My last post was a rather long review of the movie Prince Caspian, which I gave a 9 of 10 (and I still stand by that rating). I’ve seen it 3 times in total now, over the course of just more than a week, and I have enjoyed it immensely each time. If I didn’t have a personal rule that I don’t go to see movies more than 3 times in the theater (based on the rather silly “logic” that I saw the Star Wars movies only 3 times each in the theater, and since no movie is better than Star Wars, no movie deserves more theater visits, but there we are), I’d probably go see it a 4th time.

In my first review, I alluded to some things in the film but I tried to avoid posting any spoilers. Enough time has now gone by that I assume most people who have an interested in seeing the movie have already done so, and I wanted to post a few more thoughts that will contain some spoiler information.

One of the most common criticisms or complaints I have seen about this movie is that it is “nothing like the book,” and that almost “no scenes from the book” are in the movie. I said in my review this was “patently false,” but in the effort to avoid posting spoilers, I could not provide my reasons for saying so. Today, therefore, I’m going to post a follow-up and point out just how many similarities there are in the movie, where the differences are, and my opinion on some of these things. Of course, as with everything on this blog, it’s just my opinion. People should feel free to leave comments, as always.

And now, for the similarities and differences between the movie and the book.

Points of Agreement

The scenes listed below are scenes that are in the book, and one would expect to see some form or version of them (if perhaps somewhat altered) in the film — and we do.

1. The kids getting sucked from a train station on the way to school onto a deserted Narnian island — there in full.
2. The kids finding the ruins of Cair Paravel and realizing what it is — there in full.
3. The kids finding their undamaged treasure room and all their personal items in the basement — there in full.
4. Susan rescuing Trumpkin from being drowned by two Telmarines using her bow — there in full.
5. Contests of skill between Trumpkin and the kids as they prove who they are — there, but greatly abbreviated.
6. Caspian convincing the forest Narnians to fight for him — there, slightly abbreviated.
7. Going the wrong way because their “map” in their heads is 1300 years out of date — there, modified somewhat.
8. Lucy the only one who could see Aslan at first, no one believes her — there, but modified greatly.
9. Caspian fleeing on horseback from Miraz — there in full.
10. Caspian being found by Trufflehunter & company — there, though abbreviated and modified.
11. Hag and Werewolf trying to convince Caspian to ally himself with Jadis — there, heavily modified.
12. Challenge of Peter carried by Edmund to Miraz, accepted — there in full.
13. Duel between Peter and Miraz — there, expanded and slightly modified.
14. Battle at Aslan’s Howe after the duel — there, expanded and modified.
15. The Wood coming alive to save the day in the battle — there in full.
16. The Bridge of Beruna smashed — there, expanded and modified.
17. Aslan makes a door in the air/the journey home — there in full.

Take a look at this list. There are 17 points of either agreement or near-agreement between the movie and the book (off the top of my head). Hopefully any reader can see now why I said that the claim that “only one or two scenes” were retained was patently false. Were these scenes somewhat modified for the movie? Sure, but you can’t expect them not to be.

As an object lesson, let’s look at the scene of the duel between Miraz and Peter. In Chapter 14 of the book, called “How all were very busy,” this duel is depicted. In the book, there’s no narrative of the battle. Instead, it’s written as a dialog, with Edmund, Trufflehunter, and others, describing the fight to each other. “Look, now Peter is having a go at him,” etc. This works great in a novel, but clearly it would be silly in a movie, where the duel is playing out visually before the audience. So one cannot expect to have the narrative. If you look at what happens in the actual duel, the movie is not too far off. In both, Peter’s left arm is hurt. In both, they call a rest. In both, Miraz is cut. In both, Peter’s arm is given a makeshift repair — in the novel, it’s a sprain that is bandaged. In the movie, it’s a separated shoulder that is forced back into place. At the end Peter wins, but refuses to kill Miraz, and his own men kill him, and then call out “Treachery!” and the Telmarines attack, and the Narnians respond. These things happen more or less exactly the same way in the movie as in the book. The only other difference is that Sopespian stabs Miraz with Susan’s arrow in the movie, and it’s a dagger or knife in the book. Tell me again that “the movie is nothing like the book” after watching this scene and re-reading it in the book. They are very, very close.

Points of Disagreement

Now, there are three main kinds of differences in the movie — scenes that were cut and scenes that were added, and then character modifications.

Subtractions: Things from the book that are cut out of (not in) the movie (or are so reduced as they may as well not be there).

1. Caspian’s childhood tutoring — not there at all.
2. The drawn out series of skirmishes around the Howe between Miraz’s forces and the Narnians led by Caspian — not there at all.
3. The council deciding when to blow the horn — not there at all (the horn is blown at a whim early in the movie)
4. Lucy leading all the children directly to Aslan until they can all see him.
5. Bacchus and the forest spirits forming an army of merriment and taking over Beruna, destroying the bridge — not there at all.
6. Aslan speaking to all the children before they arrive at the Howe — not there at all

Additions: Things that are in the movie but not in the book.

1. The night attack in Miraz’s castle (there is no such attack in the novel)
2. The coronation of Miraz (he was already king before the book started)
3. Building of the Beruna Bridge (it was already there, in the novel)
4. Caspian and Susan’s attraction to each other (not at all in the novel)

Character modifications: Things that are different about how the characters act/behave/appear between book and movie.

1. Caspian is much older in the movie (young adult vs. teenager)
2. Peter is petulant in much of the movie, and somewhat arrogant, rather than magnanimous and gracious (as he is in the book)
3. Susan gets into an awful lot of physical combat in the movie, but none in the book.
4. Aslan is more aloof in the movie than he is in the book.

If one takes a good long look at the lists above, I think it is hard to argue that the movie is “nothing like” the book. Yes, a few of the characters act in ways you might not expect, and yes, some scenes are added to, or subtracted from, the book to turn it into a movie. But such things happen whenever you adapt a book onto film. And, for example, if one realizes that the battle at night at Miraz’s castle serves the same storyline function as the protracted “trench warfare” that the Telmarines and Narnians got into before Peter and Miraz’s duel at the Howe, it’s pretty clear that the changes are not as extreme as some folks are making out.

In particular, I happen to think much of what was cut out, should have been cut out. The repetitive fighting at the how between the two armies, for example, would have been boring if they had shown it all in detail. And the whole thing with Bacchus and the forest sprites and their partying and merry dancing was one of my least favorite parts of the book (because it seemed to have nothing to do with anything else before or after), and I’m ecstatic that they cut it… I can’t imagine that working on screen at all (hell, it doesn’t work in the book in the first place, in my not-remotely-humble opinion!). I can’t fault Andy Adamson for cutting out of the book a scene that I didn’t like, after all… and replacing it with a scene (in the movie) that I do like — the night attack on the castle.

There is one big continuity issue they seem not to have realized that they introduced, and I’ll admit that I did not see it either until my 3rd viewing — Trumpkin and Peter knowing who the heck Caspian is. Trumpkin does not know Caspian’s name (it’s not revealed to the Narnians until after Trumpkin is captured by the Telmarines, so he’s not there to hear it). He really doesn’t even know the Horn of Susan had been sounded. At most he might have heard “a” horn blowing, but he wouldn’t have known who had blown it or what was being blown, and he certainly would not have been in a position to expect the kings and queens of old to come back. This could have been solved by having him be present for the Caspian explanation, having them debate when to blow the horn, and then having Caspian “jump the gun” with it during a Telmarine attack at Trufflehunter’s place. I wish they had done that… and if they had, I’d probably give the movie a 10.

The rest of the things that were cut, changed, reduced, added, modified, I have no issue with. And, given the 17 points of general agreement between the book and movie that I listed above (scenes that were either there almost exactly from the book, or were at least there in spirit), I simply cannot accept the argument that the movie is “nothing like” the book. You’ll not find very many more points of comparison between the first movie and the first book either.

I mean after all, think about the changes in Lion/Witch/Wardrobe: The bombing scene in London with Edmund going after his father’s picture is not in the book. The Cricket game is not in the book. The wolves do not reach the beavers’ dam while the kids and beavers are still there in the book, but they do in the movie. There’s no river scene with the wolves and the ice flow in the book, but it’s in the movie. And the scene from the animals having Christmas Dinner who get stoned by the Queen is not in the movie. And the huge battle with Peter and the others is only quickly hinted at in the book, yet figures prominently in the movie. And let us not forget that in the book, there is a lot more to the part where Aslan frees the stoned animals and creatures, including a great deal of interaction between Lucy and the Giant, and none of that is in the movie. And yet, the purists seem to think all these changes (including a dramatically reduced amount of “screen time” for Aslan) in the first movie are acceptable, but the ones in the second are not. I don’t quite understand this.

Now, it’s perfectly fine for people to simply not like the changes in the second movie, and to feel that they violated the spirit of the book more than the first one did (and I’d say they probably do violate it more, but since I didn’t like the second book as much anyway, it didn’t bother me). But it needs to be made clear that this opinion is rather arbitrary, and to make the claim that the movie is “nothing like the book” is, as I said before, patently false. Hopefully this spoiler-laden re-review makes that clear.

C

I’m a fan of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, and I absolutely loved the first movie adaptation that came out a few years ago, of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. So when I heard that they were making a movie of the next book in chronological order, Prince Caspian, I was somewhat excited. However, because that’s one of my least favorite books in the series, I was also a bit concerned that the movie might not live up to the first one. In preparation for the movie (as I usually do with such adaptations), I went back and re-read the book, and also re-watched the first movie, which I have on DVD.

Last night, I finally went to see Prince Caspian, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. What I will say in this review will be designed not to contain spoilers so I can’t be overly specific, but I thought I would give some comments here and write down my thoughts. I also noticed that the IMDB comments (hundreds of them) appear to be split down the middle, with about 60% of the reviewers giving it top notch ratings (8-10 out of 10), and 40% giving it terrible ones (1-3 out of 10). Most of the high scores come from people who have not read the books, and most of the low scores come from those who have read (and love) them. The main complaint of the low-raters is, “the movie strays too far from the book.” I want to address this criticism at the end, but first my review.

One of the largest concerns I had about the movie after re-reading the book a couple of weeks ago was that I thought the book would be very difficult to film as written. In the book, the Pevinsie children return to Narnia right at the beginning, and the first 1/3 of the book is them re-acquiring their bearings in a world that has experienced over a thousand years of history since the last time thy were kings and queens of Narnia. At about the 1/3 mark, they meet a dwarf named Trumpkin who tells them a tale that takes up the next 1/3 of the book, which is the story of Prince Caspian, told in flashback over several chapters. Finally, we return to the present, and the last 1/3 of the book is about the children, joined by Caspian, trying to right the wrongs that have cropped up since they were last in the world.

The book is therefore arranged into three “acts,” with the middle act being a very long, multi-chapter flashback sequence that in addition to taking up many pages of text, also covers many years of Caspian’s life from when he is a small child (his age is not specified but I always pictured him around 9-10) to a time “some years later” (again, not specified, but I always pictured him nearly a man at this point, perhaps 16).

I could see immediately as I read it that it would probably not work to film it this way. You can do flashbacks like this in a novel, when the reader has many hours of slow reading to digest what is going on, and the narrator can throw in the occasional interruption with the children piping up to ask questions and the dwarf answering. But to do it this way in a movie is not going to work, and if you just interrupt a movie with a 40 minute (or so) flashback, it’s going to be very hard for viewers to follow. If they filmed the book as written, literally shot by shot, scene by scene, it would play more like a collection of 3 TV episodes (one for each act), all slightly different, than it would play like a coherent movie. I was concerned that if they tried this, it would wreck the structure of the film. Therefore, to be honest, I was actually hoping they wouldn’t stick too closely to the book on this one, at least for the chronology of it.

Fortunately, Andy Adamson, who is the director, was smart enough not to make the mistake of trying to film the book scene by scene. Instead, the movie opens with an abbreviated version of the flashback, so that it is not a flashback, but a prologue. By the time the first 10 minutes of the movie or so are over, you have all the information that you needed from the second-act flashback of the book, condensed and ramped up as more of an action sequence than as dialog, and the audience ought to be able to follow the story. Adamson was then able to prevent the rest of the story in proper chronological order, which in my opinion was really the only way to do it.

The rest of the story of course cannot follow exactly the book, but it does keep to the basic plot well enough. Some of the dialog is preserved, though of course not all can be. Parts are cut out, other parts expanded, and a few sequences are re-arranged. He also adds a night battle that is not really in the book, but in exchange he cuts out a lot of repetitive and glossed-over battle sequences that the book had (they were easy to gloss over in a paragraph, but again, had they been filmed the movie would have collapsed under the weight of them). He was careful to make each battle unique, and different from the awe-inspiring battle of the first movie.

On the whole, I thought that they kept the best parts of the story, changed some things that simply had to be changed in order to turn it into a movie, and that the parts that they added worked well enough that I have no objection to them. As a movie, I think this works well. As a follow on to the first movie, it is outstanding. And as a precursor to what will hopefully be at least one other movie to follow, it works just fine. As an adaptation of the original source material, I felt it was as faithful as one could have made it, with a few exceptions, given how hard to turn into a movie this book really was. Unlike the first one, the book really did not lend itself well structurally to film adaptation, and I think some of the harsher critics have missed this point, or perhaps not really thought about it in their supreme indignation over the changes.

If I were to give the movie a rating, out of 10, I’d give it a 9, which is quite high. The first movie would be a 10, but it would be very hard for any Narnia movie to equal that one to me, just because the book is my favorite of the books. It’s definitely on my “must buy” list of DVDs, and I will almost certainly purchase it the very day it is released on DVD (or perhaps on Blu-ray if I get around to buying one of those players by then). Also, it was good enough that I am pondering a second theater visit to see it again — something I have not done for any movie since the first Narnia one came out, and an honor I have only bestowed in the past on the Star Wars, Indy Jones, and Lord of the Rings movies. So that tells you how much I enjoyed it.

Now, I would like to address for a moment some of the criticisms made by the really irate group of Narnia purists who are panning this movie as being “nothing like the book.” In the first place, the charge is patently false. Even some of the dialog is transported wholesale, almost word for word, into the movie in various places (such as one conversation between Aslan and Reepicheep). The basic story is entirely preserved, and many of the scenes unfold in ways very similar to how I pictured them in my mind’s eye. But there are some specific objections that the critics have complained about that I would also like to address, below. I am going to do this as best I can without any spoilers.

Objection #1: “Caspian should be younger.” I disagree with this. He was a young man, which is how I pictured him from the book. The reality is we don’t know how old Caspian is. He is described as quite young (a boy) in his first scenes in the book (which are cut out of the movie), but his age is not given (at least, not in my edition of the book). We are left to guess his age, which given his behavior, playing with toys, having a nurse, etc, I place at probably around 10, but not younger, since he is about to be old enough to start learning swords and horsemanship. When the book takes place we are told that it is “some years later” but the number of years is, so far as my edition goes, never specified. He has now already learned swords and horses and the like, so one must imagine that “some” must be a fair number of years, not just two or three. I would place him (and did in my mind’s eye) at around 16 years old, perhaps slightly older — i.e., closer to Peter and Susan in age than Edmund or Lucy. Now, admittedly Ben Barnes is in his 20s, which is probably too old, but they made him look relatively young, and his age is never stated directly in the movie. As a result, I don’t think this objection holds much water.

Objection #2: “Lucy’s part was too reduced.” I agree with this one. There is some stuff in the book that Lucy does that is not in the movie, and should have been. I’d have liked to see this part added. Maybe they filmed it but cut it out due to the film being rather long (2:20 or so). I would have shortened other scenes to give Lucy more play. Lu is the star of this book as the first, but you wouldn’t know it to see the movie. It’s one of the reasons I give this movie a 9 instead of a 10. But I don’t think it was so serious that the whole movie was flawed as a result. She just should’ve had more play as the main character.

Objection #3: “Aslan’s role is minor.” Well, his role is pretty minor in the book too. He’s only in a couple of chapters. So I don’t see what the objection is here. Yes, he does less stuff and has less air time in the movie than in the book. The same was true in the first movie — his role is less prominent than in the book. I have no problem with this and consider it a silly objection. They can’t film every word of the book and show it in real time… the movie would be 9 hours long.

Objection #4: “Peter is portrayed as being too immature.” I agree with this objection. There were two or three lines of his in the movie that were decidedly un-Peter-ish. I wish they had not gone this route with him. But it is a directorial interpretation, and I can live with it. This is another reason why I give this movie a 9 instead of a 10.

Objection #5: “The night battle in the middle of the film is not in the original book.” That’s true, but a lot of the repetitive battles in the middle of the book are cut out of the movie, so it’s a wash. I happen to think this was more interesting and exciting than what is described in the book and consider that battle to be a decent choice to put into the film. I do not object to it, though I can understand why people might be unhappy about it. I think that, had this battle been removed and the more repetitive battles that went on day by day in the woods according to the book been filmed, everyone would’ve been bored to tears. What works in a book does not always work in a movie, and I think this change was probably necessary.

I think a lot of these objections (and some others I can’t print here without spoiling the film for those who have not seen it) are ones that have some amount of merit, but I don’t think they ruin the movie. After all I was not happy with some decisions that they made to turn Lord of the Rings into three movies, but I think on the whole, as movies, they did an excellent job, and they properly captured the feel and spirit of the novels.

And that is the real question here: did the movie Prince Caspian capture the feel and spirit of the novel? And I think that the answer is a resounding “yes” — and that, as a result, it is both an excellent movie and an acceptable (if imperfect) adaptation.

Someone from the Champions Online sent me an anonymous e-mail through this site discussing my views on free-form game design. I answered him at length and decided I liked the discussion enough to post our back-and-forth here. So here we go (the user is anonymous since I don’t know if he wants his e-mail published) — my answers are in italics.

Shayne wrote:

I was looking through the Champs Online megathread on classes and agree with everything you had to say. Well at least up to the point where you blew off the argument of the guy that total freedom of picking powers and advantages/lims may actually reduce character diversity since players will over time discover that certain powers and advantages are on balance more useful more of the time in the world as designed and certain lims are pretty easy to work around.

I don’t recall the exact post, but I’m not sure it matters because I don’t see the issue here. If they give the players freedom and the players voluntarily limit themselves, that is on the players, and no one can prevent that (nor can an AT system prevent that). I still think it’s better to give the freedom and let the players decide. Again I don’t remember the exact post but that’s probably why I blew it off (if I did).

Recall the point made (I think by you) that people really in effect only slot certain powers in certain optimal ways in CoH. Those seem to me to be similar points to the point the other guy was making.

Perhaps, but the reason people do that in COH is because the only thing to do in COH is to gain XP through combat, and the fastest/best way to do that (most efficient) is through raw DPS. Putting a hold on someone for a long time, for instance, may prevent him from firing back but gains no net XP for the controller… which is why controllers slot for DPS even though they are not supposed to be a DPS class. This is a flaw of the fundamental game design, which takes a worm’s eye view of roleplaying (that all that matters is combat and within combat, all that matters is hit points). Give players more to do than DPS, and they will slot for more things than DPS.

That poster you blew off said that the result of a no-archetype system would be an equlibrium of sorts around ar few or even one build that levels the fastest/easiest punctuated by regular nerfs (which players would dislike). I find that a possible outcome because even though many players will still want to build characters to their vision, the discipline of fighting enemies balanced for more efficient characters will tends to pull them in line over time. Though your point about more intelligently balanced opponents is good, that still leaves the issue of how to handle teams of unequal combat power.

If the game is built properly this shouldn’t be a huge problem. I see no reason why individual powers can’t scale when you sidekick someone, for example.

I remember from my years as a champs player being able to wring lots of points out of obvious inaccessible focus and limited charges on each of multilple flavors of offense all in a multipower. Optimization like that made me more combat efficient than some other team members.

But it should in principle have limited you in a very real way. If the GM did not exploit those limitations by having you lose your OIF at least once every 3 or 4 adventures, and by putting you into situations at least once every 3 or 4 adventures where your charges cannot be recovered, then that’s on the GM — i.e., bad scenario design. If you take those limitations you need to be limited by them. If they’re just writing on your sheet and never affect you, then you’re effectively breaking the rules (”A limitation that does not limit the character is worth no bonus”). This is not to attack you personally, because we’ve all done it or (as a GM) allowed it over the years. But if you really understand how to play (and more importantly, GM) Champions, such exploits like this are not going to happen. Clearly the computer would need to be designed to properly prohibit such exploits.

I know from CoH that people will, if able, design characters based on experience and advice from others about how to progress smoothly through the game and if they can find a way do it they’ll also build so they can farm high-XP value missions easily given their powers and advantages.

Again, this is a flaw in game design. The only thing COH allows you to do is gain XP through doing DPS, so people max out DPS and farm XP. If the game gave you more classical superhero things to do (rescuing cats out of trees, stopping natural disasters, patrolling the city at night in a way that provides for a noticeable impact on the city), then DPS would not matter. For example, the guy with radar sense and flight maxed out might make a super-great patroller of the city, and be good at that, and if he can gain XP from it, then what does he need DPS for? And no, I’m not suggesting he should be able to just fly around and gain XP… clearly there would need to be something for him to DO on patrol. But the point is, DPS is only king if they MAKE it king. It needn’t be (and in Champions, it is NOT, which is why nobody builds for pure DPS in Champions — at least not if they have any sense).

It seems that the more freedom players have in picking powers and advantages the more possible ways crafty players can make what should be challenging fights for them easy. Which leads to farming and massive differences in the rate of progression between players who do that and those who don’t. Which if there’s no loot/trading economy to get thrown out of whack might be tolerable for the freedom gained.

Again, that’s flawed game design and really has nothing to do with free-form. Farming happens in all class-based games, so it’s not as if classes will prevent or reduce it.

I’m guessing you hope for a MMO world where characters must go through lots of zones/missions that penalize the exact builds that otherwise are otherwise highly successful kinds of builds. By making missions that are really hard/tedious without certain non-combat skills or less efficient (for combat) powers. That might be the answer.

Certainly not! I would never argue for tedium — games should be fun! I also would not argue in favor of designing missions that force people to fail without a special particular power. In point of fact I have argued for just the opposite — dynamic mission creation so that the game generates challenges tailored to the very skills and powers you possess. Spent 75% of your points on stealth? Never fear — that means there will be at least one stealth challenge in almost every mission! Spent points on detective work? Expect clues to abound in mission after mission! Spent all your points on DPS? Expect to spend most of your time gaining XP by doing DPS.

The idea is, players should be able to build for more than one thing, and the game should support such builds. But never, ever, should players be forced into game play styles they do not like. That’s how games become tedious and not-fun, and makes people not want to play.

But given many players desire for easy progression through the game (uber-ness), I expect this to be kind of unpopular for those people who just want the play the “optimal” build and don’t want to accept that there isn’t really an optimal build for the game as a whole.

Players do not want easy. They want FUN. (Well, some want easy, but they really are in the vast minority.) The common desire to “blaze” quickly through games comes not from lazy players but from lazy designers, who can only come up with boring, tedious repetition to be their main form of “challenge.” If you are wasting people’s time with time sinks, yes, they will try to find the fastest way through them — because time sinks are by definition boring and not fun. But if you make the game FUN, people will play it and not rush through it. Example: Portal. It’s a puzzle game that takes a couple of hours to play. Most people do not rush through it. They take their time and savor and enjoy it.Why? Because every one of the 18 or so levels is fun, and interesting. There is no time sink. It’s not built to take hours. So you are having fun 100% of the night. I started it at 6 PM one night and was up until 2 AM playing and re-playing it. It’s pure fun. It’s not for everyone of course, but it’s designed to be fun, not a time sink.

MMOs need to be designed to be FUN, and players will not want to rush. Rushing comes from them being designed to be boring, to be work… which people don’t find fun and don’t want to do. And I don’t blame them.

But given the “action” flavor promised by their CO’s marketing and your apparent experience with Cryptic we’ll probably be lucky to even get dual archetype characters, which would put some flexibility into design of characters.

Recently they have announced that they are re-considering the AT bonus system and maybe going to get rid of it. So perhaps we will see something more like Champions in the end after all.

On the Champions Online forums, I have had a debate with some of the posters about free-form vs. level-based gaming. They keep saying that free-form game design cannot be made workable in an MMORPG, and I of course, think it can be. Here is a post from that thread that I thought I’d save here, because one never knows how long a forum post is going to be kept up.

The objection to a point-based, free-form system is that it is free-form. The basic argument, as I see it, is that with a free-form system it is possible to gimp yourself — to create a toon that can’t do enough damage to an enemy to actually defeat him. We can imagine a character who can only generate 5 damage per second, but his enemy regens at 6 per second, meaning you can’t win the fight.

One answer to this objection is simply, “So what?” Yes, it is an acknowledged weakness of free-form systems that you can severely gimp yourself. People like myself who prefer, and even advocate for, such systems, believe that the benefits (allowing one to have precisely the character that one wishes) outweigh this cost. Such a belief is a matter of opnion. You don’ t have to hold that opinion, but arguing against it based on some sort of supposed “facts” is not viable, precisely because it is an opinion. You object, Mr. O, that a free-form point-based game “cannot work”, but your definition of it NOT working equals my definition of it working! A game that is free-form enough that I can completely gimp myself is just what I want — because it means that, gimped or not, my character is MINE, 100%, and not just someone else’s. Because, in the end, that is what a level-based system like WOW or Vanguard or EQ is. The designers decide what skills a Paladin, say, will get, and at what level, and by leveling and “buying” the level-appropriate skills, what I am doing amounts to little more than checking off the boxes of a pre-generated sheet. That may do it for you, but it doesn’t make it even halfway up the flagpole for me to salute.

Let’s remember after all, that class/level systems are not without weaknesses. It is an acknowledged weakness of those systems that the player is locked into pre-defined design templates and has less freedom to create his own character setup. Some people, like you, consider the easy balance that results from such rigidity to be a benefit that outweighs the cost of the system being rigid. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I do not share it.

Another answer to this objection, however, is that one can easily mitigate against the possible gimpage by providing a wide array of “pre-generated” characters that are set up specifically NOT to be gimped. So, you could easily allow a player to pick a “Ninja” type character, and have all the stats and powers pre-allocated for him, and allow him to just “accept recommended” powers at every single level. But you can also allow a person to say “let me customize” and let him pick EVERY power. Now no one can complain, because people who are (a) unsure of the system, or (b) too lazy to figure it out, or (c) concerned about being gimped, can just take the recommended builds and be completely assured of a character and an advancement scheme that is tailor made to be workable within the system. So, all potential gimpage is curbed by providing pre-made character templates for people to use, and even slightly tweak.

But there is an even better answer to your objection, Mr. O, because you are resting the entire argument on the assumption that spawns and mission generation are going to remain the same in CO as they always have been. This assumption may not be far off the truth, but I hope that it is, because the way missions are generated right now in games like COH is very coarse. You might have a bit of a point if spawns are generated the old way, because they are taking a pre-set NPC based on level, with HP and stats based on level, and just spawning it for you.

But, imagine a more dynamic situation. Imagine, instead, if when you enter a mission, as it loads you into the instance, the computer scans your character and figures out just what stats you have, and dynamically generates a set of enemies who have stats tailor made to give you a challenge. So, if you have chosen to have only 3D6 of attack, that’s no big deal — it can generate enemies with 3 PD/ED to compensate. If you happen to have put all your points into attack and have 20D6, you won’t wipe the floor with enemies… they will have some damage reduction and higher PD/ED to compensate. In fact in Champions, the PnP game, it is actually very easy (I have done it) to create some simple algorithms that can generate very balanced, properly challenging NPCs for any given hero or set of heroes. You can just do things like, “NPCs have 1D6 of normal damage per every 3 PD/ED of the hero entering the zone.” If you do this for attack damage, OCV/DCV/ECV, defenses, special powers (e.g., flash defense) and so on, you can easily balance bunch of enemies for an entire group.

As I say, this is not mere speculation — I have done it. I have created “random NPC generation tables” for Champions (in my youth, when I thought Champions needed such things — I do not, now, at least in PnP). It really didn’t take me very long — a few weeks over the summer one year provided me with just the tables and charts I needed to generate whole groups of agents appropriately challenging for any mix of superheroes you might care to present me with. I did this because the players were changing a lot during the summer and we had no fixed groups. As with an MMORPG, I could not predict ahead of time who would show up. So, people would arrive, and I would use my tables and algorithms to, by hand, generate some agents appropriate to the battles (obviously, mega-villains were made ahead of time). For people who might remember Champions II, the basic idea here was the Turtle Armor agents, but I took it to the next level.

Now, it strikes me that if a high school student on summer vacation can come up with a workable “dynamic power, skill, and stat generation system” for NPCs using pencils, paper, and dice, and some rudimentary math skills, a team of highly paid professional computer programmers ought to be able to create such a system in a computer in the year 2008+.

Your whole argument rests on the basic premise that I can “gimp” myself because the game expects something like 10D6, and makes up villains with PD/ED based on 10D6, so if I have 5D6, I am hosed. But if the game is designed right, then if I only have 5D6, the enemies should have the right PD/ED to compensate, and the battle will still be a challenge, but not impossible. They could (and should!) also make a difficulty slider that lets players play with the generation, giving more XP to people who buff the difficulty level and less to those who lower it.

The key here is dynamically generated content rather than, as we have seen before, statically generated content that was made presuming a set of builds on the part of the player. Let’s see them stop assuming my character will have power A, skill B, and stat C, and start generating a proper challenge for the powers, skills, and stats, that I *do* have.

For years, I have lived with a small, mediocre television set. In the first year of graduate school my mother was nice enough to spend $220 or so (which was unheared of in my family for a birthday present) to buy me a 19″ Zenith TV. That TV lasted me from 1993 to 2005, and was a very good, solid television. In 2005 when that TV finally died after surviving trips from NJ to SC and from SC to WA, I knew I would be moving, so I decided not to buy a high-end TV, even though by then I did have the money for it. I purchased a Toshiba 20″ regular def TV, and decided that the next TV, eventually, would be high definition. I knew that the “HD switch” was going to be in 2009, but that seemed really far away in 2005.

Also, at the time and even since, I have had certain issues with HD televisions. Besides the outrageous price, the two main types, LCD and Plasma, both held concerns for me. The plasmas look great but are both very expensive and also gigantic. Living in a medium to slightly small apartment (which I have always done and still do), a giant 48″ or something screen is just not reasonable. But they don’t make plasmas at smaller sizes (I think the absolute smallest I’ve seen is 42″), so anything in my size (and price) range is going to be an LCD. And to be honest, up until a year or two ago, the LCD TV technology was just not there… I could always see some level of smearing on fast motion in the stores, and always noticed pixelation. Now, it may be that the stores had (foolishly) hooked these TVs up to standard definition (SD) sources, but you can’t always tell in the store. All I knew was that plasmas looked good but were too big and expensive, and LCDs were the right size but looked either no better than SD, or looked worse. And I am not one to spend a thousand bucks on something that looks worse than my 20″ SD TV.

However, finally in the last year or so, when looking through the LCD TV offerings in places like Wal-Mart, they are sending true HD to the TVs it seems, and the TVs are getting better. Response times have greatly improved, making it possible for the televisions to “hold” the motion of the image without fracturing or “pixelating.” On top of that, thanks to my move, I got over a $2,000 tax refund this year. I decided that it was finally time to take the plunge, and to get an LCD HDTV with some of that money.

After doing some thinking, taping sheets of paper together to test sizes in my apartment and so forth, I finally decided to go with a 32″ television… I think anything larger is too big for my small living room. Also, there are two varieties of HD televisions — those that can produce 720 scan lines per frame (720p), and those that can produce 1080 per frame (1080p). Now, clearlly the latter have better resolution (more lines = smaller pixels and thus better resolution). However, you mainly need that many lines if you go into the larger sets. Smaller sets look fine with the smaller # of lines… because a small set with fewer lines has pixels equal in size to a larger set with larger lines. You can see this by imagining a set 10″ high with 720 lines of resolution, which has 72 pixels per inch, and thus each pixel is 1/72 inches high… vs. a set that is 20″ high with 720 lines of resolution, giving only 36 pixels per inch. Each pixel would be twice as large on the larger set, giving you a more “blocky” image. As a result, you want 1080p if your set goes to 42″ and over, but you don’t need it on 32″ and below, because a 720p set at 32″ will have pixels of roughly the same size as a 42″ set with 1080p (smaller screen, less pixels… equal-sized pixels). The 37″ size is an oddity — it’s a bit large for 720p, and thus 720p won’t look quite as good on such a set, but it’s a bit small for 1080p. Up until the last year or so, nobody made 37″ TVs at 1080p, but now they do, and if you get one of those the resolution will be super sharp. However, you pay more for 1080p than for 720p, in any given size class of TV (and by more, you’re talking nearly doubling the price).

And so, I decided to stick with 32″ because at that size 720p is a perfectly good resolution, which saves me some money and retains the resolution. A few friends expressed the thought that 32″ might be “too small” for an HD TV, but we have to remember I am used to a 20″ standard def… so 32″ high def is a huge upgrade for me.

The next step of course, was to decide the brand to use. After doing some research, I crossed off the list all of the “bargain” sets, as those sets have questionable reviews. I thus refused to consider brands like Vizio, Olevia, Westinghouse, and so forth. I have heard too many horror stories about these low-end, bargain priced sets of the type you get at a place like Target. Yes, they save you money, but you get what you pay for. With a nice fat tax refund in my pocket, and a good salary coming at the moment, I have no need to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

My research indicated that four main brands were the solid performers on the market. The top end brands seem to be Sony or Sharp, followed close behind by Samsung, and then followed in fourth place by Toshiba. The Toshibas in the reviews seem to perform as well, but they are less expensive and less popular than the other three. As the Sonys are always way more expensive for equivalent specs to the other three, and as I have had problems with Sharp over the years in other products, and as I have had nothing but good experiences with Toshiba electronics, and as the Toshibas were the most cost effective, I decided to get a Toshiba Regza 32HL67. I still wish I had been able to find that set. Unfortunately, however, by the time I went shopping, Toshiba had stopped making that model (just within the last couple of months) and replaced it with a new model — and this new model is not in any stores yet. Literally there is not a single Toshiba in the 32″ and higher range at my local Best Buy, Circuit City, or Wal-Mart. Even online, most places had it listed as “out of stock.”

This sent me back to the drawing board, and I noticed a few good reviews of the Samsungs. A friend of mine recommended Samsung as a good brand. But they, too, have just recently changed their “model year” and the new models, the Series 4, 5, and 6 models, are only sparsely reviewed (I found a total of maybe 8 customer reviews on them…. vs. over 200 nearly all positive on the Toshiba Regza HL67). The reviews were mostly positive, though one person mentioned intolerable “ghosting”, which concerned me. I took a triip back to the stores and watched, and decided based on what I saw there, and the fact that the Samsungs seem to be the best quality for the price (based on specs), I would try the Samsung Series 4 (specifically, the 32″ LN32A450). What follows will be my review of this set’s ability to respond to motion, produce color, tolerate an SD signal, and so forth.

Setup - 10/10
I had heard nightmare stories about people trying to get their HD TV set up to the way they like it and it taking hours, or days — many have complained that their TV has to be “messed with” and thousands of options set before it’s even remotely watchable. This is not the case with the Samsung Series 4. It took me about 20 minutes to physically set up the TV onto its base, and much of that was me having to disconnect and move the old one, and so forth. Once it was in place, the wiring connections were obvious and explained clearly in the manual. Within moments of connecting all the wiring, I had the TV on, and cable box, VCR, and DVD player were detected as sources and projected images. I did not have to fiddle with any of the controls to get acceptable sound, color, contrast, etc. It’s one touch of a button to swap between the obvious “modes” (boosted vs. default sound, 4:3 vs. 16:9 aspect ratio, etc). The remote control is labeled in a (mostly) obvious way. In short, setup was a snap. I brought the TV physically into my apartment around 6 PM. At 7:15 PM, I was watching an upconverted episode of Seinfeld off of my DVD on the new TV while eating a quick dinner.

HD image quality - 10/10
The image on High Def cable channels is simply unbelievable on this set. I got my HD cable box just yesterday (swapped the boxe at the cable company myself and installed it myself — took 5 minutes). I started out just “exploring” the HD channels and ended up spending four hours practically mesmerized by the TV, watching shows like Vegas and stuff on the HD travel channel that I would not normally watch. But I just couldn’t believe how crisp, sharp, and downright gorgeous the images look on this TV. If you have HD sources giving you true 720p images ont his set, you will be simply blown away. It’s gorgeous. I could not take my eyes off of it… I had plans to do all sorts of things yesterday and got none of them done because I was staring at this set watching it as if I had never seen television before. I can only imagine that this must be what it was like when people used to black and white for decades finally got a color TV set. The HD images on this set are simply outstanding.

SD image quality - 7/10
Standard Deifnition quality is an issue for most HD TVs, especially LCDs, because LCDs have trouble projecting images that are not at the native factory set resolution. I have seen this with my computer’s LCD monitor, which has a native resolution of 1280×1024. Some older games can’t project that resolution and they look much worse on it than they did on my older CRT minitor. CRT is much better at projecting non-max resolution than LCD is, and that’s just an unfortunate but true reality. This set is good, but it can’t quite overcome this issue when you get a lower res (<720p) source. I can’t fault it too much, because, after all, the source is low resolution, but you will notice some blurring or “pixelization” of the images on regular SD sources. The good news if your source is a DVD, simply getting an HDMI cable and an upconverting DVD player will do ya. I have DVDs of Seinfeld and the Simpsons, and they look pretty darn lousy on my computer’s LCD monitor unless played in a tiny window. I was afraid that would happen on my TV, but it doesn’t. Seinfeld looks perfectly fine using the HDMI upconvert function and upconverting to 720p. There is no ghosting, no pixelization, no fracturing of the image. It looks exactly like it would on a normal 26″ regular TV, and maybe slightly crisper and better. Since the source is SD, I don’t think you can really ask for more than this. You do have to be smart enough to set the DVD to “widescreen TV mode” and then set your TV to 4:3 mode to get the right image. If you do anything else, your image will look stretched, squeezed, or pixelated. But as doing it the way I recommend both works and is the correct way to do it, getting bad results using other methods is not a surprise.

Standard definition received over your cable box on an SD channel is another story. This seems to vary from network to network, and within a network even from show to show. The news stations, especially CNN and Fox News, are the wost of all… for some reason their SD images on my HDTV look somewhat blurred and pixelated. In particular people’s faces look like they smear out as the talking heads move their head up, down, and side to side while they talk. I do not get this kind of blurry response on other stations, so watching Animal Planet or A&E gave me very good even SD performance. Because it seems to vary from station to station, I can only conclude that the problem is with the broadcaster, NOT with the television. After all, if it were the television, no stations would look good. That Animal Planet’s SD channel can look almost HD crisp, and then I flip stations to Fox and Bill O’Reilly’s face looks smeared, seems to me to mean there is something up with Fox News, not the TV. It’s also not just something about faces, because re-runs of Friends and Seinfeld on SD broadcasts did not have this effect to any great degree.

You will, of course, notice some issues with video tapes. Playing a good recorded tape like a movie will look all right, but not incredible… you will see some blurry motion if it’s an action film and some pixelation even if not, but it is not too bad. However, if you have old tapes recorded on extended or super long play, which does sacrifice resolution for slower tape speeds, you will definitely see poor image quality. Unfortunately I don’t think eve the best Plasma or LCD TV on the market could help you with this. The problem is that your tape is of poor quality and you just have to live with that. My solution has been to move the 20″ CRT TV into the bedroom and hook the VCR up to it, and I’ll watch my video tapes (if I ever do) in there. Slowly over time, anything that is important, I will get on DVD or even blu-ray (like my old Disney movies such as Mulan), and stuff that’s not important will end up being tossed one day, when that old SD TV dies.

Overall, I’d say that this set works all right in Standard Definition, but you’re clearly not seeing its most impressive performance in SD. Nor should you, really. I’d be careful if you have a large VHS collection and want to totally replace a TV (say, a broken one) with this set. Especially if you have old home movies converted to VHS, like my mother has, this set will not make those look good. I don’t think most other LCD sets could either, though.

Speaker/sound system - 8/10
Sound on this set is good, though not incredible. One issue that the salesman in the store warned me about, and he was certainly not wrong, is that the new Samsungs for some reason try to “hide” the speakers behind the set, rather than having them on the sides or bottom like the old ones (and the current Sony Bravias). The Series 4 has speakers behind the screen, facing down toward the floor. This seems an odd choice, as one should want to project the sound toward the audience, not toward the spiders crawling beneath the floorboards. The speakers are certainly acceptable and give you decent sound, but don’t expect to be blown away by home-theater style sound coming out of these speakers. If you want that, you’ll probably have to spring for an external speaker set. The SRS sound feature does seem to help, improving the bass and reducing the “tinny” quality, and Cinema mode seems to do something similar to the sound to improve it. I recommend using SRS or Cinema mode to watch this TV, and the sound will be reasonable in quality. Again if you are a huge sound freak you will want to buy your own speakers. But then, if you’re a sound freak, you probably already have them.

Contrast - 10/10
Another issue with LCD TVs besides dealing with non-native resolution is the contrast ratio. LCDs are notorious for either being able to project a good “bright” but then having too bright of a black, or producing a good deep black, but then having the brights be too “dim”. In other words, you could have either a good white or a good black on the screen but not both at the same time, at least wiht older sets. This is not a problem with most of the newer sets and the Samsung Series 4 is no exception. Right out of the box it gave me good deep blacks and nice bright whites. In fact, the first thing that I saw on this set was an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond (I was still fiddling with the set so I just had it “on” and tuned to TBS as a test of SD performance) where the main characters were at a wedding. The first scene I saw was the three main male characters, all dressed in black tuxes with whte shirts. This random scene was a great test, and it showed what the set was capable of even in SD — the blacks were deep and dark. The white looked bright and crisp. There was no feeling that any part of the scene was over or under exposed. I have not touched the contrast setting on this set once int he 4 days I have had it so far… and contrast always looks great.

Color fidelity - 9/10
Color is, for the most part, outstanding on this set. People often complain about flesh tones looking too “red” or “pink”, but usually I have not seen that on this set. Colors seem generally good and faithful to how they should look. Flesh tones look appropriate. Greens, reds, blues, oranges, pinks, purples, all look fine on the set. In standard def only (not HD or upconverted DVD) certain colors do have a slightly higher chance to “pixelate”, notably reds and oranges. This may be why certain channels show more pixelation, especially with faces… flesh tones are in the range of colors that seem most likely to smear, blur, or fracture in SD. I’m not sure why that is, but I never see such smearing with, say, blues. And it’s not just due to brightness, because whites and yellows don’t seem to pixelate either. It may be that you need a medium amount of brightness to see the smearing, and that whites are too bright to notice it, and blues too dark… But in any case, this problem only exists in SD. In HD or upconverted DVD, I have never seen any smearing with any colors, and the color has been excellent.

Motion response - 10/10
My #1 issue with LCDs up until recently has been their inability to “hold” fast motion. By “holding” the motion, I mean that the image stays clean, crisp, and sharp in the face of fast objects moving across the screen. LCD TVs have had a habit of “fracturing” or blurring the image when objects move really fast. The edges tend to “break” into pixels, and the back-side of the image will even “smear” across the screen. The result of this is you will see streaks trailing behind the moving object, and the leading edge of the object will look like it is shattering. I watch enough action movies that this is simply not acceptable. If Luke’s lightsaber is going to look like it’s breaking into a thousand pixels during the fight with Darth Vader, I’m not going to be happy.

I’m pleased to report that the response time of Samsung Series 4, which I’ve seen reported as both 8 and 6 ms, is more than sufficient to “hold” motion, even very fast motion. When I finally had it set up and had some dinner in me, I tested it with the battle sequence from Narnia, as well as the last 30 minutes or so of Star Wars Episode 1 (the lightsaber battles and the gungan and space battles) and it looked excellent. I noticed no smearing or fracturing of the image, and everything looked great — it looked like I was watching film projected onto a movie screen. The colors were sharp, crisp, clear, and smooth.

In the store, I was able to compare a Sony Bravia, a Sharp Aquos, and this Samsung Series 4, all side by side on the same images. The three TVs were in the same price class (all around $900). In this price class, the Series 4 was the only TV that held the motion correctly. I saw smearing on both the Sony and the Sharp — the Sony was the worst. Now, the higher-end Sonys and Sharps will hold the motion, but they’re going to cost you more. In other words, this Samsung, at least in the 32″ range, was the best at holding fast motion together and not smearing or fracturing.

Final remarks
I have had the Samsung Series 4 TV for about 4 days now, and watched about 15 hours of TV on it. I’ve watched it in broadcast SD, broadcast HD, and upconverted DVD. I really have no complaints and only good things to say about it so far. Snce I just bought it 4 days ago, I certainly can’t speak to the longevity of the set. I did read one comment where the person complained that the set started making a “whistling” noise after a couple of weeks, he broght it back, got a second set, and it started making the same noise. Again, if that’s going to happen, I can’t predict, because I haven’t owned it for that long yet. But so far, it is an outstanding set and on the basis of my first few days owning it, I can highly recommend it. Of course, if anything were to change, I would post it here and revise my score.

Overall score: 9.1/10 (average of the 7 scores above)