firehose

Fox has ordered a put pilot of The Cure, a project from Malcolm Gladwell—author of several bestselling pop-science books and a staff writer at the New Yorker—and Glenn Gordon Caron, the creator of Medium. The Cure is a medical thriller about tackling a deadly disease; Deadline observes that The Cure stands out for being the rare drama that, right from its premise, centers on a black protagonist. She’s described as “a young, impulsive African-American neurologist who decides to take the law into her own hands.”

Gladwell has tried his hand at TV writing before, developing the script for the HBO Cold War drama The Missionary, a show that never made it past the pilot stage. Should The Cure go forward, it’s unknown whether he’d stick around or, like Michael Crichton on ER, just be there for the pilot and subsequent creator credit.

Fox’s decision ...

Reid Beels

CenturyLink has accused Comcast of trying to prevent competition in cities and towns by making it difficult for the company to obtain reasonable franchise agreements from local authorities.

CenturyLink made the claim yesterday in a filing that asks the Federal Communications Commission to block Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC) or impose conditions that prevent Comcast from using its market power to harm competitors.

Comcast has a different view on the matter, saying that CenturyLink shouldn’t be able to enter Comcast cities unless CenturyLink promises to build out its network to all residents. Without such conditions, poor people might not be offered service, Comcast argues.

The Bagel Bites jingle (“Pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening…”) has long been a source of much love and amusement, even if the product it sells isn’t nearly as worthwhile of admiration. And, the Internet being the Internet, there are plenty of covers of that jingle floating around, from one semi-sweetly sung by a dad to his baby to another that’s not nearly as family friendly. MetalSucks has uncovered a pretty good new one, though, sung in the style of Slayer, a band that undoubtedly loves both pizza and bagels. “Bagel Bites [Snack Em All]” was produced by MetalSucks reader Sloan Stewart and is apparently a tribute to not only the hybrid food, but to big-ass cans of Mountain Dew and hamfisted trips to Dollar General. God bless America.

Free Press

For the past couple of years, Comcast has been trying to convince journalists and the general public that it doesn’t impose any “data caps” on its Internet service.

That’s despite the fact that Comcast in some cities enforces limits on the amount of data customers can use and issues financial penalties for using more than the allotment. Comcast has said this type of billing will probably roll out to its entire national footprint within five years, perhaps alongside a pricier option to buy unlimited data.

“There isn't a cap anymore. We're out of the cap business,” Executive Vice President David Cohen said in May 2012 after dropping a policy that could cut off people's service after they use 250GB in a month. Comcast's then-new approach was touted to "effectively offer unlimited usage of our services because customers will have the ability to buy as much data as they want."

By Richard Cobbett on August 26th, 2014 at 5:00 pm.

Reluctant shadow hunter Gabriel Knight returns to the scene of his first case soon, and we’ve played through the first few days (though for this one, we’ll be talking just about a recent build offering a polished up version of Days 1 and 2). Will history repeat itself both inside and out of the game and turn a 90s adventure classic into a modern one too? Here’s some impressions.

Gabriel Knight is, and by no small amount, one of my favourite adventure games of all time, and one I hold very dear – an early glimpse at a world that truly embraced the kind of narrative and atmosphere and maturity that we now take for granted, but was in sadly short supply back in 1993. I remember seeing the first screenshot, of Grace apologising to one of Gabriel’s many conquests that “Gabriel is a lout. I mean, he’s out.” I remember the issue of InterAction, the official magazine that proudly declared itself “A Blatantly Biased Look At The Games From The Sierra Family,” showing this world not based on dungeons and dragons or fairy tales or whatever, but inspired by the likes of Angel Heart. Obviously I’d never heard of that movie at the time, and wouldn’t in fact see it for another decade (It’s really good by the way), but it was clear that here was something special, to be anticipated and savoured and remembered and talked about some twenty years hence.

It certainly wasn’t the only adult adventure out there, with Sierra’s own Dynamix and Coktel Vision alone having several under their belts. It was however one of the first heavy hitters, held up as proof that gaming was now a grown-up thing – a tale of voodoo murder and dark history set in a world of New Orleans where one man had to uncover a conspiracy, atone for the sins of his fathers… hey, it was even in the title… and fill millions of players’ heads with all kinds of voodoo trivia that they would, probably, never be able to use. It also taught the world one valuable life lesson – never beg sympathy from a Cajun. Why? Because everyone knows you have to be Creole to be kind. Badoom-tsssh.

The thing is though that while I love the original, I’ve never been sure what the point of a remake actually is. First, the original is easily acquired and a few pixels the size of cats never hurt anybody. More importantly though, as great as it was, it was a thing very much of its time – and it’s not the graphics that date it. Twenty years is a long time, and standards have changed. The horror elements that once worked so well now feel quaint, the main story of Gabriel and his monster hunting family has been done to death, and most of all, the pacing that was fine for a 1993 adventure is now just so, so, so slow. There just never seemed any real chance of it recapturing the vibe… the spark… the raw of-its-timeness that made the original so important the first time around.

Disappointingly, I seem to be right so far. But that’s not the only reason I feel let down.

This remake is, to be clear, basically fine. Fine. It’s Gabriel Knight; the same story, the same script, the same game, save a couple of tweaks here and there and a little streamlining, such as no longer being able to go to the Napoleon House, Voodoo Museum, Dixieland Drugstore or Grandma Knight’s home on Day 1. I understand the reasoning, to make it clearer what you’re meant to do, but it still feels a shame; making the world feel so much smaller, as well as losing the earlier pointers to Gabriel having a life outside of torturing Mosely and waiting for his destiny to kick in. That said, other changes are very welcome indeed, including making it much easier to find that bloody snake scale on Lake Pontchartrain, and making it much easier to find that bloody snake scale on Lake Pontchartain. Yes, I’m including that one twice, and considering throwing it in a third time.

What’s missing though is the vibe, the atmosphere, and most importantly, a sense that this remake was done with a full understanding of why decisions were made the first time around, despite Jane Jensen being on board. It’s hard to explain why it doesn’t work, but… okay, try this. Imagine taking a TV show, upscaling it to IMAX size, and passing it off as an IMAX movie. It’s not going to work, because the creative decisions that went into the original can’t simply be copy and pasted into another format. Here for instance, the move from a letterbox view to a full screen has major knock-on implications for the setting. The letter boxing added a sinister claustrophobic nature to the world that added to the sense of menace all around despite it taking most of the game for anything to really happen, and that’s gone. Just as notably though, the original rooms are built around that aspect ratio, with the result that their redrawn ones… especially stretched out across a widescreen monitor… can feel cavernous. Gabriel’s detective pal Mosely especially seems to have less of an office than a warehouse, while the roof of Gabriel’s bedroom is now about twelve feet high. In itself, no, that’s not a big deal, but a change of view this dramatic calls for more reworking than redrawing.

The use of colour is arguably the biggest problem throughout the bits that I’ve seen though. Gabriel Knight was inspired by graphic novels and restricted to a 256 colour palette, and the artists used every shade of it to push the atmosphere of each scene – the warmth of St. George’s, the coldness of the murder at Lake Pontchartain, and most dramatically, the otherworldly opening of each day – blood red letters splashing over vivid pools of green and purple and an amber sky that doesn’t get to rise. Here though, not only are those individual elements nowhere near as strong even at their darkest, they’re soon flattened by the light in a way that smacks less of “Welcome to our dark game of mystery” as “Cool, looking like a nice morning in New Orleans.” It’s just not the same.

Again, it’s not that the art is in itself bad. It does however often seem to miss the point, stepping away from elements that worked so well to create atmosphere the first time around instead of seeming to acknowledge their importance, and making some genuinely bizarre changes. Super-rich socialite and definitely not villain Malia Gedde for instance has swapped her moody, fire-lit library and its expensive leather chairs for bright pink chintz. The murder scene at Lake Pontchartrain, originally cold and moody and in the middle of nowhere, is now orange-soaked and peaceful and looking like quite a nice place for a picnic… a thing that quickly has a dreadful knock-on-effect with Malia’s graphic novel style introduction when she rolls up in her car and we no can longer have the powerful, iconic contrast between her warm world of orange and Gabriel’s of blue – as well as giving her an oddly neutral expression rather than the actual emotion of the original. It’s just so disappointing. Gabriel Knight was all about style and mood and atmosphere. 20th Anniversary is technically solid, and sometimes looks really good – St. George’s and the Voodoo Museum being standouts on these Days. It feels oddly passionless though; screen after screen of cucumber-flavoured meh that’s far more concerned with technical realism than pushing the mood or needs of the story.

One thing that the remake had no choice but to start afresh with though are voices, due to the original recordings not being available or good enough quality, and much of its cast being either out of a remake’s budget or inconveniently dead. The replacements I’ve heard so far are at least okay, though sometimes it can be difficult to judge between better, worse, and simply different. Grace for instance sounds flat to me, but to at least some extent that could be down to just not being Leah Remini. By far the biggest improvement so far is the Narrator, sticking with Virginia Capers’ strong accent but talking a lot faster. The weakest so far however is Gabriel himself, who always seems to be doing an impression of Tim Curry doing his already dodgy New Orleans accent. (Yes. Yes it was.) It’s distracting when it’s okay, and when it’s not… well, think “Schattenjager Elvis.”

It adds a few things to the mix too of course, including the aforementioned streamlining of the puzzles, a Journal that replaces the tape-recorder with quick reminders of what to do next, a full hints system, and behind-the-scenes bonus content. This is a really great idea, frustratingly executed, showing storyboards and early pencilwork and comparison shots… trapped in a really small window in the middle of the screen, with no way to blow them out and actually get a good look. There are also a few comments from people like Jensen and composer Robert Holmes, but again no space to actually put them, so all there seems to be are thrown out snippets like “The police station music has a sense of humour. Inspirations were Animal House and Airplane” and “The player encounters the murder scene right away on day 1.” Yeah. Not exactly the inside scoop there, guys.

Again though, the issue feels a bit deeper; a lingering lack of passion – that the updates are only concerned with the surface level, that the art takes the safest possible path, that the flow changes are less about the sense that this is how Gabriel Knight should be as just, well, talking down a bit to modern adventurers as poor startled children who couldn’t possibly handle things like a bar that doesn’t serve an immediate purpose. This also unfortunately extends to some of the weakly implemented edits and additions, like nobody having taken a moment to fix the line where Grace comments on Gabriel’s hair sticking up despite him now having the lion’s mane look from the later games, or the way that looking at the newspaper claims that the front page story is about the Voodoo Murders when the new zoom-in to show it reveals it to be a puff piece for Jackson Square that no paper would dream of wasting a headline on on the slowest of news days, or most embarrassingly, that there’s a big pile of Gabriel’s novels in his cabinet that are credited to “Blake Backlash” (and in one case “Black Backlash”), which Beast Within players will know is his detective rather than his pen-name, and definitely not the name of a female orthodontist as discussed on Day 1.

These are trivial things, yes, but trivial things build up, especially in a game meant to be a celebration. And unfortunately for me, even a couple of days built them up too much. I won’t say I’m not curious to see how a few of the later scenes have been redone and won’t be glad to get a remastered version of the soundtrack at some point, but nothing in the days I’ve played suggests that this rather than the original is going to be the definitive version. They both suffer from pacing issues, but the original just has more personality in everything from backgrounds to portraits, sprites that seem part of the world, better atmosphere despite the infinitely more limited technology and palette, and above all, makes all the pieces feel like they’re pulling together. The remake on the other hand has a simplified interface and streamlining, better music, a tolerable narrator and graphics better suited to modern monitors even if they are iPad aspect ratio. I know which I’d choose.

What could improve things before release? Things like graphics and voice are obviously locked at this point, though a few quick changes where possible to the newspapers and Gabriel’s books wouldn’t go amiss. Realistically though, the biggest improvement for me would be to throw out the behind-the-scenes content in its current form and replace it with something good – allow full-screen views and zooms of the scans, and dump the dribblingly inane “The splendour of Malia Gedde’s home is a direct contrast to Gabriel’s lifestyle” obviousness in favour of some actual anecdotes, stories, talk of things like how the game changed over development and cut content, other directions the game might have taken, talk of the line is between the real and fictional voodoo, how the graphic novel style came to be and why it wasn’t continued with in later games… y’know, interesting things. As much as I prefer the original game to its remake so far, that would offer a solid reason to go through it again. Certainly more than the new tweaks and shiny scenery.

Still, I do hope it does well. It might just be my imagination, but 20th Anniversary feels less like a project in its own right as a glorified audition for that Gabriel Knight sequel that we never got, in much the same way as Leisure Suit Larry. The series didn’t have the same level of “Oh you bastards!” cliffhanger as, say, Tex Murphy, but it would be good to see the story conclude in some form, whether a new novel like Aaron Connors is doing for Tex, or a full-on new adventure. Whether or not this can bring in enough new fans to rekindle the fire though, I have doubts. The original is still an indisputable classic, but a classic that’s had its day, even if it does still have its Knight.

Gabriel Knight: 20th Anniversary Edition is due for release “mid-2014″.

Polaris, best known as “that band from The Adventures Of Pete And Pete,” is going on tour. The Mark Mulcahy-fronted trio has only played live once, during a charity concert in 2012, and it released just one record—the aptly titled Music From The Adventures Of Pete & Pete—back in 1999. The Waiting For October tour makes stops in nine different cities, including New York City, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. Its October 26 show in Chicago, presented by Consequence Of Sound, will be held in tandem with a taping of The Adventures Of Danny And Mike, a podcast hosted by Danny Tamberelli and Mike Maronna, the two original brothers Pete.

Dates for the whole run are below, as is one of the band’s best-known songs.

Polaris tour 2014

Oct. 4—The Met—Providence, Rhode Island
Oct. 9—Hammerstein Ballroom—New York, New York
Oct. 10—Spaceland Ballroom—Hamden, Connecticut
Oct ...

Trend pieces about so-called college hookup culture tend to overestimate how much sex students are actually having. Last year, a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association found that less than 30 percent of college students had more than one partner in the previous year. Which about equals data from surveys taken over the last twenty years. This means, as Time’s Maia Szalavitz noted at time time, college students “aren’t hooking up more than they ever were, or even more than their parents did.”

So with this in mind, I didn’t put much stock in a Bloomberg News headline declaring that hookup culture was waning “amid assault alarm.” According to the piece, heightened awareness about sexual assault on college campuses and a greater move toward justice for survivors has made some college men’s boners shrink in terror. We are, it seems, meant to feel alarmed at these shrinking boners.

From Bloomberg:

Katie McDonough is Salon's politics writer, focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.