Musings on Retaliation

The recent GI Joe movies were troubled in many ways: the bad criticism for the first movie, below-average toy sales (the good thing is I bought many figures for half the original price), and the crazy release process for the second installment, Retaliation (they spent the money for a Superbowl advertisement in 2012, only to launch the movie weeks after the 2013 Superbowl).

Last month, I visited Latin America’s biggest toy fair, Abrin, and saw the figures for this movie few people I know have watched. I was disappointed at the fact that the poor timing in the release process has impaired the mass-market toy distribution (for instance, I don’t think Brazilian shelves will see the figure based on Bruce Willis’ character).

I wondered what Larry Hama would think about Retaliation. Hama put souls in the bodies of the toy soldiers: his comics and the file cards he wrote for the toys shaped a ludic experience cherished by many who grew up in the 80’s.

Zaki Hasan had done the job better than expected: he managed to talk to him on the same day Hama had watched the movie (which, in Hama’s case, may have tuned the experience up a bit).

Hasan did a long interview with Hama, covering the origins of the comic book (which no writer wanted to take, because it was a “toy book”) and the legacy to which the recent movies refer. An edited version was published in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zaki-hasan/interview-igi-joei-creato_b_2993233.html

No arm joints?

Blackest took me back to Hattrick

I love football games.

Perhaps playing on the pitch is what you call “football”, but in a blog like this you are also looking for the sport’s depiction through other kinds of games.

I’m not the best FIFA or PES player in the house, and maybe because of that I’m eager to know football-themed board games and electronic management games. And it was great to be presented to Hattrick back in 2005.

The old trick, in its 2008 shape.

Hattrick is the most serious football manager I know: it is the Internet pioneer; it has a rich set of abilities to compose each player; it simulates matches and lets you manage a club; it has a community that cares about fun and fair play.

On-line games have the possibility to change themselves while working, and this may be a key to their success. Hattrick embraced it.

Not everyone has time to read the rules and try to understand such a game’s intricate engine. A lot of people wouldn’t want to go through it.

And, demanding as this is, I had to call it off after a while. After three years, the great São Paulo Black had earned some trophies in the lower divisions in the game and was struggling to win a fifth division league (after I abandoned the game, the team would win the league, how heartwarming).

The name São Paulo Black would still live as a “bot” (the computer-managed team would even keep my old players).

I like to present Hattrick as the borderline case in free games that sell advantages: on the one hand, they say all money can do is to enhance the experience by adding aesthetic features and more possibilities of social interaction; on the other hand, they sell statistics in the pack, and some find it a concession to plutocracy.

The microtransaction model, as seen on TV: “Golaço”.

As a game researcher, I took the burden to try Playfish’s rushed attempt at Facebook football by the 2010 World Cup; and also the better manager Golaço, much later. Both are typical microtransaction-oriented games, in the sense that disgusts older players, raised under different standards of fairness. In such games, buying stuff with real money may directly boost your performance.

Then, lit by a spark of memory, the much more powerful phoenix of Hattrick arises as Blackest MF.

Hattrick at present: much more detail in football simulation.

My favorite toy is green

If I should start this blog from my roots, then I’d better think ecologically. For my favorite toy, the one I’ve enjoyed since childhood and now collect, was acclaimed a “green” toy. The Nuremberg Toy Fair selected the E-Rangers Future Base, by Playmobil, the category’s first winner February 2011. As the category wasn’t repeated in the following years, I guess that set is still the champion.

The kit’s theme, the creation of an environment able to sustain life in another planet, was educational enough. It also comes with functioning solar panels, so that the child can add practice to play.

The thing with Playmobil is its versatility: children will learn from the set adults choose to buy them, but will also move on to other adventures by combining their collection. Today’s space adventurer may next week look fit for being a Roman gladiator, bearing adequate enough accessories.

So it is the kind of toy that lasts long. It is indeed durable, albeit dryness menaces plastic.

Isn’t plastic a bad thing for the planet?, you ask me. I’ll have to disagree on this. If you waste it into the ground, then it will remain there for many years, too. And it comes from oil, yes. So we should only use it for things that we want to last long, right?

So stop making oil-fueled vehicles and leave all those barrels to nice objects like Playmobil figurines!

Blackest Philosophy World Tour

Blackest Dark World Tour!

And our first tour: