Sunday, October 24, 2010

Hereafter movie discussion (spoilers!)

Hi!

I'm writing today about the movie Hereafter. I don't usually write about movies, but I feel it's important to write about this one. If you have yet to see it, you may wish to see the film first, as this article contains spoilers. You have been warned.

As an atheist and skeptic, the subject of this film is important to me. Some who don't believe in the same way that I don't may find this film disturbing. It shows a world that is almost exactly like ours, except that real psychics exist.

Matt Damon plays one such psychic, George, as a very quiet and kind individual. His ability is to communicate with the dead. He's had a business as a psychic, but these days are behind him. "A life about death is hardly a life at all."

The plot also involves a journalist who has a near death experience (Marie), and a young boy whose brother dies suddenly (Marcus).

During the first third of the film, we are only presented with paranormal experiences that are genuine. George does a psychic reading for someone (against his will), and Marie has a near death experience. But George's reading is very different from any you will see in real life. He asks yes/no questions, almost never receives a no, and gets very little information from the person he is reading. This is important because psychics often use a technique called "cold reading." It is very clear that the writers are showing that George is a real psychic by differentiating his performance from how "psychics" operate in the real world.

Marie visits someone who studies near-death experiences, and give her a rather lame argument for why she thinks an afterlife exists. Paraphrased: "After seeing so many people on the brink of death all over the world report the same experiences, I decided it must mean they weren't hallucinating." They're all people, and if there is something in our physiology that leads to these experiences, I would expect them to be similar.

I was concerned at this point that viewers would have to do their own research or have previous knowledge of the subject matter to understand how the film is operating at this point. But to my relief, Marcus seeks help from fake psychics, and their tactics were shown clearly. One medium he seeks starts by telling the audience that she's getting a "J". Marcus's dead brother's name is Jason, so he pipes up. She rattles off several common J names that are incorrect. He corrects her that it is Jason. The medium then asks if this person was close to him. He says yes. The medium suggests it's his father, and by now Marcus is disillusioned and stops giving her information. She gives him some useless platitude supposedly from his father and he goes away unhappy.

He tries several others who use various different techniques, but it is clear the Marcus that they are all charlatans. At this point, it's fairly easy to see that "psychics" in the real world are fakes, and that what is presented in the film is fiction.

We see George do a few more readings, and his deadpan style and lack of need for information from the target further show how we should expect a real psychic to operate. He's able to quickly, easily and, most importantly, correctly produce information about his targets.

Overall, the film is very enjoyable as the characters are interesting, the plot weaves together people from different continents very convincingly, and it has a quiet and deliberate pace to it. Clint Eastwood has become such an accomplished filmmaker that I find it sad there isn't really something after death. But we do what we can with what time we have, and that's enough.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Playstation Move Verdict

So I finally got some decent playtime with Playstation Move. If you don't already know, it's Sony's answer to the Wii's wand-based motion control.

The short version is, get it. Even with just the pack-in game in the camera/wand/game bundle, it shows that Sony's idea of motion control has a lot more depth than Nintendo's.

We all know that very few Wii games that focused on the motion control had much depth. Many of my friends who were Nintendo fans couldn't wait to get the Wii. I had high hopes for Wii Sports Tennis, as I love Virtua Tennis. But it turned out to be so incredibly shallow, that only simple flick was necessary. Soon gather dust alongside their PS3s and 360s.

Now those same people are apprehensive about Move, because they don't want to get burned twice. I've spent about 2 hours with Move now (1 hr on Start the Party, and 1 hr with Sports Champions). I'm quite impressed with its responsiveness, ease of use, and quality of motion tracking. But I'm more impressed with the motions required to play the Move games well.

In Ping Pong, you have complete 3d control over the location of your paddle. This means you can angle to lob or hit low, spin the paddle as you hit to spin the ball, and it's up to you to get closer to the net when necessary. On Gold difficulty, there doesn't seem to be any magnet snapping the paddle to the ball, either.

When I lived near a course, I used to play real disc golf. I even shot under par at Sugar Bottom outside Iowa City. I was quite surprised at how lifelike the response of the frisbees was.

If you use two controllers with the sword fighting, one angles the shield, and the other angles the sword. I haven't tried that yet, but I expect it will be quite cool. Already just playing with one controller, I feel like I can learn to be skillful parrying and blocking attacks.

The minigames in Start the Party were quite enjoyable. These show the view through the camera as a background, and attach a computer-generated object to your hand. The effect is excellent, and you really get the feeling you're holding it. One game gives you a hand fan and has you generate wind currents to blow around parachuting dudes. You have the angle the fan perpendicular to the direction you wave it (as you would with a real fan) to get decent results.

Most importantly, when I play these games, I don't feel silly waving the controller around, even when playing Start the Party. The control is tight enough that I get involved in the game, and just play.

As a game programmer, I spent 3 months programming the Wii controller. It was so limiting (granted without Motion+), that I didn't feel like we could come up with much. It's not an accident that few Wii motion games have depth; the hardware just wasn't up to it. From my experience playing with Move, I don't think it is plagued by these problems. Sony has shown its commitment to genuine gaming using its device with the depth of controls available in some of the Sports Champions games. Now it is in the hands of the developers to come up with great titles that push this device even further.

I am looking forward to it.