No “Power Ups” required
Joystiq has a clever write-up on the problems with past Superman games, aptly titled “Superman needs no health bar”:
That’s not to say a Superman title should be a walk in the park; far from it. Note the recently-released movie, Superman Returns. Our cape-loving superhero is invincible for at least 135 minutes of the film, yet the film still has suspense. Why? Because Superman must save others, and that would be a great start for a Superman game — no more “defend yourself” scenarios, but save as many people during a natural disaster as possible. If developers want a health bar, make it the current population of whatever location you happen to be saving. In this regard, a Superman game could be an intense, real-time puzzle, jumping from disaster to disaster, making split-second decisions, in order to save as many lives as possible.
Swishbuckler?
In a summer that’s been packed with “franchise” players like Superman, Ethan Hunt and Wolverine, perhaps the biggest player is still to come, as Captain Jack Sparrow and Pirates of the Caribbean 2 are set to hit theaters this Friday.
The New York Daily News recently spoke with Johnny Depp about Captain Jack and his scholarly research into the role:
Depp says he was intrigued by a scholarly work titled “Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition.” “I liked the idea of [Jack] being ambiguous,” he tells Mark Binelli in the new summer double issue of Rolling Stone. “Because women were thought to be bad luck on ships. And these pirates would go out for years at a time. So, you know, there is a possibility that one thing might lead to another. You’re lonely. You have an extra ration of rum. ‘Cabin boy!’”…
Both Disneyland and Walt Disney World have modified their Pirates of the Caribbean rides to add characters from the film, including Jack Sparrow and the new villain Davy Jones. Allears.net has pictures and a report from the WDW ride. Meanwhile, the Disney Blog takes a look at recent allegations that the movie’s villain, Davy Jones, was lifted from the video game Monkey Island.
Related: The Last Buccaneer (Rolling Stone)
More on “Scanner”
The L.A. Times takes an in-depth look at Richard Linklater’s latest two movies, “A Scanner Darkly” and “Fast Food Nation,” both adaptations of books with social messages:
“What would happen if the war on drugs were to be over? Or the war on terror were to be over?” he asks. “Nothing. You can’t declare victory in a war like that. So by calling it that, you’ve just enslaved all of us for a really endless Orwellian ideal …. If you look at the war on drugs, from the time it started, all that has happened is that the prison population has quadrupled. So that’s good for business. That’s good for politicians seeking reelection saying they’re tough on crime.”
Prisons, he says, are “really full of petty drug offenders who aren’t out to hurt anyone and haven’t often hurt anyone but themselves. They are kind of pawns in a bigger power game. So there are lots of things to be paranoid about, I think.”
He cycles through the themes of power, paranoia and the costs of feeding America’s hungers in a much different way in “Fast Food Nation.” The film, which opens this fall, shines an unflattering spotlight on America’s fast food industry, from immigrant-staffed slaughterhouses and teeming feedlots to contaminated meat supplies and the dreams of low-wage help working behind the counters of fast food restaurants.
