The Dark Knight Returns, Rises, and keeps on going

I finally saw The Dark Knight Rises the other day (in IMAX!) and was really happy with it. It's not perfect, but it's a really enjoyable film and is an excellent conclusion to Nolan's Batman trilogy. One thing that really struck me was how Nolan, for a filmmaker who's given us one of the most "realistic" takes on comic book superheroes ever, borrowed heavily from a number of specific Batman comics stories for Rises. You can see elements from Knightfall, No Man's Land, Dark Knight Returns, and a few more. It shouldn't have surprised me, though, because when it comes to storytelling versatility, Batman is far and away the best superhero.

We're clearly in a golden age of superhero movies, with films good, bad, and everywhere in between reaching varying levels of economic success. Marvel's heroes in particular have, for the most part, done well on the big screen. Starting with Iron Man in 2008 right up through this year's outstanding job by Joss Whedon with The Avengers, the Marvel superheroes have been brought to life with style and substance (again, that's "for the most part", so let's pretend the Ghost Rider movies don't exist). If there's a common thread through the Marvel films, it's that they got the characters Right. That is to say, for Iron Man or Thor or Captain America, you can identify a set of characteristics that make up the ideal version of each character... and the films of the last few years nailed those characteristics. Heck, let's break them down:

• Iron Man: genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, using his high tech suit to atone for years of weapons manufacturing
• Captain America: noble and courageous paragon of American virtue faced with a country that struggles to live up to those values
• X-Men: mutants banding together to survive in and protect a world that hates and fears them
• Thor: demigod struggling to live up to his father's example, dealing with a jealous and deceitful brother while protecting a world of humans he's come to love
• Hulk: ANGRY HULK SMASH

Batman, on the other hand, is a little bit different. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that Batman is unique among most of his contemporaries in that there are many different absolutely valid versions of Batman. How about:

• Dark, borderline psychotic loner for whom all joy was snuffed out when his parents were killed
• World's greatest detective, who uses his huge fortune to equip himself with cutting edge technology to fight crime
• A caped crusader, often teaming up with a young sidekick to take down the colorful villains that seem to constantly plague society
• Master of strategy and tactics, working with other heroes in the Justice League to take on world-threatening crises

Bruce Wayne can't let anyone in, because his parents' death shattered him at a young age. Bruce Wayne is a friend, mentor, and surrogate father to several boys. Bruce Wayne only confides in Alfred, his trusted butler and confidant. Bruce Wayne falls in love, marries, and has children of his own. His body is constantly bruised, battered, and broken. He is one of the world's greatest martial artists, gymnasts, and athletes. Batman is grim and gritty. Batman enjoys fighting crime.

It's all true, and it's all valid, and it has all combined to give us over 70 years of stories that range from predictable and pedestrian to entertaining, emotional, and exhilarating. It is the amazing adaptability of the character that ensures his continued relevance, and allows so many folks to enjoy him in different ways. Consider two of the several different takes on Batman which I count among my favorites: the Batman of the Rocksteady Arkham games (serious and intense), and the Batman of the Bruce Timm animated series and subsequent Justice League series (adventurous and human). Kevin Conroy's amazing voice work links them both, but the differences between the two are many. Still, I consider both of them as the Right versions of the character, just like plenty of people do for the Batman of The Brave and the Bold or the Batman of Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams.

Let's just not talk about All-Star Batman, okay? Man, that's just wrong.

Darksiders: Made from the best stuff on earth

Some of my favorite games are absolutely teeming with originality, even if they use familiar game play mechanics, environments, or themes. Take Bioshock for example: on one hand, it's a first person shooter and "spiritual successor" to System Shock 2 (see Kieron's brilliant take on that subject) that doesn't require the player to actually do anything they haven't done before in a game. On the other hand, well, if you've played it you know that the story, setting, combat, and moral choices combine to make for one incredibly original experience overall.

It's not on the same level of my personal gaming pantheon as Bioshock, but the first Darksiders game is one of my favorites for a very different reason: entirely because of the success Vigil Games achieved by making one of the most wonderfully derivative games ever. The game's structure and core mechanics? Yep, that's Legend of Zelda. The combat? God of War lite. The story? The bible (a very loose interpretation, obviously). Heck, they even threw in a little Portal for one of the dungeons! What's more, you don't even need to look hard to find these sources of inspiration; hell, if THQ had offered a green tunic and cap costume as DLC for the game, Nintendo might have sued.

And yet, they pulled it off. They took all those elements of great games & stories and did two things: they executed them with polish and precision, and they combined them in a way that made something new and fresh out of the familiar. In a way, Darksiders is like a DJ Earworm end-of-year mashup that lets you recognize a whole bunch of your favorite songs as they blend together into something that stands on its own. Even more impressively, they avoid the trap that some retro homage games fall into (I'm looking at you, 3D Dot Game Heroes) of being so slavishly devoted to the original that they fail to do anything new or worthwhile.

I should also admit that part of why I love Darksiders so much is due to its status as a "mature Zelda game". I think I've played almost every Zelda installment since the original, and long considered it to be one of my favorite game franchises... except that I realized some time ago that what I want more than anything is for Nintendo to radically shake up that series and do something NEW. Send Link into space. Make him and Princess Zelda fully grown adults in a relationship, not the cloying fairy tale-level romance the games usually reach for. Use the Unreal engine! (Just kidding.)

So, yeah, Darksiders is a top-notch mashup of video games that also dives into Judeo-Christian mythology in a fun way. And based on the first 5 or 6 hours of Darksiders 2, Vigil has hit the sweet spot again... only this time they've added a healthy dose of Prince of Persia to the mix. Oh, and Diablo. If there's kart racing in there somewhere, I may pass out.

Love those bricks

I have fallen in love all over again with LEGO. I've got them all over the house, here at the office, even on my keychain. I was a huge geek for them as a kid, but as tends to happen I drifted away from them for a long time. Recently, though, three factors have converged to bring my back into the fold:

1. LEGO video games - Probably the main reason for my personal LEGO renaissance is the almost decade-long run of high quality licensed games featuring LEGO versions of Star Wars, Batman, Harry Potter, and other pop culture icons. They've ranged from fairly enjoyable to tons of fun and have actually gotten more impressive in the last year or so. I have two of the titles in rotation right now, and I'm very excited about the upcoming LEGO Lord of the Rings game.
2. A local LEGO store - There's something almost intoxicating about being surrounded by every conceivable size and shape of LEGO set in one location, much more than just walking down a single aisle at a toy store. And yes, I got my LEGO VIP card the first time we visited the store. Don't judge me.
3. My daughter - As my daughter gets older, I continue to look for ways that we can connect. And as a geek, it delights me that she enjoys Avatar: The Last Airbender, Tron Legacy, and Young Justice... and now LEGO as well. We've built several kits together, and even if she'd definitely put a Monster High doll on her Xmas list before an Avengers LEGO set, she still loves to play the games with me (both the video games and now the board games, which we've just tried and love).

So, yes, I'm almost forty years old, and I've got a LEGO Tie Fighter sitting on my dresser at home. I've got a bunch of clone troopers on the shelf behind me at work. And if I won the lottery tomorrow, you can bet your ass that $400 Death Star kit would be mine.

Reruns

In just a few days, the first big video game release of 2012's second half will finally arrive (hello, Darksiders 2!). We're still weeks away from new fall television (although most of our favorite shows are cable dramas like Justified and Mad Men, so fall premieres don't mean quite as much), and this year we've cut back on the number of summer shows we watch. So, I've found myself indulging in quite a bit of remedial viewing/watching. Some old favorites, some stuff I've missed, and a few items to refresh my memory in preparation of upcoming sequels.

I'd watched the pilot episode of Aaron Sorkin's latest show, THE NEWSROOM, and hated it like all right-thinking people. The upside, though, was that it made me go back to THE WEST WING... which upon re-watching is as fantastic as ever. All of Sorkin's tics and excesses are so much easier to overlook when wrapped up in liberal fantasy and performed by one of the strongest ensemble casts ever. Don't get me wrong, the way he treats his female characters was obnoxious even back then... but at least Allison Janney and Stockard Channing could be counted on to perform above whatever hangups Sorkin has.

After hearing good things about it for a while, I put LEVERAGE on our Netflix queue and we've started slowly working our way through its first season. I love a good heist story, and so far the show has been a lot of fun. I'm not entirely sold on the cast, though, and it sometimes suffers from the usual cable drama malady of having the most recognizable guest star be the secret villain. Overall, though, we're enjoying it far more than USA's slate of summer shows which seem to have all descended into mediocrity over the last couple of years.

I'd played through BORDERLANDS when it came out originally as a Hunter class character, finishing the main story and then completing a couple of the DLC expansions. I hadn't done a whole lot with the other classes, though, so I returned to my very low-level Soldier and have gotten him up into the 20's. The core gameplay and visual style are still outstanding, even if the flaws in some of the mission design and systems are much more evident now. Still, after reading about some of the changes they've made for BORDERLANDS 2, this little dip into the first game has me very excited about the sequel.

Finally, I picked up a few titles during the Steam Summer Sale. I grabbed some indie gems like MACHINARIUM, TRINE 2, and SPLICE... plus I also bought KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC. I'd played it a bit on the original Xbox, but got bogged down at some point and gave up. So now I'm taking a slow and deliberate approach, trying to enjoy the story and ignore the usual impulse to discover everything in a Bioware game. Plus, I know I won't have a ton of time to devote to it pretty soon.

There's a pale rider approaching, after all.

Quick thoughts about a change in tempo

I love songs that feature an interesting change in tempo. The music goes along at whatever pace and then BANG, it turns into something else entirely, shaking me out of whatever placid state I'd been in and firing up my imagination. One of my all-time favorites is "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand:

Man, when Paul Thomson's drums slow down and drive the song in a new direction, I can't help but start smiling. I love that they spend almost the whole first minute of the song with the guitar rhythms up front before surprising you with that heavy beat.

Perhaps the best known example in rock music is Eric Clapton's "Layla" (technically a Derek & The Dominos song, but let's just call a spade a spade, okay?) which makes an even more startling shift: from a classic guitar-driven rock lament to a sprawling, almost orchestral instrumental that amazingly manages to pick up the same emotional thread from the song's first half and make it even more heartfelt:

I'm not sure why I love a good tempo shift so much. Maybe it's the joy of discovery, something new popping up in the middle of things. Even in a song I've heard dozens of times before, the immediacy of music and sense of instant connection I experience when listening to a song I like leaves me unprepared even if I know the change is coming. Or maybe it speaks to something deep within me, an existential desire to send my life spinning off into a wild new direction.

Whatever it is, I love it.

The great wine getaway

Everyone's favorite blog took a brief vacation last week while my wife and I celebrated her recent milestone birthday (that's right, she finally turned 21!) with an overnight trip to the Finger Lakes. We were able to visit six wineries around Keuka and Seneca Lakes, stayed at the lovely Esperanza Mansion, and generally had a fantastic time. If you're considering a trip to the area, here are my thoughts and recommendations:

• We started by visiting Hunt Country Vineyards, near the northern tip of Keuka's west branch. Maybe it was because it was the first stop on our tour, but Hunt Country might have been our favorite of the wineries we visited. More likely, it was because they offered a wine & chocolate tasting (for my wife) and a pretty fantastic Pinot Gris (for me). It's a small, charming place, and the young man who walked us through our tasting was friendly and knowledgeable.
• Our next stop was at Dr. Konstantin Frank, whose wines have been among my favorites for years. Unfortunately, it was probably our least favorite tasting experience. Dr. Frank is such a big operation that they've evidently chose to put only minimal effort into their on-site customer experience. The tasting, the attitude of the employees, the facilities... they were all entirely adequate at best. Plus, my wife was pretty pissed from the start of our visit as a dog had been left in one of the visitors' cars in the parking lot. Sure, it had been left running with the A/C on, and you can certainly go through the tasting and a quick visit to the gift shop in about fifteen minutes, but leaving your dog in a car on a hot summer day is still an incredibly stupid thing to do.
• We then visited Bully Hill, which is pretty much the polar opposite of Dr. Frank in style and substance for visitors. A restaurant, a wine museum, an art gallery, a two-floor gift shop, and a winery tour make for an impressive slate of attractions, but the wine tasting was impressive in its own right. Bully Hill offers two different tasting options: the cellar bar, with a fixed list of wines, or a choose-your-own-adventure option that lets you select from their catalog. The people were very friendly, the facilities are terrific, and the location offers a beautiful view of the lake. The only negative was that Bully Hill's wines generally trend towards the sweeter end of the spectrum, which isn't our favorite.
• Before visiting the next winery, we stopped in the small town of Hammondsport for an ice cream and some window shopping. We got a chuckle out of the prominent banners and signs around town celebrating Hammondsport's status as "Coolest Small Town in America" by the noted arbiters of cool at Budget Travel Magazine.
• Our final winery visit on day one was at Heron Hill. With a beautiful building and gently sloping land all around, it was clear that Heron Hill is a popular place for weddings and other events. Arriving late on a Thursday afternoon, however, meant that there were only a few other visitors there. The wine tasting was excellent, with an impressively wide selection of options. I don't think I'd tried their wines previously, but a couple of them immediately became favorites. We even splurged on a bottle of their Riesling Reserve, which was phenomenal.
• We concluded our day by checking in to the Esperanza and having a (very) late dinner at their restaurant. I'm not sure if we just caught them on a bad day, but they were having a dickens of a time getting customers to finish their meals and turn over tables. Our outdoor reservation became an indoor one and the food service was agonizingly slow. However, when we did finally eat the quality of the food was superb. I'd be willing to go back and give the place another chance; at any rate, the Esperanza itself is lovely and the view of the lake is wonderful.
• We slept in a bit on Friday morning and then decided to drive over to Seneca Lake to check out a few of the wineries there. We started by visiting Fox Run, which was in the middle of setting up for their annual Garlic Festival to be held that weekend. Even in the midst of that chaos we had a wonderful tasting and even went on their brief winery tour. Walking through the vineyard and the wine making facilities was nifty.
• Last and honestly kind of least on our winery tour was Belhurst. Honestly, it's not really fair to compare it to the other places we visited; the Belhurst's winery is really just a gift shop and tasting bar attached to the inn and castle. By their own admission, they don't have their own vineyards and instead contract out for their grapes. Still, they have some nice wines, and the tasting was a very pleasant experience. The castle and grounds are lovely, and I can see why they are top choice for weddings in the region.

We wrapped up the trip with a quick stop at the Waterloo Premium Outlets, which made my wife pretty happy (even if we both acknowledged that there wasn't much in the way of "outlet pricing" to be had). Then we hopped on the thruway and were home by mid-afternoon. All in all, a wonderful grown-up overnight getaway.

A brief hiatus

And things were going so well, too...

My wife and I are heading to the Finger Lakes for some wine tasting to celebrate her birthday, so there'll be no profound thoughts on important matters today. Also, I won't be writing a substantive blog post.

Oh, but there is one thing: to the dude on Twitter who shares my name and feels so offended by what I've written that he had to publicly declare this isn't his blog: sorry! On the other hand, thanks for reading!

No more prequels, please!

I hate prequels.

Perhaps I should expand on that thought. In movies, games, comics, etc., prequels have become commonplace these days. Pick a popular franchise, and chances are a prequel installment (or more than one) has either happened or is under consideration. Heck, the Star Wars franchise pretty much exists entirely on prequels. They allow companies to leverage consumer's familiarity with characters, settings, and events to expand upon the fiction in a low-risk manner. From a business standpoint, they make a ton of sense.

From a creative standpoint? I think they're an abomination. I feel like they are lazy and creatively bankrupt. When I watch or play a prequel, I cannot escape the feeling that ultimately none of it matters. Whatever universe that particular story is set in, the final resting state is already predetermined. I know in a general sense what the fate of any major character will be; the total lack of uncertainty robs the work of any real weight.

At a fundamental level, fiction is enjoyable because of its limitless possibilities. This poor kid from a rural farm really could one day become the savior of the galaxy. That ragtag band of creatures might just complete their quest to stop an evil god from destroying the world. Those two people have a chance to fall in love and make a life together. As a reader/viewer/player, I'm engaged because I need to find out if those things will actually happen. If I start off knowing that the two friends I'm watching will be mortal enemies one day, well... why should I care about their friendship?

I want to see creative folks taking risks. I want them to push stories, characters, and worlds into new areas. I want to be surprised. I believe that humanity in general would be better served if we looked ahead far more than we looked behind, and I don't think that's too much to ask of our entertainment.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch the trailer for The Hobbit again, because it looks totally cool.

My portion control theory of video games

Here goes a real crackpot theory about what makes video games enjoyable, from a nearly 40-year old guy home with a sick daughter after putting in a half day's work at a job he hates:

I joined Weight Watchers a few months ago, and it's worked really well for me so far. I've managed to get my weight from Stay-Puft to Ball Park Frank, and I've got my eyes set on reaching Hey, He's in Decent Shape. The reason this system works for me is because it applies a clear structure and framework to my diet. It focuses on some very important aspects: keep carbs to a minimum, maximize fruits and vegetables, and one more thing that I've found especially key: portion control.

(Don't worry, I'm getting to video games soon.)

I love food. More accurately, there are a range of foods that I love and when I get a chance to eat them I generally don't hold back. You know what's better than a juicy cheeseburger with lettuce and onion? A juicy bacon double cheeseburger with mayo, lettuce, and onion along with a big side of fries and a giant, ice cold Coke. The only thing I love more than crispy fried chicken is a bucket of crispy fried chicken, plus mashed potatoes and gravy. More is always better, right?

(Seriously, hang in there.)

What WW has gotten me to realize is that my life will be better if I exercise some discipline and enjoy the foods I love IN MODERATION. I've lost a lot of weight and feel incredibly healthier, and I still get to have cheese, bacon, etc. An added bonus is that I honestly think I appreciate the foods I love even more now. I can savor the tastes without ever overdoing it, without "losing" the enjoyment amidst the gluttony. It's a concentrated amount of happiness, accentuated by a clean, strong finish.

(Here we go!)

Read that last sentence again. Isn't that a great description of a good video game? Think of all the great games you've played: I bet to some extent they avoided poor pacing and weak, drawn-out endings while focusing on clear, strong experiences that wrap up with precision. One of the famous core development tenets at Bungie during the creation of the Halo games was "30 seconds of fun", the idea that they would create intense bursts of gameplay that kept the player engaged throughout the game. I'm not a big Halo fan, but it's hard to fault the design theory.

I know it's not the One, True Theory of game development; there are plenty of other factors that go into sound game development. For my favorite games, though (Burnout; Psychonauts; Arkham City; Bioshock), it's very important. Reasonably sized, high-quality portions of gameplay, offered at a sensible pace without fattening filler that no one actually likes anyway. See? Genius.

I do miss french fries, though.

Not really better with Kinect

I've had the Kinect sensor for the Xbox 360 for just about a year now, and it's been an amazing addition to my gaming. Whole new genres have appeared, while old favorites have grown and surprised me with new depth. It's created a range of family gaming experiences for us and enhanced the Xbox's role as our household media center. Honestly, I think the success of the Kinect is the main reason why Microsoft has been in no rush to jump into the next console generation. With all of the terrific experiences it has brought us, it's one Microsoft decision with which I totally agree.

Oh, wait, I've made one mistake in that preceding paragraph. Said mistake being that after the first fifteen words, none of it is true.

My experience with the Kinect has been incredibly disappointing; its technical limitations are so great that it frustrates more often than it entertains. I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it (thanks, Midnight Box deal) because it hasn't come close to either its marketing claims or the hopes of dad gamers like me who wanted a way to share more gaming time with our families. Its flaws are many, but allow me to enumerate its top issues:

• Physical requirements for the playing space. To be fair, Microsoft has always been pretty upfront about how much room is needed to effectively use Kinect. Our living room is very shallow, so until the Nyko Zoom add-on arrived, I figured we wouldn't be able to use Kinect at all. The Zoom, however, promised a 40% reduction in the necessary square footage, so I took the plunge. Even with the add-on, it's still ridiculous how often we can't quite stand far enough away from the sensor for accurate tracking. Of course, this problem is made even worse by the other major limitation: lighting. I would guess that most people's living rooms are not lit like a television studio, which seems to be the only way the Kinect can really see everything it's supposed to.
• Motion tracking accuracy and movement fidelity. "You are the controller!" promised Microsoft. Um... no. A fuzzy, slow, indistinct version of myself is the controller. In a medium that relies on precise and accurate controls for its audience engagement, the Kinect is akin to finger painting while wearing oven mitts. Any hopes that Kinect would be the new way to play platformers, shooters, and racing games were doomed from the start. I mean, have you tried Joy Ride? No? Well, then you're lucky.
• Lack of promised features. Remember when Microsoft first unveiled Kinect? One of the neat things they focused on was how easy video chat would be, and how many different forms it could take. One nifty application had your Live Avatar basically hosting a talk show with your friends, as the Avatars matched your live movements and speech one-to-one.  Yeah, we're still waiting on that one. Or how about the cool, Minority Report-esque way we could navigate the Dashboard*? Yeah, that works... some of the time. Most of the time it's an exercise in frustration.

The one and only fun, engaging experience I've had with the Kinect has been Double Fine's Happy Action Theater. There are two reasons for this: first, it's perfect for kids to goof around with, as its design is basically a series of party activities and not really "games"; second, it requires only the broadest of movements from the user, so the frustration is kept to an absolute minimum. If it weren't for my daughter and her friends playing that on a regular basis, I'd have tossed out the Kinect long ago.

*Mini-rant: I hate the Xbox 360 Dashboard. I understand why Microsoft has gone in the direction they've chosen, but as someone who uses the 360 primarily for games, it is supremely frustrating that so much of the game functionality is buried beneath all the media center crap. Oh, and the ads. It's sad that Sony's XMB is now so clearly superior to the Xbox dashboard, when its style and structure hasn't changed much since the PS2.

Unfinished business

I hate, hate, HATE not being able to finish a video game. I probably enjoy a strong narrative in a game more than any other aspect, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that being unable to reach the story's conclusion would frustrate me so much. It doesn't help that I'm not the world's most skilled gamer, but that is offset somewhat by the proliferation of multiple difficulty settings in most games these days. So it's a fairly rare occurrence these days that I find myself having reached a point in a given game wherein its demands truly are beyond my reach... therefore making those instances simply unbearable. Admittedly, YouTube can generally be counted to provide a video of the content I'm unable to access but as any gamer will tell you it's just not the same as beating the game yourself.

What follows is a brief tour of my personal gaming Hall of Shame, those shining examples of my incompetence and disappointment:

Phantom Dust - You're forgiven if you've never even heard of this one before. Phantom Dust was a very odd game that came out near the end of the original Xbox's life. Wikipedia describes it as well as I could: "a pseudo-card-based action/strategy game" set on a post-apocalyptic earth with a story about love, friendship, and manufactured reality told in a very distinctive art style. It was pretty crazy, and the story had enough twists and revelations that I was totally hooked... until I got to the multi-stage final boss and could not beat the damn thing after literally dozens of attempts. I read FAQ's, I watched videos... nothing could get me to grasp the strategy/manage the execution of that final sequence. Sure, I caught the ending cutscenes online a few years later, but they felt hollow being so separated from my actual experience with the game.

(Inside joke for fellow gamers: it was published by Majesco in the US, so I probably should have known it was cursed from the beginning.)

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure - Yes, I'm putting a "kid's" game on this list. If you've played it, you know it's a surprisingly enjoyable and addicting brawler with a collectible figurine component. It had been an especially fun experience for me because my daughter and I played through most of it cooperatively, with her jumping out a few times to let me tackle some of the more awkward movement or combat sections alone. We had a wonderful time with it... right up until the final boss. There are a couple of special frustrations in this fight: first, any attempt has to begin at the beginning of a somewhat difficult dungeon; you can't just restart at the beginning of the boss fight. Second, a large portion of the fight is devoted to avoiding damage from large complex patterns of beams, projectiles, etc... in a game that has sub-par character movement to begin with. So, yes, this brightly colored, kid-friendly game as resulted in one grown man and one young girl being so frustrated they'd rather go outside and play. THE HORROR.

Brütal Legend - I wanted to love this game so badly. One of my favorite game developers in Tim Schafer. A role tailor-made for Jack Black's vocal talents. A wonderfully realized world that both laughed at metal's excesses while loving everything about them. Really, if you listed all the components of the game, I'd be over the moon about them all... except for the RTS stage battles. If Double Fine had left those out and just made an open-world action game with straightforward combat (like Darksiders would feature shortly thereafter), it would be one of my favorites of all time. Instead, I repeatedly ran into my absolute least favorite game play genre over and over again. Probably my biggest gaming disappointment ever.

There are a few others, but those make up the pantheon. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to consult GameFAQs...

Pay to play

I've wanted to write about buying video games for a while, to discuss the merits of purchasing new versus used, of "online passes", and whether or not there's a moral component to those issues. I hesitated because I don't have much of a background in economics and was worried that would impair my analysis. However, I think I'm a fairly informed consumer and really want to share my reasons for why I think it's good to stay away from used games and why I don't mind online passes.

(Plus I remembered I'm not writing a doctoral thesis here, it's a personal blog that maybe a couple of dozen people read. Hooray for lowered expectations!)

Basically, I think it's a good thing to make sure the developers get paid for their work. And yes, I realize that statement carries a lot more weight when you're talking about an indie game on Steam rather than the latest Call of Duty game. The principle is valid in both cases, though, even if the slice of the pie for the developers is much smaller in the latter than in the former. I think the main complicating factor surrounding this issue is the very nature of the product itself: is it the disc, or the software that has been copied onto the disc? Plenty of people point to the first sale doctrine to answer the question: the consumer has bought one physical copy of Assassin's Creed 2, and should be allowed to re-sell it (even through an intermediary... you know, like our good friends at Gamestop) to whomever he or she wants.

It's such a simple concept that seems so reasonable and fair that I almost feel like an idiot for arguing against it. Almost, but not enough to stop me from doing just that.

Our modern capitalist society has produced such a complex economy, with so many inter-dependencies and hidden costs that I can't even begin to untangle the relationship between the producers of entertainment goods and services, the distributors, the consumers, copyright law, etc. What I can do, though, is approach things from a basic perspective of fairness. It is fair, I believe, to pay someone a reasonable amount for the product of their work. If the men and women at Ubisoft work for two years on a video game, I am happy to pay them sixty bucks for a copy of that game I can play whenever I want.  I'd be happier to pay them forty bucks, or thirty, obviously, but that's beside the point. The important thing is that I think it's fair to put money in their hands when they put a game in mine. I choose to believe there is value in that relationship between producer and consumer; buying a used game severs that relationship.

(Here's where I admit that yes, I've bought used games over the years. I've cut back drastically, though, and do my best to buy new whenever the option is available.)

That's why the trend towards the inclusion of an "online pass" in new video games doesn't bother me. What does bother me, though, is when I see people argue that games are so expensive they'd be unable to afford to play anything if they didn't buy used. When, exactly, did people become unable to do without? It's the same argument that some have used to justify piracy, and it infuriates me.

At any rate, that's how I feel. I don't know if it makes me a sucker, or a socialist, or whatever, but I'll keep buying new games as much as I can. Now, if you'll excuse me, I bought a ton of stuff in the latest Steam sale that I need to play...

Existential Crisis Management

I read once that despair is intellectually dishonest, because no one can truly predict the future and therefore there is always a reason for hope. As bad as things look, as bleak as the future may seem, as long as we keep working at finding solutions to our problems there remains the possibility that things will get better. All my adult life I've tried to keep that philosophy in mind, and generally it's held up.

But man, lately the world seems REALLY determined to beat that out of me.

Let's start with the positive side of the ledger: my extended family are all mostly healthy. My wife and I have solid, stable jobs. We have a home, reliable cars, and plenty of creature comforts. I know how much better our lives are than billions of other people on the planet, believe me.

And yet... Jerry Sandusky and the cover-up at Penn State. Shootings at movie theaters. Mitt Romney, John Boehner, and the entire Republican party. Hell, the Tea Party. The economy. Giant, multinational corporations treated as "people" by the legal system. Antonin Scalia. Friends who tell me, "I just don't think Obama has made things better." Turning 40 with a job that has no career path. Crushing consumer debt. Hydraulic fracturing. The income gap. Chik-fil-a. Voter ID laws.

Yeah. Tough to hang on to the possibility of things getting better right about now. Tough to reconcile a feeling that people are inherently good and that history is full of instances where we pulled together to make a difference with a belief that humans have also built self-sustaining systems whose complexity and purpose are beyond the understanding of most of those same humans. Tough to look at things and not see a society in decline, a country whose best days are behind it, where the inevitable outcome is a ridiculously wealthy superclass and an overwhelming majority of the population eking out a miserable existence, squabbling among themselves over tribal conflicts.

So, yes, I'm having an existential crisis.

But Joyce and David didn't raise no dummy, so here's the payoff to all the whining above: I'm going to apply a little Norwegian philosophy to this mess. Step one: stop dwelling on all that crap. Unless it's a problem whose solution is within my reach, I'm not going to waste my time thinking about it. Of course, figuring out the extent of my reach is a tricky proposition, so we'll see how that goes. Step two: find a bit of stability in two anchors: family, and the rule of law. Step three: a healthy amount of distraction (hello, video games!).

And finally, the key to everything: I'm going to keep trying to be a better man. Honesty, respect, compassion, and humor will be my four horsemen of the anti-apocalypse. Basically, if I can be the kind of man my father has been, I'll feel successful. And if I can teach my daughter that the only sane response to a harsh, uncaring, and unfair world is to fight back with everything you've got... well, then I'll be a happy old man.

I still want to punch Scalia in the nuts, though.

Games on my radar for the rest of 2012

In just a couple of weeks, the annual deluge of games will begin in earnest (for me, at least). Of course, this knowledge hasn't stopped me from picking up cheap older games over the last month or two... nor did it prevent me from taking advantage of the recently completed Steam Summer Sale.

(Although for a Mac user like me, that just means buying a handful of the few indie games that release cross platform as well as picking up an older title like KOTOR. I've considered getting an inexpensive Windows laptop to expand my Steam options, as well as making some space on our iMac's hard drive and using Boot Camp to create a Windows partition. Yes, I consider those options, and then I realize how many freaking games are coming out for the 360 and PS3, and I settle down again.)

I've had a watch list prepared for a while, adjusting the release dates as they've been announced and/or moved. If I could, I'd buy all of the following:

• Darksiders 2 (August 14) - The first Darksiders is my favorite Zelda game since Ocarina of Time. It seems doubtful that Nintendo will ever radically depart from Link's usual setting and story, so Vigil's take on that genre was very welcome. And as an atheist who finds biblical mythology fascinating, I really enjoyed the job they did creating the Darksiders universe. Plus, I have a soft spot for Joe Mad's over the top character designs. Now we're getting a sequel that's supposed to feature loot and Prince of Persia-esque movement? If being derivative is wrong, I don't want to be right!
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (August 21) - I loved what High Moon Studios did with Transformers: War for Cybertron in terms of character design and combat, so even more of that is very much welcome. Probably not an immediate purchase, but certainly down the road. And I'd be remiss if I didn't link to one of my favorite game trailers this year.
• Borderlands 2 (September 18) - Yet another highly anticipated sequel. I put a ton of hours into the first Borderlands, and while I did feel like the DLC expansions were a case of increasingly diminishing returns (or possibly just burnout), the core game was still one of the most fun, expected surprises of the last few years. I'll miss my sniper-loving Hunter character with his killer bird of prey, but everything I've seen about Borderlands 2 so far fills me with confidence.
• Dishonored (October 9) - Finally, a new IP! Every video I've watched for Dishonored has left my eager to play the game. Steampunk first person Assassin's Creed meets Bioshock? Holy crap, yeah! This will be an immediate purchase... which is mildly unfortunate, because Oct. 9 is the first week of the fall to feature two releases on my radar.
• XCOM: Enemy Within (October 9) - I'm one of those weirdos who is actually still more excited about the FPS XCOM game that supposedly is still on the horizon, but my interest in this one has grown a great deal over the past few months. The visual design looks great, and even though I'm not a big fan of strategy games, what I've seen so far reminds me of Valkyria Chronicles enough that I'd like to give it a try.
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter (October 23) - Maybe? Probably? I liked the single player in the previous MoH game, but was supremely frustrated by the multiplayer due to some map design issues. Namely, I felt like I couldn't even get out of our spawn points without being sniped. So I'll give this one a cautious look again, but a purchase may not happen. Further complicating matters is that I no longer have a significant number of friends with whom I regularly game online; our schedules have grown apart over the years and a few have latched on tightly to one game in particular (Battlefield).
• Assassin's Creed 3 (October 30) - Oh sweet fancy moses, yes. I have to admit, after AC: Brotherhood, I thought Ubisoft had gone back to the well once too often and so I skipped AC: Revelations. However, it speaks to the underlying quality of that franchise (and my love of American history) that a new setting and new character have me TOTALLY on board for AC3. I am also very, very tempted to spend gobs of money on one of the junk-filled special editions.
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted (October 30) - I'm a Burnout guy. Always have been. So when Criterion took over the NFS franchise, I was both excited and disappointed.  Excited because they brought some of what I love to the higher profile NFS series and produced Hot Pursuit, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Disappointed because as good as it was, it's still not Burnout: the cars just don't drive quite the same. I am dying to throw my car at full speed into a corner, kick into a drift, and rocket out again. Basically, I hate braking. At any rate, Most Wanted looks terrific, like a NFS-ized version of Burnout Paradise. I guess I'll take what I can get.
• Halo 4 (November 6) - Oh, why the hell not. I hate Halo multiplayer, but something about the franchise's fiction keeps drawing me back in. I suppose I should finish Reach at some point first, though.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (November 13) - Again... why the hell not. I'm curious to see if the reports of slightly tweaked design (branching storylines? In a CoD game) are true, and if Treyarch has changed the formula enough to produce something fresh and interesting. If nothing else, I'm sure we'll get another "Why am I an astronaut?" moment.

So that's the list. There will be a few more things that pop up, I'm sure (XBLA games, some unexpected strong reviews). I know Skylanders Giants will be out, and the first game was lots of fun playing co-op with my daughter... until the final boss, which we still haven't beaten and is a total pain in the ass. Hitman: Absolution looks good, but that level of precision in a stealth kill game might be beyond my poor dadgamer skills at this point. Plus, I've still got a backlog of games I need to finish...

Why I think Spec Ops: The Line is an important game

I finished the campaign in Spec Ops: The Line over the weekend. If you're not familiar with the game, it's a third-person shooter set in Dubai after apocalyptic sandstorms have ruined the city and decimated its population.You play as Captain Walker, who along with two Delta Force squad mates has been ordered to find out what the hell happened to the Army battalion that was supposed to have evacuated the residents of Dubai months ago. The game play is standard military shooter stuff, with a range of assault rifles, shotguns, and pistols, plus plenty of turret sections and even some on-rails vehicle moments. There is absolutely nothing new or especially engaging about the combat, the regenerating health, the rudimentary squad commands, etc.

And yet, this is a game that demands to be played. On second thought, perhaps "experienced" would be a better verb.

It's difficult to write about why I think Spec Ops is an important game to experience without getting into spoilers, but I'll try for at least one paragraph. What the developers at Yager and lead writer Walt Williams have managed to do is give us the anti-Call of Duty, a military shooter that focuses on story, emotion, and an understanding of the effects of war rather than a fun, thrilling power fantasy. I can count on one hand the number of games I've played over the last ten years that have produced an honest emotional reaction in me; Spec Ops is one of them.

Anyone who's played the game should listen to the Gamespot Spoilercast featuring an interview with Williams in which he discusses at length his and the other developers' goals for the game. He also dives into the details of the game's narrative and offers some explanations and interpretations for the events you experience while playing the campaign. He both reinforced many of the feelings I had while playing and also opened my eyes to a few things I hadn't considered. One aspect of the game that they didn't talk much about is something that's been on my mind since finishing it, though... and here's where spoilers are impossible to avoid, so beware.

MILD SPOILERS AHOY

So while the strength of the game is its narrative, and the impressive way that it uses standard, generic shooter mechanics to do interesting and novel things with the story and characters, I feel like possibly its greatest contribution to pop culture is as an examination of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is because it doesn't go out of its way to depict someone dealing with PTSD (although one of the possible epilogues certainly shows Captain Walker displaying some of the hallmarks of the disorder), but rather walks the player through a series of incredibly traumatic events in a visceral, emotionally engaging way. I would never go so far as to call the game a simulation of the effects of war; that would be both ludicrous and an insult to anyone who's served in combat or lived through those sorts of events. But as a piece of art, I think Spec Ops does an incredible job of offering one perspective on the horrors of warfare, of impossible choices, of feeling like the only way forward is to do things that make you hate yourself. It's not just that we get to see Captain Walker's mind fracture and disintegrate as he gets closer to and eventually confronts Konrad; it's that by having us play as Walker, even in a third-person perspective, we are forced to perform the horrible, disturbing, often necessary actions that ultimately drive him mad.

I'm not saying that playing this game allows someone to truly understand the consequences of serving in combat, nor to grasp the severity of the mental toll warfare takes on those who live through it. However, like all good art, I believe it does promote some small sense of awareness or conceptual understanding. To me, that's what makes Spec Ops: The Line a game worth playing.