The Sopranos: The Complete Third Season

Let me start by saying that I'm already half way through season 6. With that being said, it should come as no surprise that I do not remember everything that happened in this season. What I do remember is feeling let down. Season 1 and 2 were incredible. This season, however, seemed to lack purpose. The characters were there, but the storylines were not. This stands out to me as by far the worst season. Still, a bad Sopranos season is far better than good seasons of most shows.

Arrested Development: Season 4

It's gone before you know it. *Sigh*

Within 48 hours of Netflix's release of Arrested Development for streaming I've finished off the 15 new episodes of the long-awaited fourth season. Out of all the major blockbusters coming out this summer (Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Star Trek 2, and even The World's End - the reunion of director Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost that I cannot wait for) my desire to catch the return of Arrested trumps all of these cinematic events. I mean, this is years and years in the making. And within two days, it's all over. But, was it worth it?

Absolutely. 

The show holds up just as well, if not better, then during its original run. I'm sure most people here are in the midst of watching it - or will be watching it soon - so I'll leave information on the premise bare. Basically season recaps what the whole cast has been up to during the past several years since the show was cancelled - they refer to this as "The Great Dark Period". With one event (Cinco de Cuatro) acting as somewhat of a hub, we trace each character's timelines as they work their way back up to the present which is roughly this particular event. 

Now, I have a ton of praise for the show. For those that are huge fans of the previous seasons they'll likely adore all of the running gags and jokes that are consistently reintroduced throughout the entire series... and these jokes are maintained in the new season (Mr. F, the Cornballer, Staircase car with references to hop-ons, blue paint, and many, many more). Not to mention that writer/creator Mitchell Hurwitz does a terrific job weaving all of the characters' stories together beautifully, which was a fairly hard task considering he only builds one character's story per episode.

This little trick, while an interesting direction to take the show, was not the easiest thing to grapple when starting into the season. The first episode focuses on Michael, and with the frequent changes in the time period while recapping his story, it all gets me a little confused about what's going on and when things are happening. In fact the show became even more frustrating as the season goes on and other character's story lines were explained. However, in the last five or so episodes, you begin to revisit some major events so frequently (as every character usually inhabits the same scene of the rest of the cast, just doing their own thing in the background) that the show completely comes around. Beginning to watch the season again for a second time around it makes far more sense to me, and, most importantly, there are many more hidden jokes buried in the subtext. I can tell this isn't going to get old. 

That's my only real complaint. It was slightly difficult to understand at the beginning, but that really doesn't matter because it comes all together at the end... Well, I do have a slight beef with the season finale, but I wont go into that here. 

The best thing about this season, and a major reason why I think this might be my favorite work of the show to date, is that it seems like Hurwitz had a ton of creative liberty to just go nuts with the show. Do it how he wanted it. The episodes don't end in a perfect "aww, the family loves each other" cooker-cutter mold that was more typical back when it was being aired on Fox. Instead, things are a bit dark. Everyone is consistently drifting apart from one another. No one has anyone else's back. It legitimately seems that they're all on the cusp of going absolutely broke (in fact I'm wondering why they haven't already). It's not depressing or upsetting to witness. It's just... different. Unexpected from what standard sit-coms deliver on. Plus, when only focusing on one character an episode, you don't have that standard two or three plot lines simultaneously running to help break up the monotony of the show. I feel like most networks would never let this shit fly on TV, but that's why they're on the internet now. Oh... there's also a baffling amount of great cameos. Seems like all of Hollywood wanted in on this revival.  

There are also rumors that this season really serves as somewhat of a first act for an Arrested Movie. So the fact that they kind of kick the Bluths down a notch and have the family entirely disband is a great place to start a movie that will eventually pull them all together again - maybe? But... hey, when will that movie be released? Here I am once again, patiently waiting for another return of the Bluths. *Sigh*

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Man, that's four video games beaten in the past week that I'd been working on for months each. Spring cleaning!

I was always a huge fan of the three Donkey Kong Country games on the Super Nintendo. I've always considered them to be fantastic and under-appreciated '90s platform games that look better than anything on the Nintendo 64 despite being made for a previous generation. So when Donkey Kong Country Returns was announced for the Wii, I was as pumped as I ever have been for a Wii game. (Quick aside - has anything aged less gracefully than the Wii? For a system that utterly destroyed its competition, clinching the sales victory for that generation of consoles almost immediately, it's crazy how much I'd rather be playing an arbitrary Xbox or PS3 game than a Wii game here in 2013. As a point of reference, my last Wii title beaten was - if Candy Factory doesn't count - Mario Party 9 last July. In that same ten month span, for comparison's sake, I beat nine games on Xbox including Xbox Live Arcade games, five games on PS3 or PlayStation Network, five games on the DS or 3DS, five games on the GameCube, three games on the original PlayStation, and even a Super Nintendo game. Wow.)

Anyway, Donkey Kong Country Returns. I started playing the game last August in co-op fashion with Marissa. I had fond memories of playing the original trilogy in a co-op manner back in the day with friends, neighbors, and even my father, and I wanted to share that experience with my girlfriend. Suffice it to say, it did not go well. In the original trilogy, co-op play was a true team effort. One person controlled Donkey and the other controlled Diddy (or, in later games, Dixie or Kiddy Kong) and only one person was really playing at any point in time. When one player went down, the other stepped up to the plate. Little "DK" barrels located throughout levels allowed you to revive a teammate, so that if you went down, the cycle could continue. But in the spirit of "everybody plays all at once" madness that made games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii a lot of fun at first but ultimately a chaotic nightmare, co-op in Donkey Kong Country Returns consisted of both Donkey and Diddy running around side by side, each controlled independently. This means both can be killed by the same obstacle. It also means one can inadvertently cause the other one harm; Donkey can pick up Diddy and throw him around, and similarly, Diddy can jump off of Donkey's back sending Donkey straight downward, often into an abyss. This led to more back-and-forth blaming-and-shouting matches between the two of us than most healthy relationships should endure over a video game, to the point where I had to propose to Marissa just three nights into our Donkey Kong Country Returns chicanery out of fear that things were heading south fast!

Mostly kidding. I mean, I did propose to her, and naturally, Donkey Kong Country Returns went right back onto the shelf for a while. By the time I was ready to dabble again, around October or November, Marissa patently stated that she had no real desire to play the game again, and we were probably both better off for it. It turns out, this game got challenging. Like, fast. Marissa and I struggled pretty heavily on the third of eight worlds. Playing solo, I did a little better for a little while, but by the sixth world I was dying constantly. I won't lie - I even eventually had to make use of the game's "here, let the game beat this level for you" feature more than once. I mean, I didn't strictly have to - I eventually would and could have beaten all those levels - but with forty-five games left to beat, and having already dumped thirty hours or so into this one, and with it just offering to help me out like that, why refuse? Put an asterisk next to this one if you want to; I really don't care.

So yeah. Donkey Kong Country Returns was a welcome nostalgic trip back to the 90s, and yet ironically, it was so much more difficult than any of those original three games had ever been. Nintendo has taken some well-earned criticism from more hardcore gamers over the past few years, who lament that nothing is challenging in Mario or Zelda games anymore. Donkey Kong Country Returns seems almost tailor-made to address those criticisms. "Oh, you want a tough game? Here. Now go away." I can't say it was as difficult in terms of deaths-per-level-attempt as Super Meat Boy, but that game's lightning-fast load times and very short levels made the constant dying a lot more palatable there. Ultimately, I liked Donkey Kong Country a lot. It was at once loyal to its roots and also modern, sleek, and beautiful the way a modern platform game should be. I could have used a few more animal friends - the only one in this game was Rambi the rhinoceros - as well as more barrel-blasting levels. I also would have preferred that the antagonist King K. Rool and his Kremling Krew return for this game; the bad guys this time around were a group of witch-doctor-like musical instruments, believe it or not. Of course, these are some minor nitpicks; the flavor may not have been exactly right, but it was nice to return to such a long-lost dish in the first place. Is that a fine analogy? Whatever.

Gears of War 3

As Stan mentioned, the two of us played the first two Gears of War games on co-op just before we started the Back-Blog, and never once have we taken it all that seriously. It's huge muscular dudes with mostly familiar voices (Bender! Terry Tate! Vince from Friday Night Lights!) shooting hordes of aliens and ducking for cover now and then- there's not much else to say. Stan made a good point that the games would probably have been serviced better by going a little more over-the-top- every time a character got mopey or serious, we were making fun of the situation, but moments like Terry Tate's touchdown, or main character Marcus Fenix shouting out "That's ONE! That's TWO!" as he snipes aliens from afar made for laughs and memorable gameplay. Emotional cut-scenes can work when it's one person sitting down and willing to be quiet and experience the story, but when two dudes get together to bro out over a third person shooter, I just want the game to be really fun to play. And the Gears of War series mostly is! It may not be the most memorable campaign or anything, but I was never hoping it would just finish up already or anything. That alone makes it much, much better than any campaign Halo has had. Still though, I saw nothing in Gears of War 3 to really distinguish it from the first two aside from some slightly prettier graphics, and never in the entire series were Stan and I even sure who were fighting against- I think the only game that had an actual, named final boss was the first one, and we still laugh about how random and pointless he was. So if you're really interested in playing the Gears of War series, go for it. If not, don't worry, you're not missing much.

It

I believe this is the fifteenth Stephen King book I've read, and I'm surprised that it's taken me this long to read a straight horror novel from America's most famous horror writer. Things have ranged from fantasy (Dark Tower series, The Talisman) to sci-fi (11/22/63) to apocalyptic (Under the Dome, The Stand), but not until I finally sat down and read the mega-hit that was It did I read a book that was specifically designed to scare. Actually the only time I remember him attempting scary scenes in other books were in Black House (not very effective...) and 11/22/63 (it's super effective!). And just as I've enjoyed most of what I've read by King already, I found It to be effectively scary and an all around awesome read. We start in with a series of vignettes as six successful and seemingly random adults in the 80's across America all receive a similar call from a long-forgotten friend, telling them "It's back, and you need to come back to Maine so we can stop it." No one seems to have any idea what "it" is, but repressed memories of their childhood in the fifties slowly return to all six. They return to Maine and try to put together the pieces and figure out just what the heck is going on- why are atrocities being commited against children in their small Maine hometown every 23 years? Why is this unnoticed by the media? How were they able to survive where so many other children died? Why did they think they had stopped "It", and what can they do differently now? Through this we get to learn about the long summer in the fifties that they all got together and somehow stopped It, only to block the horrific memories completely from their mind up until that fateful phone call. I found the parallel storylines of the kids and adults both trying to stop It an interesting technique- think of the flashbacks in Lost except with much more meat to them. The whole thing kept me reading all throughout my recent vacation, and while I could say that I should ease up on the King books, he's got so many more that I want to read. I don't have any on my plate right now, but more will come soon.

Twisted Metal (2012)

As I said, last night was a great night for co-op video gaming. After beating Gears of War 3 with Sweeney, I watched the Bruins take a 3-0 series lead. And after that, Sheridan and I finished the recent Twisted Metal reboot we'd been playing for nearly two months. I only bought the reboot in the first place because it came with a PS3 controller in a bundle that cost ten bucks more than the controller alone, and I needed a fourth PS3 controller. (I didn't really need one, but let's pretend I did.) I'm glad I bought it, because this certainly was an interesting and mostly enjoyable reboot.

My history with the Twisted Metal series is fairly well documented on the blog. In short, I loved the first two games, didn't hate the third or fourth ones (but didn't love them, either), and never even bothered beating the fifth installment, Twisted Metal: Black, for something like ten years. When I did finally play it, in college, I admired its commitment to being utterly dark and sinister where previous games were more light-heartedly violent, but that doesn't mean I particularly enjoyed the gameplay.

Let me take an abrupt left turn here. A "reboot" is a release within an entertainment franchise that resets the franchise's established continuity. In that regard, you could kind of say that every Twisted Metal game has been a reboot to some extent; plenty of recurring characters appear in multiple games, yet each game ends with one sole surviving contestant, so, strictly speaking, none of the games take place in the same canon. When I say that this particular Twisted Metal game was a reboot, then, I mean stylistically more than anything else.

Frankly, this Twisted Metal game introduces all kinds of game modes I'd never have imagined seeing in a Twisted Metal game. Races. Pinball. Helicopter flight. I winced at a whole lot of this, and the frustration factors only made things worse. Steve and I beat just about every standard deathmatch on our first try, but when it came to the races and pinball games, we spent a great number of attempts just kind of trying to figure shit out. Another complaint I'd register is that the story mode this time around features only three playable characters. There are still plenty of vehicles, sure, but part of the charm of the old Twisted Metal games was the intrinsic link between the drivers and their cars. When Mr. Grimm is driving Sweet Tooth's ice cream truck, it just kind of feels... weird.

Still, there was plenty to like about this game, too. It was better than Twisted Metal: Black in terms of gameplay, and also better than I remember Twisted Metal 4 being. And as weird as some of the races and pinball games and gauntlet runs were, they helped breathe life and variety into a game whose entire purpose was to re-breathe life and variety into an old, once great franchise.

All in all, I approved of this reboot. I don't think this series can ever recapture that distinct charm Twisted Metal 2 had, but that's because graphical and computational enhancements in modern day systems would do a great disservice to the cartoony and campy style of the older games. For what it set out to be, Twisted Metal was a decent game.

Gears of War 3

Last night was huge for co-op gaming. It took us over two months and three different sessions, but Sween and I finally completed the third and final game in the Gears of War trilogy. We played the first two early in the summer of '09, just a few months before the blog was formed, so I guess this is the blog's first entry on the series. And since the games are essentially no different from one another, I'll just spend a little bit of time talking about Gears of War in general.

It's casual gaming for me, and nothing more. Never once have I dabbled in any online play, nor have I ever had any interest in doing so. The fact that I've played all three games in a split-screen fashion with Sweeney means the two of us are usually chatting over the movie clips that serve to link the various firefights together into a coherent story, so my attachment to these beefed up next-gen super-soldiers and their post-apocalyptic plight has never really been, uh, strong. In fact, in three games now and probably close to a hundred "levels," I can only distinctly remember about a dozen segments. Yeah, that's right - the vast bulk of this series has left me with no lasting takeaway whatsoever.

That said, they're not bad games. I know every variety of game play in shooters has been done to death at this point, but it's still nice to mix it up with a little third-person action now and again. Is the majority of the game spent gluing yourself to chest-high walls and popping out to fire off a volley of bullets at various grotesqueries? You betcha. Does it all blend together in a giant mishmash of shaky cameras, profanities, and scorched earth landscapes? Absolutely. But for the most part, all three games were far more fun than frustrating, and sometimes that's good enough for a little casual co-op gaming.

If I've got one specific criticism of the series in general, it's with regard to the tone and tenor of the games. The bread and butter here is the over-the-top machismo of the heroes. I mean look at the cover art. Every one of these guys has the muscle mass of the Incredible Hulk. Their guns are mounted not with bayonets, but with chainsaws. What I want from these games is just an absurd willingness to "go there," and this was best exemplified by an event that takes place in the first level of Gears of War 3, in which "Cole Train," a former football star, has to carry a bomb across a football field in order to blow up some enemies. He's literally playing football on a battlefield. And you better believe there's a touchdown dance at the end of it all! Oh yeah, and the guy is voiced by Terry Tate. I want this form Gears of War. Gritty seething and swearing, furrowed brows, and maybe even some blatant chauvinism. Too often though, Gears attempts some emotional beats as if it thinks it can pull these off. "My wife just died. Let me grieve." "My best friend just died. Let me grieve." "My father just died. let me grieve." Stop crying! There are more more sports-with-guns to be played! There are plenty of video games out there that can deal with emotional depth. Gears of War is not one of them, and no one should try to make it one.

Will Sween and I try our hand some day at the most recent release in the franchise, the prequel, Judgment? Probably. But not yet. Not yet.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX

Just before Ocarina of Time took Zelda games literally into a whole new dimension (the third!) on Nintendo 64, the top-down, two dimensional Zelda games found a home of their own on handheld systems. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was released on the Game Boy in '93, and 5 years later the definitive Link's Awakening DX version was released as a launch title for the Game Boy Color. I am positive I had the DX version and pretty sure that at some point I played the original, but in recent years as I've dove deep into video game (and Zelda) fandom I grew suspicious that I never actually beaten the game. Knowing that Link's Awakening was a great game anyway, and that even if I had beaten it before it would hardly be a waste of money and time to download and play it on my 3DS, I made the purchase a few months ago and played it over the course of May. This proved a smart choice, because I definitely never beat it. Actually, I probably hadn't made it past the first dungeon, because almost everything here felt entirely new to me. Link's Awakening ditches the Hyrule kingdom that dominates most Zelda games for an island setting- we see Link sailing through a storm, getting shipwrecked, and waking up the next day on the mysterious Koholint Island. Everything on the island seems kinda off, and there's a bizarre task at hand- Link just wants to get home, but apparently the only way to do it is to collect 8 instruments strewn about the island, play them for a giant egg on top of a mountain, and awaken a giant fish. This also might bring about the end of the world, so it's hard to blame all of the bosses standing in your way- they make a compelling point that they're the ones doing the right thing, and maybe this is a sneaky example of a game where the protagonist is the selfish villain. Either way, it felt appropriate exploring this tropical island on a few late nights on my recent cruise; I didn't expect to get any gaming done at all, but Link's Awakening was a worthwile use of some downtime and a game that any Zelda fan should play. I've still got Adventures of Link, Majora's Mask, and Skyward Sword left in the series, and then the likely Christmas release of Link to the Past 2 will ensure that I'll be posting Zelda on the Blog many more times in the future.

Moonrise Kingdom

Here it is - the movie I nearly saw in theaters two or three different times in 2012, the driving reason I've gone back and watched so many other Wes Anderson movies. At last, I've sat down and watched Moonrise Kingdom. The verdict? Charming, cute, perfectly edited, and worthy of all the accolades. There's just something so beautifully endearing about a misfit boy scout and an intelligent girl running away together on a small New England island in the 1960s. Young love! Moonrise Kingdom was touching and sweet in all the right ways, without ever once approaching that dangerous area of mawkish sentimentality. All-star cast, flawless script, masterful cinematography, you name it. The movie probably isn't for everyone. Wes Anderson movies never really are. Still, what a treat this was. And what a relief that it turned out to be a treat after such recent mixed luck with Wes Anderson movies.

Game of Thrones: Season 2

Just plowing my way through these. But at only 10 hour-long episodes a season, this is a fairly easy task to do. 

The second season wrapped up just as well for me as the first (with the foreshadowing of ice-zombies). It's exciting, fun, and watching the alliances form and break makes from some compelling television. Plus the that giant strike on King's Landing in episode nine was epic as fuck. Green fire?! Nuts. 

So, even though I did thoroughly enjoy this season (and the series as a whole) there are still some hang-ups. First is the same problem I had before: the names and places. How many characters are there now? Twelve? Twenty? More? Probably more. That said, even more people are introduced with this season, and while there is a system of checks and balances where as new characters are introduced others are killed off, my head still spins a bit. However, most of this was remedied with some internet sleuthing. The giant list of characters does lead me into my second beef where I felt that some story lines really felt lacking this season. With so many characters, there are many different plot lines to keep track of. Unfortunately, some felt severely underdeveloped. Take Jamie Lannister. Season one ends with his imprisonment. Season two ends just shortly after he's released. (Sorry for the spoiler - for anyone that's concerned - but it's really nothing much.) It has to be said that he's not actually released and sent home. He's just being transported. So his story is still very much in limbo and anti-climatic for someone who was a lead character last season. I also felt Jon Snow's story was a little light as well. These are all minor complaints because, like I said, I still really enjoy the show. Just not enough to satisfy my hunger. 

With season three wrapping up in a few weeks, I'll be all caught up, which is both a blessing and a curse. Sadly, the show will be done for another year. On the other hand, I will finally have a current running, hour-long drama that will fuel some great water-cooler discussion - haven't had this since Lost. Hopefully this show wont end in quite so much disappointment.