StarCraft: Brood War

Yeah, so remember when I was kind of nonplussed by StarCraft? I was equally nonplussed by its expansion pack, which was really more of a direct sequel rendered with the same graphics and played on the same engine. Imagine that. At the very least, I'm all done with computer games on my backlog (you know, for now) and I'm also down to fifty unfinished video games (you know, for now). I shall celebrate by going to bed!

Under the March Sun

With the new Major League Baseball season officially starting early this morning in Japan, I knew it was time to finish this book- Charles Fountain's Under the March Sun: The History of Spring Training. Backing up to about a month ago, I stumbled upon an old Visa gift card, prompting me to go on a quick Amazon shopping spree. Along with a few other items, I reloaded my backlog with a stack of new games, ending up with about $6.50 left over. Apparently I was wrong but I was under the impression that this couldn't be combined with my regular credit card and would thus have to find stuff to buy for under $6.50, so I naturally checked out the "100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or less" and bought three that seemed potentially interesting. I'm not going to hold any of these books to particularly high standards- they are likely very cheap for a reason. Anyway Under the March Sun is first in a three part series of cheap non-fiction, although it will probably be a while until I get to the others. March Sun tells exactly what its subtitle claims- the history of spring training. The problem with this is that spring training isn't really all that interesting. I found that at the start of the book, when Fountain covered the old-timey history up through the twenties or so, most of the information was based on anecdotes, which actually made it a pretty interesting read- the players and management were forced to play in the cheapest fields and sleep in old army barracks, and the tension between the professional ball players and the citizens of small towns in Florida led to some pretty funny episodes. Another decent chapter told of the shockwaves Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier sent throughout spring training- it was hard enough to play on a big league team relatively progressive cities, but the towns in the deep south were far behind in their views and it made for a thought-provoking read to see how different a world spring training could be for a black athlete. Slightly less interesting were a few chapters based around the history of specific teams' spring training facilities over the last few decades- the lightning in a bottle of Dodgertown, the insanity of Red Sox in Fort Myers, and the way the Astros of all teams managed to ring in a new era of professionalism in spring training. Unfortunately between these chapters of slight intrigue there were plenty of chapters that delt with the nitty-gritty of the finance and dealings that got different teams to different spring training facilities. This wasn't really something I cared about, so it made the book drag pretty badly. In a moment of hilariously terrible quality control, the entire last chapter is written twice somehow. Finally, the last third of the book or so contains an informative appendix of straight information for anyone looking for some facts. I can't imagine there's a better place to look if you're interested in the history of spring training, I just also can't imagine there are many people that interested in the history of spring training.

Silent Hill

I've played so many Resident Evil games over the course of my logging, but never delved into its biggest competitor in the survival horror genre- the Silent Hill series. The first game, Silent Hill came out in 1999, three years after the original Resident Evil, so at that point RE was nearly three games deep- remember what I said in my Dragon Warrior II post about missing those quick sequels? Anyway most of the reviews I had read claimed Silent Hill goes for a more creepy overall vibe rather than the more 'visceral' scares of Resident Evil, and I suppose I agree. Silent Hill offers up an overall much more creepy environment, and does so in a very clever way- to mask the PlayStation's hardware limitations, your field of view is only a few yards, so for most of the game you're either almost completely surrounded by darkness or a blizzard. You really never know what will pop up right in front of you until you're standing next to it. For the most part the game plays pretty similar to its survival horror counterparts- you run around exploring for whatever pieces of equipment and keys can open the next door while trying to find your mysteriously disappearing daughter. There's a bit more plot here than in the Resident Evil series as you try to stop a town from being taken over by some ultimate evil, but the voice work is laughably bad and time and time again made me appreciate the fact that video game voices are done by professionals these days. Silent Hill also has no inventory management, allowing you to carry everything you find. This easiness is offset by the much more difficult riddles and puzzles. A typical Resident Evil puzzle is hardly a puzzle at all and usually more of a fetch quest, but Silent Hill has some interesting puzzles that take a bit of time to solve- usually involving deciphering some vague poetry passage. Still though, there's only a few of these in the game and for the most part you're looking for 'Storeroom Key' or 'Red Plate" or shit like that. This is something I find fun, and I would like to attempt some sort of modern day version of these survival horror games that have little emphasis on action. Supposedly Resident Evil: Revelations is exactly that, but I wouldn't expect a post on that for a long time.

Dragon Warrior II

Dragon Warrior II came out just a few months after the original Dragon Warrior- remember when that was a thing? But it's incredible how much improvement was made in such a short span of time. The original Dragon Warrior was a very forgettable boilerplate RPG that featured one-on-one turn based combat and relatively nothing in the story department. You find a new town, then you grind, then you go to a dungeon for some fetch quest, rinse and repeat. Dragon Warrior II does follow this pattern somewhat, but gives enough options to not feel like a linear game. It's set in the same land as the original Dragon Warrior, 100 years in the future as the heirs of King Loto set about to defeat a new evil, encountering a few chararacters and environments from the original Dragon Warrior along the way. The change from one character to three in a party opened up some new strategies that would become commonplace in future RPGs, and this is complimented by fighting multiple enemies at the same time. The system isn't quite perfect- each time you meet a new playable character they are woefully underleveled and never really quite catch up as the game progresses. At least the characters are varied enough that they each add their own unique element to battles- Lorasia, a basic warrior; Moonbrook, the much weaker mage; and Cannock, who's a little in between. Complimenting the huge progress in combat are the great strides taken to improve moving about the overworld. Now there's not just one save location in the whole land, but one in every town, which made exploring the world much more fun and easy. In addition the party attains a boat early on, allowing for plenty of exploration right from the get-go. I realize that a lot of the things I'm praising the game for are standard tropes of RPGs now, and honestly I didn't find this game particularly great compared with modern games- it just never felt like a chore, but that's really because I pulled double logging duty, playing the game while watching some seasons of tv on Netflix. It is however easy to see Dragon Warrior II's importance in the history of gaming- there were major improvements over Dragon Warrior and hopefully this continues with the last of the Game Boy Color ports I play, the class-based Dragon Warrior III.

StarCraft

So when StarCraft II came out two summers ago, every college classmate of mine was going apeshit. The long-awaited sequel to 1998's PC strategy game was a huge hit with what seemed like everyone I knew. I abstained form jumping in on the action, however, because I had abstained from said PC strategy game in the first place. Let me backtrack a bit and start from the beginning, which I suppose is Warcraft II. I loved Warcraft II, which shouldn't be confused with the (in)famous MMORPG World of Warcraft. It was a real-time strategy game in which the goal was, generally, to conquer the other players on a given map, typically by building and sustaining large armies of troops. To train troops, you needed to build barracks and armories. To build these, you needed enough gold and lumber. To get gold and lumber, you needed to send workers out to mines and forests. The whole game was a delicate balancing act, but it was also a race against time. You didn't just need to prioritize; you needed to master the idea of parallel processing. Any time your workers spent not building, mining, or upgrading structures was time lost. Any time your barracks spent not training troops was time lost. To win a game of Warcraft II - probably the first game I ever played over the Internet, way back when doing so meant connecting to other friends' modems with a dial-up - you had to be completely on top of your shit, never once pausing mid-game to contemplate what actions to take next. I mean, that's not entirely true - a superior strategy could still beat someone even with fewer troops and resources, but still. The game was more about time efficiency than careful planning, and although I loved it back in fourth grade or so, the appeal wasn't built to last. So when StarCraft came out in 1998, and it looked to me like a futuristic but potentially confusing Warcraft knockoff, I had no real interest. That same lack of interest lasted all the way up until the aforementioned release of StarCraft II when, as I said, everyone I knew was going nuts for this long-awaited sequel. So two years ago, I figured it was finally time for me to buy the original StarCraft game, and two nights ago, with Marissa out of town for the week and her PC laptop at my disposal, I decided it was time to finally play it. And it quickly became apparent that I'd missed... absolutely nothing. As I had always suspected, this was indeed just Warcraft II set in space. Instead of things like "gold" and "lumber mills," there were "minerals" and "gas refineries," and where once the upgrade chains seemed logical and meaningful, this time around they felt so much more obscure and "science fictional." Also, let's be honest - time has not exactly been kind to the way a game form 1998 looks and feels nowadays. I dunno. StarCraft wasn't a bad game, but it was exactly what I expected it to be, and the appeal of these real-time strategy games that involve memorizing hot keys and mouse clicks and development patterns and optimal building spacing, it just doesn't exist for me anymore. The version I bought was the "Battle Chest," and as such I also have the expansion pack, Brood War, on my backlog. I'll probably try to play that one this week, too, but not because playing the original StarCraft has left my hungry for more of this stuff. Oh well. I've got fifty-one more games awaiting their moment in the sun, so I shouldn't get too hung up over not loving this one.

MadWorld

I bought MadWorld in the summer of 2010 for the obscenely low price of $7 or so (new). Unfortunately, it was one of many, many purchases I made that year for no better reason than "it's cheap and I've heard good things." I bought 52 new games in that calendar year. Not only is that one a week - that's the exact number of games currently remaining on my backlog. What the hell was I thinking? I'm still paying for that game-acquiring splurge, and unfortunately MadWorld doesn't rank among the more memorable games I blew my wad on. To be fair, it wasn't a bad game. It also didn't take up a whole lot of my time. (Six hours?) The game is a comically dark hack-and-slash-em-up that has you fighting in a city-wide death match. It's presented in a unique style: black and white only, save for the blood - and oh, yes, there is plenty of blood. Genuinely funny commentary keeps the mood light enough, and the Wii control scheme employed here was actually original and interesting; this game wouldn't be the same on any other platform, since you swing the remote and nunchuck around to simulate ripping enemies in half and throwing flaming barrels or signposts at them. My biggest fear after one level of play was that the gameplay would grow old and stale, especially with the minimalist color palette at hand. Fortunately, there was enough variance in the environments to prevent this from being the case. MadWorld was a fun game, but it was also a silly and, probably, ultimately forgettable game. There's nothing wrong with those types of games, especially when they only cost you seven bucks, but on the long road to backlog completion a game like this one can feel more like a trivial nuisance than an enjoyable experience. Oh well. That's on me, I guess, for showing such poor restraint a year and a half ago. By the way, for the record, it's now been over two years since I've beaten a Wii game I truly loved: New Super Mario Bros. Wii, seven full games ago. Let's hope the remaining backlog - Super Mario Galaxy 2 and a couple of Metroid games - can blow me away.

Breaking Bad Season 3

Holy shit. Now that's an awesome season of tv. While Breaking Bad's first and second seasons were very good, the show hadn't quite made the jump into the 'best show on tv' discussion for me as I know Stan has mentioned before. But season 3 changed all that and I can see why Breaking Bad gets all the hype. After season 2 ended with a bit of an odd disaster that didn't really move the plot ahead, and then Walt losing his family but set in a seemingly comfortable position money and health-wise, I guess the only thing left to do is go bigger- suddenly Walt is dealing with potential multi-million dollar deals, and yet the lives of him and those he cares about have never been in greater danger. Events from early in season two finally come back to bite them in the ass, and it appears that this had all been planned since the pilot episode- smart writing! I mean, seriously, this show has it all- fantastic acting and writing, beautiful cinematography, and a really compelling story. I wish I could jump right into season four to get ready for the fifth and final season, which should be airing in a few months, but the DVDs have not come out yet. Hopefully when they do Netflix will get them streaming and I'll be ready to go.

Professor Layton and the Last Specter

This game is supposed to be a prequel to the series and it introduces the characters of Luke and Layton for the first time. The story is about a mysterious specter that has been destroying parts of the town of Misthallary. Professor Layton is contacted to come and check out the situation by his friend the mayor of the town and when he gets there he learns that his friend's son Luke was the one who contacted him. In the usual gameplay fashion the two of them set out to solve the mystery by solving a series of puzzles, over 150 of them.

I don't know about this game. The puzzles were fun for sure but is that all I want in a Layton game? I have played a couple now and the stories have been all over the place. I preferred the story line in Unwound Future to this one. Unwound future was less realistic in its story line but I found that charming in a way. This one was more realistic but it lacked a real sense of charm. I have heard that the new game coming out for the 3ds is a crossover between Professor Layton and a game called Phoenix Wright. I shall have to check out this Phoenix game so that I am not confused when the crossover game comes out. All in all I will continue to play the series. After all, I haven't even played the first game in the series the curious village nor have I played the diabolical box. The backblog gets bigger!

Serenity

It's funny, after the series finale of Firefly, I admitted that while it was a fun show, I had no problem with the fact that it was prematurely cancelled. Now after watching the wrap-up sequel of a move Serenity, I'm starting to think I'll miss these characters. Firefly as a series was just a bit too hit or miss with each episode for me, but I found Serenity a strong and engaging continuation of the story that could have potentially kept going long after the movie. The series itself is set 500 years in the future, as overpopulation has forced humans to move to some other part of the galaxy and terraform different planets into hospitable places. A new government known as the Alliance has been formed, but they mostly control an inner ring of planets. Anything goes on the outer 'frontier' planets, so captain Mal and his crew spend most of their time working illegal jobs and trying to stay out of the Alliance's watchful eye. This normally wouldn't be too hard, but at the start of the series the crew accidentally takes in a fugitive doctor and his Alliance-brainwashed and possibly psychic sister who are fleeing Alliance forces. The movie Serenity sets out to answer some of the long-standing questions of the shortened series- Why was this girl brainwashed? Why does the government need her back? And how do the Reavers, a horrible band of hyper-aggressive space pirates only mentioned in passing during the series factor into it all? Serenity did a great job of drawing me back in to this story and you could tell series creator Joss Whedon was going for broke and enjoying his inflated budget. Even though this was meant to conclude the series and episodes after could never be the same (a few major characters get killed off), suddenly I want more episodes of Mal and his crew taking down the Alliance. So all in all, a very enjoyable experience and series-capper that put me in the group of wishing the series stuck around a little longer.

Final Fantasy XII

Oh, Final Fantasy XII. Has it really only been five years and change? You're one of the oldest games in my backlog, and since I'd played you extensively before putting you on the back-burner, it's easy to forget that you were a Christmas gift in 2006, and that even my oldest memories of you are younger than those of my first semester of college. Regardless, it's been nice catching up with you after all those years. At first I wasn't a big fan of yours. You were just so different from every other Final Fantasy game I'd played, and I had played and enjoyed plenty. Open world battles? An extensive and elaborate auto-battle system? Trying to ret-con yourself into "Ivalice," the world of Final Fantasy Tactics, without ever paying homage to that game? You had some nerve. And with a story so bland and emotionless and hard to care for, it's no wonder I stuck you back on the shelf in a matter of weeks. But since our reunion, I've come to appreciate your quirks. I've played through at least four other Final Fantasy games during our time apart, and there's a certain repetitious nature to those older siblings of yours, what with the same old battle systems and same old medieval settings. Silly old 18-year-old me just wanted you to be the same as some of my favorite games from childhood. But wise-beyond-those-18-years 23-year-old me has realized that after twelve installments and at least twice as many spin-off titles, maybe it's not such a bad thing that Final Fantasy ditched the battle screen set-up and tried something new. I have learned to respect that you march to the beat of a different drum, and as such, I can now consider you something substantially more than a disappointment. You still aren't my favorite Final Fantasy game, and at least four other numbered installments in the series- and perhaps six, and never mind several of your spin-off title cousins - still rank ahead of you in my mind. But an average Final Fantasy game is still a pretty darn good game, and as such, I award you four out of five stars and apologize for taking so long to appreciate you for what you are. Now, having said all that, seriously, what the hell was going on in that mess of exploration quests you call a "story?" I know I bailed midway through and let the first half of your plot rot away in my mind for half a decade, but I'm not sure I ever quite understood what was happening. I'm glad your six playable characters seemed so well-defined; if they hadn't, I'd probably have stopped caring once again. Come to think of it, how were said characters so well-defined while the story was so vague? And f we're being honest here, your music was less than impressive. Like, no disrespect to those who created it, but it always felt like simple elevator music. I suppose part of this is due to that whole "no separate battle screen" thing, but I mean, even during climactic cut scenes, where was the passion and the urgency? Let's see if your spin-off game (child?) manages to work the characters you've already established into a worthier story. At any rate, it's been real, and it's been fun, but boy am I glad I used that auto-grinding loophole to make your tail end a breeze to get through. Peace be with you. Now, enjoy the shelf once more.

Breaking Bad Season 2

Speaking of hyped of seasons of tv, here's Breaking Bad's second season. As the first season ended, we saw just how completely nuts Tuco the dealer could be, and protagonist meth cooks Walt and Jesse realize just how hardcore a situation they're getting themselves into- dealing the best chrystal meth in the state of New Mexico. The season gets off to an explosive start as the Tuco problem leads Jesse and Walt down to Mexico in one of the standout episodes of the season. After just barely escaping any trouble the two decide to go their separate ways and get out of the meth game, but of course the show brings them back together and raises the stakes even higher as the two seem to be on their way towards becoming kingpins. What's more, the second season debuts Mr. Show alum Bob Odenkirk as criminal lawyer Saul Goodman, injecting some humor into the show with a great new character. And towards the end of the season Walt and Jesse have to come face to face with major repercussions for their actions. All in all I'm not quite sold on this show being as good as Mad Men, but it's close and I've been told Breaking Bad only gets better from here. At the moment I'm halfway through season three, and that seems to be the case. Expect a post in the next few days.

Game of Thrones: Season 1

Alright. So that's what all the hype was for. I began watching Game of Thrones yesterday evening, and before going to bed I had finished six of the season's ten episodes. The final four came tonight, meaning that once I began watching the series, nothing had me stopping except for necessities like sleep and work. So, yeah. It's that good. The series is based on George R. R. Martin's ongoing epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, and it takes its name from the first of seven novels. These books take place in a fictional medieval earth-like world, primarily on the continent of Westeros, a land divided into seven kingdoms but united under one king. Several noble families vie for power, wealth, influence, and independence, and it is this never-ending struggle for success that gives rise to the phrase "a game of thrones." Whose daughter will marry the king's heir? Which house will ally with another so as to cut down a third? Are the enemies of enemies truly friends, or is it possible to have a three-sided war? The series no doubt should remind many people of The Lord of the Rings, the last epic fantasy series to be brought into pop culture. But honestly, it feels as much like Braveheart or Gladiator as it does a Tolkien clone; this feels like a fantasy series for those who are too embarrassed to watch or read something resembling Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: the Gathering, as it deals almost exclusively with English-speaking human beings (not elves and orcs and trolls and such) who fight their wars with swords and bows rather than magic spells. More than any other praise I can give it, I have to stress how engaging and genuinely interesting the series is. There are at least thirty important characters and as many as five or six storylines running in tandem by the season's close, but never does anything feel too slow or boring or confusing, and never do you hate to see the show cut away from one group of characters to another, because literally everything that's happening is fascinating. Credit for this is obviously due to Martin for providing the source material out of nothing more than his own imagination; I haven't read the books, but from what I've heard the show so far has been extremely loyal to their narrative, hardly even so much as telling certain events out of order. The show is also just absolutely beautiful in every way, which is a credit to the production value, the costumes, the makeup, the locations, the sets, and the cinematography. I haven't really had time to "digest" the first season, so it's easy for me to exaggerate its greatness having only just watched it, but I definitely would say that Game of Thrones has vaulted itself right up alongside Mad Men and Breaking Bad to contend for the title of "greatest drama on TV today." I'm glad Season 2 debuts in two weeks, because I'm naturally eager to find out what happens next in this intricately complicated series of gambits for power. And, yes, I'm definitely reading all seven books. Someday.

Downton Abbey: Series Two

Do I get to post this? Sure, why not. I caught Downton Abbey series one on Netflix but planned ahead and Tivoed series two. And then I started it up just days after the series two finale aired. I'm behind the curve, but only slightly! And since the dvds are apparently already out, I'll go ahead and post on this. I wouldn't say the second series of Downton was better than the first, but it's pretty close to matching it. My only real issue is formatting- there's a few double episodes that stretch out for a full two hours, which can drag without a break in the middle. Other than that, still a solid set of episodes. We start off at war, as two of Downton's own young men are fighting on the front lines of World War I and the Abbey is being temporarily converted to a military hospital. I was a little lost on the logistics of this but there's still plenty of drama at home and on the battlefield. Downton suffers casualties, and as the war ends the abbey is plunged into an even more desperate situation, ultimately leading to a very satisfying finale. While the search for an heir to take over Downton takes a back seat to the War, this didn't feel like the series was moving in a dark or unwanted new direction. Enough loose threads still exist that I feel like I have a good idea as to where the third series will go, but I'll likely have to wait until next January or so to find out what happens. Until then, Downton, you'll be missed.

The Cave

Have you heard of Plato's Allegory of the Cave? I'll paraphrase from Wikipedia. Basically it's a famous allegory from The Republic wherein people are forced to live their entire lives stuck in a dark cave, strapped down and immobile, staring straight ahead at a wall (logistics like food and activity don't matter here). Now suppose that behind them there are other people and a large fire. The people would grow accustomed to the shadows and echoes on the wall, until a point where they're not reflections of reality but the only reality in existence (again, don't ask questions, just run with it). The people would make guesses to eachother as to what shadows and echoes they would hear next, and whoever could figure out patterns in the shadows would surely be deemed very wise. Now assume that one of these people was released from the shackles and turned around to look at the fire and other actual, real things. Wouldn't the person be blinded and unable to handle looking at these real objects, immediately attempting to look back at the more familiar shadows? Would he be angry at his captors as they drag him out of the cave, away from everything he understands as reality? However after who knows how much time on the outside, he finally starts to get acclimated- seeing things that aren't just reflections, getting used to the light, maybe after a while being able to observe the sun. Finally after part one- the Cave and part two- the Release comes part three- the Return. Surely the guy, now much wiser as to how the world works, pity the poor fools still strapped down, watching the wall? Suppose he's brought back to his home in the cave. Now that he's no longer accustomed to the game and the dark, he'd probably have a tough time observing and predicting the shadows on the wall, and be considered stupid by his old friends. 'Why bother leaving the cave," they'd ask, "if you'll only return corrupted and stupefied?" It's a pretty interesting idea that to me seems to say that people really just like things that are comfortable and easy to digest even when they may be very clearly wrong. Apparently in The Republic this is analyzed to another level about meeting god or having a spiritual epiphany or something, but the idea seems mostly the same.

The problem I had with Saramago's The Cave unfortunately is that I had never heard of any of this. The Cave is Saramago's allegory based on an allegory but actually follows the lessons of the Allegory of the Cave in sort of a reverse fashion. To back up a bit, I had read a blurb on the book which claimed that a struggling potter's family is changed forever after a major discovery in a cave. So naturally when the book started I expected them to go to a cave at some point early on. This didn't happen, however. Instead what I got was a slow-burning family drama in which an old potter finds out that his industry has basically died overnight with the invention of new plastics. Working together with his fellow potter daughter and her husband, a security guard at a huge building in the city, they try to figure out a way to stay financially stable and manage to strain their relationships with eachother to the breaking point. Throughout the book hints are dropped about a sort of rising Orwellian society in the form of 'the Center'- it's really just a huge building, but it's aggressively expanding and starting to take over the city and it's inhabitants- you do business through the center, you work at the center, you live at the center, and inevitably when our characters are forced to move due to lack of money, you are stuck at the center. Towards the end of the book the family is angry with eachother over money, jobs, lack of jobs, and their living situation, and the father has turned down a second shot at love because of how little money he has. Finally, the titular cave shows up, as the father and son-in-law make a startling discovery in a recently excavated cave beneath the building. I wasn't quite sure what Saramago was hinting at, but whatever it was it drives the family to immediately stop everything and just get the hell out of the city, at which point it's revealed that the cave is going to be set up as some sort of tourist trap, 'Plato's Cave.' And then it ends. And it made no sense to me. But now that I actually know what Plato's cave represents, it makes a lot more sense. I liked the contrast in the book, because it took a trip into the cave to force a life-altering change in world-view. While in the Allegory of the Cave the prisoners don't know reality from traces of reality, in The Cave the discovery of the tourist trap opens up the family's eyes to how pointless it is to spend life in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and to instead actually take time to appreciate their loved ones. It's a bit of a sappy message, sure, but I think Saramago went about it in a very intelligent way- but only if you're familiar with the original story in the first place.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Let me begin this post by saying that I have yet to play Uncharted 3. However, based on my playing of Uncharted and Uncharted 2, this game stands up to its console brethren in every way.

This game takes place before Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and introduces you to two new characters, Dante and Marisa Chase. Dante is essentially equivalent to Sully in the previous games and Chase is the tang Drake is chasing(ha). This game definitely follows the same sort of formulaic story that the other games have followed in this series, but I don't really think that is such a bad thing. The similarities between this game and its console counterparts just add to the feeling that I am getting the Uncharted PS3 experience on a handheld.

The only bad thing I can say about this game is that they have thrown in a few gimmick controls to "take advantage" of the Vita touch screen controls (both the screen and the back of the system are touch screens). After about the third time I was walking on a beam and had to participate in a minigame in which I move the Vita back and forth to regain my balance I was pretty much ready to throw my Vita out the window. Plus, I had to rub the dirt off like thirty artifacts by rubbing the screen feverishly. Thankfully, the rest of the game is so good that I tend to forgive these stupid gimmicks.

For me, this game represents a change in handheld gaming - not a change to pick-up and go unfulfilling iPhone games, but a change to handheld games that are just as good as any games you can plany on PS3 of 360. The controls are the same, the graphics are mostly the same, the story is the same, the gameplay is the same (minus some stupid gimmick vita controls) and the satisfaction you get from playing it is the same. I can't explain to you how satisfying it is playing a game that loses nothing in translation from console to handheld. What everyone has always wanted is a handheld that plays console-level games without having to make technical sacrifices. The PS Vita is it. And Uncharted is the best example of that.

I absolutely recommend this game and the PS Vita.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Two months ago in my Girl with the Dragon Tattoo post, I neglected to mention an issue with the book that many people found to be its biggest flaw. It started pretty slowly, and to a lesser extent its ending dragged on a bit. The bulk of the story was told after the first hundred-plus pages, and the major conflicts most readers were invested in had wrapped themselves up before the final sixty or so, which dealt with bringing closure to the story's original conflict, a conflict which had been pushed to the backburner for the bulk of the book. I didn't bring this up then because the issue didn't really bother me. I really enjoyed that the book got exciting fast after a lengthy introduction that had established our characters, and I felt that the book had "earned" the right to take its time winding down after coming to a natural climax (or two) with a hundred pages to go. The reason I bring this up now is because I perceived this book to have an exactly opposite "excitement vs. time" curve. It began with a bang, putting the series' titular inked pyromaniac on a Caribbean island with a hurricane coming and a domestic dispute brewing. Action and excitement were had in large doses, then, before the book reached its hundredth page. Once it did, this isolated tropical adventure was never re-visited, and instead another lengthy build-up toward a murder mystery happened. Still, it took until about the two-hundredth page for the murders to actually happen. The middle hundred pages dragged at an incredibly slow rate; Rooney Mara leaves the narrative entirely while several other characters ever-so-slowly begin to investigate these murders, declaring our "woman-hating-man"-hating-woman the prime suspect. Things began to pick up a little bit in the pages numbered in the 400s as we finally return to our lady protagonist's point of view and start to see some serious shit go down. And then the final hundred pages manage to piece everything together - including a few big twists that reveal some shared character histories - before the series nearly jumps the shark by having someone get shot in the head, then get buried alive, and then survive the whole thing right as the book ends abruptly. So I was entertained at first, then kind of bored and apathetic toward the story for a month and a half (although it probably didn't help that I was reading the early part of the book on a series of trips, bringing it with me to Connecticut, Vermont, Quebec, Virginia, and Maine), and then able to rip through the second half of the book in a matter of days. I'm left kind of torn. The Girl Who Played with Fire was an exciting and enjoyable book. It took a more-than-superficial look at a few big socio-sexual issues in the Western World today. It continued to develop an already interesting character. It told an intriguing murder mystery. But I'm not sure if it was a better novel than its predecessor, which I wasn't even sure was an excellent novel in the first place. I feel like a great big asshole, complaining about popular and beloved video games and books today, but I'm just trying to call it like I felt it, and in the case of this Millennium Trilogy so far, I'm not feeling the things enough other people felt to make the books into international best-sellers and lucrative movies. Of course, having said all that, I must again acknowledge, so as not to give off the wrong overall message here, that I really have enjoyed both books so far (in addition to the first film in the newer, American trilogy). I just don't see why these are world-wide sensations, I guess. Of course, the jury's still out, and I imagine I'll read the third and final book within the coming weeks, so my overall opinion could shift one way or the other. For now though, I'd say the first book was a break-out hit, easy to read and hard to put down, and something that told a nice, contained stand-alone story, while the second book was a bit more over-the-top than the first, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in not-so-good ways, and that it didn't tell a stand-alone story at all since it ends on a huge cliffhanger that makes me want to jump right into... Wait... No... This has happened to me before. And when it did, the third book wasn't any good at all. And now I'm seeing visual parallels that I don't think I will ever un-see:

And now I have no faith - none at all - that this third book will be worth its weight in fecal matter. Oh well. At least the bar's been set low! (By Mockingjay. Not by the previous two books in this trilogy. We've been over this extensively already.)

Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 came into my backlog two years ago dripping wet with positive acclaim. The game's premise was simple enough; like any other Resident Evil game, it's part of the "survival horror" genre, which essentially means that it's like a shooter designed to scare you. Survival horror games accomplish this not just by having games played in dark places where things pop out at you, but by giving you limited ammunition, let's say, or the inability to save the game very often. They aim to get your heart racing by having you be so afraid to use one of your three remaining bullets, say, or wondering when the hell your next safe haven will come. And there are enough people out there who love that type of shit for those gimmicks to have become staples of a genre by now, rather than just tricks tried out by one game or franchise. I am generally not a fan of this genre. I like shooting shit with no regard to where my next box of bullets is coming from. I like my non-boss enemies to fall weakly and easily as I cut down hoards of them. The idea that enemies can outrun me our out-fight me in close quarters is frightening indeed. But the big deal about Resident Evil 4 was that it was supposed to move away from hardcore "survival horror" by becoming more action-oriented, ammo-friendly, and over-the-top with grotesque monsters. This was supposed to be the Resident Evil game for people who never wanted to play Resident Evil games, and, counting myself among that demographic, I went in with high hopes. And frankly, they just weren't fulfilled. I'm not positive what it was about the game that never got me excited and enthralled. I'm sure the Wii control scheme had something to do with it, but that couldn't have been the entire issue because I've played Wii-control-scheme games before. (Actually the Wii controls were even a huge pro in Sween's book, and Sween's played more Resident Evil than anyone else I know.) The game's plot and characters were nothing special, but they weren't bad, either. I think my biggest issue was the inability to move and shoot at the same time. Apparently this is a big survival horror trope - you can choose to run, or to fight, but you can't do both! - but it felt horribly outdated for a game whose initial release came in 2005. Why can't my video game character do what all other people can do - use his legs to move while using his arms and hands to fire weaponry? It never stopped annoying me. Being unable to move while aiming a weapon is fine when you're shooting a bow in Zelda, for instance, but in a game relying so heavily on both shooting guns and avoiding enemies, why add this false duality? Modern shooters make an easy and effective compromise by having gunfire be far less accurate while the player is moving. Running and gunning is still an option, but it's less effective than standing still. In Resident Evil 4, though, cessation of all movement is a prerequisite for firing your weapon. Frustrating, to say the least. And maybe that's just an artifact of gameplay that was grandfathered into the genre, and maybe fans of the series at large would have complained if suddenly you could move while shooting. I also have to believe I would have enjoyed this game more if I was able to strafe around while moving, rather than be forced to play with "tank controls," in which the only way to move is to move forward, and radial turning operates as a separate function. I'm used to more modern games, played with two thumbsticks, in which you can strafe from side to side and back up and walk forward all with one stick while using the other to fine-tune your view and direction and such. Ultimately I'm more forgiving of this issue; back in 2005 the two-stick movement layout hadn't yet become a true standard, even if other schemes felt more cumbersome (and they certainly feel that way here in 2012). At the end of the day, I don't really know where I stand with the Resident Evil series based on this one game. I'm actually sort of tempted to go back and try one of the older games in the series; although this game was praised for moving away from "survival horror," it didn't quite get all the way to "action shooter," and the result seems not necessarily to be the best of both worlds. You've got a game that's more action than horror, which I'm sure annoyed at least a contingent of fans of the series, but still horror-rooted enough to limit ammunition and have shitty combat controls, which doesn't necessarily mesh well with the amount of mandatory fighting involved. The biggest thing I can give credit to Resident Evil 4 for doing is inventing (or at least perfectly refining) the "over the shoulder" camera view that all of today's third person shooters rely so heavily on. Of course, that's more of a nod to the development team for introducing a lasting element to the gaming industry than actual gratitude on my end that said element was employed here in this game; it'd be like playing Donkey Kong today and being blown away by the ability to both jump and move from side to side. Groundbreaking at the time, but not necessarily a bonus in the present day. I guess maybe the "survival horror" genre of video games just isn't for me. I was pretty disappointed in both Left 4 Dead and its sequel, and now I've also failed to appreciate this game, which many have called the - not "one of," but "the" definitive - best game on the GameCube. Oh well. I really did want to love this game, but something about it made it just "likable" at best - which shouldn't be a knock on any game, but kind of is on a game so universally beloved as this one. I can't swear off the genre entirely, but for now it's not my cup of tea, and I'm glad I didn't load up the backlog with Resident Evil games before realizing I didn't love this one.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Some feel that Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is one of the GameCube's best games, an underappreciated gem of the survival-horror genre, with one of the most interesting gimmicks in gaming history. I will agree with the latter two statements, but overall I don't feel this is in the must-play tier of games from GameCube's library. It was fun, but had some flaws as well. Still though, the game bombed despite its very intriguing premise and critical acclaim which has left many fans clamoring for some kind of sequel. If Eternal Darkness 2 came out I'd probably play it. The reason why is because Eternal Darkness has such a fantastic gimmick- the sanity meter. Basically along with health and magic meters found in all sorts of games, you also have sanity. Every time you run into an enemy you lose some, but if you kill him in a specific way you can recover your lost sanity. But if you start to lose, say, a quarter of your sanity bar, the game will start to get a bit uncomfortable. The camera starts to tilt, the music gets off-key, maybe you hear someone laughing at you in the background. Lose some more sanity and you'll start to hallucinate- phantom knocks on doors, phones will ring, statues will move, stuff like that. Fall to near-empty on sanity and the game will just flat out shit all over the idea of the fourth wall. The game will suddenly turn monochrome. You see the volume get turned down and your save file deleted. My personal favorite, after a big moment early on in the game, was a fake-out ending/sequel advertisement- "The darkness has been destroyed for now... but see what happens next in Eternal Darkness 2: Sanity's Redemption." Finally falling to empty will not only have all of these effects, but hurt your health bar as well. Seriously, the first few hours of this game when you can't really help what level sanity you're at can be seriously scary and fun, constantly making you think you accidentally hit your remote. The thing is, sanity is not the only thing in this game. The rest of the game consists of basically a time-traveling Resident Evil knock-off where you live through the experiences a dozen people have had over the course of history with a mysterious book, the Tome of Eternal Darkness. There's more of a focus on melee combat, and I rarely used a gun. There's also magic spells, which both help and hurt the game. They're actually set up in an interesting way, and it's pretty fun to experiment and discover new spells. Your magic regenerates as you move, and this leads to a downside- once you learn spells that can recover health and sanity, I found myself running in circles for a few minutes after tough battles just trying to get back to full health. It might have helped if magic regenerated faster later in the game. Also, once you discover the recover sanity spell, there's really no reason to ever hallucinate again in the game. I think a few segments where you can't access your sanity recovery spell would have added a lot of tension later in the game. Still though, these seem like easy fixes that could make this game a must-play. Rumor has it a sequel is being worked on for Wii U, so we'll see what the future brings.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

I was really confused going into purchasing this game based on the reviews from two different online critics: IGN and Gamespot. IGN raved about how great this game is. Received a perfect scored. One of the best games for the Wii and perhaps the best Zelda title of all time – even better than Ocarina of Time. (Fairly extreme praise.) The other, Gamespot, had a much more lukewarm response. It’s OK, but nothing great. As for my own take? Well, in the end I’m going to have to side with Gamespot’s timid response. It’s just not that great of a game.

The Zelda franchise is an amazing collection of games that I hold very dear to me. With the exception for a few of the handheld titles and those rare – yet infamously awful – computer games (I don’t even know if those guys were even license by Nintendo to exist), I have played through every Zelda game. Now, Skyward Sword isn’t necessarily an awful game when left on its own, but in comparison with the evolution of the franchise it does not stand out well. This might just be me, but I have very high expectations for what these games should be. Just as Ocarina of Time was able to break so many boundaries in the RPG-adventure genre, while formulating an amazing story, I look for ever new game to “wow” me like its predecessor… and every game has failed to reach its mark.

With the exception of Majora’s Mask, I have been increasingly unimpressed by each new Zelda title that has been released since its N64 days – for reference, turning into the Dark Hero after collecting all the masks in Majora’s Mask is awesome.

But to the point of Zelda’s failure, why is this? It’s not the necessarily the repetition of the game play. Despite what others may say, I love always getting the bow or the hookshot as items; they’re staples of the franchise. It’s definitely not the storylines… it’s really all about the environments. Every time I enter into a Zelda-world it feels as though I’m playing with a doll set. Things feel small and playfully scaled back as to not overwhelm the audience. Why is this? Why not give me a seemingly expansive world I could ride through on horseback for a hour or so. Plenty of other sandbox games do this already. Can’t Zelda? The closest it ever came to this was in Windwaker. Sailing from island to island, discovering hidden secrets, that was fun. Skyward Sword attempted to do this again with their mapping system, but with one meager city that the whole game revolves around it still feels stunted. You know what I want… a map like Shadow of the Colossus. What is probably the most visually breathtaking game I’ve ever played sold itself on this expansive, beautiful map. I remember the walk to main temple was along this huge bridge the stretched over the map of the entire game which allowed you to take in everything the environment had to offer. I pulled back on my analog stick to make my horse slowly walk just so I could enjoy the beauty in true cinematic fashion. Skyward Sword should have made me feel this way, but never did.

And my second beef kind of runs tangent to my first problem with Zelda’s environments feeling too small. Why are there only ever just a handful of characters to every game? In Skyward Sword, I understand that you’re trying to save the world or some crap, but for who? The 12 people that live on that main island-town you’re from? The previous games did better than this in creating the illusion of walking through populated towns and cities, but it still wasn’t anything impressive. I want to know that lives are on the line if I fuck up solving this temple. Then some monster will rise and destroy hundreds if not thousands of innocent townspeople. Oh, but no. Just give me some quirky item vendors and kid trying to catch a butterfly. That’s my world. I’ll do my best to pretend I care what happens to these people.

Sigh…

The more I think of it the more I honestly realize that Skyward Sword isn’t that bad of a game, I just have high standards. I could continue to lay into it that the graphics are sub-par or that it’s 2012 and I’m still constantly reading text boxes, but at this point I don’t really see the point. Despite all these flaws, the game is entertaining and still delivered on the fun, puzzle-solving temples. I guess I just see the perfect Zelda game lurking out there in the distance. Always building my hopes up thinking this will be the one. Nope. One day - maybe - we’ll see Zelda immersed in a Shadow of the Colossus environment with the vast character mapping system we would see in… oh, let’s say a Final Fantasy game. Then just have Ganondorf slay hundreds of villages before awakening some ancient evil monster that threatens the world itself. Now we have Zelda game worth playing.

Mad Men: Season 4

Mad Men has always been a great show, but it wasn't until Season 4 that it made the leap - for me - into the "all time great TV drama" discussion. This set of thirteen episodes was easily one of the all time greatest seasons of television I've ever seen. The show has many, many strengths, but I feel like it's strongest element is its characters. Yes, it nails the 1960s look and feel (as best as I can tell), and it's capable of exploring diverse themes about identity, change, and turmoil. But the characters themselves stand as the most compelling part of the show, to the point where even a C-plot in a relatively weak episode featuring two tertiary characters is capable of sucking in all of your attention and leaving you unable - or at least unwilling - to stop watching. That's good TV. For the hell of it, and perhaps for the sake of offering a crash course on the subject, let me now spend some time describing the main characters and their various conflicts. If you haven't seen the first four seasons yet, don't think of these as spoilers; think of them as a way to get up to speed for the upcoming Season 5 premiere!

Don Draper is the show's main character, and is the advertising industry's biggest star. He grew up as "Dick Whitman," the unwanted son of a prostitute in coal-mining country, running away to serve in Korea as soon as the opportunity presented itself. There he served under a man named Donald Draper, and when said officer was killed in action, Dick manipulated the situation into a case of mistaken identity and returned to the States under the identity of "Don Draper." As Don, he married a model, got an advertising job at Sterling Cooper, raised a family, and became the advertising star he is today. But Don has always been haunted by his own shameful origins as well as his stolen identity. He's also prone to drunkenness, extramarital affairs, and, in his darkest moments, taking advantage of his subordinates at the workplace. At his core, though, Don seems to be an ethical man who loves his children, the advertising game, and the reputation he has built up. His web of inner conflict is one of the series' biggest open-ended sources of drama, and where his emotional roller coaster will take him over the next three seasons is anybody's guess.

Roger Sterling is a fun-loving smart-talking womanizer. He is a co-worker of Don's, and is probably his best friend. Roger inherited his status as a partner at Sterling Cooper (and later Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce) after the death of his father, an original co-founder of the company. As such, he's always been a wealthy man and hasn't ever actually had to work for anything in his life, aside perhaps from his stint as a sailor in World War II. His job is more or less to schmooze with the bigwigs at the companies SCDP advertises for. Nonetheless, he still manages to lose a huge tobacco account, because as one fellow partner says, "[he] never took you seriously because you never took yourself seriously." Roger is ultimately a pretty easy guy to root for, though, to the point where most viewers' sympathy for him allows them to root for his extra-martial affair with office manager Joan, whose husband is serving overseas in Vietnam.

Joan Harris, as I just mentioned, is the office manager at SCDP. She's an attractive woman with an extremely curvy figure that she knows how to use to get what she wants, for the most part. But Joan isn't just a simple femme fatale, for here in the 1960s there are suddenly young women doing advertising work, and Joan's status as the alpha female among the secretaries is blown wide open by such career-oriented girls. Moreover, as the series has progressed, Joan has aged some five years or so, and gotten married, and now all of the immature twenty-somethings in the office treat her like a mother figure. Her marriage has always been strained and now her husband is in Vietnam. She's now pregnant with Roger Sterling's baby, pretending it's her husband's, and her salary and reputation at work have more or less plateaued. Joan is a woman whose life is in turmoil, one who has suddenly grown "old" overnight and is filled with all sorts of doubts and questions about her family and career.

Peggy Olson started out as Don's new secretary in the pilot episode, but it quickly became apparent that she had a knack for advertising, and specifically for coming up with slogans and marketing campaigns for women's products. Peggy has had to endure all kinds of discrimination and sexual harassment - back before such subjects were even concerns at any workplace - fighting her way to make it an a male-dominated industry. She works longer hours than most of her colleagues, for less pay, and ultimately winds up largely unthanked and unrecognized in spite of all the sacrifices she's made in her personal life. Everyone falsely assumes she only got her non-secretarial job in the first place by performing sexual favors for Don. Peggy's social life also suffers due to her occupation, as several of her young and counter-cultural artist friends mock her for working for "the man," selling cigarettes and breakfast cereals in the name of the almighty dollar. In spite of all of this, Peggy fights on to make her way in the world. She is arguably the second-most important character on the show, behind Don.

Pete Campbell is an up-and-comer in the agency, and as the series begins, he's seen as one of the ferocious young guys nipping at the heels of the established professionals like Don. Pete is initially a pretty immature guy both in the office and at home, at one point even going behind Don's back to expose  the aforementioned Dick Whitman secret. Pete would rather surpass Don by getting him fired or punished than by putting in an honest decade's work. As the series goes on, however, Pete matures into a respectable man who not only does great work for the company, but bites the bullet when told to in order to cover up for mistakes made by Don and Roger. This character growth is more than welcome, as Pete goes from being a detestable blackmailing weasel to more of a meek but respectable mouse. He even begins to stand up for himself and his family's best interests toward the end of Season 4, leading me to expect great things from him going forward.

Betty Francis is Don's ex-wife, and in my opinion is the only main character the show could have handled better. Betty sucks. She's terrible. She's petulant and whiney and a terrible mother. The way she treats her children borders on abuse at times, and she's a ripe asshole to her black nanny, her ex-husband, and her daughter's friend, among many others, simply because that's who she is. It's difficult to sympathize with her, then, even when Don goes off and has multiple lengthy affairs with other women. This shouldn't be the case. We should be able to find something that excuses Betty's behavior, or at least explains it beyond the idea that she had a troubled childhood herself. After all, her utter shittiness makes us root for Don even when Don has been a pretty shitty father and husband. We shouldn't be giving Don free passes just because his ex-wife is so, so terrible.

Lane Pryce is an older gentleman from England who comes overseas to oversee Sterling Cooper when Sterling Cooper is bought by a British company. He's initially seen as stiff, sour, and humorless, much like I imagine any British stereotype would be. After co-founding SCDP, though, Lane begins to open up a bit more and his own troubles - a strained intercontinental marriage, a desire to see his young son more often, an overbearing father - shine through the bland exterior. It becomes apparent that Lane is the guy working his ass off to keep the new company afloat while Don's drinking and Roger's carelessness often get in the way of new business opportunities.

Sally Draper is Don and Betty's troubled daughter. Sally is deeply disturbed when her grandfather dies, and then even more so once her parents get divorced. Her relationship with her mother is tumultuous, and Sally often acts out and seeks her father. She rebels and comes of age in various ways - cutting her hair off, running away from school to her father's office, carrying on a relationship with a boy her mother hates, masturbating at a slumber party - all of which get her in trouble with Betty. It doesn't take a pessimist to wonder how dark things will get for Sally as she enters her teen years in the late 1960s. Something tells me she'll make it out to San Francisco before the series is done.

A number of other compelling characters exist. There's Ken Cosgrove, Pete's big rival. There's Megan, the secretary Don proposes to at the end of Season 4. There's Henry Francis, Betty's new husband. There's Bert Cooper, an original co-founder of Sterling Cooper, an eccentric man who finds himself increasingly lost and useless in his old age. There's Harry Crane, the overweight semi-talented guy who decided to start up a television department at the advertising agency, something that will probably end up making him very wealthy by the end of the series. And there are plenty of notable background characters among the secretaries, copywriters, spouses and love interests, and people from the neighborhood. Great characters, great writing, great show. Here's looking forward to March 25th.

Breaking Bad Season 1

Breaking Bad is a show I got in on the 'ground floor' so to speak back in 2008. I caught the premier, loved it, and tuned in for the rest of the seven episode season on AMC. It had a very cinematic feel to it, often stopping mid-episode to give some picturesque shots of suburbia and nature in New Mexico. It helped that there was some incredible acting and a gripping plot to back it up- high school chemistry teacher Walter White finds out he has lung cancer, and in a last-ditch attempt to ensure his family will be financially stable after he's gone he teams up with a small-time drug dealer to distribute the purest crystal meth in the state. He's a wiz at cooking up the product, but he quickly learns that he has no idea how the drug trade works- thus the partnership. Walter and his partner Jesse have a great dynamic and they're surrounded by a cast of deep, interesting characters. What I forgot about this season was that Walter's cancer wasn't relegated to a running b-plot that comes up during lulls in the 'crystal meth' plots, but gets about equal screen-time as well. Unfortunately I never got past that ground floor, and I stopped watching Breaking Bad before the second season started. With Netflix streaming the first three seasons I should be able to jump back into the series and hopefully find a way to watch season four before season five starts sometime this summer.

Firefly: The Complete Series

Firefly is one of those series that gets all sorts of geeks up in arms about its premature cancellation. I never really paid much attention to it but it sounded alright- a sort of sci-fi/western crossbreed. So I finally gave it a shot recently and I can say I'm impressed, but not depressed over its cancellation. Firefly's a very fun show to watch- basically in the future the fringe parts of the universe are populated but uncivilized and are very similar the the Old West frontier. Our plucky hero, captain Malcolm Reynolds leads a crew on his smuggling space-ship, carrying out mostly illegal jobs just to make a living. At the start of each episode, one of two main characters gives out a spiel that covers the basic point of the show, and each ends with a line that'll help you understand what it's all about- "You got a job, we can do it- don't much care what it is." and "Find a crew, find a job, keep flying." There's little in terms of overarching plot aside from a general sense of avoiding the galactic government and a subplot where the ship's newest crew members, a doctor and his sister, try to figure out why the sister got brainwashed, but at the end of the prematurely cancelled series it's still very much unresolved. As such the episodic nature can produce some very different results but for the most part I found the episodes enjoyable. That said even though I know there's a movie I'll be able to watch, Serenity, that wraps the whole thing up, I wouldn't be too sad if I never saw any more Firefly. It's a fun show, but it also feels like it would have fit in with the late-90's Saturday afternoon fantasy shows like Xena, Hercules, and Jack of All Trades. I'm sure this is a better show than all of those, but getting into wacky adventures and action just doesn't seem to work as well in primetime.

I Am Number Four

So this movie came out a year ago, so I'm a little late to the bandwagon but.... I'm totally digging it! I had no idea what to expect going into this movie. Someone once told me it was good. I only knew of it as the movie Dianna Agron from Glee was in. Apparently it's about aliens! Well let me tell you something, this movie had all the makings of a Marissa must see.

1. Action (with aliens!)

2. A dog

3. A love story

I would say the only thing it was slightly lacking in was the humor department, but hey! a movie can't have it all (except Transformers 1). Anywho, lemme give you a brief plot line. Think Percy Jackson and the Olympians meets aliens meets something else. An alien race was in jeopardy so nine "legacies" escaped the planet and landed on Earth. They have fancy powers. They are named by numbers. How very personal. Anywho, there are evil aliens trying to kill the legacies in order from 1 through 9. This movie is centered around number four. (go figure) So yea, that's the plot in a nut shell. What I didn't expect was for this movie to be part of a series. That would have been number four on my list 4. Sequels! Boy do I love sets of movies. And it's based off books. 5. I can go read the books! Seriously, I'm going to go find the books. Oh and 6. They are probably aiming for teenagers as the audience. This usually means it's going to be good and enjoyable in my book.

So all in all, I'm sold. I'm probably gonna read the books to see if they are any good. This movie did a good job at getting me excited for future movies. Good for you movie. Good for you.

Dragon Warrior

I've completely lost my mind, so before finishing up the lengthy Final Fantasy series I've jumped into its biggest rival/competitor/whatever- the Dragon Warrior/Quest series. Depending on the installment this series switches names, so just assume the words 'Warrior' and 'Quest' are the same thing for the rest of these bloggings. Why would I take on such a monumental task? Well, the truth is, almost the entire series of nine games is available to play on a handheld system, and I find that rpgs lend themselves especially well to handhelds. There's something easy about picking up a game and sort of paying attention while grinding but also watching something on tv in the background. The first three games in this series got ported to Game Boy Color, then IV - VI and IX as well are available on DS. Eventually when I get down to Dragon Warrior VII and Dragon Quest VIII I'll have to play them on a console. I'm not quite sure how I'll even play VII at the moment because it has not reached downloadable PSOne Classic status but it's also kinda expensive online. I'll worry about that later; for now, let's talk about the first installment in the series: Dragon Warrior. This is a decently tough little rpg that has only a few things to do but a lot of grinding in between major events. I'm okay with this, I know it's a staple of the series. And the grinding seems expecially worth it in this game- you see some pretty significant upgrades every time you gain a level, even though there's a good amount of time between levels. The game also features a one-man party- your character is on his own, searching for a kidnapped princess and eventually killing off some bad guy who's trying to take over the world. You can technically save any time, but this quits you out of the game, and every time you load that save it immediately deletes itself. In addition you have a sort of home base with permanent saves. Basically that means if you ever suddenly have to put down the game for a bit you can pick it up hours later in the same spot, but there's no saving right before a boss and reloading every time you die. This really wasn't so bad, as traversing the world map doesn't take long and I rarely had to fight any boss more than three times; it's pretty easy to tell if you're going to be powerful enough or not. The combat it also fairly simple but very quick. Overall Dragon Warrior is not a particularly great game, but it seems like a very good port of a very old-school rpg to the point where it doesn't feel entirely devoid of interesting content. For such an early installment, that's good enough for me.

The Rum Diary

Back in my college days (ugh… it feels so weird to say that), I went through a bit of a Hunter S. Thompson phase. This was during the time I worked at our college newspaper – turning out ground-breaking news like “Five Tips on How to Cope with your 8AM Class while battling a Hangover” – and accessorized my life with alcohol, cigarettes, and various forms of narcotics and hallucinogenics. Top that off with an over-indulgence in In-N-Out burgers along with a complete lack of exercise and it’s clear that I am the complete model of perfect health. Anywho, during this time I read an excessive amount of Hunter S. Thompson. Why? It was my angsty, drug-riddle phase of my life. Who really knows why I was doing anything at all? That aside, Thompson is a brilliant writer with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas being one of my favorite reads of all time – check it out if you haven’t already. However, I’m not here to discuss Thompson’s greatest triumphs, but rather his greatest folly.

The Rum Diary, Thompson’s first novel, is not that great alone. In fact, I believe it was the last work he ever got published. Not by the strength of the novel’s compelling story mind you, but probably just because the publishers believed they could make a few extra bucks if they expanded upon Thompson’s library. So, what we have here then is the film adaptation from an already less-than-great novel. Now, I’m not saying that this was going to be a train wreck from the start. There are plenty of great movies based off of lack-luster books – The Godfather for instance. (Can anyone out there tell me that Mario Puzo’s novel is any good, let alone better than the movie?) Also, we have Johnny Depp reprising his role – sort of – as Hunter’s alter ego, Paul Kemp (not to be confused with the other alter ego, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ Raul Duke). And the director/screenwriter is NOT Terry Gilliam (the one responsible for the Vegas adaptation), but some other dude who must have been passionate about the project. All-in-all, I can see everyone’s interest in the project, but guess what… the movie sucked donkey balls.

While the acting and production value are all fine – Puerto Rico looks amazing – the story was just appalling. Let me give you a brief low-down on the what the novel is about. Struggling journalist Paul Kemp lands in Puerto Rico to work for the dying local newspaper. Not much happens in regards to that storyline as Thompson focuses his character’s lust for a blonde bombshell he spots on the plane he flew in one. Eventually he meets her as she's dating some American entrepreneur that’s looking to make some big bucks exploiting the island. Can’t really remember anything else of any importance happening until the entire cast goes to Carnival where everyone gets super drunk and the blonde girl taken off by a group of locals while dancing provocatively with them – you’re suppose to assume she gets raped as the alcohol delirium sweeps over the festival. Her boyfriend gives up on her and his dreams, setting sail on his boat to wherever (best scene of the book; not included in movie – will touch on this later), and Paul quits his job at the paper and flies back home. Anti-climatic. No?

The movie attempts to correct these problems by creating some higher stakes and motivations for its characters. They explain this whole devious interest to exploit the natural resources and build a bunch of new hotels in the area (they did a nice job nodding towards Thompson’s ridicule of the “American Dream” on this part). With all this crime and corruption, Kemp gets hired to spin news stories and ads that will help appease the masses at the new developments. Up to the halfway point, I’m liking it. Then we reach Carnival. Same thing pretty much happens as in the book, only they skip the pivotal moment when the entrepreneur-guy faces his defeat, loses his girl, and sets sail alone. Instead, the guy just dumps the girl (who will later meet up with Kemp then running back to the US). Kemp finds that the paper has closed down, then hatches this master plan to put out one last issue that exposes all the crime that he’s been a part of. To do one last good deed. This all builds up until they get to the office to find all the printers have been taken away. Everything has failed. At that point Kemp says good-bye to his friends and sets sail, stealing the entrepreneur's yacht. Much like the book, nothing is resolved and yet there's not really a large enough sense of defeat to call it a tragedy. I'm apathetic towards it. Don't know how to feel.

Suddenly, as if the director was aware that he was leaving his audience stranded he tosses in a quick epilogue. Text fades into the screen: “Paul sailed back to New York where he met up with that blonde chick. They married. Oh, and one day he did become a successful writer. Yay! The End” Alright, I might be paraphrasing here a bit... but seriously? The movie ends with them summarizing what could have been an entirely different movie. A more entertaining and fulfilling movie. Sigh...

At least Depp is solid. If anyone gets another urge to get Thompson's work back on the big screen, using Depp while he's still age appropriate, adapt Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. Throw a drug crazy, bizarre journalist into politics as he follows the presidential election of what will become Nixon's second term... Thompson vs. Nixon.

Whatever could come of it, it has to be better than The Rum Diary.

Banjo-Kazooie

Most of the games I've played on the backlog are completely new to me- I may know a detail or two about the gameplay and stuff like that but for the most part I like to think I go into these games with a blank slate, keeping me from insane nostalgia-driven conclusions like 'Crash Team Racing is the greatest racing game of all time'. Banjo-Kazooie is a bit of a rarity, because while I never played it, I did witness almost this entire game getting beat. You see, when I was a youngster I lived about as far north in Westford as you could get, just barely reaching Tyngsboro. And for the most part everything in Westford north of route 40 was a dead zone- horrible winding roads, a very backwoods feel, and not many friends close by. Seriously, I really only had one kid in my grade on my street, and he was a long walk in the woods away. Anyway this friend and I were split on the Playstation/N64 debate, and we each ended up getting our system of choice on Christmas. While he would come over and play Jet Moto and WWF Attitude on my Playstation, I'd head to his house and man the player's guide while he played his way through some of the N64's greatest single-player campaigns- Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, and this game, Banjo Kazooie. You may think this sounds boring for me, but as I said, there wasn't much for me to do in my neck of the woods. So I would read the guides and try to figure out puzzles while my friend manned the controller and actually played the game. This gave me nearly the full experience of the game aside from its controls, and now that I have played Banjo-Kazooie myself it feels like returning to an old friend after so many years. It's a platformer not far off from the Mario vein. You play as Banjo the bear as well as his friend Kazooie the bird, who to my surprise is a girl. Banjo's little sister Tootie has been kidnapped by the evil witch Gruntilda, and is set up in some sort of contraption that will echange Tootie's youth and good looks for Gruntilda's old hag status. Banjo needs to enter Gruntilda's lair- basically a large level of its own- to enter into nine different levels and aqcuire puzzle pieces, musical notes, and other collectibles required to save his sister. Each level has its own theme and none are particularly surprising- the snow level, the desert level, the haunted house, et cetera- but they're still memorable and fun after all these years. The whole thing leads up to a final boss battle that is totally unique- your skills in platforming won't be tested, but... eh you'll see when you play it. Anyway I was playing this game with an eye towards 100% completion- for the most part this wasn't too hard, but when I got to the final level Click Clock Wood I just completely ran out of steam. My fault, or the game's fault? Probably mine. Although I should point out that Click Clock Wood was the only level in the whole game that I didn't recognize at all from my previous experiences with Banjo Kazooie. It would be easy to return to this some day and replace that gray 'B' with a gold 'C' on my backloggery, but I just don't see that happening.