[Book Wednesday] I Am America

And So Can You!

I finally managed to snag a copy of Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!) (from the author of I Am America (And So Can You!)) yesterday, after literally months of searching. I knew beforehand that I'd like it of course, as scientists have proven* it's impossible to dislike anything Stephen Colbert does.

While America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction** read more like an actual History/Political Science book filled with jokes that are funny because they are sadly true, I Am America reads more like a memoir of Colbert's character, Stephen Colbert. Which makes sense of course, given that each book is an extension of its respective show. My favorite bits so far are all the side notes and footnotes*** in almost every page, which help extend the jokes and remind me of my favorite TCR segment, The Word.

You can visit the official I Am America site here.

* Probably. I don't keep up with everything, you know.

** Best title ever, by the way.

*** Kind of like this one. Only actually funny.

TL;DR version:

As the book informs you, by buying it you become 25% American. Hell, I'm willing to bet that you've become more American just by reading this post.

[Indie Tuesday] The Independent Games Festival

The IGF is exactly what its name so subtly suggests; in other words, as their "About" page mentions it was "established the Independent Games Festival in 1998 to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers."

This year they're offering as much as almost $50.000 (which is like 20 euros, haw haw*) to the winners, including a $20.000 award for the first place. The deadline for submissions is November 1st, so there's still time if you already have a project you're working on, or you're really damn gifted. For more information, visit this page.

(via IndieGames.com)

* Yeah, I can't do jokes today.

TL;DR version:

I'm having some serious PC problems these days, I promise I'll go back to those huge blocks of texts eventually. Or perhaps I shouldn't.

I also wish I were competent enough to enter the Festival. Oh, well.

[RPG Monday] Fable 2

Fable was one of those games that I always wanted to play when I didn't have an Xbox, and one I totally forgot about when I actually bought the console. I only started playing it recently, when I realized that #2 is just around the corner, but it holds up really well.

Obviously, it's not going to dazzle anyone with its graphics, but they are extremely competent for a four-year old game. The animation suffers a bit, but the graphics are really beautiful. I guess that's partly due to the wonderful art direction, which has thankfully carried on to the sequel:



It has become pretty rare to find such a beautiful game nowadays (though Mass Effect keeps surprising me with every other planet I visit) so that's one of the main reasons I'm looking forward to Fable 2. I'm expecting the gameplay to be similar to the first one, with added polish and a few new moves here and there, but nothing world-shattering. Still, when a game looks this good and has this unique fairy tale sort of atmosphere to accompany the visuals, I'm sold.

TL;DR version:

Aside from the visuals and atmosphere, I'm also hoping that Fable 2's online features will make me forget about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. Cross yer fingers!

[Music Sunday] Alice in Chains

Having the ability to watch MTV again since... I dunno, 2000 or something, has made me reminisce about the times when I was watching Alternative Nation in the mid 90's as a teenager. While I don't expect the Greek version of MTV in '08 to have shows specifically for grunge/alternative/punk rock, it does make for a nice memory.

Also, it has helped me remember all those bands I used to love in the 90's, but kind of lost track of them in the last years. One of them is Alice in Chains, a band I started listening to because I thought that was an interesting name, if a bit S&M-ish. I won't bore you with their history, that's what Wikipedia is for, instead I'll head right to the inevitable video, in this case of a song called Would?



TL;DR version:

PIE.

[TV Saturday] House Season 5 trailer (Spoilers!)

Just a few days remaining until the fifth season of House M.D. begins, and only now did it occur to me that a trailer should be out. Better late than never, I guess.

Season four was probably my favorite one (though it was the first full season I watched, plus I'm totally biased towards Thirteen), and it left quite a few issues to be resolved in the fifth season. Unsurprisingly, this trailer touches upon those, so consider this a spoiler warning. This post will be spoiler-free though, relatively

The trailer itself is good, not as impressive as last year's, but intriguing enough. I'm just worried that they're really going to act on what a character implies at the very end of the trailer, and that's a bad idea. Without saying too much, when a character loses his foil, it's bad both for the character and the storyline. I really hope they don't do it, between this and Grissom leaving CSI, well, ugh! That sucks. You think people would have learned from that time when Duchovny left the X-Files.

Watch the trailer here:



TL;DR version:

Nooooo, Wilson, don't do it!

[Internets Friday] What the?

After an entire week during which an apparently omnipotent force just wouldn't allow me to leave my hometown, I finally came back to see my computer's browser(s) outright denying to load any websites whatsoever. Good times. I'm guessing I must have really pissed that omnipotent force off.

At any rate, all seems to be well right now, so as of today the blog officially resumes its daily update schedule. I've been busy with some other projects in the mean time, but more on that in the near future.

In the mean time, here's a video of Darth Vader explaining the Pythagorean Theorem. Seriously. You can't make these things up.



TL;DR version:

Darth Vader and the Pythagorean Theorem. How do you even combine the two?

[Indie Tuesday] A long awaited return

No, not mine. Although that was long overdue, too. But hey, a guy has to have his vacation, even if it's like twice as long than originally planned!

At any rate, this isn't about me. Last week, after literally years and years of waiting, AGD Interactive (formerly Tierra) finally released their third, and most anticipated, remake, Quest for Glory II VGA. I, as I imagine several others did, followed the project closely for years, only to face disappointment every time it was delayed, we're talking about a game that would have been delayed if it had been released in 2004!

Of course, I'm not blaming AGD Interactive about this, they're giving us a game that's completely free and which they created in their spare time out of their goodness of their hearts; to complain would make you a tremendous douchebag. I was just worried that the project would be eventually dropped off, as more important things demanded their attention, as it usually happens.

Thankfully, the game is finally here (visit its release thread on the AGS forums here) and it's glorious. Like the King's Quests remakes that AGD did back in the early 00's, it's completely faithful to the original, while updating it for a more contemporary audience. To be frank, I don't know about you, but I rarely find 16-color EGA graphics aesthetically pleasing anymore.

You can download the game for free at the AGD homepage.

TL;DR version

If you never played QFG2 back in the day, you probably won't stomach it now. Do yourselves a favor and download this VGA-enhanced remake, and enjoy one of Sierra's best adventure games ever (Roberta Williams wasn't even involved, which is an extra plus).

[Hiatus Wed/Thursday] Closing Time

I realize I missed Wednesday's update, but I have a good excuse. I was watching Leonard Cohen perform live in Athens (or near it, anyway) and it was sublime. Cohen's voice was nothing short of spectacular for a 73, almost 74-year old man, and his group was equally fantastic. But Cohen was... so honest, kind, dignified. What a remarkable man he is. Truly a legend.

In other news, I'll be taking a small break from things and I'll be gone from Athens for a couple of weeks. Updates will be sparse in the meantime. Everybody needs a vacation after all!

I decided to throw in a Leonard Cohen song for good measure.



TL;DR version:

Taram-taram-dum
Taram-taram-dum

[Indie Tuesday] ColourWise

ColourWise is a game created with Adventure Game Studio, but unlike most games created with that engine, this is a puzzle game. About colors (sorry, I don't do British English), as you may have guessed. It's quite original, as far as puzzle games go, very fun, and even comes with its own level creator! Quite impressive.

(Picture stolen shamelessly from the AGS forums)

It came in third at Eegra's "First Annual Game Makin' Shindig", you can find the download page here and its site here.

TL;DR version:

There's a reason behind this post's lack of walls o' text, and that's because I can log in to Xbox Live again, whoo! I'm currently getting my ass kicked in the new High-Def version of Street Fighter 2. Damn, those people are crazy good.

[MMORPG Monday] WoW Chat Snippets

It seems that these days, after the rousing success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, everybody wants to make an MMORPG. Sadly, nobody wants to break new ground, they just regurgitate what Blizzard and everyone else has tried before, it's all grind, grind, grind, empty your bags and questlog, then grind some more. There's several big-name MMORPG's on the horizon, such as Stargate, Warhammer, DC Universe, Knights of the Old Friggin' Republic, and I'm definitely forgetting more than a few. Sadly, there's no reason to believe that they'll bring anything new, but hope dies last and all that.

All the above is just a lengthy way of saying that MMORPG's on their own aren't that much fun, as the gameplay is so repetitive. However, what really makes these games are the people playing it alongside you. There are times you'll visit a dungeon you've finished more than 20 times because these awesome people are coming with you, sometimes even grinding is tolerable if you can have hilarious conversations about all sorts of crap at the same time.

There's something I've wanted to do for a while now, more than a year actually, and that is make a collection of all (or just most) of the hilarious things I came across while playing WoW. Turns out I had to do several collections, since I had so many funny screenshots. Hopefully they'll get a chuckle out of you too, although you really need to have played WoW for some of them to work.

I'll start off with the infamous Trade chat channel. This is the only chat channel that is accessible from all five capital cities, and thus the perfect place for idiots to impress their peers. It's also the biggest victim of Chinese gold sellers.

Moving on, there's a roleplaying addon, called FlagRSP, that helps people add a profile for their character, with a surname, a title and a description of their appearance. Sadly, most people think they can use this addon as means to show the world how awesome they are, and to invite other weirdos to have cybersex with them. Here's the result of that:

A collection of random quotes, funny situations and stupid names:

A few other random stuff I couldn't be bothered to place under a specific category:

And lastly, what really made me stay in the game long after I had gotten tired of the game itself, my guild chat. Some really fantastic, yet also utterly demented, people there who made me laugh out loud (A.K.A. LOL IRL!*) more times than I could possibly remember.



* Yes, I know that's pretty sad.

TL;DR version:

It's rather telling when the main reason people would play a Massively Multiplayer Online Game is the basically the same one people visit a chatroom for. Sure, you have prettier graphics in WoW, AoC, etc., but it's the same principle.

Hopefully this trend will eventually change.

[Off-Topic Sunday] Random news

The Internet monster, combined with an electrical outage ate my earlier post, but oh well. I'll just rewrite it.

On with the news then. One of my favorite games of all time, Dreamfall, has finally been released on the Xbox Originals lines of Xbox Live, even though it was supposed to come out four months ago. (via RagnarTornquist.com)

Better late than never, I guess. I've said it before, this game has a fantastic story and some of the best characters in a videogame. Play it!

Moving on, the new Futurama movie, Bender's Game, has a release date, November 4, 2008. A new Futurama movie is always good news, and I like the extra emphasis on Bender but... I hope it's better than the previous one, which I found to be pretty disappointing, even though I'm practically starving for more Futurama. (via TVshowsOnDVD.com)

And lastly, footage of the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie has been released online, though it's hardly an official trailer. It looks... alright, I guess. You can find its two parts here and here, for the time being, but they might be pulled down rather quickly.

I'm keeping my expectations low, since X-Men 3 broke my heart (the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix saga is one of my fave stories), but this movie could be good. X-Men 2/Spider-Man 2/Iron Man good. The potential is there, with the character and the cast, let's hope the story is up to the task.

I like how they tease us with a scene of young James Howlett, I just hope the Origin references will be meaningful and not tacked on. Although, for a movie that's not supposed to be about the entire X-Men team, it sure has a lot of guest stars. Sabretooth (makes sense), DEADPOOOL, that other dude from Weapon-X I can't remember, Gambit. And was that Husk, from Gen-X? I could swear it was her.

At any rate, Wolvie is one of Marvel's best characters and he deserves a good movie. Hopefully they won't mess this up.

TL;DR version:

I hate Gambit. True story.

Also, I want a Deadpool movie. R rated, please.

[Movie Saturday] The X-Files - Do YOU want to believe?

It's already been ten years since the first X-Files movie, Fight the Future. Excluding the fact that time flew by so disturbingly fast, only now have we finally managed to get a sequel to that movie, six whole years after the show's (insultingly bad) finale.

I got back from seeing the new movie, I Want to Believe, a little while ago. I really cannot be objective with this movie, as I was a huge fan of the TV show way back when (I never called my self an X-Phile though, thank the gods), so this movie was like a wish being fulfilled for me, than anything else.

Before I get into the movie itself, I feel the need to rant a little. You may skip the next three paragraphs if you're only interested in reading about the movie.

It's been an entire decade since the last X-Files movie. So many things have changed since. Back in '98, the show had just finished its fifth and most successful season ever, and it topped that with a movie that was a direct continuation of the season finale that used a better budget and longer length to really take its alien-invasion/government conspiracy storyline to new heights. It may have alienated the casual viewer, but to fans of the show like myself, it was a fantastic movie. Sadly, things only went downhill from there. The next two seasons were alright, but nowhere near the quality of their predecessors, and the last two were just plain bad, culminating to that insult of a finale that I mentioned earlier.

Furthermore, one thing I cannot overstate enough is how different decades the 90's and the 00's are. I'm not sure if it were just the result of lucky timing, or the creators of the X-Files really caught the spirit of the times. Things like alien abductions, the possibility of contact with an alien civilization, Roswell, conspiracy theories involving the government and possible cover-ups of evidence relating to all the above... Those things were huge during the last decade. Don't forget that about 2% of all Americans claimed to have been abducted by aliens in their life. Aliens and conspiracy theories were the hysteria of the decade.


This decade, however, is a lot darker and serious, our fears more mundane and realistic. Nobody cares about aliens anymore, we only fear terrorists and the fact that we might not be able to afford our next rent, or the ever-increasing price of oil, etc. Conspiracy theories seem outdated, as people don't care about Roswell anymore, everyday problems have a much bigger appeal, if you can call it that. Can the X-Files still be relevant at this time, when most people have outgrown their alien conspiracy theory phase?

(mild spoilers from here on, nothing too serious though)

These were the reservations I had with the movie prior to seeing it, and combined with the fact that early word of mouth was pretty discouraging, it made my expectations really, really low. Which, in retrospect, was probably a good thing. Because, and I'll get this out of the way now, I liked I Want to Believe, but I didn't love it, though I did try.



It was perhaps due to the limited appeal of aliens nowadays that the creators of IWtB decided to tackle a new, original story, along perhaps with the fact that it has been six whole years since the show ended and even fans of the show will have forgotten all the details. That, and also the fact that by the time the show ended, its mythology had become such a clusterfuck that nobody knew what was going on, and nobody would bother to remember. At any rate, the story of IWtB is a much more down to earth, tame kind of story.

Did it really have to be so tame, though? The mystery that Mulder and Scully face is pretty mundane, perhaps not even real X-Files material, despite the presence of gay Russian Cylons. If IWtB had aired like a two-part filler episode during the show's run, nobody would have noticed a difference, and most would have considered it rather forgettable as well. The action scenes are mediocre, and most suspensful scenes are far too predictable. There are several hints at something larger and deeper, as well as references to the show itself, but on the whole, the story feels lacking. Although the fact that the one piece of information that ultimately solves the case was taken from a real-life event (link - SPOILERS) was pretty neat.

One thing that I really liked though was the fact that the FBI had to turn to Mulder when they had run out of leads, undoubtedly a reference to the fact that, in his hayday, Mulder was the Bureau's finest profiler. It's an easy thing to forget about Mulder, given the emphasis on his "Spooky" persona, but he always was a brilliant detective and researcher.

Though, I have to ask, what the fuck was up with Scully doing research on stem cell surgery by googling the damn thing? She's supposed to be a brilliant scientist, if she doesn't have books on the subject, surely she knows what sites she should check, geebus. In my eyes, it felt like an attempt to appeal to the younger demographic, a way of saying "see, we still know how things are done!" that falls flat on its face and makes for some really poor storytelling. It's just one scene though, so I'll let it slide. Though the whole subplot with the sick kid did feel a bit uncessesary in general.

What makes this movie is its two iconic protagonists, Mulder and Scully. I can't imagine how someone who has never seen an episode of the series would ever pick up one tenth of what's going on between the two characters, which in a sense is rather strange for a movie that's trying to be stand-alone, but for a fan it's a real treat. The movie explores most familiar themes between the two, such as Mulder's belief (thus vindicating the title, despite the lack of aliens) and Scully's pragmatism, in a way that is both endearing and enjoyable. I'll be damned if Duchovny doesn't look much older than he used to, though.

I got carried away again, as if I were an English major or something, so I'll get right to the conclusion. Can an X-Files movie still be relevant today? Yes, somewhat. The fact that IWtB had a whole new plot behind it definitely helped, murder mysteries never get old after all. Add to that two characters that are really strong and deep, even by today's standards, and the foundation is there.

Sadly, the plot itself is weak and predictable, and the two protagonists will probably appeal the most only to seasoned viewers of the show. Which makes me wonder, if you're making a movie targetted mainly at fans of the show, why not relate it to the overall mythology, or at least hint to it? I don't get it. Hopefully, the next movie (if we ever get one) will provide that.

As a long-time fan of the show, I enjoyed it and I expect most other fans starving for some Fox&Dana goodness will feel the same, as long as you believe (haw haw) in it. You have to watch it as an X-Files fan, not as a casual observer. Though I can definitely understand those that will not like this movie, fans or otherwise.

My final rating is 73 out of 100 sunflower seeds.

TL;DR version:

Don't mind the fact that this movie isn't as good as it should have been after having to wait ten years for it, just watch it anyway. This way, we might actually get a real sequel to the series that deals with the inevitable alien invasion (spoilers OLOL) that the wretched episode called The Truth never got around to dealing with.

I also wanted to make a mean joke about that hospital that's being run by priests and nuns, but I'm drawing a blank. I'll get back to it.

Lastly, it sure feels weird watching a movie were snow has covered everything and it's like minus fuck-all degrees, when it's the middle of the summer in real life. Kind of like watching a rerun of a Christmas episode during Easter.

[Internets Friday] VReel.net beta is up

No sports post yesterday as I was out watching The Dark Knight for a third time (it's incredible how many little details I missed out the first two times), not to mention that this has been an utterly uneventful week for sports. I'll make up for the missing post on Sunday, fingers crossed.

At any rate, the VReel beta has been around for little more than a month now, which is enough time for a decent amount of videos to start appearing on the site. While it's a bit silly to even think that it will ever have as many videos as YouTube, that might not be necessarily a bad thing. After all, following the footsteps of its predecessor Stage6, VReel is about quality and not quantity.

This quality is definitely there, with the use of the DivX codec, videos are as crisp as they were on Stage6. Content is still a bit limited, naturally, but with "more then one hundred thousand unique hits per day" according to Wikipedia, it's only a matter of time before things get interesting.

On a side note, I've tickets for the new X-Files movie tomorrow, I really hope it won't suck...

TL;DR version:

While VReel might not ever attract as big an audience as YouTube, it does have higher-quality videos, and fewer retarded comments from users. Those are two major improvements over YT.

[Comic book Wednesday] Five Batman graphic novels you should read

The Thor article is postponed yet again since I finally got Mass Effect today and I really want to play the fucking game, been waiting since November.

Therefore, in light of The Dark Knight's release and all-around awesomeness (and in retrospect something I should have done last week), here are my top-5 favorite Batman graphic novels ever, and why you should read them.

I purposely ignore Frank Miller's run on Batman, because it goes without saying that those are must-reads, and are universally acclaimed as the best stories in the series, ever. As for the rest, in no particular order:

- Batman: Hush

I seemed to like this story more than most people. It's not something I can completely explain, but I thought Hush was thoroughly entertaining. A great mystery, a strange new (?) villain is playing with the Dark Knight's mind through the use of some of his older enemies, lots of guest stars, and amazing art by Jim Lee.

One thing I especially liked was the fact that this story is one of the rare cases where we see Bruce Wayne's more human side, in his relationship with Catwoman, it feels like if he's actually trying to act like a human being. Personally, I found it to be a more realistic approach to his character than most.

Though that stupid mutt that Superman has almost ruins the entire story.

- Batman: A Death in the Family

Robin dies in it. Shame they had to find a replacement eventually, but it was good while it lasted.

(Cynicism aside, a -permanent- death of a major character is something that very rarely happens in comic books, and it's even rarer that it's handle as well as in this story. The aftermath haunted Batman for more than a decade.)

- Batman: Arkham Asylum

Dave McKean's art should be reason enough for anyone to pick up this graphic novel, but the fact that we get a glimpse of what happens to all those super-villains once they've been arrested seals the deal. It's completely trippy, fairly demented and almost scary at times. A very different, unique, approach to the Batman universe (Batmanverse?).

- Batman: The Killing Joke

While origin stories rarely work, when they do work, they are absolutely astounding. The Killing Joke is such a success story, and with Alan Moore behind it, it shouldn't come as a surprise. It follows the nurture over nature theory which suggests that villains, even utterly insane ones like the Joker, were once normal people just like anyone of us, who one day got unlucky and had to go thorugh more than they could handle. This is what (presumably) happened to the Joker, and this is what in turn he is trying to do to the infallible Commissioner Gordon.

The Joker's depiction in this story was the main influence behind his silver screen version in The Dark Knight.

- Batman: The Long Halloween
(Don't read the Story Summary on the Wiki, some crazy nutso summarized the entire graphic novel there!)

While the Batman's is supposed to be "The Greatest Detective in the World", we so rarely get to see him practice his detective skills fully. Not so in this tale. If you exclude for the presence of Batman and some of his iconic villains, and replace them with a regular detective and run-of-the-mill outlaws, then The Long Halloween reads like a noir detective story, based on the hunt of a serial killer who only kills during holidays.

The atmosphere is fantastic, the artwork beautiful (and I'm no fan of Tim Sale), and the story is well... sublime. The "Dream Team" trio of Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent presented at the first half of the novel is amazing, essentially it is the story of three people against an entire, corrupt, city. And for a while there, they were actually winning.

This is what makes Dent's eventual downfall all the more tragic, in a way that really affects the reader as we had seen what he was capable of, and what his potential was. Dent really was the best of the three, yet he was the one that was driven mad, the one that lost everything. In a sense, Dent's tale is a beautiful, yet sad, allegory of the tragedy that is the human existence.

On top of that, after all these years, we're still not exactly, 100% sure who the Holiday killer was.

Along with The Killing Joke, The Long Halloween was the main inspiration behind The Dark Knight.

TL;DR version:

Feel free to comment on how much my list sucks and why I'm an idiot for leaving out "Batman graphic novel 'X'".

I also think that a Batman action-adventure game based on his detective skills would be brilliant.

[Retro Tuesday] Loom revisited. Also, headaches

My head is killing me today, and I am feeling seriously dizzy. It shouldn't be anything serious, but it's annoying me enough to not be able to right anything properly today. Theeeeerefooooooore, this is going to be another one of those short posts accompanied by a YouTube clip.

Loom, a 1990 game by LucasFilm (currently LucasArts) is a very unique experience, even when compared to the other great adventure games released by the company in the early to mid 90's. One of the first graphical adventures to completely abandon the use of an inventory and related puzzles, the gameplay instead revolves around the use of a distaff and the musical tones the protagonist, Bobbin Threadbare, can play with it.

From a technical point of view, the game was fantastic for its age, especially the CD version, with VGA graphics and full speech. I played the game as a kid, when CD-ROM drives and sound cards were something I'd only read in magazines about, but the 16-color EGA graphics and PC speaker grunts had their own charm back then. Though I find that the 256-color VGA version is really beautiful even today, as it has aged really well. The music is also outstanding, as it should be in a game which emphasises its use so much, but what really stands out is the use of excerpts from Chopin's Swan Lake.

Loom's plot is fairly basic at first glance, as it is basically the typical story of an unwilling young man who is tasked with saving the world, but Brian Moriarty weaved (pardon the pun) a beautiful tale around this basic premise. I can't get into any detailed analysis at the moment due to my amazing nearly-exploding head, but I will say that the story manages to surprise me with its depth and maturity even on my current (second) playthrough, sixteen whole years after my first experience with the game. The game is also quite violent at times, though the violence makes perfect sense in the context it's presented in, something that was another departure from most LucasArts/LucasFilm games of the day.

Sadly the game wasn't as successful as its peers, which presumably is a direct concequence of its unique nature. We tend to idealize about those times, but the early to mid 90's were a time when adventure games were the FPS's of today, and Sierra/Roberta Williams were pumping one sequel after the other, with the predictable results of often low quality, bug-ridden games. In that context, especially when considering that there was no fan-driven Internet hype machine at the time, it wasn't at all surprising that people preferred Sierra's by-the-numbers sequel than a completely new, and sometimes perplexing game such as Loom.

If you would allow me to indulge into a "What-if?" theorycraf rant, I'd have to say that it really is a shame that Loom wasn't a big mainstream success. Had it been such a success, more games would have copied its unique point and click system, which isn't based on such arbitrary verbs or icons for such things as "Talk" or "Use" and so on. But more importantly, more games would have copied its unique approach to puzzles, and its lack of inventory, instead of the countless bullshit inventory puzzles we had to endure over the years. You know, the kind where you have to rub every single item in your inventory of 20+ items on every single part of your screen and hope for some results. Makes one wonder how much more intuitive adventure games would have been had this design convention been abandoned, but oh well.

Rant's over, here's the intro of the game, alongside with some of the first few areas. I have to confess, listening to Bobbin's voice after all these years is a strange feeling.



There's also a speedrun of the entire game on YouTube, where some nutso finishes the entire game in 27 minutes. I haven't watched it, but it should make for an interesting watch for people who want to find out more about the game but don't want to play it. Though I wouldn't be surprised if he skips every single cutscene. At any rate, you can find said video here.

TL;DR version:

"The last leaf of Autumn."

[DS Monday] Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

After a rather underwhelming E3, nothing really topped that FFXIII announcement, it's time for gamers to return to their backlog, and the summer is the perfect time for that!

The first game in my list was the latest entry in the Ninja Gaiden series, Dragon Sword, for the Nintendo DS. The DS hardly seemed like the ideal platform for the top-notch graphics and high-paced action of the Ninja Gaiden series, but somehow Tecmo made it work. The touch controls work perfectly, combat is very satisfying and just plain fun, the graphics are really nice and the bosses are huge.


It's hardly without its faults, though. The game is very short, it took me a little less than six hours to finish, and while I will always take a short yet good game over a game that has tons of filler, not to mention there are several reasons to replay the game, I can't help but feel that they could have easily added at least a couple more hours of quality gameplay.

Then there's the issue of the game's surprisingly low difficulty. I'm using the word "surprisingly", because all recent Ninja Gaiden games are notoriously difficult. So much so that they're almost a benchmark on how difficult a contemporary mainstream game can be. I guess that Tecmo had to make the game appealing to the DS demographic, but when you can kill most bosses in your first try, something doesn't feel right. In fact, I'd say that some bosses felt easier than some other random encounters with normal enemies in the game. The "Head Ninja" (wut?) difficulty that is unlocked once you finish the game makes it feel more like a traditional Ninja Gaiden game, but not everyone will stomach a second playthrough.



Lastly, the story is incredibly, undeniably, bad, so much that it's bound to make you groan several times (it involves a demon conspiracy, 'nuff said), but that's practically a given with Ninja Gaiden games these days, so it hardly comes as a surprise.

TL;DR version:

Apparently Dragon Sword didn't sell all that well, which is rather amusing, given that people complain about the lack of traditional games on the DS, and when they are finally given a game adhering to their rules, they don't buy it. Still, it's a quality purchase for DS owners.

[Movie Saturday] The Dark Knight

I watched it yesterday.

It's as good as people would have you think. It's exactly what I expected from the movie after the ending of Batman Begins and that wonderful scene with Gordon's speech about escalation and the introduction of the Joker card.

Believe the hype, especially about Ledger.

Watch. This. Movie.

TL;DR version:

There's so many things I want to say about this movie, but I'm not sure where to start. I'll give it a try anyway.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

It really is different to every movie based on a comic book that came before it. Even Batman Begins. The Dark Knight feels like more like a serious cop drama starring a guy in a bat suit, rather than a spandex action flick. It's the perfect rendition of those dark, serious, gritty Batman graphic novels, rather than the average "villain of the week" Detective comics issue written by some random hack, which is what the Schumacher Batman films felt like, by the way.

I understand some people, and especially critics, did not like the movie exactly for that reason, that it tries to be something more than an action film with superheroes. Well, fuck me. There's just no pleasing some people, is there?

Personally, I absolutely loved the direction they took with this movie. It felt true to the source material, the graphic novels as I mentioned above, and it made for a more realistic, genuinely interesting movie. Not exactly a more "fun" movie, but Bruce Wayne was never about the fun to begin with.

Performances as a whole were amazing. People seem to hate Bale's Batman voice, but I didn't mind it. Hell, if somebody just kicked your ass and then talks to you like that, you will be intimidated. Caine and Freeman were outstanding in their roles, and their characters are excellent foils to Bruce Wayne, while Gyllenhaal did an excellent work with Rachel, even though her screen time is pretty limited. The actor who really surprised me, however, was Aaron Eckhart's portrayal of Harvey Dent and Two-Face (I told ya about those spoilers!) From being the White Knight of Gotham to the psycho killer with the gruesome face injury, Exkhart did a tremendous job. While the story of Dent's fall itself could perhaps do with a little more (just a bit) development, his performance more than makes up for it.

I loved the story of Dent's fall in The Long Halloween, but the version offered in this movie makes perfect sense in the confines of the movie itself. Two-Face wasn't set up to be a major villain, but more of a character to illustrate a point. Or perhaps two points, those being the Joker's point that everyone can be corrupted, and Alfred's warning about not knowing when and where to stop. But that is another story altogether.

I purposely didn't mention Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker so far, as I was expecting that he'd be great. I've already confessed to being a fan of his, and the trailers alone made his performance really seem like something special. Only the trailers said part of the story, and the actual performance was better than I expected. I honestly had to remind myself that this was Ledger, an actor playing a role, and not a real lunatic sociopath. He makes the role seem so natural, it's downright absurd. We're talking about a guy with a face full of makeup, wearing a purple tax, this seriously shouldn't look realistic!

And yet he pulled it off. From the way he delivered his lines ("Hiiiii!") to his body language, to his humor, to his worldview and the way he conducts things... If he doesn't get a place in the pantheon of greatest, most iconic, movie villains of all time (fuck the Oscars), alongside Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates and HAL 9000, it'll be a great injustice. His death was a terrible loss, especially after such a role which fully illustrates what an amazing talent he had. Damnit, Heath.

Seven paragraphs in, and I haven't even talked about the story. And I could easily spend more than seven paragraphs talking about it, but since it's kinda late I'll keep it to two. Much like Eckhart's performance, I wasn't really expecting the story to be so deep, so engaging. I was expecting it to have a strong story, but nothing spectacular, much like Batman Begins. Boy, was I wrong. There's so much there, so many themes, allusions, symbolism, social commentary, Hell the Joker's rants alone strike eerily, if not uncomfortably, close to home when it comes to human nature. And the best thing about all these elements is the fact that none are heavy-handed, or presented in a preachy manner.

I'll speak about my favorite examples of such storytelling techniques in a later post since I want to digest them fully before I do so, but if I were to mention one that comes to mind right now, it would be the Jokers speech on rules, plans, people's obsession with them and how that's illustrated perfectly with Harvey Dent. It was part of a plan that made Dent lie about being the man behind the Batman mask, a plan that was supposed to help them capture the Joker and ultimately lead the good guys to win. And it would have worked, had two corrupted cops decided to not play by Dent's rules, and instead betray him, ultimately leading to the death of his fianceé and his own horrible mal/transformation. Yet still, even after Dent lost half his face and his soul, he had to cling to a set of rules. He wouldn't kill the woman who betrayed his trust, because his own (new) rules prohibited him from doing so. In a way, even in insanity, Dent stubbornly based his only hope for sense in the world in his morality code, even if it were as arbitrary as the flip of a coin. And there's another point to be made about luck here, but I won't get into that right now.

Was there something I didn't like? Well, that whole cell-phone based sonar felt a bit tacky and didn't quite fit with the rest of the movie, although it did help paint a very amoralistic image of Batman. Which, incidentally, is one of my favorite parts of the story, and which I really want to get to in a future post.

(Goes to show how much I liked the movie when I mention positive things in the paragraph about the things I didn't like, doesn't it?)

Another thing would be the lack of music during some of the action scenes, I've been spoiled by the wonderful theme and would really like to hear it more often. In a similar note, I felt like we didn't hear the Joker's laugh enough times, but then again we'll probably sleep more easily this way. Lastly, the cynic in me believes that had the two ferries incident taken place in real life, at least one of the boats would have ended up exploding, and that they kind of dropped the ball with that one. Then again, I'll be the first to admit that I may be a bit too cynical, not to mention that I've been completely conditioned by the Song of Ice and Fire series, where people are dying left and right. Plus, I'm not sure that agreeing with the Joker on the nature of human beings is a good thing to do.

Did I ever mention that most, if not all, things and situations remind me of a joke? Because they do.

[Internets Friday] The Phishing IQ Test

If you don't know what phishing is, you're doing it wrong already. From Wikipedia:

"phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication."

Sometimes phishing is fairly obvious, many typos and bad grammar in an e-mail, ridiculous claims, etc. But people adapt, and so do phishers. It helps being paranoid of course, I generally ignore all e-mails from people I don't know.

However, I came across an Phishing IQ test lately, and realized I'm not paranoid enough. I only got 5 out of 10 in that test, my paranoia made me think 3 legit sites were out to uh... phish me, but I was also fooled by two phishing sites. In retrospect, I should have been paying more attention.

It's a nifty test to take, though as with most tests, it shouldn't be taken too seriously, and could help most people identify phishing e-mails with more ease.

TL;DR version:

Greetings to you, I am the Prince of Nigeria. I want you to have my money, but you'll have to give me yours first.

[Basketball Thursday] World Olympic Qualifiers group phase wrap-up

So far, so predictable.

There wasn't a single surprise in the entire group phase of the tournament, with Korea almost providing the exception with their near upset over Canada. However, after leading with sixteen points, they completely chocked and didn't score for almost two minutes. Otherwise, all other games had the expected results, with the favorites getting easy victories.

The teams that have played the best so far are Greece, Germany, Croatia and Slovenia. They're probably going to make it to the semifinals too, and three of them will make it to the Olympics. My money is on Germany, Croatia and of course Greece, but I'm hardly impartial.

That being said, I was really impressed by the way we played last night. A far cry from last year's snooze-fest, the Greek team offered the same type of aggressive defense that became its trademark and gave the team the second place in the World Cup of '06. If we keep this up, I like our chances at an Olympic medal. After all, the team played the absolute worst way possible last year, and still managed to come in fourth.

Beyond that, now that they've managed to get Chris Kaman, Germany has become a much better team, it seems. Rather than expecting everything from Dirk, now they have someone else to depend on, on both sides of the field. Should help the team a lot.

I was kind of bummed yesterday as I arrived a few minutes late at the game, and missed the New Zealanders' patented Haka war dance. I always wanted to see that live, and I'll miss it again tomorrow as I'll be watching The Dark Knight, finally. It's a fair trade, plus I was able to see Dirk kick so much ass yesterday, with 35 points in 32 minutes. That guy could have easily been the best player in the world right now, had he been born an American.

TL;DR version:

Dirk Nowitzki rules you.

[Fancy-word Wednesday] How to break it to your friends that their story sucks

It's probably has happened to everyone, more than once too, at that. Somebody close to you has written something, and it's not really that great. In fact, it's actually rather horrible. Not just from your subjective point of view, it's objectively a piece of excrement.

How do you break it to your friend? You have to be honest, because you should be honest to friends when it comes to things like this, and it's better if you break the news to them, rather than say a publisher who will laugh at their face. But at the same time, you have to be careful and not hurt their feelings because a) they're your friend, doofus, and b) it might dissuade them from writing any further, if even their friends hate their work.

Neil Gaiman recently answered such a question in his blog, and as with most things Gaiman does, I find myself agreeing completely. You can find his answer here (scroll down a bit), my favorite part would be the following:

"And if you do decide to tell them what's wrong with their book then you don't have to tell them everything that's wrong with it."

This is great, because while you are still telling the truth, naming every single thing you hated is probably not going to win you any more points with your friend. Not to mention you'll probably look like a douche.

TL;DR version:

I don't know about you, but instead of writing, I'm now going to see Dirk Nowitzki play basketball. And after that I'm also seeing the Greek national team. Le woot!