Originality...where?

There is a problem with buying games that are popular. The problem with buying these games is, strangely enough, the word popular.

Popular, from the Viking populus (Vikings invented Latin to see if other people would waste their lives studying it {and you do}) means a gathering that one can butcher, slaughter, kill, maim, loot, steal and any other fun shit you want (this is straight from the Viking Dictionary).

So popular means people. Unfortunately, people on a whole, are stupid. Not 'can I end a sentence with a preposition?' stupid, not 'I'll stay up late despite having to work tomorrow' stupid, but:

MR. 69 STUPID.

So these are the kind of people, who, by being giant morons buy and like what other morons like and thus the game becomes popular, begets sequels and then when an innocent Viking gamer sees it on special, decides to buy it because it was cheap and it was popular.

This weeks review was supposed to be on Dragon Age, which has a deceptively awesome intro movie.

It is no longer on Dragon Age, but on the reason that I stopped playing it an hour in.

People don't know it yet, but there is no such thing as originality. Stories evolve. So when Vikings were watching you monkeys build your huts out of mud (poo really) we listened to your stories. Every story starts out with the same premise, a basic premise that evolves. By now it is nearly impossible to make anything truly original.

What must be done to induce the idea of originality is to evolve a story in a way the viewer is not expecting, giving the story a twist or reintroducing the story in a new light.

Dragon Age pissed me off royally in this regard. The starting FMV explained about how some monsters or some shit were killing people left and right because they were just evil or some shit (sooooooooo much depth), and these really great soldiers made up of the different races (ma, elves and dwarves {fucking seriously it looked like Lord of the Rings}) beat them off (nyehehhehaha).

Blah blah blah times passes, great soldiers few in number, warn the people etc etc.

At this point I wanted to kill myself. I've seen this movie. It's called Lord of the Rings. I've read lots of fantasy novels, and copy paste looks very much in use here Dragon Age.

Then the absolute worst, worst part.

Your father who is lord of his castle (or some shit) introduces you to his friend who used to fight alongside him. As soon as I saw him I told my grandmother that he would betray me. She hit me with a pot for good measure, her reasoning being that if I knew he would betray me he should be dead. I tried to explain he wasn't real, and then made me soup with a seals head in it, forced me to eat it all the while explaining seals head helps Vikings get their sense of reality back if they are claiming people that aren't real are going to betray them.

After throwing up a good portion of seal outside, I returned to my console, and lo and behold, in the next five minutes of gameplay he's betrayed me. BIG FUCKING SURPRISE.

Did I say that was the worst, worst part? I'm wrong, or this is the worst worst worst part.

This guy who betrays you? Well, despite being a knowledgable, literary genius that knows old, badly re-hashed plots, I can, along with most of the current society, RECOGNISE WHEN THE VOICE ACTOR IS OBVIOUSLY PLAYING AN EVIL CHARACTER.

WHO PAID YOU BLOODY PEOPLE!? SERIOUSLY! I BET AFTER CHOOSING THE VOICE ACTOR YOU ALL HIGH FIVED EACH OTHER, LAUGHING WITH BLINDFOLDS ON AND JERKING EACH OTHER OFF. YEAH YOU'RE SO GREAT! BITE MY SHINY VIKING HAT!

Odin help me, only children are amused by black and white (this isn't racist) characters.

Kratos is bad-arse, but he's not likable. He's an angry, angry man. I hated the game but didn't hate the story. That's because it's a story that is being re-told in new light. It has been adapted for the modern audience.

To finish this review, I spent about five minutes creating a rough storyboard for a game. I'd ask to hear what my readers think, but there is only much storage space for blind praise on the internet.

Alexandria was once the most powerful city-state in somewhere (country to be named later). Its powerful economy, mainly driven by the technology and low-class man power, had once led Alexandria in a war against the rest of the country for total control.

The lesser city states (to be named later) banded together to try and force back Alexandrias forces.

The war had been in effect for many, many years and became increasingly unpopular with the denizens of Alexandria.

During the war, Alexandrias leader, (to be named later), feared an uprising. He established a team of secret police that murdered politcal rivals, revolutionaries and anyone that might cause him to lose the war due to internal strife.

The secret police became a force that was not so secret, and fear was instilled in the people of Alexandria.

Meanwhile, the leaders son, publicly supporting his father, has agendas of his own. Seeing the futility of winning the war and sensing the possibility of losing his own head, he publicly denounces the ruler and after a bloody and public coupe, he becomes a hero to the people and takes his place of power.

He then publicly declares his intentions to run down these secret police, and plans to hold a public torture and execution for those involved. Posters including rough sketches and descriptions of who the secret police are are all over the city, and a reward makes their capture a business venture.

Our team of four (or five; to be named at a later date) consists of the secret polices second in command (the first command becomes advisor to the new ruler) his younger sister and her fiance, the most recent recruit of the secret police.

Our game begins when, on the second night of being declared public enemies, the second command covers his sisters mouth in the middle of the night, to be met by her fiances blade at his throat. Motioning towards the door they listen to the slight sounds of creaking stairs. Second in command motions for them to pretend to be sleeping, and hides behind the door. The door opens almost noiselessly, and takes three steps into the room before second command promptly walks up and slits his throat.

He says:
'We leave, tonight'.

As they pack their things, second command looks outside to see a small unit of Alexandrian soldiers outside. He figures they had tried to do the job silently and present their corpses in the morning, and watches as the commanding officer send two men towards the door to see what was happening.

'Leave your things, go out the window, now, NOW!'

The fiance and sister and recruit (who was asleep on the floor during this time, will provide little comic relief when they step on him or something) flee to the window as the two soldiers, upon hearing the shout of now, burst in the door. Second command has an awesome mad (Viking worthy) fight scene where he kills them both, but not before one of them has bellowed,
'THEYRE GETTING AWAY!'

The night comes alive, people are running out of their houses in the dark to try and catch the fugitives. In the dark and the panic, musket shots ring out, people fall, soldiers are relentless in trying to kill the secret police.

Cutting away from our fleeing protagonists, one soldier cant understand while they were shooting with civilians in the way.

'Orders were any means necessary, public be damned. Theyre too dangerous to be left alive'

In the chaos the whinnying of horses is heard.

'LANCERS!'

Bellows second command, and they pick up their pace. Meanwhile lancers (heavily armoured mounted troops) knock over civilians and are closing the distance between themselves and the fugitives. The fiance is knocked down by a large civilian by accident, second command looks back as the fiance mouthes (run) in slow mo.

Second command watches as a lancer approaches him, and watches as a lance pierces his body. His scream, mingled with the scream of his little sister, snaps him back to reality, and he pulls her as she watches him get stabbed, beaten and stoned by the citizens of Alexandria.

They reach the city walls while the public are being entertained by the fiances death, and go through a secret door they obviously know was their from use in their 'business'.

The second command tells them not to stop til they reach the other side of the woods.

As they run, starting credits roll as they flashback to the fiances death, to missions they had carried out themselves (bad things like blackmail and kidnap and torture and murder etc). They reach the top of a wooded hill, to look at the city of Alexandria as the sun rises behind it, the bells of the city clanging joyfully, as if delighted to have captured the fugitive. The screen pans skyward as the title of the game is displayed against the blue sky.

The first scene of the game we are in a safehouse, an abandoned wood cutters cottage. Over a meagre breakfast they discuss what to do. The little sister wants to see Alexandria fall. The recruit says they should be loyal to the country, as it was their duty to serve them in what they had done and still their duty now.
'Or' the thought crosses second commands head, 'take the power for ourselves'

Is this really that hard? REALLY?

I give my story 5/5, and the Viking Salute*.

*The Viking Salute is also known as the Viking Stomp, in which we put our fingers on our heads like horns and stomp to or not to music. I will try and get a video recording of a Viking congregation Viking stomping for your amusement.