I wasn't exactly dying to watch this movie, because I've quit anything and everything Warcraft years ago, I've got a lot of sad family history thanks to Warcraft and I never gave a shit about Warcraft lore, especially when it came to WoW. I wanted World of Warcraft to be about me and my friends, our characters and their adventures, but the game was always about some powerful male hero or villain that we as the players would always just play second fiddle to. And frankly, the lore was never very interesting or original to me.
With all that in mind, I still had a lot of fun with these games over the years. I did play all three RTS games and I have lots of happy (and many not so happy) memories of my time on WoW with friends and family. So I went to see the Warcraft movie and found it entirely watchable. It was far from the best movie of all times, but I liked it.
Part of the reason I enjoyed Warcraft is probably expectation. I'm old enough to have watched Masters of the Universe in my childhood. You know, the one based on a cartoon show and that massive series of action figures everyone loved back then? And I'm saying "based on", when the stupid thing wasn't even set in fucking Eternia, the planet where all things He-Man used to happen. And instead of He-Man's bumbling sidekick Orko we got whatever the fuck this is:
Seamus' scrotum.
And don't get me started on this shit:
Siiiiiigh...
The most tolerable "thing you love turned into a movie" that I can remember from my childhood was the original Ninja Turtles movie. It wasn't great and featured the lamest villain showdown "battle" of all times, but it was still relatively faithful to the cartoon show. Of course 20 years later Michael Bay couldn't leave it at that and had to shit all over it, so...
GAH!
The point I'm making here is that whenever they go and turn some beloved video game or cartoon show into a movie, the end result fucking sucks, looks like shit and usually has next to nothing in common with its source material, because the people in charge don't understand, respect or care about it. At all.
Not. One. Bit.
And then there's Warcraft. I didn't care much for yet another "origin" story, especially since the entire plot of Orcs and Humans can be summarized in three paragraphs on wowhead.com. Of course it still made the most sense to start right at the beginning, because not everyone is familiar with how it all began and if you want to fart out tons upon tons of sequels the way everyone does these days, it's usually a good idea to start all the way back at the stone age.
And the one thing that becomes immediately apparent about Warcraft, from all the trailers, from the very first second you're starting to watch, is how it absolutely looks like fucking Warcraft. You may love or hate what they've done with the rest of the film, but you cannot possibly deny that it absolutely captures the aesthetic of Azeroth. And in an industry, which turned Yoshi into a fucking animatronic dinosaur, this is a pretty big deal.
When they show Stormwind in the movie, you know you're in fucking Stormwind. You see Gul'dan and you immediately recognize him as freakin' Gul'dan! You see (and hear!) a murloc in the movie and you know it's a god damn murloc and not the director's fucking interpretation of a Murloc. And if you think this isn't a big deal, let me remind you...
"Bowser"
To me, this movie was a 2 hour nostalgia trip to Azeroth. Did I watch it through rose-tinted glasses? Fuck yeah, that's the whole fucking point of basing a film on shit you love! And yes, the story was as lame as it was 20 years ago, most of the fights looked worse than they do in the video game and I'd much rather see more elves and dwarves and characters who remind me of friends and guild mates. You know, all the stuff that makes people read Dark Legacy Comics. But this is the first film based on a video game, which actually gives a fuck about the game. And I can totally appreciate two hours of, "I know where this is!", "I've done that!" and "I've totally been there!"
Sure, some of the special effects looked like this was some early 80s fantasy flick, but that didn't bother me at all, because this is Warcraft. It's cartoony and candy-coloured. I hope the fight scenes will look a little less shit in the next one, because you can bet your ass I'm gonna watch the next one. "The Beginning" had its flaws, but to me it felt like the promise of something better, something more awesome. Now all we have to do is fast forward to where (warning: 20 year old spoiler) Lothar gets squished and we can move on to more interesting stuff like Arthas. I hope it's not gonna take them three more movies to finally get there.
And in all honesty, I think Warcraft is in good hands with Duncan Jones. The guy is incredibly cool, clever and I get the feeling that he knows what he's doing. Check out the awkward interview with him and Adam Rosser, who goes out of his way to get some sort of reaction from Duncan Jones, if you haven't seen it already:
Ahh yes, the Nintendo 3DS! Greatest toy I've bought in a long time. I've started experimenting with homebrew apps and custom firmware, which allows me to do all sorts of cool shit on the little handheld device. Streaming gameplay to the big PC screen, for instance. Behold!
Custom firmware allows for some really amazing features. I'll admit some of them are in a bit of a moral gray area. For instance, there's this nifty little tool, which lets you copy games off your cartridges directly onto your SD card, so you can always play your games without having to bring the cartridges. Incredibly useful, but Nintendo probably aren't too keen on people copying games off somebody else's cartridges instead of buying their own. And that's still one of the more harmless tools. There's also the FreeShop-app, which allows you to download any game off the Nintendo eShop region-free and without paying. That's no longer borderline piracy, it's flat-out walking in there and robbing them.
On an entirely unrelated note, I've come into possession of every 3DS game, ever. And I've decided to give Animal Crossing a try, because I see all this stuff about it being the "better Tomodachi Life" and what not. I've always liked Tomodachi Life, because it's so utterly bizarre, random and oh-so Japanese. It gets incredibly repetitive rather quickly, but so do soap operas and people never get tired of those. But apparently Animal Crossing lets you do more, allows you to interact with the characters more, it's bigger, better and totally off-putting to me from the very first look, because it's clearly aimed at girls, who are no older than five.
And there's a million other things I could be playing right now.
But in my job as a games critic I have learned to give every game a fair chance, no matter how stupid they may look. So I booted it up. Like all intelligent people, who don't have to show up for work during the day, I sleep when the sun is up and play when the yellow fucker disappears, so my adventure on Animal Crossing started at 3 in the morning. The game starts on a train. I just sat there and watched the landscape zip by. Which wasn't easy, because it was pretty dark outside. Ingame time is matched to your console's clock.
It didn't take long until a creepy cat person walked up to me. He asked me if it was 3am in the morning. "Why are you talking to me? Where are your pants? Who, what... why are you", is what I wanted to say. "Yes", I replied. He asked whether he could take the seat opposite to mine, didn't wait for a response and instantly began to quiz me. About my name, where I was going... well, I already saw him without any sort of pants or undergarments, so we were way past casual. "Wait... you are a boy, right", he enquired. Is this the part where I have to take my pants off?
At least it wasn't the creepy rabbit.
I told him I was traveling to the city of Bonk. It seemed like a good name when I made it up and he seemed satisfied with it. And thank fuck, the train finally arrived in Bonk, a place I had invented literally a minute ago. What a great age we live in!
I stepped off the platform and was immediately ambushed by a bunch of anthropomorphic animals, who welcomed me as the new mayor of Bonk. I told them they were mistaken, they chose to ignore it because of reasons and a minute later I found myself inside the town hall doing mayory things. Like compose a town tune, which now follows me around anywhere I go. They also wanted me to design a town flag. You can just draw one with the stylus. No, I did not draw a penis and yes, I really, really wanted to.
And that's where my first day in Bonk ended, because Animal Crossing thinks it's my mother and makes it impossible for me to play after a certain hour. All the shops were closed, all the NPCs were in bed, so all I could do was go to my character's tent and quit for the night. Oh, they also told me I had to cough up 10,000 Bells (money) to get a proper house, because they can't have a mayor who lives in a tent. Great. First day and already in debt.
You better pay up or this guy will judge you!
I started the game a bit earlier the next day. Shops were still open at that point, but I had no money and I still had a house to pay for, so my assistant from the mayor's office told me to go sell oranges. I had to spend the next two hours of my life walking around the place, shaking trees and collecting oranges. I'd get stung by bees and mosquitos every now and then until my character's face got all fucked up. Sometimes I got bit by spiders, fainted and respawned by my tent. Then I grabbed all my oranges, took them to a second hand shop and sold them there. Again and again. Then I bought a fishing rod, caught some fish and sold those. Then I bought a shovel, dug up some fossils, donated them to a museum and got fuck all for it, because that's how donations work. Finally, I managed to farm up the 10k for my house. Then I was told it would take another day to actually build my house and I should take it easy for a while. End of day 2, whether I liked it or not.
Over 90% of my play time so far consists of waiting for stuff.
I started the game up again when my house was done. Now I was supposed to hang with the locals and get an approval rating of 100 percent. My assistant told me I could also raise my rating by composing a town tune and designing a flag. Good thing I had already done that two days ago, so apparently it counted for nothing. Apart from that I was supposed to just chat with people and help them solve their problems.
So I walked around for a bit and entered a random house. Inside, everything was made of fruit. The table was half of a giant grapefruit, the wallpaper, chairs, everything was fruity. And the guy inside was an orange cat thing, which must also must have been a fruit somehow. I'd love to meet his parents. His name was Tangy. Figures.
Female, apparently.
Oh boy. I used Google image search to get a picture of this character for demonstrative purposes. Turns out rule 34 also applies to Animal Crossing. It also turns out Tangy's a lady.
I did what every considerate person would do and started going through Tangy's stuff, since there weren't any pots to smash. I also nagged Tangy into letting me nick one of her chairs. Heh! A nick-nag. Then I went to the second hand shop and sold it. I also bumped into a Koala named Sydney, who told me she had to shop for more summer clothing. Well, that's interesting! There was also a rooster who told me he's paranoid about buying stuff at the second hand shop, because he can't tell whether stuff is overpriced or not. Come on, man, they gave me ten grand for a bunch of oranges!
As you may have noticed, none of the townsfolk I've met had any freakin' problems! How was I supposed to raise my approval rating if nobody needed my help? So I've spent another hour selling oranges and fish, bought a net and started catching bugs. Then I came across another house, went in and said hello to Whitney.
Woof!
So after a rabbit with a pornstache, a chubby koala and an orange-cat-hybrid I bumped into somebody who must have been a dog or something. She was also the first one to actually ask me for help. She asked me if I liked her shirt and I had to rate it on a scale that went from boring to perfect. So I did what every gentleman does and pretended I give a fuck about her clothes, telling her she looked perfect. She was super thrilled and I was so in there! Or so I thought until she gave me one of her shirts to wear. Great. Shirt buddies. The one NPC I didn't instantly hate had friendzoned me, probably thinking I'm gay for caring about her clothes.
She said I look really good in her shirt, though. I think she still wants me.
I went back to my assistant Isabelle and told her she was stupid. Only one of the people had an actual problem, my approval rating was at a shitty 33 percent and I had nothing else to do. So now what? Isabelle gave me a stack of paper and suggested I'd go and write some letters to the people I had met today. Because apparently they love that kind of shit. So I went down to the beach, collected a few beautiful shells and thought about what to write.
My first letter went to the pornstache-rabbit. I think. I'm not very good with names. "Hey. Your stache looks really cool. You were the guy with the mustache, right? If you're the chicken, can you tell the rabbit I said his mustache is really cool?"
Then I sent one to Tangy. "Dear Tangy. Which one was your dad? The cat or the orange? Could you maybe draw a diagram or something? XOXO The Mayor."
And one to Sydney. "Who's a good girl?" I've been told that dogs love being asked that. Then I realized my mistake. Sydney was the freaking Koala, not the dog! I'm such an idiot! It's right in the name, god damnit!
So I went and wrote a letter to Whitney. "Yo! I think I confused you with Sydney. Sorry. I'm not very good with names." I have very poor social skills. Then I put one seashell in each envelope and took the letters to the post office. All the other shops were closed, all the NPCs were in bed and I was done for the day. Again. Sigh!
I WASN'T DONE SHOPPING FOR RIBBONS, DAMN YOU!
The next day I finally got some problems to solve. Tangy wanted to eat an orange, so I went and shook one off a tree. Wow, there's so much variety in my daily activities on here! She thanked me and gave me some furniture in return. Then I went to Sydney, who wanted some furniture to replace stuff she had thrown out. I gave her the crap I received from Tangy a minute ago. I also had a bunch of letters in my mailbox!
The first one was from Tangy, who said she was happy about my letter and will always treasure it and blah, blah, blah, I didn't really read most of it, because I assumed Tangy was male. She also somehow managed to attach a T-Shirt to my letter, which I dumped in my wardrobe. Pornstache rabbit said time really flew by as he read my mail. Judging by his response, it became pretty clear that he didn't read my mail at all and just sent a random generic response, much like Zendesk videogame techsupport. I think Sydney wrote something, but I didn't read it, because she's fat and a koala. Whitney said she reads my letter every day before she goes to bed and she always keeps it with her, because it makes her so happy. Whoa! Clearly her loins were aching for me, so I had to compose another letter.
"Dear Whitney. Meet me behind the photobooth at the train station at 8.37pm tonight. Perhaps you could help me bury my bone?"
Girls love smart, sophisticated conversation and that's what I'm all about! But it was only 2 in the afternoon and I didn't wanna wait until night time, so I came around to her house. She wasn't there.
Do I pee on her fence now? That's how dogs leave a message, right?
Perhaps she was already the the proposed meeting spot, just to be sure she wouldn't miss me? Maybe she was getting edible underwear in town, just for the occasion? I went on my way to the shops when I noticed a new house that wasn't there last night. A new neighbour? I barged in and caught Whitney with him!
TWO pillows? What's going on here?
Of course! The new guy is a fucking bear! How could I ever compete with someone so fluffy, so wild and so hairy? They're all furries on this island, after all! This was the heart-wrenching moment where I realized that my pink, fragile human body would never be good enough. I walked out without a word and left them to do whatever they were doing. I'm not going to the photobooth tonight. Even if she did show up, I don't want sloppy seconds or pity-sex. But I'll be jerking it whilst reading her letter. She was all mine when she wrote that.
