The HED Philosophies

Top Ten Animated TV Shows

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:14:57 GMT

REVELATION -- Completion of this list will require additional viewing in order to assure complete accuracy, as well as an intimately refreshed knowledge of each series in question. This has delayed the completion of the list but it has provided more possibilities and will ensure the pristine quality of the final list, which is still subject to change.

The candidates are as follows (in no order, with current status in parentheses):

- Futurama (no further review necessary)
- King of the Hill (watching more episodes, as I have only seen about half)
- The Simpsons (scanning full episode synopsis and individually grading each episode)
- South Park (watching more episodes, as I have only seen about half)
- Beavis and Butthead (watching more episodes, as I have only seen about half)
- Venture Bros. (no further review necessary)
- FLCL (no further review necessary)
- Read or Die / RoD the TV (rewatching)
- Mahoujin Guruguru (watching more episodes, as I have only seen about half)
- Monster (watching more episodes, as I have only seen about half)
- Serial Experiments Lain (watching more episodes, as I have only seen about half)
- Neon Genesis Evangelion (rewatching)
- Cowboy Bebop (rewatching)
- The Critic (no further review necessary)
- Rocko's Modern Life (rewatching, as it has been a long time)
- Ren and Stimpy (rewatching, as it has been a long time; this will also involve watching the USA version of the show, though I fear this will lower my opinion)
- Doug (seeking to rewatch, as it has been a long time; this will also involve watching the ABC version of the show, though I fear this will also lower my opinion)
- Rugrats (seeking to rewatch classic episodes; unfortunately, the second edition of the series hath stained it indelibly)
- Home Movies (seeking to watch; I have not seen this series before, but it got #10 on the IGN list so I feel I should check it out)

Above is the current list of current candidates for the list. For the prestigious award of greatest animated TV show of all time, I'd like all possible candidates to be considered, so let me know if you feel something else should be added to the above list. I will also hand out special awards, honorable mentions, and so forth as necessary.

I have seen the following shows, and they have been deemed unworthy and ineligible by mine judgement (let me know if you strongly disagree):

- Any Adult Swim/Toonami/Cartoon Network show other than Venture Bros.
- Any ancient cartoon (Flintstones, Scooby Doo, etc.)
- Anything on the Disney Channel (Kim Possible is hot, but it's not a classic show)
- Virtually any anime aside from the ones mentioned above (I've seen hundreds of anime series, though I concede that there may be a worthy one out there I haven't seen)

Each show will receive an in-depth review detailing every possible aspect of their being as seen from my point of view (though if a show is deemed unworthy it may be cut from the list). This will include custom art by yours truly and screencaps from the shows illustrating my points.

The watching officially begins 10/12/06. [UPDATED]Projected date for completion: Thanksgiving '06 (subject to change as events warrant).

- hed out

Firefly is good.

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 13:58:00 GMT

Once upon a time, there was a TV show called Firefly. It was a great show, and since it was on Fox, it got cancelled after a handful of episodes.

The fact of the matter was that nobody really watched it. I recall some vague commercials or something, along with the thought that it was simply another silly sci-fi show. Considering this very poor passing impression in conjunction with the positively terrible promotions for the current flick based on the series, I have no qualms calling the marketing behind this franchise abominable at best.

It wasn't until approximately three days ago that I was enlightened. This isn't a "sci-fi show".

If you are at all familiar with the anime Cowboy Bebop, then you will actually have a fairly good idea as to what this show's premise is. You've got a motley crew in a humble starship flyin' across the galaxy doing crazy jobs just trying to earn enough cash to keep themselves in the air (or rather, space). There are some parallels between the shows in terms of relationships and events. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the creators of Firefly were Bebop fans.

The series sets itself very far apart from any other show, though, by excelling in several areas with a unique style and charm. The cast of characters is simply outstanding, not only in their design but their performances as well. You're immediately drawn to the roguish captain, Malcolm Reynolds, who is pretty much the best scoundrel since the likes of Indiana Jones and Han Solo. He's part quick-thinking smuggler, part veteran soldier, and part lonesome cowboy. Among his crew are the humorous pilot Wash, his wife the somewhat grim first mate Zoe, grassroots mechanic Kaylee, dimwitted tough-guy Jayne, resident "companion" Inara, proper young doctor Simon, his troubled sister River, and the reverent Shepherd Book. Overall, the performances are quite excellent and you quickly grow very fond of the crew.

Another accomplishment is the truly fine writing. Each episode has a finely crafted story, and each one is sure to have at least one twist that'll geniunely surprise you. The dialogue and situations feel entirely natural and I find myself more or less riveted to most of the episodes. I find it rather remarkable.

I do have one fairly major complaint about the series, but I need to sleep now. Updates later.

Update: I'd just like to point out that movie previews suck. Typically they feature a rapid-fire barrage of clips of funny/exciting things from the film. The whole point of a preview is to hook people to come see your movie. Presumably, you want to show things that will interest them. This is where most movie previews fail. For example, all action movie previews look the same. Some images of a calm and peaceful setting, then WHAM look something bad is happening, and this tough guy and his ragged gang of misfits are the only ones who can stop it so they kick into gear and race through explosions in their trusty vehicle whilst making witty remarks and/or having sex.

They shouldn't have done this for Serenity.

I certainly have my complaints about the movie, but I believe with some better promotions, it would have been much more successful. My initial impression of the movie trailer was "meh, another generic action flick... looks lame." It only made $10 million in its opening weekend, so I would estimate that lots of people had the same impression.

the pillows at SXSW

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 02:49:55 GMT

I saw the pillows on their second performance, the one on Friday night at Caribbean Lights. I am incredibly disappointed that I couldn't go to the one on Thursday night (you had to get invited, or something), but alas. The following post contains swear words where necessary.

At first when I'd heard about the concert, I was disappointed because there was a 21+ age limit at the venue. I'm 19. I emailed South By Southwest (SXSW, the music festival) about it, not really expecting much more than a "sorry, nothing we can do about it" sort of response. I was blown away when I recieved the following response:

"Your wish has been granted. Caribbean Lights has agreed to let
you in but of course you will not be allowed to drink. I forwarded your
name and email to Elizabeth, the owner. She will be expecting you."

After exploding in excitement, I planned my trip and left on Friday morning. I live in Baton Rouge, LA and the concert is in Austin, TX so it was about a 7 hour drive. I arrived at the hotel at about 5, took a shower, got something to eat, and headed to the concert.

The music festival was pretty crazy. The sidewalks were packed with people. After finding a far-away parking spot and searching on foot for Caribbean Lights, I found it at about 7. There was a huge line for it, but when the Caribbean Lights people moved the line to the other side of the building, I managed to slip up to about the 20th place in line.

People with badges and wristbands got priority, which means that people who want to pay cash to get in (like me) would have to wait until there were openings. At first they said the first 35 people will probably get in and anyone after that should just leave, but after 30 minutes or so they re-announced that only maybe the first 10 people would get in due to the immense crowd and the relatively small size of the club. They then announced that no one under 21 would be getting in. My outlook was becoming bleaker by the moment.

Mustering up some courage, I walked to the door and told them my name and said Elizabeth was expecting me. They looked at me skeptically and said that if that was the case, I should speak to the manager who was behind me. After talking to her briefly, she said there was nothing she could do because badge-holders had priority and I was underage.

I felt defeated, but I certainly wasn't giving up. I waited for about 15 minutes as she handled other people and was generally busy, and when there was another lull in activity I approached her again. She asked if I was alone, and told me that if I tried to get alcohol or something, I would be thrown out (which I enthusiastically ensured her would not be a problem). Then she brought me forward and let me in, with a cover charge of only $25 (of which I paid $23 since I had only a few twenties and three ones). I felt incredibly relieved, to say the least.

When I got inside I realized how small the place was. There were only about 250 people there, it was the size of a small nightclub. The first four bands shared one problem in their presentation: they all said some variant of "We lub Austin berry much", but the problem was that they repeated it endlessly. The crowd eventually got tired of the bands asking if we loved them and hearing how much the bands loved Austin and such. It also got a bit tired hearing them tell us about their CDs and t-shirts and telling us to buy them.

The Titan Go-Kings were playing when I got in. They were decent, and won over the crowd with their cute Engrish.

i-dep was great. They had a lot of energy, a cool style, and a cute singer.

The Emeralds were quite good, too. The lead singer was a bit... peculiar. He may have been inebriated, and he wore a weird shirt.

noodles was good. Ayumi and Yoko are insanely cute.

The crowd liked all these acts pretty well. However, I think most of them were there for the pillows, because that's when they really got going. As soon as Sawao walked onto the stage, everyone cheered, and he walked to the middle and stretched his arms out. Then they cheered as Manabe and Shinichirou walked out. This wasn't the beginning of the concert, though - they were just setting up and adjusting stuff. Then Manabe and Sawao walked off again, and Sawao made a gesture to the crowd. Shin-chan was leaving, too, but he got stuck on a part of the drum set for a moment and then squeezed between some cymbals to get out.

I talked to four of the fans there, and they were pretty casual fans compared to me -- some of them didn't even know the pillows' names, much less that Suzuki isn't a member of the band. They knew the FLCL music, but that was about it. I asked if they'd heard anything besides FLCL, and one of them mentioned that he downloaded the Living Field album but was "ashamed" to know that it was the pillows. [face_rolleyes]

The concert was fucking fantastic. They rocked hard. When I watched the Busters on the Planet DVD, I came up with some nitpicky complaints about their performance, but those complaints didn't appear here at all. They were incredible, end of story. Sleepy Head was awesome. I was surprised that they didn't do any songs from their new album; I'd kind of expected them to at least play the single. Unfortunately it was just music from FLCL plus two Penalty Life songs, which I had pretty much expected (though I still called for Kanojo wa Kyou and heard someone call for She is Perfect). I certainly understand that they want to play music that their American fans will be familiar with, but I have seen the song lists for other concerts over the past few days and they've played some songs that I would have really liked to hear.

Sawao technically did the same 'buy our stuff' plug as the other bands, but he did it way better, very short and sweet. It was something like "We have CDs for sale, if you are rich man, please buy me." He did something funny with his arms when he said "please buy me" and the crowd liked it. The other bands had kinda overdone the 'like us and buy our stuff' thing, and this was a lot better.

I was one of the guys in the mass of fans jumping up and down and pumping their fists and screaming the lyrics. It was incredible. About halfway through, I became rather dehydrated, but I wasn't going to give up my spot to go get a drink. I managed to touch the tip of Sawao's guitar when he leaned close to the crowd and he grabbed my hand a couple of times while he was doing the same to the rest of the nearby audience at the end. I was unfortunately too far away from him at the time during Advice when he tried to crowd-surf, and the crowd wasn't really expecting it and just sort of threw him back onto the stage.

I circled myself in black. I kind of look like I'm in pain.

I'm insanely jealous of those at the Thursday concert who got to eat dinner with them, but I scored a few points myself. After the concert, I was terribly dehydrated and had to get a drink (the bartender asked me if I had been at the front, I said yeah, and he went "Man, those guys fucking rock"). Afterwards I went back to try to get an autograph -- I'd brought Please Mr. Lostman (the album that many fans consider their best, a turning point in their style) in hopes of getting it signed. They were coming back and forth from the stage, packing up, and I mustered the courage to catch Shinichirou and I said "Shin-chan!" and he turned to look at me and I said "Onegai!" (no, I don't know any Japanese) and offered the CD forward. He took it and smiled and took the pen, and tried to write with the wrong end of the pen (presumably joking around, it made me laugh anyway). Then he turned it around and signed it, and I bowed and thanked him.

Next, Manabe came by. "Manabe-san, onegai!" I said, and he came over. When he saw PML, he took it and smiled, saying something like "Ooh, Lostman". Then he signed it and I thanked him. The band had gone backstage to an outdoor area of some sort, and I couldn't tell whether we were allowed to go back there, but then a fan came out of there and told us that the band was just sitting there, chilling. A few fans and myself went back there and found them with noodles having a drink.

By this point I was tingling all over. I thought I might faint. There I was, standing right in front of them, feeling awkward, not quite sure how I could get Sawao to sign since he was talking to Yoko. I sheepishly walked closer to them and tried catching Sawao's eye, which I succeeded in doing. He came over and signed it then, and shook my hand.

I was estatic. The other fans saw that I had a pen, and they all asked me to borrow it. This got all of them (I think five of them had come back here with me) asking for autographs, but none of them had anything for them to sign besides T-shirts, Penalty Life albums, and scraps of paper. I got fucking Please Mr. Lostman signed. I'll take a picture of it later and post it.

I bought all the pillows swag there (three t-shirts and the Buster-kun/pillows logo keychain) and decided that I should try to get the white t-shirt signed, as well. First, Shin-chan signed it, writing "the pillows" and then his name. Then came Manabe and then Sawao. As Sawao handed the pen back to me, I asked "Suzuki?" This made them all laugh and call out "Suzuki!" and say some things in Japanese. Jun Suzuki is the bassist, who isn't a member of the band, just a "guest musician" as it were. He smiled, and got up and came over and signed it. I'll take a picture of that, too. The only problem with this is that now, I can't wear that t-shirt, because if I wear it, it'll get dirty, which means I'll have to wash it, which means the writing will fade. Not gonna happen.

Then, the picture. I had purchased a throwaway camera and had taken about 20 pictures until about halfway through the pillows' concert I stopped caring about taking pictures and focused on rocking out. Unfortunately, it must have fallen out of my pocket, and someone must have found it and taken it because I searched everywhere afterwards and asked the employees and couldn't find it. Fortunately the other fans had digital cameras, and the four of us wanted to get pictures with them. So, after they approved the idea, we took turns taking pictures with the four of them. I got mine taken by a guy who emailed it to me. I've got my arm on Sawao's shoulder and am giving a thumbs-up. I look pretty goofy, but I was trembling with excitement and could hardly keep myself from grinning stupidly. I got to shake their hands after that. I did a lot of bowing and "Arigatou"s. It was awesome. Then, as we reluctantly pulled ourselves away and left, I yelled out "the pillows rock!" and put my hand in the air with the "rock out" sign, and they returned it. A member of their crew kept my pen and was giving it to other fans who wanted autographs, so if at the next concert they're using a black Sharpie marker to sign autographs, it's mine.

On the way out, the lead guy from i-dep was selling their CDs near the door. For $5, you get the CD, two stickers, and a little pin. I liked 'em, so I bought it, and the really cute singer got incredibly friendly with me, and opened her arms like she wanted me to give her a hug. I would have loved to do that, but I had already put my hands forward to shake her hand, which I had at first expected her to do when she was thanking me for buying the CD. She kind of laughed and shook my hand with both her hands then. I kicked myself.

Complaints? Well, I do like to complain, so I do have a few. The first guitar lick in Dead Stock Paradise sounded really off-key to me; not sure what the problem was, but I think they fixed it for the second time that the lick is played. For some reason, that off-key guitar sound seemed to come from Suzuki, even though that makes no sense. I wish they would have played a few more songs... I mean, the next band wasn't even part of "Japan Nite". They were pretty good, but I think everyone just wanted the pillows to stay and play more (the crowd almost entirely disappeared after the pillows). I would have liked it if they'd played some slow songs to let everyone rest, because I was incredibly tired after yelling and jumping and pumping my fist for 45 minutes. I would've liked to hear Another Morning or Midnight Down or Stalker or... well, pretty much everything.

Yeah, that about does it for bad things.

In summary, I had a freaking awesome time. The trip cost me about $180 with food and gas and hotel and ticket, which I think was a sweet deal. I've not yet been to a concert anywhere near as awesome as the concert that night (of which the pillows were clearly the most awesome performer).

If there's any way you can attend one of their concerts, I implore you not to miss it.

My Metal Gear Solid 2 Review

Sun, 02 Jan 2005 14:08:20 GMT

Recently, I was surprised to note that my interest in Metal Gear came out of a coma after playing a couple hours of MGS3. However, instead of just continuing to play that, I figured I'd better play MGS2 first for story purposes. Thus did I spent the last couple of days playing MGS2. Well, I just beat it, so here is my opinion, hot off the presses:

"Good."

Overall, MGS2 is a fairly satisfying gaming experience. Its much-maligned storyline and player-controlled character, Raiden, aren't quite as bad as the horror stories make them out to be. However, there are plenty of flaws in MGS2, and overall it is probably the weakest MGS game.

Graphically, MGS2 is quite good. When it came out it was much more impressive, but it still looks quite good today. The easiest thing to compare it to is Twin Snakes, and it's fairly close overall and while Twin Snakes looks a little better in areas, it's not as thoroughly polished so I'd put them about on par with one another. Anyway, the graphics are very good. These graphics get an 8.5/10.

The music is good. It keeps some themes from MGS and has some neat new ones; the boss fight music is pretty cool with a sax making all these crazy noises. The ending theme is composed by the same person who composed MGS1's ending theme, and likewise it's a nice way to end the game. Overall I'd say the score is pretty good, but is consistently simply not as good as MGS1's. Music gets a 8/10.

Sounds and voices are pretty good. Snake's voice is great, much better than Twin Snakes and MGS3 in which it's really raspy and overacted. MGS1 and MGS2 have a much more realistic and believable sounding voice from Snake, which I like. Most of the voices are well done, but sometimes the delivery is off. Raiden is probably the worst voice, but he's still OK. The sound effects are overall very good, but a few of the guns sound really weak. I'd give the sounds an 8/10.

Story and characters are a mixed bag. The story is incredibly convoluted, way too much for its own good. The last hour of the game is a big cut scene with each group revealing that it is using the other groups as puppets for its grand master plan, and right after that another group shows itself to be one step ahead of everyone else, and then another group, etc. etc... It's just all these different factions of people who have this intricate web of betrayals and blackmail and puppetry.

Then, there's the startlingly inconclusive ending that leaves you going, "Wait, where's the rest?" Like the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, the storyline just kind of goes away as the main character makes amends with his inner self. It's a weird sort of philosophical ending. I liked it, but what I don't like is the complete absence of closure on EVERYTHING ELSE about the storyline. I'd give the story a 6.5/10. I found it interesting and enjoyable, but it just got too twisted up and didn't resolve anything at the end. Unfortunately, a lot of it required a leap of faith to preserve the suspension of disbelief; overall I just can't say I'm that confident in Mr. Kojima's storytelling ability. Plus, most of the characters' relationships were a bit screwy.

The characters range from awesome (Solid Snake) to a bit annoying (Raiden) to stupid (the bosses). Snake kicks ass and takes names. Unfortunately the storyline doesn't let him kick as much ass as we all know he's capable of; the storyline has him actually lagging behind Raiden in completing an identical task, has his life actually being saved by Raiden, and also has him losing to a boss (a boss who, it must be mentioned, had an unfair advantage... but still, he's Snake, he should have won). Still, his character is well-developed and interesting.

Raiden has a decent character design. He's a good guy, not the pansy loser that he's made out to be. The infamous "Did you say 'nerd'?" line isn't really an accurate portrayal of his character. There's a mostly-believable love story involved which works pretty well until the end. I liked Raiden's character overall.

Otacon's relationship with his sister and his background is interesting, but it's just too sad and unfortunate to be believable. I didn't like how that sidestory played out. Otacon is cool, though. His sister is well-designed, I just think their story needed a better concept.

The bosses are mediocre in design. Vamp, the vampire, is uninspired, tasteless, and silly. I still can't believe they actually named him "Vamp". Fatman's name is forgivable since, as a bomber, I'm sure he chose that name to coincide with the nuclear weapon "Fat Man" dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. I guess it's just a coincidence that the man is, indeed, fat. However, he looks ridiculous, I mean he rides around on rollerblades in a trench coat, and his face makes him look like a maskless Darth Vader. Fortune, this lady with a railgun who is really lucky (in other words, bullets don't hit her) has a decent design, a similarly uninspired name to the others, and a complete lack of character development outside of a tiny bit at the end. Solidus looks ridiculous and has a very generic personality; aside from his overall goal, nothing about him is interesting. He really deserved more than this since he's supposed to be such an important character.

Ocelot is a great character, but he had more than his share of "crazy agenda and inexplicable actions" for this game. I like him but I don't think his part in the story was very well thought-out. Overall I'd give the characters a 6.5/10. Raiden, surprisingly, was one of the better ones. The bosses were lame and pretty much everyone except Snake and Raiden either died or had crazy agendas and did stupid things.

Now that those are out of the way, let's dive into the gameplay aspect. There are some neat parts of the game where you get to do neat stuff, but there are also a few parts that made me groan. Let me explain. The opening scene on the Tanker in which you control Snake is all-around pretty fun. However, the real game starts when you take control of Raiden (more on him later) infiltrating a waste disposal facility, or something like that. There's a big problem with this area, and it's that it's just not very well-designed. The areas are small and the facility just isn't fun to be in. For a while, you don't get to do anything fun or interesting, either: you defuse a bunch of bombs, which isn't very fun. There's a lot of backtracking and running through old areas. It's just not a very big facility and it's not interesting. Unfortunately, most of the game takes place here. So, the level concepts were flawed in my opinion.

The good news is that the core gameplay is fun. It's more fun than Twin Snakes since the levels and events are designed with the MGS2 gameplay in mind, and there are cool parts like being able to disguise as an enemy soldier at one point, and getting that sweet sword near the end and chopping guys up with it. The boss battles aren't very good and there are at least a few points that have needlessly unclear (or unfair) objectives.

One part of the game is really, really cool, though. It's after you finish the disposal plant section. If Silicon Knights had made their own Metal Gear Solid game, it would have had something like this in it. That's all I'll say. I'd give the gameplay a 7.5/10.

The presentation of this game is quite good and it's fun to play, but there's a lot of flaws in the story and characters. Overall I'd give it a 7.5/10: worth playing, and a solid (if flawed) experience.

Now... on to MGS3 at some point in the indeterminate future.

Things I saw or did

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:56:20 GMT

World of Warcraft..........

You may have heard of it. It's another massively multiplayer online RPG. I have been unable to find a copy of the game since Blizzard stopped shipping them, so Rob let me play on his account for the past couple of days. Here's some impressions from about 20 hours of play.

I didn't quite realize how bad the fetch quests in World of Warcraft are until I played it for a while. Then I realized something: they're really, really bad. Unless Blizzard adds some better reason to play the game I, unfortunately, will not be doing so.

The only real point to the game is to get a higher level and get better equipment, which happens in a totally linear fashion: complete quests to make money and level up. Money is then used to buy skills and equipment in a likewise linear method: I mean, what else do you use money for? Nothing. The game gives you just enough money to afford the new skills and equipment and gives you just enough experience from the quests to just plow through quest after quest after quest. And guess what? There is NOTHING to do besides these "quests". Sure, if you're on a PvP server you can kill enemy players, but there's absolutely no benefit to it outside if it being moderately entertaining. Nothing is recorded and the only outcome is that players who die lose item durability. There is nothing to fight for.

World of Warcraft is like a single-player game in which you run around a huge, well-designed gameworld for hundreds of hours, being commanded by all sorts of people to fetch them things or kill certain numbers of creatures or kill some creatures and take things from them. There isn't much of a community at all; people don't really talk to each other or anything.

I remember Blizzard once said they wanted to make players of WoW feel like true heroes. I'm sorry, but I don't feel at all like a hero when I'm doing the same thing as 100,000 other people, gathering ingredients for some lady's stew right after I delivered a package from one city to the next and right before I collect some random trinket for someone else. People thought Star Fox Adventures was bad with all its doodads and whatsits? World of Warcraft is worse. You do the same thing over and over again, except that you get new abilities as you become more powerful. That's the only thing that changes: the abilities you have. Everything else (the names of what you're collecting or killing, the place you do it in, the NPC you do it for) is just aesthetics.

There isn't enough character customization. The fighting system is alright, and there are lots of cool abilities. I liked FFXI's party-based combat a lot when you had a good party because each person was working like a cog in the machine; despite the game's many flaws I think that's what kept me playing. World of Warcraft has no such strength; in battle, everyone just pounces in the enemy and unleashes all their abilities. Considering that all you do is fight stuff, I wish it were deeper.

The music is generic, the graphics are firmly "good" while refusing to do anything exceptional outside of some neat environments... the game is just this: the quintessential level-up treadmill. It's better than any other one out there. But I'm sorry... after FFXI, WoW needs to do more to impress me. Maybe once Blizzard brings in some more interesting PvP things I'll get into it, but right now I am surprised to say that I will decline this game for the time being. I'd score WoW a 7.5/10.

Then again... I feel the lure. Also, I feel that if I was in a guild or a good community or had someone to play with, it'd be that much more fun. Maybe I will get it...

edit: It's now 10/11/06. I did buy WoW, and I invested a year and a half of my live into playing it pretty much every day. It was a waste of my life, and I'd rate it a 6/10. It only excels in enough ways to keep you playing, but the game's flaws will kill you when you hit the endgame. My advice to you is to play games which are actually enjoyable (games which do not require that you invest all of your waking hours into them) - I also advise that you have a life of some sort. DO NOT PLAY WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

POKEMON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pokemon Sapphire is a fun game. If you're never played the original Pokemon games, I'd probably recommend it. Right now I'm about 22 hours in and I'd give it an 8.0.

MGS3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've played about three hours' worth of Rob's copy of MGS3, an hour of which was lost due to dying a few times so I'd say I'm about two hours into the game. It's actually very easy to define the point I'm at by saying "I'm at the point where the game actually starts". Just like in Metroid Prime how the game doesn't really "start" until you crash-land on Tallon IV. However, I have some impressions to dish out, and they are steaming with positivity.

The first thing that strikes me about MGS3 is the overall presentation, which is practically flawless. The graphics, the music, and the style are all magnificent. The gameplay is deeper and much more polished than MGS2 and Twin Snakes. The storyline seems very interesting so far. The cut scenes are fantastic. Right now I'm simply floored by this game. These are my impressions from the first two hours.

Let's start with the graphics. This game is one of the best-looking games out there. I'll throw out the single negative point first: the texture quality isn't too great, particularly in the environments. Whoop dee doo. The graphics on the whole are exquisite and those "meh"-quality textures (which are commonplace on the PS2) don't take anything away from the presentation. Almost all of the modeling and animation in this game is stunning; aside from a few stiffly animated motions in cut scenes and a few places (mostly environments) where they could stick a few more polygons, I pretty much had my jaw on the floor for the past three hours.

The music. Wow! I love it. I'll say it again because I just feel like it: Twin Snakes' music is a bland, poorly disguised impostor into the realm of MGS music. MGS3's score so far is very unique and mood-setting.

The voice acting is just as cheesy as MGS2 and Twin Snakes. I think David Hayter's performance in the original MGS does not drip with as much cheese as the other three games, in which every sentence ends with an "uh" sound.

The gameplay! I'm really impressed at all the stuff they added. First of all is the camouflage system. It's fairly simple: different surroundings require different camouflage to blend in. Snake has a few different sets of clothing and a few different styles of face paint (each of which can be instantly mixed and matched). Next to each is a number telling you whether it will be better or worse for you to equip that camouflage, depending on what terrain Snake is currently touching. Choosing camo is a simple matter of picking the best numbers.

Using camo works well, too. Unlike previous MGSes, MGS3 doesn't give guards that "cone vision" sight with about a 4-meter range. No, this time, baddies can see and hear over more substantial (though still not realistic) distances. Whether they can see you or not depends on your cover and your camo. In the upper right corner of the screen is a number that tells you how well you're hidden.

I'm really tired and I want to sleep so I'll just say that the survival aspect of the game is dang cool. So are all the new things you can do in close-quarters combat such as slitting peoples' throats and interrogating them. There are a few dumb-seeming character designs but overall I like the characters.

At this point I already feel prepared to call this game a GOTY candidate, but it's too soon. I'm wondering if I should play through MGS2 first, even though this is a prequel... Anyway, the game would have to screw up real bad to get worse than a 9.0.

I also saw a couple of movies recently. Here's my quick opinions. Also in case you were wondering, I score all these things on different scales for some reason. Movies are out of 5 (and can also be translated to the letter grades) whereas games and anime are out of 10 (and not the same 10-point scale).

Anchorman: Funny. Had some clever humor, and a fair share of wackiness that worked well. Characters were quite good, and the movie did a great job of maintaining suspension of disbelief: the plot and characters worked well throughout the movie and didn't have many flubs that made me go "gah that was STUPID." However, it was occasionally tasteless. 3.5/5

Dodgeball: I saw this right before Anchorman. The two movies somehow shared a lot of the same actors in some weird coincidence. The lead actor of Dodgeball was named Vince Vaughn or something like that and I didn't like him at all. Mostly the character: he was simply completely uninteresting. The movie wasn't exceptionally funny, though it had a few good bits. There were some good character designs like the pirate, though I thought the way his character was "developed" was stupid -- after all, piratehood is all in your soul, it's not some birthright or a profession. Ben Stiller was great, though. With a more interesting storyline, better characters, and more humor it would be higher. 2.5/5

Twenty games which are good

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 06:46:14 GMT

This is a list of the twenty best games ever made. This includes games which I have not played because if I haven't played them, they aren't good enough to play. It doesn't include games which I've played some of, but not enough of to form a true opinion.

20. Perfect Dark (so many options!)

19. Command and Conquer (a classic RTS)

18. Goldeneye 007 (best licensed game ever, not to mention the best console FPS)

17. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (best handheld gave ever, mb?)

16. Skies of Arcadia: Legends (the superior version of an awesome RPG)

15. Super Mario Bros. (can you say "gaming revolution"?)

14. Metal Gear Solid (a superior experience to Twin Snakes, though it's dated nowadays)

13. Chrono Trigger (one of the finest SNES RPGs)

12. Half-Life (best FPS ever)

11. Final Fantasy VII (omg, teh rawk. much better than any PSX game should be)

10. Myth: The Fallen Lords (Myth II was just better in every way. too bad, because this game is amazing too)

9. Super Mario World (best 2d Mario game. although, yeah, I need to play more Mario 3)

8. Metroid Prime (I know I haven't finished it, but I'm close. I can still have an opinion dang it!!)

7. Super Smash Bros. Melee (can't believe I forgot only the BEST MULTIPLAYER GAME EVER)

6. The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (awesome)

5. Super Mario 64 (can you say "gaming revolution"?)

4. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (awesomely unique and amazing)

3. Myth II: Soulblighter (best RTS ever. nuff said)

2. Final Fantasy VI (best RPG ever. nuff said)

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (self explanatory)

Let the flames begin!

Half-Life 2: Half of Half-Life

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:37:48 GMT

Six years ago, a small, unproven developer released a PC game called Half-Life. It won more than fifty Game of the Year awards and went on to spawn hundreds of player-created mods, becoming the most popular online game in the world. The members of the team at Valve (the formerly unknown developers of the game) were praised as gods. Whereas other companies might have released a quick sequel to milk the cash cow, Valve went into hiding for the next four years, finally revealing its next title in early 2003: Half-Life 2.

Half-Life 2 promised a lot, to say the least: A highly advanced physics engine, which would allow for many possibilities in terms of how the player progresses through the game and fights enemies. Similarly advanced AI that would break down doors and hunt you down. The best graphics ever in a videogame. A unique and compelling storyline with many interesting characters along the way. These things, among others, were what caused many to hype this game as a true evolution of the first-person shooter. Almost two years and a handful of delays later, Half-Life 2 is released to the public. Is it all it could have been? Does it fulfill the above promises? The answer is: sort of.

Presentation

The game starts out very well. When you begin the game, you are greeted by a smirking man with a peculiar speaking style. This man is known from the first Half-Life as 'the G-man'. The things he says sound intentionally vague and give you a certain mysterious feeling before the game even begins.

You enter the game world on a stopping train. The two other passengers emerge with you as the doors open, and you're greeted to the first of Half-Life 2's many gorgeous environments. A metallic drone hovers overhead and snaps a picture of you. You can see the bumpy, shiny nature of the metal. It hovers away very nicely as you notice some wind tossing bits of trash past you towards the far-away wall. The concrete, possibly waxed floor is naturally shiny as well, and you can see the light shining through the windows, uh, "luminescently". I guess it's hard to explain without using too many silly words.

Concerning this visual splendor, Half-Life 2 is the best-looking game I've seen so far in my lifetime of gaming. My computer is fairly top-of-the-line, but even on my old machine the game runs almost flawlessly on the highest possible settings (which is very impressive considering how good it looks). Everything from the lighting effects to the character models to the water effects to the texturing to the many features like bump mapping to the characters' facial animations all add up to create an incredibly great-looking game. The graphics engine is the best thing about Half-Life 2.

In terms of audio, the game's sound effects are quite good. You can hear things all around you in crisp detail such as bullets plinking and grenades bouncing, and everything has a great sound to it with the possible exception of some of the weapons such as the standard pistol and the submachine gun, which sound a little weak. There is music in Half-Life 2, unlike the original game, and it works pretty well. It's little more than some pounding music in the middle of some firefights, but I liked it pretty well.

Anyway, continuing in the game, you leave the train and explore a curving hallway with a few more people in it. The atmosphere is well-done, and you feel very curious to find out what's up with these guards and why everyone is here. You are compelled by the fact that there's nowhere else to go to walk up to a staging area and are instructed by the guards to walk into a nearby enclosed area. You are stopped by one soldier, who leads you down a hallway and into a room that looks rather intimidating.

After a few events, you end up being chased by guards in an exciting sequence that takes you across rooftops dodging bullets. I enjoyed this scene a lot; it was pretty thrilling to see the soldiers busting into the room down the hall and clomping up the stairs right behind you, then showering you with bullets as you run across the buildings. Unfortunately, this sequence ends quickly. You are taken to a story sequence after which you are eventually sent away with your trusty crowbar.

This is where the game begins its slide from greatness.

Gameplay

The original Half-Life was so great partially because of the awesome atmosphere the game had. After a catastrophic event in the research facility you worked at, your character (Gordon Freeman) is pretty much stranded alone for the whole game. Outside of some scientists you encounter who usually die quickly unless you save them and a few security guards who spend their soon-to-be-cut-short lifespans covering you with their pistols, you are completely on your own. The feeling that you are lost in this huge facility is overwhelming and you are genuinely relieved when you find a scientist or a security guard.

Half-Life 2 clearly goes for a different approach. For a considerable part of the game, you have immortal assistance. No matter how many of your antlions or rebel fighters (the two kinds of assistance you get in the game) die, more will come to take their place. The story-critical characters such as Barney and Alyx are impervious to bullets and as such can take an unlimited amount of damage; also, you are incapable of shooting them.

This takes away a substantial part of what made the assistance in the original game so cool. Instead of only getting a few of these assistants throughout the game and doing your best to protect them (and trying not to accidentally shoot them, or else they'd turn on you or be too frightened to continue to help you), you are given two superheroes along with two bottomless bags of disposable conscripts. Sure, the invincible ones don't accompany you for very long, but the antlions and the rebel fighters do and you can just sit back and command them to charge to their grisly deaths until they overwhelm the enemy. I think the rebel fighters take longer to respawn than the antlions, but they are still unlimited.

Not only are these reinforcements poorly executed, but the game itself is much more linear than the original Half-Life. No longer are you able to explore large areas with multiple (if connected) paths. Half-Life 2 is basically one big path from start to finish, with silly blue force fields and locked doors all over the place guiding you in one direction. This would be fine if the game was clever and fun the whole way through, but it's not.

After recieving your first firearm, the game begins to change from a unique and innovative experience into a very good-looking run-of-the-mill FPS. Quite simply, you will walk from area to area wiping out bad guys for fifteen hours. So much for interesting game design.

The AI isn't notable. Half of the enemies in the game are zombies or other weird creatures, so they can't be expected to be particularly intelligent. However, the fast-running zombies are good at manipulating the environment. They leap all over the place and can quickly find another entrance and run through a building to get you if you close a door in their face (this is only really possible in one area of the game, but it was neat). The marines, however, I expected to be smarter. For one thing, when I'm unloading bullets into a human target in a video game, I like it when they stop firing at me and, you know, react to getting shot. Unfortunately while the marines will twitch ocassionally from being shot, they still charge through gunfire while shooting at you. This produces an experience in which it's not really possible to avoid taking damage.

If I were to praise Halo for anything, it would be its success in making the act of fighting enemies entertaining. With a combination of fun weapons and fun AI, Bungie creates a gunfighting experience that makes things like lame story and tedious level design seem trivial. Most enemies use beam weapons whose ordnance does not hit the target instantly. This means that you can dodge or take cover from a lot of enemy fire, which is fun. Your weapons are fun to use and you can lob grenades very easily, and combining these two attacks with an effective melee attack gives the player a substantial amount of ways to fight enemies. There are several types of enemies, and all of the Covenant are fun to fight. If you like killing zombies with shotguns, you'll like fighting the Flood (I did), but if not then the Flood are a chore to fight because they simply charge you in great numbers waving their arms or ineptly firing their scavenged weapons. Still, it's inarguable that Bungie hit a very good chord in Halo's fights against the Covenant.

Half-Life 2 has little of this. Most of the enemies' weapons fire bullets, which hit you instantly. The best thing you can do to avoid enemy fire is to kill them in one hit, which is only particularly satisfying with the Magnum pistol. Unfortunately you can only carry a mere eighteen rounds for the Magnum so you end up using your ineffective automatic weapons which hardly faze the enemy before eventually killing them. Like Halo, Half-Life 2 has a melee attack (crowbar) and grenades, but switching between them and making use of them takes time whereas Halo combines them into the core controls enabling fast-paced fights which give the player some creative freedom.

In the middle of a firefight in Halo, Covenant troops will dive away from a grenade unless you time and place your grenade throws strategically with the rest of your attack; Half-Life 2's marines only seem to take notice of a grenade a split second before it explodes, which leaves them picking their teeth from the ceiling every single time as long as you throw your grenades properly (which is difficult to do thanks to strange grenade physics). This isn't good AI at all, it's AI which shows no concern for anything except hurting the player as much as possible no matter the cost. They'll trade their lives for an extra shot at you, no matter the accuracy. They always seem to know exactly where you are, even if they hadn't seen you before, and you can never hide from them; the moment you poke your head around the corner, they shoot you. This is how practically every game's AI works, but I had hoped Valve would rise above this. They did not. At least in other games, the AI has to take a split second to raise its weapon or something; not in HL2.

Half-Life 2 does have a few neat weapons, such as the assault rifle's secondary-fire which is a bouncing ball of energy which disintegrates any life form it touches. The rocket launcher is also really neat; despite being essentially the same as it was in Half-Life, it looks really cool to guide your missile to its destination with the targeting laser. The Magnum is fun to use, as is the shotgun. The crossbow, while not particularly entertaining, is creatively designed: instead of shooting boring things like arrows, it shoots a red-hot rebar rod at high speeds to impale enemies. So what if it makes absolutely no sense.

Aside from these aspects, the weapons are somewhat average. Half-Life was one of the first games to introduce alternate-firing weapons, and while several weapons in Half-Life 2 make use of secondary fire, some do not, which is disappointing. Perhaps the coolect weapon is the upgraded gravity gun, but this does not happen until the very end of the game and as such is pretty much wasted (then again, it's terribly overpowered, so maybe this was a necessary evil).

The normal Gravity gun enables you to pick up large objects and hurl them across considerable distances. Unfortunately it well illustrates Valve's failure to make good use of their physics engine. See, the only real use of physics in Half-Life 2 is jumping puzzles. That's right; use the gravity gun to stack up crates or use them to cross hazardous surfaces. It's about as innovative as playing "The Floor is Made of Lava" once every couple of hours.

To make matters worse, there really isn't any other part of the game that uses the physics engine. It quite honestly does not incorporate physics into the gameplay any more than the original Half-Life did. They are simply window dressing, which is yet another disappointment. These physics don't even apply to the player's character or the vehicles he drives or the objects he picks up, which all act like they are completely removed from the game world; they simply don't react to the laws of physics and therefore feel out of place. The vehicles don't even slide, for cripes' sake! You drive a dune buggy which doesn't slide across dirt and a fan boat which doesn't slide across water or mud. I'd appreciate it if someone would explain to me how this could happen in a game with such an acclaimed physics engine.

It disappoints me that Valve decided to go the route they did. One illustration of this disappointment of mine are the handful of areas in Half-Life 2 where you are trapped in a small area by those lame blue energy fields and forced to fight off wave after wave of enemies. Not only are these sections frustrating and devoid of fun, they are distinctly un-Half-Life. In Half-Life you were never subjected to such a cliche of game design, assigned to one small area to battle waves of monsters. It's almost insulting to the Half-Life name. Fortunately there are only a handful of sections like this, but there are more problems with the game's gameplay.

While they started out with a great opening scene being chased by the soldiers, you never get a cool scene like that again save slightly for the town of Ravenholm in which you get to pretty much unload all of your ammo into a horde of zombies before escaping them (unfortunately, if you are any good, you can just kill them all and it ruins the suspense). You never have to fear another enemy in the entire game aside from these parts; your objective is to kill everything that you see, and you accomplish it with considerable ease, even on Hard mode (aside from those few particularly frustrating, stupid, poorly designed parts, at any rate - I'll only say "Nova Prospekt" and "sentry turrets"). I'd hoped that there would be unique events and situations that occur, and outside of the mediocre vehicle sections there are none.

Story

I had hoped (and thought) that the game would incorporate a more unique style of gameplay like the first title had. Lord knows the setting of Half-Life 2 is great. A run-down city presumably oppressed by this organization referred to as the Combine, led by a charismatic fellow by the name of Doctor Breen. Initially the game presents all of this very well, and you are filled with curiosity and a desire to find out what exactly is going on in this city.

Well, I've beaten the game, and I could't tell you what's going on if I wanted to. You learn virtually everything you will ever learn in Half-Life 2 in the first fifteen minutes of gameplay from simple observation. You want explanations and for the potential of this story to get fleshed-out, you want to feel like there's a reason for killing these thousands of Combine soldiers and causing the deaths of thousands of the city's inhabitants, and you want to feel like what you do in this city has a purpose.

Unfortunately, the game did not deliver such a purpose to me. If the oppression by the Combine was supposed to be sufficient motivation to lead an uprising against them, then I consider that to be extremely weak. We never find out why (or how) they are running this city, or why this huge structure is slowly eating its way through buildings. We never find out why people are brought to this city or how you or the G-man or Black Mesa from the first game are involved in all of this. We never find out what the "trans-human" creatures actually are or why the alien enemies from the first game are now friendly English-speaking creatures. Essentially, we find out absolutely nothing.

It's true that a lot of Half-Life's story was not clearly explained, either. However, there are reasons for this. You are clearly told (in due time) what you need to do and why you need to do it from the few people in the game who are still alive (told, that is, from their perspective and knowledge). There are far fewer people who are willing to talk to you in Half-Life than there are in Half-Life 2, and usually these people don't have much time to chat. You are given enough information to feel like you have a purpose. The G-man explains pretty much everything at the end, and answers for Half-Life's story pretty much exist within the game itself. The bottom line is that the player is not left feeling as though they don't know what just happened for the past twenty hours or so.

Near the end of Half-Life 2 there is a very clear opportunity for Dr. Breen to try to convince you to join his cause and explain to you why what you are doing is wrong and disillusioned and tell you what he's trying to do with this city, but the dialogue he delivers is anything but these things: he instead repeats the same rhetoric he's yammered for the whole game: "Freeman, you don't know what you're doing." I begged him to tell me what I was doing because honestly, I had no idea. I certainly caused the deaths of quite a lot of people but I don't know if I actually accomplished anything or not.

The end of the game is criminally short and just as uninformative as the rest of the shreds of storyline. The G-man says a few cryptic words and leaves. Unlike the first game in which you are given a critical choice at the end of the game, he simply talks to you and then the game ends. He does make an allusion to how he gave you "the illusion of choice" in the first game, but his speech and explanation are about ten percent as long or as useful as those in the ending of the original Half-Life.

Extras

Half-Life 2 includes a package of other software that initially seemed very promising. Unfortunately this extra software is pretty much disposable.

Half-Life 2's multiplayer modes are a very mixed bag. On one hand you have the two mods that are included with the game (if you bought at least the Silver edition, which I did), Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike:Source. Both of these mods are pretty fun, but neither one is great.

I feel that both of these mods fared much better in their first incarnations with the original Half-Life. Initially fan-created mods, Valve obtained development rights to both of them and released later updates to them that, I feel, hurt both games immensely. Mark my words: the beta versions of these games were far better than the "final" releases developed by Valve. With Counter-Strike I will specify beta 5.2 as being one of the best mods ever created. Day of Defeat was great for a while, but it didn't last once Valve got their hands on it (why, oh why did they take out bandaging!?). In their Source incarnations, both games are merely streamlined versions of the old games. They look and play pretty good, but it's nothing great. I'd say that CS:S is the better of the two mods.

Another multiplayer mode is HL2DM, which is a very generic deathmatch mode for Half-Life 2. It is weak and not worth your time.

Half-Life: Source is also included. This was touted as "Half-Life, but in the Source engine!" While that sounds great, it's actually highly disappointing. The game looks virtually the same as the old one - this is not a remake. If they were going to take the time to translate the old game to the new engine, the least they could have done would be to make it look cool. HL: Source isn't worth your time either, just play the original in all its glory.

Also included with the game is Valve's collection of old software. This includes Half-Life, HL: Opposing Force, HL: Blue Shift, Team Fortress Classic, Ricochet, Deathmatch Classic, and Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. The only ones of these that are worth your time are the original Half-Life and Team Fortress Classic, which are both incredible games. In fact, these games are far superior to anything HL2 has to offer. Just buy HL: GOTY Edition somewhere (it comes with TFC) for ten bucks; it's a far more valuable purchase than dropping fifty or more on HL2, not to mention you can play some absolutely great HL mods, including Natural Selection and The Specialists, just to name a couple.

Conclusion

In the end, I think that while Half-Life 2 is a good game, it's simply not as good an experience as the original Half-Life, and on its own it's simply an average (yet good-looking) first-person shooter. This is not a judgement based on "innovation factor"; for reasons explained above, I feel that the game simply squanders its potential and fails to be engaging or creative on many levels. I can't really recommend a purchase of Half-Life 2 unless you're interested in utilizing the modmaking tools on your own; if that intrigues you, then you may want to check it out, as the HL2 SDK is quite powerful.

Half-Life 2 is not a revolution, nor is it an evolution, but it's still a decent game.

Presentation: 9.0
Gameplay: 5.0
Story: 3.0
Extras: 5.0
Overall: 5.5

(scale: 5 = average)

Besht ebbar.

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 00:06:00 GMT

I love FLCL.

Initially, I was told by a friend that FLCL (pronounced Furi Kuri) was an anime about a woman who rode around on a motorcycle hitting people in the head with a guitar, and then robots popped out of their heads, and it had crazy humor like Excel Saga.

With a terrible description like that, I was naturally disinclined to watch it. He urged me to, though, and I did.

I was hooked immediately by the very artistic look of FLCL. I love everything about the way FLCL looks and moves. Absolutely stunning animation and artistic design dominate this anime. Each of FLCL's six episodes has a different art style, and they are all beautiful. Animation is incredibly smooth and intricate, with unbelievable attention to detail (one word: lips).

If I had to say one word about FLCL's soundtrack, I'd pick "unflabaginable", which is many words of exorbitant praise mushed together. Except for two songs in episode 3 (one of which is orchestral, the other sounds like elevator music being played at the dinner table), the soundtrack is composed and performed by The Pillows, a Japanese rock band of incomparable quality. After watching FLCL the first time I was in awe of their glory, and they quickly became my absolute favorite band. Suffice to say, FLCL would not be as great as it is without this soundtrack. It perfectly accentuates the events, emotions, and characters of FLCL and has no flaws whatsoever. Really.

The dialogue is delivered in Japanese with excellent quality. The voices are all very unique, which is something that cannot be said for most animes. All of the voices are superb. The actual content of the dialogue will be addressed shortly.

Now that the superficialities (albeit monumentally spectacular ones) are out of the way, we arrive at the meat of the matter, the phone of the fox.

If you'll go back up and read that description of FLCL which my friend initially gave me, it will have more apparent meaning when I say that he hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about. He admits this now, but I think that his initial impressions are an accurate projection of what most Americans will think of this anime; most of the people who I've talked with about FLCL saw it on Cartoon Network (who must have thought it was some wacky comedy too) and dismissed it as some "retarded" (they used that word often) comedy anime. First of all, there is a lot of Japanese humor that is not only imperceptible to someone who does not know Japanese, but it is dismissed entirely to someone who watches the English dub version. Second of all, FLCL is crammed with subtleties and nuances, and it's hard to grasp fully after watching it only once or twice. Third of all, everything about FLCL has a reason behind it... robots do not randomly sprout from people's heads and Haruko does not whack people for comic relief.

The characters are remarkably endearing. Naota is the main character, the kid in the blue sweatshirt. He has become the target of his older brother's girlfriend, Samejima Mamimi, after his brother moved to America to play baseball. Haruhara Haruko is a woman who appears one day and, well... if I go any farther it would be spoiling one thing or another. There are many characters throughout the anime and they're all unique and well-designed.

About the dub: it is an atrocity. Perhaps by English dub standards it's above average, but I loathe dubs with every fiber of my being. It's like watching The Simpsons in German, cheated of all the cast's vocal talent and replaced by some hacks who read half-assed translations all day. By definition the dub cannot come close to the original version's quality, and even if I can't understand the language I will take subtitles over dubbing in every single circumstance one could imagine, be it anime or music or movies or anything.

Of course, this does not count against FLCL's score. I am judging the original work of art, not the product of the fact that Americans have made a market of themselves for dumbed-down anime. I understand that as for all anime, I am not getting the full experience by watching mere subtitles (though I'm getting exponentially more than what is available in the dubbed versions). That's one reason I'm hoping to learn Japanese over the next few years. However, by being aware of this, I am able to catch more of it and learn about it online.

To me, FLCL is a love story. The relationship between Naota and Haruko is priceless. I think it's beautiful, and the ending is great. I'd rather not explain it any more than that for the few of you who may actually read this, because you haven't seen FLCL and it'd ruin it. Explaining it would cheapen it anyway... but I was touched by it.

The first time I watched it, I was in awe. I was also very, very confused. Everything happens so fast and usually without much of an explanation. To truly enjoy FLCL, you will watch it many times. This is a big "plus" in my book, because it is the complete opposite of what I dislike. Take the anime Naruto for example. Naruto explains everything to the viewer three times over, in excruciating detail. It's completely shallow, with nothing going on beneath the surface. It's also more than a hundred episodes and counting. There is absolutely no reason to watch this anime more than once, and hardly enough reason to do even that.

FLCL has no cliches, and I love it for that. Heck, it blatantly makes fun of cliches. It's even got a direct parody of a form of the "Five Drop" in episode 3! The Five Drop is a term I've invented for when two characters accidentally trip or bump together or something, and they flip around and flail their arms and they end up lying on top of each other with their faces right next to each other panting shyly and usually "accidentally" kissing. I call it a "Five Drop" because I have a little text file in which I review animes that I watch and this event generally assures the anime in question of losing an average of five points (out of ten). This is very common in a lot of anime and I absolutely hate it. Well, I won't spoil anything but FLCL makes fun of this very well.

Simply put, this is the greatest animated THING I've ever seen. Nothing else comes close to it.

If I didn't give FLCL the best score possible, there would be something wrong with me. I give it a ten out of ten.

My Doom 3 review.

Thu, 19 Aug 2004 00:19:18 GMT

I beat Doom 3. I really haven't recieved any enjoyment from the game and don't anticipate that I will. Here's why I feel this way.

I'd never really bought into all the hype, because I'd never seen a compelling game beneath the graphics, which I'll touch on first. I was never particularly impressed by the graphics, except for a few times when the lighting looked nice. I'm running the game on Ultra quality, with good framerate, and the graphics just aren't that great. The character modeling is too clean; to me, everyone looks plastic and fake. The environments don't strike me as fake-looking in the same way, but they are incredibly repetitive. I'm really sick of brushed-metal hallways.

The physics engine in this game is a joke, with ancient games like UT2003 delivering far superior ragdoll physics. The environmental interaction is minimal at best, with only a few boxes here and there that are movable. Shooting walls produces only vague black smudges, and shooting enemies results in red decals on their body but no mutilation (aside from gibbing) is possible. The lighting engine is probably the best thing this game engine has going for it, but it is used so poorly that it really hurts the game in my eyes. Everything is bathed in a pitch darkness that not only looks terribly unrealistic but simply dampens the game. In real life, lights can illuminate much more than they do in this game; all these metal surfaces would reflect light, too. If there were more lights, if the lighting engine handled dark areas better (rather than a corner being pitch black in a lit room, it should be lit too; the lighting should just be softer and more subtle), and if the damn flashlight worked better (more on that in a minute), then the experience would have been better.

The real problems with this game are the enemy design, level design, weapon design, and gameplay, which are all terrible. First you've got the obligatory zombies and zombie soldiers, which I am totally sick of fighting. I want to fight intelligent creatures who are going to do more than mindlessly charge at me, which is all they do in this game thanks to the poor AI.

In Doom 3 you have redesigned versions of old Doom enemies, which mostly look uninteresting and uninspired to me. Then there are new enemies which are absolutely moronic. For instance, those spiders with upside-down human heads and flesh-colored legs not only looked ridiculous, but they were time-consuming and irritating despite being so easy to kill. Any game with zombies loses points from me unless it does something neat with them, and Doom 3 doesn't. Then you've got a personal favorite of mine: that "boss" of sorts at the end of Alpha Labs 4, a giant spider with a naked lady for an ass and a huge fat baby head in a bubble for a face (although it's hard to tell which end is which so maybe I have it backwards). It doesn't get any stupider than that (I hope).

I mean, take a look at this garbage.

Who approved this crap?

Seriously, now. The enemies in this game are just inexcusably stupid-looking.

On to the levels. Aside from the moderately entertaining (yet short and still far too dark) Hell section, the level design follows this general recipe:

•Take one small-sized hallway.
•Mix with one part brushed metal texture, one part sewer pipes, one part zombies.
•Bake at a temperature high enough to blacken permanently. Zombies should mix with darkness and environment to pop out of the same damn spot in every room: behind you in the corner near the explosive barrel.
•Decorate with crates, explosive barrels, and flickering lights that illuminate nothing.
•Serves 20 hours of 'gameplay'.

Enough said about that.

The weapons in Doom 3 would have been wonderfully creative twelve years ago. As you may have imagined, the arsenal in this game is exactly the same as the one in the original Doom, at least in name. Is this for nostalgia? If it were, I would have thought that they'd look like the original game's guns (they do not). The problem is that the weapons in the original Doom game felt and looked and sounded much more varied, agile, powerful, and cool. In the year 2004, I expect more from my FPS than a pistol, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, a chaingun, grenades, a plasma rifle, a rocket launcher, and a BFG. Those have been standard-issue weaponry for just about every FPS since Wolfenstein; games have taken bits and pieces of that line of weapons and created new weapons. I believe Half-Life (six years ago) was the first game to use "secondary fire" which gave each weapon a secondary firing mode, giving a new layer of depth to the weaponry. Innovations were made, and id Software did not keep up. I do admit that there is one unique weapon to the game (the "soul cube") but it isn't any fun. To add insult (or simply additional injury) to injury, the weapons sound like the noises kids make with pretend guns. You know, "pschew, pschew" and the like.

The basic problem with this game is the gameplay. That's kind of a big stumbling block. The game just doesn't make it fun to shoot enemies; a combination of poor atmosphere, poor weaponry, poor enemy design and AI, and no environmental interactivity. The gameplay is similar yet different from old Doom games: collect keys, kill enemies. Sounds similar, but the original Dooms focused on fast and frantic gunplay facing lots of enemies at once in areas you could see. Doom 3 includes none of that; the gunplay is somewhat slower and less exciting, the environments are much smaller and less visible, and you face less enemies at once because id Software is trying to scare you with their crappy atmosphere and game. Yeah, they tried to make this game scary, but I think they really failed in every possible way -- it's just a chore, and if the graphics were nicer I could forgive that, but they are really just boring.

I hear there's third party mods to fix some of these problems such as the sound effects and lack of light. I may try them out, but I'm judging the base game right now. id Software made a crummy game and they're making a lot of money off of it. I don't think they're a quality game developer; they haven't made a good game since Quake II (which wasn't innovative or anything, but at least it had a good graphics engine, it was fun to play, and it had fun mods and multiplayer -- none of which Doom 3 has). People need to stop worshipping the label and realize that they're buying garbage.

Don't buy Doom 3. Download it or play it somehow if you must, but don't give id Software any money for this thing.

Graphics: 7.5/10 - Had the physics and environmental interaction been up to snuff and the character models and environments been less fake-looking, this could have been a 9. Unfortunately, they aren't. Still, after tweaking my graphics settings I have a newfound appreciation for the graphics, which are good, particularly the lighting and bump mapping (though the lighting is used like a sledgehammer rather than a feather).

Sound: 5.5/10 - No music to speak of, and some of the weapons sound lame, but environment noises are well-done and so are some of the critter growls and other sounds.

Gameplay Design: 3/10 - No thought went into this game. It's all been done a million times.

Funfactor: 5.5/10 - The gameplay at the bottom of this game is below average, with lame AI and weapons and enemies and levels. However, running around in the visually appealing areas and shooting things is entertaining for short periods of time.

Overall: 5/10 - I feel like I'm being generous with this score. It doesn't deserve any more than this.

Pirates are better than Ninjas. Now, Samurai... I dunno. That'd be tough.

Wed, 18 Aug 2004 10:44:28 GMT

PIRACY

I support the MPAA in their fight against DVD piracy. That might sound shocking (since I certainly don't feel the same way about the RIAA), so hear me out. I think that people who try to make a living off of stealing other peoples' work and selling cheap copies of it should be stopped. The creator doesn't see a dime of it, and this piracy just puts money in the pockets of crime rings.

Buying pirated products is an all-out moronic thing to do, and anyone who knowingly does so needs to seriously reconsider what they're doing. This (and the piracy of other software and media) is a huge problem in China and Taiwan, but economic circumstances over there make organized piracy practical and unstoppable; vendors of official products can't compete with the rock-bottom prices of pirated merchandise, even if the quality is slightly better. I don't take issue with that, since people are generally very poor in that part of the world, but my problem is with America. We're living in the richest country on the planet and this kind of thing should not be taking place. I imagine that a lot of this activity is done by average folks who don't know the difference, and see cheap DVDs on some guy's table on the street as being a good deal and nothing more. These folks need to get educated.

Many foreign CDs (most notably game and anime soundtracks) found in specialty stores around the US are pirated. They can be identified in a few ways; go here for more information in that regard. If you like something enough to buy it, then buy the official version and give money to the creators. Don't buy pirated products!

The main difference between the RIAA and the MPAA is that the RIAA was fighting online music downloads in a dirty fashion while keeping record prices super high and giving very little of it to the actual artists, whereas the MPAA seems to be simply trying to get rid of this physical DVD piracy, which is done on the streets of some cities supposedly. Perhaps I just don't know enough of the MPAA's aims and motivations, but from the information I've seen, I support them in their goal. So, the moral of the story is to skip the middle man and download movies from the internet.

I intend that in a funny way, since it could be interpreted that I am joking that I still support stealing after everything I just said, and yet I also mean it seriously as long as the downloading user uses some moral discretion. I always purchase products that I download if I like them a lot. Probably the most shining example of this is when I spent $250 to buy seven CDs from a foreign band that I absolutely love, even though I had already downloaded most of their songs.

Downloading games, movies, anime, and music is a fast, cost-effective, and easy way to try out many different products. I personally do not download many movies or musicks, but downloading games and anime serves as a probe for me to determine which things I will like and which things I won't. I've watched the first episodes of many dozens of different anime series to determine whether I like the show or not; most of the time, these are Japan-only series and it's not piracy at all (it only becomes piracy when an American company buys the rights to release the DVDs in the US). If I even sort of like it, I'll download some more episodes and usually watch until I just don't care anymore. Generally speaking, I watch the first few episodes before making my opinion. Here's what "piracy" has taught me: most anime sucks.

Total animes watched: 57 -- 18 completely / 39 partially
Average score: 5.5/10

That's a pretty low score, but when considering the rating scale I devised it's not as bad as it may seem:

These ratings signify varying degrees of greatness. You will probably not be bothered by anything rated one of the below, and it is more than likely that you'll love it and have a memorable experience.
10: Nothing but the best. There is no such thing as perfection, but there's no real flaws here. This is the stuff of legends.
9: So absolutely amazing that the few slight flaws do very little to lessen the overall experience. Classic anime.
8: Really great, but lacking in a couple areas. Highly recommended.
7: Very good, but it may have a few problems. Still recommended.
**************
The below ratings signify varying degrees of mediocrity. While at the higher end you have good but flawed product, the lower end becomes increasingly painful to experience. Anything given one of the below ratings is probably pretty forgettable.
6: Still good, but there are some significant flaws that could mar one's enjoyment of it.
5: Pretty average, or a good idea with poor execution.
4: It's most likely that they didn't have a good concept to start with here, because it didn't end up very well.
**************
These final ratings signify varying degrees of crappicityness. You will certainly want to pour molten tar into your offended orifice depending on which category recieves this rating. You'll want to do your best to forget you ever watched this crappy anime.
3: Crap.
2: Bottom of the barrel garbage. Where do they come up with this stuff?
1: If the bottom of each barrel was the top of a new, lower barrel, one would have to excavate through many thousands of miles' worth of barrels to come up with anything that even approaches the level of worthlessness that this rating represents. To recieve this rating, an anime has to be so bad in this area that its worthlessness actually angers the viewer.

Only 15 of those 57 shows got a 7/10 or higher from me. The conclusion I've reached is that while most anime is indeed of very generic and often poor quality, there are a few really remarkable ones out there that make searching for 'em worthwhile.

"But what makes an anime good or bad?" might be a commonly posed question. Well, I'll tell you.

I grade anime on seven different levels: music, dialogue, animation, art direction, story, theme, and characters. These categories are assigned whole numbers which correlate with the chart above. Then, I give each show an overall rating, which is not an average of the other categories. It is allowed to not only cover the whole numbers between one and ten but the half-points as well. In some cases it will be higher than the average of the other categories, indicating that the overall experience is greater than the sum of its parts -- a good thing. If it's lower than the average, it usually indicates wasted potential or poor execution of some good concepts, or maybe some good music or art in an otherwise mediocre series. To the untrained eye, a 5/10 is a terrible score: for video games, most 5/10 scores indicate complete train wrecks. That's not the case for this review system; a 5/10 generally indicates something that just isn't worth watching. It may be completely boring in every way, or it may have terrible characters and plot while having some good music and animation and art (which seems to be the case fairly often).

At this point I feel I should mention a certain genre of anime that tends to bug me quite a bit. I dub it the "relationships" genre. This genre of anime focuses on the exploits of one usually charming, shy, and/or lovable male lead and an assortment of girls vying for his attention. These girls fit into a number of stereotypes, and often seem to have nothing else on their mind except complete subservience to this guy. They usually have perfect bodies and loads of sexual humor and references are used, not the least of which would be the old reliable "accident" routine. That's a scene where characters of opposite genders accidentally fall on top of each other in a romantically suggestive manner and stare at each other with their faces close and blush and do those timid "ah" noises. God, that annoys me. Come up with something clever, stupid anime makers. I dock big points for animes which include such scenes.

Anyway, the characters, plot, dialogue, and theme of these anime are generally garbage, but they seem to always create a somewhat unique and likeable male main character for these shows. Some of them have good art styles, some of them have nice music, and some have surprisingly fluid animation, but very few have more than one high point. For me, this is a genre to avoid, although many people seem to like this sort of anime a lot. This perplexes me.

The other overused anime genre is that of the Mecha, which means big robots who blow stuff up. There are at least a few very good Mecha series (which go far beyond the cliches that most people think of when they see anime robots), but most of them are just rehashes of those better ones in the genre.

While we're on the topic, have you played Doom 3? It's not half as good as reviews want you to think. More on that later.

Best. Gamecube Games. Ever.

Thu, 22 Apr 2004 08:20:18 GMT

Well, from launch till today, anyway.

This is gonna be a long post. It will be updated in increments so as to preserve the style I'm going for. This update will include the games I've ranked #25 through #16. Prepare to be shocked, amazed, and disgusted!

Please note that Mario Golf: Toadstood Tour and Kirby Air Ride are excluded due to severe lack of playtime.

25) Capcom VS SNK 2 EO (8.5/10)

This is the best 2D fighter that I've sunk any amount of time into. No, I haven't played any Guilty Gear games or Street Fighter Alpha 3... but I like this one a lot anyway. It's got almost a billion characters, priceless arcade presentation (with a ludicrous announcer to boot), some pretty decent graphics (good animation and backgrounds, but the sprites are fairly pixelated), and a lot of good multiplayer fun. Single player is good, but seeing as how it's an arcade game, it has limited modes. Still an overall very positive experience if you can tolerate 6-year-old graphics.

24) Animal Crossing (8.5*/10)

While a very charming and entertaining game, Animal Crossing lacks any sort of direction. It's a really good game to relax with, but unless I am mistaken you can't really accomplish much outside of getting a bigger house and filling it with crap. Fun game, but it needs to give the player more of a sense of purpose.

23) Luigi's Mansion (8.6/10)

At first I thought this game was pretty weak. Luigi... with a vacuum... sucking up ghosts in a manion. Didn't sound like a recipe for success to me. Fortunately the game has loads of character, great graphics, and a catchy soundtrack to make up for its slightly confusing control setup. In the end it's a good time, and even offers some scares and some very fun boss battles. My main complaints are the controls and the fact that it wasn't a Mario launch title (minus ten points).

22) Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (8.6*/10)

At first I was proclaiming this game as the best Harvest Moon ever... now, I hear lots of complaints, and while I'm only on day one of Autumn, my mental score has already slipped considerably. I can't fairly score the game yet, but I think it's a great game that at least deserves mention here. Natsume is interesting in that it continues to create almost-great Harvest Moon games, instead of simply taking the last one and making EVERYTHING BETTER, which is what most companies do. I wish it would just create one quintessential farming sim so that everyone could be happy. Anyway, it's got some awesome shadows and cows. They could have poured some more personality into the characters, though.

21) Eternal Darkness (8.8*/10)

A very intriguing story with a genuinely terrifying atmosphere make for one pretty thrilling game. The fighting could have been a lot better; it's just a bit clunky and not that fun. Graphics are well done, but seem made for a machine of comparable strength to the PS2, not the GCN. The concept of experimenting with runes is kind of lame, too; you just plug in different combinations till you get one that works. I think it would have been better for them to simply give you the spell. Anyway, the game's concept, the characters, and the voice acting are also noteworthy. I'm only on Chapter 6, so I need to play more.

20) Viewtiful Joe (8.8*/10)

I thought about a score for Joe for quite some time. I toyed around with a 9.0 or so, but bumped it down to this. Why? Well, I think part of the problem is that the game doesn't require that much skill to play. It's pretty dang easy to go into Slow and pound away at enemies. Sure, it looks awesome and is a lot of fun... but eventually I felt it getting a mite stale simply because you can't improve that much. The voice acting is pretty good, but sometimes I can't tell whether the lines are supposed to be cheesy or not when they ARE (which is bad). Still a very good game, and I haven't finished it... but I am not feeling the love I once felt for ol' Joe.

19) Beyond Good and Evil (8.8*/10)

I'm very impressed with this game so far. The graphics are outstanding, the music is wonderful, the voice acting is movie-calibre. Battles are a lot more fun than, say, Starfox Adventures, but not quite as good as the likes of Zelda. I kinda wish the world was bigger; there's only one town to explore (so far, anyway) and there isn't much to do out there. The aspect of photography is genius and very well-executed, making it a lot of fun to be an aspiring photographer. I'm not too far yet, though; I'll get back to you after another 10 hours.

18) Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (9.0/10)

The best skateboarding game of all time, period. THPS 1 had the freshness, THPS 2 was an unnecessary sequel except with better levels, and THPS 3 upped the ante with the best levels yet, next-gen (well, current-gen) graphics, a very suitable punk-rock soundtrack (while I am not a fan of the genre, it fits the game perfectly, and unlike the rap in True Crime, the music in THPS3 is decent) and some very useful new abilities like the Revert that let you chain massive combos and simply knock socks off people. There's also pedestrians you can run into, and when you do a faceplant it leaves a big bloody smear on the pavement. How great is THAT?

17) Wave Race: Blue Storm (9.0/10)

I'm tired of writing, so: Best. Jetski game. Ever.

... Oh wait, I already used that line. Uhh... OK, it just rocks. You've played it, we agree. Done!

16) Super Monkey Ball (9.0/10)

Probably one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. I hear SMB2's single player was pretty crappy, so I'm glad I got the original. The multiplayer in this game is also a lot of fun, but apparently SMB2's multiplayer is way better... so I guess it's a trade off that I'm willing to make, since I have no one to play multiplayer games with out here. Anyway, the single player game consists of more than a hundred deviously designed boards that will get you cursing about as loud as Ikaruga's dastardly foes do. I beat advanced without dying once, but expert? Ha, no hope there. That is absolutely insane. Anyway, some of the multiplayer modes are kind of worthless like monkey racing, and the graphics could have been a bit more extravagant... but the gameplay is great, proving that simplicity does not BY ANY MEANS equal ease. Show me someone who thinks a game that uses no buttons besides the analog stick has to be easy, and I'll show you someone who's never played Super Monkey Ball.

OK, and here's the rest using rapid-fire mode! **Ocelot shocks bighead to death**

15) Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (9/10)
-- Whoa, where'd this game come from? Depsite it's somewhat simple gameplay, I really like the charm in this game. It's very light hearted and pleasant to play. Multiplayer is fun, if confusing. :p

14) PN03 (9/10)
-- Yeah, I like it more than Joe. (for now, anyway)

13) Super Mario Sunshine (9/10)
-- Was lacking in many ways, but still managed to be a great time.

12) Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (9/10)
-- Score rounded off to compensate for how good the story and stuff is. Great stuff, but the original's still better! (play it!)

11) Pikmin (9.1/10)
-- Innovative and charming with great gameplay, just a bit short.

10) Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (9.2/10)
-- One of the best Star Wars games out there, and a great arcadey shooter. I likes.

9) Ikaruga (9.2/10)
-- Fun, fun, fun till my daddy took the T-Bird away. Hard as a rock too.

8) F-Zero GX (9.2/10)
-- Hardest racing game ever? Possibly. Funnest? Well, almost. But it'll make your eyes bleed from being so cool. And fast. Oh yeah, it's pretty fast.

7) Soul Calibur II (9.3/10)
-- Absolutely beautiful game with a great fighting engine. Single player is surprisingly beefy for a fighting game, too. Link roanxo4rs.

6) Resident Evil (9.3/10)
-- I really, REALLY loved this game. Scared the poop out of me.

5) Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (9.4/10)
-- OK, we're getting into the super-greats now. I bumped it down a point due to the disappointing battle mode that I explored recently. Still, best single-player Mario Kart yet, and the racing is just superb and tons of fun.

4) The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (9.5/10)
-- What's there to say? Awesome game in the best game series of all time. You know my complaints, but they aren't too bad; this game is still not to be missed.

3) Skies of Arcadia: Legends (9.7/10)
-- How great is it when you discover a game you'd never heard of and have few expectations for, and it turns around and blows your face off with its quality? Well, Skies sure did that to me.

2) Super Smash Bros. Melee (9.9/10)
-- A Nintendo fan's dream game. Single player was really good, but it could still be better (it could ALWAYS be better in games that are made for multiplayer like SSBM). Fortunately the multiplayer is of endless replayability.

1) Metroid Prime (10*/10)
-- Guh. This game has blown my socks off so far. It may very well slip a couple of decimal places as I play it more, but I have enjoyed my experience greatly so far. Yeah.\

OK, there ya go. NOW COMMENT TO ME.

Twin Snakes Review Redux

Sun, 18 Apr 2004 08:34:13 GMT

Since you beat the game now, it's safe to read this. I dunno if I would change anything about this review, but we can discuss.

As I said before, I'm an MGS vet and it took me 9 hours on easy. Here's what I thought. Note that I'm going to be pretty critical while comparing it to the PSX original.

• Nice graphics. Could have been more polished, especially the faces and water. Liquid's face was done very well, I think. The ones that could have used more work were Solid Snake's, whose face looks perpetually confused and fat with his eyes just barely peeking out from below that huge bandana (and his arms are always stuck in Action Figure mode in cut scenes) and Meryl, whose face is painfully shaped and whose eyes bug out and whose eye color clashes like crazy with her eyelashes. Generally I think faces look very good until zoomed in upon. Lighting is a bit wonky, too; the original was much more stylish in texturing and lighting. TTS is lit like an action movie sometimes, but then other times it just looks artificial. It's pretty inconsistent. And then there are places like the MG chamber that are lit poorly; it's filled with a thin greenish fog and looks terribly poor. I wish there was just one constant lighting system like the one used in the Baker cutscenes after the first encounter with Fox. Those looked really good. Also I disliked how in the PSX version you had to go over MG and in TTS you must go around it. Anyway, the water looks okay when you're walking through it but when it's not being disturbed it looks like a plastic or aluminum sheet, and splashes look bad too. Animations are excellent.

• Music was good, but vastly inferior to the original's. It changes the entire presentation and mood of the game when you substitite electronic rock/techno in the place of orchestra. I would have killed them if they messed with the credits music, and they did not. I still would have FAR preferred the original's music, and even the ending credits theme doesn't even sound like it fits along with TTS's new soundtrack; it was perfect for MGS, but... I can't really describe it.

• That said, the entire presentation was significantly different from the original. Not bad, just different. I preferred the original's presentation and atmosphere.

• The addition of MGS2 gameplay adds a lot, but levels aren't designed to maximize the usefulness of the extra gameplay elements so sometimes they seem a bit useless. That didn't prevent me from having a good time fooling around with them.

• Story and characters are great, but the original presented them better and more coherently.

• Controls work fine, despite the game being designed for a PS controller.

• I dislike how they took out the feature of the original that gave you a larger life bar and the ability to carry more ammo and items after every boss you killed. It was like "leveling up" almost. I can't imagine why they took it out.

• Boss battles don't feel very exciting. They were extremely exciting in the PSX game; I think its due to the fact that with the updated gameplay mechanics, graphics, and such, defeating the bosses is a bit simple. They should have brought the boss battles into the 21st century, like they did with the regular enemy encounters (which are great fun to mess around with).

• Voice acting and dialogue are good, but overall not as good as the original. Some dialogue has been changed for the worse and some voice actors, namely Gray Fox's, are not as good this time around (the original actor for Gray Fox didn't actually do it for TTS).

• Cinema sequences are generally supreme and some contain very humorous elements that I loved, but sometimes the close up on the faces is irritating because they look disturbingly inhuman.

• Too many bullet-time cut scenes. They look cool, sure, but it seems like in every other action scene someone's dodging bullets.

• The love story is more heavy handed and worse presented than the PSX version. Maybe it was the faces. Gah, Meryl's face bugs me. From a distance it looks good, but up close...

• I feel like this game would have been the perfect launch title for the N5; it would have been a much more significant graphical leap.

• They should have tried to do more than just a straight remake. They should have changed some boss battles and some level design to compensate for the extra gameplay features. They should have put in the VR missions. They should have simply made this version of MGS the definitive one; but as it stands, the original MGS is still superior.

Overall, I think the game was excellent. It probably doesn't sound like I thought that above, but as you must have noticed with the many reviews, it's hard to give positive comments on a remake of a classic game like this. It feels like the only thing I can do is compare it to the orginal, and it loses in most categories.

For someone who's never played either game: 9.4
For someone who's played MGS not MGS2: 8.7
For someone who's played MGS2 not MGS: 9.2
For someone who's played MGS and MGS2: 8.0

Just for comparison, I'd give the original game a 9.7. I just think it offers a more balanced and cohesive package. However, don't let that deter you from picking up Twin Snakes! It's well worth a purchase. I'd say if you've played MGS and MGS2 to death, you might just want to rent it, though, unless you're a big MGS fan.

Twin Snakses

Sat, 13 Mar 2004 18:44:25 GMT

I've changed my mind about posting this for a few reasons. Namely, it'll probably scare you guys about the game. Since you've already read it, it's probably already done its job but I wanna take it down for now so you can't get the complaints etched in your mind. The bottom line about MGS is that it's a fantastic game. You guys will love it.

And also, keep in mind that every review out there does nothing but compare Twin Snakes to the original game. I think the original is, overall, a better experience. Once you guys play Twin Snakes we can discuss this more, but I just don't wanna suffocate your will to play the game.

I was going to post some other stuff here but I forgot for now.

The IGN IS WRONG Awards, 2003

Mon, 09 Feb 2004 08:54:32 GMT

Welcome to the First Annual Bighead Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence (also known as the Headdies). Here we give awards in a number of different categories to a number of different things that were notable in 2003. Most of these awards (known as Headdies) go to games, but some do not, as you will see shortly. However, be warned; there may be spoilers for some games in these awards... so if you're trying to avoid any sort of spoilers for some games in 2003, it's best to proceed with caution. Also, if you have a slow connection, please be patient... I didn't exactly try to make any of these images 56k-friendly.

So, without further ado, let the ceremony begin! Each winner will recieve a slightly modified variant of the revered Headdy Statue: . Clearly it would have cost way too much time and effort to be creative with it, so... well, I guess you'll see. Here goes nothing.

Best Snot Physics: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

You would be hard pressed indeed to find a game that better simulates a kid snuffling a strand of boogers into his nose than Nintendo has created in Zelda: TWW. The physics in the world of Zelda are outstanding, and Nintendo's attention to detail is remarkable as always; other games would have painted a slightly sticky-looking texture under the kid's nose, but no -- Nintendo goes above and beyond and actually models (and animates!) a big drippy blobber of mucous hanging from the kid's face, which he periodically snorts back into that dark, smelly nostril. Congratulations, Nintendo.

You can catch ol' Zill thuggin' it with his posse from Outset Island above. He's the one with the two-foot booger.

Best Graphics: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

With a world like a painting and characters like cartoons brought to life, TWW's universe will enrapture even the staunchest anti-Celda patriot if given enough time. Vibrant colors, exotic locales, and massive constructs fill the little of Hyrule's stratosphere that is not covererd by water. Simply put, the game is art in motion and has little genuine competition for the best graphics seen in a videogame this year.

Best Game that Nobody Played, so if You Haven't Played it You Better Go Out and Buy it RIGHT FREAKING NOW IT'S ONLY $9: Moonbase Commander

I know MBC came out last year, but it was such a dismal sales failure that I feel it deserves a spot in these prestigious awards. Humongous Entertainment, the development company behind MBC, is owned by Atari (formerly Infogrames). Atari has restricted HE's freedom for many years, allowing them only to produce kid software like Putt Putt Goes to the Zoo and the Backyard Sports series. However, the employees of HE knew they were capable of more than this and pitched a very ambitious idea to Atari, an idea that would become MBC. Atari was skeptical but decided, after much lobbying, to give the devs a shot at their own project. Unfortunately, they provided only a fraction of the funding requested by the developers, and gave them a strict timeframe. Extravagant graphics and gameplay modes had to be cut from the To-Do list, and the developers worked their asses off, stretching their time and dollars to cover as much as they possibly could. In the end, a refreshingly unique and damn fun-to-play game was released by the name of Moonbase Commander; a turn-based strategy game only by name, the gameplay is tense and exciting, with deep strategy and the unmistakable sense of FUN. The game simply screams to be loved.

Unfortunately such screams do not pierce the cover of the game's box on the shelf in the electronics store; they do not pierce the shadows of internet message boards, or magically insert themselves into gamers' minds. No, such screams for love must be aided by marketing, by spreading the word that THIS GAME EXISTS. Sadly, the only publicity the game got was from its developers visiting internet message boards all over, making posts begging people to try the game and buy it if they enjoyed it. Many copies of the game were sold in this way... that is, many more than would be sold otherwise.

The game's packaging is branded by a Space Camp logo, calling out to customers "Enter for your chance to win a trip to space camp!" This, alone, will turn away any hardcore gamer looking for a good game; it makes it look like some kid game. This was worthless, as well: Space Camp went out of business not too long after the deal was struck. Too bad for Atari; too bad for Humongous.

So, in the end, the game scored a small, dedicated fanbase, but was such a failure sales-wise that Atari strengthened its grip on HE even more, and in the words of one of their employees, "We'll never be free again." Thus was the end of the short-lived dream for creative freedom. I am proud to humbly award the "Best Game that Nobody Played, so if You Haven't Played it You Better Go Out and Buy it RIGHT FREAKING NOW IT'S ONLY $9" Headdy Award to Humongous Entertainment's Moonbase Commander.

Best Multiplayer Game of the Year (tie): Mario Kart: Double Dash!! ; Soul Calibur II

Not that I really know; I haven't played much multiplayer in MK:DD, but what I have played was great. I didn't like how the tracks in multiplayer are missing some of the graphical flair (and a few obstacles) that the single player mode gives you, and the battle mode is kind of weak, but for crazy racing action, the game is unmatched. The co-operative gameplay mode adds another layer to the gameplay strategy, as well, and is good fun.

I've spent a lot more time playing Soul Calibur II multiplayer than I have with MK:DD (mostly because I haven't played many multiplayer games with anyone since MK came out), which is why I have to place it at least equal to MK in multiplayer enjoyment. The game is spectacular, and has just about endless replayability in part due to the incredibly deep fighting engine but also in part to the Extra mode which lets you use lots of different weapons. It's a lot of fun trying new weapons and then finding some really awesome one and totally pwning with it. Anyway, it's a great game that any console owner who's ever enjoyed a fighting game should own.

Best Role Playing Game: Skies of Arcadia: Legends

Simply put, Sega and Overworks have crafted one of the best turn-based RPGs ever in their DC-original Skies of Arcadia. Due to lagging sales, it was ported and enhanced for the Gamecube with a number of extra features such as Wanted Missions and some expansions to the story in Piastol and that bird that barfs up stuff.

Between pleasing graphics and wonderful music, Skies really delivers with a fantastic sense of exploration. The world of Arcadia consists of many floating islands, somehow suspended far above the planet -- likely a biproduct of the small planet's six moons hovering in orbit. It's got great characters, a compelling (if not terribly original) story, and charm by the bucket. Give this game a chance, and it'll eat you.

Runner-up: Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga

Now it's time for some of the more dubious awards of the evening. Now presenting the two most overrated games of the year. Both are prime candidates for Most Overrated Game of All Time, but Halo would edge out PoP for that award.

Second-Most Overrated Game of 2003: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Trust me, you're going to be doing that a LOT. Look to the most recent post before this to discover more about how I feel about this game The review will be updated shortly with more details on the game. Those many paragraphs in a nutshell: The game blows.

Most overrated game of 2003 AND 2001: Halo

I know the Xbox version came out in 2001, but I didn't play through it till the Mac version came out in 2003. I'll expound on Halo more in a future editing session. In short: The game doesn't blow as much as PoP, but it should have been a great game, and thus it blows exponentially more than it should have, so it kind of swipes the award from PoP. Sorry about that, crap, I just have to give the award to garbage this year.

And now, for the Game of the Year 2003 Award nominees...

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Skies of Arcadia: Legends

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Soul Calibur II

Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga

And we have a tie! Who could have seen THAT coming? It had previously been speculated that Zelda would run away with this award quite easily.

The Games of the Year 2003 are...

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

... and Skies of Arcadia: Legends.

(insert reasonable explanation here)

Well, it's now extremely late, but I've finished the outline my first installment of the 2003 Headdies. I have more awards to give away and more stupid things to think up, so stay tuned. I'll be updating this tomorrow, as well, to iron out the wrinkles and update some missing text and such. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it at least a bit.

Don't worry, it won't be much more.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Frank Grimes

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:37:07 GMT

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of the most-praised games of 2003. Reviewers hail it as an unexpected masterpiece, a wildly innovative game that does no wrong and delivers an outstanding package for the gamer. It has recieved many Game of the Year nominations, and a few awards. Therefore, it is very difficult for me to stand here and say that Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a mediocre game.

The most difficult part of this is that few people will listen to me. "We don't care what you think!" they will say in the process of shunning me. "We value the opinions of professional game reviewers, not that of some chump on a website!" To that I say the only thing that separates me from them is that they get paid, and are probably less attractive than me. However, that's another issue entirely.

For those who have continued to read, I will now present my evidence in an orderly fashion. Exhibit one: music, sound effects, and graphics.

PoP has a fairly good musical score, but there is very little of it and it only serves as a backdrop to some cinema sequences and fighting areas (more on that later). The fighting music, which the player hears by far the most of all tracks, is an interesting sort of middle eastern music remixed into a floaty, vague rock tune. It's decent, like the rest of the music. Certainly nothing outstanding.

Sound effect-wise, PoP falls very short. I realize that the other versions of the game do not suffer from the same muffled sound effects of the Gamecube version, but in this game, many sound effects sound like you're hearing them through a pillow or as though they are happening a great distance away from you. For these, it seems as though the sounds are somehow disconnected from the on-screen action, as though some lazy person added sound effects after the action takes place. There are some nice sounds, such as the simple patter of feet or crumbling of rock, but even they are muffled by the sound compression. The battle sounds are by far the worst, being mere clunks and scrapes that quickly become monotonous. Voice acting is good, but the low-quality compression and some cheesy delivery harm it a bit. The Prince does have some funny lines, but they are delivered in chunks; every once in a while, he has a soliloquy with several humorous bits, but they are completely separated from the other, more serious 98% of the game's dialogue.

Graphically, Prince of Persia is appealing; it looks like a modern PS2 game, so take that as you will. Polygonal models and texture work are mostly decent, with a few low-texture items and areas. The best part of the graphics, by far, are the animations. Running across walls and flipping through the air simply looks fantastic. I don't know if they motion-captured this, or what, but it really looks great. In addition, there are a number of effects and some lighting that look excellent, such as the misty sand on the floor and the flashes when you slash enemies. These nifty visual flares lose their luster after a couple hours, though; in genuinely beautiful-looking games (such as Zelda: WW) you constantly marvel at how great the game looks. Even these nice looking things about PoP become unnoticable after a couple of hours, because they always look the same. The running animation, the flashes, and every other graphical action looks consistently the same from area to area... because they are always repeated, area to area.

This brings me to the real problem with Prince of Persia: repetition. At first, the game seems like a great one. You run across a couple walls and fight some stuff, and you're thinking, "Well, the fighting system kind of sucks, but that platforming action was amazing! I wanna jump across some more stuff!" Well, you'll get to jump across more stuff, don't worry. A LOT more stuff.

The problem with the platforming is that there are only three basic elements to it in PoP. You run up/across walls, you swing from/climb up poles, and you jump across gaps. That's it; there's no clever variations on any of these themes. Sure, they mix and match them, and put them in different orders throughout the game's many rooms, but you're always gonna run across that wall to grab the pole which you will use to swing across a few gaps to hit the button (many rooms go on like that for a LONG time). These elements are so static and un-customizable that the design team is left with a very difficult challenge: how to keep the gamer interested. I mean, how many walls is it safe to make the gamer run across before he gets bored? I'm sure they had a tough time with it, considering that they did not succeed.

If the puzzles or the fighting were great, the fun but repetitive platforming would have been forgiven. Unfortunately, these aspects of the game are far inferior to the platforming. Puzzles are a painfully simple affair; you simply progress in a linear fashion throughout each room, hitting switches and pulling levers. If that doesn't qualify as a puzzle, then PoP only has a few puzzles scattered throughout the game, and these puzzles (one of which involves maneuvering a giant "key" thing with four levers) are terribly easy to figure out and are more tedious than anything. You find yourself wanting to get past the puzzles and the button pushing sections, and back to the platforming; then when you reach the platforming, you try to get it done as quickly as possible to get to something better, but they greet you with a fighting sequence and you cry.

The fighting system in Prince of Persia is criminally bad. I have nothing good to say about it, except that it's vaguely remniscent of Zelda's fighting style. You are locked onto one enemy at a time, and R blocks, B attacks, and A performs jumps and side-jumps. That's where similarities to Zelda end and PoP's own problems begin.

A basic fight is set up in this way: you enter a new area, and encounter a group of either zombies, zombie-birds, or beetles. Beetles are mindlessly easy, and therefore rank as the most entertaining. Zombie-birds are annoying since they fly but can be dealt with quickly because of their limited amount of health. Unfortunately, the worst encounter is also by far the most common: that with our friend, Zombie Guy #193.

Zombie Guy #193 will warp into battle like all of his comrades; when infused with the Sands of Time, these zombies gained the ability to warp instantly around the battlefield, rendering the clumsiness of their zombiehood completely null. They are zombies who warp, so the Prince can't run away from them... they just warp right up to him again.

According to sand-zombie etiquette, only four zombies may be engaged in battle at one time. Thus, as soon as the Prince kills a zombie, another one is allowed to teleport into the arena to engage him. This can go on for a long time because there are apparently quite a few plethoras of zombies in this palace. Thus, Zombie Guy #193 patiently waits his turn and warps in on cue.

When he arrives, he notices that the Prince is in the process of stabbing his dagger into the abdomen of an inert zombie. He is sucking the zombie into his dagger, strengthening his powers. The other zombies stand around him aimlessly, waiting for him to finish so that they can attack him again. Apparently it takes a very long time for zombie thought processes to process just about anything, so zombies only attack once every few seconds, and yet they are able to block very quickly sometimes. Zombie Guy #193 thinks for a few moments, then swings at the Prince.

The Prince, who is holding R, blocks Zombie Guy #193's axe with the back of his head. Zombie Guy #193 understands this because it is well known that whenever the Prince is holding his arms and swords above his head in this particular fashion, his entire upper body is impervious to attacks, depsite the location where attacks may actually land. In other games, the area in which you are blocking is the only area that damage cannot be received; not so in PoP.

To defeat a zombie in PoP, you must either stab it with Y (which freezes it up in time so you can slash it in half) or stab it with Y when it's on the ground (which sucks it into your dagger). To do this, you must soften them up first, which means hitting B a lot. You can use A to sidestep them or jump over them and slash them on your way down (only works on some enemies).

One problem is that the game auto-targets enemies. You have no control over which enemy the Prince faces or interacts with; the game simply tries to judge which one is closest of prevents the biggest danger. It does this fairly well, but manual lock-on is far preferred. Another problem is that your repertoire of moves is very limited; B attacks, Y time-stabs, and A can jump over the enemy. L can be used for some worthless gimmicky "time control" maneuvers that, in reality, do nothing. You can slow time, but that benefits you in no way. You can rewind time, which helps when you die or suffer a bad blow, but that's the only way in which the Sands are in any way innovative or helpful. The "Sands of Time" really aren't that useful after all.

By hitting R, you become invincible. It looks kind of silly because the Prince's stance is very vulnerable. A low attack will send you to the turf, but few enemies do those. So, you are left holding R and shuffling around until you can single out an enemy to slice it up by mashing B and then hitting Y when it's on the ground. This is hideously monotonous when you have to do it twenty or thirty times (it seems) in every area. I mean honestly, where do these things come from?

The storyline is nonexistent. The characters are empty and faceless. The entire game is repetitive platforming and crappy fighting. I see no redeeming value in this game and I really wish someone would show me what's so great about it. The game is very short and there is no incentive to ever play the game again once beaten, so if you are curious about this game, then RENT IT. Do NOT purchase this game. Do not allow anyone you know to purchase this game. Don't buy into the horrible amount of hype this game gets. Just say no.

Graphics: 7.5/10

Sound: 6.5/10

Gameplay: 4/10

Overall: 5/10

If you feel hot and bothered, just remember that I'm right and you're not. Well, and the last paragraph was kind of a "I'm tired of writing so I'll wrap it up as fast as possible" sort of thing, but I think most of my major points have been made. And that's all, kiddies!

Game Music.

Mon, 12 Jan 2004 09:26:05 GMT

In this age of idiocy, often the most appealing things a director can put into a piece of entertainment (for this topic of discussion, particularly movies and video games) are copious amounts of violence, explosive special effects, and sex with supermodel women (all of which the main population has been desensitized to by now). What you see is what entertains you, or so many people seem to think. You "watch" a movie. Oftentimes, this term is fitting because many movies are one-dimensional experiences void of any real value.

What one realizes if they examine the bigger picture of movies, though, is that movies with great music (Lord of the Rings, the original Star Wars trilogy) typically evolve from movies into cinematic experiences. Great music has the power to intensely highlight and support on-screen action, and while most movies use music in this way, usually the music is forgettable and is solely to provide some background noise and a general barometer for which emotion the viewer should be feeling. It's like eating Ella Fitzgerald brand seasoning; it's not a meal on its own and Ella Fitzgerald should have nothing to do with cooking, but if you slather it on some fish it will probably taste pretty good.

Great music avoids the "Ella Syndrome". It can be consumed on its own for a hearty meal, but in conjunction with something else of similar quality but different medium, it can make for a long lasting and very fruitful experience.

Perhaps I'm the only one who feels very strongly about music in games and movies, but often it's one of the most important aspects of a game to me, next to gameplay.

I'm going to make a statement, and if anyone would like to challenge it, please feel free to do so: the two greatest game music composers of all are Koji Kondo and Nobuo Uematsu. Most people will probably not argue with that. There are many other games out there with spectacular soundtracks that stand right beside FF and Zelda in greatness, but their composers have not been able to repeat their greatness.

I'm not gonna say one is greater than the other, because I don't think that's really possible. Kondo, one of gaming music's true pioneers, has created music for Nintendo for more than 20 years. Since Super Mario Bros., his notable accomplishments include the Mario, Zelda, and Starfox series (as well as music for many Mario spin-off titles and Pilotwings games). One outstanding effort of his was actually developed in conjunction with Nobuo Uematsu in what was a spectacular lovechild of the collaboration of Nintendo and Square: Super Mario RPG. Will we ever see such a game again? Will Nintendo and Square ever truly join forces again? Only time will tell.

Most would say that Kondo's work for the Zelda series has been his best. Truly, it stands as some of the best, most moving music I've ever heard in a game -- particularly the most recent three: Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time, and The Wind Waker, in that order.

Nobuo Uematsu has not developed nearly as much music as Kondo, but much of the quality leaves gamers' ears numb with pleasure. He has been writing game music for about 18 years, but most of his non-Final Fantasy work has been for weird, random games that weren't very good. I can't say I've actually heard the music for those mediocre games, so if you think Cruise Chaser Blassty or DynamiTracer has FF-caliber music, send me an email -- until then, I think it's safe to say that a low-budget, no-name game (another assumption) probably had a small budget for music, too, so Uematsu wouldn't write much and wouldn't get too attached to the work as well. A more realistic explanation is that he probably saves all his best stuff for Final Fantasy, as Square would want it. And they did have it.

Uematsu has produced five timeless soundtracks so far in his career: Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger (in collaboration with others), Super Mario RPG (also with others), Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy VIII. Other music I've heard of his (FFI, FFIV, FFV, FFIX, FFX, FFXI) was not nearly as good as his best five. For CT and SMRPG, I have no way of knowing how much he wrote: only that he contributed. I would rank his FF music, in order of greatness, from FFVI > FFVII > FFVIII >>>>>>>> FFIV >>>>>>>> FFIX > FFX.

The music in those games (at least the top three) is fantastic beyond description. Each one has tracks that could be played on a classical radio station and appreciated by the kind of people who listen to classical music (like me) but don't play games (uh... not quite like me); they'd be sitting there in their Mercedes or in their "study" at home or at some posh gathering of big nosed people and they'd go "Wow, I've never heard that, and I'm familiar with every work of classical music from 1450 to the present! What is this, and who composed it?!" If they were told it came from a video game, a number of things could happen. The most likely outcome is that their heads would explode because suddenly their privately loved genre is being appreciated by children across the nation, and we all know how horrible it is when the mainstream gets ahold of something you love... or at least some of us do. Anyone who has been a longtime fan of video games.

A cold salmon for anyone who caught the first bad pun.

Hm... since nobody ever reads this, I will eat the salmon myself.

**sprinkles seasoning on salmon, eats raw**

Mmmm... Salmon-Ella.

Sorry for never having any pictures. Adding pictures is slow, painful, and tiresome to me, though I do appreciate their contribution to a post. I shall add pictures in the future. Also in the future comes some sort of awards ceremonies. I don't know exactly what I will award, but I've been wanting to make some real awards for a while now, and that last post of mine was half dead anyway. I'll just delete it. Anyway, I'll have to make my awards be significantly different from Matt's, because he'd try to make it seem like I was stealing his ideas. Pssh, like I've done that before.

-hed

The Mind Works in Strange Ways at 3AM

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 22:24:39 GMT

I couldn't get to sleep. I tried everything, but I was tossing and turning until 1 AM before I got up and sat down at the computer, trying to distract myself long enough to trick my body into falling asleep. I opened up a text document and started typing. At first I kind of thought of writing about the stupid girls I've gone out with, but it deviated from that a bit. The whole thing about this Scott guy and all the girls is actually pretty accurate to my experiences but has been embellished significantly. Other than that it's mostly fiction, but I DID kill thousands of French in the Vietnam War.

*******************

All she wanted to do was talk about their relationship. Scott suspected he wouldn't have minded this so much if he were a girl, since girls seemed to enjoy it. Whenever she would ask him about how he felt, or what was wrong, or why didn't he call her last night, he would let his gaze wander and eventually come to rest on something of moderate interest, like a tree or some candy wrappers rolling in the wind. She'd give up in a minute or two, and if she was still there then they could go see a movie or something. Usually she left, but Scott liked being alone anyway.

There was something about having a close personal relationship that bothered Scott deeply. He felt as though all of the girls he had gone out with had been locked on a single-minded mission to strip away everything that made him an individual person. He could keep nothing to himself. It was as though these girls expected his thoughts, feelings, and secrets to be privy to their probing questions. They wanted some kind of buffet of his inner thoughts. Not only was Scott totally not OK with that, he hadnít yet felt any real connection with any of the ten girls heíd dated in the past few years. Oh, they liked him well enough; he was nice and funny and smart and good-looking. Speaking along the same lines, the girls he dated were equally desirable; his friends always went on about how much they envied him for the girl he would be going out with at the time, and then kid about how they were going to steal them from him, and then once the relationship had shriveled they went right ahead and did it.

The problem was that Scott couldn't figure out how he was supposed to be attracted to these women. Was it going to be the same with every girl, or had he just had some extraordinarily bad luck finding a woman who was his type? They all had something about them that had turned him off, aside from the seemingly collaborative desire to get inside his head. A couple of them were outright promiscuous; most of them had been overly concerned about their looks; some of them had horrible, devastating issues they had to deal with like past drug-addicted boyfriends or having been the victims of multiple violent rapes; a few were absolutely full of themselves and simply wouldnít shut up about whatever had been going on that afternoon in their lives, taking no interest at all in Scott aside from the obligatory attempts to jam some appendage into his skull and extract his brain from it; others still had two or more of such traits, and one in particular was afflicted with all of the above characteristics in a tragically amusing combination of mental maladies, especially when viewed in the light that she saw herself, for she loved nothing if not to be recognized for her self-magnified shortcomings.

Thus, Scott's love life was dry as a desert caught in a curious cycle of perpetual precipitation; confused by the moisture, it frowns as if to say, "I'm just a bunch of sand. Stop taking my heat and leave me alone." The opportunity for love was ever-present, and had other men been in his reasonably large shoes, such opportunities would have been taken liberally, some abused and some cherished, some accepted and others rejected outright. Scott had considered the possibility that there was something fundamentally wrong with his mind; for he had great friends who adored him, and his family always thought of him in the highest regard, and in that sort of sense he loved them all dearly. The sort of love that girls were looking for, though, he simply could not provide.

At the time this story begins, Scott had been dating a girl (though it makes no difference, she was called Clarice, and she was a cute thing) for about a week. He didn't much like her, and he was pretty sure she didnít really like him either anymore after her initial attraction was demolished by his rejection of her vocalized invitation for him to take her virginity. Her mind couldn't understand how in the name of discount shoe stores could a guy turn down a sex romp with a vixen such as herself. From his point of view it was pretty simple; he hardly felt he knew her as it was the night of their second date, he assumed quite rightly that if she was so quick to offer such trinkets to him at this early stage in their relationship that she had pretty certainly been around the block a few times, and he was abstinent.

If at this point you feel obligated to gasp, reel, stagger, collapse, choke, open and close your mouth wordlessly and/or stare blankly, then you are of a similar mindset of the people who have dated our hero. Scott's decision to be abstinent grew from his Catholic upbringing but grew much more firm when he realized a few things. His life would be a lot less complicated if he kept sex out of relationships, because it adds a whole new dimension that he didn't feel quite yet ready to venture into. His marriage, if and when he decided to get one, would be exponentially happier and the bond between him and his partner would be exponentially stronger and more satisfying if they each had only one sex partner in life: each other. He wouldn't run the risk of contracting an STD or getting a girl pregnant, both of which can bring a substantial amount of ruin to your life. He'd feel better about himself, what with the whole integrity thing going on. He also felt no real desire to engage in sexual activity with any of the women he dated because when such possible situations arose, his mind worked in an odd and quick way to assess the situation and told him quickly that itís just stupid to do anything at this point. Keep your pants on and get out of here.

In any case, Scott's decision to be abstinent was a main factor in the grisly demise of most of his relationships. Every girl he had yet dated had at least expected sex to be a part of it from a week to a year of a successful relationship. It was not within their sphere of comprehension to understand how, much less why, he had chosen to be the way he was, even when he tried explaining it to them. The thing that most irritated Scott about this was that they clearly had no respect for him, as evidenced in their reactions to discovering his sexual fast. "You WHAT? Why, what's wrong with me?" was the most common reaction, in which the girl either became too devastated for Scott to comfort them or too insulted for Scott to reason with. They simply would not listen, for reasons foreign to Scott's romantically exhausted mind.

Romance, as used in the last line of the above paragraph, being the futile pursuit of a mutually beneficial relationship with a member of the opposite sex. The word may be used slightly incorrectly (that being the traditional definition of two people being in love with one another), but proper definitions can go take a walk. In this story, many words are invented and others used in a totally improper manner that would leave their original creators befuddled and slightly amused. Thus, it is advisable not to read into this too much, and to think of what a word may mean in a given situation rather than what it means in the Unabridged Harvard fucking Dictionary.

That said, Scott was not a gay man. Homosexuality was never a serious consideration in his mind, though at times of deep thought he did wonder whether or not he was totally straight. He certainly is; he just far preferred socializing with his friends, both male and female, to going on a date with a girl so pretty that people paid her to take pictures of her in her underwear; his sexual urges were not particularly strong though, and he often wondered whether other peoples' urges were exponentially more irresistable or he was simply in much better control of his instincts.

Back to this story, which so far as been delayed two entire pages to develop backstory. Stories that just go on like this usually are not very interesting, due to the absence of actual action and the pervading presence of lots of boring explanation. As a wise man once said, "Fear not the sword, for it bringeth quick release of this mortal coil. Fear the relentless drone of long monotonous speech, for it driveth the sanest man beyond the very boundaries of suffering." Stealthily snipping a page from this guy's book (and, in a more subtle way, J. K. Rowlings'), I feel it is my duty to present to you the reader with some heart pounding action. Or at least a bit of witty dialogue.

****************

On second thought, we're flat out of wit at this point, so you'll have to settle for some violent action sequences. More wit to arrive at some indeterminate point in the questionably near future.

****************************************************************

This, in some circles, would be known as Chapter Two, the plainest and most obvious reason being that it has come most punctually in line behind that which you have just read. Due to budget cuts, such luxuries had to be sacrificed to provide the office with a working stapler, and thus the first section of this book was not entitled "Of Scott" or "Sex, Girls, and a Guy who doesn't want 'em" or "Chapter One", or most pathetically even "One". It is up to your personal imagination to decide whether you would like to read this book episodically, in neat bite size chunks like television shows on TV, or one whole hearty meal like watching Titanic, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the double Star Wars trilogy with all their scenes mixed together incoherently. If you are uncertain as to which method would be better for your tastes, try both, alternately or simultaneously if you wish. If you are still uncertain then think of it as a plate of food. Do you keep your steak, potatoes, peas, and orange juice in separate, sanctioned areas, nibbling almost cautiously with the tips of your teeth, or do you smash 'em all together and eat in giant mouthfuls of chunky, orange colored goo? It really depends on what kind of person you are. If you like, go through these pages with a marker and individually mark "Chapter One", "Chapter 2" and so on, or if you're feeling creative come up with your own title. The omission of chapters and section headings saved us a good five grand, so if it's worth it to you to spend a few minutes titling these things then more power to you. If not, then join the club.

Scott wasn't a normal guy. You've read about his sexual opinions and his failed relationships with girls. What you haven't read about is his action packed stealth infiltration missions in the moist forests of Vietnam! That's mostly because he never went on any but my publisher wants to widen the appeal of this novel, mostly because he feels that if we're lucky some bored teenager out there would be interested in a violent adventure in which many stereotypically evil ethnicities were systematically eradicated. I reminded him that most teens don't read anymore, and that those who are interested in such experiences would turn to the much more instantly gratifying media of television and video games way before even thinking about picking up a book. Crestfallen, my publisher half-heartedly told me to just go ahead and do it, and he was going to the pub for the rest of the day and if I would be so kind as to call his wife and tell her he'd be working all night he'd appreciate it a lot thanks. So while I disagree with the already bite sized episodic nature that I'd rather not incorporate into this book, I shouldn't argue with my publisher because he lets me sleep in my office when my landlady is sober, and while it's not too often I do appreciate that very much.

Scott was a sergeant in the Armed Forces when Vietnam reared its ugly red mug and challenged the free world to a firefight. He was a sergeant because it seems like anyone of a higher ranking than sergeant never really sees any action, and sergeants have the authority to command the many soldiers beneath them so it seems like the perfect role for a war hero to be in.

Naturally he was fiesty and rebellious, with little respect for the rules. His men looked up to him as something of a hero every time he shunted authority and disobeyed orders. That said, he was immensely capable, and never failed a mission, often accomplishing ones deemed impossible by higher-ups. Scott was also dashingly good looking, and had girls in every American city. My publisher says originality bores people.

Unfortunately for Scott, there were a number of superior officers who could not stand his flagrant disregard for their ranks. They sent him on the most impossible missions, the ones that generals would dream about, wake up and think with a sly grin, "Boy, to accomplish that mission!" Of course, the harder the missions got, the more people Scott killed to accomplish them.

The most legendary of his missions, the one which soldiers would talk about for decades afterwards, was assigned to him the day after he spat in his commander's face after being chastised for taking an alternate route to the one the mission deemed proper (Scott had saved a dozen of his mens' lives by changing the route, since it was painfully clear that had he followed the path prescribed he and his men would have been ambushed). This mission involved lots of unique elements, the sum of which led to its official labelling as an S.E.P. That is, Someone Else's Problem. That's why they gave it to Scott.

Scott enjoyed handling SEPs. So did his men.

The President of the United States had been kidnapped, and was being held hostage in a heavily guarded enemy lair in Kazbhek... ipaki... stani... well, what does it matter. It was some middle eastern place. The military tried nuclearating it with nuclear weapons but were unable to penetrate the three miles of earth and rock that protected the underground base. They could find no entry way. Indeed, they did not even really know if the place existed, but they didn't want to say that. They simply proclaimed that the bad guys had taken the President to an inaccessible location far under the desert sands. They didn't want to admit that they'd just misplaced the guy.

So, they took Scott's squad and dropped them in the middle of a vast desert in the middle of the night with a bag of water, and told him with barely concealed smirks to keep in touch.

Scott smiled openly and shot down the helicopter before it got too far. His men cheered as the flaming not-quite-dead corpses of his superior officers escaped the wreckage and staggered around a bit before being shot by Scott and his men several more times than were necessary. This was the kind of thing Scott was known for: disregard for authority. He was one cool bean.

Spirits high, Scott's men pulled out shovels and began to dig. They dug all night long. Just as the sun's harsh rays pierced the sky above, they reached the underground base. "Three miles? Please," Scott complained to the chuckling of his comrades. "One and a half at most." Looking up, they could barely see the dot of light that was the sky, surrounded by the black vastness of all the dirt they'd dug through. They were very good diggers, almost as good as Dig Dug.

Scott rang the doorbell and waited a few moments. It was answered by a Chinese servant.
"Hello, how may I- ARGH!" Scott's men opened fire, tearing the man limb from limb with an unrelenting bombardment of ammunition. His men quickly infiltrated the building and began the hunt.

"What's going on in there?" called a commie pig from inside, readjusting his monocle and squinting until his confused expression became one of terror. "Guards, guards! It's the Americans!"

Immediately a thousand armed Vietnamese, Russian, German, and Middle Eastern men exploded from the woodwork, firing live ammunition in all directions. The fine china that decorated the walls and ceiling shattered into millions of tiny fragments as the bullets covered every square inch of the hallways.

Scott's squad took careful aim from behind their stack of Commy corpses and opened fire.

Every second of the deafening firefight, ten more bodies were added to the growing piles on the floor. The ceaseless onslaught of slung steel from the Americans' guns were too much for the foreigners. "The Americans are too powerful and good-looking! Damn their morality, their penchant for doing good! Satan save us, for we have nowhere else to turn!"

And every last foreigner was killed, even the French, because they smell bad. And thus, America became the only country on the planet Earth for nearly ten years until the great re-secession of the South, who felt that they'd gotten the short end of the stick last time and weren't quite ready to give up slavery yet. All the black CEOs and military generals in the region tried to quell the Southern government through mass executions of South-supporting white accountants, lawyers, and politicians, but in the end the thick-skulled rednecks, which in actuality make up a very small percentage of the South, won out and everyone else ran to the North, at which time the US Government felt free to use nuclear weapons against the few resistors. And so did the South become a giant wasteland like Europe, Asia, and heck, Austrailia before it. Nobody cares about Africa. The only sanitary water sprung from a secluded mountain spring in the Aspens. Unfortunately the water was poisoned by a French man, who was in America without the government's knowledge and decided to take a bath in the spring. No red-blooded American would drink water from that spring, so the rest of the Earth's water, which had been contaminated by nuclear war, was unfit for drinking but still far preferable to drinking a Frenchman's bath water. And thus, the remainder of humanity died, except for the Frenchman and his wife, who went on to give birth to a new, more spiritually enlightened civilization of mankind, whose greatest aspiring was to become great philosophers and learn to talk to animals. Unfortunately, a pride of mountain lions lived close to the small human village, and the French, upon making close contact with them, tried to initiate conversation but were brutally murdered by the lions and left in the sun to rot, for the lions would not eat their corpses.

Lions have a very keen sense of smell.

*****************

A lot of text, I know. Here, to relax your strained eyes, I present to you two very different men.

It's likely that you recognize this man if you play video games. Many would call Shigeru Miyamoto the father of gaming, the unrivaled creative genius behind some of the biggest names in gaming such as Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong. Prodigy; legend; savior of gaming; without him, gaming would not be the success it is today. He currently works for Nintendo in Japan and oversees many different games such as the upcoming sequel to The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker and Pikmin 2, as well as the mysterious new Mario title which he says will be the next real evolution of Mario, like Mario 64 was.

Few would say that there is a better game designer on Earth, and those that would are just plain wrong.

It's likely that you recognize this man... period. He's the head of Microsoft Corporation, Herr Bill Gates. This corporation has grown like weeds in a garden; its roots suffocating smaller plants, the weeds spreading like wildfire. Neighboring gardens and grass and trees and other flowers are soon invaded by this weed, and gradually they are all exterminated. A gardener appeared one day and tried to split the weeds into smaller parts, but he himself was consumed by the weeds. The company has been extending its fingers into many new markets, one of them being the video gaming market, to become direct competition with Miyamoto and Nintendo. While failing to make games of a quality that rivalled Miyamoto-san, the company was able to pour enough money into its console to become a serious competitor with Nintendo for the first two years of the companies' latest consoles' lives. In the Holiday 2003 season, however, Nintendo was able to pull far ahead of Microsoft and claim dominant leadership. The image above may not yet be a reality, but if people keep buying Microsoft products, I can guarantee that their influence will spread into the government. After all, they are worth something like $70 billion, and that can get them some influence in politics if they so desired it... power can easily be bought, and we don't want Bill Gates buying any, so don't buy any of his products... or such a thing could actually happen!

Really... I mean it! ...OK, I'm going to sleep now.

My Three Favorite Genres of Music are Jazz, Classical, and the pillows.

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 20:06:08 GMT

I really can't get enough of the pillows. Most American music doesn't stimulate me, except for jazz. Jazz and classical are my two favorite genres of music... but the pillows just freaking create their own genre right there next to them.

In a nutshell, they play a sort of Japanese rock. No, I can't speak Japanese -- I'm gonna be taking a class next semester to try it though. My failure to understand most of their lyrics (some are in English) does not prevent me from loving them to death. The band is so musically gifted that I can hardly believe they haven't caught on at all in America. I currently own almost their entire discography, and what I don't own, I've downloaded and simply can't find for sale.

Yoshiaki Manabe, the lead guitarist, is simply inhuman. The guy adds a poetic guitar solo to every song, and each song is not only unique but overflowing with emotion, thanks in part to Manabe but mostly to lead vocalist Sawao Yamanaka. He sings with such emotion and beauty that even though I usually don't know what he's saying, I can feel it. Yamanaka's the "cute one", as lead singers usually are. Sato Shinichirou drums like a demon. the pillows do not have a permanent bass player -- when they first formed in 1991, they had one, but he left two years later. Since then the pillows had Tatsuya Kashima (who is very popular with pillows fans and has a jazzy style) until 1999 or so, at which point their style was changing a lot and they opted to go with Jun Suzuki who is more of a punk-style bassist.

For a bit of history on them -- they were formed in 1991, and have released 13 albums since then. They aren't particularly popular in Japan, and have only had a few albums that sold a lot of copies. They are something of an underground group.

the pillows, to my knowledge, have not written an average (much less bad) song. There are some songs which do not approach the level of incomprehensible quality that most of their songs do, but they are still wonderful. Unlike many American pop albums which only have one or two memorable songs per CD, each pillows song is not only memorable, but surging with emotion and feeling. American artists also have a problem with changing their "sound." The Beatles didn't have this problem; each album was pretty different, and they experimented with lots of different styles. the pillows have comparable strength to the Beatles in this area; every one of their songs sounds unique and the listener is never left feeling like he's "been there, heard that."

Not that everyone will love their music, of course. I'm sure that many Americans wouldn't like it for some reason or another, much of it due to the inability to understand Japanese. Once I am able to understand limited Japanese, I hope to glean even more enjoyment out of the pillows' music by deciphering the lyrics. The translated lyrics I've read on fansites are very well-done.

Generally the pillows' music is very mellow and relaxed, but much of it is also high energy, and some is downright dark and intimidating. If you like these songs... GO BUY THEM. If you don't like them... then go stick your head out the window, feet first.

If there is anybody reading this who satisfies the following requirements, please contact me immediately.

1. You like the pillows, at least a little, and would be interested to hear more of their music.

2. You can sing, play guitar (lead or rhythm), or bass.

3. You live in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana or Orange County, California areas.

I'd like to put together a band to play pillows music. We could definitely play other stuff too, but the pillows would be the main focus. If you're a drummer, sorry but you're out of luck -- I'm a drummer, and while you might be better than me, I'm trying to organize this so take a hike. It would be great to have a singer who can also play rhythm guitar (like Yamanaka-san) but this is not necessary. Since there are parts in many songs where the rest of the band sings background vocals, it's preferred that no matter what instrument you play you can at least sing decently. I feel that I can sing decently -- I've never had any training or joined chorus or anything, but other people tell me that I can sing rather well. I've played percussion for 10 years, so I've at least got the experience covered, but I've only been on the drum set for 3 years -- I'm not perfect, but it is within my ability to play most Pillows songs. I currently live in Irvine, California, but will be moving to Louisiana to attend LSU within the next two years, so if you live in either of these areas please contact me. There's always the possibility that I will stay in California, but the most likely circumstance is that I will move to Louisiana, for a few reasons.

1. My only real friends in the world live there.

2. My dad lives here.

3. -2000 miles between me and my friends is a good thing.

4. 2000 miles between me and my dad is a good thing.

5. The LSU Tigers football team / marching band.

6. Six out of ten people that I've met in California are scum, dumber than a bag of bricks. Three of the remaining four are decent people but are flawed in serious ways that prohibit me from wanting to be close to them in any way. The final person of every ten is a pretty good person, with some annoying quirks but nothing preventing me from becoming friendly with them. In Louisiana, the ratio of complete idiots to good people out of everyone I knew was much lower. Plus, there's nobody out here that I would regret never seeing again (well, except my brother, who is actually quite cool most of the time. I'll carry on a friendship with him anyway.)

7. I'll go insane if I have to spend another day in the same house with my dad (I do... at the very least, I have to spend the next several months in his house). I think I can pretty openly state that I hate him, and have no respect for him in any way other than the fact that he is a hard worker. He works hard, and he works a lot, usually at excruciating hours... really the opposite of me. That's the only aspect of him that I feel is not a piece of shit. I am not going to get into this now though... read the last post for a brief rant.

Well that's all the reasons I can come up with at the moment. The main reason is friends. The second-main reason is to get away from my dad. Those are really the two only factors. I'm researching LSU, and as long as it turns out to at least be capable in the areas of English, Music, and Art (the three possible majors I'm considering) then there is no longer any question: I'm going.

Why didn't I apply last year, so that I'd go this year? Well, it didn't seem like a realistic option, for one thing. I didn't really think I could get in, either -- clearly I was wrong, but in high school our counselors really hammered it into our heads that universities (at least Cal States and UCs) are next to impossible to get into right off the bat from high school, and unless you have a 4.0 or something you're better off transferring your junior year after a couple years at a community college (CA has excellent CCs). I had a 3.1 or something for an overall high school GPA, and it would have easily gotten me into LSU... I hadn't known this because I hadn't really thought it was a viable choice for me and hadn't bothered to research... I just kinda submitted to the counselors' rantings I guess.

Occassionally My Mood is...

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 19:26:17 GMT

Life has really sucked recently. Yesterday my dad just flipped out about nothing. I mean, the guy has an incredibly unpredictable temper. I never talk to him, except when he blows up at me for some stupid thing. I mean, doesn't he realize that I could be doing worse things than being late for a class? Every time he's ever been mad at me, it was for something that I didn't mean to do wrong, or didn't even realize I was doing wrong... and usually if it was something I didn't mean to do wrong, I feel bad enough about it already without him swearing at me and demanding explanation for it, when it doesn't affect him at all and it's specifically my problem. My explanations are never good enough. My mistakes are always unbelievably stupid. My accomplishments aren't enough to even be noticed by him -- not that I care about his approval or anything, but I wish he would just leave me alone, at least if he recognized it when I did something good maybe I'd feel less hatred towards him. Nothing I do is good enough; if he is in the mood to yell at me, he's gonna find something to yell at me about, and subsequently punish me for it. If he's not in the mood to yell at me, he won't recognize my existence. Let's give examples. Examples can be fun.

One day a friend of mine had come over and we were hanging out watching some anime until my dad got home. He curtly mentioned without really looking at us that it was time for my friend to leave; my friend is familiar with my dad and cheerfully agreed. He said he needed a ride to his tutoring lesson (he tutors kids, in math mostly). So, I grabbed my keys and brought him to the house, which was approximately a forty-five second drive -- it was just down the street, really. When I returned, I sat in my car for about two minutes, since I was really involved in the song that was playing (a Pillows song, no less). It had almost ended when my dad approached and rapped on the window. The total elapsed time was probably four minutes between when I left and this point.

Opening the door, he asked me what I was doing, in that cliche´ voice he always uses when he's about to erupt. You know the voice. Very calm and controlled. They always have it in movies and stuff. Unfortunately for my dad, the subtlety never works for him. His eyes always bulge and one of them has a big vein in it that bleeds slightly whenever he gets like this, so the white of his left eye is blood red. You can tell its a fake voice because he never speaks to me civilly in any other situation than when he is getting ready to yell his head off.

I could tell something was up. I laughed innocently, still not sure of what I had done wrong this time, and replied that I had simply become absorbed in the music. He told me to get out of the car, and to follow him. This I did, casually and disconcernedly. As we walked across the front lawn, he quietly told me to give him my keys. Still curious, but preparing myself for a scene, I handed him my keys, which he dropped into his pocket. Note that this is mostly my car -- I'm still paying it off, but I own more of it than he does.

We entered the front door, and as it clicked shut behind me he instantly whirled around and stuck his fat face into mine, probably three inches away. His spit flecked my face as I tried to avoid staring into his eyes, because they are unsettling. He was roaring that I had "blown him off" and disobeyed him. Taking a brief break from the story, it is interesting to note that my dad's favorite phrase is that of "blown off". If I forget to do something (meaningless or important), I "blew it off" and I'm an immature stupid kid who deserves no responsibility. If I cross an invisible line that I wasn't aware of (or one he makes up on the spot) such as the one in this example, I "blew him off" and I'm an out of control, insolent bastard with no respect (I have plenty of respect for those who deserve it, but he is right in assuming that I have no respect for him except, grudgingly, in his work ethic). This time, I'd crossed a line. Several days earlier, he'd yelled at me for going somewhere in my car without telling him exactly where I was going. He said that from then on, I had to tell him exactly where I was going and when I'd be back. So, that day I'd run off like a little hellion without telling him. I can't remember exactly what he called me, because in most of these situations with my dad I tend to try to block out everything he says while still taking in enough information to make a calm and reasonable reply. Why my dad can't hold a rational conversation with me about a problem is beyond my comprehension.

OK, so despite the fact that he was six feet from my friend and I while we were discussing my transporting him to his tutoring lesson (he was looking at us the whole time), I had committed a freaking felony for not turning to him and addressing him directly?

Apparently, I had. My memory as to the actual conversation is hazy, but he yelled at my slightly surprised face for probably twenty seconds before storming away in a rage. As he left, I replied with a non-aggressive, perfectly reasonable explanation for what I'd done and why I hadn't thought I'd done anything wrong. This prompted him to spin around, raise his voice even louder than before, and march towards me bending over at an awkward angle, staring at me with that look as though I'm some piece of shit on his shoe and he's just furious at it for being on his foot, it should be sitting in a trash bin somewhere -- why didn't the owner of the dog throw the shit away? He uses that look every time I speak to him, really; he always speaks incredulously to me, as if to say in conjunction "the most inept idiot on the planet knows this very well, and you don't??"

I've found that it makes him even madder when he sees that he doesn't affect me with his yells and threats, but I have gotten to the point that while his yells certainly instill a sharp pang of fright and discomfort, after that feeling dissipates there is nothing left, no change in my mood or attitude; I can usually stare at him and listen to his stupid yelping and calmly reply whenever I get the chance. This always succeeds in making him more angry, and he raises his voice and tries even harder to make me angry. It never works anymore, though. After even the worst of his tirades, the worst I ever feel is "I cannot believe how dumb he is." I imagine that if he had a valid reason for getting angry at me I would feel differently, and would probably get angry myself, and we'd have an argument or I'd at least feel really bad after he yells at me.

As he moved towards me, I could feel my adrenaline flowing. He'd been getting madder and madder over miscellaneous crap the past few weeks... it felt like he was going to attack me physically (it had felt that way many times before, but those times I'd been more afraid than now). I almost hoped he would. As long as he threw the first punch, I had free reign. I'd tear him apart: he's fat and old and hasn't exercised in decades; I was lean, young, and muscular (I'd been working out at school for about six months, among other physical activity). I was hoping he'd lunge at me or grab me or something, and I was ready. I would have probably caused him substantial bodily harm. As he drew closer, I clenched my fists and braced myself.

Nothing happened. Well, he stopped in front of me and yelled until his mouth turned blue (something about me being irresponsible and him taking the car away until he feels I'm ready for it) but he didn't grab me. He never has, and I now realize that he never will. He's threatened to "kick [my] ass" before, and other variations on the threatening-to-beat-you wavelength, but he's never done it. He clearly knows that such a threat holds no water anymore, or at least I think he does. He's totally out of shape, and while I'm not as in shape as I was a year ago, I'm still much faster and stronger than he is.

So, I lost the car for about 20 hours. The next morning I asked to drive to school, which he granted. For about two more weeks I asked to go places, but seeing as how he is out working most of the time, his mandate fell into disuse and now I go when and where I feel like it, usually telling a parent if they're home but fearing no recourse whatsoever.

That's just one random example of hundreds. I've never been close to my dad, and I do envy people who had a friendly relationship with theirs. The only thing my dad has ever been to me is the guy I needed to please unless I wanted a punishment. When I was a kid, things were rosier than they are now, but since I was like 8, our relationship has steadily declined. We were never "buddies" like many kids are with their dads; our relationship was never even good, except for when I was maybe 4 or 5. He was at work the vast majority of my life. I see him rarely (not that I want to -- the rarer the better). On an average of my entire life, I would estimate that I have visual confirmation of him 5 days a week. Most of the time this visual of him is either him leaving for work, or sitting at the kitchen table at his laptop in his bathrobe, or sitting in his chair watching TV. I wish he'd just entirely leave me alone, just paying my college fees and... well, leaving me alone. Unfortunately this won't happen until I move out. He will pay my college fees, throughout college, as long as I do well.

Once I move out, HE will not be a problem to me, but money will. I can deal with money. I don't know how much longer I can deal with him.

All you need to know about Lufia 2 is that...

Sun, 05 Oct 2003 10:36:26 GMT

...this game has way, WAY too many dungeons. You literally have to pound your way through a dozen or more dungeons, and nine or ten towns before you actually get to any significant story development. And these dungeons aren't relevant to the story in any way; in games like Final Fantasy, most dungeon excursions serve a purpose to the storyline, like tackling the Floating Continent in an attempt to save the world in FFIII or fighting your way out of the castle dungeon after being wrongly convicted in Chono Trigger -- and most dungeons are very different from one another, with different objectives and solutions and ways to proceed through the game. Unfortunately, dungeons are an altogether different bowl of snot in Lufia.

There are six dungeon pallettes in Lufia 2: tower, dungeon, cave, and a few more that I can't really distinguish because all of these supposedly different palettes are incredibly similar. Each dungeon is one of these. You'll fight through the dungeon and find treasure and a key. This key is used to open the door to the boss. Then you beat him, leave the tower, enjoy a 10-second conversational story bit, and march on to the next town and dungeon. It's terribly monotonous and repetitive. Dungeon, town, dungeon, town. BLAH!

"Wait..." you'll say, rubbing your bald and relatively small head, "I thought Lufia 2 was supposed to be a good game." Well, yeah, it is.

Actually, it's a GREAT game (in many aspects). The characters are incredibly interesting, and every time they talk, you can expect a real treat of a conversation. While I haven't really gotten much storyline in the first 13 hours of gameplay (which I think is a real flaw), what I've gotten is interesting and somewhat compelling. Musically, Lufia 2 excels, with a very fitting score. The battles are extremely well done; instead of being a chore (a la Final Fantasy), battles are very fast paced and offer plenty of fun fights. The battle system doesn't innovate too much, but there are a few interesting features, such as the Capsule Monster which is kind of like a Pokemon, and IP which is a lot like FFVII's Limit Breaks except that you have multiple IP moves and each one takes up varying amounts of IP. Also, the dungeons are just great.

You're massaging your temples with both hands, eyes crossed. "Whoa, whoa, bighead," you wheeze, totally out of breath. "You just said that the dungeons were repetitive and dumb! What's with all this craaaazy hypocrisy?" Shaddap and I'll tell ya.

Lufia 2's dungeons are packed with some quite marvellous puzzles. They are, in fact, some of the best puzzles this side of Majora's Mask. The fact that the puzzles are so dang clever is only surpassed in impressiveness by the sheer number of the things. The game's got mouthfuls of dungeons, and each one has at least three or four (often half a dozen or more) of these great puzzles. These puzzles are what make it possible to play through the first 13 hours of the game and NOT quit. Ol' bun-face says that the game gets much better after the point I'm at, so I'll go against my better judgement and trust him on this. The only real problems with the dungeons are that they aren't separated by enough story and character development, they all follow the same general layout (grab the key and beat the boss), and they look too similar to each other.

So, despite the suffocating linearity for the first 1/3 of the game, Lufia 2 is showing some serious promise. After hours and hours of next to zero story development, Lufia 2 sets off a hydrogen bomb of the stuff in your toilet while you're takin' a dump in the middle of the night. It's rather shocking. I presume that all of my readers know what I'm talking about. I hope for more of the game's better aspects in the future, and a little more freedom and space between dungeons.

Since this is something of an introductory post, here's a rampaging band of crazed bandos coming to greet you. One of them is me. They are eating that poor Asian guy. When they are finished with him, they will come for you.