Rant 574 / Dragon Age Two Sounds Like A Flop In The Making At The Moment

While Reuters is reporting heatwave in the US, here I am sleeping through afternoons to take advantage of the cloudy weather I've been getting for at least a month so far. I don't remember such a long period of cloudy weather last year though. Is it just me or has global climate changed this much already?












Been watching some episodes of Naruto and Bleach. Finally free subbed Bleach anime has been legalised, which is a sign that it's a very popular anime with a fanbase so huge the website is able to profit from the ads' revenue while streaming it for free.

However I don't like the way Crunchyroll has recently changed their ads' timing. Instead of playing the ad before each episode, it now plays them twice somewhere in the cuts of the episodes where TV stations are supposed to interrupt with ads. I know it's still better than watching TV but after years of purely ad-free animes, I'm very much used to it. Even when they were playing it before each episode I was slightly annoyed by it.

As for Bleach, that's a very recent development which I do not like. Dattebayo released episode 275 as their final episode for this series and I cannot watch the rest because Crunchyroll does not have the rights to play it in Singapore. Grr...










I might have discussed this before but I can't resist talking about it now.

While I was watching Naruto and Bleach, something kept repeating inside my mind.

Suddenly.....DEUS EX MACHINA EVERYWHERE!!!!1!1!!!

But it's true. It's like in episodes 270/271 of Bleach when the main guy got killed. Out of nowhere... DEUS EX MACHINA! For no reason whatsoever he just sprang up and turned into an unstoppable killing machine. FUCK YOU SCRIPTWRITERS WHERE'S YOUR SKILL?

Any fucktard can write a story if he uses this artless technique. A good story needs finesse, man! You don't just throw your hero in all sorts of situations, let him die and BOOM! RESURRECTION! GOD-LIKE POWERS! ALL OBSTACLES VANISH INTO THIN AIR! And they lived happily ever after.

What?! Why?! Where did that come from??

I dislike writers who use it frequently. I dislike seeing it often. It's just my opinion.

In fact the only time I liked it was when it was used by Douglas Adams in his novel, The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, just because his entire book is supposed to make no sense whatsoever. When something came out of nowhere suddenly saves the day, it was completely consistent with the rest of the book.

I remember it was also used in The Book of the New Sun, after the protagonist was caught by his enemies when he was fighting in the war. It kind of made sense and wasn't as blatant since that guy did owe him his freedom and did come from the future.














This time, you can't choose your origin. Not a big deal actually since all the stories became almost identical once you're out there with the Grey Wardens. The different starting plots didn't significantly raise the replay value of the entire game because it was fun to replay only the beginning.