Hey guys. What's going on? We, the Collegiate Gaming Society have partnered up with the students of Schoolcraft College here in Livonia, Michigan, USA and are doing our third annual "Gauntlet". The Gauntlet is our 48-hour live gaming marathon with the purpose of raising money for the Children's Miracle Network. The marathon is already underway, (it started on Thursday, March 3, 2011), and will go on until Saturday, March 5, 2011. We will be starting our live show at 9 pm EST / 7 pm PST (about 10 minutes from now), so if you're not doing much, by all means, please come check out our sleep deprived gamers on a sugar rush. And while you're there, if you think what we're doing is a good thing, then maybe you might also want to donate something as well?
Here are the appropriate links to the respective parties involved, and I sincerely thank you all who decide to come around. If I know the Giant Bomb community like I think I do, then I know some of you would approve of what we're trying to do. :)
Hey guys, as an American who doesn't get BBC America, I don't get much exposure to British television. Now, somehow at that point I had known that a show called Doctor Who existed on British television, but that was it, really. I had no idea what it was about, I had no idea who or what the Doctor was, etc. etc. A little while ago, I finally got the chance to see Doctor Who and my first episode was "The Girl in the Fireplace" from Season 2 and I absolutely fell in love with it. I still didn't grasp everything that they were talking about, but I didn't care. David Tennant's acting just drew me in. The next episode I saw was "The Idiot's Lantern", and that's when I realized that the show didn't particularly follow a specific storyline from one episode to the next.
Anyway, I decided to go on the internet and see if I can find the previous episodes. I then started watching all the David Tennant's episodes one by one. Apart from an episode here or there, I personally thought they were all stellar! Simply brilliant. He was incredibly humorous when he needed to be, and spine-tinglingly serious when he needed to get his point across. When he went on one of his tangents trying to get a solution for one of his many problems or when he was just trying to explain time and his TARDIS to a normal human being, it really was magical.
Then it came time for Matt Smith to take over as the doctor, and while I was a bit hesitant, I was still optimistic about the whole thing. I started watching Season 5, and unfortunately I just wasn't getting the same vibe. I understand that the new incarnation isn't supposed be exactly the same as the previous one. And I can respect that. Matt Smith certainly looks the part with his bow tie and all, but for some reason I just can't watch an episode of Season 5, whether it be his monologues or him threatening The Weeping Angels, without thinking, "Man, David Tennant would've been really good right now."
Like I mentioned earlier, since I live in America, no one here has even heard of Doctor Who(which is a shame, really), I can't really have a conversation regarding this with anyone here. Literally, no one! Therefore I came to you all, my fellow Bombers, with this. I was really curious as to what people thought of Matt Smith and even the whole regeneration/changing of actors and the character's personality. Since I haven't been watching Doctor Who from its beginning in the '70's, the whole notion of completely reinventing the main character every few seasons is really alien to me and maybe that's why I didn't get into Matt Smith's performance, because whenever I think of the Doctor, I think of David Tennant. I wanted to know what Britain in general thought of Matt Smith compared to David Tennant. I was also curious as to where David Tennant ranked compared to the previous 9 doctors?
Also, I wanted to know whether Season 5 got better? I've watched until the 2-Part Weeping Angels episode, and Amy's Choice looks intriguing, as does the overarching storyline of the crack in time, but I really get bummed out because of Matt Smith's performance. Am I crazy or are there others that feel the same way?
I have two things to say regarding Batman Arkham City -
1. Out of all the domain names they registered to throw off the people interested in knowing what the game would be called, I still firmly believe that "Ashes of Gotham" was the best out of the ones proposed.
2. There are certain games that are so great from start to finish in their story-telling that one game is enough to convey an absolutely stellar experience. And tacking on a sequel only ruins the franchise.
BioShock was the prime example. The first one was brilliant in just about every perspective. It was a breath of fresh air in a sea of generic military shooters. The story was great, the characters were memorable, and the end-game twist was one of the best that I've seen from a video game. But the biggest thing going for the first BioShock was Rapture. Going into the game, you had no idea what Rapture was or how it came to be, and throughout the game, you discovered Rapture and that's what made BioShock GREAT. Then the second one came out and it had none of that. The story was fairly bland, the places you visited were nowhere near as cool as the locations in the first BioShock[Arcadia, Sander Cohen's theater]. But worst of all, Rapture as a whole had lost that new car smell that it had in the first game. It was sort of, "Been there, done that". And that was really depressing. It was definitely a competent shooter from a gameplay perspective, but it's soul wasn't there. It also didn't help the sequel when it ended up being made by someone other than Irrational Games. As far as I'm concerned, BioShock is another franchise that was ruined by greedy executive suits.
I feel more or less the same way with Arkham Asylum. It was such a tight and polished game from start to finish. Honestly, the only thing wrong with it were the ignorant gargoyles as a gameplay contrivance. Everything else was incredibly well thought out and well executed. And now they talk about a sequel for that, and I'm sitting here wondering, why? There is no need. The story wrapped up great, all the villains were dealt with, I had TONS of fun with those INCREDIBLE riddles, so why are you guys trying to cash in on the Arkham Asylum good will?
Don't get me wrong though, based on the excellent groundwork laid down by the first game, I have no doubt that Arkham City will be just as competent as Arkham Asylum, but I'm incredibly skeptical as to whether it'll be as memorable an experience as Arkham Asylum was...
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