This years big Marvel movie is Avengers: Age of Ultron and I managed to watch it yesterday afternoon at a fairly quiet Braehead Imax. It’s a good watch and the Whedon strikes again with a great ensemble movie where so many have struggled in the past. I wouldn’t say it’s up there with Avengers Assemble or Captain America: Winter Soldier but definitely worth catching on the big screen. I do have further words on it, but those are spoilery so read on if you’ve watched the film or else be forever ruined!
The Good
Hawkeye – given more to do in this film and was very much the emotional heart. Don’t like the actor but the character is great.
The Twins – thought they were well played and given a good enough back story to make them a worthwhile addition. Quicksilver was a much better character than the one in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
The opening sequence reminded me of how the good Bond films start and was a great welcome back to the Avengers.
The Vision was a great addition especially as the character was hidden from all trailers although it was pretty weird hearing/seeing Jarvis. Expect any people will hate the character but the aloofness was pretty funny.
Who can wield the hammer – very well done.
The hulkbuster scene was pretty intense and I regret seeing the trailer for this as it took away some of it’s impact…but not all 🙂 One flaw – how can Hulk take down Levithians in Avengers but not a metal robot in Ultron?
Enjoyed the payback for watching the other Marvel universe films and TV shows as well as the comics. Makes for a much richer experience but if you hadn’t seen Winter Soldier then much of this wouldn’t make sense?
Killing Quicksilver – shame for the character as I thought he added a lot to the film but at least one of them died. Needs to be a bigger threat in these movies.
I’m amazed that each character got a little more backstory and they were mostly well told adding a bit of richness and warmth to the film.
The Bad
Ultron was the big bad in this film, so why did he carry so little menace? Voiced well by James Spader he never carried a big enough threat in my opinion. Some good one liners but defeated rather tamely at the end. At times he felt like a slightly camp Ironman.
Pacing and film length were poor. As a viewer you were dropped into certain scenes without explanation and I thought Thor and The Vision were short changed. Initial rumours were of a three hour film but the actual release was forty minutes shy of that and it showed. I’d like to think a Blu-Ray release showing a directors cut would come out later this year but thats not the Marvel way. I’m sure there’s stuff that was in the trailers but not in the film – ah – there was!
Too many characters, some only on screen for a few seconds. It was all just a bit too much at times and the film suffered.
Marvel films have a definite template and while thats the same for many, like Bond for example, they come along every 3 years or so where as we are getting 2 to 3 Marvel films per year. I felt the end of Ultron was so predictable that it took all tension away and made for a slightly disappointing finish. On reflection the film was better than it’s ending but it left me flat when I left the cinema.
Ultron lacked some of the scale of the first Avengers film – the set pieces never seemed to match the first film…or the trailers.
Spotty CGI in places, especially Black Widow on the bike. I also wish movies would stop with the “Sorry”, “Excuse Me”, “Oop’s” type comments when a hero is driving through traffic/people. “Get out the fucking way” while ruining the chances of getting a 12A certificate would be far more entertaining.
The Future
Next up for Marvel is Ant-Man which I can’t say I’m expecting much from but after that is far more interesting. The above graphic from Empire a couple of months back shows the upcoming films and how everything is linked in the Marvel universe. Some of it is speculation but what we do know is that Captain America: Civil War will feature Team Captain America vs Team Ironman and will be directed by the Russo brothers who were behind the Winter Soldier. This is “a good thing” as Winter Soldier was one of the best Marvel movies so far. They will also take over from Joss Whedon for the next Avenger films and all I can say is good luck for all three as juggling so many characters in the one film isn’t easy.
I never thought I’d say this but I’m getting a bit jaded by superhero films – all much of a muchness and thanks to the money Marvel have made, Fox and DC are cashing in too. Look at just how many superhero movies are coming out in the next few years! They need to start offering something different and hopefully some of the Marvel titles will do that as they are branching out from their main titles which should see them offering something a but fresher – like Guardians of the Galaxy.
But thats in the future. For now, go and enjoy Avengers: Age of Ultron and the mix of fun and action that Joss Whedon has delivered. It was over-hyped and he deserves credit for almost delivering on the promise.
Trailer week and for me it was a case of the good the bad and the ugly. Still not shifted the cold/cough and I had a throughly slow run yesterday which proved I’m well below par.
Terminator Genisys Movie – Official Trailer 2 – The Bad. If you don’t want spoiled then avoid this trailer. Major twists and to be honest it looks a mess of a story now. Why couldn’t they have left it alone after Terminator 2?
Reverse Engineering Wipeout – I loved Wipeout and seeing the original tracks in a browser brought back some fond memories. Still think it’s a missed opportunity that there’s no current gen Wipeout or anything even remotely similar.
Had a quite horrible cold/flu for the past few days which is stubbornly not for shifting. Didn’t stop me from ordering an Apple Watch or reading all the reviews.
The pre-orders for the Apple Watch opened on Friday morning and despite having some doubts after reading the many reviews that were published this week I’ve ordered an Apple Watch Sport in Space Grey.
It’s over two years since I bought, tried and quickly sold a Pebble. For iOS users the Pebble was always a poorer platform compared to Android but I had issues with the size, looks and performance of the Pebble which have never really been improved although the Pebble Time does look to be a far better device. However the benefits and the opportunity that a permanent wearable device could bring still intrigues me hence the Apple Watch order. Health tracking in particular interests me and although the iPhone tracks steps just as well as my Fitbit, I don’t always have the phone with me unlike the Fitbit. However Fitbit’s refusal to share data with HealthKit is annoying and will ultimately force me elsewhere.
I’m aware that the Apple Watch could end up being a bit of a dud, especially the first generation. Size, performance and battery life all look like first generation compromises but this is the start of a brand new platform for Apple and the technologist in me is super interested in what that means for a user community that is so invested in smartphones. Will it lead to a shift to wearables? Is it the start of a new app store rush for watch app’s? Only time will tell and thats party why I’m sticking to the Sport edition for now as it’s the cheapest way of getting in on the platform.
Unfortunately I’ve not had chance to get into an Apple store to see the watch in the flesh as I’ve been hit with a nasty cold/flu bug this week which has kept me housebound but initial feedback from friends is that the Apple Watch is all the more impressive in the flesh and that the bands all have strengths and weaknesses that will mean personal choice more than one particular format will win out over time.
What is already tiring is seeing comments belittling people for pre-ordering an Apple Watch. Well they can all piss off as they are mostly the same folk that couldn’t believe the price of an iPhone when it first came out and they wouldn’t waste their money. Most of them now have an iPhone or a Samsung equivalent and very short memories. I’d rather try for myself and then make a judgment on it’s worth not just dismiss it offhand.
A bit late this week due to Easter. I’ve got the week off which means lots of DIY around the house and a few days to decide on ordering an Apple Watch. I probably will as I’m intrigued enough to understand how it will work day to day and whether it will actually add benefit. It also means there is lots of time to catch up on Apple Watch articles.
Cimtographer – Cities: Skylines mod to import roads from real world road maps or export your cities and view them with road map viewers. I’ve tried Glasgow and I need to work a bit on smoothing out the land but the roads were very accurate in places, especially kingston bridge which was a work of art with the various intersections and flyovers.
The Nicola Sturgeon memo: Westminster’s nasty machinations have been exposed – The fallout form the leaked memo and story in the Telegraph, the almost immediate debunking of it by all parties involved and Labours glee at the initial article and then refusal to acknowledge it was fabricated will live long in the memory. Rotten to the core and Labour deserve all they won’t get come May 7th. Just after I posted this I see the Labour MP’s are deleting tweets relating to this…but we have all the evidence we need.
One week until I get some time off which will mean more physical work around the house but some much needed downtime from work work. Like most folk in the UK my reading this week has become more political. 6 weeks from now it will all be over, but until then:
How Scotland’s Economy Contributes to the UK – some interesting statistics on Scotland’s economy, especially in the light of the surge of SNP support and the seemingly inevitable prospect of another independence vote in the next 5 years no matter what happens in May.
Apple’s Tim Cook leads different – good interview with Tim Cook who is giving away his fortune and definitely thinks differently to Steve Jobs.
Comparing my Fitbit One and iPhone 6 – with the Apple Watch coming soon and their reluctance to share data with Healthkit I’m more and more thinking of moving away from Fitbit.
Stacks is a new web app from Offset that helps users curate and share the apps and services they love. You login via Twitter and then create a stack. Simple.
My Mac Essentials stack
Stacks makes it trivial to add app’s, products and services and for the user to maintain the stack. Once done, add some tags and publish it. So far I’ve made three stacks – Mac Essentials, Podcast Tools and iOS Homescreen. I’d like ability to add links and also icons and a search rather than relying on tags would be handy but it is new so not a big deal right now.
I like the low barrier of entry of Stacks and hopefully it will hang around as it’s a great curation tool. Currently invite only but you can request one from the Stacks site or let me know as I’ve got a spare one. What would you add to your Stacks?
On blogs – Insightful post from Matt Gemmell on whats wrong with the word ‘blog’. I’ve never been comfortable saying this is my blog – this post captures why.
Dear Data – a year-long, analog data drawing project – so good.
Todoist: One Year On – like Gordon I’m still loving Todoist but with a keen eye on their new iOS app out this week which will hopefully address some of Gordon’s concerns.
Hidden stress – I often wonder if stress is the real route for my migraines.
Bladerunner Model Shop – with so much reliance on CGI this is a great set of photo’s from Bladerunner showing the many miniatures they used.
Railroad Tycoon. Transport Tycoon. SimCity. SimCity 2000. Classic city or transport building games that I have fond memories off. The latest SimCity was a bit of a mess when it came out in 2013 and it was a full year before an offline and single player mode was introduced. So much potential ruined by EA. Step forward Paradox Interactive who recently launched Cities: Skylines. I bought it a week ago and it’s got me hooked.
Likes
When you start building your first city you feel a bit overwhelmed. There’s lots of road options, you need power, you need (clean) water and sewage disposal for your city to grow. However that feeling quickly passes and you soon realise that there’s a really rich toolset at your disposal to build whiter you want. Straight roads, one way systems, curved roads, roundabouts, tree lined suburbs – it’s all there.
My first city
The initial build area feels quite constrained but you quickly get the opportunity to expand and before long you realise there is a massive build area that you’ll do well to fill no matter how big your city grows too or how extended you want to make it. What helps is that the game, certainly at first, isn’t that hard. If you make some fundamental mistakes it can be costly to rip up and start again but generally the money will flow in and the transport and building options will unlock pretty easily…which is great! Instead of fearing money and the game getting tricky you are left to use your imagination and built the city you want.
There are many ways of influencing finances. Taxes, loans, budget tweaks and something I haven’t seen before – districts. You can split your city into districts and apply policies to those. So encourage green policies in one area and heavy industry in another, banning heavy transport near houses to help with the traffic flow through the city. It add’s another level of detail and greatly increases the feeling that you are in charge. The districts, like the city itself, can be named to whatever you like as can routes and even stores.
Graphically I’d say Cities: Skylines does enough. It looks good, is quick to move around the city and while most of the time you spend fairly zoomed out, you can drop right into the city and see what your individuals are doing, the routes they are going and the mess that your traffic is in – more of that later. What is captured is the feel of a city. There is loads happening at any one time and suburbs can feel quite sedate whereas heavy office and shopping areas feel really busy.
There’s also a lot of thought in the traffic/transport side of things. Bus routes, metro’s, train, ferry and airports plus policies that can be applied that affects traffic. With the various road types it leads to a lot of options and a chance to apply a lot of traffic management to your city…and you’ll need it as your city grows.
One thing that is missing are disasters – you won’t see a cyclone rip up your city or an earthquake. What you will have to get used to is destroying what you’ve built to make it better. Small early roads and buildings will need to make way for motorways and train lines and while this does replicate the growth of major cities it can make for some painful decisions.
Dislikes
For all thats good, there’s a fair bit of admin to do. Clearing out old buildings, water and sewage pipes…it can be a bit repetitive. There are ways around some of the pain but in many ways it’s a necessary evil.
It’s not as big an evil as traffic. With a game that gives so much control over traffic it’s frustrating that it seems to suffer from an over reliance on getting it absolutely right. If you are seeing bodies piling up, fires not being out out, an increase in sick people yet you’ve got an abundance of fire stations, cemeteries and hospitals then take a look at traffic. If you zoom in close you will see essential services stuck in pile ups of traffic and even with three lane roads there seems to be a build up of traffic in one lane. Hopefully this is a bug that will be fixed over time as traffic seems to be the biggest problem with the game right now.
There’s a mod for that
One thing I’ve not mentioned is the extendability within the game. You can enable mod’s that unlock all territory, gives you infinite money and there’s are loads being added all the time via the Steam Workshop. A few favourites are:
Automatic Bulldoze – Automatically destroys abandoned and burned buildings
Automatic Emptying – Automatically clicks the “Empty building to another facility” buttons of your cemeteries and garbages to start emptying when they are almost filled up and stop when empty.
AutoLineColor – Adjusts each new line to have a slightly different hue. Bus lines remain blue, metro green and trains orange but each line will randomly get a different color.
Extended Road Upgrade – This mod adds two new road building tools that allow you to upgrade between one- and two-way roads and to change one-way road directions, without having to demolish and rebuild the road.
Mod’s just don’t affect gameplay, you can also download new buildings and graphics to change the look of your cities. Imagine where this will go if you could download a Halo set of graphics…or Game of Thrones.
As well as creating your own starting maps you can also download a great number via Steam…and the game has only been out a couple of weeks.
There’s also a tool to create your own height maps for the game – http://terrain.party. This is all thanks to this Reddit thread. The community already around this game is very good and a few good places to visit (apart from the publishers own forums) are:
You can also download save games from Steam so if you want to dabble with some amazing pre-built cities you can, or even manage Los Santos from GTA V or The City of Barrie.
Wrap-Up
Despite the flaws Cities: Skylines is a fantastic game and thanks to the large and active community and the steady flow of mod’s it’s got a long future ahead of it. If you are at all interested in management or simulation games then this is well worth a punt. It’s great for Paradox Interactive that they’ve not only built this superb game but it’s selling well and creating a great buzz. So long SimCity, you won’t be missed.
