A Game of Me

Departures

2010-06-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

My father died suddenly. I found out some days later via email, from a distant relative who had no other way of getting in contact with me. My father and I had not been close in recent years. I loved him, but he could be an impossible man, and we simply didn't know how to reach across the divide old wrongs had created and relate to each other. This made saying goodbye difficult.

In the days and weeks following his death, memories I didn't know I had came to me like things dredged up from the depths of the ocean. Some of them were trash, some were treasures. Amidst these memories, I finally found my closure. But if I could have, I think I would have availed myself of the services of the NK Agency, whose work is at the core of the lyrical Japanese drama, Departures.

I begin with these personal details not to elicit sympathy or to make this about me, but rather because I think Departures is a film that, more even than most, we see through the lens of our own experiences. It makes us reflect on our own feelings about death, and about life. I certainly couldn't help but see profound echoes of my own life in Daigo's experiences.

Daigo has always dreamed of being a cellist. But after his orchestra in Tokyo is disbanded due to a lack of funding, he must put his dream aside and get a practical job to support himself and his wife. Responding to an ad in the paper for what he believes is a travel agency, he is greeted with the world's shortest job interview.

“Will you work hard?”

“Yes.”

“You're hired.”

What he doesn't know at that point is the boss's gift for sizing people up. The boss later tells him, “You were born to do this.” I had the feeling he'd known this since he'd first laid eyes on Daigo. When confronting people at their most vulnerable is a part of your job, it helps to be perceptive about them.

For as it turns out, NK is not a travel agency. They are an “encoffinment” service. They perform the ritual of preparing the deceased for departure from this life. The ritual is a kind of performance, and it is of course not for the benefit of the dead, but for the living. We see Daigo and the boss perform the ritual for a number of families, each grieving in their own very different way. One man pushes his grief at his wife's death down deep inside him, and struggles to maintain a facade of stone. But during the ritual, Daigo and the boss add that perfect detail the man needed to recognize his wife, to grieve and to say goodbye. In another, the encoffinment ritual offers the parents of the deceased a last chance to make up for past wrongs to their departed child by finally acknowledging the identity they had always denied her. (Yes, this hit me pretty hard.)

As Daigo and the boss went about their work, I was powerfully reminded of the pair of casualty notification service officers played by Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster in The Messenger. Their unenviable role is to deliver the shattering news that begins the grieving process, while the NK Agency offers a chance to start bringing it to a close, but both pairs see people at their most
vulnerable. Casualty notification is a terrible duty, but also, as Harrelson's character describes it, a sacred one. I think the same is true of the encoffinment service in Departures. Not everyone sees it that way, and much of the film's drama lies in Daigo's struggles to accept his new occupation, and in the ways he is shunned by some for what they view as shameful work.

Of course they don't understand the dignity in what he does. They haven't seen it. We have. And crucially, during scenes of encoffinment and throughout the film, the camera is typically still, drinking in the events in long takes that transport us, without distraction, into the homes of the bereaved, and the film's other lovely locations. At the disused coffee shop that once belonged to Daigo's father, old records line the walls, and the stillness of the camera lets us absorb the place so completely, we can almost smell the musty air and feel the weight of memory.

All of this may sound terribly serious, and in many ways it is. But just as in life, humor sometimes emerges from the most serious of circumstances, and I was repeatedly impressed by how deftly and naturally the film followed up its most heartbreaking moments with moments of quiet, honest humor.

I was surprised, after viewing the film,to see it criticized by some for its sentimentality. I have a strong distaste for calculated sentimentality, for musical flourishes during sappy moments to create a pull on the heartstrings where none has been earned. Yes, Departures is a sentimental film, but it earns its sentimentality. Its tugs on the heartstrings—and they are numerous and powerful—are rooted in truth, and the musical flourishes that punctuate one of the film's most memorable scenes come straight from Daigo's heart.

Undiscovered country: My early impressions of the world of Red Dead Redemption

2010-05-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

It’ll probably be a long time before I can comment on how Red Dead Redemption, the pioneering Western from Rockstar, ends, but I can say that it starts brilliantly. In the opening scene, your protagonist, John Marston, rides a train to the town of Armadillo, giving you not only a glimpse of the beautiful, untamed frontier country where the game takes place, but also a glimpse into the issues that loom large in this rapidly changing America of 1910. Two old biddies behind Marston bicker about the intersection of money and politics, while in front of him, a young lady expresses some bold new ideas about the nature of good and evil, only to be gently but firmly set straight by the traditional preacher who accompanies her. Indeed, Red Dead Redemption seems to be largely about the collision of the old and new, of shifting ideas about religion and politics, but also of the products of industry—cars and telephones both make early appearances--starting to dramatically change the way people live their lives. In the superb Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar demonstrated an earnest desire to explore the cultural forces that shape this country, and Red Dead Redemption seems poised to follow in that game’s footsteps.

Of course, every great Western needs a great protagonist at its center, and Marston seems to be made from the same mold as some of the genre’s greatest. An early scene provides him with the motivation for revenge that drives him in at least the earliest part of the story, but reveals little about him, leaving him with that hint of a shady past and that aura of mystery that can be so alluring in a man on horseback. He’s not so reticent, though, that we can’t connect with him. On the contrary, he treats kind people with the warmth becoming of a gentleman, and has an invitingly self-deprecating sense of humor. Of course, to a large extent, who John Marston is is up to you. My John Marston, like the person controlling him, seems to be something of a ne’er-do-well, and has spent more time in the Armadillo saloon playing poker than exploring the frontier, doing good deeds for troubled strangers. Clearly, this country was built by harder-working people than me.

But now that I’m sitting here at work on a lunch break, I’m positively desperate to get back to the world of Red Dead Redemption, to see what’s waiting for me out in that wild landscape. It’s clear, even at this very early stage, that this game is something special, a product of rare ambition and quality, and, if it delivers on the promise of its earliest moments, of rare meaning, too.

Memories of murders at the movies

2010-05-04T00:05:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've seen three films that I've found deeply absorbing, all dealing with the consequences of corruption in systems of justice. Seeing them in close proximity to each other has had a profound effect on me, and they've grown into a kind of trilogy inside me, the thematic relationships between them increasing their power in my subconscious. I can't find the words to do them justice by half, but I need to try to process them.

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Memories of Murder, 2003, directed by Bong-joon Ho

I'd not heard of this film until I saw it listed among Cinema Scope's best films of the past decade. Bong Joon-ho had also directed the great creature feature The Host, and I love a good crime film. I had to see it. I was not quite prepared for just how good it was.

Memories of Murder is a police procedural inspired by the investigation of South Korea's first known serial killer. In the provincial area where the murders are taking place, police procedure often involves trying to coerce confessions out of suspects who may or may not be guilty. A cop from Seoul, Detective Seo Tae-Yoon (Kim Sang-Kyeong) shows up to help with the investigation and his determination to get it right and to not just wrap things up by squeezing a confession out of an innocent man leads to a lot of tension between him and the local cop at the forefront of the investigation (Song Kang-ho, at least as valuable here as in The Host). Also making things difficult is the lack of forensic technology available in South Korea at the time, requiring DNA evidence to be shipped off to the U.S. for processing. In this corrupt and deeply lacking environment, the standards of Detective Seo may prove unsustainable.

Song Kang-ho's character initially seems like a sad and unredeemable excuse for a police officer. But there are situations in life that can change us. There's a final scene and a final image here that belong to Kang-ho, and that, for me, make up one of the most perfect and unforgettable conclusions to a film that I can recall seeing. It's a powerful evocation of how moments long gone can continue to haunt us forever, of how, as it's phrased in the film Magnolia, "We may be through with the past but the past ain't through with us."

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The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos), 2009, directed by Juan José Campanella

A very different film with a lot of very similar themes, this Argentinian movie won the Oscar for best foreign film. Some have criticized it for being too conventional, but I admit, I love its conventionality. It is a film in the classic tradition, deliberately paced, expertly directed, confident and beautiful.

Jumping between the mid-1970s and the late-1990s, this is a story of a retired legal official (Ricardo Darin, whose eyes speak volumes) now writing a novel that's inspired by a murder case that continues to obsess him, some 20-plus years later. His efforts, and his long-burning feelings for his former superior, lead him to seek her out, and we are privileged to sit in on their intimate conversations.

The film works both as an absorbing love story and as a compelling crime thriller, and like Memories of Murder, it's also a criticism of corrupt systems of justice. It finds humor in unexpected moments and is gorgeously photographed, cutting loose from its mannered confines for one exhilarating scene at a packed soccer stadium, strung together as one long take, a shot made no less ingenious by the certain use of computer effects.

Some films with hefty political messages to convey can't balance their agendas with the human factor. This one absolutely does. I really feel I came to know the two central characters who, in the looks they share, say "I love you" again and again even when decorum prevents them from saying it aloud.

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The Thin Blue Line, 1998, directed by Errol Morris

And lastly, a non-fiction film that explores a miscarriage of justice in the United States. This documentary is about the murder of a police officer in 1976 and how an overzealous district attorney, obsessed with maintaining his conviction/death penalty rate, had an innocent man put on death row for the crime. It's been described as the first film that actually solves a real-life murder mystery. It's also credited as the film that popularized the use of dramatic reenactments, but what I love about Morris' recreations is that they're impressionistic and dreamlike, much more haunting than the typical straightforward crime reenactments you often see on television. They confuse the actual event more than clarify it, which is only appropriate, as we hear wildly differing eyewitness accounts and interpretations of the moments just prior to the murder. While the facts of the case are compelling in and of themselves, Morris turns them here into something deeply cinematic.

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When systems of justice fail the people they are meant to serve, when they persecute the innocent and let the guilty go free, everyone suffers.

High Hopes for Game Room

2010-03-28T22:26:00.001-07:00

Wanna come over and play Asteroids?

The reactions I've seen to Game Room have been pretty divided. A lot of people just don't see the appeal of using a powerful modern console to play ugly, thirty-year-old games. And I can understand this, especially if you're not old enough to remember these games in their heyday. It can be hard, after playing visually stunning games like God of War III, to see beyond the simple graphics and one-button gameplay of Outlaw and understand that this is what once passed for thrilling multiplayer competition.

For me, the appeal of Game Room is clear. But then, I grew up with the Atari 2600 and with smoky, neon-lit arcades in which you couldn't hear yourself think over the noise of all the machines. What wonderful times those were.

People say that games today are better. In many cases, that's true. But I also think that games today are different in a crucial way. Most games today are story-driven, and most of those games establish a difficulty that makes it possible for just about anyone to complete that story and have a satisfying experience. That's all well and good, and I adore many games that fit this description. But I think there remains something to be said for games that are pure, unforgiving tests of skill, just you vs. the machine, where your only goal is to earn as high a score as possible. The appeal of this philosophy lives on in newer games like Geometry Wars and Pac-Man: Championship Edition, but the best early examples of this are timeless. Asteroids Deluxe, probably my favorite Game Room launch title, is a game that remains a thoroughly captivating test of skill. Most games in the Game Room launch may not hold up quite so well, but I've sunk over 45 minutes into Asteroids Deluxe, with much of that time spent trying to surpass a friend on the leaderboards. (Game Room encourages this by having banners above each machine that display the name and score of the highest-ranked person on your friends' leaderboard.) When I finally did it, the result was a sense of accomplishment of the sort the mostly relatively easy games of today seldom deliver. The faithfully recreated cabinet, so detailed that I can read the fine text on the front as I'm playing (selecting Cabinet view in the Graphics options) is icing on the cake.

There are definitely some serious, frustrating bugs and performance issues in Game Room that need to be ironed out. And it's disappointing that, while the cabinets for the Atari arcade games have the authentic artwork, the Konami ones are utterly featureless. But in addition to Asteroids Deluxe, I find Centipede and Gravitar to be so pure and simple that they're as compelling to me today as they ever were, and I've even been introduced to Shao-lin's Road, a fun game I'd somehow never heard of before that's a follow-up to Yie Ar Kung-Fu, an arcade cIassic I once loved. And the versatility of the Challenge feature means I can test my skills against those of my friends in ways that were never possible in the good old days, when all I could hope for was to enter my initials on a machine's high score screen. Now I can get creative, establishing challenges that start at any point in a game, based on score or survival. It's awesome, when it's working properly.

I look forward to more games like these, old favorites that have stood the test of time as well as cIassics I've never played before, hitting Game Room. With my own arcade, I can finally fulfill my childhood dream of being like Ricky on "Silver Spoons."

We all had that dream, right?

Greenberg: "Hurt people hurt people."

2010-03-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

I expect that some people will come away from the new Noah Baumbach film Greenberg disliking the movie because they dislike the main character. Disliking Ben Stiller's Roger Greenberg is understandable. He doesn't earn our admiration and he doesn't deserve our sympathy. He's really quite an asshole. He lashes out at everyone and everything, penning vitriolic letters to American Airlines over seating conditions and to Starbucks for the Starbucksification of culture. Mostly, he lashes out at the person who deserves it the least: Florence, his brother's family's 25-year-old assistant, who is far more patient with Roger than he deserves.

But Florence understands what many others don't. She knows that not everyone has the skills necessary to function like a normal person in society, that what is absolutely effortless for most is downright impossible for others. “Normal things are hard for him,” she says in Roger's defense to a girlfriend who wonders why she puts up with him at all. At times, we can see that she asks herself that, too. But she must understand that in some way, it's not really her he's tearing to shreds when he launches into rant after rant, but himself.

He certainly has reasons to be angry at himself. At 25, he was in an up-and-coming band. With characteristic self-absorption, he made a decision on his own that affected the fate of everyone in the group. Though one of his former bandmates, Ivan (Rhys Ifans), makes an effort to maintain a friendship with Roger, they've never really forgiven him for it. They (and we) are flabbergasted by how, for so long, he still fails to outwardly take responsibility for his actions. A conversation late in the film is fascinating for the way in which this finally shifts for Roger, and for how, even in the midst of acknowledging that he behaved poorly, he still directs his anger outward at Ivan, who has made peace with the normal family life that replaced the rock stardom he once dreamed of, the sort of normal life that would be so impossible for Roger.

Greta Gerwig is great as Florence. It's a natural performance that conveys the complexity of her feelings about Roger and about herself in subtleties. She doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, which perhaps is why she gravitates to the 40-year-old Roger, who, after a nervous breakdown, is just “trying to do nothing for a while.” I still found it hard to accept that this rather wonderful young woman would get involved with such a neurotic misanthrope as Roger, but he certainly has no chance with a responsible woman his own age, at least not yet. Perhaps his relationship with Florence will help him grow into a man who does. At the very least, he should come away from it being a bit less of an asshole.

I didn't like Roger. But as someone who sometimes feels like I'm fumbling my way through life while everyone else has all the answers, I did see a bit of myself in him, and I did like this film.

7/10

Green Zone: Perhaps a bit too satisfying

2010-03-12T22:34:00.000-08:00

Note: This commentary contains "spoilers." It won't spoil anything if you've seen the trailer for the film (which, like most trailers, gives away way too much) or if you've been paying any attention to news for the past seven years, but if you want to go into the film knowing as little as possible, see the movie before reading this.

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Green Zone, the new Greengrass-Damon collaboration, feels like a natural extension of the Bourne films they made together. Damon's hero is a smidge less far-fetched, though he still gets his Bourne-like action movie moment, and the political concerns are a bit more prominent, though they're still couched in a movie that is concerned first and foremost with being entertaining. And it is entertaining, even when the guns aren't blazing. Greengrass creates a sense of heightened activity and unrest in Baghdad, demonstrating again, as he did in the Bourne films and United 93, his talent for immersing us in locations that feel real. When action does break out, it's thrilling and visceral. But it was the political concerns that drew me to the film. I expect that some comparisons to The Hurt Locker may be made, but the two films actually have little in common in my view. Locker is set during the Iraq war, but it is about the psychology of its central character. Green Zone is about the war. Damon's character is just the tool the film uses to raise its questions.

Green Zone takes place in 2003, and Matt Damon's Roy Miller is on the ground in Baghdad to search for the WMDs that were Bush's excuse for sending us there. In location after location, Miller and his team come up empty. Miller starts to get frustrated, and to ask unpleasant questions about the source and quality of their intel. In doing so, he's clearly standing in for many of us who remember the frustration of those months, the sense that we as a nation had let ourselves be duped. He raises the questions with his superiors, with government officials and with Lawrie Dayne (the always excellent Amy Ryan), a Wall Street Journal reporter whose stories have supported the administration's claims about WMDs. Her stories make repeated reference to an Iraqi informant named Magellan. Miller's pursuit of Magellan leads both to the film's biggest and best action chase sequence, and to Miller discovering the truth we now all know about the existence of WMDs in Iraq.

The film smartly takes its title from the heavily protected zone in the heart of Baghdad that is depicted here as a luxurious area of babes and beer. It's appropriate because life in that zone betrays none of the tumult going on just outside, because the administration's policies were foolhardy and hopelessly out of touch with reality. It may be that in years to come, this will be one of the films that helps define our view of the war. But it's just a bit too ham-fisted in its handling of the questions that drive it to be the film the Bush administration's manipulation of the American people deserves. At one point, Miller confronts the smarmy government official who, in the film's version of events, seems to be single-handedly responsible for engineering the WMD deception, and yells, “The reasons we go to war always matter!” It's too precise in its confrontation of an issue that made many of us feel misled and deeply unsatisfied. Trying to vicariously deliver the satisfaction we'll never get from that situation feels a bit like cheating here.

7/10

Regarding raindrops

2010-01-23T17:41:00.000-08:00

Regarding raindrops-

I remember watching raindrops roll
And skitter
On the windshield of my father's car
Speeding under the stormy all-swallowing sky
of Colorado
Watching them weave
Between their brethren
I would pick one
Whose journey seemed promising
I was absorbed in the outcome
Would it work its way to the window's edge and escape alone
And whole
Or would it touch another
Become something other
Larger than itself
And be absorbed?

A detective, a drug dealer, and a man who fires people for a living walk into a bar...

2010-01-10T16:20:00.000-08:00

Reviews of three movies: Up in the Air, Sherlock Holmes, and 25th Hour.

Up in the Air

“Bird in a flying cage, you'll never get to know me well”

-The Police, “Man in a Suitcase”

There's a great scene early in Up in the Air that reminded me of those scenes in action movies where the hero suits up for battle. (Here's the quintessential example of that.)

But instead of preparing to combat an overpowering enemy force and emerge unscathed, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is preparing to speed through the airport and get on his flight faster than mere mortals like you and me can even dream of. He is a travel commando.

Getting through airport security quickly is just a manifestation of his philosophy: moving is living. He preaches a no-strings-attached aloneness as a way of life. “We are not swans,” he says. “We're sharks.” He gives seminars to other traveling workers in which he instructs them on how to lighten the backpack of life, reducing the burden of all those unnecessary things so many people carry, like a home. And family. Clearly, this is a movie figure who, like Jerry Maguire and any number of other freewheeling men before him, must reassess his priorities and learn some valuable life lessons about connection and family before the credits roll.

But while I was a bit disappointed that the underlying meaning of the film is so predictable in that regard, the path it takes toward Ryan's change is unpredictable and delightful. It's a change that's set in motion by a chance meeting at an airport bar with Alex, who seems to be the perfect candidate for the occasional motel hook-up, appearing to be as committed to a lack of commitment as he is. Their first meeting evokes the famous scar comparison scene from Jaws, only Ryan and Alex show off the various accoutrements of a life committed to traveling for work. Alex is played with irresistible charm by Vera Farmiga, and it's easy to see why she has such a dramatic effect on the normally unwavering forward trajectory of Clooney's Bingham.

Equally vital to Bingham's journey, in its own way, is the connection he develops with young go-getter Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), who plans to save Ryan's firm tons of money by enabling them to do their jobs over the internet. But Bingham fights this, trying to demonstrate that face-to-face interaction is a necessary component of the job. Perhaps it is, or perhaps it's just that constant travel is a necessary part of his identity.

Clooney is exceptional here, playing Bingham as a man with depths he isn't even aware of, or has made a deliberate effort to deny. Perhaps that's necessary, given his line of work. Companies hire him to come into their offices and fire their employees. Clooney's glossy sheen is invaluable, helping him come across as both sympathetic and implacable in response to the emotional outpourings of the terminated employees.

Director Jason Reitman nails the tone, finding humor in sadness and sadness in funny situations so that the film never feels less than honest. And maybe it's just that I know so many people who have lost their jobs over the past year, but this film seems to come at just the right time, to reflect something important about where we are as a country right now, about the uncertainty of what's ahead. When Bingham fires people, he presents it as the opening of a door, the first step of the next great chapter of their lives. Perhaps he even believes it a little. And perhaps there is no harm in that.

Rating: 9/10

Double feature suggestions:

In Good Company (The evolving workplace of the 21^st century)
Lost in Translation (Connections between older men and younger women that don't involve sex)
Jerry Maguire (No matter how committed they are to being single, all men secretly want to settle down)

Sherlock Holmes

This movie has about as much in common with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories as the Tom Hanks-Dan Aykroyd Dragnet movie had in common with its source material, but this is at least a spirited reinvention. The production design is great, creating an alluringly grimy and gray vision of turn-of-the-century London. And like its protagonist, the whole movie is an awkward but interesting mix of brains and brawn.

Like most Guy Ritchie films, it's brawly and feels a little pleasantly drunk. Sherlock Holmes isn't as ideal a fit for Downey's tremendous charisma as Tony Stark, and so this film is not the truly terrific entertainment that Iron Man is, but he's still fun to watch, and he and Jude Law (as sidekick/live-in companion Dr. Watson) are surely one of the great gay couples in the history of the cinema. Also, it has Eddie Marsan, the crazy driving instructor from Happy-Go-Lucky! You all remember him, right? Right?! And hey, there's a great Dubliners track that plays over the end credits. So there ya go.

Rating: 7/10

25^th Hour

"Be on the lookout for the amber waves of grain
The green lady moved away and changed her name"

-Greenskeepers, “Vagabond”

Here's my timely review of this 2002 Spike Lee film.

It's a masterpiece. One of the very best films of the last decade.

Monty Brogan is spending his last night of freedom with friends, before being jailed for seven years. As played by Edward Norton, he comes across as affable, like a friend who was too clever by half in high school, saw a way to start earning some very good money dealing drugs, and quickly found himself in over his head. He is not without blame, and yet if we knew someone in his position, we'd probably feel a bit sorry for them.

We all commit transgressions, large and small, yet Monty is singled out while most of us enjoy impunity. In his own, perfectly legal way, Monty's friend Frank (Barry Pepper) makes huge amounts of money off of the misfortune of others. And English teacher Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman, in yet another incredible performance) finds himself on that line no teacher should cross with his student Mary (Anna Paquin). He's not unprincipled, you see. It's just that the drinks are strong, and she's oh so lovely...

The events of September 11^th are a constant undercurrent here, as the film opens with stunning images of the Tribute in Light, and Frank's apartment is on the very edge of Ground Zero. It's a time when perhaps as a nation we felt we were being punished and didn't know why, or felt that we as individuals had escaped punishment while others had not, and what had separated them from us, really?

I'm not sure what I was expecting going in to 25^th Hour, but I sure wasn't expecting a film that is so entertaining, a film so powerful and so rich with meaning that is nonetheless funny and simply a joy to watch. But it is, thanks to the screenplay, which takes its time with these characters, letting us just observe them and listen in on their conversations rather than forcing the machinations of a plot on every moment, and thanks to the fully realized performances, which make these characters so fascinating to observe.

I need to give special attention to the film's ending. It's a transcendent and unforgettable ten-minute sequence in which Lee's indelible images and the poetic lilt of Brian Cox's voice (as Monty's father, driving him to prison the day after most of the film's events) combine to create an impression of a life lived. I watched it over and over again, trying to absorb every ounce of its beauty, but came away with only the ability to imitate Brian Cox saying “My bar?” (“My bah? Jesus, my bah?”) Which is still pretty cool.

Last year, Monty Brogan would have been released, if he'd survived his time in prison. I hope he emerged unbroken, able to enjoy the rich promise of America that the film's ending suggests. But I doubt it.

Rating: 10/10

The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection: My Top Ten Games of 2009

2009-12-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

The best games of 2009, for me, were marked not by innovation, but rather by doing the very same things that games have been doing for a long time, but doing them better than they've ever been done before. (That's not to say that this was a year without innovation. On the contrary, GameSpot's pick for Game of the Year, Demon's Souls, is boldly innovative and utterly uncompromising, and I respect the hell out of it. I just didn't personally enjoy it all that much.) The two best games of the year for me were particularly exceptional in this regard. Forza Motorsport 3 and Street Fighter IV are like well-oiled, nearly flawless high-performance machines in their respective genres.

Forza 3 is a game of such elegance that I feel like I should be eating excellent French cheeses and sipping fine wine whenever I play it. But not in a stuffy, oppressive way. No, it's an elegance that's perfectly befitting of the beautiful, fine-tuned automobiles it celebrates. And the experience of playing it is about as close as a game has ever gotten for me to being transportive. The handling, the sounds, the visuals are all so convincing that I could almost swear I can feel my car soaring down the Sebring Raceway. I'm such a devoted fan of over-the-top arcade racers over simulation racers that I often catch myself wanting to press A to trigger a vehicle boost, Burnout-style. But where so many other simulation racers have left me cold, Forza 3 is one I can't stop admiring. In addition to the absolutely top-notch driving, the way the game rewards you for each victory, constantly opening up new cars, new events, and new benefits as you earn experience makes playing "just one more race" nearly irresistible.

What Forza 3 is for driving games, Street Fighter IV is for fighters. It hits the sweet spot between pick-up-and-play accessibility and tremendous depth. The incredibly tight controls and exceptionally balanced combat ensure that fights are always exciting and intense for me, and even losses feel rewarding as a chance to observe the techniques of more skillful players and very slowly get better. And the better I get, the more I appreciate how incredible this game is, as I slowly come to grips with things like the focus attack system that adds layers of depth onto the core, tried-and-true Street Fighter II model. If I could stop time for a while and spend unlimited hours playing any one game from this year, this is the one I'd play, because as much as I enjoy it now, I know that being a truly competitive, outstanding player would only deepen my appreciation and enjoyment of it still more.

The quest to capture big, Hollywood-style adventure movie thrills in game form is certainly nothing new. Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2 pulls it off more effectively than any game has before. Expertly paced, with one terrific setpiece moment after another, and an excellent cast of characters whose relationships make you feel invested in the story.

Modern Warfare 2 was far and away the year's best shooter for me. Sure, you can rightly criticize the brevity of its campaign, but its whirlwind globehopping adventure packs more terrific locations and more memorable moments into its five hours than most games four times as long can manage. Add in the exciting and challenging cooperative Spec Ops missions and the highly addictive competitive multiplayer and you've got a well-rounded and consistently outstanding shooter.

While I have a soft spot for the moody Burton-influenced visuals and catchy tunes of Sunsoft's excellent 1989 NES game based on the first Michael Keaton Batman film, I have to admit that Arkham Asylum represents far and away the most compelling and effective representation of the Caped Crusader in a game. Everything you love about Batman--his gadgets, his detective skills, his use of stealth and shadow, his scarred psyche--is manifested here to terrific effect. It's so effective, in fact, that even if you go into the game not knowing or caring much about Batman, Commissioner Gordon and the other characters who populate Gotham City, you'll probably come away from it with a real appreciation for what Rocksteady has done with them here.

There was very little doubt that The Beatles: Rock Band was going to be good, but I was nonetheless surprised at just how superb it turned out. Harmonix could have taken the lazy route with this one and still sold a bazillion copies on the strength of the Fab Four's catalog of timeless and incredible songs. But instead, they went all-out, creating a rich Beatles experience jam-packed with the kinds of little details that imbue the game with the warmth and reverence the material deserves. Time spent playing this with friends was perhaps the greatest source of pure joy I got from any game this year.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was perhaps the biggest WOW of the year for me. No other game revealed previously untapped potential in a platform as dramatically as Chinatown Wars did with the DS. No compromises here, this is GTA reimagined from the ground up for Nintendo's handheld, and it is fantastic.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is the latest and greatest entry in AlphaDream's consistently excellent series of RPGs starring the Brothers Mario. Endlessly inventive, irresistibly charming and completely hilarious.

I'm still inching my way through Assassin's Creed II, one kill at a time. While I find the gameplay a smidge too easy to be completely gripping, the varied, richly detailed and atmospheric cities make this breezy ride a very enjoyable one, and pulling off a stealthy kill in broad daylight, then walking away and leaving no one the wiser is immensely satisfying. I recall the negative reactions of some to the concept of the animus when the first game was released, but here, I find that all the crazy conspiracy theory elements woven into the game make it feel all the more epic and compelling, creating a sense of high stakes and of an age-old conflict that extends far beyond Altair, Ezio or Desmond as individuals.

What Borderlands lacks in story, it more than makes up for in sheer addictive playability. It brilliantly merges the loot-finding and character-building that makes games like Diablo II so habit-forming, with...guns.

An honorable mention goes to Dragon Age: Origins, another title I haven't found the time to conclude yet. In fact, I've still got a long way to go on this epic journey. The pace lagged for me in the early stages, but now that I'm starting to make some serious progress on the main quest, I'm finding myself becoming more absorbed in the fully realized fantasy realm of Ferelden. Bioware's signature talents for creating richly detailed worlds and compelling moral dilemmas are in full effect here, and I'm determined to see this quest through to its blood-spattery end.

In my opinion, the year's best downloadable content was The Ballad of Gay Tony. Rockstar continues to challenge notions of who and what games can be about. Terrific nightclub atmosphere brings a previously unseen side of Liberty City to life, and the outrageous missions help bring GTA IV to an explosive conclusion.

And since I'm listening to it right now, I'll add that my favorite original soundtrack this year belongs to Shatter. It's a catchy and gorgeous collection of electronic compositions that are as incredible on their own as they are in the game.

Going BIG: My favorite games of the decade

2009-12-25T15:40:00.000-08:00

This is a quick personal reflection on the ten games (well, nine games and one series of games) I found the most meaningful and memorable over the past ten years.

SSX: I start here not because this is the least of all the games on this list, but because it's the first. It was very early indeed in this decade when I stepped into a GameStop...it may even have still been a Software Etc...and saw a PS2 demo kiosk showing off SSX. I was sold. With one glance, it seemed clear that the power of the PlayStation 2 was going to enable games to deliver bigger thrills than any console before it. How apt that the development studio for this game was called EA Sports BIG. The PS2 was the first new console of the decade, and SSX was its glorious herald, a speedy, stylish, adrenaline-drenched snowboarding game for the new era. It's certainly true that SSX 2 and 3 improved on the original in some respects, but when I think of SSX, it's that first glimpse of Snowdream that I remember most, the voice of Rahzel mocking and praising me as I boosted my way down the slopes.

Halo: Some of the very best gaming moments I had this decade were spent with friends crowded around my modest television, the screen split four ways as we assault-rifled and pistol-sniped each other endlessly. Halo 2 and 3 took the multiplayer online in a big way, but the best Halo times of all for me were those early days on Hang 'em High.

Burnout 3: What an exciting innovation this game was, building on existing arcade racing game conventions but making crashing and running your competitors off the road a spectacular, visceral part of the gameplay. I consider this the original Xbox's ultimate Xbox Live title. For several months, some friends and I ritually played this on an almost-daily basis,while games these days are unlikely to see consistent online play from us for more than a few weeks. It was also, for me, the first game in which custom soundtracks were an essential feature. I still can't hear certain Death Cab for Cutie songs without them conjuring up images of Burnout 3's environments.

Ninja Gaiden (Black): My favorite skill-based, challenging action game of the decade. When Ninja Gaiden first came out, I rented it and found it difficult to a fault. It was frustrating, not fun. Then the bargain-priced Black came out and I decided to give it another chance. I hit the same wall I had before but kept pressing on and somehow, at a certain point, something clicked, and I just naturally found myself getting better at the game. That sense of just feeling my skills improve, and the results of it--being able to effortlessly slice enemies to pieces (and look awesome doing it) who had previously made mincemeat out of me--was incredibly rewarding.

Metal Gear Solid 4: It's goofy and messy and totally absurd, and I admire the hell out of it. I think it's an inspired conclusion to this totally crazy series, and for all its flaws, I love the fact that it is so clearly Kojima's uncompromised vision. He may be the first auteur of games, and I think the series would have been far less interesting if it was made by committee and some of Kojima's crazier, more self-indulgent impulses had been reined in. It somehow creates a thoroughly satisfying conclusion that ties up all the loose ends, and it unforgettably pits the hero and villain against each other in a climactic fistfight that's also a brilliant summation of the entire series. Masterful.

Grand Theft Auto IV: I Heart Liberty City. Moral choice was a fun gimmick in a lot of games over the past ten years, but many of those games presented those choices in such extreme black and white terms. Grand Theft Auto IV was the first game in which I felt legitimately troubled by some of the choices I had to make, the first game in which pulling a trigger and taking a life often felt impactful and irrevocable. The writing is far superior to what you find in most games, with complex, damaged characters who, for all their flaws, are often trying their best to make a go of it in this ugly world. The cutscenes feature terrific subtlety and are willing to take their time to just observe the characters. For me, its themes of culture, cIass and consequences really work. It ain't The Wire, but for my money it's far and away the best crime story, and the best story of any kind, I've encountered in a game. The downloadable stories released this year, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, have kept the party going in style, adding exciting new gameplay elements and continuing to challenge our notions of who and what a game can be about. The Ballad of Gay Tony also features the most gorgeous menu music I've ever heard in a game.

"I keep on walkin'..."

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door: Mario has starred in many exceptional RPGs throughout the past ten years. This is the absolute best of the bunch. It's charming, inventive, humorous, and even oddly poignant. I don't mind telling you that I got a bit choked up at the end of this tale of goombas and koopas. An absolute delight from start to finish.

The Rock Band series: When I was younger, I was an enthusiastic air guitarist, desk drummer, and sing-along-er. But these are all private, slightly embarrassing expressions of the emotions a song might conjure up in me. One of the biggest, most important innovations in games of this decade is the way that the music peripheral games have taken those private expressions and made them a shared experience. Performing songs with friends in a game like this is an absolute joy, and a totally valid and new way for people to experience music together. In the Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero battle, the Rock Band games are the clear winner for me. The atmosphere and the song lists deliver just want I want in my fantasy fulfillment, and the Guitar Hero games feel a bit crass and soulless by comparison.

And now, my two favorite games of the decade. I can't choose between them.

Super Mario Galaxy and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Super Mario Galaxy is as close as any game has come to perfection for me this decade. It's an absolutely incredible achievement, feeling both like a natural extension of the series' roots, and a totally fresh, at times exhilaratingly innovative experience. The level designs are nothing short of brilliant, and the music, visuals and gameplay frequently combined to foster a sense of ebullient joy in me akin to what I might feel at the most inspired moments of a great Pixar or Miyazaki film.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, by contrast, does not quite approach perfection. Instead, it's a sprawling, audacious, flawed but utterly incredible game. The story is not the serious tale of revenge or forgiveness that you find in GTA IV, but a fever dream of West Coast culture and styIe. The plot lacks focus, but the cast of characters is memorable, and the outstanding voice work (JAMES WOODS!) helps tremendously. And while the story is messy, the setting is unforgettable. I love it all, from the ghetto where CJ begins to the mansions in the hills. I love the small towns and the beaches. I love the huge bridges and the airplane graveyards. It understands Los Angeles hip-hop culture in the mid-90s, and its climax rings true in echoing some of the rage that fueled the Los Angeles riots of 1992.

I can't separate the fact that I've lived in LA for many years from my feelings for this game. Standing in the cul-de-sac where CJ's house is located, I can almost feel the warm Santa Ana winds. But the reason I rank it above GTA IV as one of the absolute best of the decade is not just that its setting is more personally resonant for me. It's also that I simply think it's a bit more fun. For me, this is the best entry overall in what I consider the definitive game series of the decade.

Natural Police and Other Characters--My Favorite TV of the 2000s

2009-12-10T23:28:00.000-08:00

I suppose strong arguments could be made either that this was the best decade of television, with cable TV coming into its own and providing us with richer, more complex dramas than anything we'd seen in the past, or that it was the worst, with reality TV's rise to popularity signifying a low point in our culture. Well, I actually happen to think there's such a thing as good “reality TV,” but for now, as the decade comes to a close, I want to take a moment to focus on the earlier argument and look back on what were the standouts for me in TV drama in the 2000s.

The Wire—Quite possibly the best television show of all time. This is the poetry of real life in America in the early 21^st century. Over the course of five seasons, it turned its piercing gaze on the drug war, labor unions, big city politics, public schools, and the print media, opening our eyes to the world we live in. At the same time, it's a riveting and powerful human drama, with complex characters on both sides of the law that we come to love and to despise, to root for and to fear.

The Shield—If The Wire is the television equivalent of the Great American Novel, The Shield is like a modern-day, extended take on a Shakespearian tragedy, about the way one man's gargantuan ambitions can inhale and destroy the lives of many. For my money, it's pound-for-pound the most exciting drama of the decade, rarely taking a false step from its shocking first episode until its pitch-perfect, devastating finale. Perhaps the most fascinating thing for me about The Shield is the way it so often made me feel so conflicted. Vic Mackey is absolutely, unquestionably immoral, and yet I often found myself cheering him on as he brought his own brand of justice to the criminals of LA's fictional (but thoroughly believable) Farmington district. Mackey (played by Michael Chiklis) pulls focus with his massive persona and his shiny bald head, but this is absolutely an ensemble show, and although I have much love for Vincent D'Onofrio's enigmatic and disturbed detective Robert Goren from Law & Order: Criminal Intent, my favorite TV detective is The Shield's slightly awkward, dogged, brilliant Holland “Dutch” Wagenbach.

Watching this montage from The Shield finale still gives me goosebumps. If you haven't watched the show, this won't spoil anything. The snippets are too brief to give anything away. But to me and fans of the show, they speak volumes.
Six Feet Under—Forget Touched by an Angel. This is deeply spiritual television, at least for this agnostic.
The West Wing (The Sorkin Years)--I stopped watching when Sorkin was dropped, but in those early years of the Bush presidency, when it all still felt like some sort of bad dream, I know I wasn't alone in taking solace and inspiration in the imaginary presidency of Jed Bartlet. Sorkin's excellent “let's-have-snappy-conversations-while-walking-briskly-down-hallways” writing style and the top-notch work by Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford and others made this show a delightful entertainment. (Yes, I know, it actually started airing in the final months of the 90s. Sue me.)
Law & Order—Because after 20 years, there are still few things on TV as reliably satisfying as an episode of Law & Order.

In a category of its own:

24--While The Wire is the show people in the future should look at if they want to understand what our world was actually like in this decade, the show they should look at if they want to psychoanalyze us is 24. The pilot was actually delayed and edited because of the attacks of September 11^th, 2001, but the entire show almost feels like a reaction to that day. Jack Bauer is absolutely a hero our society gravitated to in the wake of that attack. Like its hero, the show is ruthless and exceptionally effective. It's also the most video-game-like show ever (though the actual 24 game is pretty lousy), and I'm convinced that it has heavily influenced the outstanding campaigns of the Modern Warfare games, which do things with game narrative that previously just weren't done.

Honorable mentions:

Deadwood—Gorgeously vulgar dialogue and towering performances by a great cast.

Battlestar Galactica—I found the last set of episodes deeply disappointing. Still, it had a lot of great moments, and was the best sci-fi that TV of the 00's had to offer.

Dexter—Wickedly entertaining. Dexter (the show and the character) is still a work in progress, but it may deserve a place on a list like this in ten years' time.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent—Vincent D'Onofrio's Robert Goren is what has made this show so watchable, though it achieved heights with regularity in the earlier seasons that it has rarely been able to recapture in more recent ones, and I was crushed when Goren's rivalry with archnemesis Nicole Wallace, which was the source of some of the show's best moments, was brought to an end last season in the most unsatisfying way possible. Goren and Eames will be leaving the show at the start of next season as it becomes Monk 2: Jeff Goldblum's Kooky Crime-Solving Hour full-time. But I'll still watch it.

More Russian: Modern Warfare 2 and Games in a Post-24 World (Spoilers)

2009-11-19T21:25:00.001-08:00

Much is being said about the campaign for Modern Warfare 2, and in particular, a level called No Russian. Personally, I thought the level was effective and the campaign as a whole was nothing short of spectacular. It's easily earned a place as one of my favorite shooter campaigns of all time.

One of the criticisms I've read levelled at the campaign is that the writing is poor and the story is ludicrous. I agree completely that the story is ludicrous. I think that most video game stories are ludicrous. But so what? The important thing in a game like Modern Warfare 2 is to cram as many intense moments into its five-hour campaign as it can. I can't think of a game that sustained such an unrelenting pace, and since the story does its job of providing a vehicle to string all these things together, in my mind, it's a success. I won't argue that it's great writing for a second. But it's writing with a very specific purpose, and I think it does a great job of accomplishing that purpose.

There may have been a time where I would have enjoyed it less, where I would have spent half my time stepping outside of the absurd action of the story and yelling at the screen, "Oh, come on! That would never happen!" Perhaps it's all that 24 I watched, but at a certain point, my outlook changed, and I realized that I was willing to sacrifice a certain amount of plausibility if, and only if, something succeeds in delivering over-the-top thrills so incredible as to make my suspension of disbelief worthwhile. Most of the time, 24 succeeded here for me. In the end, it's not the overall story of a 24 season that matters, but the moment-to-moment thrills that story allowed the season to deliver, and seriously, if you think Modern Warfare 2 is implausible, watch a season of 24. I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet that 24 has been a direct influence on the Modern Warfare games.

24 ushered in an era of television where viewers could no longer be sure, one week to next, that any character (wiith the possible exception of Jack Bauer) was safe. Audience favorites are routinely killed suddenly and unflinchingly. The Modern Warfare games certainly followed in the series' footsteps here. The death of a player character in the first Modern Warfare, like the death of lovable Edgar on 24, was shocking. Perhaps in Modern Warfare 2 they go a tad overboard with this and it starts to lose its impact a bit, but I still found most of the twists and character deaths surprising and impactful.

And then there's No Russian, in which, as an undercover CIA agent embedded in a terrorist cell, you must stand by, or even participate, while your fellow terrorists slaughter hundreds of civilians at an airport. Many of the arguments I've read about this level are rooted in the illusion of choice. There you are, holding a gun, but you must stand idly by as this massacre takes place. You are unable to turn the gun on the terrorists and attempt to stop this atrocity, which is something that any moral person would surely at least consider doing in that situation. Anthony Burch, in this Rev Rant at Destructoid, argues that as the player, your feelings of revulsion about what's happening totally pull you out of the moment. (At least that was what I took away from his argument, but I'm paraphrasing, and I encourage you to watch it for yourself.) And maybe that's true. He contrasts this, though, with the player's relationship with Alyx in Half-Life 2. In Half-Life 2, he says, you like Alyx. Because the game reinforces your positive feelings about the character, Gordon's choice to not just use the gravity gun to fling her into the nearest bunch of headcrabs and run jibes with your own feelings, creating a seamless relationship between you and the character you're playing. But to me, that's an arbitrary distinction. Another player may totally loathe Alyx and actually wish to kill her. In both Modern Warfare 2 and Half-Life 2, you have no choice. Choice is a complete illusion.

Some may feel that games are more enjoyable when we always feel a positive connection with the character we're playing and the actions of that character. I'm fine with that not being the case, with sometimes being cast in an unsavory role. If Modern Warfare 2 were a film, could the actor cast in the role the player plays in the No Russian level say to the director, "You know, if it were really me in this situation, I think I'd say to myself, 'To hell with this undercover thing, I'm turning my gun on these monsters!' So is it okay if I do that in this scene?" Of course not. It's essentially the same thing here. We are cast in this role. We have a part to carry out, and we must carry it out, whether we like it or not. If you're playing Metal Gear Solid, you must stop Liquid Snake. Trying to join forces with him is not an option. If you're playing Ocarina of Time, you cannot shirk your responsibility to defeat Ganon and just go live on a farm somewhere, no matter how much you might rather do that. In games, almost always, choice is an illusion.

The other criticism I've heard about No Russian is that some feel such a horrific scene of violence is inappropriate in something that's essentially just trying to be a piece of pure entertainment, that it's exploitative to use something so terrible in the context of something that, let's face it, doesn't really deal with the consequences in a serious, meaningful way. Maybe I'm just callous, but I didn't mind. Again, perhaps it's all that 24, which doesn't shy away from crashing commuter jets, releasing chemical weapons in hotels, and detonating nukes in densely populated areas, killing anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands at a time. Nor is it reluctant to try to make you feel the loss of a single human life.

And always, not long after one of these moments transpires, Jack Bauer is back to kicking ass and walking away from unsurvivable situations unscathed, all in the name of delivering pure entertainment.

Orson's Game

2009-08-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

There's a little burger stand near my place that I positively love. Juiciest burgers I've ever tasted, and I am a fiend for a nice juicy burger.

One day, the owners of the restaurant started telling me about how they get their tomatoes from this wonderful tomato farm. Now, I'm not a huge tomato person. Really, I could take or leave the tomato on my burger. It's just not an important part of the experience for me. But the owner was so excited about this tomato farm that I decided to look it up online, and I was dismayed by what I found out.

Oh, not about the tomatoes they produce. In fact, they do have a reputation for growing some tasty tomatoes.

No. You see, I was dismayed to find that these tomato farmers are white supremacists, and they're quite vocal about it, too. They serve on boards of organizations that seek to oppress minorities and strip them of their rights.

After that, I was really torn about going back to that burger stand. Some other patrons decided that they were going to boycott the stand. When the boycott was announced, the people who grow the lettuce for the stand spoke out, saying, “Hey, we're not white supremacists! In fact, we actively support all kinds of human rights measures. If you boycott the stand, we will suffer, too!” I appreciate the plight of the lettuce farmer. Still, I can respect the position of the boycotters. The restaurateurs didn't publicize the lettuce as being an important part of what makes their burgers so incredible. No, they talked up the tomatoes. Its the tomato farm whose name is now known far and wide in association with those juicy burgers. Not, alas, the lettuce farm.

As for me, I did go back to the stand, and I still enjoyed the burger, though I had to rationalize to myself that it was okay because I don't care for the tomatoes much one way or the other. If the restaurant owners themselves, the people who put all the work into grilling those patties and making those burgers so tasty, the people I actually hand my money over to, were the white supremacists, I never could have gone back.

However, I really wish that they would get their tomatoes from somewhere else. Surely there are excellent tomatoes on the market that aren't grown by vocal white supremacists, and I'm of the mind that the tomato farm of white supremacy does not deserve our support.

None of this is true, of course. (Well, I am a fiend for a nice juicy burger. This cannot be denied.) This is simply my analogy for the controversy around Orson Scott Card's involvement in the new Xbox Live Arcade release, Shadow Complex. Card is a science fiction author and vocal opponent of equal rights for gays and lesbians, who currently serves on the board for the National Organization for Marriage.

The game is set in the “universe” of his Empire series. While playing the game, I didn't feel that his contributions could possibly have had too significant an impact on the overall experience. If I hadn't been aware of the association as a result of publicity given to his involvement, I never would have suspected. The game's setting and plot seem generic enough that I would have just assumed the creators were riffing on Metal Gear Solid.

Some have boycotted Shadow Complex due to Card's involvement. I did not. I purchased the game and I enjoyed it, recognizing that it's the work of a great many people, many of whom don't agree with Card's views. Still, as a member of the queer community and an ardent opponent of discrimination based on sexual orientation, Card's highly publicized involvement in the project doesn't sit well with me, and I really wish that Chair Entertainment had found someone else to get their tomatoes from.

(And I'm fully aware that those who oppose marriage equality will object to being likened to those who discriminate on the basis of race, but I have yet to come across a compelling argument that there is any appreciable difference. Denying someone rights on the basis of sexual orientation is no less reprehensible than doing so on the basis of race or religion. It is a sad commentary on just how far we still have to go with this issue that, while almost all of us are quick to condemn the views of those who discriminate based on race, discrimination against gays and lesbians can still hold such widespread approval.)

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On a more uplifting note, check out these awesome Courage Campaign volunteers, including "straight Mormon feminist" Joanna Brooks. They're an inspiration. Please help make marriage equality a reality.

Greetings from Big Surf Island!

2009-06-13T23:17:00.000-07:00

I've been off from work this past week, taking a mandatory furlough, like many people are having to do in these harsh economic times. While I am hoping to go on an exciting trip or two in the not-too-distant future, as I wasn't being paid this week, I didn't want to spend too much money, so I stayed in town. That doesn't mean I didn't have a kind of vacation, though. I've visited the following exotic and exciting destinations during my time off:

Big Surf Island: I was absolutely mad about Burnout Paradise when it first came out, and Big Surf Island has gotten me pumped about it all over again. The island is a bit smaller than I imagined it would be, but it's positively packed with outrageous jumps and all the other stuff that makes Paradise such an exhilarating game. The dune buggies you find there are a blast to drive, too, with a great rough-and-ready feel to their handling. I've already completed 40/45 billboards, 13/15 mega jumps and 74/75 smashes. I just know that finding that last one is going to be a real pain. I also have just one event left to complete: a stunt run. Those are the bane of my existence. I'm not generally a completionist, but Paradise compelled me to get 100%, and I know I won't stop until I've jumped every jump, smashed every smash and every billboard, won every event and ruled every road in both the Time Road Rules and Showtime (AKA Katamari CarCrashy AKA Michael Bay Directs a Car Wreck) modes on Big Surf Island. It's good to be back in Paradise.

The Ring: When I was a kid, I could beat Mike Tyson without breaking a sweat. It seems my reflexes aren't what they used to be. My current record in Punch-Out!! is an embarrassing 20-67, and I'm currently facing Don Flamenco in the title defense section of the game. But I don't mind. On the contrary, I'm very pleased that the game is so challenging. It goes easy on you for a while, but once you get to defending your belt, Punch-Out!! is no joke. At this point, the bouts are tough enough to quite literally get my pulse racing, and each victory feels like an accomplishment. It's hard in much the same way that the NES game was hard,but I think it's harder, thanks to more complex attack patterns from your opponents, which you need to learn during the first phase of your career and then completely re-learn during title defense. If the game had ended when I'd won the world championship, I would have felt like I could have better spent that $50, as fun as the experience was up to that point. But this game has proven to have lasting value and to keep the excitement comin'. I'm thrilled to see this franchise get reinvigorated like this.If only the game shouted "BODY BLOW! BODY BLOW!" like the arcade games did, it would be just about perfect.

Unnamed Middle Eastern Country: In the past I've never really been one to spend much time with online shooters, but I've gotten back into Modern Warfare's online multiplayer in a big way this week. I don't consider myself to be all that great at shooters so I generally shy away from exclusively team-based games like Gears of War 2's multiplayer (that way I can't let any other players down) but free-for-all deathmatch in CoD4 is so exceptional, I keep coming back to it again and again.It's easily the online shooter I've enjoyed the most. Here's a question for anyone here who might play this game online: If I play exclusively free-for-all deathmatch, is it worth it for me to spring for the map pack that contains Creek, Broadcast, Chinatown and Killhouse?

Temeria: This compelling land is the setting of The Witcher, which I downloaded off of Steam this week. I'm utterly taken with the setting, which is rather unlike the setting of any other fantasy RPG I've played, It feels rougher, more lived-in and worn, bleaker, and more believable. I haven't yet been able to spend as much time as I would like with the mysterious Geralt of Rivia, but you can bet I'm eager to do so.

The Sprint Studio: Lastly, I've been enjoying the beta season of 1 vs. 100 on Xbox Live. The game itself couldn't be simpler, but I'm excited about the way it's being implemented. I think the opportunity to join a live game that's being played by tens of thousands of other players, that involves answering trivia questions rather than, say, killing orcs and earning loot, is really exciting. (It helps that I am a huge sucker for trivia questions.) I also like the fact that up to four people can play from a single console, as it just feels like a party game that would be way more fun when shared with friend. In fact, I think I'm gonna invite some friends over for some pizza and beer and 1 vs. 100 one of these weekends.

I also want to say just a few things about E3.

When I was a kid, it really bothered me if someone abused a stuffed animal, even though I was well aware that the thing had no feelings of its own. Apparently there's still part of me that harbors that irrational perspective, as the first thing I imagined after seeing the Milo demonstration was thousands of people unleashing verbal abuse at their Milos. It made me sad. Apparently Milo won't respond to abuse, though, so that's good. Maybe if it's utterly pointless, people won't bother to engage in it. Of course, I'm assuming that Milo is actually going to be as amazing as it appeared in the demo, but then, I have no reason to doubt that it will be. After all, it was presented by Peter Molyneux of all people.

There are too many games I'm excited about to mention, but one announcement I'm particularly intrigued by is Metroid Other M. As a huge fan of most of the 2D Metroid games, I always felt that the Metroid Prime games really missed one hugely important aspect of what makes Samus so much fun to play: she's quick and agile. Metroid Other M looks primed to rectify this issue in a big way, so I'll be keeping my eyes on that one.

So, how 'bout you? What are you playin'? Any E3 announcements strike you as particularly promising or exciting?

Watchmen

2009-03-06T23:29:00.000-08:00

Watchmen is a very good film, if not an outstanding one. The film adeptly adapts the epic graphic novel into a comprehensible 2-hour-and-40-minute film, and there are enough delightful little touches (Lee Iacocca! Pat Buchanan! Robert Palmer videos!) to make its chilling alternate-reality 1985 feel like a possible extrapolation of our own. Strong casting helps considerably, particularly in the cases of Patrick Wilson, who is so extraordinarily ordinary as Nite Owl, and Jackie Earle Haley as the simmering Rorschach. And perhaps it helps that I'm old enough to remember the Cold War and had, at one point in my childhood, a very real sense of terror about the possibility of global thermonuclear war (Thanks, WarGames!), but the constant sense of dread over the possibility of just such a crisis in the film resonated with me pretty deeply.

There are times where the film, despite all this good stuff, feels constrained. There's a section in the graphic novel that deals not only with the origins of Dr. Manhattan, but also with the unique way in which he perceives time, with every moment existing concurrently. I consider it one of the most remarkable things I've ever read, comic or otherwise. I think much of what helps drive its power and helps the reader relate to and understand Dr. Manhattan's existence is the fact that the panels for each moment do exist concurrently, and so we exist outside of them and can behold several of them simultaneously. The film, of course, is by necessity linear, and so I was a bit disappointed with this aspect, and never felt a very strong connection to the nude blue superdude, though I don't think the film could have possibly measured up to the comic here. On the other hand, the much-ballyhooed change to the story's climax for the film is, I think, an improvement.

Watchmen has moments of inspiration, such as its terrifically theatrical opening credits sequence. On the whole, however, it lacks the spark of passion required to make a cinematic adaptation truly take on a life of its own (I'm thinking particularly of The Lord of the Rings films there), and ends up feeling like more of a companion piece to the graphic novel than something worthy of deep consideration in its own right. But regardless, it's a fascinating, goofy, often thrilling film that's true to the spirit and the ideas of the graphic novel. 8/10

Gamers in a Dangerous Time

2009-01-03T02:04:00.000-08:00

One day you're waiting for the sky to fall
And next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
--Bruce Cockburn, Lovers in a Dangerous Time

And make no mistake, these are dangerous times we're living in. Economically, things are already pretty bad. There's a good chance you or someone you know has lost his or her job as a result of cutbacks, and things will, according to many people who know a lot more about this stuff than I do, get worse before they get better. I'm very thankful for my job and fully aware that at any point, someone could decide that my company could save a whole lot of money by paying people in Mexico or India or elsewhere to do my job. This is a time for belt-tightening and saving, not for spending.

Beyond our economic woes, long-simmering tensions in other parts of the world are building up to dangerous levels, and it's possible that the human race may blow itself to hell in the relatively near future. Is ths really a time when we should be playing games?

Heck yeah, it is. Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, and being able to relax and enjoy life is absolutely worth having. Here are the things I'm playing in these precarious days.

Prince of Persia--It's beautiful, I'll give it that. The visual design is striking, evoking ancient Persia not as it ever was but as it is in our imaginations. But the gameplay all feels a bit rote to me, and not very engaging. This one may be on the next GameFlight back home.

Fallout 3--I know I said that these are not times for spending, and GameFly seems like a good way to save money and still play the games I want to play, but after a certain point having a game from GameFly must stop being cost-effective. I think I might be reaching that point with Fallout 3. I play it in fits and starts, and I like it well enough, but more often than not there's something I'd rather be playing. Still, I have to play it through to the end. I think it might just be in very small pieces over the course of the coming months.

Lumines Supernova--Ohh, how I love/hate Lumines! Its design is so flawless, so compelling, and I want so badly to be really good at it. But Lumines greatness eludes me. Still, I keep trying. Maybe someday I'll get past the sixth skin in the basic challenge mode.

LittleBigPlanet--When I wrote up my favorite games of 2008, I called this my odd game out, because the perplexing moderation of so many wonderful user-created levels just seemed to fly in the face of the game's good-natured, Fun shall overcome philosophy. But things seem to have recovered nicely, and I still regularly encounter user-created levels that charm, thrill, and genuinely surprise me with their inventiveness.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts--I spent about an hour and a half playing Nuts & Bolts tonight, and my first impressions of the game are extremely positive. It's very funny in a way that both mocks video game conventions in general and the Banjo-Kazooie games in particular. It's gorgeous. And the gameplay is purely, tremendously fun. I haven't yet had to design any of my own vehicles, which is a good thing. The game has an excellent learning curve that lets you use pre-designed vehicles successfully in many early challenges. And the challenges themselves are varied and fun. I'm already hooked and can't wait to collect more jiggies.

Chrono Trigger--I'd never played Chrono Trigger before. I was in college when it hit the SNES and I didn't make much time for games during those four years. It's probably for the best. Without my degree in Theater with a minor in English, it's doubtful I'd have the lucrative career in tech support and customer service that I have today. But I'm making up for lost time by playing it now.

Life with PlayStation--Folding molecules for the benefit of humankind. Gee, that planet of ours sure is pretty, isn't it?

Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? Even as things get uncertain and scary, there's still so much to be hopeful for and so much to be thankful for. Play what you love and do what you love, and when things get tough, remember that nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight. Or, as the late, great Harvey Milk said, "There is hope for a better world. There is hope for a better tomorrow."

Happy 2009, everyone!

Mis juegos favoritos de 2008!

2008-12-14T00:48:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Tijuana, Mexico, where the thing to do on a Saturday night is stay in your room writing entries in your blog! This is not a list in which I'm arguing that these are the very best games of the year. There were too many games I didn't get to play for me to make those kinds of arguments (I've barely scratched the surface in Fallout 3--PUN INTENDED!) and anyway I'm not interested in making them. This is a quick and dirty, off-the-top-of-my-head celebration of the games I personally enjoyed the most.

For me, the area where games saw the most dramatic advancement in 2008 was narrative. My two favorite games each, in their own way, set a new standard for the kinds of stories games can tell, and how those stories can be told, while also delivering outstanding gameplay.

My favorite game of the year is Grand Theft Auto IV. Games have faced me with choices before, but never have the choices been so difficult, troubling and impactful as they are in Rockstar's masterpiece. In its stylized, thrillingly alive depiction of contemporary New York City, complex protagonist Niko Bellic's journey is not just a shootout-filled crime epic, though it certainly is that. It's also a story about class, culture, loss, revenge, forgiveness, and that most elusive of all concepts: the American dream. I'm not saying this game is The Wire. I am saying it cuts deeper and truer than any other game into the America we live in now, and I was mesmerized from start to finish by nearly every aspect of the game, and how they all came together to create an experience that was as thought-provoking and emotionally affecting as it was viscerally thrilling.

In my number two spot is a game that tells an altogether different kind of story. While one could imagine the tale of GTA IV working as a novel or film--albeit without those difficult, all-important choices, the Metal Gear Solid games, and MGS4 in particular, are uniquely gamey in the tales they tell and the techniques they employ to tell them. MGS 4 is such a monumental success, such a powerhouse conclusion to this series that for me it redeems even the weakest moments of the previous MGS games. MGS 4 is somewhat accessible to even first-time players of the series, but it really shines as a tremendous piece of fan service for those who have been fascinated with every aspect of Solid Snake's long, labyrinthine odyssey. My favorite example of both the gamey storytelling and the deeply interwoven fan service are the X-button flashbacks that frequently pop up during the game's cutscenes. I was frequently surprised and even oddly moved by the connections that were woven throughout this game to past games in the series in the form of brief visual and aural flashbacks. It gave the storytelling a rather stream-of-consciousness feel, as if we were inside Snake's mind, remembering aspects of the past along with him as his journey draws toward what he knows, as his body starts to give out on him, are his final days. Of course, all of this virtuosic storytelling would be for naught if the gameplay wasn't any good, but it is absolutely excellent. Unforgettable setpieces abound, and the final brutal fistfight is a near-perfect sendoff of one of the greatest heroes and one of the greatest villains in video game history, that brilliantly evokes all of the games in this landmark series.

Of course, games are still, first and foremost, about the gameplay, and one of my favorite games of the year has no narrative at all to speak of, save what my imagination conjures up. Rock Band 2 is an endlessly exhilarating fantasy fulfillment machine. I understand that it's not a huge advancement over its predecessor, but the whole Rock Band experience was new to me the day I brought home my RB2 bundle. I've already spent many hours getting lost in the music while playing drums for The Intellivisions, and I hope to spend many more. The people behind this game really understand the culture of rock, and everything about it feels right, from the ambiance of the gigs to the iconic images on loading screens of your band, and your band's name on lunchboxes, bumper stickers and the like.

And then there's the chilling Dead Space, which builds on the framework of Resident Evil 4 by adding some uniquely sci-fi elements like vacuums and zero-g environments, and takes place on a ship so richly detailed and haunting, it feels like you've stepped into a really, really good Ridley Scott movie.

I also want to give special recognition to Fable II. It's a thoroughly enjoyable game whose storybook vibe is very charming, and whose various elements--questing, developing your character's combat and magic attributes, shaping your character's moral role in the world, and buying and selling property, come together to make for a surprisingly compelling, addictive experience. On a personal note, I also love the tacit implication in the game that gay people should be treated as equals in society and granted the same freedom to express their commitment to each other with a bond of marriage that straight people enjoy. Ah, what a ridiculous fantasy world Albion is.

My odd game out for the year is Little Big Planet, which I found absolutely enchanting in the days after its release and would not have hesitated to place on this list. Many user-created levels knocked my socks off with their beauty and inventiveness. Then things got unpleasant as many of the very best levels were nuked by Sony, in many cases for no clear reason. This left a pretty nasty taste in my mouth about the whole experience. I've heard that things have improved since then, but I haven't yet found the time to hop back into my pod and see what's new in the LBP.

I'm giving honorable mention to No More Heroes, Suda51's exhilaratingly original, audacious Wii action game. Fascinating characters, stylish lo-fi graphics, a dizzying story, excellent use of the Wii remote, and tons of fun, ludicrously bloody action. Brilliant.

And Gears of War 2 also deserves recognition. As dumb as Cliff Bleszinski's "Bigger, better and more bad-ass" phrase sounds, it's nonetheless accurate. Gears of War 2 improves upon its predecessor in just about every way, featuring action on a larger scale and a story that's nice and ignorable rather than one whose in-your-face stupidity actually hurts the experience of playing the game. Heck, there was even a cutscene in this game I found rather moving. With a slew of terrific cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes, Gears 2 is an outstanding package.

This was also an amazing year for downloadable games, both in terms of remakes of classics and original titles. My favorite update is Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix, which improves the visuals of the 14-year-old classic so that they look spectacular in high definition, and polishes up the gameplay, but also demonstrates just how well the fundamental game still holds up.

My favorite original downloadable game, and one of my favorite games of the year in any category, is Braid. It's a brilliant, beautiful puzzler that's not quite like anything I've played before. It's challenging but consistently, unfailingly logical, and each time I thought I might have to break down and look at a FAQ, I instead put the game aside for a day, and when I returned to it, looking at the situation with fresh eyes, the solution was immediately apparent. To bring us full circle, it's also one of the most challenging and rewarding narratives I've encountered in a game, dealing with regrets on both a personal and historic scale, with a jaw-dropping climax that gave me goosebumps and left me feeling utterly amazed.

In space, no one can hear you say, "Hot diggity, this game is awesome!"

2008-11-09T23:38:00.000-08:00

I'm positively overwhelmed by great games at the moment, some purchased, some GameFlown. I still need to spend a lot more time with Little Big Planet, and I've barely scratched the surface of Fallout 3. Tonight, I spent some time fending off waves of Locust with friends in Gears of War 2's terrific Horde mode, but the campaign remains mostly untouched.

The game that keeps pulling me away from all the others is Dead Space. I know this is common knowledge, but man, is this game outstanding. It doesn't reinvent the survival horror genre--you can feel the influence of Resident Evil 4 throughout--but it provides an absolutely remarkable setting and tosses in enough pure sci-fi elements to set it squarely apart from RE4 or any other game. Fighting enemies in zero-gravity environments is deliciously disorienting, and the way the sound effects contribute to the experience of running through a vacuum as your oxygen rapidly depletes has to be heard to be appreciated. Putting enemies in stasis and then blasting their appendages off and seeing them slowly twist through the air is strangely beautiful.

In fact, nearly everything about the game is strangely beautiful. The Ishimura actually feels like a once-functional spaceship, and the level of detail makes me feel like I've stepped into a Ridley Scott movie. The sound design equals the visuals in every way, with the ship clanging convincingly and the eerie echo of once-important PA announcements haunting the halls. And although the story seems like pure Event Horizon stuff, it's still told in a way that has me wanting to find out how it's all going to end, with the slick, insane Dr. Mercer giving the gruesome evil a compelling human face, and enough eerie hallucinations to give the game's horror a psychological edge.

Most of all, the game's action is what has me so hooked right now. It's difficult and satisfying, it's constantly introducing new enemies and new elements, and it always has me feeling like I'm fighting for my life.

This is one of my favorite games of the year.

A step forward, a step back

2008-11-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

I was an ardent supporter of President Obama's campaign, not because he was black, not even a little bit, but because I strongly believe that his ideas about how to run this country are exactly what we need right now. Yet that historic aspect of his victory cannot be ignored, and it is cause for celebration, an inspiring sign of how far we as a nation of come since Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech some 45 years ago. But as I watched the reactions to this monumental moment in our history on television with friends, many politicians and pundits echoed the same sentiment: Now, when a parent tells their child, "Someday, you can grow up to be president of this great nation, that is indeed the truth regardless of who they are." And that is not yet the case.

In his moving endorsement of Barack Obama, Colin Powell said the following:

I'm also troubled by. . .what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Powell is absolutely right. The America I love is not the one represented by those who object to the notion of a Muslim president. But we are not yet at the point where a Muslim or a Hindu, an agnostic or an atheist, a gay man or a lesbian could be president of this nation. True equality is still a long, long way off.

Never have I felt joy so commingled with grief as I did last night, for even as my bus ride home took me through throngs of people cheering in the streets, celebrating this hopeful new day in America, Proposition 8 here in California, and similar measures in other states, painfully reminded me that we as a society still have so far to go.

In some states, bans on gay marriage passed in yesterday's election. Here in California, a particularly hateful proposition, propelled by a campaign that used shameful scare tactics, passed which will amend the constitution of our state to strip the right to marry away from gay couples who have already enjoyed it, making their unions invalid and unrecognized. The L.A. Times endorsement of a no vote explains just how misleading and downright false the campaign used to support this proposition was, and how unnecessary and backwards the amendment will be, far better than I ever could.

This is not a religious issue. This is a civil rights issue. No religious institution would be forced to perform or recognize gay marriages. Marriage is a social institution, not exclusively a religious one. Will we pass a law preventing atheist heterosexual couples from going to the courthouse and getting married?

Supporters of this proposition appealed to peoples' fears about their children growing up in a world where gay marriage is accepted. What's to be scared of, unless you hold on to this archaic, absurd notion that homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice"? Because, right, the social alienation that goes with being gay is so tempting that lots of people are making that choice, and many straight people--who, of course, chose at some point in their lives to be straight, because it is a choice after all--struggle with the urge to give in to being gay constantly, because being gay just looks like such a good option. No. Ridiculous. I am not gay but I am transgendered, and I can no more change that about myself than I can change the color of my eyes. And believe me, I spent many long, hard, painful years trying. For our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, this is part of who they are, and it should be celebrated as just another weave in the beautiful fabric of human diversity. Instead, we continue to discriminate against them, to put them on a lower platform in our society. This is every bit as hateful as denying someone a right because of the color of their skin, and those who supported Proposition 8 ought to be deeply ashamed of themselves. Your children are not going to be more likely to "turn gay" if they grow up in a world where gay marriage is accepted. Believe me, your children will be straight or gay because they are straight or gay. Giving them a world that is more accepting of this diversity would be a gift.

But even as I grieve for this setback, I know that it is temporary, and the efforts to impede progress will inevitably prove futile. With each passing generation, more and more of our young people grow up understanding that homosexuality is nothing to revile or fear. They grow up, not with the grating, reluctant tolerance expressed by Sarah Palin in her debate with Joe Biden, but a full-hearted acceptance of their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as their equals in every aspect, deserving of all the same rights. That we will get to the point where gay marriage is allowed, where future generations will look back on this decision with all the disbelief and disappointment in us that I felt as a child looking back on the idea that at one point certain citizens had been forced to sit in the back of the bus, I have no doubt whatsoever. This is the slow but sure path of progress that has characterized the history of this great nation.

I was so happy to be alive to see this great moment in America's history. God willing, I will live to see that one as well.

Niko and Caro, American Dreamers

2008-05-20T15:04:00.001-07:00

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the plot of Grand Theft Auto IV.

It's been ten years now since I graduated from college, and that fact put me in a bit of a reflective mood for much of the past few weeks. Thinking of what I've done with the past ten years, and where I hope to be when another ten years have gone by.

When I graduated, in May of 1998, the future was anything but certain. I mean, a degree in theater from a small liberal arts college is not exactly a license to print money, and at that point, I still didn't really know what I wanted to do professionally. But I had a dream for my life. Not a big dream at all, really. It's quite simple, but it's mine. Maybe it's yours, too.

It's a dream that was expressed pretty well in this exchange on Showtime's entertaining Dexter:

Dexter: Do you have a dream for your life? Your future? Yes?
Rita: Of course. Do you?
Dexter: It might sound weird. I want to someday be content. Just feel comfortable, like everyone else. I want...
Rita: ...a normal life?
Dexter: Yeah, a normal life.
Rita: That's all I want. Just that.

Dexter, in case you don't know, is a sympathetic character who kills people, and he has the same dream for his life that I have for mine. That seems appropriate here, as I've been spending a lot of time lately with another sympathetic character who kills people: Niko Bellic, the protagonist of Rockstar's truly superb Grand Theft Auto IV.

Yes, as I was playing GTA IV, I was also thinking a good deal about my life, and my dreams for my life. My life since college has had its ups and downs. After graduating, I fell into teaching. That was a job that I think I knew immediately, as a transgendered person, I wasn't going to stay in, because it was neither safe nor, some might argue, appropriate, for me to attempt to transition while teaching high school students. Some people may have been brave enough to attempt that path. I am not one of them. And I suspect that, even were it not for my gender issues, I would have wanted to seek out other professional experiences. Teaching is simply not my calling. Since then, I've worked in coffee shops and customer service call centers, trying to inch my way closer to my dream, and also to work towards getting a job doing something that I'll find truly satisfying.

Niko Bellic comes to Liberty City with dreams of his own, dreams that have been fueled by letters from his cousin Roman, who wrote of living a life filled with cars, women and money in the land of opportunity. When Niko arrives, he finds that Roman has overstated his success just a tad, and that in fact Roman is deeply in debt, and in trouble with just the sort of unsavory characters Niko came to Liberty City hoping to get away from. What's Niko gonna do when he arrives in LC and needs to make some money, get a job at the local Bean Machine? No, that's what suckers like me do. Niko is not the latte-slingin' type. He's been through a little too much. He's a little too broken. Early on, a character named Dimitri Rascalov (Niko should have known better than to ever trust someone with that name) says to Niko, "We can choose the game, Niko Bellic, but we cannot choose the rules of the game." Niko has, for better or worse, chosen his game.

It's not unusual for a good film or book or television show to make me think about my own life in some way, or about the world around me, but a video game? That's pretty much unheard of. GTA IV, though, did just that. I'm not saying that the characters could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those on The Wire, but I am saying that while The Wire is, in my opinion, the best television show in recent years about the America we're living in today, GTA IV is the best videogame ever about the America we're living in today, and that, like all truly good crime fiction, it is not the immoral or amoral product so many right-wing crusaders would have you believe it is, but it is, in fact, deeply moral, a story of choices and consequences.

There's a moment near the end of GTA IV where I really believed that Niko might end up with a simple, honest life, that he might fly off into the sunset, heading for the American Midwest with a nice woman at his side, leaving the crime network of Liberty City that he's fallen into behind. Of course, I realize that I was naive to think this, but it's just that I'd come to feel really attached to Niko as a character, and that I really wanted it for him, wanted him to have his own little American dream, and when it was all taken away from him in an instant, it was genuinely upsetting. Money is the closest thing you have in Grand Theft Auto to a score, and by the end I'd racked up well over a half million dollars, but as another character declared, "You won!", it all felt so hollow to me, and, I suspect, to Niko as well. Yes, Niko wound up with tons of money, and had established for himself a seemingly pretty safe and secure place in Liberty City's underworld, but at what cost?

It would take forever for me to list all the reasons I love this game so much. I love the razor-sharp satire of things like the Republican Space Rangers cartoon, Weazel News and the Bastion's Buddies right-wing radio talk show. I love the huge, diverse, vibrant soundtrack, filled as it is with wonderful details like jazz great Roy Haynes DJing the jazz station and sharing poignant, heartfelt anecdotes about the musicians he's featuring, but, in a nice touch, referring to events as taking place "here in Liberty City" instead of New York. I love the exhilarating beauty of unplannable moments like finding yourself flying over the city by helicopter on a rainy night as Pruit Igoe by Philip Glass swells up on the radio. I love the living, breathing city, where people walk down the street talking on their cellphones, or wash shop windows, or do tai chi in the park. But most of all, I love the characters who populate it, and the story it tells. When Niko finally comes face-to-face with the man who betrayed him so many years ago, a moment he has built up in his mind, been obsessed with, for years, he finds that the man is an utterly pathetic figure. This is one of the moments where the game gives the player a crucial choice. You can kill him, as Niko has intended to do for so long, or you can walk away. GTA IV certainly isn't the first game to offer choices of this kind, but it sure does it better than any game before in my opinion. Your choices in games are frequently between the most saintly of goodness and the most diabolical of evil, and so they never feel quite real to me. I'll do one to see what happens, then play again to make the other choice, but I never feel any real investment in it. It's just a game, after all. But so well-drawn are the characters in GTA IV, and Niko in particular, that I really felt personally invested in these choices. In this case, I chose to walk away. In the moments that followed, on a quiet car drive back home, Roman said some things to Niko about forgiveness, about letting go of the past. Things that were simple and true. That was beautiful. And while Niko's victory against the predatory forces of the underworld may seem hollow, there are other victories, smaller but more meaningful. Niko meets a young woman who had, like so many, come to Liberty City from the Midwest with big dreams of making it as a star, but had fallen into drug addiction and prostitution. Niko helped her get on a train back home to her parents, and she sent a nice email to thank him and let him know she was doing all right. That meant something.

Of course, like so many, I'm already wondering what's next for Grand Theft Auto. How do you follow this game? Will Rockstar continue along this more serious, contemplative path for the next few games in the series, or will we see things veer back towards the more cartoonish violence of earlier games? Will we return to the neon-drenched streets of Vice City, or visit someplace entirely new? And, I can't help but wonder, when the next game rolls around, will I be any closer to my own little dream? In any case, I won't stop trying, and that's what matters. I'll just keep on cranking up the LCD Soundsystem and walking through this world like the badass superstar I am.

Berkeley Coffee Voodoo Magick!

2008-05-20T00:32:00.000-07:00

I currently work at a coffee shop in historic downtown Berkeley, California. Our clientele always features a significant number of crazy people, homeless people, and crazy homeless people. We had a few remarkably hot days last week. This heat only made things much, much crazier.

At one point, after a particularly lengthy, stressful, exhausting rush, a customer, who was clearly gifted with some sort of cosmic ability to peer deep into my soul because somehow she could tell that I was a bit stressed and a bit exhausted, looked deep into my eyes and said, "There is so much trouble there." She then took a few ice cubes from out of the iced tea I had just handed her, grabbed my hand, and squeezed tightly. Her face contorted in a look of powerful concentration as she bent her will on purging this trouble from my soul. She began to shake as she fought an epic battle with the demons of stress and exhaustion that were inhabiting me, as I stood there wondering if I was supposed to be shaking too, or if she was doing all the work and I was supposed to appear increasingly serene. Finally I settled for focusing my effort on just trying not to look like I thought she was crazy.

When it was over, I made a half-hearted attempt to appear grateful for her efforts and to indicate that I was feeling better. A few minutes later, I realized that I actually was feeling better. The sheer unusualness of the experience, and her desire to help, oddly expressed as it was, had helped me relax and laugh a bit and forget the stress brought on by the mobs of irritable high school kids demanding free cups of ice water.

I love Berkeley.

Americaffe

2008-04-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

In Rockstar Games' hugely anticipated release Grand Theft Auto IV, which comes out tomorrow, the Statue of Liberty has been rechristened the Statue of Happiness, and she holds aloft not a torch, but a cup of coffee. "Give me your tired," indeed.

I think this is a brilliant little detail. I've spent my fair share of time working in coffee shops, and I'm of the opinion that while many people come in because they genuinely appreciate coffee as coffee, plenty of others have made Starbucks and other coffee shops part of their daily routine not because of any particular appreciation of espresso, but because the act of drinking a grande vanilla soy latte or a caramel Frappuccino each morning is a way of saying to others and to themselves, "Yes, I am someone in our consumer society! Behold, I can afford to spend four dollars each day on a cup of coffee! And with every precious sip, I keep the voices of doubt at bay, and restore meaning and value to my life! Doesn't this branded coffee cup in my hand go great with my iPod and my RAZR?" Meanwhile, despite the tremendous success and proliferation of such shops, the people who work them can often barely afford to shop them. From Naomi Klein's blistering 2000 book No Logo:

"They expect us to look like a Gap ad, professional, clean and neat all the time, and I can't even pay to do laundry," says Laurie Bonang of Starbucks. "You can buy two grande mocha cappuccinos with my hourly salary." Like millions of her demographic coevals on the payrolls of all-star brands like the Gap, Nike and Barnes & Noble, Bonang is living inside a stunning corporate success story -- though you'd never know it from the resignation and anger in her voice. All the brand-name retail workers I spoke with expressed their frustration at helping their stores rake in, to them, unimaginable profits, and then having to watch that profit get funneled into compulsive expansion. Employee wages, meanwhile, stagnate or even decline. At Starbucks in British Columbia new workers faced an actual wage decrease -- from Can$7.50 to $7 an hour -- during a period when the chain was doubling its profits and opening 350 new stores a year. "I do the banking. I know how much the store pulls in a week," Laurie Bonang says. "They just take all that revenue and open up new stores."

Anyway, enough quoting of left-wing text on my part. I just want to say that to me, in addition to everything else that they were, the earlier GTA games were also truly incisive satire of American culture, and that I'm really looking forward, not only to wreaking havoc in Liberty City and getting into plenty of shootouts and high-speed car chases (though I am most definitely looking forward to that stuff -- A LOT!), but also to discovering the game's humor, to cruising around and listening to Fox...er, sorry, Weazel News, and to seeing what GTA IV has to say about the America we're living in now.

Get a haircut and get a real job.

2008-04-22T22:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had my hair cut for the first time in years. I liked having it long, and I was scared to trust it to anyone new, but I was also starting to feel like maybe my hair was a factor in me not getting the jobs I was interviewing for--maybe potential employers were inferring that I was one of those pot-smoking ne'er-do-wells or something.

Naturally, after deciding to get it cut, rather than doing research and making an informed decision about where to go, I decided to just go any old place, so long as it didn't look too expensive. I walked to a shop that obviously caters to the Spanish-speaking population in my area.

At one point the woman who was about to cut my hair asked me, "Do you want letters?" "What?!" I said. "Small letters in your hair?" I was just about to run screaming, but then I decided she was actually saying "lattice." This, I understood perfectly. "Uhm." I said. "A little?"

I didn't really know exactly what I wanted, except for it to be shorter, and I probably wouldn't have been able to communicate what I wanted to her that well regardless, so I sort of just let her do her thing. I thought about telling her not to do anything too "boyish" with it, but I was, as usual, too much of a wuss to try to communicate this sentiment.

It's a pretty drastic change and is shorter than I went in wanting. My first horrifying thought was that it looks sort of like a Sawyer-on-Lost haircut (!!!) but it's not that bad, nor quite so boyish. Now that I've had a bit of time to adjust, I kind of like it, and anyway, it'll grow out again.

Today, I had a job interview. It's hard for me to say how it went. I felt a bit iffy when I walked out, like I stumbled over a few of my answers, and didn't give the best responses to those kinds of dumb, generic job interview questions like "What's the one quality that's most important to you in a co-worker?" ("Ummm...hardworking? Hardworking is good, right? Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with hardworking on this one. Next question!") But I've learned that how I feel about something isn't necessarily the best gauge of how it went. This dates back to college, when frequently the papers I felt the least confident about would be the ones on which I got the highest marks. In this case, who knows? Things I make a big deal of in my head may not have been a big deal to them. On the whole, I think it went fine. Now it's just a matter of waiting to hear back from them. I'm also sending a thank-you letter in the mail tomorrow, since that seems to be customary these days if you want a job.

Wish me luck!

"Watch this"

2008-04-21T01:07:00.000-07:00

I was walking to work the other day. It was a truly glorious spring morning. Obama signs abound on the lawns and in the windows of many a house along my way, but one in particular caught my eye, homemade, with rays of sunlight emanating from the O. It seemed a genuine sign of hope. And right around that moment, "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits got shuffled up on my iPod. That's not a song I ever thought was especially great, until I saw the finale of season two of The West Wing. And now, every time I hear it, I see that scene again in my mind. A storm is raging against the president in both a literal and figurative sense. A question is asked. Jed Bartlet, great showman that he is, lets it hang in the air for a moment. The flashbulbs crackle, the air is electric, and Leo says "Watch this," and the president's hands go into his pockets, and he fixes his gaze, and I get chills. It's almost enough to make me proud to be an American.

Barack Obama, like Jed Bartlet, understands that a large part of politics is theater, and that's just fine with me.

World War II, now in convenient beverage form!

2008-04-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Sure, World War II may be played out as a setting for video games, but what about as a setting for...that's right...energy drinks! I was perusing the aisles at my local Grocery Outlet here in Berkeley when I found all three varieties of ACE Energy Drink available for just $.50 a can, so naturally I grabbed one of each.

The cans have a pin-up girl/bullet-riddled airplane motif that's actually kinda cool. They also helpfully remind us, "It's a dog fight out there! To win, you need to stay sharp. Crack open an ACE Energy for an immediate physical and mental lift. Ace will get you flying high and keep you in control. THROW DOWN AN ACE!"

The drink's official website says, "The can design strongly communicates the brand’s core values. ACE Energy’s bullet riddled cockpit with alluring imagery directly connects with the danger, excitement and honor of military fascination." Why yes, it is a tremendous honor to be fascinated by the military. It's also extremely dangerous.

If ACE Energy is any indication, WWII tasted like somewhat flat orange soda cut with cough syrup, and noticeably hit you with its jolt of caffeine and taurine and stuff within just a few moments of your first sip.

Yeah, I think five sips of ACE is about enough for me. I'm gonna switch to the Thomas Kemper Vanilla Cream Soda which I also scored at the Grocery Outlet. That's delicious, and it doesn't carry with it any of the dangers of military fascination.

Outside

2008-04-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

She started her lunch break by reading the end of a short story by Raymond Carver. She wasn't a big fan of short stories, but she liked finishing things, and she could finish a few of these a day, even during her broken up workday.

After she finished the story, there was nothing to take up the space in her head, so it went where it often went during lunch breaks, to that point in the very near future when the break would be over. She could see it in her mind. It was like a photograph of herself back behind the counter, and it started out so small it was almost invisible, like a fixed point of light in the center of a tremendous movie screen, but it was flying towards her, getting bigger and bigger until it would swallow her up. She shook her head and decided to do something instead of sitting there thinking about this. Acting was usually better than thinking, she believed. Maybe she should eat something. She considered for a moment buying a sandwich. Then her mind calculated roughly what percentage of one hour of work that sandwich would represent, and the number was like a little weight inside her. She sighed. Then she wondered what percentage of people who came into her shop ever thought about what percentage of an hour they were eating and drinking up on the things they bought. Then she thought that this thought was a clear sign that she was at least a little bit crazy. She knew that some people said that if you think you're crazy, you're not crazy, because crazy people never think they're crazy. She thought that was a bunch of crap.

It was only a few hours until her shift was over. She decided she could wait to eat, and that she would go over to the drugstore across the street and maybe buy some things to use for making a sandwich when she got home.

It was hot outside. She saw a young woman with pigtails walking down the street strumming a guitar. The woman wasn't doing it for money. She didn't look angry or lost. She looked well-loved. She was, it seemed, just walking down the street and strumming the guitar because she wanted to. Seeing this woman made her glad. Of course, she knew she could be wrong about the woman. But she felt she had a good sense about these things. It was strange to her that even though people mystified her in the easy way they spoke to each other, she still felt she had a good sense of the inherent goodness of some people. But that was the way it was. And she figured that maybe someday, if she felt more like herself, she might understand how people spoke to each other, too, that everything there might fall into place and it would all be easy. Then she thought that might be too much to hope for, that maybe it was a little hard for everyone from time to time, but maybe it would be a bit easier, anyway.

In the drugstore, she walked to where they kept things you might use with sandwiches. There were two young men standing nearby. They looked to her like they might be students at the university.

"Well," one of them said, "I mean, she feels pretty strongly about her feelings, you know?"

"That's the point, though," said the other. "I sort of attacked her to upset her," he said. "That was kind of the point."

"But you don't really know her very well," said the other. "You haven't really earned the right to attack her like that yet, you know?"

There was nothing here that she had any desire to put on a sandwich. She sighed and walked out.

As she walked back up the street to her shop, she glanced at the image in her mind to see that it was now almost at the size where it was going to swallow her up. She came to the door of her shop. She knew she really should go in.

She grabbed her ponytail and pulled it over her eyes, but she couldn't block out the sun.

My Aunt Ikaruga Is In Town

2008-04-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

According to the Wikipedia, "Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity." It's an elusive feeling for me. I'd say that, in some of my better theatrical performances in college, the ones where everything just sort of fell into place, I experienced it. And there are times when I experience it playing certain video games. Sometimes it can happen when I'm writing, and almost invariably the things I write the most effortlessly are also the things I think are the best. Also, if I get into a good rhythm at work, whether it's firing off email after email or producing latte after latte, I can hit it for a while, though it's extremely challenging to maintain your singular focus when you must look into the visages of customers and see the existential despair that people only seem to experience during those three minutes before their triple soy mocha is delivered into their hands, restoring a sense of meaning to their lives.

As I was doing just that today at work, I was thinking about Ikaruga. If you don't know what Ikaruga is, it's a vertically scrolling shooter that was first released in 2001, and was made available this past Wednesday on Xbox Live Arcade. It's a very special example of the genre. (If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend Don Pachi's lovely appreciation of the game.) What sets it apart in gameplay terms is a simple but very effective polarity mechanic. You can switch your ship's polarity at any time between black and white. While black, black bullets cannot hurt you, and while white, white bullets cannot hurt you. However, while black, you do twice as much damage to white ships, and vice-versa.

I'd never played the game before Wednesday. I have to admit, before playing it, there was this part of me that thought that maybe I'd have what it takes to be an outstanding Ikaruga player. I knew that the game had a reputation for intense difficulty, but I also knew that there are those players who excel at it. As it turns out, I am not one of them.

One of my favorite features of the XBLA release of Ikaruga is the ability to download and watch replays of high scoring performances. I always enjoy it when games include a feature like this. It was a neat addition to Gameloft's excellent XBLA remake of the 1989 classic Prince of Persia, and in that game, watching replays of great performances helped me to improve my own performance. I don't think that's going to happen with Ikaruga. But what I like so much about the replay feature is that Ikaruga is the sort of game that seems downright impossible if you're not very good at it. You'll find yourself in a situation where it might appear to you that there's no way to emerge unscathed from the hail of black and white bullets headed your way. The game might seem unfair. Well, it isn't. All you gotta do is download a replay from the leaderboards of someone totally acing that section, and you'll know it's not impossible. It's just that you suck at it. And what makes these stellar performances all the more impressive is that these players manage to rack up chain after chain of enemy kills (by destroying three white or three black enemies in a row) to earn the really big points. As if just surviving wasn't difficult enough.

Ikaruga is a beautiful game, and it's especially beautiful when it's being played well, because those performances make it look easy and graceful and natural. I could be wrong, of course, but I suspect that, for the players who can perform on that level, it actually is kind of easy. I suspect that they've gotten to the point where, when playing Ikaruga, they enter that place we call flow. And that is a beautiful thing.

Obama Commits Political Faux Pas, Says Something True

2008-04-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

I don't blame Hillary Clinton for trying to take advantage of this opportunity to win over voters by jumping on Obama's recent remarks, but really, is there anyone out there who honestly doesn't think that some Americans are bitter in exactly the way Obama said some Americans are bitter? You're Goddamn right some Americans are bitter, and with good reason, too.

Clinton supporters are handing out "I'm Not Bitter" bumper stickers. Clinton herself is telling people what they want to hear by saying things like, "The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich." Actually, Hillary, there are a certain number of people out there who latch on to religion because they're poor or bitter or empty inside, and you damn well know it. But it's a smart thing to say strategically, because it makes it sound as if Obama characterized all religious people as being religious for negative reasons, which of course he didn't.

Yes, this is sound political strategy. It just makes me sad that a statement reflecting an unfortunate truth of today's political climate is apparently too much for some people to handle, that Hillary Clinton, who must know in her heart of hearts that Obama was right, has more to gain by denying this truth than by acknowledging it. As David Cross once said about our current president's tendency to put things in idiotically simplistic and downright false terms, "Are we a nation of six-year-olds? Answer: yes."

(The opinions expressed here are mine alone, certainly not those of Barack Obama or any other Obama supporter, all of whom believe that all Americans are totally optimistic people who harbor no feelings of disappointment or bitterness whatsoever.)

Slam Dunk, Strindberg Style...

2008-04-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

(...or "It's Okay, the French Dude Said")

I had a job interview one afternoon last week. The story of that job interview is probably interesting only to me, but what the hell, I'm gonna tell it anyway.

My interview was at 4:00, in San Francisco. I was working at the coffee shop until 2:00. This left me plenty of time to BART across the Bay. No problem.

At a few minutes after 2:00, literally just as I'm about to head down the stairs into the depths of the Downtown Berkeley BART station, my phone starts to vibrate. It's this dude from a staffing agency, the same dude who got me the seasonal position I had from October through January, which paid pretty well by customer service standards and which I'd hoped might become permanent, but didn't. He says he's got a perfect opportunity for me. He thinks there's basically no chance that I won't get this position. He calls it a "slam dunk." He tells me what it pays. It pays a bit more even than the last job.

Great. I'm definitely interested.

I just need you to email me your most recent resume, he says.

Sure thing, I'll do that as soon as I get home this evening.

Yeah, see, that's probably gonna be too late. I really need it immediately. They want this position filled, like, now.

I couldn't believe this was happening. Weeks go by without any significant developments in my job search and now, here I am, with two important things colliding in the same moment. What do I do? Do I go home and send off the resume for this sure thing, this slam dunk, realizing that if I do this I probably won't make the interview in San Francisco in less than two hours? Or do I pass up the slam dunk and stick to this scheduled interview, which came after a few phone interviews and some bizarre online psychological profile survey which somehow did not detect that I'm a total weirdo?

In keeping with my longtime commitment to indecisiveness, I figured I would try to do both. I hopped on the next bus home, ran the four blocks from the bus stop to my home faster than I've probably ran any distance in years, fired up my computer and emailed the resume off, darted back out the door, hustled the four blocks back to the bus stop, hopped on the next bus to the BART station, and jumped on the next train that would get me headed towards San Francisco.

Just as the train came up on the undersea tunnel, I got a call from the staffing agency dude. Bad news, he says. We were too late in getting your resume over there. They'd just filled the position.
So much for the slam dunk. And I was pretty sure I was going to be late for my interview, as well. Terrific, I'd blown this job interview for nothing.

Actually, miraculously, I walked through the door of the office at 3:58 PM. Definitely not ideal for a job interview to show up two minutes before the scheduled time, but I figured it was better than not showing up at all. I probably also looked a bit disheveled from all the running I'd been doing. Nothing I could do about that at this point.

During the interview, I felt pretty good about things. I somehow forgot about the stress and disappointment I'd been experiencing only moments before, and focused on the interview itself. I think I answered their questions well. I felt warm and sincere and genuine, and I think I did the best that I can expect myself to do in an interview, which is pretty good. I liked the people I interviewed with, and came away from the interview really feeling like I might be a good fit for the company.

On the BART ride home, suddenly all the stress and disappointment I'd somehow managed to put aside during the interview came flooding back to me. I suddenly felt caught up in the grip of tremendous despair. Everything seemed so bleak and hopeless. There was no way I was going to get this job, or any other decent job, ever again. I felt like August Strindberg. I must have been wringing my hands and sighing theatrically or something, because my despair was apparent to a guy standing next to me.

It's okay, it's okay, he said to me. I'm pretty sure he was French.

Yesterday, as I was searching for jobs online, I saw that the company I interviewed with has reposted the position. I guess I didn't get the job. They didn't even contact me to tell me I didn't get the job. That was disappointing.

But it's okay.

I have a job for the moment, one that should, at least, prevent me from starving and becoming homeless, if only barely. And I walk to and from work down gorgeous Berkeley streets on beautiful Berkeley days and it's just not possible for me to despair all the time. And I've made a bit of money selling stuff I wasn't using and don't really need on amazon, and selling one thing I didn't want to part with on craigslist, but I can do without for the moment. It's only for now.

Of course, I'll never know if it was the fact that I showed up a bit dishevelled, only two minutes before 4:00, that cost me my shot at that position. I'm sure it didn't help. But then, the fact that I was fired from a job last year probably didn't help either. It's definitely extra-challenging finding a job in the wake of being fired, trying to convince potential employers that that one failure is not the sum total of who you are, that in fact, if anything, you've learned and grown from that experience. Still, despite this challenge, most of the time I remain hopeful that, in the long run, I might end up with a permanent position that's better than the one I lost. It wasn't a job I especially liked, or that paid much at all. I was just complacent in it, is all.

I'm trying to do more networking these days. So many people I know got their jobs at least in part because they knew someone, or knew someone who knew someone. It's amazing to me how big of a thing networking is, how hugely important it can be. Networking has always been a bit difficult for me, because I'm not the most socially comfortable person in the world and because I have a hard time promoting myself and using people I genuinely like and respect to try to get a leg up. But there are opportunities out there, and I want to give myself the best chance I can of taking advantage of them.

You Have To Burn The Rope

2008-04-07T21:19:00.001-07:00

Go play this game, now. It made my day. I think you'll love it, too.

P.S. It's Swedish.

Blogistical Stuff

2008-04-07T19:55:00.001-07:00

Mad props to my good friend Aaron--you can follow his adventures and, most importantly, see pictures and videos of his adorable son Ezra, at Two Body Problem--for turning me on to a few nifty new doodads available to blogspot users. My new blogroll now updates when the blogs I read and recommend are updated! Neat-o! And you can now subscribe to this blog using the subscription whatchamacallit located right underneath my Xbox 360 gamercard! Enjoy!

(If you're a blogspot user who's interested in these or other Not Ready for Primetime features, check out draft.blogger.com.)

It's all in the game: NHL 08 edition.

2008-04-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

EA should replace that dude they've had aggressively declaring "It's in the game!" in their EA Sports titles for as long as I can remember with The Wire's Omar Little saying "It's all in the game," mainly because, as I mentioned on Tuesday, Omar is awesome, but also because, at least in the case of their latest NHL game, it really seems to be true. At least, I have it on good authority that it's true from a few die-hard hockey fan friends of mine. I understand that the coaching and management aspects of the game are handled really well, and add a lot to the experience for those players who are into that sort of thing. All I really know is that, when you're on the ice, the game is tremendous fun. I've liked many a hockey game over the years, but I don't think I've ever loved a hockey game as much as I love NHL 08.

I'm pretty ill-equipped to review these sorts of annually released sports games, because I'm not a big enough sports fan to know how authentically they capture the sport on which they're based, and because I don't play them each year, so I can't really tell how significant the changes to each new edition are. But who cares about those technical details, anyway? For me, games and sports are primarily about emotion. I've never liked a sport or a team enough to follow it throughout an entire, interminable regular season. But I occasionally get swept up in the intense emotions that can surround a championship series, and I was crushed when the Ducks lost game 7 in their bid for the Stanley Cup in 2003. Just as that series had me screaming at my television like a crazy person, NHL 08 has induced me to take the Lord's name in vain many, many times, not out of frustration with poor design choices or unfair AI, but simply because the game creates in me the exact same investment of emotion that the sport itself has done on occasion.

A big part of the game's success is in the "skill stick" system, which isn't new in this edition but was new to me. This control scheme has you using the right thumbstick to deke and shoot. After years of playing hockey games where shooting was done with the push of a button, it took a bit of adjustment on my part, but ultimately this came to feel far more intuitive, and although it's a relatively small change, it goes a long way in making me feel more connected to the action on the ice.

Although I've never had the attention span to follow a full season of actual hockey, I did play a full season as the Ducks, attempting to help them defend the Cup after their victory last year. Playing through the season on the Pro difficulty, I wound up as the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoffs, and was totally outplayed by the Vancouver Canucks in the first round. Who knows, maybe if I'd bothered with the deeper aspects of the game, the coaching and management stuff, designing plays, trading players, my team would have fared better. But although I'm really glad those aspects are there and are so well done for those players who enjoy them, I'm especially glad that the on-ice action feels so authentic, for people like me, who just want to get swept up in the emotion of that moment when you send the puck home.

NHL 08: Five/Five for fighting

I killed Charlton Heston!

2008-04-06T14:33:00.001-07:00

When I was young, I had this idea that our internal monolgues, every thought that runs through our heads, are being printed out in heaven or the alien's command center or wherever. I envisioned this endless room full of dot-matrix printers constantly screeching away, one for every one of us, and imagined that some poor sod has to look over all this stuff. I think this notion may have been a side effect of my Catholic upbringing, something some guilt-ridden part of my psyche devised to try to scare me into only thinking pure thoughts. If so, it failed miserably.

Anyway, yesterday morning, I swear that at one point the thought ran through my head, "It's kinda weird that Charlton Heston is still alive." Then, when I got home from work late last night and glanced at Yahoo!, I found out that this was no longer the case. Whoever's in charge of these things must have seen the printout of my thought and said to himself, "Shit, I knew I was forgetting to do something!"

If I'm supposed to feel bad about this, it's not working either.

It's all in the game.

2008-04-01T02:27:00.000-07:00

So here I am, working at a coffee shop again for the time being. I don't mind the work. The people are cool. And this shop is in the heart of Downtown Berkeley, a colorful and fascinating neighborhood, which helps keep things interesting. Stuff is always happening. The other day, a few hundred people marched by the shop, protesting China's occupation of Tibet. That was pretty cool.

But I do mind the low rate of pay, and the low number of hours. To be honest, I'm still a little surprised that I've had as much trouble as I've had finding a job that pays at least a bit better. I've got another interview lined up this Thursday, which I really hope I get. (Agonizing pre-interview decision: Do I spend the money on getting my hair trimmed, for fear that my long hair isn't making the best impression on prospective employers?) I'd feel like a bit of a jerk, jumping ship so soon after taking this job at the coffee shop, accepting another job, but I suppose it's not as if people don't leave these jobs after a brief period all the time, and I suppose it's not as if they deserve my loyalty, considering what they're paying me. As my man Omar on The Wire is fond of saying, "It's all in the game."

"Help my union? For 25 years, we been dying slow down there. Dry docks rustin', piers standin' empty. My friends and their kids like we got the cancer. No lifeline got throwed all that time, nothin' from nobody. And now you want to help us? Help me?" -Frank Sobotka

So, yeah, The Wire. Watched the first, I dunno, six episodes way back when, thought it was boring. Then recently I decided to give it another chance. Somewhere around episode nine, something clicked. I finally acquired the taste for The Wire, I guess. And I just finished the second season, which for me was even more powerful than the first. Frank Sobotka, the union leader who gets caught up in criminal dealings and becomes the focus of the task force's investigation, is one of the more compelling criminals I've ever come across. I really feel for him. The things he does are wrong, and he makes some bad choices, but his personal reasons for doing those things are all basically good. There's been a kind of betrayal of the way of life that he and his fellow dockworkers have essentially been born into. The work dries up. The men no longer have enough money to provide for themselves and their families. And Sobotka does what he does in an attempt to help them, to provide.

It is, as many critics have said, a literary show. In terms of its pacing, its characters, the way it grapples with themes and social issues, the way it holds up a mirror to our society, it feels like a really good book, only one you watch instead of read.

I think Omar's expression resonates with me because I have a tendency to think of things, even extremely important real-life situations, as if they are games. Right now, the big game for me is the money game. Scrounging by on coffee shop pay at 20 hours a week or whatever is going to be extremely challenging, if not impossible. I've made some significant adjustments. I've cancelled my few small monthly charitable donations, to the ACLU and the HRC. I've put my Netflix account on hold, desperate as I am to see The Wire Season Three. My on-again, off-again subscription to World of Warcraft has gone off again, despite the fact that, as getrichslowly.org shows us, we can learn a lot about money from the game. (getrichslowly continues to be a source of encouragement, knowledge and inspiration. J.D. has been through some tough times, and his frankness about his mistakes and struggles, and his subsequent success feels like a source of comfort and support as I struggle with the situation I find myself in.) I'm selling off some stuff on amazon.com. I've even cancelled GameFly for the time being, which, for me, was the hardest decision, because of course I love playing, thinking about and writing about games, and still entertain thoughts of doing it professionally at some point. I'll be taking a break from new games for a little while, but hopefully not for too long. I don't want to miss out on Grand Theft Auto IV.

I'm really excited about this game, not just because the previous games have been astounding from a gameplay perspective, but also because I think this game has tremendous potential in terms of its story. I really think the Grand Theft Auto games have been scathing works of social satire, that they've had something meaningful to say. If The Wire holds up a mirror to our society, the Grand Theft Auto games filter our society through video games and action movies and still wind up with a significant amount of truth, and IV seems poised to follow in that tradition. The fact that the central character is an immigrant from Eastern Europe opens up all kinds of terrific possibilities. Heck, just reading this blurb from the game's information page is enough to get me excited:

What does the American dream mean today?

For Niko Bellic, fresh off the boat from Europe, it is the hope he can escape his past.

For his cousin, Roman, it is the vision that together they canfind fortune in Liberty City, gateway to the land of opportunity.

As they slip into debt and are dragged into a criminal underworld by a series of shysters, thieves and sociopaths, they discover that the reality is very different from the dream in a city that worships money and status, and is heaven for those who have them and a living nightmare for those who don't.

Mercifully, I haven't been dragged into a criminal underworld myself. Yeah, times are a bit tough. And I see myself being a bit more callous about some things. Walking to work the other day, a young woman, somewhat younger than me, asked me for money, and I'm certainly in no position to be giving anyone anything. Not that I would have given her anything anyway. But in the past, Iwould have really felt something, this sense of, I don't know, guilt or fear, this "There but for the grace of God go I" punch to the stomach. But now I just felt kind of removed about it. "Sorry," I said, and walked on without a second thought. I've hit a rough patch, and you're on the street. That's how it goes. It's all in the game.

Most of the time, I know things are gonna be okay. Some of the time I'm terrified. Most of the time, I remember that many people have found themselves in tough situations at one point or another. Some of the time, I feel like the biggest failure, the most colossal fuck-up in the whole history of the world.

But I feel alright.

Yeah, I feel alright tonight.

The Wire Season Two: 10/10 stevedore-replacing robots

Muxing Things Up a Bit

2008-03-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

Credit goes to Mechberg, friend to children everywhere, for bringing Muxtape.com to my attention. Just the cassette imagery of the site is enough to give me nostalgia pangs for the good old days of making mixes on tapes!

For me, making mixes in college was frequently a procrastination technique, something to do when I really should have been doing something else. It was also often a chance to re-discover music I loved but hadn’t listened to in a while. That much still holds true, and the first song on my muxtape is from one of my all-time favorite albums, but I probably hadn’t listened to that song in years.

Also, making mixes back in the days of cassette tapes had complications that CD mix-making doesn’t have, like wanting to fill up each side of the tape as much as possible, without leaving too much dead space at the end, and while maintaining the flow and momentum of the songs. Oh, the agonizing decisions about what to include and what had to be cut! Looking back, I think these limitations somehow actually made the process more fun, since I had to think that much more about what I was doing. It certainly made the process more time-consuming, which was a definite plus. I feel sorry for college kids these days with nothing to do but drag the songs onto an iTunes playlist and hit Burn Disc. It takes no time at all! No thought! Where’s the art, the craft?!

Anyway, here's a little something I threw together. 12 songs isn't a whole lot to work with, but I had fun with it anyway. If you make one yourself, post the link for me to check out.

http://carolyn.muxtape.com/

Lost: Via Domus

2008-03-28T16:53:00.001-07:00

More like Lost: Via Dumbass LOL amirite?!?! Lost: Via Domus is a game in which...well, for starters, it's barely even a game at all. It's more like a checklist of inputs that you enter using a gamepad. There is, at least for me, no enjoyment to be gleaned from the "gameplay" of Lost: Via Domus. There are only two reasons to play it--only one if you're not a fan of the show. The first reason is that, yeah, if you're a fan of Lost, it's kinda cool to walk around inside the hatch. The second reason is damn, those are some easy points.

It's especially disappointing to me because, while watching Lost, I was frequently reminded of some of my favorite adventure game experiences, and Myst in particular. Sure enough, according to Lostpedia (which can't possibly be wrong), it seems that Myst has been an influence on at least some of the show's writers. A show that has so many adventure game elements built right into it has great potential as the basis for an adventure game. Unfortunately, Lost: Via Domus fails utterly to capitalize on this potential. Firstly, the puzzles, so vital to any engaging adventure game experience, suck. (There's really only one kind of puzzle in the game, involving these panels into which you need to place fuses which you find all over the island. They start out simple and become increasingly complex but never become interesting.)

Equally disappointingly, the story sucks. It takes the form of a series of Lost episodes, and just like actual Lost episodes, each game episode involves a flashback to an event that happened to your character before he boarded that fateful flight. But the game seems to miss the whole point for these flashbacks. The reason why these flashbacks are so effective on the show is that they provide insight into the characters' pasts that helps us understand them in the present, that illuminates their behavior and their interaction with the other survivors. It's that interaction with other survivors, the complex web of relationships that's formed between them on the island, that makes Lost so compelling. And here, your interactions with other characters couldn't feel more rote or insignificant. Sure, each character does their schtick. Sawyer uses lots of nicknames. Locke says "Don't tell me what I can't do!" Charlie sings "Hey All Everybody!" But there are no meaningful relationships formed whatsoever. When the game hints in the later stages at some sort of connection between your character and Kate, it comes across as ridiculous, because you've hardly interacted with her, or anyone else, for any length of time.

Normally I'm opposed to using FAQs, but that's because normally I find that they take some of the fun out of playing a game. There's no fun to be found in playing Lost: Via Domus to begin with, so after a short while I resorted to a FAQ just to make sure I didn't miss any achievements and could spare myself having to play through any part of the game again. The only thing Lost: Via Domus gets right is some of the locations, particularly the all-important hatch. The gameplay is tedious and dreary, the characters are completely underdeveloped (and some of them look downright freakish), and the relationships are non-existent. Mercifully, the whole game can be completed in just a few hours.

Review score: 4/ 4 8 15 16 23 42

Important Information for You, the A Game of Me Reader!

2008-03-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

I guess a few people have had issues with signing in or registering or whatnot, which was previously required for commenting on this blog. It's not anymore! You may now comment anonymously to your heart's content.

Condemned 2: Bloodshot

2008-03-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

Condemned was one of the most impressive early games for the Xbox 360. The first-person combat really packed a wallop, and the game was also an impressive piece of art design, with extremely creepy, gritty environments and chilling sound effects throughout. Now the sequel, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, is here, and it's both a step forward and a step back from its predecessor. The combat has seen some nice improvements, but the story and overall scariness of the game fall short.

In the original game, you played as Ethan Thomas, an SCU agent who was tracking a serial killer who had framed him for murder. Also, there was some goofball nonsense about Ethan maybe having some sort of superhuman powers, but the game didn't really develop this too much so I kinda forgot about it. The second game goes way more into this sort of comic book territory than the first game did, culminating in a final confrontation with a villain whose lair would make a Bond villain proud. You wind up taking on the Oro, a secret organization who believe that sounds can cause people to commit evil acts, and, having heard Avril Lavigne's song "Girlfriend" about a thousand times while playing Burnout Paradise and now wanting to kill Avril Lavigne myself, I can see their point. Personally, I wish the series had stayed closer to the realm of reality, as I think a series of games about a forensics officer who actually solves somewhat realistic crimes would have been a whole lot more interesting than a series about a cop who discovers he can emit noises that kill people. But maybe that's just me. In any case, while the first game's story certainly had its shortcomings, your pursuit of Serial Killer X made for a strong throughline. The plot here feels really weak by comparison.

When the game starts, 11 months after the conclusion of the first, Ethan is just a shadow of his former self. A very drunk shadow. He's such a drunk that you actually benefit from drinking liquor from bottles you just find lying around, as this steadies your shaky hands while aiming a gun. Condemned 2 is probably the first game in which at one point your objective is "Defeat Alcohol Demon." Lots of people struggle with their personal demons when it comes to alcohol, but none quite as literally as Ethan Thomas. Perhaps to go along with Ethan's new hardcore image, he is no longer voiced by the likable Greg Grunberg of TV's Heroes. That's too bad, as the new guy (Andre Sogliuzzo) just tries too hard to convey what a nihilistic, alcoholic badass the new, unimproved Ethan Thomas is.

Throughout the game, you'll explore a bunch of dimly lit places, including a creepy museum, a creepy doll factory and a creepy bowling alley, though none of the places in the game are quite as creepy as the coolest locations from the first game. (Creepy department store, anyone?) In these places you'll encounter plenty of drunken hobos and people who fight like drunken hobos. Even the museum security guards fight like drunken hobos. The people you fight make all kinds of awesome guttural exclamations and swearing noises that sound so authentic, you'll almost think they got actual crazy people to provide these voices. And the combat itself is as good as the sound effects that accompany it. You can clobber people with your bare fists, but you're usually better off picking up something lying around, be it a steam pipe, battle axe, bowling pin, or what have you. Each item you grab can only dish out so much punishment to the homicidal homeless people of the city before it breaks, so you'll have to keep picking up new items as you progress. The combat in Condemned 2 hits as hard as ever, and there are a number of nifty combos you can now pull off if you can avoid being hit by your wildly flailing foes. There are also brutal new finishing moves which allow you to use aspects of the environment to finish off weakened enemies. Many players felt that the combat in the original game was too basic, and that as a result it got repetitive by game's end. The added depth to the combat in Condemned 2 helps keep the combat enjoyable throughout.

There's also a bit more emphasis on gunplay this time around than there was in the original, particularly during a few sections where you have to fight off assault-rifle-wielding agents. These sections, while not quite as hard-hitting as the close-range combat in the game, are competently done. The fact that you can blow dudes' heads clean off, though, seems like an unnecessary byproduct of the game's desire to come across as even more brutally violent than its predecessor. Also, your opponents will make good use of cover, kicking tables over and crouching behind them and so forth, and while this is kinda cool, it also calls attention to the fact that you can't do anything like that yourself.

In between all the fighting, you'll also periodically have to examine crime scenes. Sometimes these sections are fun, and sometimes they involve a bit too much pixel-hunting as you try to figure out exactly what it is you're supposed to look at. Sometimes they're humorously easy, as when looking at a victim's cap and needing to decide if it's a policeman's cap, fireman's cap, hard hat, or baseball cap, and at other times they're a good bit tougher. (Blood spatter analysis? Do I look like Dexter to you?) Also, you'll sometimes be given a choice between three possible questions to ask your partner Rosa to advance the investigation, and some of the choices are so boneheadedly hilarious that I wanted to select them just to see how Rosa would react. "Have human beings even been around for 2000 years?" "How do you spell Oro?" You're rated on the accuracy of your investigation, as well as your performance in completing other objectives throughout the level, and as you progress through the game you earn upgrades based on your performance like added health, a stun gun, and so on.

The game will probably take you about 12 hours or so to complete. After that, you unlock FPS mode, which lets you use guns throughout the game, but that kind of seems to take away a huge part of what makes Condemned Condemned. If you want to play a first-person shooter, play Call of Duty 4. There are also some multiplayer modes available, but they leave a lot to be desired. If you want to play a good multiplayer game, play Call of Duty 4.

Many players will probably find Condemned 2 to be an improvement on its predecessor thanks to the deeper combat system. For me personally, aspects like mood and story were at least as crucial to making the first one a great experience, and because this one can't match up in terms of creepiness and because the plot goes so far into typical video-game sci-fi you-are-the-prophesied-hero territory when I was hoping for a series about a cop who hunts serial killers, I came away from Bloodshot a bit disappointed overall. But there's still a good deal of impact to the game's combat, making it a worthwhile playthrough for anyone who wants to punch people in the face without actually punching people in the face.

7/10 whacks with a foosball rod

Let's Call This the Flashback

2008-03-19T00:09:00.001-07:00

With all the Lost I've been watching, I've taken to imagining my life frequently being interrupted by dramatic flashbacks that reveal previously unknown aspects of my past that are somehow relevant given whatever challenging situation I currently find myself in. For instance, while faced with a really difficult choice between two products at the grocery store, I might suddenly remember that time my dad conned me into giving him one of my kidneys. Oh, wait, that wasn't me. That was a character on Lost.

Anyway, it's no joke that I am in a challenging situation at the moment. Still job-hunting, and putting lots of effort into it, but it's taking a lot longer than I would have liked. I've even found myself in the humbling position of asking friends for a little money to help until I'm on my feet again. How did I get into this position? It's not a particularly interesting story, but I'll tell it anyway.

Woooooooooooooooooooosh! (That's the Lost flashback sound effect.)

By last summer, I'd been working for the same company for nearly three years. Things at work were pretty okay, I guess. I basically liked the company and the people I worked with, and I was good at my job.

Then, sometime in July, I got hit by a pretty nasty case of depression. To be frank, being depressed isn't something particularly new or unusual for me. I think that I've struggled with depression in greater or lesser degrees for a large part of my life as a result of my gender issues. I mean, there's just no getting around the fact that not being able to be the person you feel you really are every single day kinda sucks, and some days the weight in my chest when I wake up in the mornings is heavier than it is on other days. My least favorite thing about being depressed is the way it makes me feel kind of self-absorbed. It's harder to focus out on other things when you're depressed, much like, if you have a knife in your chest, it's probably hard to think about much other than the fact that you've got a knife in your chest. And I know I'd be better at everything if I didn't feel this way. I'd be a better writer, a better employee, a better friend. But still, at least I've always managed to pull through, to do what needed to be done, to force myself to get out of bed no matter how tough it was.

But this was an unusually rough period, where getting out of bed was suddenly more difficult than it had ever been before. And I found myself running a few minutes late to work on a few occasions. I was promptly pulled aside and warned about this, and I apologized, sincerely feeling bad about what had happened, and communicated to my managers that I was struggling with depression and was seeking help for it, which I was.

Then it happened one more time, and they let me go. That was that.

That sucked, no doubt about it. But I immediately tried to see it as something that could end up being for the best. The reality was that, while I liked the company and my coworkers, I'd started to find the job a bit dull. It was rare for anything at work to really challenge or stimulate me anymore. What's more, I wasn't seeing opportunities for growth in the workplace, and I really didn't feel that the company was paying me what I should have been making considering the amount of time I'd been with them. There was certainly no doubt that my next job could be a considerable improvement.

And it was. I found a job that was more stimulating and challenging, and that paid considerably more. The job was a seasonal position with a company that's significantly busier around the holidays than it is throughout the rest of the year, but I was told from the beginning that there was a chance I would be hired on full-time after the holidays were over. I knew this wasn't something I could count on, but I busted my ass at this job, and I know I impressed the managers, because many of them started talking to me in ways that made it clear they felt I'd be sticking around.

But alas, things didn't go as expected, and when news came down that I wasn't being kept on permanently, many of those managers seemed as surprised and upset about it as I felt. Every last one of them offered to give me a glowing reference and wished me the best of luck in my job search.

My search got off to a promising start. Almost immediately, I had the interview for a technical writing position that I mentioned in an earlier blog post. Of course, that didn't end as well as I would have liked, but still, it was encouraging. However, since then, I've had a lot of phone interviews and face-to-face interviews and I really feel like I'm putting my best foot forward, but landing a job just hasn't happened yet. On Thursday I have another phone interview for a job that sounds pretty cool, but tomorrow I'll also be dropping off applications at a nearby Starbucks and other retail stores, as I'm at the point now where I absolutely positively need to start pulling in some money.

Admittedly I feel pretty desperate--I wouldn't be applying at places like Starbucks otherwise--but I still feel like in the long run all of this might end up being for the best. I'd gotten complacent in my job, but I wasn't really happy, nor was I earning what I should have been, so at this point, even if I have to earn even less for a while, I think I have the motivation to keep looking until I find a job I'm a bit more satisfied with. This is certainly the biggest failure of my adult life, and I admit I've felt some shame and embarrassment about it all, but I know that it's not really a reflection of who I am, but rather of something I was struggling with. I think I've learned a lot from this experience, and that when I do get back on my feet, I'll be better than ever.

And as bad as things get, I can always be thankful that at least my dad has never conned me into giving him one of my kidneys.

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As an aside, a friend recently recommended getrichslowly.org, and I wanted to take a moment to recommend it myself, as it's quickly become a favorite of mine. Interestingly, not long before I lost my job, I'd really started to try getting a hold on my finances, and I think I was applying a lot of the common-sense stuff that J.D. talks about on Get Rich Slowly, but it's really nice to have it reinforced and expanded on by someone who's done a lot more reading about finances than I have. The website is really readable because J.D. doesn't talk down to the reader about this stuff. He comes across as just a regular guy who, like many of us, had struggled with money, and he talks about how he got things under control. There's also just enough of his own personality in the pieces to make things interesting. It's obvious that he's struggled with social anxiety and other challenges, for instance, and that in some ways tackling his money issues and tackling his personal issues have been related endeavors, and I really like that idea, that personal growth can come out of, or is necessary for, better money management.

I've made a lot of progress in terms of how I handle money, I think. I've cut out lots of unnecessary expenses, cut way down on expenses that aren't unnecessary, and I had started saving and tackling debt, as well as starting to think realistically about how I'm going to pay for this whole ridiculously expensive gender thing that I really need to deal with sooner rather than later. Of course, now that I'm not really making any money at all, things are kind of on hold, but I'm confident that I'm more ready and better equipped to deal with these issues now than I was before.

The Queen of Kong: For a Few Brawlers More

2008-03-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

Amidst laying in bed coughing, watching hella Lost and dragging myself off to a few job interviews, I also watched The King of Kong this past week. What a neat little movie. Of course, my interest in video games probably made it more enjoyable, but in fact, I'd recommend it to just about anyone, as it's not just about going for the all-time high score in Donkey Kong. It's about the personalities of two distinctly different people. Steve Wiebe is a likable hero and underdog anyone can root for, and Billy Mitchell, with his hilarious tendency to spout self-aggrandizing statements with the affect of a zen monk, is, to me, a compelling and amusing villain of sorts. "I'm the most seasoned person in the hot sauce chicken wing business."

The movie did make me want to play some arcade-perfect Donkey Kong. DK was always one of my favorite arcade games, and I still think it's one of the very best games of all time. It's so rare for games these days to test one's skill on anything resembling that level. For instance, I got 100% completion in Burnout Paradise this past week as well, but as much as I love that game, I don't feel there's any sort of accomplishment involved there. Just about anyone, if they put enough (read: way too much) time into it, can get 100% completion in Paradise. But you and I could play Donkey Kong for hundreds of hours and never get to the level of play at which people like Wiebe and Mitchell compete. Still, I'd love to have a go and see what my own personal best high score could be.

Unfortunately, inexplicably, there's pretty much no legal way to play arcade-perfect Donkey Kong short of dropping upwards of a thousand bucks on buying a DK machine. You'd think, especially with the film, that there'd be some level of interest in the game that Nintendo could capitalize on to make a few bucks, but the only version readily available right now, via the Wii's Virtual Console, is the NES version, which sucks. It doesn't have the How High Can You Get? screen or the "pie factory" level, so it ain't really Donkey Kong. Of course, plenty of people have bought Donkey Kong on the Virtual Console, because they don't know any better or don't care. It's the same reason so many people go to Starbucks. (The arcade version of Donkey Kong was included in Rare's 1999 Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64, but even that version alters the flow of the game's levels a bit.)

Ah well. I have at least spent some time today playing a Nintendo game, the insanely hyped Super Smash Bros. Brawl. If you're not familiar with this series, the SSB games involve a roster of characters from Nintendo's storied history...Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, and so on...smacking and kicking each other in environments that are also taken from Nintendo's storied history. They're basically Nintendo's big love letter to itself, and as fan service, they're outstanding. As a Nintendo fan myself, I admit I got caught up in the hype and excitement leading up to the game's release. The thing is, as games, despite a multitude of rabid fanboys across the internets declaring Brawl the best game ever, they're just so-so. Playing SSB has reminded me of David Cross' story about having a good time at a Harlow concert until he had a realization. "Wait a second. I hate Harlow."

I don't hate Smash Bros., but it's just really basic. There isn't enough depth to the gameplay to make it rewarding or interesting for me. The only fun I really had with the previous game in the series was when I had a few friends over who were up for some mindless button-mashing fun, because the games are definitely good for some laughs. Especially if a few drinks have been had. Brawl does bring online play to the series so perhaps I'll wrassle up a few friends online and get some mindless enjoyment out of the game that way. And the game is full of awesome unlockables, like the ability to play the lame NES version of Donkey Kong for THIRTY SECONDS! Rad!

Anyway, Lost. Yeah, I finally decided to see what all the fuss is about with that show, seeing as how ABC has put all the episodes up for viewing on their website. The only drawback of watching them on the website is that I have to keep sitting through an ad that makes the mind-boggling claim that, with the inclusion of "stars" like Adam Carolla and Steve Guttenberg, this season of Dancing With the Stars is going to be HOTTER! STEAMIER! SEXIER! than ever before. Yeah, that Adam Carolla is a sexy, sexy man.

What I like most about Lost, not surprisingly, are the elements that feel like something out of an adventure game: the Dharma Initiative stations on the island, the button that may or may not need to be pushed every 108 minutes to save the world, stuff like that. (Also not surprisingly, Lost has just been turned into an adventure game. By all accounts it's a middling game, but I'll probably give it the ol' GameFly whirl anyway once I'm all caught up with the show.) What I don't like about it is how maddeningly little information it doles out in any given episode, but I guess that's how you keep people tuning in.

In other news, I'm stoked about giantbomb.com, the new site from former GameSpot dudes Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis. Not much there yet, but I think when it explodes onto the scene this summer, it's gonna be pretty awesome.

Finally, the job hunt continues. I've had two interviews recently. One of the two jobs is considerably better than the other but beggars can't be choosers. Thank-you cards have been sent, follow-up phone calls placed, and the scouring of craigslist goes on.

Gender Select:

2008-03-03T17:41:00.000-08:00

My sense of myself as female is, as you may know, extremely important to me, and, like many women I know who play games, when given the choice between playing as a male character or a female character, all other things being equal, I'll pretty much always go with the female character. Particularly in role-playing games like Oblivion, I just feel a deeper sense of connection to my character that way, and I also really appreciate those rare instances when games with pre-set characters have female characters who are interesting and don't have proportions that would look grotesque on an actual human being. (Alex Roivas in Eternal Darkness is perhaps my favorite female character in a game, but such characters are still all too rare.) However, that's not to say that I feel a particular barrier between myself and my character in those situations when I have to play as a male, which is, let's face it, almost all the time. It's sort of like playing Burnout Paradise, in which you're just a car. I, myself, am not a car, but I still feel every crash in the game pretty intensely. Still, it bugs me when I come away from a game feeling like it would have been pretty easy for the developers to provide the option to play as a female, but they just didn't bother.

I think that, as a very broad generalization that has millions of exceptions, men are a bit more put off by the idea of playing as a woman than women are by the idea of playing as a man, though whether this is because women are inherently more easygoing about this sort of thing, or because of misogyny on the part of those men who have issues playing as a woman, or just because women have been forced to accept that, more often than not, playing a game means playing as a male character, I'm not really sure. And as I said, that's an exceptionally broad generalization. There are plenty of men who regularly play as female characters for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes there's nothing more to it than a sense that if you're going to spend hundreds of hours looking at a character, it might as well be one that you find visually appealing. But there are plenty of more complex reasons behind why some men do this as well. And certainly women will occasionally create male characters, though if I had to guess I'd say this probably happens less frequently than the opposite.

What got me thinking about this was a comment I read from a female gamer in response to this article, an appreciation piece about Gordon Freeman, the protagonist of Valve's exceptional Half-Life games. The piece asserts:

Gordon Freeman’s neutrality of dialogue and lack of overt personality within the game do not make him a non-character, but are in fact his strength. His lack of preconcieved identity provides not a single barrier with which to distance him from the player’s own personality, making him a blank canvas on which they can imprint their own values and outlook. Valve have even made it impossible for the player to ever see Gordon from a third-person perspective, either through cut-scene or reflection, meaning that in no instance does the effect of seeing a character who does not look like themselves pull the player out of the experience of ‘being’ him.

The comment I read about this assertion, which I'm deliberately taking totally out of context because I admit I'm more interested at this point in what it made me think about than what she actually meant, essentially stated that the flaw in this argument was that it was impossible for her to project herself onto Gordon Freeman because Freeman is male. While I would probably have felt a deeper connection to the protagonist of the Half-Life games if that protagonist were female, this argument seemed odd to me, as playing as Gordon Freeman never really impacted my ability to feel engrossed in the story and world of the Half-Life games. But then I realized that it's fully possible that I'm the odd one. People sometimes think that transgendered people have some sort of insightful perspective into gender dynamics, but I usually feel just the opposite, that my own perspective, anyway, is probably pretty limited and distorted, existing, as I do, outside of any gender dynamic I've ever felt at home in.

I guess I just don't feel like gender, while an aspect of our sense of personal identity whose impact cannot be overstated, is the be-all, end-all of our ability to relate to each other as human beings. While I feel deeply that I'm female, there are certainly some men I feel I can relate to pretty well, and plenty of women I can't relate to at all, and my sense is that this is true of most people. And I sometimes think that people give this stuff too much weight, or see barriers between the sexes that don't exist. It's not unusal to hear someone say, of a book written by a man in which the narrator is a woman, that the author didn't convincingly capture the female voice, or to say the opposite about a book written by a woman in which the narrator is a man. (A woman I know recently said she didn't feel that Donna Tartt was entirely convincing in writing from the male perspective in her novel The Secret History, for example.) And sometimes that may be true, but I also think that at times people scrutinize these books more, and latch on to anything that might ring false to them, things that perhaps wouldn't make them bat an eye if the author was actually the same gender as the narrator. Would the narrator of The Secret History have seemed odd to my acquaintance, I wonder, if the book had been written by a man? Or is she right in saying that there's something quintessentially female about the way the book is written, and no man in the history of the world would ever have written a male narrator that way? That's definitely possible.

This higher level of scrutiny is similar, it seems to me, to what many transgendered people experience, when they're held to a different standard of masculinity or femininity than, for lack of a better term, "cissexual" men and women. One might attempt to deny a transsexual woman her femaleness, for instance, by saying, "He's not really female, he likes video games too much," but wouldn't dream of applying this same logic to those cissexual women who love video games.

Anyway, I don't have any pat conclusion with which to tie a bow on this ramble. These are just some thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head lately, and if you have any thoughts on playing games as a character of your gender vs. playing as a character of the opposite gender, or about anything else I've touched on here, do share.

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In other news, the job hunt continues! I had an interview today that I think went well, at a place just off Market St. in the hustle and bustle of Downtown San Francisco. If I get this position, I think I'll enjoy having a reason to head into SF every day.

And just to further demonstrate how screwy my perspective on things is, here's the funniest thing I've seen recently: Garfield Minus Garfield. It is exactly what the title says it is, and the header on the main page is spot-on:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness in a quiet American suburb.

Well, spot-on aside from the fact that they spelled loneliness wrong. Anyway, I think the strip is brilliant, and it made me laugh until I had tears in my eyes. And, yes, I even find it oddly poignant. What's wrong with me?

The Waiting is the Hardest Part...

2008-02-25T00:52:00.000-08:00

The week before last, I had a job interview for a technical writing position. The interview went swimmingly, and they called me in a few days later for a second interview, which also went quite well. I felt really comfortable with the people I met at the company, and although I've never had a burning passion to do technical writing or anything, it sure sounded like a nice change of pace after all the customer service work I've done for the past few years.

Over the course of last week, the job was just about all I could think about. (Well, that and how tired I am of being a boy, but that's such a constant that it hardly even seems worth mentioning.) I tried not to obsess about it, but in my mind I kept envisioning being offered the job, and not being offered the job. I think my brain deliberately tries to imagine possible disappointing outcomes for all sorts of situations as a defense mechanism, so that I'm more prepared for those outcomes if they come to pass, but I don't think this actually works, and I try not to do it. It's hard to stop, though. My brain has a mind of its own.

At the second interview, they'd told me that I'd find out on the following Friday if I got the job or not. This made for a very long week. I distracted myself some with reading, and watching a bit of The Wire, and playing some Burnout Paradise, but still, long week.

True to their word, on Friday, I got the call. "This was a really hard decision, you were a really strong candidate, but..." Indeed, despite my brain's attempts to prepare me for this possibility, I was pretty crushed.

But at the same time, at least the wait was over. And since then, I've found myself pouring my energy back into the job search with gusto. Many a resume and cover letter have been emailed. Of course, this is good, as I really need a job now. Things are starting to get a bit scary. I'm still hoping to find something that seems like an exciting opportunity, a nice change of pace, and some of the jobs I've applied for this weekend have fit that bill, but certainly not all of them. If need be, I can always take something along the lines of what I've been doing for the past few years and keep looking. Right now, I'm mostly just hoping to get something fast.

In other news, I wrote up a review of the NES game Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom, which hit the Wii's Virtual Console service last week. (Yes, my Virtual Console games are working again. Turns out the problem with my Wii was that I am an idiot.) I actually posted the review as a reader review at GameSpot. You can find it here. Here's the short version: Only five continues?! Are you fucking kidding me?! I plan to still write reviews of games from time to time, but I don't really know what to do with them. I may post them at GS and link to them in a blog post, as I'm doing here, but if you have any thoughts on what I should do with them, lemme know!

Finally, some good friends took me out on Saturday to see U23D. I'm a pretty big U2 fan, and although I don't think it's one of their best filmed performances--not like the ZOO TV concert from Sydney or the Elevation DVD from Boston--and although the novelty of having Bono get all up in my grill through the magic of 3D didn't really add much to the overall experience--I still really enjoyed seeing a U2 concert on the big screen. I sort of needed the soaring anthemic reassurance and passionate sense of determination only U2 can provide after Friday's disappointment.

I, I will begin again.

I Left My Heart in...the Curious Village?!

2008-02-15T01:46:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Valentine's Day, y'all!

I got my 360 back on Thursday, and I would have expected myself to immediately hook it back up and finally hit the streets of Paradise City. But another game that arrived from GameFly on Wednesday had already sunk its hooks into me and wouldn't let me go: Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Oh, what a delightful, charming, maddening little game.

At its core, this Nintendo DS game is just a series of brainteasers, but while I do have a fondness for logic puzzles, I doubt a DS cart that consisted of nothing more than a collection of them would really do it for me. What really makes this game special is the story, characters, and art style. Prof. Layton and his young self-proclaimed apprentice Luke journey to the village of St. Mystere to track down the Golden Apple, which is the key to the will of the late Baron Reinhold. Prof. Layton is summoned due to his renown as a puzzle expert, and the people of St. Mystere certainly put him to the test. Everyone you encounter has a brainteaser for you.

This Penny Arcade strip pretty much hits the nail on the head, but to the game's credit you don't actually have to solve every puzzle you come across. You do need to solve a majority of them to proceed through the story, but if certain puzzles just aren't to your liking, you're welcome to take a pass on them, and you can go back to them at any time. (There are a few exceptions to this rule, and I admit that one mandatory puzzle near the end, a sliding block puzzle, drove me so mad that I broke down and looked up the answer online.)

I find the game's visual style a bit reminiscent of The Triplets of Belleville, and peppered throughout the game are a number of really high-quality animated scenes. The game just feels really elegant, and I encourage everyone who enjoys logic puzzles to give it a look. I'm already looking forward to the game's promised sequel.

Anyway, having successfully solved the mystery of St. Mystere, I have now in earnest moved on to Burnout Paradise. Spectacular. The game is full of amazing moments, and the ridiculously fast racing that Burnout is known for feels better than ever. One of my problems with the last game was that traffic checking made it feel as if most cars on the road were made out of tinfoil. That's been totally rectified here, and everything seems to have just the right amount of weight to it. It's also one of the most visually beautiful games I've ever played, and it looks gorgeous even on my SDTV. It does make me wish I was playing in high-def, though. At these speeds, deadly cement outcroppings and other obstacles don't come into focus soon enough for me to react.

If It's Not One Thing...

2008-02-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

Microsoft reports that my 360--or a 360, anyway--is en route back to me and scheduled for delivery on Friday. I'm looking forward to finally getting in some time with Burnout Paradise. A bunch of people I know are still playing online pretty regularly so it seems I haven't totally missed the boat on that one.

But that's still a few days off, and I was hoping to spend some of that time with Lords of Thunder, truly one of the rockin'est shooters of all time. This TurboGrafx 16 classic, with some of the most smoldering guitar licks ever heard in a video game, hit the Wii's Virtual Console on Monday, and the game is a blast. The whole thing is like the notebook doodles of a big-haired 14-year-old ACDC fan circa 1988 brought to life, with an awesomely cheesy soundtrack to match.

Unfortunately, my Wii has started doing something very unusual. All of my Virtual Console games, including Lords of Thunder, have suddenly started behaving as if I am constantly holding down the 1 button on my Wii remote. At first I thought the problem was with the remote itself, but it's not. I've tested it with a number of Wii disc games--No More Heroes, Super Paper Mario, and so on--and they all respond perfectly each time I hit the 1 button. Yet every last Virtual Console game on my system seems to think the 1 button is in a permanent state of pressnitude, and this makes playing the games pretty much impossible.

I emailed Nintendo about this using the link on their tech support web page. After submitting my email, I got this statement:

"Due to the unprecedented popularity of the Wii, we're currently experiencing extremely high email volumes and it may take several days before we are able to respond."

Just a thought--maybe y'all could take some of the truckloads of money that are coming in every day due to the unprecedented popularity of the Wii and use it to hire a few new reps so that your customers who are contributing to said unprecedented popularity don't have to wait several days for a response.

Oh well. I guess for the time being I'll have to continue spending my free time the same way I have been for the past few weeks: watching way too much Law & Order: Criminal Intent on my computer via Netflix. The funny thing is that I don't even think it's a particularly outstanding show, not like The Shield or Six Feet Under, and I wouldn't even bother putting it on my Netflix queue and watching the DVDs. (I certainly wouldn't bother watching it as it airs. Watching TV on TV is for suckers.) But there's just something compulsively watchable about Vincent D'Onofrio as Det. Robert Goren, and Netflix has just made it so damn easy with this Watch Instantly feature, that I find myself sometimes watching two or three 43-minute episodes a day.

By the way, I have an interview tomorrow morning for a technical writer position. I'm hoping it goes well, as I'd really like to get out of the whole customer service racket, and I'm confident about my ability to do this job and do it well. But I hate job interviews, and thinking about it is already giving me the jitters. Wish me luck.

UPDATE: Contrary to what they said, Nintendo responded to my email in a matter of hours, not days. However, the response is basically a non-response, saying that they can't help me by email and that I should call them. So I'll call them tomorrow.

Also, I've determined that the issue isn't with the remote at all. I disconnected the remote altogether in the middle of a Virtual Console game and the game continued to behave as if the 1 button was being held down. Something's gone screwy in the part of my Wii's brain that handled VC games, it seems.

UPDATE TWO: I just called Nintendo. The rep I spoke to obviously had never heard of this issue before and had no idea what might be causing it. She quickly scheduled a callback, presumably with someone who might actually be able to help me, and I should be hearing from them in 24-72 hours. Terrific.

No More Hiros

2008-01-31T02:37:00.000-08:00

Headlong motion through walls of emerald green, milky jade, the sensation of speed beyond anything he'd known before in cyberspace....The Tessier-Ashpool ice shattered, peeling away from the Chinese program's thrust, a worrying impression of solid fluidity, as though the shards of a broken mirror bent and elongated as they fell--

"Christ," Case said, awestruck, as Kuang twisted and banked above the horizonless fields of the Tessier-Ashpool cores, an endless neon cityscape, complexity that cut the eye, jewel bright, sharp as razors.

"Hey, shit," the construct said, "those things are the old RCA Building. You know the old RCA Building?" The Kuang program dived past the gleaming spires of a dozen identical towers of data, each one a blue neon replica of the Manhattan skyscraper.

"You ever see resolution this high?" Case asked.

"No, but I never cracked an AI neither."

--William Gibson, Neuromancer

Now you can crack an AI in Rez HD, available for the Xbox Live Arcade!

I guess busting out a quote from Neuromancer is pretty cliche, but the fact is that Rez comes closer than any other game to living up to the beauty of "jacking into cyberspace" as that experience played out in my imagination when I read William Gibson's landmark novel at 15, and again at 20, and again at 25. (There aren't any New York skyscrapers in the game's version of cyberspace, but there are statues of Buddha and other expressions of mankind's spiritual history amidst all the cold hard data.)

It's also the game that looks most like what I imagined games in the future would look like when I was very young, though those concepts were probably heavily influenced by Tron. I'd say that Rez out-Trons Tron, or at least creates a vaguely similar but far more beautiful world.

I'm glad Rez is now easily available at an affordable price. As has been said of it time and time again, it may not be much of a game, but it sure is an experience. So fork over your 800 points, turn out the lights and turn up the music.

------------

While Rez is basic and elegant and beautiful, the other game I've been playing a lot lately, No More Heroes, is goofy and violent and ugly, but it, too, has reminded me of a sci-fi book people sometimes lump into the "cyberpunk" category. Don't let that categorization fool you, though. This is a true work of literature, a staggering achievement that Time Magazine, and, more importantly, me, consider one of the 100 greatest novels written in the English language since 1923. I'm referring to Neal Stephenson's astounding Snow Crash.

I'm not saying that No More Heroes is on par with Snow Crash as an artistic achievement or anything. I'm just saying that the one reminded me of the other, for a number of reasons. For starters, they each have main characters with larger-than-life names. Snow Crash's hero has the unforgettable moniker of Hiro Protagonist, while NMH, the latest game from noteworthy designer Goichi Suda (AKA Suda 51), stars Travis Touchdown. They each live in very modest situations. Travis rents a tiny place at a crappy motel called No More Heroes, while Hiro lives with his roommate Vitaly Chernobyl in a space at a U-Stor-It storage facility. They both live in Southern California, in versions of the United States that are a bit politically fucked-up. Hiro resides in Los Angeles, while Travis makes his home in the absurdly named dead-end town of Santa Destroy. Actually, I'm pretty sure No More Heroes never explicitly states that Santa Destroy is in California, and in fact Santa Destroy has its own flag, a massive red, white and blue flag with a single star in the middle. The game doesn't explain what that's about, which I kinda like. Maybe it's its own city-state.

In both Hiro's and Travis' America, the dollar is not what it used to be. Inflation has hit the United States of Snow Crash so hard that, to quote from the Wikipedia entry, "trillion dollar bills — Ed Meeses — are nearly disregarded and the quadrillion dollar note — the Gipper — is the standard 'small' bill." In NMH, the common form of currency is called an "LB." The game never explains this, either, so I'm not sure if I should be imagining cash with Lyndon B. Johnson's face on it, or images of the Liberty Bell, or if I should assume that Lance Bass has conquered the nation.

Hiro and Travis both take on some pretty modest work to earn their money. Hiro delivers pizza for CosaNostra, and believe me, when you deliver pizza for CosaNostra, you absolutely, positively have to get that pie where it's going in thirty minutes or less. The stakes are so outrageously high that the first part of Snow Crash, which follows Hiro ("The Deliverator") on a wild pizza delivery adventure, almost plays out like a section of a video game. NMH takes some equally mundane tasks--pumping gas, for instance, mowing lawns, and picking up trash--and actually turns them into minigames. Each job has some bizarre lead-in from your employer, elevating the awful writing so common in so many video games to a kind of poetry. Whenever you go to the local job center searching for work, the dude behind the counter says:

Third class man?
I have not mastered the secret of the first class yet.
It's not too bad.
The first rated God will give a hardworking man a little smile.

And to those who think video games are a complete waste of time, let me point out that this game tries to teach important lessons about the value of hard work. When you go to pump gas, for instance, you get this lecture:

The unspoken rules of Santa Destroy dictate perseverance.
Perseverance leads to money, which in turn leads to wealth.
The world will forever remain closed to those who do not persevere.
The God of Gasoline is cruel.
Lose your perseverance and you'll burn up!
That is what perseverance means!
So get workin'!
Get workin'!

In Snow Crash and in No More Heroes, there are some pretty terrific businesses populating the landscape. Snow Crash has the aforementioned, Mafia-owned CosaNostra Pizza, along with Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, where Mr. Lee encourages visitors, "Whether seriously in business or on a fun-loving hijink, make yourself totally homely in this meager environment." Santa Destroy gives us the irresistible Pizza Suplex, and my personal favorite, the inexplicable Beef Head Videos. That's just cool if you ask me.

Also cool are the t-shirts you find in dumpsters around town and at Area 51, the game's clothing store. At first I thought adding an optional element of "play dress-up with Travis" was lame and pointless, but I have to admit I actually got into it, because the t-shirts you can wear are legitimately cool. And like Hiro, Travis gets around on a totally cool motorcycle. Travis' bike of choice is a massive flaming beast called a Schpeltiger.

And, perhaps most importantly, both Hiro and Travis know how to use a sword. Travis uses a lightsaber--err, beam katana--throughout the game (which is loaded with Star Wars references) while Hiro Protagonist's business card reads, among other things,

"Greatest swordfighter in the world."

With all these aspects of No More Heroes bouncing around in my head, reminding me of Snow Crash, I hoped that Travis Touchdown might turn out to be, like Hiro Protagonist (and contrary to the game's title), a true hero, someone smart and brave, fighting for something worth fighting for. A real cool guy. But as it turns out, despite his cool name and his cool t-shirts and his cool motorcycle and his cool way with a beam katana, Travis Touchdown is anything but cool. Dude is a straight-up loser if you ask me. His interests don't seem to encompass much besides anime and pro wrestling. He rents porn from Beef Head and humps his pillow. He can't handle himself around real women at all, and he has attitudes about sex that would seem immature coming from a 13-year-old.

So for a while I despised him. But at a certain point, I got it. Travis is, in a sense, the quintessential video game character, embodying all the loser attributes people frequently associate with "gamers." So many video game characters reek of what's come to be known as "baditude," a quality of being a badass to such a degree that it becomes almost parody. Travis Touchdown takes that concept to its logical conclusion. You just know that all these video game protagonists who act so tough are total losers when they're not busy saving the day. They're probably all obsessed with sex but utterly incapable of handling women as human beings. They probably all live alone in crummy apartments with no real social life to speak of. (Dante especially.) No More Heroes is just the first game honest enough to confront this fact.

The concept of games that know they're games is not an especially original one. EA's recent The Simpsons Game is a good example of a metagame, and it does a fine job of trotting out gaming cliches for our amusement. But No More Heroes, with its depiction of Travis as a helpless loser who thinks he's hot shit, cuts a bit deeper than your average metagame. It also makes a particular effort to recall the glory days of 8-bit video games. The menus have a great old-school sensibility to them, and when Travis nods off at one point, his dream even takes the form of an 8-bit-style game within the game.

But this appreciation for old-school gaming goes beyond the menus and one-off dream sequence. The gameplay seems to me to be rooted in some of the best concepts of the 8-bit era. Although there are other things to do in No More Heroes, at its core this is a game that has you taking on a series of opponents, facing them one-on-one to rise through the ranks and prove yourself as the best assassin in the land. Most of all, I was reminded of the classic NES game Punch-Out!! (or Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! if you prefer). That game had a very simplistic series of moves, and yet it was still very exciting and challenging. The challenge in Punch-Out!! came from playing defensively and using precise timing to take advantage of your opponents' vulnerabilities, and this same concept is at the heart of many of the confrontations in No More Heroes. The combat system isn't as complex as that in games like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, but the battles can nonetheless be very intense and satisfying. In fact, the overall simplicity of the game's combat system works to its advantage.

The Wii seems to be having a hard time establishing itself as a real gaming machine in the minds of many who have been playing games for a long time. Certainly No More Heroes would send many a housewife who purchased a Wii because she thought Wii Sports looked like fun running for the hills, and yet many "hardcore" gamers still seem to view the Wii as more of a gimmick than a console. Well, those people are wrong. The Wii is a real console, and outstanding games like Super Mario Galaxy and No More Heroes play to its strengths, incorporating motion controls to just the right degree, and providing experiences that are fresh and exciting and distinctly different from what else is out there.

As for Travis Touchdown, in the end, it turns out he's fighting for a bit more than is initially apparent. He may not be trying to save the world like Hiro Protagonist. He may not know how to handle himself around women like Hiro Protagonist. In fact, he may not be a hero at all. But he's still one of the freshest and most unusual video game protagonists to come along in a while, and No More Heroes is a bizarre, awesome and terrifically exciting game.

Michael Clayton's GPS is busted.

2008-01-27T18:58:00.000-08:00

And I don't mean that just in the literal sense. I mean that this is a man who has lost his way. But the good news is that he's starting to realize it. In an early scene, we see Michael Clayton, perfectly played by George Clooney, listen to a hotshot lawyer try to explain why it's not his fault that he just committed a hit-and-run, and you can sense that after years and years, Michael Clayton has finally fucking had it. He's just sick and tired of dealing with these morally bereft people, and of being one of them himself.

In my last post I compared Michael Clayton to Jerry Maguire, and I wasn't entirely kidding. Both films are about men whose professions have required them to put their ethics aside, and they each, in their own way, reach the breaking point. But that's pretty much where the similarities end. (If I was gonna put a double feature together with Michael Clayton, I think I'd pair it with the superb The Constant Gardener, another thriller which deals with a man taking on a corporation that puts its own profits ahead of human lives.)

The catalyst for Michael's change is the breakdown of another lawyer, Arthur Edens (played by Tom Wilkinson). Is Arthur crazy? Maybe a little, but in fact, considering how long he's been forced to subjugate his moral sensibilities in the representation of an agricultural conglomerate called U/North, his sudden snap seems like a step on the path toward being a complete human being again.

Of course, taking on a company that doesn't value human life brings with it certain dangers. Part of what makes Michael Clayton such an exceptional film is the way in which the very real ethical issues it's dealing with are so seamlessly intertwined with its function as a sleek and compelling thriller. It's also a terrific example of economical storytelling. It comes in at just under two hours, which is pretty remarkable considering the complex amount of information about this case, and these characters, that the film communicates. Writer/director Tony Gilroy's dialogue tells us a great deal about these people in a very short amount of time, and makes us see the decency in Clayton, obscured as it is by his actions.

Of course the cast is also crucial, and in addition to great work by Clooney and Wilkinson, there's also the always outstanding Tilda Swinton as Karen Crowder, U/North's chief counsel. We see her rehearsing responses to questions repeatedly in front of the mirror, and stressing out in a bathroom stall, but when it's game time, she busts out her game face and has the perfect non-answer for every question. She has also lost touch with her moral center, if she ever had one, and may be in too deep to have any chance for reclaiming it. At one point she is asked about her work-life balance, but there is no balance. Her work is her life, and it's a miserable one, but she has nothing else, and that's what makes her so dangerous. She has everything to lose.

Michael Clayton was thoroughly entertaining and satisfying while I was watching it, but its true power is in the way it has stayed in my head since then. It's a kind of horror movie, really, because the reality is that people and companies like these are all around us. They are part of our society now, and they are growing and spreading like a disease. Things are pretty bleak. The only hope for the human race is, of course, more outstanding politically and ethically charged films starring George Clooney.

Just Like Starting Over

2008-01-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

I think one of the most fundamentally appealing aspects of games is the fact that if you royally fuck things up, you can always give it another shot. You can hit the reset button, or load a saved game, or make your way back to your corpse. You may need to play through a little or a lot to get back to the point of your colossal screw-up, but you can do it. In this sense, games improve upon real life.

My most recent job was a seasonal tech support gig that I was led to believe might very well have turned into a permanent position. It didn't, despite an outstanding performance by yours truly, and so I find myself, at 31, once again needing to do the whole job hunt thing. In a sense it's a new beginning, a fresh press of the start button, but I'm stuck with my current hand of cards, my age and experience, my successes and failures. In a game, if you're good enough, you can always rewrite the whole story. Not so here.

Now of course it's entirely possible that the fact that I didn't get a permanent position at this last place will end up being a blessing. Doing tech support doesn't exactly set my heart on fire, and my next job may well be better. But any way you slice it, searching for a job is kind of a drag. And it seems like every time I find myself in this position, I start noticing these articles all over places like Yahoo! about the importance of finding a job that really makes you happy. And hey, that's all well and good, and I would love to do just that, but really, what is that, exactly? Writing about games? Sure, but that's a tough field to get into, and while I think I'm decent at it on occasion, I'll be frank and say that reading the writers I have admired for so long has made me feel a bit like a Salieri aspiring to join a field of Mozarts. Which isn't to say that I won't keep trying. Who knows, maybe even at my age, if I try hard, maybe someday I'll be good enough.

Or maybe I'll just stumble into something that I never even gave any thought to before, but that winds up being a perfect fit. Or maybe, like the majority of people out there, I'll find another job that is simply that, a job, tolerable for the most part, occasionally frustrating, occasionally enjoyable.

I saw Michael Clayton yesterday. I recommend it. It's a lot like Jerry Maguire, except where that's a heartwarming romantic comedy, this is a slick, engaging thriller with deep-seated ethical concerns. (Go, George Clooney, Go!) There's a point in the film at which Tilda Swinton's character is asked about work-life balance. This, by the way, is a character who has no work-life balance whatsoever. Her life is work. And so she sort of laughs politely and says something like, "When you love what you do, there's your balance!" But the thing is, she's miserable! She hates what she does. She may not even realize it, but she does. Everybody in this movie makes tons of money and every one of them hates their jobs. And despite the fact that they make tons of money, they still worry about money constantly. So I'm pretty sure if I made more money, I'd still worry about money sometimes too, only in larger sums.

Really, I'm not sure what the point of all this is, except to say that I'm daunted by the prospect of finding a job again, and that I don't care that much about making lots of money. I'd rather make less money and enjoy my work more than make more money and hate my job. (Though I'm not about to take a job for nine bucks an hour or anything.) And while I'd like to have a better "life-work balance" than Tilda Swinton's character in Michael Clayton, I'd also rather have a job that I'm driven to work hard at because I love it and believe in it than a job that I'm just thankful to be done with after eight hours every day.

Well, at least by now I've had a bit of practice at this game. Here's hoping I do all right on this press of the start button.

Twisting Metal

2008-01-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

The game of the moment is Burnout Paradise. It kills me that I'm not able to play this game right now thanks to my useless 360, and so far my only experience of the game has come from playing the demo. I can think of few instances where a demo has been so instrumental, for better or for worse, in shaping people's impressions of a game in ways that perhaps aren't accurately reflective of the finished product. It's pretty unusual, for instance, for major review outlets to comment on a game's demo in their full review, but GameSpot's review of Paradise (incidentally, the final GameSpot review by longtime staff writer Alex Navarro) wants so badly to encourage people who played the demo to give the finished game a chance that it closes with this sentence: "The demo did little to truly represent what a superbly fun racer this game can be."

I don't doubt that's true. The pacing in the demo is all wonky, because, unlike in the finished game, where you can start up a new event from every single intersection in Paradise City, in the demo, most intersections crush your hopes for excitement with the succinct phrase, "Event locked in demo," leaving you with no choice but to cruise around until you find that rare intersection that actually has a race or other event on hand.

But the demo does manage to demonstrate one area in which Paradise does not disappoint: the crashes. Oh, yes, the crashes are more beautiful than ever. And when I say beautiful, I mean just that. I hit a wall at over a hundred miles per hour and was taken aback by how realistically and beautifully the whole front end of the car just collapsed.

Sometimes I feel a little odd for finding so much aesthetic appreciation in the lovely twisting and crushing of automobiles that is such a hallmark of the Burnout series. After all, car accidents are horrifying, dreadful things, and most of us probably know people who have been injured or killed in such an occurence. All the Burnout games sidestep the grisly reality of automobile accidents by removing us fragile humans from the equation. Paradise is not a city of reckless drivers. No, it's a city of reckless cars, driving themselves around and getting into all sorts of mayhem. (Despite the presence of the Guns 'N Roses song on the soundtrack, there are no girls, pretty or otherwise, in this city.) These cars feel no pain! You don't need to worry about them!

I'll occasionally see a comment to the effect that the absence of drivers in these cars is strange, but I think it's a wise and necessary choice. The last thing I want to think about as I'm tearing down the road trying to shunt one of my competitors into a cement outcropping is the effect such actions would have on the human bodies that would be inside those vehicles. Being made to watch "Blood on the Pavement" or whatever it was called in my high school driver's ed class was more than enough of that to last me a lifetime.

All you SP's out there just don't understand!

2008-01-23T18:50:00.000-08:00

It's too bad that this video, as the URL indicates, probably won't be up for long, because it really helped me understand that Scientology is the religion for me, and for everyone else.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Scientology-Orientation-Video-watch-it-while-you-can

"Right this instant, you are at the threshold of your next trillion years. You will live it in shivering, agonized darkness, or you will live it triumphantly in the light. The choice is yours, not ours...

If you leave this room after seeing this film, and walk out and never mention Scientology again, you're perfectly free to do so. It would be stupid, but you can do it. You can also dive off a bridge or blow your brains out."

I totally want to party with these guys.