Sword Saints

Entertainment without the entertainment

"Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter, how could Sweeny Todd be bad?" we thought. Alas, good performances and direction simply could not make up for the story. The themes of justice and injustice weren't really explored so much as eviscerated. Pretty gross, and not really worth watching.

I also gave Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare a chance on the X360 with a cheap rental. Apart from modern weapons and fancy graphics, it it exactly the same game as Call of Duty 2 (at least the single player campaign). Your AI teammates are useless, objectives are unclear at best and, try as you might, you cannot thin out the bad guys from a distance before wading in. Until you reach a certain spot on the map, the supply of enemies is infinite. I killed the same three baddies shooing from a balcony about six times before resigning myself to the fact that the game developers want to make the player run into heavy fire. I think that's what I disliked the most: they player is forced to play the game in a certain way, leading to immense frustration if you want to play it any other way. Thanks, but no thanks. And yes, I know, it's meant to be played multiplayer. Fine. Then make it multiplayer only and don't tack on a crap single player campaign. I'm glad I'm only out the five bucks for a rental and not the sixty bucks for a purchase of the game.

Get your halo with Halo

Here's outreach for you (source: Slashdot):

Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church

First the percussive sounds of sniper fire and the thrill of the kill. Then the gospel of peace.

Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game Halo.

Of course, there are the detractors. That's to be expected. It's violent, for one thing. So is a fair bit of the Old Testament. I'd agree that parents should be aware of whether their under-17 kids are playing the M-rated Halo 3, even at church. Still, there's something to be said for the fun and fellowship of a sixteen-player Halo party (even if I was accused of never having played the game before).

And as a fan of epic poems like The Iliad, The Aeneid, Beowulf, and The Faerie Queene, it bears mentioning that the level of violence contained in this body of classic literature can hold its own against a twenty-first century epic like Halo.

Being, doing, men, slaves

The musts and the shoulds have me outflanked, outgunned, and outmaneuvered, but I fight on, trying to keep my head above the flood, practicing my emphatic, "NO!" lest I be overwhelmed. That means I end up sacrificing sleep to engage in the recreational wants like reading and gaming. So it goes.

I got to the end of BioShock late Friday. Artistically, it was outstanding: great design, gorgeous graphics, and an excellent soundtrack. The atmosphere was creepy and sad by turns, and the story was one of utopia gone wrong. It made me want to dive into (no pun intended) some good dystopian literature. At one point in the game, the main character is told, "A man chooses. A slave obeys." Interesting in light of the fact that the whole game (and just about every game ever made) is predicated on following (obeying) the designers' objectives and mission parameters. A subtly ironic commentary on gamers and the gaming industry, perhaps?

One set of musts will be gone at the end of this week: it is my last Monday in this particular cubicle. And it'll probably feel like the longest week EVER. But, of course, I'll just be trading one set of musts for another more challenging set.

Grinding gears

Having finished my first run-through of the game, I think the ArsTechnica review of Gears of War gets it exactly right: "If it's beautiful, it has been destroyed. If there's hope, it has been crushed by years of fighting and imprisonment. If there's fighting, it's because there is nothing left to do except die. Welcome to Gears of War."

Technorati Tags: Destroyed Beauty, Gears Of War

Mad World

                 

Speaking of melancholy. Oh. My. Word. It would be a bit of an understatement to say I'm looking forward to this. I hope the game maintains the feeling of weariness and grief throughout and doesn't turn into just another run 'n gun frenzy.

The convergence of Legos and Star Wars and Xbox

When you own Lego Star Wars II (thanks for the gift card, bro!) you become immensely popular with the 5-7 year old demographic. In yet more proof that we're not normal adults, Elliot and Stone were practically combusting in their excitement for an overnighter with us. And they binged on the Xbox Friday night and Saturday morning. They were up at the crack of dawn, ready and raring to play. "My eyes need some time to wake up, so not until Margo goes out for her walk," I said. Ever-helpful, Stone grabbed her shoes and brought them over. "Are you ready to go yet? How 'bout now? How 'bout now?" And so it was until she left twenty minutes later.

It is a fun game. The boys played a little bit of each episode (there were some frustrating parts that made them want to quit and move on to the next episode). Margo and I made it all the way through Episode IV, flying our little Lego X-Wing and Y-Wing in to blow up the Lego Death Star. It's not anything really groundbreaking over the first installment, but still quite fun. They kept what was good (humor, action, and simple gameplay) and added a few new features (like all characters being able to build things, riding around in vehicles, and so forth). Han shooting Greedo was especially humorous (and Han shot first, as it ought to be). Good times and fun for the whole family!

technorati tags:Lego Star Wars II, Xbox 360

Blogged with Flock

Getting lost in history

Margo was off at a retreat over the weekend, so I found myself on a Rome: Total War bender. I opted to start as the Julii family, based in northern Italy. Once I consolidated my realm, the Gauls came in proposing an alliance and trade rights. Being the man of peace that I am, I accepted. Naturally, the unwashed barbarians reneged on their treaty, besieging two of my frontier cities on the following turn. So I went and offered them a treaty in return: a cease-fire with them paying 1000 denarii of tribute into my coffers for the next six turns, and if they didn't accept it I'd attack. And so began my campaign of extermination against the backstabbing Gauls. At the same time, I'm pulling off some odd jobs for S.P.Q.R. (the Senate and People of Rome), blockading the port in Sparta, taking over a Macedonian city, that sort of thing. All in the historical context of Europe and North Africa and the Middle East in the 3rd century B.C. Great fun (and educational to boot).

Medicinal laughter

I picked up Armed & Dangerous in the bargain bin the other day. It's amazing what a bit of laughter (and an insane amounts of blowing things up) will do for a mood. Weapons and health can be found at the local pub, and your robotic compatriot occasionally stops in the midst of battle to brew a cup of tea. And even the weapons are comical. There's the topsy turvy bomb, for example -- screw it in to the ground and the world flips upside-down, dropping all the enemies off the face of the earth (only to shatter back down when the world rights itself). The Guy Fawkes traitor bomb turns enemies against each other (instead of against you). And my personal favorite -- the land shark gun -- launches a shark at the nearest enemy, dorsal fin weaving through the ground toward the unsuspecting foe. Hilarity.

I'm Doom3d

Or, How To Lose A Sale Without Even Trying.

So we took a little trip this evening to pick up a couple copies of Doom 3. We decided to hit one of the major national electronics retailers who had it for the lowest advertised price. Of course, they were to have it on their shelves three days later than every other retailer, but I was willing to wait. Their ad said it would be available on August 6. Last I checked, that's today. (Yup, it's still today.) We hit the store, checked around ... where's the game? So I asked a clerk. "Oh, because of the price, Activision said we couldn't put it out until the 7th." I protested, "But your ad said it would be available on the 6th." And the response was the same, "Activision won't let us do it."

OK. Fine. I informed them that I'd just go up the street to their competitor and get a price match. They just shrugged. I suppose I could have protested a bit more (truth in advertising and all that), but it was easier just to go up the street. On we drove, got the game, got the price match.

Remember when the customer was always right?

Playing games

Slashdot highlighted a GamerDad article, Game with God.

While religion and spirituality add a lot to a game world, they often aren't used effectively. "I don?t think there are any games that treat religion at anything more than a superficial level," says Firaxis founder, and Civilization creator Sid Meier. While PopTop Software's Phil Steinmeyer agrees, noting that "Religion is ignored in gaming, or if it is portrayed, it's wildly caricatured."

If religion and spiritual concepts can potentially add so much to a game world, why are they only used superficially? Why are they caricatured? And what will the future bring? To answer these questions we looked at games from the recent past, and considered how religion is sometimes cleverly, sometimes clumsily used in gaming. We invited a few top game designers to come along and show us the sights, to in effect, play Virgil to our Dante.

It's an interesting read, but I was a bit surprised to see that the Total War games didn't get a mention. Religion (Christianity and Buddhism in Shogun: Total War and Catholic and Orthodox Christianity and Islam in Medieval: Total War) played an integral role in these games, dictating things like how trade was handled, how emissaries were treated, and on whom you could declare war. If I were a Gamer Dad, they'd be high on my approved list.

The thing is, though, if I'm going to shell out $30-$50 for a game, it'd better have great gameplay. If the game isn't fun, then it doesn't matter how much spiritual truth is contained therein. Games that aren't fun are games that aren't finished. I recently spent $5 on a game from Target's clearance rack and deleted it after about thirty minutes of playing. It was such a stinker that it wasn't even worth $5 (and I really despise games that aren't even worth $5). So by all means, add spiritual content to games. But at least make them good games.