Can Aaron Stone Save The World?
I'm always checking the free section of the iTunes Music Store to see what I can get for nothing, and discovered the pilot episode of a new Disney Channel original series called Aaron Stone available for download. It's not free anymore, but the series premieres on the Disney Channel tonight.
The basic plot revolves around Charlie, your average high school teenager, who, as online avatar Aaron Stone, is the best player of an online game called Hero Rising. Suddenly he's recruited to be a real-life Aaron Stone by a mysterious billionaire and must save the world. Of course, he has to do all of this while hiding his secret from his little brother and single mom. And because it's a Disney show, it's all very wholesome.
The problem is that the footage of Hero Rising is just awful. It's no wonder that Charlie is the best player in the whole game, because it looks like a terrible game. Terrible. I can understand why mainstream TV series get videogames wrong (why is the Pac Man wakka wakka sound effect the default for every single game anyone on TV plays?), but if you're basing your entire show around an MMORPG, why wouldn't you try to make it good? Or at least accurate? It appears to be a PC game, because he's not using a PS3 or 360 controller, but there's no real interface. No names above people's heads, and no HUD whatsoever. Oh, and speaking of the Atari-style SFX, they almost got points for having a supporting character playing a PSP, but lost them again with the bleep bloop sounds. I mean, really? Why can't TV get videogames right?
Still, the lead is cute, and there's a surprisingly entertaining parkour chase scene in the middle of the pilot. So it might not be all bad. I mean, it was just getting started when it hit the 30 minute mark and was "To Be Continued," and the teasers have lots more action sequences, so maybe it gets better.
Wootini
Posted to Video Games on 13 February 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: aaron stone, disney channel, mmorpg, tv
Just looked up the trailers.....is the bald guy ment to be the worst actor ever or is that just part of his character?
Well, the bald guy's character is actually a robot, so I guess it's kind of an acting choice...
Hmm fair enough then, though looking at the premise and watching him copy his characters moves form the game IRL. I'm wondering how long till the first:
I was only copying the show
"Incident"
I'm happy Disney is corrupting kids already with leather fantasies, albeit innocent, but there's no place to go but down. lol.
well theoutfit he wearing definitly makes me a little hot under the callur. I'm hopiing he's 18 pretending to be yonger so i don't feel guilty looking at him with this funny tingel running through my body..