A Monster in Their Parasoul

From the hours of footage I've seen of the game on Wednesday Night Fights and elsewhere, Skullgirls looks like a game I'd enjoy. Its promise of teaching novice players how to actually handle themselves in a fight instead of just combos they'll never learn to implement means a scrub like me could learn to block mix-ups, see openings, and wean myself off poor tactics like jumping in constantly with the intent of using the strongest attack at my disposal. The midpoint it chooses to play at (the methodicalness of Street Fighter crossed with the more absurd tactics of the Vs. series) sounds right up my alley. It's a smarter kind of fighter, learning from both community feedback and the genre's history to create something that just might be approachable and tournament-worthy at the same time.

One look at the overly-endowed and fetishized characters that populate the game, however, and it's likely that some of the people that looked at the game as an entry point in the fighting genre will turn away. Alex Ahad, creator of Skullgirls' world and characters, doesn't mind:

“I totally understand that my style is not for everyone. The art style is more of a cartoon exaggeration, both in proportions and poses, with several inspirations mixed in. I would be pretty content if Skullgirls was a small project and had a niche following. If you enjoy the style of this game, I can never thank you enough for your support and welcome you to our world with open arms. If you have too much of a problem with Skullgirls, then this game isn't for you. To each their own. I'm ok with that notion, and would generally prefer to stay out of public discussions.”

The art style Ahad has chosen for the game isn't the problem. It's that the breast-physics are exaggerated, panty flashes are prevalent and intentional, and not a single member of the all-female cast wears pants, instead opting for dresses, skirts, or whatever Ms. Fortune's wearing. When a character's super move involves her flipping upside down and revealing her underwear, it's a problem. Skullgirls' lead designer, Peter Bartholow, defended the panty flashes by mentioning that “if a woman dressed like this were to fight, there would be some panty flashes.”

Ahad distances himself from the Eurogamer piece that previous quote originated from in his DeviantArt post, but regardless, Bartholow's point clearly doesn't hold up. Citing that the style of the characters is ”just where Alex's interests lie,” doesn't fix the problem; if the characters you designed have skirts that are too short to properly hide their underwear (Parasoul), or fight in such a way that they'll show their underwear during a super (Cerebella), the solution is to design more practically-dressed characters, not to say that it's a byproduct of the character's outrageous designs.

Sounds like the cries of a censor seeking to maximize a game's appeal, and to some degree, it is. But I'm looking for more subdued fighter designs in order to play with more people, not to increase my earnings. With the possible exception of Peacock, I don't know that there's a character in Skullgirls that I'd feel comfortable playing as by myself, let alone in a group of people*. Am I not confident around groups of people? Probably. Do I stand a better chance getting more people to play with me if at least half the cast doesn't make eyes roll? Most definitely.

Ahad says that characters' behavior within the game makes them empowered women, not sex objects, and that that's “the difference between something being sexy and being sexist.” Whether that actually bears out is unclear, but when Parasoul's upside-down cross is closer to 90° than even 45° relative to her body, taking her seriously as an empowered woman becomes difficult. Ahad also cites that none of the characters use their sexuality as weapons, that none of the characters are as bad as Cammy from Street Fighter, and that people don't complain about muscular men, but those points have been countered elsewhere recently, so I'll keep it succinct: simply because Cammy is poorly designed and people don't complain about the male characters in fighting games doesn't mean you can get away with it. Not only should Reverge have the perspective to not repeat those same mistakes, but they also don't have a legacy to bind them to characters like Cammy – they're free to correct those errors, but are choosing not to in favor or indulging an artist and a niche audience.

The Shoryuken piece regarding the topic considers the matter closed. By simply stating his view and denying the allegations against him, Ahad has made it okay for people who enjoy these characters to not worry about enjoying them. That, again, is a problem. Whether or not the game is sexist, the designs are perverted and creepy. But unfortunately, I'm a fighting game fan and a hypocrite, which means I'll buy Skullgirls – the systems at work behind the fan service look fun, and I'd love to learn to be a better player. But I'll mostly play the game alone, and instead of possibly teaching people at casual gatherings how to play a genre I'm currently enamored with, I'll either sweep the whole mess under the rug or teach them using a different game. A shame, really, because the fighting genre could use another game like Street Fighter IV to get a new group of people into playing it, and expand the genre. It's too bad Ahad's ambition is limited to keeping an insular group satisfied, because Skullgirls has the potential to do more than that.

*A quick anecdote: I play Juri in Super Street Fighter IV because I like how she plays, not because I endorse how she looks. I don't loathe her design entirely – she at least wears pants – but I play her despite her design, which I imagine I'll have to do with most of Skullgirls' cast. Peacock, again, might be the lone exception here, but when only one character appeals to me superficially in a game where you can select up to three at a time...

Compromise of the Damned

I'm calling Shadows of the Damned a compromise, and it makes me sad to think about the game that way.

I realize now that this has almost nothing to do with the game I was actually playing and everything to do with my expectations. You'll be hard-pressed to read a review of Shadows of the Damned that doesn't mention its stable of Japanese talent: Goichi Suda, known for making games weird, Shinji Mikami, known for making games fun without making adhering to modern standards, and Akira Yamaoka, known for adding unsettling ambiance wherever it's needed. As someone who's enjoyed the work of all three on multiple occasions, Shadows seemed like a dream project. Suda and Mikami in particular seem like complimentary forces; Suda's eccentric design choices rarely lead to “fun” games, while Mikami's suffer from a lack of creative direction. Or at least, I think they do.

Still, I'm let down, and it's entirely because the game isn't crazy enough, which some of you might think wouldn't be possible. I don't think that's true. The undead-meets-punk aesthetic is a fine touch, and the game's tone is consistent enough to not make the look seem out of place in hell. But this is where I feel that both the narrative and ludological sides capitulate not just for the sake of making EA can actually sell (not that they really tried), but so that the end product ends up being more cohesive. Suda's knack for the absurd is augmented by the fact that for better or worse, his games don't play like anything else out there. Mikami's games play so well because he has control over contextualizing gameplay concepts, even when they seem out of place. With neither person in full control, we end up with a faster, "spookier" version of Resident Evil 4, which is a product six years too late.

When I look at it that way, I find myself at odds. I certainly think the game is good, as my three playthroughs will attest, but when I read unapologetic praise for the game, I wonder what it is that places the game so high on people's "best-of" lists for the year: is it the atmosphere, done better in almost every Suda game? The gameplay, which feels clunky when put beside Resident Evil 5? The papercraft shooter sections? Is it the story, which acts as a metaphor for how loving someone involves embracing the bad along with the good of a person? There's a lot in Shadows of the Damned that makes it good, especially when most shooters don't dare delineate from military conflicts. But though Damned is charming, it doesn't hold up well when looked at past its veil of its setting.

Nitpicks: the big boner sections go from distracting side show to painful grind, and the shooter sections later on are only slightly better. The shooting, again, isn't up to par with Mikami's previous work. David Blum shouldn't attempt to mimic Spanish ever again, nor should Suda. The main game and Bosses alike rely on tired lock-and-key and glowing weakpoints ad nauseum. Replay value, one of Mikami's strongest suits in the past, is all but gone here. The game ends one scene too late. These could all amount to kicking Damned while it's down, but these are the kind of things that grate on a player after the first playthrough.

As I said earlier, I do like Shadows of the Damned, particularly for its examination of a relationship past rescuing or fighting with someone. Similarly, Akira Yamaoka's soundtrack seems like the one element of the game that feels unrestricted. And I theorize that for many players, this may be their first true exposure to a Suda title, since they can play it without too much hassle, which may be why so many people laud it for being novel. But I can't escape the feeling that both Suda and Mikami could've done a better job were they each making separate games. Label me a hater, but I think it's because I'm such a fan of both Suda and Mikami's work that I hold the game up to a high standard. Or maybe Suda's messing with me by further deepening the "love the good and the bad" into the development of the game itself.

Nah.

A Note From Wonderland.

Before I start in earnest, a quick anecdote: early in American McGee's Alice: The Madness Returns, there's a point where a singular path splits into two. Nothing too flashy -- games do this all the time. A quick switch into Alice's shrunk form that allows me to see chalk markings that are otherwise invisible, and I see two notes; one with an arrow and a childish rendition of a Jolly Roger, and another with an arrow and a flower, both leading down the two paths I mentioned earlier. I haven't played enough to know that the Jolly Roger is Chalk for "main path" (meaning the other path leads to a reward and a dead end), but I get enough to know that's where I'm supposed to be going.

But I double-check myself. I go along the main path first, to see far enough ahead so I know I should double back. But after going too far, the path behind me is closed by rock-slide. I've lost that little reward I knew I should've gone after. I did what I did because most games let you go back. Madness Returns didn't.

They don't make games like this anymore.

Really, they don't; it doesn't take much to see that Madness Returns finds much of its design fundamentals from 3D platformers of yesteryear, which is a good and a bad thing. Good because honestly, this throwback design sets it apart from most other games. Bad, because it's not revamped return to form. Poor camera controls, switch and door puzzles, both repeated ad nauseum -- this might've been one of the reasons these kinds of games stopped filling Wal-mart shelves (the other, perhaps,being that companies ran out of appealing mascots to slap onto covers).

But that's not what set the 2001 game, Alice, apart either. American McGee, partly heir to the Doom empire, has a panache for horror themes and "dark atmosphere" that would make Todd McFarlane and Tim Burton blush. And what's true of the original game is true of its sequel: Madness Returns is a powerful story told in adequate way between sections of an average game. Combat is consistently challenging (due to both careful difficulty balancing and occasional frustration), but like many an indie game where "art" is a keyword, you endure what you're doing to see what will happen. In this case, it's Alice reconstructing the puzzle of her fragmented memory to find out what actually happened the night her family died in a fire. Not common video game fare, though it's told in the medium's bread-and-butter tricks: cutscenes, memory fragments the tell a story during gameplay, and a few in-game sequences where you're left to experience a scene while wandering about.

But even if you're the kind of person that hates the separation of story and gameplay, Madness Returns may still hook you. Scenes in an asylum, the Carpenter and Walrus' dark philosophical waxing -- that's what you're here for. Before Alice redeems herself, you see some dark stuff, and not just aesthetically. Where McGee outdoes McFarlane is impact; Madness Return's worst moments hit hard because you don't know if a silver lining exists, where Spawn's dark corners add up to so much fluff and attitude.

Conventional in all but the one way that counts -- that's Madness Returns. Its tale is worth seeing more than most others in gaming this year, but you may have to slog through memories of gaming's past to see it. Which, as it happens, is just fine with me.

Modern Guilt

Rebecca Black's "Friday" video -- and, more importantly, the widespread negativity towards it -- spread like wildfire across the internet last week, and other important contextual setup that I don't care to add. Basically, the song is a vapid, auto-tuned mess made by a company who specializes in promoting acts that consistently remind me of rich parents hocking their kids to companies because they have the money to make viral video. It summarizes everything that's wrong with modern music. Except that it doesn't.

Many of the comments I've read about the video focus not only on how awful the song is, but also on how it represents the downfall of modern music. It has auto-tune. It stars a fabricated idol singing about friends and weekends and other stuff that lacks the depth of pop music of the past. And clearly, to someone who's outgrown pop music and thus hasn't kept up with it, this is trash and symptomatic of a larger problem.

Let's put aside the fact that the song is terrible. Because yeah, it is. And frankly, my arguments against this line of thinking can summed up perfectly in the "rose-colored glasses," argument. People who haven't grown up around this kind of music clearly see it as foreign, and will quickly dismiss it and go back to longing for the pop music of the past. Like many people who are bemoaning the loss of the morals in society, they assume a downward trend in in quality when the changes are really exposure and options.

But propping "Friday" up as the representation of "modern music" obviously ignores quite a few factors. First, there's all the progressive and indie stuff that garner high MetaCritic scores that exists outside pop music. Second, "Friday" isn't even actual pop music; it's made a relatively small company for who the song is an outlier in terms of its popularity. Though it's tempting to group them all together, Rebecca Black is ultimately not in the same category as Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift. If you're to beat on a straw man, at least make sure it's the right one.

I named my Tepig Bumfunk

It doesn't take long for any conversation about Pokemon -- specifically the games -- to come to the point of the games' rehashed formula. And it's a fair point to make; playing the Black version, I'm consistently surprised by how much of the game is retained from Red and Blue. I understand that the reason the games don't change their fundamental design is because each version serves as an introduction for new players, and that Game Freak believes that style works well.

And it does. By the time you defeat the first Gym Leader you know enough about how the game works to be able to dig into the game's collecting and battling. I'm not afraid to admit that Pokemon's simple battle system still packs enough allure and strategy to keep me engaged. The reveals new Pokemon (the creatures, not the game) still follow the same pattern as previous games (you'll get a ton of boring "Normal" types before you start finding some of the more exotic species), but the visual difference is enough to make the experience seem new. When I see a new wild Pokemon, I want to catch it. When I see a fellow trainer, I want to bury their critters' faces in the dirt. The basic elements of the game still work remarkably well, and I'm sure Game Freak knows it.

But that doesn't mean there aren't places to improve, at least from the perspective of someone who's played most versions of the game. For one, the early parts of the game feature so much mandatory hand-holding that I almost turned my DS off from boredom more than once. The game asks the player if they need few things explained to them, but they need to take it all the way: allow veterans the chance to skip the introductions of what a Pokemon is, how the world works and how to heal your captive friends at the Pokemon Center. So the PokeMart is now embedded in the Center? Cool. I could've figured that out myself.

But, despite the game's superfluous foreword, I'm still going, if no other reason than the title of this post.

Louie

Louie's a lo-fi comedy show that stars a stand-up comedian, so you have certain expectations going in. For one, it's going to be funny. Second, it'll be edgy, particularly considering the raw, brash, and foul-mouthed talent involved (Louie C.K. is like a less ). The half-hour shows usually stick to self-contained episodes that don't focus on progression, so you expect to be able to pick it up from any episode without missing too much.

Louie does meet those expectations. The stand-up comedy bits are as dark, inhumane and frank as you'd expect (which is a good thing), and the situations in the show would all fit as stand-up bits. But what works best about the show -- and what separates it from other comedy shows -- is its tone. The show focuses largely on just how depressing C.K.'s life is: A divorce this late in his life means he's almost completely out of the dating pool, his kids cause him the kind of stress that only someone you love unconditionally can cause, and generally, he feels like a shitty person. It's dark and unrelenting in how much bad "behind-the-scenes," stuff it shows. You never get the sense that the show is reaching for comedy; every scene takes place with C.K.'s half-fictional life, and the show comes off a gritty comedy show, strange as it sounds.

And as you get into the later episodes, you'll begin to see just how much drama Louie can pack into its half-hour. Episodes 9 and 11 specifically stand right on the edge of the comedy/drama line, and the show knows how to straddle that line. Its actual comedy bits (those outside the stand-up segments) can be hit of miss, but surprisingly enough, the more serious segments tend to be the most well-executed ones. There are huge chunks of episodes where the comedy is intentionally sparse, and those still manage to be entertaining, much like when a comedian launches into ranting or preaching during a segment, at least when those bits are done well.

Where C.K. takes the show in the second season is anyone's guess, but I hope it continues to alternate itself between its The Office-like awkwardness, its well-executed comedy bits, and Titus-level of black comedy. It may not completely revolutionize the half-hour comedy formula, but it definitely takes it in a great new direction.

UnWowed

I look at Killzone's great textures and sharp post-processing, and I identifying as such. I don't think "Wow, this game looks great." Which it does; the models aren't universally great and there's a big problem with people's eyelashes, but as a whole, it looks fantastic. But I can't get beyond banal and analytical sentiments like, "Wow, this game sure cost a whole lot of money to make." When a bipedal mech and a spider-bot got toe-to-toe, I'm initially surprised, but then find myself wondering what kind of work -- and of course, how much money -- went into making it. I sure hope Guerrilla got everything they wanted out of the section, because damn, it looks expensive.

I had the same feelings about Uncharted and its sequel. And Gears, for a while. I think that this sentiment is what leads people to hate big-budget games and proceed to declare that the humble artistic efforts of smaller developers trump the money-laden blockbusters of our current generation. But I don't think that; if you want to make your game look gorgeous (as all of the games I mentioned above do), go ahead. Most people with the resources of the company you work for would do the same thing. And you should, because when you're a big enough company, you eventually enter a competition of technical prowess.

Not that I question these studios' artistic intent. Though at some point, you're not just a studio artist showing the world your wares out of a selfish sort of altruism -- you're a business. But something about seeing motion-blur, vignetting, and other technical wizardry ends up putting me in the same technical mind that's likely needed to make those effects in the first place.

The Catherine Conspiracy

Even though Atlus has said it has no plans to, I find it hard to believe they won't release Catherine in the U.S.. Their history betrays them; they've released weirder titles and taken plenty of risks over the years. Catherine may be a bit different from anything else the company has released so far, but not by that huge of a stretch.

There are a few things working against Catherine's U.S. release -- most importantly, its adult content and America's tendency to overreact to things they clearly don't understand. It's likely that Atlus is trying to find a way to release their first big current-gen project without any sort of controversy. Considering that Catherine's sexual theme is the only thing that trumps Bulletstorm's... let's say gregarious violence on the Motherly Outrage-o-Meter, how Americans perceive their title should be a concern. A popular controversy could increase sales of the game, but it could also get it banned. A likely outcome? Not really, but Atlus seems like a modest company, one that would try to avoid a debacle altogether.

Still, I remain hopeful. Why? Well, for one, not only does Atlus' history betray them -- their present does too. As a few people have pointed on podcasts and other, there's little incentive to develop a 360 version of a game you won't be releasing in States, and looking at the numbers in the news story above reinforces that thinking. 360's a console on life support (less so in recent years, but still), so porting to it may be always be the smartest thing to do.

So why not just announce a U.S. version and get it over with? My insane theory is that Atlus is still gauging interest. And it's not just about releasing it like they would usually. I predict that Atlus wants to go big-time with Catherine, to leave the niche-world and have a bona fide hit. They have that with Demon's Souls, but considering Catherine more volatile subject matter, they're taking a more cautious approach. They're not just gauging interest; they're gauging demand. They want to know whether they can actually pull off a chart-topper in the U.S. like they did in Japan.

So, like many people, I'm confident about a state-side version of the game. But I'm also confident Atlus wants Catherine to be a title that has a wider reach than they've had before. Whether or not the game's odd gameplay and mature themes cross over into mainstream success remains to be seen, but I have Atlus is going to give it a shot.

Guess What...

The Camaro is a great-looking car except when someone thought it'd be okay to use its two-wheel drive on a day when the forecast says "HEY YOU GUYS I THINK THERE MIGHT BE LIKE SOME SNOW OR SOMETHING." Then it's kind of ugly, when looked at from the perspective of someone who's trying to push the damn thing up the driveway when it's not even your car while also telling people to go around all the time. It looks even more ugly when you have three people pushing it from behind while someone drives it uselessly. Uglier still when you realize you just spent an hour helping someone recovering from a mistake they shouldn't have made in the first place because you told them so.

New PS3

It started with overheating. After a few minutes of use, the system would turn off. I'd let it cool, then it'd start all over again. I vacuumed and compressed-aired the vents and whatnot, even took out the hard drive and dusted it. No go. Then, when I went to transfer all of my saves from the sinking ship of a system to the new slim PS3 I ordered, the yellow light came on right after the system turned on. Then it turned off. With my Marvel vs. Capcom 3 disc inside it. Now it was personal.

I'd planned to get a new PS3 for a while now, but this forced me to actually follow through. But first I had to get the disc out. I tried to open the PS3 the old-fashioned way, but I didn't have a flathead small enough to unscrew the screw that lodged the thing together. So I did the next best thing: I went at it with an X-Acto and a big flathead. I pried the top off as (mostly) one section, then popped off the second top. It looked something like this afterward:

Lots of dust on the thing. you can see it pretty clearly on one of the lids. Keep in mind that that picture is the PS3 sans disc drive, which I had already began taking apart. I had to find a tiny cross-head, which I found in my dad's screwdriver set (and yeah, it had the tiny-ass flathead that would've made this process a whole lot more simple), and after a few careful dissections, I found my disc inside.

Was there a more simple solution? You bet. Was it fun to find out what a gutted PS3 looked like? Hell yeah it was. I tossed the whole thing (except the hard drive, which might prove to be useful for something) into the recycling bin. And hey, now I have a new PS3 that'll actually let me use my wireless controllers wirelessly!

You Are Not Hard Corps.

Hard Corps: Uprising's a game for those who cringe at their character catching a stray bullet, a retro-hard fantasy for the person who's not satisfied by games unless they master a challenge that will rip so many others apart. It's a game that's deviously efficient at separating the wheat from the chaff. Between all the lives you'll lose, all the times you screw up -- an offense punishable by death -- and the letter grades at the end of each level, Hard Corps' secret motto is clear: you can do better.

I had more C's and D's in my time with the game than a Victoria's Secret catalog, but that's the point. The game is supposed to be hard, because it calls back to Contra, and Contra was hard. "Rising Mode" lets you upgrade your stats (including your health and starting lives), but you're still just as likely to suffer death after death, until you've upgraded every possible part of your character and you're tearing the levels apart.

So yes, it's incredibly hard, even in co-op. But at times, I felt it crossed the line from "Hard for the sake of it" to "Poorly designed." The levels Six boss essentially takes a life with every hit (even with the game's three blocks of health) due to you falling off the edge of the train you're riding on. And the last boss has three stages, which must be tackled all at once per credit. It's Arc Systems sticking to their guns, and while that stubbornness works for most of the game, I can see several places could have been better and still hard if they hard just fixed what was essentially broken about the old-school game they're inspired by.

But the Rising Mode does do a great deal of leveraging the frustration. I know for a fact that I'll never beat Arcade mode, which offers none of the upgrading. And I'd like to meet the person who can, honestly.

A Lesson in Difficulty

Despite that I'm against what Super Meat Boy stands for -- namely, the proliferation of "faux-retro" indie games that flip game design ideas and repackage them -- I have to admit that it's a well-made game. As far as the masocore genre is concerned, SMB hits a lot of the points that should be hit. Instant restarts, quick pacing, and bite-sized gameplay all fit to counteract frustration.

But as I made my way through the game, something began feeling off. The levels I was playing were certainly harder than the ones I'd played before, but I couldn't pinpoint why. I was getting through these levels about as quickly as I was the earlier ones, but I had started enjoying them less. Then I realized why I enjoyed them less: they were longer.

As far as I could tell, that was the only difference in the level design after about world 3. The timing got a little rougher, but I by the time I realized what was going on, I was sure that the length was my issue. The levels were harder mostly because they were longer. What that meant for a game like Super Meat Boy was that when you died, you had to re-do a larger chunk of the game. Which to me ended up feeling like a poor decision. The game's strength lies with the fact that you're completing (but usually failing at) the game in small sections at a time, which means that your progress, while incremental, was set. The longer levels just make the game seem more unfair.

And it wasn't like there were some revelatory or creative twists at the end; the last section of the game has the same jumping over saws and airtime manipulation as the rest of the game. The game had run out of unique ideas, and resorted to changing its difficulty from "the things you have to do" to "how much you have to re-do when you fail." Which it didn't need to. N+ is a similar game that doesn't cross this length line. it keeps the level small enough to fit inside a single screen, meaning that you never have that "start all over" experience that you do with Super Meat Boy.

I don't think that a longer stretch of time without saving makes games harder -- it just makes them more frustrating, and more defeating. I was more inclined to stop playing as the levels got longer. I did beat the game, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I think I should have, considering my wholehearted love of N+. But then again they are an indie, so no harm no foul, right? Right?

Anonymous vs. the World

Anonymous remains a group that both fascinates and scares me. A group of coordinated hackers and internet Illuminati ("Internet Illuminati" sounds like just the kind of oxymoron that would make a perfect band name) seems like a likely product of the digital age. People from various places working in tandem is the definition of the internet, and it was only a matter of time before it was for a devious purpose. Anonymous uses its internet muscle to harass people they deem are worth the effort, usually with the horribly illicit images found on places like 4Chan.

Which makes the beginning of their crusade against The Westboro Baptist Church all the more interesting. A cease-and-desist with the immediate threat of force outside the legal system sounds like something out of a government conspiracy movie, where a team of "terrorists" who considers themselves noble makes demands of someone "or else." But at its core, it's a group of people who think that the Westboro folks are bad people and want to do something about it.

And if ever a group deserved the wrath of a group of Anonymous forum users, it's Westboro. The Baptist Church group -- though you'd be hard-pressed to find a Baptist outside the group who'd associate with them -- has a staunch anti-gay protests, picketing funerals, and other acts of general bigotry. When people try to point to "Evangelical Christians" as the cause of most hatred in America, these are the people they're imagining. The group is relatively small, but its ability to attract headlines its undisputed.

A skirmish between these two groups is bound to prove one of those media-hijacking stories that'll work like a train-wreck, provided that Westboro doesn't heed Anonymous' warning. The problem is that the whole debacle is bound to elevate the profile of both groups which is ultimately a problem. Anonymous works as well as it does because it's yet to go big-time with its pranks, and thus remains off most authoritative radars -- not that an investigation into the group would necessarily yield results, but it wouldn't be a good for the Anon either -- and Westboro will likely use the attack as a way to promote itself as being "under attack by a malicious, godless hate group. They may even rally more people who don't understand who Anon is into their cause because of it. But the they certainly won't stop what they're doing.

Westboro's site will go down, there'll be big outcry, a huge splash, and eventually, the commotion will die down. A group like Anon could be used to make changes akin to Wiki Leaks, if only they put their all into it. This seems like a good first step into turning the group from deviant troublemakers to the vigilantes they likely would like to be, but this particular case looks to me like trying to put out a fire by drowning it in gas.

Nothing's Coming Out.

I can't think of anything I want to write about. There are a couple things, but I'd like to develop my thoughts on a few things before I roll out posts on 'em.

Music (not making it, listening to it)

I've entered that hipster faze of my life where I stop listening to the radio. I listen to CD's or iPods in most of the cars I'm in now, so the radio seems entirely irrelevant to me now. I used to be a pretty avid listener of morning radio, telethons (before I discovered podcasts), and other kinds of radio shows. A rock station, most of the time. Which is ironic, given that my taste in music has shifted to mostly hip-hop and electric stuff.

I'm not even entirely sure why I did this, but I have to assume the internet had a lot to do with it. I discover most of my music through recommendations, which I admit is a very hipsterish thing to do. I don't feel as motivated to explore stuff outside recommendations for music as much as I do games and movies because I get a good variety of stuff from people on twitter. I know I should probably go out of my way to find stuff that I like, but I guess I just don't have the confidence in my taste to recommend things to other people just yet. Part of me feels stupid for being so snobbish about music, something I don't really have a right to apply a constructed opinion on just yet.

I should probably listen to Pandora or Last.fm, but I do most of my listening on my PSP (no joke. My phone is a terrible music player and my DS is even worse, so the PSP's the best I got), which has access to neither of those. And even then, since the PSP doesn't have a constant internet connection, it'd be shaky to use any internet service anyway. I should get a better phone, but I'm not in a financially stable enough position to buy a new phone when the one I have works fine.

So I guess I'll have to settle for recommendations for now, as much as it makes me a bad person. Should I ever get an iPhone or something, I think I'll probably start listening to Last.fm, since it's where I keep track of most of my desktop music-listening. Uhh... the end?

The Netflix queue

I have a ton of movies on my Netflix instant streaming queue as well as my DVD queue. I've already come to terms with the fact that I'll never be able to watch them all, so I'm taking a more relaxed approach than I previously was. Before I'd find out which movies were set to expire next, then watch those (or at least try) before they expired. It worked for a while, but it ended up feeling like work. "You have to watch these movies now, or you'll never see them, and that would be a shame."

I enjoyed the movies less that way, so I stopped doing that. I'll watch a movie whenever I feel like it. Though this does mean that my movie-watching days are less frequent, it doesn't bother me too much. I'm blazing through The Wire -- finished season 2 earlier today -- so I don't feel like I'm behind on anything. I've written about this before, but the reason I'm probably better at watching shows than movies is probably because the chunks of time I have to dedicate to watching shows is less than that of movies which makes them more approachable.

But oddly enough, I'm starting to use the DVD queue to my advantage. After finishing up the first three seasons of Burn Notice, I've finally started watching movies. And when a movies just sitting there, waiting to be watched, I feel much more like watching it, because it feels like a waste of money to just leave it sitting there. I couldn't explain why, but this is an altogether different feeling from having to sit down and watch all those movies through streaming. Most likely, it's because the movies that come through the mail feel more like one-offs than a part of a collection of movies I have to see. This is been very beneficial for my movie-watching progress.

Now if only I had more time to read.

The Fighting Hump

A repeating cycle usually happens to me when a new fighting game I'm interested in comes out. I'm excited for it because I failed to get good at any other fighting games and I think maybe this'll be the one. Arcade stick in tow (though the stick is a relatively new element in this cycle), I'll say to myself, "This is it. This'll be the one I get good at."

Except it's never happened. I'll get into it, learn the basics, think I'm getting good, and at some point, whether it be by Hard difficulty AI or an online opponent, I'll get trashed repeatedly. I'll look at online videos of people playing my characters way better than me and get dejected. Then I'll actually try some of that stuff, realize I have no idea what I'm doing, and settle for mediocrity.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 at least offers the average player a glimpse of how the game would play if they were much better at it. Because the game treats its physics like it does its fictions -- very loosely -- characters dart around the screen, use screen-filling attacks, and call for help both on the ground and in the air. As a result, the average MvC3 match ends up looking like something between a light show and a war zone. I may not be very good at it, but after learning a few moves, I could pull off some pretty cool looking stuff. I just couldn't beat Galatctus on anything above easy.

Fighting games are a weird genre for me. I'm not very good at any of them, yet I love most fighting games to death. A lot of my interest was born by a bygone era of UFS, as well as watching matches online. I usually realize early on that I'll never reach the level of skill required to do most of the stuff I want to, but I usually give it an honest shot. I'm still trying to get learn both MvC3's systems and the arcade stick in general, and I'm hoping I don't burn out too quick. Here's hoping I can break out of this cycle.

He's Just the Goddamn Batman

I like Batman. Superheros are usually some of the most ludicrous stories you'll encounter, especially considering that so many have been ingrained in our culture. Batman, though still somewhat unbelievable, at least seems plausible. Sure, he's a billionaire with a seemingly unlimited amount of time and resources, but it's easier for people to believe that if they had all that money, and his access to all that tech, that they'd be that cool. I can get behind that. Batman's a nerd who works out.

But recently, I've heard a lot of people going out of their way to praise Batman's strengths, to the point of the absurd. I couldn't point to a specific example, but I remember several conversations involving character match-ups that included Batman. And often enough, Batman would win against anyone who wasn't divine or something like The Beyonder, by reason of his intellect. The defining argument was always that Batman would use his intellect to get out of any situation.

I can't get behind the fact that sheer intellect would allow Batman anyone within reason. I can't allow situations like Batman being at a party with a sniper in a surrounding building where Batman would win. Almost instantly, defenders assume that Batman would somehow figure out he's there, excuse himself and take care of someone like, say, Crossbones. Intellect is one thing, but there's simply no way Batman would be able to figure something like that out, provided Crossbones wasn't an idiot.

This is probably the dumbest, most nit-picky and nerd post I've ever made, but it does bother me that Batman gets away with so much just for being smart. When I tell people the story of Batman R.I.P. a common reaction is "That's stupid, there's no way Batman would lose like that. He'd find a way around it or something." Dude no he wouldn't! He's a fucking dude!

...it makes me angry in a way I didn't think was possible.

Expanding Elliott's Law

Elliott's Law: At least one person will profess to love any comic, podcast, blog, etc. no matter how bad it may be.

If you're an internet snob -- like most people on the internet are -- you've likely experienced Elliott's law (named after its creator/founder/discover-er Shawn Elliott) before. On a negative review of any product of media, you'll likely find the one defender of said product. All well and good, since everyone is entitled to their opinion. But the more you browse around the internet looking for examples of Elliott's law, the more you'll see the law applied to even the worst of deviantART drawings. Sometimes, this defense borders on irrational. You'll either dismiss a person entirely because of their love of something you consider horrid, or have a semi-serious argument with yourself about everyone being entitled and all that.

But there's also the other side of Elliott's Law, which I would like to formally introduce as an addendum. See, if any person will profess to love anything, then one could make the assumption that the opposite will also happen; that someone will always profess to hate something, no matter what it is. For evidence of this fact, simply look to the Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game. For those reading from a mobile device, the game basically asks you to go to any product on Amazon and sort the reviews for said product, which will show a negative review of that product. Everything from The Beatles' White Album to The Wire to The Godfather is subject to this. The game is incredibly consistent, as far as I have played it, and goes to show in great detail the other side of Elliott's Law. Just read this roasting of The Wire from several Amazon customers.

So, using this other side, we can expand Elliott's Law to include the kind of thinking that lead to the Amazon Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game, and get something like this: Any product of media, no matter how good or bad it may be, will elicit hyperbolic responses both for and against said product. When you read it out loud, it sounds pretty obvious; of course people will have varying opinions of things. But it's the extremity of those opinions that are important. And besides, that ubiquity is exactly it works so well as a law. So the next time you feel like dismissing someone for their sense of taste, know that whether you're right or wrong, there's a law that protects them, albeit in a backhanded way.

Getting Meta

My goal for this blog was to stretch my writing muscles about stuff that didn't pertain to video games, and in that regard, I feel like I'm failing. I thought I hard diatribes within diatribes about myriad topics, but when I'm watching the vertical blink, my mind pulls a blank. I often have "important" thoughts outside the blogging mind, but often, I forget to note it as something to write about. Many of these feel forced. And often, it kills my motivation to see plenty of commentary on something I want to talk about, which usually either kills or dilapidates as post.

Length is another issue. These should be longer, but I often leave this blog as the last thing to do, because its beaten out my things that seriously need my attention. Which means by the time I get around to them, I'm tired and can't muster much energy to write them.

I don't need these excuses. I need solutions. I need to develop points more clearly, need to create them more organically in the first place. So please, bear with me as I get my footing.

Whoa.

Work has once again piled up, and a hobby project has to take a back seat to schoolwork. So I'll post two videos of oddities I've found in games. I might start doing these more as I find them now that I have reliable off-screen capture equipment.

So yeah. Games are programs made by people. Or something.

Slow Going

I realized earlier today that Capcom has the best lineup of the year, as far as I'm concerned. Ghost Trick is my favorite game of the year so far, and Rearmed 2 currently has me under its collectathon spell. Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 looks like it's right on track to being for me what Street Fighter 4 was for so many people, and Okamiden sounds like it'll be fun as well. Capcom 3 is really the only game I'd say I am/was anticipating.

I'm going into this year more than ever realizing that I'm not truly "excited" for anything coming out this year. Last year, Starcraft and Super Mario Galaxy 2 were the games that I knew would set the bar for games that year. Most everything else was going to be a nice surprise. I think this year will probably hold a few a surprises for me, but as of now, nothing gets me going. Maybe that has to do more with the fact that I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for hyping up games, after a few of them have made me blown my gasket then disappointed.

I'm sure everyone will point out tons of games and say "What about this?" and I'll say, "Yeah, sure that'll probably be good." But the point is, It'll be something where the week before I'll realize it's coming out and buy it. Or not. I'd be one thing if this meant that I'd lost ability to like games or whatever, but the fact is, I'm incredibly excited about BioShock Infinite, which isn't out until 2012.

Maybe this is better. Maybe since I don't build games up in my head into something they're not I won't be disappointed but rather surprised. We'll see.

An Odd Exchange

I'm doing something I don't usually do. I'm running through Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 for a third run for achievements. I usually am a one-and-done kind of guy, but something about Rearmed 2 gave me the collecting bug. And it's not really the points; it's the feeling of completion. A Retro run, a co-op run, a hard run, and challenge  rooms. I want all of 'em done. The game is so fun that I don't mind playing through the bullshit levels like Countdown and General Headquarters several times.

But anyway, my oldest brother is watching me play (quick aside: I hate it when people watch me play. I usually don't suffer from stage fright, but when people are watching me, I get performance anxiety). He's seen me play the game for about a week or so, and most of that has been post-endgame. So he casually asks me, "Why are you still playing that game? You doing the same stuff."

To which I also casually replied, "I'd ask you the same thing about WoW."

Which set him off. He said how wow had different things every time, achievements, and all that. I told him that I was doing it for achievements as well. Then he asked me why I had to be such an asshole and give him shit all the time. In his defense, this history does exist. But it surprised and frankly amused me that he got extremely defensive as soon as the topic of WoW came up in anything other than a positive light.

I could dive into a deeper post about WoW and addiction, but nah. I'll save that anecdote for another time.

Review Everything: Molten Hot Wings Ruffles

(Review Everything is series where MyGen does as the title implies. Well, not really. We do it one at a time. Which is a semantic difference, but an important. That review would be way long. I mean, imagine that. A review of everything. That'd be rad.)


These things are pretty impromptu, I'm not gonna lie. I look at a product and say, "Damn, that looks stupid. I should be stupid too. This product and I can fly away together on a Hummer running on lead-based fuel into a land of New Coke and Bluetooth headsets." So sometimes, I can have an unfair bias against the product I'm reviewing. I know that at some level, it's pretty terrible. But I like to be surprised, which is why I drive do fifty down the red-light district, pull the parking brake and yell at the nearest person I can find.

But Molten Hot Wings Ruffles are worthy of every kind of scorn this series is based upon. Convenience stores aren't known for quality products, but when they proudly display a product at the register, I know I'm in for a whole new world of dumb. But goddamn. These are bad.

I'll be honest though. These things do their job. They taste like shitty KFC hot wings. They're sour and ugly like hot wings. They nauseate me like hot wings. If you're looking for something that tastes like dollar hot wings, these Ruffles got you. I don't know what kind of person you are, but if that's your thing, you deserve less money.  Because these things are terrible. And I don't know that there's really anything anyone can do about it. Other than not buy these.

Score: Canon Printer

Review Everything: Pizza Supreme Doritos

(Review Everything is a series where MyGen hit-mongers with bullshit reviews of things no one cares about. Because none of you love us, we have to do this. So in that case, Brittany Spears Justin Timberlake Jersey Shore Gangbang XXX New ipad Angry Birds. Thank you for your Call of Duty Achievements understanding Are Games art?)

I don't know how Doritos does it, but I never have a fucking clue when they release new product. I just saw their new "Pizza Supreme" flavor at the Subway I buy my Subway at today, and I saw it. The instant, the moment, the minuscule frame in time that I saw the bag, I knew it was going in my mouth. Along with a Subway. And a Minute Maid.

Speaking of which, my review process may have been a little tampered with, since I ate most of my Pizza Doritos while they were on top of my six-inch over-roasted chicken on wheat with shredded cheddar and Southwest Chipotle sauce. I went light, what can I tell you?

But I did eat around half the bag by itself; you can only stack so many Dortios on top of a six inch before you're like, "Damn, I'm going to die alone in a public cemetery without a proper funeral like a bitch if I keep doing this." So I opted to have at least part of a the bag by itself.

I'll tell you this straight: They're pizza Doritos. Which means they're all right. The taste is fairly mild for something that calls itself "supreme". Even the air supremacy is hollow when those pizza Pringles exist. It's a tall task to take down the king of pizza, so when you come at him, you'd best not throw him some mild pizza like this. I was watching The Wire while eating these. And I can tell you without reservation, The Wire is delicious. So is Minute Maid.

Score: Chopped Lettuce

Behind the Scenes: Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 Review

I had a lot of fun writing my Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 Review, though I could've finished it sooner. I started Monday when I had beaten the game on Saturday. I didn't really feel the impetus to post something on Sunday, since few people would likely see it behind the enormous cloud of Super Bowl tweets and Facebook updates. Still, it could've gone live Monday, if I really felt like it.

Now, the other thing. Rearmed 2's reviews have been middling across the board. I like to read reviews by other outlets once I've finished mine to get some other opinions, but I was generally surprised by underwhelmed most of the press was by the game. The level design seemed to be the biggest issue. I had the same issue and pointed it out in my review, but it never so big of a problem that it detracted by how fun the game was to play. Maybe I'm hypnotized by the controls and swinging, but hey, it didn't bother me. The bosses did, though, and that's the biggest knock I can make against the game.

The part of me that's still a budding writer takes the fact that I'm higher than the average as a affront to my expertise. They know more, so they have to be right, right? Maybe I'm too green to notice issues that are clearly there, I ask myself. But I can'd deny that I had a ton of fun with Rearmed 2. The jump makes navigation easier, and the remapped controls work better than in the original.

And maybe that's why I liked Rearmed 2 -- I didn't really love the first Rearmed. I thought it was fun, but didn't see why it had such high praise. But, I guess that's just me. And I'm entitled to my opinion, after all. I just hope it doesn't end up burning potential buyers of the game.

Sick Guilt

I went to school congested and coughing today. My eyelids still feel hot and heavy, and I'm tired as all hell. I woke up thinking I wasn't going to school, but eventually bullied myself into going because I didn't want to miss this assignment, didn't want to skip a lecture. What was I going to do if I stayed home? Play games, watch The Wire and write, which seemed like a good day. If I skipped, I was weak. As you may have guessed, I shouldn't have gone. I fell asleep in one of my classes, and coughed all through the other. I didn't learn anything since I was too busy not dying.

Situations like this are way more common than they should be. My family has a pretty bad history of overpowering rugged individualism. You're not bleeding, so get your ass out of bed and go to school. If they call me from school about you vomiting or something, I'm not going to get you. You're not too sick to watch TV, right? Go mow the lawn. None of these things ever work out well. I know that I shouldn't stick to this rule-set, but I can't help but let the guilt dog me. But I'm trying to do something about this cold so I can properly do work tomorrow. I'll start by keep things post short.

Taking Sides

There was a recent twitter fight between Anna "Auntie Pixelante" Anthropy and Jim Sterling earlier this week. The two exchanged inflammatory comments back and forth, with Anthropy calling Sterling a closet homosexual and Sterling eventually calling her a "feminazi slut". Anthropy (feels weird typing a name like that every time), basically blackmailed Sterling after this, and Sterling fired back saying that he was only offending  and apologized to anyone else who might've been offended.

He also responded by saying that all the harassment Sterling was dealing with ignored his side of the story, where Auntie (that still feels kind of odd) was being a hypocrite by calling him a closet homosexual while taking offense to his insults. That doesn't make him right though. Retaliating in kind to insults certainly rings true for the part in all of us that wants to see people get their just deserts, but it's still incredibly unprofessional. Auntie may have baited him, but whether or not his views represent those of his company's, he has a responsibility to not act like an ass, even when confronted by one.

A loose analogy: If you work at Burger King and the manager finds out you smoke pot, whether it was while you were at work or not, you're out. To a certain extent, companies are not willing to support employees performing illicit acts. Destructoid can decide what they're going to do with Sterling, and it's not my place to say that they should fire him. But c'mon, act your age.

And saying that you were only offending "the type of woman represented by who I was dealing with" is an incredibly ambiguous cop-out, specifically because it's the kind of offense people use to get themselves out of trouble. "I wasn't saying all of them are bad people, just her and her ilk. You know the kind!" No, we don't. We don't know the exactly what kind of person you think she represents. I can only guess what kind of person you think I'm thinking of. Maybe I'm in that circle. Maybe I'm not. It's not an out because if were I woman and I responded with "hey, I'm offended" he can say "Well, I didn't mean you people. I meant those people."

Of course, Auntie's not off scot-free. She did in fact call him a closet homosexual while making his insult a jumping off point for a diatribe on misogyny. Whether or not that's the case is irrelevant; you called him gay, so don't expect him to respect you. Now, the "feminazi slut" is taking things a bit too far, but Auntie clearly established an attitude of escalation early on, so something like that was bound to pop up. You're not employed by a larger entity like Sterling is, but that only means you have a larger responsibility to act professionally, since the buck stops with you.

None of this excuses the comments either side made. People are often prone to take sides, especially in a knee-jerk fashion. The point I'm trying to make is that you don't have arbitrarily fly a flag; as far as I'm concerned, they're both wrong. The conversation quickly devolved into the bickering of children trying to outwit each other by proving they were above insults while responding to them. When both sides act like idiots, it's hard to root for either.

Twitter fight link courtesty of Nathsies's blog post on the subject.

Continuing Adventures in Arcadestickland

I ordered an octagonal gate for my arcade stick. For those of you who don't know, on an arcade stick, you can have multiple kinds of gates, which dictate at how many points the directional stick can stop. What that does is basically let you know what direction the stick is pointing at purely by feel.  The default gate on my stick was square, which meant the only stops were at the diagonals. I replaced it with a diagonal one, which meant that I had the complete compass rose of stops to work with. What that meant was that I could more easily know when my quarter-circle forward  was complete -- a necessary part of being able to play fighting games effectively.

I've written on the topic multiple times, but this has usually been on the side of someone who plays fighting games on a controller. But, having already bought an arcade stick that was gathering dust on the eve of Marvel vs. Capcom 3's arrival, I decided that if I was ever going to get any use out of the thing, I'd have to switch out the gate. I'm used to the octagonal gate because that's how the sticks at the arcade I used to frequent worked. This was about as experience with arcade stick as I was going to get.

I ordered one for about 10 bucks after shipping. While I waited for it, I decided to remove the square gate. I saw an instructional video on how to do and quickly got to work. I had to admit, applying a screwdriver to a machine with a semblance of knowing what I was doing felt great. Not so great was actually removing the gate. In the video I watched, the dude clenched his hand around the tabs that prevented the thing from falling and just squeezed it out. Didn't work for me; I had to file down the edges of the tabs and push down on them with the screwdriver, then swat my hand upwards to lift 'em off. It took about an hour, but I managed to get through it without breaking anything serious. The installation of the octagonal gate was easier, since all I had to do was line up the holes with the tabs, and press down really hard.

I twirled the stick around its fancy eight-way gate, and it instantly felt familiar. I eagerly tried it out with the Super Street Fighter 4, and I noticed a definite improvement over the square gate. Super Combos were a breeze to pull off now, since I knew immediately where to stop. There was still some over-performing of movements, but that was more due to my eagerness than anything. Overall, it felt much better. I understand that some people prefer the square gate, but I don't think I can go back now. My actions feel too easy with the stick now to retrain myself on something I think is inferior. But we'll see how this goes. Maybe I'll actually learn to use an arcade stick effectively this time.

Further Digital

I've thrown out most of my CD cases. I'm flipping games as soon as I finish them. I've bought all of one DVD and two Blu-Rays, instead opting to use Netflix almost exclusively. I don't know where any of those are. I used to be a collector -- bordering on hoarder -- but I've taken the steps necessary to get rid of as much crap as possible from my living space. I don't miss any of it. Netflix is wonderful, games are cheaper with rebates, and online music tends to be way cheaper than its physical counterpart. Generally, I'm happy with my decisions.

The one area where I've yet to take the digital dive is books. Mostly because the idea of carrying around a kindle or iPad with me does not appeal to me in the least. I don't buy too many books a year, to be fair, but I'm a monogamous reader, so I don't suffer from carrying around two or three books. The $200 minimum needed to get into decent digital readers seems too steep when I can keep going about my business, as well as being able to flip books to mitigate the cost of buying.

And more and more, this same idea has made its way into gaming, as well. I'm the biggest proponent of digital games as you're likely to find, but I haven't bought too many full-price PC games digitally. I can't sell them back, like I would any other kind of game, so the fifty up-front charge seems to intimidating for someone who's income is severely limited. When it comes to the cheaper downloadable fare (think Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network), I'm down to pay the fifteen dollars, because the price is small enough for me to swallow. Besides, I can't imagine that resell price on a fifteen dollar game would be too high.

So for now, I'm stuck somewhere between the digital future and retail past. At some point, I'd love to have everything I own on a server somewhere, because I don't fear a electronic collapse of some sort. Discs break too, and by the time something happens that renders all of our electronics useless happens, we'll have bigger worries than where our copy of Diablo 2 is.

Cutting Back

I've recently cut down the number of podcasts I listen to. I won't say what I cut and why because that's really not the point of this post. I'm down to six regularly-updating and four infrequently-updating ones. I a lot of this had to do with the fact that I had started organizing my day by how many podcasts I had to listen to: I didn't want to do certain things because they weren't "podcast-compatible," which is a fairly stupid notion. I need to read more books, and playing BioShock 2 again for the singular reason of "I can do it while listening to podcasts" instead of reading can't be a good thing.

But it's also because I've realized that the number of people who's opinion I care about has steadily dwindled. The trigger that started my podcast genocide was that I was listening to too many podcasts thinking, "I don't care what these people have to say." And when that's the case, I started deleting them. Keep in mind that it isn't because they have different viewpoints; that's actually something I value. But some people I've just found boring, which is why I got rid of them. It's not worth my time, which is something I should've realized a long time ago.

And it's funny, because that follows the same trend that other media has. I only visit 2-3 game websites regularly anymore, and one of them is mainly for news. I think it has to do with "my" generation of game journalists mostly having moved on to do developer work. A lot of the newer faces are unfamiliar, so it's harder for me to get attached. Which might be a bad thing, since I'm looking to be one of those new faces. And since I'm insulating myself within the few sites I do visit, this whole thing leads to a downward spiral where I'm not exposing myself to new points of view.

But with my work at Bitmob, I like to believe I'm getting to know the new faces before they're actually faces. So maybe I am getting my exposure.

I'm Testing.

I have homework, a test, and quiz due tomorrow from the same class. I went to the supermarket for way longer than I ever wanted to. I still have reading to do. So we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Various Notes

A bit of a cop-out post, to be sure, but I couldn't pick a topic to write about -- or one that would merit its own post -- so here are several opinions on several things.

- The Dickwolves thing: The Penny Arcade dudes were right on both counts. Right to joke about whatever it is they want, because they had their forum to do so. And right to pull the shirt from the store so as to not alienate people who might be offended by said material. As it pertains to PAX, which is a business as well as whatever other might make of it, it's the right business move. People have as much a right to be offended as they do to express themselves.

- I can't imagine a bigger non-issue than adding a jump function of Bionic Commando Rearmed 2. Considering that the game can be beat without using it once (and it even rewards you for doing so), people moaning that their perfect game has been broken by something that FatShark saw as something it needed to add to their sequel sounds incredibly myopic to me. Hardcore fans of the original already got their remake. This is a new game, and FatShark has the freedom to do whatever they want with the game they've been entrusted. If the fact that people are enjoying the game more because of a feature that you can avoid entirely gets under your skin, I can't help you.

- I have six JRPG's to play on my PSP, and they all seem incredibly intimidating. I started with the first Disgaea, which may have been a poor choice. Out all of the games I have to play (P3P, Riviera, Knights in the Nightmare, Yggdra Union, Disgaea, and Valkyria Chronicles 2), Disgaea seems like the longest one. I'm going to blow through the main game for the sake of the other games. All of the side stuff you can do to min/max sounds like it could take hours of grinding. I'm hoping to get through these before the NGP comes out. We'll see if that ever happens.

- I really hate driving in the snow.

Get a Job

Working solely from anecdotal evidence, I've come to understand that people who work hate people who don't. Likely, it's a combination of lack of understanding and jealousy that breeds this distaste. When someone asks you if you work and you say "no," several other questions pop up: how are you making money? Who is taking care of you? What are you doing with your life that you feel you don't have to work? Then, when you tell them whatever circumstance you're in, their reply usually adds up to "figures."

I've had two jobs throughout my life, and neither of them were good ones. First, I worked at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo, which everyone except some employees will tell you is a wonderful place to be in. Specifically, I worked at the food stand next to the Sea Lions Exhibit. I'd cook hot dogs -- I was one of three people out of eight that was old enough at the time to cook there -- popcorn, and the like. I don't want to get too whiny about my responsibilities there, but to put it succinctly, there was a lot of walking and a lot of fake-smiling.

In the three months I worked there, I didn't really get the respect I thought I'd get from working there. See, I had several tasks around my house that were given to me purely because I didn't work. I didn't think that after I actually did get a job, I'd still have to do them. A new family member didn't come along and start doing those chores instead, so the responsibility came back around to me. When I quit, it was back to "You don't work, so you have to do this." Which is fair, quite frankly. It's the fact that having a job didn't do much for me that irked me. This happened for the year I worked at Burger King as well.

The other side of this is a monetary one. Because they spent their time doing something they'd rather not be doing to get it, people assume their money is worth more. I get most of my income from scholarships right now. Not a lot, but enough to get me through a semester living in a place where I don't pay rent. But though I did put in the effort to earn the grades, do the paper and legwork, and interview for those scholarships, people see that income as easy money. Which it kind of is. But I still earned it. It doesn't make the fact that you had to clock hours at a place you hate suck any less, but it doesn't make me a slacker. I do quite a bit of work without pay.

But I should still probably get job soon. That way I continue this cycle of condescension.

I Can't Draw

Closest thing I ever did to "art" was a stick figure comic I did in middle school. The jokes were crude and juvenile, and the art -- and my free time -- was such that I could knock one page out every day, usually while in my algebra class. I had a few people who read them regularly, but usually because they sat at my table. Sometimes, they'd remark on a particular panel and say something to the effect of, "For a stick dude, this looks pretty good." I'd smile awkwardly -- I've never been good at responding to praise -- and keep writing. I did this for about four months.

I reached a point where I wanted to draw something that didn't look like ass, but when I started to actually try at drawing, I found that I couldn't do it. Perspective of any kind eludes me entirely; I can draw cartoon profiles and top-down views competently, but I struggle with anything else. When I saw that I had no concept of how to draw, I quickly gave up any interest I had in the subject.

And I regret it quite a bit. I see so many artists that aren't professional post some amazing things online and I wonder how they did it. I wish I could be like them. I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't given up, and maybe tried to actually get better at it. Like most people who consider themselves "creative-types," I think that I've come up with something that deserves to be on paper, but I can't do it. I'm consistently jealous of anyone who can draw, ink, and color their own work. It perpetually astounds me.

I know that my skill lies in writing (if it lies in anything at all), but writing can be such a boring skill. When you're a good artist, it shows. You can show anyone something you've drawn and they can immediately make a basic assessment, because art's appeal is immediate. The best of the best clearly outshine the crap.

People can recognize great writing, sure, but it's much more difficult. For one, if I end up writing for a living, it'll be in English, which means my parents will never be able to fully understand what I do or how I do it. This also means that it's more difficult to point out areas that need and improving. You have to learn certain rules. Those exist in art as well, but a rule comes with a clear-cut visual representation, most of the time, whereas some composition rules can be difficult to sift through.

When I took my Creative Writing class last semester, I kept telling myself that the things they were teaching me didn't apply to me as much because I was a visual storyteller. If I ever actually committed myself to writing a story, it'd be a comic, a movie, or a game. Because that's the way I think. Visually. I could very well get an artist to do the actual art for me, but It wouldn't be the exact way I had it planned. Perfectionist that I am, I'd hate that. I'd hate it even more when their version of my idea was better than mine. Which means I might be stuck with stick figures for a long time.

Dream Diary #1: Sarah Palin

I was going to write a long diatribe about the Tiger Mother, but my entire point was that she was a troll who was exposition her unique position to gain attention. But I understand the sweet irony of that post, so I opted not to do it. Instead, I'll do something much worse.

I had a dream this morning, during that time in dream Limbo where you know you're awake but you somehow still dream. I was at some sort of Republican convention (I never really got a hold of why), and I got closer to Sarah Palin than I'd ever want to be. I had the vague feeling that my family had encouraged me to get close to the stage, and she invited me up. She handed me the weirdest Gatling gun I'd ever seen; think of a huge water pitcher, except with a handle on either side and a longer barrel.

She told me to take a celebratory salvo of shots, for what I don't know. As I started firing, the recoil got out of control (which is expected consider the gun's design), and I shot a little girl in the pews. She immediately fell, causing mayhem and and scattering. I stopped firing as soon as I hit the girl, and Sarah's men pushed me offstage  with her behind me, saying "Don't worry, hun. You'll be fine. We can take care of this."

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell that meant. I feel like an intellectual who reads more into a story than author does. I'm sure if I asked my subconscious about it, they'd say "I don't know. I really don't like her."

Whether that referred to the girl or Sarah Palin I wouldn't know. 

Gruntwork

My brother offered to pay me to write a paper of his. It was about the effect of video game violence on minors. I told him where he could find more information about it, but declined his offer. I told him the journalistic side of me told me it was unethical.

As someone who presents themselves as a would-be writer, I get these requests often. Some people only know me as "that dude can write well," so they'll ask me to write or edit their papers. I've never taken up an offer to writer someone's paper for them, but I have edited a few. The most money I've ever gotten out of this was $30. It feels weird to do something like that when I myself need a huge amount of editing on my work. But usually, the papers I edit would be absolutely obliterated by a proper editor.

The other part of this is that everyone seems to think that writing is the easiest thing in the world to do. They think it's hard for them because they're not good at it, but that for me, words flow and stream out of me at a constant rate. Any writer knows that even when it's fun, writing is work. You have to put effort into what you love, just like any other profession or obsession. Good writing definitely does not come easily. So no, I don't want to write about things that don't matter to me in the long haul. I care about video game violence, but enough to write something that'll go under someone else's name.

Review Everything: Giant Gummy Worm

(Review Everything is a series where MyGen takes any object We can think of and review it. Food, objects, ideas, you name it, We'll review it as long as you pronounced it correctly. Little attention is given to accuracy or legitimacy. This series was painstakingly created over a series of minutes by people who couldn't care less what you think. Send suggestions to nowedonttakesuggestions@mygen.gov)


Full disclosure: We were given this review build as a belated birthday present by people who thought it would be funny to do so.


Hot on the heels of the wildly successful Giant Gummy Bear, whoever thought it would fucking hilarious and ironic to release such a monstrosity bring us their new shit. It follows the same formula you're now familiar with: take a stupid children's snack and making it ridiculously large so that people think it's a good idea to buy one because dude, they fucking love gummy worms can fulfill their nerd-hipster dreams.

But as a snack, this initial fantasia does not hold up. It's the size of two-foot double-sided dildo with more traction and less potential for mistaking it for a melon-baller. Holding this stupid thing in your hand feels like it was ribbed for your pleasure, not hers. It slides awkwardly down the plastic bag it came it as though it wants to hit the floor as fast as possible so that neither the person involved in eating it or the worm itself has to participate anymore. The ribbing's meant to slow down anyone who'd dare try to hide it like a prison shank. To give you time to think about it. And after a few test sessions of clandestinely clubbing various family and friends reveals ample reason to do so.

And should you decide to stick this physical adianoeta in your mouth, you'll realize how stupid you are about two seconds after your teeth do. I don't know if you're aware of this, reader, but gummy is hard as diamond-tipped fuck. There's good reason gummy food is usually so small. You tear into one of these things like you would a stake, except a steak doesn't want you to end up dead. Not to mention the taste has absolutely no back-end. Which is ironic, given its potential uses.

Choke your kids with it, teach your relatives a lesson, show your mate a horrible what-if scenario should they decide not to listen to your other suggestions. Just don't eat it.

Score: Battery/Swordfish (Confused about our review scale? Oh well, we tried.)

Consider It Curbed

Sony's NGP looks like a technical powerhouse. Two micro-analog sticks, a touch screen, a touch pad, and a host of other features put the device in a different realm from the 3DS. Which is nice, because mimicking Nintendo won't do them any favors. If anything, they're caught in a place where they have to imitate Apple in certain respects, fight Nintendo in others, and separate themselves entirely in yet others. Apple's the current trend-setter and Nintendo has its history, its fans, and its dedicated gaming controls to back it up. Sony's the party that has to validate their continued existence, what with being in third place and all.

But I find myself sort of underwhelmed by the current handheld market as a whole. This may be because neither the 3DS nor the NGP currently have any games that I'm eagerly anticipating. There are plenty of iOS games worth playing, but because most of them serve as distractions rather than full experiences, there isn't a huge wind-up to get the blood going. A good iPhone game is a surprise, not an expectation. I'm sure there are iOS games I'm going to love playing this year, but they'll sneak up on me. I don't think there'll be an iOS game that I'll be looking forward to until I play it. Also, I'm beginning to get the feeling that the iOS gaming trend might waver a little once the market becomes increasingly crowded with attempts to create the next Angry Birds than trying to do something new with the system.

This household's already got the 3DS on lock, so I've thankfully been put in charge of buying the NGP instead of adding another 3DS to the stable. But handhelds costing as much as they do -- there's simply no way the NGP will be cheaper than a 3DS -- I'm increasingly skeptical that either new system can justify its price tag, at least initially. Hopefully, my skepticism about pricing and longevity will eventually fall under the weight of great software and consistent hardware. The three-horse race will hopefully let the consumer win at some point. But right now, I'd hate to be the man forced to place their bets on a single horse.

I'm Dead Inside, They Say

"You just can't get into games as much as other people. You have to think about them like a reviewer."

My brother told me this during a discussion we had about Dead Space. I told him that the sequel had only spooked me once in my brief time with it, so he thought that it was less scary, not having played it himself. I then told him that the first Dead Space didn't scare me either, and he gave me an incredulous look. There was no way I could sit through Dead Space without a jump, a yelp, or a quiver. I was acting tough, the told me. Then, when I insisted, he spoke the above line.

I refuted him, obviously. Just because I was a "reviewer" didn't mean that I couldn't immerse myself as much as other people. Dead Space just didn't scare me. Like an employee at a haunted house, I could walk the claustrophobic halls of the USG Ishimura without wondering what would happen next. I knew what was going to happen. I was going to get attacked by a monster that surprised me. And in Dead Space's case, I'd shoot its limbs off mercilessly. I could take any monster thrown at me. When the spooks busted through the vent, I didn't jump. My heart didn't stop. I'm always expecting the critters, so instead of yelling in surprise, I'm acting like the monster was late to its appointment with my gun.

You could chalk it up to Dead Space's player empowerment, but that's not why. I've played my share of actual survival horror games, the ones that are scary in part because of their poor controls, and they don't scare me either. This hallucination I'm experiencing may look like a hideous nurse, but the worst thing it can do is kill me. Which would send me back the save point, wasting the time and progress I'd made since I saved. That doesn't make me fearful -- it makes me groan. The same thing applies to raising the stakes and making the game a rogue-like.

I'm not pulling a macho act, like my brother suggests. This applies to other emotions as well. A game has never made me cry. They've made laugh, but never to point that my gut would begin to hurt. I smirk and think the joke was clever, most of the time. And I can admit to having been afraid of them before. I couldn't be in the same room as Resident Evil when I was a kid, but that's par for the course. I used to not watch horror movies because of the nightmares they produced; now I don't watch them because of the time they'd waste. (Campy stuff's still fine, though.)

And I don't think this has anything to do with my status as a (amateur) critic either. Sure, I do tend to think in analytical terms, but only during downtime, when I'm looking for at nonevents in the environment. I make assessments. But when a "moment" happens, that's what's on my mind. When I like a game, I'm sitting there thinking to myself "This is enjoyable. I am enjoying this." I'm caught up in the moment. If I took the robotic approach my brother insists I'm taking, everything would feel drab and boring.

Maybe this is why games whose goals are to make you "feel" something don't do much for me. I can admire what they're doing, but I can't get caught up in it. In that sense, I guess I am a robot. There's often a forcefulness, a pushy overtone that I feel is trying to manipulate me, and once I go down that train of thought, my suspension of disbelief is gone. Hopefully that doesn't end up hurting my ability to enjoy things down the road, like I'm enjoying Dead Space 2 right now.

My Super Bowl: EVO 2K

Seems typical for someone with an affinity for video games to proclaim that the Evolution Championship Series would be their Super Bowl. That it'd be the thing that'd have me throwing fits and biting nails for a day like the average football fan does every year, but it's true. The same way people rave about that guy who did that thing that upset everybody in sports, I lose it when Lamerboi jumps into a Dragon Punch that he could've easily avoided. I would've loved to use a specific sports analogy to sound less dismissive, but I couldn't think of one. That's the kind of person I am.

I don't hate the people who take sports too seriously. They're annoying, sure. They can't help but ramble their brains off opining to me things I really could care about. They assume everyone they meet immerses themselves in the sports culture -- they're probably right most of the time anyway -- and so have no barrier, don't question or gauge people's interest. The dismiss people with obsessions on the same level as theirs for lacking focus in the right direction. They generalize people with different interests as I much I am right now. I'm letting off a bit of steam, and I apologize.

But at a fundamental level, I can relate to them. I can't get invested in watching teams and people face off in a real ring, but when it's a digital one, and people are throwing fireballs and doing other impossible things, I'm there. I think it's likely because I can more easily identify with a desire to be like the people I'm watching. I don't want to play any sport well or win an actual fight, but I'd like to be able to pull of some of the insane combo's Daigo can pull off while holding the same stoic look. I actually play Street Fighter, so obviously I'd be more inclined to watch people do something I do.

I've watched that match in its entirety three times. The same way people salivate over amazing replays. And I can't wait for next year's final either. So I can understand the insufferable amount of sports talk I'm going to hear until and after the Super Bowl. And I understand why I won't be able to do the same when EVO rolls around. I'll wish I could, though.

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

I feel off the anime bandwagon a years ago. But dismissive as that sounds, that means I used to watch it. I used to love anime. The characters we so cool, the action was intense, and some times, plots could get more intricate and heady than the movies I was watching at the time. Anime has a incredible, over-the-top charm that immediately makes it a divisive form of entertainment (this interest can still be found in me, since I effin' loved No More Heroes). Of course, the rabid and often embarrassing fanbase could be another thing against it gaining any sort of mainstream acceptance.

But, it was inevitable that I'd get to the point where I saw that every anime had several flaws. Unbelievable plot that were dragged out way after their expiration date, cliche-recycling, and undue focus on exposition, and way too much fan service. How many modern animes have a character with a latent ability that's overpowering them? Also, at some point, I couldn't stand the art style. I couldn't sit through a single episode of Code Geass back when that was huge because the art was unbearable. Death Note was the last anime I can remember really getting into.

This is a very circumlocutory way of setting up that Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt was the first anime that's piqued my interest since then. I'm not entirely sure where I first heard about it -- the Anime Vice panel at the bottom of Giant Bomb pages may have been the main culprit --  but for whatever reason, I jumped on it. There's  the obvious element of TNA (which P&G overflows with), but if that was the only reason, then I had many more options to choose from.

I think what attracted me to it was that I assumed that it was anime's take on American animation, as well as a parody of actual anime, a suspicion that, while fairly obvious, turned out to be more accurate than I though it would be. You're given a loose setup (Panty and Stocking are angels who have to kill ghosts in order to get back into heaven), then left to watch a monster-of-the-week framework. After watching the entire first season, I ended up liking it quite a bit, and I can say that without feeling like I'd soon post a video on YouTube compromising any respect I'd earned up to that point.

Everything about P&G is so stupid and crazy that it's hard not to think the show is doing it for effect. It appeals to a very juvenile sense of humor (the first monster they fight is made entirely made of shit), and it makes no appeal to craft any sort of story besides its premise until the very end of the season, which, unfortunately, it's at its worst. Because it doesn't take itself seriously in any real capacity (like so many anime do), the farcical fight scenes are that much easier to swallow, and it makes the show as a whole more enjoyable.

It even manages to deviate adeptly from its insane plot; one episode has a man whose daughter is a fan of Panty and Stocking, being fired from his job and forced to promise his daughter that she'll get to see her idols for her birthday. This episode takes a completely different tone, and it (hopefully) shows that Gainax has more than just fan service and parody planned for the series.

So yeah, I liked Panty & Stocking. Enough to watch it in Japanese with subtitles, something I've never done. I think the fact that it's stupid and it knows it is a huge part of why I can enjoy it without hating myself. And the soundtrack's not bad either.

Electronic Math Blows

I hate working with people. I'm either too focused and what we're supposed to be doing that a lot of my small talk is stilted and awkward, or I'm with people I can actually relate to, in which case nothing gets done. I like working by myself because I can focus on the work I'm doing while still making fun out of it. There are simply things I don't want to do by myself, though (you know when a teacher tells you that you can work in a group or alone? I opt for group work because it's the same assignment either way, and doing it by yourself is usually not the way to do it).

So perhaps, working with a machine might work for me, I thought, as my pre-calculus teacher explained that we'd be doing homework, quizzes, and tests, through a computer that came free with our insanely expensive textbook. It guides you through the problems, has multiple variations of each problem, and there's no waiting to hand in anything, and you're graded automatically. You can't even "fail" a problem, either; a problem is "incomplete" until you get every part of it right. What's not to love?

I don't love its utter lack of usability. Because it's a computer, there's no search-and-destroy problem solving. What I mean by "search-and-destroy" problem solving is that moment when you ask someone where you went wrong on a problem, they look at it for a couple of seconds, and then point to something on your paper and say, "here. You didn't add this number to both sides."

Instead, if you can't figure out what the hell you did wrong, you have to go through the problem step-by-step in a patronizing display of how to do most of something you already know how to do, then revealing, incidentally, what it is you did wrong. Not to mention that it's often something like using mixed numbers instead of improper fractions in the answer field. So much of my experience felt like I was playing a guessing game with formatting, long after I found the answer out.

And when I did legitimately do something wrong, hell if I know why I did it. The correct answer is this. Your answer was this. Figure out why you're an idiot. I may hate working with other people, but at least some things get done faster that way.

Did I mention that book I don't use that came with this stupid software was way too expensive?

Music, Part Deux

Continuing from my last music post, I buckled and picked up the demo for FL Studio 9, a full music suite that comes with a bunch of sweet samples and amps for various instruments. I found it to be the most intuitive music software I've ever used. Most of the free stuff I've downloaded has been right down unusable to someone who's only getting started. FL Studio 9's demo lets you just place notes on a board and go, and I made several loops that I found catchy after messing around with different pitches, velocities, and mixes. I don't know if I've made anything worthy of a full song, but I did find myself listening to stuff I made longer than I probably should've.

But, unfortunately, I could only briefly flirt with the idea of releasing anything. The demo forces you to a very small board, and anything you saved can't be opened until you unlock the full version. Prices for the full version range from $50 for an express version, to $300 for the full pro bundle. Not to mention they advertise these price ranges every time you close the program.

At this point, I think I've found the software I'm most comfortable with. It's all a matter of whether I consider my interest in making music big enough to invest in it. I can't play a single instrument, so a software seems like the easiest -- and cheapest --  way to start. But I can't shake the feeling that without any actual instrumental backing, my songs would sound like a generic collection of claps, drum kicks, and piano loops. If I'm really serious about this, I guess it's time to pony up. I just don' know if I'm serious.