Let's Play Sierra - er, Tsunami - Games - BLUE FORCE.

[goatmeal]

I agreed with all of your points, my friend.

1. "Entering after <not> hearing a sound" -- Though my wife and I like Nathan Fillion, we never watched Castle; I was thinking more of Law & Order SVU for this one, among others.

2. "This one's personal!" -- The recent FBI series (original, not Most Wanted or International) is guilty of this one all too often; hearing Jeremy Sisto practically scream that every other episode (along with his yelling all his other lines) is quite grating.

[Rath Darkblade]

Another one that's annoying is how everyone acts like they only have ONE case to actively work on at any moment. In reality, the caseload depends on where the detectives are (NYC will generally see more crime on a daily basis than Lincoln, Nebraska), but on TV, our protagonists focus solely on this ONE case for days or weeks entirely to justify the plot of the episode or episodes in a multi-episode story.

Something that relates to this "one case" issue is how in TV shows and movies, detectives always act annoyed if the FBI pick up the case and take over. You'll generally hear some line that goes: "They can't take this case from us, it's ours!" In reality, however, detectives generally have a large caseload so if they can unload some of that work to the FBI, they're usually happy (or at least not annoyed) to do so because they have plenty of other cases that need to be worked on.

Er, doesn't the immature-and-inexperienced 'detective' from Brooklyn 999 always say things like that?

And yes, I agree it's silly. "It's my case! Mine! My precious."

Well, how else are we to show the fact that there's a criminal layer to everything AND that our protagonist is a tough, street smart cop who "doesn't play by the rules" in a show or movie?

Why does this remind me so much of McBain? "Bye, book!"



Seriously, though ... why does every TV cop have to be tough and not "play by the rules"? That trope is as old as Dirty Harry, and possibly older.

How about a TV show about a police accountant? Sure, it might be boring. If they go the lazy-and-stereotypical way about it - glasses, pocket protector etc. - it will be boring. They could also give it the "Batman" routine. "He balances the books by day, but solves crime at night!" But that'd be silly.

OTOH, if there's going to be another police TV show, I'd love to see something like The Thin Blue Line crossing the Atlantic. Any takers?

[notbobsmith]

Just finished your commentary video. Just a few comments:

It seems a bit odd that Jake is allowed to be on his own on his first day on the job. Don't the police usually have training officers to keep an eye on them for a while?

26:15 It does seem like the accident should be related to the plot. Like an attempted hit on Jake. Otherwise it's a really bad bit of luck to end up in the hospital after only his second day on the job.

27:30 I do find it a little amusing that Jake is using an 11-year old computer. It still works? No one replaced it? Has anyone powered it up in the last 11 years and tried to find out what the password protected files are? C:? Did home computers have hard drives in 1983?

42:57 One thing about Tsunami games that seems to be lacking is the added "flavor" that item descriptions can add. Looking at most things just say "a desk" or "a chair". The bottle or bourbon here is a good example. Trying to use it should give a humorous response, instead we get "Doing that serves no purpose." Sierra was better at this. A few lines of description can add a little more mood to a location.

[Tawmis]

Just finished your commentary video. Just a few comments:
It seems a bit odd that Jake is allowed to be on his own on his first day on the job. Don't the police usually have training officers to keep an eye on them for a while?

I would assume so. I know in cars, there's always the buddy system. I assume they'd do the same for motorcycle cops.

26:15 It does seem like the accident should be related to the plot. Like an attempted hit on Jake. Otherwise it's a really bad bit of luck to end up in the hospital after only his second day on the job.

Yeah, that bugged me that we're barely into being an officer, with a game called BLUE Force, and he gets taken out on ACCIDENT, not related to the story. Like would have been cool to find the car that hit you in the warehouse at the end.

27:30 I do find it a little amusing that Jake is using an 11-year old computer. It still works? No one replaced it? Has anyone powered it up in the last 11 years and tried to find out what the password protected files are? C:? Did home computers have hard drives in 1983?

It does say - if you try to use it before you're actually able to - that it's running "defrag" or something.

42:57 One thing about Tsunami games that seems to be lacking is the added "flavor" that item descriptions can add. Looking at most things just say "a desk" or "a chair". The bottle or bourbon here is a good example. Trying to use it should give a humorous response, instead we get "Doing that serves no purpose." Sierra was better at this. A few lines of description can add a little more mood to a location.

Agreed.

[DeadPoolX]

Did home computers have hard drives in 1983?

I know the Apple Lisa had an optional 5MB or 10MB external hard drive that could be connected and the Apple II also had an interface card available for it to use with the external hard drive, but I have no idea how many people bought it.

I imagine in both cases the purchase of what was likely an extremely expensive peripheral device was limited to some businesses or home users with a lot of extra money.

[goatmeal]

1. "Entering after <not> hearing a sound"

Happened again on "Law & Order: Organized Crime" last Thursday night:

Stabler and his commander, Bell, arrive at a house. Stabler knocks on the door, announcing who they are and whom they are looking for. No answer.

Stabler tries the front door; finding it unlocked, he starts to open it. Exasperated, Bell admonishes him, "Elliot..."

Stabler: "I thought I heard something."

And they both enter the premises...

[DeadPoolX]

Seriously, though ... why does every TV cop have to be tough and not "play by the rules"? That trope is as old as Dirty Harry, and possibly older.

Because it apparently resonates with viewers. I think most people really don't like seeing anything new or different.

[Rath Darkblade]

1. "Entering after <not> hearing a sound"

Happened again on "Law & Order: Organized Crime" last Thursday night:

Stabler and his commander, Bell, arrive at a house. Stabler knocks on the door, announcing who they are and whom they are looking for. No answer.

Stabler tries the front door; finding it unlocked, he starts to open it. Exasperated, Bell admonishes him, "Elliot..."

Stabler: "I thought I heard something."

And they both enter the premises...

"Good enough for me. Let's roll!"

Honestly, a more probable cause would be if Stabler could smell gunpowder (or nitroglycerin, sawdust, and graphite). That's a dead giveaway (pardon the pun) that some gun-play has happened. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if the writers used the dreaded "smell of cordite" -- but that'd be very unlikely IRL, since cordite hasn't been used since World War 2.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: if you're not sure about something, do some basic research. Ask an expert. Ask google or Wikipedia. Hell, there are even a YouTube videos about it, created by experts. (One of my major characters in a new novel I'm writing is a blacksmith, and I watched at least 15 videos made by blacksmiths about the smithing process).

Any research you do is better than writing rubbish!

[Tawmis]

Did home computers have hard drives in 1983?

I know the Apple Lisa had an optional 5MB or 10MB external hard drive that could be connected and the Apple II also had an interface card available for it to use with the external hard drive, but I have no idea how many people bought it.
I imagine in both cases the purchase of what was likely an extremely expensive peripheral device was limited to some businesses or home users with a lot of extra money.

Hard disk drives for personal computers (PCs) were initially a rare and very expensive optional feature; systems typically had only the less expensive floppy disk drives or even cassette tape drives as both secondary storage and transport media. However, by the late 1980s, hard disk drives were standard on all but the cheapest PC and floppy disks were used almost solely as transport media.
Most hard disk drives in the early 1980s were sold to PC end users by systems integrators such as the Corvus Disk System or the systems manufacturer such as the Apple ProFile. The IBM PC XT in 1983, included an internal standard 10 MB hard disk drive and IBM's version of Xebec's hard disk drive controller, and soon thereafter internal hard disk drives proliferated on personal computers, one popular type was the ST506/ST412 hard drive and MFM interface.

So I am guessing, yes, if you are rich.

I know my friend Shawn - his father, who had a huge computer set up and room - definitely had a hard drive in his 1987 machine - because that's when he first introduced me and Shawn to KQ1 (which had been out), and Leisure Suit Larry (which he'd just gotten brand new).

And started my addiction.