Saturday Night TV: Usher & the Rock-A-Fire Explosion

This is an oldie but a goodie.  My favorite part is the rapping hand puppet.

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Album Review: The Suburbs

Funeral, Arcade Fire's 2004 debut album, is a beautiful record that slowly builds up to the emotional catharsis of the sweeping "Rebellion (Lies)." The group's follow-up, 2007's Neon Bible, attempts that sort of catharsis every ten seconds or so, giving the listener a solid album that's a touch too melodramatic. I re-listened to both last week - Funeral was better than I remembered, Neon Bible was worse.

The Suburbs, due out next week, avoids the anthemic emotional affirmations of Funeral while also side-stepping the overwrought political sentimentalities of Neon Bible. It's a mess of contradictions - uplifting and despairing, a cry for present action and a nostalgic look at bygone times, a touch of childlike wonder mixed with mature cynicism.

It's also the most heavily conceptual of the band's three records. "I’ve been moved by albums a lot more than I’ve been moved by singles, and we’re an album band," frontman and songwriter Win Butler was quoted as saying in a recent New York Times interview, and this sort of aesthetic shows on The Suburbs. The peaks are perhaps not as high as Funeral or even Neon Bible - there are very few individual tracks that stand out to me - but the record as a totality is certainly an experience, and the sum of its parts adds up to be a far more satisfying whole.

The Suburbs certainly has something to say about just about everything. The album takes on the dull, alienating sprawl of modern America (one songs describes how "dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains"). Butler tears into what he considers the drones of the corporate world, the 9-to-5 grind and the general lack of creativity or emotion in the bubble of parking lots and office buildings. But, at the same time, he also winkingly critiques his own fanbase, criticizing a youth culture that prizes apathy and enervation over any sort of sincere feelings or causes.

All this could be a drag, but The Suburbs is saved by two things. For one, the music is uniformly great. The pristine polish of Funeral has been replaced by an earthier, less refined kind of music, but with all the dense sonic layers we've come to expect from the band. The instrumentation is subtler, the hooks don't grab you immediately like their first two albums. But the songs stand on their own even without these hummable melodies; each track shifts and builds into something different, so that the album feels like an ebb and flow of hope and despair. If the melodies are slightly less catchy, I'll forgive the band for crafting a record whose tracks are meatier and more well-structured. The typical sweeping Arcade Fire anthem is still there (listen to "We Used to Wait") but we also have forays into a looser punk-type song ("The Month of May") and a foray into electronic music ("Sprawl II"). The music is less urgent, less likely to crash over your head and sweep you away. But I consider this the Arcade Fire growing up; the songs work even as they are more subdued.

Secondly, the preachiness of Neon Bible only rarely comes out on The Suburbs. A few tracks have some groaners ("This businessman, they drink my blood / Like the kids in art school said they would" and "They heard me singing and told me to stop / Quit those pretentious things and just punch the clock," just to name two). But, for the most part, The Suburbs is imbued with a delightful ambiguity. Butler criticizes the vapidity of modern life, but he also paints beautiful pictures of children playing through the night - of friendship and love. He finds beauty even in the suburbs, and some of the best tracks come from the voice of Regine Chassagne, who manages to perfectly evoke this childlike sense of awe and wonder.

The best thing about the Arcade Fire for me has always been that one can appreciate the group on several levels. If you want to listen closely to each lyric on The Suburbs and piece together some grand statement on 21st-century life in America, you can do that. If you want to listen carefully to the vast array of instruments and sounds that the group utilizes, you can do that. If you want to lay back, close your eyes, and let the sounds wash over you without listening closely, you can do that too. The group is great at evoking specific moods, at utilizing the perfect touch of a glockenspiel or a string solo to add a bit of emotional complexity in an unexpected place, and The Suburbs is no exception. As I mentioned, the album feels a bit more homegrown, a bit less like it came straight from the studio, but this is not a bad thing.

At 63 minutes, the album might run a little long, and it lags in the second half with a few tracks that are less than memorable. But there's nothing I can pinpoint as definitely excisable, and the album certainly doesn't feel bloated or excessive. Only time will tell if it holds up to repeated listenings or if there's tracks that I'll be yearning to skip. But for now, I'm just enjoying the experience. The group manages to put complexity and even ambiguity into songs that still are simple enough to appreciate as pure music.

The Suburbs ends, to quote that too-often used Eliot line, not with a bang, but a whimper. If Funeral ended in triumphant reconciliation, and Neon Bible ended with a heartwrenching emotional cry, The Suburbs slowly fades away into nothingness. The album is a tragedy, the story of characters constantly searching for beauty in the modern world and only partially finding it. But it's not the adolescent angsty tragedy of Neon Bible. The Arcade Fire has grown up on The Suburbs. This might not please everybody, but I think it's a necessary step.

With so much hype surrounding the world's biggest indie band, there's a chance that The Suburbs might not live up to its premature reputation. It's not a transcendent record, and there are a few spots that connect better than others. But, taken as a whole, it's a magnificent work, and certainly worth the time and money of any fan of Funeral.

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Bringing About Change in the Red Dead West

All stories – all good ones anyway – include some sort of change. A transformation of sorts, brought about by conflict. A world is one way, a character decides it needs to be another way. A girl is betrothed to one man, her admirer decides she’d be better off with him. Even stories in which “nothing happens” must contain some sort of shift, if even just the realization that there’s nothing to be done.

Videogame narratives are no exception, though they generally tread in water no deeper than your ankles. A fantastical land is oppressed/under attack/magically falling apart and a hero/band of heroes/silent protagonist must stop it. The stakes are high, but rarely personal.

Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption – the surprise smash hit of this summer (though perhaps not too surprising considering it’s from those people what made Grand Theft Auto) – approaches the idea of change thematically. It’s set in the used-to-be-Wild West at the start of the 20th century. Change is coming to the province of New Austin in all shapes and sizes. And a cowboy, a scarred leopard eager to change his spots, arrives on a mission he didn’t choose to take.

What’s remarkable about Red Dead Redemption is not how this cowboy changes New Austin, but how New Austin changes him. (I will warn you that spoilers lie ahead, things I wouldn’t have wanted to know before I’d finished the game myself.)

In Red Dead, you play as former outlaw John Marston, coerced by government agents into finding and eliminating men from his past. Trouble is, John’s not that interested in doing dirty work anymore. He hung up those spurs a while back. As Rob wrote a few weeks ago, Marston – as written, not always as played – is prone to restraint and remorse. Should he find himself desperate enough to loot the body of a fallen foe for some crinkled dollars and a few shotgun shells, he at least has the decency to apologize.

The g-men pushing Marston’s buttons use more than the law for incentive. They’ve taken his family and will not return them until Marston’s mission is complete. But John’s mission is about more than saving his wife and child. He’s fighting to prove that a man can change. That a man can learn from his mistakes and transgressions. That he can build a life over top of the tattered remains of a troubled past. His wife, a rough-and-tumble woman, used to be a lady of the night, and the son she and John share represents their shot at reformation – redemption, as it were.

Marston isn’t the only one struggling with change. The entirety of Red Dead’s world is experiencing the growing pains of progress. Of course, progress is rarely objective. The good people of New Austin strive to eke out an honest existence, raising cattle and harvesting crops, while criminals seek refuge around and among them, bent on dominating the region. Nuevo Paraiso’s freedom fighters overthrow an oppressive (but ordered) regime, only to give power to a man more in love with himself than his country. Government officials drive fancy new automobiles through the bona fide city of Blackwater, a civilized oasis in the spacious Great Plains, mere minutes from snowy, forested mountains crawling with untamed cougars and grizzlies.

It’s not an accident the game was set in 1911. When one talks of the Wild West, rarely does the 20th-century factor into the conversation. 1911 was the year of the monograph, of Pierre Prier’s first non-stop flight from London to Paris, of the first Indy 500. Technological advances invade the land and culture of this fictionalized West, rendered on the beautiful plains with telegraph lines hanging limply from their poles.

Unfortunately for the reactionary folks of Red Dead, this change is inevitable. What can be authored, however, is how one reacts to the change. Marston, in between occasional quips about the sluggish speed of an automobile, would rather be inquiring as to the whereabouts of his family than marveling at the latest locomotive innovations. His change is deeply personal, beholden to the whims of no man – well, perhaps Edgar Ross, the official for whom Marston works.

More so than in any other iteration on the GTA model, Red Dead invited me to share the story with its protagonist, rather than construct two disparate narratives: one where I abide and follow the mission objectives and one where I crash cars and annoy the police. This is in itself a change from previous games in the developer’s vast oeuvre. Red Dead doesn't shy away from the tropes of Rockstar storytelling, but it does add a few wrinkles to keep it feeling fresh.

In line with tradition dating back to the GTA III, you will travel to specific quest-givers (to borrow some MMO jargon), a cutscene will roll, and then your mission will begin. Red Dead isn't content to sequester its story to these cutscenes, however. Many missions will begin with a (sometimes) brief sojourn to the pertinent location, allowing time for characters to converse with one another. Characters will question Marston’s motives, declare their own, and flesh out Red Dead’s world by commenting on the way things were or the way things ought to be.

Marston has a particular view of the way things ought to be. He yearns to reclaim his family and settle down on a small ranch in New Austin – a modest living for a former criminal. After three acts, three large environments, and the defeat of his former mentor, Marston spends Red Dead’s revelatory fourth act doing just what he wanted: herding cattle, eating his wife’s terrible cooking, and attempting to forge a relationship with his sixteen-year-old son, Jack. The tone of the available missions change entirely. Instead of shooting bandits, he clears crows away from his corn silo. Instead of chasing down stolen wagons, he teaches his son how to hunt. By rolling these moments into gameplay, instead of providing yet another cutscene, Rockstar crafts an emotionally resonant chapter that warms your heart until it breaks it.

One man may change – or attempt to – but some won’t. Agent Ross remains as conniving, unpredictable, and dangerous as ever. Unable to let hang the loose string that is John Marston, he besieges the ranch with army cavalry. A showdown ensues. Marston doesn’t make it. When the game relinquishes control back to the player, you now control Jack Marston, a former bookworm of a boy now wearing his father’s mantle. The tragic failure, the fall of an angsty yet normal boy into shortsighted emulation of his father’s past, is all too palpable.

The more things change in Red Dead Redemption, the more things unfortunately stay the same.

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Return to the Year 3000: Futurama Posts Are Back!

Those of you expecting weekly write-ups of the new Futurama episodes may have found yourselves disappointed a couple of weeks ago when no recap of the season’s fourth episode was posted. I know I was expecting to do a write-up every week, but I soon found that recapping not-particularly-plot-driven 22-minute cartoons is not as fruitful a pursuit as, say, discussing a one hour serial drama, a one-hour serial drama, or a one-hour serial drama.

I’d still like to cover it, though, and the timing works out so that I can pretend that I was going to do them in three-episode chunks the whole time! I planned it this way the whole time, everyone.

In general, I’d say that this batch of episodes was stronger, or at least more Futurama-like, than the first crop. I still don’t think any of these quite stand with the best episodes from the third and fourth seasons, but they go a long way to justifying the show’s continued existence.

Episode 4 - “Proposition Infinity”

Amy and Kif have an argument and split up, after which Amy begins a robosexual relationship with Bender. Their controversial affair triggers debate over whether robosexual marriage should be legalized, a la the high-profile debate over California’s Proposition 8.

Like the previous week’s “Attack of the Killer App,” “Proposition Infinity” satirizes current events/stuff that happened during Futurama’s extended vacation. However, where the former’s jabs at Apple were a little lazy and uninspired, the latter episode does what the best Futurama satire has done, using the show’s futuristic setting and characters to make a statement about the issues of the day.

This episode hits most other notes right, as well – it’s a nice revisiting of some of the plot elements seen in season three’s “I Dated a Robot,” making another contribution to the show’s sometimes surprising internal mythology. The Bender/Amy pairing does come off as a little contrived, but the characterization is good nonetheless and (surprise!) things are back to normal by the end of the episode anyway.

Futurama-style gags are also present in spades – a ghost boos someone up on a stage, a large digital clock tower loudly announces the current time in a human voice. Add in an excellent guest appearance by George Takei, and you’ve got my favorite episode of the season so far.

Episode 5 – “The Duh-Vinci Code”

The Professor and Fry find a strange blueprint that once belonged to Leonardo Da Vinci, and travel to Italy to get to the bottom of things. Turns out that Da Vinci is not only still alive, but he’s a member of a super-intelligent alien species. The species is so super-intelligent, in fact, that Leo is the dumbest of them all. Chaos, naturally, ensues.

This one’s back to being a little off. It’s a fun episode, and most of the jokes land, but it’s not quite as interesting a conceit as the best Futurama-sci-fi-adventure episodes. The worst that can be said about it is that it’s unremarkable.

Episode 6 - “Lethal Inspection”

Bender discovers that he has a manufacturing defect – he has no backup unit, so if something happens to him, he couldn’t be downloaded to a new body. Angry at being forced to confront his mortality, Bender (with Hermes in tow) vows to find the inspector who approved his manufacture and kick his ass.

I enjoyed this episode for many of the same reasons that I enjoyed “Proposition Infinity” – there’s a strong tie to a previous memorable episode (season two’s “How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back”) and some great character moments, paired with some great gags. It’s always nice to see the series do something with Hermes other than letting him serve as a seldom-seen punchline machine.

This episode also brought back a hallmark of Futurama’s best episodes, the ending-that-tugs-on-your-heartstrings. While not as affecting as “Jurassic Bark” or “Luck of the Fryrish,” it shows that the producers and writers haven’t forgotten this vital ingredient of the Futurama blend – losing touch with its emotions is what reduced The Simpsons from what it used to be to what it is now.

Tune in three weeks from now for more recaps! It’s very important that you know how I feel about cartoons.

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A-Kin to a Piece of Junk

Reports surfaced a few weeks ago that Microsoft is discontinuing the KIN, it's line of underwhelming smart phones. This is not surprising news, as the Kin is a piece of junk (more on that later….although to be fair, as an Apple early adopter, I pretty much think that every Microsoft product is basically a really expensive paperweight with fancy circuitry).

The KIN was marketed, in its short tenure--something like 50 days, maybe even less--as a media machine. The intended audience, the cool media-obsessed twenty-somethings, who would clearly much rather have an iPhone, Blackberry, or Android device.

A bit of background information to put this mobile blunder into context: The pre-curser to the KIN was the much joked about (but actually incredibly forward thinking) Danger Hiptop, also known as the Sidekick. If nobody remembers that particular paperweight, it was a mobile device with an actual keyboard--much bigger, but similar in design to the KIN--that was an early smartphone (originally marketed in 2002).

At the time of its release, a smartphone targeted to younger generations that had so many possibilities to harness the power of the rushing river of social-media that would begin flow just a few short years later (I hear that social media thing is a big deal), was indeed ahead of its time. Owing to terrible marketing, T-Mobile being a second rate cellular company, and the device being generally crappy; the Sidekick never made it into the big-time (except maybe the big-time of jokes made by me at my few friends who had one of these things--you know who you are, I apologize for nothing).

Microsoft bought Danger Incorporated (the original manufacturer of the phone) in 2008. And much like the original device, their KIN failed to impress everybody (although I will say that I recall several Facebook posts from friends praising the device, whether these folks were getting paid by Microsoft remains to be known). This news is awful for Microsoft--However, I don't think people realize how awful it actually is.

A December 2009 Morgan Stanley Internet Report indicates that most future computing will be done by mobile devices. Furthermore, the report posits that the business of technology and computing occurs in cycles (each cycle having winners and losers). In the 80's Microsoft, Cisco, and even Apple (plus a half dozen other companies) were big winners, capturing wealth, market share and thought leadership. In the 90's it was the winners of the internet boom (basically Google). As it stands now, Apple, Blackberry, Google, and the social-media sites du jour (Foursquare anyone?) are winning...Microsoft isn't even in the race.

They still have a massive operation, and even with this latest blunder they should be fine. Even so, Microsoft will need a pretty fantastic hail mary play to get them back in the mobile game. We live now in a tech culture that values innovation more than anything else, Microsoft (even under the guise of Bill Gates) has never been a great innovator. Looking ahead in a world where operating systems and word processors are being offered free or really cheaply (now by major competitors like Apple and Google), and content and hardware bringing in the real big bucks, Microsoft might be in a spot of trouble.

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Tequila Sunrise

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Eric: James Caan's son is still being a huge douche to E, and E is understandably threatened by a more interesting character. This is saying something, considering Scott Lavin is essentially an aggregate of high school movie jock archetypes who just happens to be a talent agent. But, for some reason, the two of them make up halfway through the episode, probably so that we can all be shocked when Lavin screw E over later on in the season. Because on Entourage, there's no such thing as a twist.

Drama: Johnny continues to be the most interesting of the show's central foursome. His ping-pong matches with potential costar John Stamos (who's meeting with Drama to see if the two of them have enough chemistry to do a show together) were actually funny. Entourage's "satirical" portrayals of stars usually amount to little other than "this guy's actually a huge douchebag in real life," but they're nonetheless the show's best moments. Plus, though a tad convenient, seeing Stamos agree to do Drama's sitcom was genuinely satisfying.

Turtle: The shady business deal that Alex (yes, the girl Turtle sexually harassed) introduced last week turns out to be an attempt to get Vince to endorse a Mexican tequila brand. Turtle's understandably pissed (he thought he had a shot at starting a legitimate business), but I was even more pissed that I got tricked in to watching a fucking tequila ad (yes, it's a real brand of tequila, and no, I'm not going to link it). I know the show's basically an advertisement for a revolving cast of out-of-work actors, but I draw the line at actual product endorsement. I mean, come on, Wahlberg, what happened to all that Departed cash?

Vince: Literally did nothing other than distract John Stamos from actually hanging out with Drama. And the episode was, consequently, much more enjoyable.

Ari: Though the guys over at the A.V. Club see Ari's plotlines as becoming increasingly perfunctory, I still count the seconds until Jeremy Piven's asshole superagent appears on screen. He's still trying to bring that NFL franchise to L.A., and, this week, he brings in a bunch of Hollywood heavy hitters to see if he can scrounge up enough cash. That in itself isn't particularly fun to watch, but hearing about former Ari subordinate Lizzie (Autumn Reeser, the saving grace of The O.C.'s fourth season) trying to poach clients away from the agency is damn near exciting. Plus, we got a brief glimpse of Andrew Klein (Gary Cole), whose tenure on the show was cruelly cut short most likely by Cole getting a better job. Well, cruelly for us, I guess. Continue...

Book Review: Don Winslow’s “Savages”

The first chapter of Don Winslow’s new book, Savages, is two words on one page:

“Fuck you.”

If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, you might as put the book down and pick up something delicate and sensitive. Savages is neither. It can be glib and pithy, flippant and thoughtful. Just when you’re about to send it spiraling across the room, Winslow gets it just right, and you feel bad for rolling your eyes five times in the last five pages.

Savages is a rampage through the amoral human wasteland of Southern California. At times, its style seems to be the sum of its characters: like Ben, the wunderkind pot-grower, it can slow (slightly) for a little bit of rhapsody; like Chon, the ex-SEAL, it can be brutally simple; and Ophelia, the multi-orgasmic object of affection, it can snap its bubblegum right in your face.

But Savages is most like Chon and Ophelia. Pain and pleasure, death and ecstasy, the book doesn’t stop until its final standoff, where bodies litter the desert like snuffed-out cigarette butts. It isn’t trying to be deep; it doesn’t strain for meaning. I spent more than 250 pages wondering if the book was brilliant or vapid; I haven’t decided, but I’m pretty sure I liked it.

Savages reads at times like an exercise in bone-bare minimalism, but not the kind McCarthy set forth in The Road. If you imagine the latter as a weary old man, too tired to embellish or rhapsodize, the former is a jittery twentysomething, hopped up on speed and pushed forward by the premonition that something very bad is going to happen very soon. In Winslow’s spirit of manic brevity, here's your plot synopsis:

Ben is a genius and grows really good pot. He wants world peace. Chon is an ex-Navy SEAL who is very good at killing people. They're in business together. They're both sleeping with Ophelia, O, a mutual best friend who multiple-Os with the slightest shift in breeze. The Baja Cartel likes Ben's pot and wants to sell it. To prove their point, they send him a video of eight decapitated heads. Chon says screw them. Ben agrees, sort of. O is too busy being SoCal superficial to realize she'll be human collateral in a few dozen pages.

The book screams by without pausing for breath. Paragraphs are short. Sentences are shorter. As Janet Maslin notes in her otherwise glowing review, Winslow has an obnoxious and affected habit of breaking up sentences

into poems

like this.

Sometimes it has the desired effect: Winslow’s voice comes through with perfect clarity. Others, you cock back your arm and prepare to let fly - only you don't, because you want to know what happens next. Because its fast-and-easy shallowness is only, well, skin deep, and for their simplicity, his characters are roundly convincing. Chon reminds me of a few Marines I know – people who are good at fighting, and wouldn’t mind fighting some more. For all its glib cool, Savages carries a tone of truth. You don’t get a lot of metaphors, here. The book itself reads like it has a train to catch.

Which is exactly how Winslow writes. In an interview with Bookslut, he talks about writing one of his prior novels, The Life and Death of Bobby Z:

“When I was writing that book, I thought my career was over. I was still working legal cases and taking a train back and forth to L.A. I quickly found that it’s more fun to write a book on a train than read a book on a train. I’d write a chapter going up, and a chapter coming back. Where ever I was in the book, when I heard the conductor say, ‘Union Station, ten minutes,’ I’d wrap the chapter up.”

Writing under the gun works well for Winslow. In Savages, his drug dealers live under it, work under it, and flee from it. There’s an imminence in firearms that I think Winslow understands, and when he runs that understanding through his prose, the result is electric.

I found myself thinking of Denis Johnson’s Nobody Move more than a few times. I liked Johnson’s book, a noir exercise written for serial publication in Playboy. But everything from the form to the venue felt cynical, as if the author were self-consciously trying to write something trashy and fun. Johnson had won the National Book Award the year before for Tree of Smoke, a hulking and ambitious Vietnam War novel; no matter how good it is, Nobody Move struts in borrowed clothes. Savages dispenses with literary flair and goes straight for the trigger.

Writing about Benjamin Black's noir novel Christine Falls, I said all good crime fiction is about sin - not crime, per se, not violations of the statues and laws of society, but the blood-black acts against mankind, the really unforgivable shit. I’m now tempted to revise that. Savages bypasses gravitas with so little thought it's shocking - and refreshing. There's no hand-wringing. When a corrupt official steps in front of an oncoming train, not a word is spent on his death. It was his call, and so far as fates go, it's probably better than what he had coming. Why bother with angst?

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Nicolas Cage: Franchise Starter!

Movie producers are becoming more and more interested in setting themselves up with some stability down the line and getting a good return on their investments. Maybe that's why there seem to be fewer and fewer movies made these days that don't either set themselves up for a full-blown franchise or at the very least leave themselves open to the possibility of a sequel. I understand the rationale: two movies make more money than one movie - just look at what's happening to the "finales" of the Harry Potter and Twilight serieses.

Two such franchise related extensions currently in development - National Treasure 3 and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - share a common thread: they are both continuations of franchises started by none other than Nicolas Cage.

Whatever the moviegoing public (and the moviemaking private) thought about Cage in years past, he's now solidified his reputation as a solid player around which to base a big time summer tentpole (or several). And nothing exemplifies his position more than his latest big release, The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Granted it's early, but I haven't heard any buzz surrounding a potential sequel to Apprentice. But keep in mind it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who never smelled a movie about which he didn't have aspirations of parlaying into four or five releases. Notice how they (SPOILER ALERT) didn't kill off Cage's character, despite having every reason/excuse to do so. Although, if you saw the Pirates trilogy, you know that it wouldn't have mattered even if they did.

I'd say that Apprentice has an exponentially higher chance of getting a sequel than Bruckheimer's previous epic BIFF - 1) because it's based on a beloved Disney property (and the Mouse never lets its children go without a fight) and 2) because it was actually surprisingly clever, charming, and fun. I believed all the characters, I knew what they wanted, and I could follow all the action without all the muddlesome political intrigue and painfully obvious red herrings.

Plus, I'd take some of those magical battles over the phallic, juvenile wand-waving in the Harry Potter movies any day. Balthazar Blake could out-magic Severus Snape with his spellbook tied behind his back. There I said it.

All told I'd give Sorcerer's Apprentice a pretty solid 40-42 Congos. The trope of smushing all the backstory into a prologue was annoying, but more effective than some other attempts. Nic didn't hit all his jokes and I'm beginning to long for Jay Baruchel to try some different schtick. But Alfred Molina was competent and they referenced the original Dukas piece used in Fantasia and I was genuinely excited when good triumphed over evil. And I'm the kind of guy who will usually root for the side with the evil scheme.

Unfortunately the audiences just didn't turn out for Apprentice. Maybe it's because the film was crowded out of theaters by this powerhouse. Maybe it's because Joe Popcorn doesn't have as charitable a view of Nicolas Cage as I do. I guess it remains to be seen how deeply the opening weekend woes will impact the possibility of a sequel. Both Cage and director Jon Turtletaub have a lot on their plates coming up.

Speaking of which, I'm extra excited about the third installment of the National Treasure series. I can't wait to see which well-kept secret from American history they unmask this time! They've covered the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and touched on the Knights Templar and Aztec Gold. I'm guessing it'll have something to do with World War II, framing FDR and Hitler as extra-terrestrial visitors with a conflict mirroring that of Optimus Prime and Megatron.

A man can dream, can't he?
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At the Mountains of Madness- Part One: "Public Relations"

Welcome back, fellow Mad Meniacs (don’t worry, I’ll never call you that again)! Season Four of Mad Men has begun! For this year’s outing, I’m joined by my distinguished colleague Jordan Pedersen for a discussion of the comings and goings of everyone’s favorite AMC program (or maybe second favorite if you like Breaking Bad or continuous showings of Dragonheart and Lethal Weapon 4)! Let’s get right into things, shall we? Spoilers ahoy!

Boivin: First off, I loved the opening to this episode with Don being interviewed by Advertising Age. With a first line like “Who is Donald Draper?”, how can one go wrong? I also, think it sets up a good theme of Don being outside his comfort zone. He’s the new face of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce; he’s used to be being the main draw at the agency but now that his name’s on the wall he’s become something of a celebrity or at least a public persona. Also, one-legged man. Twin Peaks, anyone?

Jordan: I didn’t necessarily dislike it, but it felt a tad obvious to me. I mean, the show’s been asking that question since it premiered in 2007, even if nobody said it out loud (until now I guess). And, for the most part, that’s how I felt about the whole episode. Mad Men has made its name as a studied, deliberately-paced character drama. “Public Relations,” on the other hand, was a zippy, quick-witted almost-dramedy. I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t always sure what show I was watching.

Boivin: Frankly, the show has needed a shot in the arm like this episode. Think about last season: what happened? Don and Betty got a divorce, and the core players jumped ship and started their own agency. That was about it. Don hasn’t changed that much over the series. Sure, he’s had his moments of resolving to be a better husband and father but it usually just ends with him diddling some broad. I think putting everyone in this new situation, Betty and the kids included, is making for some great stuff.

Jordan: I think those are two fairly monumental changes that took place, actually. But what’s important is that they took place in the last episode of the season. Creator Matt Weiner is definitely trying to distribute plot development more evenly this time around, and I’m, by and large, fine with that. He’s even gone a more conventional route with B-plotting. Mad Men has always had a central (A) plot and a side (B) plot, but Pete and Peggy’s P.R. stunt felt almost zany, like something Tracy and Jenna would do on 30 Rock. I do give the show credit for handling a new thematic thread pretty elegantly, though.

Boivin: I think Vincent Kartheiser should just start reading Tracy Jordan lines instead of Pete's. "I am a Jedi! I AM A JEDI!"

I agree with you on the Pete and Peggy thing. I didn’t really get what purpose it served other than perhaps showing that Peggy is trying to blaze her own trail at the agency without Don’s paternalism. Beyond that, I don’t suspect the ham fight will come up in a big way, so this was sort a one note plot. Don didn’t really seem offended by the stunt, just annoyed, which I guess is his default emotion around Peggy.

How do we feel about the situation at home, both Betty’s and Don’s?

Jordan: Don’s paying a hooker to slap him! Sweet! Yeah, Betty’s even more of a shrill bitch than she was before, and Henry’s still the likable guy who you hate because he’s not Don. And Sally Draper remains the show’s secret weapon, even though she’s lost that inimitable lisp.

Boivin: I myself have always hated Henry Francis, though now he seems downright sympathetic. I’m sure marrying Betty Draper seems like a great idea when you start out but after eight months or so...yeesh. I think thousands of boyfriends around our great nation asked their significant others to slap them around during sex on Sunday night in an effort to be more like Don Draper.

Jordan: Yeah, it’ll be cool to see the shoe on the other foot, as far as being the dominant one in the relationship is concerned. And Don’s not just playing the sub in bed; his new girl Bethany (played by some chick from True Blood, apparently) won’t even screw him on the first date. To me, that was the most shocking depiction of submission in this episode.

Boivin: My faith was utterly shaken. If Don can’t even bed a girl fresh out of college, and a friend of Jane’s at that, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life anymore. Don’s always gone for much more assertive, dare I say interesting women. You have the free-spirited beatnik Midge, the intelligent and independent Rachel, the aggressive Bobbie, and Suzanne who wants to have her fourth graders listen to Martin Luther King’s speeches. I don’t think we’ll be seeing too much of Don’s date.

Before we finish, can we talk about how awesome the ownage of the prudish swimsuit guys was? Because I think they now know how Bobbie Barrett felt in that powder room in Season Two.

Jordan: Couldn’t disagree more on the date. First, because Don seemed as utterly charmed by her as she apparently was by him, and, second, because I’ve seen production stills with her in a different location. So there.

Don pwned the swimdorks, for sure. My feelings on that scene echo my feelings about the whole show: I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t sure it felt like Mad Men. But maybe that’s a good thing.

Boivin: This isn’t your daddy’s Mad Men, where every episode ends with a pan out of Don looking sad! This is X-TREME SEASON FOUR MAD MEN! We end on high notes with sweet British Invasion tunes!



That’s all for this week, Charge Shooters!!! Come back next week as our sherpas continue to scale the Mountains of Madness! Continue...

This Week on Audiosurf Radio – The Return of BS

What is it about this guy?  I’ve flipped out about BS before, and this week isn’t very different.

His particular blend of trance music is just that: a blend.  I like the same thing about BS that I like about the guy behind the After The Jump theme, FantomenK.  Each of them value variety over repetition – a rare virtue in a style of music dominated by repetition.  Phrases seem to change just as you begin to tire of them. 

I actually have quite a bit to say this week, so I won’t dilly-dally.  Hit the jump to find out if BS lives up to the reputation I’ve given him.

The Songs

I often kick off or close song reviews by instructing you not to be fooled.  Again, I urge you to keep your wits about you and not let this charlatan of a track graph trick you into thinking “Heaven Lights” is a ho-hum slope of a ride.  In the comfort of your web browser, it looks like fairly standard what-goes-up-must-come-down fare.  But in the trenches (or in the trench run, as it were) of Audiosurf, the song entertains and challenges without relent.  Typical techno songs are structured like a row of boiling teapots, each one rising in temperature and pressure until the eventual burst of steam that signals the next pot to begin.  In between each eruption, there’s usually boredom, a traffic-less downhill slope that takes too long to climb.  BS combats this by replacing each whistling pot with another whistling pot.  A bevy of strings surge and give way to an equally strong surge of synthesizers, which quickly begin their build to a higher plateau.  The music delivers enough variety (for trance music, anyway – you’ll still hear familiar techno sounds throughout) to overshadow the simplicity of the track’s shape.  If a perfect ride has killer music, a wild track, and loads of traffic, then “Heaven Lights” has two out of three.  And two out of three ain’t bad.

The aptly-named “Flux” will test your stamina.  You’ll ride the first minute, wondering when the lurching beat will give way to an actual drum loop.  The opening melody will kick in, sounding like an (cue textbook robot metaphor) android playing a mouth harp.  You’ll begin to notice that there are no gushing strings on this one.  It’s all electronic, all digital.  And that makes it all the more impressive when BS pulls some sleight of hand at the first major transition.  As the track crests the first major hill, he reuses a sound from earlier in the song to signal the change of pace, but the phrase after the transition is grounded in an entirely different idea.  Skillful introductions of new ideas keep the track fresh despite its length.  At one point, the track bottoms out completely.  This follows a clamoring storm of sound that swiftly subjugates everything else you can hear.  The most succinct description I can think of is “fever pitch” (no relation to that despicable movie).  I know I said in the last paragraph that bottomed-out tracks can be boring, but I hadn’t counted on how the middle movement of “Flux” would remix previous phrases into some kind of dance club dream sequence.  While the main idea coasts on, a fitful drum kicks intermittently, chopping up and delivering the beat piecemeal.  From thereon out the song continues to grow, eventually circling back on the herky-jerky rhythm of the opening – a phrase almost forgotten eight minutes later.  Imagine for a second that I knew where to find clubs that played this kind of music.  Take another second and imagine that I frequented them.  Were I caught up dancing to “Flux,” I’d probably be too busy praising it to realize it was one whole song.  Thankfully, I’ve no idea where to find such places.  Instead, I’ll just reboot Audiosurf and play this song.

Now I feel like a bit of a fool.  I spent more than half of this week’s post praising BS for his ingenuity, his predictable unpredictability.  And then “Magic Sweep” comes along.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cut above most of the techno to which I usually give a tepid thumbs-up, but it’s not what I’ve come to expect from this particular DJ.  The song takes shape around one idea, that of syncopated quarter notes, pulsating over and over.  It’s not too fast as to be strobing, not too slow to be throbbing.  It just…goes.  The traffic’s fine.  Scoreboard vets seem to be having a hell of a time figuring out just who’s the best on this one, which is always a good sign.  If you’ve got anything left in the tank after “Flux,” by all means, ride “Magic Sweep.”  Unless of course you want to tackle “Flux” again.

Author’s Note

All songs were played on the Pro difficulty at least twice using the Eraser and Vegas characters.  Please allow me to play the role of Michael Scott for a second and point out what one Audiosurf user said of “Flux”: “intro was iffy, middle to climax good, outro still iffy.”  Need I say more?

Go buy Audiosurf.  It’s on Steam.  You can get Achievements for playing Lady Gaga songs – well, for playing any songs, but she counts, too!

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This Is What They Warned You About

This clip has recently been brought to my attention. Is it the next "Not the bees!"? Probably not, but worth a look anyway. Perhaps if only to see what all the hullaballoo was about.

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Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob: Week 68 - The B-52s

Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.

It's summer!

I live in Florida, where to venture outside in July is essentially to take a trip into a sauna. But the Weather Channel tells me that the heat this summer is not necessarily confined to the southeastern United States - there's been a heat wave all up and down the East Coast, forcing people to flee into their miniature kingdoms of air conditioning.

This is no fun for anyone involved. But it's a good chance to veg out to summer music. I've always felt that certain kinds of art are best associated with certain seasons. Humid summer days are the time for paperback thrillers, action-heavy blockbusters, and goofy beach music.

I used to annoy my old college roommates by putting surf rock on constant rotation with the first sign of warm weather. A mild April day meant that I would lobby for Dick Dale, the Ventures, the Lively Ones, and other similar instrumental surf groups. There was something about the twangy guitar that I always thought was the perfect accompaniment to lounging outside in the summer time, whether drinking beer on the front porch of my apartment, or lazing by the seaside.

The B-52s are influenced a great deal by this sort of surf music, and I found myself enjoying it quite a bit this July. But they're one of those strange bands that I'm not sure if I would enjoy quite as much if I listened to them in October, or February. Rather, they're a summer band, and, like summer itself, the enjoyment I get from them is fleeting, and inevitably passes away. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it while it lasts.

WEEK 68

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: The B-52s

MY LISTENING: I listened to The B-52s (1979) every day this week. I also listened to Wild Planet (1980) and Cosmic Thing (1989) twice each.

WHAT I KNEW BEFORE: "Rock Lobster" and "Love Shack" are both songs that people are always partying to in movies. I don't think I have ever heard either one of these songs played at a real party, but they are ingrained in my mind regardless. Also, one time the B-52s were in that Flintstones movie as the "BC-52s" and it was really funny.

WHAT I LIKED:

The B-52s manage to put on great party songs. They have a good sense of rhythm, their subject matter is usually goofy enough to clap your hands to, and the songs are peppered with catchy guitar hooks. It managed to put me in a good mood - it's light fare, easy to enjoy as background listening or driving music. The tongue-in-cheek sense of humor the band maintains is easily one of their biggest strengths. The B-52s are just out to have a good time, and if their songs are drenched in references to spaceships and surf rock, that's not a bad thing. A song like "Planet Claire" means absolutely nothing and its lyrics are nonsense, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. The B-52s wear kitsch and camp as a badge of pride.

Ricky Wilson's guitar is also a big asset, and he's largely responsible for crafting some of the band's best hooks. Listen to the sinister riff of "Rock Lobster" or the up-tempo strumming of "52 Girls" or the raucous opening to "Private Idaho." The B-52s lost something very important when he passed away due to AIDS-related complications and (the regrettable success of "Love Shack" aside) they never really recovered. Cosmic Thing adopted a different tack, with more poppy songs like "Roam" and "Deadbeat Club" which, while still enjoyable, lack the stuttery white-boy funk that Wilson's guitar provided.

Finally, I appreciated the harmonized female vocals, both on their own ("Private Idaho") and when contrasted with Fred Schneider's nasally sneer. Songs like "6060-842" somehow make the combination work. It shouldn't. It does. Don't ask questions.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:

The group's eponymous debut is pretty much a perfect statement of the band's strengths. You really don't need to go much further - most of the songs afterward are pretty much the same. It's not that the later albums are bad so much as they're just a rehash of the same thing. You can pick up the handful of truly memorable singles from Wild Planet on a Greatest Hits CD, and Cosmic Thing contains even less.

Also, "Love Shack." I can forgive "Rock Lobster." It's a fun song, goofy and enjoyable, so I don't mind how often it gets played. But that same forgiveness cannot be extended to "Love Shack." I don't know why - maybe because it lacks that surf guitar I like so much, but "Love Shack" is like some sinister parody of the B-52s - the hooks so catchy they're annoying, the chorus so singable that it never leaves your head, Fred Schneider's annoying voice overly accentuating syllables in the worst possible way ("If you see a faded sign at the side of the road..."). This song needs to be retired from the pop canon as soon as possible.

Most of my further problems come from the songs that overruse Fred Schneider. From his unbearable falsetto in "Channel Z" to his half-crazed screams of "Quiche Lorraine" to his demented motormouth on "Cosmic Thing," Schneider is an asset that can easily be overapplied. Administer with caution.

FURTHER EXPLORATION WOULD ENTAIL: There are more B-52s albums - Whammy! (1983), Bouncing Off the Satellites (1986) and Good Stuff (1992). But do I really need to explore the B-52s any further? I'm not even sure I needed to explore them as much as I did.

BEST SONG YOU'VE HEARD: "Rock Lobster"

BEST SONG YOU HAVEN'T HEARD: "There's A Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon)"

Like I said, all the B-52s' songs are sort of same-y, but this one at least has a title that makes me smile.

NEXT WEEK'S ARTIST: My initial plan was to go with some weird 70s prog rock like Genesis or Faust. But, when push came to shove, I realized I wasn't in the mood for prog rock next week, possibly because it would be too hard to come down from the party schlock of the B-52s. So, because the song "Coconut" came on the radio, I decided at the last minute to go with Harry Nilsson. We'll see how it goes.

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After the Jump: Super Negativity

Subscribe to the podcast via the feed, or find us on the iTunes store!

Rob’s out this week, the putz, so our own Jordan “Jordasch” Pedersen sits in on the podcast this week to provide insightful commentary, and also to introduce to us the phrase “cut-your-wrist sincere.”

Also, we talk at length about Inception (read Rob’s review), the Internet’s unsung garbage men, the awful reporting of the UK’s Daily Sun, the death of Google’s Nexus One, SyFy Channel Original Movies, and more.

Enjoy! See you next week.

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Sunday Reading: James Franco is Franco

On a recent podcast, Andrew, Rob and I discussed James Franco’s return to General Hospital.  Franco plays an psychopathic performance artist named – you guessed it (or maybe you didn’t) – Franco.  We blathered about how weird this, and the rest of Franco’s career, is.  Little did we know it was only going to get weirder.

The New Yorker recently covered “Soap at MOCA,” a performance art piece created by Franco (the actor, I think).  “Soap at MOCA” was essentially a live taping of General Hospital but with a few twists.  Franco (the character, I’m pretty sure) was running his own show called “Francophrenia,” in which he recreated several of his projects from the world of General Hospital.  It made the opposite of sense, writes the New  Yorker’s Dana Goodyear:

“There was no one who was not confused. The suspiciously handsome men wearing tool belts and white gloves and T-shirts that said “Museum Staff” who were hanging abstract paintings on the Port Charles sets: actors. Two “General Hospital” publicists stood by. "Is this art Franco art or ‘G.H.’ art?" one asked the other.”

It only gets more labyrinthine from there.  Franco (the actor, I believe) tells Goodyear that this is sort of a follow-up to Erased James Franco, a film of Franco (the actor still) recreates performances from his own feature films.  He then had the idea of making a movie in which he plays a soap opera actor.  But why stop there?  Why not just be a soap opera actor on General Hospital?  When asked how he chose his character, Franco (hopefully the actor) said, “I wanted their full treatment, so all I said was that I wanted to be an artist and I wanted my character to be crazy.”

Franco, by deliberately creating your own Being John Malkovich pseudo-reality, you’ve proven that you’re already a crazy artist.

Big thanks to reader, frequent podcast listener, radio personality, and all-around friend of the site Colleen for the link.

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Eufloria On Sale, Why Aren’t You Playing It Now?

The gamers here at Charge Shot!!! dig Eufloria – like, a lot.

I reviewed it in its original form, Dyson.  Then we interviewed the Rudolf Kremers and Alex May, the creators.  Andrew then reviewed the retail version, now named Eufloria.  And we had some more questions for Rudolf and Alex, so we spoke to them again.  (Oh yeah, and we recently heard from Rudolf about his upcoming project Freeman – now named StarLit.)

Suffice to say we enjoy the game, and we think you should, too.  All the more reason to take advantage of a recent content update, which is being celebrated on Steam with a $9.99 sale.  Additions to the game include Steam achievements, a community map pack, and support for more custom maps.

Well, there goes my afternoon.

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Saturday Morning TV: A Monologue for Thee

Hopefully this appeals to more than just theatre nerds.

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Jordasch Explains This Week's Entourage: Buzzed and Dramedy

In the grand tradition of Charge-Shot!!! writers reviewing shows they end up hating - or just hating themselves for kinda liking - Jordasch has decided to tackle HBO's Entourage, simultaneously the most satisfying and infuriating show on the network. Because reviewing the show is a largely fruitless effort at this point, he's decided simply to explain it, character by character.

Vince: Excelsior! An episode where no one is worried about being a pussy! Because, after all, Vince's brush with death in the season seven premiere turned Vince into a testosterone-addled speed freak whose unquenchable thirst for danger leads him to skydiving and, uh, going to celebrity wine auctions. And we can discern all this because Adrien Grenier is an actor capable of the degree of subtlety necessary to communicate a man so gripped by his own mortality that he turns to cheap thrills. Or because he got a new haircut (which pisses off super-badass Notebook director guy, who we know is super-badass because they just come out and tell us this time around).

Eric: E and Sloan are doing good, which we know because they tell us they're good. Or maybe they're trying to hint that all's not well in the house of the two most boring characters in a cast of really fucking boring characters.

And - fuck. E is the one worried about looking like a pussy, because his super-jacked coworkers is a total badass whose badass ways have lured the newly badass Vince into a life of badassery. As if Vince's diet of gorgeous women and constant boozing wasn't badass enough. Oh wait, I've forgotten about Eric...again.

Turtle: First he sexually assaults one of his drivers, now that same driver is beckoning him to Mexico for some kind of apparently not drug-related connect that can get his business out of the toilet.

Turtle's a likable character, but I guess the writers get their jollies out of making him seem like a creep. They probably think he's a pussy.

Ari: Mr. Gold may be the one to bring an NFL franchise to L.A. Taylor Townsend from "The O.C." was probably the one who got him the offer, but he won't promote her to the head of the television department because she banged the erstwhile head into rehab. Plus Mrs. Ari saw them dancing or something. So she quit.

I like seeing Ari rise to greater and greater heights, and I like Taylor Townsend, but somehow I get the feeling that both of these storylines will peter out just like they always do.

Drama: Nothin' in the first episode, and quite a bit in the second. A supergay Jeff Garlin plays an unretired Emmy-winning TV writer who figures out that Drama is funny even/only when he isn't trying. You know, this is actually a welcome slice of meta-humor for a show that rarely ventures into self-awa- wait, where is that siren coming from? Is that a loudspeaker? Why can I hear it in -

GOOD EVENING, TELEVISION VIEWERS.

IT'S 11:00 PM EASTERN, AND THIS IS THE VOICE OF ELLIN BROADCASTING ON 275 AND 285 IN THE MEDIUM WAVE.

THE PEOPLE OF THE BOX ARE ADVISED THAT, ON THE EIGHTEENTH OF THE SEVENTH, TWO-THOUSAND AND TEN, AT APPROXIMATELY 10:35 AND FIVE SECONDS, AN INSTANCE OF SELF-AWARE HUMOR WAS SPOTTED IN THE NEWEST EPISODE OF OUR NATION'S MOST POPULAR AND HILARIOUSLY WITTY SHOWBIZ SATIRE, ENTOURAGE.

THE CHARACTER "JONATHAN DRAMA" WAS PORTRAYED AS BEING UNINTENTIONALLY HUMOROUS, THUS CONFIRMING THE LONG-HELD SUSPICIONS OF YOU, THE VIEWERS, THAT "JONATHAN DRAMA" IS UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY.

POLICE RAIDED THE HOMES OF THOSE BELIEVED RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS EGREGIOUS ACT OF CLEVERNESS. THEY ARE CURRENTLY IN DETENTION AWAITING TRIAL.

DO NOT FRET. AS IS CUSTOM, THE SHOW-RUNNERS OF ENTOURAGE HAVE BEEN GIVEN A TONIC THAT ERASES ALL MEMORY OF PREVIOUS EPISODES. BY THE END OF THIS BROADCAST, YOU TOO WILL HAVE FORGOTTEN ANYTHING THAT HAPPENED ON THIS EPISODE OF ENTOURAGE.

THIS IS THE VOICE OF ELLIN, SIGNING OFF.

WAHLBERG PREVAILS.

What was I saying? Oh well. Guess I'll go watch "The Wire" again.

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Limbo - A Boy, A Forest, and Many Many Deaths

I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. – Henry David Thoreau

Playdead’s puzzle-platformer Limbo debuted at this year’s Independent Games Festival, taking home awards for “Technical Excellence” and “Excellence in Visual Art.”  Upon playing the game, people went bonkers.  When a game gets this much acclaim early, it’s as if it were developed with an “Attach Hype Here” sign on the back. 

Such is the perpetual quandary of indie titles.  How do you balance your marketing strategy with potential overhyping?  You need people to spread the word about your game, but the last thing anyone wants to do is fail to meet expectations.

Limbo doesn’t just exceed its hype.  It smashes it, chews it up, spits it out, rips it apart, and disembowels it without mercy.

The game is nothing if not spare.  You control a boy who wakes up in the woods.  There’s no heads-up display, no dialogue, no quest text to tell you what to do.  A glance at the game’s description in the Xbox Live Marketplace intimates that the boy’s searching for his sister.  The title suggests he’s searching for her in some sort of dream or afterlife.  All Limbo wants you to know is that the boy’s in the woods and there’s a button for jumping and a button to move objects.

Limbo also wants you to know that the boy will die – often.  Spiders, spikes, deep water, fire: these are just some of the hazards you can look forward to steering the boy around.  The title screen warns that some of the death animations may be disturbing.  There’s no “may be” about it.  I’m still haunted by the time a giant spider wore the boy’s body as a glove.  A gore filter is provided that minimizes some of the shock value, but that undercuts the title’s disquieting nature.  Much of what sets this game apart from its peers is that pervasive sense of vulnerability.  There’s no character progression.  There are no perks, no power-ups.  Run, use your environment, or perish; these are your only options.  And some perishing is unavoidable.  You can only learn to avoid some traps by discovering them through a grisly death.  However, tight, reliable controls and a munificent checkpoint system nip any “I wish I’d stop dying” frustrations in the bud.  The boy, whose particular sense of momentum and ability to jump feel wholly unique, controls precisely and predictably.  Any time I cried “Boy!” while watching him die yet again, it was not because I was frustrated with how he responded to my commands.  It was because I knew I’d failed him.

Not all of the puzzles, however, focus on the boy’s death.  Some will wrack your brain until its death.  Others may send you crying to forums desperate for some help.  These stumpers are doled out judiciously, slowing the game’s pace whenever it’s in danger of becoming a child-murdering spree.  How a game this small does so much to establish pace and mood floors me. As I said, Limbo is artistically economical, especially in its visual aesthetic.  Despite the game being entirely in silhouette and grayscale, I found myself marveling at elements more commonly hailed in less monochromatic games – for example, the way light pours through cracks in the forest and the flow of water in the caves.  The black, gray, and grayer color palette also removes a certain level of specificity from the boy and his environments.  This serves a dual purpose.  It enables the player to project their own feelings of dread or anxiety onto the boy, whose face is defined only by two white eyes that blink out upon his death, and allows the developers to hide threats in the shadows.  Exploration generally has no place in such a linear game, but the stark visuals beg the player to explore with his or her eyes, to find the path or the solution in the beautiful near-darkness.

You will be doing Limbo a disservice if you do not play with a serious pair of headphones or some form of surround sound.  The ambient soundscape features no music, only audio cues that alert you to changes in tone or incoming danger.  Silence alternates with the sound of the boy walking, which then mingles with the world’s looming background hum.  Never have I been so unnerved by a game in two dimensions, and Limbo’s stomach-rumbling atmosphere played a huge part in that.

So it’s an indie puzzle-platformer that fulfill its artistic aspirations, but just what then is its message?, I’m sure you’re wondering.  Playdead’s coy about that.  At its core, Limbo is about solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles to move forward on a quest for companionship.  There’s no effusive text to attach a metaphor to each new mechanic (see Braid).  There’s no text crawl at the beginning or the somber end to summarize the story.  The boy starts in the woods.  He encounters other boys.  He goes into some caves, navigates an industrial complex, and attempts to save himself from certain doom in a variety of other environments, none of which repeat.  And to explain some of the puzzles in greater detail would ruin any potential satisfaction you might derive from solving them.  You will get from Limbo what you’re willing to put in – and then some.

The only issue I have with Limbo is its brevity.  I would love more, but I think that might dilute an otherwise amazing experience.  Just don’t look at $15 price tag as a reason not to purchase Limbo, or I’d like to send you into the woods to be devoured by a giant spider.  I’ve spent more on meals that I forgot ten minutes later.  And I’ll be remembering Limbo – its environments, its loneliness, its danger – for years to come.

Playdead’s Limbo is available for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) on Xbox Live as part of the Summer of Arcade promotion.  The developer provided Charge Shot!!! with a copy for the purposes of this review.

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Inane Video Thursday: Death Metal Rooster

Because the guy from Mastodon basically sounds like this anyway.

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Game Review: Dragon Quest IX

I have said it before, and I’ve said it again: American gamers need to pay more attention to Dragon Quest, Japan’s all-time favorite RPG series.

Of course, maybe I’m blinded by my own nostalgia on this one. Back in the days of the original NES, I played the first entry in the series near-constantly. I played it after school. I played it on the weekends. I played it when my grandparents were visiting from another state. There was something about it, something about the exploring and the leveling up and the scrimping and saving to buy new equipment, that struck a chord with my young self.

And then it was gone. I was a young kid with no money, so I couldn’t purchase the three subsequent sequels to the game, and since each was met with a colder and colder reception Stateside they were difficult birthday presents to find. Then, in 1995, game publisher Enix closed its North American offices, confining the fifth and sixth games in the series (usually considered to be two of its stronger entries) to Japan. Young Andrew actually wrote a letter to Nintendo asking what had happened (for the record, I received a very kind response explaining the situation, though this did little to mollify my abandonment issues).

In the early 2000s, Dragon Quest games slowly began to trickle back to the States, aided by Enix’s 2003 merger with Square to become Square Enix. Perhaps it was just the long absence of this childhood favorite from my game playing diet that makes me devour the present-day entries so voraciously. Or maybe, they’re really good (if staunchly conservative) games, and you should pick up and play one if you even suspect that it might be up your alley.

The core gameplay of the series is the same as ever: you’re the hero. You travel from town to town, righting wrongs and fighting monsters, exploring the world map and doing some mild level-grinding in between. The battles are where most of the game takes place, and they too remain the same – turn based, very traditional fare for a Japanese RPG.

Dragon Quest IX’s “new” additions to the series are small but transformative. Most significantly for the game’s single-player mode, random battles have been mostly eliminated – monsters can now be seen on the world map and in dungeons and can usually be circumvented if you wish, though they’ll sometimes decide to rush you. This makes exploration of the expansive world map and the maze-like dungeons a less frustrating affair than in the older games.

The other major addition is one that I was sadly unable to experience – much has been made of the game’s four-way local multiplayer. Other Dragon Quest players can hop into your party with their primary characters to battle, collect items, and even help you further the story (though this will have no effect on their single-player adventures). The most impressive bit technologically is that all of the players can split up and explore separately, completely independently of one another. If the host player needs help with a boss battle or something else, he or she can call all of the other players up and have them appear on the spot instantly. It’s a very good system, at least on paper, and I’m disappointed by my inability to partake.

Most of the other bullet-points on the back of the game’s box are new twists on series mainstays – the job system’s complexity is deeper than it was when introduced in the third game, but nowhere near as complicated as it was in the sixth and seventh games. It’s a good fit for the DS’s more casual audience. Also making a reappearance is the alchemy pot, a device which allows you to combine individual items into better ones.

While the eighth game in the Dragon Quest series focused on specific characters and did quite a lot to get the player attached to them emotionally, the ninth game takes a different tack. You’re the Hero, but your companions are all custom-built (or randomly generated, if you’d like) people with no speaking roles. The emotional payload is actually delivered by the non-player characters – in each town you visit, the people living there are having a specific problem. Solving the problem, and often, bringing people closure, isn’t going to win any awards, but the typically colorful Dragon Quest characters and excellent localization keeps things interesting and engaging all the way through.

Most of the series’ strengths can also be considered weaknesses by some – its familiar gameplay is comfortable (every game plays the same). It changes small things but never upends its conventions (it refuses to innovate, is inadventurous). Dragon Quest sticks to its roots while all of the series and games it influenced (Pokémon, Final Fantasy, and, in fact, most JRPGs) have moved on to newer, shinier battle systems and more melodramatic theatrical storytelling. Like most Dragon Quest games, it’s not going to rock your world or change the way you think about video games, but it’s solid, it’s fun, and it’s pretty reliable about it. If you like RPGs, do it.

Square Enix’s Dragon Quest IX is currently available for the Nintendo DS for $34.99.

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