First Impressions: Percy Jackson; Sea of Monsters

Allow me to make something perfectly clear before you begin reading this: I have never, and will never, read or watch anything of Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson” series, and the information contained below comes from advertisements, whatever I dub usable of the Wikipedia page, and a regrettable time in my life when I was reading and couldn’t be asked to flip the channel from the original film. Normally I would consider the fact that I am probably angering a lot of fans from a dedicated following. However, because the dedicated following is eleven year old boys and mothers who are trying a little too hard to relate to the party former, I feel very little risk in writing the following paragraphs.

 

The “Percy Jackson” series is a collection of books on the elder end of the children’s novels group. It follows a 50% human, 100% ridiculously white tween son of a Greek god (Poseidon, if you are showing an unhealthy interest in this already) as he embarks on a ridiculously white tween journey to save the world from World War 3. Now, I have no trouble suspending my disbelief for fiction, especially fiction aimed at young teens, but the impracticality of it is the basis of zero of my many complaints.

 

The first complaint is how much material is played straight to the point teeth-gnashing obnoxiousness. For a young audience, you can’t take the Ernest Hemingway approach of presenting a deep and complicated story as a literary iceberg. Thing flying over the head of your target audience is never a plus, but if you are going to weave a tale at leash put your back in it! I’m going to pick on Rick Riordan as little as possible because for all I know his books were a series of masterpieces; the fact is that I can’t invest enough time to find out in a fair and equitable way, so I won’t try. What I WILL pick on, with the picking intensity and fervor of that greasy nose-picking weirdo on the public bus, is the film adaption.  The film seems to find it necessary to include the character synopsis of whoever is speaking in the dialogue each and every time that they speak. Really, watch the trailer for “Sea of Monsters” if you haven’t already; no character refers to themselves without using 10 syllable phrases. The two most awkward and uncomfortable examples are the two main speakers of the trailer (excluding the narrator who sounds like creepy bum who refuses to leave the ball pit area at the carnival. The titular protagonist Percy Jackson and token female teammate and the following quotes respectively: “I’m son of Poseidon, God of the Sea” and “Goddess of Wisdom’s daughter, remember?”. Again, I’m not asking for discretion to rival “The Crucible”, but at this point I could read the dictionary aloud and, so long as I added some angst every few pages, produce a screenplay with the same amount of originality and artistic execution.

 

In a similar but less annoying vein, it bothers me how little about Greek mythology they incorporated outside of the copy-paste sessions. The “Sea of Monsters” film follows a quest for the Golden Fleece that will in some way help Percy save the world. Considering that the most common and accepted theory about the original story is that the Golden Fleece represented royal power, the moral message of the story becomes gray for me. Is this a story of a hero who is a hero only because of genetic destiny? Is this a story of a perplexingly Caucasian hero saving the world by asserting his authority over it? Am I thinking too deeply and should just leave it alone? Any of these are possible, except for the last one. That one is impossible.

 

I feel that my second complaint needs a bit of a disclaimer. One of my least favorite things in the media or on the internet is accusations of racism where there isn’t any. Not to say that there isn’t any racism in the media or on the internet (there is metric butt-loads), people who unjustly jump to the conclusion of racism (often because they feel that not siding with the minority in question will somehow make them morally compromised) it further drives a wedge in between people. With that said, “Percy Jackson” makes some very questionable choices that at the end of the day left me with a bit of a sour stomach. Why are the children of all the Mediterranean religious figures white as the driven snow? Why do most all prominent characters have so distinctly Euro-American names like Percy, Annabeth, and Clarisse? Why is the only prominent African-American character part livestock? I won’t go so far to call the film racially insensitive, but I don’t feel that I’m out of line to say that many of these choices are in bad taste, and much better choices could have been made.

 

There isn’t much of a wrap-up to write. I can’t recommend this film to anyone. Poor acting, poor writing, elitist undertones, and lack of artistic execution force my hand on this one. I will not be seeing “Sea of Monsters”, and I recommend the same course of action for you.

DLC Quest Review

Most anyone who has come within earshot of PC gaming is familiar with Valve’s distribution client, Steam. Anyone under 60 who is male and sweaty is also familiar with Steam’s famous Daily Deal system. This system is a fantastic way to introduce people to gaming at a very low cost. Even more so in the fact that indie games often have massive sales allowing you to pick them up for less than a Big Mac. This provided me the opportunity to play and review Going Loud Studios’ DLC Quest for less that a trip to the Laundry.

DLC Quest is a satirical take on what would happen if a game developer took the concept of Downloadable Content too far. The game itself has no real DLC but instead an in-game merchant who makes the “DLC” available in exchange for coins found in the world.

Let’s get the iffy bits out of the way first. The game is done in a charming 16-bit graphical style. While I can appreciate the throw-back feel and the quaintness and simplicity it brings, it’s a confusing artistic choice. If the goal of the game is to explore the concept of DLC, even satirically, why chose an art style of a period of gaming when DLC wasn’t around? Yes, the game is a 2D side-scroller. Yes, the game was most likely made on a very small budget, but that argument only goes so far. I understand that stylistic choices are motivated by both artistic vision and cost restraints, but those restraints need to find a happy middle ground, not just a patch of earth that they both agree is “kinda ok”. My complaint is more on the style than graphic quality. Don’t get me wrong, DLC Quest is very pretty. Some of my favorite games have considerably worse graphics than DLC Quest, but the stylistic choices made sense to me. The confusion I faced was not dissimilar to the confusion of passing a hipster on the street who seems particularly proud that his trousers are three sizes too small. You could form whatever opinion you like over them, but the common question passing through everyone’s head is just “why?”.

“Why?” is really the basis of the rest of my complaints. Why is the platforming of such a simple game so frustratingly difficult? Why did they add a required “DLC” that doesn’t add any laughs or content to the game at such a high price? The logical answer to that last one is to pad the game out, but it’s negated by the next one. Why am I still playing thi-, oh wait I’m not, the game’s over. Sometimes padding is necessary to make a game feel like it was worth it on a “Pay versus Play” level. That is why Triple A  shooters have so many “wave upon wave” sections, and most MMOs have you collect an absurd amount of goose skulls before you’re allowed to continue on. What perplexes me most of all is why the developer felt padding was necessary in a game that took me about a half hour to get through when I was in no particular rush. Believe it or not, I thoroughly enjoyed DLC Quest, and its breath-taking brevity is probably my biggest complaint.

There are other complaints, but they are really nothing to babel on about. They controls were a bit clunky and it could take a dozen tries to reach a platform even if you knew exactly what you were supposed to do from the first try. The 2D wall jumping sections made me wish I was 2D (as to say flattened, like under a bus, or lets say YOUR MOM). There are secret tunnels that provide some sense of accomplishment and reward, but it kind of ruined it for me that the most efficient way to find them was to repeatedly running-jump smash your head into a wall like an increasingly concussed Roomba.

There were positives too, don’t worry.  The concept and much of the humor in the game was well planned and executed. Once you “pay” for the music it is relaxing and comforting in a peppy, retro sort of way. DLC Quest is genuinely funny, and I welcome that with open arms in the current gaming market that is covered in the grim-dark ilk of millionaire studios depressed over how long its been since they had fun. At the end of the day, that is really the highest praise I can give DLC Quest. Its FUN. I had FUN playing it, which is more than I can say for a lot of the grim-dark entries of major studios into the Sorrow Games. I liked having a protagonist that didn’t meet every challenge with self-pity or terribly snarky  one-liners. If you want value from a game, what you really need to ask yourself is “Did I have fun?” For me, DLC Quest, for all its flaws, provided a big “Yes.”

In short, its a time trial for completionists. It doesn’t take long and gives you a grade depending on how much of collectible content you collected. If you are a completionist or someone else who enjoys scavenger hunts, check out DLC Quest.  I can’t recommend this game to everyone because it isn’t really for everyone. Its not a universally good experience. There is no ultra-compelling story line, no breath-taking scenery, or heart-pumping action. Its fun, its quick, its cheap. For a game that I can complete in my lunch break, I give it a solid score for value and humor. Not for everyone, but worth a look.