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Thought I would use Chris Pine up there didn’t ya?

Anyways, we have a shiny new show for you this week. Many things are discussed (New TV Pilots, Doctor Who, Injustice and Monaco) this week, but really it’s all a build up to the big release next week of Star Trek Into Darkness and The season finale of Doctor Who. So think of this as an apéritif for next weeks meal.

Cheers

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We’re back after a week off to kick off the summer movie season in style, with a rapid-fire summary of two weeks’ worth of news. We follow that up with not one but two episodes of Doctor Who that I didn’t bother to watch, and then move into a discussion of the summer’s first big film (sorry, Michael Bay), Iron Man 3. There are some spoilers, so fast forward if you haven’t seen the film yet. Enjoy!

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This week’s episode is partially about entertainment news, but mostly about tearing the heads off of police officers in Bioshock Infinite. We talk for a long time about how the excessive violence impacts the story. For me it’s an issue that began way back in Grand Theft Auto IV, when the series switched over from being a fun, tongue-in-cheek romp to trying to tell a real story about a character with actual definition. That narrative failed for a lot of reasons, but a big one for me was that Nico was constantly lamenting the fact that, although he had left his old violent ways behind, he kept getting sucked back into that world when he really just wanted to settle down and live the American Dream. Which is a noble goal, but a difficult one to reconcile after you just had him murder forty policemen and countless innocent bystanders on his way to play darts with his idiot cousin.

It’s easy to ignore all the murder when your game is supposed to be a popcorn adventure like Uncharted or Saints Row, but this becomes more difficult when you’re trying to say something. Killing a bunch of people in The Rock or Con Air has very little impact and is easy to brush over, because those films are meant to be fun and mindless. Killing people in A History of Violence or Eastern Promises has an impact on the main character and is a considered narrative choice. Bioshock Infinite is most definitely trying to say something, something that’s dependent on both of its main characters and their relationship on a lot of different levels. The fact that one of these characters is literally covered in the caked-on blood and viscera of hundreds of people who have died by his hand by the end of the game, and that his companion doesn’t seem to mind all that much, is very difficult to ignore.

Which isn’t to say it’s impossible to ignore, especially when you’re used to it from playing countless video games. I really enjoyed Infinite’s story. It’s one of the best video game narratives I’ve ever played, not that there’s a big list of decent game stories I can reel off right here and now. In fact, the story often outshines the gameplay – as we discuss in the podcast there were moments in the final hours where I didn’t want another monotonous gunfight, I just wanted to get to the next plot point. The resolution is wonderful, sci-fi in all the right ways while also grim and thought-provoking. And yet I couldn’t help but think that if the whole thing were told as a two hour movie with 1/100 of the murder it would have been even better. Violence is a necessary part of the story, but when you kill as many people as Booker does, it becomes so commonplace as to not even be an issue. Better to isolate it to a few incidents and talk about it.

There’s a moment in the opening hour of Infinite when Booker, after walking peacefully through Columbia for a bit, brutally murders his first police officer. The violence is so sudden, so brutal, and so unexpected, that it made me jump up and take notice. The juxtaposition was jarring, but in a really good way, a way that the game could have really taken advantage of. Then it happens again and again and again and that sudden, shocking violence is now commonplace and meaningless. Yes, it means something that Booker kills again after his experiences at Wounded Knee. But the question we’ve got to ask here is “Would it have meant more or less if he’d only done it three times as opposed to three hundred?” I think it would have meant more. The violence is then a shock, an issue, to both the player and to Booker.

But, of course, you can’t do that in a video game. You can’t tell a succinct story in two hours because no one’s going to buy a two hour game. And you can’t omit the violence and the shooting, because it’s a first-person shooter – you’ve got to have large-scale battles every five to ten minutes. These are huge obstacles to overcome in serious AAA video game storytelling. “You can tell whatever story you want, but make sure your main character kills as many people/aliens/robots as possible in it.” The fact that Infinite tried and succeeded despite those shackles is notable, but that doesn’t mean the shackles aren’t there.

I’m not against violence in art and I don’t want to play through Infinite by sneaking past all the guards and not killing anyone (and an army of robots, despite my podcast musings, probably wouldn’t work either). All I’m saying, as a writer, is that the level of violence in Infinite gets in the way of the narrative. The story’s still great, the game’s still great, and I enjoyed pretty much all of it. But Booker’s story is hampered by the fact that a defining and gruesome trait of his character must be ignored (by both the game and the player) in order for it all to work properly. It hurts the game. Only a little, but it does. So mad props to Ken Levine and the Infinite team for crafting a story so good that I almost don’t care. Almost.

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A return to title puns for an all-new Zero Room! I may have done Lore before but I don’t think so. I know there was a four/Dumbledore at one point. But anyway, join us in our latest episode as we talk about a bunch of news stories, including some casting rumors from Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and a look at seventeen minutes of Battlefield 4 from GDC. Then it’s on to Doctor Who talk – in a shocking twist, I seriously enjoyed the latest episode. But the Christmas special was pretty dreadful, so don’t be too concerned. Best/Worst this week features Bioshock Infinite, Guardians of the Galaxy. I also mentioned the online card game Innovation, which you can attempt to decipher for yourself at this link here.

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This week’s episode of The Zero Room kicks off with an informative conversation about the worms living in my dog’s anus! It gets better from there. There’s box office talk, a quick bit of Jurassic Park 4 news that Jose doesn’t care about because his heart is cold and dead, and a big conversation on the huge success of the Veronica Mars kickstarter. Unfortunately we both think it’s a good thing, so we pretty much just agree with each other for twenty minutes. Everything wraps up with Best/Worst, where we complain about Simcity for a while.

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Episode 220 is listenable above or here if you want to be difficult. This one features two weeks’ worth of  news stories, from the cancellation of Zero Hour (Jose’s favorite show) to the impaling of Damian Wayne (Jose’s favorite Robin). We meant to talk for a while about the Oscars, but we spent about two minutes on that and far more time on fan films, sparked by the Internet’s odd love of this mediocre Wonder Woman trailer that you don’t have to watch. Enjoy!

Oh, and Jose was a guest on Trek.fm’s Observation Lounge over the weekend. If you really do want to hear about the Oscar winners, and are excited at the prospect of hearing Jose’s voice without mine, go here to listen!

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We talked a little bit about the new Star Wars movies (I have a feeling we’ll be doing this a lot) this week on the show. I basically posed the idea that I’m not sure if we (as fans) want Star Wars without the characters that we love. Han, Leia and Luke. I’m not convinced that we want new characters or are willing to accept them. I could be wrong, but only time will tell.

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After a much-deserved hiatus for the Super Bowl, we are back with another new episode. This week covers multiple news stories, but there’s two big ones that took up most of our time. First up is the rumor of a scrapped Justice League script. With Disney/Marvel knocking superhero movies out of the park, how hard can it be for Warners, who know a thing or two about franchise films, to figure out what to do with their DC heroes? Jose is so pissed off about this that he broke the podcast and we had to start over. Second is the announcement that Disney/Lucasfilm is developing standalone films for young Han Solo and Boba Fett. Many are concerned that they’re going to run this thing into the ground. Did you think Disney bought Star Wars to do three movies in nine years? No. They bought it to make a bunch of money, and that means a move a year. So get ready.

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Yea, I got nothing this week. By the time we recorded the podcast all the good lens flare jokes were already taken. Still, we talk a little bit about the Star Wars news this week. I just want to jump three years in the future so I can just watch the movie and skip the years of agonizing scrutiny that this film will next before it is released.

Honestly, we get a lot more in depth about our favorite Doctor Who episodes and the stylistic choices of the possible new Justice League film.

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It’s a slow news week on the latest edition of The Zero Room. This leads to Jose talking about all the great movies of 2012 that he finally got around to watching, even though we already did our Best of 2012 show like two friggin’ weeks ago. We also touch on Arnold’s triumphant return to the big screen in The Last Stand, a film which no one seemed too excited to go see. I will likely catch it on Blu-ray in a few months in a double feature with Jack Reacher. After that I blather on about Minecraft for a little while before we end with Best and Worst. Which iOS game am I obsessed with this week? Tune in to find out.

Also, there was an episode last week. Jose didn’t get a chance to update. But if you missed it, you can listen over there on the right side of the page in the little player thing. Enjoy!