Week 3

Another 7 down this week. Some good episodes this time. Court Martial was excellent, with Kirk on trial for murdering a crewman who was displeased with him. A Taste of Armageddon was a particularly good commentary episode about people being detached from the horrors of war. And finally, after all these years, I saw the episode where we meet Khan! Space Seed was a good episode, but it's a must-see due to it's being the prequel to the excellent movie, Wrath of Khan.

19. Tomorrow Is Yesterday •••
    
20. Court Martial •••••
    
21. The Return of the Archons •••
    
22. Space Seed ••••
    
23. A Taste of Armageddon •••••
    
24. This Side of Paradise •••
    
25. The Devil in the Dark •••
    

Tomorrow Is Yesterday had some BS time travel, but otherwise was a good episode.

Count 25 of 726

Star Trek: Online

Cryptic is a small game studio (est 2000) with tons of MMORPG experience with City of Heroes and City of Villians. I haven't been paying much attention to the Star Trek game they are now developing until this contest was just announced. Given a picture of a planet, they want a 500 word story about it. It struck my interest, and I might just write up an entry.

But it also got me looking at the trailer and some of the studio's concept art for other works in progress. I'm impressed by what I see. They are obviously a very talented and imaginitive set of people. I think now starts the nervous anticipation, where I now have high hopes for Star Trek Online, but also high doubts as to the quality of the final product. We'll just have to wait and see.

Week 2

8 more episodes down this week. Mike thought I should rate the episodes, and I always liked the Netflix star rating because it actually makes sense. 1 star is "hated it", 2 is "didn't like it", 3 is "liked it", 4 is "really liked it", 5 is "loved it." Simple, yet clear and informative. So here they are (with bullet ratings until I find something better):

11. The Menagerie: Part 1 •••
    
12. The Menagerie: Part 2 •••
    
13. The Conscience of the King ••••
    
14. Balance of Terror •••••
    
15. Shore Leave •••
    
16. The Galileo Seven ••••
    
17. The Squire of Gothos •••
18. Arena •••

The Menagerie is the double episode where they took the pilot episode (The Cage) with Captain Pike and replayed it during Spock's court marshal. It wasn't a particularly good episode, though I think the story gave a glimpse at the great potential the series had. Apparently the producers agreed, because, obviously, they gave it a green light. But also it is interesting to see what they changed from the pilot. Everything from the uniforms to the terminology to Spock's character, I am glad they changed it. They called phasers "lasers", and the Enterprise was the "Space Vessel Enterprise of the Earth Federation" or some cheesy thing. Whoever gave it the revision, they made good choices, including the Captain.

One episode that I really loved was Balance of Terror. This was an awesome episode where they make contact with a raiding Romulan ship. They've never seen Romulans since the war 100 years ago, and even then had never met face to face. So they were surprised to find they look just like Vulcans, and prejudice on the bridge abounds. They find that the Romulans have advanced cloaking capabilities, but the cloak is such a power drain they cannot go into warp or fire while cloaked. This results in a submarine-like battle where Kirk is tracking the bird of prey as it retreats back to the Neutral Zone. This was by far the best episode yet, and it was very exciting to see the Enterprise go into battle for the first time, as all previous episodes were (relatively) peaceful. A must see!

Also a good one was The Galileo Seven. Spock is in charge of a small crew stranded in a quasar. Using his logic, he finds he is an effective problem solver but a terrible leader as the human crew often balks at his inhuman deductions. A good episode, purely for the conflict among the crew.

Count: 18 of 726

KHHHHAAAAAAAAN!

R.I.P., Khan Noonien Singh

5 year mission...

I've decided to embark on a journey through Star Trek history. I will watch all 726 episodes of Star Trek ever produced. Probably the movies as well, though that's less of a deal for me since I have seen them all countless times. At the onset, I estimated an average of 5 episodes each week. That means it will take me 2.8 years to complete. Here I will log my random thoughts as I progress through my mission, where many, many geeks have gone before. So now, week 1:

For my first week, I watched 10 episodes of TOS via Netflix streaming. Three things really struck me about the series, as follows:

First let me say that these are the remastered versions. Not remastered in George Lucas' definition, but simply remastered from the original film and some new CG versions of the space shots. To their credit, it took me a couple episodes to even notice that it wasn't the old plastic model of the Enterprise, that's how little they changed it. I first noticed the atmosphere of the alien planets was animated as the Enterprise orbited them, as I am sure the originals were static paintings. In any case, it looks good, but not so different as to not fit in. I gotta say good job.

The second thing that struck me was how damn good the show is. It's been 15 years since I last watched TOS on late night TV over Summer break. And while I liked it then, I don't think I appreciated it fully. Even the first few episodes were excellent. The same social commentary and "what if" type scenarios that I loved about TNG were here in full force. This is shaping up to be an awesome first season. In particular, I liked "Charlie X", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and "The Evil Within".

Third, I am continually surprised at the hot babes that appear out of nowhere. I'm surprised both that I find 60's babes hot, but also because I don't ever remember there being hot girls on TNG. What happened to that tradition with the new shows? You can find whole websites dedicated to the women of TOS, but very few for any other show (save specific characters). Sure, people had a hard-on for Deanna Troi in TNG (which to this day I just don't see it) but there was never a constant influx of 20-somethings in miniskirts. I'm truly sorry to see that tradition has died.

Looking forward to the next week of episodes!

Edit: Added ratings for the first 10 episodes:

1. The Man Trap •••
2. Charlie "X" ••••
3. Where No Man Has Gone Before •••••
4. The Naked Time ••••
5. The Enemy Within ••••
6. Mudd's Women •••
7. What Are Little Girls Made Of ••••
8. Miri ••
9. Dagger of the Mind ••••
10. The Corbomite Maneuver •••

Count: 10 of 726

Sega CD rocked

Best. RPG intro. Ever.


You gotta remember, this is when people were still buying carts with cheap midi music and synthesized voices that sounded like sandpaper spinning on a record player. I loved Lunar so much that 10 years later I named my cat after the game.

Hatin' on GameStop and EB

Long ago, I blacklisted GameStop/EB. Yes, I have a blacklist. Why? Do you really need an explanation? Okay, well its a combination of general store policies and specific personal experiences that drove me to my decision. Here's a few reasons:

1. They hire a-holes for employees. Really, I think it's in the job description. Always has been. They make cell phone salesmen look good.

2. They push reserves like dealers push dope.

3. They gouge on used games ($5 less than full retail? Gimme a break). Additionally, they think you are crazy if you want a new copy while they have a used one to sell you. "Are you sure you don't want the used one? It's cheaper! Really? Positive?"

4. Strategy guides. Rendered obsolete by the internet nearly two decades ago, these guys push strategy guides just as hard as they push reserves. In fact, one particular GameStop tried telling me I couldn't reserve a game without buying the strategy guide first. In fact, that same store told me the same thing a year later. I think it might have actually been store policy at the time.

I am a gamer. We all are. We are the customer. Ready to drop $60 on a piece of foil and plastic that you (the retailer) had to do nothing to produce. Nothing. You're a retailer. Your business is built on price gouging a product someone else made. And then buying it back for pennies and selling it again for nearly as much as the first time around. You should be groveling at the feet of the consumers who so willingly spend hard earned cash on you, the retailer, the leech.

So I was inspired to write this post after reading Gabe's post over at PennyArcade.com, in which he mentions "the sort of classic douchebaggery we've come to expect from (the GameStop manager)". This disdain is universal. Gabe, BTW, went across the street and bought the game he was looking for at Best Buy with no hassle. Personally, I try to hit privately owned shops, but they are few and far between now-a-days. If they don't have a game I'm looking for, I hit Game Crazy, just because they haven't pissed me off enough yet to blacklist them, lol.

Update: Tycho at PennyArcade.com continues to have BS problems with their local EB:
"I don't want to keep harping about this, okay, I do, but we went to the Best Buy near the office and saw four palettes of Rock Band for the 360 and one palette for the PS3. This was after being rebuffed in an attempt to secure the same product from the Electronics Boutique, ostensibly a store that sells videogames."