‘Twas caviar
This weekend was good. I got to chill a little bit, which I’d long needed. Had caviar for the first time ever; it tasted mostly of salt, and slightly fishy. I’ve heard it’s served on buttered toast, and I think that would improve it quite a bit.
I also tried the Lord of the Rings online role-playing game. The first thing I noticed is that it’s certainly prettier than WoW (and therefore needs more video processing power than, say, my desktop can handle). I enjoyed the Minstrel class I tried – there’s something entertaining about whipping out a lute in the middle of a melee and dealing damage with a few bars of a song.
But, when all’s said and done, I enjoy the slightly surrealistic graphics of WoW – they seem to fit with a world which has so many fantastic shorthands for everyday actions – and the LotR game takes itself fairly seriously, which also isn’t really what I’m here for. I might play it if there were a Mac version and no other competitors, but my subscription will stay with Blizzard for now.
This week’s Doctor Who episode brings the Series 4 average down to .667. Even discounting the goofy, thoughtless science – which is hard, since one element is a major plot point – there wasn’t much special about it. Donna was great; her emotional arc about the future of humanity and our ethics, and the conditions of the Ood provided a welcome touch of development.
But overall, the episode was fairly formulaic, including at least one completely gratuitous CGI death, and someone trying viciously to kill the Doctor for no reason at all. One touch I did like: non-whites, in this future setting, portrayed as willing slavers. I already see far too many people, whose ancestors had no human rights a century ago, eager to deprive others of their human rights. I guess we forget pretty quick.
Fun fact: the episode was filmed in sweltering heat – yay for fake snow. And I’m looking forward to seeing some old foes of the Doctor next week!
Tags: doctor who, food, tv, videogames, world of warcraft, writing
I tried LOTRO in the beta and wasn’t really drawn into the world. Part of my frustration was that the animations were too “stick up the butt” for walking and running: you spend a LOT of time looking at your own character, so that particular animation bothering me was a turn off. I also found myself being pulled OUT of the story every time they went out of their way to include canon in the game. To me LotR is “history” as much as fiction, so when you tell it wrong, that bugs me. Yeah, this was something I had to get over in the films. 🙂
As to the Ood: I liked the episode. I’m not sure where the “for no reason at all” thing was, though. I loved the PR woman. She was smart and loyal (even if that was wrong), and really good at coming up with smooth excuses for alarms and such. The whole brain thing was “eh”, but didn’t bother me.
I was referring to the bit where the EarthCorp security chief tries to kill the Doctor with the crane claw. His own superior – the one who gave the “capture” order – has to stop him from doing so. “I need him alive!”
I would agree with you about the animations. Just too stiff and “uncanny valley” for me.
Oh, that! Well, I just kind of put that to a character bit: he was told to get them, and being the bloodthirsty guy we want to hate (not to mention his comment about always wanting to try this), he just did it. He was an over-the-top villainous character, but Who has always had its share of such. 🙂