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timeagainreviews · 11 months

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The Monster Makeovers of Modern Who

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I would get back into the swing of things and talk about some monsters! No, not Rishi Sunak. Of course, I mean the monsters we actually enjoy! Daleks! Cybermen! And other horrors from the beyond that don’t try and turn trans people into scapegoats for their lack of policy. They say what you really mean- EXTERMINATE! Honesty, transparency, efficiency. Words so alien these days they belong only in Doctor Who! Mr Sunak, you’re so vain. You probably think this blog is about you. But it’s really about fashion. Specifically- makeovers!

I’ve been interested in filmmaking ever since Levar Burton took us to the set of Star Trek on Reading Rainbow. Like Doctor Who, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” had its own makeover to attempt. They needed to establish a new look from the original series, while still implying continuity. Whole teams came together to reimagine the look of the ship’s interior, the look of the aliens, both classic and new, and even how the characters should dress. It’s truly inspiring to see these crews at work. These passionate people did their best with the available budget and resources. That said, I plan to deconstruct some of the makeovers of modern Doctor Who villains on an aesthetic and (at times) narrative level. It’s just a bit of levity for the horrors of Halloween, so let’s have some fun.

While the topic of updating classic baddies remains subjective, I’d like to think I’ve highlighted ways in which it can be objective. There are no hard rules to the process, but perhaps there are guidelines. I’ve noted a list of classic Doctor Who monsters that have since returned in the new series to discuss which designs I feel were successful and which ones missed the mark. Some of the criticisms I express will already be known to you. The Paradigm Daleks were notoriously reviled amongst fans. But hopefully. some of my opinions may surprise you. I’ve decided to exclude certain redesigns like the Movellans due to their lack of screen time. And while the Ood and Minotaur are cousins of the Sensorites and Nimon respectively, they’re technically not a proper redesign. I will however be covering the cousins of the Silurians- Homo-Reptilia, as they are very much meant to serve the same purpose. I’m presenting this list in alphabetical order, but some creatures will be listed together as a subspecies of another. Buckle up because this is going to be a long one!

Autons

As a child growing up in 90s Kansas, one of my favourite places to visit was the mall. The mall my grandpa used to take me to was known for its extravagant features. One of my favourite things, however, was a clothing store that used mannequins that interacted with the space around them. I don’t mean they moved, but rather that they were dynamically posed. My favourite leaned against the shop window with the palm of its hand. I had never seen that sort of display before. It made them feel as though they were merging into the real world. They were hip if not a touch creepy. I couldn’t tell you the name of the store, but I remember those mannequins. And aside from a granite finish, they looked like the Autons from 2005’s debut episode “Rose.”

Had the Autons returned looking like 70’s mannequins, they would still look creepy. But it would evoke more of a kitschy retro shop than something from a London high street. The creepiness of the Autons isn’t anachronistic, but rather in being timely. The less we notice them, the better. They wear their mundanity like a tiger wears stripes. You only noticed it move when it’s ready. This is a roundabout way for me to say they are brilliantly redesigned. They look modern, and you wouldn’t even notice them if you weren’t predisposed to Doctor Who. They’re exactly the featureless dummy you expect to see in a shop window. The moment their hand gun opens, you would be taken by complete surprise.

A benefit of the Autons coming first alphabetically is that it allows me an opportunity early on to address performance. Because like they say- looks aren’t everything. A Doctor Who baddie is so much more than a costume. And a minor sticking point for me is that the Autons can seem as though they hired a bunch of pop-lockers to stand around in sweaty suits. I’m reminded of the movie theatre scene from “Human Traffic,” where the employees mechanically go about their work. It’s a small grievance, but I wish they would have created a less familiar form of movement than the robot. They’re a hivemind and yet each dancer is doing their own form of popping. I know it costs time and money to do, but it would have been cool to see those dancers come up with a more alien system of movement. It’s not as though the ballet dancers chosen to portray the Weeping Angels were performing pirouettes.

This problem persisted into the Moffat era with Roman Autons. While they were under the impression that they were human, they moved about and spoke like humans. But the moment the Nestine consciousness takes root, their bodies move into a sort of robotic marching. Suddenly whirring can be heard from alien actuators and servos that make no sense for living plastic. Once again, it feels as though they would rather speak in a familiar voice of filmmaking than create one. We all know that little android sounds and robotic movements mean they’re mindless automatons, hell it’s the root of Auton. But the idea of living plastic is so much weirder than a robot. I would love to see them lean more into that.

Cybermen/Cybermats/10th Planet Cybermen

Having started my foray into Doctor Who with Paul McGann and then moving on to the 2005 series, most of the baddies on this list were brand new to me. When I did finally work my way to classic Doctor Who, I was a bit surprised to find the early Cybermen leaned more into the “men,” aspect of their name. Not only were they more articulate than repeating “Delete,” ad nauseum, but their bodies were less robotic. They moved like men. The Cybermen may be the first time I looked at a Doctor Who villain and thought “Oh the old versions were much better.”

This isn’t to say that I disliked the RTD Cybermen, but rather, I find classic Cybermen more effective. While the Cybus Cybermen felt dangerous and militaristic, they lack the humanity present in the Tenth Planet Cybermen. They remind me of the zombies from Return of the Living Dead- they’re smarter, faster, and they feel like the reanimated body of a dead person. You do get glimpses of this in these Cybermen, like in “The Pandorica Opens,” where you see a Cyberhead open to reveal a rotting human skull. The glimpses of the conversion process also imply a deeper dread of body horror.

I would argue that the Moffat era understood the walking dead aspect of the Cybermen better than the Davies era. In “Dark Water/Death in Heaven,” Moffat even pays homage to Return of the Living Dead by reanimating a graveyard of corpses with tainted rain. By this time, the look of the Cybermen had been streamlined from their Cybus look to their svelt “Nightmare in Silver,” look. I liked this redesign as it reminded me of the 80’s Cybermen with their silver space boots. They look more like men than robots. This slimmed-down look was realised even further in the Chibnall era, while also going for a more classic head style. As much as that era of the show disappointed me, its Cybermen were fantastic.

Not every Cyberman update aimed to reinvent their look, however. The updated look for the Tenth Planet Cybermen in “World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls,” merely added detail to their original appearance. Much like the Type 40 TARDIS the 12th Doctor steals from Gallifrey, the idea was to modernise the look for the high-definition cameras of the modern age. Because of this, these Cybermen may be my favourite of the modern era. It was a risky choice to change their bare hands to flesh-tone gloves, but I understand the decision. I had always liked that the Tenth Planet Cybermen’s hands were bare skin. Historically, hands are one of the hardest things to reproduce in robotics. It also felt that the Cybermen’s hands were the last remaining vestige of their humanity. None of this is lost with the inclusion of gloves. These Cybermen are a nightmare to behold. They languish in physical pain, calling out for solace. The conversion process is still traumatic and bloody. They are horrific.

Another element of the Cybermen that was updated for the new series were the Cybermats. The look of the Cybermats, much like the Cybermen, has always changed, so it’s hard to feel too precious about a redesign. And their appearance in “Closing Time,” is no different. I’ve always liked the look of the modern Cybermat. Their eye shape is a pleasing nod to the Cybermen’s eyes while also calling back to their original appearance. Their segmented tails give an armoured appearance which evokes small creatures like armadillos and insects. My only real complaint about these little munchers would be their very organic teeth. I always figured the “mat” part of their name was meant to be a play on “rat,” so if you were to give them teeth at all, why not rat teeth? What tiny creature was converted to make these little abominations? In the classic series, I never really thought of Cybermats having anything organic about them. You could argue that the Cybermats from “Revenge of the Cybermen,” were snakelike, but I never really thought of them as organic. Regardless, I’m now trolling eBay for one of the 1:1 replicas they sold.

Daleks/Davros

Before their return in 2005, the Daleks made the briefest of cameos in the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, sort of. Since we only ever hear their voices, we have no idea what the Daleks would have looked like. Judging by those voices, it’s safe to say they probably would have been a bit of a departure from their general appearance throughout classic Doctor Who. Especially when you consider that adaptations in the ‘90s were known to go for new extremes in design. That’s not to say they would have been bad. The Eighth Doctor’s cathedral-like TARDIS interior was a far cry from the brightly lit round things of the ‘80s TARDISes, and it’s probably my favourite interior. But there is no denying it would be challenging to redesign the universe’s most iconic monsters.

By this measure, I consider the black and bronze Daleks of the RTD era to be a stonking success. Their redesign is mostly effective because it doesn’t aim to reinvent the wheel. It maintains the overall silhouette of the Dalek in a way that makes it immediately recognisable. The changes we do see feel utilitarian, lending these Daleks a tanky quality. You can imagine these Daleks as a product of war. They’re reinforced for battle and feel powerful. Honestly, zero notes. I can’t find a single area for improvement. They even look good in other colours and attachments. Even the mutant inside the casing was given some much-needed continuity in appearance. Where the mutant of the classic series often changed in appearance, it’s now established that Daleks are one-eyed brain squids under all that metal. Simple as can be. No need to change anything.

Enter the Paradigm Daleks. As I said above, the Paradigm Daleks aren’t exactly well-received by the fandom, and not without good reason. I’ve seen at least four different Mighty Morphin’ Power Daleks mash-ups of their big reveal in “Victory of the Daleks.” But is being a big colourful hate machine that bad? I will admit, their silhouette is a bit chonky, giving them bumble-bee bums. But their eye stalks look lethal and their voice modulation fills me with dread down to my stomach. The creepy goat eye nestled in the end of an eyestalk that looks like it would cut to the touch is a great change. I also really like the idea of them having different roles indicated by colour rank. What the hell is an Eternal Dalek? I still want to know.

The biggest issue with the Paradigm Dalek redesign is that unlike it’s predecessor, it seems to miss what is actually scary about Daleks. For starters, Daleks have no concept of elegance, so why the clean lines on the casing? Those neck louvres (that’s what I’m calling them), are far too stylised. Gone is their tank-like appearance, save for their brutal eyestalks. They made them taller as to appear more formidable, which further bolsters why they miss the mark. If you can’t make an hate-filled monster covered in armour scary, the problem isn’t height, it’s writing. Also, we stan a short king in this house.

It’s hard to take the Chibnall-era Dalek redesigns too seriously, because neither of them ever felt like they were meant to be permanent. One was meant to look like a Dalek made of scrap metal, because it was, while the other was the bi-product of two evil forces- the Daleks and the Tories. The “Revolution” Daleks do look a bit like a bootleg toy of a Dalek you could win at a fun fair. Or the result of an AI prompt for the word Dalek. Regardless, they’re fit for purpose and don’t affect my opinion one way or the other. If they had stuck around, I may feel a bit different.

Not to be excluded from the redesign process is the Daleks’ crazed creator- Davros. By the end of the classic era, Davros had a bit of a Rickety Cricket thing going where every time we see him, he’s progressively more mutilated. In the end, he was just a Futurama-style head in a jar. The Davros of the new series is back to a more classic silhouette. His one arm has returned as a cybernetic limb, while the other remains suspiciously under his keyboard. Typing one-handed eh Dave? He’s been given some gimp leather to wear, and his chair has taken on the same armoured look of the Davies Daleks. Much like the mutant inside the casing, Davros has been given a baseline appearance and it's an effective one. Couple that with Julian Bleach’s perfect performance, and you’ve got another success.

Ice Warriors

Who doesn’t love a good Ice Warrior? They’re forever cool (no pun intended). While not always villainous, they are fierce and formidable. They’re also a bit weird. The original Ice Warriors stood taller than your average Doctor Who alien. And there is something about their deep green carapace that feels believable. These battle-hardened reptiles wore their outer shells like armour. At the joints of these plated segments sprang tufts of fur. From a costuming perspective, these patches would have been used to hide seams and add points of visual interest for the average black-and-white television. From a narrative perspective, the hair only added to their weirdness. In short, I like the classic Ice Warriors very much.

The Ice Warriors are also the first classic baddie redesign I had to wait to see. By the time I had started watching Doctor Who, Matt Smith was filming series six. The Ice Warriors don’t make their return until series seven, which gave me ample opportunity to imagine what they would look like. What we got was bang on what I had hoped for. They leaned into the weird and won in a big way. When “Cold War,” aired, there was a bit of contention about the reveal of an Ice Warrior outside of its armour. Perhaps it’s because their helmets possess a sort of Judge Dredd quality that in turn causes people to think you can’t show Ice Warriors without their helmets. But they’re going full Stallone and it’s fine. Dare I say it’s even a bit cool?

A sticking point for me on the redesign was the lack of their stupid Lego Minifigure hands, which I love. But when you see their long skinny fingers reaching with their claws out, you might need to give the suit some fingers as well. Their reptilian aspects are also celebrated in their redesign. The Empress is a ferocious take on the look of the commander rank Ice Warriors. I said in my review of “Empress of Mars,” that the guns that turn people into cubes were a bit silly, and I still feel that way. And sure, I would have appreciated the odd "Ssss," at the beginning of an S word. But in the end, they allowed the Ice Warriors to shine for what they are, and that’s all that matters.

The Macra

One of my least favourite Pokémon designs is Raichu. You have Pikachu, an almost perfect marriage of form and cuteness. How do you improve on such a design? You can’t. This is why Raichu’s little curly-Q ear tufts and embellished lines look less like an evolution, and more like someone who didn’t know how to stop drawing Pikachu. Or when to stop spelling bananana. You just can’t improve on perfection. Now you’re probably wondering two things right now-

Why the drive-by on Raichu?

What does this have to do with the Macra?

To answer the second question- “absolutely nothing.” And that’s the point. There was no perfection to mess up in the case of the Macra. The originals looked like a pile of playground equipment. The only place to go was up. First order on the list- does it look like a giant crab? Yes. List over.

Changing the Macra by devolving them into dumb beasts only adds to this winning revamp. Why were they at the bottom of the motorway of New New York? Had their nefarious plot backfired reducing them to mere monsters? It’s a great little incorporation of characters lesser showrunners would have called "embarrassing." I love the Macra. I love that they didn’t overdo the Macra. I love that they don’t tell us everything. Whatever crab rave they had going on down there will be lost to time. Or until Big Finish takes a crack at it.

The Mara

I will admit, this one is a bit of a cheat. It’s one of two on this list that you may think of as a cheat. But hey, they brought the Mara back in the web short “The Passenger,” for the season 20 Blu-ray release. I’m counting it! I’m also counting it because the Mara have been updated not once, but twice to a modern CGI standard. Plus it gives me a chance to talk about “Snakedance,” which I will always relish.

The practice of replacing old footage with newer CGI is not without its detractors. George Lucas released the special edition of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997 and people are still arguing about it. I’m in two minds about it myself. I like some of the changes they’ve made to Star Wars, ‘60s Star Trek, and even Doctor Who. I dream of the day when they take a crack at Babylon 5. But it also has its limitations. I would be upset if they updated the model shots of Scaroth’s ship in “City of Death.” But in the case of a goofy pink snake puppet? Fine by me.

That is not to say I don’t find the snake puppets of both “Kinda,” and “Snakedance,” charming. They certainly are. But they’re also so very distracting. There’s the suspension of disbelief and then there’s the stifling of laughter. If you can get past the snake, you will see both “Kinda,” and “Snakedance,” for what they are- some of the best of Classic Doctor Who. The CGI snake does exactly that and nothing more. It’s not even a fancy CGI model. Someone probably downloaded a rattlesnake asset and coloured it pink, and that’s absolutely fine. It’s another Macra situation. Does it look more “snake,” than “snek?” Yes. List over.

The Nestine Consciousness

In the words of Vito Corleone- “Look how they massacred my boy!” Ok, maybe massacred is a bit harsh. But even by series one standards, that CGI pool of molten plastic is pretty damn awful. I say this with a handful of caveats. Yes, this was essentially a pilot for the relaunch of the series. Yes, the production crew was brand new. No, the budget wasn’t huge. You could probably list more reasons, but my point is made. They did their best.

I don’t need to ask why an amorphous blob was easier to depict than a giant space squid. Hell, it was too expensive in the '70s. We only ever saw it’s tentacles back then! I had to use Andrew Skilleter’s illustration from the Target novelisation of “Terror of the Autons.” Mostly because the show never shows the entire squid and also because Skilleter owns! But the kid who grew up on ‘90s Nickelodeon and Beetlejuice in me will never think of a pool of goo as an upgrade from a space squid. It’s just not gonna happen.

As returning readers may have noticed, in the “rad vs. trad,” debate, I have always sided with rad. I like Doctor Who a bit weird. So weird that I am arguing that something is weirder than a glowing vat of sentient plastic. But here I am. The beauty is that RTD explained the change as a devolved form of the Nestine Consciousness. Maybe it was temporary. The squid may return yet! Furthermore, Doctor Who audiences have been watching Talking Tree and Raccoon movies in the intervening years. People are more open to weird these days. Add a bigger budget and we may see the comeback of the cosmic cephalopod!

Rutans

This is the other entry on this list that you may feel is a bit of a cheat. The above illustration on the right comes from an official Doctor Who video game titled “The Gunpowder Plot.” It is a redesign of the Rutan Host for the Matt Smith era. Seeing as their new design is meant to represent the style of the modern series, I’m counting it.

As redesigns go, this one had a lot of wiggle room. Usually only mentioned by name, the only time we ever got to see a Rutan onscreen was “The Horror of Fang Rock.” Throughout most of the story, the Rutan looks like a quenelle of green jelly sloughing slowly up the stairs of a lighthouse. When I was five, my trip to Cocoa Beach was cut short due to an outbreak of jellyfish. The one I almost stepped on with my bare foot looked a lot like that. It’s not hard for me to imagine a little green blob as dangerous.

It feels almost too perfect then that the Rutan redesign would land somewhere in the vicinity of a jellyfish. While they are capable of shapeshifting, tentacles do add to their base physical prowess. You can imagine one of them holding their own against a Sontaran. You can imagine one wrapped around one of their potato noggins and it being lights out. Whoever worked on that game has done the show a favour if they ever bring the Rutans back. Green electric jellyfish will do just fine.

Sea Devils

Back when I reviewed “Legend of the Sea Devils,” I mused that it followed the tradition of Sea Devils stories being “not very interesting.” So it came as a bit of a shock to me back in June when Doctor Who Magazine readers ranked it the eighth-best story of the Pertwee era. What were they seeing that I wasn’t? Because by my standards, it’s about two episodes too long. My thought is that people love it mainly for two reasons- cool vehicles and the Sea Devils themselves. Much like the St Paul’s Cathedral shot from “The Invasion,” the shot of the Sea Devils emerging from the sea is doing most of the heavy lifting. Such is the legacy of effective imagery.

The element of the Sea Devils’ look that has aged the poorest has to be their netted tunics. They look dingy and cheap. I imagine on some level, they helped, as Adam Savage would say, “hide the crimes,” of the costume department. The costumes weren’t playing on camera so maybe they added the netting. I’m just speculating here. After all, their cousins, the SIlurians, walked around in the buff. The next time we see the Sea Devils in “Warriors of the Deep,” they’re decked out in a sort of Samauri attire. Just because they lived underwater doesn’t mean the Sea Devils were unaffected by Feudal Japan. Nobody seems to have cared about this change in costuming. Or perhaps they were busy recoiling from the Myrka. The Silurians remained true to their nudist lifestyle.

Other than the Daleks and the Weeping Angels with Paul Dano’s face of the Chibnall era, I rather liked most of its character redesigns. I particularly liked the Sea Devils. I like that they kept their big fishy eyes and turtle beaks. And did you catch that adorable Baby Sea Devil from “Defenders of Earth?” That thing looks like a cross between Grogu and my own pet tortoise and I would kill for it. Like the Dalek update of the Davies era, they kept the silhouette intact and simply gave it a more believable appearance. Are the eyes a bit more cartoony? Yes. Is that fantastic? Also yes.

The major change to the look of the Sea Devils are their costumes. They’re a sort of mash-up of Asian influences with little references to the netting of their first appearance. If you’re a big fan of the Sea Devils, I think it would be hard to complain about their appearance here. Their bismuth-encrusted swords are a nice addition (just don’t let them touch your skin). You can imagine them as swashbuckling monsters who once ruled the sea. Now if only someone could come along and give them a proper adventure to star in!

Silurians

Much like the Royal Family, Doctor Who writers get a lot of leeway out of the word “cousin.” It covers a multitude of sins. Such is the case when dealing with the Silurians and their cousins- Homoreptila. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it line of dialogue that I unfortunately missed the first time around. I was too busy blinking in disbelief at how depressing Broadchurch with lizards could be. It wasn’t until revisiting the two-part story “The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood,” that I finally heard the line explaining the discrepancy.

Why that matters is that it’s the reason I had a two-year chip on my shoulder about the Silurian redesign. This isn’t to say I thought they looked bad. The makeup job on the modern Silurians is very good. They just don’t look like Silurians. It bothered me because one of the things I liked about Doctor Who is that it often set itself apart from Star Trek. Star Trek aliens are more often than not- rather humanoid. This has always felt like a storytelling device more than anything. Less makeup equals more of the actor’s performance shining through. Doctor Who, on the other hand, asks its viewers to see something relatable in something inhuman. You can still make this complaint against “The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood,” because it does feel like they wanted you to see the human inside the Silurian costume. They couldn’t resist the Spielbergian desire to give the lizards soulful human eyes.

Any design change seems to stem directly from this need, so it feels difficult to judge them otherwise. Even their dehumanising masks were more of a measure to save money on facial prosthetics, though they do add an air of mystery. Those black-eyed masks were downright exciting until they took them off to reveal a very human face. Had they gone with those masks as their faces, I might have been able to overlook the exclusion of their third eye. It would have been very easy to modernise as well. Many reptiles and amphibians have what is known as a parietal eye on top of their heads. They can even sense fluctuations in light. Incorporating one into the design would have been very easy. That said, the ridges on their heads are in keeping with their original design and very striking. Especially on Madame Vastra.

Along with their masks, these Silurians are different in that they are no longer nudists. They now wear clothes. It makes sense that they did this. Their new humanoid appearance makes clothing essential. No need to adapt “The Lusty Argonian Maid,” for television. The costumes aren’t bad either. The netting feels like yet another call-back to their other cousins- the Sea Devils. Even their new guns do a good job echoing the disc-shaped guns the Sea Devils carried but with the aesthetics of the modern era. All in all, this redesign is fine, but I still yearn to see a proper Silurian in the modern style.

Sontarans

Tumblr user “zagreus-eats-your-bread,” once said of the Chibnall era Sontarans- “Big fan of the redesign. They finally look like absolute shit again. He looks like a knee.” While to some, that sounds like faint praise, I couldn’t agree with their sentiment more. The Sontarans looked awful in classic Doctor Who and I love them for that. There was something unsettling about the way Linx’s tongue would pulsate in “The Time Warrior.” The whiskers poking from his brow and mottled face only added to his vile appearance. His helmet towered over others as he sized them up. A striking foe if there ever was one.

It’s odd then, that the Davies era decided to make the Sontarans squat in stature. They even explain that it is due to the high gravity of Sontar that they’re so short. Their bodies developed for load-bearing. It made sense narratively and wasn’t really a problem. Like I said above- we stan a short king. The problems arose sometime in the Moffat era. The Sontarans had gone from dynamite in a small package to comic relief. I hesitate to blame Strax, but he is when this started to happen.

Cynicism is likely the cause. Writers looked at the Sontarans and said “Ha, potato head and a short body!” One of the fiercest races in Doctor Who history was reduced to an army too stupid to realise that an invisible tank left them completely visible inside. It’s like when people think of the Daleks as embarrassing because they look like pepper pots and completely ignore the fact that they’re also genocidal maniacs. This is why I appreciated Chris Chibnall’s desire to add some ferocity back into the Sontarans. Their stature had returned to that of the classic look, which is fine. Unlike the Daleks, there was a precedent for a tall Sontaran. And yes, they looked like shit again. We could see the Sontarans as a threat once more. Oh, they’re stuck in an off-license eating chocolate like Augustus Gloop? Oh. Right.

Time Lords

I hemmed and hawed about whether I should include these guys or not. Do I add the Master while I’m at it? But in the end, many Time Lords are monsters and they too received a makeover. Though it isn’t much of one. In fact, I once read that aspects of their costumes were reused from the classic series. You could argue that their biggest redesign happened somewhere between their first appearance in “The War Games,” and “The Deadly Assassin.” They started out looking like a cult that formed in the basement of an Apple Store. But somewhere along the line, they got seriously into collars. It was the ‘70s after all. People’s shirts were 30% collar back then.

Sadly, while the overall look of the ‘70s Time Lords carried on into the modern era, they abandoned their love for colour. Rassilon being the Regina George of Time Lord society decided that we only wear red on Wednesdays. And seeing as they’re time travellers, it’s always Wednesday somewhere! So the Time Lords left their saffron and purple robes at the cleaners. Even the citizens of Gallifrey are shown in “The Day of the Doctor,” wearing variations of red and white. Everyone fell in line and fashion suffered.

When we see the Time Lords in “The Timeless Children,” they’re now wearing very stylish Cyberman headgear. Their red hoods have now been replaced with gold numbers laser-cut with Gallifreyan writing. I would call it a fashion breakthrough if not for the fact that everyone was still decked out in drab silver. I don’t want to see the Time Lords again until they take a page from the Fifteenth Doctor’s book and learn to diversify their wardrobe. Yas hunty! Werk!

Zygons

If you’ve not been to Neil Cole’s Museum of Classic Sci-fi in Hexham, you should do yourself a favour and change that. It’s a great day out, and if you’re lucky, Neil might even be available to chat. Something I learned when talking to Neil is that he has some rather strong opinions about the redesign of the Zygons. Primarily, their head shape. Throughout this article, I’ve praised some of the redesigns for their adherence to the basic silhouette of the baddies. If you were to show me either version of a Zygon in a silhouette I would identify them both as Zygons, but dammit Neil, you’re right. The head just isn’t right.

Initially, I thought it was the mouth shape, which is definitely different. When they redesigned the Zygons for “The Day of the Doctor,” my thought was “What happened to their kitty cat faces?” You may not see it, but I have always looked at classic Zygons and thought “Aw, there’s a Mister Kitty!” And they replaced their little button nose and philtrum with a set of far more human features. Seriously Moffat, what is it with you? They’re aliens! Let orange squid men covered in suckers have cat faces!

The top-heavy ridge of their heads gave them a sort of lumbering look, which may have been the impetus to change them. The Zygons of the 50th anniversary needed to do a fair bit of running. But it also detracts from the iconic lines that made them so striking back in 1975. Below the neck, the design choices make a lot of sense. Like the Ice Warriors, the goal seemed to be to add more texture and detail. The ribs seem more defined as do the suckers. Even their bio-tech devices are appropriately slimy and detailed. When they find Kate Stewart in that purple bubbly skin poncho, none of us are offering to trade places with her. Unless that’s your thing. Don’t let me yuck your yum.

My main qualm with the modern Zygon is less with their design and more with their physiology. The Zygons have always been squidgy shapeshifters. But since when do they turn people into smouldering balls of staticky hair? They tried to explain that this was a new development of technology, so why is one of the refugee Zygons able to use it on himself? It’s not as though the Zygon’s body is not already teeming with venomous stingers. If you’ve ever read Mark Morris’ “The Bodysnatchers,” you’ll know exactly what I mean. Mark does such a good job delving into the physiology of the Zygons that he set the standard by which I judge all future Zygon depictions. It’s seriously great stuff.

Aaaaand we're done! Phew! This one took a long time for me to write. I wanted to return with a bit of a long one because I haven't written anything in a while. My sister came to visit from July to August, so I had been very busy. Then I got ill, yadda yadda yadda. Expect to see more of me soon as I plan to cover the 60th Anniversary Specials and beyond. I may even review some classic Doctor Who in the meantime! Stay safe and take care!

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isolaradiale · 5 years

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The circle of flame that hung high in the sky persisted for seven days and seven nights, the city’s weather worsening over the course of that period without even a trace of explanation from the city’s creators. But that eve the state of things had worsened. The circle began to crackle as shards of flame began to rain down from its center.

“It’s the end of the world!”, one NPC cried, sparking panic among their fellow citizens as a ball of rock and fire crashed through a nearby building. It was a phenomenon that was taking place across the city’s entirety as mass panic set in. Hour after hour destruction reigned down upon the people with no end nor solution in sight. A monster arose, as did a voice to guide them. But during their last stand... they failed. And then came 12:00AM.

YOU DID YOUR BEST... BUT IT WAS NOT ENOUGH. FOR NOW I’VE SEALED IT. TWO WEEKS. YOU HAVE TWO WEEKS TO FIND THE STRENGTH TO STAND AGAIN... ELSE THE WORLD YOU ONCE KNEW WILL BE LOST FOREVER. PUT ASIDE YOUR WEAKNESS AND LOOK FOR WAYS TO JOIN HANDS. IF YOU INSIST ON TURNING YOUR BACKS TO YOUR COMRADES, THE CYCLE WILL MERELY REPEAT.

The circle of flames descended, expanded, consumed what was left of the island in its pitch black void. And for the citizens? Darkness. All encompassing, as if they’d been thrown into an absence of consciousness. Whatever the monster had been looking for in the hole, it had found it.

While they slept the city was reconstructed. Razed land reborn, a program booted up over the city’s landscape. To some it might have been familiar, to others it was a brand new concept: Fantasia.

When the people saw light next they’d find their surroundings, and quite possibly their own bodies, reborn. Fantasia was a fantasy realm, a remnant of a ‘harmless’ prank from a distant world, but this time it had set itself up upon Spirale. Through whose command? It remained a mystery.

Upon ‘waking’ the people of the city would find things very different from what they recalled. No longer was the city one of modern technology, but a realm of fantasy and magic separated into four kingdoms. Each kingdom was at war with one another, their people very different and desiring a sacred treasure known as the Fruit of Beginnings. Those torn from other worlds, in the eyes of the kings and rewritten NPCs, were to serve as heroes for their kingdom. Swearing allegiance they were supposed to either work or fight for the place of their choosing.

But that wasn’t all. Some would find themselves redesigned as well. Champions had to look the part of their world, did they not? And so Fantasia reformed the outsiders into denizens more fitting of the realm. Each kingdom is known for its primary race and primary monster race, and characters might find themselves reincarnated as one of them. Their powers retained, of course, but on top of them a number of talents unique to these races.

So welcome to this fantasy game -- nay, welcome to your new reality. It’s survival of the fittest in this world, and allegiance is key.

Welcome to part one of FANTASIA WAR, Isola’s first fantasy event!

First, a tl;dr:

the entire city has been re-purposed into a fantasy setting for the duration of this event.

characters are expected to ally themselves with one of the four kingdoms and aid in their efforts, be it as a soldier or a worker at home

there are eight fantasy races (four humanoid and four monster) available to have your character become upon waking at the event’s beginning; additionally you can just remain in your current form if you wish

each race has its own unique abilities and magic is a common skill in this world

all worldbuilding information can be found on this post

starting next week we’ll be posting quests that can be taken with small rewards as payout

part 1 is just an adjustment period to flesh out your character ideas for the setting

GENERAL FAQ A separate FAQ post will be made specific to the event once questions start rolling in. Due to the event’s nature we expect to receive plenty of them and will be using them to clarify world building and rules as necessary.

Will there be a reward for participating in this event? Maybe, maybe not.

Do we have to pick a fantasy race for our characters? Can they remain normal? You don’t need to change your character! It’s just a fun option for those interested. That said, you cannot change your fantasy race after picking it so choose carefully!

Are powers retained during this event? What if we pick a fantasy race? Regardless of picking a fantasy race or not your character will retain their normal abilities that they’ve unlocked in Isola. The only outliers to this would be abilities specific to your own character’s unique physiology. For example if a character was an android they wouldn’t have the technological merits if you changed them in a Beastkin, but you could substitute that loss with the natural strength of that race. Additionally if a power is deemed OP (such as conceptual abilities or mass item production) they will be locked for the entire event duration. Weapons will be retained no matter what, and any technological inconsistencies will be handwaved as ‘champion privilege’.

Can we use magic? Yes! All fantasy races can use magic. A list of available spells can be found here.

Are there any risks to entering a kingdom you aren’t allied with? As the kingdoms are all at war, champions are required to tread lightly in domain that isn’t allied. Many NPCs take the forms of guards that are fluent in the otherwordly visitors and their allegiances, and won’t hesitate to attack or attempt to apprehend those they deem a threat.

What about a ceasefire zone? Ahaha, no.

What if my character wouldn’t side with a kingdom and would choose to fly solo? You’re free to attempt this, but due to the world’s nature NPCs will always see you as aligned with a kingdom. This status isn’t removable.

Can we meet with the kings / queens? Not at the moment, no. For the most part their locations are unknown, orders given to their people from the shadows.

What happens if your character dies? They’ll respawn in their kingdom’s primary town.

Do our characters still have their cellphones? Yes, and service is still up (somehow). It’s just... NPCs will try really hard to take them from you if you aren’t careful.

Should we put all of this event info for our characters somewhere? We recommend you make a post with all the relevant information!

Anything happening with the hole? Hole? What hole? The hole is gone, filled by a gigantic tree whose leaves and branches stretch out against the sky. There isn’t a place in any of the kingdoms where you cannot see it. And yet... the NPCs seem to have no idea it’s there. Hm.

I have a lot of questions! And we have answers! We’ll be composing a separate FAQ post shortly, but until then start sending your questions to our temporary event sideblog so the dash isn’t overwhelmed. We will not be taking event questions via the main masterlist blog.

#isola event #isola event: fantasia war pti

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morshtalon · 5 years

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Digital Devil Monogatari: Megami Tensei

Possibly part 1 of a series of posts on the whole series, maybe?

So, the first game in the popular MegaTen franchise is, wouldn't you know it, kind of weird. It was actually a video game sequel to a series of two novels starring a sort of villainous protagonist and the (government-mandated to exist ubiquitously through japanese media) high school exchange student as they become indirectly related to the summoning of ancient bad dudes Loki and Set through the magic of 80's computer programming, go into historic japanese landmarks to resurrect shinto goddesses, witness horrific, gruesome, sometimes sexual actions from the demons, go to space, fight using gods that turn into swords, and generally have a good time.

Naturally, considering the, um... Notorious source material, it's only logical that the videogame adaptation would, then, turn the sort of dark, villainous, intelligent programmer guy into a blank slate warrior with no personality, the girl into a standard RPG magic user, and drop them into a big dungeon crawl with almost no plot, nonsensical NPCs and a connection with the novels so tenuous they might as well have just taken some inspiration from it and opted to create a more original IP instead (I dunno, maybe put a "shin" in front of the title or something). Thus is born the antiquated experience that is Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei.

While Japanese gamers did at the time have the original version of Dragon Quest - with the sprites that always faced down and the lack of a save system - ushering in a new style of role-playing gameplay into the mainstream, I suppose the mindset of RPG development was still rooted in the design philosophies of the western games from throughout the decade that were distilled into DQ. Games that, like Megami Tensei, typically featured a simplistic first-person view and a party of six characters, following the rough guidelines of the most recent version of D&D, and had generally no plot development, consisting instead of a hardcore, punishing trek through a few 20x20 grid mazes full of traps and gimmicks.

Furthermore, this type of experience, from what I heard, was huge in Japan, so it's no wonder Atlus chose to capitalize on that market instead of streamlining it and risk losing fans of the genre that were looking for an experience similar to what they had witnessed from RPGs so far. Less cynically, it's also entirely possible the developers themselves were huge fans of the first person dungeon crawler and wanted to replicate their positive experiences in a passionate love letter to the genre. Also, for what it's worth, they did add uniqueness in party management and customization, as you surely already know, but we'll get to that later.

I guess we'll never know the true context behind the original MegaTen's creation, but the point is, this is a very old-school game. I don't think it's nearly as brutal as the ones that inspired it, but it is also definitely far from holding your hand. At no point in the game is it entirely obvious exactly where items you're supposed to collect are located, so you mostly have no choice but to comb the entire dungeon yourself until you stumble upon the stuff you need to progress. Furthermore, sometimes the very NPCs that tell you there's even something to look for at all are slightly out of your way, so there's always the mental pressure of maybe having left something behind and having to backtrack and go to all sorts of places trying to find it when you run into the next dead-end.

By itself, this isn't really a bad thing. As an exploration-based dungeon crawl, it's expected that the player will have some agency over what they're doing, and it's refreshing to see a game where you have so much ground to cover, but with hardly any setpiece to spice up the crawling in terms of context, the job of entertaining the player falls squarely upon the gameplay's shoulders.

To that end, the gameplay is definitely more boring than stimulating. This is where I have to admit, I beat the Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei remake version of it. I have played the original, though, and I am aware of the differences between versions. I have also played future games in the franchise with the same issues, so there's no evidence that the original is much different in this regard. Anyway, apart from an intense earlygame where you're at risk of death from a stray Zan spell cast by a gnome if you're unlucky, the rest of the game's fights are uneventful, once you level up enough and have an array of serviceable demons at your side. There's only ever one group of enemy demons per fight. There can be up to eight of them, but all eight are the same type of demon, and the graphics will only show the one until the entire group is dead. It's kind of like every fight is against only one demon but the demon can attack several times and has an erratic, huge HP pool. Furthermore, targeting is completely random for all moves, and you'd think this would add a fake layer of frustration, but the game gives you an auto-battle option. It simply makes the entire party use their regular attack for as many rounds as you want and prevents text from popping up on screen to slow down the monster-slaying, but for the most part, this is more than enough to get you through whatever part of the dungeon you find yourself in, with only the occasional, very rare exceptions of either:

-A demon that has a dangerous ability, therefore making it so that you want to kill them as quickly as possible;

-A boss;

-A battle that you got yourself into without noticing your HP is getting low, so you have to get yourself back to good conditions before proceeding.

It's definitely more of a preparations game than a reactions game. Preparation is fine, but there's never any need for you to deploy clever strategies. The game is ALL about having a good arsenal of choices up your sleeve and, when you do, you're good to go, and then you need to be either very callous or purposefully challenging yourself while playing in order to get into a situation that requires mental resourcefulness and wit. I will admit, I checked some of the mechanical differences between the original and remake versions, and it seems like they reduced the HP of enemies and bosses quite a bit, and generally went to great lengths to streamline the gameplay and make it more in tune with the next few games in the series (as far I could tell from the party itself, Kyuuyaku seems to have taken the inner workings from Megami Tensei II and applied it retroactively to the first game as well to make it more consistent, but I'm not 100% sure). Maybe this means that the original is more nerve-wracking and you need to level up much more, but I doubt it really becomes more strategy-based and oriented towards exploiting the mechanics, like the style future franchise titles would strive to achieve. As far as I can tell, the abilities remain the same, only the stats change, so it's likely more of a formula redesign than any major gameplay departure. If it is though, I apologize, and rectify my statements regarding battle mechanics boredom as far as the original version is concerned.

But hey, regardless of version, the whole demon system is pretty cool. I don't remember the characters doing it much in the books, I believe Nakajima only had Cerberus and that was it, so there's a nice, original expansion of the novels'... mechanics (?) on display here. I don't think the demon conversation, recruitment and fusion systems need any introduction, but I will say that up until Shin Megami Tensei II, the seventh overall game in the franchise, for some odd reason all demons were limited to three abilities/spells (later three spells and a few abilities), so they were not very versatile. Furthermore, magic and abilities generally sucked for the most part in early MegaTen, and in this game, outside of Hanmahan, group healing and the occasional kaja spell, all you really want is a good punching bag to take the heat off of Nakajima and Yumiko.

Also, maybe it's just in the remake, but there are quite a few demons that are exclusive to the player through demon fusion. This begins happening from pretty much the start of the game, making them sort of unique all the way through and making it sort of cool for the player to go around with these demons that you can't see anywhere else and who are usually more powerful than the enemy demons in the area. Still, however, the limited abilities and limited usefulness of said abilities make things a bit boring and makes the demons sort of interchangeable for the most part, especially considering you can't even see them in battle. But hey, in 1987 I'm sure the vast array of options alone would have been pretty impressive and, considering the plethora of real-life inspiration that was put into the demons' designs, it's kind of still impressive today, really.

Enemies do have a few tricks of their own up their sleeve, too, though, and they usually fall into the "early RPG unfairness" spectrum quite nicely, such as being able to cast death spells when the game's programming is such that you get a game over if the 2 (out of 6) human party members die, even if all your demons are still alive (naturally the final boss can use a pretty accurate version of this move), or the loathsome "smiles and laughs" attack that permanently drains an experience level from a human party member if it hits, making you have to work your way back up again without even the mercy of having the enemy that sucked your level give a massive hoard of EXP when defeated. Or the mercy of adjusting the experience table (if you're level 41 and get a level sucked from you, now you're level 40 but you still need enough experience for level 42 to get back to level 41). It's basically a reset button.

The original version also had some major frustration in the fact that there was, like DQ and so many others of its time, no save feature. You had to visit a guy near the start of the game to get a password or use a late game spell from the girl. There was also no auto-mapping feature (though the mapper/mappara spell did exist, in the old MegaTen-style 3x5 grid), so you just had to create maps yourself, I guess, which is kind of like wizardry and bard's tale and such, and kind of interesting. Though, for a game that isn't all that stimulating otherwise, it's good that in the remake you don't also have to go get a sheet of graph paper to keep track of where you've been. I'm torn on whether the original's extra doses of hardcore game design are better or worse than the remake's streamlining, but it seems to me like the hardcoreness, probably caused by memory limitations and such, served more like an arbitrary layer of confusion placed over a game that didn't really have a juicy core, while the remake's alleviation of it brought about the black spots a bit more into the limelight... It's hard to make up my mind.

The more standard things to talk about in a review are usually average-to-enjoyable here. The environment graphics are pretty good for their time in the original version, and the remake has some good stuff in the late-game, but has a tendency to make the ground a fake-looking gradient that feels artificial and standoffish. Demon designs are always a treat in MegaTen and I wouldn't say this game is an exception, but I think the original designs look kind of goofy for the most part, while the remake uses the scaled-down style of SMT II and SMT If... instead of the better-looking, more detailed style of SMT I, so that's somewhat disappointing. The music is alright, nothing special, but it starts with really cheery, upbeat tunes that go against the ambiance, especially in the remake where they added a dark-ish prologue with more fitting, atmospheric music. The sheer length of each individual section of the dungeon means the tracks will start to get repetitive at some point, and they have a repetitive nature on their own, but they're not bad. I like the bass in Valhalla Corridor. I also like the last two areas' music. Bien's track sucks, though.

Either way, it surely isn't a great game. Nor does it have to be one, honestly. It's a 1987, sort of experimental game that toyed around with the concept of a dungeon crawler in a very japanese setting coming from a very risqué source. It has its merits in creativity, sorely marred by technical limitations and overly emphasizing on its subpar dungeon crawling gameplay, extending it to the point where it overstays its welcome quite a bit. The devs were wise in keeping the plot connections to its immediate sequel small (and it is fascinating, how different it is from all others in the franchise) because Megami Tensei 1 doesn't stand the test of time.

But again, such a thing shouldn't be expected from a late eighties, obscure weird little game, and for what it's worth, like I said about Dragon Quest, it served as a base, though in my opinion a rockier one, with which to found gameplay mechanics that would be expanded upon and embellished in future titles. I'd give it a 4 out of 10, perhaps an honorary extra half-point if the original version's gameplay is a tad more stimulating, but really it's hard to even give games like this a score. They're a product of the times, and they appeal to sensibilities of the times. Gamer mentalities, even within the genre, have moved past it, but it stays here as a testament to the growth of the series. Going into it, you're likely very aware of its shortcomings already, and whether you'd like it or not is, I think, even more independent of whatever mess of words I'd be able to string together like this than usual.

#megaten #megami tensei #review #criticism

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recommendedlisten · 5 years

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It’s been awhile since Recommended Listen has done one of these, but back by popular (content) demand, the weekly Best of the Rest column has returned to highlight the rest of the week’s great music you should know. Leading into it, Massachusetts DIY scene favs Future Teens and Dump Him both tried to figure out ways to move forward while Big Thief are proving to be unstoppable with their creative genius. The return of Vivian Girls is arguably being enjoyed more so the second time around, Chelsea Wolfe’s natural instincts are giving us even more reasons to appreciate her dark art, and NYC post-punks Bodega continue to live up to the promise of being shiny new models. Meanwhile, Field Mouse succeeded at finding meaning in everything as modern punk scene cult hero Chris Faren searched for his within a screen. There’s a lot more to cover here, so let's get down to the music business.

Here’s the best of the rest from the week of August 11th, 2019…

Antagonize - Slip Death EP [Triple B Records]

The last time I saw Aaron Bedard, he was being showered in balloons and kids walking all over each others’ heads as part of the final bow of Bane, the seminal melodic hardcore band who very much helped make the New England hardcore scene what it is today. Bedard returned to the stage a year ago with a new band called Antagonize, and after throwing down some demos and promos, they’ve released their debut EP Slip Death on the great Boston hardcore label Triple B Records this past week (label leader Sam Yarmuth designed its cover art much like he did for the vinyl reissue of the 2001 Bane classic Give Blood.) Bedard’s intensity has not slowed down with the passing of time either. In fact, it’s become exponentially more confrontational as he and the band thrash through fast, visceral existentialist dread. Throw them on a bill with the likes of Fury, Fiddlehead, Turnstile, or any of the countless names coming out of the Triple B roster right now, and Antagonize -- and Bedard -- know exactly what the scene needs at this moment.

Slip Death by ANTAGONIZE

Charli XCX feat. Sky Ferreira - “Cross You Out” [Atlantic Records]

On September 13th, Charli XCX will release her long awaited “proper” third studio effort Charli. Between years of experimental EPs and one-off singles, it’s been awhile since we heard her target her vision for mass consumption with major label approal, and she’s bringing some of music’s most intriguing voices into the fold with her to get that across. We already heard her team with Lizzo on “Blame It On Your Love” and Christine and the Queens for “Gone”. Its latest preview “When You’re Not Around” is one for Twitter pop fandom, however, as it sees Charli XCX joining forces with Sky Ferreira on the A.G. Cook-produced track. The two artists have been heralded as pop music’s most underrated creators for the better part of this decade, so to hear Charli and Ferreira’s paths cross seamlessly into this digital slowburn as they put the collective shit they’ve dealt with personally over the years behind them is a fitting way for it to happen.

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Code Orange - “Let Me In” [WWE Music]

At least weekend’s WWE Summerslam, rebooted horror heel Bray Wyatt returned after months of being kept off screen in action with a brand new character persona called the Fiend that saw him evolving from the creepy bayou cult leader of previous and into a psychotic children’s program host who turns into a deranged monster wearing a mask designed by horror film makeup legend Tom Savini. In helping get this new terrifying character’s image over with the crowd and viewers watching was Code Orange, one of the most exciting bands in hardcore and metal going right now, who reinterpreted Wyatt’s old theme “Live In Fear”, a sinister, swampy piece of occult rock originally recorded by Mark Crozier, under its new name “Let Me In” and making it into their own heavy pummeling likeness, adding layers of deeper darkness to Wyatt’s Fiend character in the process. This isn’t Code Orange Kids first foray in soundtracking WWE superstars' themes, as they backed Incendiary’s Brendan Gorrone live as goth anti-hero Aleister Black made his way to ring during NXT Takeover Brooklyn III. Now that Black is on the main roster, inevitably he will cross paths with the Fiend at some point, making you wonder where Code Orange's loyalty will lie...

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The Highwomen - “Highwomen” [Low Country Sound / Elektra Records]

The Highwomen -- a.k.a. the country songwriting supergroup of Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby -- are one of the most exciting things to happen to country music this year. On September 6th, they will release their eponymous debut album, and to date, the foursome have proven themselves quickly to be working flawlessly as a well-woven collective where nothing remotely resembling an ego outshine the other in its first coupling of singles “Redesigning Women” and “Crowded Table”. It’s latest is a goosebump-inducing sunset song that hears each member sharing a piece of the narrative that tell a greater story about their ability to overcome all and any hurdle. “We are the daughters of the silent generations / You send our hearts to die alone in foreign nations,” their voices collect in its final moments. “They may return to us as tiny drops of rain / But we will still remain/ And we’ll come back again and again and again.

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Miranda Lambert - “Bluebird” [RCA Nashville / Vanner Records]

Beyond the Highwomen, Miranda Lambert is now joining the highly anticipated of new Nashville releases with her seventh studio effort Wildcard, due out on November 1st. Her last effort was the excellently crafted post-divorce catharsis The Weight of These Wings, but judging by the sounds of WIldcard’s first single “Bluebird”, Lambert is getting back to her old high jinks of sorry not sorry whip-smart lyricism and folding them into cool, flawless country-pop. “And if the house just keeps on winning / I got a wildcard up on my sleeve / And if love keeps giving me lemons / I'll just mix 'em in my drink,” goes its chorus. Lambert’s undefeated streak will likely continue with this as well as her tour behind the LP, which sees her bringing along her Pistol Annies sisters, Maren Morris, and Ashley McBridge along for the ride on select dates for her Roadside Guitars and Pink Guitars tour, kicking off in September.

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Octo Octa - “Can You See Me?” [T4T LUV NRG]

Back in July, Octo Octa, the electronic dance outlet of Maya Bouldry-Morrison, dropped “Spin Girl, Let’s Activate”, the leadoff single from her forthcoming third album Resonant Body, set for release on September 6th. The listen was fully in motion with a bright luminosity radiating from with Bouldry-Morrison she says was inspired after a year of tremendous change and personal growth. That expanded energy extends even further in its subsequent listen “Can You See Me?” in which she allows emotions to overflow onto the soundboard through an empath in samples vocals and a cosmic tidal of synth arpeggios running through whichever cracks in its constant break beats they can find. It’s invigorating, and both as a measure of her art and being, there’s really no avoiding Octa Octa’s presence being made known here.

(Sandy) Alex G - “Southern Sky” / “Near” [Domino Records]

Rocket was a very special album in the prolific catalog of (Sandy) Alex G, though it wouldn’t be a surprise if the experimental indie pop wunderkind’s new album House of Sugar, set for release on September 13th, bests it in its own way. So far, we’ve heard the warped and rickety storytale standout “Gretel” and the earnest ode to a friend and place passed on “Hope”, and this past week, he introduced two more in “Southern Sky” and “Near”. The former, which includes an animated video by frequent visual collaborator Elliot Bech, is a country-stained sigh featuring Emily Yacina that hits a similar backwoods bliss that “Bobby” did two years ago, while the latter retreats to pinbacked repetition, wonky loops and samples that warp the canvas with Alex Giannascoli’s signature smeared fingerprints. (Sandy) Alex G will also be touring extensively behind the effort starting this October, with dates featuring the likes of Tomberlin, ARTHUR and Corey Flood.

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Taylor Swift - “Lover” [Republic Records]

The last we heard of Taylor Swift was her divisive post-pop call-out Reputation, and with its tinge of industrial bangers and stadium-translating success, it’s safe to say it aged better than what anyone expected upon release. Her new album Lover is on the way next week, and so far, two of its early singles have been absolute dogshit while the other was just so-so. In the streaming era, it comes no surprise that there will be 18 tracks total on the album, which means there’s bound to be some duds. Hopefully they’re more like it’s title track, though. Jack Antonoff seems to be one of the few people who knows what to do with making Swift sound like a breath of fresh air in spite of her missteps in this lash-batting late night bar crawler that is the Jekyll to Swifty’s drunken Hyde. She really could have reverted full-on back to country-pop and easily gotten away with it...

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Queen of Jeans - “Only Obvious to You” [Topshelf Records]

The surprises within Queen of Jeans’ sound are unraveling themselves quickly, but in subtle gestures leading up to the dreamy Philly indie-pop band’s release next week of their sophomore effort If you’re not afraid, I’m not afraid. So far, they’ve delivered a devastating blow to the ego in doo-wop form with "U R My Guy” and searched for a way out of a dead end relationship on “All the Same”. “Only Obvious to You” steps away from pastel lights and balloon grandeur, leaving plenty of room fordark space in between two warm bodies for the distance to hit hard. “Love will fuck you over hard,” Miriam Devora repeatedly reminds herself in the listen’s closing moments, and in the listen’s video shot at Philly Pride, they want to do their community a solid by letting it be known that no matter how you love, pain is pain, and your feelings are valid, too. This autumn, they’ll be mending broken hearts on the road alongside tourmates From Indian Lakes.

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Whitney - “Used to Be Lonely” [Secretly Canadian]

Someone in Whitney’s camp had to have intentionally planned to have the Chicago country soul duo’s sophomore effort Forever Turned Around be released at the final breaths of summer and the cusp of autumn’s cupping season on August 30th, because “Used to Be Lonely” is the kind of listen that tugs at the heartstrings of both the, uh, lonely and not so lonely, in a way that will make those with someone feel warm gratitude to have someone by their side, and those who don’t romanticize about the day it happens to them. Its accompanying visuals, directed by Austin Vesely, are on point just as well, as it captures a budding romance developing at the kind of midwestern country fair in a small town you’d hit up some weekend in September when you could use a slice of simplicity in your life of how even the most humble moments can feel extraordinary if you’re sharing them with the right person. If not, Whitney will bring it to you when they roll through your city this autumn.

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#the best of the rest #songs #antagonize #charli xcx #sky ferreira #code orange #the highwomen #miranda lambert #octo octa #(sandy) alex g #taylor swift #queen of jeans #whitney #new music & videos

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theantisocialcritic · 4 years

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Archive Project - June 28, 2014 - Transformers: Age of Extinction Review

Transformers: Age of Extinction, 2014. Michael Bay 165 Minutes If there is one thing I am totally sure of about this movie is that it makes me frustrated with Michael Bay… it would appear his malice towards the Transformers franchise up until this point was keeping him from truly being able to make a good movie out of any of the previous trilogy. The first movie was the closest any of them came to being decent, but Age of Extinction is a different story. Maybe the budget cuts forced Bay to rely more on his filmmaking chops than merely throwing $100 Million in CGI on screen. Maybe finally getting his passion project Pain and Gain out of the way inspired him to breath some life his most infamous franchise. Whatever the case, Transformers 4: Age of Extinction is by far the best movie in the Transformers franchise! I mentioned in my last article that I have trashy nostalgia for the original trilogy that has since been replaced by semi-commuted malice towards these movies and everything they stand for. Really though, rewatching them reminded me of what I liked about them when I was in High School. They are big, loud, uncomplicated movies. Though the first three are hardly as fun as I remember them being, this iteration easily takes the cake in terms of filmmaking chops. Five years after the Battle of Chicago in Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, the US government has begun hunting down both the autobots and deceptions believing that the alien presence of Earth needs to be totally extinguished. A corrupt CIA operative, teaming up with a corporate industrialist and a group of Transformer bounty hunters have worked to eliminate all but a few of the surviving Transformers. By accident, a Texan inventor played by Mark Wahlberg discovers and reactives a severely damaged Optimus Prime whom he repairs. The government quickly tracks him down and the remaining Autobots plus Wahlberg and family team up to track down the man responsible for hunting down the Autobots. Right off the bat, the fresh coat of paint given to the source material is a huge improvement. Replacing the honorable/horrible role played by Shia Labeouf with Wahlberg is a huge plus! Wahlberg's role is far more sympathetic than Shia. The fresh coat of paint helps the Autobots too! Most of them have been replaced since the last film, but Optimus Prime and Bumblebee's redesigns are far more aesthetically pleasing than before. Divorcing them bother from Labeouf also comes with the benefit of letting their characters be more fleshed out. Optimus, after years of fleeing from humans, is an on-edge near sociopath who threatens to kill people on sight. Bumblebee even takes up a persona more similar to the little brother role he had in the original TV show. The other Autobots aren't all that interesting in character terms but they are simply laid out archetypes that all get enough screen time to be fun. The overhauled look for the transformers in general means that they all get far more visually distinct appearances that make it possible to distinguish between who is who. It also helps that for whatever reason you can almost always tell what is going on on screen during this movie. In the previous three movies, visual overload was a very common flaw that ruined the tension in a lot of action scenes. Too much, too fast, the human brain can't distinguish the thousands of rendered moving parts and the tension decreases. For whatever reason in this movie however that seems like much less of a problem. Plenty of the time I could understand what was happening on screen. Which is of course, a plus! For all my praise though I really can't say this is some objectively great or important movie. Its dumb, its sloppy and it has a lot of problems. There isn't a lot of underlying intelligence.. at all in the movie. The human characters, though a much needed improvement from before, are still not interesting and too much of the screen time is dedicated to them for some reason (must be some rule in regards to monster movies…). It doesn't help that the nearly 3 hour runtime made the film drag on for way too long. All the pacing in the world can't help a movie when it runs this long unless it's Lord of the Rings. Really though, I liked this movie! It felt like a good nostalgia trip back to the part of my life when Transformers movies were the coolest thing! If you are down for a big, dumb monster movie then i'd definitely recommend checking this out! PS. There are Robot-Dinosaurs in this! The final big battle involves Optimus Prime riding a fire-breathing T-Rex into battle with a sword! If that sounds awesome, go see this movie! Thank you for reading!Live Long and Prosper!

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sarahwroteathing · 7 years

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Of Blankets and Bubbles

Request: @aubzylynn : “ 😍😍😍😍 Hi, honey! Can i request a bucky fluff fest puh-leeeease? 25, 5, 12, 13, 31😘😘 i love you”

25. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that we’re going to have a problem.”

5. “Tony is going to kill us.”

12. “You know what? We’re having a party, and you’re not invited!”

13. “I will pay you at least ten dollars to help me build a blanket fort.”

31. “I really want to kiss you.”

A/N: This is so not a drabble... Oh my god. I’m going to stop pretending I’m capable of writing drabbles. I will not be held responsible for the length of these requests.

“Bucky!” You gave another insistent knock on his door.

“Damn it, woman, I am trying to sleep!” His voice was muffled as it came through the wood, but you heard the steady grumbling grow closer until the door opened, revealing a very sleepy and disheveled Bucky Barnes.

“Why are you even sleeping? It’s like eight o’clock, you weirdo.”

“Trying to be considerate unlike some people. The more I sleep now, the less I sleep while watching whatever nonsense you’re forcing on me tonight.”

You tried to glare at him for that comment, but the little grin he was sporting was too much for you to handle.

“Fine, well, tonight is starting early. I may have been a little too thorough in the blanket and pillow gathering process. You know what this means.”

“Enlighten me,” Bucky said with a sigh, leaning against the door frame and trying his best to hide his eagerness, eyebrow arching in silent question when you fluttered a ten dollar bill in his face.

“I will pay you at least ten dollars to help me build a blanket fort.”

Bucky held your gaze for a long moment, slow smiles creeping over both your faces before he scoffed and batted your hand away.

“Keep you money, doll. Let’s do this.”

It was a painstaking process, but the payoff was great. The couch had been pushed back, the coffee table relocated and covered with a veritable mountain of junk food, and the floor between the couch and the television redesigned into a beautiful nest of pillows and fluffy duvets. The roof of your blanket fort was tethered at one end under the TV, and tucked behind the cushions of the couch at the other. Blankets were tied to the backs of chairs from the dining room on the left, and held in place by Tony’s prized Iron Man lamp on the end table to the right. Another dining room chair served to raise the blankets into a high tent in the center of your cozy new home and doubled as a stand for your laptop.

In total, your massive blanket fort creation consisted of a pinned together patchwork of twelve blankets. It was a glorious sight to behold, and you shared a proud high five with Bucky upon its completion, snapping a couple of pictures for posterity’s sake and christening it Blanketopia: The Coziest Place on Earth.

“Look at the DOLPHINS!”

“Yes, I see them. Calm down,” Bucky laughed, watching you fondly as you grinned at the screen. He laughed again when you gave a delighted gasp, clutching at his arm and squirming a little bit at the cuteness taking place on the screen.

“They’re playing with bubbles,” you whispered, almost sounding on the verge of tears.

While he was sure, based on your reaction, that true magic was unfolding in the ocean documentary, Bucky was far too captivated by the magic nestled in the blankets right beside him. Your eyes were alight with happiness, your body warm and free of tension where it leaned on his shoulder, and your smile… My god, that smile had him breathless. When you turned those lovely eyes on him, he knew he was in trouble, but it wasn’t until he felt you pinch his arm that he realized the trouble was double-sided.

“James Buchanan Barnes, are you even watching?”

“Yes!” he said defensively, but you pursed your lips, thoroughly unconvinced.

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that we’re going to have a problem. Pay attention!”

You took Bucky’s face in your hands, squeezing his cheeks so that his lips pouted out before turning his head away from you and forcing him to look at the screen. Almost against your will you got caught up staring at his profile and the way that the weak blue light emitted by the ocean scenes played on his features. He looked like a figure in a dream, soft and hazy and oh-so-perfect, and though you tried to look away when he glanced over at you, he still caught you staring.

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that we’re going to have a problem.”

Though Bucky said it with a smirk, intending to make a mockery of your earlier statement, it came out much lower and softer than he intended. There was a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, a palpable tension and sent goosebumps up your arms and a flutter to your stomach.

“Fight me, Barnes,” you muttered, trying to make light of the situation and lifting your curled fists in front of your face like a boxer.

“Oh, you’re a tough girl now, huh?” Bucky laughed, catching the weak punch you threw at him with one hand and tweaking your nose with the other. When you gave an indignant huff he only laughed harder, nose scrunching in a way that had your heart stuttering in your chest as you tried to maintain a carefree and unaffected exterior.

“Quit your giggling. This is a fight, mister!”

Your other hand flew forward with the intention of prodding at his side until he released your fist. Bucky’s laugh cut off with a gasp as your fingers brushed his ribs, and you felt him tense up as he hastened to tuck his arms against his body. Your eyes widened with realization and you broke into a taunting smile.

“Stop,” he said warningly.

“Bucky… are you ticklish?”

“No!”

You moved forward again, and Bucky released your other hand in order to scoot away from you. Determined to catch him before he could slip out of your blanket fort where you knew you would never be able to keep up with him, you lunged forward, effectively knocking him flat on his back.

“No, no, no! Y/N, don’t – Ah!”

His panicked yelp soon dissolved into full-bodied laughter as you straddled him, breaking into breathless giggles yourself as you batted away his half-hearted attempts at pushing you away with one hand and continuing your tickle attacks with the other.

In a desperate attempt to escape, Bucky reached out for something, anything, help him drag himself out from under you. His hand closed around what he thought was the leg of the couch, and for a moment he was filled with hope. It was easily the sturdiest and heaviest piece of furniture in the room. But one strong tug was enough to reveal his mistake, and you both froze in wide-eyed horror as the end table toppled over, sending the treasured Iron Man lamp and the corner of your blanket roof down to the floor with a resounding crash.

The two of you fought with the collapsing roof, shoving at it when it draped heavily over your heads. You were forced to lean down within an inch of Bucky’s face in order to see him, with Bucky holding the blanket up in a low tent over your heads with one arm. There was a long moment of silence while you stared at each other before you both broke into a fit of quiet laughter.

“Was that…”

“The lamp,” you confirmed through hysterical giggles. “This is horrible! I – Oh God! We shouldn’t be laughing. Tony is going to kill us. He loves that stupid thing.”

To your credit, you managed to quiet down for a few seconds of solemn silence before a whale noise from the documentary that was still playing somewhere behind you set you both off again. It wasn’t until you turned your head down to muffle your laughter against Bucky’s shoulder that you realized the rather compromising position you found yourselves in. You were stretched out entirely on top of him, hands fisted in the blanket on either side of his head. At some point during your hysterics, Bucky’s arms had found a home around your waist and the blanket once again rested over your heads, though with your current proximity it didn’t much matter. When you tilted your head up again you found his lips were far too close for comfort, curled into the softest smile you had ever seen.

“What are you thinking about?” Bucky asked quietly as you fell silent. You shook your head absently.

“That’s an awfully nice smile. What are you thinking about?”

“Sea turtles.”

You scoffed lightly, poking his nose as it crinkled again with his laughter.

“You must be very fond of sea turtles,” you said, smiling affectionately down at Bucky and shaking your head at his ridiculousness.

“Mhmm… and I think…” his voice trailed off, and the earlier tension returned as his smile faded.

“You think what?” you asked, fingers moving restlessly to brush lightly through is hair.

“I really want to kiss you,” Bucky whispered, pausing just a moment to gauge your reaction before sliding one hand up from your waist to cradle the back of your head.

He tilted his head forward, only having to wait for the briefest of seconds before you covered the rest of the distance yourself. One kiss became two. Two became three: a series of soft experimental pecks, each sweeter than the last, before Bucky tightened his hold on you, pulling you in for a longer, firmer kiss.

“Wow,” you murmured as you broke away, unable, for the time being, to draw your eyes away from those warm, gently smiling lips. “You are really passionate about sea turtles.”

“Shut up!” he scoffed as you giggled at your own joke. “You know what? I’m going to throw an ocean party, and you’re not invited.”

“James Buchanan Barnes, don’t you da –”

You never had a chance to finish your threat, cut off by a horrified gasp and the sudden influx of light when the blanket was ripped off of you by an angry Tony brandishing the mangled remains of the table lamp.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO TONY JR, YOU MONSTERS?”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fluff #marvel imagine #bucky barnes fic

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zippdementia · 7 years

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Part 29 Alignment May Vary: Things Left Undone

Welcome to post 29 of our now year-long adventure, that has taken us from such varied locations as a prison ship, the barren landscape of Thudd, and a frozen wasteland, and finally now to the titular Tomb of Haggemoth! Last time, our players broke ground in the tomb and fought an army of undead. Now they seek to venture deeper, which means passing through a deadly spinning blade trap, all the while dimly aware that the final words of their fallen comrade, Samuel, warned of something hunting them...

There are wounds only a Bard can heal. Xaviee, their NPC companion, has just seen the death of Samuel and Biggs, marking the end of their long comraderie. With Tywin dead, he is now the sole remaining survivor of Vrath keep and the last person alive who can carry on commander Tywin’s last wishes to reclaim the keep. He now mourns, and seeing his mourning, Tyrion composes a dirge for Samuel and Biggs...

... no really. The player actually composes a dirge. It’s brilliant, but unfortunately we have lost the words to it, or I’d share them.

Regardless, it goes perfectly with our play session. I put on a random piano song in the background and every beat seems to match the words Tyrion has written, finally even concluding at the exact same time in an unrehearsed moment of coalition. Xaviee feels new resolve pour into him and gains a one time use ability to lay some decent damage on an enemy. Gone after one use.

With the party reinvigorated, they move on. Ahead looms a dark hallway, the soft sound of metal scraping ever so gently on stone drifting from it towards the players. They know about the trap, which has the dual effect of damaging them AND blocking their progress, and decide there must be a way to turn it off hidden in one of these rooms.

Now, they are correct, but if there is one thing my party does not excell at, it is wisdom and thus perception. Even our spy, Karina, leans on Intelligence instead of Wisdom, and all of them have rollen notoriously low when it comes to finding traps, secret doors, and hidden treasures. They have, in fact, missed a couple powerful magic weapons throughout the adventure because of it, but on the plus side it often leads to comedic moments and has presented a challenge for them in out-of-combat situations.

In fact, there are three major traps hidden throughout the tombs, all of them controlled by generators hidden behind secret doors. Each can be passed without turning off the traps at the source, but they are all deadly.

The players spend about a half hour (in game time) searching the rooms and finding nothing before they finally give up and decide to try and pass through the spinning blade trap.

Three Strikes and You are Out

Tyrion goes first. The bald halfling psyches himself up, gauges the movement of the blades, and sprints forward. And rolls a critical fail. He leaps when he should duck, and faceplants directly into a blade, the wet sound of his flesh being sliced from his face accompanied by a brief choking scream as his head is ripped from his neck.

Or that is what would happen, if halflings didn’t have the ability to reroll 1s. Instead, Tyrion rerolls and as luck would have it the blade trap momentarily jams, allowing him to leap safely past the danger zone and roll to a dramatic halt on the other side of the trap.

“Tyrion!” Karina yells. “Did you make it?”

“I’m okay, stop yer bellyaching,” Tyrion shouts back. “But it’s strange over here... I hear something...”

Several moments pass, but no further sound comes. Finally, Karina has no more patience. “I’m going over there,” she tells Abenthy and Xaviee. “Use caution,”Xaviee says. “I did not see the thing that Samuel warned us of, but I heard it clawing its way up on the roof. It could reappear at any moment. Be vigilant.”

“And you,” Karina says.

“No need for vigilance here,” Abenthy answers in a soft voice. “Justice is on our side. We need fear no dark creature.”

Karina then took a deep breath and made the sprint forward. Time seems to slow and had one been able to witness it her movements would have seemed a dance. She took no more movement then was necessary and when she darted around one of the spininng blades it was like a planned move of a ballet more than a sudden reaction. She did not dodge the trap, she danced with it. And then she was through.

No call of safety comes back to Abenthy or Xaviee and after a time Abenthy begins to fidget with the straps of his shield.

“Doing us no good to sit over here,” Xaviee ventures.

“No,” Abenthy says and with a sudden movement he ran forward, his shield up. The first blade cracks against its twice forged surface and he takes the sound as a sign that the time is right. He dives forward, sliding across the floor in an attempt to get underneath the blades. And rolls a critical failure.

The timing is not right. Out of the darkness there is a flash of silver. It is the last thing Abenthy will ever see as the blade slices across both his eyes. The edge of the blade is honed to a razor and Abenthy is blind before he even feels the pain. But then it is there, a red flash across his face, and he is rolling to one side, a guantleted hand pressed to his eyes, hearing a soft squelching as the armor crushes the remains of his eyeballs against his cheeks, where they have fallen. And then a sharper pain across his back as three blades pierce the Blackguard armor he stole from Moriarty and rip apart his spine.

Or this is what would have happened, had not the group had an inspiration point from an earlier session, allowing them to reroll the failure.

As it is, Abenthy sees the blade coming at him at the last moment, and swings a guantleted fist forward, catching it and for the barest of moments stopping its progress. He is up then, and jumping over the blade, darting under another, and finally charging the last ten feet towards an opening to another room, wherein he can see the shine of Tyrion’s magical light and Karina crouched over something on the far wall. Then he is there and his companions are pulling him inside, checking him for wounds, congratulating him on making it through, and asking after Xaviee.

“Me?” A voice answers, as Xaviee calmly strides forward. “Oh I just walked through. No problem.”

Such is the way with NPCs.

Set in Stone

(No I didn’t use Dark Souls creatures in the dungeon. But that’s stupid cool someone is converting that. Could not find credit for this, but it wasn’t created by me. If it was, it would be far deadlier, based on how many times those things killed me in Dark Souls.)

This part of the tomb I think is maybe the most difficult, at least psychologically. The players feel trapped because of the spinning blades behind them, and the way forward is not clear. And they know there is something hunting them.

They find themselves in a room which is described as simple stone in the original module, with three gargoyle statues at the far end holding scrolls. These are supposed to come to life and attack as soon as the players try to exit through either of the two doorways leading south or north, deeper into the tomb. I find this a little bland, so I mix it up a bit...

You find yourselves in a empty tower of a room, much higher than the hallway you came from, its craggy walls jutting up around you to a height of at least sixty feet, the roof not visible from where you are. Statues line the room, statues of demonic creatures glaring down at you or regarding you with sneers on their puggish faces. They line the walls, filling the empty spaces on the crags above you, perched like birds of prey. Across from you, on the ground floor, are three statues that seem to be of more draconic origin. They grasp stone scrolls in stone claws and there are runes carved in the stone.

Now that’s a room that will draw a player’s attention. And it does. Of course the gargoyles are foreshadowing an attack, but with my revamped room the question becomes “how many?” and “from where will they come?” In addition, while Tyrion is waiting for everyone to pass the spinning blade trap, I keep describing how he hears shuffling above him and he keeps thinking he sees something move in the shadows high up near the cave roof. This isn’t a gargoyle. It is something else...

The stone tablets are warnings, basically saying TURN BACK OR DIE, but a little more elegantly. One is written in Ancient Dwarven, one in Ancient Elvish, one in Draconic. Once everyone is there, they quickly work this out with the help of Karina’s knowledge of Dwarven runes and her spell Comprehend Languages. They debate for a time what to do next. Climbing up the room is raised, and I have added in a secret tunnel up there to bypass a good chunk of the dungeon, but they also rightfully recognize how dangerous the climb will be and the near certainty that they will be attacked during the climb and possible knocked off their precarious perches. Instead, they pick a direction and start to head North. And this is when the gargoyles attack.

I’ve never had the chance to use Gargoyles in combat before. They make for an interesting monster. Tough as nails, they can take quite a bit of damage and their own hit is nothing to scoff at, though they don’t have the best attack bonus to really challenge my party. Their most interesting feature is their ability to fly and to appear identical to stone statues, something my redesigned arena lets them take incredible advantage of. With this room’s high ceiling and being littered with statues like them, the gargoyles employ a strategy of dropping down to surprise players, then darting away to hide back amongst the statues. With successful hide rolls, they can drop down again next round with surprise advantage or, if they fail that, flank the players and get hits off that way. One of them focuses on trying to grapple Karina and lift her into the air to drop her for extra bludgeoning damage.

This arena and this strategy make the fight much more dangerous and appropriate for the current player character level, without adding any extra buffs to the gargoyles themselves. It also forces my players to think about the situation and not just blindly fight. They make a good decision and retreat down the north, forcing the gargoyles to either follow them into the hall where they lose their advantages, or to retreat to the rafters to await their return. Between Tyrion and Abenthy, they taunt the gargoyles enough to draw them forward and finally dispatch of them in the northern hallway, which will save them a bigger, nastier fight later on.

The north hallway is also where they want to go, but the design of the dungeon is clever and makes players think this is the wrong way by placing a very obvious trap in their path. So far, the players have encountered four traps: the moldly room near the front of the tomb, the skeleton room, the blades, and the gargoyles. So when they come to a damp room with a pile of bones in the middle and a strange door with a simple door handle in its exact middle, it screams BEWARE! The players figure out through investigation skill checks that probably this trap has something to do with filling the room with water, and by doing some clever manipulation with a rope tied to the strange door handle, they more or less confirm this:

“Alright,” Karina directed Tyrion. “Pull.”

The halfling gave a tug on the rope and almost immediately they heard a grinding sound and the doorway only inches in front of them suddenly was closed off by a thick metal plate that dropped down swiftly, leaving frayed edges of hemp hanging limply in Tyrion’s hand. Karina pressed her ear against the metal, listening to what was happening inside the room. She heard swooshing sounds, the clear sound of gushing water, and then nothing for several moments until with a loud clank and a final swoosh, the metal door opened to reveal the same room as before... but the walls were now glistening with moisture and a small pool of water was in the center of the room, where the bones of fallen explorers rested.

Another Way

To the south of the gargoyle room, the corridor wraps around a corner and extends into a long dark hallway. This is the path the players choose next, hoping to find another path deeper into the tomb.

Tyrion went first, with Abenthy close behind and Karina lagging near the back, turning around every so often and beginning to raise her bow, in tandem with the hair on her neck beginning to rise. Yet each time, nothing appeared, no shot was fired, and she settled back into a persistant unease.

“Wait.” Abenthy’s voice was stern, tinged with command. He pushed Tyrion back and knelt briefly, running a guantletted hand over the dusty floor, clearing a thin path of grime.

“Trap here,” he said, rising and pulling free a javelin. “Probably shoots poison darts or drops the floor out underneath whomever steps there,” he tapped the stone with the butt of the javelin to indicate. “Stand back.”

Tyrion backed up, nervously unslinging his lute, touching the magically enhanced strings, strings that were said to have the power to never snap. “Shall I play us a song for some fuckin’ good luck?” He’d taken to swearing with every sentence these days. Abenthy sometimes wondered if it was one of many small signs that his mind had snapped, much like the strings on a less magical lute.

“No need for luck,” Abenthy said, and pressed down on the stone.

The trap activated, but it was not as expected. The floor did not fall, instead it lifted, tilting suddenly downward as it rotated on an axis a littl ways behind them, tilting them towards a dark abyss.

Tyrion yelled an indistinct soud with all the fervor of a curse and leapt forwards, vaulting with all his strength towards the end of the hallway and making it by a bare margin. Abenthy was close behind, running and leaping at the last moment, crashing into the edge of the abyss and scrabbling for hand holds on the smooth stone floor. Behind him, he heard a cry of dismay. Karina and Xaviee had been behinbd them both and now they rushed to react. Xaviee was close enough to the end of the trap that he leapt backward, jumping off the lifting edge of the floor and landing unsteadily at the start of the hallway. But Karina was trapped in a bad place, moving back and forwards as she tried to decide which had the better chance of success. Too late she made her decision to run forward and instead of making the leap as Abenthy had, she tumbled and fell into the darkness.

“NO!” Abenthy yelled, and released his hold, dropping in after her.

“Oh crap,” Tyrion muttered. Thinking fast, he uncoiled his rope and flung it at the quickly closing gap. Moments later, the floor finished its rotation, coming down over the hole like a tight plug. Again, Tyrion was left holding frayed hemp.

Karina’s fall is bad. She takes falling damage and spike damage (because of course the pit is lined with spikes). It is close to an instant kill. The spike that would have pierced her brain is stopped only by the hard stone of the eye of Callas that the Giant King of the Frozen Lands gifted her. But the spikes still find purchase in her left lung, her liver, her stomache, and the flesh of her thighs and chest. Impaled, she lets out a hollow moan before passing into unconciousness... and then screams like a banshee as Abenthy rips her free of the spikes and brings her back around.

This is a massive blow, massive enough that I decide it warrants a little mental trauma. We roll on some tables and decide that for the next hour or so, Karina’s mind is playing tricks on her. Paranoid, she may mishear what her companions say. We hook her player up to a different speaker (we play long distance, using Roll20, ever since I moved to the desert) and occasionally I feed her some lies about what the other players are saying. Some are subtle, but some are also her hearing her companions whispering about leaving her behind or even needing to kill her. The tension in the party builds as Karina reflects on the ease with which she believes the misinformation and realizes that she no longer fully trusts her companions. And why should she? She has witnessed massive shifts in their characters ever since Celaenos: Abenthy has become cold and withdrawn, still protecting the party, but seeming now to fight for a different form of justice. And Tyrion has morphed from a verbose but well spoken dandy into a foul-mouthed creature hungry for battle, relying less on flattery and cunning in battle now and more on insults laced with psychic damage and cutting things into ribbons with his blade.

The final insult of this hallway is that it leads nowhere except to the trapped door. There is nothing beyond, no hidden doors, no secret switches, no precious potions. Just (literal) dead ends. The group must go back. They must proceed through the water room.

Left Undone

So around the time of this session I’d been playing a lot of Alien: Isolation and I started to think a lot about the monster in that game, the eponymous and infamous Alien from the film franchise. I wanted to recreate the fear that the creature inspires in my game. Creating fear in a pen and paper game is a challenge. It starts with good description and setting, but it goes beyond that ultimately: you have to the players feel like the monster is alive in their gameworld, that it is thinking beyond the GM’s control, and is acting of its own volition.

It can be tempting to build a beast of a monster and then hit the players over the head with it until they are dead. Wham wham wham. Wasn’t that fun? Well, no, not really. And it isn’t frightening, either, just frustrating. Emasculating the players isn’t fun for a good GM. Instead, you have to try to build an out for them—a way for them to escape. Because once they are running, they can be chased. And it is the chase where the fear takes hold.

Think of a cat and a mouse. A cat does not immediately crush a mouse with its superior power. It lets it run, before catching it again. It makes a game of it. And sometimes, because of this, the mouse escapes. This is the game that you have to play with your group to get them to feel like they are in a world far beyond their control.

The players proceed back down the hall towards the water trap room and as they pass under the gargoyle statues, they hear a rustling above them. They prepare for battle against more gargoyles and are completely unprepared for the creature that pushes its way out of a crack high up on the wall and skitters down to meet them. It is a gigantic beast, an amalgram of all the twitch skeletons that occupied the bone room, pulled together now in a mockery of unlife—a centipedian monstrosity topped with the torso and head of a skeleton with four mandibles that click together wildly as it waves its many arms around, each arm ending in a sharp spike instead of hands. It immediately attacks, leaping for Karina and easily incapacitating her with two strokes, then using its third attack to snatch her and begin to climb back up the wall.

Holy shit. The players first reaction is one of desperation. This thing just destroyed one of the group with very little effort and now is making off with her. Desperate times call for desperate measures: they send in Xaviee with his new ability gained from the dirge and with a mighty strike he knocks the creature from the wall and frees Karina (there’s that out I was looking for). Still, the players feel desperate. With a single turn, they have seen this thing take a full health player down to unconscious. The way they look at it, they have three turns to survive and there is no way this thing has less than a hundred hit points (they are right, it has 129). So they prepare (Abenthy even says it out loud) for their deaths.

Except for the bard. Tyrion thinks fast and casts a minor illusion, forming a false wall between them and the skeleton. It makes an intelligence check... and fails! And there is the second “out” that we’ve encountered. This hideous beast hisses, it clicks its mandibles, but as far as it knows, an impassable wall has suddenly blocked it from its prey. It could rush the wall immediately, according to the rules, but then that would feel like the GM playing this creature, instead of letting it live on its own. No, instead it roars a challenge and when the wall does not respond, it skitters back and forth in a warning display. Only then, two turns after the illusion was cast, does it rush to break the wall down, sliding through it with surprise and crashing into the hallway that leads to the water room. The players are already retreating, Tyrion darting into the room just as the beast slams into the doorway, shoving its head and torso through, slashing with its bony arms at the players. But it cannot fit through, and it cannot reach them. And so we come to yet another “way out” for the players.

This is a set up I am giving them to do some massive damage to the skeleton. If one of them activates the trap here, the door will slam shut on the beast, cutting it in half and leaving them to fight the disembodied torso here, a much easier fight than taking on the whole creature. But the players either don’t think of this or don’t want to do it: instead they lob spells and arrows at the beast until finally it decides it has had enough and it pulls back, rushing back towards its hole high up in the gargoyle room.

I don’t think it has happened before in the campaign that the players have had a monster retreat from their assault and yet leave them still terrified of its return. Its the cat and mouse game again: they defeated the monster not by their own strength, but by running into a hole in the wall where it could not follow. They know they are outmatched and now they are being stalked.

Still, there is nothing for it but to move on. And a battle like that deserves a little bit of victory. The water trap room they get through with ease, activating it and having Karina ready to disarm the strange door handle which keeps the trap going. She does so easily and the players move on into the second part of the tomb.

Next time, the players are In for the Long Hall (sic) as they encounter more traps and face once more their new stalking nemesis.

#tomb of haggemoth #dnd 5e #playthrough #epic #Dungeons and Dragons #Journey Log #Wizards of the Coast #fantasy #RPG

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housebeleren · 5 years

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Ravnica Allegiance New Art & Reprints

Once again, just wrapping up my thoughts about Ravnica Allegiance before we move fully on to War of the Spark territory. As always, I want to take a moment to appreciate some of the new artwork to come out in the set for established cards. It’s a wonderful treat to explore these cards again from a different lens, especially as Magic continues to excel in their art direction & creativity.

There are fewer cards this time around, compared with Guilds of Ravnica, but they are all still fantastic. Let’s take a look.

Mortify is an Orzhov classic, going all the way back to their first appearance in Guildpact, redesigned in the Sorin vs. Tibalt Duel Deck, which became the default art for the piece in virtually all printings since then.

This new piece by Anthony Palumbo is my favorite new art on a reprint card in Ravnica Allegiance, without a doubt. (Well, maybe excepting some of the lands, which are stunning.) Anthony always excels at expressing light & shadows in his works, and is a perfect artist for a classic Orzhov piece such as this. I love the blurry “erasing” effect, tying in nicely with the flavor text, yet you can still see the character’s expression, which gives this piece a haunting quality. It’s beautifully detailed, and easily stands out to me as one of the most memorable cards in the set, as well as the version of art for this piece that will stand out most vividly in my mind when I think of this card.

All versions:

Ravnica Allegiance

Duel Decks: Sorin vs. Tibalt

Guildpact

It’s crazy to me that Absorb hasn’t been printed since way back in Invasion, but here we are. It’s such a perfectly elegant spell that makes absolute sense for the Azorius, so I love seeing it in this context.

Izzy has been a force in Magic art since he first brought his unique style to Shadowmoor, and there’s a good reason he tends to get several cards in basically every set. He tends to put his subjects front & center, without much in the way of background to speak of. He’s a master of setting a tone with his pieces, and this version of Absorb is a perfect example. The lawmage’s eyes are closed, utterly calm and focused, as he quietly and simply nullifies the spell. I also love the lighting, which appears to be emanating from the law magic itself. Beautifully rendered.

Ravnica Allegiance

Invasion

Oh Act of Treason. I must confess, I love seeing cards like this. Not Red Threaten effects, specifically. No, I love staple cards like this that serve as a baseline for these standard effects in their colors. Cards like Cancel allow us to talk about Absorb more effectively, for example. Innovation is great, but sometimes I just love seeing the same card repurposed over and over to remind us where the baseline is. Not only that, but we then get to explore the flavor differences in the art, and the mechanical differences in how they play out in the context of the set. But I digress.

I must confess, this is my favorite Act of Treason art for one simple reason. It’s the only one that very clearly depicts an actual act of treason. Sure, the M10 Eric Deschamps “Angry Angel” version is going to remain the iconic version, Min Yum’s Khans of Tarkir Rakshasa art is beautiful, and Matt Stewart’s Gatecrash Ogre has wonderful whimsy to it. They are all fabulous. But this one has made so very clear the consequences of this familiar spell, and that makes it stand out to me. That may be more the art direction than anything, but either way I like it.

Scott Murphy has been making Magic art since Theros block, and mostly sticks to Limited Commons & Uncommons, though he has some fabulous promos & supplemental product cards as well. All his work has fabulous use of color and action, both of which are clearly on display in this piece. The Rakdos mask draws all the attention, so that even though the figure on the left is smaller in the frame, you notice him first, and only on further examination realize exactly what is happening and what his betrayal is leading to. The piece tells a story, and I love that.

Ravnica Allegiance

Khans of Tarkir

Gatecrash

Magic 2010

I already talked about this card and my love of its flavor text, which, quite honestly, is still my favorite part of the card. But today it’s about the art. Chris Rahn needs no introduction, as he’s practically MTG art royalty. Frequently tapped for flashy mythics and set highlights (see: Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice just last set), it’s wonderful to see what he does on Limited Commons like this one as well. This is his only Ravnica Allegiance card, and it’s much more muted and subtle than many of his more iconic works. But that’s not to imply that it’s any less impressive. The pegasus is elegantly staged in the piece, and the perspective from underneath, with the rising Ravnica skyline above, is quite breathtaking. It’s a beautifully calming piece, a breath of fresh air before the war to come.

Ravnica Allegiance

Return to Ravnica

Just to get this out of the way, I am here for epic Ravnica Kaiju battles. Just saying.

This is another great example of how reprints allow for exploring different interpretations of the same effect. When this card was first printed in Hour of Devastation, it highlighted one survivor’s individual determination to persevere. Here, the city of Ravnica is, in some ways, the central character, with the epic monster battle raging above a stark contrast to the otherwise peaceful scene.

Luis Lashado has made a major splash on Magic art relatively quickly, starting with Limited Commons in Khans of Tarkir block, and getting his first Legends & Mythics only a couple of years later, eventually taking on the Hour of Devastation god cycle. His pieces tend to have great energy, and tons of detail. This work is no exception, as the details on the buildings, centaur, & dragon are easily visible from afar. I love this piece, and hope people take the time to look at it a little more closely as they draft the set.

Ravnica Allegiance

Hour of Devastation

This is one of those cards you completely forget is even in the set until someone drafts the High Alert defenders deck and wrecks you with it. Chris Seaman is new to Magic art, with his first pieces seeing print in Ixalan. What’s interesting to me is how muted the colors are on Junktroller, given how vibrant and whimsical many of his previous pieces were (look to Giltgrove Stalker, Artificer’s Assistant, and Hypothesizzle as particular examples of this). That said, I enjoy this piece. It has perspective, looking up as if we were the speaker of the flavor text, watching this great hulking machine do its work, absolutely giving no fucks about anyone’s protestations. It’s quiet, but very successful at telling a little story and evoking a chuckle when the text & art are paired.

My favorite works by Chris so far are Suspicious Nanny (from Unstable), Stitcher’s Supplier (from M19), and Shorecomber Crab (from MTG Arena). I’m very hopeful to see more from him going forward.

Ravnica Allegiance

Ravnica: City of Guilds

Speaking of Kaiju...

Seriously, this is fantastic. Once again, the flavor text and art combine to tell a fabulous little story, which definitely made me smile once I put it together. Jehan Choo is another newcomer to Magic, first debuting in Masters 25 & Dominaria. He’s been given almost exclusively fantastical monsters to work with, and I’m living for it. Seriously, this stuff is memeable as fuck. He did not only my favorite Dominaria card (Yargle FTW), but also one of the most memorable cards from this set as well, the amazing Sharktocrab. Sure, a big spider isn’t as unique, but it’s phenomenally done, set against a beautiful Ravnican backdrop.

I am here for more monsters by Jehan Choo.

Ravnica Allegiance

Dominaria

I guess we’re going to need to start referring to these as “Root Snares” rather than “Fogs,” since Wizards has apparently decided that 2 mana is the appropriate cost for this effect. Fine I guess. That said, this is a lot of fun. I like the action of the vines & the very evident struggle against them.

Craig J Spearing is one of those Magic artists that is surprisingly ubiquitous. While he doesn’t have many big flashy cards, he pops up in basically every set with a number of these great Limited cards. His Ravnica cards feel somewhat different from his previous work, which tended to be much more stylized, evoking a graphic novel feel (see Striped Riverwinder for a great example of this). For Ravnica, he’s softened the edges and gone for a touch more realism, which fits the feel of the set more. He gets all kinds of cards, and executes on them all beautifully, with a great sense of action. I’ll be interested to see how he continues to evolve & tailor his style to future sets.

Ravnica Allegiance

Core Set 2019

Another card I hadn’t expected to see again, but here we are. I love this very different take on Scrabbling Claws from the, admittedly creepier, Mirrodin version. This one is appropriately industrial, for the setting.

James Paick flies under the radar for me sometimes, but really shouldn’t. He has been doing Magic art for years, and in those years, has created some truly stunning works, including quite a few outstanding lands, basic & nonbasic alike. This take on Scrabbling Claws is fantastic, and perfectly set to the plane. I love using the central fire as the primary light source, with the additional lights twinkling in windows and fires in the background. It’s a piece that’s vaguely unsettling and serene at the same time, and I just love it.

Ravnica Allegiance

Mirrodin

This is the second Craig J Spearing card on this list, and I echo my sentiments from above in regards to this piece. Again, it’s more muted, more subtle than a lot of his work on other planes, but it fits the set very well.

I do recommend checking out the Gatecrash version of this art by Seb McKinnon as well, since it is also excellent.

Ravnica Allegiance

Gatecrash

Just like in Guilds of Ravnica, the Guildgates in Allegiance are absolutely wonderful, with the two above being my two favorites. I highly recommend checking them all out.

Ravnica Allegiance

Return to Ravnica Block

Ditto, Shock Lands. They’ve appeared on every trip to Ravnica so far, and are iconic pieces for the plane. These two are my very favorites, but the whole cycle is just phenomenal.

So that’s it. Ravnica Allegiance has been a ton of fun, and some of the incredible art like this is just one of the many reasons why.

#mtg #Ravnica Allegiance

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hegrade · 7 years

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Paul Rand: LOGOS, FLAGS, & ESCUTCHEONS (1991)

“It reminds me of the Georgia chain gang,” quipped the IBM executive, when he first eyed the striped logo. When the Westinghouse insignia (1960) was first seen, it was greeted similarly with such gibes as “this looks like a pawnbroker’s sign.” How many exemplary works have gone down the drain because of such pedestrian fault-finding? Bad design is frequently the consequence of mindless dabbling, and the difficulty is not confined merely to the design of logos. This lack of understanding pervades all visual design.

There is no accounting for people’s perceptions. Some see a logo, or anything else seeable, the way they see a Rorschach inkblot. Others look without seeing either the meaning or even the function of a logo. It is perhaps this sort of problem that prompted ABC TV to toy with the idea of “updating” their logo (1962). They realized the folly only after a market survey revealed high audience recognition. This is to say nothing of the intrinsic value of a wellestablished symbol. When a logo is designed is irrelevant; quality, not vintage, nor vanity, is the determining factor.

There are as many reasons for designing a new logo, or updating an old one, as there are opinions. The belief that a new or updated design will be some kind of charm that will magically transform any business is not uncommon. A redesigned logo may have the advantage of implying something new, something improved — but this is short-lived if a company doesn’t live up to its claim. Sometimes a logo is redesigned because it really needs redesigning; because it’s ugly, old fashioned, or inappropriate. But many times, it is merely to feed someone’s ego, to satisfy a CEO who doesn’t wish to be linked with the past, or often because it’s the thing to do.

Opposed to the idea of arbitrarily changing a logo, there’s the “let’s leave it alone” school — sometimes wise, more often superstitious, occasionally nostalgic or, at times, even trepidatious. Not long ago, I offered to make some minor adjustments to the UPS (1961) logo. This offer was unceremoniously turned down, even though compensation played no role. If a design can be refined, without disturbing its image, it seems reasonable to do so. A logo, after all, is an instrument of pride and should be shown at its best. If, in the business of communications, “image is king,” the essence of this image, the logo, is a jewel in its crown.

Here’s what a logo is and does: • A logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon. • A logo doesn’t sell (directly), it identifies. • A logo is rarely a description of a business. • A logo derives its meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around. • A logo is less important than the product it signifies; what it means is more important than what it looks like. A logo appears in many guises: a signature is a kind of logo, so is a flag. The French flag, for example, or the flag of Saudi Arabia, are aesthetically pleasing symbols. One happens to be pure geometry, the other a combination of Arabic script, together with an elegant saber. Two diametrically opposed visual concepts, yet both function effectively. Their appeal, however, is more than a matter of aesthetics. In battle, a flag can be a friend or foe. The ugliest flag is beautiful if it happens to be on your side. “Beauty,” they say, “is in the eye of the beholder,” in peace or in war, in flags or in logos. We all believe our flag the most beautiful; this tells us something about logos.

Should a logo be self-explanatory? It is only by association with a product, a service, a business, or a corporation that a logo takes on any real meaning. It derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes. If a company is second rate, the logo will eventually be perceived as second rate. It is foolhardy to believe that a logo will do its job right off, before an audience has been properly conditioned. Only after it becomes familiar does a logo function as intended; and only when the product or service has been judged effective or ineffective, suitable or unsuitable, does it become truly representative.

Logos may also be designed to deceive; and deception assumes many forms, from imitating some peculiarity to outright copying. Design is a two-faced monster. One of the most benign symbols, the swastika, lost its place in the pantheon of the civilized when it was linked to evil, but its intrinsic quality remains indisputable. This explains the tenacity of good design. The role of the logo is to point, to designate, in as simple a manner as possible. A design that is complex, like a fussy illustration or an arcane abstraction, harbors a self-destruct mechanism. Simple ideas, as well as simple designs are, ironically, the products of circuitous mental purposes. Simplicity is difficult to achieve, yet worth the effort.

The effectiveness of a good logo depends on: A distinctiveness B visibility C useability D memorability E universality F durability G timelessness Most of us believe that the subject matter of a logo depends on the kind of business or service involved. Who is the audience? How is it marketed? What is the media? These are some of the considerations. An animal might suit one category, yet be an anathema in another. Numerals are possible candidates: 747, 7-Up, 7-11, and so are letters, which are not only possible but most common. However, the subject matter of a logo is of relatively little importance; nor, it seems, does appropriateness always play a significant role. This does not imply that appropriateness is undesirable. It merely indicates that a one-to-one relationship, between a symbol and what is symbolized, is very often impossible to achieve and, under certain conditions, may even be objectionable. Ultimately, the only mandatory thing, it seems, is that a logo be attractive, reproducible in one color and in exceedingly small sizes.

The Mercedes symbol, for example, has nothing to do with automobiles; yet it is a great symbol, not because its design is great, but because it stands for a great product. The same can be said about apples and computers. Few people realize that a bat is the symbol of authenticity for Bacardi Rum; yet Bacardi is still being imbibed. Lacoste sportswear, for example, has nothing to do with alligators (or crocodiles), and yet the little green reptile is a memorable and profitable symbol. What makes the Rolls Royce emblem so distinguished is not its design (which is commonplace), but the quality of the automobile for which it stands. Similarly, the signature of George Washington is distinguished not only for its calligraphy, but because George Washington was Washington. Who cares how badly the signature is scribbled on a check, if the check doesn’t bounce? Likes or dislikes should play no part in the problem of identification; nor should they have anything to do with approval or disapproval. Utopia! All this seems to imply that good design is superfluous. Design, good or bad, is a vehicle of memory. Good design adds value of some kind and, incidentally, could be sheer pleasure; it respects the viewer — his sensibilities — and rewards the entrepreneur. It is easier to remember a well designed image than one that is muddled. A well designed logo, in the end, is a reflection of the business it symbolizes. It connotes a thoughtful and purposeful enterprise, and mirrors the quality of its products and services. It is good public relations — a harbinger of good will.

It says “We care.”

Article originally published in the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, Vol 9, N° 3, 1991.

#design resources #design #paul rand #aiga #articles #graphic design #featured

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techforumi-blog · 8 years

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10K video, object-based sound, and more: What’s new in HDMI 2.1

How HDMI's next modification is ready to go head to head against Dolby Vision, Nvidia Gsync.

Have you as of now been through HDMI cerebral pains on account of contrasting spec guidelines? Befuddled by the contrasts between HDMI 1.4, HDMI 2.0, and HDMI 2.0a/b? At that point prepare for all the more—yet on account of the up and coming HDMI 2.1 spec, the migraines may really be justified, despite all the trouble.

The new spec, declared Wednesday amid the current year's Consumer Electronics Show, is a monster. HDMI 2.1 will open the sort of throughput and components that ought to bolster tasty substance to higher-res, quicker revive screens for quite a long time to come. We should jump into what's in store and when to expect it.

Pixels and invigorate rates

The principal redesign: more pixels. HDMI 2.1-perfect showcases will have the capacity to get a determination as high as "10K" from a good source gadget and link. In any case, the HDMI Forum presently can't seem to explain what it implies by "10K." That K-variable could mean a 16:9 various in accordance with the UHD forms of 4K (3840×2160) and 8K (7680×4320). Nonetheless, since the spec sheet additionally records "5K," the HDMI Forum might allude to a more extensive rendition of a 8K determination show, at 10240×4320, which some screen producers have settled on. (In this way, 5K would likewise be a more extensive go up against 4K, with precisely the same in width proportion.)

In any case, I'm not in any case going to stack my adding machine application to let you know what number of pixels that is. Groups of pixels. Heaps, even. The check soundly beats the HDMI 2.0 spec (and its 2.0a and 2.0b kin), which maximizes at 4K determination.

Besides, HDMI Forum has opened the conduits to higher casing rates, as each of 2.1's resolutions (4K, 5K, 8K, and 10K) can invigorate as much as 120 edges for every second. The most noteworthy invigorate rate at present on the buyer market is 144Hz, which can be found on top of the line PC shows. We're uncertain why the new spec didn't secure that sort of information throughput for no less than 4K, particularly if the standard is evaluated to push the greater part of 10K's pixels 120 times each second

The most fascinating overhaul to the HDMI spec may be "Amusement Mode VRR," which remains for variable invigorate rate. This current one's immense for PCs and amusement supports, where programming regularly pushes a framework to its rendering limits. Typically, that is when gamers either observe "torn" or dropped outlines as the equipment being referred to couldn't draw a full casing in time for the normal 30Hz or 60Hz invigorate. A show worked with VRR, much like Nvidia's G-Sync and AMD's FreeSync, will have the capacity to locally draw a casing of symbolism at whatever point it's prepared, rather than being bolted to a revive cycle.

With the HDMI Forum grasping such factor invigorate rates, screen makers will make certain to take after. That is extraordinary news for gamers. Flipping a "V-match up" mode in diversions is generally important to quit irritating screen-tearing antiques, and this flip adds a slight postponement to when casings show up. That prompts to issues like info slack, where your catch taps take an additional minute to outwardly show. Less slack means better gaming all around.

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originalcandybouquetlove-blog · 7 years

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Download and install Gamings No More! Flow Video games Quickly Along with GeForce NOW.

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Game Informer's Andrew Reiner, Jeff Marchiafava, Kyle Hilliard, as well as Suriel Vazquez look at the 3rd (as well as some would certainly say finest) activity in the Jak & Daxter trilogy. The visuals completely conjure those early handhelds, and also although the video game is actually quite simple-- move left and right, steer clear of dropping things, lots swiped money into a balloon-- receiving high-scores calls for significant focus and also thumb mastery. That said, it has Google Games cloud data backup to save progress, deals with Android TV, and is simply an all over enjoyable activity. Digital games that you own will automatically appear in the My Gamings & Apps Collection area if they are accessible to play on Xbox One.

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teknocifs · 7 years

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Cookies & Milk: Raising Control Freaks, Drug Addicts & Diabetics

On October 22, 2010, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) officially predicted that about one in every three adults in the United States will be diabetic by 2050. Who couldn’t see that coming. If almost all drug addicts drank milk once as a baby, then it stands to reason that all people who get diabetes as an adult ate cookies as children.

A neurotic nation

Here’s something else to chew on, I predict that four out of five people will be clinically neurotic well before 2050; the remaining fifth will either be too young or too old to give a bother about their mental stability. Thank goodness for diapers. My prediction is based on nothing but observation and gut level thinking, so don’t go quoting this as expert material.

Diabetes is risky business

Why pick on diabetes of all things. Seriously, people get their legs amputated sometimes as the result of diabetes. It leads to a lot of risks, including death. The United States 2010 Healthy People project has targeted diabetes as one preventable disease to eradicate. To do so requires individual commitment to healthy lifestyles, eating well and exercise.

youtube

Public health campaigns

We all know the score. Kaiser Permanente floods commercial breaks with advertisements about ways to be active. A staggering onslaught of “eat healthy” and “be active” public health promotions compete for airtime right along with the likes of Taco Bell, whose latest claim to fame is promoting a fourth meal for the day. That kind of irony always fetches my attention. The point is, it’s a free country, if you can grab a moment’s peace in which to listen to yourself sans iPod.

Anyone share an original idea lately?

And God bless you for trying to think for yourself these days. Talk about risky behavior. If you can’t back up anything you’re saying with voting records and economic indicators, some people won’t give you the time of day. Has brainstorming become a lost art? I digress. The point being, this article represents my thoughts on a couple topics that concern me, thoughts that result from thinking for myself.

Diabetes and the Cookie Monster

Diabetes concerns me. It runs in my family. Yours too? I drank milk and ate cookies as a child. You too? Coincidence? Well, somehow I escaped drug addiction, and I sure as what-not hope to evade diabetes. That brings to mind another hot button issue. Why did Sesame Street ditch the Cookie Monster? Was that supposedly a politically correct (PC) move? Come on. The Veggie Monster, really?

Everywhere we turn people are telling us what to do and what not to do, how to think and how not to think, what to eat and what not to eat, how often to exercise and for how long, what new toxin poisons the environments we recreate in, and… well, you get the point.

Keeping up with the Jones’s

Not only that, every do- or nay-sayer backs up their advice with the latest reports, research and polls. Who are we, the commoners, to dispute the experts? Why even think for ourselves. Instead, the experts, with their sage advice, put us in smaller and smaller boxes, limiting us and we let them as we continuously redefine ourselves and redesign our habitats to align with the latest and greatest findings. We purchase miracle products, organic produce, recyclables or recycled goods, vitamins, supplements and gym memberships.

This need for neverending, chronic makeovers consumes us because we strive to keep up with the Jones’s. Is it only me, or is it a veritable impossibility to keep updating my lifestyle to reflect the latest and greatest in eco-conservation, mind/body health, social consciousness and technological socialization media? What happens when I try? I morph into a control freak – trying to maximize every resource to its highest use, eventually petering out and then filling up with guilt and half a pint of Haagen-Dazs for not being a better person. Honestly, the less I can really control in the world drives me to assert more control over the few remaining things that I am at liberty to manipulate. One of those things is what goes in my mouth. It’s a choice, sometimes a hard one.

High fructose corn syrup

Do you want to be a diabetic? A rhetorical question, of course. Do you eat high fructose corn syrup? You might find it helpful to cut it out of your diet if you are at risk for diabetes. I’m not giving medical advice. Consult with your doctor or look it up on the Internet. I have to say that, because I am not an expert.

Do you think there’s a correlation between the ever-increasing amounts of high fructose corn syrup we consume and the increasing risk of diabetes? I think so. The public health promotions don’t seem to be working. And, just so you folks at PBS know . . .

I miss the Cookie Monster.

The post Cookies & Milk: Raising Control Freaks, Drug Addicts & Diabetics appeared first on Detox and Rehab.

from Detox and Rehab http://teknocifs.org/cookies-milk-raising-control-freaks-drug-addicts-diabetics/

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buildercar · 8 years

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New Post has been published on http://www.buildercar.com/2017-automobile-all-stars-the-others/

2017 AUTOMOBILE All-Stars: The Others

It’s not easy to win an Automobile All-Stars award. This year, we bestowed the honor upon just six of the 23 invitees to our annual showdown. But the remaining 17 contenders all deserve praise. Of the dozens upon dozens of new cars brought to market in 2016, they were the few strong enough for our vehicular rumble. Applause, then, for these competitors, several of which came oh so close to claiming a piece of our hardware.

“One of the biggest surprises of All-Stars, the Bentayga is so much more than just a badge-engineered MLB Evo-platform SUV. It handles, accelerates, rides, and drives better than any car its size has any business doing, all while retaining that intrinsic ‘Bentley-ness’ we love so much.”

Bentley Bentayga The Bentley Bentayga weighs nearly 3 tons, but behind its cetaceous muzzle is a twin-turbo, 600-hp, 6.0-liter twin-turbo W-12. When the Bentayga needs to outrun a harpoon, it lifts its muzzle, makes a great bellow, and delivers terrifying acceleration. Not even the utmost Porsche Cayenne prepared us for an SUV such as this. “How does it go through corners without a wisp of understeer?” asked associate editor Jonathon Klein. Lots of electronics at work is how. So, relax. In fact, three days and nights in the belly of this beast would be no hardship whatsoever. “This is arguably the best luxury vehicle on the planet, regardless of segment,” editor-in-chief Mike Floyd said. The Imperial Blue interior of our test vehicle was shockingly posh. The quilted leather upholstery and brilliant, gleaming bezels imparted a clubby, Pall Mall exclusivity, reminding us how a character in a 17th century comedy said, “I am the worst man in the world at repenting, till a sin be thoroughly done.” – Ronald Ahrens

“If you can only have one car to do it all, the A4 is an excellent choice. It’s fun to drive, with a low seating position and a light, nimble feel on the road. The power — 252 hp and 273 lb-ft — out of the 2.0L turbo-four is unreal.”

Audi A4 “Since 1996, the A4 has been one of Germany’s best cars, and it still is,” remarked contributor Steven Cole Smith after a run through our All-Stars test loop in Audi’s compact sedan. Other judges were split on how much fun the A4 was to hustle on winding back roads, but the Audi garnered nearly unanimous praise for its tech-laden interior and luxury appointments, which outclass many competitors in this space. Unfortunately, nearly all present also thought the Audi’s styling is about as unique as a chocolate-chip cookie and not nearly as tasty. In the end, despite its light, nimble feel on the road and a powertrain that won attractors for its smoothness and power, the Audi just didn’t spark any passion in the majority of our judges. Automotive design editor Robert Cumberford summed it up best: “Fast, stable, impressive in a lot of ways but overall left me indifferent.” – Rory Jurnecka

“Toyota hasn’t spent this much time redesigning the Prius since the first one came out in 2004. It looks better inside and out than it has in years. More important, it now drives much, much better than any previous Toyota hybrid.”

Toyota Prius Prime Among all the haute metal in attendance, the red Prius Prime stuck out, for better or worse. Everything about the regular redesigned Prius is still there, including a surprisingly stout chassis, but so are new concerns. Despite a beefier 8.8-kWh battery pack that returns 22 miles of electric-only range, the Prime feels sluggish and required a heavy right foot to navigate our high-altitude test environment. Inside it’s loud, plasticky, and oddly styled. The pinched front fascia and excessively busy styling didn’t yield many fans, either. Still, the updated chassis and plug-in drivetrain show Toyota isn’t married to the “who cares; they’ll buy it anyway” mentality. “Once you get over the Prius stigma, the Prime is actually a pleasant place to motor, despite its exceedingly techy overtones and overwrought styling,” contributor Basem Wasef said. Competitors have caught up to — and in some cases surpassed — the Japanese behemoth, but Toyota deserves credit for defining this format. – Conner Golden

“The latest GT-R: Godzilla had his teeth cleaned and applied a touch of deodorant.”

Nissan GT-R Nismo If performance alone was the criteria for becoming an All-Stars winner, the GT-R Nismo was a shoo-in. “Holy hell, is this thing fast,” contributor Nelson Ireson said. Wasef added, “The Nismo’s ability to launch out of corners is downright breathtaking.” The GT-R received a slight redesign, interior upgrades, and increased sound deadening for 2017, and the changes carried over to the new Nismo. They’ve made the car more refined on the road than before, but age and dated looks ultimately hurt the car in the overall standings. “Old and feels it,” Ireson noted. Contributor Ronald Ahrens went as far as to say, “The Nismo looks like someone’s project car.” Price is not a strong deciding factor when it comes to All-Stars, but $175,000 also raised some eyebrows. Still, we could muscle it through the track’s tight sections at obscene speeds. There are still plenty of reasons to buy a GT-R. – Andy Pilgrim

“Speaking of cars that Cadillac needs right now, the XT5 is one of the most important redesigns the company has undertaken in quite a while. The results aren’t world beating, but it’s a nice midsizer with enough amenities and Cadillac class to be a showroom winner.”

Cadillac XT5 While not exactly groundbreaking, Cadillac’s SRX replacement has its high points, including a comfortable cockpit, an epic, ultra-view sunroof, and a cool rearview-mirror camera. Under hood, the XT5 is motivated by a version of GM’s 3.6-liter V-6 delivering 310 hp and 271 lb-ft of torque, paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission. Its headlights resemble flaming flamingo heads at first glance, and from the side the door handles are staggered and follow a slanted line to its taillights. One editor described the crossover Caddy as “pleasant and practical, in an attractive package.” Cumberford disagreed about the $69,895 Platinum model we tested: “I found it uninteresting. I don’t think they’re there yet.” Features editor Rory Jurnecka said, “Not overwhelmed. Lethargic powertrain and dated feeling interior.” We also disliked shifting the XT5 into gear, as its push-button shifter feels like operating a worn-out 1980s arcade joystick. – Ed Tahaney

“The Pacifica proves just how useful and appealing minivans have become. It’s really a kind of limousine for families, and anyone with half a brain would rather have this for family transportation than even the best SUV.”

Chrysler Pacifica Renaming Chrysler’s people-hauler was a good idea as long as the tried-and-true hardware was repackaged inside this sleek new body. Although it’s 69.9 inches tall, a slight increase over the discontinued Town & Country, the Pacifica seems to have a low profile and evinces an aspect that’s as urbane as Jerry Seinfeld’s wit. “It has a wonderful interior layout—maybe the best of the All-Stars contenders for accessibility of controls,” daily news editor Conner Golden said. With scrumptious, coffee-colored upholstery and trim, this test vehicle was thoroughly pleasant and could be pressed into duty as a lounging area when the house gets overcrowded. Despite the body shell’s large apertures, this is a stiff structure. The atmosphere is as hushed inside as the barrel-vaulted lobby of Detroit’s splendid Guardian Building. The Pacifica’s 3.6-liter V-6 produces 287 hp — ridiculous for a minivan and plenty enough for this 4,330-pounder to scoot up and down a mountain road at an engaging clip. But steadiness and stability rather than sportiness characterize its road manners. How pleasing it would be to take the Pacifica on a long trip. – Ronald Ahrens

“As with the XE, the F-Pace offers the right blend of comfort and sport. It feels confident when pushed hard but doesn’t make sacrifices when you just want to amble around town.”

Jaguar F-Pace New to the luxury SUV fray, the F-Pace has an oddly unresolved feeling. Is it going for comfort or performance? Does it want to be a Lexus RX or a Porsche Macan? Its body has the right proportions, yet the tidy looks are more Mary Ann than Ginger. Doors slam with flimsy irresolution, and dynamic responses are also neither/nor. At first blush, the steering is light, brake pedal soft, and suspension underdamped. The 22-inch wheels suggest monster-truck intentions, but the F-Pace is tipsy and wobbly on just one slug of whatever fuels the Grave Digger. Slapped in the face, though, it sobers up and performs smartly. The same conflict is evident inside the cabin. It’s utterly conventional, yet the trimmings are quite nice throughout. This one had a plush headliner and wrapped pillars, a fine dashboard covering, and pleasant leather-upholstered seats with perforated inserts. The second row, however, was none too roomy. We think of the F-Pace as a territory that just received national status and will figure out a strong identity as it matures. – Ronald Ahrens

“The twin-turbo V-12’s power is instantly intoxicating, the exterior is functional but form-first Aston sexiness, and the blue-and-white brogue interior of this DB11 feels equal parts Russian mafioso and peer of the realm.”

Aston Martin DB11 Holy smokes! Aston Martin’s new DB11 is outrageous. Half the citizenry will condemn it. The other half will beg for a ride and forever boast of the experience. They will also say, “You wouldn’t believe how insanely small the back seat is in this $215,000 car.” Yes, the DB11 is truly singular. Fender creases hark back to the DBR1, but the arching roofline is starkly modern. The car doesn’t always inspire confidence, however, especially in the chilly temperatures we encountered. “The DB11 was terrifyingly unpredictable. Too soft in the hardest setting and too twitchy. It frayed my nerves on the track,” said Golden, who echoed the sentiments of many. The quilted headliner matched the seat inserts’ flowing pattern. The satin-finish, chopped-carbon inlays fixed in place on the dash and doors were likely crafted on Jupiter’s moon Titan. We fired up the twin-turbo, 600-hp, 5.2-liter V-12, stomped the pedal, and survived monstrous acceleration in combination with the car’s harrowing inclination to oversteer out of the turns. Not long ago, some outlets had Aston Martin headed nowhere in new product development. The DB11 scuttles that argument.– Ronald Ahrens

“Infiniti’s Q60 is a sporty coupe rather than a sports coupe, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is a small, racy-looking two-door that would be easy to live with and that delivers a compelling package to a large segment of buyers.”

Infiniti Q60 It’s unlikely you’ll take your Infiniti Q60 on the track, but this is a fast sports coupe, so no apologies for thrashing it on the circuit. Infiniti probably wishes we hadn’t. “Properly quick, but the phone number the Q60’s electronic steering dialed has been disconnected,” senior editor for digital Kirill Ougarov said. “The fact it fried its brakes reinforces the notion that hardcore enthusiasts will find Infiniti’s overall package lacking in the left-seat department,” Wasef said. Yes, it’s bigger and heavier than a proper sporty car, but bigger and heavier cars didn’t let us down at the limit. Part of the issue — and a big reason it torched its brakes: The Q60 won’t allow its stability control system to be fully disabled. Infiniti got the styling right, but did that have to come at the expense of some of the mechanicals? The engine drew praise, as did the interior and the supportive seats. When driven at a back-road-appropriate 80 percent, the Q60 feels pretty good. The closer you get to 100 percent, the more apt you are to shop for something else. – Steven Cole Smith

“The E300 is an absolutely wonderful four-door with good accommodation for four full-size people, excellent ride and handling, adequate luggage space, and an air of superior quality.”

Mercedes-Benz E300 The Mercedes-Benz E300 was a genuine contender for All-Stars honors but fell just a bit short. One reason why is the capable but unmemorable 2.0-liter engine. Several argued the overall car is quite good, but there’s something missing from the turbo-four. The busy nine-speed automatic does its best to maximize the available 241 horses but doesn’t quite make it fun. Otherwise, complaints were mild: “Baby S-Class? Eh, not yet. But it’s damn close,” noted Klein. “Nothing really blows you away about the E300, but it’s a lovely car to spend time in,” contributor Marc Noordeloos said. This less-is-more Mercedes — and its less-than-intuitive controls — is just fine for the average customer but likely a letdown for the enthusiast. The E400? That might have been a different story, and the AMG E43 almost certainly would have been. But we suspect Mercedes will cry about the consumer-savvy E300 all the way to the bank. – SCS

“A huge step toward seriously battling the German big boys, and though it may not stand out in the All-Stars crowd, the G90 at the very least punches above its weight and will go a long way toward keeping the Germans honest.”

Genesis G90 Despite its generic styling, weird shift knob, and short sunroof, the 2017 Genesis G90 is one smooth luxury sedan. Body roll? You bet. The soft suspension and handling is reminiscent of a mid-1980s Buick or Chrysler. “The Koreans have made a very nice Detroit car that Detroit can’t or won’t make,” Cumberford noted. Under the hood, there’s a 3.3-liter, twin-turbo V-6 with 365 hp and 376 lb-ft of torque, all mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission. The $69,050, four-door Caddy killer is good, but we still dislike its cheesy theme music and jingle at startup and shutdown — a trendy contrivance that needs to end. That said, “It’s tuned right with a cushy ride, La-Z-Boy-style seats, and a relaxed, classy vibe,” Jurnecka noted. It’s hard not to think of the pop band of the same name while sitting behind the wheel of the Genesis, but this solo brand is still more Mike and the Mechanics than Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel — for now. – ET

“This is a flawed car, no doubt, but one with a boisterous, charismatic personality that begs you to gloss over rough spots and enjoy its ability to cause a ruckus. The Levante feels far smaller and lighter than it has any right to.”

Maserati Levante The Levante may have been the oddest duck in this All-Stars class. Bentley claimed the “How much is too much?” title by just showing up, but the Levante answered a question we’ve never heard anyone ask: Why doesn’t Maserati build a 2-ton-plus SUV? The interior is full of new ideas, some of which actually work, and the exterior is handsome. And yet: “I didn’t feel very engaged with this Levante, only that I was in something new and different and vaguely Italian,” observed Jurnecka. But then Golden said, “Really didn’t expect to like the Levante as much as I did. Power is great, and so is the steering. I’m not entirely sold on the styling, but I think it works.” The Ferrari-derived engine is a masterpiece, a fantastic-sounding V-6. Handling is good up to the point where tires and suspension no longer mask the weight. “Handled well, showing me mild understeer, but tossable to the point you can toss an SUV,” reported contributor Andy Pilgrim. Interesting at worst, useful and unique at best, in the end it’s an SUV, which means it could double Maserati sales, admittedly a low bar to clear. – SCS

“Jaguar’s XE offers plenty of power, engaging steering, a great balance of ride comfort and body control, plus a very elegant design inside and out.”

Jaguar XE Challenging the mighty BMW 3 Series and Audi A4 is a bold move indeed, but the Jaguar XE surprised us with its nuanced steering feel, composed chassis, and harmonious road manners. Although those strengths make it a surprisingly satisfying driver’s car, the XE lags in more subjective areas: character and charisma. Despite its eminent composure and finely tuned suspension, it seems Jaguar’s engineers enjoyed freer rein than its designers, an imbalance that left much of the Automobile team cold. Despite calling it a “nice car, good to drive, decent looking,” Cumberford added, “no real panache, no compelling reason to want one.” But as executive editor Mac Morrison noted: “I was unprepared for how much fun the XE is on the track, legitimately rotating easily into corners when I expected boring understeer.” Despite its competent dynamics, this German-like sports sedan lacked that certain je ne sais quoi we’ve come to expect from the leaping cat. Though the XE is an engaging driver and refreshing departure from the usual sport- sedan suspects, it doesn’t quite sit on the All-Stars summit. – Basem Wasef

“Argue about the Continental’s fuddy-duddy image till the cows come home, but the fact remains: This cushy, comfy, squishy big sedan is easy to drive for long periods of time, largely because it doesn’t attempt to tick too many performance boxes.”

Lincoln Continental The new Continental won our nonexistent Most Polarizing Vehicle of All-Stars award, with our crew divided and vehement in its opinions. Not every car must be a performance prodigy to be a good car, but still the majority sided with comments such as: “The Continental nameplate requires a strong effort, especially after a nearly 15-year absence from the market. This was less than Ford/Lincoln’s best.” Much of the criticism came from the design changes made to the production car compared to the stunning Continental concept, which debuted at the 2015 New York auto show. And despite finding the driving experience more enjoyable than expected, many found it difficult to wrap their brains around this all-wheel-drive Reserve model’s final price of $70,900, including $14,060 in luxury options. But this Continental possessed several redeeming qualities, including exceptional seats, siesta-inducing ride comfort, a strong 400-hp V-6 with 400 lb-ft of torque, and an interior that is “better than what Cadillac does, even if it appears a bit too over the top.” – Mac Morrison

“Possibly one of the quickest street cars on any given road on any given day. The Focus RS is easy to drive hard, eminently tossable, and supremely sorted at the limit.”

Ford Focus RS Like its sedan cousin from Lincoln, Ford’s newest hot hatch was one of the most divisive cars at this year’s All-Stars gathering. A run down the spec sheet reveals a car that all of our enthusiast judges should have loved: a punchy, turbocharged engine; performance-tuned all-wheel-drive handling; an honest-to-goodness six-speed manual gearbox; and a button that puts the car’s stability control into Drift mode. Drift mode, for crying out loud! As it turned out, as much as most of us wanted to love the RS, the car’s brilliant back-road and on-track dynamics couldn’t justify the lackluster interior, high price, and downright uncompromising freeway ride. As contributor Michael Jordan noted, Ford tuned the Focus RS “to within an inch of its life. The truth is, Americans need more everyday comfort and utility in their cars than this Euro-bred hot rod can deliver.” Fortunately, there’s still the sensational, less aggressive, and less expensive Focus ST, which many judges admitted they would take in a heartbeat over the weapons-grade RS. – RJ

“At first glance, the CX-9 has no strong personality of its own. But when you compare the Mazda to the mainstream crossovers available from all the other brands, the CX-9 is the only one that seems like it’s trying to do a good job.”

Mazda CX-9 Sometimes being best isn’t good enough. “Mazda’s full-size SUV is stylish, capable, frugal in terms of fuel economy and cost, and comfortable even on long drives,” one staffer said. But the CX-9 didn’t quite make the cut as an All-Star. Maybe another comment explains why: “Good car. No obvious reason to choose it over another, which is Mazda’s perpetual problem. It doesn’t always get buyer consideration, even when the product is a bit above more commercially successful competitors.” Many of us liked the well-finished and easy-driving big box, but it didn’t always feel as good as it should “The turbocharged engine feels mismatched here.” On the other hand, another said: “With just four cylinders hauling all of that tall wagon body around, I expected the CX-9 to be a snore, even if it had the dynamics Mazda is deservedly known for. But the four-banger surprised me, with reasonable pep for a big people-mover. The interior is both handsome and surprisingly premium, with spacious second- and third-row seats.” In the end, the CX-9 just didn’t move the needle quite enough to earn it our ultimate accolade. – Robert Cumberford

“The CT6 hits a few sporty notes and has a cool factor. There’s so much space in the back seat and trunk, it should be overseen by the Department of Interior. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this car.”

Cadillac CT6 3.0TT In the executive-sedan segment, perhaps nothing created as big a stir as the new CT6 did last year. It’s Caddy’s way of moving rapidly toward the future, and it’s a success, mostly. Give credit to the sharp styling and powerful 3.0-liter twin-turbo V-6 engine, putting down an impressive 400 hp. Its straight-line speed and surprising agility puts it toe to toe with any direct competitor not flaunting an AMG or RS badge, while still retaining the fantastic comfort befitting of the Cadillac crest. “The chassis is excellent. This is a car you don’t buy as a sport sedan, but when you find yourself on a twisty mountain road, you’re not going to embarrass yourself,” Detroit bureau chief Todd Lassa said. Conversely, “The CT6 is the Cadillac to get, hands down. It’s a well-executed, roomy sport sedan,” Floyd said. The CT6 impressed, but the price left us a little worried. An $80,000-plus bill for a Cadillac might be a hard sell for buyers used to ever-capable Germans. The CT6 is a good car, but we can’t wait to see what Cadillac brings to the table in the near future. – CG

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New Post has been published on http://www.buildercar.com/500-miles-in-the-2017-chevrolet-camaro-zl1-convertible-and-coupe/

500 Miles in the 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Convertible and Coupe

CONCORD, North Carolina – Contrived? Maybe just a little. But Chevrolet’s idea to give us a 2017 Camaro ZL1 to drive to Daytona Beach, Florida, made sense once the company added up the numbers: 650 for 500 to the 500.

As in 650 horsepower from the supercharged LT4 6.2-liter V-8. As in 500 miles from Concord, which is just north of Charlotte, to Daytona Beach. And 500 again, as in the Daytona 500, where two Chevrolets would start on the front row, both from Hendrick Motorsports – more about that in a moment – which would follow the Camaro ZL1 pace car to the green flag, driven by the semi-retired Jeff Gordon, who won four NASCAR championships for Hendrick and Chevrolet. Tidy!

It would be nice for Chevrolet if we could report the brand won the Daytona 500, but of course it didn’t. Polesitter Chase Elliott ran out of gas, allowing Stewart-Haas driver Kurt Busch to get past for his first win in the first race after the four-car Stewart-Haas team switched from Chevrolet to Ford.

Unfortunately for Ford, though, as nice as the 526-horsepower 2017 Mustang Shelby GT350 is, Chevrolet’s ZL1 has the clear, latest advantage in the 50-year Pony Car wars. Yes, Dodge has the delightful 707-horsepower Challenger Hellcat, but the chassis and aerodynamics are a few years behind the hottest Camaro and Mustang.

The main appeal of this trip – aside from the obvious driving-a-hotrod-to-a-NASCAR-race – was to see how well the ZL1 handled a 500-mile drive in a day. Which brings us back to the first stop last Wednesday night: Hendrick Motorsports, home of current NASCAR drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, Elliott, and seven-time NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson.

Not surprisingly, Hendrick Motorsports was a ghost town, with most of the key players in Daytona. A handful of employees in the shop that houses the cars for Johnson and Earnhardt banged on bodies and measured shells with templates, likely working on cars for soon-to-come races in Atlanta and Las Vegas.

But that didn’t matter, as we came to see the massive Hendrick Heritage Center, which is not open to the public, no pictures allowed – though if you buy a car from the Heritage Center, you get a tour. Vehicles available for purchase range from a 1990 Chevrolet Suburban ($39,990) to Gordon’s 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, a four-time Martinsville NASCAR winner, for $400,000.

The Heritage Center – and this is not to be confused with Hendrick’s 15,000-square-foot museum, which is open to the public–is absolutely packed with an eclectic collection of stuff that either has a personal meaning to Rick Hendrick, or that he just likes. There’s a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am “Smokey and the Bandit” car that Mrs. Hendrick bought for Rick, which has just double-digit miles, and there’s a beautiful 1961 Corvette, Hendrick’s first of a multitude of Corvettes. Of just more than 200 vehicles here, half are Corvettes. And the most amazing part of the Heritage Center collection is the number of specific Corvettes which are Hendrick’s favorite: 1967, 427-powered Stingrays. Thirty-seven of them. And every vehicle in the collection is ready to run at the turn of a key.

If you have ever driven a Corvette powered by a 427-cubic-inch engine – and we’re talking any 427, not just the holy-grail L7, 435-horsepower Tri-Power version – you know the car was a rocket on the highway but ponderous around town, threatening to overheat or foul a plug or par-boil its two occupants in warm weather. It shook, it rattled, it roared, and it often took little more than a Sunday drive to cause the Corvette-loving husband to trade in his big-block prize on something more docile, or face divorce. Apologies if this sounds sexist, but men who expected a hundred-pound wife to embrace a four-speed, 427 Corvette as her daily driver better have married Shirley Muldowney.

Which brings us to the 650-horsepower Camaro ZL1: It’s a car that, if you have two very short friends that can fit on the package shelf that passes for a rear seat, is absolutely delighted to carpool around Manhattan. Especially with the new 10-speed automatic transmission, which, we’ll go ahead and tell you now, is the single most impressive feature of the 2017 ZL1. It replaces the eight-speed automatic we had in the 640-horsepower Cadillac CTS-V a few weeks ago, the only feature we came back complaining about after a 700-mile weekend in the Caddy. It tended to shudder slightly as it hit eighth gear, and the engine dropped back to four cylinders to save gas. No such problem in the ZL1, but not much in the way of gas savings, either: Our mileage ran pretty close to the grim EPA ratings of 12 mpg city, 20 highway for the automatic, and 14 city and 20 highway for the six-speed manual.

Buy the automatic, and you’ll pay $1,595 more than the manual, and $2,100 in the federal “gas guzzler” tax ($1,300 for the six-speed). This brought the sticker of our loaded ZL1 convertible with the automatic to $72,325. The six-speed coupe we drove, which had a base price of $62,135, was about $5,000 more than that out the door.

And speaking of out the door, we were Thursday morning, after a briefing on the car. AUTOMOBILE magazine has already given you the details in a couple of stories; this time our job was to tell you how it all worked on an actual trip.

The first half of the 500 miles, we spent in the aforementioned six-speed coupe, which was optioned heavily, including the $495 MyLink audio system with navigation, and an 8-inch touchscreen. It’s nice to see the prices of nav systems dropping in view of the fact that we all have smartphones, or lacking that, a perfectly satisfactory $89 TomTom from Walmart.

The six-speed manual is well-matched to the engine’s prodigious power. The shifter itself is stiff, but the car was brand-new, and after a few thousand miles it’ll be fine. Clutch action is firm but doesn’t require a lot of pressure, though take-up is a little abrupt.

Especially, as I learned, if you don’t know how to drive a manual, as my car-mate did not, or at least hadn’t driven one in years. Clutch take-up is really abrupt then, until you get the hang of modulation. Or don’t. Either way, we made it to the checkpoint unscathed, where we swapped the coupe for a convertible, also gray, as the Ferrari red and yellow models tend to be Highway Patrol magnets.

The convertible top drops and raises quickly, and works at speeds up to 30 mph. Wind buffeting is present but tolerable even at 80 mph and beyond. Inside, the Recaro seats, standard, are superb – thin and light as you would expect in a performance car “looking after” its weight (4,148 pounds with the automatic in convertible form, 200 pounds lighter than its predecessor), but comfortable and supportive even after a long day in the cockpit. Instruments and controls are reasonably intuitive, but having just come out of a 2017 Lexus GS F, they seemed more complex than necessary.

Coupe or convertible, outward visibility remains an issue with the Camaro, though admittedly lowering the top adds to your sightline. The new Camaro is better-looking than the previous version, especially the wide-bodied model used here to squeeze the massive, very capable Goodyear F1 Supercar tires under their respective fenders, but it’s still quite high-waisted. Even at a height of six feet, resting my arm in the open window is less comfortable than I wish it was, because given the ZL1’s exhaust note, I’d drive it with windows down a lot.

As mentioned, as we cruised down Interstate 95 past the Florida state line toward Daytona Beach, that 10-speed automatic, which we feared would be annoyingly busy, was anything but. It is a transparent transmission, seemingly in the right gear no matter the circumstance. It’s a winner.

And so is the magnetic-ride suspension, which continues to prove its worth in most every application: stiff when you want it to be, and pretty compliant when you don’t, it’s a genuinely all-purpose system that, matched to the big Brembo brakes, works equally well on the track and on the street. Even in the stiffest setting, the ride was tolerable on the Interstate. Nicely done.

So we made it to Daytona Beach in the Camaro ZL1, if not quite to Daytona International Speedway, where – since the Daytona 500 is a restrictor-plate race – we would have arrived with more horsepower than any car NASCAR had at the track this weekend, and for that matter, at least as much horsepower as any entry in the Rolex 24 at Daytona sports-car endurance race a few weeks ago. It’s a right of passage for any high-horse street car to drive through the long turn-one tunnel under the track and, um, demonstrate what the car sounds like under heavy acceleration. Didn’t get that chance. Maybe next time.

And speaking of next time: Saturday afternoon, Chevrolet surprised all of us on the trip when it unveiled the 2018 Camaro ZL1 with the 1LE package. In short, if you just order a 2017 ZL1, you have already been trumped.

The 1LE is street-legal, with air conditioning and all that, but it’s an absolutely dedicated track rat with a suspension developed by Multimatic (the company that builds the new Ford GT), and many of the mounting points on the ZL1 that are cushioned by a nice rubber bushing are virtually metal-to-metal on the ZL1 1LE. This means supreme stiffness on the track (good!) and supreme stiffness on your daily drive (maybe not so good! See reference to 427 Corvette above).

The engine still has 650 horsepower, but extra speed is found with other devices: The suspension, front and rear, is adjustable. There’s a huge, but non-adjustable carbon-fiber wing out back that makes about 300 pounds of downforce, double the ZL1’s smaller spoiler. The nose is redesigned for aero and cooling. The ZL1 1LE is about 60 pounds lighter due to an even less-accommodating rear seat and thinner rear glass, plus the wheels are lighter, as is the suspension. The six-speed manual is the only transmission offered. This car will not impact the new Camaro GT4 race car, just introduced for competition in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the Pirelli World Challenge–that car was developed with this 1LE in mind.

Chevy wouldn’t say how quick the ZL1 1LE is, but allowed that it is three seconds quicker around the GM test track at the Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan. It seems likely that with the extra downforce it won’t be able to match the current ZL1’s 200 mph top speed, but it will get around a closed course quicker.

Former NASCAR champion Gordon, who drove the ZL1 pace car for the Daytona 500, was present at the ZL1 1LE’s unveiling, and revealed that he “loves it,” and plans to buy one, likely from Jeff Gordon Chevrolet, Wilmington, North Carolina, hours 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

So the Daytona 500 ended with a Ford in front, followed by a Ford, and a Chevrolet (A.J. Allmendinger, of all people), another Ford, and a Chevrolet in fifth (Paul Menard), rounding out a top-five that, if you bet those five drivers in that order in Las Vegas, you made a lot of money.

Even so, Chevrolet made a lot of noise in Daytona. And would have made more had they allowed us to hang onto a Camaro ZL1 for the whole race weekend.

2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Convertible Specifications

ON SALE Now PRICE $70,235/$72,325 (base/as tested) (includes gas-guzzler tax) ENGINE 6.2L supercharged OHV 16-valve V-8/650 hp @ 6,400 rpm, 650 lb-ft @ 3,600 rpm TRANSMISSION 10-speed automatic LAYOUT 2-door, 4-passenger, front-engine, RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE 12/20 (city/hwy) (automatic) L x W x H 188.3 x 74.7 x 52.4 in WHEELBASE 110.7 in WEIGHT 4,118 lb (automatic) 0-60 MPH 3.5 sec (automatic) TOP SPEED 198 mph (automatic)

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