Better Narrative, Lower Playability: Destiny 2 Evolves While Fixing What Wasn't Broken To Begin With!

The Good: Graphics, Story/concept
The Bad: Forced multiplayer experience, New shader concept and weapons mods lower the playability
The Basics: The saga of Destiny continues with Destiny 2, which elevates the Cabal, adds new planets and makes it harder to make weapons and armor work efficiently.


I came to Destiny (reviewed here!) comparatively late. Despite that, it did not take me particularly long to get into Destiny and enjoy the worlds, weapons, and adversaries of the game. As rumors swirled about the content of the first sequel to expand the Destiny universe, I was apprehensive. The early release presentations hyped up how Destiny 2 would increase the community aspect of the game. The community aspects, which forced a player to play with others after initially featuring a story that players could play entirely on their own.

I loathed the forced community aspect of Destiny. Of course, by the time I got to Destiny, most of the players were seasoned, arrogant and bored with trying to shepherd newer players through the climactic story adventures that required full six-person fireteams. So, the idea that Destiny 2 would increase and highlight that was not a big selling point for me. Despite the hype of one of the aspects that did not thrill me from the first incarnation of Destiny, I eagerly bought Destiny 2 only a day or two after its official release and I've been playing it for the past two months.

I got Destiny 2 for the Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) and daily play of the new game has illustrated to me that the creative forces behind Destiny created a far more problematic game with Destiny 2, despite there being a stronger narrative for the video game.

Basics

At its core, Destiny 2 is a first-person shooter game in a science fiction warfare setting. The game is broken into three essential modes: Story, Co-operative missions, and player vs. player combat.

The story mode is a single-player experience that has the player portraying a Guardian, one of the last surviving people in the solar system tasked with protecting the remaining human population. The player makes a journey from The Last City on the Traveler to ruined sections of Earth before the player progresses out to Io, Titan, Nessus and then later to the Leviathan, a new massive ship out near the edge of Earth's solar system. As in Destiny, in Destiny 2, the player fights little rogue aliens (The Fallen), massive armored warriors (the Cabal), mindless alien robot drones (the Vex), a race of killer humanoid insects (the Hive) and a sinister race invading the solar system that absorbs entities from all those races and makes them into shadow warriors (The Taken). In the main story mode, the player has to flee The Last City, which comes under attack by the Cabal's elite Red Legion. In a wounded state, the player slowly recovers their light and rescues the leaders of the Guardians from the planets they have scattered to before confronting the leader of the Red Legion to try to rescue the Traveler and The Speaker.

The multiplayer mode allows players to team up to do specific missions that involve bigger bosses than one player could reasonably handle. Players work together to perform complicated story missions that cannot be done by one player and do mini-strikes that allow them to work together in variations of other story adventures. There is also a very basic combat experience where the team of players combats enemies in an arena setting as part of the expanded training.

As with the original, Destiny 2 begins as a single-player game that has the single player moving through the worlds at their own pace, explore aspects of the setting that interest them and accomplish goals in their own desired order. But Destiny 2 includes major events that cannot possible done on one's own. The Leviathan, for example, is a raid that requires multiple players to unlock the puzzle portion that opens the doors that allows the player to progress. There is no possible way to complete the Leviathan Raid without multiple players and completing that raid unlocks several significant things, like the ability for a player to pledge to a Faction.

Finally, there is the player vs. player mode. In the Crucible (player vs. player mode), players either join a randomly assigned team or assemble a team of like-minded murderers and they go out to fight in various settings against other players. The Player Vs. Player modes range from games where the players must collect fallen baubles when they kill ("Supremacy") or take and hold control points around flags ("Control") to free-for-all combat between players. For Destiny 2, there are two new Crucible games - one which involves a four-person team either setting explosives and guarding them (with the opposing team attempting to disarm them) and another one where the players have only a few, shared, lives that they have to preserve before their entire team is irrevocably wiped out.

At the end of virtually every mission or round of combat, players are awarded points, artifacts, and/or weapons and armor to level up their character.

Story

Destiny 2 has a more focused story than the original Destiny. After years of the Guardians re-establishing themselves and protecting Earth's solar system, the Cabal, under the leadership of Dominus Ghaul attacks the Traveler. Ghaul and his Consul abduct The Speaker and enslave the Traveler to tap it for Light. Destroying the power center of the Guardians, the Guardians are forced into retreat while Ghaul interrogates the Speaker.

The Guardian, having lost their Light, crashes down to the abandoned portions of Earth where they slowly begin to regroup. The human survivors of the Last City struggle without a hierarchy and the Guardian (the player) has to protect the humans, rebuild an infrastructure and head out to other planets in the solar system to find the leaders of the Guardians. With their leaders restored and shards of the Light giving them power again, the Guardian has to stop the massive device draining The Traveler before confronting and killing Ghaul!

Game Progression

The main story of Destiny 2 has pretty reasonable progression. The player starts on a map and, while they might explore almost any part of it, there is a pretty linear sense of movement throughout the story. When a player encounters a story node along their current plotline, they begin a well-contained mission, like entering a phantom realm to recover shards of the Light or restoring a communication's device from salvaged parts from a downed colony ship on an outer moon.

The game progression is one of the clear areas where Destiny 2 devolves from its original story. Destiny had a clear, simple, and enduring method of upgrading armor and weapons. In Destiny, one could get shaders, which changed the coloring of one's mismatched armor. It was nice; the player got a cohesive look out of random things they picked up around the many worlds they visited. In a similar fashion, Destiny had a very linear sensibility for upgrading the weapons and the armor, for the attributes and powers they had.

Destiny 2 is a massive step back on that front. First, the shaders are used on each individual piece of armor (helmet, breastplate, gauntlets, leggings, and cloak) and when one upgrades out of the current piece they may have customized, they lose that shader. While this might allow greater customization, it makes creating a look for one's character harder (one must get several copies of the same shader and equip each piece of armor). And once one gets rid of lower-powered armor which the player had shaded the way they liked, they might lose that shader entirely and not be able to get it back. That's annoying, as is not having an overall shader that endures on the character.

The weapons and armor upgrades in Destiny 2 are done with "Mods." Mods are the exact opposite of intuitive; they are supposed to add power and attributes to weapons or armor - equipping to make an otherwise mundane weapon a Solar, Arc or Void weapon, equipping a piece of armor to give the player attributes when equipping a certain type of weapon. These mods, in addition to having the incredibly annoying tendency to reduce the power of certain artifacts (it sucks to finally get an Exotic piece of armor, attempt to equip it with something that should make it more powerful and watch the defensive capacity of the armor actually go down!). As with the shaders, equipping any weapon or armor piece with a Mod becomes problematic in that the lower powered items one equips with them and then later outgrows loses the mod. The upgrade and enhancement process for the weapons and armor in Destiny 2 is needlessly complicated and a dramatic step back from the simple elegance and efficiency of the original game.

Effects

The effects in Destiny 2 are homogeneously amazing. The visuals for the environments look fantastic and the animation is usually clean and flows exceptionally well. Destiny 2 is remarkably glitch-free on the visual effects and it creates an impressive setting that looks great. The fires throughout the Last City, for example, look amazing!

As an older player, it is worth noting that while the speed of the graphics are good and the rendering of adversaries is excellent, the scope, scale and lighting are frequently problematic. To see and, usually, to aim, I almost constantly had to engage the scope on whatever weapon I was using. This has the unfortunate consequence of removing the radar, which informs players where the enemies and goals are! That said, Destiny 2 has superior directional information. Enemies in Destiny 2 can shoot players from a decent distance, outside the effective radar range; the on-screen graphics that indicate where a player is being hit from attacks are excellent.

Arguably the most impressive effect in Destiny 2 is the quality of the voice acting. Bungie employed genre favorite actors like Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Lance Reddick, Lennie James and Bill Nighy to voice non-player characters who pop up during the movie portions of the game. The actors create distinctive characters for the Ghost and the leaders of the surviving factions within the Last City, making for an exciting sense of flow and continuity through the different story elements.

Replayability

Destiny 2 has three different styles of character a player may create - Titan (essentially brute soldiers), Hunters (more mobile and precise operatives, like bounty hunters) and Warlocks (essentially magic-users) - that each have different strengths, capabilities and forms of attack. As a result, players may play through the story portion of the game multiple times and have very different experiences with each run through. Going back through the game, for example, reminded me of one of the irksome aspects of the environment that allows multiple people to be playing in the same spot at the same time; when one is playing their own personal mission and when other players are playing around you, they might might poach your kills to make your goals more difficult to achieve. In areas where there are very few enemies, the game gets bogged down by several people all trying to kill the same enemies to accomplish their goals!

The player vs. player portion of the game changes with each and every attempt. That said, the new player vs. player event that seems like the Trials Of Osiris for Destiny 2 is problematic in that there are not enough players on the platform actually playing to give players access to that new style of game.

Overall

Destiny 2 foreshadows well how the Destiny franchise will continue to expand. This expansion fleshed out the Cabal and made them a lethal enemy to the last of humanity. Perhaps the next expansion will find the Vex traveling through time to undo humanity and make the player into a time traveler or the Taken will possess the leaders of the Guardians and the player will have to find a central controlling power source for the Taken to free all those who are under their influence from them. But the creators of Destiny 2 illustrate the dangers of tweaking a system that was well-made in the first place. Destiny 2 is less player friendly and compelling than the original. While the idea of the Light being corrupted and the Traveler being menaced is an interesting one, players quickly overcome the complications that creates and end up in a world that is partially familiar, somewhat annoying. The result is a game that is quicker to get through and harder to want to stick with afterwards than the original Destiny.

For other game reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Star Wars Battlefront
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

6/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by visiting my Software Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Rise And Fall Of A Great Video Game: Destiny: The Collection

The Good: Graphics, Playability, Story/concept
The Bad: Story becomes dependent upon multiplayer mode
The Basics: Destiny begins as a compelling solo video game that decends into an unfortunate social exercise that makes it impossible to finish as one began it.


I have, only as I reached middle age, gotten into playing video games. I found I actually enjoy the reinforcement of little goals and playing games that have intriguing stories and good graphics. I never would have guessed that I would have gotten into first-person shooter games, but when the stories are interesting, I find I can get captivated by them. While going through my year of playing Star Wars: Battlefront (reviewed here!), one of my real-life friends recommended that I try Destiny. As Star Wars Battlefront became more of a repetitive exercise for me, I decided to take her advice and my wife picked me up Destiny: The Complete Collection.

I got Destiny: The Complete Collection for the Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) and I have been playing it for the past nine months on that system.

Basics

At its core, Destiny is a first-person shooter game in a science fiction warfare setting. The game is broken into three essential modes: Story, Co-operative missions, and player vs. player combat.

The story mode is a single-player experience that has the player portraying a Guardian, one of the last surviving people in the solar system tasked with protecting the remaining human population. The player makes a journey to Earth, the moon, Mars, Venus, and a massive alien ship embedded in Saturn's rings (the Dreadnaught) to fight little rogue aliens (The Fallen), massive war robots (the Cabal), mindless alien drones (the Vex), a race of killer humanoid insects (the Hive) and a sinister race invading the solar system that absorbs entities from all those races and makes them into shadow warriors (The Taken). In the main story mode, the player explores the remaining habitable portions of Earth and its colonies within the solar system to protect the Visitor and the remaining humans from the invading forces, while collecting artifacts and weapons to level up.

The multiplayer mode allows players to team up to do specific missions that involve bigger bosses than one player could reasonably handle. Players work together to perform complicated story missions that cannot be done by one player and do mini-strikes that allow them to work together in variations of other story adventures. There is also a very basic combat experience where the team of players combats enemies in an arena setting as part of the expanded training.

Unfortunately, this is where Destiny goes horribly wrong. Destiny begins as a single-player game that allows players to move through the world at their own pace, explore aspects of the setting that interest them and accomplish goals in their own desired order. Where I wrote "allows" at the top of the paragraph above, the terminology was imprecise; "compels" is a far more accurate word. Players begin the game and can make the journey as they see fit and take their time. But, at the end of every major map, there comes a point where the player cannot play on their own. Bungie, the makers of Destiny, force players to connect with other players and form a six-person Fireteam to accomplish important story points like killing every major Big Bad. It's like Bungie is the stereotypical doting parent, concerned that their kid is playing too many video games and forces playdates with other children. As a forty year-old, that's pretty shitty to me.

The multiplayer story modes are not labeled and are not intuitive. So, players who come to the game on their own will suddenly get to an important story point (like killing the leader of the Hive or eliminating the Taken King) and find themselves locked out of progressing . . . not through any clear mechanic, but rather taking the next labeled step in the game and finding it impossible to progress. So, for example, after spending hours and hours trying to get to more than three checkpoints on "Crota's End" (called Lanterns) without being blown up, swarmed by so many Hive that no single combination of weapons can thin the herd enough to survive or fall down pits in the darkness, players who have started the game on their own are likely to just give up.

But, alas, to continue playing the game where the single player was the hero in their own story, players must log onto Bungie's message boards on the internet, find a fireteam and join it. I came to Destiny late - the game was released at least two years prior to me even hearing about it - and people who continued to play the multiplayer story modes have, generally, become an intolerant bunch. Whatever process of discovery existed in the early days of Destiny gameplay by which players figured out what the team members had to do in each of the forced team play story adventures - where people had to stand, when they had to move, what order to accomplish things in, etc. - has long since passed. As a result, players who play the multiplayer story modes are (by a vast majority) made up of people who know what they are doing and have very specific goals to accomplish with continuing to play those modes. As a population, as a player community, they are not overly tolerant of newbies or those who have different skill sets. So, for example, I am not a professional player and one of the aspects of gameplay that I tend to have difficulty with jumping. I am not a strong jumper in video games. So, on a multiplayer mission that requires all of the players to cross a massive chasm within the Dreadnaught while avoiding getting knocked into said chasm through well-timed jumps . . . I am a clear liability to the team. One need not possess much imagination to guess how a team of five players who are ready to confront a Big Bad might react to being held up for an hour while the sixth player attempts to jump across a chasm that everyone else has already crossed.

This style of gameplay is incredibly frustrating for new players and players who are not social. The most common result is that the Fireteam leader, fed up with the team's weak link, will simply jettison them from the game. So, a player might begin one of the story missions they require to advance and conclude a level, but will end up entirely at the mercy of other players and their impatience. It's a sucky way to design a game and it is not at all player friendly. Any game that requires solo players to rely upon the kindness of strangers and live up to their standards to conclude the game is poorly designed. It's a system that invites bullying, so it was utterly unsurprising to me as a non-professional player that I would have numerous portions of gameplay where I was unable to complete the story and would be made to feel terrible by other players who accepted my presence on a team for a portion of the story's gameplay, but then threw me off the team because I was not as good as the rest of the team.

Emotionally, the only real recourse a player has is in the player vs. player mode. In the player vs. player mode, players either join a randomly assigned team or assemble a team of like-minded murderers and they go out to fight in various settings against other players. The Player Vs. Player modes range from games where the players must hold control points to "ignite a rift" using a "spark" (it's essentially Capture The Flag with massive casualties when the flag is destroyed) to free-for-all combat between players.

At the end of virtually every mission or round of combat, players are awarded points, artifacts, and/or weapons and armor to level up their character.

Story

To its credit, Destiny has a pretty cool story. Opening in the present day, astronauts reach Mars. There, they uncover and encounter the Traveler, a massive satellite that reinvigorates and inspires humanity. Humans spread out throughout the solar system and enter a new golden age. After eons of expansion, The Traveler's enemy finds it and virtually wipes out humanity.

The solar system is overrun by Taken, Vex, Cabal, Hive and Taken forces. But, one day, the little mechanical device known as a Ghost resurrects The Guardian (the player) and helps them to escape the Fallen-infested Cosmodrome. The Guardian is then reunited with the leaders of Earth, who work with the Traveler to retake the solar system.

Game Progression

The main story of Destiny has pretty reasonable progression. The player starts on a map and, while they might explore almost any part of it, there is a pretty linear sense of movement throughout the story. When a player encounters a story node along their current plotline, they begin a well-contained mission, like having to climb up one of the remaining rockets on Earth to recover computer codes for one of the surviving military leaders or bring the Queen in the Rift the head of one of her enemies in order to prove loyalty and competence to her.

In general, the story mode follows a linear progression from Earth to the moon to the planets Venus and Mars before the solar system is invaded by the Taken out near Saturn.

That said, Destiny, at least in the form of The Complete Collection, is severely weakened in its progression by its open format. Destiny has "social areas," where players go to store excess weapons, decrypt found blueprints into weapons and armor and meet with non-player characters who assign missions and goals. Unfortunately, there is no linear progression to the types of missions or goals that the non-player characters give. So, for example, a player who meets with the Titan Leader Zavala and sees that there are missions he has to help one level up might accept them . . . without any indication that a low player-level character cannot possibly accomplish, much less enter, them. So, for example, Zavala has goals pertaining to Nightfall Strikes that a Level 1 player might take on . . . not knowing that Nightfall Strikes are not accessible to anything but the highest-level players. In a similar vein, players might easily pick up weapons from the weaponsmith that are well above their player level to use or involve targets the player does not yet have access to (like a weapon that is to be used exclusively against the Cabal before player has access to the Mars map). Going through the game a second time as a different type of character, I was instantly miffed that in the first group of goals my character was given, two required high-level characters, requiring me to either hold the quests for considerable time before I could attempt them or forcing me to abandon/decline them.

Similarly, Destiny goals are often neither intuitive nor self-explanatory. So, for example, one is given a speeder to move around on and the mechanic in the Last City can assign the players goals. I have had a goal of "Overcharge 3 Reached." I have no idea what "Overcharge 3" is. I've tried many different things; I could find the answer easily enough by looking it up, but the game should not require players to go to a completely external source just to learn about the goals they are supposed to accomplish!

That said, weapons and armor upgrades are entirely intuitive and well-executed. Players are given a lot of direction at the game's outset for how to acquire and upgrade weapons and armor, so as the game progresses, that becomes intuitive pretty fast. . . as does collecting resources so one has the continual ability to upgrade one's weapons and armor.

Effects

The effects in Destiny are homogeneously amazing. The visuals for the environments look fantastic and the animation is usually clean and flows exceptionally well. Destiny is remarkably glitch-free on the visual effects and it creats an impressive setting that looks great.

As an older player, it is worth noting that while the speed of the graphics are good and the rendering of adversaries is excellent, the scope, scale and lighting are frequently problematic. To see and, usually, to aim, I almost constantly had to engage the scope on whatever weapon I was using. This has the unfortunate consequence of removing the radar, which informs players where the enemies and goals are! That said, Destiny has superior directional information. Enemies in Destiny can shoot players from a decent distance, outside the effective radar range; the on-screen graphics that indicate where a player is being hit from attacks are excellent.

Arguably the most impressive effect in Destiny is the quality of the voice acting. Bungie employed genre favorite actors like Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Lance Reddick, Erick Avari and Bill Nighy to voice non-player characters who pop up during the movie portions of the game (Peter Dinklage was originally in the game, but apparently got edited out when the expansions began). The actors create distinctive characters for the Ghost and the leaders of the surviving factions within the Last City, making for an exciting sense of flow and continuity through the different story elements.

Replayability

Destiny was, at least until today when Destiny 2 was officially released, constantly adding challenges, weapons and events to Destiny, so the game appears to have incredible replayability. As well, there are three different styles of character a player may create - Titan (essentially brute soldiers), Hunters (more mobile and precise operatives, like bounty hunters) and Warlocks (essentially magic-users) - that each have different strengths, capabilities and forms of attack. As a result, players may play through the story portion of the game multiple times and have very different experiences with each run through. Going back through the game, for example, reminded me of one of the irksome aspects of the environment that allows multiple people to be playing in the same spot at the same time; when one is playing their own personal mission, they might have specific goals, like "make ten headshots" and when other players are playing around you, they might have similar goals. In areas where there are very few enemies, the game gets bogged down by several people all trying to kill the same enemies to accomplish their goals!

The player vs. player portion of the game changes with each and every attempt and events like the Iron Banner insure that there is always something for a Destiny player to do in the game environment!

Overall

Destiny is an excellent idea for a video game for those who want a role-play first person shooter game. Unfortunately, the forced community quality of it - the way the game abruptly transitions from a solo-player game to one that absolutely forces player interaction without any way to complete the story or have the full player experience without having to join an online community and interact with other people is a serious detraction to casual players and solo players alike and ruins the overall experience of Destiny.

For other game reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

7/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by visiting my Software Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Long Dark Night Of The Vampire's Soul: Angel Season Four!

The Good: Dark, Excellent characters, Interesting plotline, Wonderful acting
The Bad: One real dud, Misuse of talent (Charisma Carpenter!)
The Basics: When Angel returns from the bottom of the sea, the Apocalypse comes in two very deadly forms in the fourth season of Angel.


The television series Angel, has a way of ending its seasons with a nod toward its fans, isolating those who are not fans of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Angel franchises. For example, the first season ends with the appearance of Darla resurrected and unless one watches the show regularly, the significance of that event is lost. Similarly, the end of the second season is baffling to those who do no know what happened in the finale of the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The third season is something of an exception to that rule. There are not mugs to the audience, there are no secret innuendoes: Lorne leaves, Wesley has gone rogue, Cordelia ascends, and Connor sends Angel to the bottom of the ocean in a box.

The fourth season of Angel opens with a stark exploration of the bleak events that capped off the previous season. While Angel goes slowly insane in his watery grave, Gunn and Fred struggle to hold Angel Investigations together having exhausted every last lead in the search for their employer. And as Angel struggles to return to sanity after his rescue, the crew finds themselves entering an apocalypse that cannot be blamed on anything other than the direct path their lives have taken up until now.

In short, writer/director Joss Whedon risks the franchise by playing every possible card in his arsenal. Whedon and David Greenwalt declare that this was the season the characters were destined to get to as they fully explain the significance of the interlocking lives that have been the Angel cast. It is in season four that Connor's existence is explained, Angel is revealed to be a tool for his conception, Lorne's participation as a guide and Cordelia's purpose in ascending and returning is explored.

Man, this is a bleak picture! In the course of the fourth season, Angel and his partners come to learn everything was set into motion outside them and they've moved and been moved toward a certain moment and the moment of their destiny has arrived. This is the Apocalypse and Angel does it with style, flair and intrigue.

Here is how the main characters weather the year:

Connor - The teen struggles with the death of his father, the reappearance of his dad, Angel, and the tide of bad choices he makes in regard to Cordelia and the Angel Investigations team,

Lorne - Returns to Los Angeles after being imprisoned in Las Vegas by tyrants at a casino only to find that his powers have been compromised by something even more powerful than himself,

Fred - Finds her life emotionally complicated when she is able to confront the professor who sent her to the hell dimension for five years and her attempts to deal with the fallout from that is compromised when she finds herself on the losing end of a war to save the world,

Gunn - Realized as a leader in Angel's absence, he works hard and sacrifices everything to save Fred from falling into darkness, at the cost of what is most precious to him,

Wesley - Still alone following his betrayals in the third season, Wesley has fallen in love with Lilah Morgan and he works desperately for redemption with his friends,

Cordelia - Returns to our plane of existence after being made virtually into a Goddess, only to find she has no memories. When her purpose for returning is made clear, Angel's love is revealed as the earliest casualty of the Apocalypse and her life is placed in supreme jeopardy,

Angel - is rescued only to find his fruitless search for Cordelia frustrating beyond belief and her return complicated by his feelings for her and his confusion by her relationship with Connor. Angel is forced to confront his dark side, Angelus, when it becomes clear that his past may be an important trigger to the Apocalypse.

The fourth season of Angel continues its trend toward a morally ambiguous hero who struggles with the prophecies and realities of his life. Here, Angel is not only pitted against the incredible Beast that rains down fire and blocks out the sun, but he is forced to confront his unresolved love for Cordelia and the complications of having a duplicitous son.

And that is what Angel has done remarkably well since day one, since the first episode. Angel balances action/adventure with deep personal, character moments wherein the individuals involved are forced to develop. There are consequences to every action in Angel and the fourth season illustrates that perfectly as Angelus is unleashed in an attempt to stop The Beast and the appearance of the most subversive evil the Angel Investigations team has ever faced.

This is a season where our heroes are trapped in a downward spiral of loss. Angel is unable to reconcile with his son Connor, Cordelia's return is marred by her lack of identity, and the beautiful love between Fred and Gunn becomes torn. But is it worth watching? Absolutely. This is television that draws the viewer in and on DVD, the ability to watch the episodes over and over is a great boon. That the crew works constantly to overcome is the true spectacle and while the characters agonize, the viewer is constantly intrigues as opposed to depressed. This is not Magnolia (reviewed here!), where the characters are mired in depression, this is the last minutes of The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!) where the characters are going down, but they desperately, heroically, try anything to endure and persevere.

In fact, in the entire twenty-two episode set, only one episode is a real dud. I cannot say anything more about it because it comes late in the season and to describe the faults of the episode would reveal more about the deeper plot than I already have and it ought to be a surprise to the viewer. On the other hand, the show comes out of its one episode rut swinging and it skyrockets toward an impressive climax. But the show has an annoying tendency to be brilliant and engaging and agonize the fans. Upon her return, Cordelia asks Angel the question all of the fans have wanted the answer to, in the last second of the episode! Fortunately, with the DVDs, we need not wait an entire week for the answer!

Many fans do not like the fourth season of Angel because of the presence of Connor, played by Vincent Kartheiser. While the obvious argument is that he is the typical WB pretty boy, the more substantive argument against Connor and Kartheiser is that Connor is a crappy character who is poorly acted. But Kartheiser's performance is actually genius; Connor is a confused kid. Connor is a confused child who is caught in a rash of stupid decisions followed by huge consequences and punctuated by more bad choices. Connor is annoying, not because Kartheiser cannot act, but because Kartheiser acts so precisely. Who wants to watch some idiot kid make stupid choice after stupid choice? Of course it is going to be agonizing! And as a result, it works wonderfully here.

The real acting issue in the fourth season is with Charisma Carpenter. Carpenter may be the best potential choice for a Wonder Woman feature film and while the fourth season gives her some juicy parts, it never provides her with a chance to explore Cordelia's character in a satisfying or meaningful way. In short, Carpenter's talents are wasted in the fourth season as her character becomes a tool and Carpenter's days are clearly numbered on the show.

Holding the whole sandwich together is David Boreanaz (Angel) and Alexis Denisof (Wesley). Boreanaz returns to the role of Angel with little growth, but in a season where there is such intense action, he does not need to expand the acting repertoire too much. Boreanaz comes through, however, when forced to portray Angelus over several episodes. Sustaining his character's alter ego works and Boreanaz pulls it off with satisfying results. Denisof, however, continues to expand Wesley into a dark, often tragic, hero caught between his desire for redemption and his belief in the reasons for his mistakes. Denisof is both subtle and calculating as Wesley this season and he makes Wesley the character to watch.

The bottom line for this DVD set is that it wraps up the tale of Angel quite nicely. Yes, there is another season after this, but we'll get to that when the fifth season boxed set comes out. This finishes the longest arcs of Angel and rewards the fans with a pretty pounding season-wide arc that gives everyone in the show their chance to shine. If you haven't been a fan of Angel before now, don't start with this set, go back and work up to it. You will be glad you did.

For other works with vampires, please visit my reviews of:
Breaking Dawn Part 1
True Blood - Season 3
Daybreakers

8/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Alone In A Dark Galaxy: Serenity Caps Off Firefly Well, If Depressingly.

The Good: Decent acting, Engaging story, Good dialog, Nice pace, Daring vision
The Bad: Glosses over a lot of character, Special effects
The Basics: In the distant future, one young woman is hunted by an oppressive government and protected by a rogue crew without any special abilities.


When I finished watching the movie Serenity, I sat in shock for a few minutes. I also sat hoping that the theme song to the defunct television show Firefly, upon which Serenity is based, would play during the closing credits. Alas, it did not. My shock that kept me in my seat was not at the rude idiot who called out lines from the trailer before they were delivered during the movie, but rather at how the universe of Firefly (reviewed here!) from the television show had been changed by the two hour event I had just watched.

For those who have not seen a single episode of Firefly, Serenity does an amazing job of catch-up, making this a very accessible movie for all audiences. Instead of being a "Screw you for not watching my show!," Joss Whedon opens with a very clear establishment of the universe of Firefly to get the audience engaged. It is very effective, eliminating in the opening moments of the film the big leap the television show required audiences to make.

In the future, Earth has been mostly abandoned for planets in points further out. The authoritarian Alliance governs from a position of power on high, leaving outer colony worlds to mostly fend for themselves. The Alliance does not forgive mistakes and it works hard to maintain its sense of power and control. To that end, it recruits the best and brightest minds for its intelligence and combat divisions. River Tam was a gifted young girl who was part of an ultra-secret program that left her mind virtually destroyed. Unfortunately, her big brother broke her out of the program, leaving the Alliance and its secrets vulnerable. An Operative of the Alliance begins a hunt for River.

River, for her part, is now a weird passenger on Serenity, a consistently-falling-apart space ship on the frontier doing mercenary work. While working on a bank robbery with her new crew, River is sighted by the Operative and a gruesome, bloody chase ensues that will leave River changed and the crew of Serenity in the greatest amount of peril it has ever experienced.

For fans of Firefly, there is much enjoyment in seeing some resolution to the stories from the television show, though there is likely to be some disappointment among hard-core fans over the speed of much of the resolutions. Things happen very quickly in Serenity and in order to squeeze in the massive plot, much of the comfortable pacing of Firefly is sacrificed.

Also sacrificed are important character relationships. The marriage of Zoe and Wash, for example, shows none of the cracks it had when last we saw the characters. The interweavings of Inara and Mal are sacrificed in order to keep the plot focused on River and her story. And Shepherd Book is, sadly, almost entirely absent from the movie.

That said, Serenity delivers and it does so quite well, with a bit of flair. This is an entertaining movie and it wraps up a lot of loose ends from Firefly, while still being a very complete story on its own. Thus, fans of the show will appreciate learning more about what has been going on with River and actually seeing Reavers. People who have never seen the show will get a movie about a twisted young woman who has been abused by the government and her attempts to rediscover all she has lost in a universe filled with menace.

This is not a clean, sterile universe. Joss Whedon keeps the tension in Serenity high and is remarkably unpredictable. He is not afraid to get his hands dirty and to shock his audience, especially the hard core fans.

Fortunately, Whedon has an awesome cast to work with. Summer Glau comes into her own, moving much of the movie as River. In The Simpsons, there is an episode where there is an adaptation of Hamlet and Lisa says "No one out-crazies Ophelia." Well, no one out-performs Glau when it comes to weird, crazy and strangely fun. Glau is awesome and she pulls off the physical stunts incredibly in Serenity.

Jewel Staite is great as Kaylee, the heart of Serenity and Sean Maher has an incredible amount of screentime given how neglected his character was in Firefly. Adam Baldwin is a great source of comic relief, as is Alan Tudyk is great as the wisecracking Wash. And Gina Torres is, yet again, impossibly beautiful as Zoe. Torres reminds us that she has created a character with immense personal strength and her ability to play Zoe as passionate and hardened within an eyeblink of each emotion is rather incredible.

Much of the movie hinges on the movement of Nathan Fillion who plays Mal. He is strong and sensitive and has great range for his character. In Serenity, Fillion balances his inner character struggle with a great deal of physical exertion in combat scenes and he does it without any sense of conflict. The movie moves on his movements and he does it rather fluidly.

The only serious problem with Serenity (outside the obvious compromises for time and the general audience) is in the special effects department. What worked on the small screen in terms of speed and changing camera focus comes across as jumbled and confused on the big screen. So, while Whedon and his team create an intense and extraordinary battle for the climax of the movie unlike anything they had the opportunity to do on television, most of it happens with a speed and lack of focus that comes across as clumsy rather than artful.

On the balance, Serenity is a fast-paced adventure that serves nicely as a coda to the television show Firefly or as a nice stepping stone for future adventures in this weird Whedonverse.

For other films featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor, be sure to see my reviews of:
Salt
2012
Love Actually

7/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Before Watching Serenity . . . Why Firefly Is Must-Watch Television!

The Good: Excellent acting, Good character development, Intriguing "universe"
The Bad: Takes serious investment of faith in Joss Whedon, Simplification of special effects.
The Basics: With a wonderfully diverse cast, Firefly tells the compelling story of smugglers in the future on the run from an authoritarian government.


Once upon a time, there was a show by Joss Whedon on the Fox network. Fox did not promote it and soon it was canceled. Fans of Joss Whedon's work were sad. But then, television shows on DVD became the highest grossing entertainment source in the United States and all sorts of television shows made it to DVD. DVD sales were responsible for the return of Family Guy. And DVD sales were responsible for a movie called Serenity!

Serenity (reviewed here!) is the movie that continues the story that was begun on television in the series Firefly. Firefly is a fairly unique view of the future. Unlike Star Trek's utopian vision or Alien's dystopian vision or Star Wars' vision of somewhere else entirely, Firefly's basic view of the future is this: humanity survived long enough to visit the stars. But then, the bureaucracy and governments stretched too far and a civil war broke out. And in the end, the powerful government - the Alliance - won and the outlying colony worlds basically get shafted. Left on their own to fend for themselves, the places most distant from Earth are basically rogue, making do with what they can. It's the West. Firefly looks and feels like a Western. With spaceships. And curses in Mandarin Chinese.

Captain Mal Reynolds is a man who was a leader on the losing side of the civil war which has been over for over half a decade. He has become a smuggler, soaring around the galaxy in his Firefly-class ship Serenity. Barely making ends meet to keep fuel in the ship, Mal and his crew take whatever work they can get, usually moving illegal cargo. When they take on a fancy doctor and his deranged sister, Serenity becomes targeted by the Alliance and is forced to flee deeper into space, where opportunities are fewer and the threats are more horrific.

The series is about the flight of the ship and the interactions of the characters who are forced together. As Serenity flees from the Alliance, the crew's lives are complicated by the fugitives in their midst and the secrets River has locked in her head.

One of the most intriguing and well-conceived aspects of Firefly is that this is a show with great range and appeal. It is hard to define as it takes place in the future with a space ship, but everyone looks like cowboys. It's a work without real genre and that takes a lot of faith to stick with. Joss Whedon has a lot of street credibility with the successes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel; it's easy to see how he got the pilot made based on that. However, unless one is a fan of his earlier works and willing to take on that faith that the show will continue to go somewhere that is going to pay off, it's easy to see why network executives would be freaked out by it and not know what to do with it.

Fortunately, I am a fan of Angel and Buffy The Vampire Slayer and I was willing to invest some of that faith Whedon had built up in watching this series. It was worthwhile. Firefly succeeds because of the distinctive character interactions and the compelling situations those characters are put into. As Serenity flees the Alliance, various characters have their mysteries explored and revealed. Mal thinks twice about some of the jobs he takes and the straight-laced Simon illustrates he will do anything to save his sister by mapping out one of the most dangerous jobs for the crew; stealing medical supplies from the Alliance. And while they work together or fight, there are other threats. On the frontier, there are insane, mutilated humans who fly around in ships killing anyone they find. They are called Reavers and one of the most impressive aspects of Firefly is that the viewers only see their effects, never the actual villains.

In fact, one of the most impressive leaps Whedon takes is to create a barren universe for the viewer. Humans are it in this vision of the future. There are no aliens, no mystical portals. We're out there, we are the heroes, we are the villains. Fortunately, Joss Whedon is clever enough to pull it all off.

Like all Whedon shows, this is a character-driven story and here are the principle characters:

Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds - The leader with moral ambiguity. A striking anti-hero, Reynolds is devoted to his crew and keeping his ship safe and as independent of the Alliance as possible. He still feels loss over the outcome of the war and while he does not always do the morally correct thing, he always does what he thinks is best. With wit and charm, Reynolds is the one who runs the boat,

Zoe - Mal's first officer. She served with Mal in the war and is loyal to him and Serenity in a way that almost borders on love. She is married to Wash and her loyalty to Mal creates some tension between her and her husband. Efficient and clever, she is Mal's right hand,

Jayne - Mal's security officer and a big, dumb brute. Jayne is the most treacherous of the crew whose purpose seems to be effectively the muscle. He is always prepared to take the ship away from Mal and sell the crew out for more money. With his love of weapons and conflict, Jayne is a dangerous man to know,

Kaylee - Serenity's chief engineer and the heart of the ship. She is shy and charming and an expert in what keeps a Firefly flying. What Mal is to the crew, she is to the ship and her down-to-Earth demeanor leads her to an awkward attraction to Simon,

Wash - The ship's navigator. He has a sense of humor and a quick wit. His marriage to Zoe is one the rocks over their lack of privacy and time alone,

Inara - A Companion (high-class hooker, a very reputable position in this universe) who has a great deal of dignity. Despite herself, she finds herself often attracted to the oblivious Mal. She brings an air of class and legitimacy to the scoundrel crew and is useful in more than one pinch,

Shepherd Book - Essentially a traveling priest. Despite Mal's devout atheism, Book pays his way and joins the crew as a moral compass. However, Book seems to have a past and a certain amount of influence with the Alliance that makes others question if he is all that he appears,

Simon - The brilliant doctor. He is an amazing physician and his love and compassion overflows for his sister, River. He has sacrificed everything for her and while he loves her and seeks to protect her, he finds himself attracted more and more to Kaylee,

and River - A genius with a shattered psyche. River is an enigma. She is apparently a genius of amazing proportions who was the subject of cruel and invasive experiments at the hands of the Alliance. Her mystery leads Serenity into most of its difficulties.

The characters are very distinctive and very likable and interesting. Unfortunately, they are also not entirely segregated from other Joss Whedon characters. Mal, for example, has several lines that could have come from Angel and, sadly, Nathan Fillion delivers them in a way very reminiscent of the other show's star.

Truly, though, the cast is extraordinary. Veteran actor Ron Glass portrays Book with dignity and charisma. Summer Glau, formerly a ballerina, is surprisingly good as the awkward and crazy River, managing to create a unique performance that is not based on anyone else's work. Adam Baldwin plays Jayne with great physical presence and a subtle wit that is a great deal of fun to watch.

Gina Torres is absolutely fabulous as Zoe. Torres is a wonderful character actress and must be one of the most beautiful people on the planet. The irony of that is that at many times, Torres is supposed to look haggard or weary in Firefly, but she's unable to pull it off because of her flat out beauty. That is not to say Torres is simply a pretty face. Indeed, she has a great deal of character and ability that is utterly convincing in this role. She can make her eyes sag and her shoulder's slump to look exhausted, but she's still Gina Torres and she's still gorgeous.

Jewel Staite is wonderful as Kaylee. She brings a youth and exuberance to the role that keeps the mood of the show from descending into utter depression or futility. Staite has awesome ability to light up a scene with her smile and her control for the expressiveness of her face and eyes is amazing. As Kaylee, Staite is required to go from expressing simple joy to disappointment (usually in differences with Simon) within an instant and Staite executes such turns impressively and with utter convincing. She's a treat to watch and while her character is the soul of the ship, this actress has much of the soul of the show.

But the one who moves the show and makes it work is Nathan Fillion. As Mal, Fillion projects a casual air mixed with a strange, all-consuming authority. There is not a single moment of the show that the viewer does not believe that Mal is the king of his own little realm and much of that comes from Fillion's portrayal. He is tough and likable in a way that makes for compelling viewing.

Who will like Firefly? Certainly anyone who likes Joss Whedon's other works. Anyone who likes Westerns and science fiction will enjoy this show. Anyone who enjoys strong character-driven works and is willing to give the show a chance to build where it is going, will find much to enjoy in Firefly. And the show is going somewhere.

It's too bad it got canceled before it could get there. At least it will continue in the theaters . . . and in graphic novels like Those Left Behind (reviewed here!)

For other shows that originally aired on FOX, please check out my reviews of:
Family Guy Presents: It’s A Trap!
Glee - Season Two, Volume One
Fringe - Season Two
Arrested Development
Wonderfalls
The Lone Gunmen
Millennium
VR.5
The X-Files
The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr.

8.5/10

For other television reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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