fLAN 09

Just got back about an hour ago from Scuba's House of fLAN 2009, a LAN party hosted by a friend of mine out in Kansas. It was good fun, there was a lot of games played, lots of profanity thrown around and a great deal of general debauchery. Maybe not so much of the last one. Primarily we were kicking it with Rock Band, Halo 3 and Gears of War 2, got some Halo Wars in there as well, and even dipped into some FEAR 2 and Killzone 2. We also took some time out to see Watchmen.

The event pretty much solidified all of our notion that we're pretty much done with Halo 3, seemingly always matched up against people vastly better than us and on a team where at least 2 people drop out before the match even begins. To us, matchmaking in that game is completely broken and we really don't have much fun because of it. Sure, we could play just us, but we don't find that to be as fun as being on a team against others. So, instead we'll continue to fall back on Gears of War 2 with its wonderful, wonderful bot support so we can either have a challenge with a higher difficulty if we so choose, or kick it against some casuals and just have a good time. People online take things way too freaking seriously, always seeking out exploits for maps and crap like that. I'm also a huge fan of the bot support in Killzone 2, got to play with the guys in 2old2resist on day 1 and that was a blast. Hopefully will do that again soon.

Watchmen was quite phenomenal in almost every way, an exceptional job was done translating the novel to the big screen. Definitely a great deal was chopped out, especially the huge amount of back story that's told in-between chapters through different forms of correspondence and news clippings, as well as the graphic novel within the graphic novel that paralleled the occurrences. I believe the movie still managed to really flesh out the characters and bring the overall story to life, and remained very relevant. I'd really be interested to hear what Alan Moore thought of it, especially since he was pretty appalled by previous adaptations such as V for Vendetta (which I hear he requested / demanded he not be in the credits for in any way). I'd bet he's not happy with it, but it's his baby and not everything can go through in the adaptation. The costume design was quite good, really gave things a modern feel while still being respectful to the original costume design in the novel. The ending sequence had a location change, kinda. I guess not so much a change as just making things somewhat seem a little more "plausible." I won't spoil.

It's certainly not a movie for the timid, however. It is GRAPHIC. Holy crap it was a brutal film. There were a couple in our party that would shield their eyes from some of the parts because they did get pretty gory. I'm wondering if they'd have gone at all if they read the novel originally because there are certainly no punches pulled there, it's a very unapologetic satire. There were a great deal of people who did not get that memo, particularly the stupid moron who took his 5-6 year old son to the movie! WTF! It's things like that which completely drain me of all faith in humanity sometimes, the sheer naïve actions that stem from complete denial of years of scientific study that shows such imagery can be damaging to people. And the fact that dad over there covered up his son's eyes only when there was nudity? How completely backwards is that? We were all pretty disgusted at that. Anyone who takes their children to see a movie that graphic and thinks that it's not going to affect them at all is completely inane. But whatever, rant over.

Can't wait for fLAN '10. :-)