I Spy... Temporal Anomalies

Strange things are happening! How many temporal anomalies can you spot in the target categories below?

Rules

To score points, you must post comments stating where you have seen temporal anomalies that fit into the target categories below. For the purpose of this game, a temporal anomaly is considered to be anything that could not possibly happen in strictly linear time. For example, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the crew of the Enterprise save the Earth by travelling back to the 1980s and returning with whales.

Players are limited to one comment per day. This comment can nominate up to 3 sightings and verify any number of sightings. Any additional comments will be marked void and not counted for scoring.

The game ends on 24th December 2008 - all comments with a timestamp on or before the 23rd will count.

Scoring:

• 3 points for nominating the oldest verified sighting of each target.
• 2 points for the verification that goes with the above.
  
• 2 points for nominating additional sightings of a particular target, when verified
  
• 1 point for the verification that goes with each additional sighting.
  

Each sighting thus scores once for the nominator (3 points for the oldest-reported sighting for each target, 2 points for each other sighting of that target), and once for the verifier (2 points for the verification of the oldest-reported sighting of that target, 1 point for verifying each additional sighting of that target).

Complete rules are available here.

Because you only score points if your sightings are verified, really obscure sightings are less likely to score than really obvious sightings - but then, with internet players the reverse is sometimes true!

Prize

The winner will have their name inscribed on the Virtual Cup, along with a link of their choosing.

Target Categories

The following are the categories you can score in. Have you spotted a temporal anomaly in...

• a strategy videogame or strat-RPG
• a first person shooter
• a platform game
• a fighting game
• a computer RPG
• a massively multiplayer game
• a text adventure, point-and-click adventure, or interactive fiction
• a television show which never includes space ships
• a novel which is solely set on planet Earth
• a superhero comic
• a one-off movie (which has no sequels, prequels etc.)
• the lyrics of a song

Remember: one comment per day, with up to 3 sightings but any number of verifications. Game ends when the timestamp switches to 24th December 2008. Good luck!

Comments

[Behrooz 'Bezman' Shahriari]

Interesting theme/categories...

Platformer:

The flash game Chronotron almost entirely revolves around temporal anomalies - you go back in time to help yourself accomplish tasks.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Scarybug/chronotron

Novel set on earth:

The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter. Set after The Time Machine, the lead character's warning of the future had generated an alternate timeline with more gentle, intelligent morlocks. Then he races around history with a friendly morlock in tow, witnessing alternate events.

One-off movie
The filmic adaptation of HG Wells' The Time Machine has neither prequels nor sequels.

[dj i/o]

Platform game: Braid. Come on now. You can rewind time in this game, and do things like interact with your past self. (Hey, I hate to choose something so obvious but I wanna get points! I will post some more obscure platformers tomorrow :))

One off movie: Primer. This ultra-low budget indie film won the Grand Jury Prize at sundance in 2004. Highly recommended to anyone reading this blog. Its incredibly intricate plot deals with the ethics of time travel, however not in the typical way.

TV Show: Heroes. The show takes place in present day times and there are no space-ships. It is about people with super powers, and one of them of course can time travel.

[Behrooz 'Bezman' Shahriari]

Computer RPG:

Chrono Trigger

The grandaddy of timetravelling games. You can open treasure chests in the future, then open the same chest again in progressively earlier time periods (clearly a violation of normal physical laws!) but if you open a treasure chest in the past, it'll already be emptied in the future.

That's not to mention the main plot. I won't spoil it, but there is a lot of time travelling involved and it all ties into the 'ending' in a ludicrously impossible way, just as you'd expect.

song lyrics:

Back in Time - Johnny Colla.

This is the song featured in Back to the Future. Any songs that talks about going back in time and asks,
"Is this the fifties or 1999?"
seems to me like it's about time travelling - something that obviously cannot happen on a linear timeline.

superhero comic:
Avengers #8

This comic features Kang the Conqueror - a villain who was previously defeated when he was a Pharoah and fled into the distant future. In this comic, he returns to his own time, using weapons from the future.

http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Kang_the_Conqueror

verifications:

I'm verifying Braid and Primer. Both are things I'm familiar with and I'm really looking forward to getting a 360 mainly to play through the former and rewatching the latter. (I didn't completely understand everything 1st time around.)

I've not actually seen Heroes and don't want to look it up. (I'm one of those folk who wants to watch something with no prior knowledge, despite watching it 6 years after the fact.)

[dj i/o]

Platform game: Plok for SNES.
During the second set of levels, the titular character cannot find a flag that he is looking for. He falls asleep and has a dream about his grandfather. For the next 8 or so levels, you play as his grandfather, the graphics are even stylized in black & white. When Plok wakes up, he knows where the flag is because of the actions his grandfather took in his dream

CRPG - Shadow of Destiny. (PS2, Xbox and PC). I played the PC version of this. This is another work of fiction examining the ethics of time travel, and basically throughout the whole game you are travelling back and forth through time, changing events in the same small town. Very intricate & cool plot

Book - The entire "Magic Treehouse" series. This is a series of children's books I frequently read to my son. It is about 2 kids who have a treehouse that can magically transport them through space and time. In many of the books, they go back and witness 1st hand historic events. Often, they try to change the outcome of these events for the better (quite irresponsibly, I might add... although I don't try to explain the dynamics of that to my 4 year old, LOL). It's great for teaching kids about history though.

Verifications:

Well, actually I wanted to verify Chrono Trigger, but I myself intentionally didn't pick it during my 1st post because it's not a Computer RPG, but rather a console RPG. Chris, does the distinction matter? If so, is there a formal process for disputes? :)

[Peter Crowther]

Adventure game: LucasArts' Day of the Tentacle. 3 adventurers in time streams 200 years apart.

MMO: the Caverns of Time in World of Warcraft. Now four instances in there that involve travel to past times.

Book: Callahan's Lady by Spider Robinson, notably the solution to the final problem of dealing with Tony Donuts.

[Jose Zagal]

**Platform Game**
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
In PoP:SoT, the prince has the ability to "reverse" time. While using this ability, all sounds and previous action play backwards, and the gameworld accurately resets to an earlier state. For example, if the prince was struck by an enemy attack during the rewind period, the health he lost will be given back to him, or a bridge that was destroyed a few seconds ago will repair itself.

**Point-and-click Adevnture**

Time Hollow (recently released for Nintendo DS). The player can open windows into the past to manipulate things and thus effect changes in the present.

**One-off Movie**

Frequency (with Dennis Quaid). Son communicates with father (in the past) over a ham radio.

**Verifications**
Day of the Tentacle and Shadow of Destiny

[Behrooz 'Bezman' Shahriari]

I think that by 'computer RPG' Chris just means 'not a tabletop RPG'. If he meant something that only existed on the PC, I imagine he'd have clarified that, perhaps by calling it a 'Computer RPG released on PC' or 'PC-based RPG game'.

Conversely, if his intention was an RPG that existed on ANY computer (PC/console or graphic calculator) then I imagine he'd have defined it exactly as he did.

It didn't even occur to me until I read your post that he could have possible meant to exclude console RPGs.

Anyway, these are my 3 sightings:

# a first person shooter:
TimeSplitters (the entire series)
The entire series is about racing around time, changing history. In TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, Sargeant Cortez uses some crystals to operate a time machine and go back in time, destroying the source of the crystals. One of many paradoxes impossible in linear time.

# a strategy videogame or strat-RPG
Empire Earth
A realtime strategy game for Windows release at the turn of the century.
Particularly, the 5th scenario of the Russian campaign features time-travelling antics.

# a fighting game:
God of War 2
Please note that Chris doesn't say 'one on one fighting game'. Scrolling beat 'em ups would presumably qualify. I think that given the strong focus on slaughtering hundreds of opponents, Jaffe's series qualifies as a fighting game - it's probably the spiritual successor to the bygone Streets of Rage/Final Fight games.
In this edition, Kratos can control time somewhat.

Verifications:
Heroes (I decided to look it up. Ctrl+F let me find out about Hiro without Spoiling anything else.)
Prince of Persia:SoT
World of Warcraft
Callahan's Lady
Time Hollow (It definitely fits the theme though it's kinda on the borderline as to whether it's a point'n'click or not. I guess it's a variant on the genre.)
Frequency (I looked up the plot on Wikipedia. Sounds like something I should watch.)

[Katherine]

I will verify Chronotron in Platformers,
Chrono Trigger in CRPGs,
World of Warcraft in MMOs,
LucasArts' Day of the Tentacle in Adventure Games, and
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time in Platformers.

Can I verify two sightings in the same category? I'm just going to assume I can.

My nominations:
H. G. Wells' The Time Machine in Novels set entirely on Earth,
The movie The Time Machine (based on H. G. Wells' The Time Machine) in One-off Movies.

Really unoriginal, I know. Couldn't think of much that wasn't already mentioned unfortunately :(

[dj i/o]

Alright then, another day, more sightings :)

Song Lyrics:
Cher - "If I could turn back time"
If I could turn back time
If I could find a way I'd take back those words that hurt you and you'd stay

LOL. It seems to me that Cher was speaking of a temporal anomaly here..

TV Show:
"Lost" - In this past season, Penny's father sends a boat offshore of the island to try to find the island and purportedly rescue the survivors. However, there is some kind of strange time-delay between the island and the boat. They can't communicate directly via radio because of it, and the boat fires a capsule to the island, but it takes much longer than it should to get there. While this is not actually time travel, I think this fits the description of "anomaly" even better.

Platform game:
Time Slip for PSX. This obscure game demo never even came out retail. Every time the counter reaches 12, your past self comes back and it can hurt you if you're not careful. Very strange & unique
Proof of its existence here -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc_quc8BT0o

Verifications:

Frequency (one off movie). I saw this in the theatre with some friends when it came out. Gladiator was out at the time, and they all wanted to see it, but I didn't, so I threatened that if they went to Gladiator, I would go see "Autumn in New york" (ha) so we compromised on Frequency. I think I was a bastard at the time... Anyway decent movie

God of war 2 (fighting game).
I would have only thought of 2d one-on-one fighting games, but you are right, Bez, that this genre is a continuuation of the beat-em-up genre of old. So I'm not going to dispute this one. :)

P.s.... I don't really understand the concept of these verifications. It seems to me you can get more points just by googling or looking everything up on wikipedia just to say you are familiar with the work. Personally I am only verifying things that I have 1st hand experience with.

[caller#6]

Book: A Once and Future King

Merlin lives backwards through time, and so at the beginning of the story knows he must try to pass on what he's learned to Arthur.

Question: does pre-knowledge of the future on it's own count as anomalous according to the rules of the game?

[Jose Zagal]

**TV Show with no spaceships**

"Life on Mars" - Cop show where the protagonist is "transported" back to the mid 70s.

**Platform Game**

Blinx the Timesweeper (Xbox). Use a magic vacuum cleaner to FF, RW, time (and other things as well).

**Point-and-click adventure**

Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the time rippers. Travel in time through other games in the series.

**Verifications**

LOST - there's some weird time traveling stuff there, for sure.

[Behrooz 'Bezman' Shahriari]

3 more sightings before bed. How long until we start running out?

FPS:
Timeshift
A PS3/360/Windows game that lets you control time.

comic:
Crisis on Infinite Earths
The most famous reboot, DCs series is all about superheroes from different parallel universes and different timelines fighting across space and time. It's all rather confusing.

Comic:
Dragonball Z
Trunks comes from the future to give Son Goku some medicine, preventing a fatal disease and evading a nightmarish future. Son Goku and Trunks then play key roles in creating a fairer future. This is in volumes 13-17ish and probably onwards (I've only read up to v17).

verifications
Magic Treehouse series (novels). I checked this out on the 'random house' website. There is clearly timetravelling involved and though it seems somewhat focused on America, I'm intrigued enough to look for it next time I'm in the Children's section of a library/bookshop. Yes, I sometimes read children's books for fun.

Time Machine (novel) by H.G. Wells

Cher: If I could turn back time (lyrics)

Blinx the Timesweeper.

comments
Katherine, I'd already mentioned the Time Machine films in the first comment!

DJ i/o: I think you're right. I don't think it's against the spirit of the game to do a little research though.

[dj i/o]

Platform game -- Skyblazer for SNES. In this relatively unknown but nonetheless excellent platformer, one of the abilities you gain later is to stop time briefly (about 5 seconds)

One off movie - Groundhog Day. In this comedy, Bill Murray gets perpetually "stuck" on groundhog day.

One off movie number 2 for the day -- Run Lola Run.
In this fantastic thriller, Lola has to deliver money to her boyfriend, otherwise he might be killed by his boss. He tells Lola that he is going to rob a grocery store to get the money. She tries to come up with the money, and after failing, she somehow starts back at the beginning, and has another chance. (She ends up with 3 "runs" total)

Verifications:

Only one for today --
"Space Quest IV"

[Katherine]

Bezman: oops :S I should have seen that. However there are two versions and you didn't specify one, so you can have the 1960 original if I can have the 2002 remake. I don't think the fact that it has a remake counts against it in terms of sequels/prequels.

Verifications:
Cher: Turn Back Time under Songs,
Run Lola Run under One-off Movies,
A Once and Future King under Books (I'm convinced that that counts).
Life on Mars under TV Shows with no Spaceships, and
The Time Machine (1960) for Bezman under One-off Movies.

I'm really bad at thinking of these for myself!

Nominations:
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped under Platformers
Jak 2 (of the Jak & Daxter series) under Platformers

[Behrooz 'Bezman' Shahriari]

comic:
Timecop (the adaptation of the film)
The story is about a 'time enforcer' who breaks the laws of time travel to save his wife.

comic:
Timewar
A Doctor Who miniseries by Alan Moore features a battle that moves around time in a twisted way.

comic:
Judge Dredd
In 'City of the Damned', Judge Dredd goes into the far future on an experimental time machine, finds that the city has been destroyed and then moves in the past/nearer future to try to prevent it.

I think going into the past to prevent something happening in the future is surely the most common time travel tale.

Verifications
Groundhog Day. I can't believe I didn't think of this.

The Once and Future King seems like a close call and I don't have 1st hand experience so can't verify it after just checking wikipedia.

[dj i/o]

I'm getting low here... Going to have to go with some more obvious movie choices...

Mr Destiny
(OK, maybe it's not so obvious?).. This semi-obscure movie is special to me because many of the scenes were filmed in my hometown of Winston-Salem, NC, and surrounding areas. In it, the main character hates his life, and he has a chance to go back to the night of a fateful baseball game.. After hitting the homerun, everything goes his way afterwards

Another one off movie:
Scrooged. Hey, another Bill Murray film. You know, it being Christmas time, I'm surprised someone else hasn't already brought up some iteration of "A Christmas Carol" yet...

TV Show which never includes spaceships...
Sliders
It may be a stretch, but I've been thinking of this one since the beginning and I might as well give it a shot. I've never seen any spaceships in this show (and I've watched almost every episode). The closest thing are the flying ships the Kromaggs have, but they are used solely on earth so they are really more like planes.
Anyway, the specific episode I'm thinking of is Season 3 episode 5 - "The Guardian".. Now the physics of sliding do not actually include time travel, but on this particular slide, they slid into an earth that was exactly like the one they came from, except it was about 20 years earlier. So Quinn saw his younger self getting beaten up on the schoolyard, and he intervened & helped "himself"....
:)

Verifications: I got nothing today...

(in preview mode my paragraph spaces aren't showing up, I really hope they do when I post this. Otherwise I appologize)

[Behrooz 'Bezman' Shahriari]

FPS:
Timegate
This spectrum game has you flying a ship through different time periods in order to prevent an alien attack before it happens. Though you're piloting a spacecraft, the graphics are rendered from a first-person-perspective and the play is all about shooting, making it a first-person shooter.

FPS: Clive Barker's Jericho
This is a 'traditional' FPS for Windows (you're on foot) that sees you travelling through various pockets of time created by a creature created by God before Adam and Eve. The team members have various powers, including the ability to slow down time.

filmTime after Time
This is a film featuring HG Wells as a character. The beginning is similar to his novel 'The Time Machine' and he then goes into the then-present-day and then starts trying to change history after finding out a future victim of Jack the Ripper.

verifications
Crash Bandicoot 3
Jak 2
The Time Machine (2002 remake)

I had forgotten about the remake when posting my original comment. I think I'd intentionally tried to banish it from my memory. The original is the one I meant and if Chris allows it, having one each clearly works well for me. ;-)

[caller#6]

Movie:Time Rider

I take great pride in being the only person tasteless enough to mention this one. A pre-Gus-Grissom Fred Ward becomes his own great-grandfather.

[Katherine]

This post contains no verifications or nominations.

I don't think A Christmas Carol would count, being shown the past/a possible future without changing anything in them could be the same as someone simply telling you how they think it will happen. He makes the changes in the present and then affects the future, but that is something that can happen in a strictly linear timeline. Fiction shows us possible futures all the time.

[dj i/o]

Dude I'm out of nominations for the moment.... Perhaps I'll come up with a few before the deadline but Bez is going to win anyway :)

Blasted Cup!!! I'll win thee next time!

[dj i/o]

OK, got a couple more. I hope this won't be disqualified because of the timestamp. I feel like I've been at a disadvantage here in the US because of the timezone difference so I technically won't have an opportunity to post again before your forum goes to the 24th, although for ME it would still be the 24th. Anyway, here are my nominations:

One off movie:
Black Knight
Martin Lawrence somehow gets transported back into Medieval times, becoming a knight. I love role reversal comedies like this. :-D

Another one off movie:
Clockstoppers
In this kids movie, they have the power to stop time.

And finally, TV series:
Weird Science
I don't think I've ever seen the movie but I was an avid watcher of the show as a kid. I remember at least one episode where Lisa, their genie, stopped time at their wish. :)

Verifications:
None

Pleas: A Christmas Carol! Give me a break now!!!

I'm interested to see the scores here :)

[Katherine]

Verifications:

Braid under Platformers
Heroes under TV show that doesn't mention spaceships.

I'm all out of nominations as well. Bezman is clearly the most observant of us all, or just the most obsessed with winning? :P

[caller#6]

Book: Behold the Man

On finding that there was no historical Jesus of Nazareth, a neurotic, self-obsessed time-traveler decides he must take on the role. Oddly, for Moorcock, this seems to be a straightforward ontological paradox, and not travel between alternate histories/planes.

[Katherine]

I got impatient... If all verified nominations are valid (i.e. none are disqualified, I didn't check timestamps), and if only the first verification for each nomination counts (that's what the rules say to me, wish I'd read them more carefully at the start as some of my nominations didn't count), then I have a final score for us. Bear in mind Chris will need to check this, this is just my own estimate.

Bezman - 32
dj i/o - 24
Katherine - 17
Jose Zagal - 16
Peter Crowther - 8
Caller#6 - 2

I had fun :)

[Behrooz 'Bezman' Shahriari]

I estimated slightly different scores, since I wasn't sure if the two Time machine films would actually count. If not, the only positions that change are you and Jose.

I think you're right Katherine - I'm probably 'just the most obsessed with winning'. I seemed to be the only one really 'playing to win' since I was strategically verifying to optimise my chances of winning and found Wikipedia very useful in finding these media.

I think after the 3rd day, you guys ended up in an unfortunate 'kingmaker' position - you couldn't win, but could have kept me from winning if you wanted.

dj i/o, did you feel that looking up stuff in order to verify it was against the spirit of the game, or did you just decide that that was too time-consuming for you? I was often surprised how little you verified.

I initially liked the setup of this game but now think that allowing 1 nomination per day (plus a 2nd if the game was running the previous day and you made no nominations) would have helped reduce the advantage that DJ i/o and I got from the earlier starts.

Also, having something more bizarre - like a media featuring an odd animal - that won't already have a list in wikipedia would make the research harder and make the game more interesting.

I found it exciting at the start, trying to work out what was strategically best to verify and hoping I nipped in before others' verifications. Since no-one else seemed to be really trying to win, though, once Katherine verified Chronotron/Chrono Trigger, it seemed like I was fairly safe.

At first, I thought maybe no-one was going to verify anything of mine, purely to get a new winner.