I have been waylaid since Friday with a virus whose origin I suspect is from a less than sterile laboratory, probably buried deep within a mountain range. I also feel that a tinkling of a test tube, a quiet 'Oh, fuck!' also plays a part in its long path to my own biology.
And yet, with all of life's sweet inconveniences, there is something to be gleaned from this. I have spent most of this time alone, staring at the lunar terrain stucco of the ceiling, thinking.
One of my many conclusions that have been half formed in my head is that you tend to feel a bit adrift at 44 without children. I have many friends with families, a fact I tend to forget when I call them to discuss the latest gaming news I've just heard. You rush through your twenties and thirties, doing your best not to be thrown back into poverty, doing your best to achieve something, but now, it all really does seem less than worthwhile, whose only merit was as illusory as its supposed importance.
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Tomorrow night is another launch of yet another London arts magazine, filled with the usual suspects in London's writing community. I'm going only to accompany a friend, because deep down I really, truly, don't give a shit. Just another collection of egos, telling themselves that what they're doing is vital to a city that has proven time and time again they don't give a veritable rat's ass for anything or anyone in London involved in the creative arts. I feel the most for the younger writers, or those who see this as their path to finally getting published, and maybe starting their long dreamed of career. I know many people who start magazines in this city mean well, but many of them don't, and have only their own interests in mind. My own experience has proven that trying to get paid for work done in this town is like pulling teeth from a duck. And, coincidentally,it's always the same characters involved.
If you want to write, then do it for yourself. Set up a blog. Get the word out about yourself. Hang posters from telephone poles with your website if you want. Add the link to your blog to your emails. Write your fiction or articles and try to sell them to people who will pay you. Don't do it for free, or without a contract. This is my advice, harsh as it may sound. If someone is charging for a magazine and/or is receiving advertising that you have worked for and say they can't pay you, then walk away. Start ups depend on the hopes and naivete of young writers, who will happily wave away payment to get published. This isn't the way to start your career, or to respect your gift.
And yes, that was a harsh post. I just really have nothing new to say about Dragon Quest V at the moment.
This damn song has been going through my head all week. It's the drop out breakdown drum piece that keeps running and running through my head. It's moved in, shoving the J-Pop out my ears like unwanted cats.
I called Vulcan Ninja at work.
"That damn Jack White song is going through my head," I said. "With his band Dead Weather? Treat Me Like Your Mother?"
"Fuck off," she said. "It's been going through my head, too."
So we went to find the video. Maybe that would get it out of heads, some twee video that purges the song from your soul, the way three days in a Icelandic brothel with a broken space heater and a skipping Bjork CD playing in a red velveted corner can cure you of a warm but dangerous itch once and for all. You experience it because you have to, then never speak of it again.
Then we see the video. And we fall in love with it even more.
First, let us applaud TWEWY for being what it isn't: it is NOT a JRPG that takes place in a quasi-medieval land and/or outer space. Outside of PERSONA, it's one of the few that dare to be this commercially suicidal.
The World Ends With You caught me by surprise. I picked it up solely on basis of reviews, and wasn't sure what to expect. A game about fashion set in Shibuya? Okay, sure. I'll play anything. And as the game started, the usual RPG tropes appeared, shimmering in its expectability with a hero with a bad attitude and a case of amnesia to match. In due time, I expected a short cartoony character to become his sidekick, with misadventures and wackiness to follow.
But that soon changed, because that story didn't arrive. With the lead character of Neku, we had your typical emo teenager, hiding from the world behind his massive headphones, only connecting with the triumvirate of Art, Fashion, and Music. People? Neku has no use for them. At that point, I began to warm up to him. And then we learn that Neku is dead.
He doesn't know how he died, but he soon finds himself involved in something called The Game. Here, other recently deceased teenagers are forced to battle demons called Noise in time trials set by hooded characters called Reapers. The Noise--who, like the Game players, are not visible to the still living in Shibuya--live by attacking people on a psychic level. It's Noise that are responsible for depression, anger and all the bad feelings that are destroying Shibuya (and by extension, the world.) It sounds ludicrous, but it's a sign of how much this game works that you just go Oh, okay, that makes sense.
The battles are done through the DS' dual screens, which at first glance, made me feel even more out of my depth than usual. They look impossible, a chaos of effects and screaming bursting from the act of controlling two different characters in two completely different forms of combat. (Neku attacks using the powers he gains through various pins, while Neku's various partners use a combo system.) After two battles, though, it becomes second nature, since the top character will switch to Auto Fight if you're too busy saving Neku's ass.
The game follows Neku's attempts to discover who killed him, and just what the Game really means. In the process, Neku learns the inevitable Life Lessons RPGs always teach, but while there is a sugar content to them, it's dampened enough with darkness to be palatable. He works with various partners, each with their own tragedy dragging them down, though none of them mope as well as Neku does.
It's no surprise that the three things that matter most to Neku--art, fashion and music--play a large role in TWEWY. The music--a mix of electro beat, J-Pop, and watered down hip hop--never stops save for dramatic cutscenes. Art--via graffiti-adorns many walls, and plays a large role in deciphering Neku's fate. As for fashion, it's necessary to do a shitload of shopping in the game to buy clothes and accessories from various designers in order to power up your character. This was borderline irritating at first, but it was a nice change from just going to the Ye Olde Weapons Shop.
I tend to be plot driven in RPGs moreso than just dawdling to see everything in the game ( if I have twenty minutes to play, I want plot and fighting, not chatter with sales clerks), so I didn't do as much as this as I could have. But every item you buy in this game has a small, often funny write up accompanying it, which was appreciated.
As for the idea of fashion, this is what really set the game apart for me. I had assumed it would have been a Dolce and Gabanna version of Pokemon, but the game took a different path. In a side quest involving ramen--and may I say I adore any game that allows me to write 'a side quest involving ramen'--much time was spent looking at the idea of fashion as personal statement versus fashion as a form of conformity. This idea was brought forth early as Neku's fashion choices are criticized, which hurts him. He just dresses in what he likes, and it's never crossed his mind that anyone would do differently. When he meets his first companion Shiki, he assumes she buys the best stuff available--until she reveals she can't afford to, and just makes her own clothes. The game really brings home that any form of expression should be for yourself, and not just to fit in. In fact, the need to fit in leads to very dire consequences later in the game.
This slow awakening comes to Neku, partly through his companions and his ability to read minds, in which he learns all the people he passes in the street are locked in their own heads, each of them as worried and afraid as he is. Reading these messages--which range from people worried about making rent, wondering how they'll afford this dress they really need, or just what the future holds--becomes addictive, and gives the game the feeling of being a living world.
The World Ends With You has a very definite message to make, and it does it well. I haven't played a game that oh so strongly makes the point that art and personal growth cannot be achieved without interacting with other people, but to never lose sight of who you are in the process. The ending is unlike most other RPGs I've played, staying true to the theme set down in the early minutes of the game. Well done stuff.
There are problems, of course. Towards the end of the game (which I finished in 22 hours, which is where most JRPGs are just getting going), there are some puzzles thrown in that seem out of place, more designed to slow the player down more than anything else. As well, reading speech balloon after speech balloon becomes tiresome, but to the writers' credit, they're aware of this as well, and aren't afraid of snark to break the High Drama. After you finish, the game allows you to go back and replay chapters, allowing you to grab the pins and clothes you missed first time through. There is also a small adventure with Neku and the crew in a zany romp through Shibuya that takes place after the events in TWEWY, just so you don't have to leave them all entirely, just yet.
But all in all, the game is well worth your time. Fighting, collecting, music (with some surprising lyrics you know were snuck past marketing, like proclaiming women have the right to abortions) and the feeling of playing something new and original, that moves the genre forward, even if not everyone is ready to come along.
The days churn. Events occur, reactions erupt, banality washes over everything. At least, that's how I see my workday. But when I remember, I look to see if there are deeper connections in the day, something, anything that deepens the hours that I'm awake on this planet.
Today I found this:
-Before the sun rose this morning, I was standing in a field in a rainstorm, a toad in my hands. I haven't seen a toad in over a year. When I bought this house, there were toads aplenty in the back yard, but in the past five years, only a handful. According to conservatives, this has absolutely nothing to do with climate change. Of course not. The frogs and toads have all gone to Venus on spaceships made of butterfly wings. That's where they are. Silly me for thinking otherwise.
So I'm coming into work and I see a toad leaping as quickly as it could across a parking lot. I grabbed it, doing my best not to freak out, because of all the things I like in my hands, toads don't rate very high. Still, I didn't want him run over, so I tried to move him as far away from pavement and automobiles as I could. The rain was cold, and I was soaked within half a minute. I dropped the toad, and it began hauling amphibian ass across the soaked field. I tried to pick it up again, to just make sure it didn't end up back from where I'd grabbed it, but when it hunkered down, I decided I'd done enough.
--Later in the day, I'm in the car, driving under the Wellington Street underpass. Above the road, on the bridge, is a large poster tied to the handrail. It was proclaiming Canada's sad record when it comes to making changes regarding climate change. As I drove beneath it, a hefty policeman with a brush cut was removing it. And I thought how iconic that scene was, and how in twenty years, I'm going to remember it, the way I used to remember what it was like to hold a toad.
--I come home, de-stress over a pot of coffee and The World Ends With You, where I fight giant frogs. The game takes place in Shibuya. I found the video so I could see where I'm 'fighting'in World, and because a big part of me wishes I was there(Tokyo Game Show! AAAA!) The song that accompanies the video seems perfect to end a day that begin in a field, drenched in rain, fighting a losing fight.
I loved this book, about as much as I loved Exiles, also written by Jeff Parker, and oh! Also canceled after six issues!
It's clear I have the touch of death. A comic that seemed written just for me--with giant gorillas, hidden cities, beautiful Asian villanesses, martial arts fuckery, aliens who live with glass bowls over their heads, and fifties style flying saucers and robots--obviously cannot survive in this darkened, horrible time. Like a flower of awesome, it has shriveled and died, leaving me with fading dreams on paper.
I mean, for fuck's sake.
I fear to say I like anything any more. In fact, perhaps I should embrace this curse. Maybe I should say THE BLACKEST NIGHT is the best book since WATCHMEN! That I think AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is just what the human race needs to make the next socio-political leap towards paradise. That I won't read a book unless it has seven spin-offs, and that we just don't have enough BIG CROSSOVERS, that we need at least five a month, and that we have to pay with our actual blood for every second issue. These are things I now like.
I'm bitter now. I think I'm just going to go and listen to Rubber Soul and play The World Ends With You. That'll be me sulking on the couch, tapping my feet.
I was walking through FutureShop yesterday,and was just about to leave when I went past the Aisle Of Lonely Games. If you've been to the FutureShop on Wellington, you know the AOG. It's on the outskirts of the gaming area, the mercantile hinterlands, where the staff put the games they just can't force themselves to throw out.
As usual, there was a collection of Star Wars: Jump To LightSpeed add-ons,(when the cities fall into ruin and packs of cannibals roam the streets, Jump To Lightspeed will still be on toppled shelves, in defiance of gravity) a few Everquest packs, and other games that really represent both a combination of bad gamemaking and/or changing gamer tastes. And then I saw the above: Ultima Online 9th Anniversary Collection.
For one dollar.
Pity swelled in me. Seriously, you can't even dignify a game with a five dollar price tag? It was like seeing a lost kitten, alone on a wire rack, afraid of the bigger games on the other side.
I picked it up, fished in my pocket for a toonie, and bought it. I would at least rescue it from that particular shame. Even unwanted games need love. I told the cashier I'd hold onto the receipt, in case I wanted to return it. She laughed.
So last night, purely to see just what I had purchased for a dollar, I installed the game. Took forever, what with the constant flowing blue bars of patch updates, but finally, around midnight, I could start to play.
At first, it was incomprehensible. The graphics are a bit above those of Runescape, but not by much. I created a character, (decided on an elvish samurai, because really, what other choice is there?) picked a server, and decided to give it ten minutes before I uninstalled it.
Almost immediately other players rushed up to me. Offers of help began to float like welcome mats around me. What did I want to do? What were my goals? Did I want to make things or specialize in combat?
I said I had no idea. Then one character said, "Follow me', and I did. He led me on very simple quests to earn gold. Quests like taking some dude to the tailor's. Like he couldn't have walked there himself. But he gave me 500 gold for the two block walk.
I laughed when I saw he paid me in a cheque. My new player friend then told me I had to go the bank and cash it, which again seemed hilarious. So I did, and then I was asked if I had scissors in my backpack.
After fumbling around, I saw that I did. "Pick up that green shirt on the ground," he said.
I did, and then he told me to cut it. And so I learned how to make bandages in Ultima.
More of this continued. At 1:30 I finally had to say goodbye, and signed off.
Now, I've played a lot of MMOs, and I can say that this was the most helpful bunch of players I've come across. Granted, maybe they need to be, but after being allcapped several times in Warcraft because I suck, or because I didn't have the best gear for raids, or didn't play the game enough, it was a breath of virtual fresh air to not be noobed in my first night.
And all for a dollar. A cup of Tim Horton's coffee cost more, and I didn't get an elven robe with it.
There are those among you who may have heard of Geek Meet. This is a meeting held more-or-less monthly by a secret cabal composed of the Geek Elite (+10 Dorks And Above) of London, Ontario. The meetings are held in a secret location, and are by invite only. Maybe one day, if you finish all the Final Fantasy video games, write an exhaustive online blog about your favourite Wolverine stories featuring his bone claws as opposed to his more commercial adamantium ones (which everyone knows are just for X-Men tourists and wannabees), or build a really cool Serenity out of Lego, you'll find an invite, tucked away in your DS, PSP, or Virgins For Life membership card.
Here, then, is what a Geek Meet is like, spiritually brought to us by Built To Spill. (And yes, they are honorary members. As is Blair Butler.)
As a hardcore motherfucking gamer,I feel this way about Rock Band and Guitar Hero: they are nice party tricks. To say that you're a gamer because you play Rock Band is cute, like when a toddler puts on a hard hat and says he's a constwuction wowker. Until you burn the hours in a Final Fantasy, level to Death Knight in WoW, or get red-eyed trying to break the top 1,000 in any online game leaderboard, from Uno to Osmos, you don't get the HMFG title. At least, not from me.
And so I'm even more resolute when I think about Beatles Rock Band.
I admit I take the Beatles very seriously. It is the music I grew up with, my mother playing them over and over, and I can remember where I was when I first heard Girl (four years old, by the refrigerator in our house on Elmwood Avenue). If I had to take five things from the planet before Galactus ate it, the complete Beatles library would be easily one of them.
Having them in Rock Band seems unnecessary, and at worse, slutty. Surely the remaining Beatles don't need the money. And while I admire the work done by the dev teams, which looks stellar, I just don't want the Beatles being grubbed over by drunken assholes at parties, as their mutton fingers try and press the bright coloured buttons on the cheap guitar while their buddies howl and fart.
It just isn't right.
Because I can't connect the Net to my brain--yet-- I missed the news that Paul and Ringo appeared at E3 to promote the game. That also put an arrow in my blackened heart. So much so, I called Vulcan Ninja to cry on her shoulder.
"I can't believe they did it," I said.
"Why does it matter?"
"It's the Beatles. It's like almost holy. And I keep thinking: what would John say?"
Ninja laughed.
"I can imagine what he would say," I said. "You want to play Beatles music? Learn to play the fucking guitar."
Silence on the line, because she is at work. And she's used to me calling her at any time to howl about something I just cannot stand.
"I just wonder what would have happened if John and George were still alive," I said. "I just can't imagine them on stage at E3, shilling like that."
"Well," Ninja said, with that wisdom I do so love about her, "I think if they were alive, Paul and Ringo would still have been the only ones on that stage."
And despite my love for Paul and Ringo, I had to agree.
Woke up this morning, stumbled downstairs, and flicked on the news. First story I heard was about a woman who was about to finish rowing single-handedly across the Pacific. The Pacific Ocean. And, it turns out, she's already rowed across the Atlantic. Like you do.
I blinked. Video footage crawled across my screen. And then my blood froze, and my hair stood on end.
She is tanned. Very athletic looking. And has very, very blonde hair. And those muscles? They just ripple, like golden cords of awesome.
Someone much smarter than me and with probably a better memory for quotations once said that all film is a dialogue. If so, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS walked up to me and said, with a long Tennessee drawl, "How the fuck you doin'? What we got here is a fillum about some sumbitch Nazi killin', but we also got some high-falutin' talk about these here motion picshurs y'all seem to like. Howz that sound to ya? Sound all right? All right, then, let's get this peckersucker on the goddamned road."
I like that sort of honesty. And I liked the movie. In fact, I liked the movie far more than I thought I would. I was fortunate enough to see it with a bigger film geek than myself, so the stuff I missed (and I missed a lot) he caught, and pointed out to me. I love that. I admit my knowledge of film history cannot begin to compare with Tarantino, but I like that. I like knowing that at 44, there are still worlds in one of my favourite mediums that I know nothing about.
If there's anything wrong with BASTERDS, the fault lies with marketing. It is not for the Call of Duty crowd (which the advertisements seem to indicate), and neither is it a slapstick comedy. It is a very exciting film, but the excitement has nothing to do with fighting. It's about characters involved in situations that you know are not going to end well, and the tension that generates. Scenes go on for a very long time, but don't drag. When violence does erupt, and erupt it does, it's horrific. The pay off is like a punch in the dark you know is coming, you just don't know when. And Tarantino does all of this well.
The film is actually two films pretending to be one. On one hand, there is the Jewish revenge squad of the title, but that seems shallow in comparison with the other story, that of Shoshanna, a girl who escapes the Nazis in the film's opening. Played by Melanie Laurent, she comes across more as the film's hero than Pitt's Aldo Raine, who like his squad, are fairly one dimensional. Even the chief villain, a brutal S.S. officer played wonderfully by Christoph Walz, is more engaging than the Basterds. They are what they are: a blunt instrument. It's the other characters that typify and display true humanity, regardless of uniform.
Tarantino also makes the courageous decision of humanizing the Nazis moreso than the Basterds, which makes their fates all the more disturbing. Contrast that with the final scenes of the film, which play a mirror image trick of having us (the audience) watch the Nazis watch a film which glorifies the same sort of violence the Basterds employ, and we are meant to see them as inhumane--yet we relish it when the Basterds do it.
As well, the movie may or may not be talking about the power of cinema. I don't know. That seems far too easy. I may have to mull that one over.
So yes, I liked INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS., which next to me being able to drink an almost entire pint of Guinness in one go, ranks as my second favourite surprise this weekend.
I spent my 'birthday' day off today reading old pulps, which seems to fit, somehow. It's nice to know I'm probably the only one in Southwestern Ontario who read The Spook of Grandpa Eben this morning, and surely the only one on the Internet right now writing about it.
As Doc Savages go, this wasn't the greatest one I've ever read (so far, that honour goes to Secret In The Sky,with it's less than subtle sadomasochistic overtones and evil pirates in the Sargasso Sea!!!), but it wasn't without a few highlights and smiles.
The plot revolves around an alleged curse around some poor sap's charm he received from the titular Grandpa Eben, and how it may have led to the death of an asshole capitalist who owns the Big Factory in town. The 'spook' in question is some weird invisible force field that everyone assumes must be a ghost. So much so, that when the inevitable bad guys get their hands on the device that generates the force field, they wear bedsheets when they rob banks.
Of course, Doc sees through all this bullshit, and figures out the game. There is shamefully little ass-kicking in this story, but Doc does bring the magic. Among some of his more amazing feats:
--having the foresight to plant knockout gas capsules in the grounds of a house that he can then smash open, release the gas and thus escape his police guards. Doc is so amazing that he planted these capsules before he was arrested, and even before there was a murder. And did I mention he convinces the local police chief--unsurprisingly called Flannigan--to allow him to go back and investigate the murder scene even though he's a suspect? That Doc, he defines awesome.
--he convinces a low rent criminal to enlist in the army, even though he's over thirty. Apparently, since he can still stop a bullet, Doc feels he'll be valuable over there than wasting his life mowing lawns.
--employing his ability to mimic the villain's voice so well even his henchmen can't tell the difference. Until Doc smacks them upside the head, then they start to clue in.
--when rescuing a woman from the bad guys, she has the lack of character and sheer fucking ingratitude to keep screaming even though Doc is there to rescue her. Doc then turns to a male prisoner and asks:
"Can you knock a young woman unconscious in a gentlemanly way?"
The man then replies, after some thought:
"I don't know about the gentlemanly part," he said. "But I can do it with considerable enthusiasm."
So in the end, the bad guys give up, Doc and the crew save the day, bemoaning the fact that if only he could, Doc would head over to Europe and smack Hitler something fierce. But no, he and his crew are stuck dealing with bedsheet wearing criminals with force field machines.
You gotta feel for the poor guy.
A fun read, although I feel a bit of a slacker in the life achievement department when I look at Doc's awesome resume. I wonder if he life coaches?
