Ju-on 2 was nowhere as effective as its predecessor. It was creepy, sure - Japanese horror flicks are by default creepy - but it made even less sense than the first one, and it felt a bit lazy and not in the same league as Ringu 2, which was a worthy follow-up. My last Hong Kong DVD shipment contained two more Japanese horror movies - Kairo and Uzumaki; don't know much about either of them - and a Korean thriller, A Tale of Two Sisters. I'll try and get around to at least one of them this weekend.

On a completely unrelated (or at least completely coincidentally related) note, I'm off to China next week, and I'll be staying there through July. I will try and post as often as possible while I'm there. More later.  ¶ 23:47 0 comments   

  The news about Micro Application publishing Dreamfall in Europe is out - though the bit about Funcom publishing the game in the rest of the world isn't entirely correct. We've retained the rights for North America, Asia, and the Nordic countries, but we're talking to publishers in all of those territories. Still: great news! Micro Application may not be well known, but they will be by the time Dreamfall is out, and they're the perfect partners for us in the European market. They'll make sure that every territory gets the proper attention - including localised versions for all major European languages, of course.  ¶ 19:59 0 comments   

  Now that director McG is off the next Superman movie (again?), another potential catastrophe has been averted. It appears, however, that ol' Supes is back on ice. It's quite amazing that they can't find a talented director to hand their most recognised franchise to. After all, Batman got Chris Nolan, and that appears to be paying off in the 'reboot' Batman Begins. Why not do the same with Superman V: give the reigns to someone who takes the character seriously and has something to prove? Like Nolan. Like Raimi. But not, thank God, the guy responsible for waaay too many slo-mo Cameron Diaz butt shots.  ¶ 11:57 0 comments   

  Speaking of Sci/Fi references in TLJ, I got a nice laugh out of the Tuvok reference in the police station. If you could hide another Trek reference somewhere in Dreamfall, I'd most appreciate it.

Oh, there will be references-a-plenty in Dreamfall - ranging from the glaringly obvious to the insidiously subtle; from pop culture through high culture and back again - though I'm not sure Star Trek warrants any more attention at this point. The franchise has been run repeatedly into the ground, and while I've heard some good things about season three of Enterprise, I stopped watching that show five episodes into the first season - and I haven't looked back. References to Next Generation, on the other hand, may appear a bit archaic at this point.

For a long time your blog has been the only one I've read regularly, but I've recently bookmarked http://althistory.blogspot.com/. I figured I'd share since I remember you mentioning Wil Wheaton's, and maybe other readers will enjoy it.

"This Day in Alternate History" is like the countless other "This Day In History" sites but with more "what if".

Thanks, Michel!  ¶ 12:20 0 comments   

  I'm wondering if you may have any leads on where one can buy the Norwegian version of the TLJ game? is it even possible? I've searched all over the net and talked to some friends in Norway and have had no success. thanks in advance.. stefanie

I don't think it's available in stores anymore, as the original distributor is no longer around. There may be stores that still have stock, but then you'd need to walk around and ask - which would be difficult if you don't live here.

There is one more option: the Norwegian 'eBay', QXL. I just checked, and there is a copy of the game available for sale - currently at a very reasonable 90 NOK.  ¶ 11:35 0 comments   

  I was quoted in the PC Gamer US 'Overheard at E3' article, and my sage words - overheard during a Dreamfall presentation - were:

"I think for fans of The Longest Journey there will be lots of 'Oh shit!' moments."

While I believe I called them 'Holy shit!' moments, the sentiment is the same: there are twists and turns and surprises in Dreamfall designed to make TLJ fans say "Holy shit!" (or the local equivalent).

Alias does that quite well - the 'Holy shit!' moments - as did Angel back in the second and third seasons: when everything is turned topsy-turvy, you can't help but blurt out a "holy shit!". That, to me, is a sign you're doing something right.  ¶ 08:53 0 comments   

  One full page in Edge, two full pages in PC Gamer UK...and we're off to a good start in the UK.

I'm very happy to see Dreamfall featured in Edge, as they are usually quite particular about which games they cover and how much space they give them - especially at such an early stage of development. PC Gamer, meanwhile, has always been very supportive of The Longest Journey, so we're pleased to see that they're getting excited about Dreamfall.

I believe the next issue of PC Zone - another top UK PC magazine - will also feature a preview of the game. So yeah, the E3 ball's still rolling, and come spring 2005, when we open the flood gates and show the good stuff, I'm positive that there will be even more coverage.  ¶ 22:12 0 comments   

  There's an informative article on Blu-ray (and HD-DVD) over at IGN DVD.

Watched Ju-on (The Grudge) last night - the region 3 version, available (cheap!) from DDDHouse in Hong Kong - and while the movie was a bit incoherent at times (the shifts in time threw me off), it was also wonderfully atmospheric and quite relentlessly scary. (That sound in particular will haunt me for a long, long time.) Unlike American horror movies, which usually provide respite from - and undermine - the horror with comic 'relief' and unambiguous endings, Japanese chillers seldom offer any sanctuary. In Ju-on, like the Ringu movies and Dark Waters, you are never safe: not amongst other people, not at work, not in your home...not even in your own bed. There's an American remake on the way starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, and it could end up being quite interesting: not only was it shot in Japan, but it was also directed by Takashi Shimizu, who helmed the original and its recent sequel. It's due out later this year. In the meantime, I have Ju-on 2 on order, so I might be able to offer my views on that in a week's time.  ¶ 12:13 0 comments   

  HCIF: Holy cow, it's Friday. The inexorable march of time continues.

This week, I've mostly been doing reviews. And meetings. Reviews and meetings, and a bit of writing. Reviews, meetings, a bit of writing, and some thinking. You don't want to do too much of the latter, because it gets in the way of the middle bit - the writing - which is what usually suffers when I'm with the Busy. In order to do Proper Writing, which differs from regular writing mostly by virtue of being good, I need focus, I need time, and I need quiet; three things that aren't so easy to come by anymore - not individually, and certainly not together. The best time to write, then, is before ten and after six, when the office is quiter than usual. Weekends are also good, which is why I've brought a lot of documents home with me this weekend to tinker with: everything from the game bible to location designs for upcoming scenes. Quite soon, we'll get cracking with the bulk of the dialogue, and that should be fun. Time-consuming, but fun. And since it's the summer and most people will be away for big chunks of July, I should finally be able to find that focus, time, and quiet again.  ¶ 22:53 0 comments   

  "Torgo, you're the laziest man on Mars."

I should have known you're a MST3K fan. Come to think of it, was there a MST3K reference in TLJ? I seem to think there was. Maybe you did vaguely by choosing a crow possibly?

Either way, keep up the good work. I like it when you comment on the “goings-ons” of the world; it saves me the hassle of doing the research myself.

Can't wait for Dreamfall!
nick

I'm quite positive there was an MST3K reference or two in TLJ - just don't ask me where. I watched that show regularly back in the early 90s, and I still have a bunch of episodes on tape...somewhere. It was absolutely brilliant; and yes, 'Crow' was - amongst other things - a sly wink in the direction of 'Crow T. Robot'.

MST3K is slowly being released to DVD, so if you haven't seen the show, check it out. You'll either love it, or...not.  ¶ 12:07 0 comments   

  On Thursday I had the opportunity to check out The Chronicles of Riddick (the game, not the movie) on the Xbox: ten minutes later I had it on order. It looked absolutely fantastic, and played beautifully; a sort of first-person shooter/adventure hybrid, with the emphasis on the latter. I got the game today, and I'm sitting down tonight to play for an hour or two - I'll offer my impressions tomorrow.

I've been going through my inbox today, and I've dug up a number of mails dating back as far as March that I still haven't had a chance to answer - all of which deserve an answer. I'll try to catch up with those as soon as possible, though I probably won't be able to answer all of them. For those of you who have sent me mail, then: thanks so much, I read everything, and hopefully you'll get a reply, either personally or in my journal.  ¶ 09:35 0 comments   

  Newsweek's got an article about Batman Begins over yonder, and it's worth a peek. Batman is my favourite DC superhero, and I have great hopes for this Chris Nolan directed franchise 'reboot'. All signs so far have been promising - even counting the new Batmobile.  ¶ 12:02 0 comments   

  The Day After Tomorrow is a great ride: a silly, cheesy, overwrought, and gloriously beautiful summer popcorn movie. The special effects are amazing (and I'm not easily impressed), and while the plot, the dialogue, and the characters are often hackneyed, it doesn't really matter. If you know what you're getting going in, you won't be disappointed. I wasn't.

As for the other big summer movies, the only two I've seen so far are Shrek 2 and Van Helsing (I couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to see Troy, and Harry Potter is sold out everywhere). The former was a bit of a disappointment: funny, yes; original, no. And the contemporary references are getting old. Where the Pixar movies will live on in timeless glory, the PDI movies appear very much a product of their times - and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it does take away some of the fairy-tale magic. It also felt very episodic; a series of scenes, puns, and gags strung together by a very thin storyline.

Van Helsing, on the other hand, was the biggest pile of stale dung I've had the displeasure of seeing this year - and it has the dubious honour of being one of the very worst movies in memory. It stunk. It was a confusing mess, riddled with bad special effects, horrible dialogue, atrocious acting, misguided direction, haphazard pacing, and the most ridiculous ending ever. (And remember that this is coming from a guy who actually enjoyed the Mummy movies.) Avoid. At all costs. For now and all time to come.  ¶ 12:06 0 comments   

  Mobile clubbing? At least it's cheaper than going to a real club.

And while we're on the subject (sort of - see the link):

Will there be a mac version of Dreamfall? The reason I ask is because adventure games have been falling short on mac. The last good adventure game I played on mac was Monkey Island 3. I think since there aren't alot of new adventure games on mac, Dreamfall could really be a success on mac.

I've played the longest journey on my old PC and really enjoyed it. A while back, I thought the idea of having someone porting "The Longest Journey" to mac would be really cool. There are many mac companies that port PC games. Anyways, I e-mailed funcom a long time ago about it and they said they had no plans for a mac release :(.

That upsets me because mac is a great platform (have you used Mac OSX or seen the Powermac G5 yet). Us mac gamers are really hungry for adventure games. Hopefully, one day my dream will come true and that Dreamfall (and maybe the original TLJ) will be ported over to the mac.

There are no plans for a Mac release at this point. If it was up to me alone, I'd say "hell yes!", not just because the Mac's a great platform in lack of games, but also because I want one of those new water-cooled, dual CPU G5s to do video editing and compositing on. (So, hey, if anyone from Apple reads this: send us a couple of those monsters for development, and I'll do my utmost to get a Mac-version off the ground.) Like I've said before, it's just a question of economics: how much would it cost to do a Mac version of Dreamfall, and how much would it sell. We will certainly think about it. (And remember, Ragnar really wants a dual 2.5Ghz G5 with 2GB of memory and a 23" flat panel Cinema HD display. Yes. Failing that, can I at least get a PowerBook?)

Hi Ragnar,

I was wondering, since you use blogger, if you have an XML-type feed (RSS, RDF, or whatever) of your journal available anywhere. We have a thingy on idlethumbs.net that tracks blog updates and I'm trying to get it checking XML rather than HTML for as many of the supported blogs as possible, since it's more accurate that way.

Cheers

I do now (http://www.ragnartornquist.com/feed/voyage.xml), but I have absolutely no idea if it works or not. This stuff's waaay over my head.

Hi,

Just wanted to know if you have checked out Guild Wars on E3.

It's a competitive online RPG (skill based with some fresh ideas, it gets rid of some standard tedious stuff seen in other MMORPGs) developed my some of the ex-Blizzard guys (now ArenaNet). It also has an interesting business model - no monthly fee - expansion packs will be new chapters in the story.

ArenaNet (and NCSoft) also hosted an unprecedented event during E3 called E3 for Everyone. Basically everyone who had an internet connection could try out the alpha version of the game for free for 3-days during E3 together with all the E3 show floor people.

The response was overwhelming. 200.000+ accounts created, rave previews all over the net.

I personally think it's the next big thing in the competitive online game genre and something to definitely watch out for.

http://guildwars.com/
http://arena.net/

Regards,
Tadej

I didn't have the time to do any real playing at E3, but I have read a lot about Guild Wars, and a lot of my colleagues had a chance to test it out. They liked it, and I'm looking forward to playing it. Right now, my limited MMO-time is all going into City of Heroes.

And finally:

Hello!
I checked your Blog a couple of weeks ago just to see what the heck was that " ten. five" stuff The Divide were talking about, and I found myself reading, looking for your reviews of movies and books and music. I was amazed, I agree with about 95% of your opinions! And so, one thought emerged - you absolutely must see Shaun of the Dead. Trust me, you MUST.
(and for Christ's sake, if you haven't, see Donnie Darko. I didn't find a review about it on your site so I came to the conclusion that you haven't)

And while I'm at it, I must tell you that The Longest Journey is my favourite game of all time and I expect that Dreamfall will share this 'honour'. I know you've heard it about a gazillion times, but here's one more: it was like a movie, or a book, but one you take part in, not only the story is lovely, but all the characters are more real and believable than the characters in some movies and books. OK, 'nuff said, you know it all.

So there. Go see Shaun Of The Dead and Donnie Darko, keep the good news coming and take care!

Rossi

I first saw Donnie Darko at a local film festival a number of years ago, and I loved it. I've watched it twice since on DVD, and I'm eager to see the new director's cut that's due very soon. Fantastic movie. As for Shaun of the Dead - yes, of course I'm seeing that. Wouldn't miss it for the world. Spaced is one of my favourite comedies of all time. Unfortunately, it hasn't opened here in Norway, and I don't know when (or even if) it will.  ¶ 09:10 0 comments   

  There's a great editorial over at The Digital Bits concerning the upcoming HD-DVD versus BluRay format war. Bottom line: with competing next generation formats, another DVD-style success story is highly unlikely - and we, the consumers, will suffer.

Here's another mail from my long-neglected inbox, dating back to pre-E3 times:

Hi,

I just wanted to remind you that lengthy dialogues, interesting puzzles (more people said they were too easy then too hard), and of course the music, story, and gameplay. I just wanted you to sort out a contradiction for me. In the french game magazine (I forget the name) you said Dreamfall would have a mouse-only interface, but in the IGN article you said direct control. Also, will you be including plenty of side quests and non-essential dialogue to flesh out the story for the many among us who DO want to play for 30-40 hours, with plenty of dialogue and harder puzzles? Maybe a difficulty setting like Monkey Island 3? Also, will those high-res models we see on the front page be used in the actual game at any point, will Bjorn Arve Lagim be returning for the music, and will many of the original cast reprise their roles?

Thanks,
Pirateguybrush

PS. When do we get some hi-res desktop backgrounds?

I'm with you on the hi-res wallpapers: I'll keep bugging the marketing guys until we get some.

That's a "yes" on the mouse-only interface and the direct control: there's no contradiction there. We have a prototype up and running, and it's looking good.

I don't like difficulty settings (I feel like I'm missing out on something if I pick 'easy', but then I usually don't make it through a game on 'normal'), and you won't find them in Dreamfall. There will be opportunities to explore outside the linear structure of the game, certainly, although I think most players will be propelled along by the storyline.

Finally: Those hi-res models are in-game models, believe it or not; Bjørn Arve no longer works for Funcom; and we are definitely asking the original cast back - where appropriate - to reprise their roles.

(And if anyone wonders why I'm still commenting on content, David asked these questions so long ago that I figured they deserved an answer.)  ¶ 22:05 0 comments   

  I've been taking a brief break from the blogging to get up to speed on other fronts, but I will get back into the thick of things on Thursday. Expect some long neglected reader mail - but don't expect to hear much about Dreamfall in the weeks and months ahead, at least not in terms of new information. I will talk about production-related issues, but not about content.  ¶ 21:45 0 comments   

  Watched the new Peter Pan movie last night, and, aside from a horribly annoying Tinkerbell, it was very, very good. Even Pan's American accent didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Unfortunately, the movie bombed completely at the box office - probably due to tough competition, lousy marketing, and somewhat misguided criticism (particularly in regards to the relationship between Peter Pan and Wendy) - but it's certainly worth picking up on DVD.  ¶ 13:04 0 comments   

  -QUOTE from your journal" Now that the Hollywood pros are working in the game industry, games are gaining star power? We've done very well without them so far, thank you very much, and there are plenty of stars in this industry already. Maybe they're not particularly well recognised by the media - or the buying audience - but they've been making games for years, even decades, and they are infinitely more deserving of attention than the high-profile stars and film directors who are only now jumping on the bandwagon. The proof is in the pudding, however (or rather, in the games), and, in time, it's the game developers who will get the recognition they so richly deserve. -

I tottaly agree with you that the gaming industry doesn't need hollywood "experts" to get any better. But by reading the article, you linked with, i have say that there is a good part on this. You see it says that there might be a reverse strategy by filming industry creating movies using storylines from games (well it names HALO and DOOM but still that's a start...)! Now ihave to state that from day one when i finished TLJ that was a thing that was on my mind. What if TLJ was transformed into a movie? Even with real actors and not animated like Final Fantasy. Well i know that a couple of games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter or even Resident Evil were crap as movies but they were crap as games too (although i have to say i rather enjoyed the Resident Evil series :))...
TLJ is a big game also in duration and so it isn't easy to be played over and over again. I had it finished about 3 times and the only reason i don't do it again is because i am bored of solving the same puzzles over and over again. Thus came the idea of a TLJ movie. I'd love to sit to my chair and watch April do her thing without me...What's your opinion on this?

Sure, Hollywood's looking to video game properties for fresh ideas, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, experience has shown that the filmmakers often pay little regard to the original storylines, characters, and even setting. Resident Evil, for instance, while a relatively fun flick, still deviated a great deal from the original story.

This will have to change, and the next batch of games-to-movies might remain more faithful to the source material - just like the best of the recent comic-book adaptations. There's a reason why certain games achieve critical and commercial success, and there's no reason for publishers and developers to compromise their properties just to appease Hollywood. I'm quite certain that it won't be too long before some of the highest profile multiplex franchises around will have been born on the PC and consoles. Personally, I'd gladly pay to see a Half-Life, DOOM, Monkey Island, Silent Hill, Zelda, or Prince of Persia movie. Hell, I'd much prefer to see Knights of the Old Republic on the big screen rather than Episode III.

As for a TLJ movie... Only if it's done right, with a large budget, a great cast, beautiful sets, top-notch effects, a talented writer, and an A-list director. That said, it'd be great fun to some day see Stark and Arcadia come to life on the silver screen. And who knows? It could happen.  ¶ 17:36 0 comments   

  It appears that, for reasons beyond my control, a lot of the mail sent to this website is being bounced back to the senders. If you have experienced this problem, if at all possible, try switching to an alternate e-mail account.  ¶ 22:58 0 comments