#6 - On My Coworker Today at the Music Store

At the behest of Cap'n Mystery, I will review my coworker at the Music Store today. In my other job, doing IT at an embassy in DC, this would be difficult as I have no real co-workers, unless you count the employees at the embassy. One could do that I suppose, but I am a contract worker there so they are technically not my co-workers but elements of my job. At this music store it is much easier.

Unless the day happens to be today, which by some twist of fate, today IS today. My co-worker in this case is an empty patch of air.

Without a co-worker, I no longer have proof that I exist. The customers in the store are a woefully craptacular lot so perhaps they merely slogged forth from the murky swamp of my mind. I do have proof that I am working, for work is done, but perhaps that is part of the nightmare as well. Still, be it dream or not, I exist in the mind of whatever I am, wherever I am. The air does not do much of the work for me, and sometimes it also becomes uncomfortably warm. At times like this, I press a button on the wall and it seems to drive my co-worker a little further away.

Attempts to converse with my co-worker are met with uncomfortable silence. Is this because it is mute? Does not wish to speak to me? I pass through my co-worker often during the day and perhaps it finds this offensive. Still, it does not get in my way when I am working and it does not play awful music in the cd player and that is really the most important part.

Grade: B+

Review #5 - Tweeny Witches: the Series

Let me explain this one first. Yeah yeah, it's an anime basically for kids. Female kids even. A friend made me watch it. That's not the real reason though.

Studio 4C. That's why.

For those unfamiliar, Studio 4C is an animation studio that gave us (and by "us" I mean... not many people) the movies Tekkon Kincreet (which was pretty good) and Mind Game (which was AMAZING, but only released in Japan because life is unfair) along with the odd series Kemonozume (which is also quite brilliant.) The one thing all of these shows have in common is their vividly imaginative visual style. I say this as someone who has seen his fair share of anime, but is also vaguely sick of the usual anime visual style. The style of Studio 4C shows tends to be equal parts anime and then european style comics and american independent animation. It's a delirious mix that consistently surprises with it's camera angles, compositions, use of color schemes and odd animation effects. Mind Game was best among these, followed by Kemonozume, then Tekkon Kincreet. Coming in last is Tweeny Witches, which seems to be the company's shot at making a relatively "normal" anime style series. I found the show on their website and mentioned it to Cap'n Mystery (name changed for political reasons) who then watched the show on youtube (her being closer to the target demographic than I am). When it later came out on DVD in the states, she promptly snapped it up and watched it all over again, this time dragging me along for the ride.

As I said, the show seems to be the company's attempt at making a regular anime. Unfortunately it is not as easy and breezy as most regular anime's nor is it as cutting edge as their usual fair. In the end, the whole thing is less than the sum of the parts. Visually, it is an amazing show. Witches and wizards fly about wearing goggles and drawn in such odd shapes that highlight more the outlining shapes of the characters. It's hard to describe what makes the style so beautiful to me. But a funny thing happened on the way to the end of the show: I kept falling asleep. Not that this is new to me, but no matter how dramatic the story got, I was slightly puzzled/bored/apathetic. It was all a bit too much grand gesturing with every grand gesture/plot twist displayed as if in a case showing the most generic essence of each thing. This despite the show being really weird.

What was it about? A girl named Arusu (or Alice) finding herself in a magical world where magic exists and fairies are being hunted for.. some reason. Something to do with dark magic/light magic and some other hoohah. Alice is supposed to be spunky and fun, but we know this more because we are told this many times. Not because she actually is. And that is the problem. The show seems to be advertising what it's all about more than actually BEING what it is all about. In the end though, I had no real idea what had happened, just how I was supposed to feel but didn't really.

Still, it was really effin' pretty.

Grade: C
For Cat or other type nerds, me included: B-

#4 - On videogame "Geometry Wars 2" for the XBLA

I remember when I first saw Geometry Wars. It was about half a year after it came out but I was spellbound. Unlike the rock band The Killers, it seems that developer Bizarre has taken something from the 80's (in this case the Robotron style, twin stick shooter) and reworked it into something actually stylish and fun. The music in the first Geometry Wars was also better than anything off of "Hot Fuss" or "Sam's Town".

When a new Geometry Wars was announced, I wondered how they polish up a game known for it's simplicity. Any big changes would change it into something altogether different. Not enough and it would not be worth it. Though at 10$ most fans of the original have probably already purchased a copy of it to try out.

Graphically, not much has changed, yet the game seems more alive with color and, for lack of better word: GLOWIER. A common criticism often lobbed at the original game was, that with all of the onscreen activity going on, it was hard to follow the action. The player would lose track of where their tiny spaceship was and this would spell CERTAIN DOOOOOOM. The thing is, this didn't really happen. I am near sighted in one eye and far sighted in the other. Things tend to lose focus for me and I get lost in busy images but not once did I have problems with Geometry Wars and the same holds for this game despite that fact defying all visual logic. Playing the game can often, to the casual observer, seem like watching a videotape of a fireworks display as held in the world of Tron if that movie was made in Flatland.

That is precisely why the game was brilliant. It worked. That says something about the careful visual balance attained, just on the edge of insanity, but playable by most everyone. It takes simple gameplay and puts it on the verge of being nearly TOO futuristic. Walking that fine line is what makes the series such a joy to play.

To those who do now know what Geometry Wars is and who do not know what "Robotron Style Shooter" means, here is a brief explanation (which is really all that is necessary): The player controls a small avatar on-screen, in Geometry Wars it is a triangle/spaceship and in Robotron it was a little humanoid figure. With the left joystick they control the movement of the character. With the right joystick, they control the direction the character shoots. There is no fire button involved. Simply push the joystick in the direction you wish to fire and PEW PEW PEW!!! Lasers. Enemies emerge on the field of battle and try to kill you. That's about it. In Robotron there were killer robots. In this game IT IS GLOWING GEOMETRIC SHAPES. The brilliance of Geometry Wars is that each shape comes in a distinctive color and acts according to a separate but identifiable AI (artificial intelligence) routine. Blue diamonds slowly follow around your ship where as pink diamonds are quicker and quirkier in their path to kill you. Green blobs chase you about but when you turn to fire on them they bob and weave and try to run from you. They are like the cowardly managers in the old pro wrestling shows that would act cowardly then hit you in the back with a folding chair. There are glowing snakes that seem to meander vaguely in your direction. Tiny orange arrows that merely dart to and fro across the field of battle. At any given moment there could be anywhere up to a hundred or so shapes at one time. When the green ones clump together it is like doing battle with a glowing pool of water. The effect is mesmerizing and gorgeous. All the while you interact with all of these creatures in terms that seem very simple but in the simple world seem like all you ever need. It feels smart and realistic in the terms of the game. Rather than a game that shoots to emulate reality and then falls prey to the uncanny valley, you get ultimate flexible simplicity. The world is simple and beautiful and nearly poetic in it's neon hyperactivity. The game feels more alive than most games could ever hope to, all in a package that is as simple as Pac Man ever was.

But that is merely a description of Geometry Wars. The cosmetic differences are probably only apparent to people who spent hours playing the original and if that was all there was it would not be worth the purchase (though I still would have purchased it.) Added to the sequel is a small gaggle of different enemy types and more significantly, a slew of new game modes.

The addition of new game modes and the brilliance of the "in-menu leaderboard" add to the addictive quality of the game, much like the timer/score mechanic did in the recent update of Pac Man on XBLA. What this means is that on the screen where you select which game type you wish to play, there is a leaderboard for each type showing the highest scores among your friends who own the game. This leads to that "oh no he/she didn't!" feeling where you want to jump in and one up one another. It's a simple and brilliant little detail that adds alot to what makes the game so great.

There are 6 game modes:
Deadline - You have 3 minutes to score as many points as possible. You have unlimited lives, but every time you die, the enemies all go away for a few seconds. This is a big deal when you're trying to destroy as many as you can in a limited time.

King - A clever play on King of the Hill game types, your ship can only shoot from inside glowing circles which eventually shrink and go away. The enemy cannot enter the circles making the game a mad dash from circle to circle. The whole thing looks like germs swirling around neon petri dishes.

Evolved - The classic "last as long as you can, score as high as possible" game from the original Geometry Wars Evolved game.

Pacifism - Easily my favorite of the group. You cannot shoot and must fly through small gates to destroy nearby enemies. No description can convey how fun this game type is. It is a game of pure skill. Since you cannot shoot, you use only one joystick. That is it.

Waves - The hardest of the group (to me) but seemingly the easiest. Waves of little enemy ships that basically fly back and forth until you kill them appear. That's it. Good luck.

Sequence - My second favorite of the games, you have to fight through a series of times battles that ramp up in difficulty. Nearly a space adventure (told by little geometric shapes)!

The games play so fast, sometimes lasting as little as a half a second if you're REALLY awful, that you can easily get caught up in a neverending cycle, constantly reaching for that friend's high score. If you get sick of one game, you just pick another, they are all different enough. The game is a brilliant balance of all things: modern, retro, simple, hectic, easy controls, horribly challenging gameplay. And it's around 10 bucks. WTF people, hop to it.

Grade: A

Small Sidenote: Today I heard the song "When I Grow Up" by Garbage (from the album Version 2.0, which is a pretty good old pop album) and one of the first sentences finds singer Shirley Manson comparing something to a "giant juggernaut". By definition of the word, are there small juggernauts? Was it perhaps a standout juggernaut in a field of "everyday Joe-Shmo" juggernauts? Let us think on this until next we meet.

#3 - On the Midnight Release of Stephanie Meyer's Book "Breaking Dawn" at a Barnes & Noble in Bethesda

The Book Release as an Event. I have only been to two of these before, each one being a Harry Potter release. I was curious to see how tonight's gathering would go as I have little to no interest in the book and had no idea how popular it was exactly. Would the evening have the crackling nerdish energy of the HP release parties? Would it bring together all nerds, great and small, huddling in the aisles of the local large chain bookstore?
As I drove around the store I noted that it did not seem as busy as the HP releases that I had been to. There no line snaking its way out of the mouth of the store and onto the sidewalk outside. It seemed to be quite a regular night. Then Mandi pointed to the second floor and that is where I saw THE DANCING.
This almost made us reconsider going inside to get the book. Thankfully we powered through our feelings of what-can-only-be-called shame and entered the store. It really was just like any other night in the week save for the top floor which was filled with all teenaged girls dressed in black and red in charmingly ramshackle approximations of the "hot vampire" aesthetic. A good 0% achieved the look successfully and unlike the Harry Potter nights, there were probably 1 or 2 males in attendance. This is including me. I surprised myself by being less annoyed at all the teenagers and more quaintly amused. How could I be mad at a bunch of kids who were excited by a book (however lame that book may be)? Still, the fiasco was contained to small hotspots in the store. People took prom style photos for some odd reason. The aforementioned dancing. Each activity was altogether lame and yet adorably charming. It made me question every single time I thought I may have felt cool as a teen. But then it made me embrace those moments because weren't we all just trying to become people back then?
The actual waiting for the book was disappointingly easy. I vaguely craved a near apocalyptic struggle between order and chaos to ensue. What I got was more a strange prom-like dance between order and chaos, where order and chaos stay pressed to the walls, afraid to dance with one another. The line made no sense to me, yet it moved along fine and before long I was outside the store and Mandi had her book. It wasn't great, but it wasn't as dreadful as it could have been. If I was forced to, for some reason, endure it alone however, that place would have gone up in flames.
Grade: B-
-Ben

#2 - On the DVD Case for "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"

Odds are pretty high, barring some tragic event that would no doubt score an F here, that I will never see the movie "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale". The trailers for it were pretty lousy, making it seem like a budget version of Lord of the Rings where the camera lens was covered with some sort of sand colored filter to make everything seem grittier... manlier even. As a result, the "art" on the front of the DVD case is most definitely gritty and sand colored: a large photo of Jason Statham's face superimposed over tiny battle scene. Or is it the other way? Is it a tiny scene superimposed over the manly landscape that is Statham's face? Perhaps the graphic artist was trying to create that odd sense where the viewer questions what he/she is seeing and perhaps learns a little about themself in the process. That tension would be an interesting thing to explore visually, but rather than call attention to the space where the tension is greatest in the image, the graphic designer merely placed the title of the movie in BOLD RED LETTERS. The bold nearly Impact style font used is very modern for such a medieval romp, perhaps suggesting that despite the era this takes place in, it is a "hip" modern movie. It is saying: "I am too powerful a work of art to be corralled in by the constraints placed on other such period fantasy pieces. I bristle with unpredictablity and you definitely want to find out what other treasures lie within this DVD case."
Below the title, possibly added after the fact, comes the words "A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE". The font used for this seems quite throwaway. Perhaps someone forgot this was a dungeon siege tale and was reminded. It seems like an odd thing to advertise anyways. I am aware that this movie is based on a videogame, but then why not just call it DUNGEON SIEGE? The title "In the Name of the King" seems to suggest that perhaps director/auteur Uwe Boll was attempting to move away from the amateurish conventions of his earlier work and also the stigma of being a videogame movie director. "This movie is no longer a Dungeon Siege movie. It is now a visionary fantasy epic by me, Uwe Boll! It is its own being!" And then maybe somebody saw the movie and the "A DUNGEON SIEGE MOVIE" got stamped on the case. Having this as a subtitle lends to the case a terrifying assumption that perhaps there will be a series of movies that are DUNGEON SIEGE TALES. I would rather not think about that now though. Next to the gigantic head of Jason Statham is the words "Jason Statham". Perhaps in case you did not know he was in the movie.
At the very center of the case is a review blurb calling this "A Grand, Epic Adventure." Well really it is in all caps like this: "A GRAND, EPIC ADVENTURE", but I am assuming the critic from Cinemablend.com did not actually yell this out. Either way, I will probably never read Cinemablend.com as a result of this.
On the back of the case is a paragraph about the movie which curves around a photo of Jason Statham, again looking manly. Below him is the standard row of stills from the movie. Each one seems to be of a persons face looking stern or angry. All are comical.
This case seems to advertise: "Buy this movie if you want a manly fantasy adventure starring Jason Statham. As a bonus, I am an awful movie." I'm sure the people who put out the DVD wanted the former advertised more than the latter. Unfortunately, both are in full force here.
Grade: C+
-Ben

#1: On Laurel on a Sunny Afternoon (Location)

It is a sunny afternoon in Laurel, MD. Many people would mistake the word "sunny" for happy, and perhaps some people are happy right now in this town. Sunny in MD usually also means humid to the point where the air becomes drinking water (though given the hygiene of the locals, possibly only after thorough filtering.) The heat also brings out the local crazy man whose name is supposedly "Robert" although my friend Kevin calls him "Crazy Olympics". Let me explain. "Robert" is a large muscular black man who, when first spotted, was seen doing pushups and dancing in front of a boombox in front of the local Chipotle. He was wearing nothing but a bandana around his head, and shorts. Maybe shoes. But perhaps that is asking too much of him. It was pretty silly. A week later when he was still doing it, it was sillier still and even a bit scary. And then half a year later, when he came into the CD Store and threatened to kill everyone inside, it was even less silly and more scary. One day, in the early days of his appearances, my friend Dave was driving with Kevin and they spotted him by the side of the road, obviously doing push ups or some sort of exercise.
Dave: "What's that guy doing?"
Kevin: "Training for the crazy olympics."
And so on this hot day, we have this man here. Laurel drivers are out in droves because apparently nobody in this town has a job to be at, and they are most wonderful at being some of the most selfish and careless drivers ever, driving with only themselves in mind and possibly a feeling that maybe their car is a ghost car, capable of passing through other vehicles should they be driving carelessly on the correct side of the road.
Still, Laurel also has less SUV's than most places. I guess that's good. Until you realize that the people who can afford SUV's here just end up getting HUMVEES. Usually camouflage ones. And why camouflage? What is the practical use of camouflage, a color scheme used to hide one from one's enemies, on a car that is bought mainly to attract attention with its audacity?
A notch above Glen Burnie, which consists of less jerks, but of more sad people jonesin for crack money, I give Laurel on this Sunny Day an average score. It may seem bad, but hey, this is America.
Grade: C
-Ben

Next Time Maybe: Are you excited about the exciting Stephanie Meyers book? The blood pumping "Twilight" series is drawn to a close! WOW! Tomorrow, I will post a glorious review of, not the book, but the Barnes&Noble where I will be waiting in line with my friend as she waits to buy the book. It's going to be spectacular. And maybe someday I'll read one of these books.

Blogging About Stuff I Like

On the vast expanse of the interweb, I have a few plots of virtual real estate, each one devoted to basically the same type of blogging. Here I will not blog, but post reviews of things that I have enjoyed and maybe no enjoyed so much. They will be graded, like children from (worst to best): F,E,D,C,B,A,S(uper!)
After a while, perhaps the reasonings behind my gradings while become lucid. Perhaps not.
Enjoys!