Solheim Chapel

Religion sure made some big, lavish, and very ornate buildings. Norway has a plethora of churches all over the place. From small local gathering halls, a fairly famous cathedral, and a lot of ugly modern monstrosities. Architects adore concrete far too much for my liking. Anyhow, the other day I visited this marvelous old stone building surrounded by a sloped cemetery here in Bergen.

The old chapel is practically ancient, yet well kept. Despite my misgivings about fanatic fools, there is just so much to see and notice on this old lump of stone. 

The structure itself is built on an elevated platform with stairs on both sides and several arches in the middle. The arches themselves are covered with old and sturdy metal doors that have weathered a lot it seems. Inside said entrypoint there are rows of dusty shelves used to store burial urns. 

There is nothing there now and the sign is clearly lying about visiting hours. I crank that up to it being an old sign.  Like all traditional grave sites, there is a tarnished and wobbly fence around the lot to keep spirits of the dead inside and to provide some solitude. The architect went into painful detail to make the building symmetrical.

Information indicates the chapel was built in 1920 by Sigurd Lunde. A very active same prolific fellow in the Bergen area during the 1900. He sure implemented some nice round arches into the construction, making the church both traditional looking, while being fairly minimalistic.

Njål signing out

Masters of the Universe is all about Teela and Spoilers

 I am a sucker for good animation and I love the stories told and watch them unfold. Even if a lot of them are very cringy and have sketchy transitions. Some say it is for kids, and to those I say pox upon you. Animation is just a different medium of storytelling, just like books, games, comics and whatever else we can get our grubby mitts on. He- Man is no different. It is an amusing show that plays fast and loose with the rules of what the main protagonist is capable of achieving. It seems mostly related to throwing rocks and punching things hard. The animation was simple and clearly based on a limited budget and those weird rules american television imposed upon shows. Characters rarely died, suffered any fatal wounds and pretty much every episode was a standalone story that never went anywhere. Just like kids playing with the toys the show intended to sell.

Skeletor attacks the castle Greyskull in his latest plot to become a master of the universe. By tricking He-Man into stabbing the source of magic and opening up the conduit by impaling Skeltor. Then a brawl for the power of magic ensues and He-Man absorbs the power with his sword, which splits in half as he himself reverts to Adam and is turned into black smear on the castle floor. Skeletor vanishes as well and Teela is turned into a bit of a bellend and Man at Arms is punted out of the castle and Teela quits. Now magic is dying and if magic goes, the universe ends.
First we have to turn the heroine into a ruthless mercenary with a fairly pleasant and likable companion that brings a bit of levity to it all.

Eventually Evil-Lyn join in on the action, because magic is her thing and because she is evil, and evil is always looking for more power. 

Teela is turned into a snarky asskicking asshole, I suppose it is an improvement from what little I have seen of the original show. It was never televised in Norway as far as I can tell, probably for the best, localized dubs tend to be of inferior quality. A bit like nails on chalkboard, plust it often deprives children of the joys of being exposed to another language. Anyhow Teela has turned into a generic fanfiction stereotype. Moody, broody, with a tough exterior that kicks ass, is snarky as heck and quite unlikable. Sure the secret of Adam being He-Man was kept from her, but apparently the betrayal turned her sour. Why he kept the secret though is just due to bad writing in the original I dare say. Anyhow this type of character is so common these days it is getting stale like milk. Oh and they killed He-Man in the first episode to make the story all about her finding herself and becoming a strong female hero. To make the story even more generic, they killed off Orko, because that is edgy, right? From the mouth of the writer no one liked the character in the first place.

Man at Arms just kicks ass and is a caring father and at least twenty years older than before.

Cringer is just being a coward and is mostly ignored, which is for the best. I have no idea why these shows insisted on a wacky animals sidekick with a speech impediment. 

Evil-Lyn shows signs of becoming good, until Skeltor returns. Now if the writer keeps this up, I expect her to eventually backstab Skeletor and claim the power for herself. Because the age of a bulky purple man with a skull for a head is problematic. Female empowerment I suppose. Oh and Adam returned from the afterlife, only to get penetrated from behind by Skeletor's phallic spear.

Aside from killing off characters and making the story into one long continuity that is intended to put a coherent end to the Masters of the Universe, or is it a new beginning? I honestly can not tell. I have to give the animation praise though it is absolutely gorgeous and the action is top notch. The minor villain turning people into cyborgs is fairly interesting. The body horror potential itself is just fantastic. The scenery is also breathtaking and I hope the animation studio was paid handsomely for their superb work. All in all I was entertained and the show is not bad, but the main character leaves a lot to be desired.

Njål #Zaceron Signing out

Back of the head love tap

 Tropes are good, tropes are bad, but one trope that really grates on my nerves is one that is as old as humanity itself. For some unfathomable reason heroes always have to be knocked out and captured. If there is action it is virtually guaranteed to happen. It is a very convenient way to put the hero at the place of the plot required to progress the story. In stories such pesky things as physics and logic take a back seat to reality. I know this fact well, especially since I’m an author myself. In stories getting a good knock on the back of the head is always enough to put someone in a well timed coma. Yes according to human biology and the sturdiness of the human skull, getting hit in the back of the head might in fact be lethal. The good old blackjack used to give someone a good knock on the noggin can kill a human, or at least cause irreparable damage and bleeding wounds, the kind that requires stitches. Essentially there is always a chance that any sort of way to make a human fall unconscious will have a fatal outcome. We are all remarkably fragile after all. This also ties into the old cliche of the damsel in distress, with a chance of a villainous dialogue once the character wakes up, or a conveniently slow death trap to escape. You have seen it, I have seen it and quite frankly in my opinion it is getting very old. I mean seriously I grew up on this crap and have been guilty of doing it myself. There are two comics I grew up on that is especially guilty of this. One is Conan the Barbarian, he is way too often knocked out at the end of a story as the perky female of the story walks away with the loot. The other series is that of Tintin. The story of a perky adventurer and his white dog, allegedly he is a journalist, but I’ve yet to see him write an article. Unlike the dynamic duo of Spirou and Fantasio. The reason for this rant is that I recently watched Resident Evil on Netflix and this trite and slock plot point happened towards the end. Also sorry for spoilers of the most cliche franchise ever. are you in Bergen at the right time and love comics? Visit the Raptus comic expo this year.

http://raptus.no

Njål Signing out #zaceron

Army Men - Plastic, War, Murder and Fun?

 Hi my name is Niall #zaceron

Army men is a very weird franchise that is perfect for making a game series about. Which is exactly what 3do did for better, or worse. The concept is stupidly simple. Green american plastic soldiers fight tan soldiers that look identical, sometimes grey ones and blue shows up as well. The series starts off with animated war times propaganda videos, before throwing the player into a pre rendered world of plastic men murdering each other. Just like children does in a sandbox. Eventually a portal is opened up to the real world and toys are brought into the mix. Because giant laser beam firing teddy bears is the natural enemy of toy soldiers after all. 

The thing most people recall is that one level that takes place in a kitchen, where the soldiers can melt into molten goo on a frying pan. Flamethrowers also do this job really well, it is not a war crime if there is no Geneva convention.

Losing usually plays a defeat video, where the soldier is peeling potatoes and looking depressed, or other maniacal downers. Remember to peel your meal!

The Tan army is led by a mustache twirling evil man named Plastro, an evil toy that is an amalgamation of various despot stereotypes.

The two first games are fun but seriously flawed. Essentially the camera is fixed, but the player can roll, crouch and go prone, which is very frustrating. Eventually they condensed the experience into army men 3d, a third person shooter on the PlayStation. Which works well enough, is competently made and fun, despite the amount of junk information and obviously cut content. Seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to spawn pickup crates out of bounds?  The biggest issue I personally have with the series in general are the numbers of escort missions. The only reason I could complete anything in army men 3d was being able to park the VIP in a corner, then clear out the map.

Eventually 3do churned out more games in the series which all suffer from various levels of quality. Such as the fairly fun and frantic army men air attack. Where the player is a helicopter pilot picking up things and dodging incoming enemy fire. The last boss on the other hand was just a chore and I said no more of this.

Sarges heroes that did an attempt at making them all look like action movie heroes and act like stereotypes. It worked fairly well and many people have found memories of said games.

If their attempt at telling a decent story worked, or not is purely subjective however, I will give them an A for effort. 

However it was quite clear that the model quality began to notably drop a lot. The overall polish went down the drain along with the graphics and game play. For some reason they decided it was a good idea to make a on rail shooter, starring a super soldier made from DNA from heroes. It is a rather rubbish game where I have to run in circles to avoid enemy fire, while aiming roughly in the right direction of an enemy hoping to hit them. The RTS game was apparently just fine, only ever tried a demo of it.

Music is the worst and most disappointing aspect of the whole series, if they’re not using classic music loops, they’re mangling war film themes from decades past, or it is just some random thirty second music drop. A stark contrast to the fairly decent sound effects that serves their purpose. 

It is quite clear that at some point it all became an uninspired attempt at milking the brand until the company eventually went under. The concept of non descript plastic people waging war is not a bad one and really makes modelling simple, since every model just need a shiny plastic texture. The one thing 3d has always emulated really well. Njål Signing out

I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince, so I Will Perfect My Magic as I Please - review....

Hi, my name is Njål #zaceron.

I do love me some good entertainment, asian or otherwise. In this case I am taking a bit closer look a manga with a very long and overly descriptive title  Tensei Shitara Dai Nana Ouji Dattanode, Kimamani Majutsu O Kiwamemasu, which roughly translates into. I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince, so I Will Perfect My Magic as I Please. Which is exactly what the munchkin of an overpowered protagonist does after getting reborn as royalty. As in all stories of this very videogame like nature, it has all the usual bells and whistles. Such as the main lead dying brutally in the first page. He was an underleveled pitiful time to practice magic. After all, only a spoiled rich noble has the time to study magic, let alone practice it. The title summarize the plot hook of the story after all.

Thus far the male lead has kicked the arse of everything he has encountered and used his prodigious magic skills to own the heck out of every encounter. Needless to say, to read this story for the plot is practically pointless, since it is filled to the brim with action. Infact everything and everyone in his increasing harem is a powerhouse of attractive female murder machines in attractive outfits. Whom all lust after the young boy, surprisingly enough it has nothing to do with his status as an affluent prince, I can only assume that is a bonus. The main draw of the manga is the really dynamic artwork, which makes the intense action scenes really pop out. Yes I simply enjoy this series for the action and the monster designs.

The characters are so powerful there really is no noticeable stakes at play. However it means that it just stays true to the title. It is indeed a story about a peasant reincarnated as a prince, that practices magic, subjugates demons, while attracting attractive action girls, and rip reality a new orifice. I can not complain about the translation either, it is competently done and due to the dialogue, it avoids the usual trappings of spamming names over, and over again. I do love strong female characters, magic, monsters and good art, so I can not complain about much, aside from the overly long, complicated and descriptive title. Seriously, I thought the idea behind a title was to keep it short, sweet and snazzy. Then again who am I to questions something that works. Oh and it is probably not safe for work and will gleefully put the women in erotic poses and situations and the main character is disturbingly feminine looking.

Signing out

Brigador is a blast

 Hi, I'm  njål #zaceron and I love giant robots, destruction and explosions. Brigador cover all of this and more. On a huge space colony, great leader has died and nature abhors empty spaces. So as a Brigador my job is to commandeer heavily armed vehicles, causing mayhem, while working for a shady gang that wants control. Revolution and invasion requires me to break a bunch of eggs to make a marvellous omelette. Everything in front of me on the battlefield is one explosion away from becoming debris. Yes everything can be smashed, crushed and blown up. It is very rewarding to boot, since everything is worth money. Currency that is used to unlock weapons, mecha and lore. Yes there is a story in Brigador, but there is a lot of it. However very little shows up on the briefing screen, so unless I actually look it up on another menu, I'm left guessing. 

The camera is set from an isometric angle and the vehicle uses tank controls. Which can be what makes or breaks the experience for most players. Mostly due to aiming and navigating. However it is easy to get around with a bit of presidency. Mecha comes in all shapes and sizes. From small frames, hardly bigger than the squishy men running around, to sturdy tanks, everyone's favourite flavor of chicken walker and hover vehicles. They all operate a bit differently and brings special abilities to the table. Each comes equipped with two ammo using weapons as well. Which can be restocked from destroyed enemies and dispenser towers, that ironically enough is a bonus objective to detonate as well.

Essentially every map is a sprawling city filled with small squishy humans and various mechanical enemies out for blood. Yes, I dare say that this is pure arcade action goodness to the core. It is hard to argue with fun after all. 

Outside of the main campaign there is an arcade mode where there is a ridiculous amount of things to unlock. It is also where the loadout is fully customizable and more fun weapons can be bought from the money gained when completing a mission.

The whole experience of Brigador is set to a wonderful retro style synth soundtrack. The only real drawback to the whole experience is how most missions boils down to destruction and navigating through the scenery. Given the price point and the polish the experience brings to the table, I have little ground to complain.

Tomb Raider 2013 is a forgettable game

Tomb raider is a very interesting series, one that has lived a long life costing on puzzles and the busty female lead Lara Croft. An alledged archeologist, which spend most of her time trashing temples, tombs and whatever else she happens to visit. Tomb Raider 2013 rebooted the franchise with a more down to earth looking Lara. However instead of unrealistic body anatomy and big boobs, they cranked up the sadism level to over 9000. However designed the every elegaorate and lavish action pieces kept comming up with new ways to hurt the her badly. Honestly I am not impressed with these action pieces at all. They're more tedious than anything and the amount of punishment I have to endure is just uncomfortable. The game suffer from a serious case of trying to be a Hollywood blockbuster. One that outstayed its welcome.

Tomb Raider is a contrived slog to play through and I can't suspend my disbelief, because of the silly action set pieces. There are only so many times I can be impressed by running through a burning building that is collapsing around me. Just like Uncharted, they go on for way too long. When comparing this to Romb Raider 3, or 4, something is clearly missing from the later instalments. Originally the series has some action and a lot of odd enemies to kill, but they were far and few between. The main challenge and enjoyment came from exploring the map and finding the way through elaborate puzzles and devilish platforming. However Tomb Raider 2013 just threw most of that out the window andmade the story more coherent. Somehow it is just as stupid as ever and absolutely bonkers. Filled to the brim with all manner of plot contrivances and cutscene incompetence. I also find pretty much the whole game forgettable. 

However the game looks gorgeous and a lot of care went into the design. Marred by the very remarkable music and a bit boring setting. One would assume that an ancient kingdom full of ruins from various ages would be more interesting, yet it is not. The obsessive use of quicktime events does not help me to enjoy it one bit. You see, I decided to play through it on stream over at my twitch channel, to compare it to the playstation titles. So far I find the playstation games better, despite how tough and rough they are. In this case it is not due to nostalgia, since I never owned any of the titles and have only seen bits and pieces of them. So the designers has this obsessive need to have me mash a button to operate a crank, or to pull something and that is just a pain since I can't toggle on an autofire function.

All of these big publisher titles are starting to become too similar to each other. Uncharted, Shadow of Mordor,  Assassins Creed and many other sandbox series where I can climb like a monkey on color coded surfaces. Automatically latching on to the surface when close enough is a treat, compared to the very rigid and precise Tomb Raider 4 system, even if it look very clumsy and extremely floaty. When lara sort of flails and floats onto an edge it gets a bit weird when she is magnetically attached to the surface. They sure put a lot of effort into the numerous brutal ways Lara can and will die. A bit too well animated. It is a bit gruesome to see her impaled through the skull, struggling to pull herself free, then expire a second later

I know at least one thing though, the world of Tomb Raider is an insane one filled with crazy people, people that can survive almost anything, and somehow can climb everywhere. Not to mention the elaborate deathtrap that somehow shows up all over the place. No matter where in their world I go, there is a man made murder contraption left by an ancient civilization. Which does not exist in our world. However this did not deter me from designing a workable rolling boulder trap which is triggered by opening a door. Anyhow, It's not at all clear how some of the bad guys get around. Many probably climb and crawl the same way Lara does, but it's not clear, and some seem to appear in places that would be impossible. The biggest offender is the scavenger at the very start of the game. He doesn't seem to be taking the same path through the caverns as Lara at all, yet spawns behind me as I crawl through a small space. Yeah, this game is very mediocre and a disappointment.

Njål signing #Zaceron