The Castle of Sir Lemming

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 25: All Is Well (Michael W. Smith)

2010-12-25T00:00:00.002-05:00

SONG: All Is Well
ARTIST: Michael W. Smith
ALBUM: Christmas
RELEASED: 1989
AVAILABILITY: Amazon ( CD | 2-pack | MP3 )

Merry Christmas.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 24: O Holy Night (Sufjan Stevens)

2010-12-24T10:25:00.000-05:00

SONG: O Holy Night
ARTIST: Sufjan Stevens
ALBUM: Songs For Christmas, Vol. 3
RELEASED: 2003
AVAILABILITY: CD/MP3 (5-pack of EPs)

"O Holy Night" has always been one of my favorite Christmas songs, and I was excited when I heard that Sufjan Stevens did a version of it. But when I first heard it, I wasn't quite sure what to think. In fact, I was even a little offended. It seemed almost sacrilegiously low-effort and bizarre. But eventually it won me over with its down-to-Earth charm, and now I think it's one of the best arrangements there is. It actually represents the subject matter perfectly. Because people were anticipating the birth of a messiah for centuries; and when they were told that it finally happened, and it was just some poor people in a stable, and he wasn't even planning to overthrow the government or anything, they also couldn't help but wonder: "Is this it?" But it couldn't have happened any other way. And that's the feeling that this version of the song captures, for me. When all of the instruments finally come in for the final chorus, it gives me chills.

So yeah, I just proved that if you don't like Sufjan's version of this song you don't know the true meaning of Christmas. I win!

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 23: White As Snow (U2)

2010-12-23T06:58:00.000-05:00

SONG: White As Snow
ARTIST: U2
ALBUM: No Line On The Horizon
RELEASED: 2009
AVAILABILITY: Amazon ( CD | Deluxe | Vinyl | MP3 )

This U2 song about a dying soldier is heavily based on "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel".

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 22: Greensleeves / What Child Is This (Kevin Max)

2010-12-22T09:59:00.000-05:00

SONG: Greensleeves / What Child Is This
ARTIST: Kevin Max
ALBUM: Holy Night
RELEASED: 2005
AVAILABILITY: Amazon ( CD | MP3 )

Each of these two tracks would seem incomplete without its counterpart, so I included them both. Kevin Max's 2005 Christmas album adhered to traditional hymnal classics rather than songs about Santa Claus and stuff, but he even went so far as to include the medieval predecessor to "What Child Is This" in a brief, one-verse-one-chorus format. This gives him some leeway to double up on the "What Child" verses and choruses, lining them straight up instead of alternating between verse and chorus. It's thanks to this that we get my favorite moment on the album: the full-octave jump between verses 1 and 2. It demonstrates not only Kevin's amazing range, but that he sounds great at either end of it.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 21: Flight Into Egypt (Phil Keaggy)

2010-12-21T08:01:00.000-05:00

SONG: Nativity Suite part 3: Flight Into Egypt
ARTIST: Phil Keaggy (featuring the London Festival Orchestra)
ALBUM: Majesty & Wonder: An Instrumental Christmas
RELEASED: 1999
AVAILABILITY: Amazon ( CD | MP3 )

The soundtrack to a Christmas movie that doesn't exist. Well actually, I guess the movie probably does exist... well, you know what I mean.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 20: Walking In The Air (Howard Blake)

2010-12-20T08:02:00.000-05:00

SONG: Walking In The Air
ARTIST: Howard Blake
ALBUM: The Snowman
RELEASED: 1982
AVAILABILITY: Amazon Marketplace ( CD | MP3 )

"The Snowman" is an odd little animated short. It sort of came out of nowhere, adapting a children's book most people weren't particularly familiar with. And the animation isn't really "good" on a technical level (although it definitely works, stylistically). And it's mostly silent, and a little depressing. But the score, by relative unknown Howard Blake, is legendary, and this main theme is the epitome of haunting Christmas music.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 19: Evergreen (Switchfoot)

2010-12-19T10:20:00.000-05:00

SONG: Evergreen
ARTIST: Switchfoot
ALBUM: Happy Christmas Vol. 2 (BEC) / Happy Christmas Vol. 4 (Tooth & Nail)
RELEASED: 1998 / 2005
AVAILABILITY: Amazon ( original CD compilation [discontinued?] | newer CD compilation | MP3 )

This Switchfoot rarity, available only on compilations, is one of the better "I've got the Christmas blues" type of songs out there. It starts off with the usual stuff about not feeling too great on Christmas, but then it employs the frequently-forgotten symbolism of a Christmas tree -- a tree that lives all year round, ironically enough -- to turn the singer's pity party into an object lesson about the holiday.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 18: Adoration (Newsboys)

2010-12-18T12:22:00.000-05:00

SONG: Adoration
ARTIST: Newsboys
ALBUM: Adoration
RELEASED: 2003
AVAILABILITY: Amazon ( CD | MP3 )

Without really being advertised as a Christmas song, "Adoration" was quietly snuck onto the Newsboys' "worship" album of the same name. Although I would generally regard this phase of their career as a mistake, some really high-quality songs still came out of it, and this is one of the best new Christmas songs in ages. It's a little sad how much better it is than the so-called Newsboys Christmas album that recently came out, which is really just a Michael Tait Christmas album with an indistinguishable studio backup band... but I digress.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 17: Take a Break, Guys! (The Brian Setzer Orchestra)

2010-12-17T09:19:00.000-05:00

SONG: Take a Break, Guys!
ARTIST: The Brian Setzer Orchestra
ALBUM: Wolfgang's Big Night Out
RELEASED: 2002
AVAILABILITY: Amazon ( CD | MP3 | Greatest Hits CD/DVD )

Fulfilling the prophecy by Mr. Bean, this swingin' arrangement of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" (think about the title for a minute) first appeared on Setzer's classical music reinterpretation project, but it's also showed up on his Christmas compilations.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 16: Siberian Sleigh Ride (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

2010-12-16T07:19:00.000-05:00

SONG: Siberian Sleigh Ride
ARTIST: Trans-Siberian Orchestra
ALBUM: The Lost Christmas Eve
RELEASED: 2004
AVAILABILITY: Amazon (CD | MP3 | 3-pack)

This probably needs no introduction at this point; it's another good Trans-Siberian Orchestra instrumental. Enjoy!

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 15: Winter Wonderland / Misty Mountain Hop (Fleming & John)

2010-12-15T07:47:00.000-05:00

SONG: Winter Wonderland / Misty Mountain Hop
ARTIST: Fleming & John
ALBUM: (None)
RELEASED: I'm honestly not really sure
AVAILABILITY: MP3 only via www.myspace.com/flemingandjohn

A little soon for another version of Winter Wonderland, you say? Well, it's never too soon for more Fleming & John, especially since their particular version of the song sets it to the tune of Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop". This also guarantees that it will never get any sort of mass distribution, as the Zep guys aren't exactly known for their lenient stance on copyright, so get it while you can!

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 14: Emmanuel (Michael W. Smith)

2010-12-14T06:34:00.000-05:00

SONG: Emmanuel
ARTIST: Michael W. Smith
ALBUM: Christmastime
RELEASED: 1998
AVAILABILITY: Amazon - ( CD | 2-pack | MP3 )

I don't like Michael W. Smith's second Christmas album nearly as much as the first, but it does have its moments. This is one of them.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 13: Wonderful Christmastime (Earthsuit

2010-12-13T07:54:00.000-05:00

SONG: Wonderful Christmastime
ARTIST: Earthsuit
ALBUM: Happy Christmas vol. 3 (compilation)
RELEASED: 2001
AVAILABILITY: Amazon Marketplace (CD)

If you've ever found Paul McCartney's original arrangement of this song to be too cheesy or oddly disturbing, consider giving this one a shot. It's by Earthsuit, the greatest failed band of all time, and even though it lacks many aspects of their trademark sound, they still brought the song to life.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 12: The Nutcracker Suite (Brian Setzer Orchestra)

2010-12-12T10:07:00.000-05:00

SONG: The Nutcracker Suite
ARTIST: The Brian Setzer Orchestra
ALBUM: Boogie Woogie Christmas
RELEASED: 2002
AVAILABILITY: Amazon ( CD | MP3 | Greatest Hits CD/DVD )

To me, Christmas and big band / jazz music have always gone together nicely for some reason. So I was glad when Brian Setzer gave it a shot, even though making 2 Christmas albums and then a "Christmas Greatest Hits" was overkill.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 11: Winter Wonderland (Steve Taylor)

2010-12-11T00:10:00.001-05:00

SONG: Winter Wonderland
ARTIST: Steve Taylor
ALBUM: Christmas (compilation)
RELEASED: 1988
AVAILABILITY: Amazon Marketplace (CD)

This full-on mariachi arrangement of "Winter Wonderland" is actually one of the first versions I can ever remember hearing, so to me, it's always just felt natural. It's by Steve Taylor, the satirical pop singer/songwriter/producer best known as the guy who finally made the Newsboys good. (WHERE ARE YOU NOW, STEVE?!) He also produced Sixpence None The Richer's self-titled album, which included the mega-hit "Kiss Me." Currently, he's working on the upcoming Blue Like Jazz movie.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 10: Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time! (Sufjan Stevens)

2010-12-10T06:51:00.000-05:00

SONG: Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time!
ARTIST: Sufjan Stevens
ALBUM: Songs For Christmas, Vol. 4
RELEASED: 2005
AVAILABILITY: CD/MP3 (5-pack of EPs)

In contrast to the "What Child Is This?" I posted earlier, this is one of Sufjan's original Christmas songs, and it actually sounds more "modern" than most of his other work. It's almost unheard-of for him to use an electric guitar riff as the main part of a song. But it's Christmas time, so I guess anything can happen.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 8: Christmas Jazz (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

2010-12-09T06:19:00.001-05:00

SONG: Christmas Jazz (Good King Wenceslas)
ARTIST: Trans-Siberian Orchestra
ALBUM: The Lost Christmas Eve
RELEASED: 2004
AVAILABILITY: Amazon (CD | MP3 | 3-pack)

A bit different from the Trans-Sbierian Orchestra you may be used to; this is a very pleasant jazzed-up acoustic arrangement of everybody's favorite "I don't know what this means but it sounds nice" Christmas Carol, "Good King Wenceslas".

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 8: Carol of the Bells (Fleming & John)

2010-12-08T06:27:00.000-05:00

SONG: Carol of the Bells
ARTIST: Fleming & John
ALBUM: (None)
RELEASED: 2000
AVAILABILITY: MP3 only via www.myspace.com/flemingandjohn

Most lyrical versions of "Carol of the Bells" sound stupid. Luckily, Fleming & John are incapable of sounding stupid. They're the world's coolest married couple, with Fleming doing lead vocals and John Painter playing every instrument known to man. I don't think this has been on any compilations, but it was made available on their web site a while ago. Their 2 albums are well worth seeking out.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 7: Must Be Santa (Bob Dylan)

2010-12-07T06:10:00.000-05:00

SONG: Must Be Santa
ARTIST: Bob Dylan
ALBUM: Christmas In The Heart
RELEASED: 2009
AVAILABILITY: Amazon (CD | Deluxe | Vinyl)

Last year, Bob Dylan confounded the world by releasing an album of completely straightforward, traditional arrangements of Christmas songs. At least, they would be straightforward, but they're sung by 2009 Bob Dylan. This is actually the least bizarre song of the bunch... and impossible to get out of your head. You're welcome.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 6: First Snow (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

2010-12-06T07:53:00.000-05:00

SONG: First Snow
ARTIST: Trans-Siberian Orchestra
ALBUM: Christmas Eve and Other Stories
RELEASED: 1996
AVAILABILITY: Amazon (CD | MP3 | 3-pack)

Modern, original Christmas instrumentals are hard to come by, but I think this shows that we could use more of them.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 5: The Little Drummer Boy (White Heart)

2010-12-05T08:59:00.001-05:00

SONG: The Little Drummer Boy
ARTIST: White Heart
ALBUM: Christmas (compilation)
RELEASED: 1988
AVAILABILITY: Amazon Marketplace (CD)

And now for something completely '80s. "The Little Drummer Boy" has always been a hard song for me to take seriously what with the rum-pa-pum-pums and all that, so I think ramping the cheese factor up to 11 is actually the best thing to do with it. It's so '80s it hurts... but it hurts so good. "Me and my DRUUUUUUUUUM!"

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 4: What Child Is This, Anyway? (Sufjan Stevens)

2010-12-04T02:08:00.001-05:00

SONG: What Child Is This, Anyway?
ARTIST: Sufjan Stevens
ALBUM: Songs For Christmas, Vol. 2
RELEASED: 2002
AVAILABILITY: CD/MP3 (5-pack of EPs)

Sufjan originally recorded this (and the rest of his Christmas EPs) as a gift for his family & friends, which makes the production and overall quality pretty impressive. Despite the slightly irreverent title of this track, it's a very classy and haunting take on the traditional song, with the only major differences being an odd chord here and there. It takes on a trance-like, mystical feel. My favorite thing about it is probably the tone used on the guitar (or whatever instrument that is, you never know with him). For some reason, it reminds me of the music that comes out of the speakers of those various terrible electronic Christmas decorations I've seen over the years, like electromagnetic skating rinks and animatronic choir boy dolls. And if that's not haunting, I don't know what is.

And uh, it also reminds me of the cave music from Yoshi's Island.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 3: O Holy Night (Rebecca St. James)

2010-12-03T06:56:00.005-05:00

SONG: O Holy Night
ARTIST: Rebecca St. James
ALBUM: Christmas
RELEASED: 1997
AVAILABILITY: Amazon CD | MP3

It takes guts to tamper so heavily with one of the most beloved Christmas songs of all time, but in this case it definitely pays off. Not that there's anything wrong with the original, but after so many straightforward covers, a little change couldn't hurt. Rebecca's version manages to retain everything that's good about the original song despite being in a different time signature and having several different chords.

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 2: Christmas Time (Is Here Again) - The Beatles

2010-12-02T21:47:00.002-05:00

SONG: Christmas Time (Is Here Again)
ARTIST: The Beatles
ALBUM: Free As A Bird single, limited edition vinyls, bootlegs
RELEASED: 1967
AVAILABILITY: Uh... low.

As if The Beatles didn't already do everything there is to do as a band, they also recorded about an EP's worth of Christmas material. By "material" I mean some quirky radio drama stuff and a couple of musical bits. This here is their only full-fledged "Christmas song", though, but it's a good one. If a tad repetitive.

Below, you will find a full-length, but lower-quality, recording. The above edit is the B-side to the "Free As A Bird" single. (Note that this long version seems to be from a slightly sped-up vinyl.)

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN Day 1: Gloria (Michael W. Smith)

2010-12-02T21:16:00.003-05:00

Hey guys, I feel like posting a bunch of Christmas music! On Wednesday, December 1st, I hastily decided to find a Christmas song on YouTube and post it on Facebook before going to work. Then I figured I could make this a regular thing. So I've rounded up 25 Christmas songs "of interest" and I'm gonna post them and talk about them a little. Sound good? Okay! Sound legal? Partially! This is all gonna be Rule Of YouTube, folks.

Essentially I guess this is a "list" of Christmas songs. But don't think it means anything. There's no theme here. It's not THE BEST Christmas songs ever. And it's not necessarily "the most underrated Christmas songs". No. It's just 25 relatively non-redundant Christmas songs I feel like sharing, and I have a feeling everyone will find at least one thing they haven't heard before, or at least haven't heard in a while. They're in no particular order other than what I think makes some sort of musical sense.

#1 is not necessarily what I wanted to lead off with, since it's pretty climactic, especially in its original context. But I think I can work around it.

SONG:Gloria
ARTIST: Michael W. Smith
ALBUM: Christmas
RELEASED: 1989
AVAILABILITY: Amazon - regular CD, 2-pack, MP3

As I mentioned earlier, this song is the climax of Michael W. Smith's 1989 Christmas album, which is probably the finest Christmas album ever recorded. It's effective on its own, but it's even better when you've followed the whole orchestral suite, with the "Gloria" motif introduced in the first track and then paying off here, while also being combined with "Angels We Have Heard On High". And even though you can probably guess that it came out in the '80s, it really doesn't sound that dated.

At the risk of "spoilers", this isn't this album's last appearance on the list.

Stay tuned for Day 2, which will be a few minutes from now! And then Day 3, tomorrow.

MASHUP: Beastie Boys vs. Nine Inch Nails - Suckotage

2010-11-28T17:17:00.001-05:00

You know the drill.

I had a blast with this one. It's the NIN version of "Suck" (originally by some band called Pigface) meets the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage". I knew "Suck" would make a good backing track for something, so I started plugging songs in and when I arrived at this one, it couldn't have been more perfect. I especially like it because it takes one of the Beasties' rock/rap songs and makes it more straight-up rap, until in the middle everything just sort of comes together. (You may also notice a Run DMC sample, which is in itself a reference to a different Beastie Boys song.)

The NIN samples are mainly just from the finished song, but with a little help from the remix tracks for the Pigface version. The Beastie samples are from a certain video game. Neither are used with any particular permission, but if it gets popular enough for that to be a problem, mission accomplished.

MASHUP: Beastie Boys vs. Nine Inch Nails - 3 MCs and 29 Ghosts

2010-09-05T10:58:00.001-04:00

To paraphrase Depeche Mode, it's Mashup Time Again!

Same artists as last time. They've given the fans a lot to work with. The instrumental is another one from Ghosts, track 29, but heavily rearranged. The vocal track is "3 MCs and 1 DJ" (with a few added surprises). Some of the "3 MCs" percussion bleeds through due to the unavailability of an acapella track, but it actually works.

The NIN track is under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share Alike license. The Beastie track is under a "I'm sure they would be totally cool with this" license.

MASHUP: Beastie Boys vs. Nine Inch Nails - Ghost Word

2010-08-16T22:11:00.000-04:00

To wash the taste of entry-level political commentary out of your mouth, here's one of the mash-ups I've been working on.

The generosity of the Beastie Boys and Trent Reznor with regard to their multitracks -- proportional to the lack of other artists' multitracks in general -- dictates much of my output. But hey, you work with what you've got. This one uses the vocal track of the Beastie Boys' "Oh Word?" (from To The 5 Boroughs) and NIN's "7 Ghosts I" (from Ghosts -- they're all titled like that). The instrumental track has been rearranged in various ways for structure and length.

The NIN track is under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share Alike license. The Beastie acapella track falls under what appears to be a less formal "just don't sell it" dealie.

Unmosqued

2010-07-15T22:43:00.001-04:00

This ad is pretty shocking. Probably not in the way they intended, though.

It'd be almost comical if it weren't so sad. The Don LaFontaine-esque action movie narration of the situation is really one of the more offensive 9/11-related things I've seen, since it's actually supposed to be taken seriously. "ON SEPTEMBER 11TH. They declared war against us... NOW they want to build a mosque. At GROUND ZERO. (directed by Michael Bay)" The "sacred ground" claim seems a tad melodramatic as well. Aren't we planning on building something else there? As wonderful as this new building will surely be, I don't know if it will really live up to the whole "sacred" thing. Just saying. Might not wanna throw down that gauntlet.

But anyway. I'll put my cards on the table; I'm not too high on Islam. I think it's got plenty of inherent, significant problems. I don't know if I accept the whole "it's a religion of peace" thing. But that's not really even the issue to me. See, I'm a big fan of personal responsibility. You do something bad, it's your fault. It can be useful to look into the factors that contributed to that action, but it's still your fault. Always your fault, first and foremost. When someone kills someone else, don't blame it on Islam, don't blame it on Christianity, don't blame it on Marilyn Manson, don't blame it on violent video games -- blame it on the killers. There is no way to divert the blame when we're talking about such a major atrocity. It takes much more than just bad beliefs or bad hobbies to drive someone to that.

I actually don't support the building of a mosque at Ground Zero, though. Not because Muslims don't have the right to do it, or because "they" attacked us. Just because, y'know, it's pretty inappropriate and insensitive. It's not their fault, but it's still inappropriate. I can appreciate the idea that we're this progressive society that can leave our emotions at the door and use perfect logic to conquer all, but we ain't robots. You can't just say "ISLAM-NOT-RESPONSIBLE-FOR-SEQUENCE#911 -> EXECUTE-COMMAND_BUILD-MOSQUE". Sometimes you simply have to respect boundaries.

Let's say you're a Christian, and you have an agnostic friend whose parents were beaten to a bloody pulp by an ultra-conservative Christian group because they were doing stem-cell research or something. (I suppose this isn't a particularly common occurrence, but I hope the analogy works.) I think most Christians in that situation would avoid blasting Christian rock music when that friend is around. (Or even in general! But that's another issue.) It's not like you're compromising your faith or anything; it's simply not a good idea, and is more likely to drive that friend away than win him over. What happened to his parents isn't your fault or Christianity's fault, but you have to respect that it's a sore point for him. It doesn't mean you can't have cool-headed, rational discussions about your beliefs, but waving a big banner around isn't doing anyone any favors.

(This of course is assuming "mosque" is not a gross overstatement... which it's starting to sound like it is.)

Thankfully, this ad probably isn't actually going to air anywhere. And even though the group that made it is called "The National Republican Trust", they do not in any way represent the Republican party as a whole.

...but I guess we should blame the entire Republican party for their actions, right?

Castlevania: Triptych of Disillusionment (Castlevania 3D)

2010-06-17T21:13:00.003-04:00

My knowledge of the Castlevania franchise began with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, considered by most to be the apex of the series and still one of the finest examples of 2D gaming in existence. Konami agreed, apparently, because they've re-used the formula for all subsequent handheld titles in the franchise, and are mimicking the general style to somewhat different effect in the upcoming Harmony of Despair. Opinions on these handheld games vary a bit, but the general consensus is that they a) still have not quite recaptured what made Symphony so special and b) are all pretty darned fun regardless.

But on the big-screen consoles, Konami has been trying for well over a decade to successfully bring the franchise into 3D. The results have ranged from "pretty fun" to "downright horrifying". Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed Curse of Darkness. The level design was largely quite bland and unmemorable, but the combat and collection/crafting systems were fun and addictive all the way through. Clearly, though, it was still a far cry from the definitive 3D Castlevania we've all been hoping for.

So now E3 has brought us some sneak peeks of the next chapter: Lords of Shadow. And at first glance, it... well... I certainly can't say it looks bad. But what does it look like, exactly? Well, what it looks like is Konami being so determined not to screw up another 3D Castlevania game that they're just clinging to something that works without really caring about how much it fits into the franchise. Which could still be good, I guess. I mean, Curse of Darkness barely involved a castle either.

But correct me if I'm wrong here; aren't most of us dying to play a 3D Castlevania game in which you run around exploring a huge and freaking awesome castle? Wasn't that the whole point of bringing the franchise into 3D in the first place? To make Dracula's Castle more real and interactive than ever? So far, what we've gotten are beat-em-ups that occasionally involve rooms that resemble castle corridors. Not a bad start, but it's time to evolve. Because we have reached the point where a 3D game that captures the same sense of adventure and exploration that made Symphony of the Night so great is entirely possible.

You want proof? Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Without even realizing it, the designers of Arkham have laid the foundation for the definitive 3D Castlevania game. Replace asylum with castle, replace Joker with Dracula, replace thugs with skeletons -- you're halfway there. Now, I don't want to discredit the game here, because as it stands, it's definitely the definitive Batman game and should be viewed as such. It has certain things that are unique to the Batman intellectual property, and the characters and settings therein are still essential to the experience. But from an overall design standpoint, it demonstrates exactly how a 3D Castlevania should be done.

I don't claim to know how this would work from a business perspective, but if Konami really wants to keep the Castlevania franchise alive, they need to find a way to give the Arkham team the task of creating the definitive 3D Castlevania game from the ground up. If nothing else, they need to study Arkham's design very carefully and consider how to apply the same principles to a Castlevania game. Because it works.

The Future Endeavors of Michael Tarver

2010-06-09T23:31:00.002-04:00

Sometimes in life, we do things we can't completely explain. This is one of those times/things. I present to you my comic miniseries, The Future Endeavors of Michael Tarver. It's one in-joke from WWE/NXT (you know, Professional Wrestling) that somehow inspired me to draw again after barely drawing anything for well over a year. I think it's of interest. To whom, well, that's a question, isn't it?

Click the images for larger Tarver. (also available on DeviantArt -- see sidebar link)

You're Only Angry 'Cause You Wish You Were In My Position

2010-03-20T01:53:00.003-04:00

Have you ever heard some variation of the following statement? Usually it's made in response to somebody criticizing someone famous for doing something:

"Don't be so critical. You'd do the same thing if you were in his position."

There's a lot of wisdom in that. It's the basic caution against hypocrisy. I suppose it may even be a watered-down version of Jesus' teaching: "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

Most people are content to focus on the "judge not" part, but there's more to it than that. See, I don't think that anybody who judges is automatically a hypocrite. That's what the "lest ye be judged" part is for. It means "you'd better be ready to back it up." Perhaps a more relevant modern colloquialism would be "Don't write checks your butt can't cash." Now, technically that could still be interpreted as the lone "don't judge" again, because butts can't cash checks -- but I think you get the gist of it.

Let's suppose nobody ever wrote or cashed checks. That would have a bad effect on the economy, wouldn't it? It would be isolationism; no business would ever get done. The same can be said about judging. If you never called anyone out on anything, you'd never have to answer for anything yourself, either. You can avoid hypocrisy this way, but it's far more useful to actively avoid hypocrisy by striving to be consistent in your actions. As with spending money, judging is a good thing, but only in moderation. "Judge not, let ye be judged" doesn't mean you don't have standards; it means you do have standards, and you hold both yourself and others to those standards.

That being said, I also have to make an important distinction. Judging, on a personal level (I'm not bringing courts or deities into this), should always be done from the perspective of "I have the potential to do this, and that's exactly why I know how important it is that you don't do it." Not from the perspective of "I don't do this stuff, so that puts me in a position to tell you not to." The latter is more common, unfortunately, and it's why judging has gotten such a bad rap. It's actually more hypocritical, even though it doesn't carry the outward appearance of hypocrisy, because the person is refusing to admit -- or at least emphasize -- that they're capable of doing the same thing. That matters a lot more than what you actually have or haven't done, because that's largely just circumstantial, isn't it?

And there it is. We shouldn't put so much stock in circumstances. To use a recent example, Tiger Woods. I've heard it said that I shouldn't judge him because if I had billions of dollars, I'd probably have women throwing themselves at me too, and I'd probably cave in to the temptation. Is that true? On a fundamental level, yes. I likes me some womens. But here's the thing: if -- God willing -- I ever were to find myself in such a position, I believe my words would come back to haunt me. By criticizing what this guy did, and admitting that I'm capable of the same thing, I've set the bar higher for myself. Whereas if I just say "I'd do the same thing," I've set the bar depressingly low.

I believe that progress only happens when we set the bar high for ourselves, and to do that, we can't shy away from criticism. We also can't be hypocrites. But those two things actually don't have a whole lot to do with each other. Circumstances vary, but principles are constant, and they should be tested. You don't have to have done better to criticize someone else's work or actions; you just have to be willing to do better.

When you "judge" someone, you're making a pact. You're not necessarily saying you don't or wouldn't do something, but that you won't; and if you can't honestly say that, then yes, you need to either refrain from judging or take the opportunity to set yourself straight.

And that, my friends, is why I am allowed to argue on the internet.

Audioslave: Audioslave - The Review (see? it's self-titled)

2010-03-03T23:44:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time, there were two bands. One of them played funk-infused rap metal with politically charged lyrics that no one really payed attention to, and was known throughout the land as Rage Against The Machine. The other band played one of the hundreds of different styles that fall under the "grunge" label, featuring a singer who sounded like a baby dinosaur and sometimes sang freakishly high, and they were known as Soundgarden. Not long before the year 2000 AD, both of these bands split up. Shortly after 2000, they reunited, but there was a mix-up and Rage accidentally got Soundgarden's singer, and Soundgarden didn't want to wear Che Guevara shirts so nothing ever came of that (I'm the only guy who knows about it). Meanwhile, Rage tried to abandon Soundgarden's singer at a gas station a couple of times but eventually they figured "What the heck, let's see if we can work something out." And they did! And it was called Civilian. And then it was called Audioslave.

1. Cochise
The first track and the first single from the first album. This song should've been called "Audioslave," because then it would've been the debut single and opening track and title track of the self-titled debut album. "Audioslave - Audioslave (from the album Audioslave)." In light of recent events in late-night television, Cornell's words ring eerily prophetic: "Conan, save yourself!"

2. Show Me How To Live
STEP 1: Breathe. STEP 2: Eat. STEP 3: Drink. STEP 4: Do not collaborate with Timbaland. STEP 5: Sleep. STEP 6: Repeat step 4. REPEAT STEP 4. REPEAT STEP 4 FOR THE LOVE OF--
So does the end of the song do the skippy thing for everyone else or what?

3. Gasoline
This is secretly Al Gore's favorite song. He plays it while burning whales. FUN FACT: Near the end of Audioslave's touring, Tom Morello insisted that they change the lyrics to "I'm burnin' that gasoline (and I'm a bad person because of it)." It was an interesting change, but ultimately I feel it detracted from the flow of the song. Luckily this is not present in the album version, which rocks pretty hard.

4. What You Are
In this song Chris Cornell talks about burning himself. Could he be made of gasoline?

5. Like a Stone
This song was our first glimpse of Audioslave's softer side, and possibly the best. The lyrics are open to interpretation, but I'd wager that they've got something to do with the afterlife. Otherwise it just sounds creepy. "In your house I long to be!"

6. Set It Off
This controversial song led to one of Audioslave's several breakups during the writing of the album. Tom Morello was uncomfortable playing music with such a potty-mouthed vocalist, and he would have none of it. Chris Cornell won back his favor by giving him a book about world hunger written by Che Guevara and printed on recycled paper. Ha ha, get it? Because he supports causes.

7. Shadow on the Sun
Okay look, this song is just plain awesome. If you don't like it, you're a bad person. The only thing I don't like about it is how Chris Cornell boldly proclaims "I can tell you why people go insane," but then he never actually tells us. Mr. Cornell, your research could be useful to thousands of psychologists around the world! Isn't that more important than money to you? Or have you spent so much time with Timbaland that you've... become just like him?

8. I Am the Highway
CIRCLE ONE: Chris Cornell is
a) rolling wheels
b) the lightning
c) a carpet ride
d) blowing wind
e) Batman

ANSWER: Trick question! He is both b) the lightning and e) Batman. At the end of the song, Chris Cornell sings "I am the night", and Batman is the night. Ergo, Chris Cornell is Batman.

9. Exploder
This song is where the standard Audioslave formula begins to become apparent. But as is the case with the Audioslave formula, it still works. I don't have anything witty to say about this one except DAH DA DA DAH DAH, DAH DA DA DAH DAH

10. Hypnotize
Who put this techno song on here? This is like the polar opposite of the last track; a really unique song with a distinct identity. I'm guessing that when they were putting the album together it was a toss-up between this song and "Give", which has the same basic message. "Give" is a cool song, but I'm glad they went with this one, because it adds variety.

11. Bring 'Em Back Alive
This album has an awful lot of songs where Chris Cornell narrates his own death, doesn't it? "Then they buried me in an island in the sea, etc." Can't fault the music though, it's a pretty sweet slow heavy groove.

12. Light My Way
I still have no idea why, but you can hear somebody's default ringtone in the second verse of this song. One time in each measure. Once you hear it, it might ruin the song for you. Sorry.

13. Getaway Car

Here's your final ballad for the day. Don't like it? Then Chris Cornell knows a car you can use. Oh snap!

14. The Last Remaining Light

This is another song with "If You Don't Like It You're A Bad Person" syndrome, which is a good syndrome to have. It kind of sounds like "Hotel California" blasting off into outer space.

Audioslave: Out Of Exile - The Ultimate Review (Digitally Remastered)

2010-03-01T20:57:00.001-05:00

Audioslave's second album, Out of Exile, was sort of like they took half of the first album -- the "Rage + Cornell" sound -- and then filled the rest with cream. It was like Cookies and Cream. But hey, man, I love that stuff. Even though most fans were really more in the mood for another cookie.

1. Your Time Has Come
This song has two of Chris Cornell's favorite words to sing: "sun" and "stone". In fact, if Chris ever encountered a Sunstone in nature, he would literally explode. It's his weakness, just like how a vampire's weakness is garlic or crosses or teenage girls. Come to think of it, I wonder what Scott Weiland does on Sundays. Maybe everything.

2. Out of Exile
I guess if there were some sort of termite extermination product called "Exile" then this song title is something you might hear at a supermarket. "We are out of Exile." Eh? Whatever, I can't think of anything to say about this one.

3. Be Yourself
This was the first single Audioslave released from this album after 3 years of anticipation, which is pretty funny. It's scientifically engineered to be the least Audioslave-fan-pleasing song imaginable. The mellowness is front-and-center, and in the middle of it Tom Morello is all like "Man I can't take this, here's a guitar solo, RRRRRGH" but then he sort of gives up. The song bears sage words of advice, though. Listen, person catching a bouquet at a wedding. Be yourself. Be yourself is all that you can do. Catch that bouquet.

4. Doesn't Remind Me
This song is kinda like... hmm... I guess nothing?

5. Drown Me Slowly
How fast you drown kind of depends on your lung capacity, doesn't it? I'm afraid there's only so much we can do for you, sir.

6. Heaven's Dead
This song is a lot better if you don't go into it expecting ROCK 'N ROLL DUDE, and I'd imagine that worked against it when it first came out. Good luck figuring out what the heck the chorus is supposed to mean, though.

7. The Worm
This song is only partially related to the dance move popularized by former WWE superstar Scott "2 Hot" Taylor. It's pretty good though.

8. Man Or Animal
Remember how "Cochise" started with Tom Morello making his guitar sound like a helicopter? Well, this time around he just settles for making it sound like a door creaking. Guy's not even trying anymore. Meanwhile, Chris Cornell says a bunch of stuff about animals. I really have no clue what it means, but then again, "Black Hole Sun" was basically just word association set to music.

9. Yesterday To Tomorrow
Slow techno-groove bassline, atmospheric guitar, haunting melodies, and... a bell. It sounds like some kind of sci-fi Christmas music. And that's not a bad thing.

10. Dandelion
This is another song to anger everyone who liked the first album. It sounds upbeat but gritty, like a tropical beach with cigarettes in the sand.

11. #1 Zero
Oh snap, we're near the end of the album. This here is what we call a "slow burn" song, folks. All ominous and reserved for the first half of it, then it explodes. Like a... like a grenade in a forest fire?

12. The Curse
Despite the song title, he actually only curses in "Set It Off", and that ain't even on this album. He also sings about being a werewolf. Or maybe not really, but it goes along with his other animal transformations.

Audioslave: Revelations - The Definitive Review (also available in HD)

2010-02-17T23:56:00.002-05:00

Audioslave is the result of Rage Against The Machine losing their vocalist and joining up with Chris Cornell, the lead singer of such bands as "Soundgarden" and "Chris Cornell". They were originally called "Civilian", then they split up and got back together about 50 times and wrote about 500 songs, and some other stuff happened and then they released the album "Audioslave" in 2002. Many criticized the album for sounding like "Rage Against The Garden" or "Sound Against the Machine" or "SoundMachine" or "Rage Soundgarden The Cornell" or "RaSoge Agoundainst ThGare Machdenine". 3 years later, they released an album that didn't seem like it took 3 years to make. 1 year later they released this, because they wanted to be like Led Zeppelin.

This album is heavier than the last one, because it goes back to its roots, but it's also a whole new and more cohesive sound. Did you know they had never toured together before making the first album? Wow! This is the album they always wanted to make. It's like Led Zeppelin meets Earth, Wind, and Fire. (For like half of one song.)

01. Revelations
It starts with the kind of acoustic/picked guitar thing you'd hear on Out Of Exile. I like this song, but I don't like how Chris Cornell sounds like he's eating a lemon when he pronounces "Revelashiiiiiiiians".

02. One And The Same
Is it "And" or "In"? Make up your minds. This is a fast and funky song with wakkachika guitars. Chris assumes a little too much in this song; since when are blood and rain one in the same? Or one and the same? AAGH make up your minds

03. Sound of a Gun
This is another one of those Rage Against Sounds of The Garden Machine songs, sort of. The bridge of this song was heard in "Drown Me Slowly" on the previous album. Whoa, time travel. Actually, I guess they just wrote them at the same time. Deceitful varmints. This song would be better if every time Chris Cornell said "sound of a gun" you heard a gunshot sound. I guess you could just listen to it in Harlem and get the same effect.

04. Until We Fall
In this song, Chris Cornell reveals two things:
1) he's black, and
2) he's tired of it.
Talk about Revelations!

05. Original Fire
This song is good, except pretty much everyone's in agreement that the guitar solo sounds like Donald Duck yelling profanities and is completely out of place.

06. Broken City
This song is about Cornell's frustration with Legos.

07. Somedays
Despite the grammatically incorrect title, this is a really cool song. Unless you're allergic to people saying "Some days" more than two times in one chorus.

08. Shape of Things to Come
I sat through this whole song waiting to find out what the shape of things to come is, and I never did. It starts off sounding like "Out of Exile", therefore I declare the whole song unoriginal. How did you think you could get away with that, you hypocrites?

09. Jewel of the Summertime
If you play this song in the Wintertime, the RATM guys will come to your house naked wearing tape over their mouths, so be careful.

10. Wide Awake
Ditto.

11. Nothing Left To Say But Goodbye
This song is about Chris Cornell being a dog. The annoying thing about this song is that it fades out right when Tom Morello starts playing the Batman theme. Maybe they were worried about lawsuits.

12. Moth
This song is about Chris Cornell being a moth.

Audioslave: A Look Back

2010-02-17T23:51:00.003-05:00

Look, guys. I like Audioslave. I really do. I mean, I didn't grow up with Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine, so I can't put myself in the shoes of someone who did. I only knew some of their songs, enough to comprehend what this supergroup meant on a basic level. Looking back on their bodies of work, I can start to understand why people had such a violent negative reaction to Audioslave. But I think if you approach their music from as fresh a perspective as possible -- which, to some extent, simply "won't work" for some people, and I get that -- you gotta appreciate at least some of what they did. It was simple, unassuming rock music bolstered by the undeniable instrumental talents of the Rage guys and the also-undeniable (if perhaps a bit worn) vocal talent of Chris Cornell. (Rumor has it he lost some of his voice to cigarettes, but has regained it since; I'm not sure if there's any truth to that.) Combining the two styles was a more intriguing idea than most supergroups -- which generally combine rock with rock and result in rock -- and they delivered on the concept. They didn't exceed expectations, but those expectations were pretty awesome.

While they obviously weren't lacking in talent, perhaps what they did lack was "spark". The classic supergroup problem, I suppose; there's so much mutual professional respect in the room that nobody feels specifically motivated to contribute their own ideas or challenge each other's ideas. There was clearly a general motivation to make music, but I get the impression that each band member was on autopilot, waiting for one of the other guys to take the lead, occasionally coming up with a breakthrough idea. That said, these guys on autopilot still do some pretty great work.

Their sonic palette wasn't incredibly diverse, and their primary song formula wore itself a bit thin by the end of the first album. They mixed it up a little on the other two albums, but perhaps not as much as they should have. To be fair, I feel like Rage Against The Machine was on the verge of running out of ideas when they broke up, too. Let's just say variety has never been Tom Morello's strongest point. I don't know if either band would've been able to sustain a fourth album.

At this point you're probably wondering exactly what I'm introducing here. Well, I'm going to do a brief rundown of each of Audioslave's albums. I'm starting with the last one, Revelations, because I actually did a write-up of it four years ago on my MySpace blog. Remember those? Basically I'm abandoning ship and re-posting whatever I want to keep around. Because screw that place. The other day I was checking Facebook on my phone and I accidentally clicked the MySpace link and I was like "aaaaaaaaaaah, what happened to Facebook, why does it look so terrib--OH, I clicked MySpace by accident, never mind."

So part 1 of this series will be posted immediately after this. The format for these write-ups is semi-humorous, half-serious and not even close to professional. Stay tuned.

The Chronicles of Zucker: The Coco, The Chin, and the Closet

2010-02-07T00:47:00.001-05:00

I was trying to think of some kind of complicated metaphor for the Conan O'Brien scandal, something involving the story of King Solomon and the baby custody case, but I don't think anyone needs that at this point. Most of us know and understand the situation well enough. So I'm just gonna rant a little.

Am I angry at Jay Leno? Sort of. I don't know how angry I can be, because I don't know the complete truth of the situation. If Jay Leno is a behind-the-scenes mastermind who pushed Conan off the air, I'm very angry at him. If he is exactly who he says he is, I'm still a bit angry at him. So he doesn't come out of this looking very good either way.

Conan O'Brien made a tough decision: he left the Tonight Show when NBC threatened to move it past midnight, because he respects the legacy of the brand. He refused to go along with NBC's plan. One has to wonder what would've happened if Jay Leno refused as well. I would love it if NBC rewarded Conan's humility by thinking up another plan that would let him keep the Tonight Show at 11:35, but I understand that they're a business and they're going to do whatever is most profitable at the moment. But what that says to me is that Jay should've done the same thing, instead of just going along with NBC's idea, as if he doesn't understand their motivations or Conan's motivations. We all know NBC was desperate to keep him around. What were they gonna do, fire him? Then they'd presumably have gotten Conan to stay on board. Of course, Leno apparently would've had a bigger payout... but that's NBC's problem, not his.

I guess what it comes down to is, nobody expects a big corporation like NBC to do what's best for the art. It's the unspoken duty of their hired artists to butt heads with management and say, "No, you can't do this, it makes short-term business sense but it's infringing upon the art, here's why" and reach a compromise that's still profitable without killing too much of the art. But I guess Jay Leno just isn't what most of us would call an artist.

But then again, enough about Jay Leno. He's not the ultimate villain here. He may be a villain, but the real villain is Jeff Zucker and any other NBC execs who were with him on this. See, this whole situation came about because of a lack of trust. A few years ago, Zucker was afraid that Conan wasn't going to stick around when his Late Night contract expired, because other networks were making him offers. So he promised him the Tonight Show in 2009. We all thought Jay Leno was okay with this, but apparently he didn't really want to retire.

Now, right here we can already see the massive lack of foresight on Zucker's part. He was afraid that Conan would go to another network and create competition... so he released Jay Leno before he was done with television. And then, unsurprisingly, he became afraid that Jay Leno would go to another network and create competition. So that's when he came up with the plan to give Jay Leno a new show on NBC at 10 PM; a decision that was unanimously mocked when it was first announced, then mocked again, and again. And it turned out exactly as badly as everybody predicted. His ratings plummeted, dragging down the ratings of the local news and the Tonight Show as well. Affiliates threatened to revolt, and the rest is history.

I'm stopping the story there because it's the crucial juncture of the problem. Because NBC had no faith that Conan would stick around, they created a Leno vs. Conan situation where there never should've been one. They were both talk show hosts on the same network. It doesn't make sense that they were competing with each other. It doesn't make sense that Jay Leno was waiting in the wings to take back the Tonight Show.

It doesn't make sense that Jay Leno's successor is Jay Leno.

Unreality Check

2010-02-03T23:58:00.003-05:00

Unreal. It's a game, it's a franchise, it's an engine that's always being "heavily modified". These days, the latter is what you're most likely to hear about, even though an Unreal Tournament game was released a mere two years ago. And according to the latest interviews, we're not going to see another Unreal game for at least a few years. So what happened?

Back in the pre-Half-Life era, post-Doom, it was all about Unreal vs. Quake. (Or Quake 2, to be more precise.) They were really the only fully 3D first-person shooters around at the time. Whereas Quake played basically like a high-tech Doom (not that that's a bad thing), Unreal was one of the first forays into truly "narrative" FPS gameplay, an attempt to break from the anthologic episode/level format that was sort of accidentally popularized by Doom. Level breaks were signified only by loading screens that would pop up during the player's otherwise uninterrupted exploration of the game world, and scripted events spiced up the run-and-gun gameplay with some memorable moments.

Then, as we all know, Half-Life came along a few months later and refined this game style to an art. Almost as if in fear, both the Unreal and Quake franchises opted for multiplayer-only installments: Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament. It wasn't until later that we'd see more story-based installments: Unreal 2 in 2003 and Quake 4 in 2005. Unreal 2 wasn't received too well, although I haven't played it myself, so I can't comment. Unreal Tournament, however, has had 3 sequels (2 of which are actually acknowledged), and those are what I'll be talking about.

With the exception of Unreal Tournament 2004, each installment of the UT franchise has showcased a different version of the Unreal engine. But wait, why the anomaly? Because Unreal Tournament 2003 was, by most accounts, a disappointment. It introduced some very impressive graphical enhancements and terrain support, but there were no radically new modes, the map selection was underwhelming, the lightning gun was way less cool than the sniper rifle, and above all, it just didn't "feel" right. (More on that later.) Epic quickly rectified this by releasing Unreal Tournament 2004, which literally included everything in UT2003 plus almost an entire game's worth of additional maps, vehicular combat, and the return of the real sniper rifle. It was received very well.

The tail end of 2007 brought us another installment of the franchise: Unreal Tournament 3. (Note the implicit erasure of UT2003 from history.) To date, it's the only Unreal game to use the Unreal 3 Engine. And despite the game being generally well-received by most critics and fans of the franchise, the online community is dwindling at best. Judging from Epic's comments, it looks like it's going to be the last Unreal game for quite some time. So what went wrong?

Facing Worlds: before and after. I dunno man, isn't outer space cooler than China?

On the whole, people seemed to be satisfied with UT3. The gameplay style felt closer to that of the original, but with the added benefits of UT2004's vehicular combat, various refinements to the weapons, and obviously better graphics. But somehow, as great as everything appeared to be on the surface, the game just didn't completely... feel right. Yes, I know I already said the gameplay style was closer to that of the original; but still, something was amiss. I know, in my head, that the game is extremely fun. But despite my best efforts to support the game and help its community to thrive, I am stricken by a strange lack of desire to play it. It could be any number of things, but I can't help but wonder if the key factor here is actually the art direction.

Most people underestimate the impact of art direction on a game's enjoyability. There are two extremes that usually dominate the discussion: those who are mainly concerned with high-tech graphics that look "realistic" and the "serious gamers" who try to counteract that by saying "It doesn't matter what it looks like, as long as it plays well." Well, you know how it is with extremes: neither one is completely right. It's easy to thumb our noses at those "uncultured plebians" who only care about awesome graphics, pointing out games like Tetris that are still loads of fun despite their primitive rendering capabilities. But let's not confuse graphics with art direction. Both impact what a game "looks like", in different ways. There's no way you can claim that the original Unreal Tournament has better graphics than UT3, obviously. But I'm quite free to claim that it has better art direction, and I will do so now. It does.

There are lots of little things I prefer about UT's design compared to UT3's: the taller, slimmer characters, the more vibrant color pallette, the dominance of sci-fi elements in the architecture (how much cooler is the original "asteroid" version of Facing Worlds than UT3's pseudo-Chinese thingamabob?), and the more upbeat, memorable music. But that's all very subjective. A more objective way of putting it would be: simplicity. Unreal Engine 3 is obviously capable of looking every bit as good as the original Unreal engine, and then some. But as crazy as this sounds, the maps almost seem to have too much work put into them. The deluxe edition of UT3 came with an artbook. Think about that; an artbook. It has beautiful sketches of the various alien worlds the maps are based on. This sounds like a positive thing, but think about what kind of game we're talking about here. Unreal Tournament is all about high-speed, turbo-charged multiplayer brawls, and yet here's Epic trying to create authentic beautiful alien worlds with detailed rock formations and stuff. It's like building a room for your baby to play in and then filling it with fine china. The main problem with Unreal Tournament 3's art direction isn't that it's particularly unappealing, but that it's ill-suited to the gameplay. It isn't conducive to pure, action-packed fun.

Steroids build muscles, not character.

Here's what I want to see from Unreal Tournament 4, assuming it's ever made:

Simpler character models. Enough muscles-within-muscles and intricate gold-encrusted ancient carvings on people's shoulder pads. High-res textures are awesome, but give our eyes a break here.
MORE character models and a much greater degree of in-game player customization, without necessarily needing to use mods. This would be facilitated by the previous one.
Ditto for the map designs. A game like this needs to come with as many maps as possible (with the assumed quality control) and they need to be as recognizable and memorizable as possible, since you'll ideally be playing them many, many times over. I suppose there's a limit point at which there would be "too many" maps, but I don't think they're even close to it yet.
Social networking and persistent stat tracking. I have a feeling they'll come up with this idea without my intervention, but it's clearly the way things are going these days, and I think "the multiplayer FPS of the future" just plain has to have it. I don't want them to go "class-based" or anything like that, but simply having an online character profile is nice and encourages play, even if every character is virtually identical.
Either abandon story mode entirely or make it like UT2004's sport-style mode, just trying to maintain your career through a bunch of matches. (A "tournament" you say?!) The storyline/cutscene framework they built around UT3's single-player mode was quite clearly a waste of resources. It's just a bunch of maps, and nobody wants it to be anything more.
Bring back the upbeat music. This is more of a personal taste issue, but I think a lot of people would agree. More low-key, dramatic music might be appropriate for the epic team-based terrain maps, but for Deathmatch we just need awesome music to blow people up to.

Anyway, yeah. Just a few ideas. I think it appropriate to close by pointing to two other blogs that just so happened to coincide with this entry, which I mostly wrote a few weeks ago. Yahtzee's past two Extra Puncutation columns have dealt with overcomplicated character design, and he links to a Jack Monahan blog that actually goes into the whole Unreal Tournament thing. He points out the rather damning fact that in UT3's team-based modes, the character models actually have a red or blue "glow" superimposed over them to make it more obvious who's who -- despite the fact that, like in the previous UT games, the characters' armor textures are color-coded as well. It's kind of laughable when you think about it. It really seems like a tacit admission of design failure.

Rhymes With Photobucket

2009-11-19T22:48:00.004-05:00

Yeah, so my Photobucket account bandwidth has been exceeded by like a million. A million bandwidth. This is because I inadvertently linked two images on a high-traffic forum. (I guess they were fairly large images, too -- animated GIFs from a TV show.) So I guess now I either gotta upgrade to Pro or wait it out; the latter would take at least another 2 months, I'm pretty sure.

Has anyone ever upgraded to Pro anything? Seriously?

Nobel, No Peace

2009-10-11T15:15:00.002-04:00

Two Obama posts in a row? Sorry about that.

I consider it an honor that the Nobel Committee has decided to select the United States president as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Whoever the president currently is, he represents my country, and so it's nice to see that some European dudes aren't mad at us anymore.

But at the same time, like everybody else, I'm wondering... Why? It seems like he's getting the prize for just... being Obama. For being essentially the most important guy in the world while simultaneously embracing a philosophy of peace. I'm flattered that the committee is so confident that he'll bring about a new golden age, but shouldn't we wait for at least one act of "proof" first? Just to make the award actually mean something? I know it's almost impossible to "prove" that a philosophy works in the real world, but I think it would help if we just had a few results that at least corroborated his strategies, so that people who agree and disagree with him can both say, "Well, maybe there's something there." But until then, it seems like they're just rewarding a philosophy.

Looking over the list of previous Nobel winners, I don't think I can honestly say Obama doesn't "deserve" the award. Maybe the award's just never been all it's cracked up to be. But this is an example everyone's paying attention to, so let's use it.

So one thing that occurs to me just, you know, out of the blue, is that Barack Obama is currently presiding over a war. (As in, not peace.) He may not have started it, he may not agree with it, but right now, part of his job description is to represent the US's role in it. My suggestion to the committee would be to see how that goes. See what happens when he ends the war. If Afghanistan does not, in fact, burst into flames upon the removal of our troops, then hey, give him a medal! It may or may not be entirely his fault if it goes smoothly, but it's still an accomplishment. It's not an easy thing for any president to do.

I'm not going to froth at the mouth here, but the whole thing just seems a little silly. If wanting peace is all it takes to get a Nobel Prize, they're gonna have a lot more to give out.

Does it matter, ultimately? Probably about as much as the Oscars. So, see you then.

NOT MY PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!1

2009-09-08T22:35:00.005-04:00

"They started it!"

As a kid, I was taught that this wasn't a good enough excuse. What are we teaching our kids now?

This week, President Obama made a speech about the importance of education to schools nationwide. Except for the ones that refused to participate.

Refused the president? First of all, wow. I'm glad I live in a country where schools can actually do that. But come on -- pick your battles. The election is over, and like it or not, Barack Obama IS your president. The office needs to be respected, to some extent. Isn't respect for authority something children should be learning? Isn't that the kind of thing Republicans love to whine about? It'd be one thing if the speech had serious political overtones to it, like if he were promoting his health care plan. But this is just the president, telling kids to stay in school. There is no harm in that, and deep down, everybody knows it.

(And even if, hypothetically, the speech had any political overtones, which is to be expected from a politician... you do realize he's not still campaigning, right? He won the election. He's kind of earned that right.)

I think I see what's going on here. Bush got trashed, and trashed hard. "Not My President" was a popular rallying cry among Democrats during his 8 years in office, and there were a lot of people who didn't show him presidential respect. (To put it mildly.) Now the tables have turned, and Republicans have a chance to say "But what if it was BUSH saying this? Wouldn't you be trashing him? Huh? Why should we respect the president now?"

Or, to put it more simply -- more honestly, actually -- "They started it!"

YouCool

2009-08-30T22:15:00.003-04:00

So about a year ago, that Cowboy Bebop/Queens of the Stone Age music video I made was disabled due to a copyright claim. Well guess what? It came back!

Apparently this was not magic. The video now includes a hovering link/advertisement to legally purchase the song on Amazon. And guess what? I'm totally fine with that! I suspect many others would be too, were the option given to them. The way I see it, the whole point of making a fan music video for something is to portray the song in the best possible way. It's a way of promoting the music, really. So why wouldn't I want to provide people with a link to buy the song? It's a win-win situation.

Unless, of course, the video is horrible. And I guess that's one of the reasons intellectual property law exists; to say "Whoa, we have nothing to do with this. Take that down, it's embarrassing."

Hopefully this trend continues. I'm not overly optimistic that all unauthorized uses of music will be treated with such mercy, but in most cases I believe it's the best way to deal with it. Take what's unofficial and make it official.

I suppose it only makes sense to put the video here as well. So here it is. It's my first video editing project, from 2003. It's decent enough to display in public.

Review Fighter IV

2009-07-17T18:45:00.003-04:00

I know it's very nerdy to rage over video game reviews -- in most cases, reviews of games that you've never played but want to like and can't bear to see get anything less than a 10/10 -- but the gaming press does have its fair share of legitimate annoyances. Take, for example, the IGN review of the PC version of Street Fighter 4. Some have complained about the fact that the graphics scored lower than on the other platforms, and other such minutiae. I can accept that; even though the PC version's graphics are objectively better in every way, a different reviewer approaching the same game is going to rate its graphics differently.

What is a bit irksome, though, is the lack of any mention of some of the PC-exclusive features, most notably the inclusion of three graphical filters. Whether the reviewer loved these filters or simply found them not worthwhile, it's something that should be commented on in some way, since it was one of the PC version's only unique selling points.

The more baffling issue here is that the reviewer claims to have had severe difficulty finding anyone to play online with. I find this hard to believe, assuming he tested the game during (and not before) its release week, which he asserts he did. I can say from first-hand experience that since the very first day of release and to this day, over a week since, finding an opponent online has been remarkably easy. In fact, in my several hours of play I have only ever managed to complete one match of Arcade Mode, because I am constantly interrupted by fight requests, often before my fight against the computer even begins. The only thing easier than finding a match in this game is breathing. Hence my assertion that this reviewer must have tripped on either his network cable or acid.

MUTE MATH - ARMISTICE

2009-06-10T19:05:00.003-04:00

Gotta buy this, guys.

Listen to the first track via the link to their main site, and also watch the video for Spotlight.

Uplifter: the 311-est album of 2009

2009-06-08T20:30:00.002-04:00

There's probably something a little bit off about Uplifter, 311's first new album in 4 years, but the album doesn't really give you a chance to stop and figure out what it is. It's jam-packed with tight, fun, great-sounding tracks with just enough funky grooves to keep it from turning into white noise. You sense that perhaps 311 is losing their creative spark after 15 years or so, perhaps they're trying too hard, but at the very least, they're trying. This is a welcome change from Don't Tread On Me, which was so laid back, it was unclear whether they were trying very much at all. The production seems like it may be a bit overcompressed, but if you're playing it loud enough to notice, well, you probably won't notice. It's an unabashedly enjoyable listen.

Get the deluxe edition, because the two bonus tracks are just as refined as the rest of the album. iTunes has an exclusive track that can unfortunately only be accessed by buying the entire album there, hence missing out on the physical album. Amazon.com has an exclusive track as well, but fortunately it can be downloaded on its own. It's better than the iTunes exclusive... but perhaps I'm just biased.

Exclusivity in Crysis

2009-06-04T22:46:00.003-04:00

One of the first announcements of this announcement-packed week was the existence of Crysis 2. From a storyline perspective, this is no surprise: Crysis ended with the main character beginning to do something. What is surprising -- and, to some poor souls, enraging -- is that the game will not be PC-exclusive like its predecessor was.

Exclusivity is a double-edged sword. The advantages: it makes a console and its owners feel special, it allows the developers to more easily take advantage of the console's strengths, and there are also some promotional perks because the console maker will want to push the game. The disadvantages: it cuts off a portion of the player base, which potentially decreases sales if the demand isn't so high that people are willing to buy the console to play the game.

Guess what happened to Crysis? Mostly the latter. If Crysis 2 were a PC exclusive, it may not actually exist.

There are many reasons for this, and many possible reasons. The possible reasons can be debated until the end of time. Was it piracy? High system requirements? Poor marketing? No one can truly say. However, there are a few pretty solid reasons why PC gaming doesn't share some of the same exclusivity benefits as console gaming. The main one being that, despite what Mac commercials would have you think (and may Heaven help you if those commercials actually dictate your thinking in any way), there is no corporation, no "they" that is behind "the PC". (Oh, and by the way, a Mac is a PC -- just a certain type that has a certain operating system on it.) The closest thing we have is Microsoft, since most PCs run Windows, but they can't be expected to have the same sort of motherly attachment to the PC "console" as they do to their own baby, the Xbox. (And if frothing-at-the-mouth Linux advocates are to be believed, that's the way it should be.)

Or, to make a long diatribe short: there's no money in PC exclusivity, even ignoring piracy completely (which, if you're being realistic, you can't). And, if we're being honest gamers instead of console warriors, there aren't many reasons to insist on it. Now, yes, there can be downsides if developers are careless about it. I hate shoddy ports as much as anyone; I played through the PC version of Splinter Cell Double Agent. But that doesn't have to happen, and in this day and age, when graphics processing and operating system architecture are becoming more and more standardized, it's becoming easier than ever to put games on multiple consoles without losing anything in translation. That said, I do want PC versions to have the benefits they rightly deserve, and ideally they should include proper mouse & keyboard support, especially in the cases where that's a legitimately better way to play -- FPSes, RTSes, MMORPGs, etc. (Although if you're still playing ports of third-person platformers without a 360 gamepad... wake up.) It sounds like Crytek is intent on maximizing the game's potential on all consoles, which is encouraging, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this.

Frankly, I'm just glad they're giving PC gamers the time of day at all, and I'm holding out hope that they won't treat us like second-class customers, releasing the game 6 months later for no reason and leaving us out of DLC and special editions.

Yeah, that's right, Ubisoft.

Doom is a Casual Game

2009-05-13T23:17:00.003-04:00

Do you remember when Doom was the most realistic, immersive video game ever made? When it represented the holy grail of game design? When reviewers took the game as seriously as they take games like Grand Theft Auto 4 these days?

If you've played games like Half-Life 2, you can probably understand why this seems a little bit hard to believe from a modern standpoint. Graphics, sound, and physics technology have advanced a lot, obviously, but so have storytelling, pacing, and game structure. Yet Doom still has its appeal. But it's a different appeal, and this is what I find so interesting.

I think Half-Life 2 is, by whatever objective measurements are possible, a better game than Doom. But I played through Doom recently (for the first time, actually, since I never went beyond the Shareware version before) and had a lot of fun. And then I played through it again on a harder mode. I found time to squeeze in a level or two here and there. It was pretty addictive, because it was easy to pick up and play and enjoy for a short time, and move on. I don't do this with Half-Life 2 because it's a strong narrative that can't really be broken down into small playable chunks. Doom, on the other hand, is much more simple, brainless, and... casual.

That's right. I said the C-word.

Sure, the game is too gory to be as much of a party centerpiece as Peggle or Rock Band, but I treat it much the same way as I do those games. It's a quick fix, one which often evolves into long play sessions but which I can just as easily put down if something else comes up. The levels are largely interchangeable, aside from some of them being harder than others. It rarely requires any real strategy; just dexterity, timing, and pattern recognition. The same can probably be said of many old games, like Pac-Man and basically all those other games that couldn't afford to take the player on any real journey.

So what's my point, anyway? I guess I'm making a case for casual games, which have been greatly maligned lately. I understand why Wii Play and its ilk do not exactly inspire confidence in the subgenre (or supergenre, whatever), but I think some of the greatest gaming experiences around come from games that have no plot and no ambitions other than to give you a fun way to kill time for a few minutes. There are some casual games out there that are barely games at all and really don't even reward skill in any way, and I won't be rushing to their defense any time soon. But some truly great games fall under what I would consider the "casual" banner. Let's not forget how fun they can be.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go defend my garden from zombies.

The Swine Flu Is Gonna Getcha

2009-04-27T18:58:00.001-04:00

Uh-oh, we're screwed.

Twitterpated

2009-04-17T22:01:00.003-04:00

I'm on Twitter now.

Why? I... I'm not sure.

It just sort of happened.

I guess I'm glad Twitter exists because it keeps celebrities away from Facebook. With MySpace not being the hot thing anymore, the temptation was there.

Far Cry 2: Fun With Malaria

2009-03-27T23:52:00.010-04:00

The circle... ...of death?

All right, so let's run through our CryHistory one more time. In 2004, a little-known developer named Crytek made Far Cry for Ubisoft, a graphically striking first-person shooter set in a sprawling tropical environment. In 2007 they went on to make Crysis for EA Games, which had similar story-driven free-roaming outdoor gameplay but a completely unrelated story. In 2008, a completely unrelated team of developers at Ubisoft made Far Cry 2, which is also completely unrelated to Far Cry in storyline terms, and plays a lot less like Far Cry than Crysis does. Confused? You should be. Basically you might just as well call this game Fun With Malaria, because it truly isn't a sequel to Far Cry in any way. But with Far Cry's inconsequential storyline and Crysis so nicely filling the story-driven jungle-shooter void, that's not really a bad thing.

The gist of Far Cry 2 is that you're a mercenary in Africa, you have Malaria, and there are 2 warring factions who are both being supplied by an arms dealer called The Jackal. It's an "open-world" game with various missions that you can do in almost any order. It has a realistic day-and-night cycle and almost no menu interfaces or loading screens; in-game time is only skipped during sleep, bus rides, and a few key story moments. There is also almost no HUD to speak of, with ammo and health indicators only popping up when they're needed, and the world map actually appears as a real object held in your hand. (Markers do appear on the map through what appears to be magic, but the game would be brutally difficult without them.) Your health consists of a few bars which regenerate eventually, but if you get down to your last bar, you need to escape enemy fire and heal yourself before your wounds do you in for good.

Lush jungle environments break up the brown-ness.

Overall, this is a very strong design. Far Cry 2's commitment to realism (with a few necessary provisions) makes it one of the most immersive gaming experiences to date. The game world is surprisingly well-designed, considering that they easily could have copied and pasted a bunch of generic African-looking areas together and called it a day. Compared to the world in Oblivion, for example, there are a lot of recognizable landmarks. You really get to know the area and feel like you're living in it. And that's a good thing, because there is a lot of driving in this game.

I've seen some complaints about the high amount of driving, but I don't mind it; again, it's all about immersion. The real problem is the enemies, who attack you on the road constantly. This is the first noticeable crack in Far Cry 2's armor, and unfortunately it's a pretty big one. Once you leave the boundaries of one of the game's few cease-fire zones, absolutely every person you meet (aside from your "buddies") will try to kill you. You don't even have to do anything; they shoot on sight for no discernable reason. Because the enemies are scattered quite liberally across the map and drive on all the roads, you can't drive for more than a minute without having to get out and kill somebody. You never even get any really good car chases going, because the enemies will always ram you when they inevitably catch up to you, bringing everything to a halt. Without this nuisance, the driving would have been completely tolerable and not all that long, but the stopping and starting makes it a chore. Although their game worlds weren't as massive as this one, both Crysis and the original Far Cry managed to pull off the driving thing quite well, and neither game had a whole lot of friendly NPCs, so it definitely can be done.

The world map is as realistic as possible without making the game stupid.

Another game they might have taken a few lessons from: Assassin's Creed. Definitely not a perfect game either, but it introduced the interesting concept of behavioral stealth. Guards would wait for you to do something suspicious before attacking you. As the game progressed, they became more familiar with you and more likely to attack you, but you still had to do something suspicious or at least be in a restricted area. There's actually a little bit of this in Far Cry 2's cease-fire zones, but all bets are off once you venture out where all the action is. To be fair, this game's world is a militarized zone in a desolate country, so the characters have good reason to be hostile toward a stranger. But the instant, murderous hostility of every single NPC is just excessive.

The combat itself is pretty fun. You mostly fight generic humans, which is appropriate for the setting, but it manages to be fairly unpredictable and varied anyway. There's a very large selection of weapons available to both you and your enemies. If you kill an enemy you can take his weapon, but it will jam up much more frequently than any weapons you buy from the arms dealer. You generally have a nice variety of choices, as you can go with whatever weapons you feel like using at the moment. As in most modern shooters, you can't carry all of the weapons at the same time, but the sheer number of weapons available here makes choosing your arsenal a fun, strategic challenge. For example, in one weapons slot you can have a pistol, uzi, flare gun, or remote-detonated explosives; in another slot, you can have a sniper rifle, rocket launcher, or flamethrower.

Fire. Did you expect me not to take a picture of it?

The flamethrower deserves special mention, as the game engine supports some pretty neat fire mechanics. I'm not sure if it's as tactically useful as the hype suggested, but fire is fire (is awesome). My personal favorite thing to do with the flamethrower is run over to a herd of moose and burn it for absolutely no reason, with absolutely no ill effects. PETA would not be pleased. You also have access to Molotov Cocktails at any given time; they can burn stuff too, and they're stored like grenades so you can always have a few on hand. Fire spreads realistically across trees and shrubbery, which is cool, even though it doesn't particularly affect the gameplay. (Guys will still shoot you, you will still shoot them.) Oh, and one more thing: the detonatable explosives. You can get pretty creative in how you deal with those inevitable situations where a vehicle is chasing you down; my favorite solution is to place a landmine on the road, walk a few meters away, visually line up the mine with a rock or tree, and then push the detonation button when the vehicle passes behind said landmark. The resulting explosion is very satisfying.

Unique mission locations, such as this fort, are few and far between.

But you probably saw this next paragraph coming: there's a downside to all this. Killing stuff is really all you do in this game. This is not a terrible thing, really, but Far Cry 2 is an extremely long game with aspirations of creating a realistic world with missions woven together by a complex storyline. But the immersion and subtlety wear off when you realize that every mission falls into one of a few very limited categories. In missions from the arms dealer, you blow up a truck. In missions from the mysterious cellphone voice, you go into the village and kill a guy. In almost every other mission, you are told to kill/blow up one thing, then your buddy calls you and tells you to kill/blow up another thing first. Occasionally you get the privilege of visiting one of the game's more interesting environments, such as a train bridge over an awe-inspiringly large chasm, a fort that you have to infiltrate, and a hut village that's best escaped via a sweet hang glider ride. But it's essentially just window dressing on the same old missions over and over again. For example, there's one mission where you go into a town, fight your way through the hostiles, and enter a building to rescue someone. When you reach this person, he says something along the lines of "I assume you killed everyone outside. Go on without me, I'll leave on my own -- it won't look as suspicious that way." Now, I hate escort missions as much as anyone, but this really seems like a cover for the developers' unwillingness to program something more complex than "kill a bunch of dudes, find the objective". If you happened to drive by the town on a whim, the enemies would start shooting you like crazy and you'd have pretty much the same exact experience as the "mission", minus the requirement that you stop by that certain building and talk to a guy who then disappears when you leave the room. Replace that guy with any given objective and that sums up how the missions play out.

It's a long way down from the train bridge.

Various parts of the game's documentation claim that stealth is an option, but due to the incredibly aggressive AI, it really isn't. Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be all that useful, since your mission objectives involve violence 99% of the time. That's unfortunate, because it might have allowed for some more variety, and there's tons of potential for stealth in a game world like this one. Another point of unused potential -- and general confusion -- is the aforementioned "buddy" system. It's interesting at first, when you get rescued from a firefight by someone and start teaming up with them on missions, developing a relationship of sorts. But despite the presence of multiple potential buddies, I seemed to keep getting stuck with the same one, and whether or not a buddy was available to rescue me seemed fairly random. Sometimes I would go into a safehouse and my secondary buddy would be there, and the game would inform me that this buddy was now ready to rescue me, but the situation appeared to remain unchanged.

The net result of all of these things is that trying to follow the storyline is more trouble than it's worth. The missions are unmotivating, the buddy system is confusing, and you wind up doing the missions for both factions anyway. And did I mention that the game is LONG? There's a point where you think you're finished, because you've played for anywhere between 20 and 30 hours, and then a whole second half opens up. The mission design in the second half is moderately better than in the first, but the game still lacks a strong feeling of progression, the feeling that you're actually getting somwehere. Ultimately, you're forced to enjoy the game as if it were Doom with wildebeests, which is a shame, because there is a lot of really strong groundwork here for a remarkable game. There is plenty of fun to be had with it, but you have to make your own experience, and not really in the good "sandbox" way. You basically have to fight against the game to get maximum enjoyment out of it.

You won't get to hang glide very often, but it's great when you do.

As a launching point for the open-world first-person-shooter subgenre, you could certainly do a lot worse than Far Cry 2. The game mechanics are solid, the world design is engaging, and it's a highly playable game despite its various frustrating elements. It just needs some more variety and structure. If there were more things to do in the game's incredibly vast world, and if the factions and buddies did more than just give you instructions about what to blow up, maybe this adventure would have lived up to its compelling premise. Some articles I've read have suggested that Ubisoft is aware of the game's shortcomings, and it also seems to be selling well, so I look forward to the inevitable follow-up. Whether it's a "Cry" or not.

NEWS FLASH!

2009-03-20T13:51:00.003-04:00

Internet Explorer Gets Better
Still Virtually Pointless

At the Synce Fyction Convention

2009-03-18T07:39:00.003-04:00

In the spirit of pointless rebranding, it only makes sense to change MTV to something that more accurately reflects its current demographic. It will still be pronounced the same, but the logo will be slightly different:

Prince of Persia: Skittering Along the Edge of Greatness

2009-03-13T19:29:00.007-04:00

"I have to collect this, don't I?"

The 3D portion of the Prince of Persia franchise has had an interesting history. There was, of course, the long-forgotten Prince of Persia 3D that was made during the "take old games and make them 3D" craze, but even the angriest of video game nerds have forgiven and forgotten. That's largely because the next attempt, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, came many years later and was many magnitudes better. It had great level design and an innovative time reversal system helped alleviate the frustration that often comes with tricky 3D jumping. Although other 3D platformers would obviously have a hard time incorporating a similar system for storyline reasons, many (including the Italian plumber himself) imitated its iconic wall-jumping and pole-swinging mechanics. On top of that, it had gorgeous stylized graphics and pretty good characters.

But as almost anyone who's played the game will tell you, its combat sections were rarely rewarding and often frustrating, due to a combination of clumsy controls and repetitiveness. This was rectified in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, which had a more enjoyable combat system while keeping pretty much all of the great platforming intact. Unfortunately, the game's "hardcore" makeover repulsed more fans than it attracted. So in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Ubisoft toned down the blood 'n boobs but added a questionable "speed kill" system, which I felt required a frustratingly high level of precision. Speed kills were also tied to long animated sequences, which meant you often couldn't rewind time far enough to correct your mistakes.

So there's a bit of a pattern here (which I'm far from the first to point out, Yahtzee). The POP games have a habit of getting a whole lot of things right, but then also getting a few key things wrong that keep them from achieving true greatness. And often, those key things have to do with the balance between platforming and combat; the former is almost always the best part of the game, with the latter feeling like they had trouble fitting it in. The games have also had some issues with production values; while they all looked gorgeous, they fell prey to various audio glitches, cutscene sloppiness, and even a few rare game-breaking bugs. If I had to pick one as the best representation of the series, I would actually go with Warrior Within, since most of its bad decisions were only skin-deep. It plays the best out of the three games, and a good chunk of it is actually quite aesthetically pleasing, even though everything bleeds and wears thongs all of a sudden.

"Check for corruption in my armpits, Elika."

Anyway, that's all in the past, because the Sands of Time trilogy has (wisely) been put to rest so Ubisoft can try its hand at another reimagining of the franchise -- and the genre. Prince of Persia 2008, as I will be calling it from now on, builds off of some ideas from Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed. It employs an "open world" design philosophy, a streamlined running & jumping system, and a "marionette" control scheme where each of the four buttons corresponds to a body part, each with various context-sensitive functions. Unlike in most platformers before it, buttons don't need to be held down for things such as climbing onto ledges and running on walls, which definitely takes some getting used to. Like The Sands of Time, it has the potential to influence a new generation of platformers, but also like The Sands of Time, it has flaws. And they're a bit harder to ignore this time around.

Here are the basics: you run around a large world aided by your magical female companion, Elika. Your job is to rid the world of corruption, which isn't as hard as it sounds, since "corruption" in this case means black goo that occasionally turns into enemies. If you fall into goo or a deep pit, Elika floats over and pulls you back to safety, which usually means the beginning of a certain series of jumps. Most of the game is spent jumping between platforms, ledges, and grabby-rings. This is broken up by the occasional puzzle or battle. Combat is always one-on-one, and it involves creating combos by chaining together four different types of attacks (controlled by the four context-sensitive buttons). If you get "defeated" during combat, Elika saves you from actual death and you continue fighting, but the enemy regains a significant amount of health.

There are certainly worse ways
to spend your time.

I basically like the idea behind this combat system. Enemies don't get in your way when you're trying to progress through the level and they can't knock you off platforms. The fact that you can't technically get killed in battle seems like a cop-out at first, but it actually makes quite a bit of sense. Since this game (and most games like it) won't allow the story to progress until the main character wins the battle, allowing you to die only to reload and try again is essentially a waste of time. Having Elika "rescue" you for a non-fatal penalty dispenses with the shallow illusion that your character's loss actually has any effect on the story.

The combo system is fun -- sometimes. Unfortunately, your freedom to create combos is largely inhibited by the enemies' constant blocking, as well as some other pretty arbitrary restrictions. In an effort to make the combat difficult, they seem to have removed a lot of the fun from it. Consequently, the most enjoyable combat comes when you fight what I would consider to be the "easiest" boss, since he doesn't block everything you try to do. You can actually choose when you want to fight each boss; there are many different branching paths through the game. But does it really matter? Despite the subtle variation in boss difficulty (which is either unintentional or doesn't make sense), every area feels basically the same. And that brings me to the game's biggest problem.

For a while, it was hard for me to pin down exactly what made the game world seem so uniform. As far as "open worlds" go, it's not quite as much of a cut-and-paste job as Oblivion, and there's nothing wrong with having consistent architectural themes; just look at the previous POP games, which take place mostly in broken-down temples. Perhaps, I thought, the game needs more indoor areas to add variety, but that didn't seem quite right either. The game world does have its fair share of landmarks, many of which are stunningly beautiful to look at. But there's the catch: all you're doing is looking at them. Not running around on them, climbing them, or fighting enemies on them. It will eventually dawn on you that you spend a stunningly large amount of time looking at walls in this game, and rarely at all the exotically beautiful stuff right behind you. You're constantly on the outskirts of all these diverse, beautiful environments instead of being in them. You can really never run for more than 5 seconds in this game without having to jump onto something.

You'll be seeing a lot of this.

So yes, I am saying that there is actually too much jumping in this game. I know that sounds like a stupid criticism for a Prince of Persia game, but it's really hard to design truly memorable levels out of a bunch of floating walls. The franchise's trademark wall-running is just out of control here -- it's pretty much the primary method of travel in this world. And I find myself conflicted, because the gameplay is actually reminiscent of that one part in each Sands of Time game where you'd be scaling the outside of a really high tower, which always felt really awesome, but I guess without the indoor parts it loses its luster. How interesting can outskirts really be? You'll see a whole lot of ledges, vines, and grabby-rings in this game, but for my money, one of the best experiences comes during the breather portions, when you're running across the sandy dunes of the "hub world", shrouded in moonlight.

On that note, let's get one thing straight: the game looks beautiful, even if most of its wonderfully crafted world ends up being window dressing. The production values are the best and most consistent so far in the series, although the voices still get lost in the mix often enough that you'll need to turn subtitles on. The animation is much more fluid than in the previous games, making good use of the Assassin's Creed engine. Everything flows together smoothly, and if Elika ever threatens to get in the player's way, the two characters do a nice little "dance" around each other that's quite endearing. Occasionally the elaborate animations will cause you to misfire a jump, but on the off chance that that does happen, you'll be rescued anyway. The "painterly" style of the game is effective yet subtle, never obtrusive or overly impressed with itself. The soundtrack is absolutely wonderful, mostly revolving around a beautifully orchestrated main theme. The presentation is impressive from the moment you load up the game, and it rarely falters.

No bottomless pits around here?
What is this madness?

POP2008 is a game that tries a lot of new ideas, and when a game that tries new ideas doesn't live up to its potential, those ideas tend to be criticism magnets. I think most of these ideas have actually been implemented really well, though the battle system does have its flaws. The non-dying aspect may give the game the appearance of being too easy, but I don't think it really is. It's actually the age-old conundrum of level design that has snuck up to bite the developers here. The good news is that this game is very likely to get a sequel, so hopefully they focus on correcting the game's core issues and don't do the wildly misguided backpedaling that soured so many people on Warrior Within.

Where Credit Is Due

2009-02-22T00:29:00.003-05:00

I've noticed something lately in video games -- most recently after beating Tomb Raider: Underworld. (A fantastic game, by the way. PC Gamer is right to call it the best action game of 2008. Moderate bugs aside, it's a captivating adventure.) Actually, by "lately" I think I mean since roughly the dawn of the CD-ROM era. For some reason, as far as production values have come in the industry, it seems most game makers still cannot grasp the ability to transition gracefully from the ending of a game to whatever happens next. The final cutscene will occur, or the final line of dialogue will be spoken, or the final music cue will play, and then...

Often, it is at this point that the game abruptly cuts off everything that was just happening -- music, sound, video, interface -- and starts showing some credits. Or, worse, it may even just dump you right back to the menu. And usually, if there is a credits sequence, it's the same credits sequence you can access by clicking "Credits" on the menu. Sometimes a fadeout will be attempted, but it will wind up getting cut off anyway.

I don't get it; is this really so hard? In this day and age? It can't be, but I feel like developers are neglecting the importance of this particular part of the game. All I ask for is a decent fadeout. There are other ways to make credits interesting, and I encourage developers to explore them. But let's just start with the basics; the least they can do is try not to make the ending sequence so jarring and generally unpleasant.

The truly great developers still get this right, for the most part. But a lot of good developers of good games don't. Bioshock is one example. For a while Lucasarts games were excellent at this, but things started to slip around the same time their production values in general became a bit less cohesive. By that, I mean when they started patching soundtracks together with pieces of the existing Star Wars film scores, and fell prey to the usual pitfalls of early polygonal rendering, and started incorporating FMVs and CGI cutscenes. All impressive technology to be sure, but compared to the classic Lucasarts games with hand-drawn cutscenes to match the hand-drawn graphics, things were starting to feel a bit more jumbled. Specifically, if you compare the endings of Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, I think you'll find that DF's goes quite a bit more smoothly.

That's about it. See ya next ti--

A Memo for Eliza Dushku

2009-02-12T22:51:00.003-05:00

Dear Ms. Dushku:

Please stop trying to be the sexiest woman on Earth. It's just not working. I'm not saying you're not attractive, I'm just saying you're not that "let the camera pan across your half-naked body on high-definition televisions all over the world while making a seductive face" type of attractive. You are what we call a "girl next door." Which is different. Please do not get plastic surgery in an attempt to correct this, as it is not tackling the root of the problem. Clearly some publicist has put you up to this -- that's the root of the problem. It's not you.

This is the most useless blog post ever and I apologize. Especially if she were to actually read this by some chance. Oh man that would be awkward.

Four Things That Define America

2009-01-31T16:12:00.006-05:00

It's been a while. I consider it Christmas break. I may only get one day off from work, but it still amounts to about a month of not doing anything productive. That doesn't mean nothing happened, though. We officially have a new president now, and 24 is back. Coincidence? ...yes, why wouldn't it be? American Idol is also back. Hey, there might be an Obama joke there, actually.

So what do I think of this Obama guy? Well, aside from not voting for him, not much. I'm sure he means well, I'm sure he's not the antichrist, I'm sure he'll tip the scales to the left a little (and since I don't want it to go too far right for too long, is that such a terrible thing?), I'm sure the media will eventually stop going soft on him when it no longer becomes profitable to do so, and I'm sure the economy will find its way back to its former glory some time during his presidency. Whether it'll be his fault or not, who knows? I mean, in a way it will of course, because whoever's in there has to work overtime to fix stuff like this. It's not an easy job, no matter who has it. But I sort of feel like as long as someone is in there doing his best, it'll work out somehow. It's not just the president's responsibility, after all, whether times are bad or good. There's a whole government there. For better and for worse.

So in short, I believe Obama's administration will get us back on track, but I don't believe McCain's administration wouldn't have been able to do the same. But you can never know these things, can you? What the other guy would have done? That's probably why I don't talk about politics a lot. It's a whole lot of speculation, making connections between things that may or may not be related, etc. Usually people aren't even talking about the heart of these issues anyway, which is what I care about more than whether or not something should be legal and stuff like that.

On to the stuff that I'm more likely to think about on a daily basis: 24 is back with its seventh season, and so far it's great. I'm not one of the people who bashed season 6 like it was the worst thing in the history of television -- I think all of the seasons are quite watchable -- but at the end of the day (ha), I had to admit it didn't hold up to scrutiny. After pretty much the best 4-hour premiere ever, it went from subplot to subplot with seemingly no pre-ordained plan for how to fit it all together, leaving behind a lot of things that should have had an impact on the entire 24 hours. But season 7 looks to be changing all that. The subplots are all tightly interwoven and moving along at an even, believable pace. Things that shouldn't take forever aren't (like the time between terrorist attacks), and things that should take a while are. And the plots themselves are almost all interesting.

American Idol is its usual self, becoming more irrelevant every year but still hard to avoid watching completely. The auditions are over, and they were the usual predictable mix of good singers, sob stories, and freaks. It's definitely not as fun as it used to be, but there are still a few gems in there, and it'd be a shame for them to get rid of this round altogether. I do wonder what they're thinking with some of these Hollywood picks, though; it almost seems like they're setting bait for Vote For The Worst, but that doesn't really make any sense.

Lastly, something I discovered over the past few weeks: the best popcorn ever. I'm still not sure what the company is called -- it might be "Popcorn, Indiana" and it might be "Dale and Thomas Popcorn" -- but their Original Kettle Corn flavor is delicious and downright addictive. And apparently, it's relatively healthy. I went ahead and tried their Aged Cheddar flavor -- also great. I think I'm going to have to try them all. Once I do, I doubt I'll ever buy any other brand of pre-cooked popcorn again. Find out more about them at PopcornIndiana.com, which currently has a chick with a bikini on the front page for some reason.

Well, that's all for now. Until next time...

Sir Lemming's Guide To Christmas Music

2008-12-23T12:29:00.004-05:00

Christmas is not only one of the biggest holidays of the year, it's also undeniably the most musical. There are more songs dedicated to the various traditional Christmas stories -- and then even Christmas itself -- than just about any other specific topic in the world. And there are also songs about winter in general that have been accepted into the canon of Christmas songs, such as "Let it Snow" and "Winter Wonderland". I guess when a song only seems appropriate to play during winter, it naturally gets absorbed into this other set of songs that can only be played in December.

But like any broad category of songs, there are good ones and bad ones. And because Christmas songs are some of the most covered songs of all time, surpassing even The Beatles' catalogue, there are good and bad versions of just about all of them. So I have taken it upon myself to apply criticism to a vast but rarely evaluated sector of music. And no, I do not guarantee that all of this criticism is constructive.

I'm going to start with the fundamentals: music that should be part of your Christmas tradition if it isn't already. Michael W. Smith's "Christmas" is pretty much the best Christmas music ever. The album is a symphonic classical pop suite unlike anything else out there, and it's hard to imagine it being improved upon even though it uses some cheesy late-'80s synth, which is no small feat. This is not to be confused with his later "Christmastime". It's a respectable effort that doesn't attempt to duplicate the previous album's strengths, and it does have some great orchestral tracks, but it's still pretty hard to stomach his cartoony renditions of "Jingle Bells" and "Frosty the Snowman". I know he was going for something different, but after the classy and magnificent "Christmas", it just kind of eats your soul a little.
Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack is also great, but I can't think of anything interesting to say about it.
Buy the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's trilogy of Christmas CDs. Then rip them to your computer and delete all the tracks with singing in them. You'll end up with approximately 80 minutes of great rock arrangements of Christmas songs, and 0 minutes of melodramatic power ballads about homeless children on street corners in front of city bars. Then burn that to a CD. Sounds oddly specific, you say? Well, that's because I did it. And it's the best Trans-Siberian Orchestra album ever!
If you're in the process of caroling and you decide to sing "The First Noel", watch out for verses 2-4. It's like a hedge maze, made out of syllables instead of hedges.
"O Holy Night" kicks butt. Always has, always will. But not when Celine Dion sings it. Who knew that the word "Noel" could be pronounced "Noahrrael"? And who allowed Celine Dion to get anywhere near one of our most cherished songs? Isn't that what the Canadian border is for? While I'm at it, I should probably give Josh Groban a mention. Actually, you can replace that last word with "savage beating", but let's take this one step at a time.
Josh Groban is the most boring and completely interchangeable singer of the century. He's the 22-year-old pop star who sings like a 72-year-old pastor. The fact that he's popular with anyone other than aging grandmothers with hearing aids baffles me. I don't think I'd enjoy Josh Groban even if you sawed my ears off, stuck tubes in the blood-caked holes, and literally pumped concentrated Alzheimer's Disease into my brain for a week so that I'd forget what good music sounded like. The worst part is that he also did a song on the Polar Express soundtrack (which I guess is appropriate, because like the characters in that movie, he's an emotionless approximation of an actual human being.) But he gets double duty on Christmas radio because of this. I hope the next person who raises him up so he can stand on a mountain runs away while he isn't looking.
While I'm feeling cheery, let's talk about "Christmas Shoes". "Christmas Shoes" is a conglomerate of every horrible Christmas pop ballad trope you can name. Let's run through the checklist:
It's a story told in song form. Not every song has to be poetry, but basic narrative prose like this is rarely a good sign. After a while it just starts to sound silly, because the singer is describing mundane actions while trying to make it sound melodic and emotional. "So I reached into my pocket, and I found a few coins, blah blah blah..." See "Trapped In The Closet" for the ultimate example.
It's about helping poverty-stricken children. This is a noble cause that you should should probably be donating more money to than you currently do, but let's be honest, there's really nothing compelling about the idea of some dude giving a kid money. It's a nice message that always makes for boring music. See also "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
In similarly manipulative fashion, the child in the narrative is a stereotypical stock character, a picture of absolute purity and innocence. Again, not compelling. Naturally, he calls his mother "Mama". I know a song doesn't have time to dive into moral and emotional complexity, especially when it comes to a child, but this is just insultingly clichéd.
It just keeps getting worse: after the song's middle section, a children's choir repeats the chorus. I don't think I need to elaborate on this. You've heard it a million times, and you know you hate it.
After THAT, a sole child sings the last line of the song, while the same electric piano that's been in every pop ballad since 1985 plays the last few notes in a slowing tempo, then pauses, and then hits the final note.
If I've left out any clichés, don't worry: they're there.
I'm not so jaded that I wouldn't be at least slightly moved by this story if somebody related it as an anecdote, but as a song, it fails.
If you ever read the line "the fire is slowly dying" out of context, would you assume it's a Christmas song or a death metal song?
Trivia time! There are actually three versions of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas": the benign, cheerful modern version, the bittersweet version heard in the film "Meet Me In St. Louis", and the surprisingly dark version that never made it past the writing stage. I won't give all the details here -- that's what Wikipedia is for -- but just know that the first line of the original version was "Have yourself a merry little Christmas; it may be your last." Yikes.
"Blue Christmas" is nothing more than a random Elvis song with the word "Christmas" in it. I'm just sayin'. It's still probably better than "Jingle Bell Rock", though. I mean, jingle-horse? Really? That makes about as much sense as Santa Claus coming down Santa Claus Lane. Who cares about Santa driving down ONE street? A street that I can only assume is located at the North Pole? I thought the fact that he goes around the entire world was the thing people are supposed to get excited about. Christmas songs don't have to make sense, but I don't understand how some of these things even made past the stream-of-consciousness stage.
And can we stop it with "River" already? This song seems to have picked up steam in recent years, with more radio play and cover versions than ever before. If the name isn't familiar to you, this is that song that features the confusing repeated line "I wish I had a river I could skate away on." The song isn't so terrible in and of itself, but come on, does EVERY song that's even tangentially related to Christmas have to be covered by a million artists and played over and over on the radio from November to December? This song is not a Christmas classic. Just accept it.
And lastly, I'd like to be serious for a moment: There's an issue that affects thousands of people across the nation, especially during this time of year. We can no longer turn a blind eye. And with your help, I would like to pass a Constitutional amendment to change the name of "The Christmas Song" to "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire". Or, at the very least, "Chestnuts (Roasting On An Open Fire)". For too long this song has attempted to present itself as the official anthem of the season. It isn't. There's nothing special about it. So please... let us never refer to this song as "The Christmas Song" again.

Merry Christmas.

A Much Better Article About Piracy

2008-12-16T12:53:00.003-05:00

Not that I thought my little rant about piracy was revolutionary or anything, but TweakGuides just posted an article about piracy that puts mine to shame: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

Even if you're on the side of pirates -- or perhaps especially -- you really should read this article so that you can get your facts straight. It makes several claims that really threaten to shatter the most prevalent anti-DRM arguments out there, and so you owe it to yourself to check this stuff out instead of blindly accepting what you've heard from some guy on a forum. The author of the article clearly has his own opinion on the matter, and one could argue that it "taints" his perspective, but he's up front about it and he backs it up with tons of data that you can't just ignore.

It is a very long article, so I'll summarize most of its major points:
The claim that DRM "doesn't work" because it hasn't completely stopped piracy is akin to saying locks don't work because skilled thieves can still break them. DRM is a deterrent, designed to minimize piracy in the first few weeks of a game's release, and especially to prevent pre-release piracy. The claim that piracy can be stopped by making better games also appears to be flawed, as data suggests that the most pirated games are also the most popular and critically-acclaimed ones out there. (I was particularly infuriated to discover that World of Goo has been heavily pirated; it's made by an independent developer -- literally 3 people -- and it's generally agreed to be an incredible game.) Sales figures appear to indicate that piracy is indeed hurting the PC games industry, though of course this can always be debated, since there are several other reasons that people prefer console gaming. (Personally, I feel this is the one weak point in the article, but it's not a crucial one, and it's still hard to argue that piracy has NO negative impact on sales.) DRM may be inconvenient and may cause some problems for legitimate customers that are quite unfortunate, even unacceptable, but most of these issues have been resolved or are being worked on, and the claim that they install "spyware" and "rootkits" is largely untrue. (This is unlike what Sony did with music CDs a few years ago. PC Gamer also confirmed this in their latest issue.) Overall, there are a few things both sides can work on to resolve this issue, but it involves keeping a level head and examining the facts rather than spreading rumors and buying into propaganda. DRM needs to evolve into something that's less obtrusive to the legitimate consumer, but there are very legitimate reasons for its existence, which can't simply be ignored or circumvented if we want the PC gaming industry to continue to thrive. That is, unless we want PC gaming to consist of nothing more than shoddy console ports, MMOs, and casual games.

'Twas the Night Before [The Holidays]

2008-12-08T23:40:00.003-05:00

At one time or another you've probably seen someone rant about people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Well, get ready to see it again. But this may be more even-handed than you're used to, because I have two hands, and two is an even number.

I understand what stores are trying to do at this time of year. There are other religiously derived celebrations in December aside from Christmas, and so if you want to maximize your consumer appeal, you try to include everyone. I can accept that. And I can accept an office party being called a "Holiday Party" or saying "Happy Holidays" to someone you don't know too well. (On the other hand, I think it would be ridiculous for anyone to feel shame for accidentally wishing someone a Merry Christmas. Some people act as if this is the same thing as walking up to a Jewish guy and doing a Nazi salute.)

But the real problem I have is when people take things that are obviously Christmas-related and substitute the word "Holiday" in there. If you call a Christmas tree a Holiday tree, you are delusional. Sure, it may have nothing to do with Jesus, but it does have to do with Christmas, one way or another. What the heck else is it? Stop lying. It's just silly. Would you call A Christmas Story a "holiday" movie? Who does that help?

Anything that celebrates Jesus or Santa Claus in December is a Christmas thing and the word "Christmas" should never be removed from it. And no one should feel afraid or guilty about celebrating Christmas as much as they want. Sure, those who celebrate other holidays might feel left out, but what do you expect? That's what country you're in. Christmas is deeply ingrained in American (and much of European) culture, both for Christians and many non-Christians. The great thing is that you're free to celebrate whatever you want to celebrate. But for that to work, you have to accept the possibility that you'll be outnumbered.

Let's not be babies about this, people. Everyone's responsible for their own holiday cheer. Celebrate the season in whatever way feels right to you (as long as it doesn't involve murder) and let the rest work itself out. Incidentally, this is also good advice for those who feel that Christmas "just isn't doing it for you" anymore.

I Have a DRM

2008-12-04T23:36:00.003-05:00

Isn't it fun to be part of a boycott? You get to feel like a rebel, and you achieve this feeling by doing nothing! Like, by definition. It's perfect!

You know what else is fun? Video games. Playing them. On my PC.

Today, EA released a DRM De-Authorization tool for Red Alert 3. It guarantees that you'll be able to reinstall the game on as many computers as you want, as long as you only do 5 at a time. And the game still doesn't require a disc in the drive to play (as has been the case since it was first released).

As you've probably already guessed, this hasn't placated fussy PC gamers. (Which is to say, approximately all PC gamers.) They're still crying for EA's blood. They want DRM-free PC games and they want 'em now. Until then, they threaten, they will pirate PC games instead of buying them.

Okay, I totally get where they're coming from. DRM is a terrible solution to game piracy, just like it was a terrible solution to music piracy. I want to see it gone just as much as anyone else does; it simply doesn't work, and it makes the legitimate consumer feel like a criminal.

But I also feel obligated to support the developers of PC games. I mean, this seems like common sense to me, unless being a fan of something really does consist solely of complaining about it. Sure, I want EA to get the message that DRM is terrible, but isn't there a more productive way? As in, "not destructive"? Because guess what: if nobody buys PC games, it will in fact destroy the PC gaming industry. That's how it works.

Is that a risk you're willing to take? It shouldn't be. Because EA won't care. They'll just continue developing console games and make trillions off of it. They can afford to lose the PC market, even if that's a completely bone-headed and avoidable move on their part. And if that happens, you can play the blame game all you want; it doesn't matter. Is it going to happen? Probably not. But I don't feel comfortable pushing things in that direction, especially at a time when console gaming is bigger than ever. This isn't as simple as the music DRM issue was; companies had nowhere else to turn in that case, and you could still support the artists through concerts and merchandise.

So how do we send EA the message? I don't know. All I know is how I don't want to do it. I take no issue with people who download games illegally to bypass idiotic copy protection schemes, but only if they also buy the games to properly reward the devlopers for making them. That's the proper solution, although frankly, I don't even see the need for the download. Most current DRMs don't actually install harmful rootkits onto your computer (though there are exceptions) and are basically just CD Key checkers, and they really don't affect my life in any way. At worst, they require me to have the disc in, which I admit is a nag that castrates one of the potential benefits of PC gaming, but I can live with it. But that's just me. If you really must bypass DRM to ease your mind, please only do so after paying for the game. It may not send EA the clearest message, but it's still the right thing to do. We need to wage this war without civilian casualties.

PS: Valve seems to have figured out a method of verification that doesn't use irritating DRM, and most PC gamers seem to accept it. Yeah, everyone whined about Steam when it first came out, but it's been improved since then. The games that use Steam are completely up-front about the fact that it's being installed, they only verify your CD key upon installation, and there's no real install limit. It's actually not all that different from the DRM used in Red Alert 3, so there's definitely a good way to go about this. It would be great if EA could follow the example.

The Half-Life 2-ometer

2008-11-20T22:50:00.006-05:00

With today being the 10th anniversary of the release of Half-Life 1, it seemed only appropriate to do this now. (Even though it's actually about Half-Life 2. Okay, I honestly had no idea about this anniversary, but the timing was too good to pass up doing this today.)

As I review first-person shooter games, I'm starting to notice something: I keep comparing them to Half-Life 2. And there's a good reason for that. Half-Life 2 is amazing. It's possibly the best first-person shooter ever made, and a lot of developers have taken notice, incorporating some of its innovations into their own games. Because of this, Half-Life 2 is often referred to as "the standard by which other FPS games are measured." Well, why not take that as literally as possible?

Ladies and gentlemen, this... is the Half-Life-2-ometer.

From now on, all FPSes will be ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being better than Half-Life 2 (and, by extension, the best FPS ever) and 1 being somewhere around Super Noah's Ark. Yes, Half-Life 2 does in fact rate only a 9 on the Half-Life-2-ometer. If a game achieves a rank of 10, it will then become a 9 on a new __________-ometer.

Here are more detailed descriptions of these rankings:

10: Better than Half-Life 2.
9: As good as Half-Life 2.
8: Almost as good as Half-Life 2, but missing some polish.
7: Has certain aspects that may actually trump Half-Life 2, but is outclassed by Half-Life 2 in other ways.
6: Coexists comfortably alongside Half-Life 2.
5: Wishes it were Half-Life 2, but it ain't.
4: Not even in the same league as Half-Life 2. Ripping off Half-Life 2 would be an improvement.
3: A first-person shooter that is both dumb and not fun.
2: A bad game, plain and simple.
1: The antithesis of Half-Life 2; it gets everything completely wrong.

Crysis, by the way, rates a 7. I may augment its review to reflect this later on.

And here are how some other FPSes stack up. Keep in mind that this is not a percentage-based system of any sort. There is no conversion rate between my 5-star system and my 10-point Half-Life 2-ometer. 8 points does not necessarily equal 4 stars. In fact, anything in the 7-10 range can possibly be 5 stars. So with that in mind...

Bioshock: 6
FEAR: 7
Far Cry: 6
Dark Forces: 8
Half-Life 1: 8

Hey, wait a second! Do I consider FEAR a better game than Bioshock? Strangely, no. However, its combat puts Half-Life 2's to shame, whereas nothing in Bioshock really puts Half-Life 2 to shame. So I gotta give it props for that. I told you this wasn't a particularly sensible system.

"REVIEW": Red Alert 3

2008-11-07T11:50:00.003-05:00

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, EA continues its long-running RTS franchise in tongue-in-cheek fashion. Red Alert 3 continues the C&C tradition of cheesy FMV sequences with the fanchise's most star-studded cast to date, all chewing so much scenery that if they were beavers and scenery were logs, they would probably be able to build a lot of dams with the end products of their chewing. There are also a lot of women who show cleavage, which is hilarious and very tongue-in-cheek.

Red Alert 3 is actually the exact same game as Red Alert 2, but with 3D graphics. Still, how can you not love a game with armored bears that parachute out of cannons, giant robots, and psychic schoolgirls? It is so wonderfully tongue-in-cheek that I'm beginning to suspect that each of the EA staff members' mouths is actually comprised entirely of a large mass of tongue muscle tissue that fills the oral cavity completely, which is quite prohibitive to talking, but allows for some really classic game design. Sure, it's nothing new -- you just have to command a military against another military, which is very old-hat -- but how can you not love a game where Mount Rushmore shoots lasers and J. K. Simmons chews scenery using his cheek-dewlling tongue?

Oh, I think this game introduces naval base-building and a third faction and co-op mode, but I wasn't really paying attention. It seemed pretty much the same as RA2.

Change

2008-11-05T07:39:00.008-05:00

First off, allow me to congratulate the Democratic party for their rather smashing victory last night. Turns out you guys aren't an oppressed minority fighting desperately for survival in a harsh political wilderness; you just had to wait your turn.

As president, Barack Obama will bring a lot of change -- to television. Here are some of the ways:

First and most importantly, with Bush jokes losing their relevance, it's very possible that 75% of television will actually disappear. Unless "Joe Biden has weird eyelids" jokes catch on.
The Colbert Report will have to change its dynamic to some extent. The Daily Show will remain more or less the same, but maybe 5% happier.
With David Palmer no longer able to be called the first black president, 24 is now officially an alternate reality, and Jack Bauer is officially not real. Thanks a lot, dream-crushers.
Then again, "Bill Ayers" sounds like a name straight out of 24. But for some reason I don't think we'll be hearing that name again any time soon... (Hey, when does The Joe The Plumber Show premiere on VH1 again?)
Family Guy and The Simpsons might manage to go three whole episodes without one of the characters turning to the screen and saying, "We've been making you laugh for a while, but now I want to take a minute to educate you on the state of the current administration." Iraq War jokes may remain in fashion.
The basis of American Dad's underlying plot will change... about a year from now, when the animation gets a chance to catch up. (This is actually kind of a real fact.)
Li'l Bush will remain unchallenged as the greatest, most ground-breaking and most relevant political satire in history.
Depending on what happens in the next day or two, you might see Al Franken on sitcoms again.

Well, that was a hasty bit of political sub-satire. See you later.

The Changing Face of Evil

2008-11-03T23:29:00.004-05:00

My friends, we are currently facing an issue that has the potential to shape the future not only of this country, but of the entire world. It is important that we all pay attention during this historic time.

I'm talking, of course, about something that is obviously not the presidential election due to how much I'm setting up this punchline. I'm talking about Pepsi changing the logos and designs of their various soda products.

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/pepsi_new_bottles.php

You may be thinking this isn't such a big deal. People on the internet will whine about it because it's new and therefore can't be as good as the old version, but this goes much deeper than that. Why? Because of this:

Here it is again, in case that wasn't clear enough:

That's right. Mtn Dew. An abbreviation unbecoming of an AIM chat will now represent one of the greatest soft drinks in history. They're trying to sneak this in with the rest of the faux-controversial changes, but it sticks out like a sore thmb. I for one will not stand for it.

So what am I going to do? Uh... this, I guess. Yeah.

Posted by Sir Lemming at 9:29 PM, Mtn Time.

REVIEW: Contra 4

2008-10-28T23:59:00.009-04:00

(NOTE: Because I can't get screenshots from DS games, I'm stealing them from IGN. All credit goes to them.)

By the end of the game, you'll long for the days when this was all you had to deal with.

I'm going to be honest with you. I haven't beaten this game without cheating. Normally, you might wonder how someone could review a game without beating it legitimately. Play Contra 4 and you won't wonder anymore. To someone who doesn't write video game reviews for a living, it's asking a lot.

If you were around for the days of "old-school gaming" -- approximately 1985-1995 -- you're well aware of the fact that a lot of old games were really, really hard. One of the main reasons for this is that they were also really, really short. Video games basically started in the arcades, and if you'd been able to beat them on the first try, they wouldn't have been very profitable. The move to home consoles eliminated the pay-to-play system, but old design habits die hard, and technical limitations on game size still encouraged designers to increase play time in other ways.

The merits of the "Nintendo Hard" design philosophy are to this day a subject of great controversy (among nerds). Go too far in one direction and you get games that simply aren't fun to play; you never even get a chance to start liking the game before you hit Game Over. (See Shadow of the Beast for an unfortunate example; the art design was some of the best ever seen in gaming, but it was so unplayable that they actually publicized an invincibility cheat code to make up for it.) Go too far in the other direction and you get games that everyone can reach the end of, but provide so little challenge that they might as well be movies. So where's the happy medium? Well, I could go in-depth and write an essay, something I've had my fill of in the first 22 years of my life, or I could just say "Mega Man 9 and Contra 4". Specifically, let's talk about Contra 4.

Why is he riding a jet-ski? Why are there evil fish? Do you care?

There have actually been many Contra games betwen Contra 3 and Contra 4. Most of them were so misguided that Contra 4's manual actually makes fun of them. PS2's Shattered Soldier, however, was a really cool, insanely hard, side-scrolling Contra game whose only failing was the "2.5D" style. I would've preferred true 2D, but it still looked and felt like a true Contra game and not one of those 3D abominations. Regardless, Konami has decided to go with "Contra 4" as the title for this latest entry, and while I feel kind of bad for Shattered Soldier, the idea here is to stick even more strictly to the old-school design philosophy, and it's certainly appreciated. It also feels completely genuine.

But... it's a DS game. You may be thinking, surely they added some lame touch-screen mechanic that's totally uncalled for, or used the second screen for nothing other than displaying a map. Surely there's no reason for it to be on DS, other than the fact that DS is technologically superior to, and more popular than, Game Boy Advance. Well, that's sort of true and sort of not true. The touch-screen isn't used for anything other than an optional way of navigating the Contra Museum menus, and that's just fine with me. Just because a system has a feature doesn't mean you have to use it, and it would make no sense in a game like this. It's no bigger issue than simply not using all of the system's buttons. (Although on that note, I wish they would've left the A button alone as well instead of making it drop your weapon. WHY WOULD YOU EVER DROP YOUR WEAPON IN A CONTRA GAME. WHY??) However, the game does use the second screen rather well. The playing field is super-tall, just like in certain old arcade games. It's not 100% necessary, but they designed the levels around this setup and it's ultimately non-intrusive to the Contra experience. It also allows for some MONSTROUS boss sprites, which is justification enough.

We need to keep violence off the streets.
WITH ROCKETS!

Contra 4 is a thesis statement on the merits of old-school game design, and it's an emphatic one. It's mercilessly difficult -- more on that later -- and it has virtually no storyline. Everything in the game is designed around the most interesting way to make things blow up. This illustrates one definitive advantage of the 2D, side-scrolling perspective that makes it relevant in this age of complex 3D environments: working in 2D, the designers are free to throw in any outlandish set piece that comes to mind and the player is able to traverse it without needless re-training. For example, this game contains a sequence where you climb onto a nuclear missile as it launches, fight a giant robot that clings to the side of the missile, jump from handle to handle as they appear and disappear from the missile's surface while shooting down smaller missiles, climb onto the exhaust of the missile as it heads back down to Earth, dodge the exhaust flames that flare up intermittently, crash-land between two buildings, and then fight the giant robot again. If that sounds confusing, it would be -- in a 3D game with a target lock-on system, controllable camera, and tricky jumping perspectives. Here, it's just another series of platforms to traverse and more stuff to shoot. Undeniably, 3D games have the advantage of increased immersion, the sense that you're "really there" in a fully developed world, and that should never be dismissed as some sort of modern tech fad. But 2D games still have the advantage of being able to throw something completely audacious at the player without missing a beat. When it comes to fast, twitchy action where one missed move equals death, you can't beat 2D.

Which brings up the subject of difficulty. This game is absolutely brutal, and that can't be overstated. Casual gamers need to heed this warning, because it is very possible that you will be unable to finish this game, and if that's something that bothers you, prepare to be bothered. In true Contra tradition (Contradition?), one hit from anything is an instant kill, and if you run out of lives, you have to continue either at the beginning of the level or at a midway point. And if you run out of Continues, goodbye. It's just as hard as any arcade game I can remember, and getting all the way to the end without cheating is proof positive that you're a hardcore gamer. (Which is why I haven't managed to do it yet.) Fortunately, because it's structured like an arcade game, you're guaranteed to be able to get somewhere before Game Over. You'll always get just enough of a taste for the action that you're motivated to push yourself a little further next time, and as you practice each stage, you eventually do improve. There is frustration, to be sure, but if you go into the game without necessarily expecting to beat it any time soon, it's a good time.

I should also point out the differences between Easy Mode and Normal Mode, two subsets of Arcade Mode (a.k.a. the actual game). Easy Mode is drastically different from Normal Mode. Weapons automatically start at level 2, out of 3 possible levels that are normally achieved by collecting the weapon power-up multiple times. You also have more lives, meaning you don't have to start over at the beginning or half-way point of a level quite so often. The levels themselves are missing many key obstacles, such as firing turrets and various other things in the background that kill you. But most importantly, you can't even play the final 2 stages in Easy Mode. So Easy Mode is basically a training session for the real game, and it works well. Most pseudo-hardcore gamers should be able to beat it with enough persistence. But Normal Mode is the real meat and potatoes here, and it will put you to the test. There's also some sort of "Hard Mode" option on the menu, which you should probably just ignore altogether.

You may never actually see this stage.

One feature of the game that alleviates this extreme difficulty, giving the game a bit of an advantage over other Contras, is the Challenge Mode. This mode is unlocked if you beat the game on Easy Mode, and it's a welcome spin on the classic Contra action. It consists of 40 challenges such as "Pacifism" (where you can't use weapons), "Speed Run" (where there's a time limit), and "Friendly Fire" (where there are actually things you SHOULDN'T shoot, for once). Each challenge requires you to complete a small chunk of the game under one of these conditions.

After investing several hours of your time attempting to beat Arcade Mode, Challenge Mode is a welcome breather. It allows you to repeat one tiny section of the game over and over again, limited to one life, without having to worry about the extremely daunting task of completing the whole thing. They're also good practice runs for the actual game, since many of the challenges take place on portions of the regular stages. This is especially useful for those later portions of the game that always wind up killing you (on the rare occasion that you actually make it that far). In fact, attempting to beat Normal Mode without practicing the final level in this mode is just plain suicide. Challenge Mode also rewards you frequently; for every 4 challenges you complete, you unlock one of several bonuses, including two original Contra games, an interview, a comic, new playable characters (including a female soldier with what might be described as "next-gen" attire), and more. Plus, you start out with several challenges available and each one unlocks another one, so you rarely get stuck with just one challenge that you can't manage to beat.

If you're a fan of Contra, this is a must-own. If you're a strictly modern gamer, I still recommend this game because it represents some of the best aspects of old-school gaming, but you also need to be warned that it's probably the hardest game you're ever going to play. Still, it's much more refined than some of those old games that are needlessly difficult to the point of masochism, and you'll have a good time playing it even if you don't ever manage to actually beat it. If you're looking for a challenge, this is it.

For those of you who are curious, I didn't cheat intentionally. I died at the same time as a boss did, and I wound up with 99 lives. Apparently this happens if you get an extra life at the same time as losing your last one. I only had 9 of these lives left at the end of the game. Yeah.

Perhaps it's a testament to this game's design that I still want to beat it the real way, despite its overwhelming difficulty. Beating it without having to worry about continues eliminated a fair amount of the urgency and challenge in those later stages, and a part of me still wanted to be able to die, because I didn't feel a real sense of accomplishment. This stands in stark contrast to something like Shadow of the Beast, where cheating is the only way to enjoy it.

YouScrewed

2008-10-14T23:54:00.003-04:00

So apparently my most popular YouTube video, a music video using Cowboy Bebop movie clips set to Queens Of The Stone Age's "Song for the Deaf", has disappeared. No warning, no e-mail, no notification -- just gone.

Am I phenomenally surprised by this? Not really. I mean, it's copyrighted footage and copyrighted music, used without permission. I have no legal right to have it up there, and they have every right to take it down. (Even though it makes them lame.) I wondered if something like this would ever happen; I just didn't think it'd be so... cold. I wouldn't have known it happened if someone hadn't sent me a message asking where the video was. I didn't even get the satisfaction of feeling like a rebel.

Perhaps... this is all part of some sort of plan. Perhaps it's YouTube's way of giving a slap on the wrist to minor offenders to save face with certain mega-corporations (you won't have to DO A SEARCH to figure that one out, wink wink), while reserving the serious legal threats for actual troublemakers. Maybe I've paid my dues to YouTube society, and won't have to worry again until I start posting leaked tracks from the next Queens Of The Stone Age album set to pictures of the band members and superimposed "NEW SONG!!!" text.

Maybe I should stop talking before I get sued.

Red Alert 3: beta impressions

2008-09-30T22:45:00.004-04:00

After playing the multiplayer beta of Red Alert 3, I can safely say that this is the weirdest, most complicated Command & Conquer game ever. It can be very hard to figure it out if you just jump into a game against other players (but of course, that's all you could do in the beta). There's still a lot I don't understand about it. Every unit seems very unique, and there are tons and tons of special abilities to go around. Reading the manual will be absolutely necessary unless you play the three single-player campaigns first, which I assume will train you on how to use all the units and abilities. The three sides are extremely different from each other. I can see this and C&C3 both retaining a large audience, because they are very different games.

Gone from C&C3 are squad-based infantry units and complete freedom with placing structures. The former is a matter of taste, and adds to the less military, more stylized feel of the game; the latter is probably a good idea, since structure placement in C&C3 was very confusing. No longer will you find yourself unable to place a structure on a gigantic, flat chunk of land that's well within your construction zone. In this game, structures are placed on a grid and can be rotated in only 4 directions (diagonally skewed in the default view, as has been the case with all C&C engines after the original).
Resources are also handled differently. Structures called Ore Mines are scattered across the map, and you build an Ore Refinery near one of them and let the ore collector start doing its thing. It most strongly resembles the Vespene Gas mechanic in Starcraft, with the ore mines becoming depleted after a while; the difference is that the ore mines are neutral structures and the refinery is built across from it. The ore collectors' turnaround time is quite fast assuming you place the refinery just a few blocks away from the mine, meaning there's really no need to build extra ore collectors unless the one that comes with the mine is destroyed. (Or for base expansion, in the case of the Allied ore collector.) The overall control scheme and interface of the game is basically the same as that of C&C3, although the graphics seem a little more advanced; I had to turn off anti-aliasing to get it running smoothly.

One of the most interesting changes across the board is the "special abilities" tree. Throughout the game -- I'm still not sure how, but it seems to have to do with construction -- you acquire experience points (I think they're called "defense points" or something) to spend on special abilities, which queue up on the left side of the screen the same way paratroopers, superweapons, etc. did in C&C3. There's a grid of abilities, with 3 columns and about 8 rows. When you spend points on one of them, it unlocks the one below it. For example, spending a point on an airstrike ability may unlock a bigger airstrike; however, they're a LOT more varied than that. Abilities range from basic things, like reinforcements, radar sweeps, and mild superweapons, to more advanced things, like a cash bounty that temporarily lets you get money from killing enemies. I'm told that this system is similar to something from Company of Heroes.
Compared to both C&C3 and Starcraft, there seems to be less focus on "upgrading" unit weapons and armor in the traditional sense. Any upgrading is done via this new ability tree system. The units more or less start off at full potential; however, almost all of them have a special ability that can be toggled on and off, or used after a cool-down period. Partially because of this, there seems to be a smaller, more focused set of units than in previous games, with some of the standard unit functions from previous games being combined into one unit.

There is a lot of focus on water combat. Obviously, every faction has a naval base that can build water vessels. But here's the biggest departure from tradition: many structures (if not all) can actually be built on the water, using a scaffolding/deck as visual justification. This includes turrets, as such base expansion necessitates defense expansion; so yes, you can build Tesla Coils in water. Quite a few units can cross water as well, including certain types of tanks, all engineers, and the Japanese Shinobi. All ore collectors are amphibious so that they can gain access to Ore Mines that are located in water. It appears that the only structures that can't be built on water are vehicle and infantry production structures; naturally, naval bases can't be built on land, but airfields can be built on either surface.

The soundtrack seems to largely follow the C&C3 mold in that it's dynamic ambient music rather than a tracklist of songs. When you get into battles it starts sounding more old-school, but I can't say anything for sure since I don't know how much of the soundtrack is available in this version. The main menu music is "Grinder", recycled from Red Alert 2, so I can only assume that will change.

With that said, I'll briefly go over the 3 factions.

Allies:
The Allied Prospectors (ore collectors) double as C&C3's Surveyors: not only can they collect ore, but they can deploy into a base expansion area. Instead of building "tech" structures, Allies can purchase two levels of "clearance" to open up further construction tiers. I imagine this gives them the advantage of not being able to lose access to certain units until the construction building itself is destroyed. They have no grenade unit, just rifle and bazooka infantry; however, the rifle infantry can use "riot shields" which allow them to go into a garrisoned building and clear it out. Allies seem to favor units and structures where you can put infantry inside; their turret, their "hum-vee" type unit, and possibly one of the ships or aircraft allow this. (It's like C&C3's APC.) One of the Allies' coolest special abilities is Time Bomb, which lets you place a bomb anywhere not shrouded by "fog of war". I'm not sure how the enemy is supposed to diffuse it; possibly with an engineer? I didn't get much of a chance to experiment with their air and naval units, but they seemed pretty powerful. Tank-wise they have a relatively light tank and the Mirage tank from RA2, so the Soviets will outdo them in that department.

Rising Sun:
Definitely the oddball faction. Every single one of their structures is built as a deployable unit. So you don't just build a power plant; you build a power plant "core" and then you move it somewhere and deploy it. Even turrets are built like this. As confusing as this is, it has one obvious advantage: they can build absolutely anywhere. Hence, expect a Rising Sun player to claim all the ore mines near his base in no time. Whereas Allies need at least a refinery-collector combo and Soviets need at least a vehicle factory before expansion can happen, Rising Sun can deploy refineries wherever they want right off the bat. They can also send some deployable turrets along so the refinery won't be left vulnerable. They don't have an airfield, but most of their vehicles are actually "mecha" (giant robots), several of which can either fly around or turn into jets that fly around. They also have three types of flying infantry. One of the first types of infantry you can build with the Rising Sun is a flying scout unit that can sweep the map pretty quickly. The psychic schoolgirl is unbelievably effective against air and naval units, not to mention buildings. I was able to counter one pretty well with Shinobi (a ninja unit who basically looks like Sub-Zero with a sword), and I'd imagine anti-infantry turrets and other commando-level units would work pretty well too. The Rising Sun's standard infantry seem relatively weak, but they essentially have two types of "special" infantry (just below commando-level), both of which are good attackers.

Soviets:
The Soviets seem like the easiest faction to figure out. Their ore collector can't deploy into a base expansion area; that duty belongs to the Sputnik (who, incidentally, sounds like Borat). Hence, their biggest disadvantage is base expansion, especially compared to the Rising Sun; it can be hard to lay claim to all of the Ore Mines early on. Additionally, construction of Soviet structures requires that you place the structure first, before construction actually begins; Allies use the traditional C&C method of build-then-place, and of course the Rising Sun use something different entirely. Only the Soviets appear to have an advanced power plant. The Soviet Conscriptor doubles as a rifle infantry and grenade infantry -- you can switch them over to Molotov Cocktails, useful for de-garrisoning. They appear to have the best tanks, including one that's roughly equivalent to the Mammoth tank. They also have an air advantage, because only the MIGs need to dock at the airfield; their other aircraft can just hover around, so there's no limit to how many you can build. One Soviet special ability is Magnetic Lift, which can lift "certain" armored units into space, never to be seen again! I'm not sure yet what can and can't be lifted, but Rising Sun units seem most susceptible. I found this out the hard way when a Soviet enemy apparently figured out where my Mecha Bay was, and they sucked a bunch of my giant robots into space right after I built them. The commando unit, Natasha, can detonate buildings with a laser-guided bomb (so she doesn't have to touch the building), but she has to stand still for a few seconds.

This is going to be a very interesting game when it's released about a month from now (October 28th), and I'm looking forward to actually learning how to play it. With its complexity, innovation, and uniqueness, it should be able to hold its own against Starcraft II.

You can, of course, find more information about Red Alert 3 at the official website.

SOLD OUT -- I Selling Rolexes and other watches? DO uou want?

2008-09-29T13:18:00.005-04:00

First off, I've set up an in-depth explanation of my review scoring system, to help explain the meanings behind my scores and hopefully stifle waves of angry e-mails. Actually, I've never gotten waves of angry e-mails and I'm curious to see how that works, so fire away anyway! http://sites.google.com/site/sirlemming/scoring-system-2

Fox's Animation Domination made its yearly return last night. And ever since that one glorious night in May 2005, when Animation Domination featured two new Simpsons episodes, the long-awaited return of Family Guy, and the series premiere of American Dad, it's been a downhill ride.

Since people on the internet complaining about past-their-prime animated sitcoms are easy to come by, I'll be brief. The Simpsons could've been written by a computer. Family Guy was its unfortunately typical new self, a mish-mash of blunt political statements and blandly offensive "edgy" jokes that offend those they're meant to offend without entertaining those they're meant to entertain. American Dad was the only show that provided more than a few laughs, but it was hardly its best outing, either.

All in all, thumbs down. I expect nothing from The Simpsons anymore; I'm beginning to expect nothing from the once-clever Family Guy; American Dad will probably still have a good season.

In other news, I'll be posting my thoughts on the Red Alert 3 Beta once it's completely over. So far, I'm impressed, surprised, and overwhelmed. It's unlike anything I've played before.

Oh, the title of this post is the title of an e-mail I found in my Junk Mail folder. I thought it was very nice!

REVIEW: Crysis

2008-09-23T21:22:00.045-04:00

The explosions look great, and they sound even better.

Crysis may not be a household name like Halo or Gears of War, but it's a name PC gamers fear. Some fear it out of reverence; others fear it because of its infamously high system requirements. The best approach, as long as you meet the minimum requirements to play the game acceptably (which is approximately a 2GHz dual-core processor and a $100 video card) is to take a look at TweakGuides' excellent document on how to fine-tune the game for your computer, figure out what works best, and then be content with it. Chances are you'll only lose super-high resolutions and a few neat light rays and stuff. Just pretend it's an Xbox 360 game. I say this because at maximum detail, it puts many Xbox 360 games to shame. It would also put many PS3 games to shame if there were such a thing as "many" PS3 games. Yet despite the game's seemingly excessive graphical aspirations, it's really amazing that it runs as well as it does. In fact, the few indoor portions of the game reveal just how efficient the engine is; they tend to run incredibly smoothly, even with complex polygonal humans walking about. The only part of the game that puts unreasonable demands on your PC is a certain ice/snow area that taxes the system far more than any other area does. I was able to resolve the situation by temporarily lowering my settings (namely, switching to DirectX 9 mode), but it's a bit of a quality-control blunder when what works for 98% of the game is suddenly insufficient for one part of it.

Lush jungle scenery. Lush!

Anyway, on to the game! Crysis is from Crytek, the makers of Far Cry, the original CryEngine game. The only thing more impressive than Crytek's undying devotion to the word "cry" is their game design prowess. (Seriously though, what's the deal with the whole "Cry" thing? It's like some sort of alien attempt at a pun that's meant to hide a very unusual subliminal message.) Far Cry took the PC gaming world by surprise with its enormous tropical environments and generally excellent open-ended gameplay. It was a unique first-person shooter (and a very difficult one) where the player could navigate to his objectives via several different routes and methods.

Crysis -- which, confusingly enough, is NOT Far Cry 2, which is being developed by a different company -- builds upon and enhances this design. The biggest change is the inclusion of the Nanosuit, which both provides a feasible excuse for one-man-army-ism (how did Far Cry Guy manage to wield an entire vehicle-grade machine gun?) and lets the player choose from four modes: Cloak, Strength, Speed, and Armor. The most interesting mode here is Cloak because it makes stealth a more viable gameplay option, thus adding to the numerous strategies you can use. As with all of the modes, its effect wears off after about 5 seconds of full-blown usage, but that's enough to let you sneak around quite effectively without making the game too easy.

The other major difference between Far Cry and Crysis is the storyline. Far Cry was basically just the story of an extremely sarcastic man in a Hawaiian shirt going up against a mad scientist who spun the Wheel of Sci-Fi and landed on "Genetic Engineering" (instead of "Nanotechnology" or "Alien Invasion"). The gameplay was great, but the storytelling was about as engaging as that of Millipede. With Crysis, the developers have taken cues from games such as Halo and Half-Life 2 and improved the narrative quite a bit. That's not to say the story itself is incredible. The aforementioned Wheel of Sci-Fi has landed on "Alien Invasion" this time around (with a side of Nanotech, but just a little), and it's the standard pseudo-military tac-ops thing with a rag-tag gang of just-witty-enough-to-still-be-serious soldiers. But if I've learned one thing from Burger Time -- and trust me, I have learned many things from Burger Time -- a game's story is only as important as the gameplay it motivates. Perhaps a more relevant example would be Half-Life 2, whose storyline, while certainly better than Crysis's, borrows plenty of elements from other Sci-Fi works and wouldn't be remarkable on its own. Rather, the skillful weaving of narrative into gameplay is what enhances the experience. Even though many sections of Far Cry and Crysis are similar on the surface (see: the general setting, the various enemy bases, firing rockets at enemies from the deck of a battleship, etc.), Crysis comes off as a bit more exciting.

Epic battles with aliens are fun, but not as groundbreaking as the rest of the gameplay.

However, the area of Crysis that deviates most from the Far Cry mold -- the addition of alien enemies -- is probably also the least successful aspect of the game. Most of the alien sequences are quite thrilling, especially on the visual end. But in retrospect, I had more fun during the parts of the game where I was crawling around in the jungle trying to evade and surgically eliminate swarms of Korean troops. The aliens look cool and allow for lots of explosive action, but it's in these parts of the game that you find yourself being led from one objective to the next almost on rails, which contrasts the freedom you have throughout the first 2/3 of the game. With all the military action surrounding you, it seems like there's not much for you to do except shoot things. The scope of these battles is nothing short of jaw-dropping, but a battle of similar scope near the end of Half-Life 2 Episode 2 provides a brilliant counter-example. If you've played that game, you know what I'm talking about, and it is both epic in scope and a challenging, unique, unforgettable gaming experience. In Crysis, on the other hand, the alien battles take the game down a notch from "revolutionary gameplay" to "good gameplay".

Next-gen gaming!

Most of the other key differences between Far Cry and Crysis fall under the category of enhancements, but they really do shine. With the possible exception of F.E.A.R., Crysis probably has the best, most intense, and most varied battles ever seen in an FPS. At the very least, I can say they're the best outdoor tactical battles to date. The battles rarely play out the same way twice, even if you load a saved game and try to do things exactly the way you did them last time. The nature of a battle also changes depending on how you choose to approach an area, i.e. sneaking in the back of a base, blasting through the main entrance with rocket launchers, or even skipping certain areas altogether if you find a different route to your objective. The advanced physics, far from just being a tech gimmick, give you even more options. For example, if you duck into a shed, the enemies have the option of using grenades or rockets to demolish the shed and crush you under the sheet metal and rubble. Alternatively, you can do the same to them. And if someone is sniping you from a guard tower, a well-placed missile launcher shot to its base will knock it down, if the explosion doesn't kill the sniper on its own. You can blow up gas tanks to create confusion and/or death (especially if you stay cloaked immediately before and after the fact), and if you decide you don't need to use any of their vehicles, you can usually blow those up too. Without said vehicles, you may need to make the next part of your journey on foot (aided by Speed mode), or you might be able to find a boat and cut across a nearby lake. Oh, and you can also knock down trees (as can enemies), pick up chickens and hurl them into the distance, and grab enemies by the neck.

FROGS!!!

The audio and graphical effects, if you can afford them, are worth the expense. On a good sound system, there is nothing more satisfying than blowing up a gas station and nearly feeling your own house collapse from the impact. As for the graphics, they're obviously phenomenal. Aside from the high polygon count, Crytek's use of coloration, blur filters, and subtle lighting and shading effects all combine to create a near-photorealistic style that still has some, well, style to it. But it's not just a tech demo. There are several moments in the game that simply fill you with awe, and it's not "whoa, look what my video card just did" awe. When you're running away from an enemy base mid-evacuation and you look up into the night sky and see jets flying by, rustling the palm trees in their wake, accompanied by the subtle flashes of distant gunfire and flares rising into the air, and then look down at your feet and see frogs hopping around on the jungle floor, you'll know this is something special. In other words, Crytek have used every last ounce of this engine's power to provide a memorable gaming experience packed with atmosphere. If you spend a little extra to build a computer that can run this game at high settings, those dollars aren't just going to put some shininess onto a bunch of bland military stuff. It's worth it.

The enemy AI is a step up from Far Cry, and it does a good job of making each combat scenario live up to its potential. It's not as advanced as the AI in F.E.A.R., but then again, in an outdoor environment the enemies in F.E.A.R. would be more or less impossible for one player to defeat. Immersion suffers a little bit in the occasional situations where you can fend off the entire Korean military by holding a barrel in front of you, or when one of them leaves his cover, stands up, and yells "Cover me while I reload!", but these are exceptions. (My personal favorite is when a soldier arbitrarily yells "He's ku-roaked!" when I haven't been cloaked in hours.) For the most part, this is an enemy force that keeps you on your toes and will overwhelm you if you don't play wisely. (This differs from the enemies in F.E.A.R., who WOULD KILL YOU almost every single time if you didn't have slow-mo powers and plenty of places to hide.)

Crysis isn't as long as Far Cry -- it's somewhere between half as long and 2/3 as long -- but it definitely never gets boring (and in that respect I do see the wisdom in transitioning from jungle-based tactical battles to alien shootouts). Far Cry did get a little repetitive in its later missions, so I commend Crytek for righting that wrong. The game ends with a blatant sequel tag, and I hope Crytek ends up making one, even if it isn't PC-exclusive. The stand-alone expansion, Crysis Warhead (which features a revamped Crytek engine that runs more efficiently), will have to tide us over for now.

A weird display of fandom

2008-09-20T21:33:00.002-04:00

I'll get things started in a small way. Here's a Mute Math mini-movie I made using The Movies. There's no point to it, it's just an exercise of some sort.

Where it all begins... AGAIN

2008-09-19T22:25:00.003-04:00

Okay. So, a year after my latest "serious" attempt to start a web site, I am nowhere. Frankly my heart just isn't in it. So I'll just stick to this "blogging" thing everyone's so crazy about and bow to Google's ever-increasing authority. I tried GooglePages and Google Sites, but they're like this weird halfway point between a blog and a real web site. They look like blogs, but have pretty much none of the features of blogs, so what's the point? Apparently Google Sites is supposed to be some sort of Wiki, but what the heck do I need a personal Wiki for? Plus, if I wanted to make a Wiki, I would... you know... make a Wiki.

Further content to follow shortly after I figure out if this is really how I want to do things.