Top 10 Games of 2011

10. Bastion
After playing the demo, falling off the edge of the map, and having my misstep cleverly detailed by the omnipresent nattaror, I expected him to slickly respond to all of the actions I performed, thus delivering a inspired new take on game presentation. Turns out I was kinda wrong, as the game stretches into a fairly lengthy and directed journey in which the script improvises more in beats than measures. Nevertheless, I had a good time trouncing through an inspired (if not entirely interesting to me) adventure, killing… er, I don’t even remember anymore. It’s been three weeks. Whatever. I hit guys with hammers and had fun.

9. Sonic Generations
I already wrote about how Sonic Generations is “better” than Uncharted 3. It probably wasn’t very well written as I went in with the expectation that nobody would read the whole thing even if it were posted at The New York Times blog because nobody goddamn reads anymore unless they’re on the squat and even then they’re playing that saccharine piece of gizzard’s gooze Angry Birds…, but it’s written nonetheless. The same goes for the sentence I just wrote, which I hold as my firm opinion as strongly as I hold any opinion, which is to say fairly strongly, in that uncertain kind of way that’s perpetually unsure of its intent, ya know?

8. Child of Eden
Just look at it.


7. You Don’t Know Jack
As an aspiring comedy writer (you wouldn’t know it from here*), this game impresses me all the time. Lines are amazingly delivered by the host Cookie Masterson, and are more clever and punny than the popular gross, with one series of questions for instance asking whether “Something Something Ranch” is the name of either a salad dressing or a Nevada brothel. When my mom got every one correct, my Catholic-rooted family had the biggest, most innocent laugh about prostitution we’d ever had. And that’s saying something.
*"You wouldn’t know it from here” line taken from Beginner’s Guide to Yuks.

6. Portal 2

Portal 2 is the expansive sequel to the breakout hit of a few years ago. Adding more levels, more gameplay elements, and way more background story for those crazy folks at Aperture Labs, Portal 2 is an awesome follow-up to the first game. My personal favorite new element is the addition of the moon-paint dispensers which let you coat the walls in new Portal-ready material.

In case you aren't familiar, here's a brief overview of the game: You're a subject in a crazy lab where the loony AI computer system is trying to destroy you and you want to escape and the only weapon you have is a gun that makes portals so you can sneak past enemy turrets and move boxes to solve puzzles to advance until you find a way to escape. There are also a lot of jokes about potatoes in science fair projects and this real cheeky little AI guy that helps you along the way.

The gameplay is some of the most addictive I've encountered in an FPS. Because the levels are strung together like individual puzzles, it's so easy to tell yourself you'll solve just one more puzzle. Next thing you know it's five hours later and you don't mind at all. You were having too much fun. Awesome. [Sean]

5. Dead Space 2
The original Dead Space may be my favorite game of this generation. I felt like I was walking through a finely-crafted haunted house while being fed an expertly-contained sci-fi story. Since then, I feel the series has veered a bit, with unnecessary universe expansion detracting from the simplicity of the original adventure. Add in a now-voiced protagonist who shouts the same f-word as every other hero, an emphasis on a multiplayer mode that already lies barren, and the most immature ad campaign in modern gaming, and you’d think I wouldn’t be talking about this game at all. Nah. I can’t stop shooting the limbs off dead stuff. I can’t wait to move out of my parents’, then out of my crowded co-op, and then out of my paper-thin townhouse so I can finally blast the volume on this audio-video spectacle. Only fifteen more years!


4. Batman: Arkham City
As a fan of old beat ‘em ups (especially racist ones like Sunset Riders) I can’t help but love the single best hand-to-hand combat system ever created in games. Whereas Uncharted 3 lists as one of my greatest disappointments of the year thanks to the fact that I dreaded every single enemy encounter, I love taking down henchman after henchman in what-appear-to-be-choreographed fight scenes directed through my fingers. The story gets a bit too comic-y for me at times, but the uniquely dark aura of Gotham drips into Arkham City to create the perfect open-world environment for either a bat to cat around in, or vice versa.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
My wallet is a map of the original Legend of Zelda, and I wear a Zelda wristband out in public. This game had to really screw up not to make my list. It did try at times, with slow-scrolling text and constant descriptions of items you’ve already picked up 100 times testing my patience, and both I and my bitey cat were resistant to getting back into the (improved but still imperfect) Wii-flailing groove. But just like in Space Channel 5, the groove got me. A simple walk through the bazaar is all it takes to recognize the richness of personality that still sets this iconic video game adventure apart from the rest.


2. Fortune Street
Out of nowhere, this somewhat Mario Party-ish looking game sprung up at me from the review pages of Game Informer. It’s rare that any property (especially one starring both Nintendo and Dragon Quest characters) can sneak by my internet eyes, so I read on, intrigued. Weeks later, cut to the living room of my friend Andy, where a newly-purchased copy of the game entertained a bunch of sober twenty-somethings for four hours plus. That night alone shot Fortune Street to the top of the list. It’s Monopoly with a stock market, and it’s the most pure, refreshing experience I’ve had discovering a game with friends since the arcade was still a thing.


1. Skyrim
I fell asleep during every Lord of the Rings movie, but ya know what? NO ONE CARES! A game is different from a movie, otherwise I would’ve just copied and pasted our top movie list and put “Colon The Game” after every title (The Tree of Life: The Game is particularly good). Skyrim triumphs in the major aspect that does attract me to high fantasy by creating a vast medieval “Europe” where I can hang my post-industrial stress at the door, take in a dragon story if I wish, or just wander an often beautiful, rewarding landscape. There is a bevy of lore to discover that I appreciate for creating an aura of verisimilitude, yet personally don’t care about for beans. The stories I need are found in my Xbox inbox, where real-life friend Pat insults me as “Argonian street trash.” I don’t know what it means, but I love being involved in a world where vitriolic jibberish about an imaginary place still stings. Curse you, Pat, and may the Gods punish you in years hence.

Qualler's Blogulator Thanksgiving

I feel about Thanksgiving the way Brigitte feels about Halloween: pure, unrepentant, almost-bordering-on-evil joy. What ISN'T there to love about Thanksgiving?! Let's see -- it's the only holiday that pretty much requires people to stay at home. You get two paid days of work off for it. There are football games on TV. There are road races to be run. And, there is FOOD SO MUCH FOOD AND TURKEY IS DELICIOUS. And the holiday even encourages naps! Amazing. You're the best, Thanksgiving.

And, like Chris & Jerksica did for this week's Blogulator Radio, it's a time to give either sincere (or spitefully sincere) thanks to the people, places and things that make your life so full of thanks. And we here at The Blogulator have had a long and rich tradition of being thankful for things in pop culture. Here are the pop cultural things that I am most thankful for in 2011.

Music! 
R.E.M. 1982-2011.
Oh, R.E..M. My favorite band of all time, the band that most inspired me and moved me and made me dance. I am grateful and thankful for your long and storied career. You had your ups and your downs, but you fought through all of them to just be who you are. And when you decided it was time to quit, you unrepentantly quit, with no apologies and no winks that, maybe, just maybe, they'd be back for a reunion tour to line their pockets. In recent interviews, Mike Mills commented on the fact that they knew going in that this year's Collapse Into Now would be their last, and recently re-listening to it, it makes all the more sense. Thanks. R.E.M.

Movies!
Longevity For Old Guy Movie Directors (like Werner Herzog and Woody Allen)
It's not always great when old guys keep directing movies forever. But, we can be grateful for the constant quantity of work that gets produced by some directors. (Hey Paul Thomas Anderson, you could maybe learn a lesson here. Don't give me this "Wah, nobody will finance my movies" BS. You need to produce films. It's okay if they're not totally perfect. Just produce anything at all, ever. You were supposed to be our generation's Scorsese, and instead Scorsese is our generation's Scorsese.) And like clockwork, we can expect an annual film in the local arthouse movie theater by Werner Herzog and by Woody Allen. Herzog's most recent documentary Into the Abyss is a typically hypnotic, thoughtful, beautiful and tragic look at death row inmates. And PBS's recent Woody Allen documentary on American Masters is a fascinating, rare look inside Mr. Allen's personal life and his filmmaking process. Dammit, even Terrance (Terry is what I call him 'cuz we're buds) Malick is churning out work like crazy these days. Quantity over quality! It's the Thanksgiving way!

Television!
Teen Dramas
I admit that I'm on a bit of a teen drama kick. Revenge, though it's not technically a teen drama, kind of follows teen drama tropes, is my favorite new drama of the Fall (haven't seen Homeland yet, though! Somebody Showtime me!) Catching up on The Vampire Diaries is pretty amazing, and I admit I am totally finding Elena a very attractive lady. And who knew Ian Somerhalter was such a showstopper? Most importantly, I have finally started to watch Brigitte's Dawson's Creek DVDs from the beginning, and that first season is a solid B/B+, with nary a scent of the intense schmaltz that occurs in later seasons that gave me such a gross feeling about the show. The transition from self-doubting Joey Potter to bland Joey Potter from season one to season two is an extremely disappointing one, but Joey Potter season one might be making my proverbial Top 10 TV Characters list after seeing her entire arc in that first season.

Video Games!
NBA 2K11's MyPlayer Mode
I'm extremely sad about the NBA season being locked out with a possibility that I will have to wait until next Fall to see Ricky Rubio toss alley-oops to Derrick Williams and Rick Adelman grumpily pointing at players while that crazy guy who has courtside tickets at Target Center hits the court with his newspaper. But, it's sorta a'ight since I just finished my rookie season as the eventual starting PG for the New York Knicks. Amar'e Stoudemire is a point guard's dream teammate, what with the sweet inside-outside game the two of us have together. (Dude gets double-teamed, tosses it back out to me on the perimeter, and hits the three pointer like WHOA.) Plus, in real life, Amar'e is a total hipster. And I wear a headband and look like a total hipster on the court, so we're buds. Video game friendship is much stronger than any real life NBA lockout could ever be.

Friends!
Seriously, guys, my friends are the best. From the IRL friends who have written on The Blogulator with me since 2005(!!!), to the Twitter friends I have made, to all the other cool people who do cool stuff, I am thankful. Here are some of the Blogulator posts of Thanksgivings past.


"Today We Give Thanks to the Biopic In A Way Similar To How The Pilgrims Thanked The Injuns" -Chris, Thanksgiving 2005

"...And Music Is My Mashed Potato" -Chris, Thanksgiving 2006

"Stars: They're Nothing Like Us (Thanksgiving Edition)" -Lady Amy, Thanksgiving 2008


Pop culture is fun, y'all. Sometimes bad stuff happens in pop culture, like the potential cancellation of Comunity and Cougar Town. But sometimes, pop culture can bring us good stuff. Let us all give thanks to the thankful things we have to be thankful for.

Now, eat some turkey and go to see the Muppets movie.

Played Out: My Mega Man 9 Football Team

I'm feeling a bit quirky tonight - it might be the bacon I picked up off the sidewalk? As a result, I've decided that my video game rambling will take the form of fantasy football fan fiction, as told through the weapons of Mega Man 9. Sit down, son, and let me break it down to you. There are 11 different tools Mega Man can use in the game to trounce his opponents. There just so happen to be 11 players a side in American football as well. I am going to translate the weapons into a team and then we are going to state.

Two quick disclaimers:
1.As much as it hurts, I'm sticking to the formula throughout the post. So as beautiful as he is great of a player as he is, Tim Riggins isn't going to see any playing time. Sorry.

2. Eleven is also the number of players on a soccer team, and I hate to disappoint our European readership; however, it's already been done.

Alright then. Here we go. Clear eyes, robot heart, can't lose!

Quarterback - Mega Buster. Old reliable. This is your standard point-and-shoot gun, and it's as dependable as they come. Despite a constant carousel of role players, M. Buster is always ready to play, and he's the perfect leader to build a gameplan around.

Halfback - Rush Jet. This metal dog serves one purpose, and that is to deliver its cargo from point A to point B. Barry Sanders he is not, and fans looking for a jukefest might as well head down to their local bowling alley, but I guarantee you R. Jet is not going to stop until he reaches his destination. The endzone. On a football field.

Fullback - Jewel Satellite. The beautiful thing about having diamonds swirling around your body, is that they tend to protect you from most linebackers. Now if I just dip those jewels in Pupperoni and send J. Satellite on his way, I guarantee you Rush Jet is going to follow him through gaps only the hardest minerals on Earth can create for an inside run.

Center - Concrete Shot. This thing is just a block of building material that stays where you put it and keeps everything on the opposite side from getting through. By placing C. Shot in the middle, I'm forcing the defensive linemen to work around the sides, not only opening up the heart of the field, but also granting my guards and tackles the foreknowledge and flexibility they need to work the wings as well. (Trust me. That means something.)

Left Guard - Plug Ball. Are you really going to come at my quarterback through this sphere of concentrated electricity? I don't think so. P. Ball is going to fill whatever space he needs to with however many Joules of electricity we need to move the ball, period. I love the guy.

Left Tackle - Tornado Blow. Yeah, so even if those pansies find a way to douse my electricity, they're going to have to deal with my power to simply blow them off the screen at the press of a button. T. Blow is one of the most limited resources of the game, only capable of 4 natural disasters a game (or one per arcade quarter); so long as P. Ball does his job, though, that number should be more than enough.

Right Guard - Magma Bazooka. Pretty self-explanatory.




Right Tackle - Laser Trident. The right side of my line has been dubbed the "Strong of Fire and Ice" for a reason, and that reason is that magma relates to fire whereas the trident represents water, which would change form into ice given low enough temperatures. Hot and cold, baby! Ain't nobody touching M. Buster all day long, which is 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds more time than he needs to be awesome.

Tight End - Black Hole Bomb. I love the idea of sticking this guy out there and just having him suck up all the linebackers into an unexplored realm of nothingness. And if we throw the ball to B. Bomb, even though it would disappear into the same nothingness, I assume it would have to count as a catch, right?

Wide Receiver - Rush Coil. He's got the junkyard dogged determination of his half-back counterpart, plus he can jump out of his shoes. Er, I guess his shoes actually stay on the ground whilst the rest of his body springs up like some kind of Go-Go Gadget machination, but yeah. Another contemporary analogue would be those Tecmo Super Bowl receivers who could jump high and catch the ball. References can be fun.

Wide Receiver - Hornet Chaser. Float like a butterfly, sting like a hornet... which I hear in fact hurts more than a bee. Whereas R. Coil's just gonna jet down the field and go up for the ball, H. Chaser is gonna swarm the safeties, bothering them to the point that instead of swatting the pass, they'll simply be ducking their heads and swatting at their ears, pleading for the buzzing to stop as they run for their mommas screaming, "Where?! Where are those damned hornets coming from?!"

So there's my team. If you recently played Mega Man 9 and then watched Friday Night Lights, as I did tonight while eating sidewalk bacon, you might have enjoyed that. If not...

See you at state.

Played Out - Costume Quest

Pant. Gasp. Hey... Slurp. Sorry guys my car broke down and I had to catch a ride with this total fattie from Sheboygan but we kind of connected on a shared opinion of fall planting strategies... Anyway, I made it! And I'm totally in time to write about a Halloween video game, right?! Right?

Shoot.

Well my other option is to blog about this Beau Estes demo reel I found on youtube. But he's a cookie-cutter sports reporter with stupid hair, and the video is boring, so I'll stick with the game.

Costume Quest is a downloadable role-playing game in which you play as little kids who go trick-or-treating. I beat it in one sitting (1AM-6AM), and my memories of that time are quite pleasant. I think I even had a cat in my lap! From that experience, I have drawn two salient talking points to breach with you today. To discuss these points, I will use the form of blog instead of PowerPoint, since we're already here, if that's okay with you. And I won't use a talking gecko who's supposed to be a good mascot because he's a typical middle manager with an accent, either, if that's okay with OH GAWD MY SANITY.

I'm sorry. I don't usually watch commercials, so the baseball playoffs really do a number on me.

Six paragraphs in... It's time for some content!

The Good - Imagination
Costume Quest absolutely bubbles over with Halloween charm, in the same way that a witch's brew bubbles over in animal body parts. It takes everything that's great about the holiday - namely costumes and candy - and transforms them into gameplay a child might imagine if he/she were to dream up a monstrous (but still relatively harmless) evening of trick-or-treat terror.

Because the story is presented from the perspective of the child (and is permeated with adult characters who chat with you as if nothing strange is afoot), there exists the charming possibility that the monsters attacking you are make-believe. This is, in my mind, a perfect pitch for a holiday so engrossed in youthful imagination. As far as I recall, children don't dream in the hallucinatory psychosis of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Rather, they conjure up scenarios in which they, in the real world they know, are the heroes. How many kids who rang doorbells this weekend actually believed that they had, at least in part, become the persona they wore? A lot of them, and that is the crux at the heart of Costume Quest. You can beat the bad guys because you can wear awesome costumes that transform you into awesome things with awesome powers.

The cute character design and witty dialogue more than support this core concept and managed to keep a cynical grump (aka me) smiling throughout.

The Mediocre - A Cool Breeze
In my five hours of playtime, I died only once. Now, keep in mind that all I do is play video games and image search Aimee Teegarden; nevertheless, the simple "press-the-button-at-the-right-time" battle system which makes up much of the game is breezy and easy, and I was left with some serious spells of zombie-like progression. Haha but at least they weren't serious witch's spells, right lol?

I'm not saying I want some uber-complicated, punishing battle system, especially after I just finished heralding the mature immaturity of the simple story. In fact, I'm quite confused right now about what I want from video game difficulty. I just broke another controller this week thanks to the unbridled rage I hold against computers I perceive to be cheating me (whether they are or not), and I can't say I have fun doing that. Then again, I don't want to be handed a "win" button, because in that case I might as well watch a movie, right rofl? Right?

Actually, not right. By adding any player input at all, video games achieve a wholly different experience than movies. The "problem" of easiness may merely be a symptom of the game being too long for its depth. People already balk at paying $15 for a five-hour game, however, so how can a developer risk anything shorter? Sure, they could always charge less, but they could also aspire to deliver a confined narrative that people consider to be worth $15 (like Saw 3D).

Remove a few repetitive battles, and I think Costume Quest may already represent that aspiration fulfilled.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make a decision about this Sheboygan relationship. Whatever I decide, remember this: Don't plant in the fall, because winter comes next.

Played Out - Limbo

This summer, my friend Pat bugged me to play Limbo, a downloadable title for the Xbox 360. I’m interested to know whether or not Pat still checks this blog, so I’m now writing about it in an effort to bait him out. I have a bear trap waiting. Let’s see what I catch.

By the way, this is the second week in a row I’ve referenced bear traps. Check out Jigsaw’s Halloween post next week for the third. Then I’ll do my November hunting round-up after that, which ironically won’t mention trapping of any kind, due to the Blogulator’s NRA grant.

Limbo is the story of a silhouetted boy who goes from left to right by solving a variety of environmental puzzles. I guess he’s saving his sister or something, but that’s pretty unexplained and irrelevant. The game is all about atmosphere, with the only important plot point being that everyone and everything in the world wants you dead. For a medium that so often disallows the death of children (in the bloody shadow of exploding heads everywhere else), this is a disturbing yet welcome offering.

The game performed surprisingly well considering its indie-ness. The critics loved it, and somehow that actually resonated in sales figures. Perhaps the gaming population is more aware of its industry than consumers of other pop culture media? A question for another time… All I know is that the Danish developer Playdead Studios is feasting on herring this Christmas.

I will thusly rate my opinion of the game on my new, stupid INDIE scale. It’s similar to the DENNIS system from Always Sunny in that it also represents an acronym, but that ‘s about it. It’s not nearly as sexy or successful as its counterpart, and will probably frustrate those of you who read on. Enjoy!

I – Indie-ness. Shut up. Okay, so from my reading of its Wikipedia page, it seems like the “vision” of Limbo pretty much succeeded in its rejection of corporate interests. Designer Arnt Jensen made the game his heart told him, too, which is as legitimate an argument for the napoleonic “games as art” debate as anything. The need to make the moneys for the herrings did transform what was planned as a free Windows game into a Microsoft-published $15 experience, however, so I do have to take away some indie points. Note that these points are neither good nor bad because indie game patrons are often annoying hipsters (see: post-Braid discourse).

N – Niche-osity. Is this just an independent version of a game that’s already been done (and done better) by major developers? No. Puzzle platformers exist, but none that I know of so well confine the experience to its individual, creative arc. All you really do is move and jump (Mario Brothers anyone, lol? ANYONE); yet Limbo's ambience renders it unique.

D – Durability – Limbo falters in its replayability. Sure, $15 is fairly equivalent to the price of a one-time movie viewing; that doesn’t mean it has to feel good, though. There is much to-do in the game reviewing community nowadays over the role of price in critique, especially since the same forum-goers who so frivolously toss their money away on Whoppers burst their mayonnaise over slight dollar differences; but you know, it’s insane how little content there was to many of ye olde side-scrollers that sold for box price back in the day. Tangent tangent... My problem with Limbo is that, due to its nature (a linear puzzle game that will always have the same puzzles with the same solutions in the same order), I can’t really get a whole lot out of it again until I replace my memories with sufficient quantities of booze and lemonade. That could take days!

I – Inception. This category relates to the emotional component of the game, vis-à-vis the interpretation of dreams as visualized in the summer mind-melter Inception. I have not yet seen the movie, so I don’t know the proper quotient here. Let’s go with 8 (2 Airy + 3 Filter + 3 B&W). In other, comprehensible words... Limbo is pretty dream-like, especially for people who have terrifying, 2-dimensional dreams.

E – Ever after? Nah. I couldn’t think of a good “E.” I thought I did when I was in the shower, but I forgot it (if I ever even had one). Electrification? Enigmatism? Whatever.

Pat, you were right about Limbo being a good game. It didn’t change my world, nor did it really blow my mind, but that’s through no fault of its own. I'm tainted by personal biases against puzzles (death laughs at me when I get stuck) and for previews that reveal way more than I need to know. Seriously, who wants to read someone else's in-depth impressions of a game before they get a chance to play it themselves?

That's why this post is for you, Pat.

Pat?

Hypester Alert: The Greatest Hype in Sport

As we all know, we as pop culture mavens are not immune to the powers of Hype. Hype happens, folks. Sometimes, hype works in good ways, sometimes it works in ways that make us see The Da Vinci Code on opening night(*). What our job is as connoisseurs of pop culture is discern what elements are worthy of the eternal Hype Machine, and what elements need to be Sw-hyped Outta Here. This month, I bring you three extraordinarily hyped pop culture touchstones of recent days. (*)Yes, hype really did cause Chris, Lady Amy and I to see The Da Vinci Code on opening night. We are not all perfect, nor should we have to strive for perfection, but it was not a great choice.

Lady Gaga, "Alejandro"
While I generally don't feel as strongly against the actual song as Chris does, it's safe to say that this is the first Gaga video that's just left me feeling neither shocked nor entertained, just bored. At this point, it's gotten predictable -- Gaga waits a few months, then unleashes a brand new, high concept, nine-minute long video, that features her in clothes that make her look like she might actually be totally naked. Yeah, been there done that. Yawn. I think it is hard to top the "Let's Make a Sandwich" section of "Telephone" in terms of WTFness, so it's understandable.

To top it all, she's made news this weekend by "not" being banned at Yankee Stadium after showing up in the New York Yankees clubhouse wearing only a Yankee jersey, bra, and bikini bottoms. Snooze. Get back to me in six months to see if I'm interested. And it's not as if I now dislike Gaga. I still really enjoy her persona, and have really enjoyed her music. I even like how popular she is. I really, really do. I forsee great things for her in her career. But, I'm just, I dunno, bored. This whole "controversy" just makes me hate the Yankees more than I already do. Instead, I'll listen to Ke$ha's Animal over and over for a while. Then I'll check back with the Gagster.
Hypester alert status: Hyped on Reputation.



The World Cup
I'm gonna be honest here. When the World Cup started, I was not excited. In fact, I was downright apathetic. Then something crazy happened. Chris texted me, asking if I was going to watch the USA vs. England match. I wasn't planning on it, but I figured I'll never turn down watching a sporting event with another dude, let alone a dude like Chris who is usually not the first one to volunteer to watch a sporting event. So, Chris came over, and we watched the wackiness that was the USA vs. England match.



And it was totally exciting! Now, all kinds of crazy stuff is happening, like Team France imploding upon itself, and Denmark finally winning (Team Denmark is my second fave team behind the US of A), and people are blowing on those vuvuzelas. In fact, the word vuvuzela has been a Trending Topic on Twitter since the World Cup started, an excellent measure of the level of hype the World Cup has gotten. Finally, though, this is a sporting event worthy of the massive amounts of hype, if only because the usually British announcers say words like "massive" and it rubs off on my vocabulary. If more NFL or MLB or NBA announcers said things like "reveling in their supremacy" the way Martin Tyler does, the world would be a better place.
Hypester Alert Status: Worthy of Hype.

Red Dead Redemption
Where has being a virtual badass cowboy been my whole life? Rockstar Games has done it again -- they've again made me feel okay with simulating acting like a complete and utter sociopath in its newest video game Red Dead Redemption. This time around, it's different. When I play Red Dead Redemption, I am not a sociopathic dude running around in a modern urban sprawl; rather, I am a sociopathic dude in the wild west. That means most of my sociopathic urges are fulfilled by hunting animals in the wild, Oregon Trail style. Which is great! Because it lets me hunt in a video game, Oregon Trail style! I love Oregon Trail!



Granted, I'm slightly overstating the sociopathic part of the game, because it helps that the landscapes designed are beyond gorgeous, the voice acting is pretty decent given how horrible voice acting usually is, and one doesn't need to act like a total sociopath to have fun. In fact, the most fun I had in the game was an off-mission task where I followed a dog around at night at the local ranch, scaring off criminals who were causing harm. And I didn't even kill either of the criminals. In turn, the game gave me extra "fame" points and "honor" points.



And the most fun I had playing this game was over Memorial Day weekend in Minneapolis, when the temperature stayed above 90 and I had just spent time on the beach, feeling sunburned. Feeling the sensation of burned skin while riding around on my virtual horse and shooting criminals had to be the most badass video game feeling I've felt since I beat the crap out of those jerk Detroit Red Wings as Pavel Bure and the Vancouver Canucks on NHL '94 on Sega Genesis. Yes, it's that cool. (Side note -- why would the YouTuber below put Bure at Center? Everybody knows, you put him at Left Wing, win the faceoff by passing it to him, have him loop around, shoot, and get a guaranteed goal. Pretty sure that move netted me a lot more than 5 goals in 85 seconds when I did that.)


Hypester Alert Status: Worthy of Hype.

Something Smells Gamey: More Rain

If you are here, then that means you've chosen the ending to Mark's rose-tinted preview of Heavy Rain that leads to me overanalyzing its essence.

Don't worry. You stumble upon a scene with no spoilers.

If you still wish to go back, please load your previous save. Remember, however, that a real choice cannot be undone.

Did that last sentence sound pretentious to you? It should have; and in fact, it's that kind of attitude that almost kept me from picking up Heavy Rain for the Playstation 3. The game's director/writer/mastermind David Cage comes off as an arrogant douchebag with no perspective of place within his industry. Then again, he is French. Consider this recent quote of his: "Heavy Rain has the courage to break with most of the video game rules that were established 20 years ago and are still used today by most games." I acknowledge that most products of any medium tread in tried and true techniques, but there is always a faction at work to deliver new experiences. And that is just as true in the video game industry (e.g., Braid, Flower).


Let me step back for a second and refresh Mark's overview of the game, though. Heavy Rain is a self-proclaimed "interactive drama" in which a choose-your-own-adventure style story effectively plays out through your ability to react to onscreen button prompts. It is a glorified and extended quicktime event, and I'll admit that I'm drawn to the possibility. I was super excited to finally find Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) on store shelves, which was Cage's previous output. And the first half of that game did feel new and incredible, before it fell off the deep-end into absurdity.

Heavy Rain fixes a lot of its predecessors' flaws, most notably by making the button pressing events match up more naturally to the onscreen action. There's even some motion controls thrown in for you Wii lovers, which bothered me only in so much as it didn't register some of my subtler attempts at not disturbing the cats on my lap. I faced serious repercussions for my failures, but the continued purring on my lap soothed over my fury.

The success of Heavy Rain ultimately depends on its story. And while plot holes riddle any probing look at the conclusion, I have to say I was pretty satisfied in the end. Still, Cage definitely needs to reevaluate some aspects of his storytelling before he (insert your word here)s all over the place.

The essential human relationship of the game introduced at the beginning is that of a father and his sons. This is nice, especially considering how many father/son game relationships feature that son being the spawn of a demonic, trident-wielding netherbeast. Nevertheless, I felt like this game started me back at literary square one with a "perfect" family in which the dad is telling his sons how great they are and the kids giggle and tell their dad how much they love playing with him and how he's the best dad in the world.

There is no subtlety here, and, most importantly, there is no real human interaction. Maybe I believe this because I'm a new age intellectual whose every action is jaded with cynicism, but I do not believe that families anywhere actually act like they do in these contrived situations. I'm fine with a simple scene of familial joy, but throw in a non sequitur here or there to tint the puritanical perfection with a shade of reality. I wanted something bad to happen to these people at the beginning of this game because I was annoyed by the cardboard cutouts presented to me as conceived content. Then again, I already knew bad things would happen, so maybe I was just anxious.

This contrivance is a problem not just with Heavy Rain, but with all melodrama. Because the story is so focused on delivering a serious statement, the characters are pigeonholed into spouting cliches that build little upon their character. In retrospect, this may be my number one reason for disliking Avatar so much (in spite of its resultant fan fiction). Every single aspect of that movie was so built into an archetype that I knew exactly what I was going to see in 20 minutes, 45 minutes, etc. all the way up and through the end; and I wanted to leave at that first interval because of it. Screw technological prowess. I'd rather look at Earth trees than Pandora trees; at least those have real life happening around them.

Now, aside from the main family in Heavy Rain, most other characters are portrayed with enough attitude to make me forgive and forget the tactic. Who doesn't love a weathered private investigator, or a smart and beautiful pair of CGI tits? I know I do. Serious issues can arise when these personalities are stretched into arbitrary romance plots seemingly driven by nothing more than the desire to animate a sex scene (Indigo Prophecy failed hard in this aspect). Yet that shouldn't be a problem with a good set of story editors, right?


Which brings me to my oh-so-brilliant hypothesis: Self-proclaimed prodigies are destined to disappoint. James Cameron thinks he is the second coming because of his ability to retell a tragic shipwreck and a book about a desert planet written in 1965. David Cage thinks he is revolutionizing a medium he outwardly slights as naive and childlike when so much of his vision is just that. I applaud the entertainment I derived from Heavy Rain these past few days. It is a marvelous technological achievement (more groundbreaking than Avatar, I'd argue, in its potential to inspire truly interactive cinema). But it is not a solitary beacon that has spun to light of its own free will in absentia of influence to become the one true image of our future.

In fact, the Mass Effect series is already telling more complex, human stories that make me seriously fret over my in-game decisions and actions. That, however, is a tale for another time...

Aren't my opinions genius?

Something Smells Gamey: Heavy Rain = LucasArts Classic Adventures + Choose Your Own Adventure

DoktorPeace, sorry I'm encroaching on your territory. But, as you might know, I've become a "gamer" of some sort. Getting a PlayStation 3 for Christmas was pretty awesome, and getting games like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and MLB 09: The Show is pretty great. But, the best part is downloading all kinds of demos, so I can pretend that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to the hottest games on the market.

Which leads me to the demo for the soon-to-be-released new PS3 title Heavy Rain. Now, the basic premise of this game is, you control four different people solving the mystery of a serial killer named the Origami Killer (and if that doesn't just grab you by the cajones, I don't know what will[insert sarc mark], the gameplay looks just like a movie directed by David Fincher, and you walk around picking stuff up, talking to people, and *gasp* if you die in the game, you're dead forever in the game. Also, the choices you make affect how the rest of the game goes. Groundbreaking, right?

Wait...is there something from my childhood that this reminds me of? Actually, two things.

One, is the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series. Video games that remind me of Choose Your Own Adventure get nerd points from me.

Two, are the classic "point-and-click" computer games from the early '90s by LucasArts, such as Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Thanks to the technology wizards of YouTube, you can now watch the entire game as a single YouTube video, which I will insert right here:

Actually, the game looks pretty fun. I'm sure I'll be wasting my time on it a lot in the near future. See more here:

Something Smells Gamey: Dreamcast

As few of you who read this blog know, the Sega Dreamcast turned 10 this week. The system was awesomely released on 9/9/99 here in the United States, going on to live a wonderful 1.5 years before production was stopped in March 2001. I never personally owned one, as I was the Nintendo man of the house (my brother picked one up on the cheap years later, with ownership ostensibly passing onto me now that he's into stupid things like girls and education). Yet I was still blown away at the time, especially by the 2K sports games, despite getting beaten by Alberswerth every afternoon on every down on that same stupid pass over the middle to Mark Chmura. God.

On 09/09/09 - the anniversary upon which Sega fans everywhere prayed the Dreamcast 2 would be birthed from the ashes - I chose to reflect in my own way. I booted up Crazy Taxi 2 (which I believe is the original?) and studied every intricacy of its being. What I found was an origins story just begging to be re-envisioned, a la Battlestar: Galactica. For instance, the game takes place in interpretations of New York City called Around Apple and Small Apple. That is so Dreamcast era. The modern gamer is an Assassin's Creed fan who wants more cosmopolitan fare, which is why my version is set in Europe. I've also improved upon the graphics and coated the game in that gritty sepia tone popularized by Gears of War.

Anyway, here's a short video sort of pitching my idea, while at the same time encompassing the entirety of the idea. Many have argued over whether or not games are art. That ends today.

This is my tribute to Crazy Taxi 2, my memorial for the Dreamcast, and my call to arms for jilted cabbies everywhere. Enjoy. And, more importantly, think.

Played Out (Again): MLB '09 The Show

Recently, I've spent most of my time pondering the question: Can love bloom on a battlefield? When I'm not doing that, I've continued to play MLB '09: The Show. This video game has become both my best friend and my greatest enemy. To an outsider watching me interact with The Show, however, I fear neither would appear accurate. Rather, I would be suspected of possessing a demon.

After winning a spring training game against Johan Santana and the Mets, I felt satisfied with my performance as Orioles puppet master and jumped forward to the regular season. My record currently stands at 4 wins and 23 losses. Now, from some perspectives, this is not so bad. I’ve achieved more than the real-life 1989 Orioles, who started out losing their first 21 games. And the most runs I’ve given up as of yet is 28, which is less than the 30 surrendered by against Texas two years ago.

My patience with games has dwindled with age, and nothing gets me more riled than persistent sucking. If the fault were with the game design, I could at least curse the developers and write strongly-worded letters. I know that I am to blame in this case, though, and that is what is driving me insane. Here’s a brief description of my actions throughout a usual game.

1st inning - I get the opposing team out in order. “Finally,” I sigh. “My pitching woes from previous games are over, and I can concentrate on hitting.” My leadoff hitter comes up in the bottom of the inning, and I tell myself to take a couple pitches in order to gauge the speed and delivery. My body rebels and presses the swing button anyway. I angrily mutter, but am pacified as the game remains tied at 0.

4th inning - The opposing team scores somewhere between 1 and 9 runs. I swear loudly, knowing that any of these numbers is enough to top my paltry offense.

6th inning - I get 2 hits to start off the inning, and decide in my head, “Yes. I can do this. I have learned, adapted, evolved.” The next hitter strikes out. So does the next one. I completely remove my hand from the controller, refusing to swing at another pitch, good or bad. The computer winds up and throws a slider way outside. I look down and see that my finger has somehow moved to the swing button and pressed it. I throw myself back in my chair, and the cat sleeping on my lap briefly wakes up to see why I'm bothering her.

And the 6th inning repeats itself ad nauseum until the bottom of the 9th, at which time I strike out to end the game in complete silence. I am too tired after all the self-flagellation of the previous 3 innings.

Curse those old arcade-y baseball games that rewarded players for swinging at every pitch! They were fun, but they did not prepare me for the real world, paralleling the rest of my childhood.

And curse modern controllers, which cost way too much for me to throw across the room! This is why I’m left bruising my own body instead, which is far less valuable, yet far more hairy.

I realize that I could change the game options to make things easier. I could slow down the pitches, or choose a difficulty level that doesn’t test my sanity. But I refuse! My mission is to improve, and improve I must! Love will bloom on this battlefield, because I will make it!

Until then, however, I will continue to leave the shades open, hoping that a psychologist wanders through the woods in my backyard, looks through the window and diagnoses my disease. That way, I can at least score some pills out of this wonderful misery.

Something Smells Gamey: Zombies?

Dear friends,

I come to you with grave concern. I do not want our depression to deepen, but I feel it is mine - and every one of our's - responsibility to ask the question: Have we, as a nation, killed too many zombies?

Yes. I do play Left 4 Dead twice a week, assisting in the death of over 1,000 zombies each campaign. (No, I may not kill as many zombies as my friends, but that's because I provide valuable support on an emotional, physical, virtual, and allegorical level.)

Yes. My most anticipated purchase in the next few months is Resident Evil 5, the next entry in the premier zombie gaming franchise. (No, I have not however pre-ordered the $90 collector's edition.)

Yes. I was as involved as any man in the rise of zombie nation, posting a quote from Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide on my facebook wall as early as 2005. (No, I don't necessarily recommend it as anything other than a coffee table book.)

So what, then, is the problem?

Just as Death Cab music flooded the radio when they signed with that one label, so have zombies flooded our social conscience. I would estimate that more citizens now have zombie apocalypse plans laid out than they do retirement plans, and this is as annoying as it is cute.

Yes. Zombies are fun, and still as relevant as they ever were to whatever (Bridging the gap of life and death? Allowing us to shoot humans?). No, they are not immune to oversaturation.

We need to back off, people, before they truly bite into our national neck, transforming us into the meandering automatons their creation purportedly refutes.

A zombie joke here and there may be fun, but I propose that we make a collected attempt not to reference zombies in daily, or even weekly conversation. Heck, menstruation is monthly, and we all know that's a bit too frequent.

Of course, when partaking in activities that directly include zombies (such as abovesaid games), this rule is flexible.

Besides, I fear the zombie allure is already dead. Or undead, as it were.

See my point?

Played Out: Bully

As much as college me liked to believe he was becoming an individual, I've now realized that I mostly just joined that group of people that believes it's individualistic but actually acts very much the same. Because I am self-aware that I exist in this environment, I'm in an even more select group within that group, but still: I am one of those.

I like Rockstar video games.

While the developer's faux-nihilistic Grand Theft Auto may attract the big crowds with its guns and hookers, I chose to play 2006's Bully this past weekend. This teen-rated affair still got some press because it is a game about high school and children made by the GTA people, but the guns are replaced by slingshots and the hookers by moderately-clothed cheerleaders. Swearing is held to a minimum, too, and the game is better for it. GTAs are fun enough, but I do not see the inspiration in stories that laden their script with F bombs and end with gangsters turning on each other. That is boring to me, but then again, I don't watch The Sopranos and I've never seen a Godfather. If I did, I'm sure I'd again realize I'm more like the rest than I figured.

Rockstar's writing is smart, but too often it goes for the easy laugh and the easy twist. In Bully, because they knew they had to be more careful, they were also more creative. The key antagonist is not a power hungry Italian; rather, it's a power hungry bully who picks on others not necessarily to disguise his own inferiorities, but also because he's simply smarter than everyone else his age and bored. The separation between the two archetypes may be more locational than fundamental, yet in using the high school setting, Bully is sort of calling out society at its root. Cliques do dissolve a bit upon graduation; however, the personalities developed early on remain in the undercurrent of everyday life.

You interact with 4 main social groups in Bully: Nerds, Preppies, Greasers, and Jocks. These characters are all pretty standard fare for pop culture of the past half century, and I believe that's because these characters are pretty standard fare for America of the past half century. The media always says that nerds are cool now, but other than superhero and sci-fi movies so far detached from their philosophical cores that they misrepresent their source material anyway, I don't think it's true. Kids who play Dungeons & Dragons (or, as Bully calls it, "Grottos & Gremlins") still aren't going to date the head cheerleader – unless they pubertize into a fine piece of man meat. And if they do survive that swan-like transformation, it's likely that they'll leave their ugly duckling feathers behind. Role-playing games are often a distraction for people uncomfortable with "real" social interaction such as dating, and one can replace the other. Why you'd want to trade in your level 15 slayer for a pair of taut young breasts, though, is beyond me…

So-called adults aren't so dogmatic in their divisions, but they're still largely there. Nerds get into science, math, and computers. Preppies become businessmen d-bags. Greasers lose their blue collar jobs to immigrants, and jocks become slightly less successful businessmen d-bags. I'm not biased. Those are the facts. When you're rich and/or popular, you intrinsically learn that you can be a d-bag and people will still listen to you. It's annoying to everyone else, but maybe these oft-called tools are just living the only life made known to them...

Still, they deserve every loathe.

Bully doesn't attempt an anthropological thesis, but by creating a world familiar to Western students and populating that world with clichéd stereotypes, it creates a place far more authentic than most video game landscapes. Add in some humor and solid sandbox gameplay, and Bully becomes a wonderful locale to exorcise some of that unspent teen angst. I enjoyed it because I am one of those mid-25 year olds already seeking to recapture a youth I somehow simultaneously think I lost yet never truly experienced. So I guess that makes me a nerd. Or any of the above.