Harvard Yard

I first heard of William Martin's Harvard Yard on a recommendation from my girlfriend, who described it as a bit historical fiction with a modern mystery mixed in taking place around Cambridge, Massachusetts. I'm a sucker for books that take place around here so I recently gave this one a shot. Harvard Yard is the second in Martin's 'Peter Fallon' series, so I went in under the assumption that this was going to be some sort of Dan Brown style thriller where I would learn the 'secrets' behind the history of Harvard while unraveling some centuries old mystery. That's not too far off from what I got, but Martin definitely has his own distinct style. Chapters alternate between book dealer Peter Fallon's hunt for a lost Shakespeare play, Love's Labours Won all across New England, and a generation by generation recap of what the play went through over the past four centuries. It turns out Shakespeare was good friends with Robert Harvard, father of John, and after being passed down through two generations of Harvards, the play is entrusted to family friends, the Wedge family. At this point Martin literally details twelve generations of Wedges and how their quest to protect the play intersected with not only Harvard history, but important events in American and world history. And to tell the truth, Martin did a pretty great job of it. I've never really read any historical fiction but I found that the dozens of members of the Wedge family were all fleshed out pretty well and I was pretty excited reading about them. The Peter Fallon side wasn't quite so good- it got pretty convoluted and I think really would have benefited from being a more subdued hunt than a life-threatening chase. Still though, I'll probably read and post the first book in the series, Back Bay, at some point and see how it stacks up.

God of War: Ghost of Sparta

I started and finished playing this game earlier tonight, and I mean, what more can I say at this point about this series? Once again, just a fantastic effort from the God of War team. This was yet another beautiful example of hack-and-slash adventure gaming done right. Now, if I may offer a slight nitpick. As great as Ghost of Sparta was, it felt a bit light or messy on plotting, specifically the way the various game environments flowed into one another. This game is an interquel set after the events of the first God of War game but before the events of God of War II. In other words, Kratos has already become the titular "god of war," but he has not yet decided to go off and kill every other remaining god in a vengeance quest. (That's what happens in God of War II and III, right? That was rhetorical; if I'm wrong, don't tell me.) The problem, maybe, with Ghost of Sparta from the get go was that it had to use monsters and gods and other mythological figures that had gone un-used in the main trilogy and the previous PSP release. But where said PSP game, Chains of Olympus, got by with a decent plot and simple story, Ghost of Sparta went bananas cramming different enemies and environments into the game and seemed like little more than an attempt to just showcase Greek mythological content that hadn't made the trilogy. In this respect, it felt a lot like a compilation of "deleted scenes." This is, after all, a five-hour game in which, while ostensibly trying to rescue your brother from the "Domain of Death" (not the underworld; we've already been there, twice!), you: destroy Scylla, destroy the City of Atlantis, venture through a volcano, climb a mountain during a blizzard, visit Sparta just to mess with some prisoners and bang some chicks, brutally murder King Midas, and hesitantly murder your own mother just before she can tell you who your father is. (Convenient!) The whole thing just felt like a mix of over-the-top scenes and "wish we had found a better way to incorporate this into the actual trilogy" mini-conflicts. Even the level design, usually a strength of God of War, felt especially underdeveloped, as the game featured a decent amount of backtracking and very few actual puzzles. Also, the game's geography, if that makes sense, felt oddly cluttered and disjointed. Check any map of the Greek islands and you'll see that it's impossible to walk from the island of Crete to the city of Sparta. So why, in the game, are the two separated by some sort of mountain pass and not a body of water? Especially when Atlantis featured so prominently in this game, and is set, you know, in the middle of the water. I mean, again, these are just such minor nitpicks and the game was a whole lot of fun to play. Still, I'd rather point out these small imperfections while I can, because from everything I've heard, the remaining two games in the series are just fantastic.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 2

Sons of Anarchy's second season certainly built upon the strength of its first, and the show has now been consistently entertaining for 26 episodes. Things have started to calm down after the events of the first season finale, when a new threat suddenly shows up- a gang of white supremacists (with Henry Rollins!) who've got a problem with how the Sons deal guns to minorities. This conflict and the continuing power struggle between Jax and Clay makes up a majority of the story, but once again I was very impressed by one of the subplots. Gemma, played by Katey Sagal acts as a sort of maternal figure in the club and I had heard rave reviews of her acting in this series. After the first season I was a little underwhelmed, as she just seemed to be a typical bad-ass woman who shows all other girls the ropes. Early on in season two however Gemma has a horrifying run-in with the white supremacists, leading to a season long arc that really made this new rival gang feel like a serious threat. Katey Sagal nailed it, and took the show to new heights of drama. The season ended with a bit of a lackluster cliffhanger- not bad, just one we've seen before, but I'm still very excited to jump into season three soon enough.

The Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

I finished off the second game in the Prince of Persia trilogy, 'Warrior Within' a few weeks ago, but I've been too lazy to actually make a write-up for it. Well here it is! Warrior Within is set a few years later than The Sands of Time, and in the first scene we see the titular Prince fleeing from some sort of malignant force known as the Dahaka chasing him down as vengeance for messing with the sands of time. The Prince escapes, and eventually sets sail for the island where the sands were created, puzzling over how to fix this situation without sacrificing his own life. For the first half of the game (8 hours or so- this is significantly longer than Sands of Time) I was very disappointed. The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time may be a perfect game in that it does exactly what it is supposed to and the only improvements to be made are the graphics as consoles get more powerful. It controlled perfectly, which is exactly what you need in a platforming/parkour style game. I found that all of the subtleties that made The Sands of Time great were absent in Warrior Within. Camera angle was the number one offender- Often wherever the Prince needed to go was difficult to see, leading to frequent deaths. In more linear sections, the camera would often jump around needlessly, causing the controls to change at a moment's notice. This also lead to frequent deaths and frustration. My other big gripe is the combat- while The Sands of Time had little focus on combat, instead offering up a platform-heavy game, Warrior Within went overboard with combos, wall fights, and battles mid-platforming. The problem is, most of this was pretty terrible or unnecessary. There's a huge list of combos, but they were all fairly useless and impractical. It wasn't just me being bad at the game either, as a guide I checked would comment on the uselessness of the combos with every new one you learn. The Prince also developed a habit of running up walls when near an enemy and kamikaze-ing himself off towards the enemy. Of course, if this fight was taking place near an endless hole, then the Prince would just dive-bomb himself over the edge for a self-death. Terrible! Anyway there was still some potential in the game. The level design is non-linear and very well done, and the aforementioned 'Dahaka' will periodically show up for some tense but quick chase segments that I felt added a lot to the game. Still though, as I left on a work trip to Ohio with the game half done, I was ready to really lay into the game in my post. After I returned a week later and finally finished off the game, I felt like there was a significant improvement in the second half. I can't quite put my finger on it, but perhaps I simply just got used to the random jerky camera movements and figured out a cheap if time-consuming way to just cheese my way through fights without taking much damage. The predictable plot twist of the first half of the game was redeemed with the story taking a turn towards crazy towards the end, and while it didn't tie up perfectly like in The Sands of Time it did have some pretty cool moments. So Warrior Within wasn't as bad as it could have been, but clearly a good deal worse than The Sands of Time to me. Hopefully the trilogy's final installment, The Two Thrones ends the series on a high note.

Open Water/Open Water 2

Open Water was a cool movie on a shoestring budget about the terror that comes with being alone in the water with a bunch of hungry sharks. It may rely heavily on shots during which the waves crash over the camera to reveal a shark lurking below, but it's a cool enough effect. Plus, one scene has Blanchard Ryan with some full frontal.

Open Water 2, largely based on the success of the first one, got a budget of roughly $2 Million. What the creators of this movie did with that money is an absolute abomination. Let's start with the ridiculous fact that somehow the 6 stupidest people on the planet (along with the worst mother) somehow are all on the same boat at the same time. Fast forward 20 minutes and they are all swimming in the water and they forgot to put the ladder down! However, not to worry. They have a knife, a life preserver, a precariously low-hanging American Flag on the boat and an inflatable dolphin. Any six of us in the same situation would have:

a. Had one of the girls on the shoulders of the lightest guy who could support her weight while the lightest guy was sitting on the inflatable dolphin wearing the life preserver. The other four would be there to make sure the guy supporting her weight could not sink. Girl stands on his shoulders and boom, movie over.

b. Stuck the knife in the side of the boat in the crevice between the ladder hatch and the side of the boat and used it as a foothold or something a guy could hold onto while a girl climbed on his shoulders. Movie over.

c. Constructed a rope from our swimsuits with the knife tied at the end and keep throwing it above deck until it caught. We would then, rather than have the heaviest guy in the water climb up on it, have the lightest girl climb up on it. Movie over.

d. Provided that one of us dies, put the life preserver on the dead body and use it as a surfboard to stand on and grab the edge of the boat. The others would make sure the dead body did not sink too much. The life preserver would do the rest. Movie over.

However, these people lacked any common sense and pretty much killed themselves one-by-one. I guess I couldn't expect any of them to think like this as they all had no will to l live. One lady even decides she is going to swim for shore because dying treading water just isn't her style. Another guy goes to die because he feels to blame for the other deaths, but fails to realize that he is now leaving a mother (who is afraid of the water so has never been on a boat since the age of 6) and her baby to try to navigate this boat to shore.

I can forgive everything I have mentioned previously. What I cannot forgive is the ending. It literally made no sense. I have spent 2-3  hours on the internet reading various theories on what the fuck the ending meant, but none of them really hold any water(!). Let me try to explain what I see happening;

The mother, who just go back to her crying baby, jumps back into the water to try to save her friend who has just given up on saving himself. She struggles to drag him back on the boat as scenes of her 6-year-old self struggling to save her dad from drowning are intercut. It goes dark, followed by a very sunny scene (presumably the next day). In this scene, we hear the baby crying, see a fishing boat pass by the idiot boat. No one is on board, but we see that the ladder is down and extended. The fisherman yells ahoy and no one answers. The baby continues to cry. Before I get to the next scene, I would just like to point out that if the ladder is finally extended (in no other scene previously was it extended), then the mother had to have gotten back on the boat. However, when the fisherman passes, the baby is crying and no one else is anywhere to be seen. If the ladder were not extended, I would assume that the mother is dead.

And then the next scene validates my opinion that this is the worst movie ever made. It's still sunny and the mother is on board, with the baby still crying, nowhere to be seen, and the camera pans down to show the man's body she presumably saved from the water. Only he is lying face down, looking exhausted or dead. As this scene is shown after and not before the fisherman, there are only two possibilities here. They either were below deck taking a nap while the fisherman screams ahoy, in which case, why is the guy all of the sudden on the top deck face down, or this scene takes place prior to the fisherman in the continuity. If so, did she drag the dead body below deck for some reason? Did she push it off the side of the boat because she was afraid 2 adults were enough weight to sink a yacht? Some might defend why this movie was made, but no one can defend this terrible ending.

War of the Worlds

I started this movie at 12AM last night and watched it straight through. Anyone that knows me knows that this is quite the accomplishment. I routinely fall asleep during movies that I start at 5PM. I can only think back to one other movie that has kept my attention enough to keep me awake in the wee hours of the morning. That movie is The Prestige and it's one of my top 5 movies of all time. 

War of the Worlds has been panned by many for its ending, but I don't think there is a better movie out there based on an alien invasion. There are just so many memorable scenes, from Tom Cruise and his son playing catch, one with a Red Sox hat and the other a Yankees, to Tom Cruise, caked in human debris, running through the streets as people are disintegrated around him to Tom Cruise telling Dakota Fanning to keep her eyes on him (shielding her from the Airplane that had crashed through their house), to a crazy mob literally ripping through the windshield of the family van, to Tim Robbins potraying a crazy Bostonian convinced he is part of the "resistance" and everything in between. If you haven't seen this movie before, make sure you do.

I had seen this movie before, and it stayed with me for days. This time is no different. I just keep thinking about Tom Cruise and his family and how I would react in a similar situation. It somehow reached me on a level that science fiction movies usually don't. I don't know if that is a testament to Cruise's acting, the story, Steven Spielberg's directing (probably), or what. 

Tough Shi*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good

I’ve always been a moderate fan of Kevin Smith’s films, but a big fan of his words. Actually out of all of his movies, the Q&A series An Evening with Kevin Smith are by far the most entertaining. And from that came my interest in his various podcasts – something to entertain me on the treadmill or in the car – which would eventually trickle down to his book: Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good.

I don’t know if this book provides a great deal of advice on being successful in life, but it does recount some very entertaining stories of Smith’s life in Hollywood, out of Hollywood, and the infamous Southwest airline fiasco. (He can bitch at Southwest all he wants for throwing him off their plane for being too “fat,” but it was that bit of press that introduced me to his podcast in the first place… and I’m sure I’m not the only one.) In between his memoirs of breaking into the business, then trying to survive it, Smith does lay down some life lessons which can really be summed up thusly, “Be daring and do whatever it is that you want to do. Remember, as long as you have fun at your job, it will never feel like work” - or something to that affect. Easier said than done. He insists, though, that if he’s capable of making it in this world than just about anyone can do it. Thanks for the words of encouragement, but I’m going to disagree. In one of Sir Richard Branson’s (the billionaire entrepreneur who will likely be the first person to commercialize space and deep sea travel) books, he lays out all the groundwork that he’s used to establish the Virgin empire. Branson states that he doesn’t care about revealing any hidden gems on his business philosophy because in the end he knows that even if people have the information to accomplish something great, it still may not change the fact that they just aren’t going to do it. Call it laziness, intimidation, whatever. Some people aren’t deemed to succeed in these methods – I freely lump myself in this category… come on lottery tickets!

However, let's just push that "life advice" notion aside. This book isn't some motivational seminar. It's just entertaining stories about the "biz" and Smith's insight on how he's adapted to the ever changing professional climate. As Smith discusses his tenure in Hollywood, he describes how his education of the film business has evolved over his current two decade career. How Harvey Weinstein took him under his wing in the early 90’s when Miramax bought up Clerks and explained to him some of the fundamentals on marketing a film. From there he moves on to a variety of different stories. Dealing with Bruce Willis’ bitchy attitude on CopOut; smoking pot with Seth Rogen; or surviving that religious-extremist Westboro Baptist Church's protests over the release of his last film, Red State. 

Speaking of Red State, I have to comment on his interesting marketing tactic he discusses using for this film's release. With this movie having a shoestring budget of around $5 million, Smith explains how he looked to abandoned typical marketing strategies as they were far too costly and just didn’t make sense to the film’s release. Instead he went on a road trip, touring around the country screening his film with a Q&A session to his already large and loyal fan base. I remember as this was happening last year and reading in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter how Smith was “breaking all the rules” with this new releasing tactic. In the end it actually worked in his favor. I don’t think Red State racked James Cameron money, but it did alright… and he managed to do this all outside the Hollywood system. Clever.

For anyone interested in humorous tales on the film industry, pick this guy up. Or better yet grab the audio book. Smith reads it himself with a joint in hand, constantly interjecting his own thoughts on his writing. Good stuff.

Now, on a completely unrelated note, take a second and watch what is probably the funniest thing to ever come Kevin Smith's creative universe. From the short-lived Clerks: Animated Series, here's the end to Episode 4: the Korean alternate ending - an oldie but a goodie. Enjoy. 

God of War: Chains of Olympus

So, Keith wasn't lying. This took me two nights to beat, and on the first night - last night - I only played it for a scant half hour. I was a bit late to the God of War games, having only just beaten the first one earlier this year, and I still haven't played the second or third games in the series. But I found the God of War: Origins Collection recently for only twenty bucks or so, and what with both of them coming chronologically before God of War II and III I figured I might as well treat myself to one of these two PSP games. Specifically, the first one, Chains of Olympus, a game which takes place prior even to the first God of War. Kratos is in the midst of his ten-year tour of duty as the gods' personal go-to guy for fucking their enemies' shit up. After dispatching an entire Persian army and a basilisk trying to invade a Greek city (in a classic God of War intro level that is awesome and memorable but extremely unrelated to the rest of the game), Kratos sees the sun fall out of the sky. Looks like the titans have kidnapped Helios, god of the sun, and the world will be cast into eternal darkness unless our boy Kratos can, you know, fuck those titans' shit up. The game is much quicker than the original PS2 title, and there were no parts whatsoever that I found to be tedious or frustrating, Of course, given the shorter runtime and the simpler plot, it's also not quite as memorable as said original game. That's fine; it was still an absolute blast to play from start to finish, once again a perfect blend of hack-and-slash, adventure game, and dungeon puzzler. The game looked beautiful, and I can thank the HD remastering for that. There was once again a fittingly epic score and an impeccable sense of level design that somehow made these ancient mythological worlds seem vast and wide open while at the same time limiting you to a very linear and straightforward path through the game. My only fear is that now that I've played a newer and HD God of War game, I'll think less of God of War II once I finally go back and play that one on PS2. But I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, which probably won't be very soon anyway.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

This series of books is a series that road a cool premise for 1000 pages. However, as I look back on it, there really isn't a lot of substance. Despite the fact that each page was riddled with Katniss' deepest thoughts and emotions, I can't help but feel like she was a poorly-developed character. Her actions often contradicted each other and she often took the easy way out. I grew to despise her as she kept complaining about her love life when there were much more important things going on (like borderline genocide, for instance).

The rest of the characters were even less developed, with the one notable exception being no one.

Still, the first two books were pretty enjoyable. The last book was pretty much pointless. It rambled on for 300 pages. The end, however, was satisfying enough for me to give the series a hesitant recommendation because I think people just read for a change of pace from TV. You could do worse in a book series. Just keep in mind that Suzanne Collins thinks she is a far better author than she really is.

God of War: Origins Collection

After beating both games in a matter of four days spread out from December 26, 2011 to April 23, 2012, I can confirm that these games are brief (5 hours for Chains of Olympus and 6 for Ghost of Sparta). Both games were just as enjoyable as any other God of War game, with Ghost of Sparta separating itself from the first with some stuff that I hadn't previously experienced in the four other games (even though I beat 80% of this game today, I can't really put my finger on a concrete example). Killing was as satisfying as ever. The most satisfying killing technique was easily the Goldberg's Spear-inspired ground and pound. I can't remember if that was in both of these games or just Ghost of Sparta.

Anyway, if you've played any other God of War games, these games will be very familiar. That's not necessarily a bad thing. If you haven't played any other God of War games before, go out and play all five.

We

Here's the second part of my two-part dystopian-themed Christmas gift from Dee. (Thanks, Dee!) We is considered to be the godfather of all 20th century dystopian fiction; Brave New World, 1984, and several other works they helped inspire are all either admittedly or allegedly derived from some of the concepts put forth here in this 1921 novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Initially sympathetic to the communist movement in Russia, Zamyatin quickly turned his back on the powers that be once it became evident they were, you know, violating some basic human rights and such. For the most part, We was a very typical dystopian novel. This makes sense; it was a prototype for all future 20th century dystopian fiction, after all. To a certain extent, then, We felt very familiar to me even though I'd never read it before. You have the standard protagonist who spends the first act of the novel explaining his virtuous futuristic society. In the second act, his eyes are opened up to the realities of the atrocities his seemingly perfect government is capable of, and naturally he and everyone he cares about gets fucked over by an iron fist by the novel's end (or at the very least, re-brainwashed into accepting, trusting, and even loving the totalitarian government). One thing I appreciate about good dystopian fiction - which can admittedly feel kind of stale and dated given the way the Soviet Union ultimately ended - is that it makes the reader stop and think about just what mankind's ultimate purpose is. Is the ideal man free to spend his time and efforts on whatever he pleases, or is he efficient and productive? Does he think and imagine and dream, or are his contributions more physical in nature? Is it on society to serve the needs of the individual, or is it on the individual to serve the needs of the society? We may have been a reaction to the policies of the early Communists in Russia, but many of its themes and messages are still fairly relevant today in the 21st century western world. We wasn't the best written or most clever or poignant dystopian novel I've ever read, nor will it go down as the most memorable, but it was interesting all the same to read a book with such an historic legacy in the literary field.

St. Elmo's Fire

I first saw the classic 1985 high school movie The Breakfast Club when I was a senior in high school. It was a movie about a group of high school kids from different cliques realizing they've actually got a whole lot in common. I just saw its spiritually similar counterpart, St. Elmo's Fire, having recently (in the scheme of things!) graduated from college. It's a movie about a bunch of college friends who slowly grow apart and get pulled in different directions as they enter "the real world." That's a pretty nice contrast, right there, and the fact that the movies were released just months apart and share three major actors (Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, and Ally Sheedy) will keep the two films forever linked. So, how do they compare, and did St. Elmo's Fire live up to The Breakfast Club's status as a timeless '80s classic? The answer to the latter is a wishy-washy "yes and no." St. Elmo's Fire actually comes off as a strange mix of "ahead of its time" and "completely dated and of its time." The recurring theme in the movie, if it has one, is that even after college these kids still have a lot of growing up (and a bit of growing apart) to do. Aimlessness, lack of ambition, and the inability to commit are just three examples of the things holding some of them back from marriage, grad school, and even just moving out of the parents' house. It was in this regard that the film felt a bit contemporary; my generation is increasingly becoming known as the "Boomerang" or "Peter Pan" Generation, in that so many of we current twenty-somethings with college degrees are stuck living with parents, marrying later on or not at all, and being stuck in dead-end jobs. Funny, then, that a movie that came out before half of us had been born was able to hone in on our very modern day plights. Having said that, this was unmistakably and entirely a product of the 1980s. Everyone's doing cocaine and no one smokes weed at any point. Conflicts are built around severe credit card debt and the idea of a woman wanting to establish her career before getting married at 22. An intense break-up scene comes to a head when the ex-couple argues vigorously over how to divvy up the record collection. And I mean, just look at Rob Lowe's hair on the Blu-ray cover. Frankly, I'm shocked AIDS never came up and that there wasn't more synth-pop or hair metal. I think what surprised me most about St. Elmo's Fire was realizing, when I was reading about it after watching it and before making this post, that it was never really considered a good movie, even its own time. I mean, no, it wasn't a great movie, but quite frankly neither was The Breakfast Club; that was just a slightly heavy-handed celebration of '80s youth with a generic and silly "we're not so different after all" takeaway that had enough iconic moments to qualify as a classic. St. Elmo's Fire seems much less acclaimed, but I thought it was at least as good on all the technical levels like writing, acting, and tone, and perhaps even better when it came to delivering a more nuanced story. If nothing else, it was interesting to see such an all-star cast of familiar faces almost thirty years younger all on the same screen. Hearing Demi Moore admit, at the movie's climax, that she "never thought she'd feel so old at 22" was a priceless moment for a number of reasons.

30 Rock: Season 5

There's really not a whole lot I have to say about this fifth season of 30 Rock. The show is funny, but at this point it's probably safe to say it's reached all of its potential and, at times, grown repetitious. But one positive aspect of being a bit older and longer in the teeth is that 30 Rock is fairly self-aware at this point, and knows exactly what it is, what it can be, and what it struggles with. It's extremely consistent, I'd say, and while episodes these days rarely blow me away, they also seldom stink. The most ambitious thing the show tried here in Season 5 was a live episode. There was really no reason to do a live episode; yes, plenty of the cast and writers have previous experience with SNL, but it's not like anyone was saying, "You know, 30 Rock should really pay tribute to SNL with a live episode!" Or at least, if anyone was, I wasn't privy to it. At the same time, this season probably fell flattest during a brief stretch late in the year where Tracy Morgan was absent for some reason. Does this make Tracy Morgan the show's MVP? Perhaps; though I can imagine that a run of episodes without either Tina Fey or Alec Baldwin would also be pretty bad. So to recap, this was a funny but average season of a funny but average show. Happy Friday everyone!

Batman: A Death in the Family

Batman travels the Middle East battling the Joker, terrorists, and on the search for Robin’s true mother. This is one whopping story arc. I would make note that there’s going to be many spoilers here exposing some major character and plot changes, but I’m guessing the cover picture and title, Death in the Family, probably foreshadows most of the story. That being said, let’s dive in.

Issues #426 – #429 of the Batman comic series tells the story of Batman and Robin traveling to Northern Africa and the Middle East on the search for Robin’s true mother. I have to make note here that this is Batman’s second Robin, Jason Todd. The first, Dick Grayson, has already retired and moved onto to become the hero, Nightwing - or something to that effect; the Robin lineage is inconsistent and confusing. While on this expedition, the Joker (after recently escaping Arkham Asylum) is in the process of selling off a nuclear warhead to some Arab terrorists to make some big bucks that will help rebuild his crime empire. The Joker’s deal goes south when Batman and Robin break up the sale... then Joker’s bomb accidentally detonates. Everyone's fine, but the Joker escapes. (Side-bar: They have a nuclear warhead explode as if it’s a stick of dynamite. All of the important characters walk away from this completely unharmed. Go figure?) By process of elimination, Batman and Robin track down Robin’s real mother working as medical aid in Ethiopia. The Joker has serendipitously swooped in on Robin’s mom as well blackmailing her to give over some medical supplies he can sell for profit. In this quandary, Robin’s mom lures her son into the Joker’s clutches where he beats him mercilessly with a crowbar. At the end, he locks mother and child in the warehouse and kills them both in an explosion right before Batman could arrive to save the day. A crushing scene… then things start getting a little weird.

As Joker is making his escape he is captured by, of all people, Ayatollah Khomeini – the radical religious leader of Iran. (Did I mention this was written in the late 80's?) He wants to offer the Joker a job: representing Iran at the UN as their formal diplomat. We cut back to Gotham. Everyone is up in arms that Joker is returning to the states with diplomatic immunity, now acquitted of all crimes charged against him. Batman is still ready to kick ass when Superman pops in on the President’s orders to keep him in check. He’s able to keep his cool when everything culminates at the UN assembly as the Joker, in the middle of his address, unleashes a giant gas bomb to kill everyone. Now worries, Superman shows up. Saves the day. Then lets Batman (sitting in the crowd as Bruce) makes chase after Joker that ultimately ends in a helicopter crash with the Batman escaping and the Joker… well, he doesn’t escape – and was shot in the gut mid crash – but we all know damn well he’ll live on.

It’s a little baffling reading these issues. Seeing Batman slugging Arab terrorists wielding AK-47’s is probably on par with Superman doing battle with the Nazis (I’m pretty sure this was thing). And while there are some glaring logic issues besides the nuke survival (like how the hell does a notoriously dangerous/wanted criminal allowed to enter the UN building… and with a bombed strapped to his chest no less?) it’s still very entertaining and a bit shocking to read. One other question that still looms in my mind is about Robin’s mother. I don’t know if this is ever touched upon later in the series, but I’m not sold that this final woman he meets is in fact his true mother. Jason Todd’s original parents died when he was young (father shot by Two-Face; mother taken by cancer or something) and then finds his birth certificate where the mother’s name is all smudged out except for the first letter, “S”. He then goes on a long deduction path using Batman’s supercomputer and his father’s old address book to narrow his possible “real” mother down to three people. Then when this woman finds her lost son, she immediately turns him over to the Joker to save her own corrupt ass… I don’t buy it. As Batman sorts through the rubble that Robin and his mother’s bodies lie in, he manages to get one last word with the woman commenting how Robin covered her before the blast. “That boy must have really loved his mother," she says before croaking. The story leaves it fairly open, but I’m left with the feeling that Robin dies never truly find his mom, only a con-artist.

Damn, what a cruel world.

The Rules of Attraction

Seeing the movie adaptation of The Rules of Attraction is what got me into Bret Easton Ellis in the first place several years ago. It's far from a perfect movie- all the main characters are unsympathetic, and by the end nothing is solved. But one thing it certainly had going for it was that it was hilarious. Plenty of memorable lines have stayed with me over the years. Also it is really creatively shot- take a look at the split-screen shot of two students getting to a Saturday class, or the out of nowhere frenetic account of Victor's trip to Europe. The movie plays out like some hyper dream-like version of the best and worst college has to offer for spoiled kids with too much time on their hands. And the book, set about 15 years earlier in the 80's, really expanded on those themes better than any other Ellis book I've read. I mean, no matter how iconic American Psycho may be, it still just felt like a very well researched evisceration of rich people. The Rules of Attraction sorta takes money out of the equation, instead the people in the novel are mostly free to do whatever they want because they're bored at a small college somewhere in New Hampshire. The drug dealer Sean Bateman (brother to Patrick!) pines for the art-student senior Lauren after concluding that she has been sending him childish love notes; Lauren is futilely holding hope for her long gone boyfriend Victor to return and save her from her disappointing college life; Lauren's ex, the bisexual Paul makes advances on Sean and may or may not enter a relationship with him- is it all in his head? We witness all of these characters at their worst, pathetically desperate for eachother yet unable to think straight from all the drunken and drug-fueled debauchery. Regardless of whether they get what they want, no one ends up happy. A blurb on the back of the book called it a 'poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance' and that seems a pretty apt description. The lifestyle these kids live makes them fall in love with eachother one minute and forget their names the next. It's a pretty harsh, depressing book the more I think about it- not even close to as graphic as the excessively violent American Psycho and Less Than Zero, but one with a pretty grim outlook nonetheless. Yet it was the source for so many of those snappy lines from the movie that I couldn't help but laugh. So yeah, I'm four books in and Ellis has definitely hit a high point with The Rules of Attraction. He's got three more books published, and he's just so low-investment that I'm sure I'll get to the rest at some point.

How the States Got Their Shapes

Two passions of mine have always been geography and history. In other words, I've always been intrigued both by where things are and also when and why things happened. So when I found out that this book - a detailed look at every interstate border in America - existed, I was instantly fascinated and knew I had to read it. Maps of the United States are so commonplace that each of us, regardless of whether or not we can actually properly locate all fifty states within the country, certainly recognize the collection of borders and boundaries that slice the contiguous United States into, well, forty-eight such states. It's easy to take these boundaries for granted; none have changed in a hundred years and they've become fairy permanent fixtures in our minds. Texas has that distinct Texas shape, and Michigan has two parts, and Florida and Oklahoma have panhandles, and that's just the way it's always been. But why? When you think about it, any boundary line separating two states is fairly arbitrary. Physical features like rivers and mountain ridge-lines make for fairly practical and readily available boundaries, but clearly a majority of the state borders in America don't follow such natural shapes. Instead, lines of latitude and longitude often serve as state edges. These edges get more and more reliably straight as you travel from the East (where said lines were surveyed and established in the 17th century) to the West (using 19th century technology). The whole book fascinated me. I mean, sure, there are some real boring borders out there (is anyone all that interested in the Colorado-Wyoming line?), but I was surprised by how many of even the most apparently cut-and-dry borders were shrewdly placed or eventually relocated for political purposes. I know I'm a real nerd for stuff like this, so your mileage on finding out "how the states got their shapes" may vary. Nonetheless, I'll leave you all with a history of one state's borders. My home state (and likely yours, if I'm to believe the demographics and statistics provided by Blogger): Massachusetts. Massachusetts is one of the oldest states, and as such, its borders were among some of the most altered and disputed in the country's early history. Here's a quick reminder of what the shape of Massachusetts looks like:

Easily recognizable, right? But when you start to ask why the borders are where they are, it's easy to get flummoxed. Why does the northern border depart from being a straight line once it approaches the Atlantic Ocean? Why don't the Connecticut and Rhode Island borders line up perfectly? How did that jagged Rhode Island border in the Southeast come to be anyway? Why is there that little nub sticking out from the bottom of Massachusetts into Connecticut? Why is the Western edge slanted, rather than running vertically from North to South? And in the very Southwest corner, why is a tiny piece of the state seemingly missing? Thanks to How the States Got Their Shapes, I know the answers to all of these questions, and if you read on, you will too. (But here's the jumping off point for the rest of you.)

The Brothers Karamazov

A few years back I got into a little Russian Lit phase, reading through a couple classics from Russian authors- Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. The idea of reading some old-timey novels from Russia was scary initially, but I found that either through well-done translations or just innately readable prose the books weren't nearly as dry or daunting as I had expected. Crime and Punishment came out just seven years after Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, but the former was an intriguing read on attempting to justify horrific crimes while the latter was a decent cure for insomnia. Eventually I attempted Dostoevsky's masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov in the summer of 2008, but only got halfway through and had to put it down for a while. A while turned into four years and now after starting over again, I've finally finished reading the behemoth. It's received high praise from all over, including Back-Blogged mainstays Vonnegut and McCarthy. The book begins with a reunion of the three brothers Karamazov- Dmitri, Ivan, and Alexei, all in their twenties, who have all been raised apart thanks to their uncaring father Fyodor, who sleeps around and generally forgets about his kids and forced others to care for them. Dmitri has returned to Fyodor's small town in Russia to dispute an inheritance claim- he believes papa Fyodor has deceived him out of money and eventually his girlfriend, and the fights between father and son form the main plot of the first half. Ivan and youngest Alexei are a good deal smarter than the rest of their family, but also find themselves arguing over religion- Alexei plays the smug atheist to Alexei's innocent Christian. Don't get me wrong, the religion versus atheism arguments are smart debates, but by the end of the book the three staunch pro-atheism debaters end up finding faith, going nuts, or living without morals until killing themselves. The two characters with strong ties to the church are the two kindest, happiest characters in the book. The message was a little heavy-handed. Anyway while the smart people have their arguments, Dmitri and Fyodor's inheritance dispute keeps escalating until Fyodor is murdered, leading to the more plot-heavy second half of the book, in which Dmitri is arrested and tried for the murder of his father. I ended up flying through the second half in a few nights, as the book shifts suddenly into 'whodunnit' mode and I just wanted to know what happened. After ending with the verdict there's a nice quick epilogue to wrap things up. So what's the verdict? Not Dmitri's verdict, of course, but mine? I liked it but didn't love it. It seemed like Dostoevsky had a lot of his thoughts on religion and philosophy he wanted to get on paper, but when the characters discussed this it felt like it had little to do with the plot at hand. I mean, apparently an early religious debate between Ivan and Alexei is the most famous passage of the entire book, 'The Grand Inquisitor', but I remember that part dragging and wished it had a bit more to do with what was going on in the story. I mean, when your other brother is making death threats to your father, you'd think they'd already have enough to talk about, like 'what the hell is wrong with our family.' But apart from the debates and the plot feeling a bit disconnected, for the most part I enjoyed the story and its memorable cast of characters. I'm already commited to reading another Dostoevsky book, The Idiot, as it was another free Kindle item, so we'll have more of the guy coming at some point.

The Sopranos: Season 6, Part 1

So at the very least, I can say that this was quite an interesting half-season of television. I've heard murmurings on the Internet suggesting that The Sopranos peaked pretty early on from a creative standpoint, and that the entire sixth season felt largely unnecessary, or at least too aimless. I'd agree that this season (or half-season - important distinction, I guess) felt a bit less concise and wholly constructed than most others have so far, but in a strange way this lack of new developments and larger arcs allowed for a number of powerful character-on-character moments. Right off the bat, things get kind of weird as Tony is accidentally shot in the very first episode, then enters a coma for the next two, allowing David Chase and Matthew Weiner to have some fun writing up some wonderfully surreal dream/purgatory sequences for our anti-hero. Once Tony recovers (no spoiler alert necessary, I'd hope) he takes on that classic "every day is a blessing" outlook on life that near death experiences so often lead to in works of fiction. And while he certainly regresses a bit (people don't really change in The Sopranos) he ultimately appears slightly placated. The (half-)season then plays out almost like a mundane status quo, and while episodes were still quite interesting and well made and enjoyable, I can see why fans at the time were growing kind of restless waiting for something big to happen. Two interesting character arcs belonged to a closeted gay man in Tony's crew and to A.J., Tony's woefully lazy, whiny, and irresponsible son. The gay guy's arc ends up pretty much exactly how you'd expect it to, but A.J. actually kind of sort of manages to come of age a bit over the course of these twelve episodes, which contradicts my above claim that "people don't really change in The Sopranos," but I mean, he's a kid. It felt inevitable that he'd "grow up" someday, even if "growing up" for him means finding a blue collar job and a thirty-something girlfriend. The idea that A.J. was one of the most compelling characters this (half-)season speaks simultaneously to the season's relative unimportance and also the strength of the writing and characterization as a whole. We've only got nine episodes left, and even though I know exactly how the last one ends (and who with an Internet connection in 2007 hasn't had it "spoiled" for them yet?) I'm excited to see the final steps in the journey that will take us there.

Batman: Year One

I've started reading comic books. No, not graphic novels; actual comics books. Except for a couple of issues my parents' might have thrown my way while I was at camp for the summer, this is something I just never got into as a child. Instead I collected Star Wars cards - far more nerdy (although, I wonder if they'll ever be worth serious cash one day like I've always hoped?). Regardless, my handy-dandy iPad now lets me return to this craze that was lost on me as a youngster. And, yes, there is an app for that...

Seeing as how I'm kind of new to the whole world of comic books, what I'm trying to post here is not an entire collection of series (that would cost way too much money to get through) but, rather, discuss an individual story arc. For anyone out there at least somewhat knowledgeable on this subject, feel free to correct, but from my understanding a story arc is one storyline in the comic series that's typically constructed by the same writer/artist team. So what we have here are issues #404 - #407 of Batman which make up Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's interpretation on a genesis story for Batman; hence, Batman: Year One. Don't ask me how you can be over 400 issues into a comic series before a tale is released describing how the superhero comes to be, but I imagine you just go with it - chances are there are several origin stories peppered throughout this particular Batman comic series (of which there are a dozen others). Now, let's jump into the thick of it.

If all comic books can live up this piece of work, I feel ashamed to have been so blind to these stories for so long. These comics are amazing. What's often cited as the inspiration for much of Nolan's Batman films, Batman: Year One tells not only the origin to Bruce Wayne discovering his superhero alter-ego, but Lt. Gordon entering the corrupt and violent Gotham police force. In fact I would say this title might be even a little misleading. The comics tend to focus fairly heavily on Gordon and friction as the new man on the force who plays strictly by the books amongst a sea of dirty, crooked cops. As Bruce/Batman looks to take on the gangsters and crime lords of Gotham, Gordon fights back against the current police commissioner and his lackeys. The arc culminates with the two parties coming together where we bare witness to the birth Gordon and Batman's partnership.

This interpretation on the Batman franchise is really interesting on how weak, vulnerable, and inexperienced Batman is. Almost loosing a fight to pimp on the streets (enter Selina/Catwoman) and getting trapped in a burning building surrounding by cops with a metal slug wedged in his thigh. It's all sloppy work from our hero in training. Then there's Gordon. A real badass. There's one point where he gets jumped by the rest of the cops wielding baseball bats and manages to take them all out... tacking names and kicking ass. Back to my mention of Catwoman's appearance. Yes, Selina is periodically inserted into the story as a lesbian/dominatrix/pimp who fights Batman on a couple different occasions, but is ultimately unnecessary to the story. She's not a main antagonist. Maybe, more like Batman's personal trainer - keeping him on his feet as Bruce makes his career transition. Otherwise this is a great read.

For anyone curious about getting into this story, check out Comixology online. (You can digitally download what you want from their massive library - I feel like I should be getting paid for this.) It's a short, exciting read and definitely worth it for a Batman fans out there. And keep posted. There are more comics on my must read list... many more.

Drive (2011)

I don't see a ton of movies in theaters, often preferring to wait for the DVD releases of much-hyped films, so take this with a grain of salt, but Drive was the best movie I saw in theaters in 2011 and it wasn't even a close competition. I can't even quite explain what made it so great. The plot was pretty basic, the acting was fine but nothing special, and the film wasn't as action-laden as plenty of far crappier movies. I re-watched it for the first time last night after buying the Blu-Ray with some friends who'd never seen the movie before. About a third of the way through the movie, one of them summed up the film's power pretty succinctly, saying something like, "I'm very interested. Nothing has happened yet to suggest that I should be, but I'm very much hooked right now and wanting to see where this is going." And this was before the movie hit the point at which it kicks itself into high gear and becomes one of the most beautifully graphically violent films I've ever seen. A heist goes wrong, some people get betrayed - even if you haven't seen the movie, you surely know where it's going at this point. But instead of playing out as an intricate series of double-crosses or as a "man against the world" or anything like that, Drive keeps things simple, almost in a minimalist fashion. The guys who want our hero dead? They're just a few guys with a few henchmen. There will be no stand-off in which our hero faces an onslaught of well-armed mercenaries Transporter style, and the movie is much better off for it. Drive is a slow burn of a movie, allowing viewers to grow accustomed to Ryan Gosling's character's stoic calmness and silence, to the point where when he first so much as slaps somebody, it comes as a refreshing surprise. (And then he spends the rest of the movie so much more than merely slapping people.) Golsing's performance is understated and simple, much like the film itself, which features very few elaborately choreographed scenes and multiple film noir montage scenes in which Gosling is just driving around the city at night. Combine all of this with a synthpop soundtrack and a very '80s-inspired visual style (here are the film's opening credits) and you're left with a very unique and very awesome action movie that stands out against a myriad of generic modern action movies. Drive never even felt to me like something new as much as it did a new blend of so many classic movie tropes - the mysterious protagonist, the comically violent deaths, the heist subplot, the electronically-enhanced keyboard-laden soundtrack, the neo-noir minimalism, all combining to form an engaging and fun film experience. As I said, favorite movie of 2011, and nothing else comes very close.

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

Chuck Klosterman IV is a bit of a grab-bag of essays and other short works by the author, and it would make little sense to discuss the book as a whole when its parts are so clearly different. So let me break it down into the three sub-sections that Chuck decided on, starting off with "Things That Are True." This section consisted entirely of articles Chuck wrote on pop culture for different magazines and newspapers over the years with a definite slant towards music. Unlike the essays found in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck isn't after 'big picture' questions, but his blunt style is still shown off in full. For instance, he's not writing about what U2's success says about society, but rather interviewing Bono with the sole intent of determining whether the guy's full of shit. So yeah, if you're interested in just how weird Radiohead is (only somewhat) or why Jeff Tweedy won't reform Uncle Tupelo (the songs are too hard to play!), these make for some decent reads.

The second section, "Things That Might Be True" consists more of opinion pieces Chuck wrote for the magazine Spin and probably some others. These were also decent reads but unfortunately none stood out as being truly memorable to me other than an essay on the importance of being liked, and taking it to a global scale. Chuck makes a pretty decent point about how pathetic it is to 'apologize' for your country's actions (specifically the re-election of George W. Bush) and how it makes no sense to hold yourself up to ridiculous standards you wouldn't expect of someone else just to be liked. I guess this essay stood out to me because it was the only one that seemed to take a small idea and draw some big conclusions from it; the rest of the essays were about robots and whether the term 'guilty pleasure' is a misnomer, shit like that. So yeah, mixed bag.

The third section is "Something That Isn't True At All", the beginning of a novel Chuck never finished. Unfortunately this just felt like a condensed version of Downtown Owl. An obvious stand-in for Chuck works at a newspaper and is bored by the town he's living in, eventually finding himself in a disaster. It didn't really go anywhere, but I guess that's why Chuck never really went back to finish it. On the whole that's basically what you're getting with Chuck Klosterman IV- a collection of lots of Chuck's older writing now in book form. Results may vary.

Journey (2012)

For economical backlog-reducing purposes, it makes absolutely no sense to buy new items for full price, consume them immediately, and end up with the exact same backlog, down a few dollars and out a few hours. Yet that's exactly what I did last night with Journey, a $15 PlayStation Network game that's all the rage right now. My reasoning had to do with the current popularity of the game and its semi-dependence on online multiplayer (to be explained later on); great games remain great years after their prices go way down, and I've waited a while to get games on sale before, but Journey seemed like a game that should be experienced as soon as possible, and at $15 I knew the price wasn't ever really going to plummet. So just what is Journey? It's a beautifully minimalistic game in which you control a vague robed figure on a... wait for it... journey. There's no text, not even as a background story of sorts, and there are no spoken words or facial expressions. The game consists of traversing seven different levels on your way to a mysterious glowing mountain summit. There's some very light puzzle solving involved, and there are a few collectibles that have little impact on the gameplay and probably exist solely to earn you a PS3 trophy. There are no enemies to attack and defeat, there is no health bar, and there are no time limits; Journey very much consists solely of walking (sometimes swimming or flying or gliding) toward a far off goal. If you aren't sold yet, I don't blame you. Release an 8-bit emulation of this game, and it'd be panned beyond belief. "No story, no enemies, and no challenge? What the hell is the point?" Luckily, we live in 2012, where games can be considered "art," and where elegant world design and emotion-stirring music can be considered just as impressive as a challenging boss fight or a powerful new weapon. We also live in an era wherein we can share our gaming experiences with total strangers online. This isn't usually a good thing. Internet anonymity, after all, enables the very worst of human behavior, where racist and sexist threats can be shouted and where trolling, hacking, and friendly fire are only slightly discouraged or punished. But where a game like Halo makes you hate race-baiting shit-spewing teammate-killing preteens unconditionally, Journey has found a way to embrace the concept of Internet anonymity. Along your titular journey, you're accompanied occasionally by one other player. His (or her) goal is the same ambiguous one as yours; make it to the top of the mountain. Communication is impossible, beyond a series of chirping noises you can make by pressing a certain button. You know nothing about these occasional companions, as even "gamertag" info is withheld. You're never accompanied by more than one person at any given time, so there are never any giant coalitions. You can't intentionally play with a friend. You can't attack or otherwise get in the way of any companions, nor is any competition possible since there's no metric such as "score" to gauge performance. The only technical difference between having a companion and not having one is that whenever these two robe figures come within a very close physical distance of each other, they can each jump higher and run faster. It's never mandatory to use a teammate to beat the game, and to the best of my knowledge even every collectible is obtainable while flying solo. The thing is, in a vast and mostly empty world, it's human nature not to want to be alone. I gained no real benefit from sticking with another player, but this very primal urge existed inside me not to leave his (or her) side when possible. And I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the same urge existed in whatever physical person existed on the other side of the game. Whether he was a little kid, a grown man, or a series of people hanging out passing the controller back and forth, whether he was a total asshole or an awesome guy, and whether or not we even spoke the same language or lived in the same country, this companion presumably enjoyed and appreciated my companionship as much as I did his. (Or hers. No way to know.) Of course, that's just an assumption, and it wasn't even the case for every companion I met along my journey. Several people, perhaps playing the game for a second time, just didn't feel like sticking by my side when I went off to take a little exploration detour, or didn't wait up for me to take their own little detour. At least once, I legitimately felt abandoned. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical of all the praise the game had received when, after six of seven levels, I just hadn't been "wowed" by the overall experience. But then that seventh and final level took place on the snowy slopes of the mountain itself, and I had to face howling winds and vast unscalable cliffs, and as my little robed figure grew colder and colder (visually, his robe became more and more snow-covered and his gait became slower and slower) I wanted nothing more than a companion with which to brave these horrifying virtual conditions. I got my wish, and in the most memorable part of my personal journey, my final companion and I trudged up an enormously wide and expansive hill practically on top of one another, almost as if each of us was craving the virtual warmth of another virtual body. I won't spoil the ending - though what can one spoil in a game that takes place absent of any context? - but by the time the credits were rolling, I had been moved and satisfied. The game ultimately felt a bit brief, even for a downloadable title; I'm not exaggerating when I say it took me longer to download and install (three hours) than it did to beat (two-ish?) and at $15 it ran a tad expensive for what it was. But "what it was" was still something very unique and enjoyable, and I'd definitely recommend the experience to anyone with a PS3. I'll certainly be back someday for another playthrough, even though I don't imagine the experience will be all that different.

How to Archer

The most readily available comparison I can make for How to Archer, a book ostensibly written by the fictional protagonist of one of the funniest shows on TV, is to Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, another book ostensibly written by the protagonist of one of the funniest shows on TV. Both were silly little quick reads that probably hardly even qualify as "books" in terms of how much they enriched my mind. But a book is a book, and I'm not going to abstain from posting about a book just because it's hardly a book at all. (Sweeney certainly hasn't.) At any rate, How to Archer can best be described as a manifesto for how to live like Sterling Archer, the world's greatest secret agent. Part of the humor, of course, as anyone who has seen Archer knows, is that Archer lives an impossibly awesome life, even for a cartoon character. He's ripped, athletic, handsome, and rich, but spends virtually all of his free time getting drunk, screwing women, and using awesome weapons and gadgets in foreign countries. So more or less right off the bat in this book, he drops all pretenses, and just starts talking about how awesome his own life is, while admitting that the reader is probably very unlikely to take anything useful away from all this. The book is divided into sections on how to spy, how to drink, how to dress, how to dine, and "how to women." Clocking in at 140 pages or so (and many of them sparse, illustrated, or entirely empty), it made for a quick and enjoyable two-session read. Unlike the Pawnee book, which at times felt like a collection of Parks and Recreation's greatest one-off gags expanded and watered down into a pseudo-nonfiction book, How to Archer never felt like something I'd experienced before via the TV show, as narrator Archer never spent time re-telling anecdotes. Instead, he just prattled on and on about fine silk neckties, hookers in Monaco, and the pros and cons of airboats and snowmobiles as means of transportation. All of it felt extremely true to character - in fact, I don't think I could have read the book without H. Jon Benjamin's distinctive voice floating through my brain-ears - and the entire body of work is a well-made (if slight and trivial) companion for the TV show.

Metroid Fusion

I am slowly but surely making it through the list of games that Nintendo was gracious enough to give to all those suckers who paid full price for the 3ds as part of their "ambassador program." This program should be called the "suckers who paid full price for something that dropped almost a hundred bucks shortly after launch." Anyway the list of games that they gave had so far disappointed me but I have played a few lately that have made me think they are not a complete waste. First I played Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, then I played Zelda: Minish Cap and now I have finished playing this gem of a game, Metroid Fusion.

This is my first finished Metroid game. I remember playing the NES game as a child for many hours and not making it very far past the first couple of screens. I didn't make it far because there was no real save feature it just gave you a 16 digit or so code to enter that would give you the items and stuff back but I never had the patience to enter the code. In fact I never really had much video game patience at all. The little bit I do have is a somewhat recent development. Anyway, I digress, I finished this game and I enjoyed the crap out of it. It was a fun game once you get used to the Metroid style of gameplay. I had to learn how to be specific in my jumps and be prepared to grap on to ledges precisely and once I did that this game became a bit easier.

The game starts out as you approach a space station and you have to investigate a weird situation. Samus starts out with almost none of her abilities and as you progress through the game and decode the landscape you slowly reacquire her latent abilities therefore making it possible for you to turn into a ball, jump higher, jump spin as well as increasing gun capabilities such as the charge beam attack and the addition of missiles. The increased capabilities come from downloading at specific rooms in the station and from defeating bosses.

The bosses in this game are probably the best part. Most games start you out against a boss fit to be defeated by an infant. An early slam dunk to boost your confidence. But not this game, the first boss took me more than half a dozen tries to defeat and I realized soon on that I had to employ a well thought out strategy or face a quick defeat. There wasn't a boss in this game that I managed to defeat in one try and each of them had their own weakness that you had to employ to bring about their demise. The final boss took me three full sittings and about 75 attempts to beat. I had almost given up on the game when a friend of mine convinced me to power through.

All in all I enjoyed this game and I am glad that Nintendo allowed me to download it for free.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings

Apparently incapable of learning lessons from mistakes made in the past, I went ahead and purchased this Final Fantasy XII follow-up before I'd even finished off Final Fantasy XII proper, a task that took me five and a half years to complete. Fortunately, this DS-based sequel only took me about a week and a half to begin and finish over a total of 27 hours. Actually, that kind of shocks me. This didn't feel like a 27-hour game, and not just because it was far shorter than its 60-hour predecessor; as a handheld game, Revenant Wings got plenty of playing time while I was in bed, watching TV, or listening to podcasts or the radio, so it doesn't even feel like I spent more than an entire day playing it. The game itself was enjoyable overall, but I'd be remiss not to vent at one point about a specific aspect of the gameplay. Let's start with a description. It's been over a year since the events of Final Fantasy XII, and Vaan and Penelo are now sky pirates, sailing the... skies, I guess... in search of treasure and adventure. As the game begins, they and two friends find a floating archipelago of sorts, inhabited by a race of winged humans (bird people!) called "aegyl." The majority of the game takes place up on these floating landmasses, which sort of nicely allows fans of the first game to experience an entirely new world while also featuring several of the same characters. In fact, of the nine eventual playable characters, six of them are the playable characters from the first game. That said, you have to get through two thirds of the game with Vaan, Penelo, and the three new fighters before the original crew returns. The game even features one battle that has you fighting against two of these old friends, which only added an extra element of frustration to an already difficult battle. The battles themselves can best be described as RTS (real time strategy), not unlike those two StarCraft games I just played, but slightly less complicated. The biggest controversy around Final Fantasy XII was that it did away with turn-based battling in favor of more of an open world adventure game battle system where players and enemies attack in real time. Here we go one step further; in Revenant Wings, you can't even take a breather to strategize, as opening up the attack menu does not pause the game. In a lot of ways it felt like a combination of Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics, but was more frantic and chaotic than either. This led to a few control issues, and one fundamental flaw in the gameplay (for me at least) that nearly had me chucking my DS at walls until three in the morning on some nights. As with any RTS game, your success in Revenant Wings will largely depend on how quickly and adeptly you can issue commands to your fighting party. On the aforementioned StarCraft games, there are an endless bevy of hot keys and mouse clicks designed to speed the process along. In Revenant Wings, you use the DS stylus for basically everything, from movement to player selection to attacking to selecting menu options, all in real time. This isn't quite as disastrous as it sounds, but it's absolutely infuriating when, in the heat of battle, I need to frantically select my healer, tell her to use her spells, select the "cure" spell, and then select the guy I want her to use it on, especially when that guy is in a clusterfuck pile of enemies and very hard to find, let alone tap accurately with a blunt stylus. There were far too many games, too, where my ranged attackers and healers would hang back and start shooting at enemies, but my melee attackers couldn't walk past them to get to the proverbial front lines, leading to a quick and easy massacre of my forces all because the AI on my ranged fighters was having them form some sort of barricade against their own allies, and the AI on my melee fighters was too simple to have them try walking around said barricade. This was easily the most infuriating the gameplay got, and also never stopped catching me off guard; when I tell certain party members to attack certain enemies, I just expect them to be able to figure out amongst themselves how not to get in each other's way. Due to the limitations presented by the relatively small and simple pair of screens on the DS, it was only possible to watch one area of the battlefield at any point in time, too, so if I sent one group of fighters to attack someone, then panned the screen over to focus on another group, I had no way of knowing that the original group was busy walking into each other while getting picked off by enemy archers and gunmen and dragons and such. Combine this with a tougher-than-it-should-be difficulty curve (if I've done every available sidequest, I shouldn't still have to grind my way up to higher levels) and there were several key battles that took me more than five attempts, which is just kind of annoying more than anything else. Ultimately, this wasn't a bad game, but I couldn't have picked a worse pair of games to play alongside it than StarCraft and its expansion pack; I'm pretty RTS'ed out right now, and won't be revisiting the genre anytime soon. Revenant Wings was more or less what a handheld direct sequel to an epic platform-based RPG should be: simpler, leaner, but without doing a disservice to the characters and world created by the original. I can't "highly recommend" it, but you probably already know whether or not this is something you'd have any interest in playing.