The View From Here

No, I am not in Puerto Rico.  The title just worked.  You will see.

I know that the weather won’t stay this cool for long, so I wanted to quickly capitalize on the coolness outside, cementing it in histroy by writing about it on my blog.  I stepped out of my house this morning to a bisque fifty-something degrees.  I absolutely love breathing in that cooler air.  It is very invigorating.  The last couple days have inspired me to grow, what I am calling, a trial-beard.  I know that the temperatures will go back up for a couple more weeks so I won’t keep it long but at least I can act like the weather will stay this way from here on out.  I believe that fall is my favorite time of year.

One of the great things that fall brings besides the weather (actually because of the weather) is opportunities to do inside activities, like board games!  Most of you who know me know that I am not talking about your Monopoly-type-games here.  Even thought those are great games there are many games that I have found or been introduced to that far outpace the Monopolies of the world.

I don’t know exactly how to categorize these games.  Most of them are designed in Germany so I guess it is safe to call them Deutschland games.  That might be too much of a mouthful so maybe I will just go with G-games.  I digress.  We were introduced to one of these G-games last night at a couple’s house from church.  It is great to find other people who enjoy these games with the same intensity that we do.

I have wanted to play Puerto Rico for a while now but haven’t had the money or opportunity to.  Let me just say that it is a great game with deep strategy.  Since last night was my first time to play I know I am just scratching the surface but I can see how deep this game could go.  At the same time it was very accessible.  My wife and I both picked it up quickly and had fun playing in our first play.  It is no surprise that this game has gotten the great reviews that it has.  Check it out a FunAgainGames.com.

If the above is all you need to know to be happy, great.  If you want to know some more details then read on. Puerto Rico is all about commodity producing and trading.  The trading aspect isn’t between players, it is with a market.  This does limit the player interaction a bit but this wasn’t an issue for me.  The turns revolve around taking the actions of some set professions.  There are (I believe) seven professions and the players choose which profession they want to use that turn based on the actions the profession can take and the special abilities it has.

For example, if someone chooses the Settler, they take the Settler action and the get the Settler bonus.  Everyone else will take the settler action in turn but does not get the bonus.  The settler cannot be picked by anyone else that turn.  You try to pick the profession that will help you the benefit you the most and help other players the least.

You produce resources using plantations of different kinds of resources (corn, indigo, sugar, and coffee) and matching them with factories.  Not only do you have to have both of these, you have to have both “peopled” to produce a product.  “Peopled” just means that you have to have colonists working both the plantation and the factory in order for them to work to produce a product.  The colonists come from the Mayor profession.  There are other buildings in the game that you can build that provide other benefits.

Once you have produced resources (using the Craftsman profession) you can load them on ships (using the Captain profession) to earn victory points.  You can also earn victory points at the end of the game through the buildings you have built throughout.  The person with the most victory points at the end wins, but that should be obvious.  Play time for people who know the game would probably be about an hour and a half or so.

The game is much deeper than what I have described here.  If I had put all of the ins and outs of Puerto Rico in four paragraphs then I would probably have a job writing instruction manuals for board games.  I am happy to say that I have finally played this game and I look forward to playing it again, and again.

Brian

Before you begin to think that all my wife and I do is watch Heroes, know that Season 2 is much shorter than the first one.  Less than half as long.  This is what almost killed it for us.  I say almost because we really ended up enjoying it.  It seemed like the creative team had gotten off track from the things that made the first season so great but they corrected this by the end.

When we watched the first season, Lacey and I were excited about what was happening.  We spent time talking about what we thought was going to happen and how awesome we thought some plot or character element was, but the first few episodes of the second season left us kind of bored.  Granted, the first season was similar in that we didn’t really know what was going on for  a while but it still kept us interested and then the story picked up.  This is what kept us watching Season 2.  By the end we were having the same conversations about it that we were about Season 1.  I knew that they planned on it being a normal length season so they were starting slowly and then building it into a great story.  This is what the first season was like.  I can honestly say that by the end I was not disappointed.  It was shorter so it felt rushed in some parts but the story came together.  If the writers strike hadn’t happened I think that the second season would have been almost as good as the first.  As it is, it was good but it doesn’t compare with the awesomeness that was the first season.

So we are now all caught up with the rest of the world and we are really looking forward to Season 3 which will be coming on later this month.  We are very excited!

One of the biggest pluses for me with this show is that both my wife and I really enjoy it.  It is important to me that we find things that we enjoy doing together.  Heroes has turned into that for us.

Brian

What does one do with a long weekend provided by Labor Day?  Finish off the first season of Heroes with friends!  So at this point we sit on the edge of finding out if this show will turn into another Lost or if it will keep our attention through the second season.

Let me talk a little about Season 1 (as vaguely as possible to avoid spoiling it for anyone who has not seen it).  I really enjoyed the characters of this show.  Just a few episodes in all the actors seemed to own their characters and the watcher was able to get attached to them.  Most of them are deep and have an intriguing past to find out about  I felt like the story was very well done.  It move at a quick pace only faltering a couple times with plot lines that seemed to be filler.    One of the problems I had with Lost was it was very melodramatic.  Heroes didn’t seem to have a big problem with this.  The characters actions seemed true to the characters and most of their actions were based on some driving force and not just drama for the sake of drama.  There was a little less action than I would have liked to see but I am hoping that as our heroes progress we will see more of this.  Overall this is probably the best show of its kind that I have watched and I am really looking forward to season 2.

If you are planning on watching this show based on my recommendation please know that there is some fast-forward-able content at the beginning of the show and in a couple other places.

Let me talk a little about TV shows in general and what I think would make them better.  The biggest difference to me between movies and TV shows like Heroes is time.  Movies pack a lot into a short time period and TV shows pack a lot into a much longer time period.  There are many positives and negatives to this but I think the main ones for TV are these:

• Positive:  There is much more time for character development and story telling.
• Negative: There is much more time for the show to lose itself.

Many shows lose themselves.  They don’t develop enough ideas to fill the time they have so they end up stretching the ones they do have too thin.  They drag things out and don’t resolve them so the viewer ends up frustrated but they enjoy the ideas that were present enough to come back and see if the show does it better the next season, usually to be disappointed.

Another problem TV shows seem to force on themselves is the idea that they are like a drug.  The makers seem to think that the more people get of something the more they are going to want.  They think they have to up the ante until the show is not fun to watch because it is so ridiculous.

I don’t know if my solutions would be doable because I don’t know the money or time constraints on developing a TV show but here they are nonetheless.  First, don’t stretch ideas too thin.  Some plot ideas are worth more time than others.  When you don’t resolve one for longer than it is worth you frustrate the audience.  Spend more time developing ideas to make sure you have enough to fill the time you have.  Second, don’t get lazy with characters for the sake of drama.  Let the drama occur on it’s own, don’t force it.  If you don’t have it then maybe you don’t have characters that are good enough.  Third, show people what they want to see.  In Heroes I want to see some more action.  I want to see what the heroes can do when they have to.  We were teased with this in an episode late in the first season so hopefully the second season will deliver.  And if you do tease then deliver soon.  I remember in Smallville how long it took after the tease for something to occur and it wasn’t good.  That is why I quit watching.  Cliff hangers are OK just don’t drag them out over five episodes (or multiple seasons in the case of Lost).  Lastly, TV shows need to take a page from movies and resolve some things quicker.  Dragging things out causes tension which is good but too much tension immediately kills what you were trying to create.  Don’t let it get to that.  Timely resolution will create a content audience.  There may need to be a few more ideas present if you resolve them quicker but that is well worth it.  A content audience is much better than a frustrated one.

So far Heroes has done these things mostly well and because of that I am really looking forward to watching season 2.  Leave me a comment and let me know what your favorite TV shows are and why.

Brian

I am always a late-comer to TV shows.  24, Lost, Seinfeld, and now Heroes.  There are a few reasons for this.  One, I don’t like watching shows from week to week.  Two, I am not always home to watch the latest episode and I don’t want to miss one in the middle of the season (and I don’t have Tivo).  Three, I don’t like the garbage that is usually mixed in for ratings (be warned that if you are planning on watching this show there is some fast-forwardable content).  So by the time it releases on DVD I already know if it is worth watching and I can solve all of the above three problems.

So season three of Heroes is starting and we are just now getting around to watching the first season.  So far I am intrigued.  We have only watched the first few episodes but it as already grabbed us.  I would love to get my hopes up at this point but we did have a pretty bad Lost experience.  It started strong and then the list of unanswered questions didn’t shorten, it just got longer.  Lost never seemed to be able to answer any questions by the middle of the second season and we were tired of it.  I hope Heroes doesn’t do that to us.  Maybe that is just the way modern Television goes these days.

If you have watched this show and have an opinion give me a comment.  For now my wife and I are enjoying it.  I will keep you posted.

Brian

So, the weekend has finally come and gone and I have seen the movie I have been anticipating for a long while.  If all you read is the first couple lines of this blog post, know this, The Dark Knight delivers in a huge way.  Also know that it is a marathon of a movie.  What I mean by that is it is long (two and a half hours without previews), it is intense, it is dark, and it is awesome.

Let the record show that I really enjoy long movies when all the elements come together.  I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies.  They were well done.  They were epic.  The acting was great.  The story was wonderful.  The writing was superb.  And the director knew what to do with these elements.   The same can be said of The Dark Knight in every instance.  And all of this from a superhero flick.  You expect the flash, bang, and boom of special effects but not a movie that I would consider one of the best I have seen.

Long movies also allow for deep character development.  With the origin story out of the way we can delve deeper into the Batman mythos.  We get to see Bruce Wayne/Batman deal with choosing the moral thing despite what people think of him.  We get to see the rise and fall of another Gotham hero.  We get to see more of Gordon’s character and interaction with Batman.  And, yes, we get to see a lot of the much-talked-about Joker.  And since the movie is a long one it gives the director (Christopher Nolan) time to allow us to get to know this place and these characters in a deeper way.

Speaking of characters, let me talk for a moment about the actors in this film.  I did not see a weak link in the casting.  Every major character really stepped up and made the role theirs.  Heath Ledger, the most talked about for sure, brought the Joker to the screen in a phenomenal way.  When you watched him, you saw the character and not the actor.  He was funny in a very demented way and is probably the best villain I can recall seeing in a movie.  His character didn’t seem to have a weakness (other than to assume that others were like him).  Christian Bale was solid again.  Gary Oldman was allowed more screen time which allowed him to flesh out Gordon even more.  Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman were both great and added a little (lighter) humor that the film needed.  Maggie Gyllenhaal was a great replacement for Katie Holmes.

Without good writing the actors would have had a much harder time pulling this movie off but that was not a problem.  The writing was superb.  I am hard pressed to think of a sequence that didn’t work because of the dialogue.  The story twists and turns and keeps the audience on their toes wondering what will come next.  Several story elements were even unexpected.  The story was not shallow.  There was depth, complexity, and imminent peril present constantly.

With all the good that can be said of this movie, like anything else, it’s not perfect.  If you a concerned about spoilers then don’t read this paragraph until after you have seen the movie.  The transformation of Harvey Dent into Two Face seemed a little rushed.  The events that led him to this transformation were tragic enough to push someone over the edge but it just happened too fast.  Even with that said, the Two Face character was a perfect mirror with his twisted sense of justice to the Harvey Dent character.  The only other issue I had was with a plot element.  Somehow, we end up with two ferries on the river, one with normal people and one with convicts which set up the climactic showdown.  How did this just happen?  These were supposed to be people trying to flee the Joker’s “game”.  It just seemed a bit contrived and scripted.  I think it could have been just as compelling if both ferries were filled with normal people.  I know, I am nitpicking here.  Both of these items are  small in comparison to the overall greatness of this movie.

The Dark Knight broke through many of the boundaries that usually typify movies from this genre.  It became something more than a superhero movie.  It was a fantastic movie worth all the hype it has received.  The Dark Knight delivers on it’s promise.  It’s the total package.  Need I say more?  Go see it.

Brian