There's Thargoids On The Starboard Bow [Elite 3D]

A trip down memory lane: Elite 3D, a version of Elite hacked by Mark Moxon to use anaglyph 3D, playable on a BBC micro emulator (standard BBC B with 6502 second processor). This was one of my favourite BBC games back in the 80s.

Elite was first released for the BBC Micro 40 years ago, on September 20th 1984. At a time when every other game involved three lives and a hi-score table, Ian Bell and David Braben, produced something original and unique - an imaginative 3D sci-fi universe in which you could fly your spaceship from star to star, docking at space stations, trading legal or illegal goods, upgrading your weapons and ship systems, fighting pirates or becoming a pirate yourself. 

Elite was both a creative achievement - the first true open-world game, and a technological achievement - realtime 3D graphics for stars, planets, spaceships, space stations and asteroids, AI for enemy ships, an economic and political simulation, eight galaxies to discover, and a few "surprises" all crammed into 32K for the original BBC version - in fact there's even a 16K Electron version with only a few less features. That's less bytes than an e-mail.

Versions of the game appeared on other home computers and early PCs, each with their own quirks and twists. Braben went on to write two excellent PC sequels, Frontier and Frontier: First Encounters, and (much, much later) successfully returned with the MMO Elite: Dangerous.

The original Elite was known for a steep learning curve, particularly for combat and docking skills. I had forgotten just how hard this game could be: on my first flight I emerged from hyperspace and was immediately attacked by swarms of pirates - there's only one on screen here but look how many are on the scanner. I didn't stand a chance, but at least managed to take three or four down before they got me.

I've never forgotten the sound from this game - particularly the screeching as my shields are worn down by enemy lasers, followed by the crashing sound of hull damage.

Also among the pirates was a Thargoid - I'm quite sure I saw it. I didn't get a screenshot because I was too busy dying.

On the other hand, a few flights later I survived to reach the safe zone, and managed to successfully dock with a space station - this was another hard-earned skill when first playing the game. Inspired by the film 2001, docking involves lining up with the space station entrance, then matching the rotation of the space station.

The trading aspect of the game is also quite hard - even after several more flights buying and selling goods I'd only managed to earn a few extra credits, nowhere near enough for the upgrades I want.

You can play Elite 3D in your browser here. There's more information about it here.

Mark Moxon, the one-time editor of Acorn User, can be found on Mastodon (@markmoxon@universeodon.com) where you can read about his Elite-related and other projects. I love the 3D anaglyph hack - it doesn't change the game at all but adds to the experience while remaining firmly grounded in the 80s. Silly hacks are also part of Elite lore - the best of these was the hack for the Archimedes version that added fluffy dice and a bumper sticker.

Bow Belle

There was a young woman named Saoirse

Who joined Team GB as an aoirse

But her aim wasn’t great

Almost shot her best mate

Which led to her rapid depaoirse.

Tracks Of My Tears [Review: Honkai Star Rail]

I've always enjoyed RPGs and other games with a strong open-world component, where there's a sense that the world is much bigger than the game, that events are unfolding everywhere whether you are there or not, and where you can choose to follow the main game arc, explore, dive into the lore or the social buzz, or take a break and enjoy the scenery. Games such as Omicron:The Nomad Soul, Anachronox or Cloudpunk have been particular favourites.

Honkai Star Rail is another such game. It's a Chinese RPG, although very much in the JRPG style, and is indirectly linked to Genshin Impact and other Hoyoverse games through a kind of multiverse setting. The plot revolves around the hero, a character apparently created to contain a dangerous object called a Stellaron. Following the first missions, set on a giant space station, the hero joins the crew of the Astral Express on its interstellar mission to stop natural disasters caused by other Stellarons.

Like Anachronox and many role playing games, Star Rail involves turn-based combat, with your party of adventurers choosing whether to use their attacks, skills or ultimate moves. As the game goes on you can build up a larger group of characters so you can select which four suit a particular battle. I'm learning which characters work best together and how to activate certain characters' extra attacks or abilities.

It's also ridiculously complex - so far I've found at least six different ways to power-up your characters and develop their abilities. 

Characters follow the paths of Aeons (ancient god-like entities) - this acts a bit like a character class in D&D and decides some of their strengths and abilities. It is possible for characters to change path.

You can also power up your characters with individual experience points, Trailblaze experience points (whole team experience), Light Cones (an individual ability boost), Traces (a kind of tech tree for each character that can enhance their different skills and attacks), Relics (basically armour - masks, body armour, boots etc) and Eidolons (possibly recovered memories that, once earned, add to the character's stats). Light Cones and Relics can themselves be upgraded as well. There are also temporary boosts such as food items.

All clear?

Following the missions in the main story arc will bring you into combat against gradually more powerful enemies, but there are also plenty of non-combat missions. I was surprised to find that, having defeated the big enemy in the second major chapter of the story, I was then sent on a series of missions to listen to the new mayor give speeches, visit all of my newfound friends to say goodbye, and take selfies in all the locations I'd visited, before I could progress to the next chapter. Is this normal for computer games now?

There are also more side quests than you can shake a stick at. Characters in the game will call or text you, with conversations that often lead into invitations or errands, while simply exploring the various cities and talking to inhabitants can also lead into missions. There are daily missions and challenges too - it's actually quite overwhelming, but it does give that sense that you are part of a wider world. If you just want to fight monsters, whether to gain experience or materials for crafting, or just for fun, there are several different types of location where you can do this.

As the difficulty of the main story arc gradually increases I am increasingly finding that I have to abandon it, do a whole load of missions, fights, crafting and upgrading before I can return with stronger characters.

Star Rail is fairly child friendly. It's vague about death - fights take place in a kind of combat zone, and monsters often appear to be banished to some other universe rather than killed, while humans and other sentient characters are usually defeated rather than killed, even if they appear to be blown apart in the combat. There's a lot of friendship, but only hints of romance between any of the characters. 

The world of Star Rail is large, and it expands as you play - each chapter in the story arc is set in a completely new world or space station, each with its own cities or zones. Most of the time you are free to follow the plot missions or leave them behind, teleport freely between different locations and pursue other missions or activities. Each region is distinctive and there's plenty of interesting places to go.

Many aspects of Star Rail prioritize gameplay over realism. It is a game after all. For example, the ability to teleport anywhere, leave one mission behind and follow another, gives a great sense of freedom, but takes away a sense of urgency for the main story missions. It also means the Astral Express itself isn't required for travel, except at the start of each chapter when it brings you to a new location. You can also bring a line-up of any characters you have recruited into a battle - so they can be different from the characters actually present or involved in the mission. Each character has their own attack style and animations, from regular baseball bats, swords or spears to giant chickens and energy-blasting guitars. This is not hard sci-fi.

Star Rail has several play-to-play aspects. However I have been playing for free, without any in-game purchases, and so far I haven't felt disadvantaged or excluded.

A good test of an RPG (for me!) is whether the player warms to the characters and feels invested in their stories. Star Rail passes this test well, at least for several of the main playable characters and NPCs. Overall Star Rail is a fun open-world RPG with enough scope, depth and story for me to lose myself in it for a while longer.

Raising The Bear [Review: Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey 2]

Office Marlow: "F**k it, let's bounce."

Tigger: "That's my line!"

Although Christopher Robin has survived the horrors of his time in the Hundred Acre Wood, he has not escaped the nightmare. Not only has he seen his fiancée murdered and witnessed a series of traumatic killings, but he is now being blamed for the massacre, no-one believes his version of events, and even worse the story is being made into a film. And then the killings begin again.

Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey, released in 2023 and reviewed here, was a lot of fun, with plenty of action, gore and sacrilegious dismemberment of fond childhood memories. It was entertaining but never really rose above its super-low budget and amateur or student project vibe, and it felt rushed and messy in places. The 2024 Golden Raspberry Awards jury agreed with my take, awarding it Worst Movie, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Remake/Rip-Off/Sequel and Worst Screen Combo. I guess they liked the music then.

Something strange quickly became apparent as I began to watch Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey 2. It's actually rather good. There's a step up in every aspect of the filmmaking - excellent camerawork, colouring, editing, a much stronger script, and some really good performances, adding up to a complete film. The conceit of the horror-film-within-a-horror-film is a deliberate and classy callout to the Scream movies, and there are plenty of other genre references to enjoy.

There are also smart backstories for both Christopher Robin and Pooh, leading to a climax and some shocking final revelations. Admittedly some of the backstory is revealed through dialogue, but if the first rule of moviemaking is "show don't tell", then the second rule is "if you must tell, get Simon Callow to do the telling."

And I am happy to report that all of this decent filmmaking does not detract from the gore, sacrilege and subversion of the first movie. Pooh and Piglet are now joined by Tigger and Owl. Tigger takes some time to get into his stride - it's only towards the end that he really gains bounce and earns his stripes. Owl on the other hand is marvellous - played by Marcus Massey in Hammer villain style with plenty of creepy monologues. The gory body effects, one of the strengths of the first movie, are multiplied to stomach-churning levels.

This is no Get Out or Babadook, but if it's not elevated horror it's still a horror movie that will satisfy die-hard horror fans. It also bodes well for the next batch of films in the Pooh cinematic universe - the Poohniverse. I am now looking forward to Bambi: The Reckoning, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, Pinocchio: Unstrung and Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Practical Effects Vs CGI

 

Otter Nonsense

There was a young lady named Caoimhe

Who lived in a dam with a baoimhe

Her sister Louise

Lived nearby in some trees

With six bats and a golden retraoimhe.

Bearing All [Reviews: Cocaine Bear and Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey]

While all the bear stuff is happening on all the social medias (#TeamBear) this is a good time to retrospectively review two bearsploitation movies released in 2023.

Cocaine Bear (2023), directed by Elizabeth Banks, is loosely based on a real incident in 1985, where a bear found and ate cocaine that had been dropped from a smuggler’s plane.

The movie tells the story of some tourists, a mother, daughter and friend, a park ranger and a wildlife campaigner, some wannabe criminals and some serious criminals who all converge on a forested national park. Into the mix is added the missing cocaine and the bear that finds it. In real life there is no evidence that the bear harmed anyone. In the movie this is not the case and there are several gory fatalities. However this is a character-driven story rather than a bloodbath for its own sake.

The bear is also a character. Early scenes show the effects of the drug – one minute the bear is aggressively focussed on hunting tourists, the next it is happily distracted by a butterfly. As the movie continues we learn a little more about the bear’s background and can empathise with it – this is particularly true of the final act.

Overall this is a unique, enjoyable movie with an excellent, witty and thoughtful script and great performances from all of the ensemble cast, and I would recommend it to fans of horror, comedy, action and bears.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey (2023), directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, is one of a new crop of copyrightsploitation movies taking advantage of the fact that many classic books are now out of copyright. Other recent examples of this genre include Mad Heidi (2022) and Mickey’s Mouse Trap (2024).

The entirely reasonable premise of this movie is that Winnie-The-Pooh and Piglet, abandoned by Christopher Robin when he grew up and went to medical school, have become violent, sadistic killers. They take revenge on CR and his fiancée Mary when they return to the Wood try to find CR’s childhood friends, but also go on an indiscriminate killing spree, attacking a group of students holidaying in a cabin. There is blood. Honey, too, but mostly blood to be fair.

The copyright-busting movie genre has its interesting quirks. It is A.A.Milne’s Winnie-The-Pooh books that have come out of copyright – the Disney movie version is still protected. So there is nothing to stop a filmmaker presenting Pooh as a serial killer, but he cannot legally be shown wearing a red T-shirt (instead he wears a redneck-style lumberjack shirt). To make it even clearer that this is the book Pooh not the Disney Pooh, the movie starts with an animated introduction very much in the style of the original E.H.Shepard illustrations.

The genre is also growing fast – there is a sequel, Blood And Honey 2, out this year, and further films in the Poohniverse or Twisted Childhood Universe are in the pipeline, including Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble which will feature Pooh alongside twisted literary versions of Bambi, Pinocchio and Peter Pan. Meanwhile the first version of Mickey Mouse, as seen in Steamboat Willie, is now unprotected hence Mickey’s Mouse Trap and several other movie and game projects.

Blood And Honey is a low-budget, low-expectations movie: viewers expecting the quality of script, plot, performance or production values of Cocaine Bear may be slightly disappointed in some ways. These unreasonably high demands from cruel, selfish moviegoers might also explain why this movie won five Golden Raspberries and hardly any Oscars. On the other hand this is a full-on, no-holes-barred gorefest. It’s probably the most violent Winnie-The-Pooh film ever - even more violent than A Blustery Day. And as an animator who myself, back in 2012, put swearing, drug-taking and generally badly behaved LEGO minifigs on screen here, I do appreciate there is a pleasure in the subversion of innocence.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.