02.29.08
Posted in Gaming, Rants
at 6:21 pm
A day or so ago, Konami announced details about the upcoming release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, one of the few Playstation 3-exclusive games to have been announced as such and maintained that status throughout its development. When it is released on June 12th, 2008, I will be in line to pick it up, in the form of the also-announced bundle package that includes the Playstation 3. At that point, my standards for what appears to be a good game to try on the machine will be greatly lowered.
Don’t get me wrong; the games I’m looking forward to playing (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, The Eye of Judgement and its expansion, and possibly Folklore) are fairly good in and of themselves. But there are a ton of multiplatform games that I’m looking to try out, as well (prime among them Sonic the Hedgehog– though it left a bitter taste in my mouth by crashing mere seconds after I started playing it at E3, it was far and away better-looking than the 360 version), and while I could play them on the 360 now, there’s little reason to add more games to the already-too-large Backlog of Dread. When I get my hands on a PS3 of my own, my options expand slightly wider than I’m expecting them to.
It’s an odd effect that I’m sure I’m not alone in experiencing. When you buy a new console, all those games that your eye passed over when you were evaluating the machine suddenly go from background noise to being viable options. In the anecdotal evidence department, I know many gamers who bought, say, the Wii for one game alone and found themselves enjoying a larger portion of the library than they imagined they would. Same goes for the DS, the 360, etc., all the way back to the NES. It often works in reverse, too– I was so completely hot on the Atari 7800 to the exclusion of all other machines, and it turned out that there wasn’t even anything all that great on that device, including Ms. Pac-Man; and yet, the NES my uncle gave us that year wound up being the proverbial start of a beautiful friendship.
It’s strange, though, in analyzing what I’m interested in that the game that breaks my barrier to entry would be Metal Gear. It was MGS2, coupled with Final Fantasy X, that got me to get a Playstation 2 at the end of 2001. For me, Metal Gear and Final Fantasy are two series that, despite the somewhat lukewarm reception they might get critically, always seem to attract me. It could be just blind fanboy devotion– and I know one person out there who will not hesitate to lay that particular cross on my shoulders– but I’ll be honest, for all the grief the games have given me, they still do enough right in my eyes that I’m unwilling to abandon them completely. It would take a travesty– an absolute unplayable mess on the order of, say, Big Rigs– to get me to cease buying those games. Again, it might be hopeless optimism, but then again, if I were to be so anal as to ignore all of the good to focus on the irritating or the bad, I’d have bigger problems than just dithering over buying a new machine.
That’s not to say I take every series to their end. The Mana series has degraded so badly since Legend of Mana that I didn’t even bother with Dawn of Mana; Heroes of Mana is still more or less sitting untouched while I wait to see if I really want to go through it. The announcement of a new Zelda game does virtually nothing for me these days; the same goes for Mega Man, though that’s more due to the complete and total disaster that was the splintering of that particular property (it’s been almost a complete decade since the last real Classic-series game has been released– and any amount of time greater than about a year or so is far too long between releases in the Legends/DASH set). I seriously regret having followed Starfox down the dark alleys it’s traveled since 2001, with the exception of Assault– and it’s also telling that, like Sonic, the best game of those series in recent memory is the one not made by the original company.
But ultimately, I’m sure that as time goes on, I’ll warm up to some of the less-impressive PS3 titles that I currently disregard, like Ratchet and Clank or Resistance. It’s not like there’s nothing for me to play right now; my backlog is already far too big for me to be considering buying a new console, but I have a good three months yet to try to pare it down somewhat. This weekend I’m going to try to blaze through a couple of shorter titles to get March off to a good start– holy crap, it’s March already! Catch you folks on Monday at the LJ, with the report on February’s gaming. As long as nothing earth-shattering happens in the world of gaming between now and then, that’s likely to be the only post for the day there.
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02.27.08
Posted in Movies, Rants, Television
at 7:12 am
Note: I’m in abject misery; an honest-to-god cold has struck me, as opposed to surprise!badfood from two weeks ago. I don’t know how my parents managed to digitize their plague and transmit it over the telephone to me, but they did, and I have them (and the crystal-clear reception of my cell phone) to thank for this round of “will it nauseate?”. What I’m trying to say is that you probably shouldn’t count on a big long diatribe tomorrow.
I came across an interesting little factoid yesterday: apparently, the HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 is now priced at $50. That would certainly make it a very tempting prospect if I had not also come to a realization– a fundamental paradigm shift that better explains how I’ve been looking at the whole, now-over “format war”. The revelation is this: ( I’m not ’smart’ enough for anything better than standard DVD… » )
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02.25.08
Posted in Anime, Gaming, Rants, Site News
at 5:11 am
(Note: Yeah, two ‘new’ Game Clears over the weekend. It does warrant mentioning, but not here– no time right now, and besides, this post is all ready to go and everything, so… yeah, tomorrow on the LJ you should see something on both the Professor and the Valkyrie.)
We’re just shy of seven weeks away from, for me at any rate, the start of anime convention season. Given that I intend to hit more than two, separated by about four to six months, yes, it is a “season”. ahem I’m running into the wonderful scheduling conflicts that pop up now and again, including the fact that one of the more accessible ‘new’ cons is the exact same weekend as Tekkoshocon (UB-Con, which wouldn’t irritate me as much if it wasn’t going to have a ‘playable demo’ of D&D 4th Edition). Still, it’s worth me making yet another resolution to you all: I’m going to do writeups of these conventions. I promise, this time– no excuses this year.
Last year I had notes during Tekkoshocon, and had mentioned that I wanted to expand those into a full report. Then, some Bad Things Happened, and I became depressed, so you got no report. For that, I truly apologize; the convention was very good and a true treat to go to, but there were other circumstances surrounding it (quite literally, actually) that caused me to not want to write it up until long after its events were obliviated from my mind in sufficient detail to do it justice. I did come away from it with a couple of interesting lessons: first, despite my best efforts, I cannot sleep in my car, even if I really, really want to. Second, do not schedule anything important or life-changing within one week on either side of the convention unless you want said things to go horribly, atrociously wrong. And finally, marathonning series is a good idea in theory; in practice, I had better make sure the seats are actually comfortable enough to warrant sitting in them for greater than three hours at a time before committing to it.
In any event, that is the half-assed excuse for not having a Tekko report. There really is no excuse for not having anything up from Otakon ‘07 besides the “Rick Star” video, so I’m not even really going to apologize. About the only thing that I can say in defense of the silence, really, is that for that trip (and given my state of disconnectedness from being an otaku at the time) the focus was not specifically on the convention, but rather on the people with whom I attended the festivities. Therefore, most of the most memorable ‘things’ that happened wound up being kind of personal to be blasting out all over the Interwebs. Now, that said, a few things– such as the remark regarding the “‘Elite Beat’-off”, and being literally three minutes too late for a Pokemon event across town– those are pretty much universally interesting. The rest would probably just be incomprehensible inside jokes, and I think there’s enough cliques out there in the world that the omission of these particular shared memories will go largely unnoticed.
Still, I can’t believe he played through all thirty-five minutes of it. Holy crap. ANYWAY.
Pez actually inspired my drive to commit to full reports from Tekko and Otakon this year; he’d written up a couple of long-winded and very detailed travelogues of trips he’d taken, and they’re powerful stuff. It’s very strong nonfiction, and I think it stands up by itself; sadly, I don’t have a link to anywhere he’s elected to showcase this (hint hint), but if one shows up, I recommend taking a look. Nonfiction has always been a particular weakness of mine, and as a result I think that the Tekko report is going to be my big “writing” project. Of course, this means that I might actually have to, y’know, pay attention, and detail events more than I usually do, but… Hrm. We’ll see. It’ll also probably shoot to hell my plans for finally volunteering, but there’s always next year…. when I can actually remember to sign up on time and participate more.
We’ll see. I’m hoping that I can manage to do this in a way that doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of both cons, but we’ll see… likely, for Tekko, this will mean sitting in my car for half an hour typing up disjointed notes on the Basroil before starting the drive home each night. I somehow don’t think that would be so bad, do you?
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02.24.08
Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming
at 5:45 pm
At 5:27p, I discovered the Golden Apple in Professor Layton and the Curious Village on the DS. This is the seventh game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Wii), followed by Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) and (nothing else started). Final clear time was 7:54 over thirteen days.
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02.23.08
Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming
at 11:33 pm
At 11:11p, I defeated Loki, final boss of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth on the PSP. This is the sixth game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS), followed by Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Wii) and (nothing else started). Final clear time was 32:24 over 22 days.
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02.21.08
Posted in Gaming, Rants, Writing
at 5:10 am
I’m going to try to get through this without mentioning the name of the person to whom, by now, I think we all know I’m referring and directing this. It’ll be a challenge, sure, but I’m up for it. Besides, since I’ve thrown his words right back at him, I’ve already more or less explicitly said it anyway. Leaving him off this essay just serves to reduce his importance in the so-called “blogosphere”, and also means he likely won’t bother responding to this with his usual stream of toothless snarling and unrelated personal-attack vitriol.
After looking back at my notes for the infinitely-backburnered Metal Rogue (no, I didn’t forget about it), I saw a phrase that summed up the theme behind the project: “the danger of a monoculture”. The notes went on to explain that it is through a diversity of thought and opinion that societies, sciences, and people evolve, and that to force everyone into a rigidly-defined, narrowly-allotted frame of reference is akin to putting a gun to their heads in the long term. It’s not that people aren’t free to choose, in that case: it’s that making the choice to disagree carries undue consequences, socially, economically, and sometimes physically. You need only look at religious oppression in the Dark Ages to see how the seeds can be sown for enduring, interminable, and entangling quagmires of holy wars stretching off into the foreseeable future.
This isn’t about religion, which I’m fine with; “live and let live”, after all. But it is about one of the most basic tools of oppression available to individuals today: the gross and intentional misapplication of the fundamental right to free speech. Despite how they’re represented in the world stage and the educational system, our rights are not free. There is a cost for everything, and the right to free speech carries with it a grave penalty for those who would seek to twist it to their own ends. The price for the right to free speech is the certainty that you are infallible; put another way, you can say whatever you want as long as you accept that someone else can disagree. It must work both ways or not at all.
So, with some amount of amusement I learned that the subject of this, let’s call it an object lesson, claimed that a quietly-published article on MSNBC.com was a “hit piece” and the title of this particular entry. Those were his exact words, as a matter of fact. I got a pretty good laugh out of that on Tuesday, to be honest. And, to prove that I’m not really above a little bit of tweaking now and again, I took a moment to tag his book with that rather colorful phrase. Call it the seed of a Google-bomb; I could die happy knowing that the phrase was as iconic to him as the canonical example of a Google-bomb.
The thing is that, like I said, free speech is not granted without its caveats. When you speak, expecting the protections of the First Amendment (or equivalent protection for your jurisdiction), certain conditions must be fulfilled. You have to be reasonably sure that what you’re saying, if you present it as fact, is in fact true. For example, if you shout “fire” in a crowded theater, you had damn well better see smoke, even if it’s just some jackass with a cigar; if, later, it’s discovered you were wrong, and you knew you were wrong or at least misrepresenting your statement, then you can’t claim free speech protection. The freedom to speak does not include the right to lie with impunity, nor does it grant you immunity from the consequences of having knowingly lied.
The second condition, and probably the one most lost in English-language discourse, is the requirement to differentiate personal opinion from fact. I can say that “blue is the best color”, and that’s fine– because it can’t reasonably be inferred that that statement is anything but my opinion. If I say something like “I’m the number one Web developer in the world”, that’s too ambiguous– setting aside the fact that it’s an obvious lie, how is “number one” defined? It’s not so bad when a private figure (like me) gives out his opinion on pretty much everything (like I do here); when a public figure attempts to use his or her position of respect and authority, however legitimately said position was obtained, to further a personal opinion, then that’s an abuse of freedom of speech. As another example, I really respect Roger Ebert’s opinions, so I’d look to him as a (relative) authority on movies, but not on, say, car maintenance or food preparation. (If he is, in fact, also a decent mechanic or a master chef, please overlook this fact because it wrecks my example– but, knowing that, I would then come to respect his opinion in those areas a little more.) Same thing might be, say, Bram Cohen on data transfer protocols, but not proper Sousaphone care and handling.
The final condition is one I’ve said in as many words before, but bears repeating. The right to free speech does not have an audience bolted on to it. If what you are saying is unpopular and/or incorrect, people are in no way obligated to listen to you. I’m a firm believer in free speech, myself, but the fact that I have a worldwide reach of, oh, two hundred people or so does not bother me in the slightest. For me, at least, the fact that I’m saying these things– that I’m declaring myself, quietly and firmly– is enough, because I know that there are folks who agree with me. I know I’m not alone in my viewpoint, and I know– more than ever, now, as it turns out– that this viewpoint is shared by people who are in those positions of influence. Right now, what I have is an opinion. That makes it dangerous to individuals who disagree with me, because there’s nothing that can contradict my opinion except their own; while evidence is slim in the particular case that spurred this essay, what little there is seems to support my side of the argument more than the opposing viewpoint. I don’t have to force my opinion into the public viewpoint because it’s already there, it’s already being seen as ‘right’; the opposing viewpoint has been demonstrably shot down so many times that it’s becoming something of a conspiracy theory, more along the lines of “the moon landings were fake” than an actual, valid, rational position to hold. And yes, I do realize that equating the anti-game sentiment to a crackpot delusion isn’t exactly sound rhetoric, but in this case it works because it’s not the basis of my argument: note I said “demonstrably shot down”.
I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a logician. I’ve only had a handful of courses in rhetoric and debate, and most of that is long forgotten. I couldn’t tell you an ethos-based argument from a pathos-based argument these days– those courses are, actually, close to a decade behind me. But the core of it is still very much with me, and it’s reinforced every time the gentlemen I’m talking about speaks. After all, it doesn’t take a good actor to recognize a bad one. (Another unsound argument by itself!) I’m not attacking him. That’s descending to his level– and besides, my opinion of him is pretty much well-known. I’m attacking his opinion– which really doesn’t need attacking; it’s kind of like levelling anti-aircraft batteries at the Hindenburg– because as many times as he will prop up his incorrect assertions, flawed logic, and outright lies, I will adamantly and calmly destroy them. I urge you all to join me– calmly and adamntly pull the platform out from under him, and leave him out of it. He wants this to be about him, which is the only way he can continue to assert his lies.
Lock and load, boys and girls. Let’s take that zeppelin down.
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02.20.08
Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming
at 7:21 pm
At 7:15p, I completed Stage 6 in Parappa the Rapper on the PSP. This is the fifth game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (PSP), followed by Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS) and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Wii). No clear time data available for this title.
Backlog status: 40 games, 4 in progress.
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02.19.08
Posted in Gaming, Rants, Writing
at 5:10 am
The past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to concentrate on writing a few short stories to shop around in support of Harvesting Blueberries, and not having much luck in the way of completing any of them. The struggles at the end of last month with the so-called “Emily Story” have been pretty much endemic to all of my writing since I put the final touches on Blueberries in December. I’ve got a couple of game reviews written (which reminds me, I need to update the review list on this site) and have managed to re-organize my USB drive at least four times. But in terms of fiction… it’s just been a huge blank.
Not that I’m feeling completely ineffectual. Quite the contrary– I’m catching up on my gaming and DVD watching, which despite the inactivity involved (in the DVDs at any rate) makes me feel quite productive. It’s not that I’m not producing anything tangible; what I am producing is impressions and opinions, and fodder for the idea mill. It’s fascinating, really, to find that I get just as much of a sense of accomplishment over completing a game or watching a series as I do for writing even just a little. Yeah, despite my complaining that it wasn’t going anywhere, the aborted attempts at the Emily story (and its shorter-lived successor, “the thunderstorm story”) all went on the scrap pile for later cogitation.
What it boils down to, really, is that I don’t think that this lack of output is necessarily a bad thing. I spent all of last year writing– sometimes intensively, sometimes lackadaisically. But there was a two-week stretch at the beginning, and a seven-week stretch at the end, where it was literally all I did, where it consumed me. That last blitzkrieg took a lot out of me, and I suppose I’m still recovering somewhat. It’s unreasonable to assume, also, that I should be expected to maintain NaNo-levels of output throughout the year, especially when certain periods are going to be more stressful due to work or other concerns (nothing life-altering is going on now, you can all relax and stop your heart attacks now).
Instead, this is a point in my… well, I don’t think “cycle” is the best word for it owing to the feminine-oriented connotations that word can hold, but there’s nothing else immediately coming to mind. Right, then, this is a point in my cycle of creativity where I’m in more of an “input” mode. When I am at a loss for words of my own, and instead seek to recharge my creativity and to discover a new story to tell, by reading and experiencing the stories of others. It might seem like what I’m doing is rationalizing an excuse to slack off, and on some level it is. It’s also probably a valid criticism that I’m probably just looking for new material to rip off, since apparently I’m incapable of originality or creativity to begin with, after having been raised on a media diet of video games and pop-culture television. But that last sentiment is a little too full of bile, cynicism, and just plain fail for me to take seriously for even a second.
But, “rationalizing slacking off”… I somehow think that might not be entirely accurate, either. It’s an unfortunate sign of the modern American culture and corroded work-ethic that leisure time is automatically seen as “wrong” or “decadent”. The phrase “too much time on my hands” is almost always negative in its connotations. Whatever happened to taking time and just relaxing? Why do people feel the need to work themselves to death, to grind away day after day without end to a point where they can no longer function– and then, when they go for the rest they so desperately need or deserve, they carry around stupid contrivances like Blackberries or laptops? Don’t get me wrong, I love my laptop, but that’s because I know when to leave it in the damn bag or leave it home altogether. People are vilified for taking breaks, people are seen as excessively weak for being far less weak than they actually are. This doesn’t seem right.
So, you know what? I’m going to just roll with this. For right now, I’m not going to worry about creating new fiction output just yet. I’m setting April 1st as a new “start” date for whatever project I want to do by the time that point comes up– it might be a rewrite of Blueberries, might be some short stories, we’ll see– but I’m not going to pressure myself to write anything at all before then. Maybe a couple of game reviews, and definitely I’m going to continue the daily posts and monthly query letter batches, but April 1st is when I get back to this whole “writer” business.
Until then– I’m catching up on my slacking.
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02.15.08
Posted in Rants, Television
at 6:25 am
So. I figured out what caused my troubles on Wednesday. Long and gross story short, “bonus beef” is not always a good thing. Just trust me on that one.
I never did give much of a set of impressions on Torchwood. What really bothered me more than anything else, before I actually saw the whole thing for myself, was the constant references to the series’ seeming ‘fixation on sex’ in the reviews and recaps that I read. I just sort of figured that it was something that the reviewers and critics were unable to get over; on some level I imagined each one of them being a priest or nun, standing up, pointing at their televisions and screaming “OMG TEH GHEY!!” at random intervals whenever Captain Jack decided to show the audience that He’s Not From Around Here. As you might have gathered, I thought that harping on the series’ more loose play with gender pairing was a discredit to the series.
Of course, the problem arises when I actually watched it, and found that of all of the episodes with the exception of maybe two were centered completely around sex. And it’s not like the ones which weren’t sexually oriented weren’t good– the “camping” episode was one of the most powerful ones, I thought, and the episode centered around the alien eye was very well done– but apparently to join Torchwood you need to have three things: one, an open mind; two, exceptional intelligence; and three, raging uncontrollable nymphomania.
Still, even with all that, the whole series was quite fascinating, and I’m looking forward to seeing more. Assuming, y’know, I remember to start recording it again. Also, I have just picked up on Doctor Who where I left off– watched “The Christmas Invasion” last night, and I can definitely see why some folks like Tennant better than Eccleston. I’m actually growing quite fond of Baker, as well.
Anyway. Over on the LJ I put up my thoughts on Gunslinger Girl– one of the better things to have happened on Wednesday, actually– and this weekend should be filled with Valkyrie Profile, Professor Layton, and possibly Ai Yori Aoshi. If anything interesting happens– perhaps some Weekend Memery?– you know where to find me.
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02.13.08
Posted in Rants
at 5:47 am
Yeah, sick today. Not sure exactly what it is, beyond the adjective “unpleasant”. The phrase “it was only water, why won’t it stay down?” also seems oddly apropos. Catch you folks tomorrow.
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