot maps that were not part of the original game download, including a fun multiple walker versus walker level.  

No offense, EA, but why would you still have a game available for download that can't be played without hacking it through a third party?  Would it not make more sense to mod the game yourselves?

- Sid

* I run Windows 10 using the MacOS Bootcamp software pretty much solely for gaming access, but in quiet moments I visit the Dell Alienware gaming system page and dream of what might be. 

Cheap Thrills: Titanfall 2

Baby, I don't need dollar bills to have fun tonight
(I love cheap thrills).

Sia, Cheap Thrills

I do my PC gaming on a 27 inch iMac running Windows 10 via the Apple Bootcamp software - I have complete Windows functionality, it boots directly into Windows rather than running in a window in the Mac OS, but it's an older computer that relies on a ten-year-old AMD Radeon R9 M290 video card that wasn't that powerful in the first place.  

That being said, it's actually kept up well with my simple gaming interests, and I spend a certain amount of time wistfully browsing Dell's Alienware™ gaming hardware page and dreaming of what could be with the latest version of Battlefield 2042 running at full resolution.

Fortunately, thanks to the generosity of the gaming companies like Steam and Epic, there's an ongoing opportunity to get games that are reduced in price, or in some cases even free - cheap thrills, if you will.  Epic is the strongest supporter of this, with a rotating pair of free downloads every week.

The games tend to be a few years old, but they're certainly not scrubs. My free Epic acquisitions to date include Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Guardians of the Galaxy, the entire remastered Bioshock series, Star Wars Squadrons, and a handful of less well known games. It's an admirable treatment of older games with excellent playability that have been eclipsed by more advanced programs or sequels, and they fit nicely into the capabilities of my gaming setup, such as it is.

My latest Cheap Thrills acquisition is Titanfall 2, originally released by game developers Respawn Entertainment in 2016.  Steam had the game on sale for a staggeringly affordable $3.99 CAD, which seemed like a manageable expense. 

The original Titanfall, released in 2014, was a dedicated multiplayer game without a single-player option, although it did have an offline tutorial level that let players learn the game controls before being exposed to online competition. I was aware of the original's release, and watched a trailer video or two, but by and large I'm only really interested in single-player gaming*- preferably first-person. As a result, it never made my play list, in spite of my ongoing interest in operating giant robots.

The sequel attempts to be the best of both worlds, adding a single player option as an alternative to multiplayer encounters. Titanfall 2 features a narrative campaign in which you play as Jack Cooper, a rifleman in the Frontier Militia. Your ambition is to pilot a Titan, a seven meter tall warbot with an AI personality interface - Titans can be equipped with a wide range of add-on weaponry and defenses, and have the ability to operate autonomously as well as under the guidance of their pilot. 

When Captain Tai Lastimosa falls in combat, you find yourself in the pilot's seat of his Vanguard-class Titan, BT7274 - aka BT - and part of the struggle to defend the Frontier from the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation  The IMC abandoned the original settlers of the Frontier in the early days of the colonies, but now they've decided to regain control by force. 

A pre-game training sandbox called the Gauntlet allows players to hone their skills before they start the game, which relies heavily on being able to jump, double jump and run along walls to complete challenges.  The system also uses this information to choose an appropriate difficulty setting for the game, although it only took me two tries to upgrade from Easy to Normal.  

Playing the game, I realize that I've been spoiled by the expansive nature of open-world games such as the Fallout franchise and The Outer Worlds, rather than the more linear goal-oriented parameters that Titanfall 2 relies on - it's very much what I think of as a level-based dungeon game. Some of the levels, such as the manufacturing plant, are quite large and complex, but ultimately, there's one entrance, and one exit.  

Combat with the IMC forces offers the player a standard selection of hand weapons - light machine guns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and so on - and a similar range of loadouts and options for Titan to Titan battles. If I have one complaint about the game, I'd like to have seen more time spent in piloting my Titan in order to lock in weapon skills and defensive options.

The wallrunner/double jump challenges give the game a bit of a platformer feel at times, but they're well integrated into the flow of the game, and the developers have helpfully included a holographic guide that demonstrates the path that players need to take to reach their goal. Even with that guide, I struggled a bit with the exact angle of attack to maximize my runs, but after a few fatal falls I seemed to have it locked in.  

Which is good, as it turned out, because wall running is definitely a crucial part of moving forward with the game. This can cause its own problems - as an example, it took me more than a few tries to work out the exact jump kit/wall run timing for the trio of generators in the Beacon level, to the point where I had almost given up on the game.

I did eventually hit the right combination of running, jumping, and double jumping, after which I was relieved to see that the game did a save before subjecting me to any more barriers.  

The addition of time travel capabilities adds some clever puzzles to the game. Your character obtains a time controller that lets them hop from the present to the past and back again as necessary - it's a clever idea that requires the player to jump back to a functional research facility in order to access undamaged passages and bridges, and to jump back to the present to avoid security forces.  At one point, it's necessary to coordinate time travel jumps to be able to travel along support walls that don't exist in the present, requiring a carefully timed series of literal leaps of faith.

Bottom line?  It's an enjoyable challenging game. It's nicely locked into my difficulty zone so that it's demanding but not impossible (although I was starting to wonder during the Beacon level), the environments are well mapped out, detailed and visually interesting, it uses a standard interface pattern for all of the basic functions, making for a more manageable learning curve, and the various Titan weapon and defense choices provide an interesting strategic challenge in terms of selecting appropriate options for each opponent.  As above, my primary interest is first person shooters, but the various platform/runner challenges are cleverly constructed and unexpectedly interesting.

Online estimates have the run time for the narrative storyline to be about six hours, which works out to sixty-six and a half cents an hour based on the price I paid - I didn't time my play, but it still sounds like a good return on investment to me. 

- Sid

* I've had some minor experience with online arena gaming, but it doesn't really speak to me - I'm much happier banging away at computer opponents without having to deal with judgemental critiques of my skill level.  As an example, I very much enjoyed the original Battlefield 2142, now sadly defunct, but I was completely unprepared for the chaos of competing with dedicated human competitors online when I attempted the co-op PVP mode.