I wish there were a plural word for that.

Reading:

• The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers. I enthusiastically supported Tim Powers before ever reading him; he writes historical fantasy, what more do you need to know? Then I read The Drawing of the Dark, which was… merely okay (even though a magical beer is the central plot device), and I wondered if perhaps he wasn’t all I’d hoped. Ah, but Dark was one of his first novels, and The Anubis Gates came after some years of refinement. It’s witty, it’s inventive, it’s entertaining. It has a gripping plot and is cover-to-cover full of weird and wild characters. It’s Dickens from hell.
• Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s futurism, or future history, that branch of hard scifi that tries to realistically imagine some part of the future - in this case the colonizing and terraforming of Mars. This book proves like none other (since Riverworld) that the exceptional scifi author must be a polymath; Robinson shows an impressive command of astronomy, geography, geology, engineering, history, sociology, psychology, languages, comparative religion, literature, space travel, genetics, biology, and many other fields. Robinson executes his usual trick of having exquisitely crafted characters in a plot that redefines “epic”.  No, not plot, quite; his books don’t have plots in the same way that history doesn’t have plots. It has stories. I was humbled by the power and majesty of this book - and it’s just the first in the trilogy.
• Road Dogs, by Elmore Leonard. First time reading Leonard. I looked forward to it. He’s known for his pacing; as he says, “I skip the boring parts.” I was surprised to find such a talky novel. Most of the novel is dialogue - great dialogue, with real rhythms and poetry to it, but little happening none the less. A fun novel, but not quite what I expected. It breezes through and is done with. An entertaining diversion - nothing humbling or majestic, but I wouldn’t be unhappy if I’d written it.
• The Bootleg Inn, by Jason Sauchuk. My buddy’s debut novel, about a haunted hotel in Nova Scotia. Not bad!

Watching:

• Planet Earth, BBC. As good as everyone says. I got goosebumps at the glorious thirty-second shot of the great white catching a seal.
• Inside the Medieval Mind, BBC4. It’s okay. I’ve learned a few new things, but it’s pretty clear that the cinematographer and director were bored as hell. Every shot is so edgy it makes my eyes bleed, and the soundtrack is rattling, disturbing, grating - that’d be fine if it were a slasher flick, but the guy’s just reading some monk’s letter from seven hundred years ago.

Playing:

• Dragon Age, Bioware. Great stuff. Game o’ the year.
• Final Fantasy XII, Square Enix. I made it to the endgame! … now I have to grind for ten more hours to beat the final boss.
• Wolverine: The Origin: The Movie: The Game about the Movie, Raven. Surprisingly great for a tie-in game. Crazy, silly violence. But it’s a good God of War-style combo-based brawler at heart. With RPG elements! Which everything should have. Breakfast cereals! Why shouldn’t I get better at eating them as I eat more? Shaving! I should be better at it, with all this experience.
• Tales of Monkey Island: Rise of the Pirate God, Telltale. My love for this company is so boundless that I actually pay for their games. It’s been a good year for Monkey Island fans. The final chapter is as good as the rest.

Listening:

• Stuff. Things. None of your business. Though the new Christmas song from Jens Rushing is pretty good.

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It took me three tries to get into this little gem. The first time, I was on the plane ride home last winter, in my thirtieth hour without sleep, and taking a break from Etrian Odyssey. The pounding J-pop soundtrack, together with the 777’s engine roar, was too much for my fuzzy head, and I went back to EO’s quiet explorations.

I tried again some months later, and got a few hours into the game; that’s the point where you have enough “pins” that your attacks become really diverse, but before you are aware of the nuances that differ one from another. I perceived the combat as a chaotic tap-fest, and quit.

But, midsummer this year, as I was going to Tokyo again, I became once more intrigued by the title, and after finishing Luminous Arc (which had its charms but ultimately did not deserve 20 hours of my life), I gave it another shot. The characters and story had their hooks in me, and the Shibuya setting began to come alive; I found myself humming the soundtrack, too. Soon I was wondering why liking the game had ever felt like a challenge.

Probably the spiky-haired protagonist and the ridiculously dressed sidekick, Shiki, or the “urban” characters named “Beat” and “Rhyme”. But after sticking with the game for a few more hours, the depth of the characters became apparent. After finishing the game, I would say that they are more deeply and wholly written than many other RPG characters, certainly more than any JRPG characters; they are developed to the depth of companions in a Bioware game (if not the subtlety).

The combat grew less chaotic as my character became more powerful, which makes sense, and the beauty and aptness of the fashion mechanics also became apparent. Your character gets bonuses if he dresses according to the trends of Shibuya’s neighborhoods; if his bravery stat is high enough, he can wear something really outré and then set the trends. It’s a great metaphor for the character’s personal growth throughout the game.

And the story! The game spends the first week (it’s divided into three weeks) carefully establishing the rules of its peculiar world, and then the next two, it warps, distorts, and finally breaks those rules completely, creating a real sense of the chaos and danger of this shadow-Shibuya. Characters undergo profound changes of personality due to events in the game, beloved characters are ripped from your side, leaving you alone and vulnerable. The plot keeps you guessing and pressing through to see what’s next.

The real victory of TWEwY, though, is its perfect marriage of gameplay and plot. The attacks aren’t just attacks; they’re outgrowths of Neku’s developing personality. The gear isn’t just gear; it’s a statement of self. The battles aren’t for loot or XP, they’re for one’s right to exist. The characters are battling to change themselves by changing the world. It gives every little random encounter emotional significance.

Blammo! Best game of 2008! (That I played in 2009.)

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My retrospective of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri is now live on Gamespite. I’m particularly proud of this passage:

“This question of development is apotheosized in the victory condition of “Transcendence,” where we finally escape our disgusting, disease-ridden meat shells and live as pure, clean energy-based beings in happiness forever. And how wonderful that will be. Would be.”

Amen.

Hmm, now I want to write a story about Alpha Centauri - the star, not the game. “Alpha Centauri: A Day in the Life.”

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My review of the latest Monkey Island episode is up.

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Nothing, I bet. But my life is full of robust activity, described by discretely consumable media!

Reading:

• The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Well, at least it has a slightly less smug title than god is not great.
• Going Solo, by Roald Dahl. Just finished Boy, the first half of his autobiography, where he describes the hell of British boarding schools and his pastoral Norwegian summer vacations. (Coincidentally, the latest issue of National Geographic Traveler ranked the Norwegian fjords as the best place in the world, but I still can’t bring myself to believe that anyone can swim in the north Baltic. Just not possible. Too cold.) Anyway, Dahl goes to Africa to work the Shell company, then signs up to fly in WWII and protect Britain’s wrongfully seized overseas “possessions”. Adventure and ethnocentric domination ensues! Ha, ha, just kidding. Empire’s great. For King and Country! Seriously, though, Roald Dahl, freaking awesome, underrated because his finest works happen to appeal to children as well.
• Marco Polo, still.
• An exceedingly dry history of the Ancient Mediterranean. The basin of Western civilization and culture, the history of human life comes to us in - pot shards. Or potsherds, if you will. If you want to know about the Phoenicians, those first great seafaring kings, then you’ll want to know that they produced hand-marked pottery laquered sometimes in green and black! If you want to know about the great civilization of Carthage and its titanic struggles with the Romans, the conflict that engulfed the sea, then you’ll definitely want to know that they made exquisite ewers and amphorae much in the Hellenic style. Etc etc ad nauseum.
• Glory Road, by Robert Heinlein. A scifi approach to fantasy. A bit more plot-driven than his usual ideological meanderings, a bit more action-packed. It’s fun and only occasionally makes me feel like an inferior person for being poor and having once worn glasses like some kind of goddamn unAmerican sissy.
• Grant Morrison’s run on JLA. I was never a DC boy growing up (”The ‘d’ stands for ‘dumb’!” I once quipped), but I follow quality wherever it may go, and Morrison’s 125 issues of JLA are fantastic. Funny, great character moments, gripping, ROLLER-COASTER plots.

Playing:

• The original Suikoden. Yes, my laptop has four gigs of RAM and a 512 meg video card, and I’m using it to run PS1 emulation. But you know what? It’s a good game. The sprite animations are really well done, and the plot involves - get this - toppling an evil empire! I’m really interested in the unique and original plot.
• FFXII. STILL. Damn.

Watching:

• Season Two of Torchwood. The Doctor Who spinoff was stupid, trashy, and silly in its first season, but unintentionally so. It took itself deadly seriously, never accepting its fate as popcorn scifi. It wanted to be dark scifi, dark fantasy, a character-driven melodrama, Lovecraftian horror, and once, awfully, grindcore. It wanted to be sexy, and there was lots of sex, for sure, but employed in such an immature, licentious fashion as to actually be completely unsexy.
  Season Two, though, is already a marked improvement. The first episode had more fun than the entire first season put together, and James Marsters as a rival Time Captain gave it some much needed levity. The second episode I can’t remember. That’s not a great sign. Give me a minute. Oh, yeah. Sleeper alien terrorists. Pretty fun. Again, a bit too maudlin at points, never having a sense of its own stupidity, but fun at other times. Know your limits, Torchwood, and I will appreciate you for it. Realize that sword-arms and high tragedy do not mix.

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Reading:

• The Travels of Marco Polo, by… Marco Polo. Do you know who’s the greatest, most benevolent, richest ruler of all time? Kubilai Khan! Yes, perhaps 25 million Chinese perished under his rule, but, still, he’s a helluva guy! Haha. That said, the Khan, who built roads, established a courier system and some rudimentary forms of welfare, was probably a cut above the rest of thirteenth century rulers. He was the strongest in an age when nation-states went to the most psychopathic bullies in the playground. Though I am curious as to how conscientious he may or may not have been. Both Marco Polo and Robert Shea (in his Zinja books) give a very sympathetic portrayal of the Great Khan. And he inherited his empire, and the onus to keep it running (and the only way empires can continue to run is by - what, children? Anyone? Anyone? Further conquest! Correct!). But the fact remains that his final conquest of China killed 25 million people, more than all Hitler’s concentration camps combined. Hohum. The actual book itself is rather dry, often a plain recounting of exports and populations, but there are cultural notes that are invaluable, and occasional folk tales or legends that are fascinating.
• Nine Princes of Amber, by Roger Zelazny. I understand “Amber” fans are fanatics in the unabbreviated sense, but I don’t see why. The book is fine. It is unexceptional fantasy. Maybe it improves in later installments.
• god is not great, by Christopher Hitchens. Finished this one recently. Hitchens isn’t interested so much in the philosophical argument for atheism as in the historical argument against religion, for which he provides ample fodder. Interesting and enlightening.
• Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. Reading this with the wife right now. I always knew fast food was bad, but GODDAMN. Not this bad. I always thought, “Oh, it’s unhealthy, tastes like offal, and degrades your quality of life.” I had no idea it was so complicit in the crapification of America. I enjoy blaming George Bush for every ill of the nation, but it was mostly the happy, prosperous marriage of fast food and the automobile that fucked us up so badly.
• The Truth, by Terry Pratchett. I’m listening to this audiobook while I work out and wash the dishes. It’s like any other Pratchett book - that is, fun characters who are deep but not terribly broad, an engaging plot, beautiful witticisms and turns of phrase, lots of little pointless (but enjoyable) vignettes.
• Yes, I’m reading four books at once. How is this possible? My uncompromising experimentation with my own brain chemistry has yielded amazing results.

Listening:

• There is nothing new under the sun. At this very moment, it’s Vashti Bunyan’s Lookaftering, a gorgeous album that somehow did not change the world. I got the Dodos’ newest, but it has not captured my heart.

Watching:

• The Prisoner. You may know this one. From the 60s. A guy resigns his job for private reasons, and he’s kidnapped and brought to the mysterious “Village” until he explains why he quit. Ensues numerous mind games between the prisoner and the Village. It’s an Orwellian study of free will versus conformity, and it’s also good scifi/spy fiction, or “spy-fi”, if you must. It influenced Lost, but this show has more originality and meaning in a single episode than that latter-day leviathan has in a whole season.
  The most thrilling aspect (to me) is that this bold, bizarre, unique work of art was the product of one man’s mind: Patrick McGoohan, writer, producer, director, star. A brilliant actor, a savvy storyteller. (The AV Club’s obituary for him opens with: “Patrick McGoohan was a son of a bitch.” I don’t doubt it. He was a badass.) The fact that he could bring his unique vision to life so vividly gives me an intensely fulfilling sense of accomplishment by proxy. I am proud of our modern era, proud that someone took the chance on this insane-seeming project with this insane-seeming creator. In Simmons’s Ilium/Olympos, a character dying of radiation poisoning reflects on how grateful he is that he could be of the same species as Shakespeare. That is how I feel for the producers of The Prisoner. This is bold, uncompromised art, produced with a lot of someone else’s money, for popular consumption. It is refreshing in this age of Heroes, season 4.
  That said, it probably couldn’t be produced these days. No one would take a chance on something so bizarre. AMC’s upcoming remake promises to be quite tamed. … but I’ll watch it anyway.

Playing:

• The World Ends with You, developed by Jupiter. I’ve tried to get into this critical darling three times now, and have finally succeeded. At first I thought the combat sloppy and frantic. Now I see the method to the madness. The story has gripped me. The J-Pop soundtrack and the beautiful character art always appealed to me. Now I understand the opinion that this is a modern classic, a work of unvarnished, unmatched originality in a traditionally stale genre. Too bad no one bought it, and they’ll never make a sequel, or anything remotely like it, again.
• Gun, developed by Neversoft. The guys behind Tony Hawk made a Western game! How weird. But it was quite good, especially for 2005. Video games are so technology-dependent that only the exceptional age well, and while the graphics are often hideous, the hit detection spotty, etc., the gameplay itself is still solid. It’s got a small open world, where Dodge City, Kansas, and Empire, New Mexico are less than a mile apart, and where you can trample passers-by to death with your horse and then scalp them, if you want, though the game never explains why you might want to. But it tells a good story (if a bit over-the-top), and the shooting is fun throughout the game’s short span. Recommended, if you see it in the bargain bin.
• Final Fantasy XII, STILL. It’s good. I get most of my gaming done at work, and the PS2 resides at home, so progress is slow.The story makes no sense, so I know it’s Final Fantasy. I read a plot description on wikipedia, and I still don’t know what the hell’s going on. The combat has grown on me. It makes transparent the repetitive nature of JRPG combat, and it may spoil all JRPGs for me in the future.
• God of War, at times. Brutal, fun, bloody, hard as hell at times. I switch to this to blow off steam when FFXII gets boring.
• Can’t wait for Dragon Age. I’ve been following this one for three years now. I play - nay, devour - everything Bioware releases, and this looks amazing. November 3rd! Or 4th! Something. The first Assassin’s Creed alternately bored and amazed me. A sequel is greeted with cautious optimism. I would love to play Brutal Legend, but Tim Schafer has turned his back on ME, the loyal fan who bought Psychonauts (for $35, on sale), by not releasing it for PC. I would’ve totally bought it legitimately, too. Sigh.

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Is up!

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Reading: Not actually “reading” anything, what with Lasik recovery. I have, however, listened to a few audio books. Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book was - - - very, very good. Hugo? I don’t know. I need to read Anathem before I can decide whether to validate or reject the votes of thousands of fans. But it was very good. There was little Gaimanness… Gaimanity… that weird combination of sentimentality and vagary that often annoys me about his tales, and crippled American Gods. The characters were good, it was short on cliche, and heartwarming without being cloying. Well done! And, the book was read by the author, whose reading was so good, so versatile, that I got more out of the audio book than I might have from a paper book.

Then I “read” Heinlein’s Farmer in the Sky, which was originally serialized in “Boy’s Life” in the 50s. There’s a lot of talk about how great the Boy Scouts are, which I managed to ignore, and a lot of proselytizing about how great it is to be self-sufficient and never depend on the government for a handout, you goddamn welfare liberals. How… deeply ironic this is in light of the massive bailouts of the past year, all for the sake of right-wing industrialists. However, the depiction of a fledgling colony is quite interesting, and at the end there is an extremely profound segment about the nature of overpopulation that redeemed the political passages.

Playing: Just finished “Darkest of Days,” an FPS for PC. It was execrable. But my review was quite funny; it’s easier to review awful games than good ones. It’ll be up in a few days. Soon: Scribblenauts, just as soon as my eyes recover sufficiently that I can spend hours staring at two tiny squares of flashing light, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (PS2 version), and - the big one for me - the PC version of Batman: Arkham Asylum. If you don’t know, this was penned by Paul Dini, who wrote the best episodes of the 90s animated series, and voiced by many of the talents of that series. It’s in the Guinness Book as the “best reviewed superhero game of all time”. Take that as you will. I’m also eager to play the PC version of the new Red Faction. Fall is always a tsunami of titles, against which one must struggle to stay afloat.

Watching: season one of The Sopranos. It justifies its reputation. I was wondering today at the quality of British TV, after watching an episode of Simon Pegg’s bizarre “Spaced”. Any government-sponsored enterprise in America gravitates to bland mediocrity, yet the BBC can produce gems like “Spaced,” a weird little show, often weird for weirdness’s sake, quite hilarious, but always unique, always being itself. The network shows of quality seem like bizarre flukes that happen when no one’s watching, like the Office, Simpsons, Veronica Mars, etc. Most quality shows are on cable, though, where they’re less worried about advertisers - HBO and Showtime especially. But in the UK, it’s government-sponsored, and it’s often daring and innovative. I could never imagine Monty Python’s Flying Circus being produced in America (never mind the inherent Britishness of it). Nothing that wildly original could survive in our market (here we all point to Arrested Development and lament).

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In the comments on the facebook repost of my Dan Brown post, Joel mentioned the Deus Ex games, which had slipped my mind. They were actually my first introduction to the Illuminati. They take place in a crumbling near-future, where world governments have become more brutal but less effective, plague is rampant, technology is out of control, and shadowy organizations preside over this chaotic world-mess. The plot is extremely well executed, and the world can be explored in the sort of depth that you only find in video games.

You can probably find them for under $10 in any bargain bin, and they’re old enough that they’ll run on most computers. Recommended!

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My review is up!

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My review is up. Is the second installment worth your time and hard-earned dinero? CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

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My Diablo II write-up is LIVE at toastyfrog.com. Is this nine year-old release any good? Head over and find out!

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That is, an “uncontrollable flood of articles.”

Well, just one, I guess. I enumerate, irrefutably, the eight best adventure games of all time.

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Review’s up! I liked it.

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Watching: “Chuck,” Season One, recommended by nerds. It’s okay so far - sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it misfires, but there are enough good ideas here to keep me interested. Its portrayal of nerd culture is a little broad, but they’re trying, at least.

Reading: The Iron Council, by China Mieville. It’s grabbed me. His fantasy world is bizarre, vivid, and engrossing. More importantly, I can tell that he loves language and loves putting words together; he’s a writer who writes, rather than merely telling a story. He’s got style, and I’m not just saying that because he looks like a professional finger-breaker.

“I will break your fingers if you do not enjoy my use of language.”

Playing: Sam and Max, Season Two - just played the first (superlative!) episode of their Monkey Island, and it reminded me that I have a few episodes of this game to finish. Telltale is great at crafting puzzles that make you think, but are logical and not unfairly difficult; add smooth presentation and superb writing.

Wrist: Still sprained, still typing single-handedly.

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… is up at ZTGamedomain. Suffice to say, I liked it.

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This looks wonderful. If you grew up on Monkey Island, as I and all other right-thinkers did, then this will have you quivering in delight.

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Reading: My Name is Red, by Orhan Pamuk. I got it because I love Umberto Eco, and this seemed the closest thing in the bookstore. Also, the recommendation of the Nobel Prize committee means a lot to me, even if their recommendation sells fewer books than Oprah’s. The book’s interesting so far. The author switches narrators every chapter, so you know it’s Literature.

Playing: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. I loved the first one, and the second improves on it in almost every way. I’ll be reviewing this one for ZTGamedomain, so it’s work, so I have to play it for hours a day.

Watching: Pushing Daisies. We watched the first seven stellar episodes of the second season, then quit when it went on hiatus; now we’re finishing up the remaining six. Last night’s episode, “Comfort Food,” was poignant, delightful, wonderful, weird, touching, hilarious - all the things that only this show can do. Dammit, people, why didn’t you watch this? Now it’s dead.

Loving: Firefox 3.5. Life gets better every day.

Two more weeks of school, and then we’re off to Japan!

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… is live at ZTGamedomain. The review is more fun to read than the game was to play. The review is probably more fun to print out, roll up into a narrow tube, and cram into your eyeballs than the game was to play.

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My first ever game review is online at PC Game Trek. Check it out!

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The Dodos are a good band, with good music.

Norfolk & Western, which to me will always be the band that poached the Decemberists’ drummer, have a good sound. Their actual songs aren’t always memorable, but the textures, the tones they go for are unique. I like bands named after railroads.

Good Omens, the Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman collaborative novel, is quite fun. A lot of good jokes, and some interesting things to say about humans. It’s sometimes a bit too cute for its own good. And so far it seems overwhelmingly Pratchetty rather than Gaimany. The plot is a bit more gripping than usual for Pratchett, but plotting isn’t exactly Gaiman’s strong suit either, is it?

Collaborative novels are a weird beast. I wonder if I’ll ever write one, and with whom I would write one. It could be fun - it could lead to great things, like this novel or the Illuminatus! trilogy, where Shea and Wilson kept trying to one-up each other. At worst, the writers’ unique voices could be lost; a lot of the Larry Niven books I’ve read are collaborations, and they may as well have been written by just one person. The Trillium series (Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Julian May gave each author a character to play with, which seems a sensible way of handling things. Personally, I wouldn’t like relying on someone else to get their work done. However, I know that when two like-minded people get talking, ideas spark in ways they don’t when working alone.

Further thoughts:

The Satanic Verses is quite the book. There are books that I finish, thinking, “I could write something that good, some day.” And there are books that totally astonish me with their fire and brilliance and make me painfully aware of the… (shall we say) modesty of my talent. These books are the totems of culture, the books that are remembered for transcending competence and entering the realm of the inspired.

Etrian Odyssey II is just like the first, but better.

Painkiller is a fun game. It is only fun, and nothing more. How did I miss this one first time around?

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I’m happy to announce that I’ll be doing a little writing for Gamespite, a site I’ve been reading for so long that I remember when it was called “Toastyfrog”. I’ve always enjoyed the site, and I’m glad to be able to contribute to it.
My assignment is a “Greatest Games of All Time” write-up of Diablo II and Alpha Centauri. Diablo II I concede, but Alpha Centauri is a strange inclusion - certainly future Civilization titles have surpassed it. In replaying it to prepare for the piece, I found myself wondering what people saw in that title that they didn’t in Civ III or IV. Answer: nerve stapling.
Diablo II holds up very well, though.

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