Kirby's Dream Land 2

1. This 1995 title took every aspect of gameplay from the first game and added to it. Instead of five worlds, there were seven. Instead of a linear progression through levels, there's an overworld map. Kirby now has his trademark ability to swallow certain enemies in order to gain temporary powers. There are even three animal friends Kirby can ride around as if this was Donkey Kong Country or something.

2. For me, more was less. I'm not sure why, but I had a strong preference for the original Kirby's Dream Land game compared to this follow-up.

3. There's really not much more to say. Objectively, this is a bigger and better game than Dream Land, but my subjective preference doesn't seem to care. I guess you can't trump originality, maybe?

4. Huh.

5. I also guess this five-point format has some limitations.

Kirby's Dream Land

1. I've never really gotten into the Kirby games. Years ago, I bought Kirby's Dream Collection, a six-game compilation of classic Kirby games for the Wii. Tonight marked my first time diving into that one with Kirby's Dream Land, the original 1992 Game Boy title.

2. The game was ridiculously short and easy. I'm always wary of the difficulty curve associated with old school Nintendo games, but Kirby's Dream Land was an absolute breeze. I beat the whole thing in thirty minutes. It ended with a Capcom-style gauntlet of every boss in the game, capped off by a climactic showdown with King Dedede, and this boss run of sorts may have been the easiest level of all. 

3. Marissa has always reminisced about this game when I bring up any video games I played as a kid. She and her brother shared a Game Boy growing up, and although she can't remember any other game she had(*), she's always spoken fondly of Kirby's Dream Land. She watched me play through half of this and loved it, remembering some very random elements after all these years like certain tunes, certain secrets, and certain boss fights. It was fun to see how much nostalgic fun she was having watching me play the game. She was, however, shocked that I beat the whole thing in less than an hour. She recalls spending hours and hours on this game. Isn't it amazing how many times we could replay things as kids? And isn't it funny how large and epic so many things seemed?

(*) That's not true. She also remembers Q*bert.

4. I was kind of surprised, while playing this, at just how many aspects of Kirby weren't around at the inception of the Kirby franchise. First and foremost, Kirby is white, not pink, on the American box art. Meta Knight was entirely absent from the game. And most surprising of all, to me, was that Kirby could not yet swallow enemies to take their abilities. Gameplay here consisted entirely of jumping, floating, sucking, and spitting. No swallowing! (Yes, I heard it too...)

5. I really liked it. There's nothing substantial about Kirby's Dream Land, but it was short and sweet and relaxing and charming. Plus, nerd that I am, I love exploring the origins of long-lasting video game franchises. I wholeheartedly recommend spending half an hour on Kirby's Dream Land if you find an opportunity to do so.

Norwegian Wood

1. Haruki Murakami has long been both an acclaimed international author and a Back-Blogged hall of famer, and I'd heard from multiple sources that Norwegian Wood was as good an entry point for his bibliography as any. In addition to being short by Murakami standards (just under 300 pages), it's a pretty generic and at least partially autobiographical story. It's also distinctly non-Murakami-esque in that it's set in the real world without any hints of fantasy, science fiction, or surreal elements in general. It was far and away Murakami's breakout hit, and predictably, many of his fans criticized him for "selling out" in writing such a comparably generic and vanilla novel. Murakami has always held that, on the contrary, writing a story rooted so firmly in reality was a big challenge for him. Regardless, Norwegian Wood seemed like a good Murakami starter for me.

2. In many ways, this is a classic coming-of-age tale. It's narrated by a college kid - or more accurately, an adult reminiscing sadly about his college days - named Toru, who struggles with various aspects of growing up. The story takes place in the late '60s in Japan, when civil unrest was prevalent among a younger generation rejecting traditional values and cultural establishments, not at all unlike their Western peers. Toru is introspective and introverted, and seems to meet the movement with a mixture of apathy and cynicism. Hell, Catcher in the Rye is called out in the text multiple times; it's hard not to draw comparisons - though Toru seems far less insufferable than Holden Caulfield.

3. "Coming of age" is a generic phrase, and there are many ways to symbolically leave one's youth and innocence behind. Norwegian Wood focuses largely on loss and death, and what it means to cope with that kind tragedy. The inciting incident occurs when Toru's best and only friend from high school commits suicide just before college begins. Toru and his dead friend's long-time girlfriend, Naoko, each struggle to cope with the loss in different ways. They find solace in one another, and a major theme Norwegian Wood explores is how people bear that kind of tragedy: how they move on, or at least forward, and whether or not they can ever fully heal, and whether or not it's okay not to fully heal. It's well-worn subject matter, and Murakami doesn't really tap into any uncommon territory, but there's a beautiful plainness in the way Murakmi, through Toru, attempts to answer these  timeless questions(*) - particularly as death (by suicide in particular) pops up again and again throughout the story.

(*) Here's an example. "No truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning." There's nothing profound there, but it's an elegantly stated conclusion. The book is full of that kind of prose, and credit is due to both Murakami and his English translator for turning universally held sentiments into poetic statements. The book, in general, read as lyrically as The Great Gatsby - another novel that pops up multiple times in the narrative, for what it's worth.

4. Many readers are quick to point to a perceived love triangle as the novel's central conflict. I'm not sure I agree. Toru develops deep feelings for two separate women. One is the somber, dour, and generally damaged Naoko, with whom Toru shares the burden of his friend's death, and for whom he feels a great deal of compassion. The other is Midori, a lively and energetic classmate of Toru's who pulls him out of his shell and brings him joy and happiness(*). But there's never any rivalry between the women. Both are entirely unavailable as girlfriends to Toru for different reasons; both are aware and even encouraging of the relationship Toru has with the other one; and Toru sleeps with multiple women outside of his relationship with either one of them. While it's true that Midori and Naoko serve as foils for one another, they're never really romantic rivals. It just seems a bit dishonest to me when summaries use phrases like "love triangle" or "Toru can't decide between" in order to describe the pair of complicated relationships.

(*) I was initially very worried that Midori would turn out to be a manic pixie dream girl prototype of sorts, particularly since she provides such a contrast to the sad and gloomy Naoko, but thankfully she turned out to be a lot more well-rounded than that trope.

5. Lastly, I should discuss my own reaction to the book. It didn't leave much of an impression on me in the early going, and honestly it felt pretty generic. Murakami's writing style was enjoyable all along, but I was a far bigger fan of how he was saying things than of anything he was actually saying; it just wasn't clear to me where the story was going, or even if it was building toward anything at all. Then, of course, it did come to a logical and natural climax, and I felt silly for ever doubting that it would. Norwegian Wood grew on me toward the end, where it all came together thematically and it felt like Toru had, indeed, "come of age." I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I look forward to more Murakami in the future.

Star Fox

1. I had finished off my Super Nintendo backlog long before I acquired Star Fox a couple of months ago. It's a game I remembered playing as a kid, and even beating, and I've long felt that it deserved a place in my own library. When it was left out of our recent gametimebro Super Nintendo Hall of Fame entirely, I figured I owed it another shot. Was I overrating the game in my own memory, or were the rest of the bros wrongly not giving it a fair shake?

2. Star Fox wasn't even originally envisioned as a full-fledged game, let alone a franchise. Instead, Nintendo wanted to develop a space-based rail shooter with a new piece of hardware called the Super FX chip. Only with this additional hardware in the cartridge was the Super Nintendo capable of real time polygon rendering. Argonaut Games was tasked with developing the chip, and also co-developing Star Fox. Only later on in development did Nintendo have the forethought to turn the space pilots into anthropomorphic animals - a decision that would pay off in spades down the line, particularly for diversity within the Super Smash Bros. series.

3. I never really loved Star Fox 64. Liked it, but didn't understand why so many people absolutely loved it. But after playing through this 1993 game, I can't look back on that 1997 game without anything but a sense of awe. Comparing the two and noting that only four years went by between the pair makes Star Fox 64 look, well, pretty damn impressive, to say the least.

4. Star Fox was clunky and ugly, to say the least. It's not charmingly dated as much as it is almost unplayable. It's got a slow frame rate and a headache-inducing number of flashing planes zipping around. On the other hand, it's fairly easy and incredibly quick. Keith, J, and I got four-fifths of the way through it yesterday despite having no understanding of the controls or gameplay mechanics heading in. Keith even found a secret wormhole shortcut of sorts by attempting to kamikaze into an asteroid that looked like the evil moon from Majora's Mask. The brevity alone may make this worth playing today for anyone who missed out 22 years ago.

5. Really though, there aren't a lot of reasons to play Star Fox today from a sheer gameplay perspective. It's sluggish and slow and hideous to look at, far more so than other early 3D games on the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. All the same, the game was a milestone for console gaming, and if it wasn't the first example of real-time 3D rendering, it was at least the first one with any sort of popularity or staying power. As a game, Star Fox is garbage by modern standards, but it makes for a great history lesson.

Stan's TV Dump: Spring 2015

Again! Again!

New Girl: Season 4

The conclusion of Parks and Recreation leaves New Girl as the oldest (and probably best) broadcast network comedy on my plate. This was a solid season. Nothing transcendent or exceptional, but quality appointment comfort viewing.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Season 2

I'm a little less sure about Brooklyn Nine-Nine than I was a year ago. It's funny and it's loaded with quality performances, don't get me wrong, but maybe after ten years of The Office and Parks and Recreation I'm just a little worn down on the modern workplace sitcom formula.

Mad Men: Season 7, Part II

Great season, great finale, great show. Easily one of my all time favorites. Its departure marks the end of an era in televised dramas; there's plenty of quality out there today - perhaps more than ever before - but none of today's best shows feature characters who have entered the pop culture zeitgeist the way Don Draper or Walter White did - or even Tony Soprano before them. Prestige television is here to stay, but there's nothing out there right now that feels as significant as Mad Men did.

Modern Family: Season 6

Wait, did I say above that New Girl was the oldest broadcast network sitcom on my plate? I guess that's somewhat true, since this one has floated in and out of appointment viewing for me. I like it. I think it's gotten better these last few years, but I do wonder how much longer a show like this can last as those kids keep growing up and leaving for college one by one.

Louie: Season 5

I really enjoyed this. Louie was on hiatus for 2013 and came back last year with a weird and inconsistent season that experimented heavily with long-form storytelling and multiple-part episodes. This season, however, was a nice return to vintage Louie after a three-year absence. Tonally, the show was more or less what it's always been, and maybe there was nothing particularly great about this season compared to the first three, but the return to form was a pleasant surprise and one episode in particular was one of the most haunting things I've ever seen on television.

Community: Season 6

Another miracle comeback, another cast member gone. It seems like even the staunchest Community fans are happy to let this latest season be the show's last, and the finale seemed to recognize that it likely would be. The fanbase's rallying cry for years now has been "six seasons and a movie," which at one point represented our wildest dreams; it doesn't even feel right, in some ways, to hope for a seventh. That movie, though? Man, do I want that movie.

Bob's Burgers: Season 1

I've been putting this show off for years. Gave it a try when it first came out, liked it a lot, and just didn't have time for it. Thanks to Netflix and my adept skill at binge-watching, I'm three seasons deep now. I had actually seen the bulk of this first one before cutting bait, and, yeah, it's pretty good.

Bob's Burgers: Season 2

Short one! Nine episodes, and really no better or worse than the first season. Perhaps more well-oiled and confident in its characters, but not really in a noticeable way.

Game of Thrones: Season 5

Shit, I totally forgot about this one when I said, of Mad Men, that no other prestige drama feels as culturally significant. Can I modify that statement and say that no other wholly original prestige drama feels as culturally significant? Because Game of Thrones is extremely significant and growing more and more "problematic" to different people every season. Devout book readers are growing frustrated that the show will next year overtake the pace of the books and thus spoil the long-running story's conclusion for them. Some fans are worried that the showrunners are irrevocably botching certain characters and stories. And the gratuitous violence that was once accepted as a natural part of an HBO medieval fantasy has begun to rub some viewers the wrong way. To be sure, this wasn't the greatest season of Game of Thrones by any stretch, and with so little published material remaining that hasn't yet made it into the show, Season 6 could be horribly disappointing for so many different reasons. I still love the show, as do most people I know who watch it, but Season 5 was shaky, slapdash, and sort of disappointing. Now that it's out ahead of the books, the show may struggle even more to stick the landing in a satisfying manner. Here's hoping it does.

Silicon Valley: Season 2

I arrived a year late for Silicon Valley, but loved the first season. This second one showed no signs of slowing down. I'm not positive that it was objectively better or stronger than the first season was, but it was at least as good. It enters Season 3 with a clear sense of its characters, its tone, and its story - perhaps the only thing it really struggled to define in the first season.

Veep: Season 4

I said it last year, but Veep had an absolute breakout season in 2014. After two years as a sometimes-great political satire, it reached new heights in Season 3 as a consistently great political comedy. Season 4 was almost nearly as good, which is no small feat. I'm very excited for Season 5, which isn't something I figured I'd be saying about Veep back in its inaugural years.

Bob's Burgers: Season 3

Here's where things really got good. Some highlights here included an episode where the kids made a musical about Thomas Edison, an episode where Gene takes baseball lessons, an episode where the landlord hires the family to pretend to be his own family in order to impress an old flame, an episode where Tina wrecks the car in a parking lot, and - of course - an episode wherein Jon Hamm plays a talking toilet. Just tremendous.

The Comedians: Season 1

This was pretty terrible. I like Josh Gad just fine, and really don't mind Billy Crystal, but they each portrayed the worst possible versions of themselves here. There's usually something admirable about that, when actors willingly portray themselves as shitty people for the sake of a joke. But nothing about this show was very funny. The show within the show - a sketch comedy - was absolutely cringeworthy. But not intentionally. Like, the characters in The Comedians think the show they're making is good - and the writers behind The Comedians don't seem to understand that it isn't. Does that make sense? Bottom line, both of these actors are better than this, and usually so is FX.

That was a doozy, but here comes the long TV dead zone known as "summer." I embrace it!

The Last Day of a Condemned Man

1. First things first - it's been a long, long time since I last read a book. Or more accurately, since I posted one. I've been working on a few different novels, obviously in no hurry, since January. This is just the third book I've finished this year. Hopefully this 120-page novella will jump-start my reading progress and I can finish the year with more than three books to my name. I can do better than I did these last five months, and I'll need to do better if I'm ever going to finish off this backlog.

2. This book is Victor Hugo's take on capital punishment. Growing up in early nineteenth century France, Hugo had seen his fair share of public beheadings during his formative years, and he eventually felt strongly opposed enough to the practice that he wrote a little story about it when he was 26 years old. As its title suggests, it's the account of a condemned prisoner waiting for his state-sanctioned execution. There are bits of action and conversation sprinkled in here and there, but it's largely introspective and stream-of-conscious in nature. All of this makes sense; Hugo is exploring the headspace of a man with a death sentence. What does he regret? What does he fear? What thoughts keep him occupied in general during his final days, hours, and minutes?

3. There's an effective use of time dilation at play here. The narrator is initially given six weeks to live, but before the book is halfway through he's already got just one week left. Before the book is three quarters through, the man's down to his final day. And the final ten or twenty pages of the book are devoted to his final hour or two. I thought this was a clever way to explore his mental state. If given a death sentence, I imagine I'd try not to think about it too much at first, perhaps even acting brave and defiant. But as time ticked down for me, I'd probably be overcome by emotion and overwhelmed with fear and sadness and all sorts of trepidation. That's how anxiety works, after all. It builds.

4. One of Hugo's major points seems to be that the cruelest aspect of a death sentence isn't the actual death, but the sentence itself - the mental and emotional toll to which it subjects a man. The guillotine is described as swift, efficient, and humane; the narrator never worries that he will suffer any physical pain. That's actually kind of incredible to think about, here in America in 2015, where we execute people with lethal injection cocktails that, when botched, can leave the condemned criminal in a great deal of physical anguish for hours on end before death arrives. For clarity, I understand that the guillotine was often botched too, and that the act of public executions seems particularly barbaric no matter how clean the kill itself is; it just amazes me that, in the last 200 years, we haven't really found a more humane way to kill people. (And no, killing prisoners in the first place is not humane.) I did some further reading, and France abolished the death penalty in the 1980s, but right up until it did, the guillotine was still used. Isn't that something? The last prisoner executed in France was killed in 1977, and he was killed with a guillotine. Imagine that!

5. Ultimately, I don't know how well Hugo's story works as a persuasive argument against capital punishment today. For one thing, the narrator's crimes are never discussed in any detail. He confesses to them and admits that his punishment is just, but he never attempts to apologize for them. He seems to have no remorse. In theory, this should work; blanket opposition to capital punishment should mean that the man's crimes are irrelevant, but by ignoring his crimes entirely, the narrator comes across as more of an abstract case than a man with a story to tell. I do oppose the death penalty, in case that wasn't clear in my last paragraph, but I never really felt any pity or empathy for the narrator's plight. Perhaps part of this was due to the preening, romantic tone in which the story was largely told(*). At any rate, whether or not the story succeeds at affecting a reader's political viewpoints, it's a quick and thought-provoking read and I'd say it's well worth the hour it takes to get through.

(*) Long-time blog readers are aware of my love-hate relationship with eighteenth century writing conventions, which, with all their poetic beauty, too often seem to recognize the reader as an audience. I mean, check this out: "Not ill? No truly, I am young, healthful, and strong; the blood flows freely in my veins; my limbs obey my will; I am robust in mind and body, constituted for a long life. Yes, all this is true; and yet, nevertheless, I have an illness, a fatal illness, an illness given by the hand of man!" There's a real and powerful sentiment in there, the idea of a long and healthy life, stolen - but it's buried underneath a layer of stage-like showmanship. That's not a broken, desperate, or anxious man; that's a man hamming up his own tragedy for the world to see. As a point of contrast, here's a similar sentiment from a condemned man in a twentieth century work of fiction from a different famous French author: "I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten since, in either case, other men will continue living, the world will go on as before. Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably." Isn't that more profound? That's a man taking a sour grapes approach to life in general, trying to convince himself that his impending execution isn't a big deal. Your mileage may vary, but I prefer that starker and more transparent type of writing that didn't seem to exist in the romantic era of the nineteenth century. It just feels so much more genuine.

Destiny

1. Keith gave me Destiny for my birthday a few weeks ago. (Thanks, Keith!) He gave it to me for the Xbox One even though I do not yet own an Xbox One. Then Keith also lent me his own Xbox One in order for me to play Destiny with or without him. Clearly, this is a man who wanted me to play Destiny. His stated goal is to begin performing raids - special six-player missions - with Sween, Trev, Tim, Ryan, and me this summer. From the moment I acquired Destiny, then, my goal has not just been to complete the story, but to beef up my character in order to contribute to an eventual six-man raiding collective; it's raid time, bro.

2. Finishing the dozen or so story-related missions was thus little more than a means to an end for me, but I think that's par for the course when it comes to Destiny. Everyone still playing this game, nine months after its release, is doing so in order to level up their characters through a variety of missions far harder than anything in the main campaign. The true goal in Destiny isn't to rid the solar system of invasive alien tribes, but instead to collect fancy armor and powerful weapons. In some senses, the game doesn't really begin until it has been "beaten" in conventional terms.

3. As for the story itself? It's bland and almost incomprehensible. You are what's called a guardian, and you spend the game trying to protect a "traveler" from "the darkness." You're assisted by a spinning floating robot called a "ghost," voiced by Peter Dinklage. It's hard to miss the parallels here between the Dinklage Cube and the Cortana character from Halo, Bungie's previous franchise, as both of them spend a lot of time spewing expository monologues that really serve as the only storytelling devices in the game. The conflict itself feels hollow and meaningless; no enemy displays as much as a nugget of personality, and most of the toughest battles come against scaled-up versions of the regular grunts. The story (and game) takes place on the earth, the moon, Venus, and Mars, and while each world offers a plethora of stunning landscapes, the missions on each one all blend together due to the lack of variance in, well, any aspect of anything that happens in any of them.

4. As a single-player adventure, then, Destiny is a total bore. Fortunately, it succeeds at being more of an open-world game. It's meant to be cooperatively played, almost exclusively. Aside from a few strikes, patrols, and story missions here and there, I've spent most of my time playing Destiny with Keith, and part of it with Tim and Ryan. I imagine MMO games are all meant to be played this way; this is simply my first experience with one, and it's an interesting concept to me. It's easy for me to see why Keith has been pushing so hard for his friends to bone up on the game and play it with him; it's a fun game, but one that mostly sucks to play alone.

5. Is this the beginning of a new era in console gaming? That of the MMOFPS, or at least the FPS in the always-online world? There's no offline play in Destiny; all gameplay, even the story missions, are carried out with an active Internet connection among a slew of other gamers doing their own things. It's a cool concept, but it also means you can't, for instance, pause the game. It also means that you might be saving the galaxy at one point, and fifty feet away from you another guy is collecting helium coils and robot parts for bounties; he's either already saved the galaxy, or hasn't gotten around to it yet, but it does sort of further cheapen the story. I've vanquished the final boss of the game, but the same old enemies are chilling around in the same old places, rendering my accomplishments very apparently and obviously meaningless. But, again, none of that really matters. I've beaten Destiny, but I'm not done playing it. My warlock character is only at Level 25 right now, and I can get him all the way up to 34 if I keep on grinding. And there are bounties to collect, and there's DLC to play. And we still have yet to raid! In all seriousness though, I'm hooked. I spent hours playing this game over the weekend, and I'd probably spend hours on it tomorrow if I didn't have to go to work. Story be damned, we've only just begun with Destiny.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

I'm trying something new. In the spirit of Keith and Sween's legitimate game reviews over at gametimebro.com, I'm going to try to carve out my own little standardized format instead of just spewing forth whatever's on my mind for anywhere from two sentences to ten paragraphs. I figure that the easiest way to do this is to try to make five solid points - or at least to have five separate takes - on any game. Here it goes... 

1. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team is the fourth game in the Mario & Luigi series, an RPG franchise for Nintendo's handheld systems that began with 2003's Superstar Saga. Sween has played the previous three games in the series, and I had previously played the second one: Partners in Time. It seemed to be Sween's least favorite of the bunch, and I didn't love it myself. And now I'm oh for two on the series, as I didn't love this game, either.

2. For the longest time, I couldn't put my finger on what I didn't enjoy here. After all, on a pure technical level, it was a lot of fun to play. The game is ostensibly an RPG with turn-based battles, but every move you use relies on precise button-pressing patterns and every enemy attack can be dodged or countered with similar perfectly-timed inputs. Outside of the battles, there are several platforming elements at play in the field. Tack on a variety of puzzles to solve and obstacles to overcome, and there's something here for everyone.

3. The problem is, there might be too much. Large chunks of the game take place inside Luigi's dreams, where movement is restricted to a two-dimensional plane instead of the isometric three-dimensional realm you inhabit for the rest of the time. Abilities used in each field differ as well. Even the combat changes when you enter the "Dream World," from the timing on the attacks to the special moves available. The game also features five distinct boss fights that change up the gameplay entirely, telling you to rotate the 3DS ninety degrees clockwise and use the stylus on the touch screen to both dish out and dodge attacks. These were probably the most memorable moments of the game, but they were also among the most frustrating; since each boss's attack patterns could only be discovered through trial and error, all five of these super battles were nearly impossible to win on the first try. This would have been less of an issue if the battles weren't ten-to-twenty-minute ordeals and if the touch screen's sensitivity was up for the challenge of handling inputs with any type of immediacy or precision.

4. In fact, the game's overall length may have been its worst feature. I understand that most people love a good long game, particularly from a value standpoint. But this isn't just a long game; it's a slow game. I'm a huge RPG fan, and I'm used to games in the genre growing monotonous from elements like difficulty spikes, fetch quests, and repetitious combat. Dream Team, though, just grows kind of tedious after a while. Because of the quicktime event-style battles, each enemy encounter takes far longer than it needs to take. There's a lot more nuance to this type of gameplay than there is to just mashing the same button over and over again, but I prefer the mindless grinding of an old school RPG to the minutes-long battles here that yielded minimal experience gains. Outside of battle, things are hardly any quicker. This is a game rich with NPC dialogue, but there's far too much extra fat. In an RPG, scripted dialogue should serve one of three purposes - advance the story, add tonal depth, or direct the player toward a goal. In Dream Team, there are way too many instances of characters just rambling on and on for the sake of stale puns and other minimal payoffs without fleshing anything out. In the middle of the game, you're tasked with scaling a mountain while two musclehead guides keep making references to beef and other meats every two minutes. I almost hope there were a lot of jokes lost in translation from the original Japanese, because so much NPC banter fell completely flat in English. At one point, you're sent on a three-part fetch quest and you're warned that the three characters you need to find have a tendency to ramble. And sure enough, each of them end up talking your ear off for two or three unskippable minutes. Somewhere inside this forty-hour game was a leaner and far more enjoyable twenty-five hour adventure with all the same stages and puzzles and boss fights; that game would have been an absolute blast, but this game? This game was a chore.

5. In the end, Dream Team tries to have it all, and its biggest problem is that it succeeds in doing so at the expense of a meaningful story. This has always been a subtle problem with Mario-centric RPGs; an RPG ultimately needs to leave an impression on the player for the player to feel like his time was invested wisely. Characters, settings - even just a handful of emotional moments. Mario RPGs can't handle that burden, because Mario games in general can't do so. They're as simple and low-stakes as anything. Bowser, Peach, rinse, repeat. Vanquishing Kamek and Lakitu and entire platoons full of koopas, goombas, and shy guys is no more interesting in an RPG than it is in a platform game; it just takes a hell of a lot longer. I wish that after investing so much time and effort into this one that I'd be left with some sort of takeaway. Entering Luigi's dreams, for instance, provides such a golden opportunity to really explore that character, to see what makes him tick. But there's absolutely none of that here, and the game could have just as easily been about Luigi entering Mario's dreams, or Toad entering Wario's dreams for that matter. Dream Team is technically sound but entirely soulless; it's well-designed, but desperate for something to say. Actually, desperate isn't the right word, because the game simply doesn't care if it's offering a meaningful experience to the player. It's content just to churn out groanworthy dialogue while resting its laurels on tightly-crafted battles and platformer puzzles. This isn't a bad game, really. It just isn't one I'm glad to have spent forty hours playing.

MLB 13: The Show

A few weeks ago, I played some MVP Baseball 2005 with an old friend. I absolutely loved it. I realized that, incredibly, it had been ten years since I last played a baseball video game. So I sought to remedy that by purchasing the much more recent - but still absurdly cheap - MLB 13: The Show. I liked it a lot, but, to put it bluntly, it didn't feel like an improvement over MVP Baseball 2005 in any way beyond the graphics. Now, in almost every way it did feel like MVP Baseball 2005, which was great. But where it diverged from that game (and that series, really) it seemed worse for the wear.

I played close to twenty nine-inning games in The Show and was just as flustered by some of the fielding controls by the twentieth game as I was during the second. Double plays felt nearly impossible to turn, for one thing. For another, the "throwing to different bases" dynamic was timing-based, so that if I just casually tapped a button without paying attention, the baseball would sail into the outfield or the dugout. And don't ask me why, on a hard hit ball to the outfield, my outfielders never broke toward the ball until after it cleared the infield. The CPU never seemed to have this issue. Fuckers...

But I did like most of the gameplay elements here. Pitching took me a while to get used to - my regular season ERA and playoff ERA were night and day - but I did enjoy it once I finally figured out the timing and the way to work different hitters outside the strike zone. Hitting was a mixed bag, but generally a big success; I swung at nearly everything thrown at me, which was a recipe for striking out a ton and never walking - yet, still I led the league in home runs. There were games where I got shut out and games where I put up more than a dozen runs. It really seemed to be based largely on the pitchers I was facing, and how well I could see the pitches coming out of their hands.

Anyway, I keep referring to "leading the league" and "regular season." The truth is that I played a shortened (29-game) season and even then I ended up simulating around half of the games. Then the playoffs came, and those were a full-fledged three-round tournament with a 5-7-7 structure, just like the real deal. I played not as my hometown Boston Red Sox, because they actually won the World Series in 2013, so what would the fun be in repeating that exact same accomplishment? No, instead I created my 2013 fantasy team to the best of my ability (turns out a lot of rookies that season weren't in the game at all) and tried to win the title. I did exactly that (admittedly simulating and "managing" more games than I played) and, well, here are my team's fantasy stats, projected over 162 games from the 48 game season-and-postseason I endured:

Lastly - because this post is running long anyway, so fuck it - here are the three pivotal moments from my three postseason series-clinching games.

ALDS (vs. Royals) - Game 5

With the series on the line, it was time for my fifth starting pitcher to take his turn. I easily could have gone back to ace Dan Haren, or best pitcher Anibal Sanchez on short rest, but instead I rolled with the recently-called-up-from-Triple-A Mike Minor, a then-unproven youngin' with mediocre stuff and a rating worse than many of my middle relievers. The number five spot in the rotation had been a nightmare all season, with guys like Liriano, Buchholz, and de la Rosa all trying (and failing) to lock down that final spot.

Anyway, Mike Minor - one start all season prior to this, mind you - goes out there... and pitches a complete game shut out. It was the only complete game I'd pitch all season, and certainly the only shut out. The bats came through early and often in a 7-0 win, but Mike Minor owned the night.

ALCS (vs. Blue Jays) - Game 7

Tim Lincecum pitched this one, and he did just fine, as the staff allowed four runs overall in nine innings. But he was not the hero of the night. That honor is reserved for Wilin Rosario. All season, Wilin had been my "go big or go home" power hitter of sorts. I hit way too many home runs with him - that's a 43 homer rate over 162 games - but struck out a fuck ton, too. That batting average obfuscates just how all-or-nothing Wilin was when I controlled him; he must have hit a lot of RBI singles in simulated games, because I swear, for me he had an average of about .150 but two out of every three of those hits was a dinger.

Anyway, the score was all tied up in the sixth inning and I was getting pretty nervous. Wilin, it bears mentioning, had not yet played a single inning in the postseason as he'd been injured with one game left in the regular season. Jarrod Saltalamacchia had filled in pretty adequately. But late in a tie game, and with a lefty on the mound, this just wasn't Jarrod's time. In came Wilin, with two outs and the bases empty, and what does he do? Yeah, you know what he does. Pinch hit home run, giving me a lead I'd retain for the rest of the game. Just incredible. (I'm probably embellishing, but I think Rosario struck out on three pitches in his following at bat. It might have been four.)

World Series (vs. Phillies) - Game 6

Hey! Look at that! Rays-Phillies again! (Oh yeah, did I mention I had chosen to use the Tampa Bay Rays as my fantasy team?) Anyway, I wanted this one to go seven games, particularly after the first two series went the distance, but I wasn't about to throw a game just to make that the case.

I don't think I ever trailed in this game, and the win was truly a team effort. Eight of my nine batters got at least one hit (sorry, Aaron Hill) and several of them homered. Ryan Braun set the tone with a first inning bomb; David Wright was my hottest player in the postseason, and he hit one too. Aroldis Chapman struck out the side in the ninth in a non-save situation (four-run lead) after Brandon Beachy went eight strong innings. But if I have to pick one plate appearance to recognize here, I've got to continue my underdog story. In the ALDS it was Mike Minor, and in the ALCS it was Wilin Rosario, and I suppose in the World Series, it was none other than little Zack Cozart, my backup shortstop, playing in this vital game only because Jimmy Rollins both sucked against left-handers and had played for too many consecutive days.

Anyway, some quick background. Zack Cozart was easily the worst player on my team. I think his overall rating was a 67, which made him worse than several of the minor leaguers in the Rays system when I was assembling my fantasy roster. He had been on my team since the middle of the regular season strictly as an emergency middle infielder because I really didn't need three back-up corner infielders. However, he was forced into action during a two-week stretch when Jimmy Rollins went down with some kind of injury. Zack Cozart had shown promise then, batting over .300, but he had no pop or speed at all (one homer, one steal) and was a defensive liability at shortstop. He was by all accounts a twenty-fifth man, and his presence on my 40-man roster at all was a byproduct of MLB 13: The Show not having several other middle infielders from my 2013 fantasy team at all: Jedd Gyorko, Kolten Wong, Anthony Rendon, Brad Miller. In real life, Zack Cozart never sniffed my fantasy team in 2013; he was someone I had dropped before the end of June in 2012, his rookie season, and I had never looked back.

So what does little Zack Cozart do, right in the middle of the clinching game of the World Series? Motherfucker just absolutely blasts a three-run homer in the fourth or fifth inning to break it wide open. Zack goddamn Cozart! Imagine that.

Stan's Movie Dump: May 2015

I continue to log more streamable movies than books, video games, or anything else. What gives? Anyway, here's May's haul.

Interstellar
Impressive and imaginative, but I have to co-sign with all the reviewers who didn't love the ending. If you dig Nolan, you'll like Interstellar.

Godzilla (2014)

This one got panned pretty heavily, right? I kind of liked it. I couldn't really get into the human element of the story but I thought it was a beautiful movie that properly depicted the scope and scale of Godzilla and the wake of destruction that enormous monsters would leave behind just by walking through cities.

Obvious Child

This was a simple and straightforward movie about an abortion. More specifically, it was about a young woman who gets pregnant, chooses to have an abortion, and then does in fact have an abortion. I thought the subject matter was treated respectfully and realistically; it wasn't played up for shock value, nor was there any melodrama over the morality of the decision. I've always liked Jenny Slate, though; your mileage may vary.

Virunga

Netflix billed this one as Blackfish for Gorillas in the DRC, and it absolutely wasn't that. Which is kind of too bad, since it was an impressive and horrifying documentary in its own right, but I mean, I came in expecting to see gorillas, and what I got was more of a horrifying blend of war and poachers and corruption and genocide and gorillas. Which is obviously a more meaningful documentary, but, you know - not the one I thought I was going to see.

Pitch Perfect 2

A real treat. Fun, silly, enjoyable. There was nothing of any substance here - just a talented cast dancing and singing and making hilarious jokes. Watch the first one, and watch this one too.

The Imitation Game

I think the fact that Alan Turing was gay was meant to be a big twist here, which is really too bad. For one thing, the slow-burn reveal only prevents an audience from connecting with the film's protagonist; whose point of view was this story told from if its main character's sexual orientation was kept secret? And for another - and pardon me while I put on my social justice warrior hat for a moment - it strikes me as so much more impressive and inspirational to hear a story about how a closeted gay man ended up helping the allies win World War II than to hear a story about how a World War II hero turned out to be a closeted gay man. All of that said, I enjoyed this movie way more than I thought I would, and it ended well before I was ready for Turing's story to wrap up. (And I mean that in a good way, as too many biopics nowadays just linger on and on and on.)

Pacific Rim

I'm still not sure what the hell to make of this one. On the one hand, I love that such a unique twist on the old monster movie concept was greenlit and created - particularly in such a franchise-focused era for major studios. On the other hand, I couldn't tell you five things that happened in the movie, and I only just saw it a week or two ago. So I guess maybe it's fair to say that I loved the idea on paper but was completely unimpressed by the final product? Look, I've got nothing here. Let's just move on.

Adventureland

Nothing to see here, really. A coming of age tale of sorts, set in the '80s. Sounds a little too familiar, right? Like, played out and boring, almost?

Bernie

Here's another one that ended way sooner than I was ready for it to end. Jack Black was really impressive here, but so was Matthew McConaughey, well before his vaunted McConaissance. I would not have guessed that Richard Linklater directed this, though. All in all, pretty good.

And so ends another installment of Stan's Movie Dump. Thanks again for checking in. See you in June, I'd guess!