Rogue-Penguin - Latest Comments

Re: Perspective Shift

spec — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:51:30 -0000

I started playing league of legends recently, on macs. There is a community supported "iLoL" that works, mostly. Its the only windows only game that I can think of that I've wanted to play in recent times. Of course, I have a ps3 for any gaming I want to do, and I don't game much at all, so I'm certainly not typical. But the games ive been playing recently: FTL, SpaceChem, and Valve games are multiplatform. *shrug*. -spec

Re: Netflix: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Shaun — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 22:45:21 -0000

There were a lot of weak movies in 2011, and Transformers led the way with a weak script, a weak cast, and like you mentioned weak CGI. Shia actually was better in the first movie then the next two, maybe this time he was upset he was acting with Megan Fox. I finally sat down to watch this butt numbing movie when I saw it on the Epix page at Dish Online. I thought movie theater chairs were uncomfortable, my office chair during a bad movie is even worse. Although when I told a movie buff I work with at Dish about my dislike of the film, he turned his nose up to me and walked away. I guess someone was bound to like the mess of a movie, but once again I’m totally with you, and the list of 5 movies, they all were horrible smelly movies that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Re: VOD: Legend of Korra

Jonathan — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:39:54 -0000

The thing with all the plotlines being tied up at the end can be partially explained by the fact that the scripts for all twelve episodes were written before Nick even picked up the show, and they were about a year into production on the show before season two was ordered, so they were written without the guarantee that there was even going to BE a second season.

That said, they really could have used some of that time better.

Re: TV: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 1)

TempestDash — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:33:31 -0000

Yeah, I know. It should say it "seems like a very girly show". I screwed up my own point by not paying attention.

Re: TV: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 1)

Kyle — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:30:37 -0000

"Yes, this is a very girly show."
"If he rebels and calls it girly… well, he’ll be wrong. This isn’t a girly show."

Re: TV: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 1)

Saul Lapidus — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:28:56 -0000

Yvie and I are also quite enjoying it.

Re: Comic: Batgirl: Year One (by Scott Beatty & Chuck Dixon)

Mike Vasich — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:09:41 -0000

Nice review. I also enjoyed BGY1--the character is so much more fun and light than Batman (although Batman is awesome in a different way). I actually plan on teaching this graphic novel in my 7th grade class. The complexity of the text--the time switches, etc--lend it to a good, in depth reading. Your review pointed to a facet of the character that I hadn't considered before. :-)

Re: Fanfic: Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time by joe6991 [Harry Potter]

Tempestdash — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:50:07 -0000

Yeah, I saw your comment and was a little discouraged but decided to finish reading this all the same. I appreciated the heads up though, it dulled the shock a but. :-)

Re: Fanfic: Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time by joe6991 [Harry Potter]

Kyle — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:52:57 -0000

I warned you!

Re: jtnimoy – Tron Legacy (2010)

Jack Jones — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:10:20 -0000

Nice special effects but the movie sucked.

Re: Fanfic: Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time by joe6991 [Harry Potter] (Early Impressions)

Kyle — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:49:31 -0000

I enjoyed it. Haven't started the sequel (not much is resolved at the end of wastelands..)

If you want good harry potter fanfic, I have to recommend Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It'll be kind of 'beat you over the head with the ideals of those who proclaim their beliefs "less wrong"', but in general I can't really fault it for that, since I haven't been able to think of ways in which they're incorrect. Look forward to things like pointing out that there's no concept of arbitrage in the wizard <-> muggle currency, that quidditch's scoring is completely bonkers, and other amusing things in that vein that occur to a "rational" Harry Potter who is thrown in to the Wizarding world and wishes to make sense of it, not just memorize it like everyone who had apparently come before.

Amusingly, in attempting to remember what Voldemort was doing during Methods, I stumbled across this: http://gerrycanavan.wordpre... which has the author of Methods reference Wastelands with praise. :) If you want to not have a minor plot point from Methods ruined (a rather minor plot point, admittedly, but an amusing one when you consider a rational protagonist AND a rational villain), then you shouldn't read the second to last paragraph at the above link. It won't really spoil anything, but you might see where a conversation is going a few pages earlier when provided this information in advance.

Re: PC: Back to the Future: The Game

Saul Lapidus — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:49:19 -0000

I think Highly recommended is not a strong enough recommendation. This was extremely enjoyable.

Re: PC: Back to the Future: The Game

Kyle — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:22:52 -0000

Added Ps3 version to wish list. I'm not supposed to buy myself anything this month, or something. Bah. :)

Re: Fanfic: Exile, by beeftony [Avatar: The Last Airbender]

Beeftony — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:35:29 -0000

Well, I can't say I didn't ask for this. ;) Honestly, though, I'm surprised you chose this one to review when there are so many better stories to choose from. I was unaware of there being more Ursa fics like this; I guess it's kind of a Sailor Earth situation in that I hit upon a common idea without even realizing it.

You raise a lot of good points, though I should clarify one thing: the spy was not random, though the character did only appear once in the series so I'll forgive you for not recognizing him. He's the Fire Sage that helped Team Avatar all the way back in during the Winter Solstice in the first season.

The reason for the frame story was that this was originally designed as a side-story to a much longer tale called "Where You Lead," which I only published two chapters of before giving up on it entirely. I originally planned to reveal that Ursa had been an assassin working under orders from the Order of the White Lotus who married Ozai to get close enough to assassinate Azulon (which admittedly I practically spelled out here). The intention was not so much to make her awesome as to give her a complicated past that would lower her from the pedestal Zuko had placed her on when he found out.

The frame story does admittedly seem superfluous without the tie-in to the other one, but when I published the story it had been sitting on my hard drive for nine months. It didn't feel right to let it fade into obscurity.

Thanks again! :)

Re: Fanfic: Knightshade by Blackbird [The Batman]

Beeftony — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:37:11 -0000

Backhanded compliments seem to pop up whenever I discuss Blackbird's work, because I feel too sorry for the guy to give him straight up criticism. He's got major self esteem issues and I can never tell how he's going to respond. Doesn't stop me from agreeing with everything you've said, though.

I feel you on the contrivedness of femslash in general, and to be honest that's kind of why I moved over to het pairings. The reason I started reading Kigo stories was mostly to be contrary, and the charm wore off once I realized that not a whole lot of people (you being one of the exceptions) were willing to make them work for a relationship. If I just wanted to see them naked together I'd go to Rule 34.

Romance in general seems to be one of those things a lot of fanfic authors want to write but fail to understand the mechanics of because they're either too young to have been in the kind of relationship they're writing about, or they've been in a lot of bad relationships and don't know how to write a good one. Even people who are happily married have a tendency to only want to write the kind of relationship that they have experience with and don't branch out into others. There are exceptions of course, but it tends to be a problem because shipping fics make up a majority of the stories wherever you go. It's enough to turn a lot of people off of fanfics entirely.

My style really has changed a lot since I first started writing, and your work was a very big influence on me (I find myself doing cold opens a lot). I'd make a suggestion for what to read, but I think I'll let you surprise me. Thank you. :)

Re: Fanfic: Knightshade by Blackbird [The Batman]

TempestDash — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 09:31:58 -0000

I don't know, that sounds like a back handed compliment. Saying he has good ideas but lacks the strength as a writer to execute on them. I can't entirely disagree though, the ideas are good and he tends to go places others haven't gone before which is admirable. Some days, though, I just want to take his best stories and rewrite them from scratch.

I have read Calico and Villains with Benefits, actually, I just haven't gotten around to writing up reviews for them. They both grate on me a bit, actually, more so than this work because the circumstances become more and more contrived. While the dialog does 'flow' as good as it can, I can' help but feel a forceful hand behind it. It's the same issue I had with Knightshade, it's like the author concluded where the relationship would go so every line seemed to be leaning in that direction even before it was justified.

I think it would be one thing if all these fanfics took place in alternate universes where LGBTQ relationships were embraced or at least not prejudiced against by society, but there is no evidence of that. Certainly the TV series (and I'm talking more than just The Batman here, Kim Possible is included), by never outright demonstrating any such relationships, is passively trying to dismiss them, so when I see them pop up in Fanfiction I always question the ease in which they come about.

In any case, I have a huge backlog of stories I'm trying to get through to review, but I'll see about tossing some of yours on the stack. I've never really read much of your work apart from a songfic or two from when you first started writing. My dislike of songfics initially turned me off and I admit I've never had the time to go back and see what you've done since.

You know what? I'll make sure I get to one of your stories soon.

Thanks again!

Re: Fanfic: Knightshade by Blackbird [The Batman]

Beeftony — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:05:55 -0000

I agree with absolutely everything you said here, though I personally enjoyed many of the concepts at play in this story. Blackbird's real strength as a writer isn't really writing believable pairings (though he does a far better job than others of his ilk), but world-building. In the same manner that Maternal Instinct spun off into a whole universe of stories, there are a number of side-stories that occur parallel to this that give one the sense of an actual world surrounding these characters, which is one thing I do have to give him credit for.

The easy resolution you mentioned was ultimately what left me feeling unfulfilled by the end of this fic, since most of the realizations are reached not by Batgirl and Ivy interacting with each other, but rather long, somewhat boring passages where the characters basically argue with themselves, occasionally to contemporary song lyrics that the reader has to provide music for on their own. His biggest problem as a writer is that he bases almost all his femslash stories around the same scenes, with different set-dressing in between.

That said, he does have a good ear for dialogue, and the scenes where characters actually interact with each other are fun to read. If you have a chance, check out the side-stories "Calico" and "Villains with Benefits" for his other femslash pairing, Harley Quinn and Catwoman. He does a much better job building up an actual relationship between the two, and since they're both villains there's not as many hurdles for them to get over, which helps avoid what happened in this story.

Excellent critical analysis as always. If you ever want to rip one of my stories apart (and some of mine REALLY deserve it), feel free.

Re: IF Comp 2011: Return to Camelot [Po. Prune]

Mr. Patient — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 09:43:54 -0000

The issue I had with the puzzles is that the parser steadfastly refused to accept my efforts to solve them. Guess the verb, guess the noun, and even guess the preposition. In the Panic Room, I pretty quickly sussed out what needed to be done, and tried a half-dozen variants of the needed command with no success. I came to the conclusion that I was wrong about the puzzle, and only discovered the correct phrasing an hour later. Similarly, I knew what to provide the guards, and even asked the right NPC for the right material, but without the exact wording, I got default replies.

Re: IF Comp 2011: How Suzy Got Her Powers (by David Wyld) [Updated]

TempestDash — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:34:44 -0000

I did go back and update the post after using the walkthrough to get all the points. Unfortunately, doing so did not improve my opinion of this game. I still don't hate it, it just doesn't stand out amongst this crowd. Thanks for the comment, though!

Re: IF Comp 2011: How Suzy Got Her Powers (by David Wyld) [Updated]

TempestDash — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:36:11 -0000

I'll go back and try the walkthrough command. If there is some decent additional content that I missed I'll update the review.

I didn't hate the game I just wasn't impressed. I want to be clear I don't separate things into love and hate, just interesting to me and not.

Re: IF Comp 2011: How Suzy Got Her Powers (by David Wyld) [Updated]

David Whyld — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:11:12 -0000

Sorry you didn't like the game but the maximum score of 22 *is* possible. 11 points is just the most direct path; most of the others are for non-obvious commands. The WALKTHROUGH command will reveal which ones you're missing.

Re: The TITAN Show – Episode 003

Christopher Szewczyk — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:40:08 -0000

Going through all three today, forgot to listen to 'em before. :)

Re: The Science of Story – Premise

Alexander Chapman — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:42:33 -0000

ever wanted to write myself fiction but its hard to come up for a logical story, so the reader does not question some parts why they are happing etc..

Re: TV: Torchwood: Miracle Day (Episodes 1-4)

TempestDash — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:20:31 -0000

It's very disappointing. I suppose we're only halfway through, but they've got a big hole to dig themselves out of. Although I just read a press release that Stars is moving forward with plans to adapt more BBC shows by the same team. I'm not sure which is more depressing, that Torchwood is the shadow of its former self, or that Americans haven't noticed.

Re: TV: Torchwood: Miracle Day (Episodes 1-4)

Saul Lapidus — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:43:20 -0000

It saddens to agree with you, but I don't see how it can really get going and get somewhere good at this rate.