Flatland

Mostly moved into my new place, and with the day off from work to watch the cable guy drill holes in our walls for hours on end, I decided to try out this 1884 novella. I'd heard great things about it: notably, that it offered as good a conceptual image of multi-dimensional space as anything that has ever been written. Oddly enough, the author, Edwin A. Abbott, was actually not even a mathematician or scientist, but a literature enthusiast who enjoyed the Greek classics. The titular world of "Flatland" exists on an infinite two-dimensional plane. All people, things, and objects in Flatland are two-dimensional shapes that can "see" the world around them only as a series of lines. Since the entire world is coplanar, no being's field of vision can consist of more than one dimension, much as our own vision presents us with two-dimensional images; just as we (in three-dimensional "Spaceland") can infer the third dimension using depth perception, the shapes of Flatland can infer "depth" as well, allowing them to directly view one dimension while perceiving another. The protagonist and narrator of the novella is a simple middle-class square. One day the square visits "Lineland," a land in which all beings and objects are nothing more than colinear line segments. Each line segment can only "see" the one in front of it and the one behind it, and each is thus perceived as being nothing more than a point. The square finds it difficult to explain a second dimension to the linear residents of Lineland who have only ever known - and can only infer the existence of - one dimension. Even as the square passes in and out of the solitary line, thus projecting himself as a line that grows and shrinks depending on the square's angle, the lines in Lineland see it as nothing more than a line segment growing and shrinking. Frustrated, the square departs. Later, the square is visited by a sphere from "Spaceland," a three-dimensional world much like our own (except apparently with talking floating spheres). The sphere projects onto Flatland as nothing more than a circle, and the square has just as much difficulty understanding and believing in the concept of three dimensions as the Lineland beings did with two dimensions. But at last the sphere is able to somehow take the square with him into three dimensional space, and the square can see his home and world from a bird's eye view for the first time, giving him more clarity than he ever had pictured his own home with. As the story concludes, the square asks the sphere to take him one level higher - to a land of four dimensions, or even five, six, or seven. The sphere, of course is just as incredulous about the idea of higher dimensions as were the lines and the squares. But by now, we the readers are, like the square, wondering why there shouldn't be four dimensions. Two points become a line. Four lines become a square. Six squares become a cube. Why shouldn't eight cubes become some basic four-dimensional shape? And if such a four-dimensional shape existed, wouldn't it project onto our own world as nothing more than a simple cube, albeit one that seems to grow and shrink at will? I have to give Abbott huge props for illustrating very effectively the folly of believing in the finiteness of dimensions as well as the difficulty (and impossibility, even) of being able to infer or detect any and all dimensions beyond the three our world consists of. There was even an amusing and brief trip to "Pointland," a zero-dimensional "universe" consisting of a single point who is the ruler, sole resident, and entirety of the universe itself. There was also a lot of strange social satire in Flatland; the more sides a polygon had in Flatland, the higher his social rank was. Also, women were nothing more than straight lines. (In Lineland, women were mere points. Weird, but it was 1884, so whatever.) But the big takeaway for me was definitely the exploration of extra-dimensional concepts and perceptions. At under 100 pages, it made for a simple afternoon read and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who has ever wondered about how there could possibly be a fourth spatial dimension.

Knucklehead

I'm going to break with my recent tradition and post an item I watched on Netflix. In anticipation of the 2011 Royal Rumble, and because Sweeney and Keith vouched for it, I decided to watch Knucklehead featuring WWE's Big Show. Let me start by saying the plot of this movie was trite and I expected every twist and turn along the way but that doesn't mean I didn't love it. The cast of this movie is amazing, Dennis Farina revisits the role of the ruthless crazy boxing promoter that he portrayed in the movie Snatch. The little black kid from Role Models once again pushes the limits of what a little kid should be allowed to say and do in movies. And I have to admit that I always thought Melora Hardin was a cute chick but now I am forced to admit that she is straight up sexy, that scene where she "mud wrestles" in the bar and takes off that red dress was enough to make this my second favorite wrestling movie of all time (the first of course being Mr. Nanny).

Archer: Season 1

I've said before that 2010 was a banner year for new TV shows, at least on cable. Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead made for great dramatic television late in the year, the summer gave us Louie and Rubicon, and Justified premiered way back in the spring. But my favorite new show of all was Archer, an animated series on FX that ran from January through March. I've always loved Sealab 2021, an irreverent Adult Swim comedy from the earlier part of the decade. When that show died after four seasons, a certain void opened up in my TV viewing schedule, and that void was finally filled by Archer, which was made by the same team that did Sealab 2021 in the first place. It's hard to place what it is that makes Archer such a funny show. The animation is so true to realistic human form and movement; none of the humor derives from the way the show is drawn or sequenced. Instead, the humor is largely dialogue-driven. But it's not just the lines themselves that work, either. It's their delivery. I have to give credit to the voice actors for truly selling most of the lines beyond the mere point of using different voices to convey different feelings. I could type, right now, that "you look like some kind of cattle rapist," and it'd be somewhat funny, I'm sure. But putting the line on paper (granted, out of context) doesn't do justice for the disgusted malice with which Jessica Walter complains about her son's appearance. I could type, "that girl was like the Pelé of anal" without conveying the aroused delight with which H. Jon Benjamin sells that metaphor. Every episode teems with snappy dialogue and angry insults. The rewatchability and quotability levels are extremely high for Archer; I've seen every episode at least twice, most of them thrice, and some a full four or five times, and yet I could watch the season from start to finish at the drop of a hat if someone else were to propose the idea. Season 2 begins in just under 47 hours and I couldn't be more excited. Danger zone!

Risky Business

I guess you had to be there. Droves of critics and everymen alike cite this movie as one of the greatest '80s comedies, one of the greatest high school movies, and one of the best Tom Cruise showpieces of all time. But I didn't find the movie every funny, I wasn't reminded very much of high school when I watched it, and I thought young Tom Cruise was actually pretty terrible. I know I'm 28 years late to this party, but I just don't see what warrants all the praise. It probably doesn't help that I've already seen and enjoyed The Girl Next Door (2004), a film that admittedly borrows heavily from the plot of Risky Business; all I could think while watching this movie was, "this feels a lot like The Girl Next Door," even though I knew it came out some twenty years prior and hence had the "original" idea. But there's really not all that much about Risky Business that felt memorable or noteworthy in any way, aside from one scene ten minutes in where a pants-less Cruise parades around his living room playing air guitar to Bob Seger. Oh well. Not every movie I've ever bought was worth buying, even for three fifty.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

In 1998, a tactical RPG by the name of Final Fantasy Tactics came out and absolutely blew me away. I loved that game. I beat it five or six different times, each time through giving myself a new set of challenges to abide by. My favorite run was the final one I did, in which I customized my party (to the best of my abilities) to emulate the cast of characters from Final Fantasy IV. I mean, yeah, if the past few months on Back-Blogged haven't given it away, I've always been a bit of a Final Fantasy fanboy. Anyway, in 2003 this spin-off (note: not a true sequel) came out, exclusive to the GameBoy Advance. I didn't have a GameBoy Advance, but bought the GBA adapter for my GameCube simply to be able to play this game. Now, I'm glad I bought the adapter, as it allowed me to discover the wonderful game known as Metroid Fusion, but Final Fantasy Tactics Advance just wasn't nearly on par with my lofty expectations. It was childish and dumbed down where it shouldn't have been, and the gameplay was expanded upon where it didn't need to be. It wasn't a terrible game, but it wasn't nearly what I had hoped or expected it would be. Let's make a quick comparison. The original Tactics game had an immensely detailed story with more characters than The Wire and more twists and turns than a Dan Brown novel. And plenty of the elements were mature and complex. There was a complicated civil war. There was social commentary on the rift and animosity between the upper and lower classes. There was a puppetmaster manipulating the major players on either side in the war, and as it turned out, there was a puppetmaster manipulating him all along too. There was a morally sound protagonist whose achievements went unrecognized and ignored, and there was an opportunistic morally gray character who became a hero in the eyes of most of the public. There was regicide and fratricide throughout. All things considered, Final Fantasy Tactics had an awesome (and incredibly underrated) story. Tactics Advance, on the other hand, was about a bunch of children who get transported to a fantasy world. Ugh. And then one of them recognizes the fantasy world, specifically, as "the" world from Final Fantasy, one of his favorite series of novels (wait, what?) and games. Quadruple ugh. What's with the meta? What's with this shitty set-up in general? Fortunately, the gameplay remains similar enough to keep this follow-up from being a total letdown, but I still prefer the sleeker and more streamlined approach of the first Tactics game. If every aspect of the first game was a "ten," then I'd give Tactics Advance an eight for gameplay and a two for story: a five, overall. So, yeah. This game was only half as good as its predecessor. But that's okay; said predecessor is one of my favorite games of all time. And a game half as good as a fantastic game is, at the end of the day, an utterly average game. I think what bothers and disappoints me most about Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is that it received nearly universal praise upon its release, with the consensus being that it was a slight improvement if anything. I've still got this game's sequel, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, to log, but I doubt I'll jump into it anytime soon. Anyway, if I can leave you with any lasting recommendation, it would be to definitely give Tactics a try, but to also be warned that Tactics Advance feels like a child's attempt to recreate Tactics with a much more Disney-ish story and little more.

Frost/Nixon

It's been a year and a week since Webber posted about this movie giving it a positive review and recommending it to anyone. And I have to echo his statements, more or less. This was a good movie. I think that to this day Richard Nixon has been lampooned and criticized a bit more heavily than he deserves to have been (my own political opinions notwithstanding), at least compared with the number of other corrupt politicians and world leaders that have graced us with their presence at one time or another. But this movie manages to depict him as a flawed and lonely man. Whether or not you go into this movie thinking that Nixon was an evil asshole, you'll probably come out of it with a better appreciation for the human side of the disgraced former president. Granted, this is just a movie - Nixon could have been a total douche bag in real life, but through the magic of historical nonfiction, you'd never come to that conclusion based on this film alone. Another great offering from Ron Howard, another movie checked off my backlog.

The Wire: Season 2

Hype is a dangerous thing. Sometimes too much hype can ruin a actual experience. When I had heard, repeatedly and from a number of sources, that The Wire was the greatest show ever, I was pretty disappointed when the first season turned out "only" being very good. I then allowed my own expectations for the second season to drop a little bit, but recognizing this, I secretly created my own little hype machine of high expectations (since I'm not expecting to love this, I will probably love this!) Whatever. The point is, I'm now 40% done with the series and although I still believe it's very good, I still can't call it one of the greatest shows I've ever seen. That said, I recognize all of the excellent elements and I do not find it absurd that many people call it their favorite show ever. The acting, writing, pacing, direction, and production are all absolutely top notch. This is such an honest show. It portrays a city with bleak and transparent clarity. It's not a feel-good show; it's a realistic show. Not every "bad guy" is all that bad, and not every "good guy" all that good. There's complexity and subtlety to the spectrum of morality, and in the end, there are people on all sides of the conflict getting away with things they shouldn't or getting punished far more than they deserved. I started the first season of The Wire back  in June of 2010 (after the pilot episode failed to grab me two separate times in March and November of 2009) and finished in in August; I started this season either in very late November or early December and didn't finish it until late January. It's slow-moving. It's not "addictive" for me in the sense of wanting to (or even being able to) see every episode shortly after the previous one. If it was, I'd be able to knock off the final three seasons before March. But episodes are typically fifty-five minutes long. About 80% of what happens is dialogue-based, demanding your full attention at all times. I probably won't jump straight into the third season just yet, even though I've been told (again) that that's the season in which shit really begins to hit the fan. In the mean time, I'll probably just try to knock off a few more movies before the end of the month.

Little Big Planet 2

There is no physical way to measure the difference between Little Big Planet and Little Big Planet 2. Mainly because there is no way to measure creativity to begin with, and it's that amount of creativity that was separates the two games. A basic platformer that can let you run, jump and use tools, it really open up in the game with the art style. The story now follows a more defined line, with the Negitivatron destroying Craftworld, and the Alliance recruiting you to help save the world. The quirky creators of the world each have different set of abilities you need to use for their levels. While Lenny Di Vinci's levels are an introduction, showing you the basics of the game; it's Avalon Centerfuge who shows you how to ride mounts and Victoria Von Bathosphere who shows you shooting with the 'Sniper Trifle' (my absolute favorite play of worlds in the whole world.)

Now the story isn't serious, neither is the game. It's light-hearted to the max, and you'd hope a game with childlike appeal would have a much easier game-play to matches the feel. Wrong. This game is a challenge. Not a challenge to beat, but a challenge to not look like an idiot dying every second. I was awarded a badge (in game achievements that doesn't add to your PSN score) for dying 20 times in one level. Plus most levels have a section that can only be completed with two or more people, which takes some really co-ordiated actions, even if everyone is on a mic.

The only thing that gave my heart some sadness was the online community. I was ignored and rejected from multiplayer 90% of the time. The thing that made it better was the 10% that did play with me were not only very nice, but very talented and helped me with tricky parts. This game has given me the best experience on the PS3.

Little Big Planet 2. More Littler, More Bigger, More Planet.

Ghost Trick

Boo!

Did I scare you? No? Well neither will Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. In fact, this ghostly game isn't about the spooky, but about what happens in the afterlife. You play as Sissel, an amnesiac dead man who only has to dawn to not only find out his who he his, but why he was killed. But what is this? He no ordinary ghost, but instead had the ability to possess objects, turn switches, travel on phone wires, knock and rock around small items, and of course travel back in time.

The time travel was the first thing I noticed that wasn't very 'ghostly' but hey, I really don't know what ghosts are up to. This Ghost Trick of travel back in time is an ability only Sissel can do, so he's very useful when it comes to solving murders. The rules are that he can only go back four minutes before the person's death, the person can't be dead for more than 24 hours, and he has to posses the corpse. Once a person is saved, not only do they remember their death in the new timeline, they can free speak to Sissel now.

Using all these abilities, you spend one night trying to figure out not only who you are, but saving other people's lives. Now you spend most of your time solving Rube Goldberg style puzzles, which is a wonderful time, but only leave you with one possible solution. It would be nice to see some variation in solutions in some of the complex machines.

From the creators of Pheonix Wright, they bring back the formula:
Crazy Characters + Detectives vs. Murders + a little bit of magic = A good game that leaves a chill down the spine.

Suikoden

Some say bigger isn't better. I say go big or go home and Suikoden agrees with me. A classic JRPG that keeps that doesn't really adventure out the usual. Monsters, magic and medieval. But it isn't doesn't have you running around with three characters, recruiting the random ninja or berserker to add diversity to your party. No, you're running around with your party of six looking to make an army of 108!

This isn't isn't a long game, but it is a big world. Suikoden world expands into mountains and planes and sea; taking a long time to traverse through it all. Plus you're playing as a fugitive on the run from the corrupt emperor and his evil sorceress, so where their army is, you usually can't go. No worries, you've fallen in with a good crowd, the rising Rebellion. You need to start recruiting people to your cause, because you're fighting a whole nation. Wizards, ninjas, pirates, elves and a giant tiger-man all come and join your cause, if you can convince them. Some will just join you because they think you're cool, sometimes you have to help them first and some you just have to pay to join. Once your group starts amassing, you get a cool fortress that you all work out of.

Now the game-play is classic turn style RPG, with speed, strength and defense all determining how the battle pans out. Six characters are place with three in the front and three in the back. Each character had a different range, with Short Range having to be in the front to actually inflict damage, and Long Range can attack anyone from anywhere, or is a magic attack. This helps and hinders your team, with having too many Short range fighters being useless, unless they have a strong magic. Having a good team is one that is diverse and with characters that are compatible, which sometimes they can unite an attack. (Like all the elves, fishermen or pretty girls can 'Unite.')

Now as fun as this game was, there was a few irks. First you can only carry 10 items, second your armor and equitable items (not weapons) count as your carry items, so that leaves you with 6 - 5 actual free spots. Also each potion or consumable item counts as a single item, so no collecting Red Flower x10, you have the actual Red Flowers fill ten item spots in your team. Magic was another irk. Magic comes from runes that you equip onto your characters. So a strong magic user can be an offensive fire user in one battle, and a defensive earth user the next. But to switch runes, you have to go to rune shops to get them unattached or reattached. These shops are few and far between, and your fortress does get one of these shops, but not soon enough.

Suikoden has given me a good time, which I want to continue into the sequel, which uses the firsts game data. The only thing stopping me from actually doing it is the rarity of Suikoden II. A used copy will send anyone back some moolah, plus most people aren't willing to part with the game. We will have to wait to see that log any time soon.