The Procrastination Post.

I am flabbergasted by my sudden proclivity towards procrastination. Here I've been working full time and taking 4 graduate classes and, admittedly with some difficulty and a not-inconspicuous amount of bitching, I've more or less been handling all of the things I had to do.

I took a couple of weeks to make sure I'd be ready for my finals, and since the last day I worked I can't seem to force myself to concentrate for more than 10 straight minutes.

Here is a list of things I have done in the last 3 days that weren't studying:

*I beat Far Cry 2, and fun game with the most atrocious ending I've seen since KOTOR 2.

*I discovered, downloaded, and read from cover to cover the Archie meets the Punisher crossover comic book. It was actually pretty funny.

*Flipped through dozens of pages of lolcats. srsly.

*Watched several of MovieBob's ADD movie reviews. Also pretty funny, but that's no excuse.

*I've slept until at least 1130 every day since I got done working.

*Rolled through a few Yahtzee videos. Is it me or is his older stuff a lot better than his most recent work?

*played with my cat.

*Stared off into space for far more time than is reasonable.

*Written this post.

I can't believe it's 4 PM already. My exam is tomorrow night. Blech. I better try to get cracking.

The Second Coming (of the Saints. Jesus is still on Vacation)

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I hope you can all say likewise. Also, when did "tryptopantastic" become a word? I think I should be notified about these things. Is there a mailing list I can get on or something?

I saw Boondock Saints 2. I wasn't expecting much, and for that reason I was very pleasantly surprised that they actually did a really good job with this film. In large part, it's a rehash of the first. If you liked the first one, you'll almost definitely like the sequel. And if you didn't like the first one, you'll be equally nonplussed by this.

For the most part, it follows almost exactly the same formula as the first one, tossing in a reference to its predecessor approximately three times per scene. In some ways it reminds me of most comedy sequels, where they simply reuse all the old jokes with a new coat of paint. It does, however, manage to be a wonderful time for the fans of the first one. I saw it at one PM on a Saturday, and the theater was so packed that my brother and I had to sit in the front row to find two seats next to each other. And everyone in that theater seemed to respond fairly well to the movie, roaring with laughter and applause with a frequency which made me grateful of the fact Troy Duffy was presumptuous enough to throw in a pause for laughs after most of the better jokes.

The old jokes are recycled, but usually in a clever enough way to still be funny. The film brings very little new to the table, but it does manage to deftly revive almost everything we loved about the old one. The brothers, their father are played by the same three actors, the bumbling Irish cops from the first movie come back (they seem to have had a couple acting lessons since the first one) with an unexpectedly humorous new routine, and even the untimely demise of David Dela Rocco's character in the first movie doesn't stop him from having a couple of monologues.

Clifton Collins Jr., is rather awkwardly shoehorned into his role as the new sidekick. He is introduced as some kind of untouchable kung fu Spaniard, but that entire aspect of his character is instantly forgotten as he spontaneously adopts Rocco's persona as the slightly-retarded but well-connected sidekick. Still, he manages to make the role his own to some degree, and by the end of the movie I found myself viewing him as more than just a Rocco-clone.

One thing I was disappointed in was Julie Benz. I loved her on Angel, and I don't think she can be held personally responsible for this, but she simply couldn't reproduce Willem Dafoe. If the moviemakers had realized that, she's pretty and talented enough that she could have given them something to work with, but it seems that somebody in charge was insistent that she be cast as a female version of Willem Dafoe's character from Boondock Saints I, and that just wasn't happening.

One aspect of the film I really liked was that while the Saints are certainly a couple of badass action heroes, they aren't very bright and they generally don't plan very well. The first film made a minor note of this, particularly in the penthouse shootout scene, but in this movie the point is really driven home that these guys have absolutely no idea what they are doing. It reminds the audience that this isn't a formulaic action flick so much as a parody of formulaic action flicks.

Which, in the end, is what makes or breaks this movie. As a simple action or a simple comedy, it is probably sub-par. Some films, like Shoot-Em-Up, are action movies that aren't meant to be taken seriously. this is a comedy that is meant to be taken seriously. In the end, you will probably feel the same way about this movie that you did about the first one.

Excellent...

So I informed my boss the other day that I had decided that I would be cutting back on my classes so that I could keep coming to work. As casually as if my roommate were informing me that no, I didn't need to go out because he'd already picked up milk, she tells me that it won't be necessary, because the hours would be heavily reduced in February anyway, and there would be no trouble keeping me under 20 hours per week.

Awesome. It would have been great to know this before I spent weeks freaking out about it, but still, awesome. So now I just need to find a permanent job, preferably back in St Louis, and I'll finally be ready to take my life off pause.

Things are looking up.

Sometimes I wish I were an Eloy

Wow, so once again, I haven't posted in like a bajillilon years. Or a couple weeks, you be the judge.

Working a full time job while also tackling a four-class graduate school schedule is a royal pain in the ass. It's probably not nearly as exhausting as actually working two full time jobs, but it's still pretty heavy. I'm glad the semester is about to end. I've pretty much decided that I'm keeping the job, which means I won't be graduating until December of next year. Boo, hiss, and damn.

On the plus side, I get to build some work history, take the academic side of things relatively easy, and whatever CPA tests I don't finish in the summer, I can wrap up during my very moderate Fall semester. Furthermore, even if I don't find work right after graduation, I should be able to do the HR Block thing again next tax season to make some money and pad my resume a bit more.

I'm exhausted almost all the time now, though. I have no energy to go out, hit the gym, or even make more than a minimal attempt at my schoolwork. The stress is definitely taking a toll on my sanity. Between Thanksgiving break this week and the two weeks I'm taking off for my finals, I should be fine in terms of my grades, but I definitely would not even consider trying to work this schedule for an entire semester. At least I'll make enough money to fix up my car and go Christmas shopping.

Oh, yeah, my car needed fixing up. Wednesday morning, I awoke to my cat biting rather harshly into my arm. I swatted him away and went back to bed, not realizing that this was cat for "dude, your alarm didn't go off, you were supposed to wake up like 20 minutes ago!" Eventually, I saw the clock, and it was almost an hour later than I typically wake. I sprang out of bed, ran into the shower, shaved, and ironed a shirt in just 25 minutes. I actually had a chance of making it to work until I blew a tire. Unlike the first time I had a blowout, I noticed this one quick enough to pull the car over to the road instead of driving on the rim.

So I get out into the very cold November morning and small the burnt rubber. Grimacing, I go into my trunk and extract the spare tire and car jack that I keep there. What I don't extract, for lack of owning one, is a tire iron. Can you tell I'm not a car guy?

So out comes AAA to save the day, and I really have to give that company credit. They were there in like 15 minutes, and the guy worked fast. Unfortunately, his jack wouldn't fit under my car because it had sunk a bit in mud, and the only solution he could think of was to drive the car a bit, even on the bum wheel. Eff that, says I, and I just lifted the back end of the car a bit for him. Cars weigh a few thousand pounds, but most of that's in the parts. The frame itself rarely weighs more than 500, and I was only lifting the corner. I got it up just enough for his jack to slip until the frame, thus saving me at least from further damaging my wheel. And now I had a valid excuse for being late.

So I had the next day off from work, and I spend part of it taking the car in to the shop. They charged me over $130 to buy and change the tire, but whatever. Took them longer to bring the tire out and change it than it took the AAA guy to arrive and do his whole thing, but again, whatever. I was able to knock out a tax class project while I waited.

A few other less significant things contributed to this being a generally bad week, but it's over now. I have no class next week, so I won't be dealing with work and school at the same time, and I get at least one of these days off. Starting the following Friday, I'll begin my reclusive finals prep week, and I won't be going back to work until the semester has been behind me for 24 hours. So right now I'm enjoying my last free weekend for a month, and taking it easy. I've got some personal long projects I've been meaning to start, I finally got to get down and dirty with some zombies in L4D2, I finished almost all of my Christmas shopping, and I got my back yard raked. I used to define "down-time" specifically as time that I spent relaxing and doing nothing productive. Now I define it as things that are productive for me instead of my employer.

I think this feeling means that I'm growing up, but it might just be gas.



/



/


[UPDATE: coming soon, how Ben will attempt to both keep his job and graduate on time after all]

You Can't Hire Me, I Quit!

So as many have already heard, I was hired to a payroll bookkeeping position at HR Block last Thursday. As many are also aware, a few hours after accepting the position, I learned that I would have to be taking 4 classes during the upcoming semester. If I were to attempt to both graduate on time and do this job, I would only have five days and nine evenings per month in which to complete my coursework; I would be up at 7 AM, working until 5, then going straight to class until 10 PM. I would then be waking up about eight hours after I got home. I would get three evenings a week (Friday through Sunday) plus every other Saturday and three Sundays per month to study for exams or work on assignments. Frankly, that is not enough time to ensure passing grades in all my classes even if I was sure to be well rested and prepared.
Since I am unwilling to spend another seven months waiting to graduate, I did the only thing I could do. I explained to the nice people who had just given me a job during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression that I would be unavailable starting in January. I feel sick acknowledging that. The job was only seasonal and would have ended in April anyway, but it still would have been great experience and a good resume builder.

So for the time being, I’m working through November, and we’ll figure out what’s next afterwards. Contrary to the above, I’m seriously contemplating extending my stay in Kansas City through the next Fall. Six more months of experience is a lot to pass up, especially in this economy. Well, that’s enough bitching about having to choose between having a Master’s degree or a job, seeing as both are opportunities that I would have killed for a year ago.

Halloween weekend was fantastic. We downed an entire handle of Everclear. I went to a very fine party in the loop, and saw a man in a Shriner costume. He had even built himself a car. Nobody got my Boondock Saints costume. Daylight Savings Time has never come on a better morning.

Evan’s house is fantastic. It’s spatious, it has guest bedrooms, and the view in his back yard is gorgeous. I predict it will be the site of many good times in the years to come.

Theo, next time I come we’ll celebrate your birthday proper. I will demand some Brutal Legend multiplayer out of you.

Dave, I hope to see you in January, if I make it out.

Fission Mailed

Another bit of weird and interesting news. I mentioned a while back about how Gamefly was working out really well for me, because it costs about as much as a new game every 3 months and lets me play 1-2 per month. Well, that only works when the games actually show up in the mail, which apparently wasn't the case for some two thousand games in Philadelphia.

A US Postal worker, by the name of Reginald Johnson, has apparently been swiping every Gamefly game he could get his nerdy little hands on. In total, authorities attribute the theft of 2,200 games to this man, for a grand total of about $86,000. This was over the course of just six months, and it's expected he may have been doing this for well over a year.

The best part is when these oh-so-elite federal agents finally noticed the one guy stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of mail per month, they botched the arrest, and Mr. Johnson managed to slip past them and into his SUV. He immediately floored it, and crashed shortly after. He was then finally apprehended while trying to escape on foot.

I hope you all appreciate the irony of a man who probably stole at least a hundred copies of GTA 4 having relived one of it's most classic "fail" moments. I'll bet this man will spend the next year in jail waiting for the "Retry" option to pop up.

Why the Hell aren't I notified about these things!?

I want you to imagine that you walk out of your home one day, and suddenly notice that there is a grand stage set up across the street. Upon that stage, Jesus Christ and a small contingent of samurai warriors are doing battle with a horde of velociraptors. Holy shit, you ironically think to yourself, since when did something so awesome start happening right at my doorstep. However, as you watch the scene unfold, you realize that this and similar bouts of awesome have been taking place on a daily basis right in this very spot, and you've somehow managed to go all this time without noticing it.

This is how Brutal Legend made me feel about metal. Now I've never been an avid fan of any particular genre of music, and I still probably never will be, but somehow I've gone all this time without noticing how awesome some of these bands are. They've been around, I've heard their stuff on the radio and at parties, and Theo has probably ruptured my eardrums with some of it on more than one occasion, but somehow I just never noticed that I like this stuff.

Then again, when you're riding a magical, fire-breathing muscle car through a barren wasteland populated by things like Laser Panthers and Raptor Elks, it's a lot easier to listen to. The artwork in this game really does set it apart. It would be most easily described by saying that it looks like a Megadeth album cover. It would be more accurate to say that it looks like somebody gave Tim Schaeffer a bunch of acid, locked him in a room with nothing but a giant sound system and a bunch of Slayer, Omen, and Judas Priest albums, and then told him he had to make a video game before he was allowed to go to bed.

The game world isn't just filled with references to the various forms of metal, it is inspired almost entirely by it. Trees have exhaust pipes instead of branches. Mountains have been hewn into the shape of rock fingers and bass guitars. A giant, ancient highway runs throughout the land. It is filled with some of the most awesome animals ever conceived, like the Guillosaur (a combination of a dinosaur and a guillotine) and most of these beasts are ridable.

As if all this wasn't enough, Tim Schaeffer's writing shines just as brightly as it always has, all the more so for Jack Black's delivery in the game's starring role. The supporting cast includes all-star Jennifer Hale (Samus Aran of Metroid) as the love interest, Ozzy Osbourne as the Gaurdian of Metal, and Tim Curry as what can best be described as a slightly more loveable version of Sauron. A host of other faces from the music industry with varying levels of notoriety also make appearances in major and minor roles, as well. The game is always willing to poke fun at itself and its inspiration, but it still takes itself just seriously enough for the plot to be engaging.

Behind this absolutely fabulous facade of pure awesome, the gameplay itself is a mixed bag. It contains elements of a Starcraft-ish RTS, God of War-style hack n'slash, Halo-like vehicle romps, and Dynasty Warriors-ish war scenery. The game doesn't succeed spectacularly at all these things, but it does blend them together into something that can genuinely be described as original. In certain aspects, particularly when driving your car near rough terrain, the controls fall into the realm of mediocrity, but for the most they are intuitive and extremely simplistic.

The upshot of all this is that if the heavily stylistic presentation fails to appeal to you in any way, you're going to find this to be a mediocre title. If you are a fan of metal, or at least receptive to it, you're going to love the game's style too much to be bothered by a few shortcomings in its substance.

Coming up next: Mr. Smith gets a job!!

I was her MAN of Honor, Thank You

Recently Theo showed us all some love with a post dedicated to all of his friends. That, and some minor prodding, have motivated me to do likewise.

I'm going to divide mine up among three posts, however, dedicated to my three nearest and dearest friends. Kurt, Evan, Adam, Webb, and company have all been good friends, and I have had many very good times with them. Please do not take this as a slight in any way, but these were the three who have been there my entire adult life. They have been by my side, in one form or another, during my weakest moments. They have shared the best of times with me. I hold for myself no secrets to which this fellowship is not privy.

So here goes:

Walter, for the life of me, I cannot remember being introduced to you. To me, it feels like you were just always there. You were always inspiring me to get off my ass and experience things, usually things that I would otherwise have missed. You cared enough to get pissed at me when I wouldn't tag along just because I felt lazy, and that made my college experience considerably more memorable.

You have a strange knack for always having something appropriate (or delightfully inappropriate) to say for any situation. You have a sense of humor that could lighten the darkest moods, and make the good times even better. Best of all, even in your own darkest hours, you never stop using that humor to brighten everyone else's day.

You've always been one of the most selfless people I've ever known. I remember watching you teach Tae Kwon Do to the youngsters, and seeing a certain compassion that not many possess. You've always been willing to give what you could spare, and in many cases you've been more generous than that. I have no doubt that your kindness and passion will serve you well in your medical career.

I have a lot of memories of you that rank among my fondest. Those occasions on which I accompanied you to Jefferson City, the long nights spent jigging off key to Flogging Molly, all the crazy shit we did in Columbia, and the late nights cramming in the study of the SAE house.

And of course, most of the above memories also included you, Theo. I remember distinctly how we met, and I remember that after losing that bet, you could have easily told me to go to hell when I threw my laundry at you, but you honored the bet, and I am damn grateful that you did. You were the first friend I made after leaving Overland Park, and you remain the best and most steadfast.

I remember how we used to hang out in my room, playing Devil May Cry; or in yours, driving your roommate insane. I remember mounting the side of Rosie as we drove down the street. I recall with vivid horror that one time you convinced me to try and drive that behemoth.

As wonderful as it was to get away from my old haunts, those first few weeks of college were terrifying, and you were the first sign I was given that things were going to be OK. You always had just a little more stones than I did when it came to our nightly jump challenges, but you still managed to push me to my limit, which always made those outings far more worthwhile.

My life has been a far greater adventure with you in it, and I fully expect that this will continue the case.

Also, at this moment, I'm listening to Dethklok, which is an entire genre of music that I never would have been able to enjoy had I not known you.

Finally, there's one more person who it would be utterly criminal not to place on this list. She's not exactly a member of the Holy Trinity described above, but I'm also not willing to divide this list up amongst different posts, lest one or the other feel somehow slighted. So I'll just break this one up.
_____________________________________________________________________

To get some extra spending money, I worked an on-campus job at Westminster. I ended up working in the Mac Lab, because it was literally a do-nothing job where I could laze around or get some homework done. Most days, I only saw a couple of people, if any.

On one of those days, fairly early on in the semester, a girl came in sat down in front of a computer, and began talking to it in a language I didn't recognize. She was apparently practicing for a foreign language class (a requirement for graduation at Westminster) but I didn't know this, so I just saw some crazy chick talking gobbledygook at a computer. She suddenly saw the strange look I was giving her, and quickly stood up and tried to explain herself. She neglected to remove her headphones, however, and ended up catching the right speaker in her eye. It was very funny.

I was quite shy in those days, but after seeing somebody embarrass themselves like that, I was able to summon up the courage to say hi (major accomplishment for me at the time) and actually start a conversation. Unfortunately, I had yet to come out of my shell and so my attempts at communication quickly drifted to a video game reference, (see, it was actually kind of funny if you understood the context, because the locks in the lab had this really weird and contrived way of... oh nevermind) but somehow this did not chase her off. We talked for a bit, exchanged contact information, and quickly became friends.

It was that magical time of life where everybody's still trying to figure out who or what they are, and so anything can be tried once and almost always is forgiven. During those years, she was at different times a mentor, a companion, and on occasion, a lover. Somewhere along the line, the line between those three things grew hazy, and our relationship evolved into something best described as a very dear friend. We have shared in victory and in defeat. At certain times we have been sources of strength and compassion for one another, and at others we have been the bane of each others' existence. Through it all, however, she has remained the dearest of friends. She calls me on my bullshit, she listens to my problems, and she sees me in ways that I often can't even see myself. Her council and companionship are dear to me, even when they lead me astray.

I don't think it's ever been a secret that I am very much in love with Andrea Wimberly. It's not about physical intimacy (frankly, we never did work as a couple) so much as the fact that she just gets me. She can call me on my bullshit, and I can call her on hers. We can't really lie to each other (although each of us lets the other think they can on occasion) even about matters on which we lie to ourselves. She has a perspective and insight that has been indispensable to me on many occasions. I can almost always trust her, and I know her well enough to know when and why I can't.

And what's more, this chick is a badass. A drunken frat boy once locked her in a room with him, and tried to have his way with her; she ripped his arm out of its socket. I am not making this up. Our old boss at Little Caesar's regularly shorted her on the gas money she was promised for her deliveries. That man lost his franchise. Again, not making this up. I won't even go into the shenanigans that her very psychotic roommate tried to pull, but it involved me both Andrea and myself being accused of some very ridiculous (and utterly false) things in a court of law. We only had to give up an afternoon explaining the situation, and she got stuck with the court costs. Since then we've both more or less forgotten she ever existed (I actually had to think for a minute to remember her name) but she is apparently still ranting and blogging about how much she hates us. Dre just has a way of dealing with things, and I mean that in a Godfather kind of way. It makes her very useful to have around, but don't ever, ever get on her bad side, or fuck with any of her friends. Seriously.

And most importantly, when the chips are down, I trust this broad. They say a good friend will kill for you, but- and I say this in all seriousness- I would call Andrea if by some inconceivable circumstance I had killed somebody, and needed to dispose of the body. She would not ask questions and she would not bat an eye, she would just help.

About a year ago, I was asked to be at her side during the wedding. A few months later, that crappy Made of Honor movie came out, and I'm still waiting for my royalty check. After the wedding, she would be off to Turkey with Carl, and I still remember her coworkers begging me to talk her out of it, because they weren't sure the office would be able to function without her. If any of them are (for some reason I can't fathom) reading this, please know that I tried my absolute best.

I still talk to her regularly, and we see each other from time to time, but we'll probably never live in the same city again, and more's the pity. But we had some real good times, and I'm sure that we've got an adventure or two left in us.

So this wraps up my three major credits. I think that Evan and Kurt and several others are still worthy of mention, but these three are my Musketeers. These are the friends for whom I would gladly take a bullet. I would give a kidney to any one of these three. Dre, Walt, Theo: I love you guys.

I Want to Lock These Two in a Thunderdome

So I saw Michael Moore's last movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. The man is a very talented filmmaker, but the more of him I see, the more comparisons I tend to draw between him and Rush Limbaugh.

They're both gruff and overweight, and very talented entertainers, by all accounts, but obviously but there's more to it than that. They're both quite intelligent, in their own way, and they both have an uncanny knack for presenting just the right parts of a story to get their point across. They present this material, quite frequently, out of context, because they sound more right when they do. They are also both rabid, foaming-at-the-teeth supporters of far-wing agendas. Now, all things being equal, I may be more likely to agree with Moore than I am with Limbaugh, but that doesn't change the fact he's batshit crazy. In his latest movie, he spent several hours attempting to rope off the AIG building with crime scene tape, because they stole America's money. Now, that's funny in a way, but I think it would work better as a Family Guy bit than a documentary.

I don't think anybody who bothers to read my blog needs to be convinced that Limbaugh pulls this shit on a regular, but just in case a far-right conservative has wandered in, let me just make this disclaimer: I gave the man three chances. Three different times, I listened to his show, and on each occasion he either blatantly lied, or took some facts insanely out of context. Long before I felt that I had a political identity to speak of, I found him offensive not because of the points he tried to make, but because of the blatant falsehoods he was willing to put forth in order to make them. I took it as an insult to my intelligence, as if he was saying "I don't think you're smart enough to call me on my BS, so I'll just tell you whatever."

After seeing some Michael Moore films, however, I think I can understand why some people I consider to be quite intelligent might still listen to his show. If you already agree with the general position, you're a lot less likely to question the facts that support it. For example, I decided that I didn't care for the way Bush was running things towards the end of his first term, and I wanted him to lose the election. As a result, I didn't have many bad things to say about Farenheit 9/11. But even then, as I watched the movie, there were niggling doubts in the back of my head.

For example, Moore spends a good bit of time talking about how the Bin Ladens were flown out of America with the government's help just hours after the attack. He presents the information in a very thinly-veiled accusation that we knew Bin Laden was responsible, and we were still backing up his family because of some oil deals. Or something, I was never clear on the motive. I can forgive this kind of rabid blame-throwing to a very limited point, given the general hysteria that a lot of us went through in the aftermath of that event, but Moore's not stupid, and so I hold him to a higher standard than some guy screaming on a street corner. His movie did not mention that the Bin Laden family had effectively excommunicated their wayward son Osama long before this incident. He also doesn't pick that moment to point out the brief but very intense spike of violence against Arab Americans that occurred on that day. He's not dumb enough to have not considered it, he specifically didn't mention the information because it would have made his conclusion seem less plausible. And that's a very dishonest way to make a point. It relies on the audience being too dumb or too lazy to think outside the line of reasoning you're feeding them. I get that the plan is to gather to your side all those who are too dumb or lazy to do that, and then let some of the more moderate campaigners turn the intelligent people. And hey, it's awfully effective. The existence of Moore and NBC, just like the existence of FOX and Limbaugh, allow people who don't want their beliefs challenged to feel more confident in their beliefs without actually being exposed to any real information. This allows both parties to pick up the "zombie vote."

His latest movie, like Farenheit, hits on a few potentially valid points, but there were so many questions that he very conspicuously did not answer that I had a hard time buying anything he said. He would show some truly gut-wrenching scenes of a hard-working family being kicked out of the house they lived in for 40 years because they couldn't pay their mortgage. Presumably, this was due to predatory lending, and honestly, given the crap that got pulled in the banking industry, Moore wouldn't have had to look very hard to find a perfectly legitimate example of exactly that. But he almost completely avoids explaining why the bank is foreclosing on their home. I'm not trying to suggest that that family deserved it, but all the information he doesn't give his audience eventually became so present that, for me, it overshadowed most of his general thesis. Which is a shame, because I think his intentions really were pure. I believe that he genuinely feels for the plight of those chewed up and spit out by our economic system. And had two whole hours of my time to explain his viewpoint, but he wasted those hours largely on what boils down to propaganda. As far as I'm concerned, when somebody does that, they're wrong. Even if they're actually right.

Unfortunately, I've come to feel the same way about Bill Maher, who used to be one of my more favorite comedians. At first, it was just little "hey, I'm not sure that's fair" moments when I watched his show, but then those moments came more and more frequently, and then it culminated when I saw his movie, Religulous, and I found his logic wholly unsatisfying. He's still funny, but his humor is so heavily interspersed with poorly supported arguments that it takes most of the fun out of watching it.

My distaste for the crap spewed by people like Rush or the garbage that FOX likes to call "fair and balanced" has not lessened by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel I'm growing more centrist as I age, and that distaste is suddenly spreading to the left-wing psychos as well.

In other news, Brutal Legend comes out today. I specifically made sure that my latest game was returned earlier this week, and that it was the only available game in my queue, and wonder of wonders my plan seems to have worked. Gamefly mailed it to me this morning, and I should have it in my hands on the very day that I take my last midterm. I have the entire following day off, and the day after that is the final weekend of the Ren Fair. Enough people have found time to make the trip to KC that it will be a verifiable party.

Life is good.

-BS

Dracula Vs. Macguyver

Lately, it seems, I've been undergoing a vampire renaissance of sorts. It started one particularly boring Spring afternoon, when I decided to pull Buffy the Vampire Slayer up on Hulu.

It actually took me a little while to warm up to Buffy- most of the dialogue, especially in the first episode, was too corny even for me. However, Allyson Hannigan has a cute smile, the fight scenes were pretty entertaining for network television, and Anthony Stewart Head's voice is downright sexy. In, y'know, that not-gay kinda way. Don't judge me.

So after season 1, Buffy picked up, and I moved much more Season 2. Half of Season 3 had shown up on Netflix when Hulu uploaded it, and after that I was watching them about as fast as Netflix could send them to me. Once Buffy was done, it was on to Angel. Again, the first season was a little awkward, but once Charisma Carpenter learned how to act and the writers got more comfortable with what they were doing, it was pretty good.

Somewhere in the midst of that, I picked up a game called Vampire: The Masquerade. I did a whole blog post a while back about how much fun I had with that, but the short version is that I played the hell out of that game.

Last week, I started watching the second season of True Blood. Last week, I also finished the second season of True Blood. Even though the writers couldn't resist the temptation to reduce most of the storyline to a live-action Anne Rice novel, and despite the fact that I will never be able to stop staring at the gap in Anna Paquin's teeth, I find myself looking forward to the third season.

And this week, I played through Dracula Origin, which Liz bought me a couple months back. Next weekend, I'm going to the final week of the Ren Fair, during which all the Canterbury characters will be vampires (in addition to being knights, squires, etc) in honor of the coming Halloween. I've also still got to start the final season of Angel.

I didn't really stop to take stock of it until recently, but I've been on a serious vampire kick since, like, June. Fittingly, I predict that this shall peak during October, as I am quite frankly out of vampire-ish things to do, watch, read or play, and I absolutely refuse to stick my nose into Twilight. I also don't know how I'm ever going to do better than a vampire Ren Fair.

And now, because for some reason I like writing about video games, a few short words about Dracula Origin.

I've spoken before about how I often find myself enjoying B movies, simply because the laughably low production quality entertains me. Well, for the first time, I've seen that same effect in a video game. Dracula Origin is so bad it's funny.

For starters, there are no fights or action sequences in this game. It's all puzzles and logic problems, like an old school DOS adventure game. It basically boils down to "Dracula Vs. MacGuyver". At one point in the game, I was required to gather some holy water, but a local priest could not bless water that had touched the polluted earth around us. So I had to use a barbecue, a camel trough, a broken mirror, and a casserole dish to produce some condensation to pour into a whisky flask. Another time I used a funnel, a drainage pipe, and a dead beaver and a conveniently placed hole in the ground to quickly empty and hide the contents of a wine cask so I could hide myself inside a cask before the carriage driver got back. This was right after I fooled an innkeeper with a fake key I put together with some silver wrapping paper, a wad of gum, a boar's tooth, and a couple of pretzels. The game climxes when I use a chain mail shirt, a curtain cord, and a vat of grease to strike at Dracula's undead army with a bolt of lightning. I can't make this up.

The writers and voice actors worked very, very hard to make the game dark and moody and intense, which serves to make it all the more hilarious that it all comes off as pure camp; the only thing missing is Bruce Campbell to play the role of Van Helsing.

The game has, however, made me somewhat curious as to the original story, as told by Bram Stoker. What little experience I've had with ancient fiction (The Pearl and Frankenstein) have struck me as overly verbose and poorly paced, so I'm not setting my hopes very high. Here's hoping I'll be surprised.

[EDIT] And if it is awful, I only spent 99 cents on it. So no major loss there.

Urban Center of Nocturnal Avians

So there was a "free" Owl City concert on Thursday night. I use quotation marks because I still ended up spending 32 bucks on booze and CDs. The first opener, Audiovox, was not even the tiniest bit impressive to me, but the second, Roman Numerals, were just interesting enough for me to drop five dollars on their CD. I haven't listened to it yet, but if it turns out to be noteworthy I'll mention it in a later post.

For those unfamiliar with the group, some basic background. Owl city is not what you would call "high art." They don't deal with serious subject matter, their lyrics are not deep or insightful, and they aren't trying to change the world. For example, I'm currently listening to a song called Dental Care. It's not a commentary on health care, it's just a song about a guy who's afraid to go to the dentist. They're whimsical and fun to listen to, and that's all I'm usually looking for in my music. But I digress...

When I arrived at the show, I saw an enormous line wrapping all around the block. It was an outdoor show with a lot of space, but not everybody got in. A lot of folk were gathered in a nearby parking garage, watching from their apartments, or just hopping over the fence every few seconds to get a glimpse of all the fun they weren't having. However, when I asked if this was the line for Owl City, I was told that if I was 21 or older, I could skip to the front of the line. The good news was that I was definitely getting in and I didn't have to wait. The bad news is that the place was apparently going to be packed with minors. I had no idea Owl City was so popular with the high school crowd. Good thing I'm not one to be held accountable for my tastes.

I smugly sauntered to the front of the line, loudly asked the man at the door if it was alright for me to not wait in line, and walked past all the people who had probably been waiting there for an hour or so. Because seriously, how many times in my life am I going to get to do that?

One look around confirmed my suspicions. The very thick scent of weed being smoked in public. Girls who wore miniskirts to an outdoor show in October bitching about how their legs were cold, more than one kid dressed like a Matrix extra (this one girl did not take her sunglasses off all night) and several parents standing at the outside of the crowd, waiting for the show to end so they could drive their kids home. Yep, I was at a high school party.

I've never actually gone to a concert without bringing a friend along, and that night I learned why. So many times I had something I wanted to say, some comment I wanted to make (see Matrix girl, above) or just somebody to listen to me bitch about the crappy warmup band (see Audiovox, below) but there was nobody around to say it to; being all alone in a room full of people sucks. But hey, at least there's going to be some music to distract me from that, right?

In theory, once the warmup bands get done with there thing, it's about time for us all to hear the band that we all actually came for, but for some reason there was a forty-five minute intermission. After a sound technician came on stage and repeated "check 2" for five minutes without any noticeable change in her mic (If somebody had been with me we would have been making jokes about Waynestock) I began to suspect that they weren't even going to show. I strongly considered leaving, but I ended up hanging around for another ten or fifteen minutes, and when Owl City finally did get on the stage, they made everything better.

Adam Young's on-stage performance looks like something between an orgasm and a seizure. He pretty much randomly flails around, but damnit if he doesn't seem to be having the time of his life doing it; that energy caught on with the crowd, and everybody got into the show. And after all that wait, I was impressed that the group had the decency to play a very large setlist. Usually, when I go to a free show, I expect the headliners to phone it in a little (like Ludo at Rock the Vote last year) because they're not getting paid. they played a lot of stuff new and old, and they saved Fireflies for last. They got the crowd to sing the chorus, and we displayed a remarkable harmony for a quarter past midnight.

Overall, I call it a good night.

Midgets, Jobs, Ninja Cheerleaders and Fireflies

Some inane musings:


A group of midgets have founded their own midget village, in which it is unlawful to reside unless you are under 4'3". Theo, you and I need to dress like Godzilla and King Kong, and wage a battle in this city.



Last night, I was flipping through channels and there was a movie on called Ninja Cheerleaders. The plot seemed to be about a group of ninja cheerleaders banding together to rescue their master from a crime lord, who is holding him hostage until they steal the deed to a strip club that the IRS took away from him. Going from this, I'm fairly sure that this was a porn, but I was flipping between it and Scarface and I either missed all the sex scenes or this was an ultra-low budget version of DEBS. In any event, the bits I did catch were quite entertaining, in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way.

I had an interview this morning, and I think it went well. I also got a response from somebody at Rubin Brown, who I met at an MSCPA function last month. This is relevant because Rubin Brown is hiring for auditors in St Louis next summer, and the firm I interviewed is hiring for a Spring internship. If I get the internship, then get an interview with Rubin Brown, in which I can mention that somebody is already going to give me some basic training for 4 months prior to the summer, and a million other things land juuuust right, I might actually make it back to STL before 2010 is out. My fingers are crossed to a most painful degree.

I've just learned that Owl City is doing a free show about 2 miles from where I'm sitting. Totally going to that tonight.

Thanks for the Memories

So I took the last trip to St Louis that I'm going to be able to afford for a while. Incidentally, I managed to keep myself within budget for the entire weekend, thanks in no small part to a now-wealthy friend with a penchant for spoiling me.

It just so happened that a midnight showing of Serenity was scheduled at the Tivoli, which was a nice surprise. After a thoroughly mediocre tribute band blew out our eardrums with a sound setup that had no business in a movie theater, I watched Serenity start to finish for the first time since learning of the existence of Firefly.

SPOILER WARNING!!!!

It's funny how my perspective changes. Up until Friday night, I had always built Zoe up to be a character that was dead inside. In my interpretation, she had lost everything worth fighting for long before the audience meets her. After the battle of Serenity she, like Mal, continued to exist out of pure spite. During the series, she finds somebody who makes her feel just some tiny spark of life once more, and Joss "I-hate-my-characters-and-want-them-all-to-suffer" Whedon kills that somebody off suddenly and unceremoniously. Shortly after this, Zoe charges headlong into a group of rabid monsters, very obviously trying to get herself killed.

Again, it was always my interpretation that the only reason Zoe was still walking around and hand't simply laid down to die was that she was a warrior to the core, and she couldn't not be fighting something. I thought this theory was supported by the fact that she only tried to kill herself when she could do it while fighting something.

After seeing the movie, having a brief conversation with Evan about it, and thinking it over, I find this interpretation to no longer be supportable. Yes, Zoe is a warrior, but her suicide attempt was a momentary break from her usual self, rather than a culmination of it. Looking back, I can see all kinds of little things that prove this, but none quite so much as the final scene. At her husband's funeral, we see her in a white dress. White is a universal color of hope, and a symbolism of the unknown (and therefore potentially good) clean slate that the future always brings. If the writers had truly intended to portray her as someone who would never again be happy, she would have been wearing black.

END SPOILERS!!

So yeah, my mind was mildly blown as I learn that I was misreading my favorite character in Firefly. Not really interesting enough to be worth the three paragraphs I spent explaining it, but nobody reads this thing anyway, right?

See what I did there? That's irony. It's funny.

I had lunch with Terra the following day, we went to a Thai restaurant. We are both in agreement that, while tasty, their noodle dishes use actual, store-bought Ramen noodles. Then we went to some thrift stores. I found the perfect shirt for three dollars, but it was just a tiny bit too small. I did buy Dreamland, because it has that guy from the Mac commercials ("I'm a Mac, he's a PC, notice that I'm young and attractive while he is old and stupid") and because it was only $3. Also, I want to know how a movie recognized at Sundance could end up in a bin.

That evening, I went bowling with some of Renny's friends and Dre's old college friend Brian. I don't know if it was the Thai food or what, but I wasn't feeling well at the outset of the evening. I should have politely declined the bowling and drinking frenzy that was promised, but it was my last night in St Louis and I wasn't about to be stopped by a little exhaustion/headache/oh-crap-is-this-H1N1!!?!?

So out I went, and I bowled one of the best games of my life. Although that's not to say that I bowled well.

Dre and Brian hadn't seen each other in years, so they spent the whole evening catching up. I didn't really know Renny's friends very well and I have a hard time making impressive introductions when my cranium feels like it's giving birth to Athena, so I ended up spending the majority of the night nursing a drink. Oddly enough, however, I enjoyed it all the same. After we bowled a game, we headed out to a rooftop bar on the strip, and I think I must have spent nearly an hour just sitting by the railing taking in the view. See, I really love St Louis. It may be the friends and the memories that make me love her, but the brick and mortar that make it up have always symbolized them. Since I didn't have any of said friends to hang out with, I just looked at the city I used to call home and happily reminisced with myself about good times. I'm sure it sounds boring, but I had this really nice introspective brood vibe going on, and in the end it was certainly better than staying home.

All in all, it was a fun and eventful trip, and I look forward to the day I can do it much more often.

This has been,
BS

None of these came from Fark.

I have nothing terribly relevant to relate right now, so what follows is some odd news from the past month.

A Frenchman, imprisoned and awaiting trial for the murder of two young girls, escaped prison by hiding inside a cardboard box.

What I find particularly interesting here is that the man has been in prison for five years, and his trial is still not scheduled until some time next year. There is also some DNA evidence that at least one other person may have been at the crime scene, and he continues to profess his innocence. It seems that being Solid Snake may have just been a faster way to get out of prison than being innocent.

I'm calling this one now: he didn't do it, and he broke out of prison to track down the real killer in the action-packed summer blockbuster of 2010.

But seriously, substantial evidence of another assailant and he spends 5 years without a trial. What's the deal, France? We thought you guys were cool...

Recently, scientists discovered a predecessor to the T-rex. Apparently, it is 100% identical to the T-Rex we know and love from Jurassic Park, only really tiny. Relatively speaking, anyway. About 150 lbs. Awesome. Judging from the picture, it was a punk rocker.

A bear mauled 9 people in Takayama, Japan. The Japanese victims, it seems, were not able to fight back with Kung Fu, ninjutsu, or samurai swords. I’m beginning to suspsect that many poorly dubbed movies may have lied to me.

Fortunately, while Japan is slacking in random acts of samurai, America is apparently compensating. A college student defended his home from an intruder by going all Darth Vader on a would-be robber, slicing his hand off with a katana. For extra measure, he proceeded to slash the man across his torso. FATALITY!

And finally, the creator of Shin-Chan is dead. Details currently unknown. Let those of us weep who know why we should.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back!

So I've been maintaining radio silence for nigh on two months now. Why, if you hadn't seen me at the pirates vs ninjas party (and you might not have- I was a ninja) you might be wondering if I was lying dead in a gutter somewhere.

But no, I've just been occupied. Jumping from one full-time semester to another may not be as taxing as, you know, an actual job, but I've been spoiled over the last year so it fits my definition of being very busy. In a couple of months, however, I'll be finishing my last full-time semester. After that, it's just a couple of Spring classes and the CPA exam standing between me and those precious sheets of paper that say "hire this guy, he knows stuff." For those just tuning in, those pieces of paper would be a master's degree in Accounting and a CPA license.

Recruiters are interviewing at my school, and this is a mixed prospect for me. On the one hand, I should be absolutely pumped, because it's the best chance I'll have at a job with a big-name firm in my chosen field. On the other hand, that firm will most likely hire me out of their KC office, leaving trapped for another year or two in the horrible, awful place I call home. To be fair, KC isn't so horrible, but it is frightfully boring, and the people here just aren't as cool.

Speaking of cool people, the Pirates Vs. Ninjas party was awesome. The costumes were awesome, the decorations were awesome, and the people were awesome. I apparently looked a good bit less ridiculous in my costume than I expected (in spite of the frosted hair), but I think I drank enough to compensate. It was great seeing old friends, and it was equally great meeting some new ones. Terra, you are an epic party planner. Every clique of friends needs to have somebody like you.

In other news, the KC RenFest is going on, and there's an open invitation through mid-October for anyone who wants to attend and would like a free place to crash. My family has spare bedrooms and we've been itching for an excuse to use the basement for something festive ever since we remodeled it last century. The weekend of the 17th and 18th is apparently some kind of vampire night, although the friendly KC RenFair staff doesn't seem too sure on the particulars. The flyer specifically advertises it as a night involving vampires, however, so I for one plan to run with that. Anybody know a cheap way to get some fangs molded?

That's about all I wanted to say regarding myself, the rest of this post only applies to you if you own or have access to an Xbox and have not yet played Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Go. Go now, to Blockbuster, and rent Batman. They finally did it right, and it is glorious. This game has stealth, action, exploration, and puzzle-solving, and it's all done beautifully.

The stealth, for the most part, can be taken or left at your leisure. There's none of that Splinter Cell malarkey where somebody sees you and calls in 50 armed guys on his radio. They shoot you, but Batman's a resilient fellow and just so long as you aren't charging headlong into a group of armed thugs, you'll muddle through those segments with minimal effort. If you enjoy it, however you can play up the stealth bit, bypassing any actual combat almost entirely by ninja-ing all over the room, taking your foes out one by one. The fun part about this is that as their numbers dwindle, the enemies grow increasingly frightened. The more you spook them, the more they forget to work as a team. One guy might freak out and break away from the group, giving you a chance to nab him by himself as he rounds a corner; naturally, this serves to further scare the bajeesus out of his comrades, and by the end of the fight they're actually crying as they randomly empty their clips into shadows while you sneak up behind them.

The hand-to-hand combat, as is usually the case, takes a little bit of effort to get the feel of, but once you realize how it works you can seamlessly string together long, intricate combos. The game particularly does a good job of balancing good play control with a cinematic camera. The combat flows well, feels visceral, and looks good.

As the game begins, Batman is the same badass he always was. You can batgun around a room to hide from your enemies, you can fistfight half a dozen men without breaking a sweat, and right from the get-go you feel like Batman. As the game progresses, Batman acquires ever more wonderful toys that, when used properly, give you new ways to explore the game world and reach new areas. Riddler has busted out of Arkham and hidden random trophies for you to find, which gives Batman's new gadgets a number of creative applications over and above a new method of stomping people into the ground.

What might be my favorite part of this game are the puzzles Riddler leaves for you. It's utterly ancillary to the game's storyline and can be completely ignored if you don't like it, but the more intellectual players will have a wonderful time solving his obscure puzzles, especially if you can do a good Adam West impersonation while you're at it.

The game's story starts off with Joker tied up in the Batmobile as he is dragged off to Arkham. He is being dragged there because somebody thought it would be a good idea to take all of the genius, super-powered, villains that Batman fights and shove them all into one complex in the center of a heavily populated city. While the inevitable jailbreak would have made the perfect excuse for Batman to fight every classic villain from his old books in one day, the game's writers exercised a remarkable amount of restraint. Most of the mainstays such as Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, and Penguin have all seem to have high-tailed it while they had the chance in hopes of starring in the sequel.

While several minor (and less fruity) characters factor into the game, Joker is the only headliner, and Mark Hamill absolutely knocks it out of the park on the voice acting. If you've never read Batman comic books, Hamill's performance will give you a good idea why everybody thinks Joker is such an awesome character.

This game's only real drawback is that most people won't find themselves playing it twice, which makes it a little unwise to invest the $60 and shelf space required to own it. I strongly recommend renting it the next time you have a long weekend with nothing better to do.

Where did My Love Go, Metaphorically Speaking?

/
Kurt made an interesting point today about the lack of proper application of science fiction on the silver screen. The gist of it, as I interpreted, was that the real meat and potatoes of science fiction is to make commentary about our world by showing us another. Take some philosophy, introspection, or whatever else have you, but instead of telling us the story with "real people," they hand the narration over to space marines, point-eared aliens, or intergalactic wizards.

The mention of wizards segues me nicely into a little rant that Kurt inspired. Incredible amounts of money and talent have been hurled at rapidly developing the sci-fi movie as a genre, but what about Science Fiction's older, hotter sister, Fantasy? Lord of the Rings was an absolute blast, I'm glad we're all in agreement there, but am I the only one who hadn't had his fill after just three dates; especially when, to carry the metaphor too far, we only really got laid on two of them.

Oh, we've met for coffee a couple of times, like Pan's Labyrinth. And we went through that weird let's-save-our-relationship-by-roleplaying phase with the Underworld trilogy; we've since scaled that back to simple dress-up with comic book movies, but frankly those all feel like a different genre altogether. Harry Potter is kind of fun, but it kind of feels like she's just going through the motions there. I miss the relationship I used to have with Fantasy.

Can we ever be together the way we once were? Does nobody remember Willow and Legend? Princess Bride? Big Trouble in Little China? And let's be honest; the only reason Star Wars is called Science Fiction and not Fantasy is because it happened in space.

When will I see a Vampire: the Masquerade movie? When will the words of Terry Brooks spring to life on the silver screen? And do you know I've never sat in a movie theater and seen Merlin on the screen? There's no excuse for that. I want to see knights, sorcerers, dragons. I want damsels and witches. I want people throwing fireballs and lightning bolts.

But, along the lines of what Kurt said, I want all this to be a real story. when I just want the action, I'll play a video game. God knows there's plenty of all this stuff in that medium. With the exception of Pan's Labyrinth, I haven't gotten to see anything in my theater-going life that uses the mythical to comment on the factual.

With all respect to Science Fiction, I generally prefer my outrageous fiction without a soft science explanation trying to explain how all of this was "theoretically possible." When the world clearly doesn't play by the usual rules, it is all the more poignant when the real problems turn out to be the same.

This game Sucks. I loved it.

Ok. So. Been a while. How's everybody been? Hear that shit about Palin? Crazy, huh?

So a large part of why nobody's seen me (at least over the past week) is this lovely little pile of crack-cocaine known as Vampire: The Masquerade. This is a game that came out about 5 years ago, and is now available on Steam for 20 bucks.

Not surprisingly, the game is about vampires. Being adapted from a tabletop game about being a bloodsucker, Masquerade features voice and writing talent that easily meets or beats any game I've ever played. Brace yourselves for blasphemy, children: This might have been better than KOTOR.

Depending on your character build, fights can be won through various means, including stealth, magic, guns, swords, bare fists, claws, shapeshifting into a monster, or by running away like a little girl (a tactic I employed judiciously against an 8 foot werewolf). These things are done well enough to make the combat sequences fun, but in true RPG fashion, it all takes a back seat to the game's story.

The game begins with your vampire character being "embraced" into the ranks of the vampire, and the first few seconds of your new vampire life see both you and your vampire sire staked through the heart (which apparently only paralyzes a vampire) by the vampire police and brought to vampire trial. Did I mention this game had vampires?

Your creation was a violation of what the vampire community calls the Masquerade. The Masquerade is the code of conduct that vampires follow to keep their existence a secret. Traditional law demands the death of both you and your sire, but if that happened there wouldn't be a game so you are given a chance to join the vampiric community. That community, you'll quickly learn, is like the Senate, Congress, and High School all rolled into one, with people stabbing one another in the back left and right as they desperately try to claw their way to the top of the social circle.

The vampire world is one rife with political intrigue, where everyone has an agenda. There are no good guys and there are no friends; there are only people whose goals happen to align with yours. Throughout the game, you have the feeling that you are a pawn in somebody else's chess game, and that no matter what you do you'll be playing into somebody's hands. The story unfolds in a manner quite similar to KOTOR, with a heavy emphasis on dialogue and socializing as a part of the gameplay. There are surprisingly few points in the game where you actually have to do any serious fighting, and while it's almost always an option to just shoot/punch/bite your way through, it can be just as rewarding to talk or sneak past a situation. Some of the largest fights in the game can be sidestepped altogether with the proper application of charisma (or mind control) and a few picked locks.

Also like KOTOR, the game features a moral choice system, but for once it's not the proverbial "Mother Theresa or Baby Eating" choice between good and evil. As I said, there are no good guys, and that includes you, but there are varying degrees of evil. Certain actions, such as murdering an innocent unarmed person, will cause you to distance yourself from what's left of your human soul. This is more of a practical matter than an ethical one, as without that human soul, the demon that animates you can take over, and control your actions. The Masquerade is a double entendre here, because it also refers to the fact that vampires aren't just trying to fool the human race, but also themselves. By clinging to that humanity, you cling to your self control. Rejecting that humanity can cause you to frenzy. Frenzying comes with a marked increase in power, at the cost of any say as to how that power is to be used. You are almost definitely sure to find yourself violating the Masquerade, which will make you an enemy of the vampire and human worlds. Revealing yourself too often will draw the attention of Hunters.

The game will also penalize you for clinging too much to that human nature. Aside from the humanity mechanic, which can be managed easily enough without having to pass up good opportunities (such as stealing a wounded man's wallet) there is no reward or reason for playing the good guy.

The game does have multiple endings, but you're degree of good/evilness does not affect which ending you'll get. In fact, the endings are largely based on choices you make at the very end, but if you haven't politically schmoozed the right people some of those choices might not be available to you. This fact is meant to encourage you to engage in a little political intrigue of your own, as it pays to try and play both sides of a given conflict; if both sides think you're working for them, then you can delay making an actual choice on which (if any) to side with until you have more information.

For a game that is nearly half a decade old, more than a little buggy, and received almost not publicity when it did come out, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines was a blast. It delivered about 2 hours per dollar I spent on it, and I fully intend to play it through again at some point.

One note: To run this game, it is highly recommended that you find Wesp's Unofficial Patch version 6.3 (released about a month ago, how's that for a dedicated community!) and install it in the steamapps/common/Masquerade folder. It fixes a number of issues, and improves gameplay considerably. It also gets the game to work on Vista.

Prostitutes! Transform and Roll Out!

Here is a link. Click and watch the brief trailer.

So a few years back, some friends and I gathered around a television set, poured ourselves an obscene amount of alcohol, and watched a DVD I had picked up earlier that day, titled Machine Girl. Machine Girl was about a Japanese schoolgirl who had her arm cut off, so she found a couple of kindly auto mechanics to build her a new one. Only instead of an arm, they gave her a giant machine gun.

It featured a ridiculous amount of violence and campy kung fu, all culminating in a fight with the wife of the mobster we thought would be the villain, whose breasts had been replaced with power drills. Machine Girl was a movie with no shame or remorse, and it was one of the finer B movies I've ever seen.

And now, the series' creator Noboru Iguchi has teamed up with special effects designer Yoshihiro Nishimura (whose cult hit Tokyo Gore Police reportedly used 4 tons of stage blood) to produce RoboGeisha.

Some movies are so bad and ridiculous that they come out on the other end of the spectrum and become sublime. With enough alcohol, this is exactly what Machine Girl did. After watching the RoboGeisha trailer, I fear that this movie may pull that exact stunt, and then keep going, crossing the spectrum to crappy all over again. All the same, I will expect everyone to gather around a television and watch this with me, because I am TOTALLY buying the DVD. Totally.

Zeno Clash

So for $10 today you can buy a game called Zeno Clash. I mentioned the demo a while back, and with this price cut, I went ahead and bought it.



The first thing I'll say is that most of what I said before about the combat stands. It's good, but not superb. What I didn't really get into before, because I somehow missed it during the demo, is that the artwork is some of the finest I've ever seen. It's delightfully surreal in a way I won't bother trying to explain. To offer just a few examples of how very bizarre this game is, I present the following three articles, which you will see if you play the game:

- A man wearing a tea kettle on his head
- An omniscient man-panther struggling to solve a Rubix Cube
- A blind assassin, who specializes in sharpshooting, riding atop a brontosaurus, throwing squirrels with parachutes and barrels of TNT tied to their backs.

In short: First person, fantasy punk, some shooting but mostly hand-to-hand brawling, REALLY good artwork.

The game is very short, clocking in at about 4 hours if you don't count all the little combat challenges you can do on the side. However, at $10, it's not a bad deal. You'll get about half an hour per dollar, and a lot more if you find you enjoy the gameplay and decide to take on the gauntlet sidequest thing.

If it's still Sunday and you're reading this, I strongly recommend downloading the free demo. Unless you absolutely loath the combat mechanic, then the game is worth the ten bucks just for the artwork.

You Conduit! You Conduit all Night Long!

I deliberately ignored all the hype leading up to Conduit. Electing not to have my expectations colored by advertising campaigns, I preordered and bought the game on faith alone. My reaction so far has been mixed, but more positive than not.

The conduit is definitely something new. It plays at many times like a rail shooter, only without the rails. The aiming is absolutely spot-on. Your hand will eventually get tired of trying to be held steady in the air for so long, but that really goes for a lot of the Wii's better material. This is really Conduit's strong point- it's a first person shooter where you point the controller at the screen and shoot the bad guys. It's what we were expecting since we first heard about the Wii, and a game like this has been conspicuously absent up to this point. But better late than never, and High Velocity Software delivers the goods here.

The play control is about as good as it could possibly be. This is particularly aided by the single greatest effort I have ever seen committed towards giving the player control over the control. When you go into the options screen to edit the controls, it's no mere "pick your buttons and controller sensitivity," oh no. When you go to edit the controls, the game unpauses and starts playing again, and lets you edit all the various aspects of the game's play control while the game is running, allowing you to instantly see the results of your control scheme. When you're doing things like setting the sensitivity, the wii remote dead zone, and how far your character will crane his neck before he starts actually turning around, this is something that control freaks will definitely appreciate. It sounds minor and will be minor to many people, but it's a really nice effort and I applaud the designers for going that extra mile.

The gameplay and shooting mechanic flow like water, but only if you can ignore the rather bland graphics. We all knew that this was a Wii game and the graphics would suffer a downgrade, but I think this will turn some people off. Personally, I don't think that the graphics are bad enough to distract from the gameplay experience, but others may disagree. The screenshots more or less do the game justice, so if you want to know what it looks like go look at them. A solid effort is made to use coloration, artwork, and level design to compensate for the weak resolution, and I'll say that it works just fine for me.

Another problem along the same lines is that the Wii can't handle much in the way of a physics engine either. The environment is almost 100% static. If you've been spoiled by Havoc and Source physics, it bothers you when large explosions fail to so much as knock over a chair. Once again, this does not stop you from enjoying the game unless you let it, but it's a drawback all the same.

I confess that this is a first reaction and I am only a little more than halfway through the game, but far I have to say that I don't think any significant effort went into this story at all. The game begins with our faceless protagonist receiving a phone call from a man whose voice positively radiates malevolence. Mr. Ford, the FBI/special ops/soldier/agent person we assume control of, quickly confirms that since it knew the secret government handshake, this evil voice must be totally trustworthy, and he picks up his guns and heads to the airport where a supposed terrorist attack is under way. When security and FBI agents opened fire on me (as I walked into an airport carrying a 45 pistol and an MP5) the evil voice comes on again and informs me that the terrorists are apparently using some kind of mind control, and I have to kill the FBI agents. "Okey dokey" is the apparent reply from our protagonist, and so it's off to slaughter us some of DC's finest. The story devolves from that point into a mindless conspiracy-fest complete with at least two big secret shadow organizations, mind control gas, aliens, and more than a couple Xanatos Gambits all seemingly centered around a floating robot eye that can hack computers and translate graphiti. As a compelling and interesting story, I'd say it falters; As a campy little sci-fi romp, however, it entertains well enough and provides all the excuse I need to run around shooting people with laser guns.

I don't expect Conduit to set the world on fire, but it's done a couple of things really, really well, and it doesn't fail enough in any particular area to rob itself of it's due and proper. I don't regret buying it, and I recommend at least renting it if you own a Wii and you like shooters. You'll finish the main story quickly enough, and if you like the MP, you can decide if you want to buy it.

If you're waiting for that Magnum Opus that single-handedly vindicates buying the system three Novembers ago, however, this probably isn't it. But Red Steel 2 and Metroid:OM might be.

Not a game review for once

So I've been watching a lot of Buffy and Angel episodes lately, and I've decided that I am a total Whedon fanboy.

I came to know of the works of Mr. Whedon in a sequence quite opposite to their release dates. First, I saw Serenity with my family- they all hated it, and I didn't know what was wrong with them. It was stylistic, unpredictable, and had some absolutely awesome dialogue. Years later, I was sitting on a friend's couch, and flipping through the pithy offerings of basic cable. After Comedy Central and Spike failed me, I went to my old standby, the network-formerly-known-as-SciFi. I wasn't entirely sure what this show I was watching was, but it really reminded me of this one movie I'd seen a couple years ago. I also liked it, quite a bit. Fast forward a little less than a year, and a friend informs me that in fact that show was Firefly, and that apparently the movie was a continuation of the story. Holy crap.

So I borrowed this friend's DVD collection, never to return it. I have watched that series at least half a dozen times by now. I love the way it had all these actors I'd never heard of, and yet each of them were so well-suited to the role (or vice-versa) that it quite simply was not ever apparent that I was watching people pretending to be other people. The dialogue was witty and impacting, and yet so casual. The word I'm looking for here is "flow." The characters flow seamlessly through their conversations and adventures, and it all just seems so naturally. I buy into it in a way I don't buy into most stories.

Dr. Horrible was... different. It didn't have the same kind of awesomeness Firefly had; it had a different kind of awesomeness. It was silly. It made me laugh, and I've seen that movie about as many times as I've seen Firefly.

And now, finally, I'm watching Buffy and Angel. Seasons 1-3 of the former and the first season of the latter are on Hulu, and now I'm watching the DVDs (thank you, Netflix) of Buffy season 4. Now I'm back to the Firefly kind of awesomeness, with that incredible way that the actors, again, seem to have been created for the sole purpose of playing these roles (or, again, vice versa) and they do it perfectly. I crane my head and go "d'awww" every time Willow pouts. I get moody and depressed every time the show reminds us that Angel will never be happy and exists only to suffer. The show is one of three movie/TV things that have ever actually brought a physical tear to my eye, the other two being Star Trek and the Futurama episode with Fry's dog.

In other words, I am enjoying the works of Joss Whedon to an irrational degree. It makes no sense that a television show makes me this happy. It's weird. But you know what, it's a happy kind of weird, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Also, as much as I'm enjoying Buffy, I can't see myself rewatching it half a dozen times like I did Firefly. That would take a really long time.

On a side note: Windows media player really sucks at playing those DVDs. It is utterly random whether I will be able to use the rewind or chapter back/forward functions, and it is utterly random whether Media Player decides to use its "oh, I remember where you were the last time you put this disk inside me!" feature. Also, it sometimes the video doesn't kick in during the first couple minutes. When that last glitch happens, the rewind decides it's not going to work, and media player decides to use that "remember your place" feature all a once, that means it is impossible to see the first couple minutes of an episode. I tried Media classic, but the picture gets all vertically shaky.

Does this look Infected to You?

After a very brief (but nifty) opening cinema, I had control of my character. Within the first few minutes, I jumped twenty feet into the air, grew giant claws and skewered several soldiers, jumped into the air and ripped a helicopter in two, ran up a building, backflipped off the wall, flew down the road, and then I beat up a tank. The thing is, I was only trying to cross the street. I thought to myself, "if I ever figure out how to do all that stuff on purpose, I'll be having a lot of fun."

Prototype is a game lacking any restraint whatsoever. Within the first fifteen minutes, you are punching tanks and jump-kicking helicopters, and the situation only escalates. The game keeps a running tally of your performance, and after two days of gaming I have apparently wiped out approximately three battalions of marines. I mentioned in my Red Faction review that I found myself questioning if I might actually be the bad guy rather than the hero. I don't have the question here- it's quite clear that I am the bad guy. The military is thoroughly amoral in the execution of their duties, but at least they ostensibly are trying to do a good thing on the balance. In other words, the big evil military organization is willing to commit all kinds of atrocities and horrors so that, in the end, they can keep the nation on the whole safe. I am committing all kinds of atrocities and horrors because it's fun. Oh, and it is indeed fun.

The game's "protagonist," being a protagonist in that there is a problem he is presented with, and he mutilates said problem over the course of the story, is Alex Mercer. At the outset of our tale, Alex wakes up in a hospital with no memory of who he is or what's going on, and before he can figure it out a bunch of army guys show up and shoot him to death. It doesn't quite take, however, and Alex jumps back up, hurdles a 9 foot wall, and outruns them. He's apparently been infected with a supervirus that gives him all these crazy powers. Not terribly new, as plots go, but it's as good excuse for a murderous romp through Manhattan as I need.

The controls take a long time to master but once you are comfortable with them you will have a blast parkouring all over Manhattan The game features a movement system that resembles Assassin's Creed on crack. You can not only run faster than a car, but you can do it straight up a wall. Whenever you're running, you will automatically hurdle cars, debris, and other small obstructions. If you hit a large obstruction, like a building, you will turn 90 degrees and run straight up it. While running up a building, you will still be carried by momentum and can get thrown off course when you hit uneven terrain. It's awkward, but after a while you learn how to stop trying to bend the controls to your will, and let the game's parkour system handle a bit of the navigation. You basically have to stop trying to compensate for the game's movements, and let it play itself a little bit. It sounds weird, I know, but once you get the hang of it the system really is smooth and well-designed.

The combat system is nothing terribly new, but it is very polished and fun. Alex Mercer is able to mutate his arms into scythes, claws, tentacles, shields, giant hammers, and larger arms, and he uses all of these things to slaughter the good people of New York, the marines who try to protect them, and the infected monstrosities (himself excluded) that are trying to kill them. The enemy comes at you with tanks, infantry, and helicopters, and different approaches are required in different situations. Claws will shred the infantry in short order, but tanks require something heavier, like giant hammers. Helicopters are suckers for a good karate kick, when you're close enough, but until you develop the power to lasso them with a tentacle, a taxi-cab fastball brings them down right quick. As the game progresses, the military steps up their offensives and many new challenges come into play; it's all rather well paced, really.

The combat, movement, and open-world environment are the primary selling points here, but one other thing that simply must be mentioned is the consumption mechanic. When Alex grabs hold of a live victim, he can consume them; in addition to providing a health boost, this allows Alex to absorb their body and minds. Alex instantly gains access to all of their memories, and he can perfectly mimic their physical appearance and mannerisms. With the right disguise, you can infiltrate secure facilities, order artillery strikes, or even accuse another poor grunt of being the real monster, prompting the hapless leatherneck's comrades to gun him down. Another interesting use of the consumption mechanic is that you can absorb everything your victim ever knew or experienced. Eat a helicopter pilot, and you instantly know everything he did about operating one. Eat a base commander, and you can pass through voice and retinal scanners guarding the base. This allows Alex to reach certain areas undetected and acquire useful new skills.

It is through this mechanic that the game's storyline is unfurled. As I said before, it's your standard military viral cover-up, worthy of a sci-fi original. However, the method of telling is interesting. Scattered throughout the city are random New Yorkers who happen to have some tidbit of knowledge that will help you to dig deeper into the military cover-up behind the outbreak. When Alex gets near one, he will recognize him or her, which marks them for you. After you consume them, you are treated to a brief cinema that offers you just a small scrap of information; this may be a piece of a conversation overheard by a military escort, or a recalled conversation between two scientists about how the virus worked. Usually, the memory will feature another potential target, who can now also be found wandering the streets of New York. These targets aren't necessary to complete the game, but they will fill in gaps in the story and foreshadow certain events. It's an interesting storytelling method, and while not exactly epic in its presentation, it's something I haven't seen before and it works.

The bottom line: Prototype is just a nice cathartic murder-go-round, but it's an extremely polished and creative one. I had a blast with it.

Oh, and speaking of horrible flesh-eating viruses: I got my tests back without any unpleasant surprises. Happiness!

I am a Consumer Whore

I have been convinced.

I now have to finish Tales of Symphonia 2, Conduit, Prototype, Penumbra, and Rainbow Six: Vegas (I believe I am on the final level in that one). Why would I drop another 50 bucks on a game that I don't even have time to play? I am a strange, irrational person.

Heal Thyself, Physician!

Somebody needs to give Jessica Terry an award. Free medical care would do nicely. This girl has suffered for years from very painful stomach cramps that could often bring her to her knees, and doctor after doctor failed to come up with a prognosis.

Then, she figured it out. In her high school science class! She slid a sample of her own intestinal tissue (which a pathologist had assured her contained no irregularities) under a microscope, "and spotted an area of inflamed tissue called a granuloma, a clear indication that she had Crohn's disease."

This is evolution at its absolute finest.

You do NOT want to read this post. Seriously. I warned you...

So I got tested for Syphilis today. And Ghonorreah, and HIV, and Chlamydia. I figure it's one of those things I should've been doing semi-annually for a while now, so yeah.

Do you know how they test your for Syphilis? It's really fun. The nurse has you disrobe, and sticks a cotton swab up your urethra. It feels... excruciating. It feels like somebody is stabbing you on the inside of the penis. I had the option of doing a urinary test, but it costs $38, and the swab costs $9. I think I would pay $20 not to experience that in the future, so I guess on the balance, I don't quite regret my decision. But yeah. Ow.

[EDIT:] Apparently, syphilis is such a dangerous disease that just getting tested makes it burn when you pee.

In non-penile news, Conduit comes out in a few days. I'll be spending this weekend trying to get ahead in my classes so that I have time to play the bejeesus out of it. I hope to have a review up before Friday, so all you Wii owning readers (that's right, both of you) who will probably have already played it can see what I think.

Also, my Red Faction review, posted previously, is now viewableon www.gamefaqs.com It seems they'll let anyone write for them. Go me.

[UPDATE] None of those tests came back positive.

I'm not sure now is the best policital climate for this...

I was going to wait for the end of the game before I did this review, but I think I've seen enough at this point. Anything else I might learn would just be a spoiler at this point anyway. The verdict: Red Faction is a flawed masterpiece.

I'll eventually get to the major points, but first I'd like to talk about some of the little things. The fact that the colonists on Mars don't have a common language, and speak various languages including German, French, and Japanese. The way certain kinds of chemical explosions will emit different colored flames because of what's combusting. The news broadcasts and NPC conversations that are sensitive to whatever you've recently been doing. The way that enemy NPCs will switch up their combat banter depending on what you're shooting them with. It's little, but it adds a lot of flavor. But then there's the other little things. Like the way allies will crowd around your car, simultaneously making your whole group an easy target and cutting off your ability to maneuver without killing them. The fact that the enemies automatically forget you exist whenever you cross the line into your "secret" base, which the enemy never finds despite it being right out in the open half the time. The collectible easter eggs that are hidden on top of craggy mountains that are just all kinds of frustrating to get on top of. None of these things really ruin the game for me, but they are still annoying.

Now, onto the gameplay: Imagine GTA 4 had a fully destructible environment, employed the Gears of War aiming mechanic, then you'd have the basics idea. Then throw in a fundamentally different environment, as Mars is not a sprawling metropolis but rather a sparsely populated colonial world, with small settlements and buildings here and there, and add a very diverse set of weapons. There's your standard pistol, assault rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher, of course, but then there's a wide selection of much more interesting weapons made from improvised mining tools, all of which are upgradeable in some fashion. One of my favorites was a cannon that fires sawblades, which explode on contact after an upgrade. Another gun fires a sith-like burst of electricity, which can fry people even if they're inside cars. As a bonus, it leaves the vehicle untouched, which allows you to steal it- nothing turns the tables faster than using this trick on a tank.

The game's destruction engine falls just a bit short of perfect, but as the very first implementation of something on this level, I must say I'm impressed. It is quite functional in terms of both gameplay and visuals, and it's a LOT of fun. After playing the demo, I predicted before that I would eventually get tired of watching buildings fall down, but I also predicted it would take a long time before that happened. While I still imagine this is true, I haven't gotten tired of blowing things up yet.

Sledgehammer. Remote charges. Missile launchers. That metal-eating cloud from the GI Joe Trailer. Black freaking holes. There are just so many different ways to make these gigantic buildings fall down, I have yet to even come close to tiring of it. From time to time, the quirky physics engine will allow a three story building to keep standing with only one little pillar holding it up, but for the most part buildings crack, crumble, and topple in a surprisingly realistic fashion.

While pleasantly conducive to large-scale destruction, some of the physics of Red Faction are quite simply outlandish. Your default melee weapon claims to be a humble sledgehammer, but for the kind of damage it causes I must conclude that it is secretly the hammer of Thor. Concrete walls and heavy support beams crumple under its might, often in a single blow. I've also noticed, once in a while, some weird physics like my car being launched thirty feet in the air because I hit a stop sign at the wrong angle, but it only happens rarely and it's usually more entertaining than annoying. Another thing: your character can survive a ridiculous amount of fire, explosions, car crashes, and bullets before dying, and this amount will be doubled at least twice through armor upgrades; and a good thing, too, as approximately 75% of the Martian population consists of heavily armed military police who are staunchly opposed to the notion of you and Mjolnir breaking all their houses.

Seriously, though. It seems that for every one common man on Mars, there are at least three trained police officers oppressing them. I'm all for stomping an Orwellian regime in outer space, but I can't see how this could be cost effective. It may be a nit, but I'm picking it anyway.

Rather surprisingly, I am finding the story to be one of the most interesting aspects of the game. The opening scene seems like a GTA4 rewrite at first, but things quickly take a turn for the original and you find yourself basically working for a terrorist organization. No, really, you're a guerilla fighter. You tactics consist of bombing buildings, taking out convoys with roadside bombs, destroying large buildings or troop placements with car bombs, and occasionally making use of a suicide bomber. When fighting the police, a voice on a loudspeaker orders you to surrender, and reminds you that you are endangering civilians, which you usually are. Now the government you're rebelling against is clearly shown to be unequivocally evil, but around the time I was torturing and murdering prisoners of war, I began to question whether the Red Faction is any better.

The impression I get, however, is that this isn't all just for shock value. I think the writers were genuinely trying to beg some ethical questions. The game portrays a situation where terrorist tactics are the only realistic recourse. The only way to win is to fight ruthless violence with ruthless violence. I see the questionable acts that I'm performing, and I think "I shouldn't be doing this." But then I try to think of what I should be doing instead, and I'm not seeing a lot of options. It's like one group of people came up with a series of unconscionable actions, and then they said "now let's try and imagine a situation where this would be conscionable." It is up to the player to decide whether that really is conscionable or not, but I find the ethical quandary was interesting regardless. I have a BA in Philosophy, though, so maybe I'm just reading too much into things.

Personally, I'm glad I bought this game. It's definitely long enough to warrant a buy, and unless Valve surprises us with an early release of HL3 and then surprises us further by including destructible environments, I think it will be a long time before other companies catch up with this kind of mechanic. If you still like to hop into GTA and blow some things up, then you'll probably still be messing around with RF:G long after you get tired of whatever game you get next Christmas.

One afterthought: The demo that was released a month back showcased a good portion of the game's features. If you thought that was lame, you can skip this one. If you don't have an Xbox, you might borrow a friend's to see if you like it, since it will be out on PC in a couple months.

EDIT three final points, now that the game is over. You eventually get a jetpack, The level design was really good, and dear Christ, did I just murder a lot of people that were only doing their jobs.

"Totally Not Gay" Six: Las Vegas

I have a certain appreciation for games that came out a long time ago. For one thing, if they came out more than two years ago and I'm still hearing about them, they probably did something right. For a second, perhaps more important thing, they're usually pretty damned cheap. I picked up Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Las Vegas on Ebay for a grand total of six dollars after shipping, and this has easily been worth that measly investment.

The first thing I will say is that the game is a first person shooter. The second thing I will say is that this game is so different from your typical first-person shooter that I think you can legitimately call it a separate genre. The Rainbow Six series has been around since well before the Half Life days, little has changed, and it's still good. There have been a small handful of games that fall into the same style, but for the most part, Rainbow Six is a genre unto itself.

I could (and eventually will) explain what makes this game different by describing it, but I think to give you a proper idea, I'm first going to compare it to a game you have almost certainly played through at least once: Half Life. In Half Life, you are a person who, through the all-powerful magic of contrivance, has obtained impossible degrees of power and resilience. You can shrug off wounds that would kill ordinary men, to the point where even a grenade to the face is a survivable occurrence; although for dignity's sake you normally F7 at that point. With your massive arsenal, you basically comprise a one-man army, taking on marines and monsters alike, culminating in a climactic battle against a monster several dozen times your size.

In Rainbow Six, you are a member of one of the most well-trained, well-equipped tactical assault teams on the planet. Despite this, you are neither trained nor equipped, to take a shotgun blast to the face and live to brag about it after eating a couple medkits. Thanks to the latest in body armor technology, you are capable of taking a couple (read: two) bullets, provided don't strike any vital organs. In Half Life, the skills that will lead to your survival are quick thinking, accuracy, and a calm hear and steady trigger finger. You must be able to shoot your enemy quickly, take shelter where it's available, and make use of the terrain. Rainbow Six demands those things of you, but rather than making them the way of surviving, they are merely skills that you must have in order to implement a successful strategy. In other words, the reflexes that carry you through the normal FPS are necessary, but ultimately insufficient to get you through this one.

Simply put, you are constantly up against an enemy that has more guns and more hitpoints than you, and to survive you have to be faster and smarter. You have to be thinking about where you are in relation to your opponent, and how you outmaneuver the opponent. A classic example is a standard flank, where either you or your squadmates keep firing on an enemy position, whilst the other moves to a position where they can safely fire on the enemy. If the enemy comes out of cover to shoot you while you advance, your squad guns him down. If no, you reach a position where you can shoot the enemy and he can't shoot you. This is the basic strategy, but it is executed in myriad ways throughout the single-player campaign. The level designers do a really nice job of forcing you to employ these tactics, while at the same time giving you a few different options as to how you proceed. Ultimately, the game revolves around the notion of scouting the enemy's position, formulating an attack plan, and then following through on that plan, adjusting it on the fly as necessary.

The fact that bullets do realistic damage can frequently make the game an exercise in controller-snapping frustration, as if you make even a small error, like not noticing a terrorist hiding behind a crate before you start to move forward, you can find yourself booted back to your last checkpoint before you even realize you've screwed up. It only takes one well-placed shot to kill you. If you are scarcely clipped in the shoulder or leg, your vision becomes heavily blurred for about 15 seconds, after which you will heal. If you take a round in the torso, or two rounds in the leg (three will probably kill you), your vision gets very heavily blurred and fades to a dark black, effectively blinding you. This lasts for nearly thirty seconds, and you are almost always going to die at this point, unless you are able to blindly stumble out of harm's way. Having a good sense of your environment and well-positioned teammates can often make the difference between life or death in these situations.

Speaking of teammates, you are perpetually accompanied by two other nameless (well, they have names, I guess) special forces badasses, who are surprisingly good at their jobs. Sometimes they make you feel a bit inadequate, as they can often managed to clear a room that I couldn't get two feet in without having my highly trained ass blown off. They follow your orders to the letter, which you will find frequently gets them killed. When correctly managed, however, they are extremely efficient. Whether they're covering your flank while you snipe, or charging into a room while you sneak in through another door and get behind the enemies, these dudes are perhaps the best AI support mechanic I've ever seen. And unlike Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead, their usefulness does not hinge primarily on contrived sequences where a partner has to help you out.

The difficulty curve is quite steep, and the gameplay is only going to appeal to certain people; it's a genre unto itself, but a it's a very narrow genre. Give it a go if you find it for under $10, but if you uninstall in frustration after being unable to beat the first level, don't feel bad.