Tonight, Fallout: New Vegas will be released at midnight, and shortly after midnight, I will be back at my apartment playing it until the sky lightens upon the arrival of the sun. This is a scenario that has repeated itself numerous times throughout my teenage and adult life. It's nothing to brag about, it's just a fact: sometimes I play video games really, really late at night. A lot of times it's just Halo, but sometimes it's an RPG that I'm busy pouring my life into, such as Oblivion, Mass Effect or Fallout 3. Many of these nights blend together and become indistinguishable from one another. Tonight, however, will be different.
When I play a game with some semblance of a moral compass, even if it's simply as primitive as "help this guy find something so he'll give you supplies or, if you want, blow his brains out and take them", I'm always the good guy. Well, once, years ago, I played through as a bad guy in the first of the Knights of the Old Republic games. But that was only after I had played through as a good guy, so I don't really count it. I don't know what it is. Surely, wouldn't it be easier just to kill everyone and take whatever I wanted than to help them with their trivial, meaningless tasks like killing rats in their basement or finding their long lost daughter or trekking across an irradiated wasteland killing super mutants? Yeah, I indulge in the occasional homicidal fantasy where I methodically stalk the residents of a virtual town, picking them off one by one with a scoped revolver or an enchanted broadsword, but I never save. Being the good guy is just awesome. All of the characters love you, you get the best weapons and armor, the most experience points and the game hails you as a savior. I say, "no more".
Alas, my career as a virtual paragon is at an end.
No longer, madame elf, will I gather alchemical ingredients for you in the goblin-infested forest in order that you may surrender some wizard's staff or enchanted tome. If I want it, I'll simply hack you up and loot it from your still-warm corpse. And if any of the city's guards take issue with that, they'll meet the same fate.
My apologies, good sir, but now that I've fought my way through this mutant-infested town and claimed all the spoils, I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to escort you to safety. You may either fend for yourself or I'll give you a quick death right where you stand.
Dear Galactic Council, I don't care if your ship is about to be overcome by an ancient, massive cyborg ship that drives you insane merely by being in its vicinity. Maybe you should have listened to me when I told you the damn thing was coming at the beginning of the game. I've got other shit to do, now. Enjoy being space dust.
I could go on, oh, I could go on. I've faced choices like that a million times in my gaming career. But tonight, when New Vegas comes out, I'm done. From what I've heard about the game, it starts with my character being shot in the head twice, buried in the desert and left for dead. Now if that's not an excuse to murder every damn thing I come across in that game, I don't know what is. I don't care if every guard in town spills his wrath upon me. I don't care if I have to wait until I hit the level cap so that even the largest of firearms poses no threat to my armor. I don't care, little girl, where your daddy is. He's probably dead. I probably killed him. I'm done being a nice guy, at least in video games. For this one title, this one playthrough, at least.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Halo: Reach: Not Your Dad's Summer Video Game Blockbuster
The Halo series and I have a long, rich relationship. I won't say I don't like to brag, because I do, but I was playing Halo multiplayer when we were still stringing together original Xbox's with ethernet cables. Yes, much like trading Pokemon over a link cable, this was the gaming equivalent of talking to your friend over a tin can with a string attached to it. I played the original campaign more times than I can count. I still remember where to go during certain parts of the boringly repetitive missions when there are no enemies to kill and you might find yourself wandering aimlessly, I still know how to headshot with a pistol and yes, I still know exactly where to camp with the sniper rifle on "Blood Gulch." The last level of the campaign is still one of my favorite video game finales of all time. The introduction of the Flood halfway through? Truly a game changer. My two best friends, Ryan and Tim, and I used to play this until the wee hours of the morning, mauling each other over with the Warthog jeep.
Halo 2 I don't remember much of. The campaign was a huge cliffhanger, I didn't mind playing as the Arbiter nearly as much as everybody else seemed to, and I quit playing multiplayer after the millionth time some eleven year-old kid questioned my sexual orientation. Halo 3 I do remember a bit of, if not only because of the screenshots and film clips feature that they wisely added. Again, homoerotic epithets forced me out of this game for a while, too, until some new gaming friends of mine drew me back in. So while I'm not an MLG Halo pro (yet), my history with the game is as long and emotionally charged as anyone's. I have to say though, were it not for my newfound enthusiasm for gaming provided to me by my aforementioned gaming buddies, I may have not picked up Reach. I'm glad that I did.
I can say without a doubt that Halo: Reach is the greatest game in the franchise thus far, and I feel confident in this assertion even having not paid sixty dollars for the campaign expansion known as ODST. First of all, the buzz surrounding this game was fantastic. I hadn't attended a midnight gaming release for a while, but let me say that my enthusiasm for midnight releases has finally shifted from movies to video games. My friends and I ate Taco Bell, I got a little bit of a buzz going in the line and we debauched ourselves with junk food while plowing through the campaign on Legendary in a little under six hours.
First of all, the story is fantastic. I'll be the first to admit that the dialogue and plot in the Halo series can be atrocious most of the time. It's like a damn Saturday cartoon. The aliens that you're fighting are cartoonish, the "relationship" between Cortana and the Chief can be laughable and there is no characterization to speak of whatsoever. The "tabula rasa" concept of making a generic, unmemorable character so that the gamer can "imprint" themselves on him or her has been completely played out and is often used as an excuse to cover up lazy writing. The whole "one man army" taking on an empire has kind of been overplayed, as well. And while Reach comes from the same universe, there are many things that set it apart, leading to a mature, rich and at times I daresay even subtle story.
There are things in this game that you've never seen in the Halo universe before. Now, were I to compare the plot subtleties of the Halo games with some in-universe references, and I will because I'm feeling metaphorical, I would liken the early games' plot subtlety to an Covenant Elite ramming an energy sword through a soldier's chest. This game, however, is more akin to five DMR shots to the head. It may look simple to the outsider, but there's more skill and finesse than you think.
In Reach, you come to realize that the Spartan program is a little more bit complex and tragic than simply creating an army of super-soldiers to fight the Covenant. The Spartans were actually created to put down insurrections - of other human factions. Much like the Jedi, the Spartan candidates were stolen away from their families at an early age to begin the indoctrination process. Unlike the humane Jedi training, however, Spartans were subjected to rigorous and painful training and genetic tests and modifications that lead to a number of them dying. Noble Team of Reach isn't simply a squadron of Master Chiefs - they're all well-defined characters with backstories, strengths and flaws.
One scene in particular has captured my interest. Early on in the game you run into the director of the Spartan program, Dr. Catherine Halsey. The relationship between this character and Noble Team showcases some spectacular writing. Tough guy/Rambo team member Jorge sees her as a mother figure - the only time you see a soft side to him in the entire game. She treats him with a sort of motherly affection, though this is debatable. The other Spartans she looks at not as humans, but simply tools of war. They're painfully aware of this, and they don't like it - the line where Carter counterattacks her by threatening a court martial is full of tension. While these aren't exactly the deepest characters in the history of gaming, they're far more complex and interesting than Master Chief. All of their deaths (that shouldn't be a spoiler if you're a Halo fan) are touching and packed full of emotion. The entire campaign has a tragic tinge to it, as you already know that the planet you are trying to defend will inevitably fall. But that's enough of the story for now.
The multiplayer is, again, near perfect. The possibilities for customization, from playlists and gametypes to maps and armor seems limitless. There are weekly and daily challenges and of course the ever-useful theater to take screenshots and record clips of kills no one would ever believe you pulled off unless they saw your films. I wish there were more maps and less teabagging, but everything is still worth hours of fun. Armor abilities are a new, great addition as well. There's nothing like completely destroying a kid who doesn't know how to use armor lock, or jet packing around a level sniping people like you're Boba Fett. All in all, Halo exceeded expectations.
Grade: A-
Halo 2 I don't remember much of. The campaign was a huge cliffhanger, I didn't mind playing as the Arbiter nearly as much as everybody else seemed to, and I quit playing multiplayer after the millionth time some eleven year-old kid questioned my sexual orientation. Halo 3 I do remember a bit of, if not only because of the screenshots and film clips feature that they wisely added. Again, homoerotic epithets forced me out of this game for a while, too, until some new gaming friends of mine drew me back in. So while I'm not an MLG Halo pro (yet), my history with the game is as long and emotionally charged as anyone's. I have to say though, were it not for my newfound enthusiasm for gaming provided to me by my aforementioned gaming buddies, I may have not picked up Reach. I'm glad that I did.
I can say without a doubt that Halo: Reach is the greatest game in the franchise thus far, and I feel confident in this assertion even having not paid sixty dollars for the campaign expansion known as ODST. First of all, the buzz surrounding this game was fantastic. I hadn't attended a midnight gaming release for a while, but let me say that my enthusiasm for midnight releases has finally shifted from movies to video games. My friends and I ate Taco Bell, I got a little bit of a buzz going in the line and we debauched ourselves with junk food while plowing through the campaign on Legendary in a little under six hours.
First of all, the story is fantastic. I'll be the first to admit that the dialogue and plot in the Halo series can be atrocious most of the time. It's like a damn Saturday cartoon. The aliens that you're fighting are cartoonish, the "relationship" between Cortana and the Chief can be laughable and there is no characterization to speak of whatsoever. The "tabula rasa" concept of making a generic, unmemorable character so that the gamer can "imprint" themselves on him or her has been completely played out and is often used as an excuse to cover up lazy writing. The whole "one man army" taking on an empire has kind of been overplayed, as well. And while Reach comes from the same universe, there are many things that set it apart, leading to a mature, rich and at times I daresay even subtle story.
There are things in this game that you've never seen in the Halo universe before. Now, were I to compare the plot subtleties of the Halo games with some in-universe references, and I will because I'm feeling metaphorical, I would liken the early games' plot subtlety to an Covenant Elite ramming an energy sword through a soldier's chest. This game, however, is more akin to five DMR shots to the head. It may look simple to the outsider, but there's more skill and finesse than you think.
In Reach, you come to realize that the Spartan program is a little more bit complex and tragic than simply creating an army of super-soldiers to fight the Covenant. The Spartans were actually created to put down insurrections - of other human factions. Much like the Jedi, the Spartan candidates were stolen away from their families at an early age to begin the indoctrination process. Unlike the humane Jedi training, however, Spartans were subjected to rigorous and painful training and genetic tests and modifications that lead to a number of them dying. Noble Team of Reach isn't simply a squadron of Master Chiefs - they're all well-defined characters with backstories, strengths and flaws.
One scene in particular has captured my interest. Early on in the game you run into the director of the Spartan program, Dr. Catherine Halsey. The relationship between this character and Noble Team showcases some spectacular writing. Tough guy/Rambo team member Jorge sees her as a mother figure - the only time you see a soft side to him in the entire game. She treats him with a sort of motherly affection, though this is debatable. The other Spartans she looks at not as humans, but simply tools of war. They're painfully aware of this, and they don't like it - the line where Carter counterattacks her by threatening a court martial is full of tension. While these aren't exactly the deepest characters in the history of gaming, they're far more complex and interesting than Master Chief. All of their deaths (that shouldn't be a spoiler if you're a Halo fan) are touching and packed full of emotion. The entire campaign has a tragic tinge to it, as you already know that the planet you are trying to defend will inevitably fall. But that's enough of the story for now.
The multiplayer is, again, near perfect. The possibilities for customization, from playlists and gametypes to maps and armor seems limitless. There are weekly and daily challenges and of course the ever-useful theater to take screenshots and record clips of kills no one would ever believe you pulled off unless they saw your films. I wish there were more maps and less teabagging, but everything is still worth hours of fun. Armor abilities are a new, great addition as well. There's nothing like completely destroying a kid who doesn't know how to use armor lock, or jet packing around a level sniping people like you're Boba Fett. All in all, Halo exceeded expectations.
Grade: A-
Alan Wake Scared the Hell Out of Me
Ladies and Gentlemen, here, I guess, is my first full video game review. Fittingly enough for my compulsive organizational habits, the game I'm reviewing begins with an 'A'. No, it's not Avatar: the Last Airbender. It's Remedy's Alan Wake. Apparently, this game was a long time coming. Originally announced at E3 in 2005 for the PC, the early story of Alan Wake has been a slew of screenshots, trailers and hullabaloo for the last five years. Hell, the game didn't even come out for the platform it was originally announced for. However, being that I somehow managed not to read or remember reading anything about this game, I was able to come into it without being overburdened by expectations. I do know what that's like though - when the Xbox 360 came out, I didn't have any games for it for a few months, as Oblivion had been mind-shatteringly pushed back. Expectations can get pretty high.
At any rate, on to the game itself. I had no idea what this game was about when I decided that I wanted it. I had simply heard really good things, among them that the studio had had five years to get this thing right. Then I heard what it was actually about. Though I was initially confused, a state with has persisted even now that I've finished the game, I was even more excited to play this game. Alan Wake centers around a guy, named, well, Alan Wake. He's a best-selling writer of thriller novels, though writer's block has prevented him from writing anything in some time. Cue vacation with the attractive blonde wife. They go out and stay in a cabin on a lake in a mysterious Northwest U.S. town secluded in the woods and then, bam, his wife falls out of the cabin into the lake. He jumps in to save her and wakes up a week later in his wrecked car.
Now, for any other thriller game, this would be enough to go on. The game would consist of finding out where you were that past week while searching for your wife. But this isn't just any old thriller/action game. As soon as you step out of the car, you see a piece of paper on the ground. What's on the paper, you say? It's a manuscript that you don't remember writing. And it's describing what's happening to you. I'm betting you can see where the story goes from there. Well, you're wrong. It doesn't end there. There's bad guys after you, of course. But not just any normal enemies. They're infected with some form of shadowy darkness, and the only way to weaken them enough to kill them is to hit them with some light, be it from your flashlight, flare gun or even by hiding under a streetlight. Now you know the game.
The story itself is great, though it does have its flaws. The idea that you're a bestselling author of thriller novels trying to track down your wife in a real-life thriller (quickly turning horror) story that you wrote but don't remember writing is pretty amusing. The dialogue and narration really dwells into the nature of paranoia and helplessless common in this type of story and also the struggles of the creative mind - and how's there's often a darkness that comes with it (though it's not as literal as it is in this game). But the story isn't perfect. There's a lot of literary references to great authors that I'm sure the game designers would love to be compared to, but it ends up coming off as high-school-pretentious. The narration can be kind of ridiculous because it's so omnipresent. I think I can handle working my way up those stairs without your help, Alan. Originally I wanted to harp on the B-Movie style dialogue and narration, but then I realized that this may have been more or less intentional. It may be that the game is simply emulating the style of the thriller novels that it's bringing to life.
I found the game play to be simultaneously innovative and infuriating. I like the idea of weakening the enemies with flashlights/flares/spotlights before they can be killed. It's an interesting way to differentiate the game from just being a plain old shooter, and the idea of destroying darkness with light is also thematically resonant. This dynamic also has some other amusing consequences. Items that, in other games, might be considered non-lethal become the heavy hitters of Alan Wake. Flares can hold enemies at bay indefinitely, flash-bangs become frag grenades and the flare gun becomes a rocket launcher. There's a lot that I didn't like about the game play, though. I understand that you're a writer and not an action hero packing a full arsenal and military training. I even like the idea - it worked in Silent Hill. But only being able to sprint for about ten yards before you start to wheeze? Come on. If a bunch of axe-wielding supernatural psychopaths are chasing me through the woods and the streetlight that can save my life is only twenty feet away, you can damn well bet that my adrenaline and self-preservation are going to get me there. I mean, how out of shape is this guy?
On that note, why did this game include a jump mechanic at all? Climbing, maybe, but jumping? The jumping in this game is so flawed that it's atrocious. I hit the jump button and ten minutes later Alan flails himself about the level, possibly off of a cliff. Jumping wasn't necessary and if it couldn't have been implemented correctly it should have been left out altogether. Also, what's the point of having me kick old planks of wood to make myself a ramp? It's not fun to watch, it takes no skill greater than pressing the B button and I'd just as soon not have to do it at all. The level design also gets to be a bit repetitive. The typical level finds Alan trekking through some dark woods trying to get back to his car because he fell off a cliff, of trying to get through town or some industrial yard trying to turn on some generator. It's all well and good but it was getting kind of boring by the end. I mean, it's the Pacific northwest. Has the entire small town been infected by darkness except for me and two other people? I'm practically a mass murderer! Get some new enemy design.
All in all, though, I highly recommend this game if not simply for the atmosphere that it creates. You feel that as though at any moment in the game, you can be attacked out of nowhere. Even if you're in a cut scene, even if it's daylight out. And when you're walking through the woods, which you will do plenty of, and the dark mist rolls in and turns itself into a hurricane of horror, your heart will be pounding, especially if you're playing by yourself after dark with the lights turned out.
Grade: B+
The story itself is great, though it does have its flaws. The idea that you're a bestselling author of thriller novels trying to track down your wife in a real-life thriller (quickly turning horror) story that you wrote but don't remember writing is pretty amusing. The dialogue and narration really dwells into the nature of paranoia and helplessless common in this type of story and also the struggles of the creative mind - and how's there's often a darkness that comes with it (though it's not as literal as it is in this game). But the story isn't perfect. There's a lot of literary references to great authors that I'm sure the game designers would love to be compared to, but it ends up coming off as high-school-pretentious. The narration can be kind of ridiculous because it's so omnipresent. I think I can handle working my way up those stairs without your help, Alan. Originally I wanted to harp on the B-Movie style dialogue and narration, but then I realized that this may have been more or less intentional. It may be that the game is simply emulating the style of the thriller novels that it's bringing to life.
I found the game play to be simultaneously innovative and infuriating. I like the idea of weakening the enemies with flashlights/flares/spotlights before they can be killed. It's an interesting way to differentiate the game from just being a plain old shooter, and the idea of destroying darkness with light is also thematically resonant. This dynamic also has some other amusing consequences. Items that, in other games, might be considered non-lethal become the heavy hitters of Alan Wake. Flares can hold enemies at bay indefinitely, flash-bangs become frag grenades and the flare gun becomes a rocket launcher. There's a lot that I didn't like about the game play, though. I understand that you're a writer and not an action hero packing a full arsenal and military training. I even like the idea - it worked in Silent Hill. But only being able to sprint for about ten yards before you start to wheeze? Come on. If a bunch of axe-wielding supernatural psychopaths are chasing me through the woods and the streetlight that can save my life is only twenty feet away, you can damn well bet that my adrenaline and self-preservation are going to get me there. I mean, how out of shape is this guy?
On that note, why did this game include a jump mechanic at all? Climbing, maybe, but jumping? The jumping in this game is so flawed that it's atrocious. I hit the jump button and ten minutes later Alan flails himself about the level, possibly off of a cliff. Jumping wasn't necessary and if it couldn't have been implemented correctly it should have been left out altogether. Also, what's the point of having me kick old planks of wood to make myself a ramp? It's not fun to watch, it takes no skill greater than pressing the B button and I'd just as soon not have to do it at all. The level design also gets to be a bit repetitive. The typical level finds Alan trekking through some dark woods trying to get back to his car because he fell off a cliff, of trying to get through town or some industrial yard trying to turn on some generator. It's all well and good but it was getting kind of boring by the end. I mean, it's the Pacific northwest. Has the entire small town been infected by darkness except for me and two other people? I'm practically a mass murderer! Get some new enemy design.
All in all, though, I highly recommend this game if not simply for the atmosphere that it creates. You feel that as though at any moment in the game, you can be attacked out of nowhere. Even if you're in a cut scene, even if it's daylight out. And when you're walking through the woods, which you will do plenty of, and the dark mist rolls in and turns itself into a hurricane of horror, your heart will be pounding, especially if you're playing by yourself after dark with the lights turned out.
Grade: B+
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
On Virtual Identities
Writing critically about video games is something that piques my interest lately more than anything. I feel like with the proliferation of online gaming, among other things, video games have entered a golden age. There are plenty of topics to write about - and some of them don't even have anything to do with actual video game titles. Take avatars, for example. Your virtual avatar on your Xbox or PS3 is on it's way to becoming as robust as the real you - in some senses. Now I don't own a PS3, financial reasons notwithstanding. I barely have time to play my Xbox games as it is, and adding to a pile on another console entirely would just be asking for trouble. Consequently, this post will focus on the Xbox 360.
With the new dashboard update last year, Xbox user's gaming identities got a lot more complex. You now had an avatar similar to the Nintendo Wii's Mii, only slightly less childish. You can alter the avatar's appearance to reflect yours and even dress it up to look like you. At one point, my avatar wore dark jeans and a plain black hooded sweatshirt with Converse-like sneakers and a Cleveland Indians baseball cap - basically my everyday outfit. Or, you can go in another direction - one with some more implications on the future of these avatars. You can fashion an avatar that's completely different from the person you are in real life. I started to go a little bit in this direction - my avatar has a wicked scar cutting across his face a la Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith. Sure, I don't have a scar like that, but the teenager in me thought it kicked ass. My other friends have purchased or unlocked items by playing their favorite games. One has a sinister looking trench coat while the other looks like a soldier from Gears of War. Currently, my avatar is wearing some pretty sweet looking (if I say so myself) Mandalorian armor a la Boba Fett, and has the Monitor from the Halo series flying around him.
But what does this all mean? It's all rather elementary, still, right? In some ways, yes. I'm aware of a few games that actually use your avatar, but none on a level that's more than aesthetic. But the real purpose of these avatars mirrors the purpose of video games and fiction in general - they give you an escape, a means to exist in a reality other than your own. I can create an identity that can be exactly like me or nothing like me at all. And for people who don't game with friends they know in real life, but rather with people they've met online, this avatar comes to represent how other people view this person. It's all still rather simple, but I see it as something that's going to become more robust as time goes on. But these avatars also serve another purpose - bragging rights. Some avatar awards are unlocked by playing games. How did you get that shirt with the bloody hand? You did it by killing 10,000 zombies in Left 4 Dead 2. How did you get that sweet Halo Reach shirt? You played in the multiplayer beta! You can get some serious e-reputation boosts by the way you dress your avatar.
The idea of online bragging rights brings me to my next topic dealing with online avatars: the achievement system (or on PS3, the trophy system). These track your gaming accomplishments. Now, since these haven't developed into anything more complex, such as giving you Microsoft Points as you rack up Gamer-score points, they exist almost solely as boasting mechanisms. Did you beat Halo 3 on the legendary difficulty? Mass Effect 1 and 2 on insanity? Do you have all of the achievements for Bethesda's Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion? That must have taken some serious skill/time investment. You're level 100 on Gears of War 2 multiplayer? That's impressive. Now, while achievements in some games are ridiculous, like turning on the game or completing the training session at the beginning of the game, some of them, the aforementioned among them, are some pretty serious gaming accomplishments. Gone are the days where you brag to your friends about beating Mortal Kombat only to have them scoff at the notion that you could have possibly done such a thing. Everyone knows that I beat Mass Effect on insanity because they can look at my gamer profile and see that it is so.
Now, you could (and a lot of people I'm sure do) say that e-bragging rights are completely absurd. And I agree, to a certain extent they are. But I like to think of them not just as a way to boast, but as kind of an electronic journal of my avatar's gaming accomplishments. It's the same reason why I've saved every ticket from every movie I've been to since Jurassic Park III. I like to look at those things and remember those times in my life and the people I was with - the memories I've had. I can look at that list of achievements and remember the good times I had playing those games. I'll remember that quarter at Ohio State where I sat in my dorm room for three months and sunk 110 hours into Oblivion. I'll remember sitting up late at night in my first apartment beating the absolute hell out of Fallout 3. That's because, to me, at least, those memories are just as real and full of emotion as any I've made in real life - but that's another entry for another time.
All in all, I like the direction that online avatars are going. With Facebook and Twitter applications going up on Xbox Live, who knows how these virtual identities are going to interact with the real world. My guess is simply that we're just entering a golden age of gaming and that things are only going to get more complex. Until then, if a gamer by the tag of "melted plasteel" happens to come out of nowhere and snipe your head off in some multiplayer match, better luck next time.
With the new dashboard update last year, Xbox user's gaming identities got a lot more complex. You now had an avatar similar to the Nintendo Wii's Mii, only slightly less childish. You can alter the avatar's appearance to reflect yours and even dress it up to look like you. At one point, my avatar wore dark jeans and a plain black hooded sweatshirt with Converse-like sneakers and a Cleveland Indians baseball cap - basically my everyday outfit. Or, you can go in another direction - one with some more implications on the future of these avatars. You can fashion an avatar that's completely different from the person you are in real life. I started to go a little bit in this direction - my avatar has a wicked scar cutting across his face a la Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith. Sure, I don't have a scar like that, but the teenager in me thought it kicked ass. My other friends have purchased or unlocked items by playing their favorite games. One has a sinister looking trench coat while the other looks like a soldier from Gears of War. Currently, my avatar is wearing some pretty sweet looking (if I say so myself) Mandalorian armor a la Boba Fett, and has the Monitor from the Halo series flying around him.
But what does this all mean? It's all rather elementary, still, right? In some ways, yes. I'm aware of a few games that actually use your avatar, but none on a level that's more than aesthetic. But the real purpose of these avatars mirrors the purpose of video games and fiction in general - they give you an escape, a means to exist in a reality other than your own. I can create an identity that can be exactly like me or nothing like me at all. And for people who don't game with friends they know in real life, but rather with people they've met online, this avatar comes to represent how other people view this person. It's all still rather simple, but I see it as something that's going to become more robust as time goes on. But these avatars also serve another purpose - bragging rights. Some avatar awards are unlocked by playing games. How did you get that shirt with the bloody hand? You did it by killing 10,000 zombies in Left 4 Dead 2. How did you get that sweet Halo Reach shirt? You played in the multiplayer beta! You can get some serious e-reputation boosts by the way you dress your avatar.
The idea of online bragging rights brings me to my next topic dealing with online avatars: the achievement system (or on PS3, the trophy system). These track your gaming accomplishments. Now, since these haven't developed into anything more complex, such as giving you Microsoft Points as you rack up Gamer-score points, they exist almost solely as boasting mechanisms. Did you beat Halo 3 on the legendary difficulty? Mass Effect 1 and 2 on insanity? Do you have all of the achievements for Bethesda's Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion? That must have taken some serious skill/time investment. You're level 100 on Gears of War 2 multiplayer? That's impressive. Now, while achievements in some games are ridiculous, like turning on the game or completing the training session at the beginning of the game, some of them, the aforementioned among them, are some pretty serious gaming accomplishments. Gone are the days where you brag to your friends about beating Mortal Kombat only to have them scoff at the notion that you could have possibly done such a thing. Everyone knows that I beat Mass Effect on insanity because they can look at my gamer profile and see that it is so.
Now, you could (and a lot of people I'm sure do) say that e-bragging rights are completely absurd. And I agree, to a certain extent they are. But I like to think of them not just as a way to boast, but as kind of an electronic journal of my avatar's gaming accomplishments. It's the same reason why I've saved every ticket from every movie I've been to since Jurassic Park III. I like to look at those things and remember those times in my life and the people I was with - the memories I've had. I can look at that list of achievements and remember the good times I had playing those games. I'll remember that quarter at Ohio State where I sat in my dorm room for three months and sunk 110 hours into Oblivion. I'll remember sitting up late at night in my first apartment beating the absolute hell out of Fallout 3. That's because, to me, at least, those memories are just as real and full of emotion as any I've made in real life - but that's another entry for another time.
All in all, I like the direction that online avatars are going. With Facebook and Twitter applications going up on Xbox Live, who knows how these virtual identities are going to interact with the real world. My guess is simply that we're just entering a golden age of gaming and that things are only going to get more complex. Until then, if a gamer by the tag of "melted plasteel" happens to come out of nowhere and snipe your head off in some multiplayer match, better luck next time.
Michael Crichton: Final Thoughts
Now, just because the title of this entry is "Final Thoughts" doesn't mean that I don't intend to read any more Michael Crichton. Though I don't really have too much of an interest in his non-science fiction novels, I do intend to read The Andromeda Strain, Sphere, and probably Congo again. I read Congo when I was ten, and all I remember about it is gorillas doing sign language and that there was an atrocious film adaptation. The truth of the matter is that I've got way too much on my plate to spend so much time on one author. I've got stacks of video games, novels and I'm forcing my girlfriend through LOST right now, though after a few discs there's actually not much forcing to be done. After five novels, though, it's time to move on from Crichton for a while, at least.
That being said, I see it necessary to do a quick wrap-up to conclude my thoughts about those works of Crichton that I've recently engaged myself with. There's a lot to respect about the man's work. His novels have sold millions, a lot of them have been adapted into successful films (Jurassic Park being one of the first movies to really capture my young imagination) and he's even dabbled in television with ER. He made science fiction presentable to the general public. He didn't have outrageous character names or shallow worlds to dive into and he didn't fall back onto too many cliches. What I like most about his work is his idea to take a simple idea and spin it into an exciting, intelligent read. Dinosaurs brought back to life? Time travel? Sure, he can write a novel about that - and it won't be outrageous. Finding ways to plausibly work in some decidedly sci-fi ideas is something I hope to put into practice myself - Timeline is his best example of this. I love the way he blends fiction with reality, especially by providing "in-universe" reports and articles, my favorite example being the entirety of Eaters of the Dead.
On the other hand, there is the matter of his politics. Not simply his stance on politics or that he has views at all, but how heavily they're shoehorned into his work and repeated to the view ad nauseum. It may be something that less astute readers might not pick up on, but his writing is definitely didactic. But his fast-paced action sequences often remind you the real reason why you're reading his books - for entertainment, not education - though I suppose a little real world implications aren't a bad thing. I was saddened to hear about his death, and haven't really been able to find any details about it. He did have one post-mortem release, with apparently another to follow in the near future. Counting Vonnegut, that's two authors whose deaths I've experienced and been saddened by - because they both inspired me to keep reading and writing. for that I'm thankful.
That being said, I see it necessary to do a quick wrap-up to conclude my thoughts about those works of Crichton that I've recently engaged myself with. There's a lot to respect about the man's work. His novels have sold millions, a lot of them have been adapted into successful films (Jurassic Park being one of the first movies to really capture my young imagination) and he's even dabbled in television with ER. He made science fiction presentable to the general public. He didn't have outrageous character names or shallow worlds to dive into and he didn't fall back onto too many cliches. What I like most about his work is his idea to take a simple idea and spin it into an exciting, intelligent read. Dinosaurs brought back to life? Time travel? Sure, he can write a novel about that - and it won't be outrageous. Finding ways to plausibly work in some decidedly sci-fi ideas is something I hope to put into practice myself - Timeline is his best example of this. I love the way he blends fiction with reality, especially by providing "in-universe" reports and articles, my favorite example being the entirety of Eaters of the Dead.
On the other hand, there is the matter of his politics. Not simply his stance on politics or that he has views at all, but how heavily they're shoehorned into his work and repeated to the view ad nauseum. It may be something that less astute readers might not pick up on, but his writing is definitely didactic. But his fast-paced action sequences often remind you the real reason why you're reading his books - for entertainment, not education - though I suppose a little real world implications aren't a bad thing. I was saddened to hear about his death, and haven't really been able to find any details about it. He did have one post-mortem release, with apparently another to follow in the near future. Counting Vonnegut, that's two authors whose deaths I've experienced and been saddened by - because they both inspired me to keep reading and writing. for that I'm thankful.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Next by Michael Crichton
Next is Michael Crichton at his fastest pace yet, but it's also him at his most paranoid. Crichton's always been a man with a message - specifically messages that aren't too difficult to discern. Stop unregulated genetic engineering, stop animal testing, stop being ignorant about history, stop time traveling - the list goes on. Next is also Crichton at his most opinionated. Not only is the writing in the novel decidedly didactic, but he even goes so far as to include a list of talking points at the end of the novel, which he discovered at the conclusion of his research. Now, I'm not opposed to fiction with a point or political purpose. Who would be? I think it's great to see fiction do something other than give us something to pass time with. But the key to that, as it is with everything in life, is moderation and subtlety. Those are two things that Crichton often lacks. It's not that his causes aren't worthy of being championed (although, apparently I need to read State of Fear), but he's just so damn ham-fisted about it all the time. I think he tends to forget that people sometimes run across his novels in the periodical section of Giant Eagle.
All that aside, Next was certainly an exciting read. There are about two and a half million subplots going on, but none of them get confusing and all of them end up coincidentally intersecting with one another. How modern, right? The most interesting thing about this novel is the possibilities that Crichton imagines for the future of genetic engineering - sentient parrots, chimp/human hybrids, advanced gene therapy replacement sprays - and of course, there's also the disturbing element that is common with all of Crichton's science fiction - he makes it all seem possible and some of it actually is. I guess I don't really have much more to say about the actual reading experience of the novel. That's probably because I finished it a week ago. But hopefully I'll have more to say when I do my Crichton wrap-up later this week.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Timeline by Michael Crichton
I realized I have a tendency to set unrealistic expectations for myself when it comes to my writing, and this blog is no exception. I read over my past entries and I feel like I don't express my full thoughts about whatever piece I've just worked my way through. I think the solution is that I need to push myself to go deeper than just a "oh hey how fun was this book" kind of review but not get down on myself when it doesn't read like some of the analyses I wrote for my film or English classes. I guess I'm still just refining my style of writing for this blog.
That being said, I just finished reading Michael Crichton's Timeline, and I can assuredly say that the man had his own distinct style. I've read six books by him in my lifetime (some of them recently for the second time) and he by no means has created a full-fledged sub-genre, but you definitely know what to expect when you're reading one of his books, but I'll save this discussion for a later date. Timeline is of particular interest to me for two reasons. The first of those is that Crichton's works have always been a part of my life, being that they're the first adult pieces of fiction I ever read. Though this is my first time through Timeline, I do have fond memories of going to see the film adaptation in high school with my two best friends one day after high school.
The other reason is that I'm intrigued by the notion of working time travel into a piece of fiction in a way that isn't completely riddled with plot discrepancies the size of a super-massive black hole. I think the idea of being able to interact with or change another period of time is something that has always piqued humanity's interest, even before we had the words to describe it. That's why time travel is such a popular trope sometimes in science fiction. To me, there's really only two ways that you can go about it. One is the less is more approach, in which you would try to explain as little as possible about your time traveling methods while still making them seem plausible. This leaves more to the imagination and less holes in the plot. The other method should be quite obvious - this is where the writer tries to make time travel seem actually believable by providing a lot of scientific terms and explanations.
Crichton's Timeline falls somewhere in the middle, for better or worse. He provides a lot of seemingly plausible real-world explanations for why time travel would be possible. It's actually done in a way that is pretty innovative as far as science fiction time travel goes. Early time travel stories such as H.G. Wells' popular novel simply utilized machines or vehicles that could take a time traveler forward and backward through time, because the authors visualized time as a linear progression (because that's how humans experience it). As the concept of the vehicle/machine became less believable and, well, scientific knowledge itself advanced, so did methods of envisioning time travel in fiction. Concepts like the wormhole came into play. The wormhole still utilized the linear time world-view, but this time it also made use of a (theoretically) existent physical anomaly.
Timeline tries to fuse the two methods. There are still wormholes, there are still fantastic machines capable of transporting objects and organisms across time and space. But this time, Crichton makes interesting use of quantum mechanics and the multi-verse theory. He acknowledges that time might not (and probably isn't) a linear progression of events and that causes and effects might not necessarily be related in the simple way that we think that they are. In his novel, time travelers don't necessarily travel back in time. They are actually traveling to a different universe, one of an infinite possible number of universes. The machines are apparently capable of controlling when and where (in terms of universes) that the travelers will end up. I think that this method is a step in the right direction for plausible time travel, and I hope to be able to implement it in my own science fiction writing.
But it isn't without it's problems. Timeline draws much of its narrative tension and excitement from the fact that the characters only have a limited window in which they will be able to get back home from their medieval universe. However, when you establish that time travel is possible and it takes its shape in the form of a machine capable of traveling at will, you run into a problem. This problem is that there's seemingly nothing stopping the characters from traveling back to the time before the events of the novel and avoiding the entire fiasco. If one of the characters is stuck back in time and you have a machine capable of dropping you in that exact universe at any time that you desire, why not just go back in time to five minutes after he got out of the machine and rescue him? If your other friend gets stuck while you're making your escape at the end of the novel, why not just go back in time right after you leave and pick him up? I guess the answer to this is that if you did that, it wouldn't be a very exciting novel, or really a novel at all. But if, as an author, you're going to go to the trouble of constructing a rather plausible model for time traveling, why not go the distance and enforce your own rules or at least attempt to explain the inevitable holes in the plot that occur when time travel is involved? While this wasn't necessarily a deal-breaker for me, I felt like this aspect of the novel could have been much better.
Another aspect of the novel other than the time travel that I found interesting was Crichton's attitude towards history. Timeline contains the typical Crichton diatribes against academic and corporate attitudes, this time directed towards academic discussions of theory. Crichton seems to think that it's, for lack of a better phrase, all complete bullshit, and that discussions of theory will only get you so far, because, well, you have to actually apply your theories to the real world. He discusses these things in the context of academic and civilian attitudes towards history. He notes that we all have our own preconceived notions of how the world was in the past (for example, that because we're so advanced now, the past must have been awfully primitive) but he believes that we actually don't know anything about the past. To conjecture otherwise is a grave mistake. I like this approach to portraying a historical world. Respect the past and hope to learn from it, don't talk about it condescendingly.
I realize that I've focused quite heavily on just one or two aspects of the novel. However, this is simply because I don't really feel the need to elaborate on any other aspect. It was pretty run-of-the-mill, other than that. The characters kind of ran together and sometimes their motivations were suspect. Why would Andre choose to stay back in 14th century France with the obviously treacherous Lady Claire? Maybe I just read through it too quickly but it seemed like she was slightly contradictory as a character. At any rate, beside the time travel and historical discussions, Timeline is a moderately exciting novel. The characters are sympathetic and the action is exciting enough, though the prose does have a tendency to get repetitive when the characters are constantly fighting their way from point A to point B with little context provided as to why. All in all, I found it to be a good read and an inspiration for my own writing.
That being said, I just finished reading Michael Crichton's Timeline, and I can assuredly say that the man had his own distinct style. I've read six books by him in my lifetime (some of them recently for the second time) and he by no means has created a full-fledged sub-genre, but you definitely know what to expect when you're reading one of his books, but I'll save this discussion for a later date. Timeline is of particular interest to me for two reasons. The first of those is that Crichton's works have always been a part of my life, being that they're the first adult pieces of fiction I ever read. Though this is my first time through Timeline, I do have fond memories of going to see the film adaptation in high school with my two best friends one day after high school.
The other reason is that I'm intrigued by the notion of working time travel into a piece of fiction in a way that isn't completely riddled with plot discrepancies the size of a super-massive black hole. I think the idea of being able to interact with or change another period of time is something that has always piqued humanity's interest, even before we had the words to describe it. That's why time travel is such a popular trope sometimes in science fiction. To me, there's really only two ways that you can go about it. One is the less is more approach, in which you would try to explain as little as possible about your time traveling methods while still making them seem plausible. This leaves more to the imagination and less holes in the plot. The other method should be quite obvious - this is where the writer tries to make time travel seem actually believable by providing a lot of scientific terms and explanations.
Crichton's Timeline falls somewhere in the middle, for better or worse. He provides a lot of seemingly plausible real-world explanations for why time travel would be possible. It's actually done in a way that is pretty innovative as far as science fiction time travel goes. Early time travel stories such as H.G. Wells' popular novel simply utilized machines or vehicles that could take a time traveler forward and backward through time, because the authors visualized time as a linear progression (because that's how humans experience it). As the concept of the vehicle/machine became less believable and, well, scientific knowledge itself advanced, so did methods of envisioning time travel in fiction. Concepts like the wormhole came into play. The wormhole still utilized the linear time world-view, but this time it also made use of a (theoretically) existent physical anomaly.
Timeline tries to fuse the two methods. There are still wormholes, there are still fantastic machines capable of transporting objects and organisms across time and space. But this time, Crichton makes interesting use of quantum mechanics and the multi-verse theory. He acknowledges that time might not (and probably isn't) a linear progression of events and that causes and effects might not necessarily be related in the simple way that we think that they are. In his novel, time travelers don't necessarily travel back in time. They are actually traveling to a different universe, one of an infinite possible number of universes. The machines are apparently capable of controlling when and where (in terms of universes) that the travelers will end up. I think that this method is a step in the right direction for plausible time travel, and I hope to be able to implement it in my own science fiction writing.
But it isn't without it's problems. Timeline draws much of its narrative tension and excitement from the fact that the characters only have a limited window in which they will be able to get back home from their medieval universe. However, when you establish that time travel is possible and it takes its shape in the form of a machine capable of traveling at will, you run into a problem. This problem is that there's seemingly nothing stopping the characters from traveling back to the time before the events of the novel and avoiding the entire fiasco. If one of the characters is stuck back in time and you have a machine capable of dropping you in that exact universe at any time that you desire, why not just go back in time to five minutes after he got out of the machine and rescue him? If your other friend gets stuck while you're making your escape at the end of the novel, why not just go back in time right after you leave and pick him up? I guess the answer to this is that if you did that, it wouldn't be a very exciting novel, or really a novel at all. But if, as an author, you're going to go to the trouble of constructing a rather plausible model for time traveling, why not go the distance and enforce your own rules or at least attempt to explain the inevitable holes in the plot that occur when time travel is involved? While this wasn't necessarily a deal-breaker for me, I felt like this aspect of the novel could have been much better.
Another aspect of the novel other than the time travel that I found interesting was Crichton's attitude towards history. Timeline contains the typical Crichton diatribes against academic and corporate attitudes, this time directed towards academic discussions of theory. Crichton seems to think that it's, for lack of a better phrase, all complete bullshit, and that discussions of theory will only get you so far, because, well, you have to actually apply your theories to the real world. He discusses these things in the context of academic and civilian attitudes towards history. He notes that we all have our own preconceived notions of how the world was in the past (for example, that because we're so advanced now, the past must have been awfully primitive) but he believes that we actually don't know anything about the past. To conjecture otherwise is a grave mistake. I like this approach to portraying a historical world. Respect the past and hope to learn from it, don't talk about it condescendingly.
I realize that I've focused quite heavily on just one or two aspects of the novel. However, this is simply because I don't really feel the need to elaborate on any other aspect. It was pretty run-of-the-mill, other than that. The characters kind of ran together and sometimes their motivations were suspect. Why would Andre choose to stay back in 14th century France with the obviously treacherous Lady Claire? Maybe I just read through it too quickly but it seemed like she was slightly contradictory as a character. At any rate, beside the time travel and historical discussions, Timeline is a moderately exciting novel. The characters are sympathetic and the action is exciting enough, though the prose does have a tendency to get repetitive when the characters are constantly fighting their way from point A to point B with little context provided as to why. All in all, I found it to be a good read and an inspiration for my own writing.
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
I actually read this book a couple of months ago, before I revived this blog, so my grasp of the plot and its details is going to be a little loose. Once I go back to review a lot of the books and films and video games that I've experienced in the past two years, I'm going to run into that problem again and again. For this particular work, however, it's okay - because I don't really have anything bad to say about it.
I went into Eaters of the Dead knowing full-well that it was a retelling of Beowulf. I can't imagine what it would have felt like to read it and not know it, and then to finally realize that it was (I'm sure it wasn't an Earth-shattering revelation, but it probably would have been pretty cool). Crichton alludes in the end notes that this novel was more or less conceived on a bet that he couldn't make one of the old "classics" interesting to read to a modern audience. He picked Beowulf, and he succeeded.
The characters are engaging, the action scenes are well-constructed and the fear of the protagonist as he travels with these barbarous vikings is palpable. His change from cowardly merchant to budding warrior is believable and exciting to read.
The format is what does it for me, though. Written in the style of a false document, the story is taken from the "journals" of a Middle-Eastern merchant as he travels throughout the continent, eventually being taken on by a group of Nordic warriors. Inevitably, he goes with them to confront a group of "monsters" and their "queen", meant to be Grendel and her followers, but explained by Crichton in his in-world notes as a group of relict Neanderthals. Even though techniques like this may have the tendency to come off as some sort of gimmick, a la "Beowulf the history book", I think that if it's done properly it can really enhance a work. The first example that jumps into my pop culture-addled mind is the "documents" that come in between chapters of Alan Moore's Watchmen. At times these in-universe documents can really help with character development and emotional resonance. The pirate comic book in Watchmen is a great example of this, but my favorite is the Rolling Stone-style interview with Ozymandias before the final chapter of the novel.
While Crichton's adaptation of Beowulf isn't quite as epic as Watchmen, it definitely succeeds in revitalizing a more or less "old and boring" classic. The false document style can even be seen as a commentary on the work that Crichton himself is commenting on. By writing a novel about an academic analysis of a merchant's mysterious northern expedition and it's anthropological implications, Crichton is reemphasizing that the classics are important, even if they need a little dusting off and polishing every once in a while.
I went into Eaters of the Dead knowing full-well that it was a retelling of Beowulf. I can't imagine what it would have felt like to read it and not know it, and then to finally realize that it was (I'm sure it wasn't an Earth-shattering revelation, but it probably would have been pretty cool). Crichton alludes in the end notes that this novel was more or less conceived on a bet that he couldn't make one of the old "classics" interesting to read to a modern audience. He picked Beowulf, and he succeeded.
The characters are engaging, the action scenes are well-constructed and the fear of the protagonist as he travels with these barbarous vikings is palpable. His change from cowardly merchant to budding warrior is believable and exciting to read.
The format is what does it for me, though. Written in the style of a false document, the story is taken from the "journals" of a Middle-Eastern merchant as he travels throughout the continent, eventually being taken on by a group of Nordic warriors. Inevitably, he goes with them to confront a group of "monsters" and their "queen", meant to be Grendel and her followers, but explained by Crichton in his in-world notes as a group of relict Neanderthals. Even though techniques like this may have the tendency to come off as some sort of gimmick, a la "Beowulf the history book", I think that if it's done properly it can really enhance a work. The first example that jumps into my pop culture-addled mind is the "documents" that come in between chapters of Alan Moore's Watchmen. At times these in-universe documents can really help with character development and emotional resonance. The pirate comic book in Watchmen is a great example of this, but my favorite is the Rolling Stone-style interview with Ozymandias before the final chapter of the novel.
While Crichton's adaptation of Beowulf isn't quite as epic as Watchmen, it definitely succeeds in revitalizing a more or less "old and boring" classic. The false document style can even be seen as a commentary on the work that Crichton himself is commenting on. By writing a novel about an academic analysis of a merchant's mysterious northern expedition and it's anthropological implications, Crichton is reemphasizing that the classics are important, even if they need a little dusting off and polishing every once in a while.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Lost World by Michael Crichton
I'm not sure what to say about Michael Crichton's sequel to Jurassic Park. I'm not sure there was really a point to the Lost World, other than to make some more money by providing some entertaining albeit more-of-the-same dinosaur-related action.The moral imperative from the first novel, that being the idea that man shouldn't attempt to "play God" and meddle in the affairs of nature, has all but disappeared. I don't recall any of the same diatribes against unregulated genetic research that the first book was filled with, which doesn't leave the Lost World with any real anchor in the real world. Yes, there's plenty of interesting discussion about evolution and extinction and chaos theory and plenty of jabs against the common man and his lack of scientific or historical knowledge, but all those paths were tread by the first novel. Even the protagonist, Ian Malcolm, by far the preachiest of the characters from the first novel, has nothing more to say about the events of the first novel. In fact, he barely seems to remember it. He actually seems rather eager to go to this other island conveniently shoe-horned into the Jurassic Park canon to find himself some more dangerous dinosaurs to go toe-to-claw with.
I guess it kind of sounds like I didn't like this novel. That's not true at all, actually. I liked it for the same reason I like Crichton's other novels. It's compelling science fiction, with plenty of action and enough facts fabricated or pulled from the real world to make it all seem somewhat believable. It's just that this one didn't seem at all necessary.
I guess it kind of sounds like I didn't like this novel. That's not true at all, actually. I liked it for the same reason I like Crichton's other novels. It's compelling science fiction, with plenty of action and enough facts fabricated or pulled from the real world to make it all seem somewhat believable. It's just that this one didn't seem at all necessary.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Limbo, by PlayDead Studios, was released for the Xbox Live Arcade a few days ago. Quite simply put, it is astounding in that it is both a loving call-back to games of the past while also pushing the envelope, so to speak. The story is so simple that it almost isn't even there. You play as a young boy who wakes up in a decidedly deep, dark forest. This is not your normal scary forest. It is, as the game's title points out, Limbo. You're apparently searching for your little sister. I say apparently because the only reason you would know this is by reading the description of the game before you download it. This is possibly the first of many call-backs to old side-scrollers, in which story was often an afterthought. I mean, what the hell was really going on in Mario?
This game is unique in a number of ways, the first being that it is entirely black, white and grey. The dark silhouette of the player is broken up only by the stark contrast of his bright, white eyes. You might find it a little creepy, which is interesting considering he's the one you're supposed to be identifying with. Limbo is a puzzle platformer in the same vein as the recent Braid. Though not nearly as difficult, it is still innovative in its problem solving. Often, the way to overcoming an obstacle is death. You will die the first time you play Limbo. You will die frequently.
And let me tell you, these deaths are gruesome and oftentimes unavoidable. Sometimes the game requires you to take a leap of faith, and sometimes that leap of faith will put you in a pit of spikes if your reflexes aren't quick enough (thankfully my two decades of gaming have provided me with suitable enough instincts). Oftentimes the only way to best a trap is by letting it kill you and then coming at it from another angle once you discover how it works. And there are plenty of traps. Giant spiders, bear traps, spikes, buzz saws gone array, and just plain old pits of death. And even though the game is in black and white, the deaths are still gruesome. Particularly because of the way your rag-doll body gets torn apart, but especially because you're a kid. The lingering regret over your many deaths does not diminish over the course of the game.
Limbo also has an interesting lack of a soundtrack. There are ambient noises in the background, but the only sound comes from in-game actions. Leaves rustling, flies buzzing, blow-darts hitting your body. The lack of a score draws even more attention to the game play, which as I've said is fantastic, even though your only actions are jumping, grabbing and climbing. As many reviewers have noted, and as I agree, the latter half of the game is challenging but not as awe-inspiring. Gone are the creepy forests and menacing spiders in favor of a more traditional industrial yard, although the abandoned hotel signs are eerily poignant.
My only criticism of this game is that it is priced too highly. It's a short game that offers great replay value and a unique experience, but the 1200 Microsoft Points is a bit much for those of us who decided that we couldn't wait for a price drop. All in all, I highly recommend Limbo.
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Aside from pop-up books and Dr. Seuss, Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park is one of the first books I remember reading. Though I've since replaced it on my shelf, somewhere at home I still have the yellowed, wonderful-smelling dog-earred copy that my grandfather gave me to read. I can't begin to speculate how much I actually understood of the novel as a seven or eight year-old, but I'm proud of my younger self for having powered through it. There was something about this novel that drew me to it when I was younger. I mean, I was naturally one of those nerdy kids who is obsessed with dinosaurs. I can't remember if that was in direct response to the film adaptation by Steven Spielberg or whether it was simply amplified by it. Either way, this book will always have a special place in my heart simply because it jump-started my life-long obsession with fiction. I used to do my own illustrated adaptations of the film (or novel - let's face it - I was seven and even I probably didn't know which one was which). I even used to run around on recess pretending to be a dinosaur.
So it's natural that I was a bit nervous reading this book again after so many years. My tastes have changed and I've gotten about a decade-plus of reading and education in between now and then, so I was wondering how it would hold up. After all, Crichton's work isn't exactly Pulitzer Prize-winning, but it certainly isn't what I like to call "grocery store magazine aisle" material. Not surprisingly, I still enjoyed the book thoroughly. Partly because reading about dinosaurs is still sadly appealing to the large part of me that hasn't grown up, but also because Crichton's writing style contains much to be admired even as an adult educated in film and literature.
As I discussed in my review of the Stand, it bothers me when science fiction/fantasy makes absolutely no effort to explain itself. Crichton goes to great lengths to make sure that the fantastical elements in his novels, while not technically or scientifically feasible, are at least plausible within the confines of both the story and the mind of a reader not educated in complex scientific theory. He's also a fan of the "false document" literary technique, so there are lots of fabricated but still interesting scientific theories going on in the story, though this particular technique gets used much more in Eaters of the Dead, a novel by Crichton that I read earlier this year (and will review later).
I have few negative criticisms of the book. There are times when it gets a little preachy, particularly when Ian Malcolm (try not to picture Jeff Goldblum while you're reading) serves as the moral mouthpiece of the author, going on page-long rants about the dangers of unchecked science. While that is an admirable and understandable viewpoint to have, it just comes off as a little ham-fisted when coming from the mouth of character who is in a state of delirium. The "unchecked science" theme really gets pounded in hard and could have been a bit more subtle. The novel, at 399 pages, reads rather quickly - though as a person with a stack of books to read, this is actually a plus.
I'll be reviewing some of his novels later, but this one is still one of my favorites. I plan to have my children read it someday in the hopes that they'll be as inspired as I was to delve into reading.
So it's natural that I was a bit nervous reading this book again after so many years. My tastes have changed and I've gotten about a decade-plus of reading and education in between now and then, so I was wondering how it would hold up. After all, Crichton's work isn't exactly Pulitzer Prize-winning, but it certainly isn't what I like to call "grocery store magazine aisle" material. Not surprisingly, I still enjoyed the book thoroughly. Partly because reading about dinosaurs is still sadly appealing to the large part of me that hasn't grown up, but also because Crichton's writing style contains much to be admired even as an adult educated in film and literature.
As I discussed in my review of the Stand, it bothers me when science fiction/fantasy makes absolutely no effort to explain itself. Crichton goes to great lengths to make sure that the fantastical elements in his novels, while not technically or scientifically feasible, are at least plausible within the confines of both the story and the mind of a reader not educated in complex scientific theory. He's also a fan of the "false document" literary technique, so there are lots of fabricated but still interesting scientific theories going on in the story, though this particular technique gets used much more in Eaters of the Dead, a novel by Crichton that I read earlier this year (and will review later).
I have few negative criticisms of the book. There are times when it gets a little preachy, particularly when Ian Malcolm (try not to picture Jeff Goldblum while you're reading) serves as the moral mouthpiece of the author, going on page-long rants about the dangers of unchecked science. While that is an admirable and understandable viewpoint to have, it just comes off as a little ham-fisted when coming from the mouth of character who is in a state of delirium. The "unchecked science" theme really gets pounded in hard and could have been a bit more subtle. The novel, at 399 pages, reads rather quickly - though as a person with a stack of books to read, this is actually a plus.
I'll be reviewing some of his novels later, but this one is still one of my favorites. I plan to have my children read it someday in the hopes that they'll be as inspired as I was to delve into reading.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Stand, Part III, by Stephen King
In the end, I think I was kind of disappointed by the Stand. Now, here's where I stand on supernatural elements in fiction. I completely understand why writers or filmmakers choose to leave certain things unstated. It adds to the mystery. I haven't read Stephen King's the Shining yet, but I'm told he leaves a lot less to the imagination than Stanley Kubrick does in his film adaptation of the work. But the thing is, I'm sure after I've read the book I'll end up loving both. I love that in Jaws that you never see the shark. Or that in LOST we don't ever specifically find out what that damn island was for. I think the introduction of midichlorians was a terrible idea for the Star Wars universe.
But I also love when things get explained. And in the Stand, they really don't. You never find out what the bad guy is, or why he needs a son, or why the good guys need to stop him. You never find out what's going on in the rest of the world with all of the other people that have survived. I mean, the climax features an atomic bomb going off. The good guys did not need to go marching out to Las Vegas to die needlessly. Trashcan man blew half the state to hell. So, at the end, I guess the moral of the story is to not make fun of the mentally handicapped. I just wish that after spending 1,141 pages with this story, King could have given me a little bit more to work with. I also could have done without the fifty pages of Stu and Tom Cullen walking home. Talk about a buzz kill.
In the end, though, I liked the book. The pacing was great for a novel so large, though I would have tinkered with the structure a little bit. Character development was spectacular though. Enough lingering, though. It's on to the next book.
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Stand, Parts I and II, by Stephen King
I've been reading this novel for what seems like forever. When your list of "to read" books turns into a pile (it stands at 36 as of now), it becomes difficult to read just one novel for so long. Though, I have made rather quick work of it. I decided to read this book for two reasons: (1) because everyone I know who has read it (even my mom) says that it's amazing and (2) as a writer I'm interested in how someone could spin one story out for so long in a way that would keep the reader interested. The only other thing I've read by Stephen King is the first book in the Dark Tower series (with the other six soon to follow) and I have to say that I'm actually impressed. Usually books that get sold in the magazine aisles at Walgreen's are there because those are the only places they will sell, or because they're so unanimously acclaimed that it's no shame to find them next to copies of Twilight and Nora Roberts novels.
I'm impressed by his writing style so far. His prose has a way of exuding intelligence while not coming off as arrogant in that "I actually studied literature" sort of way. And when he wants to be, he can sound pretty damn epic (though not as epic as a Matt Stover, I'm sorry to say). I've decided to break up my entry about the Stand into two parts, simply because it's so goddamn long. I've just finished Book II, and I have to say I wasn't as impressed with it as I was Book I. Book I surprised me in that it introduced what felt like dozens of characters, most of whom I was not bored with after a few pages. Generally when I read a novel that switched perspectives, there's always one or two story-lines that I'm less interested in. Not the case in the first half of the Stand. Characters are all introduced and given interesting backgrounds, and then the plague hits.
I loved all of the disturbing descriptions of an abandoned world where everyone has died. Larry Underwood walking the dead streets of New York City and Nick Andros watching the city of Shoyo die a slow death are of particular note. And of course anything involving the Walkin' Dude Randall Flagg was great to read. I'm always more interested in spending time with the villains than the heroes. Heroes are all fine and dandy but it's the villains that interest me. It's difficult to write an antagonist that doesn't come off as one-dimensional in their "evil". And while Randall Flagg is a, well, personification of evil without a speck of good in him, King manages to make him mysterious enough as to warrant interest. Everyone loves heroes - but I think they can be rather boring. How hard is it to make the decision to be a good guy? I'm more interested in what reasons the bad guys have for turning to the dark side.
Book II, sadly, I found rather tedious. It was well-written, and incredibly interesting to see how the plague survivors all find each other and reestablish society. All of the problems they faced seemed realistic and I have no problem with this chunk of the book in itself. What I did have a problem with is that there were no character shifts whatsoever for about three hundred pages. I last saw someone on the evil side (Trashcan Man, I believe) on page 615. I'm on page 915 and I think it's just about ready to give me what I want. Spending that much time with the good guys as they have meetings and get the power turned back on and take the trash out was causing me to start losing my interest. How much of this was cut out of the first edition of this novel I'm not sure, and I have no desire to find out.
I'm hoping that things really start to pick up with Book III. I've only got two hundred and twenty-something pages left, and I feel like in a novel of this length, that might not be enough time to pull of the climax I'm hoping for.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell
Part of what makes me nervous about analyzing my reactions to a text is that more often than not, I have about three settings: hated it, loved it, or "meh". I feel that the more I review things, the better I'll get it at it - after all, I have a liberal arts degree. If that means one thing, I hope that it means I'm able to think critically about something.
That being said, I loved this book. I loved it. I wish I had written it. It was a completely random coincidence that I came across this book. Or, maybe not. I ran across an interview with the author on IGN.com (which I check daily for gaming news), was interested in what Tom had to say about video games and immediately ordered his book on Amazon.com. Part of what interested me is that I'm just starting to becoming aware of the growing body of criticism on gaming - this was brought on by my Video Art graduate seminar, in which I wrote a research paper on the context of gaming in the art world.
It was a pretty basic paper - it could have been a lot longer, were it not for time, motivation and professor-set limits. My basic thesis was that any backlash that video games receive when their analyzed as art (from people such as Roger Ebert, though he has since recanted his poorly-thought out accusations) is simply part of the normal critical process that new mediums go through. I compared it to the initial critical backlash against photography and cinema (which were similarly derided as lacking any artistic merit) and then applied different methods for analyzing other forms of art (literature, film) to video games, as well as made examples of games that are currently pushing the boundaries of the medium. Basically, the point of my paper was blunt - games are art, and you can't argue against that.
That being said, I loved this book. I loved it. I wish I had written it. It was a completely random coincidence that I came across this book. Or, maybe not. I ran across an interview with the author on IGN.com (which I check daily for gaming news), was interested in what Tom had to say about video games and immediately ordered his book on Amazon.com. Part of what interested me is that I'm just starting to becoming aware of the growing body of criticism on gaming - this was brought on by my Video Art graduate seminar, in which I wrote a research paper on the context of gaming in the art world.
It was a pretty basic paper - it could have been a lot longer, were it not for time, motivation and professor-set limits. My basic thesis was that any backlash that video games receive when their analyzed as art (from people such as Roger Ebert, though he has since recanted his poorly-thought out accusations) is simply part of the normal critical process that new mediums go through. I compared it to the initial critical backlash against photography and cinema (which were similarly derided as lacking any artistic merit) and then applied different methods for analyzing other forms of art (literature, film) to video games, as well as made examples of games that are currently pushing the boundaries of the medium. Basically, the point of my paper was blunt - games are art, and you can't argue against that.
The attitude towards games that Bissell's book takes is similar, though he is a little more willing to question/consider the artistic merit of games than I was. Even from the perspective of a non-liberal arts-educated gamer, I would have found this work entertaining at the least. There are numerous anecdotes about Bissell's gaming experiences, many of which I was able to sympathize with. These ranged from losing hours upon hours of time, to the point of missing out on important real-life events while playing Bethesda Softworks' RPG's such as Fallout 3 or Oblivion - especially the hazards of neglecting to save early and often. There was also the highly entertaining recounting of a versus match in Left 4 Dead, in which I felt just as proud of his achievement reading about it as I would have been playing it. Even when I hadn't played a game, Bissell's writing made me feel like I had - or that I wanted to, as evidenced by my new desire to play Far Cry 2.
However, I am aware of critical theory, which made this book that much more enjoyable. I was able to find reasons to justify the hundreds of hours I've spent gaming throughout my life, and the claims that I made in my paper were also reinforced. In all actuality, I wished there had been more critical discussion - I would have loved for this book to have been 5o0 pages. Alas, the target audience for this book - ostensibly in some part gamers, probably would not have enjoyed that much critical discussion. At any rate, reading a work about someone so impassioned about something - something that I also share a passion for, has inspired me to restart this blog. So I owe this author gratitude, and I'll send him an e-mail when I have the time.
I'm not going to grade this book, but if you're intelligent and a gamer it's an obligatory read.
The Third First Post
I need to write. This blog will help me do that. I'm reworking it for the third time - the last two formats apparently proved too restrictive for me. Now, I'll use the blog for whatever I feel appropriate. I plan to review everything I read, watch, play or write. I'll start with my 2009 and 2010 reading lists, though my memories of a book I read in January 2009 might be a bit scant. Oh, well. Obligatory first post now concludes - for the third time.
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