Mopping Up Culture Vomit: The wild, hair-up-your-ass, 2-cups-of-coffee-ten-packs-of-sugar, Teddy Roosevelt-on-PCP Genius of Andrew W.K.

Take something seemingly simple.

Blow it up.

It suddenly becomes interesting.

I feel like that's the thrust behind much of the photography I enjoy: those giant baby carrots seem much more delicious (and so much more full of life) than they did before.

And that, as surprising as it may be to photography enthusiasts, seems to be the philosophy behind the music of one Andrew Wilkes-Krier. Except Andy uses "blow up" in the sense of "magnification" and in the sense of "blowing shit up."


I guess I take it for granted that everyone was fascinated with this guy at one point or another. But based on the number of weird looks I get even when I refer to him as the "Party Hard" guy, this appears not to be the case.

The alleged (more on that later) early part of AWK's life begins in Ann Arbor, where he was born to a...blah blah...college prep school...blah blah classically trained pianist.

I doubt Andy would want me to spend much time explaining his biography. That time could be better spent hitting myself with a brick or shooting coke or smearing myself with pig's blood. All that, incidentally, took place over the course of one cover shoot.

I think.

Andrew WK's a tough nut to crack. His first album is all macho posturing and cock-rock guitars, his second record a (slightly) more introspective affair, and his third a (completely) insane Japan-only Frank Zappa homage.

Wait, what?

Actually that first album (I Get Wet), upon further consideration, is really a so-dumb-it's-brilliant masterpiece, a shining example of how not to gussy up party tunes with more than one chord/lyric. Parties are dumb, and so are these songs. Brilliant, right?

Right? Fuck. I'm lost again.

What about the second album? The Wolf works out that "motivational speaker" angle much better than the first one (I Get Wet's inspirational anthem, "Got to Do It", is the only song I consistently skip). "Never Let Down" will make you rebuild that bridge that "Party Hard" inspired to you destroy in the first place.

But the Wikipedia page for The Wolf refers to "insightful lyrics and a more melodic sound." Really? "I love music and I love to feel/I love music and I love to yell?" Doesn't sound too much different to me.

Okay, okay.

Calm down, Jordan, you can do this: Andrew WK's an artist like any other. You can parse his sound in a few neat sentences of boilerplate critical language.

(deep breath) Let's try this again.

The third album (Close Calls with Brick Walls) is where all that brilliance comes through loud and clear. Amid Zapparrific loping rhythms and experimental song structures, WK reveals transcendent insight on this Japan-only hidden gem.

Oh crap.

I found the lyric sheet:

"Are you ready to go to sleep?/NO!/PARTY!"

...

...

I'm fine. Seriously.

I'm not having a critical nervous breakdown right now.

I can fit this guy in a box. I can: he's actually a complete idiot who managed to fool a bunch of hipster assholes into thinking he was brilliant. Except for Pitchfork, who gave his first record a .6/10.

Shit.

...

AHA! He just put out an album of structured improvisations for solo piano called 55 Cadillac! That has to reveal how truly neanderthalic this guy really is! Right? Right?!

...


...


...

HE'S A CLASSICALLY-TRAINED PIANIST AND THE ALBUM'S FLIPPIN' BRILLIANT?!?!?!

I HAVE EXHAUSTED ALL MY CRITICAL TOOLS. YOU HAVE DEFEATED ME, ANDREW WK. I CANNOT PUT YOU IN A NEAT LITTLE BOX.

And that is exactly why real Jordan (and not hysterical critic Jordan) loves Andrew WK.

Screw Bob Dylan. This guy has had twice as many lives in one-eighth the time. He's all of those things I mentioned above at the same, mind-melting time. And more:

He's a character on Aqua Teen Hunger Force (see above).

He's a contributor to a late night TV show on Fox News.

He's sometimes a sometimes Weather Man on a local Fox affiliate.

He's been called "truly cute" by Time Magazine, yet he writes lyrics like "You're just a parasite/Now close your eyes and say goodnight."

And, best of all, he released a full-length album of Gundam theme music earlier this month to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Mobile Suit Gundam. Naturally, only in Japan.

Andrew WK is all things to all people, and a complete mystery to everyone. And I love the hell out of him for it. I think he may also have concocted an extra personality for himself (surprise surprise) while he was bored.

So take a few minutes (or what will probably become a few hours if you fall in not-so-hetero-love with Andy like I did) and peruse what comes up when you type Andrew WK into Google. I think, even if you never blast "She is Beautiful" until your speakers give out from sheer exhaustion (which I highly recommend), you'll find something to love.

AND, if you're in Chicago tomorrow night (or five other lucky cities), come see Andrew WK continue to freak people out by playing his hits (and selections from the improvised piano record) with a string quartet.

I'm gonna see if this time, unlike every other time, I can finally figure this guy out.

I can't wait to fail. Continue...

Marginalia 9.30.09

NY Times: Mr. Schiesel enjoyed Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, but he also saw it's potential to tap into the social/political themes that its source material - The Marvel Civil War - handled so well. Too bad it's just a videogame.

Gamasutra: Storm clouds are gathering, and I want to play games on them. OnLive has ramped up its fund development.

Destructoid: Monster's new energy drink, "Assault": Modern Warfare 2, meet crass commercialism. This may be worse than the time Halo 3 teamed up with Mountain Dew to make Gamer Fuel.

Destructoid: Visceral Games is gearing up to enter production on Dead Space 2. Godspeed, gentlemen.

Joystiq: COME ON! COME ON! COME ON! COME ON! COME ON! COME ON!

GreenPixels: An opinion piece that asks "Is game addition real?" answers the question with a resounding shrug, but is interesting nonetheless. Continue...

Nights on Bald Mountain: Prologue

If I believe in one thing, it's that blogging is one of the most powerful instruments for personal growth and achievement. If I believe in two things, it's that blogging is one of the most powerful instruments for personal growth and achievement and that blogging can also be a tremendous excuse to waste time. If I believe in three things, it's that blogging is one of the most powerful instruments for personal growth and achievement, that blogging can also be a tremendous excuse to waste time, and that the conflict in the Middle East can best be solved by installing Juan Carlos of Spain on the throne of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

For the month of October, I plan on watching a horror movie every day and filling you, the Charge Shot!!! readership in on the details in brief reviews every afternoon. I do this primarily because for most of my life, I've been somewhat averse to horror movies and only in recent years have I developed a taste for the macabre. It's a lot like my freshman roommate turned me on to the fact that as an out-of-shape white guy with an above average knowledge of Norse mythology, heavy metal was my birthright. As I was something of a horror-averse nerdling for an unusually long span of my life, I have a lot of catching up to do in terms of viewing the horror canon. This daily feature will remedy that.

I'll be viewing movies either through Netflix (home delivery and Xbox streaming) or through the copious amount of film screenings that happen in the Twin Cities throughout the year, being horror-heavy in the month of October. I'll also be going to see some first run horror movies when they pop up in theaters (expect Zombieland this week, don't hold out for Saw "If it's Halloween, it must be Saw *sigh*" VI). For the most part, these movies will be entirely new to me. I may revisit movies I saw when I was too young to appreciate them or that I pussied out on. At any rate, you'll know the how and why behind each movie I choose. This is going to be trying, but believe you me I will do my duty to God, my country, and you the readers, all month and bring you the nitty-gritty on my escapades in the realm of the horror movie.

See you tomorrow!

(And yes, I'm aware this is my second feature with "mountain" in the title. I'm from a flat part of the country and am therefore fascinated by mountains, sue me; my ancestors were from the Alps!) Continue...

Dropping Into a Different Halo – Sort Of

The success of Halo 3: ODST has been heralded with a dull ring of inevitability – it’s Halo, of course it’s going to fare well with reviewers. True, Bungie could probably release Halo 3 10 times to consistent acclaim, but ODST is a curious diversion for Microsoft’s prize pony. It lacks the franchise’s signature space marine, Master Chief; there isn’t a Halo to be seen; its designers purport it to have a nonlinear design and a film-noir feel.

Let me repeat that: nonlinear design. Noir feel. Halo.

The idea of an arthouse Halo game is beyond oxymoronic – it’s absurd. The universe has no color to speak of, and what little recommends it is cobbled together from other, better sci-fi stories. When designers started sounding off about the different direction they took with this expansion-pack-cum­-standalone-game, I craned my neck in curiosity – after all, if you have advance tickets to a bus crash, get there early and get a good view.

Halo 3: ODST is a return to form for a franchise bloated with bombast and Wagnerian excess. Its distilled gameplay, skillful storytelling and high level of polish hearken back to 2001, when Halo: Combat Evolved arrived with the modest goal of making the Xbox a must-buy system.

This isn’t a fans-only affair, or a self-indulgent diversion. This is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys a good, no-frills action game.

ODST slams you in the boots of the Rookie, a novice commando filling a gap in an elite Orbital Drop Shock Trooper squad. While nameless and voiceless, his squadmates – Buck, the leader; Dutch, the big-guns oaf; Mickey, the pilot; Romeo, the sniper; Dare, the spy – have enough to say. And thanks to the talent of Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Alan Tudyk and Tricia Helfer, they say it well.

You’re dropped from the belly of a troop carrier, an embattled Earth awaiting you below. As ODST takes place between Halo 2 and Halo 3, you know how this is going to go – a Covenant ship enters slipspace above your city-of-destination, producing a massive shockwave that knocks you off course. When you come to six hours later, it’s night, it’s raining, and you’re isolated in a city crawling with Covenant patrols.

As pre-release press has strained to point out, you aren’t the Master Chief. You can’t jump as high (though you kind of can). Your melee strikes do half the damage. Your “stamina” is no shield, and when it’s depleted, any damage you sustain will remain until treated with a health pack. Sulking in the shadows with the blip of a heart monitor reminding you of your injuries definitely adds a flavor of tension previously unknown to the franchise.

ODST is startlingly subtle and subdued. Halo 3 propelled you from climax to climax, the music swelling and Wagnerian; ODST isolates you in the rainy streets of New Mombasa, with a haunting string track or plaintive saxophone to keep you company. Somehow, somehow, the Rookie levels achieve the noir feel without affect, camp or pretension. I can’t believe they pulled it off. It’s by far the franchise’s most memorable setting, and indicates a lurking refinement that Bungie devs cunningly concealed in Halos 2 – 3.

However, it falls short of genius. After a few hours prowling the streets, I started growling: why are all the doors locked, especially when Bungie seems all too content to transplant the same vaguely-office interior into every single building in the city. Seriously – of your average, run-of-the-mill Mombasa buildings, there’s one interior. Where are the shops? The apartment buildings? You can’t tell me the future lacks malls. While Bungie made New Mombasa haunting, atmospheric, etc, it more resembles a painting than a real, lived-in city. No human detritus, no real sense of life at all – just evidence of a meticulous urban planner, once resident but long since disappeared…almost like a Halo!

Instead of plowing from mission to mission a la Halo 3, ODST ‘s story is told through a series of flashbacks, triggered by artifacts scattered throughout New Mombasa. As the Rookie, you walk alone from beacon to beacon, engaging the flashbacks in whatever order you see fit. Those missions are traditional Halo fare, served with enough boom and bluster to satiate diehard fans. But when the ride is over, you’re back in the boots of the Rookie, cut-off from allies and constantly threatened by Covenant support. More than once, I actually dreaded the prospect of facing New Mombasa alone, at night, and in the rain.

But whatever – anyone who cares about atmosphere is a sissy, right? Let’s talk about the combat. If you liked killing Covvies in Halo, you’ll love it in ODST. As I said above, the health system is an interesting and extremely effective throwback to days where hiding behind a crate for a few seconds won’t save your ass. Bunny-hopping is still a integral part of effective fighting, which kind of belies the whole new-gritty-feel thing. But hey, this is Halo, isn’t it? You jump, you shoot, you grenade and you melee, because that’s how you did it in Combat Evolved; and frankly, it’s held up pretty damn well since 2001.

Two new weapons make the impact of four: The silenced SMG and the new pistol are deadly, and by far my favorite weapons in the franchise. The silencing is entirely cosmetic, but it sounds cool, and the added zoom lets you drop bad guys from a distance. I picked them up whenever I came across them, regardless of what was already in my hands.

Many are buying ODST because of Firefight, a new multiplayer mode pitting up to four players against successive waves of Covenant. When critics say the co-op killfest sells the game, they aren’t kidding. Coordinating tactics with your teammates is essential to success, especially in the later waves when they train the heavy weapons on you. Sure, it blatantly steals Gears of War 2’s Horde mode, but who cares? I prefer Halo’s athletic brand of shooter to Epic’s heavy-metal, swinging-balls action. Firefight speaks to people who don’t exactly relish getting teabagged by pre-pubescent Halo-jocks – people like me.

ODST isn’t a great game – but neither was Halo 3. The franchise has always been distinguished by a thorough, almost dogged competence, always reliable for a good time but never coming close to real greatness. Perhaps ODST comes closer than any of its predecessors, but it’s still Halo – still Microsoft’s bread and butter, still a $60 product to sell to millions of eager fans looking for more of the same – and until the franchise outgrows that, greatness will elude it.

Continue...

...and now, back to The Beatles!

When we last left our heroes, the Beatles had just renounced touring and embarked on a three-month hiatus. This after ushering in the psychedelic era in music with Revolver. Also, no member of the group had yet grown any facial hair of note.

The Beatles spent the rest of their career as a band in the studio perfecting a unique sound that got harder and harder to reproduce live. And lest we forget the true crux of this series of articles, the rest of the songs in The Beatles: Rock Band begin with the fab four sitting around their instruments in Abbey Road studios (except for a brief set performed on the roof of said studios, but more on that show later).

The music they created during this period became increasingly self-referential and allowed each Beatle to develop his own individual voice, musically and lyrically. Don't get me wrong, despite working very closely together, Lennon and McCartney had the ability to be autonomous songwriters from the start. But while it's possible to pick out "Eight Days A Week" as a Paul song and "A Hard Day's Night" as a John song, the subtleties that separate those two don't hold a candle to the massive stylistic differences between Revolver's "Good Day Sunshine" and "I'm Only Sleeping." And don't even get me started on George's eastern influenced music and spiritually influenced lyrics.

The first album undertaken by the group after their break was the double-concept album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first concept - the one used for the title: The Beatles dressing up as a fictional band and assuming fake identities - really doesn't extend much beyond the album cover, the title track (and its reprise), and an excuse to introduce Ringo as singer Billy Shears for his vocal track "With A Little Help From My Friends." The second (unofficial) concept includes songs with subject matter drawn from everyday life. (cf. John's "Good Morning Good Morning" about a typical workday, and such non-game tracks as "A Day In the Life," "When I'm Sixty-Four," and "Fixing a Hole." This last song, incidentally, introduces the concept of being where one belongs into Paul's lyrical catalog.)

But independently of the loosely-followed concepts, the songs included on the game from this album showcase the blossoming talents of each individual Beatle. George has "Within You Without You" (packaged as a mashup with John's "Tomorrow Never Knows," because how the heck are Rock Band instruments supposed to accurately portray a song consisting solely of sitar and tabla?), the lyrics of which present a fascinating combination of self-realization and ego-death. John's psychedelic leanings and recreational drug use come to the fore in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," the initials of which (LSD) of course refer to Lysosomal Storage Disease, a metabolic disorder with which John must have been strangely occupied at the time of the song's composition. And Paul contributed the optimistic rouser (and favorite for use in commercials) "Getting Better."

"Getting Better" is a good example of one of those self-referential songs I mentioned earlier. While unabashedly optimistic at times, the song opens up the Beatles' closet door, so to speak, and exposes some pretty interesting skeletons hanging there. Although principally written by Paul, John contributed some of the more disturbing lyrics, most notably 'I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved.' This sentiment hearkens back to a couple of John's old songs: the controlling "You Can't Do That," and the haunting "Run For Your Life," both of which deal with his disapproval of his girl's unacceptable behavior. But another lyric - 'You gave me the word, I finally heard, and I'm doing the best that I can' - chronicles John's repentance from his old ways, referring to his song "The Word" ('Have you heard? the word is Love') from Rubber Soul. Say what you want about John during the later years of the Beatles - that he was egotistical, that he was difficult, that he screwed up the lives of his wife and son - but looking at the progression of his musical themes, I have to believe that he truly didn't have malicious intentions.

The release of Sgt. Pepper gained the Beatles rave reviews and critical acclaim - the album would stay at #1 in the UK for 27 weeks and in the US for 15. The next part of the Beatles' career was marked by personal tragedy following the death of their manager Brian Epstein in August of 1967. News of his death - caused by an accidental overdose of prescribed sleeping pills - came to the band while they were attending a seminar on transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Bangor, Wales. Despite Epstein's official cause of death, speculation still abounds regarding a possible suicide, based on the considerable personal and professional stress Epstein was under at the time. His contract to manage the Beatles was due to expire later that year, and in the wake of a couple of disastrous financial decisions - regarding licensing of Beatles merchandise and publishing of Beatles' songs - the band almost certainly would not ask Epstein to return in a managerial capacity. Furthermore, having to hide his homosexuality (illegal at the time in Britain) and his ongoing battles with drug/gambling addictions took their toll: earlier in his life, colleague Peter Brown purportedly discovered a suicide note written by Epstein and confronted him about it. To this day, I don't know if the book has ever really been closed on Epstein's case.

Despite Lennon's negative response Epstein's death ("we've fuckin' had it now"), the band went right along making music, recording John's next composition, "I Am The Walrus," mere weeks after the death of their manager. Used in the universally panned TV movie Magical Mystery Tour, the song was an exercise in meaningless psychedelia designed to confound and confusticate the over-analyzers who tended to read too much into The Beatles' music. Upon completion of the lyrics - with the assistance of former Quarryman Pete Shotton - Lennon exclaimed, "Let the fuckers work that one out!" Stir in goofy animal costumes and a mind-bending string arrangement by producer George Martin, and Bam! instant classic.

In early 1968, the Beatles traveled to Rishikesh, India for an extended master class on transcendental meditation with their guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The trip to India proved the old adage that limitations breed creativity, as the band left the country with nothing but their acoustic guitars and returned less than three months later with over 30 ideas for new songs. Many of these songs appeared on 1968's The Beatles (The White Album), including "Dear Prudence," written for dangerously introspective fellow student Prudence Farrow. In fact, the tension surrounding the circumstances under which the Beatles left Rishikesh are captured in John's non-game song "Sexy Sadie" (originally entitled "Maharishi"). The song reflects the Beatles' disillusionment with their guru following rumors (mostly fabricated) that he had taken advantage of his students.

If Brian Epstein's death was the beginning of the end for the Beatles, then the White Album sessions were the middle of the end. Ringo, increasingly frustrated by his limited role in the production of the album, stormed out of the studio during the sessions, leaving Paul to play drums on some of the tracks (including "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence" and possibly other undisclosed tracks). With this in mind, Starr's composition "Don't Pass Me By" seems like a legitimate entreaty to his band-mates.

George voiced his frustration with the group in his composition "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," for which be brought in his friend Eric Clapton to play lead guitar. Although inspired partly by his reading of the I Ching, one could envision the lyrics referring to the internal division among the group at the time. These divisions perhaps culminated in John allowing his new girlfriend Yoko Ono to sit in on the recording sessions, which had, up until this point, been Beatles-only affairs.

While we all know how the Yoko situation turned out - if you don't, I suggest listening to "Don't Let Me Down" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko" - it appears I will require yet another post to conclude the story about the Beatles' career. I always say that if something's worth doing, it's worth writing three posts about. Stay tuned, and I promise I'll finish the story next week...
Continue...

Marginalia: 9.29.09

Joystiq: Crazy things a-happening in the Xbox Marketplace! First, the first installment of Fable II, the retail game that is now an episodic game, is being offered for free. I am going to say it preemptively: that's where they get you.

Joystiq: And the promised Left 4 Dead (1) downloadable content is more expensive than Valve said it would be. LET'S ALL POINTLESSLY BOYCOTT IT YOU GUYS.

Destructoid: Crytek is going to make Crysis happen. In real life. Cloaking and all. In the UK. I'm with DToid's Aziz on this one: um, what?

Destructoid: Calling Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy a fan-made movie belies the shocking quality of this 70-minute film. Fan or no, you really need to check this out.

Gamasutra: Another in-depth piece, this time on the nigh-impossible task of making commentators in sports games not sound lobotomized.

Joystiq:  A MechWarrior movie?  Sure!  Why not?

Continue...

Free Antivirus for the Unwashed Masses

Microsoft today made its free anti-virus solition, Microsoft Security Essentials, available for download. The short version: any Windows user running a free antivirus product or paying for something from Symantec or McAffe should get in on this shit right now.

The long version: this is important because it’s a big step forward for basic computer security. Many home users are simply unaware of their antivirus products, letting their subscriptions expire and never scanning their computers. Other users are plagued by bloated, high-priced software suites sold to them by the Guy at Staples. Let me tell you: I was that guy once. He doesn’t always know what he’s talking about.

It’s a free download for any legit users of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. It’s an easy install, it’s unobtrusive, and it won’t slow your computer down. Simply put, you won’t have to think about your antivirus anymore, just like the Automatic Updates service makes it so that you don’t have to worry about patching your computer. It’ll just happen.

That, my friends, is how computers are fucking supposed to work.

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This Week on Audiosurf Radio – Leftover Stew Edition

I almost didn’t make it through this week, guys.  I almost spent the entire time I should’ve been writing just laughing my ass off.  Why, you ask?  Spanish Celtic Ska with Death Metal Vocals. 

Want proof that such a thing exists?  Head on over to the website of Ness, a Spanish band with a preposterously eclectic sound.  I’ve listened to some crazy music, but this is out of control.  I should admit that my knowledge of Spanish is…negative at best – meaning that I actually mishear more Spanish than I could ever hope to understand.  So I’ve no idea what these guys are singing about, but it sure sounds hilarious. 

Keeping things even-keeled is Kazakh guitarist Alexandr Filippov.  It’s some classical acoustic guitar, with some George Benson-y jazz licks thrown in.

Still don’t believe me that Ness exists?  Hit the jump and become a believer.

Recommendations

“Balboa” urges me to do a dance I have no business doing.  It’s some kind of mix between a mosh pit and the Highland Games.  You’ve got crunchy guitars, wailing bagpipes, and every kind of ska drum beat you can imagine (yes, all three of them).  Despite maintaining a fairly giddy beat throughout, the song manages to get pretty epic – apropos considering the bagpipe’s the premiere instrument for cutting through the din of battle (I read that somewhere once).  There are a few distinct sections to the piece: the straightforward choruses, a prog-rock build, and some sweeping curves that each end sharply.  It’s a surprising amount of variety for an aural palette that’s widely assumed to possess only one tone: drunk.

WARNING: El Diablo inhabits this song.  In between the wailing and the Enrique-like pop vibrato, the singer channels Beelzebub.  It’s some kind of Demon Ska.  As Audiosurf user DFG Cenyx puts it, “Now we have an answer to the age old question: What if Judas Priest merged with Sublime having been raised Spanish in Dublin?”  He couldn’t be more accurate.  There’s a guitar solo in the Megadeth mold in the middle, meant to summon the Lord of the Flies, no doubt.  A choir of rowdy musicians often echoes the lead singer with an enthusiastic “Hey!,” showing their support for The Fallen One.  Toward the end, as a particular riff begins to wear on the ear, the track spirals.  I felt like I was accompanying Virgil through various Circles and we’d reached one with a ‘Failed Musical Styles of the 1990s’ theme.  If you don’t play this song, Lucifer will come for you.

I wonder what Mr. Filippov does on Fridays that made him name this track “Friday.”  Perhaps he goes to the mall (if Kazakhstan has malls) because I’d call this song really interesting elevator music.   He’s a talented guitar player.  There’s no disputing that.  And were I in the right mood, I could just sit and listen to this.  It’s so peppy, which is a big surprise considering Hollywood’s recent depiction of Kazakhstan.  The track is a bit of a beast thanks to the wisely-included Steep tag.  You’ll find no drum beats here, just three guitars generating a crapload of traffic.  If you’re a fan of aneurysms, have a go at Stealthing this one.

Other Selections

Filippov’s “Tango” is just that: a tango.  It should be ridden if you enjoyed “Friday,” and perhaps even if you didn’t.  I just didn’t feel right recommending both Filippov tracks when the Ness stuff is so damn insane.  I won’t, however, recommend “Fiesta” by Ness because it’s nowhere near as entertaining as “Fuerza Astur.”  It’s got all of the apparent hallmarks of a Ness track: primal yawp-singing, crunchy guitars, high-pitched bagpipe squealing.  But there’s a wonderful moment in “Fuerza Astur” where the singer’s wailing almost gets out of control, like if the Marvel villain Banshee somehow lost control of his mutant ability.  Go ride that one instead.

Author’s Note

All songs were played on the Pro difficulty at least twice using the Vegas and Eraser characters.  I can’t believe I made it through all that Ness material.  That stuff is insane. 

Continue...

At the Mountains of Madness- Part Seven: "Seven Twenty Three"

For the second time this season, Matt Weiner and co. have gotten all artsy-fartsy on us. Unlike a few weeks ago when we were treated to some trippy, uncharacteristic dream sequences, now we are given glimpses of what will be occurring later in the episode before it even happens.

Our story begins with Peggy waking up in a swanky-looking bedroom next to a mysterious stranger followed by a shot of Betty reclining on a luxurious chaise lounge or some other old-timey piece of furniture. Finally we're brought to Don, face down on the floor of a motel room littered with half empty beer bottles. He rises to reveal what appears to be a broken nose. He goes over to the mirror to get a look at himself and suddenly he's his normal perfect self, going through his daily morning routine. He goes downstairs to find Betty consulting with an interior decorator about an awesome new 1963 makeover for their living room. Wait, what?

What's going on here?

Peggy's situation comes from the problem she's had all season- the goldfish is becoming too big for the bowl. Where she once was a humble secretary from Brooklyn, now she's a happening copywriter from Manhattan and she expects more from her life. We're very well aware that Peggy is feeling ignored and unappreciated at Sterling Cooper and when Duck keeps calling with fancy gifts and job offers, we'd imagine that all things considered, she'd still stay loyal, right? Well, don't believe the hype, Peggy's getting closer to defecting to Grey with every episode and she takes her biggest step so far tonight. Following advice from Pete that she should send an expensive scarf Duck sent her back, the man named for a water fowl invites her to his hotel room to return it in person. It sounds like a terrible idea until Don rebuffs Peggy's attempts to get on the Hilton account (more on that later). Feeling that much more vulnerable after such a blow to her self esteem, Peggy opts to accept Duck's invitation. After all, what's the worst that could happen? Well, sex, and it happens. Duck is able to seduce Peggy into bed with the kind if talk we didn't think he was capable of, promising to undress her with his teeth(!) and give her "a go-around like [she's] never had". While it may be a one-time thing (maybe) the affair represents a big move toward Grey, Duck's new firm. Will Peggy stay with S-C or will she turn traitor? Maybe Pete can pull her back from the edge, hmm?

Betty's couch story also leaves possible plot threads open for the future. The Ossining chapter of the Junior League is upset at a big water tank being put in on the Hudson, obscuring some scenic hiking country. It turns out that the new chapter secretary, one Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, might know someone at the governor's office. Remember the Touch-of-Grey belly-toucher from the country club a few weeks back? Well his name is Henry Francis and of course it turned out he's an advisor to Governor Rockefeller and he might just have the political clout to keep the tank from being built. He and Betty agree to meet at his favorite local bakery (he's an Ossining native, you see) for a chat. Turns out, the tank's already under construction, he just wanted to meet again. He has to be in Albany by the afternoon, but they agree to take a hike together sometime in the future. Before they part ways, Henry introduces Betty to the concept of a fainting couch, a piece of furniture that dainty Victorian housewives would lay down on when the pressure of wearing a corset took its toll. Sounds right up Betty's alley, no? She eventually buys the couch featured in the antique store window which they spied on the way out of the bakery and places in front of the fireplace in the newly-redecorated living room. Great, just great. What's going to happen on that couch in the future, I wonder?

Don comes off as especially powerless this week, which is of course unusual for the all-American pater familias we know him as. Conrad "Connie" Hilton comes calling and asks Don to handle the advertising for his New York hotels, which is what Don has been gunning for since he figured out who he was last week. Everything looks great for Don until it turns out that Connie's lawyers want a contract, which is something Don doesn't like signing .You see, Don doesn't like being tied down, and what with his propensity to cheat on his beautiful wife, I'd say that's pretty obvious. With his cheating he's able to escape his home life and without a contract he isn't tied down at work either. Don has absolute freedom. Though he fights it for a while, things keep going downhill for the ad man formerly known as Dick Whitman. At a father-daughter eclipse-viewing event, Don again encounters Ms. Farrell, Sally's teacher who definitely has the hots for him. When he tries to strike up some innocent conversation about summer vacation plans, Ms. Farrell accuses him of hitting on her just like all the other dads. Don is somewhat taken aback by this because while yes, he certainly would like to play teacher's pet, he certainly wasn't trying to. After all, she's the one who drunk dialed him. But as she points out, he's wearing the same shirt as all the other dads (but the other dads don't have his sweet Draper Shades!). If you ask me, she's just playing hard to get.

Don's professional woes mount when Roger calls Betty and not-so-subtly asks her to try and get Don to sign. This pisses Don off to end and strains his relationships with both Roger and Betty. When she gets angry with him about not sharing his work with her, he storms out in a huff and engages in one of his favorite activities: drunk driving. On the road he encounters a guy-girl hitchhiking pair who claim to be off to Niagara Falls to get married so the young man doesn't get drafted and go to Vietnam (hey, remember that place?). Of course, they subscribe to the "ass, gas, or grass" rule of the road and offer Don some pills in exchange for a lift which he takes two of, which I assume is double the Dr. Nick Riviera recommended dose. At a roadside motel the three party it up where Don has a reds-and-alcohol-fueled vision of his father, Archie Whitman. Archie shares some hillbilly jokes (I thought it was funny) and chides his sun for being a no account bullshit farmer. Don's new friends decide he's being a detriment to their lovemaking and punch him in the back of the head, causing him to fall down and break his nose, knocking him out cold. I think this is where we came in. The next day the two have fled with most of the contents of Don's wallet, though they left him his car, how thoughtful! At work, Don explains his injury as a fender-bender (I always preferred "old football injury") and comes to find the not-at-all eccentric Bert Cooper waiting for him in his office. Coop offers him a nice juicy three year contract with a $5,000.00 signing bonus. Nice, right? Don still won't sign, until Coop asks him "would you say I know something about you, Don?", which of course he does, having learned about Don's secret identity from Pete at the end of Season One, though he didn't care then. Don finally caves and signs, though he adds that an unwritten clause of his contract must stipulate that he have no further involvement with Roger. What's cooler than being cool, Don? Ice cold. Continue...

Marginalia 9.28.09

Joystiq: Capcom’s Keiji Inafune declares the Japanese game industry dead. Someone better tell this guy.

Destructoid: PR for Dante's Inferno is getting creepy.

Destructoid: No pre-release demo for Modern Warfare 2. None necessary.

Gamasutra: A piece on Batman: Arkham Asylum’s use of surprise.

Gamasutra: Bioware sez that Mass Effect 2 is a better game than the original thanks to fan feedback. (Something snarky about texture pop-in goes here, lol.)

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Demo Monday: Darkest of Days

Before now, if you came up to me and asked me “is there a game where I could play in the Civil War, but instead of having a bayonet I could use an assault rifle” I would tell you “um I don’t know.”

But I wouldn’t say that now.

Now I would say, “it doesn’t have to be any good, does it?”

Because I have found the game that lets you do just that – anyone looking to mow down Roman legionaries with a high-powered shotgun need look no further than 8monkey Labs’ and Phantom EFX’s Darkest of Days. While the premise is awesome in a “wow a thirteen-year-old would think this premise is really awesome” kind of way, the execution is deeply, bitterly flawed, flawed in a way that makes you wish you could go back in time and mow yourself down with futuristic weaponry so you could prevent you from ever playing the game in the first place.

You play as Alexander Morris, a soldier rescued by time travelling guys from Custer’s Last Stand. Morris is unique in many different ways – for one, he takes the whole time jumping thing pretty well in stride. He doesn’t ask any questions or get developed in any meaningful way at all. He’s just another stiff doing what His Benefactors tell him to do – no difference between him and a handful of space marines, to be sure.

Also, he jumps as though his legs are filled with helium.

From here, you and your foul-mouthed guide Dexter are dumped into historical scenarios and forced to save People of Interest from some other time travelling dudes who are fucking with the time continuum. Like most time travelling stories it is innately implausible, ridiculous and paradoxical all at once, but unlike some it doesn’t entertain you enough to ignore or forgive these things of it.

This demo in particular dumps you down into the Battle of Antietam, which is described as “messier than an orangutan’s afterbirth.” Before we proceed, read that sentence again – a paid writer came up with that line, and then a similarly compensated voice actor uttered it, and then it was put into a game on which you and I are expected to spend additional money. No wonder our economy’s such a fucking mess.

My first impressions – the game looks like shit, runs like shit. Graphics are somewhere between the first Half Life game (1998) and the first Call of Duty game (2003), which should tell you something about how crude it looks in 2009. Though there is an impressive number of enemies on the screen at once, they frequently run right by you without shooting, or ignore you as you flank them. If my period weapon fired at a rate of more than once per minute, there’d be no challenge to the thing at all.

And that’s the game’s other problem. Well, I mean, one of its other problems. Its “modern weapons in Olden Times” premise is hampered by the fact that you’re playing with boring, slow, stupid period weapons 80% of the time. I was given one assault rifle during the entire Battle of Antietam, and five minutes later when it was out of ammo I was back to clumsily poking guys in the face with my bayonet. Lame.

And its other problem was that, at least in the demo, I was pitted against some foes who I felt decidedly bad about killing, whether it be in the Civil War when brother was pitted against brother, or at Custer’s Last Stand where I was mowing down ululating Injuns to whom my ancestors gave smallpox in exchange for land and possessions. Say what you will about Nazis in videogames, but at least eighty years of propaganda and popular culture have taught me that they are Remorselessly Evil People who I can kill without feeling bad.

Games like Darkest of Days are both good and bad from my perspective. The good thing is that I get a quick, easy, entertaining post that I don’t have to feel bad about writing. This game sucks, unequivocally. The bad thing is that shit like this seriously undermines the medium in the eyes of anyone who might try to take it seriously – I can sell to my girlfriend the theory that Scribblenauts is forwarding video games creatively and artistically, but playing a game like Darkest of Days in front of her made her react alternatively with laughter and horror.

I dunno, guys, you made a game, but it doesn’t sound to me like it’s going to appeal to anyone, not with its ass-ugly graphics, boring gameplay and laughable script. If you want to drop a first-person shooter into the middle of September, you’d damn sure better make something that anyone anywhere will want to buy.

8monkey Labs’ and Phantom EFX’s Darkest of Days is currently available for $49.99 for the Xbox 360 and $39.99 for the PC. Played single-player Xbox demo to completion.

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Charge Shot!!! Cranston In: The Right to Bear Arms

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"Don Draper, you are a heel and I salute you for it." Part One

Last week, while writing the most recent Mountains of Madness entry, I came across the type of revelation that the Church Fathers would have had to go into the Egyptian desert and starve themselves to obtain. In briefly analyzing the story arc of Sterling Cooper's head money man, the very British chivalry enthusiast Lane Pryce, I noticed that his character, who had been set up as the closest thing Mad Men has to a "bad guy" this season, was suddenly being shown in a sympathetic light. Lane had shown up in episode one of the season as everything that was going wrong around the office, firing Accounts head Burt Peterson in his introduction to the audience and acting as a constant source of belt-tightening and receipt-demanding. When the Putnam, Powell, and Lowe head honchoes opted to transfer him to act as "snake charmer" in their Bombay office, Lane seemed of all things sad that he would have to be leaving his new home in New York. That scene, where Lane was presented with a stuffed cobra which he glumly tried to place somewhere in what would soon no longer be his office was the first time that we the audience had been asked to feel bad for or sympathize with Lane. It would seem (of course, there's still a lot of season left so we'll see) that Lane has gone from heel to face.

The terms "heel" and "face" originate in that strange world of professional wrestling, a world that some people fear to enter. I've been a casual follower of the WWE for the past five or six years and find it something of a guilty pleasure. The common refrain against pro wrestling is "it's fake!". But instead of its own fakeness being a detriment to enjoyment of "sports entertainment", I and millions of fans around the world find it to be the aspect that makes it so darn fun. One doesn't watch wrestling to see a fair fight, it doesn't matter who wins but rather how. Besides the remarkable athleticism and gluttony for punishment exhibited by wrestlers, the larger-than-life personalities and storylines keep fans coming back. Everyone has their favorite whom they root for even though they know that the results of matches are decided in a writers room (just like a TV drama!).

A "heel" is a villain, a character who cheats to win and generally displays dispicable behavior, oftentimes manifest itself in contempt for fans or competitors. Conversely the "face" is the hero who plays by the rules and practices good sportsmanship. Sometimes, a character can switch allegiances, often depending on fan reaction, and transform from one archetype to the other. A good example of this would be the Scorpion King himself, Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. When the Rock first started, he was a face, playing by the rules and treating his enemies and the fans with respect. However, when this character failed to catch on, the Rock became a megalomaniacal villain, and viewers loved him for it. I realized through watching Lane's plight that the same sort of transformation is capable for entirely fictional dramatic characters on show like Mad Men. Like the WWE, Mad Men is a battle of gigantic egos constantly squabbling and backstabbing each other in order to win fabulous prizes. However, whereas wrestlers battle for belts and titles, mad men battle for accounts. Here's a handy guide to the men and women of Sterling Cooper and what sort of role they take on in wrestling terms.

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Don Draper: ???
Don might be the one character who truly transcends classification in the face/heel category. He is a man of honor, prone more to direct confrontation and teamwork than intrigue or sabotage like some of his co-workers. However, his infidelity and secret life make him something of a dishonest scoundrel, in fact Don has actually been called a "heel" (old-timey speak for a jerk) when he missed Sally's birthday in Season One. But can we the viewer really fault him for any of it? The more Don mucks up his home life, the more we love him. His philandering ways are something of the ultimate male fantasy, a beautiful wife and perfect family at home and stable of really hot mistresses. He has his cake and eats it too, who could ask for more? Also, could you really hate a man this handsome? I've been told that there's something of a gender divide between the men who like Don and the women who loathe him, which would make sense I guess. He's an asshole, but he looks great doing it. In this way, Don is sort of like Triple H or the Undertaker. He isn't a heel or a face, though he exhibits qualities of both. What he really is is a badass.

Betty Draper: Heel
Betty, Don's better half, could best be described as a heel. While of course she is wronged again and again by her breadwinner, she oftentimes takes on the role of the childish spoiled foil for Don. If she merely endlessly suffered at the hands of Don's infidelity and secrecy, she would be a face, but her behavior in regards to Don and their family often comes across as malicious. For example, she's the taskmaster while Don is often the "cool dad": she's the one won't let Sally play in a plastic bag while he buys her a puppy and let's her drink at his office. Her subplots involving her family and Glen Bishop have made her go through some faceish transformations, but the fight over baby Gene's name pushes her back into heel territory. In the end, Betty might be more pathetic than downright villainous, but she's still in heel territory, for now...

Peggy Olson: Face
Is there a better face around the office than Peggy? At the series' inception, she's the viewer surrogate, being new to the fast-paced world of advertising. She's the wide-eyed innocent, yearning to find her place in the world. We can only cheer when her careers advances, especially when she made the jump from secretary to copywriter and when she got her own office. Peggy is something above the fray of office politics, often to her detriment, but when she wins she wins big and when her good ideas are ignored we jeer her superiors for their stupidity. So far Peggy can do no wrong in the eyes of the Mad Men fan, and we can't help but cheer her on as she slowly conquers Madison Avenue.

Pete Campbell: Heel --> face
Pete started off the series as the prototypical heel, he was the young gun who would resorts to any means to bring down Don and anyone else who got in his way. He was also apparently a spoiled brat born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was also mean to his wife Trudy, who couldn't conceive a child, and nothing can do more to make you look like a jerk than to disrespect a woman as over-the-top adorable as Trudy Campbell. At the end of Season One when he tried to take down Don with the knowledge of his secret past and identity, his heel status reached an apotheosis; he was the heel made manifest. However, Pete has transformed almost completely over the course of the series. We found out how much mutual hate he has for his upper-class family, Peggy (initially) seemed to bring out some good in him, he eventually shaped up in terms of Trudy, and he even came to Don's aid in the face of the Duck-orchestrated merger. As Cooper said, quoting the Japanese, "one never knows how loyalty is born." His passive-agressive battle with Ken Cosgrove over the position of Head of Accounts has firmly cemented his face status, we're rooting for you, Pete.

Roger Sterling: Heel
If there's a character on Mad Men who gets away more with behaving badly than anyone else, it's Roger. The silver fox is a vain, self-centered cad whose mess of a personal life is directly responsible for the sad state of affairs at Sterling Cooper (the merger was necessary to pay for his divorce). Roger is a jerk to everyone and lives life like he's "on shore leave", but he's always ready with a one-liner to get back on our good sides. Don's analysis of Roger, that everyone thinks he "looks foolish" was right on the money, he's become more of a hinderance to the business than a benefit. The fact that he was forgotten on the big chart that the Brits prepare is coincidence in my view, he's becoming more and more irrelevant. However, in spite of all his boorishness, he might rank highest among fans' favorite characters: he's just awesome. No matter what sticky situation he gets everyone into, you can't wait to watch him do it. In my mind, he's the most like the WWE chairman Vince McMahon- both are high powered businessmen who we love to hate but don't hate to love. I want to see Roger powerwalk across the office before the season's over.

Joan Harris (née Holloway)- Heel --> face
Joan started off as something of a personal antagonist to our girl Peggy, always jealous of her advancement beyond the secretarial pool. She was representative of the old ways of the advertising world: as a woman her power is directly connected to her sexuality and mousey Peggy's promotion was a direct threat to that. Her affair with Roger allied her to his heelish ways and her whole character seemed something of an impediment to the hopes and dreams of young miss Margaret Olson. However, like her lover Roger, she made being a heel look good. Thing have changed for Joan though: her marriage to rapist Dr. Greg has swung her decidedly into the realm of the face. As she struggle to overcome her horrible, horrible husband, she has our eternal support, and now Joan is the one we're all rooting for. Though she's left the office, we can only hope she'll be back sooner rather than later.

Next week, the supporting cast! Drapermania is running wild! Continue...

An Explanation of Wireless Communication Technology Part 1: The History of G

Verizon calls its wireless network, “The largest and most reliable 3G network in America.” Sprint insists that its 3G network is the most “dependable.” Now Sprint is telling us that the new 4G network is coming to select major cities by declaring, “This what’s happening now.” 

There are many companies out there that tout the number of Gs that they offer, but to the layperson (like me), this quantity is poorly understood at best. In a quick and highly informal facebook poll, I asked 100 well-educated people two questions: 1. Do you know what the G actually stands for? and 2. Do you understand the differences between numbered G networks?

Out of 57 responders, only fifteen people answered yes to the first question (26%) and only ten confidently answered yes to the second (17.5%). Sixteen people guessed; half of them came close.

Because of these results, I decided to embark on a research project through the recesses of  the internet in the attempt to decode the terminology, the theory, and the massive sea of acronyms that make up modern wireless communication technology. In two relatively short segments, I will attempt to explain what I’ve learned.

The G stands, quite simply, for generation. A 3G network means that we are currently operating our cell phones in the third generation of wireless systems. An organization called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) sets all international telephone standards, and it determines what interface falls into what G -category.

The designation was adopted just after the introduction of what is now referred to as second generation wireless technology, and the previous systems were named posthumously by the ITU. To remain accurate, 0G was the name given to pre-cellular mobile communication that emerged in the 1960s. This innovation was very much like a two-way radio system in that instead of operating multiple receivers tuned to one frequency, allowing one person at a time to Push-To-Talk (PTT), it connected a wireless radio device to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PTSN) and assigned each receiving unit its own telephone number.

The 0G technology was built off of the same analog radio system many people are familiar with. Sound comes in the form of a continuous, time-varying signal (a wave) with a certain frequency of oscillation. Just as an antenna helps to pick up a radio station, these 0G phones had transceivers (hybrid transmitter and receiver) mounted in the back of a car or truck that sent and received voice data. This behemoth would then send the signal to a five pound brick near the drivers seat through a hard-line. This standard included the Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS) released in the US in 1969 by Bell, Autoradiopuhelin (ARP) in Finland that launched in 1971, and B-Netz launched in west Germany in 1972.

First generation wireless technology was introduced in the 1980s, and this is when the term cell began replacing the word mobile. A “cell system” is series of well-placed radio towers that divide up a coverage area into sites. These unit sites are arranged in an array, just like biological cells. Since any electrical signal decays over distance, this cell grid optimizes coverage over a given space.

The FCC (the body that governs the airwaves) granted cell phone technology a bandwidth (a range of frequencies) to operate calls on. In 1G standards, all signal was analog (except the connection between radio towers, which was digital). The voice signal was modulated to a higher “carrier frequency” for transmission over long distances (higher frequencies decay more slowly), and each conversation took place on a different channel (another word for frequency).

Cell grids operate on two important ideas. One is “frequency reuse,” which is the repeated use of radio channels with the same frequency to cover different areas that are separated by a significant distance. The second idea is “cell splitting,” which is as simple as it sounds – a large cell is split into an array of smaller cells when the phone-traffic is high. This helped the direction of phone traffic, which was handled with two different schemes under the 1G standard: Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA).

In FDMA one channel is needed for each call, so cell sites are constantly searching out and storing free channels, waiting to distribute them. When one call is finished, its channel is freed up an put on the list. If a person is talking while moving between cells, the call is “handed off” to a free channel in the new site. If there are no free channels, the call is lost. In TDMA, all calls are simultaneously held on the same channel and are multiplexed between pauses in conversation, both natural and injected. This results increased delay between sides of the conversation, but the ability to make a call at any time (and the ability to keep it while moving) is guaranteed.

The 1G Wireless Common Carriers (WCCs, otherwise known as cell phone companies) of note were Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) in Europe and Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), operated in the US by none other than Bell.

The move to 2G was launched in Finland in 1991, bringing with it the transformation to an all-digital signal. Multiplexing became more efficient through the use of compression and codecs. This generation of wireless networks introduced the scheme called Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). CDMA was initially used in mobile military communication, and it works by breaking up digitized data into bundles, compressing, sending/receiving, decompressing, and then converting these bundles back into analog. 

The benefits to this new digital encryption included higher efficiency (more compressed calls can be packed into a bandwidth) and a wider range of coverage (less decay over distance). Additionally, 2G saw the introduction of slow data-transmission services such as SMS (Short/Silent Message Service) text messaging. Even more compelling for the second generation, digital handsets emitted less power than their analog ancestors. This meant that cell phones could be smaller, and could operate on relatively little battery power, which made them more affordable and  allayed some of the public’s health-related fears. Cell towers and radio equipment also became less expensive, accelerating industry growth and broadening the range of coverage not just across the country, but across the world. Fraud, eavesdropping, and phone number duplication became much less likely, improving personal security and privacy. 

There were some disadvantages to the switch. Digital signal is weaker, and in less populated areas it was not sufficient to reach a cell tower. Additionally, while digital signal doesn’t suffer as much decay as its predecessor, it has a jagged, stepped decay curve while an analog signal decays smoothly. What this translates to is that as you move out of range with an analog device, the signal gets noisy and jumbled,  but it doesn’t just suddenly drop off altogether, which is the case with digital devices (this is where the “dropped call” became a culturally understood event). Lastly, compressing sound data can take away some of the tonality and detail, so while the signal is louder, it is has lost some of the complexity of the original human voice that produced it.

Please come back next Saturday for the thrilling part 2: The Modern G.

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Film Review: The Informant! (!)

You probably know a character like Mark Whitacre. This is the sort of person who is not dumb, exactly, but they never really got the hang of how life works. Conversations with them frequently degenerate into absurd exchanges of non-sequiters, punctuated with pompous but naïve assertions of their own self-worth. These people don't understand the world they live in at all, but they are convinced that they know everything. Depending on your sense of humor and your tolerance for this sort of thing, you might them amusing. More often then not, these types of people are funnier on the big screen then they are in real life.

Mark Whitacre is the corporate whistle-blower in Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, a man who risks his career in order to expose a price-fixing scheme within the chemical food industry. Mark Whitacre is also a compulsive liar, an embezzler, and carries delusions that the very company he's helping to bring down will make him the next CEO. Throughout the movie, the audience is subject to a voiceover of Whitacre's thoughts. Rather than anything revealing, or even interesting, these thoughts usually turn into meandering ruminations on polar bears, German etymology, and other such unrelated subjects. These voice-overs have nothing to do with the plot of the film, but they might be its funniest aspect, and remind the audience how batshit crazy its protagonist really is.

The Informant! is a comedy, which is a good decision. As a legal thriller, this subject matter is stale and overdone. Thankfully, Soderbergh is smart enough to know that. Instead of trying to craft a dramatic narrative out of what amounts to a bunch of old guys in suits talking about corn, he's created a comedy in the most unlikely of places. The film even begins with Whitacre trying to explain the importance of lysine to his very bored son, poking fun at its own premise.

Lucky for Soderbergh, the Mark Whitacre story is so absurd that one has to laugh at it in order not to cry. Here is a man who was assisting the FBI to expose price-fixing, while at the same time setting up phony off-shore accounts to embezzle millions of corporate funds. Whitacre is simultaneously convinced that everyone loves him, and that everyone is out to get him. He fancies himself a character in a John Grisham or a Michael Crichton novel, but then crafts elaborate lies in order to...well...his motives aren't exactly clear, probably even to himself. Matt Damon (or perhaps Fatt Damon, seeing as he gained thirty pounds for this role) deftly portrays Whitacre is a hyperactive, mildly bipolar man who weaves complex schemes for no real reason other than he feels that he deserves some sort of attention.

Damon's portrayal of Whitacre - smart, shrewd, scatter-brained, hypocritical, and strangely innocent - is one of the best comic performances I've seen in years. The humor rings true because I do know people like this in real life. It's funny not because it's so far-out, but because it's so close to home. As I've mentioned, the voice-over of Whitacre's inner monologues are the laughably bizarre musings of a smart and slightly unhinged man. Aside from being hilarious, they also serve to drown out the dialogue in some of the film's crucial scenes, which only highlights how out-of-touch with reality Whitacre is. Indeed, there are a few scenes in which the audience is initially unaware of how important certain events are, because they've been distracted by these voice-overs. This is not a fault - rather, this sort of distraction creates a mood of confusion and laughable uneasiness as the audience struggles with the FBI to untangle Whitacre's schemes.

The two supporting characters are FBI agents played by Scott Bakkula and Joel McHale. Completely straight-faced and always looking slightly taken aback, they might be the second-funniest part of the film. These characters would not be out of place in a traditional legal thriller, but they are most assuredly out of place next to Whitacre's antics. Their reactions to some of his lies are just subtle enough to be believable, which makes it all the more entertaining to watch.

I've read a number of other reviews on the film, and some seem confused about its genre. Though based on a very unfunny true story, The Informant! is certainly a comedy, just not the kind we've come to expect from Hollywood in recent years. The humor of the film comes not from laugh-out-loud gags, or one-joke quips, but the absurdity of the characters themselves. Much like Andrew's point in his pair of posts on the modern sitcom, The Informant! counts on the audience to be smart enough to know a funny situation when they see one. The movie amounts to a comedic character study - not quite a fish-out-of-water scenario, but just a world in which the protagonist is slightly out of sync with everybody else.

At some points, the movie treads dangerously close to parody, and this is probably where it is weakest. The exclamation point after the title, a movie score that lovingly mocks the music of 70s spy films, even a snarky disclaimer at the beginning - these elements juxtapose Whitacre's fascination with spy novels with his mundane corporate life, but they also confuse the purpose of the film. At times, The Informant! drifts close to an Austin Powers type of self-referentiality, especially when peppered with a number of comedic actors in cameo roles.

Luckily, the plot remains grounded enough in reality that it ends up accentuating the hilarious illogic of Whitacre's schemes and motivations. I can't say I laughed a lot during the film, but I had a big goofy grin on my face the whole time. In the end, I'll take what amounts to a unique but slightly flawed comedy over a run-of-the-mill agricultural legal thriller anyday. The Informant! proves that it's not the source material that counts, but what you do with it.

Final Verdict: 79 Congos.

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Marginalia: 9.25.09

Gamasutra:  If you own a Wii and have been hemming-and-hawing about the cost of the Wii Motion Plus peripheral, check this out.  Nintendo’s bundling Wii Sports Resort and TWO of the upgrade dongles for just $59.99.  Looks like Nintendo has a heart, after all.

Giantbomb:  The only way I could be more excited about The Last Guardian is if I actually owned a PS3.  Ah well.  I’ll have to settle for adorable new trailers and interviews with Ueda.

GamesIndustry.biz:  Epic says they’ve made significant progress on Unreal Engine 4 but will keep it under wraps until the next console generation.

Kotaku:  Sony’s pulled the plug on a program to give UMD owners PSPgo-friendly digital copies of their worthless cartridges.  Something like it may show up in the future.  But for now, Sony’s content to piss people off.

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Take a Break, Space Marine

Ever since man first gazed up at the stars, he’s been fascinated with space.  It is, as you may have heard, the Final Frontier.  Books, movies, and music have been dealing with the world beyond our planet for quite some time now.  Games are no different (see Spacewar!).  But there’s something unique to gaming that isn’t quite so pronounced in other media: the Space Marine.

According to Wikipedia, the Space Marine first cropped up in E.E. Smith’s Lensman series and received the moniker proper in Robert A. Heinlein’s 1939 story “Misfit.”  Some fifty years later, gaming would see one of its first in id’s Doom.  Of course, Doom’s protagonist wouldn’t be the last.

Have we reached a Space Marine Saturation Point in games?  Did said S.M.S.P. already arrive eight years ago? 

The nature of single-protagonist videogames dictates a certain type of superman.  A man (or woman, but probably a man) capable of bearing the weight of the universe – and the narrative – on his too-broad shoulders.  Hence the current Space Marine cliché: a brawny, monosyllabic skull-thumper defending Earth/Mankind/a proxy for Earth/truth, justice, and the American way from an invading evil.  He is revered, feared, and idolized.  He’s also getting stale.

Halo’s Master Chief is a prime example of the good and the bad for which the Marine has potential.  He’s the perfect empty vessel for the faux-interactivity of the big-budget videogame narrative.  The player has no control over the plot, only the blow-by-blow stories created each time M.C. headshots a Brute.  And the Chief doesn’t mind.  He’s silent, stoic.  His prestige and ability empowers the player, emboldens him against insurmountable odds.  A perfect science-fiction fantasy.

But the one-dimensionality of M.C. is also his greatest drawback.  The story of the franchise’s main trilogy wears its influences shamelessly: Heinlein, Card, Cameron.  This would be fine were there a character driving the action.  But the Chief’s personality makes no effort to be seen.  We him by his actions only: how many weapons he can carry, how well he can pilot a hoverbike, how high he can jump.  In fact, the height of the jump has become a hot topic in previews for Halo 3: ODST.  Can your ODST, supposedly less-powerful than the genetic masterpiece that is the M.C., jump as high?  Apparently not.  Is this not alarming?  (Not the jumping thing.)  Unable to distinguish them by their swear word of choice or signature swollen veins (a la Gears of War and the More is More school of game design), we’ve been reduced to telling Space Marines apart by their vertical leap. 

Can they not possess more engaging characteristics?  Not if you’re going by the Doom, Quake, Killzone, Timesplitters, etc. model.  These examples are notable mostly for the legs of their franchise.  But their Marines are separated only by palette swaps or the guns they carry.  It’s led us down a derivative rabbit hole (see Andrew and Rob’s recent discussion re: Section 8).  If we’re going to get some mileage out of this gaming trope, we’ll need to view him from another angle, control him a different way.

Allow me to work Mass Effect into the conversation.  The player-created protagonist, Commander Shepard, manages to be a Space Marine while remaining highly malleable.  His ability is never in doubt.  In fact, it’s his exceptional leadership and combat prowess that’s warranted him special attention.  But the character doesn’t stop there.  The player actually exercises control over how Shepard interacts with other characters, and plot points hinge on the relationships formed by these conversations.  A character – his views, actions, and history – are built by the player as the narrative unfurls.  One does not simply steer a featureless Übermensch from plot point to plot point.  Furthermore, Shepard’s constant interaction with three-dimensional characters diminishes the stereotypical Space Marine aura.  It’s not one man versus the universe; he’s got a trusty crew.

There can only be so much water in this well.  With multiple sequels on the way for Mass Effect, the inevitable Dead Space sequel, Section 8, the recent drop of ODST and the forthcoming Halo: Reach (and I’m sure I’m missing others), we’re in for a Space Marine deluge.  And if ODST’s attempt to break free of the Chief is any indication, the traditional, over-powered Marine is wearing out his welcome.  I welcome any designer hell bent on giving me control of a magical wolf, an ambitious little prince, or some other as-of-yet undiscovered delightful protagonist.  Anything to give the Space Marine a break.  He’s tired. 

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LeWitt for jerks

I had the privilege of working on the Sol LeWitt retrospective at MASS MoCA last year. If you're unfamiliar with his work, Sol LeWitt was a conceptual artist who rose to prominence in the late 60s. He is most famous for his short essays, which a lot of people credit with identifying and legitimating the tenets of conceptual art. In this mode, he said, "the idea becomes a machine that makes the art" and that the art object is inconsequential. He demonstrated this by applying his drawings to the walls of the spaces he exhibited in and often had his plans carried out by draftsmen other than himself. All aspects of his ideas were made transparent to the audience and ideally, the finished works couldn't be owned because they were adhered to the wall and would ultimately be painted over. Eventually, the plans for LeWitt's drawings became the objects of value instead, functioning as certificates for his work's execution. However, he had no objections to people recreating his works on their own so long as they kept his ideas intact. So I started making them in MS Paint.

LeWitt initially worked with simple systems and a very limited visual vocabulary. He used lines, regular shapes and only primary colors in his early and mid-career drawings. These make for easy Paint translations and I tried to use only the colors and shapes standard in the Paint toolbars.

Wall Drawing365: A square divided horizontally and vertically into four equal parts, each with a progressively darker gradation of gray.

Wall Drawing 381: A square divided horizontally and vertically into four equal parts, one gray, one yellow, one red and one blue, drawn with color and India ink washes.

He began to inflect the grid format he had imposed on his systems and produced new relationships with the wall itself. Still pretty easy to remake. I did try to account for changes in medium, be it ink wash or crayon.

Wall Drawing295: Six white geometric figures (outlines) superimposed on a black wall.

Wall Drawing 343B: On a black wall, nine geometric figures (including right triangle, cross, X) in squares. The backgrounds are filled in solid white.

Later, LeWitt began to combine pigments on the wall to make new secondary colors from them. And as he developed into his “baroque” period, he did away with the instructions and systems entirely, requiring many of his works to be reproduced from transparencies of his plans. I tried to account for LeWitt’s method of configuring his works to fit any wall dimensions by eyeballing the important loci of the MS Paint canvas. These are probably a little bit off here and there.

Wall Drawing 725: On a blue wall, a black square within a white border.

Wall Drawing 853: A wall bordered and divided vertically into two parts by a flat black band. Left part: a square is divided vertically by a curvy line. Left: glossy red; right: glossy green; Right part: a square is divided horizontally by a curvy line. Top: glossy blue; bottom: glossy orange.

Wall Drawing 1005: Isometric form.

Wall Drawing 880: Loopy Doopy (orange and green)

I did begin to tackle one of drawings that’s simple in idea and painfully complicated in execution. Wall Drawing 51 was one of LeWitt’s breakthrough pieces, and it involved connecting all relevant architectural points on a wall to each other with a snap line. Using my entire screen as the wall, I began to connect one point to every other and realized how difficult this would be. I might continue it one day, but I think I’d end up with a mostly black screen.

Wall Drawing 51: All architectural points connected by straight lines.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that the authentic drawings overwhelm the ones I made when you see them in person. And I couldn’t possibly reproduce the amount of time and skill the draftsmen need to materialize the works IRL. But Paint is oddly appropriate for producing his instructions in a new medium.

Please check out the MASS MoCA Retrospective website to see some better examples as well as some time lapses of the works being made, they’re amazing.

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