Further evidence that I am in terrible shape: I pulled a leg muscle sitting down. No, not in the act of going from “Stand” to “Sit” mode. I mean while sitting still for several minutes. I was going to shovel the driveway later, but knowing me, I’d probably have a heart-attack just trying to put my coat on.
END OF LINE
~A.H.
The following is a response to a forum post at Nerdramblingz, but also to news that Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw is trying to get a tv-show(as if there isn’t enough pretentious garbage on television already). I know I’m repeating myself here, I’ve said most if not all of this before. Just a friendly reminder why I think he’s the worst thing to happen to video game criticism since IGN.
“As for Yahtzee’s videos, I’ve found just about every one of them about a game I’ve played to be pretty much spot on, for instance that Sonic the Hedgehog is a dead fucking horse, No More Heroes is a game with many flaws but definately worth getting, and the Legend of Zelda could do with some new fucking material. It strikes me that if Yahtzee’s videos cause you to rage, you’re either easily trolled or hip-deep in denial about how awesome a given game is, and chances are it probably sucks on some level or other. Even so, letting your rage blind you to valid points makes you as bad as every retard with a keyboard sending him hate-mail about how he didn’t talk about how X game was the most awesome thing since awesome came to town and that it’s most certainly an awesome game and that he’s a fuckwad.”
Yes, because surely anyone who disagrees with him MUST just be a petty, easily-riled internet-fag, in denial about the “truth” of a game’s quality. That’s a convenient philosophy; one that means you never, ever have to consider the notion that not everyone of passing intelligence thinks Ben Croshaw is the leading authority on video games. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone who dislikes his reviews is an illiterate twat, incapable of overruling emotional response with sound, articulate reasoning.
I don’t like his reviews. Not because he disagrees with me on some of the games he has weird vendettas against(to this day I still don’t know what his bias is towards Nintendo games, which he’s admitted to having on several occasions). He’s certainly allowed to not like the things I like, and vice-versa. But he tends to choose the most inconsequential non-problems as validation for slinging mud in any given title’s direction. Especially when there are plenty of valid excuses to hate some of the games he reviles, which he doesn’t often explore. And when he does find a flaw with a game that is a valid annoyance, he makes it out to be a self-destructive, experience-killing fault, and responds to it as if the game stole his parking space.
I don’t know. Isn’t there enough crap on TV?
His Smash Bros. Brawl review, for example, is one of the worst things currently on the internet. His main argument for this game’s lack of worth boils down to the fact that he had trouble telling what was going on(I’m still not sure how that’s even possible, given the plethora of options the game allows you to make things much less hectic, and more like a traditional fighting game), and because you have to unlock stuff. In a fighting game.
Those bastards.
And to show that he’s not above making shit up just to back up his imaginary arguments, he’ll say something like how “all of the levels in the Adventure Mode are the same”. Which they are not. I would know. I’ve actually spent more than 2 hours with this game. I’ve beaten it several times. If the levels were all the same, or even -similar-, I’d have noticed, and I would agree with him on that. But they’re NOT, which makes him either a liar or ignorant, either of which makes his opinions on the matter worth as much as dog shit.
And even if he presented a well thought-out argument(he didn’t), there’s PLENTY of things wrong with that game that he never touches. The awful Classic mode. The strange character roster(aside from mentioning that he doesn’t know who Marth is, and how Nintendo is the devil for not localizing Mother 3). The shitty online mode. The lackluster user-content. The fact that it latched on to the Achievements and Trophy mentality of PS3 and Xbox 360 games, while not learning from their mistakes(some of the Challenges are just impossible to expect from the audience, like beating the Boss Battle mode on Intense, or getting every last randomly generated sticker). The unusually steep difficulty curve of the Adventure Mode, right up to the asshole of a Final Boss(don’t even get me started on the Giant Diddy Kong battle).
Then there’s his bashing of games like Bioshock for being too “simplistic” and “easy” compared to PC games of its ilk, as if those were bad things that ruin the experience. And I don’t recall him really going into depth about the atmosphere or the story it sets up. He’s so pre-determined to find fault with everything, he almost never has the time or motivation to acknowledge when a game does something right. That’s the thing nobody ever mentions when they sing tales of this marvelous new reviewer. Unless it’s Psychonauts or Silent Hill 2, he doesn’t really go to great lengths to explain the things today’s video games do pull off successfully. That would mean being a credible, level-headed critic, and that’s SO overrated, you guys.
And then there’s the hypocrisy. It’s hard to find a video review by him where he doesn’t consider a game the equivalent of feces just for having the audacity to put in Quicktime-Events(which really aren’t as detrimental to games as people make them out to be). But that won’t stop him from giving a review bordering on fellatio to God of War: Chains of Olympus, which started that trend in the first place, and doesn’t even do Quicktime events in a commendable or entertaining manner in the first place.
Or JRPGS! Yes, surely they are all terrible, idiotic wastes of your time and money… He won’t say WHY, but let’s all believe everything he says because he knows how to use Google’s Image Search in a humorous way LOL
And to top it all off, he presents these bits of insanity in a near-unintelligible manner. I think the reason his videos get so many hits may be because he makes it impossible to fully grasp what he’s saying the first two or three times, not just because he has a Fanboytallion of people willing to let him make all of their opinions for them. So even if he does say something that I could ever agree with, or would make sense in a rational universe(I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the Metal Gear series isn’t God’s gift to mankind), it’s kind of rendered moot when I can’t understand what the fuck he’s saying, since he decided to adopt the speaking style of a ranting auctioneer.
If you pay attention, it does seem like he puts some real effort into what he chooses to say to his audience, but it’s hard to figure out precisely WHAT he’s rambling about. His speech in Zero Punctuation reviews is slurred and tripping over itself in the rush to get to the next insult for people who like Guitar Hero. This isn’t because he has an Australian accent either. It’s because he tries to cram too much into a single spoken sentence, without taking the time to actually say what he’s trying to say. He might very well be a clever person, but his presentation is lousy.
(His blog is a lot better for this, actually, since he doesn’t make the font-size really, really tiny and for that matter he chose a font and layout that isn’t confusing.)
To summarize:
And people love him for this. Actually, people love him because he’s funny, which they tend to confuse with “wise”. Yes, he’s funny. Yes, his little power-point presentations can elicit a laugh even from someone as jaded as myself. That doesn’t excuse him for being a shitty reviewer, whose standards for quality operate on the rules of some backwards-galaxy.
I’m glad someone is achieving popularity without having to compromise his opinions, but I don’t think he’s the right person to be considered a champion of video game criticism(which, sadly, is actually the level of praise he receives). There are much better people for that. I think those of us who don’t swallow Ben Croshaw’s bullshit on a daily basis are right to question whether anyone should. He’s shown time and again that he’s a terrible source for an informed opinion. “He’s the Ann Coulter of video game critics.”
Shamus Young said of him:
“…he’s the most well-known game reviewer out there. This is not an accident.“
He’s right. It’s also no accident that Bill O’Reilly is one of the most recognized pundits in America.
Oh well. At least he doesn’t assign a stupid, pointless numeric to the end of every review. And I can’t help but think that if I had to pay the same prices for video games as Australians do, I’d be even more of an irrational bitch about them myself.
END OF LINE
~A.H.
I’m crossing my fingers that there’s some hope for Free Radical’s employees/projects. If for no other reason than to see how they handle the Battlefront series to see some people hold onto their jobs in these depressing economic times.
END OF LINE
~A.H.
I have recently discovered something called “Azumanga Daioh” for the first time yesterday. I plan to write more about it in the coming weeks, but until then:
END OF LINE
~A.H.
“Azumanga Daioh” is a show about inherent Japanese weirdness intertwining with the exaggerated lives of several high-school students, their teachers, and a bizarre, unblinking cat-creature with noodly appendages… That’s the best I can do to describe it. The show I mean, although the cat-thing is still a mystery.
I was apprehensive about it at first, because let’s face it, some of the oddness that comes with Anime can make even me cringe. A good barometer for your tolerance of Anime is dependent largely on if you can get through the opening.
Is there some obscure Japanese law where all of their songs have to be written using Mad Libs?
And I had to watch a fan-sub that came with additional bullet points of interest, to describe certain social customs, foods and phrases that make sense in the context of a Japanese show, but not to a confused North American.
Nonetheless, I’m only 3 episodes in, and I think it’s been worth it so far. It looks great(although the animation is pretty stiff sometimes even by Anime standards), and the music fits the mood and pace like a glove. The stories are fairly short-term stuff, and aren’t done in a typical sitcom fashion with one or two plots carefully analyzed from start-to-finish. An episode usually involves 3 small “skits”, that either are sort-of connected but not very, or switch the perspective from one group of characters to another. The first episode starts off from the vantage point of a teacher violently cursing and kicking at her bicycle(which is a great way to start off a show, I might add), then focuses on the students, then ends with a glimpse at the “new kid” adjusting to her new school. Sometimes it passes the baton around like that, other times it appears to be about one or more characters but in different times of day, or what have you. It’s an interesting system, and I like how much character depth it manages to build in these few small segments.
The plots themselves, despite the wackiness the show offers, are actually fairly down-to-earth. At least half of one episode is devoted to the girls trying to cure the new kid of her hiccups, and offering their usual “child-knowledge” to cure and diagnose it. We’ve all heard the: “I heard if you do this while doing that and reciting the alphabet” suggestions for this sort of thing before, and I thought it was cute to see them try out these various methods. Then there’s the expected frightening of the poor girl with comments like: “I hear if you have hiccups a whole day, then you’ll die. Of brain-disease.” It reminds me of the “pop-rocks + soda” stories passed around during my school-days. (I always wondered where kids got this information from in the days before Wiki. Not many of the kids I knew had the imagination to create this stuff out of thin air.)
That’s something I noticed: It takes place in a High-School, but it seems to speak more to how grade-school life is for a lot of people. These characters don’t seem at all interested in sex as much as actual high-school students do, and all for the better. That would cheapen this show. Yet I don’t notice any horrible physical and psychological antagonizing here, which pretty much consumed my life until High School. The students sometimes have fun at the new kid’s expense, but they also help her get accustomed to her new surroundings and do offer her their friendship.
Combined with the zany nature of these character’s behaviour and setting, saying this show isn’t a realistic assessment of High School life is the understatement of the year. But even then, there are a lot of moments that do speak true.
Take for example, how the new kid and the adorable prodigy aren’t good at sports, and so spend most of their PE class accidentally hitting each other in their heads passing a volleyball. What matters here is how we see one apologizing as the other quickly, awkwardly tries to catch up the path of the wayward ball. I thought that was funny to me, and not just because of the cute way they drew them running to pick up the escaping ball. It also reminded me of many a gym-class fumbles.
Let’s face it, we’ve all been the one awkwardly covering the expanse of a gym trying to catch up to a ball. What’s even more interesting is that they have a polite patience for each other, even after unintentionally injuring themselves several times. Is this a culture thing? Or are these just especially good-hearted characters?
In an American show, there’d be a dumb, ugly jock rippling with muscles in one of those high-school sport team jacket things, making lame jokes at the loser kid’s expense, and his even uglier cohorts and his blonde cheerleader girlfriend would laugh in a grunt-like manner as if he were George Carlin. Or if it’s an all-girl class, the blonde cheerleader would be a passive-agressive bitch who would never actually have friends in real life, but tends to have equally cunt-like cheerleader friends that also grunt in favour of a really un-clever observation about someone else not being perfect in every way. This show however, realizes that not all gym classes are like that, and not all school experiences are like that. And even if they were, this show has the good sense to focus on other, better things(and better people).
Besides, I have a suspicion the people who are assholes like that in schools probably learned it from American cartoons, tv and movies. Way to go Hollywood.
I still get confused about which character is whom sometimes. The fact that 80% of the main cast occupy the same high school means they wear a standard uniform. That’s probably the biggest obstacle. And while I don’t think all Japanese people look the same, I do think there’s only so many ways you can draw a pretty, doe-eyed, black-haired schoolgirl in a traditional Anime style. Nonetheless, they’re quickly developing into their own personalities quite well.
There are your standard character types for this sort of thing: Overly competitive, innocent and soft-spoken, cool and collected, freaking adorable, etc. But they’re entertaining and they offer enough that’s unique to keep things interesting.
The cool, collected girl for example. She sits by herself looking out the classroom window most of the time. She talks in a low tone, and tends to unknowingly give those around her a “bad-girl” vibe. The type who prefers to be alone and may even get into fights. She has a fan of sorts, who simultaneously worships the ground she walks on and yet is too afraid to invite her to a club meeting after school. When we hear her thoughts, we find out she’s not only waiting for someone to include her, but she achingly wants to be included. The youngest classmate is afraid of her initially, but notices on her “career choice” paper she writes down jobs such as: “Veterinarian” and “Stuffed Animal Store Owner“. She’s the kid in the corner everyone is suspicious of, but is really just a gentle person who lacks initiative. I liked that. I’m sure a lot of people can relate to that.
I even like how sometimes the focus shifts to the teachers instead of the students, giving them their own turn in the spotlight. It occasionally explores the lives of these very interesting grown-ups(term used loosely), and at the same time makes sure we don’t get sick of the students.
Although I don’t think anyone likes the guy with the perpetual Scream-faced expression.
Can’t wait to see more of this show. Later on I’ll talk about my favourite character so far.
END OF LINE
~A.H.
This Christmas I received Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida/Prospekt’s March” from my friend. Right now it’s in a tie for Best Present between The Dark Knight and Season 4 of House. I’m not a fan of their early work, although they’ve had one or two songs that I’ve appreciated. Viva La Vida, however, really works for me. I don’t know if it’s the composition or the production or what have you… But it scratches me right where I itch.
The reason I bring this up is because Joe Satriani recently filed suit against them for allegedly “plagiarizing significant material” from his song “If I Could Fly” for their title track.
If you’d like, you can compare. Here’s Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida“.
And here’s Satriani’s “If I Could Fly”:
Having listened to them both, I was worried I might give Coldplay a break just because I’m more familiar with their work, and(now) consider myself a fan. But honestly? Satriani’s is a better composition in some ways. However, even I think Joe’s just being a drama-queen here.
Aside from the obvious tempo difference, there is only one(Verse? Chorus?) “part” of If I Could Fly that bears a similarity to Viva La Vida, and even then, careful attention shows that although the similar segment starts out… well, similar, Viva La Vida’s quickly goes into something a little more rapid(as if trying to fit in as many notes as possible), while Satriani’s follows longer, more sustained notes, and THEN goes into something wild and different, a crazy, long-ass guitar solo. It threw me for a loop at first, but after a while, it’s becoming more and more obvious how much the compositions differ. The two are only the “same” song for all of 1 or 2 seconds, before departing back onto individual paths. Can it then, be considered a “significant” example of theft?
(As you’ve undoubtedly figured out, I’m awful with musical terminology. The only high school class I ever failed was Guitar, and that was because I could never get my head around “cleffs” and “bridges” and such. So perhaps I’m the wrong person to be writing this article. I’m sorry, I know this makes it difficult to get my point across. If only my musically-inclined former roommate were here to straighten out my gibberish…)
I’m willing to admit to being naive here, and maybe Chris Martin and co. decided to be all Vanilla Ice about it. But I see a lot of effort put into both songs, and I find it hard to believe that Coldplay would get lazy with their title track. Besides, in case Joe didn’t notice, there was a Sum 41 song that came out a while back that sounded suspiciously like Colplay’s “The Scientist”. I seriously doubt that they would start deliberately ripping off popular and renowned guitarists after that.
I like both of those songs. But they’re TWO SONGS. Regardless of which one is “better”, or made by “more talented” musicians, I don’t think Satriani has any case here. At all. Which is why I’m sure he’ll win his suit. A good number of Daily Show episodes reveal just how brainless and corrupt the American Justice System is, a snake trying to find food to survive by choking to death on its own tail.
END OF LINE
~A.H.
After about 7 episodes, I think my favourite character so far is “Osaka”. Nicknamed as such for being from(at least according to the girls and their playful stereotypes) a rambunctious, outspoken section of Japan. She has a few little personality quirks that remind me a lot of myself, and not just my childhood days. Early on, she thinks to herself about how other kids thought she was “slow or out of it”. While she is lost in thought about all of this, she misses the chance to cross a street on cue, and later almost instinctively plays with a bar of soap while washing her hands.
Deep Thoughts... With Jack Handy.
As of this writing, inbetween my consideration for choice of words, I keep passing around a small, plastic bearing-filled wrist-rest I got for Christmas to stave off carpal-tunnel. It is fun and squishy, and sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It’s not that I’m easily distracted, it’s that when I am distracted, I think I’m really, super-dedicated on whatever else has caught my attention.
…Wait, isn’t that the definition of “distraction”?
Or maybe I’ve just convinced myself that it helps me focus, instead of the more logical answer that it, in fact, does not. Or maybe I do things like that because in my twisted neurosis, that’s “fun” to me, and thus something worth pursuing as a means to pass the time instead of more crucial endeavours. Or maybe I just do it so that I appear to be doing anything while I’m thinking, instead of just staring blankly into space…
I notice I’ve distracted myself from the point of this article… What’s the definition of “irony”, again?
Even earlier than Osaka’s soliloquy, she tries to focus on her studies in class. She enthusiastically(and repeatedly) tells herself, out loud: “Get it together. Get it together. Get it together“. She does this to the point where the teacher reminds her that she’s not paying attention. Instead of focusing on her schoolwork, she focuses too much on focusing.
She also has a tendency to fall asleep in class as well. Boy can I relate to THAT. The hardest part about school for me wasn’t just the “campaign of violence” I endured in early years. I could never stay awake! And I’m one of the people who -enjoyed- going to school, and learning new things about the world. It wouldn’t matter if the teacher(s) taught a class in a bikini and sombrero, waving sparklers around and dancing the hootchie-coo. I’d still fall asleep. It was never their fault. And I never meant to disappoint them. There’s just something about the school system that I only barely managed to squeeze through. It just wasn’t built for the Osakas of the world.
And as mentioned in the previous article on this show, she’s not even very good at any athletic attempts in her PE class, often being surpassed or equaled by the girl years younger than everyone else, who put all of her points in her Intelligence score.
Three Legged Race: Attempt #46
And her bizarre tendency to absorb/regurgitate seemingly useless trivia(which she magnanimously calls “Bean Knowledge!”) tends to weird out even the people she is friends with. She tries her best however, knowing that she’ll never be the model student, or even a very popular student at that. She’s a triangle that has to fit through a circular hole in the wall. Sure, it’s the same overall circumference, but it’s not an easy fit, and you really have to pound it in there and lubricate it and-
NOTE TO SELF: Do NOT watch teh pr0nz immediately before writing about delightful children’s programming.
Osaka is also a delicate type, making a soft-spoken point about how she can’t handle spicy food or carbonated drinks very well. This reminds me of my own picky eating habits. Despite this, she’ll occasionally let out her mischievous side, like when they’re on the beach with a bag of fireworks.
I get the feeling if I tried this in real life, there'd be a lot less wackiness and a lot more skin-grafts.
Plus she’s as cute as a button. In fact “she’s as cute as two buttons”. Two buttons and a little bow-tie. I’d say that’s where the similarities between me and this character end… Well, there, and the vagina.
Kawaii and Sugoi. In that order.
I never, ever want kids. But if I were ever stuck with having to raise one, and it turned out even half-way like this character, I’d… tolerate it.
…Oh who am I kidding? I’d go to hell and back for a kid that cool.
END OF LINE
~A.H.
I’ve found a fitting topic for my last blog post this year.
There are very few moments in television quite as mesmerizing, sentimental and perfect to me as the “Victory Parade” that closes the seventh episode of Azumanga Daioh. Those three words I’ve used still don’t come close to describing it, or the effect it has on me. It is almost beyond description. It is a bittersweet farewell, by four of the starring characters to a strange and wonderful day that will be forever behind them. Instead of ending on a note of tearful yearning for the past, they celebrate that they were there when it happened… Or that it was there when they happened.
(Of course, that’s easy for me to say. I’ve seen it in context. I was looking for a solitary clip of the scene in particular, but when I found it, I realized just how insane it would look to someone who hadn’t seen the rest of the episode, or the series for that matter. Alone, it’s baffling. But grounded with the history of these characters and their feelings preceding it, it is something wonderful and heartfelt. That is why I strongly, strongly recommend not searching for that clip specifically. I urge anyone interested in discovering this scene for themselves to at least watch the entire episode with it. Preferrably by legal means, but I won’t think less of you if you search around youtube. I went with a fan-sub myself, but since this scene involves no dialogue, I don’t see how the official dub could screw it up.)
Although I suspect I might later regret this, I’ll give it my best to put into coherent words why this scene affected me the way it did. Not that I believe I could sufficiently explore everything this 75-second long experience holds(I didn’t realize until the 5th viewing that the camera is constantly panning out, and I still don’t consciously notice when I watch it again).
The most interesting thing about it, to me, is “Yomi”, the woman at the back of the line(and that’s considering there’s also someone dressed as a cat, and leading high-school girls in a march across a featureless expansion). Look at the expression on her face. She knows how silly and crazy it is. She’s older and more mature than her companions, and yet she didn’t decide to sit out with the excuse that she’s “too old” for that sort of thing. She’s not waving her arms back and forth like the girls in front of her, but there’s a certain rhythm to her movement that says she’s not just walking. She is in tune with the march of her friends. She misses the day they’ve had just as much as them, and maybe the thought of closing that part of their lives with a silly victory parade means something to her. It’s her last participation(at least for that day) in child-like spontaneity.
It's hard to tell from a low-resolution screen-grab, but trust me. The tall girl in the back's having just as much fun as her friends.
A recurring theme in this series seems to involve the fleeting moments in these kids’ lives, and the inherent sadness that they’ll never have those moments in time again. They may meet up later on in life, but they’ll never be that age again, or all be together in that environment, with those teachers. There will come a time when they won’t be able to talk over lunch, or participate in gym class or in festivals together. One day, that will all be gone, and they’ll never be High School kids again. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I miss my days at Sinclair Secondary.
Osaka in particular doesn’t handle this well at all. Even the thought of being in a different class from her friends in the same school brings her to tears. Although she’s definitely the most vulnerable to it.
“It’d be great if we could have another culture festival tomorrow”.
“It’d be great if Chiyo-chan and Sakaki and(etc., etc.) could all be in the same class next year.”
She says that a lot, in a tone that reveals just how easily it wounds her. She doesn’t let herself say what she’s really thinking, which I imagine is: “I wish things could stay like this forever”. Lord knows that’s what I was thinking. I’ve still got about 14 episodes to go, but I am not looking forward to getting to the end, knowing there won’t be any more new content with these delightfully offbeat characters to look forward to. I felt the same way when I was close to finishing off Fullmetal Alchemist’s run. That will be a bittersweet day indeed.
But I like how the series acknowledges this, and the characters acknowledge it. Everything ends, the good, the bad and the wacky. As an alternative to despair, they end that day slipping away from them by taking part in one last act of simple, surreal, unorthodox happiness. And in so doing, they lead themselves toward their future.
While I’m sure they’re all sad to see it go, and while it’s hard to tell what expression is on Tomo’s face under that cat-helmet, I think they’re all smiling. Their Victory Parade is them saying goodbye to a piece of their lives. That spoke a great deal to me, without any of these characters saying a single word, about the things that hit me where it hurts. Their fearless march into the death of today, yesterday and tomorrow is an elevating sight.
I’ll be sad to see this show conclude, but I still look forward to what’s next.
END OF YEAR
~A.H.