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X-Files FPS Episode
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Feb 28, 2000 01:36 PM
from the stuff-to-talk-about dept.
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 like ... (Score:3)
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)
Bad Mojo
Re:"It was all I could do, as a woman!". :PPPPPP (Score:3)
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.
DEFCON != DOD conference (Score:3)
Not the point for me... (Score:3)
Just my $0.42 or so.
---
Tim Wilde
Gimme 42 daemons!
"outlet for stress?" (Score:3)
Re:Not very realistic? (Score:3)
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. .sig: File not found.
Jezzie
ls:
Re:What I Learned... (Score:3)
"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)
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)
Oh, so you never saw Tron?
Re:Cheese-O-Rama from ... (Score:3)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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