Mortdecai - Cinema Review

The trailer for this film looked so painfully unfunny that a friend of mine actually dared me to go and see it. I thought i might at least get some mileage out of it as an example of the fetid state of film comedy. How Mortdecai is nothing more than a glorified Carry-On film with crude disgracing stains of performances on the respectable actors it has roped into it.

Instead i just left feeling bored and unsatisfied. Mortdecai isn't so bad it's mockable yet certainly isn't good enough in its own right. It isn't entirely the "ooer missus" tripe the trailer suggests but instead offers the same tired old action-comedy heist hijinks we've seen a thousand times before. That is not to say the film isn't laden with sexual innuendo, guys in embarassing pants, women in revealing or sexualising attire and things of that ilk. It just also has some rather unremarkable slapstick action sequences and a bland cliched plot involving missing famous paintings and hidden nazi treasure.

Film of the year however if you can forever find humour in the noise "EOEHW?!"

It's difficult to certify what audience Mortdecai is actually intended for. It feels numbingly similar to movies like Johnny English or other goofy spy romps but the frequent sex themes prevent it being advisable as a family film and the calibre of the comedy isn't high enough to overlook the uninteresting plot and give it any appeal to adults. The cinema i viewed it in was moderately populated and whilst a few laughs were heard, they were nowhere near as frequent as the film signposted and begged for.

I admittedly found mild amusement in the interactions between Mortdecai and his "manservant" Jock who is just unashamedly a thuggish bodyguard who follows Mortdecai around and constantly prevents his death while being repeatedly battered, shot and beaten. It's like any protagonist from a Jason Statham film being ripped out and having to play butler to a blithering, oblivious toff. Others seemed to find some humour in the sexual frustrations of Johhny Depp and Ewan McGregor's characters both fighting for the affections of Gwyneth Paltrow but it's all so mishandled...for want of a better term.

 The film is not so bereft as to call it empty but with nothing else to offer but its lacklustre humour, it's a thin strand of grass masquerading as a rope bridge. I don't quite think the character of Mortdecai and his world is without comedy potential but it was thoroughly squandered and poorly executed here.

In conclusion, Mortdecai should have been a sequence in a sketch show at best, not attempting to support an entire film with globetrotting gangster chases, upper-class marital troubles, spies, terrorists, art aficionados and their boners in a posh British accent.

In this scene he is caught groping another woman by his wife...There is no consequence to this action or most of the other actions present anywhere in the film...

An "Objective" Overview Of Gamergate

Responding to the first and most obvious criticism of this piece, there can be no truly objective human perspective. Humans by nature are influenced and shaped by their own experiences and thus will always be biased. For example my personal biases are that I’m a supporter of Feminism, very anti-censorship, anti-bullying and in favour of transparency and honesty within journalism of all kinds, hence this initial disclaimer.

This is an attempt to be objective and to also provide a clearer explanation of this entire controversy for those who have been relative outsiders to it. Those whose only sources of information are the same sources having their integrity and credibility challenged and thus any attempt to decipher what’s really happening is long-winded, conflicted and difficult.

The comparatively humble beginnings of Gamergate start from issues fairly distanced from what it has ultimately become. A man named Eron Gjoni ended a relationship with indie game designer Zoe Quinn after revelations of infidelity on Zoe’s part came to light and the two were unable to work through their differences. 

Eron submitted a lengthy post detailing the life and death of his relationship with Zoe to forums on Something Awful and Penny Arcade, who deleted the threads for reasons not entirely clear. It’s the first hint of issues of bias and censorship within this issue whilst for others it’s a justified moderation of a clearly slanderous post.

Eron went on to upload what he’d written on its own separate blog, believing the warning of Zoe’s supposed manipulative and dishonest nature was important for people within the games industry to read. The first igniting sparks of gamergate come from the details of those involved in Zoe’s affairs, including her boss and a writer for gaming website Kotaku called Nathan Grayson. 

Many would bring up the issue of “conflicted interests”. That writing about or working with someone you have a relationship with causes bias, favouritism and ultimately corruption within supposedly unbiased media. Others have gone so far as to suggest Zoe instigated these relationships solely to advance her career and get positive coverage for her games.

Next is where things get a little crazy and convoluted.

The issue attracted increasing attention until known names in game development, journalism, gaming internet personalities and other popular media weighed in on the topic. Someone or some group of people began regimenting these people into opposing armies and exacerbating the disagreement into a conflict rather than a discussion. 

It’s generally believed the majority of the abusers came from the particularly anonymous and unregulated forums of 4chan but I don’t doubt many people simply jumped on the bandwagon. Believing their assaults were a righteous crusade or simply relishing in other’s misery, droves of people sent mockery, harassment, insults, even death and rape threats to Zoe Quinn and her most prominent supporters, including but not exclusive to Anita Sarkeesian (Feminist and video game critic, subject to her own controversial content) and Phil Fish (Former acclaimed indie game developer). 

Angry, irrational, often illiterate abuse and negative feedback is sadly nothing new to anyone contributing content on the internet but some people took the harassment further. It is claimed that Zoe Quinn as well as her friends and family had their personal details discovered through forms of internet hacking known as “doxxing” and the abuse spread to their mobile phones, personal email addresses and bank accounts. Quinn, amongst others claimed to have been forced out of their homes due to the extent of this abuse and were contacting the local authorities to track down those responsible. 

It is worth noting that we only have Zoe and her supporter’s word for this as no logs or evidence would exist publicly once the abuse moved on from the internet. Articles that later commented on Zoe or her supporters being driven out of their homes only linked to the person’s twitter comments as evidence.

At this point large numbers of people on Zoe’s “side” began fighting fire with fire and responding to the online abuse with their own attacks. Gaming journalism websites began censoring topics related to the controversy on their forums, whilst posting articles arguably very skewed into supporting Quinn, portraying all gamers as disgusting misogynistic abusers in rather blanket statements. 

“These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers -- they are not my audience. They don’t have to be yours.” – “'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over.” – Leigh Alexander. Gamasutra.

This mainly served to backfire however as it reinforced suspicions of collusion and bias between gaming websites, angered groups of anti-censorship supporters and gamers with no participation in the conflict, offended at being grouped in with those harassing and abusing. As a result more people joined up with the movement known as “Gamergate”. 

The term originated and predominantly resides on twitter as “#Gamergate” often grouped with “#notyourshield”. An accompanying moniker to reject the assumptions from journalists writing the aforementioned articles, that all gamers are the stereotypical socially inept, ugly, white male and they are the ignorant, immature, misogynist harassers of Zoe Quinn and her supporters. 

Hundreds of arguments flew back and forth between the opposing sides. Some civil discussions, some abusive insult flinging, all of them making no noticeable progress one way or another. Some supporters of Gamergate denied the abuse and harassment ever happened, that Zoe Quinn and others manipulated and fabricated the attacks, whilst others claimed the movement was and always had been about journalistic integrity and defeating corruption within the gaming industry.

The numerous sites seemingly on Quinn’s side continued to report on the controversy, some firmly believing the “fighting corruption” angle of the gamergate movement was just to disguise their “hate campaign”, others entertaining the idea that their methods of discussing and reporting gaming news were perhaps flawed and biased. 

Gaming website The Escapist actually made significant amendments to their reporting style, publishing an “Ethics Policy” pledging to provide more unbiased and transparent journalism. This still wasn’t enough for some people, others appreciated the reflection and reaction on their comments and some expressed their disappointment at The Escapist submitting to a supposed bullying mob’s demands. 

Meanwhile Quinn herself released logs of online chat forums she had been secretly monitoring. The logs are extremely long and full of digressions but the overall topic is centred on Quinn. Discovering and distributing personal information about her or her supporters, discussing how to further the gamergate movement by influencing social media sites like Reddit and Tumblr and how to conceal their abuse and harassment under the mask of “journalistic integrity”. 

"Aug 21 17.23.31 <sarahv> The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point"

Numerous comments from certain users seem to confirm a sexist viewpoint, others a strong hatred for “Social Justice Warriors” and Feminists or at least a feeling of victimisation as a man, concretely dragging feminism into the fray. Members also mused and laughed about ways to ruin Zoe’s career, severely humiliate or injure her or even coax her towards suicide. These logs proved evidence of the harassment against Quinn and her supporters, whilst also giving credibility to the idea that the gamergate movement was a ruse for a hate campaign. The latter claim however can only be used so far as to prove that groups were trying to steer and manipulate the gamergate movement into abusive actions, not that the entire movement was a manipulated hate campaign from the start. 

The chat logs naturally also had their legitimacy criticised and accusations appeared of Quinn manufacturing them or at least “cherry-picking” the offending statements out of context. Supporters of Quinn proudly took release of the chat logs as a killing blow, trying to next promote the hashtag #Gameovergate. 

Quinn followed up these logs with claims that they were being relayed to the authorities and even the FBI in a police report. Again we only have her word for this but I feel at the point where very real and substantial organisations like the FBI are being brought in, it becomes far more difficult to lie about such occurrences. I’m not entirely sure what would serve as justifiable proof about the real world reactions involved in this but larger, more reputable news sources have begun commenting on aspects of the issue and unless we begin questioning the credibility of those as well, most would consider that proof.

Insults, abuse and hatred towards anyone strongly involved can still be found online, articles on gaming websites continue to be written, some of which from less-established journalists are now actively pro-gamergate, the twitter hashtag remains a fairly active movement, whilst growing numbers of Gamergate supporters publicly denounce the actions and views of those harassers that inflamed the controversy so wildly. 

Some of those opposing Gamergate have admitted there are people with noble intentions towards journalistic purity within its ranks but still believe that the “well has been poisoned” and that a movement with such ugly, divisive origins can’t meaningfully make progress campaigning for honesty, inclusivity and integrity.

If you remain interested in the ongoing Gamergate movement and its accompanying controversy I highly recommend doing extensive research into both sides of the debate and above all else, forming your own opinion. For what it’s worth my belief is that idiotic and cruel people exist on both sides, blowing things out of proportion, hurting individuals solely for their views and sowing seeds of discontent. There are also honest and decent people seeking civil, intelligent discussion about the future of gaming and game journalism. Those who, despite falling on different sides of this metaphorical warzone, have many shared interests and can most likely reach a healthy progressive compromise.

The future of Gamergate is still being written, often quite literally in articles, blogs, tweets, comment sections and more across the internet. There are aspects of the preceding controversy that are now so entangled in accusations, and counter-accusations, that we might never be able to determine the exact truth of them. Hopefully amidst this eruption of underlying problems within the industry and culture we, as gamers, players or fans of video games can still progress. I’d hope we can all agree there’s nothing worse than being stuck on the same level forever.

E3 2014 - Nintendo

An unconventional start for Nintendo with a self parodying and E3 mocking animated intro starring Reggie Fils-Aime. I can only assume it was written and made by or at least approved by the Robot Chicken guys as it is completely in their style. Then the first segment is introduced and the insanity officially takes over as Reggie and Satoru Iwata straight up have a super-powered fist fight...i'm not joking, it actually happens and it's both baffling and kind of amazing.

Even if you watch none of the game trailers, you owe it to yourself to see this.

 This ultimately leads into a Super Smash Bros trailer introducing the new feature of playable personalised mii characters. Not only that but you can define your mii into one of three classes or types. The "brawler", "sword fighter" and "gunner" all of which should be fairly self-explanatory but come with their own unique movesets. Director Masahiro Sakurai goes on to mention how this can pave the way for Abraham Lincoln, Elijah Wood, or any other character you can create in mii maker becoming a Smash Bros fighter. If you've ever seen some of the vast variety of creations made by gamers in Mii Maker, you'll know that this adds a world of comical potential match-ups. Perhaps this is perspective and bias due to being a big Smash Bros fan myself but this signals a strong start to the "conference/digital event/stream thing.

More footage shows old and new features such as the character trophies, mini games, classic bosses, improved online systems and match customisation options. It's never explicitly said but the director also talks about working with a large number of variables on 3DS, which probably translates to fixing bugs and ensuring performance is solid. That may explain the delayed release date of "3rd October 2014" when the 3DS version was scheduled for summer 2014.

We next move to real Reggie who gives details of the "Amiibo". A selection of toys or figurines you may have heard were in the pipeline and were utilised briefly in the earlier Iwata-Reggie DBZ showdown. These figures, coming in designs of all the classic Nintendo characters, can transfer and receive data to and from the Wii U. In regards to Smash Bros this results in supposedly "unique" versions of the character portrayed, appearing in the game and either assisting you in fights or actually being your opponent. Reggie continues in stating that Mario Kart 8 will also implement the Amiibo with a sly bit of footage acknowledging "Luigi's Death Stare" that has become something of a trend across the internet.

A monologue about the greatness of Nintendo and how they'd really please like more Wii U's sold follows into a segment interviewing two Japanese chaps. A vaguely titled employee of Nintendo and an employee or presumed manager of "Good-Feel". A company seemingly specialising in yarn. This appropriately leads into introducing Yoshi's Woolly World due for release in 2015. A sequel to Kirby's Epic Yarn with similar yarn based aesthetics and gameplay features. Besides obviously Yoshi and now a co-op mode i'm unsure how this will significantly differ from K.E.Y but it appears a polished, chirpy, fun platformer and Nintendo are usually very good at those.

Up next is a polished, chirpy, fun platformer called Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, due winter 2014. There seems to be a mining theme involved but apart from that it's classic 3D Nintendo fare of traversing obstacles, simple colourful combat and puzzles. The bigger question is whether anyone has ever actually wanted to play as Toad? He has never starred in his own game before but maybe there's a reason for that. Usually he is the backup, filler character, players are resigned to choosing when all their favourites are taken or who they regrettably end up being as the third or fourth member in a multiplayer Mario game.

It's nice to see 50-a-day smokers can still get voice acting work though.

A short and uncharacteristically tame robot chicken skit later and a new Zelda game is introduced. Open world, with an art style somewhat similar to Skyward Sword. A brief cinematic trailer shows Link fighting some kind of laser demon on horseback (i should clarify Link is on horseback sadly not the laser demon) Then the big reveal seems to be as tame as Link wearing blue for a change although i have since heard rumours and developers have hinted that this character is not in fact Link, so that could be interesting.

A wild trailer appeared for the remakes of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire due November 28th 2014, which confirms that they're also getting the X/Y treatment with full 3D, Mega evolutions etc. Bayonetta 2's trailer promises much of the same Devil May Cry-style action as the first, which they even acknowledge with a direct quote from DMC1. It also includes novelty Link and Samus costumes...if you're into that kind of thing...

Hyrule Warriors footage follows and interviews with the developers claim lots of playable characters, memorable boss fights suggesting requiring more thought than simply "where's the massive glowing weak spot?" and a two player mode through the use of the Wii U gamepad. They treat this as a vast improvement over splitscreen but it just seems to me like an uneven balance of screen size between players. Somebody gets the full television while the other gets the reduced gamepad screen. That's still technically a splitscreen, it's just an unevent split. That aside, the large scale battles and other playable characters  besides Link do intrigue me and there isn't a long wait as Hyrule Warriors releases September 19th 2014.

The imaginatively titled "Kirby" gets a brief trailer looking like another polished, chirpy, fun platformer where the most interesting thing is the bizarrely lacking title. Are they implying this is a reboot? Probably more likely the game simply doesn't have a name yet since there's nothing immediately obvious to distinguish it from past Kirby games.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is a spiritual successor to Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, which is apparently praised for reinventing and revitalising the JRPG genre. I'll have to take the critic's word for that because to me it appeared like a thoroughly generic Japanese, sci-fi mech adventure in its trailer. Also the character's faces are a worrying homage to the Gamecube-era of graphics. Adding to the slow descent of excitement in the conference is Mario Maker. A game where you can customise and build your own Mario courses in either the classic or modern style...sure, that's cool i guess...

A fleeting spurt of new ideas breathes momentary life back into the event as Splatoon is introduced. An online (hopefully not solely) multiplayer cartoon third person shooter based around firing ink over as much of the level as possible to mark your territory, whilst wielding an assortment of ink guns, bombs, bazookas and paint rollers. The characters can also transform into squids ('cos ink, i guess) at will that give different abilities and increased speed and such. It's an interesting concept but will it actually be fun or satisfying to play? or will it feel like interior design that never gets finished? Regardless, Splatoon deserves credit for being a new and fairly creative IP, especially amongst Nintendo's worn out and stagnating franchises. It's due for release sometime in 2015.

Aiming is apparently gyroscopic...hopefully that's optional...

 The stream finishes with a Super Smash Bros anime of all things but this is ultimately just another character reveal for someone called Palutena who i believe is from the Kid Icarus series. Considering how hype many people got for this anime trailer alone, perhaps Nintendo should've considered making a separate project of that instead of the bait and switch trailer we ended up with.

Nintendo's "conference" started on a high that Sony and Microsoft didn't even reach in their shows but it fairly consistently slipped downhill from then on. With only one new IP and limited innovation in their established franchises, it's overall a fairly mediocre output from Nintendo when they could've potentially pulled out all the stops (cough, Metroid) to win back support in the Wii U.