Three-Sentence Reviews: Disc-Based Nintendo Games

Holy balls! Three of these in one day? You bet. What surprises me even more than that, I think, is that by the end of this post I'll have recapped games for eight different Nintendo gaming systems. Without thinking about it, I wouldn't even have guessed that there were that many in existence, but three handhelds and five consoles will get you exactly that number. Weird. Anyway, here are twenty-nine more mini-reviews, courtesy of the GameCube and the Wii. Huzzah!

Cranium Kabookii (Wii, 2007)
This was nothing more than the popular board game using a Wii disc as its medium. I played it two or three times and never really felt the need to do so again. Stick with the board game.

Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix (GCN, 2005)
I hate the DDR franchise, but this isn't a terrible game. In fact, it's more fun to hop back and forth to classic Mario songs than it is to dance to obscure J-pop and heavily remixed techno. Also, few things in video gaming are as humorous as final boss Bowser breaking it down in the final stage.

Donkey Konga (GCN, 2004)
This little drummer game predates Guitar Hero and has the distinction of being the first mainstream musical instrument game. The song selection is pretty decent, too. Ultimately though, there's no reason to return here now that Rock Band exists.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii, 2006)
I don't know whether or not this game is as good as the much-lauded Ocarina, but I don't think it's much worse. I really went balls to the wall in this one, finishing every side quest and collecting every heart piece. It took me forty hours or so, but it never once got old.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN, 2003)
This is certainly not a traditional Zelda game. Link's first foray into the world of cel-shading included a heavy emphasis on exploration and mapping, elements that have been retained in the other "Toon Link" Zelda games. I like this game a lot, but it just doesn't have that pure Zelda feel.

Link's Crossbow Training (Wii, 2007)
Speaking of impure-feeling Zelda games, how about this rail shooter? I had a lot of fun challenging siblings and roommates to beat my high scores in this very arcade-inspired game. It also came with the "Wii Zapper," which has been instrumental in a number of other Wii shooters I've played (not that there are many).

Luigi's Mansion (GCN, 2001)
People love to shit on this game because it was a launch title starring Luigi instead of Mario. But people also love to shit on Super Mario Sunshine, so maybe there was no way to win here for Nintendo. Well, I, for one, enjoyed this game, at least.

Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour (GCN, 2003)
Maybe if golf was more of my thing I would have had more fun with this game. And I did have some fun with it. It's just that by the eleventh or twelfth time playing the same 18-hole course, I really couldn't fight off the boredom.

Mario Kart Wii (Wii, 2008)
Sadly, I view this as a regression for the franchise. Still a very fun game, of course, but what happened to the two-player option from Double Dash? And why did the multiplayer graphics get worse instead of better?

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GCN, 2003)
I'm not afraid to disagree with my peers when it comes to Mario Kart, and I consider this installment to be the finest of the franchise. Nearly every course was a blast and nearly every kart had its advantages. Also, the ability to use not just one but two characters provided for an enormous magnitude of style customization.

Mario Party 4 (GCN, 2002)
From memory alone, I have no way of differentiating the four GameCube Mario Party games. None stand out. All were so-so.

Mario Party 5 (GCN, 2003)
Did you see what I wrote above? Because it applies here as well. And that's all I can say.

Mario Party 6 (GCN, 2004)
I'm really sorry about this. I wish I had more to say about these games. But I don't.

Mario Party 7 (GCN, 2005)
No, seriously. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Mario Party 8 (Wii, 2007)
Finally, a game I can recall! The Wii gave the desperate Mario Party series a breath of fresh air with a new control scheme. I still think the Nunchuk attachment would have provided even more innovation, but whatever.

Mario Power Tennis (GCN, 2004)
Unfortunately, what I wrote about Mario Golf applies here as well. Playing tennis as Mario and his friends is fun, but only for so long. I'm sure the Wii port with enhanced controls made for a more fun experience, but I never played it.

North American Hunting Extravaganza (Wii, 2008)
I had always wanted to play a "Cabela's" branded hunting video game, but when I saw this in the bargain bin I knew it would suffice. I got really into this awful game, donning a wife beater and drinking beers and Jack Daniels as I shot virtual game with the Wii Zapper. Though I still haven't played anything from the Cabela's Dangerous Hunts franchise, this game has more than satiated my appetite for doing so.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (GCN, 2004)
This is a charming and endearing RPG. I never played the original one on Nintendo 64, but based on how long this one was, I don't think I need to do so. Still, given enough time, I'm sure someday I will.

Star Fox Adventures (GCN, 2002)
Now here's an infamous mistake. Why the head honchos at Nintendo thought Fox McCloud was due for a Zelda knockoff with dinosaurs is something I'll never understand. Worst of all, it introduced the world at large to Krystal, a purple vixen who has become a symbolic bastion for furries looking for mainstream acceptance.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, 2007)
This is my favorite Wii game and the only reason I'm putting off its sequel is because I'm saving it for a time when I really want to play it. Like, this game may have rekindled a dying spark in me for playing video games. That may or may not have been a good thing, but it certainly says a lot about how awesome Galaxy is.

Super Monkey Ball (GCN, 2001)
This game was a launch title for the Wii. My friends and I had a lot of fun with the mini-games it offered, and none more so than Monkey Target. The single-player gameplay was pretty enjoyable as well.

Super Monkey Ball 2 (GCN, 2002)
I'm a bit torn on this one. In every way, it was an upgrade over the first Super Monkey Ball game, but although the campaign was longer and more detailed it wasn't necessarily more fun. Ditto for Monkey Target and the rest of the mini-games.

Super Paper Mario (Wii, 2007)
This was slightly less RPG-flavored (no turn-based combat) than the previous two Paper Mario games, and I think it benefited because of that. Unfortunately, it was also the least compelling of the games story-wise. It still made for an enjoyable game that's well worth playing, however.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, 2008)
I love this game, but it seems like everyone in my peer group laments what it could have been or should have been instead of just accepting it for what it was. And what it was was a big step forward from Melee. If you disagree, try to envision playing Brawl from 2001-2008 and then seeing Melee for the first time.

Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN, 2001)
As I was saying above, Melee is a fantastic game but Brawl is just a little bit better. It just hasn't manage to resonate with my friends and me the way Melee did for seven years. Of course, maybe part of that stems from the fact that we've all grown the hell up and no longer want to spend entire nights playing Super Smash Bros. until dawn breaks.

Wii Fit (Wii, 2008)
This is much less of a game than a weight loss application. And it isn't even all that good as making you lose weight. It's more or less a weight tracking program with a few balance-based mini-games.

Wii Music (Wii, 2008)
This game is strange because it has limitless potential and yet next to no lasting appeal. I'm sure if my friends and I whipped it out one night to revisit it, we'd have just as much fun as ever. And yet, we've never done so and probably never will.

Wii Sports (Wii, 2006)
Everyone's grandparents are familiar with this "game," which is really just a brief demonstration of the Wii's control scheme capabilities. I had my fun with it for a little while, but like everyone else who took the Wii seriously, I soon put it away in lieu of some actual games. And I've never really felt the need to pick it back up.

Worms Blast (GCN, 2002)
This is a puzzle game with sloppy controls. I never even knew such a thing was possible until I played it. If I had known it was totally unlike the turn-based strategy series from which it steals its moniker, I'd have avoided it at all costs.

Alright! That's certainly enough for today. I'll be back tomorrow with the August recap, and after that, perhaps some actual new content. Or then again, perhaps just some more of these mini-recaps which I'm sure we'll all grow to hate in due time. For now, I hope you're all enjoying them.

Three-Sentence Reviews: Cartridge-Era Nintendo Games

Why not bang another one of these out? I give you all the games I beat prior to August '09 on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and Nintendo 64. Some of these were technically beaten as ports on GameCube, Game Boy Color, and the Wii's "Virtual Console," but I felt it best to include them all here with their temporal and generational peers. I hope you're in the mood for another thirty retro-posts.

ActRaiser (SNES, 1991)
I traded Final Fantasy VI, perhaps my favorite game of all time, for this little-known God-simulation. I regretted the move almost immediately, but then less so over time as I grew to love ActRaiser and its unique clash of Castlevania and Civilization gameplay. Besides, you can find FF6 on just about any system nowadays anyway.

The Adventures of Mighty Max (SNES, 1994)
How obscure and irrelevant was this fad-based game? The Internet can't even agree on its release year or box art. All I remember about this one was collecting pieces for some sort of giant machine, so don't bother.

Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)
Square has made a number of RPGs without the Final Fantasy moniker, but this is probably the best and most famous one. I never actually owned it on the SNES but played and beat a couple of friends' copies. I recently bought the DS port and played and beat it one more time.

Donkey Kong Country (SNES, 1994)
People underestimate how much this game (and Rare in general) contributed to the success of the Super Nintendo. I'm still amazed by the pre-rendered 3D graphics and how ahead of their time they were. I mean, this game looks better than anything on the N64.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES, 1995)
This is my favorite game in the original DKC trilogy. Donkey Kong is absent, but the game was pirate-themed from top to bottom. And this was long before pirates were a tiresome theme thanks to overexposure and some blockbuster Disney films.

Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (SNES, 1996)
The series began to lose some steam here. It has no DK, no Diddy, and less overall charm than either of its predecessors. But it's still an enjoyable game and perhaps the most complete and open-ended DKC to date.

Final Fantasy IV (SNES, 1991)
I was in kindergarten when an older neighbor first introduced me to this game and the entire RPG genre in the process, and I was instantly hooked. I've played better RPGs over the years, for sure, but this one will always hold a special place in my catalog. Besides, it still holds up as a very solid game with memorable characters and an interesting story.

Final Fantasy VI (SNES, 1994)
This may be my favorite video game ever thanks to its incredible story. The characters, environment, conflict, and music are all absolutely top notch. You'd be hard pressed to find a better RPG than this one, and many seasoned veterans of the Final Fantasy series agree that you simply can't do so.

Home Alone (SNES, 1991)
This came bundled with my SNES way back when, and I never would have purchased it otherwise. You run round with a squirt gun fighting hoards of burglars, rats, and spiders. Not only is it shitty, but it doesn't even resemble the movie upon which it is allegedly based.

Killer Instinct (SNES, 1995)
This was my favorite fighting game before the Super Smash Bros. series was born. It combines the brutality of the Mortal Kombat games with a sense of humor and unique characters. Plus, to add to its overall badassery in third-grade-me's eyes, the cartridge was black instead of gray.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1991)
A lot of old school fans consider this the best Zelda game ever, but I totally disagree. It felt a tad repetitious and unoriginal at times. Great for it's time, sure, but Link to the Past was no Ocarina or Twlight Princess.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 1998)
There are plenty of people in my age group who consider this the greatest game ever, and though i don't necessarily agree, I'll admit that it warrants a place among the discussion. I didn't own an N64 until five or six years ago, so I missed the boat the first time around. Fortunately, I got to play a GameCube port in 2002 and it flat-out delivered, hype and everything.

The Lion King (SNES, 1994)
I did not love this game. In 2000 or so, I traded for it using something I can't even recall, with hopes that it'd be as good as the SNES Aladdin game. It wasn't.

Mario Kart 64 (N64, 1997)
Call me a crotchety old man, but I think Super Mario Kart is still a better game. Of course, I can't deny that this was a step forward for the fledgling series that vaulted it straight to the top of the racing game genre, a position it has yet to lose. I suppose I'd like this a lot more had I had an N64 when it was still in vogue.

Mario Paint (SNES, 1992)
This is a very non-traditional offering from Nintendo in that it is more of an art studio than it is an actual game. It gave my friends and I several years of entertainment here and there. I still don't know why Nintendo hasn't revisited this concept on the Wii or the DS.

Mega Man X (SNES, 1994)
On the one hand, this is an awesome, awesome game. On the other hand, it's buried among two or three dozen Mega Man games and will therefore never get the respect it deserves. I've played almost twenty Mega Man games in the past year alone, as Back-Blogged readers may recall with a wince or a grimace, and I can assure you that this was the greatest one.

NBA Showdown 94 (SNES, 1993)
I don't know if this is definitely the worst game I've ever played, but it's on the short list. It's laggy, blocky, slow, and ancient-feeling. There isn't even a regular season option or a save feature.

Pokémon Snap (N64, 1999)
I had a lot of fun with this game back in its heyday when I was a huge Pokémon nerd and I had a lot of fun with it about three or four years ago in a much more sarcastic fashion. I guess my point is that this game is fun whether you enjoy or mock the Pokémon franchise. If they made a sequel for the Wii, I'd probably buy it, regardless of the fact that I know nothing about the newest 700 Pokémon species.

Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day (SNES, 1994)
My grandparents bought me this game before I even knew what Rocko's Modern Life was. I still enjoyed it, a little bit, although it was very frustrating at times. Actually, this is easily one of the five most frustrating games I've ever played, so even on the off chance that you felt like finding and playing this game, I'd advise against it.

Secret of Evermore (SNES, 1995)
This is kind of an RPG-adventure hybrid in that it contains adventure elements like moving around while fighting enemies and charging up attacks, but it also lets you select commands from menus mid-battle in a definitively RPG style. Actually, that sounds a lot like the last two Final Fantasy games. But I had a lot more fun with this game than I did with FF12, and I very much recommend this somewhat unique game.

Star Fox 64 (N64, 1997)
This is the greatest game in the Star Fox franchise, but that sadly doesn't say as much as it should. I hate to keep pointing to my lack of an N64 for the first ten years of its existence, but once again it seems like I don't respect this game as much as I would have if I'd played it before I was 18 years old. Eh, whatever.

Super Mario 64 (N64, 1996)
Alright, now here's a 64 game that even I can love. Even if it wasn't already iconic for ushering platforming games into the third dimension, it would still be a fantastic game complete from top to bottom. This is just an absolute classic and there's little else to say.

Super Mario Bros. (NES, 1986)
This certainly isn't the best game of all time, but it might just be the most iconic one. There's little to say about it since its reputation precedes it. Actually, this game is older than me, and as such, I hardly even feel fit to judge it.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES, 1988)
Ah yes, the bastard child in the Super Mario crop. In case you weren't aware, this was never even supposed to be a Mario game, but Super Mario Bros. 2 (now known here as The Lost Levels) was deemed too difficult for American gamers back in '88 so they updated this odd duck with Mario sprites and released it in place of the actual SMB 2. In Japan, they call this game Super Mario USA, and frankly, as an American, that embarrasses me a little bit.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES, 1990)
The original Nintendo console was way before my time, so I'm not too fit to judge it or its games with respect to their era. But I still consider this the magnum opus of the NES, and I think the consensus opinion agrees. It's a shame that the franchise never brought back raccoon tails and frog suits.

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (NES, 1993)
The release date I've provided corresponds to the game's first release in America. In Japan, where it was known as Super Mario Bros. 2, it came out in 1986. I found it just as easy as the first SMB, and I really don't see what the big deal was.

Super Mario Kart (SNES, 1992)
I first played a demo of this game at a Sears when I was four years old. (Yes, believe it or not, before we had GameStops in every town and Best Buys in every shopping complex, Sears was a place that had video games set up for demonstration.) Anyway, I loved it then, I love it now, and I don't think another racing game will ever come close to doing what this one did for the genre at large.

Super Mario World (SNES, 1991)
If there's a game that best represents my childhood, it's this one. I made everyone I knew, from my friends to my grandparents to my cousins to my younger sisters, play it with me. And I loved every minute of it.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES, 1995)
This is a great game in its own right, but unfortunately it carries with it the burden of its predecessor's title. As good as this Yoshi-centric game is, I can't help but feel disappointed when I imagine what a real Super Mario World 2 could have been. Sigh.

Super R-Type (SNES, 1991)
This is a scrolling shooter set in space. All things considered, it's extremely generic and non-memorable. A multiplayer option would have made it better.

And that's that. Hit me up with your thoughts on one or any number of these old school classics. You can even use more than three sentences to reminisce if you'd like! Fifty-four video game retro-posts down, 103 to go. And like a hundred books. And like 400 DVDs. Good God, what have I gotten myself into?

Three-Sentence Reviews: Handheld Nintendo Games

So, I'm trying something new. I use the Back-Blogged site to post little recaps and reviews of the games, movies, and books that I finish off. But why not take a little time-traveling trip and get an overview of the big picture? Just because the blog began in the summer of 2009 doesn't mean my mission of conquest did. So I'm opening up a new door and attempting to post some quick little recaps of all the things that were finished before the Back-Blogged project became a reality. In an effort to fight back my tendencies to be very verbose, I'm limiting myself to three sentences and three alone per every item. Anyway, up first? All the handheld video games I've beaten through the years. Keep in mind that anything I've beaten since August '09 will not be included here as it's already been posted (likely at length) somewhere in the blog. Here we go!

Civilization Revolution (DS, 2008)
This was the most disappointing game in the Civilization franchise that I have ever played. The tiny DS screens did not allow me to feel the worldwide scope that the games are known for. I'm sure the console versions were better.

Clubhouse Games (DS, 2006)
This is a collection of forty classic board games and card games. It was definitely a total bargain. There's no real originality, but it's fun to play this with other friends who have DSes.

Elevator Action (Game Boy, 1991)
Blech. This was a port of a then-popular arcade game. The slow frame rate and base-level graphics render it nearly unplayable today.

Final Fantasy (GBA, 2004)
Here's a remake of the original game in what is an epic and much-renowned franchise. I had a lot of fun discovering the ancestor of several of my favorite games, but this was by no means a must-play. It was short and sweet, especially compared to contemporary Final Fantasy games.

Final Fantasy II (GBA, 2004)
They tried to do a lot of things in this second installment that they never really went back to. It was a decent game in its own right, but still feels like a black sheep of the Final Fantasy family. You could easily draw comparisons to the second games in other classic series like Zelda and Super Mario Bros.

Final Fantasy IV (DS, 2008)
FF4 was my first RPG and I loved it enough to buy a DS once I heard about this 3D remake. The DS version does the original justice and is even an improvement in a number of ways. Still, there's something nostalgic about the original that this version just can't replicate.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS, 2007)
To this day I still think this game took advantage of the unique controls offered by the DS like no other DS game. It wasn't my favorite Zelda game but I still had plenty of fun with it. It seemed like it was the perfect length and scope for a landmark handheld game.

Line Rider 2: Unbound (DS, 2008)
They took a neat little Flash application from the Internet, tweaked it to be puzzle-based, and called it a DS game. What's more, they called it a sequel. It made for a nice way to occupy myself during baseball games for a month, but didn't do much else for me.

Marble Madness (Game Boy, 1991)
As was the case with many arcade ports, repetition and practice were the keys to success with this port. This is a six-level, ten-minute game. Of course, it took me hours upon hours to beat due to a lack of forgiving controls and generous time allowances.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (DS, 2005)
I loved the first half of this Mario RPG, but then it really slowed down and started to feel stale. My reward for picking it up some two years later and muscling my way to the finish was an incredibly long and difficult final boss battle. This was actually my sister's game until she gave it to me in exchange for the use of my debit card to purchase a $14 Jonas Brothers CD.

Mario Kart DS (DS, 2005)
I prefer most console-originated franchises to stay away from handhelds, but this version of Mario Kart really wasn't half bad. Still, it's just not the same as racing against three friends on a large TV screen. Replay value, therefore, is minimal.

Mario Party DS (DS, 2007)
In a direct contradiction of my previous mini-recap, I'll admit that I was very happy to see Mario Party venture away from its console origins. The franchise was getting far too stale and the DS offered an interesting array of new control schemes for innovative mini-games. Still, once again, the lack of human opponents was disheartening.

Metroid Fusion (DS, 2002)
This may be my favorite handheld game of all time. This may seem like blasphemy to some people, but I think it was a better game than Super Metroid by a landslide. And Super Metroid is almost unanimously considered one of the five or ten best platformer/shooter games ever made.

Metroid: Zero Mission (DS, 2004)
Combine the story of the original Metroid game with the look and feel of Metroid Fusion and you really can't go wrong. I liked this game plenty. But I liked Fusion more.

New Super Mario Bros. (DS, 2006)
Something about this game just didn't blow me away like I wanted. I beat it once without ever really hunting around for secret levels, and I never looked back. For some reason (probably the mutliplayer aspect), I enjoyed the similar Wii game much more.

Pac-Man (Game Boy, 1991)
There's really nothing that needs to be said here. It's an arcade classic. Oh, and I guess my grandparents live down the street from the guy who made it.

Pokémon Blue (Game Boy, 1998)
Like plenty of obsessive fanboys my age, I owned both the Red and the Blue version of this classic game. It's really nothing more than a dumbed down RPG for kids. I did prefer Blue to Red for some reason (probably the Blastoise on the box art).

Pokémon Red (Game Boy, 1998)
See above. If you're wondering, yes, I did play (and beat) both games a number of times. What a marketing scam by Nintendo.

Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition (Game Boy, 1999)
Alright, I suppose this is getting a bit embarrassing. This was nothing more than Pikachu-pushing memorabilia. You could collect all three starting Pokémon from Red and Blue, however, and that made it better than either of its predecessors.

Qix (Game Boy, 1990)
This is an awesome and simple arcade port in which you draw lines within a box. By drawing such lines, you fence off an area from hazards and enemies. Claim 70% of the area and advance to the next level.

Solar Striker (Game Boy, 1990)
This is by all accounts a pretty terrible and difficult game. I'll admit that I needed to use an emulator to beat the five levels. Good luck doing so without save states.

Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll (DS, 2006)
The Monkey Ball games require very precise control schemes because the fundamental gameplay mechanic is altering the inertia of a sphere in order to navigate it to a goal at the end of an obstacle course. The control scheme in this game involved spinning a 2D circle with a stylus to change the 3D sphere's momentum. As such, it was an awful, awful game.

Tetris (Game Boy, 1989)
If Pac-Man needed no explanation, Tetris needs even less of one. A negative one, if you will. So, uh, this game doesn't involve falling blocks of various shapes and identical sizes.

Yoshi's Island DS (DS, 2006)
For a game with so much potential, this was a bit of a letdown. It just felt more cumbersome and frustrating than fun. Sweeney thought so too, and he actually traded it to me for the low price of a couple of non-wireless GameCube controllers.

And that's my recap. Twenty-four video games in a total of seventy-two sentences. I've still got a long way to go - 133 sentence trios just to complete my video games - but I figure there's no rush and I can easily belt these out at a leisurely pace. What does everyone else think about this? Good idea? Bad idea? Feel free to comment on any of the aforementioned games in the comment section. And, hell, feel free to make your own recap of pre-Back-Blogged endeavors. Smell ya later!

Party Down: Season 1

Sometimes you just buy something on a total whim. Though this show has aired two seasons on Starz over the past two years, I'd never really heard anything about it one way or the other. Then last weekend at my cousin's wedding, a separate cousin asked me, out of the blue, if I'd seen this show. He described it in that oh-so small-talky way that twenty-something guys use on one another: "fuckin' hilarious, man." Noted. And lo and behold, a few days ago, there was the first season on DVD at Best Buy for just $9.99. And ten episodes later, I'm ready to recap. The show is good, but it isn't great. Like, I'm glad I bought it, but I'm also glad I only spent a tenspot on it and that it was only ten episodes long. The premise is that a bunch of Hollywood part-time actors and nobodies are working in a catering company to pay their bills. Each episode is set at a different party, and these range from a Sweet 16 to a wedding reception to a "congratulations for being acquitted on those murder charges" blast thrown by Russian mobsters. The humor in the show comes from the realistic banter and shenanigans of the six-person staff. Adam Scott (the douche bag little brother from Step Brothers and now a regular on Parks and Recreation) plays a thirty-or-so ex-actor who has given up on his dream to get by in the catering service. He's really the straight man of the crew, the round character that stands out among the much wackier cast. I don't need to drone on about the rest of the cast, but it features Martin Starr ("Bill" from Freaks and Geeks, but ten years older - weird) as a sci-fi screenwriter with typical nerd angst. Jane Lynch also lends her talents for the first eight episodes, and is replaced by a new character portrayed by Jennifer Coolidge for the final two; both were about as good as you could expect them to be, and perhaps even better. The other three actors were ones I was not familiar with. Anyway, as I said, this wasn't a fantastic show. It worked well when the overzealous boss was the butt of the jokes and Jane Lynch also had plenty of memorable lines, but the big overarching storyline was that Adam Scott's character has great chemistry but a complicated lack of results with a struggling female comedian. It just got really stale before the end of the third episode. Fortunately there was enough humor to extract from various lines, conversations, and scenes to prevent the show from being a total bust. I'm glad there's only one more season of this show for me to watch - it was canceled after its second - but that doesn't mean I regret the ten bucks or five hours I spent on the DVD set. I do look forward to Season 2, but not with any sort of eagerness.

The Hunger Games- The MockingJay

After Stanvick made it apparent that he was flying through these book I knew I must finish the third one in the series before he did, mostly because I had a formidable lead and I have been slacking on my posting lately. As Stan has yet to finish this book, and other may also choose to read it.... Marissa, I will not spoil any plot. I will say that this book picks up neatly where the last book left off with very little time elapsed between the two. I will also say that this book takes a good step in the direction away from the first two books without giving the reader the sense that it "came out of left field." Instead 0f telling you about this book I have decided to spend this short piece on how it made me feel. This book I can categorize almost entirely by itself. When I finish a book I get an immediate sense of accomplishment, typically followed by one of two emotions sadness that the book/ series is over and that my journey with the protagonist is over or relief that I forced my way through finishing a book that I did not overly enjoy but most likely did not hate (usually I don't waste my time finishing books I despise). This book however has left me with a feeling I have never felt before confusion, not necessarily confusion revolving around the plot of the story, that itself was pretty simple, but confusion as to what kind of message, if any at all, the author was trying to send with this book. The ending, not to ruin it for anyone else, was too much like life for me. I like a book that ends the way a story should either happy or sad not real. In the coming days I am sure I will settle into a decision on whether or not I really liked this series or simply tolerated it. I look forward to discussing it with others so please read on and share your opinions with me! NUFF SAID

The Dark Tower

Spoiler alert! Don't read until after the ranks Trev, and Stan, if you're gonna read this at all, this post shouldn't hurt too much because the spoilers are pretty vague. I started up Stephen King's Dark Tower series 4 years ago, and finally it has come to a close. The series finishes with a 1000-page epic, The Dark Tower, in which Roland and his Ka-tet finally reach the tower. But not after suffering a few setbacks- after the events of Song of Susannah, they first have to find eachother. This made for an excellent introduction. The first 200 pages, in which the six members of the ka-tet return to full strength felt just like the writing in the first few books, which most people agree was the stronger part of the series. Awesome way to start it all off. After this came the two main tasks the group needed to complete before making the last journey to the tower- the liberation of the breakers, and a return to Maine to save Stephen King's life. Yeah that's right, we're not done with Stevie yet. The freeing of the breakers makes up most of the action you get in the book, and along the way you get a great backstory of a psychic who lost his way, but a lot of this part could have been trimmed down- it didn't really need 300+ pages. The return of the King, however, was a little more awkward. I mentioned in my review of Song of Susannah that Stephen King handled insterting himself as a character well, and didn't see what the big deal was. Well, here's the big deal. King makes himself a character integral to the plot, and performs quite a lot of self-fellatio along the way. Sure, some people call him a hack and Roland considers him a coward, but that's where the self-deprecation ends. There's all sorts of lines about how King had written just so many stories and how interesting it is that they all tie together with Roland's journey. Nice subtlety, man. Either way, this part doesn't last too long, and after a few more short episodes (Dandelo being my personal favorite) we finally get to the big finale... with a grand total of 30 pages left in the book. The showdown at the tower is a little underwhelming, sure, but the way it all played out at least felt appropriate. There's an epilogue that's well worth a read, and then a coda before which King advises you not to read it, the ending would probably spoil what you just read. So guess what- I didn't read it! I was very happy with the ending as it was, and had the coda-ending sorta spoiled for me before, so I just stayed away from it. So yeah, while it dragged at parts and certainly didn't need to be 1000+ pages, the book was a great cap to the series. I still feel like if King had put 5 years or so in between writing the books like he did with the first few, we'd have a much better series. Some of the ideas in books 5-7 were really good, but just got bogged down with too much unneccesary crap. And now, for no other reason than to start some DT discussion, here's my Rankems for the entire series!

1. Wizard and Glass
2. The Waste Lands
3. The Drawing of the Three
4. The Dark Tower
5. Wolves of the Calla
6. The Gunslinger
7. Song of Susannah

I probably have Wizard and Glass and The Dark Tower rated higher than most, and The Gunslinger ranked lower, based on opinions I've heard. But The Gunslinger bored me and the series really didn't pick up until just after it. Wizard and Glass was helped much by the fact that I knew it was a long flashback beforehand, so I was ready for the tale to take a break and just enjoy Roland's backstory. It got a little too melodramatic for most, it seems, but I thought it also had the best gunfight in the entire series, as well as the pre-flashback amazing conclusion to Blaine the Mono. And probably everyone agrees that Song of Susannah was the worst. Yeah we get it Mia, you're having a chap. Ugh. Marissa and soon enough Trev, gimme your ranks!

The Big Bang Theory: Season 1

PS! I wrote these in a car ride back from Vermont hence the rapid fire posting. Onward!

In my non reading crappy books time, I have been watching The Big Bang Theory. And the first reviews are in… I like it! It’s a perfect show for me. I really do enjoy sitcoms. They usually make me giggle. And this one has lots of nerdyness. The main characters, Sheldon and Leonard, are PhDs in Physics and work at a university. Man, they are hilarious. They say some of the most ridiculous things. And not only do they have one geek stereotype, they have them all! They love WoW, Star Wars, the Matrix, Halo and are the most awkward people ever. Hot girl Penny who works at a pseudo Cheesecake Factory moves across the hall, and Leonard has the hots for her. Super awkward Sheldon really does not understand love, friendship, or anything except for doing research on string theory, so he makes everything all sorts of fun. I think I like this show better than How I Met Your Mother. Maybe it’s because I watched it more recently. But I am definitely excited for season 2. Ask Steve for his opinion. He watched it with me. However, I own the DVDs so I get blogging rights. Suckaaaa!

Catching Fire

At some point during a six-hour round trip to and from Northern Vermont, I finished this book, the middle piece of the Hunger Games trilogy. It's hard to even talk about this story without spoiling certain aspects of the first one, so I won't even do so. Suffice it to say, the book was partially what I had hoped and expected it would be, but still managed to completely and utterly surprise me at points. And not always in a good way. Things started out slow; while it only took me three or four sittings to finish the first book, this one has been an ongoing project for two weeks now, with roughly two thirds of the effort coming today. In fact, it really wasn't until almost exactly halfway through the book that a distinct relegation occurred, allowing the second half of the book to have a very interesting (and familiar) feel. Loose ends abound, and certain questions and plot points remain wide open for a number of possible conclusions in the third and final book of the trilogy, the recently release Mockingjay. All in all, I'd call this book slightly weaker than it's precedent, if only because of a general lack of focus and direction this time around. Still, you'll be sure to hear my thoughts on the series' conclusion soon enough. And you'll be hearing from Webber on the subject too, I'm sure, as he has just started into Mockingjay as well. Not that it's a race or anything. (But if it was, I'd totally call foul on Webber's head start.)

Pretty Little Liars 4: Unbelievable

Ok, ok, this is the last Pretty Little Liars book for the time being. Gotta start the fifth. Spoiler alert! We find out who A is in this book! The book beings with Hanna in the hospital. She’s can’t remember anything, and the girls are like dying. Her on again off again bff thinks they should throw her a huge welcome back party. Because Hanna can’t remember Mona being a total bi-atch, she just glazes over those facts. Spencer is nominated for this super prestigious Golden Orchid award. Big problem! She stole the essay from her do-gooder sister Melissa. She has also stolen boyfriends from Melissa. Ooops! Emily was banished to Iowa and found a lesbian lover there too. She comes back home and gets her first lesbian lover very jealous. The uber climax of the story takes places at the masquerade welcome back so Hanna can cover her bruised face with a mask. The girls decide to tell the police and while Mona drives Spencer to the station, Hanna remembers who A was! The text was from none other than MONA! HER BFF! And Spencer is with her! She’s gonna die ahhhhhh. They go running after her and tell the police. Mona confessed to Spencer. Apparently Mona was bff with Jenna (burn victim) back in the day and was there the night of the fireworks. She caught some collateral fire and has some burns on her otherwise toned stomach. So she wants revenge. She finds Ali’s diary and exploits all their old secrets. Serious drama. The state: Quarry The participants: Mona (A) and Spencer The result: Bad ass fight and Spencer throws Mona over the cliff breaking her neck. Phew, good thing that’s all over right? Well in addition, Mona said that Ian Thomas killed Ali. Who’s Ian? Melissa, Spencer’s sister’s boyfriend. Also Ali’s secret older lover. All’s well that ends well.

Except. Oh boy. Emily thinks she sees familiar, one of a kind, blue eyes peering out of a car at Ian’s arraigning. Ali’s eyes.

Pretty Little Liars 3: Perfect

This book was dramatic! Psh, like any of the other ones weren’t. I’m happy I didn’t have this many problems in my life in 11th grade. SO! Plot summary! A gets pissed and tells her mom about her husband cheating and Aria knowing so Aria gets kicked out of her house. She lives with her bf Sean for a bit, but Aria gets back together with her AP English teacher, cheating on her boyfriend Sean (what a hypocrite). Also going on, Emily thinks Spencer killed Ali! Oh Em Geeeee! Spencer is having memories of the night Ali disappeared and apparently pushed her down into a rock. Could she be the killer?!!? Emily is publicly outed to the whole school at a swim meet, and her mom does not approve of her being a lesbian. So she threatens to send her away. Being the badass she is, she makes out with her girlfriend in private, but A gets angry and tells Emily’s mom the secret rendezvous point. Hanna, because of an A threat, had to tell her arch nemesis about her being bullemic, and is growing away from her bff Mona and losing popularity in the school. After being publicly embarrassed at Mona’s Sweet Sixteen (cue MTV theme music) she gets a text from A with an known number. Her ex-bff Mona! OH EM GEEEE, could she be A? Aria want to tell the girls about Spencer and Hanna wants to tell them about Mona, so they meet at a park at 3AM and before anyone can say anything, Hanna gets run down by an SUV. Holy shit! Not only did we catch up with the tv show, but someone got run down. If this doesn’t have every piece of a fabulous tv show, then I don’t know what does.

Pretty Little Liars 2: Flawless

We’re back folks! Last we left out, Spencer, Hanna, Aria, and Emily though the blackmailing A was dead when Toby died, but in a huge shocker (ha!) A is still alive. What are they to do? Unfortunately things only get worse. Spencer reveals to the girls that the “Jenna Thing” was when Ali and the girls tried to play a prank on Toby by setting off fireworks and scaring him. Unfortunately, the plan backfired and Toby’s sister Jenna was blinded. Good news though, we find out Toby was fondling his step sister so Ali could black mail him into taking the blame. All’s good right?

No way, not in teen drama land. Emily is all guilty because Toby died and she feels responsibly. Hanna, super hot girl, has a boyfriend who has taken a virginity pledge. So she stripped for him and he denied her in the first book. Her retaliation? I’m gonna smash up that dick’s car! Yea! Anyways, she is still pining for him, but she finds out he’s getting hot and heavy with another girl. Who could it be? No Way! It’s Aria. Aria is sad that she can’t be with her AP English teacher so she goes out with Sean who’s all like “hey beautiful, I don’t think I want to be a virgin anymore.” Spencer doesn’t really do anything in this book.

I really don’t remember how this book ends, so it must have been the worst one. We haven’t yet caught up with the tv show, according to fellow blogger, Steve’s, sister

Pretty Little Liars

Ok, so, after reading Gossip Girl 1, I tried to continue to Gossip Girl 2, but because I’m reading these books in a free e-format, the quality was horrible, and I said “Screw it, these books sucked anyways.” (I will continue watching the tv show though.) To make up for a little teen crappiness in my life, I started reading Pretty Little Liars. Yes! The very same Pretty Little Liars which is a hit teen show on ABC Family. As embarrassed as I am to read these, I enjoyed them! If anyone has ever seen the made for tv movie “The It Crowd” which is about a group of friends whose friend was murdered and all of a sudden weird things start happening around town. Good movie, which I would recommend, and kind of similar to Pretty Little Liars.

So the book begins with 5 girls in 7th grade. And I thought to myself, “I seriously can’t read a book that focuses around girls in 7th grade. That would just be too sad.” Good news for me though, the majority of the book takes place in 11th grade. Anywho, back to 7th grade. The girls are all pumped up because it was their last day of school and are all like “Let’s have a sleepover! Woo!”. They have a sleep over, and Ali, their super popular, pretty friend (who seems like a huge bitch) wants to hypnotize them. The other super popular over achiever, Spencer, is all like “Na uh, you aint gonna hypnotize me bitch” They get in a fight. Ali runs outside. Spencer runs after her. And POOF! Ali disappears and nothing is ever seen of her again. Dun dun dun.

Flash to 11th grade. The girls have grown apart. Aria, an odd fellow, has just moved back from Iceland. Hanna, revamped herself into a super popular girl. Emily becomes a superstar swimmer. And Spencer is the same over achieving girl she used to be. Then all of a sudden they start receiving text messages threatening with their old secrets signed “A”. Newsflash! Hanna used to be bulimic and now she’s shoplifting. Aria’s dad cheated on her mom with one of his students and now Aria is having an affair with one of her teachers. Emily loved Ali. Like lesbian love. And now she loves the new girl. Who knew all of this shit? Ali. But Ali is dead! How could that be!

Oh, side note: The whole book they are referring to the “Jenna Thing” which brought all of them together. Apparently the girls did something bad. The think Jenna’s brother Toby might now. Then all of a sudden Toby is with Emily. Then Toby kills himself. It’s all quite sad. So the girls are all relieved and like “Oh snap, thank god we dodged that A bullet” and then they all get a text message from A to end the book. GASP! What will happen next? Stay tuned for your dose of teen thriller drama.

Les Misérables: 10th Anniversary Concert

It seems like only a month ago I watched the 1998 movie version of Les Misérables. Well, here's the 1995 "dream cast" concert. I'm sure many of you are sick and tired of my Les Miz love, so I'll keep this post brief. First off, this truly was a "dream cast" in every sense of the phrase (except perhaps the Sega console one). I guess for this 10th anniversary concert they pulled out all the stops in acquiring the people responsible for the greatest performances in the show's international history. And it totally works. It doesn't even seem a bit weird that one of the key characters is portrayed by an Asian woman. The greatest performance of all was given by the Irish dude who played Jean Valjean, which only seemed fitting. Now, a point of critique, and not even a minor one - this DVD lacked the necessary narrative pieces that come between the songs. If you were unfamiliar with the Les Miz story going into this DVD viewing, you simply wouldn't get the full effect of the story or the songs. So while I do think the two-and-a-half-hour performance was amazing, I also think it could have been a full three hours long and included some simple transitory scenes. Oh well. So now I've seen the most recent film adaptation as well as the be-all, end-all concert performance. It's an apples to oranges comparison, but I'm still left craving a film version of the musical. If done properly, that would certainly be the best of both worlds. And yeah, someday, I'm reading that 365-chapter book. One final note to end on: I didn't know what to tag this post! Obviously it's not a book or a video game, but it also isn't really a movie or a television show. However, since it aired on television (but never in theaters), I went with "television." Still doesn't seem very accurate, but I suppose it's the best option I've got.

Heart of Darkness

The other night while I was watching Jeopardy, a question about this turn-of-the-century novella came up. I decided to make it my next 100-page logging. Three days later, I am upset. Upset that this piece of shit is considered a classic, and a symbolic one at that. This book sucked! I'm sorry, but that's my opinion of it. The whole thing was incredibly boring and its brevity did nothing to assuage my frustration. The story was actually a story within a story, creating an annoying effect where every single paragraph began with quotation marks as a man named Marlow narrated the whole thing to a group of sailors on a boat. Why include the sailors and the boat? Why not just get rid of all the open quotation marks and have Marlow narrate the story from the get go? Apparently because the sky darkening as Marlow told his tale was beautifully symbolic. I guess I never would have understood the blatant moral undertones of the story without such obvious visuals. Yeah, I get it. People are evil. Hearts are dark. Maybe I zoned out and missed something pivotal (or several things pivotal) but as the "plot" unfolded I only became more and more amazed at how little was going on. The famous line you've probably heard that this novella spawned was, "The horror! The horror!" Horror indeed. I'm fed up with all of these bullshit books from 100 years ago that are praised to this day for being timeless and significant. I guarantee you, if someone tried to publish this today, no one would even let him. "What's the point?" they'd ask. "Where's the story?" Do yourself a favor and ignore this piece of shit. The only thing about it I could consider "timeless" would how much less time I needed to spend on it.

Charlie Wilson's War

Here's a movie I bought for $5 at Target the other day simply because I had some very minor interest when it came out three years ago. I'll summarize it in a nutshell with no real regard for spoilers because it is based on a true story. It actually happened. Pretty recently, in fact. So I'm not spoiling anything. I'm educating you on American history, dammit. For instance, Harvey Milk dies at the end of Milk and the Titanic sinks in the movie Titanic. Anyway, the year is 1980. Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a Texas congressman who just wants to drink, do coke, bang his hand-selected staff-members, and have an all-around good time. His favorite fuck buddy is a wealthy socialite (Julia Roberts) who convinces Charlie to take up the cause of helping the Afghani people fend of the invading Soviets. Because if you didn't know, the Soviet Union was all about invading Afghanistan in the 1980s. (By the way, why didn't you know? Go read Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. Or at the very least see Rambo III.) Over the course of the decade, with plenty of help from a renegade ex-CIA (the always awesome Philip Seymour Hoffman), Charlie Wilson convinces the Reagan-era Democratic-led Congress to fund a program that would provide the mujahideen (freedom fighters, if you will) with all the right tools for shooting down Soviet aircraft. And when the American-supplied weapons prove successful in a few instances, the funding balloons from $5 million to $500 million. And in 1989, the poverty-stricken nation of Afghanistan, ladies and gentlemen, became the first power to ever defeat the Soviet Union in any war. That had to be the biggest upset since 1983's Return of the Jedi in which Ewoks - fucking teddy bears - defeat an entire imperial army of Storm Troopers. But I digress. The film ends with Charlie Wilson vouching for just $1 million to be donated to help rebuild some schools in Afghanistan, but Congress wants no part of it; all they ever cared about, of course, was derailing the Soviets in a covert manner. So to ask them to spend on schools even one five-hundredth of what they spent helping destroy them is absurd. The film does not go on to include the ultimate ramifications of what happened in the following two decades - a power vacuum develops, the Taliban takes control, 9/11 happens, and America goes in to settle the score, even further ravaging the country in the process. The real life Charlie Wilson has admitted to feeling at least partially responsible for the events that led to the 9/11 attacks, but Tom Hanks allegedly didn't have the cojones to even portray a character guilt-ridden by such a burden; that ultimate ending was removed from the movie and instead it just ends with Philip Seymour Hoffman wisely telling Charlie Wilson that they haven't necessarily helped the Afghan people at all. And that's the movie. Fantastic performances from the three leads involved. Julia Roberts particularly amazed me, mostly because she used a Texan accent and I don't know if I've ever seen her actually act before. The movie is lighthearted in its tone and full of quick lines and funny moments. And with a runtime of an hour and forty minutes (with credits), it certainly doesn't drag on in the least. I really don't think you can go wrong with this movie, but maybe political semi-biopics aren't your thing. Webber, you're gonna love this movie. (Maybe you've already even seen it. You would.) Oh, and here's something random to end on. This movie was the second time this month that I've seen John Slattery dress up in a Santa costume (Roger Sterling, Mad Men). Go figure.

LittleBigPlanet

At long last, I've beaten my first PS3 game. My girlfriend bought the system for me back in May and this was the first game I sought out. I figured it was "the" PS3 game to own, what with Sackboy (pictured above) kind of being the unofficial mascot of the PS3 to date. If you're not familiar with the game, it thrives on user-generated content. I think the idea in a nutshell is not so much a game as much as a platform for which everyday people like you and me can design levels and challenges of all kinds and share them with one another. It's truly a community-based project. Now, I did dabble with a few user-generated levels, and I can certainly vouch for both the game developers and the community at large in their ability to make it all work. But naturally, the bulk of my time was spent completing the single-player story. LittleBigPlanet doesn't try to be something it's not, and it's certainly not plot-heavy or character-based. Nor does its gameplay offer anything too unique; you can move and jump, and that's it. When I beat the final boss, I was totally underwhelmed by my reward for doing so. No credits rolled. No heartwarming scene occurred. Instead, I simply got a trophy called "Just Beginning." Clever, I suppose - again, the real point of the game is to create your own levels, share them, and enjoy the creations of others. But I'm likely not "just beginning" my time with LBP at all. After all, I've completed all eight worlds that the game had to offer. I did enjoy dabbling in the extra content and would certainly have plenty of fun were I to spend several more sessions on it, but my mission here is done. At least for now. Oh, and I might as well review and rate my experience with the game before I go. Overall, it was a good one. The controls were a bit sluggish sometimes, but never in an overly frustrating way. Some bosses and series of traps and pitfalls took me a few attempts to vanquish, but nothing was too challenging or unfair. I did take advantage, twice, of the ability to co-op a level with a random stranger from the Internet. Though two people can collect more items and can access areas impossible to reach when going solo, I can sum up the experience only by saying that you'll only have as much fun as your Internet partner will let you have. Also, since headsets are so not in vogue with the PlayStation community, communication is a nightmare. My suggestion would be to just play the game with an actual friend when you feel like doing some co-op. In fact, if there's anyone out there who's thinking of playing this game (Sweeney? Keith?), by all means, let me know. We can get in on some double-teaming action some time, earning more items and trophies in the process. And there's nothing we love more than our precious trophies, right? Except for maybe our Xbox achievements. At the end of the day, I liked LittleBigPlanet enough to strongly consider buying its upcoming sequel, LittleBigPlanet 2. It's also nice to get over the hump and finally beat my first PS3 game. May the next one take fewer than three months for me to finish.

Alan Wake

The idea behind Remedy's third person shooter Alan Wake is simple: what if Steven King created a decent video game? The plot itself is a bit harder to describe. Alan Wake is about a famous thriller writer who, on his wife's insistence, decides to battle his horrible writer's block by taking a vacation in scene Bright Springs Washington. I haven't been to the Pacific Northwest at all, but the game makes it look really picturesque- lakes, forests, rolling mountains, the works. The scenery was beautiful, and the characters populating the small town were at least decent graphically. It felt like they perfectly captured the feel of a small town where everyone knew and depended on each other. Anyway, once Alan arrives in town he finds his house under mysterious circumstances, gets into a fight with his wife, and witnesses her possibly supernatural kidnapping. From then on Alan does whatever it takes to get his wife back, and his world spirals into a nightmare. And that's the best way to describe the game- a nightmare. It's sort of a mystery, but so much of it doesn't make sense (on purpose!) that most of the time I couldn't tell what what real or not. Alan's being led around by some supernatural presence who experienced what he's going through 30 years earlier; he's completely forgotten the week since the kidnapping; and he's finding bits of a manuscript he doesn't remember writing that is sort of coming true. He faces off against possessed woodsmen and inanimate objects, leading to an interesting type of combat. Alan needs to "shoot" people with a self-recharging flashlight until they lose their shadowy outer layer, and then he's free to blast away with a shotgun. I liked the idea of light doing as much damage as bullets- spotlights were like rail guns, flash-bangs were basically grenades, and flare guns were as powerful as missile launchers. While running through cabins, farms, and all sorts of small-town buildings was fun, there was a little bit too much just running around in the woods, following the blip on your radar to whatever came next. At least the scenery was nice during these parts. Also, after Final Fantasy IX it's nice to play a game where the final boss isn't impossibly difficult compared to everything else. The game wrapped up in a pretty neat way that didn't tie together every loose end, but leaves plenty of room for a sequel, which I'd gladly purchase. So yeah, Alan Wake's nothing you need to play, but if you have some interest give it a shot. It won't disappoint.

Limbo

Limbo is a sidescrolling platform/puzzler game that came out to not much fanfare last month, but I saw a rave review in a recent Game Informer. I figured it would be cheap and short, and I'm a fan of puzzle games that take themselves too seriously so I decided to give this one a shot. And I'm glad I did. The easy comparison to make is to 2008's Braid. The game contains dozens of mind-bending puzzles of varying difficulty, and every single one of them felt perfectly integrated with the game's atmosphere. While Braid relied mostly on controlling the flow of time to solve puzzles, Limbo is basically just one long course in which you can mess around with physics to get from point A to point B. At times you were reversing gravity in the midst of a free-fall, or pulling the legs off of a mutant spider, or maybe getting some guns to blow each-other up. The atmosphere in the game was noteworthy as well- the entire thing was black-and white, with few things to distract from the puzzle at hand. The boy you control was nothing but a shadow with two white eyes for expression. I can hardly remember any music at all; most of the time it was some ambient sounds to go along with the mysterious feel of the whole thing. Finally, there was basically no plot whatsoever. The game starts with the boy, laying down in the woods at night, opening his eyes and jumping right into a puzzle. A quick scene towards the end of the game hints at the boy's intentions, and the final scene expands upon this slightly, but I don't think there's any deep philosophical meaning behind it. Essentially what it adds up to is a game with a haunting atmosphere but the fun gameplay to back it all up. Definitely worth a download.

Final Fantasy IX

Followers of the Back-Blog might remember that I recently started up the Final Fantasy series out of the blue and made it an unofficial goal to try to beat one game in the series each month for as long as I can. Well, after getting incredibly frustrated beating Final Fantasy IX this month, it's safe to say I'm going to take a month off before returning to the series. But I digress, who cares about my schedule- here's a little review of the game. Well, for the first three discs, each averaging about 9 hours, I played an excellent RPG- great story, the right amount of sidequests, and most importantly, no grinding whatsoever. I usually didn't have to go out of my way to fight in random battles, and ended up at just the right level to take on each boss. I enjoyed the fact that I wasn't playing just one party for most of the game as well- the eight characters split up in several different ways, and even though Zidane is the main character, oftentimes he's not a part of the crew you're controlling. This forced me to adapt to a few different styles of play that I wouldn't have tried otherwise, which is nice considering how many RPGs just throw a dozen characters at you with no incentive to switch from your main party. Final Fantasy IX came out in the later days of the PS1, and as such the graphics can be pretty terrible. The static backgrounds were fine enough, but the moving character models were always a mess. This would be no big deal, but it kind of accentuated how great the many FMV sequences were- ten years later, and I thought they looked beautiful. The gameplay itself was typical for the series, with a few changes. There's an ability system that I didn't see in FFI or FFIV allowing you to add random status tweaks depending on your current equipment- great! There was a card game that was really pretty unnecessary but seemed fun enough the one time the game forces you to play- okay! Finally, there's a "trance" mode a character can enter after taking enough damage, allowing them to do nearly double the damage their normal attacks would do. This might seem like a game-changer, but really it felt mostly based on luck. Sometimes you'd waste a trance mode on an easy enemy, or go trance just before a boss dies- it was too unpredictable to be used effectively. But at times it came in handy, so I can't fault the developers for including it. Anyway, I worked on this game for the first half of the month and made it to the fourth disc last Saturday. A few friends dropped by as I planned on finishing it on Saturday night, and at around level 30 I experienced a good deal of frustration taking on the last 7 or 8 bosses. Eventually, at that same level, I was able to get to the last boss. Remember that- through every part of the game but the final boss, I only needed to gain 30 levels. How many levels did I need to gain until I was able to beat the final boss? How about ANOTHER 30. That's just pointless padding to extend the life of the game. It's not like at level 60 I was able to beat the guy easily, it took 3 tries at that point. So yeah, to whomever feels like playing Final Fantasy IX- enjoy yourself for those first three discs, they make up a fantastic RPG. But when you get to disc 4, save yourself the frustration of dieing over and over again; just grind for a few hours. It's the only way.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

Ok. First Off. I feel Sith should be spelled Scith. It's just how I pictured it. Ok?

Now that we got that out of the way, Star Wars III. The final one! Honestly, now that I have seen it, there should be no one left that hasn't seen Star Wars because it's a classic that everyone talks about. So if anyone out there knows anyone who hasn't seen the movies, berate them. (Cough Sweeney)

Anywho, this movie was pretty awesome. Most of you hate me because I appreciate the new movies because of their special effects which add to the movie for me. This movie was good in addition to the effects though. It did a really great job of bringing the two trilogies together. Anakin is quite disturbing in this movie. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it (which is just unforgivable) but the scene in the Jedi temple is absolutely horrifying. The fight at the end was epic though, and the movie essentially tied together all of the plot points missing from the 4-6. Good movie!

I tried to be more "vanilla" in this post and adhere to the usual back-blogged posts. I don't know if I like it. Old Marissa would have talked about R2D2, the return of Chewbacca, and Yoda's continued badassery. Oh well, I guess those things won't get talked about then.

True Blood: Season One

I swear I’m not gay.

OK, so my girlfriend got me roped into this show, and I must say - despite all that I’ve heard it being a “chick” show - I am addicted. (I don’t know what this says about me.) Starting off mid-season three, I’ve been trying to catch up on all the characters and back story so I can be up to par on everything by the time the current season ends. Yeah, it’s over dramatic and the plot is heavily based on futile relationships and pointless sex scenes, but there is a very dark, mysterious element to the whole story that makes it compelling and edgy.

Based on general opinion, I hear the first season is the best. I think Marissa already touched upon this show/season, so I’ll skip the plot and premise, (like you needed an explanation anyways: vampires and humans - as well as a slew of other mythical creatures - all butting heads or getting it on) and get right down to the comments. It’s not the best show I’ve ever seen, but it’s OK. No, scratch that... it’s addicting. Yeah, it’s like a drug, and after every episode you just need to throw on another.

Now, I know you can argue that every TV show is like that - hell, it’s just part of the formula for writing a compelling script. However, True Blood abuses this technique. With about five minutes left to every episode they throw in the huge climatic scene that is cut off just before the ending. Not wanting to dwindle on the cliffhanger, you switch on the next episode and boom... they’ve got you.

The blood, gore, mystery, and murders helps balance out the (what I find to be) boring Twilight-esque romance that plays out through the series; and still keeps me coming back for more. So I encourage men everywhere: Give the show a chance. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Besides... it can’t be any worse than Mad Men. (Boo-ya!)

Left 4 Dead

Fellow Blogger Trev picked up Left 4 Dead when it first came out in 2008 and brought it over to my house immediately for some co-op action. The premise for the game is simple- 4 survivors during the zombie apocalypse need to shoot their way through hordes of zombies to reach rescue. The game wasn't a typical FPS, though, and featured a large emphasis on teamwork. Stray too far from the team, even on the easier levels, and you're toast. By sticking together you can rescue, revive and heal anyone who needs help, thus fulfilling the "live together or die alone" philosophy. Trev and I pounded through 3 of the 4 campaigns that day, and while I returned to the game for a few minutes now and then, I never finished off the fourth. I attempted to do just that during my January of first-person shooters, but my disc was scratched and I marked the game as 'null', possibly never to be beaten. But give credit to Stan, who provided me with a copy of Left 4 Dead so I could finish the last level, which I just did tonight. Since I only spent about an hour on the game in the last few months, it's hard to write a decent review, so expect a more detailed account when I eventually play last year's sequel- Left 4 Dead 2.

Super Mario Galaxy

I don't play many video games and I am pretty sure this is my first post of this kind so bear with me as I try to wrap my mind around posting one. I liked this game a lot. I found that many levels took the physics generator in ways that I could not have possibly imagined. The game play was very familiar as far as Mario games are concerned. The new additions such as the bee suit and the spring suit were clever but not the greatest, I feel like they could have been more fun and more original. I initially set out with the goal of getting all 120 stars and soon realized that there were a couple of stars that I probably could have gotten with hours of investment but that my short fuse would not allow me to stick in there that long. After three or four wiimote throws I usually gave up and moved on to the next star. I beat the game as far as defeating Bowser and restoring the Mario Galaxy is concerned but I did it with few stars over the bare minimum. As far as the final fight is concerned I have played better. I felt like the final fight was a combination of a couple of the easier boss fights. It took me two tries and only because I messed up the first try. I don't think I even took a single hit of damage on my second, successful, attempt. I put the game down for several weeks and I am sad that I did because I was so close to finishing it on my first push.

Four Comedies

Aww yeaaah, the less popular the book, the less likely it is that I'll find a decent image for it, and Aristophanes' Four Comedies translated by Parker and Lattimore may be the most unpopular item I've ever read- a GIS gave me four total pictures of the cover, and this was really the best one. The first play in the collection, Lysistrata was a somewhat feminist comedy about women withholding sex from their men until they stop waging war. I read this back in college for class, and while there were a slew of pot holes, some of the gags still resonate and it's my favorite of all the ancient comedies I've read. The next two plays, The Archanians and The Congresswomen I read several months ago but have forgotten entirely. Oops! That brought me to my last play, The Frogs, which was actually pretty funny and memorable. It details the voyage of Dionysus (yeah that Dionysus) and his wacky slave/sidekick Xanthias into Hades, hell-bent (ha!) on bringing the long-deceased poet Euripides back with him to talk some sense into the Athenians. About halfway through the focus shifts to Euripides and Aeschylus engaging in what can only be described as an ancient rap battle, criticizing eachother's work and talking themselves up as being the best. This kept going for 40 pages, unfortunately, which really slowed the fun story down to a snail's pace. Eventually Dionysus decides on a victor (spoiler alert: it's Aeschylus), and allows Aeschylus one final burn on Euripides before leaving. So yeah, much better than most of the other plays I've read, but I doubt any Back-Bloggers are gonna be clamoring to read this. Also, I think I might be done with my ancient plays, stand by for confirmation.