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Television Media

X-Files FPS Episode 588

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-talk-about dept.
The Queen reminded me to post this: Last night's "X-Files" was a weird episode involving a video game gone wrong. It obviously was meant to promote discussion on violence in video games: "Healthy outlet for stress or promoting violence in society?" Personally I thought it was a crappy episode and not very suspenseful. Cheesy. Formulaic. Definitely sub-par for the show (even for its last few seasons), although it did have its moments. Did anyone else watch this?
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X-Files FPS Episode

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  • I used to like William Gibson's stuff. I loved the Neuromancer-Counter Zero-Mona Lisa series. I even like Virtual Light a bit. But I guess it's true what they say: Past results are no gurantee of future performance.

    What was it about that game that required an AI? The game was basically "Duck Hunt" with bigger guns and better graphics. The computer thugs on cycles drove in exactly the same pattern and started shooting at the same place every time they were shown. That's not AI, that's just a script.

    And, how is shutting down a running program going to destroy it? Hello? Backups anyone? So we're supposed to believe that a company that's going to revolutionize the entertainment industry as we know it has the most incompetant IT people in history. Okay...

    Same goes for the girl, what was her name... oh, yeah... Phoebe. So she's brilliant enough to create indepently thinking digital oraganism, but too stupid to, say, make a copy to a Zip disk every once in a while?

    The worst part about this episode was that I missed 2 episodes of a Red Dwarf marathon on the local PBS station. Smegheads.

    You'll have to excuse me now, Lara Croft seems to have disappeared from Tomb Raider and she's now running amok on my Quake server. It's a real bloodbath there now...

    Suspention of disbelief my ass..

    Don't even get me started on how the hell a computer generated image inflicts real wounds or where the hell Scully and Mulder werer when they were "sucked into" the game. Or how they go back out. Though Scully in armor was kinda cool, it certainly won't make up for that hour of my life that I will never get back.

  • [Turns around, bites hand]

    Actually, the execution of the episode was more bothersome than the various glaring technical problems. Personally, I can enjoy a story with tech errors so long as its a good story, but this particular episode didn't really qualify.

    Moreover, I thought that the obvious object lesson concerning virutal violence spilling over into the real world was just a pale excuse to have some grizzly murder scenes. However, I think the episode did make a certain valid point about women working in the tech industry (although it baffled me why such a woman would hold up a rather sexist image as her best-of-possible self).

    Now, the Long Gunman episode that followed the new episode was definately more worthwhile (the one with the DOD convention in Vegas where Scully gets "drunk").

    ----

  • Ouch! That hurts!

    ttyl
    Farrell
  • Well, if we're going to talk about gender stereotypes, let's address this one then: *all* the men were portrayed as sex-crazed automotons

    Look. I'm a guy. I know plenty of guys, and plenty of girls. Every last one of them, and, I'm pretty certain, almost any human being, male or female, would rather have sex than do anything else. Are there exceptions? Sure. I'm one. Maybe you're another. But this is one stereotype that is really not at all unfair. I would just prefer to see it applied to women as well, because IME it's just as fair in that context. Of course, I'd rather see people change their ways but that seems unlikely at best.

  • I think those of you who are calling this the worst X Files ever are forgetting just how bad the previous Gibson-scripted episode was. ``Invisigoth''? Puh-lease.

    I thought it was an ok episode, in that the non-tech dialog made me laugh. (The tech dialog made me laugh too, but not in a good way.)

    The fact that they didn't explain how virtual wounds became real, or where they vanished to, didn't really bother me, because this is the X Files after all: ghosts are real in their world, remember? They pulled similar tricks with the christmas episode with Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin... So presumably Jade is really a ghost that materialized through the game as some kind of frustration-avatar of the female hacker... (Didn't Gibson do a similar thing in Count Zero, with the Loa?)

    The use of technology was pretty hard to take, though. But no worse than any other use of computers in tv or film. Of course, I completely loved Hackers [imdb.com], because it mostly didn't even try to be real: it was all abstract dream sequences, because watching someone hack is boring.

    I thought the COPS episode was one of the funniest they've ever done! I got the feeling that a lot of it was improv: ``ok, go over there and question whoever answers the door...''

  • Let's think about this, Zion was a city underground where people who were free of the Matrix lived right? It had to have been built by people who were around during the resistance against the machines, there's no way a few people who somehow slipped out of the matrix could have built that city.

    Why not? I think that the idea of a few isolated accidental "reanimations" of human batteries is kinda compelling. Imagine the shock and horror of waking up in the Matrix "real world", but being entirely alone, instead of in the company of people who understand what's going on.

    I'd be happy to see this as the story explained in the upcoming "prequel".

  • You'll have to forgive Chris Carter for the computer-based story lines because this last one was co-written by William Gibson, as was the one about "uploading consciousness to the Internet".

    He's never been one to let reality get in the way of his version of cyberspace.

    I really like William Gibson, but it's hard not to cringe at some of the unrealistic footage.

  • Same thing happens to me. It's really rare, but once in awhile I'll be drifting off, and suddenly, SNAP!

    You describe it like someone screaming at you through heavy distortion. I'd describe it more like your head has been instantly stretched to the diameter of the universe and snapped back into shape suddenly. Neither really fully describes the sensation. It doesn't really hurt, it's just very intense and very sudden.

    Picture having a Learjet fly six inches over your head, while you sit in the front row (far left side, next to the amp stacks) of the 1976 concert where The Who got the world's record for the loudest concert ever, while having your ears wired up to a high-voltage line to put 30,000 volts through your skull at the exact moment someone pumps 100 gallons of liquid nitrogen directly into your brain via your eye sockets, while someone fires off six battleship cannons right behind you while Roger Daltrey screams so loud the amps begin to catch fire.

    Now imagine you're drifting off to sleep, and just about the moment you lose all perception of the world, SNAP! for no reason you suddenly experience the least comfortable 1/2 second of the above.

    Needless to say you wake up and find it difficult to go back to sleep.
  • It was a crappy episode on many levels.

    First, there was indeed little suspense. The plot "twists" were pretty much perfectly predictable. If there were other redeeming features, this would be excusable. There were not.

    Second, it suffered from what I like to call "'Hackers' disease", ie: it portrayed computers in that surrealistic, super-dramatic way that we all know is bullshit. The characters were slinging buzzwords like there was no tomorrow. Even the name of the company, First Person Shooter, was a blatant attempt to hook into a word someone might have read in some article. It wasn't quite at the level of the "hacking" scene from South Park, but it was pretty bad.

    Third, and most important, was that it gave precious little airtime to *our* side of the story: that violent games are an OUTLET for violent urges, that we would be MORE violent without the release they give. There was what? one line from Mulder suggestion that idea? And Scully even cut him off and made him sound like some kind of adolescent (doncha love how that's a pejorative?) fool. To me, it seemed that the point of that episode was that violent video games destroy society, and that the greedy game developers know this and don't care. Bullshit.

    I would have been able to excuse this episode if it had given at least equal air time to the idea that violent games are anything other than the toolbox of Satan. But as it stood, it seemed that the show whose motto is "The Truth Is Out There" was promoting /censorship/, what a bunch of suck.

    MoNsTeR
  • I GM'ed a "Matrix" roleplaying game for awhile, and the question came up: WHY does the body die when you get killed in the Matrix? My explanation was simple: until the PCs were able to figure out exactly how the COMPLETELY UNKNOWN PIECES OF TECHNOLOGY in their skulls worked, nearly anything oculd be justified. After all, an AI with nearly 200 years worth of R&D could probably devise a neural interface that killed you if you died in the simulation, and would have absolutely no compunction about doing so (letting the "real you" live when your Matrix persona had died made no sense, and you could always be recycled for food for the rest of your fellow batter-- humans).

    For anything NOT involving a neural interface where you are more or less electrically wired into a computer, it's unrealistic. But when you suggest that electrodes are buried in your scalp, braindamage and death become all too possible.
  • As the other guy said, Matrea -- the name of the VR character, not the hackeress -- bugged me almost as much as anything about this episode.

    At the risk of starting another ``it sucks to be a woman in the computer industry" thread (heck, if it makes you feel better, follow up with your own rant), let's admit that working as the lone female on a coding project can suck. Not only are you putting in 70-hour days to prove you can hack code as well or better than some unwashed mook with no social skills, you have to listen to his crude jokes that aren't even funny. So what do you do relieve stress?

    Tell even raunchier jokes? Maybe. Pull some practical jokes of your own on the bathless mook? Maybe. Do a body-scan of some stripper, dress her up like a dominatrix in PVC, & create your own fantasy game (might not be a FPS) around her?

    I don't think so.

    If Gibson did write this episode (not to argue the point), it shows that he has no idea of how women actually think. One of the charms to the X-Files is the NON-SEXUAL relationship between Mulder & Scully: even though she's stated that she thinks he's something of a loon with his obsession over the occult & paranormal, he treats her like a colleague & not like a little girl -- which I'm sure she fears or knows other FBI agents would do.

    Likewise, if a woman was the second technical lead on a project as big as this one, she'd have gotten her act together a long time ago. And if she had a software project on the side to her her blow off steam, it would be a lot more interesting than the one the show's creators dreamed up.

    Then again, I seem to remember somewhere that Mataeya (sp?) was a Hindi goddess of fertility or life. There was a hint at the end that the guy tech at FPS had stolen this program from her, & had perverted this into his own means of destruction -- but I may be reading too much into a confused & technically laughable script.

    Sigh.

    It's clearly the last season for the X-Files.

    Geoff

  • They had the lone gunmen blabbering on about stock options and IPOs. Learn how to poke a little fun at yourselves, guys!
    ________________________________
  • I never intended to insinuate that Scully's conceptions were female-like, or that Moulders were male-like. The story might have meant to portray that, but I don't beleive it. If I did, I might never meet my soul-mate: a female Quake III player who can kick my ass to q3tourney1 and back. ;)


    Bad Mojo
  • The first real holodeck-gone-wrong story for me was the film "Westworld."

    And the second one was "Jurassic Park."

    And the third one was "The Lost World."

    Now if we could just get Crichton and Gibson to team up, we could have a virtual reality "Westworld." Oh, wait, that was "Sphere."

  • Gibsons first system was an Apple IIe I believe.
    When he first got it home he phoned the store after he had set it up to complain about the "noise". It turns out that it was the floppy drive making all the noise, this shocked Gibson who always had assumed that computers were totally silent in their operation.

    (You should hear the fans on my overclocked system... All seven of them...)

    I saw this on an interview with Gibson on local TV sometime back (I live in BC).
  • Ya know, if they just had a no-plot TV show that paraded babes about for 30 minutes, I'm sure it'd be a big hit.

    That's been done.. it's called Baywatch.

    Oops.. did I say that out loud?!? :)
  • This was simply the worst episode of the X Files ever. This demonstrates that they really should have ended it a season earlier. Ick.

    Personally, I had been hoping that they would do a spinoff series based on the Lone Gunmen long before the rumors of it actually happening surfaced, but if this episode is any indication, I really hope those rumors are false. The characters are cool, but they desperately need some decent writing.
  • Hey! We can save the universe by channeling (x) through the Deflector Array!!

    Talk about cop-outs...

    Pope
  • I also had problem with the whole idea of anyone involved being upset at the thought of delaying the game release so it wouldn't queer the IPO. How do they think their stock would do after the first few deaths in the shopping malls?

    Venal greed does a lot of harm, but even the most ruthless capitalist knows that killing your customers reduces repeat business (unless you kill them slowly, like with tobacco)...

    I also laughed out loud when they said shutting down the game would wipe out the program. I'll bet at least one team member took a floppy home... ;-)

    I've never been afraid of these "computers take over" plots. The one thing The Matrix almost got right was the "real" threat of our technology -- that the technological fantasy will one day become so much more appealing and compelling than "real life" that we would come to prefer it. The trouble is, I think this has already happened. The world of television, advertising, music viedos, and games is already preferred by many to the world of love, pain, boredom, and loss that real life is. Real life is long, dull, and ends in death. Fantasy life is short, flashy, and has reruns. Real life has love, which is half joy, and half pain; and having love means knowing loss. Fantasy life is pleasure without commitment, shallow gratification, and you can always play it back.

    Try reading a little book called "The Continent of Lies" by (James?) Morrow. I think it gets to it...
  • Salon ran a piece last month about all the people referring to recent Simpsons episodes as "The Worst Episode Ever." Have a read, it bears some resemblance to what's going on here. Plus it's funny.

    http://www.salon .com/ent/tv/feature/2000/01/24/simpsons/index.html [salon.com]

    Note -- I didn't see the X-Files episode in question (no tv), so this may well be the worst episode ever, but this is still food for thought.

    _________________

  • Yep, I caught that too. Man, I love it when they toss in those references in futurama. Good geek show.
  • My problem with this episode falls the same lines as yours. The big problem I had with this is that they weren't wearing full simstim suits, these were holograms, not of the calibre of a force hologram from Star Trek. That sorta bugged me. The references to Rise of the Triad was kinda funny with the baddies looking like the triad officers. The baddies and the level layout reminded me of RoTT terribly. *shudder*
  • The entire episode reminded me of playing online Quake a few years ago. Apparently you can be shot and not killed, would it be possible to find a health pack and re-generate your health. Or even, when Mulder ran out of ammo, could he locate an ammo pack and re-arm?

  • >>>Complete trash. The only hope is that Gibson *had* written an excellent story and it was torn apart by the show's writers. Shades of 'Johnny Mnemonic'.

    Um, didn't Gibson write the screenplay to Johnny Mnemonic?

    I think the guy just can't write for the screen (small or otherwise)... he should stick to books.


  • The episode seemed to be a complete ripoff of The Matrix even down to peeking "inside" the game and watching what was going on. I was under the impression that since the end is near for the X-Files, we'd be tying up loose ends, not doing crappy ripoffs of good movies.

    I barely watched; I listened and looked over at the TV when it sounded like something good was going on. But I didn't watch more than 15 seconds at a time.

  • Programers of FPS games must have HATED this episode. There were just SO MANY things totally out of whack to anyone who programs games for a living. The company only had ONE copy of ONE build of the game? Every game company I've ever known keeps hundreds of builds and code caches on several computers. And what was up with the "we've never explored this area before"- as if rooms can simply create themselves in a BSP structure? (not that this was a BSP, but...) I mean the wireframe showed that the "level" was far less geometrically detailed than even most Q3 levels are (with the exception of the models). Are they telling me that they worked this long on building only TWO maps (warehouse/ghost town)? Full of repetitious geometry? Worse, the whole idea that the "code is so complicated we can't figure out what's going on" conciet just doesn't make any sense. Anything like "afterglow" would have to take up lots and lots of code in itself, and it would be obvious that it was there. The actual code that runs quake-like isn't THAT hard to understand, especially the enemy AI. The really complex stuff is in the renderer- game logic is something simple enough that almost anyone can at least get a good grasp of what's what. I admit at the begginging I was VERY confused as to what the game was- i think someone said that they were "going to be selling this in malls"- I spent lots of time figuring out how they could get a gynasium laced with 3d hologram projectors into a tiny cardboard box... The episode sucked. SUCKED.
  • I have a hard time thinking that the equation simply is that I've built up tons of stress, and I release it thru virtual violence. It ain't like that all. I build up tons of stress, but stress isn't like a tea kettle (this is pretty much psychological fact, though almost no one seems to want to believe it)- it doesn't have to be "released" to go away. It can just go away. When I play a FPS game, I can just sort of zone out into another world- it's exciting and fun- i FORGET my stress because I'm doing something better. It may be violent, but I don't get off on the violence. One could almost saw that it's _relaxing_ to play a FPS with pounding music- it's comfortable and reasurring. If it really WAS to take out virtual violence, study after study shows that acting out violence only make you more likely to be violent- it doesn't release anything. Physical Tension DOES work that way (which is why punching a pillow can help)- mental tension DOESN'T. So I do think this whole "we're too civilized and stressed out- we need some outlet for our primal KILL instinct" is crap.
  • Man- forget even that criticism- this show wasn't anywhere near sensible enough for it. The show never bothered to explain how: people can walk thru walls (when Mulder dissapeared in the game room)- or how a hologram could cut someone's head off with a broadsword. Worst of all, the action sequences were just awful- boring and repetative. Who the hell would ever play a FPS game where you just stand in one place and shoot a tank that blows up when hit with a machine gun? You're right though- the "body cannot live without the mind" stuff in the Matrix is CRAP. Even a full body simulation of death would NOT cause you to die. Worst of all, the Matrix seems to pretend that you can't jsut unplug someone from the simualtion, as if their "mind" were out there in the computer. Whatever. whatever. whatever.
  • so... you're agreeing with me or what? TELL MEEEEEE. I'M GOING TO KILLLL YOU!!!!!
  • Yeah, and what kind of game only has 2 levels? Talk about lazy.... From the look of the tech they were playing with (i.e., extremely simple wireframe geometry) I could have written hundreds of levels in the years it took them.
  • The biggest gripe I had with the Matrix is that Neo and Morpheus fought for the first time BEFORE Neo knew that he could really die. And also he starts moving pretty fast and is about to flatten Morpheus' face but pauses right before punching him. Also morpheus came flying down about 20 feet doing a knee drop on Neo who barely moved in time to avoid definately being killed... all this BEFORE Neo knew! If it was real Morpheus would explain that to him FIRST just incase Neo happened to kick his butt right off. Also how come Morpheus said they don't know exactly what year it is? Let's think about this, Zion was a city underground where people who were free of the Matrix lived right? It had to have been built by people who were around during the resistance against the machines, there's no way a few people who somehow slipped out of the matrix could have built that city. Ok, so nobody down there had a watch or bothered to keep time? A calendar? There must be plenty of people down there, they have enough technology to repair the Nebuchadnezzar, and other scout ships like that, they must have energy or some sort of fuel to run the ships. Why do the Agents need the code to get into Zion? If they have some electronic way of entering a code to get into the city or it's mainframe or whatever, then why don't they just dig up the wires and follow it back to the city and just drill their way into Zion? I particularly like the idea someone posted about Neo being an Agent and not aware of it, and that the "real world" was really another layer added onto the matrix. That explains how Neo could really dodge bullets and move as fast as an Agent, and also explains WHY they can "bend the rules" in a VR simulation. Obviously the whole IDEA of the Matrix was implanted inside the actual matrix to keep really enlighted people from figuring out what's really going on. So those who figured it out for some reason could escape from the matrix into the "real world" where they would find a more rigid and strict physics program that would force them to conform to "reality". (Which is what we live in ;) It would also explain my arguments against the fact that the machines were not able to destroy Zion, since the REAL matrix lets people think they're outside the matrix so they'll stop there and never discover the real one. So they think they're free, and that's as far as they go. Very good, very good. :) But Morpheus STILL should've warned Neo about death before he sparred with him. ;)

    -Don.
  • They hit the kill switch. That deletes all the backups, DUH!
  • There were just too many holes in the plot and nothing was explained at all.

    At least on ST:TNG they try to make up words describing something that sounds like it might make sense (the Exobit episode I caught last night was a great example (has to do with AI and "Life")

    I liked the promos for the FPS X-File (esp the "Rear View") but the episode sucked mightily. Standing in one place and shooting (as ALL the actors did when in the game) is the best way to die in any FPS. I did like seeing the smug "Thresh" character getting his head chopped off, that certainly cut him down a few inches (da-dum dum). But both the action and plot were weak and contrived, the dialog was o.k., I give it a 5/10.

    --
  • Well, aside from the never ending barage of mis-used buzzwords, I have again been mystified by my lack of modern hi-tech knowledge. The computer in last night's X-files was one such computer. I have a short list of proofs to show how myself, and all the other nay-sayers are simply not familiar with the magical 'tv' computer.

    proof a)
    The users of the computer were all at the whim of the MtvC (Magical TV Computer), who's advanced 'holographic' technology simply altered time and space to avoid all of those pesky laws of physics. This is further demonstrated by the computer's ability to swallow up poor old Fox, as he tried in vain to escape it's evil game.

    proof 2)
    The MtvC uses a top-secret file system that allows for the unobsereved and unstoppable movement of code from one ,machine to another, and the spontaneous execution of that code. With this special technology, the MtvC can 'invade' other systems and carry out all types of mischief. Such was the case with last nights evil woman in the game.

    proof 3)
    The MtvC massive filesystem prevents it being backed up or re-started. Due to the awesome ammount of data involved, the MtvC cannot be backed up by current technology. The simple fact that when the idea to 'kill' the program came up, the project designer violently opposed, shows that there was no way, once 'killed' that the game could be re-created or destroyed. We are not talking about a simple machine processing data, no, we are dealing with an electronic 'magical' engine, that creates entire worlds in mere slivers of time. You just can't re-code something as complex as an entire universe.

    proof 4)
    The MtvC is immune to electrical dependencies that we all (with our primitive computers) must deal with on a daily basic. The MtvC could not be taken offline by disconnecting it from power, nor could it be removed from the offending network. This proof alone, should show all of those nay-sayers that the situation in last night's X-Files, was not only realistic, but if anything, a bold move on the part of Chris Carter and firends to educate the masses on the danger these new devices hold in store for the human race.

    Don't be found un-aware when the Magical tv Computers begin their reign of terror. Contact your local govenments and urge them to force Chris Carter and friends into dis-closing the location of the MtvC from last night's episode. Only with perseverence and diligence, can we mere humans prevent the upcoming apocalypse of the Magical tv Computer.

    Thank you for your time
  • Don't even get me started on how the hell a computer generated image inflicts real wounds or where the hell Scully and Mulder were when they were "sucked into" the game

    They fell into one of the holes in the plot.
    /.

  • And, most importantly, what kind of moron game developer would have a single command that would erase the entire game? Sheesh!

    Shades of Dilbert.

    "Well, so far, all it does is erase the game on your hard drive...and if you're hooked up to the Internet, it erases all the copies of the game on the Internet...and if you have a modem, it dials up your friends and erases their games, too. And if you have a sound card, it swears at you."

  • Piers Anthony had a VR world where there was a character who would die if she couldn't beat the game. You see, she was diabetic and for some reason the game was rigged up (don't remember if it was designed that way or if it was sabotaged) that she could not actually be released from the VR equipment to take her medicine without accomplishing something in the real world.

    The closest I know of in the real world to compare is when you are mudding, most of the time you have to escape from the dangerous place you are to get back to town and save so you don't lose all your stuff. This causes it to be a game where if you have a lot of yourself tied up in the game you will not want to log out even if it means missing classes and failing out of school (I've seen this happen). :)
  • ...Master of all I Survey, I have Thirteen Progressively Harder Levels...

    See the "Bishop of Battle" sequence in Nightmares was the best because there was never any question that the Bishop had transformed from video game villain into supernatural real world villain. Essentially, a variation on the old "you sharpen the pencils, then the pencils sharpen you, " plots out of the old E.C. Horror comics. That's why it was cool, especially, because they didn't have video games back in the days of E.C. Horror comics. It was basically a genius machina story, like Christine, except about a video game...

    Oh...um.. and this is on topic because that's how they should've done the X-Files episode, too... uh-huh... Yeah, that's the ticket..

    For more information about Nightmare's [imdb.com] consult your local Library, or click the link.

  • If you were really educated you would know that it was Socrates who came up with catharsis trying to refute the Platonic idea that we need to banish all the poets from the city...

    Your studies, if there are any, are garbage anyway because you can't legally do controlled experiments about violence with human beings and not other studies are worth a tinker's damn.

  • Really, can he? (See subject)

    It doesn't seem so, his computer episodes on The X-Files (and, of course, Harsh Realm) just annoyed me. On the other hand, the computer themes on Millenium were normally handled well (computers were a huge part of the symbolism on Millenium).

    I'll be honest, I decided to just drop this episode out of the whole X-Files continuum, because it just annoyed me so much. Oh, and it does not bode well for The Lone Gunmen spin-off. (Note to Chris Carter, hire a computer consultant, preferably one who is actually into computers.)

    I also dislike the fact that Scully (our hard-headed rationalist) was the one who rattled off the whole "video games lead to real world violence" thesis and Mulder (our new-ager who'll believe any credible thesis, except mainstream religion, that you care to name) was the one to refute it. Of course, Scully is usually wrong about everything (on the X-Files, the irrational thing is usually the truth), so maybe that's a plus.

    Hmm, Fox needs to sit Dana down in front of a Playstation with Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, come back in a few hours and say, "Scully, we had a report of a giant buglike thing in Queens, NY" and Scully could reply, "Uh-huh," totally mesmerized. For those who find my game choice to be sexist, I chose it because it's the opposite of an FPS... and not just because its the one all the women I know like to play. I'm not sure why women like Tetris style games, anyway, is it because it is considered "ok" for them to like them or something else? It just seems to be a genuine phenomenon, so I'm curious as to the cause. Besides, the whole portrayal of FPSs on the show was sexist, against men and women. (I mean, considering that some women do enjoy playing Quake and Half-Life what does it say about them? If I were a female Quaker, I'd be pretty mad after watching that!)

    Incidentally, I spent most of that Sunday playing Heroes III my first native Linux game (hooray!). It kind of annoyed me that the only way to start off with a Necropolis and an undead creature as your main guy is to get lucky in one of the random start scenarios. I mean we have the scenario where you fight Necrolord, but where's the scenario where you are Necrolord fighting off pesky humans? (I mean, I got a Necroplois as a starting city in a random game, but it isn't quite as cool as a balanced scenario where you are assigned to play an undead lord that isn't designed at random.. it's still fun though.) Oh well, off topic now....

  • The Matrix did it, X-Files did it last night, The Thirteenth Floor (avoid this movie), did it too. The Matrix explained it as "the body cannot live without the mind" as I recall.

    "Video games are real" was a tired old plot back in the mid 1980s. You can find editorials in writing magazines about this being a science fiction plot to avoid at all costs. Not too surprising that poppy mass media TV shows and movies are falling back on corny old plots, now is it?
  • It obviously was meant to promote discussion on violence in video games: "Healthy outlet for stress or promoting violence in society?

    Naw. As I see it, it was meant to bash the networks' competition for eyeball time - by spreading the meme that video games need to be suppressed. (It promotes that discussion only as a tool.) If they're lucky, they get government anti-videogame action going. If not, at least it gets a lot of parents to restrict their kids' video-gaming and switches their eyeball time to TV.

    It also gives them a scapegoat when the censors come after them for the violence on their shows. "You think WE're violent? Look at Slasher Deathmath VII!". (Meanwhile they get to do an ultra-violent episode themselves and call it socially responsible.)

    They've done lots of stuff like this in the past: Alleged entertainment that makes villans or monsters of home computer users, the web, role-playing games, and even cable channel broadcasters. (I recall one cop show, for instance, where the murderer was a cable-channel operator, as part of a scheme to get access to a cable system.)

    You'll also see a lot of it in network news: Computer programmers are evil "hackers" (always misused to discredit the experts), tearing down the business infrastructure and compromising national security. Computer games turn children into violent criminals and mass murderers. The web is full of skinheads, revolutionaries, cults, and child molesters. And so on.

    It's interesting to see that they're STILL up to their old tricks.

  • The first real holodeck-gone-wrong story for me was the film "Westworld." Everything else ever done in the Star Trek series was just a rehash of this same film, including yesterday's horrid X-Files episode. And who knows, perhaps it wasn't even original in "Westworld" either...

    Cheers
    Francois Kupo
  • Yes, there was a time when a computer game could cut off your head and some crazed or misguided developer loved his machines just like you or I love our dogs and cats.

    That era is over and has been, for the public anyway, since PCs have gotten cheap enough to be in your house and your last 4 boxes are in some landfill awaiting the fifth. I think scifi reached the saturation point with Tron. "Yes its nice and all but this is getting too fake even for movie standards," echoed through more minds than ever.

    Now we have the same producers and writers fondly regurgitating 'mad scientist' stories except atom rays have been replaced with VR hoping it'll be exciting as Superman pounding Lex Luther. It isn't, and probably will never go away, on television that is. This is a medium where the sitcom formula was perfected 30 years ago (set up line then punch line over and over) and every year theres 20 new sitcoms begging for your attention.

    Yeah X-Files isn't exactly a sitcom but it is network TV, which occasionally shows us its graying hair.
  • Yeah, I re-watched that part, and the guy plugs the power into the device id (master/slave) controller pins.

    -Tim

  • The FPS Episode demonstrated that the X-Files simply is losing sight of its true audience. Those of us that have been loyal to the X-files since its inception know that the show is simply trying to grab ratings now. It has obviously been corrupted. But, considering it is a FOX show, we should all be grateful that it hasn't been corrupted too much be the greedy 'Who wants to marry a multi-millionaire' 'when cars attack (I hope im not the only one guilty of watching that)' bastards in the front offices at Fox. I, for one, was just happy to watch Scully whoop the hot, cowboy chick's ass with a wicked machine gun. Plus, there was the decapitation, the broadsword, and the chance to see the Lone Gunmen again.

    Granted, the X-Files is nowhere near what it used to be ( see the cheesy COPS episode ), but we should all be grateful that it hasn't been screwed up THAT badly. Plus, Scully is a definite hotty ;P

    Does anyone know if there is any truth to the rumor of a Lone Gunmen series? I am really curious...


    =====Remember, a truly wise man never plays leap frog with a unicorn.

  • I did, however, enjoy the part where the game reverted back to a DOS prompt - no wonder things went wrong.

    I also like the bit about how killing the program would destroy the game, or how they couldn't shell out to kill -9 the game process... I guess Chris hasn't discovered the joys of source code... :)

  • Yes, I agree that it lacked realism.
    It's one thing to take poetic liberties with reality in order to have a good plot... but this x-files episode was just goofy, as if nobody really did much research into video gaming (namely FPS games).

    Now there were specific instances that I'm sure made all the /. readers chuckle (like jiggling a PC drive's power connector in order to reroute something to work a kill switch into the system? Huh??) but the whole concept just totally missed it with me.

    For one, the actual videogame that the show featured was just lame and the technology behind it didn't even make sense, it was just thrown out there for viewers to accept. Was it all holographic, or were they plugged into a Matrix-style world where all the images were projected into their minds while they physically walked around? If the game was about to ship everywhere, do customers have to buy a big concrete room with holographic projectors in order to run it? And by the way, did Mulder really say "Can you texture-wrap it" in reference to the wireframe model?

    Now about the game itself (and this is just a rant) but it seems like the last video game the writers ever played was one of those police-shooter type games in the arcade, because that's what the FPS game looked like. Boring. They definitely missed the boat as far as figuring out what the hardcore game players are actually doing. The fact that what's-her-name created the "Goddess" character for herself may have had some influence from the RPG/MUD sector... or just a cheesy coincidence.

    However, I think Mulder did get it right as far as saying that violent games are an outlet for the primal anger that is being more and more constrained in a civilized society. In other words, games such as the X-files FPS(or real-life games) don't cause real-life violence, but serve to relieve the pressure that would otherwise cause it, which is the view already expressed countless times by members of the gaming community.

    Man, this episode could've been for US, it's a shame it had to turn out like it did. At least Scully gave in at the end and kicked some ass.
  • Alright you perverted kids.. The Chick is Krista Allen and She has starred in many lame ass Soaps as well as a softcore series called Emanuelle in Space.. in which she proved that she can act as good as a porn star.. although she did do good in Liar Liar in which she was the Busty Woman on the elevator that Jim Carrey was Harrassing just enough to make her slap him.. but anyway

  • Is it just me or are half the things that the lone gunmen and the X-files actually protray just crap? I mean the concept of being able to do fantastic things I for one can understand. However massive virtual reality?, actual working AI, being able to "upload" your conciousness on the internet, cracking government and industrial databases with impunity? These ideas are cracked at best and dangerous at worst.
  • Was it just me, or did the whole thing come off as a direct ripoff of the "Holodeck gone wrong" episodes from ST:TNG?

    As recent as the last episode of Voyager we had one of those little dealies. Now we don't have any pretence. Janeway decides it's better to keep the holideck people than her own crew. Judging from the last 2 main characters in ST:DS9 and ST:VOY (Sisko, and Janeway respectively) I wouldn't want to be in the same sector as either of them.
  • I hit the ground in a dream once. You don't die. You just wake up and it feels like someone hit you in the gut really really hard.
  • I've occasionally "died" in my dreams (got shot, crushed, drowned, whatever), but I usually end up in some weird modernistic Dantesque version of an afterlife (often more interesting than "real life"!), so apparently my brain isn't taking that death seriously...
  • I missed that (Saw the Windows window, missed what he was typing -- crappy TV Set.)

    What I was thinking was, "Damn, I hate it when I'm sitting there trying to gun down the psychotic AI in the VR world and the fucking OS is hourglassing on me. That's the problem with those primative single queue non-preemptive (or single queue preemptive like OS/2) OSes. If they'd used UNIX they could have just kill -9'ed the AI entity's process but they probably couldn't find the right 3D drivers for their VR World. Damn proprietary Virtual 3D worlds..."

  • "Mulder wants her _TEXTURE WRAPPED_ (Giggle!)"

    "Mulder wants a _PRINT OUT_ (Giggle!)"

  • Not very realistic? Apparently you are not well-versed in the current state of virtual reality systems. No, the graphics aren't as good as they were on the show, but they're getting pretty damn good. They don't even require super-beefy equipment any more. One of the really cool things about the episode (and kinda stupid when you think about it) was that they weren't just standing in pods, they were really moving around in a mock scene. How kids are going to do this in their home when they release it I have no idea ;) But when it gets right down to it, that game was not all that unrealistic. Give it 5 years, we'll have photo-quality visuals on PCs and all the other technology has been around for years...

    Esperandi
  • Ever read Snow Crash?

    Esperandi
  • Why does everyone keep saying there were holograms? The way I took it was that their suits did all the work, but they were in a mockup of the scene in real life. Why would the screenshots of the game include the buildings if not?

    Maybe I missed a line or something in the show, I woul just thought the mock up of the scene was so they didn't have to stand in those dorky VR rings like we have now, this way when they ran or jumped they really ran and really jumped, making it more realistic on the physical side...

    Esperandi
    If they made a game like this, I might even freaking work out... that'd be scary. We must stop these games. Screw the violence in society angle, think of the EXCERCISE this will introduce into our culture! Buff geeks! I think that's sorta like hell freezing over.
  • I contest that vote, I'd have to say the worst X-Files episode ever was that episode with the wolf-woman, the crazy one that valued the lives of wolves more than humans... it was just terrible in every aspect I could imagine.

    At least this one had some really nice ass shots.

    Esperandi
  • We are closer than you think, the only thing we don't have yet that was on the show was the graphics quality. We already have photorealistic renderers and such, so as soon as they get optimized enough or processors are able to trace the light rays fast enough - boom - we're there. We already have chestplates that make you feel like you got drop-kicked, we have that inner-ear thing that makes you feel like you're moving, all the rest of it...

    Esperandi
  • I don't know who Straffe is, I'm assuming you mean STRAFE, or side-step... anyhow, when I saw them run up to the bunker I too said out loud (I was at a friends place, I wasn't talking to myself... that time) "Its like paintball!" Well, sorta like paintball, strafing is not a good idea... its a great idea in traditional FPS games, but in a really real environment, strafing often leads to falling on your ass and getting nailed ;)

    And anyone who thinks paintball is for crazy Vietnam vets or militiamen is missing out on an absolute BLAST of a time!

    Esperandi
    Wipers suck.
  • Think of how it COULD have stunk, tho... they were saying all this stuff about how the chick in the game was designed to fight male agression... what if Scully had warped into the game and pillow-talked Ms. Afterglow to oblivion?

    Esperandi
    Was expecting that scenario or something very "Waiting to exhale"-ish...

    Oh wait, I had a question... did Gibson assist on this X-Files episode? I hope not... of so, he shoulda left it on that self-aware killer trailer, THAT was a cool episode (just sit around and consider how much a computer could do if it was self-aware along these lines. Maybe not take over an orbiting missile launcher, but it could order all kinds of crap over the net, make the money to pay for it by launching a web design firm, etc... interesting conversation fodder that first Gibson-assisted X-Files was)
  • i thought for a minute that one of the Lone gunmen were goin to get into the game and get killed off just so there couldn't be a Lone Gunmen spinoff like people have theorized (and if they wanna keep the X-Files alive its their best bet, trying to replace Mulder OR Scully would be rejected even if it was done spectacularly, and they simply couldn't replace both of them well.)

    Esperandi
  • Ahhh, but the point is, when you play FPS games, you're not acting violently... you're pressing keys, moving a mouse. FPS games only scare people who have never dealt with violence in the real world, have never held a .44 and blasted away at something. They assume its just like the game and people learn it from the games. Nope.

    Most people that get shot in the face die from their neck breaking, not the obliteration of their brain. That's a little fact most people don't know and don't think enough about the real side of gunfire to realize... If you know anything about guns, you usually laugh at violent movies and games because the guns just aren't used correctly. When you "cock" a shotgun, it ejects a shell, yet on many movies you see people cock the shotgun multiple times before firing.

    I almost wet my pants watching an old episode of the X-Files when Scully goes to Mulders apartment where someone shot at her (the one where Mulder has his aprtments water spiked with LSD) and pulls out of the wall not a slug, but a CASING! A *CASING*... the thing that gets ejected onto the ground or stays in the gun (if its a revolver). It would not be stuck in a wall.

    Just remember, there are no mazes with cheese at the end in nature, running rats through them proves nothing.

    Comparing people who type with people who fire real firearms is not valid either.

    Esperandi
  • Well I have died in dreams before. Three times that I remember. And they are 'deaths' that end in my perception going away, followed by a period of nothingness and then I wake up. Unsettling, but not fatal.
  • Funny story about that (maybe it's apocryphal, but it's still nifty):

    I guess when "BladeRunner" originally came out, Gibson was immediately intrigued, but refused to see it. When he finally broke down and went, it drove him nuts to watch the film because it was EXACTLY the thing that he wished he'd done-- like as though Dick/Scott had mined the ideas and images directly from his brain.

    Karl Jung would have said that this was a synchronicity and claimed that the situation was just more evidence to support the existence of a mass subconscious. Guess that just goes to show what an asshole Jung was.

  • The Lone Gunmen were there acting as consultants. Langley wrote a good number of the 'villains', according to the plot. I thought this kind of odd, as only one 'villain' of the many they showed had any 'personality' whatsoever.

    Apparently, the Lone Gunmen are very well respected in their field (however broad that may be), and it's nice that they at least (for once) showed that the Lone Gunmen actually do generate some form of revenue. I hate loose ends like that, characters that don't appear to be anything other than pawns for the main characters to rely upon.

    Still though, the episode did kinda suck, despite William Gibson and the Lone Gunmen's involvement. I remember when an episode that featured the Gunmen was a good episode for me.

  • I don't know about you, but my roommate and I were having a blast MST3K-ifying it.

    *mulder fires off clip at badass chick with no effect
    Crow - "Damn! Should have switched to the rail gun!"
    Tom Servo - "Who would think to take a clan named 'crack whores' seriously?"

    *dude is blasted by chick with pistol*
    Crow - "ahhh! I knew I should have stuck with Legend of the Red Dragon!"


    We're considering finding a copy of the episode, hooking up a snappy and adding captions ala the matrix parody. [detonate.net]
    -Spazimodo

    Fsck the millennium, we want it now.

  • I haven't seen this posted yet, so sorry if it's redundant.

    Daily Radar [dailyradar.com] has an interview [dailyradar.com] with Tom Maddox, who co-wrote the FPS episode with William Gibson.

    It's a good interview. Interesting to read his perspective on what he wrote.
    ------
  • The Matrix wasn't the first.

    for a start look at that apalling film "hackers" from the mid-ninties. And that ripped off the images from legions of dodgy 80s and 90s films and TV shows.

  • Blade Runner was released in '82 wasn't it? Gibson has credited it as a heavy influence. What Mad Max lacked was the urban setting that Blade Runner had. It (and a bunch of wanna bes) and Nueromancer are really distopian views rather than post-apocalyptic.

    As for the X-Files last night; I didn't watch it and haven't watched the show much this season. Those guys need to move back to Vancouver, LA is killing that show. I watched Ghost In The Shell instead; now that's a cyberpunk flick!

    -=RR=-

  • The episode was funny and in general, entertaining. I personally like the way most of the season has gone, not taking itself seriously, and having fun with some of the characters. The serious plots are obviously being saved for movies, etc. and I guess we can just hope they won't try and spinoff the show. I don't want to finish watching Malcolm in the Middle and see "The Smoking Man Hour" someday in the future.

    Granted, everything in the episode that had to do with anything technical was utter garbage. (But it was kinda nifty to find out that Mulder was a gamer.) I mean, there are obvious flaws...operating on the hard drive to perform a reset...and the hard drive not having a data cable connected to it...and the one line "cheat code" to completely wipe all his work from all his systems. You, know, industry standard stuff like that? I'm sure if you hit "Shift+Alt+AncestorCode" Win 95/98 will just delete themselves. The model of the chick...that was horrid rendering...I was also kinda disspointed in the actual woman...nice body...needed a better face, though. And the chick coder working on her own seperate game...by herself, on one machine. (How exactly was it a "house of testosterone...with one guy, and one girl working there? Did the testosterone just beat the shit out of the estrogen?) However, there were moments where I was just laughing my ass off.

    I personally nearly died laughing every time the Lone Gunmen would go over to monitor someone and they would yell out "Bloodthirst is Unquenchable!" or they'd just start going off about a player, "It's because he knows no fear." The fat kid not being able to keep up, and getting wasted was hilarious. I also really liked the Thresh figure getting mauled. (He looked totally gay with the arms and guns crossed, though.) The idea of getting shot in a first person shooter and having 12 volts run through your body not letting you get back up seemed a bit extreme...I don't think I'd pay for that experience, personally.

    I don't know if it was supposed to spark discussion about videogame violence and related topics...it really waffled on that issue. For me, it fell far, far by the wayside.

    However, I personally expected a lot more from the X-File guys in the way of research, though. Usually, they do lots of research into the technical aspects of the show, so that when Mulder talks, he doesn't sound like a moron. However, this episode was sadly not that way. Nobody did any more than a lick of research. You figure they'd talk to some of the guys that were doing the rendering to ask about computer stuff so they didn't get reamed by the internet people...who I figure probably make up 75-80% of their viewership now. I was thoroughly let down, but I'd be lying if I told you that that was a waste of an hour. I was definitely entertained, about as much as I was during the "COPS" epsiode last week.
  • I totally agree about the hilarity thing. When I think back on the X-Files episodes I love the most, it isn't the ones where Mulder/Scully almost die, I remember episodes like the alien abduction one where the guy is doing the documentary on it. The one with the D&D guy, and the line:

    "With all of these death threats going around, you weren't afraid?"
    "I've been playing role playing games for 20 years now, so I know a thing or two about courage."

    The Lone Gunmen in Las Vegas episode was cool. So was the COPS one, and last week's episode was pretty damn funny too. The mark of a good show is that it can make episodes like that and then return back to its original form.
  • This episode made me totally sick! not that the x-files *hasn't* devolved into complete drivel anyway....but i tuned in cause the ads with scully decked out in VR armor were just too much for me to pass up....... needless to say the episode was a complete disappointment. and not just cause all *3* of the woman in this episode (not counting the killer-chick's holographic duplicates :P) were like stereotypes of a stereotype! both genders were maligned equally, imo. at least for women, there were 3 *different* stereotypes......scully, moralizing for the sake of the children, the freak-of-nature hackergrrl, and the homicidal fembot. *all* the men were portrayed as sex-crazed automotons -- especially mulder, leading with his Wang, as usual........those cops were sickening!! ok....except maybe for those 3 nerdy guys (what are they called again?).....mulder's tech buddies......they always amuse me. anyway.....i should know not to expect anything more than the most trite generalizations from this show......women, men, hackers, gamers, whatever........ i guess this makes me an ex-x-files fan :P, sonicblnd
  • (although it baffled me why such a woman would hold up a rather sexist image as her best-of-possible self).

    Women programmers can fall prey to stereotypes just as much as men. And this woman wanted the character to be everything she wasn't. Furthermore, if I were to program something to hurt men, I'd probably make her look like something that would stun them into the drool zone long enough to pull out a gun, just like she did.

    This discussion [womengamers.com] in particular is broadened at womengamers.com [womengamers.com], for anyone who is interested.

    -- Kimberly "I like breasts too, but they're a pain in combat!" Chapman

  • She did have some very nice...err...umm...texture mapping.

    The episode had some funny lines, but as a whole, really died as a story. Especially with the generic "Oh my God, Mulder is trapped in the cyber-world" theme that seems to be visited in any mediocre virtual reality story...quick, Lassie...I mean, Scully, go strap on your Laser-Tag gear and save him. Whatever.

    And the programmer girl was a disturbing stereotype. "I'm a lonely coder with no self-esteem, so I'll create my idea of a perfect woman because I'm so ugly and worthless...I just need a G-string, broadsword, and some Tekken 3 moves. Done!" Just because she's a female in a male dominated world doesn't mean she has to have little-to-no self-esteem and believe the perfect woman is a gun-wielding supermodel.

    Part of me wants to expect better...but then again, the writer probably saw The Matrix and decided it would be kewl to do an X-Files episode like that. Sigh.

  • Greame Devine of id software posted his opinions on last nights X-Files episode. check it out at blue's finger [bluesnews.com]

    but just in case, here is the text:

    Name: Graeme Devine

    Email: zaphod@idsoftware.com

    X-Files. I like X-Files. I didn't like the episode last night -- in fact it was awful.
    Mr. Gibson, if you want to come down to id and hang out and see how a real developer makes games you are most welcome. Heck, you can even help out on id's next game thereby staying here long enough to get our culture.

    flip - out

  • I think we all know it was just an excuse to dress Molder and Scully up in those uniforms.
  • Ah, nothing I like better than an off-topic discussion about sci-fi movie plot flaws and possible fixes!

    >(letting the "real you" live when your Matrix persona had died made no sense, and you could always be recycled for food for the rest of your fellow batter-- humans).

    Right! Except when Neo was first 'unplugged' from the Matrix by a roving robot/attendant, the Matrix didn't kill him first before flushing him down the toilet. I always assumed that the 'red pill' that caused an interruption in the 'input/output carrier' made the Matrix assume that the battery had gone dead and that's why the robot disconnected him and opened the drain in his pod. This would effectively kill the battery if it weren't already dead and if Morpheus wasn't waiting to scoop him up. Always thought that scene would have been way cooler with a bunch of floating corpses in the water and Neo bobbing around among them waiting for the ship to pick him out.

    I have to agree with the prior post, the "your mind _makes_ it real" explanation is crap. Something along the lines of "while you are connected to the Matrix, your respiration and circulation are under the control of the Matrix. If the Matrix thinks you are dead, you _are_ dead." ...or something like that. Also, being plugged and unplugged from the Matrix should have been a more violent and traumatic experience... like you go into arrest and someone has to do CPR on you each time you 'come out'.

  • I had thought that this episode was going to be a Pilot / spin-off episode for the ?lone gunmen. I hope it wasn't. I think the shows writers and producers got together, got high, and rented a marathon of early 1990's tech-horror/ tech-is-bad movies- ghost in the machine, lawnmower man, etc. Last nights x-files would have been much better if Eschelon would have planted something in the game. Let maury, and sally jesse raphial cover the lame video-violence crap. X-files should just creep us out in a cool way.

  • I like ... (Score:3)

    by Bad Mojo ( 12210 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @09:49AM (#1239829)
    I like William Gibson. I love his books and I really like his views on technology. I also love FPS style games. I help run a good sized LAN party and have tons of fun playing Quake III and UT. That being said, I also like X-Files. So last night promised to be a spooge-fest for me.

    I have never thought that our current technology, nor the budgets used for first-time movies or TV shows could ever meet Gibson's desire. Sometimes I feel that Gibson's flash in Johnny Mnemonic and his X-Files writing escepades have been a horrible product of a lack of translation between what's in Gibson's head and what people hear coming out of his mouth. So when I watched last night, I really expected cheese out the yin-yang. I was not disappointed. So I try to look past that and try to see what the real meat of the episode was.

    I think Moulder and Scully are two different people with very different attitudes about what is a game, and what is real. To Scully, picking up a gun and shooting people is a real thing. It can never be a game. It's too attached to reprecusions. Moulder, on the other hand, can detatch from those consequences for a game and enjoy the sheer simple act of blowing up stuff. I don't normally devide the world into two groups, but most people (I think) fall into one or the other. Once you understand what's going on by experiencing both, you start to realize neither party is WRONG, but experiencing the same thing generates diffrent emotions and feelings about what is being done. That's what I saw last night. Maybe it was wrong, who cares.

    Until Gibson posts or something and tells us all what was going on, I really think some of it was good old living vicariously through your technology. Nothing more, nothing less.

    Enough rambling from me.

    Bad Mojo

  • Re:FPS (Score:3)

    by Bad Mojo ( 12210 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @09:57AM (#1239830)
    Quake III Announcer Voice: "HUMILIATION!"


    Bad Mojo

  • I watched last night's episode with my wife and two friends. As soon as blubbering geek-girl uttered the line which you quoted, she rolled her eyes. "This show is offensive," she said, and I had to agree with her.

    It's not that I mind leering at a voluptous woman from the comfort of my living room, but I do mind when the only characters on a show are either oversexed boy-men (any male character in the show), oversexualized prostitutes (the Basic Instinct wanna-be questioned by the police), or women who can only deal with sexual energy by sublimation into code (geek girl) or violence (Scully, 'round about the end of the show).

    Usually, I give less than half a rat's ass about sexism on TV (it's easy when you start with the assumption that it's all crap anyway), but that was bad. Like, Cleopatra 2525 [cleopatra-2525.com] bad.

    In closing, however, I'll give in to some of my own testosterone-fuled urges. To wit: god damn, I don't think I've ever seen anyone whose legs went up as high as that.

  • check out www.defcon.org, it's a computer underground conference held yearly in Las Vegas.

  • Not the point for me... (Score:3)

    by Krellis ( 19116 ) <.gro.sillerk. .ta. .todhsals.> on Monday February 28, 2000 @03:16PM (#1239833) Homepage
    For probably the past 2-3 seasons, getting "new" stuff, particularly in non-myth episodes, has been pretty much moot for me. I mean, even in the myth episodes, I for one can pretty much ALWAYS predict what is about to happen, even as far as predicting the second part of a two-part episode. For me, the entire POINT of the X-Files is the cool technology, the occasional funny lines, and all of that. Who cares if it isn't 100% technically perfect all the time? BFD. Who cares if they gloss over some things? It's just a one-hour TV show. You have to give them credit with coming up with as much material as they have; once you try to do the exact same thing for seven years, you kinda start running out. I don't think I'll be particularly sad when X-Files ends after this season, but I won't be jumping for joy in the streets. It has been a good show, even in its predictable moments. And I really liked that episode; lots of kewl stuff blowing up ;)

    Just my $0.42 or so.

    ---
    Tim Wilde
    Gimme 42 daemons!

  • "outlet for stress?" (Score:3)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @10:00AM (#1239834) Journal
    Where did this "outlet for stress" concept come from anyway? What psychology expert decided that stress is something that accumulates and must be disposed of?

  • Re:Not very realistic? (Score:3)

    by jezzball ( 28743 ) <slash2.dankeen@com> on Monday February 28, 2000 @10:48AM (#1239835) Homepage Journal
    The Matrix explained it as "the body cannot live without the mind" as I recall

    Actually, this was one of the beautiful parts of the Matrix. Morpheus stated "the body cannot live without the mind" which, is, in essence true - it's not a depiction of VR killing you, it's saying if you kill your mind, you kill yourself.

    Neo found out slightly differently. I still don't think Neo was "the chosen one" per say, but the first to realize that yes, the body can't live without the mind, but that doesn't mean the Matrix can kill the mind.

    Neo was shot, he was killed, he flatlined. But he lived. That's the mind triumphing over VR.

    So I think it's inaccurate to quote the Matrix as a similar source. It actually moved beyond that.

    Just my .02.
    Jezzie
    ls: .sig: File not found.

  • Re:What I Learned... (Score:3)

    by Wah ( 30840 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @12:01PM (#1239836) Homepage Journal
    I can see the board meeting now.

    "Hmm, well we've only got a few grand left. Should we get some type of back-up or go with the retinal scanners?"

    [group chorus] "RETINAL SCANNERS!"

    --

  • Re:Not very realistic? (Score:3)

    by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @10:44AM (#1239837)
    Think of dreaming, we've all experienced dreams that seemed very very real to us, more real than any virtual experience is, or probably will be for the next 50 years. Do we have otherwise healthy people dying in their sleep due to violent dreams? Hell no! I've been chased by dinosaurs at least 5 times, and I've yet to wake up clawed, gnawed, and bleeding.

    This is true, but have you actually died in a dream? I havent, I always wake up just before I do. Perhaps if you do indeed die inside of a dream you die in real life, but if its true it can't be proven...

    -- iCEBaLM

  • Re:Stupid. (Score:3)

    by stickyc ( 38756 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @11:42AM (#1239838) Homepage
    "I was a nice try the first time... when it was called The Matrix. "

    Oh, so you never saw Tron?

  • Re:Cheese-O-Rama from ... (Score:3)

    by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @10:11AM (#1239839)
    Was it just me, or did the whole thing come off as a direct ripoff of the "Holodeck gone wrong" episodes from ST:TNG?
    Oddly enough, I think the Star Trek franchise's ongoing holodeck-goes-wrong plot device is pulled off better than this X-Files episode.

    And yes... I find that statement scarry. I tend to suspect the holodeck is the writer's biggest copout right behind solving the current deleamma with tachyon particles/field.

  • Re:William Gibson (Score:3)

    by Firinne ( 43280 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @10:19AM (#1239840)
    You'll have to forgive Chris Carter for the computer-based story lines because this last one was co-written by William Gibson, as was the one about "uploading consciousness to the Internet".
    He's never been one to let reality get in the way of his version of cyberspace.
    I really like William Gibson, but it's hard not to cringe at some of the unrealistic footage.

    One thing about William Gibson (and something that made him a very popular sci-fi writer) was that he didn't know anything about computers when he wrote Neuromancer, so he didn't recognize any limitations. Which was fine for a world "set sometime in a cyberpunk future", but is less fine for a "here and now" X-Files episode.

    He should know more about "modern day" computers and their limitations before he starts to write a "modern day" television episode about computers.

  • Re:Not very realistic? (Score:3)

    by Firinne ( 43280 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @10:57AM (#1239841)
    Oh and I loved that program jumping.?!

    Hey, it's possible! The other day the MS Office Assistant Paperclip jumped into the game of Quake III I was playing, and totally wasted me.

  • Gibson wrote it (Score:3)

    by Mark F. Komarinski ( 97174 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @09:53AM (#1239842) Homepage
    <RANT>What do you expect?</RANT>

    Seriously though, I found out about this early last week, as Xybernaut [xybernaut.com] announced in a press release that X-Files would be showing off their equipment. Unfortunately, they were really nothing more than props (the head-mounted displays), and really didn't add anything to the show.

    If XYBR really wanted to show off their stuff, they should make a Snow Crash movie.

    Getting back to the violence bit, that's a hard question to answer. Women are not *as interested* in FPS, or shooters of any kind (well, my wife likes Area 51..). Then again, there are definate differences between the female and male minds. So it's hard to say that it's a testosterone thing, or men need to get out their agression lest they take it out in another way. Unfortunately, I think it would have to take a lot of research to find the links. And research means there'll be data, and data will be skewed by whoever reads it.

    Is there more violence in the US? Probably. Is violence increased as a percentage of the population? I don't know. Is said violence a result of watching too much South Park/3 Stooges/Baywatch? Could be.

  • Real life? (Score:3)

    by Pixel[EA] ( 135283 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @11:35AM (#1239843)

    My gf asked if thats what I do at work all day, in a serious tone...

    "Yes, dear... very similar."

    It's easier then explaining.

  • In defense of the episode. (Score:4)

    by Wombat ( 6297 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @02:13PM (#1239844) Homepage
    I know there's a lot of comments already, and I don't want to be redundant... I do, however, want to throw in my thoughts.
    Yes, the episode had difficulties, most of which everyone else has covered. But I'd like to answer some of them; to the question of why didn't they use actual game graphics? Well, think about it. It's probably a lot cheaper and faster to hire an actor and say "move like this, say these lines" than to actually go through and render the exact sequences the script and director call for.
    Someone else brought up the seeming lack of an AI in the game. I have to agree that this was the case for Level II. The game's level 1, however, reminded me a lot of the opening level from Duke Nukem 3D, and I thought that was good. It also seemed like it had a lot more potential for AI involvement than the second level, which was, essentially, a duck hunt or Carnival style shooter and that's it.
    Someone else asked how they planned to ship the game. At one point one of the lone gunmen said it was being sent to "50 malls next week." that gave me the impression that it was going to be set up like the lazer tag places and virtual reality arcades that are in existence now; it wouldn't be sent to homes but would be an amusement desitination.
    Ignoring all the implausibilities, I thought the episode was just fun, darn it. We all know mulder's a geek, and to see him go in to the game in his groovy techno armor was cool. It reminded me of how I felt playing Doom II over a network for the first time around '94. And I think that's what the episode meant to do, besides bringing up the issues of game violence, sexism, etc, I think it just wanted to create the same feelings that arise among players of First person shooters, perhaps providing a bit of a glimpse into a culture that non players might not know exists.
    And while I'm asking for it, I thought that the COPS style episode last week was really cool too. And before I get skewered let me remind you of Pohl's law... Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.

    -Wombat
    Because. Syntax Error in line 10. Core dumped. Please bugger off.

  • What I Learned... (Score:4)

    by chromatic ( 9471 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @09:54AM (#1239845) Homepage

    The best reason to have an IPO is so that you can afford a $300 backup solution. Or a CVS repository. Or a hard drive to go along with your ramdisk, so that if the power accidentally goes out, you don't lose all of your work.

    Gosh, you'd think William Gibson wrote "Neuromancer" on a typewriter or something.

    --

  • Re:Not very realistic? (Score:5)

    by Sethb ( 9355 ) <bokelman@outlook.com> on Monday February 28, 2000 @10:33AM (#1239846)
    I get very tired with the same plot device being used every time someone uses virtual worlds or gaming in a plot, what we always end up with is "what happens to you in the game, happens to you in life" or somesuch.

    The Matrix did it, X-Files did it last night, The Thirteenth Floor (avoid this movie), did it too. The Matrix explained it as "the body cannot live without the mind" as I recall.

    I'm getting really tired of this theme, which I understand must be used to actually induce some drama into these worlds, since most people probably wouldn't care about a virtual game or world, if there were very little consequences in the real world for whatever transpired "virtually."

    But come on already, enough is enough! Can anyone point me to any study or theory that says Virtual Reality deaths may cause you to die? I doubt it.

    Think of dreaming, we've all experienced dreams that seemed very very real to us, more real than any virtual experience is, or probably will be for the next 50 years. Do we have otherwise healthy people dying in their sleep due to violent dreams? Hell no! I've been chased by dinosaurs at least 5 times, and I've yet to wake up clawed, gnawed, and bleeding.

    So, my challenge, to all would-be and current sci-fi writers is this: invent a way to make us actually care about what happens virtually with a better plot device than psycho-babble about the mind manifesting injuries and death upon the body.

    I'm finished ranting now, so I will return you all to your regularly scheduled trolls. :)
    ---

  • Straffe, damn you! (Score:5)

    by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @10:40AM (#1239847)
    I believe real tactics make for a poor movie. This recent eposide proves this as their players make the same tactical mistakes so many other movies fall in to.

    The opening scene within the game seemed right. You could almost feel the tension and adrenaline gripping the players as they get ready to go. They bounce back and forth.

    Chomp at the bit.

    Buzzer. Gate. Violence unleashed...

    And all the players run to the same bunker. "Newbie cluster!" my wife yells. She doesn't play FPS games. But she does play paintball. In either case, it makes everyone one big massive target. I suppose it also makes it easier to get the camera angles right. Better make the scene quick.

    The next thing we prove is that Hollywood can not produce a bad guy who can aim. Even if they program them. Our 3 players in the opening scene run forth into a gauntlet of machine-gun toating bad guys who have the advantage of cover, angle, and height. Our heros' guns blaze and take out Bad Guys left and right. Granted, one of the players gets hit. He probably shot himself.

    Savor this moment. Other than the shapely Laura-in-leather killer AI, this is the end of the action within the FPS environment.

    The rest of the "action" scenes involve our heros standing still and wiggling around a bit as they squeeze a trigger. "Wow! Look at her go!" admires an onlooker as Scully mows down the bad guys. Yea. She's skillfull with that trigger squeeze.

    I find myself yelling "Straffe, damn you! Straffe!"

    Once again, I suspect its so much easier to shoot a scene involving a solitary figure waving a gun around. Interject a bit of reality, and the majority tail end of the scene is our hero's gibs.

    I suppose its silly of me to complain. I should be happy with what they seem to think is action. Next thing you know, I'll be demanding something that can be identified as a story-line and plot.

    None of it was found in this XFiles episode.

  • Stupid. (Score:5)

    by StatGrape ( 123943 ) on Monday February 28, 2000 @09:50AM (#1239848) Homepage
    Let's see...

    Post-apocalyptic 'industrial' scenery - check.
    Misused techy buzz words - check.
    Overuse of leather and plastic costumes - check.
    Life and death struggle inside a computer - check.
    Goofy sunglasses - check.

    Yep, sounds like a typical portrayal of a 'cyber' world to me. I was a nice try the first time... when it was called The Matrix.

    I did, however, enjoy the part where the game reverted back to a DOS prompt - no wonder things went wrong.

    -SG

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