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.

There is rarely a scene where he is not smiling, his overbite unmistakable. He and his wife work to give their daughters a life in Israel, but they notice early on that he is split down the middle. Home is where the heart is. Half of Hoimai’s is his family, the other half remains in the green village where he was born.

Sometimes the smile looks hard for him to maintain, and I was just amazed that he kept it up as long as he did. When he makes it known that he intends to leave his job to head to his birth-country, none of his co-workers acknowledge his friendly greetings. The silent treatment can be heard among the densest population.

Do they feel betrayed? Do they think this man, who has worked and lived here for so long is ungrateful? Israel knows intolerance as well as any nation(or any people), and yet her daughters are still jabbed from the society they exist in. And not just on the schoolyard. It goes all the way to the oldest daughter, from simple ignorance and curiosity, to racially charged bullying.

His youngest daughter has a friend in her school, an Israeli girl. There is a scene of the two talking on the playground, while boys shout the hateful slurs children do at anything unfamiliar. The Nguyen daughter gets into trouble sometimes because of this. Her friend, wise beyond her years, advises her to ignore them. “I know you too well.” When both parents decide they want to move to Vietnam, she is not happy, and they cannot understand why. Vietnam is their home-country, but Israel is HERS.

Each member of the family has had a different experience, and so they don’t all see eye-to-eye on what “home” is to them. Hoimai grew up in Vietnam, and despite the political turmoil that robbed him of his parents, he peacefully, joyfully seeks to regain a little piece for his family to know the joy he felt there as well. Vaan Nguyen, who appears to be the middle-child, had never been to Vietnam, and speaks and writes Hebrew with pointed eloquence. She accompanies her father to their country, and at first relishes the fact that for once she blends in.

We hear her narrate some of the film, and we come to understand that she has done the best she can. But unlike her smiling father, we see only doubt and trouble in her face. She is tired of being a foreigner in the only place she has ever been a part of, and finished answering the same awful questions hurled toward her. She asks the questions he might be too polite to say, although we get the feeling he’s thinking the same things she is. Hell, it’s not like he hasn’t lived it, and harder.

Hoimai goes on a mission with his brothers and daughters to track down the land his ancestors owned before the war. There is serious talk with elders and homeowners and neighbours he seeks information from, but it is all civil. The people living on his land are welcoming, firm and clear that they own the land now, but sympathetic to this good-natured family man. “If you can get the papers”, one tells the Nguyens, they offer him space to build a home right next to them. The daughter is unhappy, but for different reasons than when she arrived.

She realizes her goals of getting the land back and setting up a tourist spot for profit are not as noble as she once thought. She sees families now hold claim to this place her father loves. They have made a life for themselves here, and it would be wrong to ask them to give that up. They have nowhere else to go. And she has discovered she sticks out like a sore thumb even among other Vietnamese.

Being Israeli does not mean you are Jewish, and she is Asian, but she was raised as an Israeli citizen. That’s not something that can be removed or changed. She is halfway between wanting a better place for her, and wondering if there IS a place for her. The Father saw Israel as a temporary solution, until he could bring them back to his true Home. His daughter does not have that footing. Vaan, which means “cloud”, who at first comes off as stone-faced shows us, sometimes in tears, what it’s like to be a foreigner in your own country. To have soil to stand on but no roots to plant.

Hoimai told his daughters a story of a miserable old mayor who put a gun to his head at a young age, and told him to leave the country, never to return. Since they do not have the proper papers, they will need a witness if they want even some of his father’s land back. There is an air of unease as they track down who Vaan reminds her father was an enemy of the family. They find him, and even more members of their own extended family, and find he is a happy old man, who greets them warmly.

“Do you remember me?” he asks, as if they were college roomies.

Many years ago, one of these men threatened the other’s entire life, and by extent his future daughters. Now he is jovial and compassionate to the Nguyens, treating them like relatives who don’t visit often enough. “You never should have left” he says now, some 30 years after the fact. “You never forget your village. The journey is far, but home is the core of your existence.” This does more for Hoimai than Vaan. She, and I, expected the boogeyman of her youth. She is now faced with the un-envied task of whether to keep blaming him for her family’s situation, or doubting the stories fathers tell their daughters.

“The Journey of Vaan Nguyen” accomplishes a few things: The director, Duki Dror does not focus on the violence of Israel and Vietnam’s history, although it is the elephant in the room. We are shown the dry, industrial life in Israel, a contrast to the open humidity of Vietnam’s fields and forests. Neither is painted as a utopia, these are struggling nations and they all know it. But they meet good people, and likewise face cold stares in both worlds. We see black and white footage of Vietnam, as Hoimai explains how his society tried to shape him into something he was not. Is he doing the same to his daughters? That yellow-brick road is paved with good intentions.

This film regards the hypocrisies all societies and people have, even when they’re trying to do what’s best for their loved ones. It acknowledges the apprehension we have for what we’re not used to seeing. It doesn’t have villains or forced drama. It understands that parents often confuse what’s right for them as being what’s right for their kids. But it doesn’t feel like it passes judgment. It simply watches. It absorbs us into watching its subjects as they do what they can to find a place where they can all be at peace.

Do the Nguyens get their land back? I will say only that the father still smiles, and the daughter is still conflicted. The mother plainly and frankly tells her children that she has sacrificed so much to raise them, she decides they have to consider her needs and to take care of her in the land she holds dear. The core of the father rests in his native country. He loves his homeland, and they all love each other, but love is selfish.

We see Vaan later walking the streets of Vietnam in a t-shirt, with an English phrase on the front: “It’s all about me.” Ironic? She has been to two places, both of which often put the needs of others(especially family) over individual needs. And charity begins at home.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

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.

Oh, what’s that? They gave it a different art-style. A new paint-job doesn’t change the fact that it’s the same damn game every single time. This is the 2nd biggest franchise Nintendo has, right behind Mario. But see, Mario changes things up in nearly every installment, even in the spin-off sports games titles. How has the Zelda series improved past aesthetic quality since A Link To The Past? Why doesn’t it try something radical or interesting, like a futuristic or steam-punk setting? Or maybe make the main character something besides a keebler elf who JUST SO HAPPENS to have the same name as every other hero in his position.

What kind of world would we live in if every single firefighter were named “Paul”?

Also, why does anyone pay even the slightest attention to this Timeline theory bullshit? How does this make the games better? I see people all the time in forums, posting lengthy examinations, speculations and such about how the bobble-headed, cat-eyed cartoon Link is somehow connected to the mature, Todd MacFarlance Link. As if that makes any difference whatsoever. Wouldn’t it have been better if it were established canon that IT ACTUALLY IS THE SAME STORY EVERY TIME, but told by different people? This would account for different events, locations and even art-styles(as the imagination of each storyteller would vary).

I mean, does any of that shit matter? It’s not like there’s gonna be some big payoff. It’s not building up to anything. There is absolutely no benefit to having this big, secret wikipedia of the Zelda series that only 3 people at Nintendo have access to. Not when it’s the same main character in every game, the same setting, the same gameplay, and that same stupid fucking Zelda theme that I’ve heard more times than my national anthem.

But you can’t do something cool like set Hyrule in a steampunk setting, or have Zelda be the playable character, because then everyone gets in a hissy fit about how “IT’S NOT THE WAY IT WAS IN 1987!!!1!1!” Superman comics are like this too. The status quo keeps anything of any significance from ever happening, but people keep buying this garbage because it’s Superman. He’s not even allowed to have a dignified death.

For a recent example of this: Twilight Princess had this big buildup of a non-Ganon villain named “Zant”, who was looking to be about a million times more awesome. It was on its way toward proving that they didn’t have to use the same cast in every game. Even Capcom did this with the Mega Man X series(er, eventually). Then at some point they decided “it wasn’t a Zelda game” without Ganon, so they shoe-horned him in, and they had to make Zant completely retarded so that he wouldn’t make Ganon look bland in comparison.

This isn’t like, Pokemon, which is a silly little cartoon game with no real overarching story or buildup, so going on indefinitely isn’t really an issue with me. But the Zelda series is supposed to be Nintendo’s benchmark franchise that shows they mean SRS BUSINESS. It’s supposed to be their way of showing they can adhere to epic storytelling, to do things they couldn’t otherwise do with the smaller, simpler, dare I say cuter fare like the Kirby series. But they’re so afraid of public backlash by low-standards-having neckbeards with triforce tattoos that they’re essentially muscled into beating the horse corpse into a fine paste.

What would make for an interesting Zelda game?

I don’t know. I think the better question might be:

At what point can you get creative with this concept before it ceases to be a “Zelda” game?

How about one where you play as someone -similar- to Link, and then find out that you’re not the Hero of Anything, and were only a pawn to get the real hero to a trap set by the villain. Maybe make Link the final boss, so that you -become- the new Hero of Something?

Or how about it’s Link again, but he goes to an opposite world where a female version of Ganon is the protagonist, against an evil female warrior in green and a magic-abusing prince? Yeah, it’s Rule #63. A three-on-three tag-team battle might not revitalize the series, but at least it would be more interesting than… another sword-fight.

I imagine for a lot of people, news of a new Zelda game is what gets them up in the morning. But I think it’s time to accept that it’s never going to rekindle the magic of our younger days. If this weren’t such a cash-cow for Nintendo, I really would consider just taking it out to the barn and shooting it. Does that make me jaded?

END OF LINE

~A.H.

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.

When I said that Yolei was my favourite character in the show, I spoke too soon. She was certainly my favourite growing up, but I wrote those articles before I took a second trip through the third season. Jeri Katou enters as a presence you don’t really think as being too important, but in the grand scheme of things becomes the most important character in all 51 episodes. And certainly the most heart-breaking. We assume little of her at first since she is presented as a background character, and is revealed as the spot-light widens to include her. A sweet and trusting young girl consumed by her shadows.

She looks almost plain, except for the fox hand-puppet which she uses to initiate conversations. It’s how she introduces herself to Takato. She doesn’t look like she would be connected to the main events, but over time finds herself drawn to this boy’s strangeness. When he tries to convince his friends that he happens to have a real-live Digimon, she is the first to believe him. Her and Guilmon’s first meeting is one of the better moments this franchise has to its name.

She’s full of surprises. She makes fun of the boys for playing their card games, but we see later on that she is more of an avid collector than all of them combined. Like the other children who meet Guilmon, their days are filled with happiness and an oncoming dread. A sneaking question of self-worth. “Wait a minute. How come I don’t have a Digimon partner that can be my friend, through thick and thin? Am I not special enough?” She tries desperately to win the companionship of a noble “Leomon”, who is a good sport about it. She wants to have what her friend has, a very rare bond. She does eventually get her wish, but not until after intense disappointment.

I was glad she got to come along with the “main” team to the Digital World. Jeri isn’t the most vocal member of the expedition, but instead of bringing sarcasm or clumsiness like her friends, she provides a warm stability. This is shattered in a scene of unexpected violence. But I’ll get to that later.

I enjoyed her partner as well. Leomon is a stylish interpretation on the nobility often referred to from lionesque imagery. Chivalrous, fierce when he needs to be, but never feral. He’s the closest thing to an adult chaperon these kids have, and they could do a whole lot worse. He, like Renamon, come from a world where you had to be tough to make it through another day, and they seem to subconsciously understand that. Some folks you recognize at first glance.

Bad things happen. A good person commits selfish atrocities to the point where it’s hard to think of how we could ever like him again. Somehow, it finds a way. Tall, spiked and intimidating, but the show goes to great pains to show that underneath all of that he’s still the weak little imp who feels just a bit smaller than everyone else. This is the most difficult character portrayal I’ve seen on a Saturday morning.

This is Beelzemon.

His early appearances in the show are that of a sociopathic prankster “Impmon”. A pyromaniac with the voice of a Joe Pesci impersonator, he generally makes life slightly more annoying for any human he encounters out of spite. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was unsolicited. We see later on that he had a pair of human partners, too young to responsibly share their digital friend. If nothing else, we started it. He also holds onto a compulsive need to be on the defensive, never really admitting to the right people how little self-worth he has. In a moment of desperation he sells his soul, for power he can’t control. Unable to accept the fact that anyone would want to be friends with someone as “worthless” as him, he nearly murders a group of kids and their cartoon pals with a pair of shotguns.

A brave soul stands up to him and pays the price. Jeri is never quite the same after that. Even after pooling their resources, and with the aid of a clever twist on one of the show’s major selling points, it ends in a draw. Before the hammer can fall, Jeri(overcome with grief over the loss of her Digimon partner) stops her friend from causing any more bloodshed. Instead of taking this opportunity to wipe out the vulnerable team, he feels worse than ever. Not for his crimes, but more that he wasn’t even good enough to be executed. All of that strength, and still nothing to show for it.

Except for his awesome fucking bike, of course.

The heroes decide to bring him back home anyway. That is no small decision. He may not want to be so vulnerable as to think so, but they are his friends after all. He returns to his duo of partners disgraced and broken, and finds they regretted their mistreatment of him. They all realize they could have handled things a lot better. They patch him up and offer him the courtesy and compassion he’d always wanted.

When Jeri is held captive by a dangerous hive-mind sweeping over Japan, this fallen angel comes to the rescue. He can’t ask for forgiveness, but knows that he can help the people who tried to help him. He understands the errors of his ways, seeks to save Jeri and apologize for robbing her of a good friend, taps into an inner-strength he never knew was there, and…

Fails miserably.

He doesn’t save the day. For the first time in a children’s show like this, believing in one’s self did not bring about a perfect and happy ending. Even with his priorities straight, even with his deus-ex machina super-duper anime powers of self-confidence, rainbows and puppies, he still lost. Sometimes our very best still isn’t good enough. And somehow, through all of the crap she’s been through because of him, she finds it in her heart to forgive him.

That is some brave storytelling for a cartoon about dinosaur robots.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

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.

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.

END OF LINE

~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.

Let me remind you of the original game: Super Mario Galaxy (1). It brought perhaps the last great innovation possible for a concept like this: Outer Space. Playing tricks with gravity, dozens of small stages with their own orbit, instead of a flat 2-D plane or a confined planetoid. Entire galaxies to run and jump around on, to stomp on turtle shells, then fly to a new galaxy. I can’t fault the sequel for not having that same impact, but it lacks the polish as well. There are many great ideas here, that change the rules and offer interesting ways to fool around with the simple formula of running and jumping on Goombas. The first game had great ideas too, and ran with them. The stages in this game are tragically short, smaller in scale, and leaves a great sense of thematic disconnect. For a game that adds so much, something is missing.

Did Mario Galaxy have a story? Should it have a story? What it unmistakably had was scope. It took the simplistic Mario world and brought it into the universe. It established a far-reaching cosmos, of which the Mushroom Kingdom is a small, though not unimportant part. It deals with that iconic jerk Bowser dealing with powers perhaps out of his realm of understanding. He uses the power of space travel and galaxy formation as a cudgel to further his goals, which now seem so much smaller in the grand scheme of things.

It introduced perhaps this Nintendo universe’s very first God-figure(or in this case, Goddess) in “Rosalina”, who watches over the stars and planets of her dominion, which begin as cute little bouncy figures that would make terrific plush toys. She is their “mommy”. But is she the Mother of the Universe? The storybook scenes, an entirely optional aspect mind you, might be the most valuable new addition to this series. It allowed these games to grow a little, without sacrificing the charm or spirit that allow them to endure to this day. Mario, Peach, Luigi and Bowser might not fully comprehend these new characters or their place in the cosmos, but I felt like they were now a part of something bigger than they’d ever been before.

There is no story in Mario Galaxy 2. Not really. There is a fat, purple creature who tells you the basic gist of what you should do, but he has no storybook history. He is not relevant to anything. Sometimes he tells you when your batteries are low, but my console does that for me, so yeah. To those who think a story in a Mario game wouldn’t belong, I tell you it has already worked. It worked by putting it in the background, so that the conflicts in the foreground have a greater depth of field. This game streamlines and chops away at that until it feels like small and insignificant again.

A curious disconnect between myself and the gaming public is the topic of this game’s difficulty. I have heard, time and again, critics and fans express how this is supposedly the most difficult game to bear the “Mario” name in a long time. I confess that I have never beaten the original game, or the third, which are often called the very best entries. It’s no fault of theirs. I simply lack the timing, the co-ordination and skill necessary. And I tell you now that this is the least challenging, least-rewarding Mario game I have played, and I’ve played them all.

And when it finally does bring some challenge, it doesn’t become “hard”. It becomes stupid. “Do-It-Again-Stupid“. That term was coined by Shamus Young, who famously wrote about modern video games that pull cheap, instant death at the player just to prolong the total time you play the game. Toward the end, it’s not that old-school, retro challenge that Mario and Mega Man are famous for, the kind of challenge that is encouraging to pull off. What we get here in the end-game are quick deaths from obscuring vital power-ups the player needs, but couldn’t possibly notice on the first playthrough. And then there is another cheap, out-of-nowhere death immediately after that. Mario games should be about skill, not about blind trial-and-error.

But for the most part, it’s a walk in the park. Just when it starts to build up some momentum, just when a level begins to take advantage of its own ideas, you are awarded a shiny gold star for completing what would have been 2/3rds of a level in the very first game for the NES. It’s like someone moved that flag pole closer down. After playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii, this left me a little disappointed. I have repeatedly thought to myself: “Wow, this looks like a fun stage… if only they did something with it.” The new items you and I were looking forward to feel underrepresented.

The real reason I was looking forward to this game was for its soundtrack. The first game’s music is my all-time favourite collection of tunes from video games. (Okay, maybe it’s tied with Chrono Trigger). Remember when Mega Man 10 was announced, and it had that awesome theme music? And then you played the game and realized that was the best song in the game? And worse: it was one of the only great tracks? Don’t you hate it when the trailer gives away all of the coolest scenes?

The soundtrack, once again by Mahito Yokota and Koji Kondo, is not -bad- by any means. It’s quite good even, but it’s certainly not their best work. More than a few of the songs sound the same(compare Sky Station’s themes to the Cloud Mario levels), or just lack the strength in composition found in the first game. I believe the music that plays when fighting a giant, angry turtle monster shouldn’t feel so… drowsy. I’m glad they’re trying, and I love that they kept the orchestral treatment. But it really says something when the best song in the game is a remix of an older tune.

Is this a bad game? Sometimes. Often it is merely unmotivated. What else can I say about a game that keeps the imagination of its predecessor, but lacks the skill and the gravitas? This isn’t like Super Mario Bros. 2, or Adventure of Link. This isn’t the dark-horse game that drastically fiddles around with the core concept and ends up as something odd, but otherwise enjoyable. I wouldn’t call this a sequel, or an expansion pack. It’s more like a very good beta.

The best part about it is that it was released on my friend’s birthday. At least I’ll have some fond memories to associate with it.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

“Valve, your game couldn’t be worse if it made us play as the Cheetahmen.”

^ -That’s a line I really wish I had put in my initial review, but only just recently thought of. Don’t look at the comic above and tell me you wouldn’t pay good money for DLC that replaced the cast with any of those options.

Will the “surprise” announcement from Valve at E3 be the unveiling of a new Left 4 Dead? If it is, I hope we get a better, more memorable bunch to play with than these nimrods. Although I’m leaning more towards “Orange Box 2″.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

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:

I’m s-

Now then, onto more current matters: “The Passing”. I saw a youtube walkthrough of this, and I can’t imagine why anyone would pay good money for it. Feel free to tell me that I’m not allowed to make an opinion because I haven’t subjected myself to it personally.

Go ahead and throw sales numbers at me while you’re at it. You know what else is popular? Twilight and Revenge of the Fallen. A lot of people like this game, which is bad news for them, because this game is for stupid people.

Here are some observations, based on what I’ve seen:

======

1. Someone smeared vaseline all over my TV

-Why does everything in Left 4 Dead 2 have the Barbara Walters filter applied to it? Even in levels without rain, there is always this annoying soap-opera mist. Everything looks like a fucking dream sequence in a terrible 80’s sitcom about white people who have an unorthodox neighbour or African-American midget as an adopted pet, as they learn to co-exist.

2. The levels are still four times as long as they need to be.

-The Passing looks to be about as long as a regular five-stage campaign from the first game, except there’s only two checkpoints. Valve, what the hell is wrong with you? Why, in a game filled with so many cheap deaths and virtually useless friendly A.I. would you make the space between safe rooms LONGER?

You’d think this was just a rushed, money-grabbing attempt by their new lords and masters at EA, but the Mass Effect series only benefitted from their financing. This game is entirely Valve’s fault.

3. The original survivors are barely involved

Yeah, it turns out the big selling point for this DLC is probably the least significant part. You talk to either Zoey or Francis for about 3 seconds at the start, and then don’t see them for another 5 fucking hours(a generous approximation of time to beat any campaign in this hellish mockery of a video game). And then they stand perfectly still, say 3 lines which aren’t remotely funny or interesting and then wave you goodbye.

That’s what all the hype was for?

4. It’s the same survivors every time.

Now, this is only a rumour, but I’ve heard that they couldn’t get Bill’s voice actor “Jim French” to reprise the role again. Because he’s too busy with a radio show.

A Radio Show.

Which uses A RECORDING STUDIO. Do I really have to explain the level of convenience these people avoided? This isn’t rocket science, you guys.

It’s not like his character would have had a lot to say either(see Point #3). There’s maybe 4 or 5 observations per Survivor. If Bill were still “alive”, they’d probably strike that down to 3 to make room for the other character’s dialogue. This could not have possibly impeded Mr. French’s ability to continue his show. It would have consumed all of five minutes, while giving him an additional paycheck. I call bullshit on that rumour.

Wouldn’t it be cool if the character who died was different every time you played? Sometimes it’s Francis. Sometimes it’s Zoey. Sometimes it’s Louis. But nope, it’s Bill, always, all the time forever.

I hate the idea of continuity in this game series. I’ve always felt the first game works more with each campaign acting as a “What If?” scenario, instead of barely connected events in the world’s laziest “story”. It’s supposed to be about being different every time, and here they are trying to cram G-Canon down our throats.

5. Shitty incentives

A golf-club? Really? That’s the best idea for a new melee weapon you guys could come up with? A five-iron? A flimsy metal stick with a slab at the end? Not a sledge hammer or a banjo or something interesting or potentially capable of murdering someone?

6. Another “COLLECT THE GAS CANS” finale.

Valve, if I wanted to play Scavenge, I’d play Scavenge! Keep that shit out of the campaigns! There are so few decent Finale segments in Left 4 Dead 2, why would they make another one where you have to run around collecting doo-dads(which isn’t fun) versus defending a position for as long as you can(which is exactly why the first game’s finales were fun)?

7. Two Tanks at the same time

Guys, you just conducted a poll to determine everyone’s favourite campaign, and Swamp Fever came in dead last. It had less than 10% of the votes across PC and Xbox players. Do you think maybe that’s got something to do with the fact that you have to fight two tanks at the same time at the end? How did you retards not learn from your mistake? How could you possibly expect any team to fare well against that kind of bullshit, -in addition- to hordes and up to 3 Special Infected at the same time? That’s like 4 against 7. You know damn well what we have to work with, here!

============

It’s really too bad, because this is actually the best-looking campaign the game has. I have no love for the wide-open, bright, happy, sunshine-filled, candy-coated Pixar sheen of the levels in this game. The Passing is the only set of levels that look even remotely connected to the first game’s visual theme: A zombie apocalypse. It’s also the only campaign that uses colour as a means of subtly directing you to your destination. The levels in the first game were inspired by horror stories, while the sequel seems more inspired by Scooby-Doo. This is the one exception to that.

And the Mutations are such a good idea. A different re-tooling of the game’s rules every week. Sometimes you only get Chainsaws, or maybe there’s no health kits and your health is always depleting(forcing you to rely on pills and adrenaline). Unfortunately you have to buy The Passing to get access to these experiments. This DLC was made to take advantage of the fan’s vested goodwill toward the terrific character designs of the previous game, because this game lacks strong characters. It is possible I am, like, totally wrong and stuff, and that it’s as awesome as twelve simultaneous blowjobs.

If it’s one thing this game is good at, it’s sucking.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

-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.

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:

===================

Roger,

At the risk of sounding unhip for not having a more obscure choice, you’ve been my favourite writer for many-a-year. There’s barely an article or blog post of yours that I don’t read. Even when I disagree with the points you make, I find a way of communicating ideas and feelings from your musings that I can’t get anywhere. You’ve provided much influence on how I write, and how I look at life.

That said, every time you have spoken about video games in any capacity, I have found myself strangely angry. Upset. At times, smoldering with nerd-rage. I’ve blathered many knee-jerk reactionary rants, and I don’t look back fondly on them.

What made me angry wasn’t simply the argument you were making, but the bizarre lack of research or common sense you apply to seemingly everything else you’ve ever written.
It felt uncharacteristic, like you were betraying your own standards. It would be as bad as Bob Chipman declaring movies devoid of artistic merit, simply because the majority of movies on Planet Earth are porn and security surveillance tapes.

And now, here we are once again, opening that wound… And for once, you have a strong point to make. This is the first recorded instance I’ve seen of you, video games and a rational thought being in the same room. At last you’ve come to the real problem holding video games back:

The problem isn’t the games, or the bad movies(Revenge of the Fallen), or the terrible literature(Twilight). The problem is that not enough of us demand any better.

You are right to posit that we are in an age obsessed with quick, simple incentives. The fast and easy road. Anything else looks like work. Everyone is in too much of a damn hurry, we have too many distractions. So video games give us power ups, and little bad guys to stomp, and explosions. There is never room for quiet pacing, there is only noise. Dialogue, which could open characters up for the world to see is reduced to grunts and yelling in 5-second long bite-sized chunks.

Otherwise, people start to get nervous. Game developers are afraid that we will lose interest. That if they don’t include some insipid means of timed button presses then it ceases to be a video game. This attitude, this search for the “fissons” is what holds back many games from being art, and also what holds back a lot of us from being exposed to the finer arts.

You can’t do a game about dinnertime conversation in the victorian countryside, because that’s “boring”. You can’t make a video game without guns or lasers or magic spells, because that’s “gay”. The problem was never video games.

It’s us. It’s not that games aren’t or cannot be art, it’s that we’re not letting them. By constantly demanding that this cycle of brazen virtual pornography never change, to never improve, to never be about more than having the shiniest graphics or the bloodiest content, we have only ourselves to blame when 1 out of every 2 games is about nothing more than the wanton slaughter of aliens. Maybe if we were willing to commit to anything, and stop settling for quick, meaningless Pavlovian rewards, we’d be reading better books, seeing better movies, playing better games and living richer lives.

Films are lucky. At least they had a chance to be noticed before Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Livejournal starting competing for our attention. We could all stand to read more, to go outside more often, to talk to one another in person more. To enrich ourselves.

These things, Video Games included, were always big. It’s the people who got small.

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END OF LINE

~A.H.