Bioshock Infinite Sorta-Review

Bioshock Infinite is a good game. I'm just going to say that because I feel like if I don't hang that disclaimer up, I'm going to have rocks thrown through my windows by the time this hits publish. Because as much as it's a good game, as much as it has a lot of really interesting ideas and tends to snowball you with a lot of sights and sounds, I am really, really let down by it.

At first I felt like I had the issue of overfamiliarity. Instead of being in an underwater city full of magic powers and gunplay where the protagonist, bad guy, and support character are not quite what they seem, I was in a skyborn city full of magic powers and gunplay where the protagonist, bad guy, and support character are not quite what they seem. But let's be slightly more fair to it and Ken Levine – we are, after all, not playing Space Marine Wacky Adventures. Bioshock is in the title, and perhaps these things all come with the territory of being a Bioshock game, in the same way that Tomb Raider is inevitably about Lara Croft climbing and shooting.

But even then, Bioshock was a landmark because everything just worked. Anything that was in the game had a reason – the science-softening microwave in the form of ADAM allowed the rest of the game room to work, and everything that surrounded it tied into the central theme. Ryan's objectivism built a house in which genetic modification could flourish, but it inevitably collapsed as the abuse ran rampant, and Big Daddies served as both an ADAM tool in-game, a service in the game's world, and a metaphor for the downfall of Rapture.

Meanwhile, the equivalent to the Big Daddies in Infinite are giant clockwork robots with gatling guns that spout patriot mantra. Subtlety? Bioshock Infinite seems to say, What's that? If you didn't like our robot soldiers, try our blue-robed racist KKK knockoffs who worship John Wilkes Booth as though he were a golden idol for his work assassinating Lincoln.

It's like the creators never even played Bioshock – all sense of subtlety and world building feels like it's been dropped in favor of more gunplay and big dramatic events. Elizabeth's powers don't even really have much of an explanation that feels in line with Bioshock, almost as though they weren't sure how to explain it, so they just gave up. The presence of ADAM in Bio allowed for the existence of Plasmids. And in Infinite, there are Vigors, which allows the same effect. Now, how did Vigors get created? Well, good question, one that seems more an afterthought than anything, like they saw Elizabeth's powers that they didn't explain thoroughly and went, “YES! A loophole!”

Being fair, maybe the lack of subtlety was the point. After all, Rapture was about the power of the individual rising above, and that probably sounds pretty good if you're fourteen years old, so I can understand how it would come about there. But Colombia draws a sharp contrast by being upfront about its horribleness and how completely awful the entire two-thirds and slavery laws were. For that, in fact, I have to commend it – the barbaric way I ripped a man's throat out, after the drawn out intro of colorful utopia, honestly surprised me, and being shocked by Bioshock turning horrifically violent is like being surprised when Superman saves Lois Lane. It's no shocker this trauma only happens after you're asked to, well, stone an interracial couple to death. It is, no joke, one of the best moments in the game, and it's the first hour of gameplay.

And yet, when you get down underneath the polished presentation, the game feels a bit erratic in its focus. Bioshock, at its core, was about the folly of Randian objectivism. What is Infinite about? American exceptionalism, sure, but you don't have to dig very deep to find out that racism is bad, and then the black lady rebel leader turns out to be completely insane and homicidal (which tends to be a pretty significant issue), in which case so much for that. Is it about power corrupting? I can't tell, because after that the entire political conflict is dropped and it hopes you forget in the rush to find out what's behind all the mysteries. The end story is wrapped up well, but I find myself wondering what I was supposed to take from it. Was the theme of the story just set dressing, not really meant to be played with conceptually?

Daniel Joseph says that it's all about extremes at war, and how the middle – the working class – don't care about the conflict because they want stability, but (and I say that with full respects to Joseph) I don't agree because it feels more of a biproduct of the game's creation than its real point. Levine said from the beginning he was inspired by the Occupy protests and the Tea Party, but politically neither of them are as mercilessly evil like Comstock, nor are they as psychotic and bloodthirsty as Daisy Fitzroy. What, precisely, is Infinite's stance on this political agenda?

In the end, all I see Infinite telling me is, “Both sides are wrong.” I saw the post-rebellion civillians of Colombia evacuating for about ten seconds, and Booker mentioned offhandedly they were going “anywhere the Vox aren't,” and after that, the game barely mentions it, not even when the civil war has torn the city apart.

There are buckets of issues with making jingoism, xenophobia, and religion the focus of a villain. There are two sets of buckets of making the lady of color and revolutionary just as crazy and psychotic as the villain. But to introduce that everyone and everything sucks, then simply drop the issue and speak no more of it? A lesson or moral that 'Everything sucks, the end' is a shitty, lazy message, and I really expected more from the brain behind Bioshock, especially going in when he promised that he saw inspiration from hot-button topics of the period. Racism and oppression of the underprivileged are issues today, not just in 1915.

On the bright side, the game probably steals all of the awards ever for Elizabeth, who is probably one of the best sidekicks in gaming in recent memory, and not for the reasons you figure. Sure, she can summon objects as per her realitywarp powers, she tosses you fully loaded guns (so long as we're on about gameplay, that's a nice perk), and that's all well and good, but at her best, she's just a fun character.

At first glance, she seems to be set up to be a quirky maniac-pixie dream girl, replacing romance with a touch of parental care on the part of Booker, and while that turned out to be entirely the case, Elizabeth is everything I ask for in noncombat lady characters – she's determined, complex, shows surprising strength, independent, a lot of fun, and imaginative. There's none of the dainty frailness of a princess in a castle, Elizabeth is a fully realized character, and every moment of ambiguous morals, flaws, aspirations, talents, trappings, and growth all fit to her personality. When she sobs into her hands and lures Booker close enough to club him in the head with a wrench to commandeer the vessel, it makes her genuine moments of vulnerability (with Songbird, or when she attacks Fitzroy) so much more vibrant. Her moments of naiivity early on are endearing, but when her one ally (Booker) turns on her, she becomes cynical and distrustful. She's a complete character, top to bottom.

For what it's worth, the combat of Infinite is just fine for a shooter. The problem is, much like the rest of the game, I genuinely wonder how we got a Bioshock game that plays like this. Scavenging has been a core component since System Shock 2, but now it's been cut down to streamline everything into more gunfights. I feel like there's a bit of a chicken-or-egg situation here; did the lowering of stat adjustments on food render the Take button obsolete, or did they find the game more fun to just Take All at every turn so they lowered the food penalties to make it less frustrating? I can only imagine the next Bioshock game removes food entirely and just has you running over bodies to retrieve ammo.

It seems obvious at first to remove all the side content to Bioshock – like the hacking minigame, among others – to turn everything into either powers or gunplay, but the contrast of doing six different things at once made the hectic and panicky gameplay and dense atmosphere totally enjoyable. Walk through tunnels hearing 60s tunes, see a wandering Big Daddy and Little Sister, get into a gunfight with a group of Splicers, barely scrape your way through, hack a vending machine for lowered prices, get into a conversation with a crazy person.

Instead, Infinite is just a conga line of gunfights cut up with interesting story segments, and the spice has all left. There's optional quests that involve finding keys and going back to the last area and using it on a door you couldn't enter, but it feels like an afterthought, like the sandboxy world from Bio is just gone. Colombia never felt like a big city – it felt like Afghanistan in the clouds, a string of shooter setpieces I adventured to with some nice setdressing. It's just gunfights and magic powers and gun upgrades. Bioshock is now the Bioshock knockoff, in that way, like Singularity before it, even in the specific way it uses puppet shows in place of the drive-in movie advertisements.

The gun-upgrading is still there, but since you're only allowed two guns at a time and have to constantly swap out weapons, each upgrade loses meaning as you frequently have to discard your six-upgrades machine gun and shotgun after running out of ammo. You're never allowed to prefer a gun because of how frantically you have to keep swapping weapons. And there's such a ridiculous amount of guns, the upgrades feel vestigal at best. Remember when the hectic and panicky combat of Bioshock demanded upgrades to keep any level of edge over your opponents? Where is that now?

Why is the hostility of the environment not creating a sense of oppression and terror rather than just making the game into a shooting gallery where I sometimes summon turrets or possess turrets or shoot fireballs? Why is a Bioshock game repeating half of the core mechanics then applying them to a new system? The skyline is there, sure, but in a different game the entire mechanic would have had the whole game built around it.

Are we just doomed to cut down every aspect of an interesting RPG/action game in favor of streamlining the gunplay and turning every game into Call of Duty? Is this really what we want, deleting features instead of adding or improving to them? 

It's kind of relieving to see the reception first overwhelmingly positive then, after a spell, collect their thoughts and step away. It's important to try to go in unbiased, and I can understand the difficulty of doing that with a game carrying the Bioshock torch. And I'm really glad. Because as great as the game is - and it is great - the seams where one game became another are showing. And I really want to see the other game more.

Adventure Time Review Post Thing

DISCLAIMER – I am not responsible for spoilers you read towards the end of this.

Serialized cartoons are one of those things that, in context of society, never really has secured an especially good foothold, except by the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia that everyone in the Goddamned universe has. While I have fond memories of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers, they weren't especially story-driven cartoons, and usually ended in wacky hijinks with a non-ending that did little besides maintain the status quo. Shredder and Megatron ended half of their episodes pointing off with a cry of, “Decepticons, retreat!” as if to whisk away before anybody died permanently.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has its own charms, but aside from the season premiers, never ascends to much more beyond simply being cute and fun. Not that it's a bad thing – that's what it's comfortable with, and I like it as it is. There's been a chain of successful cartoons that can carry excellent story, most notably in absolutely Goddamn anything Bruce Timm comes up with, or my personal favorite, Beast Wars, but they frequently lack the ability to be as funny or charming as the former. Up until Adventure Time, I didn't think it was possible to combine the two into a single cartoon. I have been proven wrong.

Season 1 felt like any other ordinary cartoon, at least at first. I've seen plenty of cartoons that were equally as wacky, though lacked in the imagination department, and if nothing else the constant introducing of bizarre elements was what kept me going, such as the Knife Storm (where it rains downward-pointing knives). But after about twenty episodes I was starting to note that, as goofy as this show could be, the established world rules from previous episodes carried on without so much as a hiccup.

In one episode, Jake the Dog and his girlfriend Lady Rainicorn are spending a romantic evening, and while he plays the violin his girlfriend turns all sort of buildings and objects random colors (non AT fans - just go with it, this sort of thing is normalized after a while). It started off as a one off joke, but when Jake has to meet Lady's parents and he acts like a rainicorn to impress them, they suggest playing traditional rainicorn games, which turn out to be changing the color of things nearby.

It's only one example, too. Lady Rainicorn only speaks Korean through the first season, but the in later episodes not only does Jake write letters to the rainicorns in Korean, but once he even cooks Korean food and said, "My girlfriend taught me how to make this."

The resulting fusion of a gag-driven, zany show with a world built with such well-established continuity, while simultaneously making all appearances of just making shit up on the spot and rolling with it, is something that I have honestly never seen before. The only thing that strikes me as anything close is MS Paint Adventure's ludicrously huge webcomic/adventure game...thing, Homestuck. But even that feels like an ill-fitted comparison, since Homestuck doesn't occasionally end with a non-sequitur fart, and the idea that he's really planning it is a dubious one at best.

The sight gags cement this even more soundly. Frequently, one-off gags are tossed out, such as skeletons tucked into the corner of Princess Bubblegum's study. They appear and are gone before you even have a chance to react, and always cement the kind of absurd goofiness. That's not even to mention half of the jokes that I cannot believe they get away with. “This'll be easy as...hm. Dunno what it'll be like, but it'll be easy!” “Yeah, as easy as childbirth!”

I think the main thing that attracts me so much to Adventure Time is surprising amount of wordless storytelling. I've spoken at length on this subject before, most notably at the triumph of Deus Ex: Human Revolution's, so it comes as no surprise. From the intro to simple scenery art to entire episodes, it makes it clear – Adventure Time is post-apocalypse. Ruined 20^th century objects litter the scenery everywhere, and even Jake makes mention of it in one episode when they sit to watch a movie. “These are all from before the Mushroom War!”

The most standout episode is when Finn leads a pack of mutants to their homeland in a deep sewer, and he ends up in a desolate city block, with shops and houses in aged disrepair. It's both eerie and beautiful. The Fallout games have all been really good about this kind of scenery construction, and yet Adventure Time has not officially stated post-apocalypse to be the case once. Nor do they plan to.

Were this all, it would already be a noteworthy cartoon in building a world full of candy people, witches, farts, an Ice King villain, and a post-apocalyptic world, all while keeping a focus on swashbuckling adventure and comedy. But it feels like, about halfway through making Season 2, the writers were all sitting around a table, and all at once just threw up their hands and said, "Out of jokes! Time to work on story and characters," and gave a great heaving sigh, “I guess.”

Season 2 hit a sudden and incredible shift of providing miles and miles of fascinating characterization, fleshing out their motivations, vices, and aspirations. Finn has always been referred to as "Finn the Human," but we never saw any humans in the show; this was tapped in one episode where he believes he found more people like him, and tries to integrate them into the world so he wouldn't be the only one. Jake, despite his laziness and absentmindedness, caves easily to peer pressure and can be easily swayed to push himself, as discovered when he pushes his stretch powers to his limit and nearly dies for it.

The curious relationship between Princess Bubblegum and Finn is often left at a one-way crush, but it's given surprising depth when she's turned into a thirteen year old and she really likes Finn. It's not just that their young, adorable romance is well written* – it's that too – but instead it comes off as bittersweet and tragic for the plucky kid when she has to become eighteen again. In a vain hope, he asks if she wants to do stuff together, and she laughs good naturedly, calling him a “silly boy,” leaving him on the balcony by himself. It's the entire subplot of 'we can never be together', but in all of ten minutes.

I think the most mind-blowing part of it is when the Ice King, a longstanding comedic relief/villain hybrid along the lines of Black Mage from 8bit Theater, is given a backstory. For three whole seasons he has been the weird, mad king of the frozen north, with a bizarre obsession with his penguins, being friends with Finn and Jake, kidnapping princesses, and possessing a magic crown that gives him his powers. Half of the time he's not even nefarious – he just shows up and tries to spend some fun time with the duo.

And then Finn and Jake discover a tape he kept from before the Mushroom War – he was an antique collector who came under the possession of a magic crown that gave him horrifying visions, driving his wife away, twisting his mind, and making him immortal. The bare parts of his sanity he kept were warped, explaining his fixation on princesses (a nickname for his wife) and his sociopathic behavior.

A evil and wacky comic relief character is given a backstory tragic enough to make you feel sorrow for him. And the next joke is made all the more both hilarious and terrible, as the Ice King covers his face with his hands. “Oh no! Now you know my secret! I used to...wear glasses!”

In Saint's Row 2, there was one mission that stuck out to me, where a budding gangster named Carlos screws up, and for his mistake he gets chained to the back of a truck and dragged around, and you have to save him. But by the time you get there, it's too late, and you only have enough time to grip him by the hand, as if in apology, before you mercy kill him. The whole game was as wacky and goofy as it could possibly be, and this one moment stuck out so hard because of that.

Similarly, Adventure Time's one moment of immense tragedy and sorrow sticks out all the more powerfully when you have not just one but several episodes that end with someone farting before cutting to black. The Ice King, tragic victim of mind control and a power he could not understand**, had stopped in the middle of an episode to rock back and forth on his butt, grabbing his feet and muttering, “I'm a banana.”

This is why I'm becoming so obsessed with this show, now. I have never seen a cartoon operate on a level that Adventure Time does. What was initially a silly pilot about a boy and his talking/stretching dog saving a princess from an evil king of the Ice has moved onto a level I cannot fathom in a way I never predicted. It has depth of character while noodle arms wiggle in a fancy dance, world-consistency when they literally make up all-new monsters and creatures any time they need it, and sorrow and tragedy next to the wacky and wild.

I can do little but applaud Pendelton Ward for making this show as brilliant as it is.

* Comments suggesting that a romance with thirteen year olds is creepy will be shot

** This is the kind of thing that makes my brain want to work on new fiction so I can create villains a quarter as brilliant as this.

So I'm reading Stan Nicholls's "Orcs"

Why am I reading this terrible fucking book? 

For those who aren't aware, let me set the prefix by explaining what this book is about. Orcs is a trilogy of books set from the perspective of orcs. Except that they're not orcs. They're just Native Americans in 'orcface.'

"Native Americans" you might say? What do you mean?

Well, the orcs and most of the other races are the native inhabitants of their world, and suddenly humans come in, seeking salvation from religious persecution. These new humans being persecuting everyone else for not enjoying their religion, and while doing so round up animals to cage them up for food and hides (one of the orcs says 'the beast's cage should be the entire land!' before another orc calls him a pussy and he shuts up), churning up the soil, bringing industry and ruining Manas Dantia, and - here's the real kicker - they are destroying the magic of the land. Literally. The magic of the land. There's no explanation that I've gotten to either. Is culture and civilization just inherently evil now?

Okay, so...this is Dances with Orcs. Kinda. Obviously there's no human that joins the Orcs because they are good and noble, but instead humans are jackasses from the outset while the orcs are the ones in defense of the purity of nature. Like I said - they're native americans in Orcface. As if Avatar's paper-thin racism wasn't bad enough.

Here's an excerpt from the back. 

There is fear and hatred in your eyes. To you I am a monster, a skulker in the shadows, a fiend to scare your children...... Feel the flow of blood and be thankful. Thankful it was me, not you that bore the sword. Thankful to the orcs; born to fight, destined to win peace for all.

Holy shit yes. The vicious badasses from Lord of the Rings as heroes in their own tale from their own perspective? Sign me the fuck up.

But instead, we get this. None of the characters are at all vicious or savage as you'd expect from Middle-Earth's biggest and baddest villains. I mean I'm barely ten chapters in, and the warband has done nothing to show that they're brutal or cunning. In fact, they're fairly alright; they're an efficient lot of warriors. They're just primary characters, and not even that interesting ones. They're not even that brutal.

In the very beginning they assault on a giant fortress that's a human barricade while they seek the object they desire. They kill the soldiers, run up into the upper room, and find a woman protecting her child. They consider sparing the woman and the child, but then some of the outside archers fire and wound her, and they realize she was an archer for the human side. So they kill her and her husband fighter, take the baby and carry it over to human lands.

Um. Wow. Some brutal antiheroes. They spare women and children. I don't even recall them being that bloodthirsty other than in the middle of a fight, other than the occasional mention. They're not war-hungry. None of them have real tempers that isn't quelled by their commander Stryke (haha I see what you did there Nicholls) telling them to shut the fuck up. They're not vicious. They're not even cannibals. 

Like, seriously, you could get away with just making them humans. Stryke is an otherwise normal orc warband leader, Jup is a trained scout, Cielle is a knife-fighter, Augray is a medic who's getting 'too old for this shit,' etc etc etc. I'm wondering where the mage is. They're just native-americans who are called orcs. The only thing you'd miss by changing it is the big, badass tagline. ORCS. GIANT LETTERS. BLOOD AND THUNDER. A BOOK ABOUT THE ANTIHEROES IN FANTASY. 

Except that's not what it is. It is a generic fantasy book with generic fantasy heroes leading a generic fantasy quest to recover five generic fantasy MacGuffins, called 'Instrumentalities' that aren't even spoken of what they do. I'm totally okay with all of those as individual cliches but good fucking god please stop with the bland fucking characters. Goodkind was able to put together a better, much darker universe in which generic fantasy took place, and I fucking hate Goodkind (primarily because he mashes the "rape" button whenever he needs a Horrible Tragedy to fill the time). Oh and speaking of which.

There's Jenesta, the queen bitch villainess. It's not uncommon whenever you have anti-heroes to have a villain that's even more unlikable than they are, but good lord Stan Nicholls seriously dialed it all the way up to eleven. I am not even close to joking when I say that she murderapes someone not even five chapters in. She feeds him aphrodisiac, rides him like a Singapore hooker, then when he orgasms she rams a knife into his stomach, cracks his chest open, then eats his heart while it's still beating. 

I wish I was kidding.

Excerpts: 

He half cried, half sobbed, "No!"

"But you want this," she soothed. "Why else make yourself ready for me?"

You know I probably can downplay this as "oh well she's just messing with him, obviously," but it reminds me too much of the 'Men don't mind getting raped because they get hard' excuse. Plus, would it have made it any less awful if a male sorcerer was raping women and men? I get the feeling ol' Stan says it would be.

Apparently it's a rite to restore her magic sorceress power. Well, okay, I suppose, maybe it'll just be an occasional thing. Nope - end of the next chapter, she bitches about being low on magic, and decides to go do the same thing on her new elf servant. Well, at least it cut away this time. Will this awful, stupid, offensive, ridiculous fucking idea go away now?

I get through another chapter of Stryke and his band of typical heroes arguing about stuff, then I cut back. Two paragraphs in, the following quote.

She climbed down from the altar and unstrapped the bloodied unicorn horn she used as a dildo.

Aaaaaaaand I'm done. That's about the worst fucking thing ever.

Bonus Stage: The religious humans are basically Puritanical Christians. Awesome!

The List 'O Buckley

I don't like Tim Buckley or Control Alt Delete.

This is pretty much a given among people whom are well-read in the world of webcomics or comics in general. I'm just getting into the comic market and discovering exactly what I like and do not like. I've got my guilty pleasures, The Boys among them, but there are things about Control Alt Delete that I just cannot stand. So I have made a list.

Top Ten Reasons Buckley's Comic is a Shithole!

10 - Tim Buckley's shitty attitude. You know, he might just be the nicest guy in the world. But when you start talking trash about his comic, be it ragging on it for lulz or actually to give criticism, oh shit son it's on now. He has gone to his own forum and banned, locked, or deleted threads or post that rag on, criticize, or otherwise question his comic in any way. And he always puts it up to the classic 'jealousy' tag.

"Oh, I'm running a big webcomic and living off of it and you aren't, therefore anything negative you have to say is just you wishing you were me!" If you don't believe me, I offer you proof.

There was even a time when his horribly stupid "Church of Gaming" storyline was challenged for being extremely juvenile and offensive to people whom were actually religious. Ban and lock? You betcha!

9 - Tim Buckley's delicate ego. The man edits his own Wikipedia article to avoid making him look bad while under a false name. Gratuitous inclusions of "Criticism" being replaced with "Reception" as per the rules.

Best part: Current edit says that Tycho called the miscarriage storyline "the first Horsemen of the Apocalypse."
What they actually said:

Gabe: I think he's an art criminal.

Tycho: I think Tim Buckley is the antichrist, and I think that miscarriage storyline was the first horseman of the Apocalypse.

8 - Tim Buckley likes to hear himself talk. Granted of course that's exactly what I'm doing. But I have a point. Most of his newsposts are like most good newsposts - don't talk about anything topical. Just keep it short and sweet. Nerd stuff for a nerd crowd.

But then he goes ahead and says shit like this. Whining? Moaning about his love life? Teaching people about miscarriages? You decide!

7- Everything Tim does that attempts to be shocking or incredible doesn't change the comic at all. This isn't just the miscarriage storyline, either. Just look at the overall time that CAD has been around - since 2002, right? And when did they get engaged? Like, what, 2005? Even if it isn't a direct parallel to real-time, you're still looking at the entire thing as a terrible plot device just used to attract attention. They mentioned wedding plans, what, once? And Ethan blew it off in favor of going to play video games? And it was okay because he's Ethan and that's what he does?

The miscarriage story arc was just an extension of this - Oh man, drama! But everything's better now. I got wind of that and actually was interested. A miscarriage? Intriguing! Maybe Ethan will grow up now? Maybe Lilah and him will have a rocky relationship and have to reconcile it, ooh, all kinds of possibilities!

And then, a few episodes later, Lilah returns home. They're fine. Nothing is changed. Everything is identical to what it once was. Publicity stunt = over!

6 - His strict adherence to the four-panel template kills every good joke he has. I don't know if I need to explain this, but if you just open up and go to the site (Well, okay, I can excuse you this time) and just look at any comic not featuring the main characters. We'll use his Soul Calibur 4 joke.

Panel two, Darth Vader holding Soul Edge, looking at Luke Skywalker with a saber. Funny by itself, no need for anything else. That alone is great. Combined with sitting and talking about it for three other panels it's not even a 'meh'.

5 - Every damn character that isn't the three protagonists is a shitty rip on the very culture Buckley claims to be a part of. I'm all up for making fun of gamers. A little self-fun-poking never hurt nobody. But god damn, every single gamer in the world that isn't Buckley himself - Oops, I meant Ethan - is a fat, skinny, ugly, stupid, you name it, they are it gamer. He lampoons the very culture he's a part of, but see, he isn't, since he's already got the girl and therefore his life is perfect.

Hot damn, I knew Ethan was a Mary-Sue, but the parallels are becoming more distinct by the minute.

4 - He makes up shit for cultures he's not a part of and gets it all horribly wrong. The Gaming Religion was horribly offensive, and I'm not even religious. But come on - A bunch of priests come telling Ethan and Lucas (rightly!) that their religion is a huge pile of shit, and when provoked into explaining the existence of their gods, stare like a bunch of morons at an SAT test. I would think that people who are religious have a better answer to those who question their faith, Buckley.

Hell, why not go into gaming subcultures, anyway? He's got a comic where a guy rolls a d20 and kills a dragon. Dragon protests. "But I'm a fucking dragon." Guy says it doesn't matter, natural 20. Dragon dies. Has Buckley ever even played DND, or anything like it?

Favorite moment - Lucas, the bigger and burlier guy, going out with Kate while she was wearing her fatsuit. Really classy and sensitive, jackass.

3 - The comic itself's art style, layout, and execution. God damn son, that is one ugly comic. Every damn face looks the same, plus or minus 'fat' for Lucas and 'thin' for Ethan. The faces are identical for men and women, the only thing separating the former with the latter having breasts.

But it isn't just the faces, either. The whole comic! Body parts and hands and sizes and shapes and everyone looks the same. Period. He's done some experimenting lately with clothes, but it still doesn't change the fact that women = men with boobs in his art style.

And the comic is stuffed with words. For no reason!

My favorite comic is one from late 2007. A man is standing outside (I think it's outside, there's clouds and no buildings, trees, or anything) holding a guitar hero controller. The text bubble says "La la la, I love Guitar Hero. So much fun!" or something. Another man comes on, tells him to learn a real guitar. They argue. Final panel: Guitar Hero controller is a bat, and the head of the other guy goes flying into the background.

Not funny, full of unnecessary words, shitty drawing, lazy (no background AT ALL), I mean, the problems stack up. Speaking of which...

2 - Violence = punchline is the most awful comic ending you can have. I swear to god that for each comic that has a good joke there are five comics in CAD's archives that have absolutely no joke and tenuously related violent moment at the end of the comic.

Leaping in circles in an MMO irritating Buckley? Violent punchline. Middle aged jackasses telling you to play a real guitar because they see you with Guitar Hero? Whack his head off abruptly with the controller. First set of comics you've ever made and don't know what to do? Shoot an arrow at the protagonist and make him be okay the next issue. Penny Arcade did it, so why not?

Penny Arcade's genius lies in the hilarious avatars of Gabe and Tycho. They are extensions of the artist and writer, yes, but they are cartoon characters. They can die, act mean, kill people, kick babies, whatever. It doesn't matter because they are just mediums to make a joke.

Aaaaaaaand the number one reason that I hate Control Alt Delete...

1 - CAD's characters are completely, utterly, and incredibly awful. I have a hard time believing Buckley could possibly fancy himself a writer with the kind of protagonists in his comic. Ethan is a Mary Sue Superman in every way, right down to the godawful miscarriage story arc. He spends his time abusing his friends, family, and coworkers. He has the awesome girlfriend despite his alcoholism and violence and apathy. He is into comics, he draws, he writes, he games, he can build himself a robot best friend and robotic super-hands, he does whatever he wants to do because he can do it cause he's Ethan.

Let's not forget when he bought a scorpion and it nearly killed Lucas' new girlfriend Kate, and everyone just sighs, rolls their eyes, laughs hysterically, and the credits roll. That silly Ethan, endangering people's lives in wacky ways!

Lilah is the ultimate shitty stereotyped gaming chick. She exchanges things that girls actually do in favor of being some crappy plot device, (especially her ability to get pregnant and have a miscarriage, of course!) right down to having absolutely no friends or discernible life beyond being Ethan's Girl Gamer Fiancee. She is the ultimate woman in Buckley's mind; hot, pro gamer, no life, and willing to be with you regardless of how much of a dumb prick you are.

Lucas is the Shitty Luck guy. You know how in Tom and Jerry they have evenly matched blows with each other, whacking one another on the head with giant hammers at an even exchange? Well Lucas is like the entire stretch of Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, and Ed Ed and Eddy rolled into one. Every girl he ever meets he either screws it up with, never goes after it with, or they end up being completely insane. He is always at the receiving end of Ethan's physical assaults, and yet he never thinks hey, maybe my best friend is completely batshit fucking loco.

And the Linux guy, fucking a, the Linux guy! I don't even know his name! He's been in the comic for like, what, the entire stretch of it's history and in the last year he's been in like, four comics? You've got a train of hilarious potential right there if you would just include him! But, nope. You got the Wacky Roommate, Straight Man, and Mary-Sue's Girlfriend. Anything else would be too much.

One might say, but Julian, he'd run out of material if his characters kept changing! To which I'd say, god forbid he ends up a little less like Megatokyo and a little more like Shortpacked. And so what if he ran out of character development material? That's fine with me! He could just as easily go find a new set of gamers to develop next, use them as a storytelling medium. Make them go through interesting story arcs! I am totally okay with that.

It offends me to no end as a writer that he expects me, time and time again, as a reader to take his characters as real people. The miscarriage story arc was a perfect example; here we go with Lilah suddenly pregnant, meaning that maybe Ethan has to actually man up and take some responsibility and grow up, but instead we're given a miscarriage. An awkward stab at provoking emotion and drama, erasing any possibility of doing anything beyond feeding his constant, steaming, shitty meal ticket.

CAD is a million times better when it doesn't feature his main characters. But that isn't saying much.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just jealous of Tim's success.

The best part about this blog is that I know if he ever does catch wind of it, he's going to blow it off in his usual, high-and-mighty, flippant attitude. And hey, I don't mind him disregarding some guy on the internet's opinion of him. But I would have guessed all million of us 'some guys' would have shown him that his comic sucks.

But than again, I guess not.

Too Human review

Looks like my thoughts were right. "Do not buy this game." But the writer in me must insist upon telling you more. Brace yourself gentle reader.

I'm generally a patient person.

Like, only a few things really piss me off. Someone being intentionally a jerk because they think it's funny comes to mind. But everything else - stupid customers, stupid customer service/tech support, braggarts, dying repeatedly in video games - I can handle it. I'm generally calm enough that I can blow it off.

Too Human seems bound and determined to test my patience with death.

I have spent years - years! - being extremely trial-and-error in video games, starting with Mega Man, Castlevania, and Mario back in the day. Today I have Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden to provide me with those sorts of love/hate relationships. One false move, and that's it. You get comboed and there goes a huge portion of your life.

But do you know why I have an infinitely easier time stomaching - indeed, loving passionately - these games? Because they allow you to heal yourself, or give you the ability to block, or some combination of the two (God of War, in a way). Too Human does none of this. In fact, out of five classes, only one of them even has the rudimentary ability to heal, and your only method of not being hit is to dodge.

But, again, this wouldn't be so bad if you basically knock everything into a 'stunned' mode for hitting them, Double Dragon style. Too Human barely does this. Let me explain.

Here is a basic encounter in Too Human: Twenty minions with a handful of hits a piece. Two to three missile-launching mortar-machine whom can launch about four at once, all of which track to your last known location. One to two melee-combat decked out robots whom are immune to the 'stun' effect until you break their shield.

So, what do you do? Wading through the hordes of minions is fun, but you're still being peppered by missiles. Well, if you go to fight the missile-launchers, you get fucked up by the Tricked Out Rape Bot. Engage him? Well, every attack you hit him with just hits his shield instead, meaning he doesn't get stunned unless you air combo him.

So, okay, the encounter goes Air Combo Robot, Kill Mortars, Finish Off Rest. Well that's when the game fucks with you.

Instead it'll pitch out the whole system to instead throw four or five ranged arrow-launching fuckers, or three of them and an ogre-like robot with an attack throw, all of whom immune to melee stun, or (and here's the kicker) minions that explode or freeze upon death, thereby making you more dead/vulnerable to the other minions.

So, like, the game hates you.

That's not even counting the fact that the game mercifully grants you the ability to respawn after death with slight durability damage back at a checkpoint. However, like the benevolent asshole, this merciful event is knocked from your childish grasp by the Goddamn longest death animation ever, where a Norse tech angel swoops down and picks you up. Slowly. Unskippably.

It would be less annoying if the game didn't rely on you dying once or twice every encounter at minimum.

Let me flash you back to this time two weeks ago. I go into Gamestop. I know everyone there. The Assistant Manager Jessie is talking to me.
"You getting Too Human?"
"Huh? Oh, probably not. I haven't heard too much about it."
"It's going to be awesome! I heard it's like a sci-fi Diablo for the 360, but better!"
I think a moment. "...well, sci-fi would make Diablo suck less."

I guess not, then.

Soul Calibur 4 Review

So, Soul Calibur 4. Let us discuss.

Soul Calibur has been a fixture of mine for years, ever since Soul Calibur 2. It has always held a small spot in my heart, because I'm a huge fighting game fan. But, like Tycho, I prefer when my fighters are situated in the second of dimensions. Fighters are, have been, and always will be at home when holding "away" is the best defense you'll ever need.

Soul Calibur manages to do it right, somehow. I'm pretty sure it's abandoning the entire 'twitch mechanics' that was repeatedly introduced with counter systems like Dead or Alive, and peppered up with weapons adding range, functionality, and all kinds of crazy extra shit. It adds a wonderful amount of balance to a game when you can change a character's range, power, speed, and the like with logic.

I mean, when you pick up Rock or Sigfreid, you know he's going to be stronger and tougher than Talim.

Regardless, Soul Calibur 4 is a pretty great game, so let's get to reviewin'.

Let's not kid ourselves here; it is Soul Calibur. That's a huge part of the review right there. We've hit a point in our gaming lives where a good half of the releases that come out end up starting the review by saying "This is a sequel. If you haven't played the original, go do something horrible to yourself and come out from your Batcave" or some variant thereof.

Here's the scoop for those of you who are just turning in; there's a powerful evil blade called Soul Edge, made by a weaponsmith to be the ultimate weapon. It just so happened to go around sucking out people's souls as well. Lots of people either want it, or want to destroy it. There's also a blade called the Soul Calibur, the antithesis of Soul Edge. People want this or to destroy this too. Thus the game starts.

Characters are varied and awesome. I am especially happy with the changes they made to my favorite characters Rock and Sigfried among them. Rock in the last game was pretty bad, but this time around they gave him lying-down opponent throws, meaning he can usually squeeze out a bit more damage each time he overwhelms you. These sorts of changes are more than welcome and they spread out all over the roster.

But then there's the one small problem: the veterans are the balanced ones. Amy and Rock were pretty lousy last time around, so they got amped up. Amy became less Raphael and more of a swashbuckler, trading in Raphael's precise foil fencing for lots of sweeping maneuvers, twirling, and jumping. But now we have the infamous Guest Characters, hailing from a galaxy far, far away.

First guest character is the Apprentice, from the upcoming Force Unleashed game. And, let me tell you, he is too good. You have been told.

Back in Soul Calibur 2, they gave guest characters to each console. Namco brought out their own guns in the form of Heihachi on the PS2. Todd McFarland guest-designed Necrid and Spawn. Necrid was on all consoles, Spawn was on the Xbox. Nintendo got Link.

The Apprentice is, for lack of a better term, a completely tricked out Spawn. He should be a veteran character and therefore have no problems being balanced, but the similarities end after 'balanced.'

Lots of his attacks combo into Force Levitate, allowing him to air combo. He can summon an unblockable Force Lightning from the ground or a slightly weaker one from the air. He flips in all directions for mindgames. All of his attacks are quick and some have long range. Many of his attacks can Force Throw his lightsaber. He has a bursting shieldbreaker and a Force Pull that stuns you and brings you close range from medium range.

The Apprentice is good. Again, you have been told.

A big part of his balance is that lots of his moves rely on the Force meter, a feature for the Star Wars characters. Attacks that use Force drain the Force bar, and when it is depleted it slowly recharges but puts you into a 'dizzy' state for a moment. With so many attacks and abilities relying on the Force meter, it basically demands that he end up in the dizzy state repeatedly. But this is a small weakness on an amazing character.

Yoda, on the other hand...well, I'll put it this way. When Final Fantasy 7 came out, everyone shit themselves at how great it was. I was a bit more cynical - it seemed like it did everything, but not very well, as though it had been pulled in too many directions at once. Think X-Men 3 of video games. It had some epic and moving moments, but it also had the awful chibi-sized graphics mixed with the taller, darker, mature fighting scenes. It was a huge mixed bag.

Much in that way, Yoda seems to have everything you could need on paper but in execution it can be awkward, clumsy, and embarrasing. Like a threesome.

And now you can all think of Yoda orgies.

Yoda's 8-way run makes him leap, and from there he can do an attack. While attacking, he can burn up Force to leap again and make a new attack. This can go on as long as he has Force to consume. Add to the fact that some attacks totally whiff over him, he's incapable of being grabbed, he can use the Force to make a GI-field around himself, and most of his flips completely dodge all low attacks and you'd think he'd be an all-star character.

Problem is most of his attacks are slow as hell and easily telegraph themselves. If you see Yoda flip in the air, he's probably not trying to dodge, so block for a moment. However if you avoid spamming the flips you can mix it up quite a bit before unleashing, problem is getting close to the opponent is difficult when your range sucks and your run makes you flip forward. And, you know, stubby legs.

Where was I? Oh, right.

Aside from that, Soul Calibur 4 is a kick and a half. The engine itself is nicely polished and everything looks great and plays amazing. Which reminds me.

On principle, I don't play fighting games online. Halo's twitch mechanics are constructed in a way you don't have to have perfect lag, as it can handshake the effect quick enough that when you know you killed someone, you know it. Fighting games are not this way. Guilty Gear is not this way. Nor is Street Fighter or Soul Calibur or Smash Bros. It just can't be. I will always have less than stellar performance and, for that reason, I just can't play fighting games online. I will eternally curse at the ever-present lag and feel horrible at my unchivalrous spamming of a 'safe' move to combat the lag.

My own honor gets in the way of me winning, yes. I would make a good samurai if it wasn't for my laziness.

However, Soul Calibur gets it damn near. When I played it online, it was only fractions of a second off. I've seen few fighters that get it that accurate.

The one thing that I seem to be alone with is the game's one-player modes. This is a strange one.

See since Soul Calibur 2, as far as I know, the game has always forced you to crawl through an agonizing single-player mode that was, for lack of a better term, 'thrown together'. Chronicles of the Sword has been a pain every time I played it, both 2 and 3. Worst thing was I just wanted to unlock the characters, then I can worry about getting everything like costumes and, later, character armor. But instead I was forced to play through this thing every time I wanted to just get Cervantes.

And Story mode is like the Star Fox of plot single players - every time it tries to take itself seriously the world just stops paying attention. You were given branching pathways and interactive cutscenes in Soul Calibur 3...

...when actually it was only given to you if they felt like it. The branching pathways didn't actually alter my fate or change what I saw or who I fought to the point where it mattered. It was just another Fight Followed by Fight. Guilty Gear handled it the best - cutscenes with interesting dialog and stuff that actually mattered. You actually learned the plot and the characters to a degree. Branching storylines changed things and mattered. To this day I've yet to see a story mode as effective as Guilty Gear's.

So now that you've been caught up, here's what Soul Calibur 4 does: Story Mode is an intro, five fights under different circumstances for each character, and an ending for that character. Instead of dealing with all that shit, you just get this. And it works because they're not shoving gimmicks on us. While I'm not praising it for sucking, I'm just saying the alternative is much worse.

Instead of Chronicles of the Sword, you can just take whichever character you like - even your custom characters - and throw them into the Tower of Souls. Remember how most games had challenges that were totally impossible that unlocked cool shit? Well, that's what this is. And it's great. Instead of a super-long single play campaign with tacked-on RTS elements, you get to fight a few matches one-after-another with tag-team style mechanics, including your custom character and all his bonuses and special items.

My one problem with it? Fighting in it gives you gold, but doesn't unlock items. Instead you have to do challenges that are ambiguous and nonsensical. Minor complaint, though, it's a great way to enforce playing the game through trial-and-error. The way fighting games should be.

Plus you can just play through arcade twice or three times and buy all the characters. Simplicity.

Character creation is amazing, but I have yet to delve into it.

All in all, totally great. Get a copy.

The Megas

I got The Megas' CD. It's a mixed bag.

On one hand, everything's flat-out good. Guitar and drums and rythm guitar are all really well done. I'm a whore for video game music (And hey, I'm a Mega Man fan), so this was a nice little niche for me.

I do have some criticisms, though.

Sometimes - Annihlation of Monsteropolis, for example - the vocals are great. Vocals are crucial. But not always. Never always.

Really this is one of the reasons I don't like vocals in garage-band work, and video game music especially. Almost all of the time the vocals end up being cheesy and corny, and the lead singer really doesn't know what to do with it.

I don't know why it is that all amateur singers have to do the "aaaaAAAAAAaaaaa" warble. It bugs the crap out of me because it's honestly embarrassing to be listening to a CD with a singer whom you know is bad. It makes an aura of uncomfortable, as though the Love of Your Life is going to walk in the door just once in your life, hear the music, and go, "Bleurgh," quickly running away before you have a chance to talk.

I mean, I don't know why I have this, but it's something like that.

Simon of American Idol is totally right - Warbling makes your voice sound like you're trying just too damn hard, as if the warble is a big sign above your head saying "Look at how cool and awesome and huge dicked I am, cause I'm terrified you won't notice!"

Sure it's extreme, but that's how I see it.

The point is that The Megas have some passable, some good vocals sometimes. Then there's other times - Just the use of the word "Mega Man" in the lyrics alone - just makes me cringe and turn red. The very first song's very first lyric almost made me skip it;

"Myyyyyy
Name is Meg-aaAAAaaa Maaan"

Ugh.

But other than that, the CD is surprisingly good. Recommended for video game music fans. Cheap as hell too.