Half-Masked

Is the grass greener?

I have just seen “The Journey Of Vaan Nguyen”, a 2005 documentary about a family of Vietnamese immigrants living in Isreal. I didn’t know such a thing existed. It is a byproduct of my small and sheltered knowledge of the Middle East that I could not imagine an Asian family working, gaining friends and enemies and a life in the most brutally contested land-mass on planet Earth.

Hoimai Nguyen is a father of 5 daughters, who left the country as a young man, two years after his parents died(his father, a village mayor was invited to a party and poisoned.) He packed himself into a boat with dozens, maybe hundreds of Vietnamese seeking refuge from the harsh reality of the country in the 1970’s. He reminds the viewer that all he had was his name and the shirt on his back, which stuck with him as long as the fibers could.

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The more I’ve seen the new trailer for the new Zelda game “The Skyward Sword“, a single thought occurs to me time and again:

I think I’m finally sick of Zelda.

I’m sick of Link, I’m sick of Epona, I’m sick of the Master Sword. I’m sick of the Gorons and the Zora. I’m sick of never having any noticeable change in setting or tone. I no longer get the thrill, the excitement of seeing that effeminate dork in his peter pan tights. It no longer makes me nostalgic for the games of my youth, but rather leaves me thinking it’s about time he got a real job and cut that hair.

I’m sick of Octorocs and Moblins and Ganondorf being the last boss even when he has no business being the last boss. Just because people think he’s the Bowser of Zelda games. I’m sick of every single game being Ocarina of Time over and over and over again. I’m tired of “Grass, Fire, Water” temples(in that order), the suicidal mini-boss with the terrible post-90’s Koji Kondo music, and the boss that comes after which presents absolutely no challenge, because you know that his weakness is the item you just got 5 minutes ago.

I’m finally Zelda’d out.

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Does anyone find it annoying whenever I gush about something? Is anyone tired of me droning on and on about the virtues of some forgotten 90’s cartoon show? Does this make me a giant, inescapably pathetic nerd who will never amount to anything, nor know the sweet touch of a woman?

Well, it’s either this, or more Left 4 dead 2 rants.

You’re welcome.

(Oh, and there are mucho spoilers here, but since this show is almost a decade old, I think everyone who wanted to see it already has).

——-

Today I’m talking about “Jeri” and “Beelzemon”. Before I watched Tamers again this year, I still had faint recollections of these two. The specifics were lost to me after these years, but I still got the gist. I remembered key story points featuring them, and understood their importance, but no longer felt it. I was re-acquainted with both of them, and I know now more than ever that they are integral to why I admire this show. These two made it better than the stuff I watch today. They snuck around the defenses of my cynical old man standards, and showed me a strength I didn’t know saturday morning cartoons had.

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The following is a lightly edited e-mail I sent to Bob Chipman, proprietor of the “Game Overthinker” and “Escape to the Movies” video series’:

Bob,

A fan, here. I eagerly anticipate your “Game Overthinker” videos, as well as your movie reviews on The Escapist(you are in fact one of the few venues featured on that website that isn’t a horrible, searing affront to entertainment). I’m glad someone is out there thinking about this stuff to the extent and detail that you are, and what’s more for sharing it with us.

But for a man of your intelligence to say that Shadow of the Colossus and Left 4 Dead shouldn’t be turned into movies, but Final Fight and Gears of War should? Priorities that terrible strike me as uncharacteristic of you.

That said, I can’t deny secretly yearning for Pixar to announce their next movie will be set in the Mushroom Kingdom, so maybe I shouldn’t throw stones in that glass house…

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Let’s see what we’ve got this year.

NINTENDO:

• A new Goldeneye game, but with Daniel Craig
• A new Donkey Kong Country from the guys who did Metroid Prime
• A new Metroid by the guys who did Ninja Gaiden
• A new Zelda, that fuses the best traits of the art-styles for the ultra-realistic Twilight Princess, and the colourful, childlike splendor of Wind Waker.
• A Mario sports game featuring pretty much every remaining available sport(most notably Dodgeball, FUCK YES)
• A 3D system that doesn’t need expensive glasses to use
• A new co-op Kirby game with a weird and unique art-style(yarn). And you can turn into a car, UFO and tank at a moment’s whim, apparently. A tank made of yarn.
• A new Kid Icarus with a gorgeous art-style(which you can see in action in this unbelievably kickass trailer)
• That sound you hear is a million nerds orgasming in unison.

MICROSOFT

• Ice T is going to be in Gears of War 3(which recent screens show they’ve decided to add colour to the series, as well as biceps that aren’t ridiculous)
• Their “me-too” Motion Control thing is now called “Kinect”(which Kotaku informs me does not work correctly if you use it while sitting down. Which makes it pretty much completely worthless compared to the Wii, that thing Kinect was made as a response to.)

SONY

• Something about Valve.

I hate to be one of “those guys”, but the sad truth of it is there is usually a winner and a loser in these yearly expos. This year, it’s clear the obvious winner is once again Colecovision.

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~A.H.

According to an “Iwata Asks” interview, Shigeru Miyamoto battled with the question of whether or not the Super Mario games “needed a story”. A talk with one of the producers revealed perhaps a wiser philosophy: The idea of a game “resonating” with the player should take precedent. Reader, Super Mario Galaxy 2 did not resonate me. I don’t think that’s ever happened for me with a Mario game. It is an atypical, half-hearted stumble from this developer. This would be a great Sega game, or a tremendous fan-effort. But we’re talking about Nintendo, who I know can do better than package the left-over scraps of a modern classic.

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It seems I spoke too soon about Left 4 Dead 1. I have tried it online for the first time in recent weeks, and… it’s actually not terrible with human accompaniment. I wasn’t expecting it to be any better, and to be fair it still crashes and freezes more than it should, and the load times are a little ridiculous(why are there two loading screens for the MAIN MENU? Sloppy stuff.) The problem with L4D’s single-player is how mood-crushingly easy it is. Even using only a pistol and refusing to pick up any health kits or pills is a walk in the park. The only other option is Expert mode, which is the polar opposite(or what L4D2 is on EVERY difficulty). Human players means an extra Special Infected, and also more aggressive offenses, which solves that problem right quick.

And unlike the sequel, your score in Versus is determined by how many players survive to the end, not by how much distance is traveled. That game manages to be dumber and dumber by the day. In a game built around surviving a zombie apocalypse through teamwork, making it about distance traveled rather than who survives kills the incentive for team-work. Often times players get kicked or just left behind if they’re attacked by a Charger or Jockey. Why should they even bother to help their comrades? The reward for everyone making it to the safe-room is pathetic, less than 10% of the overall score.

In the first game, it’s about who survives. Getting to the saferoom is important, but getting more than one person there is crucial. This means more people helping each other out. Whoever decided this had to be “fixed” doesn’t deserve to be able to feed their families. It’s not a good game, but at least it understands itself better than its successor.

I guess this means I owe the people at Valve about one third of an apology. So here it is:

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A few things:

-8-Bit Theater, aka “The Single Best Sprite Comic Ever” is over. Finished. Done. The Bloody, Frigging End. It occurs to me I might not realize just how significant this is until much later. The book has closed on a big inspiration in my high school years.

I first got a computer in about 2002-2003. This one time, one of my eyes wasn’t aligned properly and there was a very real possibility that I could have gone cross-eyed(long story). For the next week I focused on reading the 8BT archives, to try and, I dunno, “focus” my eyesight back. Figured the flow of reading, translating written messages to the brain might trick-start things back into shape.

As you can see, I did not go to Med-School. But fortunately it seemed to do the trick. I kind of owe Brian Clevinger for unintentionally returning my vision back to me. I doubt it’s 20/20, but it’s more than most people have. Maybe it helps that he’s quite possibly my favourite writer in the webcomic scene. His sophomore side-project that eventually catapulted him to nerd-stardom spanned 1225 pages, and the pixely copyrighted visuals never impeded his ability to present some seriously deranged, neurotic, and entertaining sociopaths. All in the backdrop of a comedic take on the nostalgic fantasy games of my youth.

The internet thanks you, Brian.

~~~~~

-My ma surprised me with a copy of Super Mario Galaxy 2 today. After some much-needed groceries, I sat down and collected 5 stars, beside a glass of chocolate milk, some Doritos, a plushie of Hawkmon I got as a belated birthday present and a nice summer breeze.

Life is good.

~~~~~

-Speaking of Mario, here’s something a million, billion times more awesome than New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

The following is a comment I submitted to Roger Ebert’s blog. Yes, he brought up VIDJYA GAYMEZ again, but I was in for a surprise.

What did I think to gain from writing this? I doubt he’d read it, or approve it to be posted in the comments of his blog for others to read it. I don’t think that speaks ill of him. I’m sure the majority of comments he gets can make my point, as well as better, more “on-topic” points that I have not.

I’d like to think this might give him a bit of education of what it’s like to be someone who believes Games can be Art, but also understands that very few games even attempt to be entertainment. And fewer still can be called art.

Why should I care?

There were respected, possibly talented stage critics at the time of the introduction of film into the mass culture. They took one look at it, didn’t understand it and made hilariously narrow-minded quotes which remain their only living evidence that they ever existed.

All of their work, much of it probably very good, erased from time. The only thing remaining to represent all they contributed was their public failing. Their great moments of shame.

I don’t want that to happen to a man whose writing has had such a positive influence on who I am, and who I want to be. Years from now, I want him to be remembered as a smart, sensible man who used his line of work to inspire others to be better educated, more thoughtful, more open to new things, new people and new ideas. I don’t want one of my heroes to be remembered only for the one subject for which he was primarily hogshit insane.

Below is the comment I wrote to him:

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I have a new comic series. It’ll be shown exclusively at deviantArt. It’s called “The Apocalypse Tribe”, and it’s about a group of survivors in a zombie apocalypse trying to bring a little girl back to her family.

It all starts here.

As for Half-Masked? I seriously doubt I’ll ever be able to kill it. I just know that as soon as I decided to end it, I’d have an idea that can only work in that context. Truth be told, I do have ideas, but I’ve just been busy with the project mentioned above.

So, it’ll still be around, to all -4 of you still watching. Hell, the 200th comic’s coming up. That’ll be… uh, it’ll be something.

*cough*

END OF LINE

~A.H.