Something Smells Gamey: More Rain

If you are here, then that means you've chosen the ending to Mark's rose-tinted preview of Heavy Rain that leads to me overanalyzing its essence.

Don't worry. You stumble upon a scene with no spoilers.

If you still wish to go back, please load your previous save. Remember, however, that a real choice cannot be undone.

Did that last sentence sound pretentious to you? It should have; and in fact, it's that kind of attitude that almost kept me from picking up Heavy Rain for the Playstation 3. The game's director/writer/mastermind David Cage comes off as an arrogant douchebag with no perspective of place within his industry. Then again, he is French. Consider this recent quote of his: "Heavy Rain has the courage to break with most of the video game rules that were established 20 years ago and are still used today by most games." I acknowledge that most products of any medium tread in tried and true techniques, but there is always a faction at work to deliver new experiences. And that is just as true in the video game industry (e.g., Braid, Flower).


Let me step back for a second and refresh Mark's overview of the game, though. Heavy Rain is a self-proclaimed "interactive drama" in which a choose-your-own-adventure style story effectively plays out through your ability to react to onscreen button prompts. It is a glorified and extended quicktime event, and I'll admit that I'm drawn to the possibility. I was super excited to finally find Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit) on store shelves, which was Cage's previous output. And the first half of that game did feel new and incredible, before it fell off the deep-end into absurdity.

Heavy Rain fixes a lot of its predecessors' flaws, most notably by making the button pressing events match up more naturally to the onscreen action. There's even some motion controls thrown in for you Wii lovers, which bothered me only in so much as it didn't register some of my subtler attempts at not disturbing the cats on my lap. I faced serious repercussions for my failures, but the continued purring on my lap soothed over my fury.

The success of Heavy Rain ultimately depends on its story. And while plot holes riddle any probing look at the conclusion, I have to say I was pretty satisfied in the end. Still, Cage definitely needs to reevaluate some aspects of his storytelling before he (insert your word here)s all over the place.

The essential human relationship of the game introduced at the beginning is that of a father and his sons. This is nice, especially considering how many father/son game relationships feature that son being the spawn of a demonic, trident-wielding netherbeast. Nevertheless, I felt like this game started me back at literary square one with a "perfect" family in which the dad is telling his sons how great they are and the kids giggle and tell their dad how much they love playing with him and how he's the best dad in the world.

There is no subtlety here, and, most importantly, there is no real human interaction. Maybe I believe this because I'm a new age intellectual whose every action is jaded with cynicism, but I do not believe that families anywhere actually act like they do in these contrived situations. I'm fine with a simple scene of familial joy, but throw in a non sequitur here or there to tint the puritanical perfection with a shade of reality. I wanted something bad to happen to these people at the beginning of this game because I was annoyed by the cardboard cutouts presented to me as conceived content. Then again, I already knew bad things would happen, so maybe I was just anxious.

This contrivance is a problem not just with Heavy Rain, but with all melodrama. Because the story is so focused on delivering a serious statement, the characters are pigeonholed into spouting cliches that build little upon their character. In retrospect, this may be my number one reason for disliking Avatar so much (in spite of its resultant fan fiction). Every single aspect of that movie was so built into an archetype that I knew exactly what I was going to see in 20 minutes, 45 minutes, etc. all the way up and through the end; and I wanted to leave at that first interval because of it. Screw technological prowess. I'd rather look at Earth trees than Pandora trees; at least those have real life happening around them.

Now, aside from the main family in Heavy Rain, most other characters are portrayed with enough attitude to make me forgive and forget the tactic. Who doesn't love a weathered private investigator, or a smart and beautiful pair of CGI tits? I know I do. Serious issues can arise when these personalities are stretched into arbitrary romance plots seemingly driven by nothing more than the desire to animate a sex scene (Indigo Prophecy failed hard in this aspect). Yet that shouldn't be a problem with a good set of story editors, right?


Which brings me to my oh-so-brilliant hypothesis: Self-proclaimed prodigies are destined to disappoint. James Cameron thinks he is the second coming because of his ability to retell a tragic shipwreck and a book about a desert planet written in 1965. David Cage thinks he is revolutionizing a medium he outwardly slights as naive and childlike when so much of his vision is just that. I applaud the entertainment I derived from Heavy Rain these past few days. It is a marvelous technological achievement (more groundbreaking than Avatar, I'd argue, in its potential to inspire truly interactive cinema). But it is not a solitary beacon that has spun to light of its own free will in absentia of influence to become the one true image of our future.

In fact, the Mass Effect series is already telling more complex, human stories that make me seriously fret over my in-game decisions and actions. That, however, is a tale for another time...

Aren't my opinions genius?

Something Smells Gamey: Heavy Rain = LucasArts Classic Adventures + Choose Your Own Adventure

DoktorPeace, sorry I'm encroaching on your territory. But, as you might know, I've become a "gamer" of some sort. Getting a PlayStation 3 for Christmas was pretty awesome, and getting games like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and MLB 09: The Show is pretty great. But, the best part is downloading all kinds of demos, so I can pretend that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to the hottest games on the market.

Which leads me to the demo for the soon-to-be-released new PS3 title Heavy Rain. Now, the basic premise of this game is, you control four different people solving the mystery of a serial killer named the Origami Killer (and if that doesn't just grab you by the cajones, I don't know what will[insert sarc mark], the gameplay looks just like a movie directed by David Fincher, and you walk around picking stuff up, talking to people, and *gasp* if you die in the game, you're dead forever in the game. Also, the choices you make affect how the rest of the game goes. Groundbreaking, right?

Wait...is there something from my childhood that this reminds me of? Actually, two things.

One, is the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series. Video games that remind me of Choose Your Own Adventure get nerd points from me.

Two, are the classic "point-and-click" computer games from the early '90s by LucasArts, such as Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Thanks to the technology wizards of YouTube, you can now watch the entire game as a single YouTube video, which I will insert right here:

Actually, the game looks pretty fun. I'm sure I'll be wasting my time on it a lot in the near future. See more here:

Something Smells Gamey: Dreamcast

As few of you who read this blog know, the Sega Dreamcast turned 10 this week. The system was awesomely released on 9/9/99 here in the United States, going on to live a wonderful 1.5 years before production was stopped in March 2001. I never personally owned one, as I was the Nintendo man of the house (my brother picked one up on the cheap years later, with ownership ostensibly passing onto me now that he's into stupid things like girls and education). Yet I was still blown away at the time, especially by the 2K sports games, despite getting beaten by Alberswerth every afternoon on every down on that same stupid pass over the middle to Mark Chmura. God.

On 09/09/09 - the anniversary upon which Sega fans everywhere prayed the Dreamcast 2 would be birthed from the ashes - I chose to reflect in my own way. I booted up Crazy Taxi 2 (which I believe is the original?) and studied every intricacy of its being. What I found was an origins story just begging to be re-envisioned, a la Battlestar: Galactica. For instance, the game takes place in interpretations of New York City called Around Apple and Small Apple. That is so Dreamcast era. The modern gamer is an Assassin's Creed fan who wants more cosmopolitan fare, which is why my version is set in Europe. I've also improved upon the graphics and coated the game in that gritty sepia tone popularized by Gears of War.

Anyway, here's a short video sort of pitching my idea, while at the same time encompassing the entirety of the idea. Many have argued over whether or not games are art. That ends today.

This is my tribute to Crazy Taxi 2, my memorial for the Dreamcast, and my call to arms for jilted cabbies everywhere. Enjoy. And, more importantly, think.

Played Out (Again): MLB '09 The Show

Recently, I've spent most of my time pondering the question: Can love bloom on a battlefield? When I'm not doing that, I've continued to play MLB '09: The Show. This video game has become both my best friend and my greatest enemy. To an outsider watching me interact with The Show, however, I fear neither would appear accurate. Rather, I would be suspected of possessing a demon.

After winning a spring training game against Johan Santana and the Mets, I felt satisfied with my performance as Orioles puppet master and jumped forward to the regular season. My record currently stands at 4 wins and 23 losses. Now, from some perspectives, this is not so bad. I’ve achieved more than the real-life 1989 Orioles, who started out losing their first 21 games. And the most runs I’ve given up as of yet is 28, which is less than the 30 surrendered by against Texas two years ago.

My patience with games has dwindled with age, and nothing gets me more riled than persistent sucking. If the fault were with the game design, I could at least curse the developers and write strongly-worded letters. I know that I am to blame in this case, though, and that is what is driving me insane. Here’s a brief description of my actions throughout a usual game.

1st inning - I get the opposing team out in order. “Finally,” I sigh. “My pitching woes from previous games are over, and I can concentrate on hitting.” My leadoff hitter comes up in the bottom of the inning, and I tell myself to take a couple pitches in order to gauge the speed and delivery. My body rebels and presses the swing button anyway. I angrily mutter, but am pacified as the game remains tied at 0.

4th inning - The opposing team scores somewhere between 1 and 9 runs. I swear loudly, knowing that any of these numbers is enough to top my paltry offense.

6th inning - I get 2 hits to start off the inning, and decide in my head, “Yes. I can do this. I have learned, adapted, evolved.” The next hitter strikes out. So does the next one. I completely remove my hand from the controller, refusing to swing at another pitch, good or bad. The computer winds up and throws a slider way outside. I look down and see that my finger has somehow moved to the swing button and pressed it. I throw myself back in my chair, and the cat sleeping on my lap briefly wakes up to see why I'm bothering her.

And the 6th inning repeats itself ad nauseum until the bottom of the 9th, at which time I strike out to end the game in complete silence. I am too tired after all the self-flagellation of the previous 3 innings.

Curse those old arcade-y baseball games that rewarded players for swinging at every pitch! They were fun, but they did not prepare me for the real world, paralleling the rest of my childhood.

And curse modern controllers, which cost way too much for me to throw across the room! This is why I’m left bruising my own body instead, which is far less valuable, yet far more hairy.

I realize that I could change the game options to make things easier. I could slow down the pitches, or choose a difficulty level that doesn’t test my sanity. But I refuse! My mission is to improve, and improve I must! Love will bloom on this battlefield, because I will make it!

Until then, however, I will continue to leave the shades open, hoping that a psychologist wanders through the woods in my backyard, looks through the window and diagnoses my disease. That way, I can at least score some pills out of this wonderful misery.

Something Smells Gamey: Zombies?

Dear friends,

I come to you with grave concern. I do not want our depression to deepen, but I feel it is mine - and every one of our's - responsibility to ask the question: Have we, as a nation, killed too many zombies?

Yes. I do play Left 4 Dead twice a week, assisting in the death of over 1,000 zombies each campaign. (No, I may not kill as many zombies as my friends, but that's because I provide valuable support on an emotional, physical, virtual, and allegorical level.)

Yes. My most anticipated purchase in the next few months is Resident Evil 5, the next entry in the premier zombie gaming franchise. (No, I have not however pre-ordered the $90 collector's edition.)

Yes. I was as involved as any man in the rise of zombie nation, posting a quote from Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide on my facebook wall as early as 2005. (No, I don't necessarily recommend it as anything other than a coffee table book.)

So what, then, is the problem?

Just as Death Cab music flooded the radio when they signed with that one label, so have zombies flooded our social conscience. I would estimate that more citizens now have zombie apocalypse plans laid out than they do retirement plans, and this is as annoying as it is cute.

Yes. Zombies are fun, and still as relevant as they ever were to whatever (Bridging the gap of life and death? Allowing us to shoot humans?). No, they are not immune to oversaturation.

We need to back off, people, before they truly bite into our national neck, transforming us into the meandering automatons their creation purportedly refutes.

A zombie joke here and there may be fun, but I propose that we make a collected attempt not to reference zombies in daily, or even weekly conversation. Heck, menstruation is monthly, and we all know that's a bit too frequent.

Of course, when partaking in activities that directly include zombies (such as abovesaid games), this rule is flexible.

Besides, I fear the zombie allure is already dead. Or undead, as it were.

See my point?

Played Out: Bully

As much as college me liked to believe he was becoming an individual, I've now realized that I mostly just joined that group of people that believes it's individualistic but actually acts very much the same. Because I am self-aware that I exist in this environment, I'm in an even more select group within that group, but still: I am one of those.

I like Rockstar video games.

While the developer's faux-nihilistic Grand Theft Auto may attract the big crowds with its guns and hookers, I chose to play 2006's Bully this past weekend. This teen-rated affair still got some press because it is a game about high school and children made by the GTA people, but the guns are replaced by slingshots and the hookers by moderately-clothed cheerleaders. Swearing is held to a minimum, too, and the game is better for it. GTAs are fun enough, but I do not see the inspiration in stories that laden their script with F bombs and end with gangsters turning on each other. That is boring to me, but then again, I don't watch The Sopranos and I've never seen a Godfather. If I did, I'm sure I'd again realize I'm more like the rest than I figured.

Rockstar's writing is smart, but too often it goes for the easy laugh and the easy twist. In Bully, because they knew they had to be more careful, they were also more creative. The key antagonist is not a power hungry Italian; rather, it's a power hungry bully who picks on others not necessarily to disguise his own inferiorities, but also because he's simply smarter than everyone else his age and bored. The separation between the two archetypes may be more locational than fundamental, yet in using the high school setting, Bully is sort of calling out society at its root. Cliques do dissolve a bit upon graduation; however, the personalities developed early on remain in the undercurrent of everyday life.

You interact with 4 main social groups in Bully: Nerds, Preppies, Greasers, and Jocks. These characters are all pretty standard fare for pop culture of the past half century, and I believe that's because these characters are pretty standard fare for America of the past half century. The media always says that nerds are cool now, but other than superhero and sci-fi movies so far detached from their philosophical cores that they misrepresent their source material anyway, I don't think it's true. Kids who play Dungeons & Dragons (or, as Bully calls it, "Grottos & Gremlins") still aren't going to date the head cheerleader – unless they pubertize into a fine piece of man meat. And if they do survive that swan-like transformation, it's likely that they'll leave their ugly duckling feathers behind. Role-playing games are often a distraction for people uncomfortable with "real" social interaction such as dating, and one can replace the other. Why you'd want to trade in your level 15 slayer for a pair of taut young breasts, though, is beyond me…

So-called adults aren't so dogmatic in their divisions, but they're still largely there. Nerds get into science, math, and computers. Preppies become businessmen d-bags. Greasers lose their blue collar jobs to immigrants, and jocks become slightly less successful businessmen d-bags. I'm not biased. Those are the facts. When you're rich and/or popular, you intrinsically learn that you can be a d-bag and people will still listen to you. It's annoying to everyone else, but maybe these oft-called tools are just living the only life made known to them...

Still, they deserve every loathe.

Bully doesn't attempt an anthropological thesis, but by creating a world familiar to Western students and populating that world with clichéd stereotypes, it creates a place far more authentic than most video game landscapes. Add in some humor and solid sandbox gameplay, and Bully becomes a wonderful locale to exorcise some of that unspent teen angst. I enjoyed it because I am one of those mid-25 year olds already seeking to recapture a youth I somehow simultaneously think I lost yet never truly experienced. So I guess that makes me a nerd. Or any of the above.

Top Video Games of 2008

As I type this from my university-era, Windows ME computer, let us remember the games that, in 2008, provided me some semblance of luxury in an otherwise misbegotten world. Africans may not have water, yet I type here with little more than Diet Squirt.

A few notes on the (one man) voting: I have not yet played many of the big name games, as most of them released in the last 2 months and I had to leave my family with something to wrap. Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Left 4 Dead, Persona 4 and other numbered and non-numbered games have yet to enter my console. Furthermore, I do not own a PS3, so critical darlings such as Little Big Planet do not here present. I’m not counting ports (Chrono Trigger) or upgrades (Rez HD), which is good, because then I’d have to argue with reader Dave about why I like Rez. Also, I’m not counting games that have physically hurt me, or inspired myself to do the same (Geometry Wars 2). And no terrorists. Or women.

I'm also excluding Rock Band from the list, as it has become its own platform, its own phenomenon. Rock Band 2 only slightly iterated over the previous year's version, anyhow.

This being my first year with money, though, I still played a ton of games. The top 5, in reverse order, are:

5. Mario Super Sluggers (Wii).

This late entry did just arrive after Christmas, but it immediately rekindled in me the arcadey joy that previous Mario sports titles like tennis and golf brought with them on the N64 and GameCube. The game somehow breaks down the complexities of baseball into relatively simple game mechanics (although this is no pick-up-and play number), then rebuilds the opportunity for strategy by giving each of the 71 characters their own, game-altering abilities. Perhaps the most powerful skills – Daisy and Peach’s short shorts – aren’t even noted in the statistics! A short adventure mode whereby you learn the game by recruiting these characters and protecting the baseball kingdom from Bowser adds to the neo-retro appeal, and I can see myself playing Sluggers for many future-past years to come.

4. Prince of Persia/Call of Duty: World at War (multi-platform). I’m combining these 2 games into one slot because, while I loved aspects of each of them, they are each missing that je ne sais quoi that made their predecessors superior. I’ve already obtusely explained my position on Prince of Persia. The new Call of Duty, meanwhile, still succeeds in providing amazing visuals and exciting set pieces, but fails to give its story any real weight. It’s strange to think that Call of Duty 4, where you control modern era troops through fictional Mid-East/Post-Soviet battles, can feel more meaningful than the new game in which you relive World War II; yet that is the case. I definitely felt the horrors of war more profoundly this time around, but much of that impact dissipated with an epilogue bonus game in which you battle Nazi zombies.

3. Burnout Paradise (multi-platform).

Every once in a while I get into a non-karty racing game, with F-Zero GX being the prime example. So when the press continued to fawn over this February release throughout the year – lauding developer Criterion for releasing new, free content and ultimately dropping the price point – I had to jump in. My major gripe is that Burnout takes at least 3 minutes to start up, preventing it from being the perfect “drop in for 5 minutes before heading out to the bars but actually just to the parking lot outside the bars looking in” game. But this initial stumbling block at least helps load the entire “open world lite” that is Paradise City. Despite a lack of pedestrians, the place feels real. This is important, because sometimes, to feel alive, all we want to do is crash into each other.

2. Fable 2 (360). This is another game I've rambled on about at length, so I’ll sum up my experience with a quick Fable anecdote: I was blackmailed after being found out for having multiple wives in multiple cities. I paid the ransom, so that the daughter I loved would one day grow up to respect her old man. I couldn’t care less about my kids in the other cities.

1. The World Ends With You (DS).

When a drunk coworker pulled my DS out of my pocket at the office Christmas party and turned it on, she was greeted by this little gem. She said something to the likes of, “What the F is this?!” and turned it off immediately afterwards. No, this is not a game with which to please your peers. This is a game lovingly crafted to satisfy role-playing fans sick of the same old heroes in the same old worlds. I have never so enjoyed leveling up, never so enjoyed reading through the description of every single piece of equipment, and never been so intrigued by Japanese emo society. The writing and the story are both incredible (I’ll hesitantly qualify that statement with “for a video game”), with an ending that makes no sense at first and perfect sense upon reflection. I realize I haven’t really explained anything here, but I don’t think any explanation would justify (or translate) the experience. Please, somebody else I know with a DS, buy this game. I need to know that somebody out there is sharing this, and that the world doesn’t end with me.

Something Smells Gamey: Home

Thesis: Humans do not partner up and have babies in order to continue their own lineage. They do so out of their own selfish desire to create a home.

Research Methodology: Meet a female; court said female; ask if she would like to ride bareback.

Conclusion: Impossible to determine, given disinterest in leaving basement.

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The outside world - or at least its cities and suburbs - represents a landscape almost unscaleable in video games unless you're packing more heat than physically possible or you're driving a car that instantly reconstructs itself after being wrecked in a killer street race. This is how most of today's visionaries portray society's ostensibly exciting locales, and, whether they know it or not, they're right. Fear drives us to the cities - fear of loneliness, fear of missing out on youth's indiscretions, fear of settling for a comfortable shepherding career instead of fighting with other douchebags to get that client... In the end, we must fight the world nurturing this fear the only way we legally can - by virtually blowing it up and outracing the cops.

Lately, though, I've found my most cathartic gaming experiences dwell closer to the shepherding side of the fence. Fable II - a high fantasy single player experience set in the idyllic medieval era that probably never existed - does indeed feature guns and swords and all that good video game stuff. However, it also allows you the opportunity to have a family, and awards you the greatest friend of all in a treasure-finding dog.


Transitioning to the first person, I felt most heroic when traversing the countryside with my faithful companion Cocoa, clearing evil from forests that - while as full of evil as any city (if not more so, given the shadows lent to thieves by trees and caves) - represented a natural obstacle. The problems in cities have largely been created by humanity's own shortcomings, and even working to restore these problems rarely grants the clarity captured in even a single summer's day. Forests are supposed to be filled with plants that can poison us and animals that can kill us. That's one reason we accept the call of community to begin with. But that doesn't detract from the pure joy of living a hero's tale strapped in the singular might of nature. When an enchanted door in Fable II asked me to exhibit true love, and upon my doing so it opened to present to me a country cottage completely protected from danger, where the sky moved above my head at a dream-inspired pace... I sighed comfortably. That is the kind of reward I want.

This story takes a sad turn, unfortunately, because I gave into my completionist desires and started doing everything the game rules allowed. I slaughtered a village. I changed my sex. I completely lost touch with who I was. Disgusted with myself, I no longer felt as if I even deserved the cottage. My virtual wife felt the same, divorcing me and taking our two sons with her. Was she upset with my loss of morality? Or was the loss of my genitalia the greater problem? Only the forest truly knows...

And so I've returned to Super Mario Galaxy, where another home awaits me. This one is completely fabricated - a Disney-fied overworld where nymphy little stars coo at my very passing. But I love it, because it hearkens to a place my mind and many others have grown comfortable calling some kind of home - the Mushroom Kingdom. In actuality, very little of the game takes place in that benevolent dictatorship; but the aura is comparative. Galaxy takes you to the celestial hub inhabited by Rosalina, a beauty who longs for nothing more than her own mother. The rooms on her starstation are the rooms all we Westerners expect to have in our child-strewn futures - a kitchen, a bedroom, a garden. Rosalina's children, meanwhile, are the stars themselves, and isn't that exactly what we want our own children to be? Surely this is why we encourage them to head out to the city until they realize for themselves how meaningless the outside world is without somewhere to call... you know.


Only once it's gone, or is in the process of going, will children realize what they have left and become desperate enough to create their own. Fable II and Super Mario Galaxy successfully emote the feelings that go into such creation, and who's to say these feelings are any more virtual or real than those we claim outside the console? Not I, says the man who reads way too far into video games for the purpose of writing something interesting and legitimizing his obsession.

Oh, I'm also currently playing Resident Evil: Code Veronica, where I just visited an Antarctican lab facility filled with zombies. It's fun.

Played Out: MLB Power Pros

Mandatory CNN Hologram remark: It's stupid. The in-studio presenter can't even see the person without referring to a monitor (a la weathermen of the last 20 years), so there's no practical use for it on that end. And we the people, rather than getting a clear picture of the reporter's face, receive a blurry outline of ass. I'll give them credit for getting us a better picture of the body part they're talking out of, but next time they want to waste millions on something like this, drop the money in an envelope and leave it under the trash can on the corner of Acorn and Mallificent. Thanks.

The internet has gone with the obvious so far. MoaR catz pweese LOL

Now on to business:

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An incredible campaign ended this week. Following a bumpy start, everything gelled before we grooved to a November victory. There was one big loss to note in September, to a financial monster in New York, but we did it...

My Baltimore Orioles won the World Series! In MLB Power Pros for the Nintendo Wii! Yeah!

See, the baseball season ends in November, and the Yankees are the financial monster, and I'm clever and such.

Arms and legs are impediments.

Congratulations must be offered to more than my loathsome self, however. Really, the game itself deserves much of the credit. It's been years since I last worked through an entire 162+ game season of virtual baseball, but the gameplay was compelling enough, tight enough, and - most importantly for those of us old enough to roll over for corporate fat cats - quick enough to inspire my devoted participation all summer long.

Perhaps more intriguing to you non-sports sim fanatics, however, would be the role-playing aspect of the game, titled "Success Mode," in which you guide your character through his collegiate career. I struggled the first time through to balance practice with studying, a part-time job, and even *giggle* dating, actually failing at "Success." On my second effort, though, I abandoned women and devoted all of that energy elsewhere, finally making it to the pros! The MLB Power Pros! The White Sox drafted me, and then promptly banished me to the minors for the remainder of the season. Ah well. At least there I could catch up with the honeys, who just can't avoid the sweet smell of qualified success.

Unhelpful and Unnecessary Conclusion: Good game with JRPG quirks in need of a bit more menu polish and cleat polish.

****************
I can't stay on topic this week. Here's a song by up-and-coming Irish Hayley Williams, now playing in Rock Band 2:

Lesley Roy - "I'm Going, I'm Gone"

***************
I'm going to Toronto tonight, because not enough people actually do leave the country after elections. Apparently the trend for losers this year is to say they're moving to Mexico? It's warm and Christian I guess, but chihuahuas roam even freer there than in our box offices.

I feel like my jokes are too mainstream this week...
***************
...so to end with, I present a poem by Thomas Hood, because the Blogulator loves poetry:

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -

November!

Played Out: Life, Death, and DMC

The Story of Philosophy (a book thing) somehow takes complex theories and transforms them into free-flowing prose that reads as if a friend is enthusiastically yet gently explaining life to you at the corner bar over a couple of pints - which, may in fact, be what life is all about. Will Durant (an author thing) achieves this personalism by attaching the philosophies to the individual people behind them, revealing to us the reason so that we can understand the rhyme. For instance, Plato's fear of democracy can be interpreted as a direct result of Athens's vote to kill his tutor Socrates. And to give an example more of us can relate to: Schopenhauer's negative opinions of women stem from the fact that his mother pushed him down the stairs. Philosophies are not so unique that one can assert they would not exist sans their human scribes, yet the partnership between the two paints a picture containing both society and the world it struggles to understand at the same time. As imperfect as humans may be, they provide the driving force for any good story.

Which brings me to video games. Hideki Kamiya is one of video game's premier directors, piloting a number of projects I've consumed this year. Can the conceptual leadership of one man really instill artistic meaning into a medium where entertainment depends more upon the tools than the product? A game with no story can be fun, so long as the gameplay is tight (see Mario). A game with a story can die, if the gameplay is boring (see many JRPGs). Does Kamiya deliver life, death, or something in between?

Okami

This PS2 cum Wii adventure title is basically modern Zelda wrapped in a husk of washi. The story is horrendous for the first hour, delivered through mumbled text atop lovely - though still and dull - Japanese sketches. However, the drawings literally come to life once the player is thrust into the wolf-form of the goddess Ameterasu - bringer of life and mother to us all. The world of Nippon (aka ancient Japan) is incredibly vivid - full of character, dialogue, and, doubtlessly, trouble. The game excels as so many do, by providing the player with a sense of achievement. As Amaterasu bounds through the world, a path of flowers rises up behind her and cherry blossom petals revivify the darkened land.

The more defined missions (e.g., kill the dragon) are steeped in Japanese mythology, which doesn't always translate into Western gravitas; but the omnipresent theme of destroying evil is given a fresh feel when connected to the undeniable good that is nature. I don't care if real world nature contains hurricanes and tornadoes. It also has everything that has created us, and the simple task of using my virtual wolf to feed some herbs to a virtual deer connects me to that world that's sitting just outside my basement door.

Resident Evil 2

Good versus evil is rarely more blatant than in monster stories. And while the moviegoing public may be content to patronize these features year after year (*cough* Saw *cough* that's actually the noise of Jigsaw creeping up on me for typing this *cough*), something more is needed to create an experience with real resonance. Kamiya is not the creator of the Resident Evil series, but he did add something to its second volume by dividing the main story into the perspectives of two protagonists. Leon and Claire are both handicapped by limited ammunition and horrible '90s apparel, and guiding them through the zombie-infested remains of Raccoon City is a well-paced journey with just the right number of scares. The game's aging technology largely limits the fear to darkness and "gothca!!!" bursts through windows and walls (although it does attempt some amateur pictorials of greed and corporation). Also, the impact of the two-pronged story is ultimately more patchwork than quilt, hurt by silly scripting mistakes such as the fact that each character has to empty the same watertower onto the same burning helicopter (typical).

There is no overarching theorem of "the end" promulgated here, with too many zombie hugs resulting in little more than a screen proclaiming YOU DIED. But that's all it needs to be, and that's why I love it. The world of survival horror is entered with the expectation that death is imminent, so each step must be taken with planning and caution and a grenade launcher filled with acid rounds.

Devil May Cry

Somewhere in between is Kamiya's most original creation, Devil May Cry (DMC). The story of a demon with no true place in this world or the next perhaps most connects to the struggle so many of us experience as we transition from the pure happiness of naivete into an economy of automated perseverence...

By now I've surely reached the point of too much credit, as Schopenhauer would have warned me upon learning that DMC's avatar Dante seeks to avenge his mother's death. Dante was created to fit Kamiya's vision of a "cool and stylish" man. At the currently ongoing Tokyo Game Show, Kamiya's latest creation - Bayonetta - features a librarian-glassed woman who defeats baddies with her magical hair. The hair is so magical, in fact, that it wraps around her body to form her clothes; and this becomes a problem when she has to use all of her hair for a particular attack...

Conclusion
Video game directors are perverts, yet, with enough insight, they can build the virtual framework from which fools like me can extract some interpretation of real experience and real philosophy. From a medium purposed towards interaction, this is all I should ever ask.

Played Out: Endless Ocean

I just got home from an awesome Brewers game, and boy are my arms tired...
******************

Well, apparently my September favorites over there on the sidebar are cursed. GFW Radio (aka "The Brodeo") ended last week after 2 of the main podcasters left for new jobs. Ostensibly a PC gaming podcast, it had transformed into a freeform discussion on pretty much anything concerning our generation, and I enjoyed listening to their honest opinions and absurdist worldviews (one in the same?) delivered through conversation, rather than overproduced claptrap.

Meanwhile, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is receiving another volume, despite its progenitor Douglas Adams passing away in 2001. The book has been commissioned by Adams' wife, and it's not like there was any concrete canon to the content (Hitchhiker's Guide varied a lot over its various television, radio, book, CD-ROM, etc. media); still, I was happy at the end, even if Adams wasn't. He consistently stated that the last book was a bit darker than he later preferred, but I thought it ended perfectly. Oh well. Maybe I'm just being a Marvin.

And Bionic Commando: Rearmed? Uhhh... I died a lot while beating it. Death is inherently cursed, as we're constantly reminded when Scooby and the gang run across Indian burial grounds.

Just hope that none of my October favorites are "your mom."
*************

Endless Ocean

I've been pondering just how exactly I should go about my video game features. I could pursue "new video game journalism," connecting the in-game experience with personal ethos, but a lot of people are already doing that better. I could come up with a gimmick, such as photographing myself in game-related cosplay; however, this first game alone would have forced me into what is legitimately the only swimsuit I own sans holes - a red speedo. And who would take the picture? My mom? My cat? All dangerous possibilities...

So instead, for now at least, I'm just going to describe the general persona of Endless Ocean for the Wii: It's a game where you pet fish.


The entirety of the game consists of you (the player) researching underwater life in the beautiful yet fictional Manoa Lai sea. Even when diving to its deepest depths and encountering the ocean's most grotesque creatures (insert joke), you are accompanied by soothing pop opera and a reality where death is not an option. Just jump in with your dolphin buddy, find some fish, and learn about them. By petting them.

There is a light frame story accompanying this simple gameplay, spearheaded by your crewmate Kat, a girl who can't swim, wears short shorts, and is somehow avenging her father's legacy. However, I worry that - with predators like polar bears casually appearing, hanging out on my boat, and being petted - at some point the carnal instincts not being demonstrated by the ocean fauna will be released upon her. For now, society has conditioned Calvin (my avatar) to resist. Calvin is wholly satisfied with taking Italian models out on pleasure dives and teaching tricks to Bageera, his pet false killer whale (pictured). As Kat philosophized upon Calvin's arrival in Manoa Lai, "After living out here, I could never imagine working in an office." Amen and aloha. I just hope that office life isn't the only thing keeping Calvin grounded in the society protecting you...


How did this turn so dark? I meant to herald the game as the perfect pre-sleep relaxant. Instead, I've stumbled across the one area of new games journalism I do not want to be, where Oedipal desires dominate reason. Maybe I should have just let my mom photograph me in my speedo...

Somewhere in here there's a real review, where I investigate the title of the game, sourcing it to a phrase in the Ecco the Dolphin instruction booklet that cites the ocean to be endless. There were also plans to segue from my previous commentary on the intrinsic humanity of nature into my enjoyment of a game that (like Pokemon Snap and the soon-to-be-released Afrika) actually provides little more than polygon-based animals capable of clipping through one another.

None of that happened. I apologize. Here is what really happens when animals go through my mind:

FTW Do Want

What a great week, eh? Baseball all-star games... Beautiful Midwestern humidity... Big video game expo... DISSERTATION REWRITE?! A word to the wise: If you go to Europe to do a 1-year Master's program, try to sleep with a professor. Otherwise, they may be all pompous and s*** and actually fail you, unlike our glorious American universities and their love of the alumni donation.

Also, don't title your public policy paper: "Elephants - Live By the Sword, Die By the Sword."

In my time procrastinating, however, I manage to ingest a ton of pop culture. I put it next to my lemonade, which is next to my paper notes, which are actually in the trash.

What I Learned From Generation Kill: Being in the Marines is like being in a crappy business environment, where higher-ups obsess over inconsequential minutia like dress code. Your shirt is untucked? Chaos in the workplace! Your mustache is uncouth? We'll never win the Iraq War! Wait...

Meltdown! Or, Video Game News I'm Loving (Or, "Elephants - Redux)"

This section is also known as the part where I copy the previous post's style and comment on fun vids you guys can watch at work or complain about if for whatever reason your work computer doesn't have a soundcard or headphone output.

Rock Band 2
I have to get this game in order to keep Blogulator commenter and game griefer P. Arty at bay (achievement-wise). Also, my new love Hayley Williams has a song called "That's What You Get" on the soundtrack. I can't help but let my heart win, Paramore...


Fallout 3
Dystopian future apocalpses? SOOOOOO OVERDONE! Dystopian future apocalypses that take place in the unfrequented gaming locale of Washington, DC, and gives you an I Am Legend-type companion dog? SOOOOOO YUMMY!


Resident Evil 5
Zombie games similarly litter the gaming landscape, but this is the primo zombie series, kinda like George Romero movies were for cinema prior to disasters like the recently-released, ironic DVD-of-the-summer Diary of the Dead.


Final Fantasy XIII
Monday may have been the day Playstation died, when this longtime Sony exclusive announced it would also release for Microsoft's XBox 360. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the Internet literally blew up. That's why you can't even read this post!
After Sony's press conference today, though, things seem to have calmed. Marketing departments rule (so long as they dress appropriately).

Wii Music
I guess this is the big Nintendo annoucement? This game - which has been limbo for a couple of years - apparenelty fails to realize that there are now other music games available that feature bands like Paramore that don't just play Yankee Doodle. Still, if Hayley came over for a fun night of games and cola, I might pull this out of the library. Either this or some game with dragons in it. Chicks love dragons!


ROWRRRR I'M OFF ON MY DRAGON ZOOOOOMMM

Blast from the Past

No, I'm not talking about the hit 1999 film starring Brendan Fraser. I'm talking about how I'll be spending my summer despite my lack of a summer vacation. I, too, have felt the pang of summer television, and am looking for something...well, something more than crappy reality shows to fill my mosquito, sun-kissed nights. What I've found is a great opportunity (with a little help from my friends and my premium channels...thanks, movies!) to revisit pop culture phenomenons from the days when I did have summer vacations.

As Qualler pointed out, "we don't watch enough cartoons that are funny!" So tonight we enjoyed the summer storm and watched The Jetsons: The Movie, on television.

This 1990 release made its way into all our hearts, especially Qualler's, who ranks it among his top five most watched movies of all time. It's always strange watching a movie made in the 90s based on characters created in the 60s. For one...the stereotypes seem more offensive (at one point Jane remarks that she hopes George's credit is good at the mall in their new neighborhood). And who has a housekeeper? I always felt bad for Rosie--it seems cruel to create robots who appear human and are designed only to cook and clean. What are they supposed to be, women? Budum-ching! Seriously though, all this aside, the movie was still a great way to spend a rainy evening. And it wasn't all outdated. In fact, the major theme of the movie was saving the environment...or not expoiting foreign resources...or globalization, maybe. Anyway, it definitely had a 90s bent.

Another 90s update: Judy Jetson was voiced by pop star Tiffany. Hot! Also, she seemed way cooler than the original Judy. The music, of course, was also updated, and it rocked. Seriously. There was even a sweet music video sequence when Judy falls in love with a handsome alien.

That's right, an alien. This brings me to another "modern" theme of the film: multiculturalism. When George and the family move to outer space in order to drill an asteroid and make more sprockets for Spacely Sprockets, they befriend aliens and robots, who we find out are not so different from us as we might thing (they're just like us!). Elroy even becomes best friends with a young robot boy(?) and a little fuzzy version of Elroy, who was adorable. As Qualler also pointed out, "this movie is kind of manipulative because you aren't just saving an environment, you're saving the environment of really adorable fuzzy animals." Manipulative, indeed! But, the kids gotta learn about our exploitation of resources somehow. The asteroid that Spacely Sprockets is trying to drill is home to these adorable aliens, and we all learn a valuable lession about respecting others' homes and about friendship.

Earlier this week I also enjoyed a blast from the past: Family Feud: The Video Game. I know what you're thinking--what? But really, it's amazing. Amazing. There are no words, actually. Now, this isn't exactly a blast from my own past, as I was not allowed to have a Nintendo or any other game system...of course, I'd play the occasional Mario Cart at a friends' place (this is, incidentally, where I believe my intense and irrational fear of driving originated, as memories of the little cloud telling me to turn around and go the other way but I CAN'T turn around still haunt me), but I was never really into video games. This game, played in teams, set up pretty much like the television show, is different. It's trivia at its finest, and it really did inspire some family-like bonding time when played with a group of friends. Another great way to spend a Summer evening (if, of course, you happen to have a copy of this 90s game and a Super Nintendo).

All in all, it looks like this might be a summer of memories...which isn't bad at all. Summer is the time to reflect on the (school)year past, and on summers past, isn't it? Maybe that's New Years. Either way, I'm enjoying pop culture 90s style. Yeah booooiiiiiiiiiyyyy!

Obtuse Parfait

Some people say the summer is for lovin'. Some people say the summer is for swingin'. Some people say the summer is for dancin'.

They're all wrong. It's for fruit. And gamin'.

Consequently, as I have nothing better to discuss, I've decided to compare the games I'm currently playing to fruits, in order to make them palatable for you noobs (read: plebians). I'm also going to write like a jerk, cuz that's what gamerz (read: gamers) do. Grab a fork, or, if you are like me and can't eat food with forks, a spoon.


Final Fantasy VI (Game Boy Advance): Pineapple. What's that? You don't understand that this actually refers to the US-titled SNES translation Final Fantasy III? You idiot. Look past the spiky exterior that makes the game appear inedible to passersby and consume one of the most customizable RPGs (role playing games) of the 16-bit era. The open-ended esper system provides a bit too much freedom for gamers like me who like to be tied down by limits, but the artistic enemies still make me wish I'd taken the time growing up to learn how to draw. Can untalented people learn to draw?


Ninja Gaiden (XBox 1): Breadfruit. On the commented advice of Blogulator reader LQ, I picked this up for $10 at Gamestop. I can't remember the last time I said c*** (read: cool) more than I did playing this game. Still, there is a good time to be had once you figure out how to actually use the fighting/defense system, much in the same way I imagine breadfruit could be tasty if you figured out how to use its fighting/defense system.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife (DS): Banana. You'd think I'd rock at this surgery-focused game after playing the enhanced Wii version in Madison while my friends slept and coughed around me (it was one of those cold-weather sleepovers), but I still kill the patient half the time. As with bananas, the game looks so easy to dominate, yet I accidentally knock my teeth against a lower level every once in a while, sending it to the ground in a squishy chunk of shame.

MarioKart Wii (Wii, duh): Orange. Everyone knows how to eat an orange, right? Wrong. Everybody can eat an orange if it's peeled enough for them, via the use of unbalanced items like blue spiky shells and Bullet Bills, but not everybody can rock the orange. It takes a true master of Vitamin C to lay the peel bare and finish the whole fruit sans a squirt-induced stain, and I am such a master. (Note: This last sentence reads differently in the context of Dracula 2000.)


Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii): Plum. Anyone can pick it up, but few non-regulars do. This game features classic Nintendo (plus) characters in an all-out "deathmatch" designed for the kiddies. I suck at it, but I still enjoy it, much as I do the purplest, delicousest fruit of all. THE PLUM!

Ouendan 2 (DS): Blueberries. I imported this quirktastic rhythm game from Japan, much as I do small blue fruits. It's incredible in smaller doses, and it's always awesome to pick up once in a while or share with friends. If I gouge on it, I tend to end up with diarrhea, but it's worth it. (Opinion: If bodily functions are more openly discussed, less embarrassment will result).


Disappointingly, I've yet to give out my Pomegranate award this summer. I'm looking for something intricate, that takes me a while to pick through, but truly satisfies. I expect The World Ends With You to fill this gap - an emo DS game that takes place in modern day Tokyo and requires players to equip small buttons (a la indie bands) in order to succeed - but the game is sold out everywhere. This is because none of the big stores (Target, Circuit City, etc.) will carry it until they realize the game/fruit's nutritional value:

500 nerd calories of fleshy fiber.

PS. In the end, I don't think I wrote that jerk-ishly. I guess I'm too much of a softy, unlike what a good apple should be.

Yes, I Am He

I'm blogging. I spend a majority of my time in my mother's basement. And I'm currently playing Grand Theft Auto IV. My individuality has drifted out of my body and onto the floor, where it mixes amongst Dr. Pepper cans and Circuit City receipts. To where did the communist that boiled within me just a few years ago leave? Moscow, I guess. Or he's being pressured to drink by my overpopulation-driven concepts of fatalism.


In the end, I am the result that everyone expects. At the moment, this infers a convoluted mess of syllables and pretension. And the reason for all this: I have seen the world for what it is. I have read Watchmen.

He arrived at his mark, baker's sons and pastor's wives clammering below the scaffolding, when a tear ran down his spine...

Of course I exaggerate my ethos (but I feel like typing all dramatic-like, which works even better when listening on repeat to what director Joel Schumacher calls "a religious experience" - the theme song to his 1987 movie, The Lost Boys). Here, you can listen as you read the rest of this post, entitled: "Overproduction: A Prologue with Quick Cuts"

P.S. I'm definitely singing this song at my sister's wedding, so long as she marries a rich guy.
P.P.S. Look for the YouTube video of this song in which somebody created a slideshow using random pics of emo girls he found on the internet. Creepy slash awesome slash juicy.

"Overproduction: As Has Been Noted"

As some of you, whose names I've already listed in an envelope far above the stage, know: Watchmen is a graphic novel by Alan Moore. It is considered by many to be among the best comics ever - if not the best - and is listed among TIME's top 100 novels of all time. Because I am the stereotype I've claimed to be, I must concur with the heraldry. I'd contest that novels with and without illustrations are of a different ilk, but Watchmen is of the universal "can't put 'er down" variety, accompanied by the likes of Cat's Cradle and those books in Urban Outfitters with naked people.

He wrote on, his stuffy words bouyed by the run-on sentences of times long past...

I will not give away anything of the plot, thus limiting the terms of our engagement. There is a point of parlance for us all, though, and that is the arrival of a Watchmen movie next year.

I went to IMDB to measure my elation: Confused. Low.

I was first caught off guard by the thought of a director from Green Bay (Zack Snyder), having imagined that the cold weather captains filmed little more than the gridiron. I then fell apart at the realization that this man, although of a history I do not personally know (300), was likely and horribly misplaced.

Watchmen, in my mind, is intelligent in large part because it allows long scenes of dialogue to support its images - a kind of reversal of fortune in the comic world. From the moments I've seen of the Spartan lovefest, words are buried beneath stylized kicks and man-chests. Was this director hired under the notion that "all graphic novels deserve the same treatment." I hope not yet expect so, with the saving grace being that a cinematic disaster may at least spur a search for the purer source, up the river from the peeing men.

The hangman covered his head with a matching hood, condemning them both to the darkness of Hell. All the while, the man continued to etch his story into his arm, using naught but the bone jutting from what once were his fingers.

(By the way, Watchmen is hardly written in the style I've conveyed here. I'm just being experimental, cuz I've become a scientist in preparation for Coldplay's new album. I'm going back to the start.)

Overproduction is the curse of "modern" film making. Constant cuts and crazy angles for the sake of the same. Overscripted malarkey to emphasize the import of each and every of the fifty or so lines. The Lost Boys and its 80s big-budget fun has been sent to Neverland, having returned with pirates seeking the gold of the 5-second attention span.

It's happening in movies and it's happening everywhere else. Disappointment in Conan O'Brien is largely tethered to the predictability of the act, as demonstrated by impersonators. X-Play, a video game show for which I once held out hope, has transformed into 30 minutes of commercials, press releases, and broad analysis, out of which maybe 2 minutes are actually bronzen.

Silver... Strange that the last color he'd see so resembled the light of heavens fabled. Yet as he fell from his post - finishing his final sentence on a comma - the color rose from the removal of his hood, caught on the platform above.

Is the trouble that there is simply too much demand for new media, encouraging the production of trumped up stories of one-note wonder? My answer is yes, but the demand is falsified, created by the foolish idea that man must work because there is work to do. Very little legitimate work is actually done, with farmers and robots doing the bulk of it. The rest of the world's papers and ideas are shuffled about over and over again, rarely resulting in something new enough to deserve being called "new."

Where do the artists rest amongst the nothingful chaos? If I did know exactly where, then I'm too lazy to explain it here; but there certainly is a place. Watchmen is there. Grand Theft Auto IV might be, on a virtual level. Lost Boys certainly "is."

It was a woman's necklace, glinting at him in the setting sun. Silver, exhumed from some far off land for the purpose of coming here, to rest upon this bosom and wish him a fond farewell.

The Air Up There

As I and my spoiled arse approach the first full summer which threatens to keep me inside for 8 hours a day, I'm beginning to realize something: I'm not going to make it. I almost applied to a beetle-trapping job last week, but my conscience dissuaded me from what would have amounted to some form of genocide. I would gladly mow golf greens if I could avoid the glare of my fellow Georgetown grads through the windows of the players' club. Alas, this bodes to be the summer of my discontent, unless I can find some way to bring down the sky.

My latest pop culture obsession is (as spoilerz revealed) the sky. I cannot get enough of it, closing the shades and dimming the lights so that I can gaze in amazement at its artistic interpretations. Mass Effect for the XBox 360 began this deep re-revelation that "sky=pretty" by sending me to a bunch of planets to perform relatively banal tasks against truly beautiful backdrops ("banal" relative to having sex with aliens FTW!). I don't care that all my lunar roving accomplishes is the retrieval of some crap sniper rifle I can sell to augment my account of 9999999999 arbitrary currency units. I'll roll around in my hard-to-control vehicle for days, doing nothing, so long as I get to stare off into the moonset. There are 3 moons, by the way.


Video game enthusiasts have always heralded the evolution of water physics, but I contest that nothing's better than a good sky. If Super Mario 64 taught us anything, it's that staring up, straight into the sun, is rewarding. I've spent many a day on my front lawn hoping that a casual upwards glance will result in my transportation to a cloudy arena where I must rely on the flying skills of my wing hat to collect 8 red coins. My dream has not yet come true, but I have achieved a truly remarkable contact prescription that's nearabouts the negative value of my Mass Effect money. Maybe they'll make a movie about my bad eyes one day, starring Jamie Foxx. They'll call it: Stealth 2.


And because I know how few people care about my longform anime reviews, I'll incorporate Scrapped Princess into this entry as well. The best dramatic anime I've seen - a 24 episode story that really develops more like a novel than a television show - is all about the epic, big blue landscapes. I've thought about it, and I don't really want to justify that novel statement I just made; I'm keeping it in, though, because it will maybe inspire one person to think about watching the show, if only afterwards to accuse me of liking it because it features a 15-year old girl. She's cute, yeah, but it's not all about the looks. I'm simply attracted to princesses who are exiled (ostensibly sentenced to death) because of an omen propheting the end of the world if they reach their next birthday.


That'd make a cool episode of My Super Sweet 16, where all the punk boys crash the party, only to find themselves sucked into the nothingness of the end. Right? (Fade out to the new AFI single.)

I wish I would pay more attention to the sky in the real world, and I do try to, mostly when driving in areas I doubt kids like to play. Still, I never really appreciate it until I'm stuck in a yellow room typing about the healthcare revenue cycle. Somebody, please give me my nightshift jobs back. I can do anime voiceovers just about as well as most English covers (that goes double for Scrapped Princess - subtitles are the only way to go). Here, check out my demo:

So, what did you think, cartoon executives? Call me at home, during evening hours. During the day I'll be inside, thinking about how much life sucked for people hundreds of years ago, and also how much they actually got to look up.

What is it good for? The History Channel!

Now that I have a real job (planning and constructing those paper clips you people oh-so-casually twist and destroy), I can wave goodbye to the passing thought that maybe, just maybe, I should join the Army. In reality, this was never a possibility. I would've joined the Navy, following in my dad's, and, more importantly, Commander Adama's footsteps. Sure, I'm a pacifist. Sure, I'm non-nationalistic. Sure... Have you seen those starting bonuses?! I could buy like a hundred XBox 360s to store in the basement whilst I endure a nebulous struggle for freedom halfway around the world. That, my friends, is worth fighting for.


Or maybe it isn't? Despite pop culture's efforts to educate me on the realities of war, I feel like my learning has been inadequate. Is this possible? Could it be true that when Zach Morris froze time to remind me about the values of patriotism, I didn't really learn anything? Did April O'Neill's shocking exposé on the crimes of the Foot somehow fail to inform me of real world issues? Shell-shocked, I searched for answers these past two weeks in the most comfortable of places: Sylvester Stallone's "graying" hair (it's still as dark as his silhouette), and polygonal guns.

Rambo, in his fourth documentary feature, has finally coined a phrase as memorable as his archery skills: "Live for nothing. Die for something." I'm not exactly sure how to interpret this, given the (spoiler alert?) fact that the spokesman himself never dies. Still, maybe he's onto something. Maybe I don't know how to interpret this because the greatest fear I've ever known is Y3K (that's not a typo; it's coming.) Many Burmese dissidents have seriously adopted this catchy axiom to their struggle. After the inevitable, ironic chuckle, this gots to make ya think: What are they onto? What do they know about living for nothing?

Even the most gritty of cinema (Saving Private Ryan, for a popular example) rarely inspires more than a metaconversation on the tragedies of war. Yes, men figured this out centuries ago, when women were dying early and leaving babies - War is bad. It keeps on trucking, though, in a form that I don't think anyone reading this understands. War costs us soldiers. War costs us money. War costs us hours of Wolf Blitzer airtime television can never get back. But what else does it cost us people who have the whim to sit back and read a stupid (aka great, smart, and deserving of money) pop culture blog? The answer is obvious.

The obvious response here is, "Hey! My brother/friend/frog died in Iraq. I've lost a lot." I know. I'm sorry. I thought your frog died years ago. I am a coward and don't trust myself to fight even when the Human Versus Wholly Evil Alien war does arrive. People who join the armed forces feel a calling I respect, in various ways. Half-Life 2 taught me to respect them for surviving more than five minutes without finding a health pack in that crate over there. Call of Duty 4 taught me to respect them for surviving long enough to refill their bloodshot eyes with the elixir of life. Every sequel of every first-person-shooter taught me that even though it takes six or seven well-targeted shots to die, dying is a very real possibility. I don't want to restart from the checkpoint, nor do I want our soldiers to have to do that. Still, we in America have little idea what it's like to live for nothing. Even our uniformed men and women, who are consistently put in the line of fire, realize that they are fighting for the strongest military on Earth. They are fighting for a very tangible victory; for the right to go home and steal one of those 360s I had hidden away. There is honor amongst thieves, and that honor is the Purple Heart they left behind as evidence.


To reemphasize, I am not discounting the experiences of people who have endured and suffered the images of battle. What I am discounting is the images of battle I've experienced. I love Call of Duty 4. I, for whatever reason, enjoyed Rambo. I should not take these or any other war media as lessons in life. I should take them as lessons in something, but not that something worth dying for. The will to die is nothing I understand, nor is it anything I hope to understand, nor is it anything I wish could be understood by anyone.

Even if we are living for nothing, we're living for something, and that's gotta be worth, well, something.