I was part of the reason Resident Evil 3 was the number one movie at the box office last weekend. I feel neither shame nor joy over this fact, only a curious dullness. My review would be, "Better than the second one, worse than the first."
Since that description leaves a lot to be desired, I have to fall back on science to determine if my money was well-spent.
Positive Test Results:
- Is a crazy guy with a gun the real enemy? No, they're just in the way.
- Does the movie devolve into Lord Of The Flies halfway through? No.
- Can I tell what's going on in the action scenes? Mostly, except for anything involving zombie dogs.
Negative Test Results:
- Are the zombies consistent? No. Super-Zombies can die when lightly chopped in the neck with a machete.
- Do the zombies need someone to open a door to let them in? Yes. A single chain link fence is enough to stop an unstoppable zombie menace.
- Are people properly suspicious of anyone exhibiting flu-like symptoms? Nope.
- For that matter, does the plot rely on someone getting bitten by a zombie and hiding this from everyone else? Yes.
Inconclusive Results:
- Is there bad Zombie Science? Yes, but the viewer is not subjected to enough of it to hurt.
So, there you have it: Resident Evil 3 has somewhat more bad in it than good. Let's all promise never think about this film again.
For reasons I assure you are entirely devoted to leveling, I spent the last three weeks running around Oblivion in a bra and panties. After a long period of game burn-out, I decided to take Garnett Lee's advice and finish a damn game. I needed to prove to myself that I could do it in order to justify upgrading my PC so I could play Bioshock, Overlord, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, and maybe even Hellgate. Or maybe just get a 360 instead.
I came up with short list of games to complete:
- Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
- Okami
- Fatal Frame II
Not a bad list, I thought. All three are titles I liked when I first started playing them over a year ago. And despite my pet peeves (Oblivion's leveling system, Okami/Fatal Frame's frustratingly dated save game and dialogue mechanics), I figured I could plow through each by the middle of October if I ignored Gametap and Steam for awhile. Which would permit me just enough time to get a HDTV and a Xbox before Mass Market Effect comes out.
Okay, so maybe it's too early to hate on Mass Effect, or even Fallout 3. But with all the bitching among the "hardcore" in the gaming media about "casual" games, I think I'm allowed to be skeptical. The most highly regarded CRPGs in recent years were created with the Xbox in mind. And after Knights of the Old Republic and Oblivion, I can't help but think the "C" in CRPG now stands for "casual." (Though I prefer the term "softcore.")
I was doing pretty well in Oblivion until today. I was on my third character, I had a set of goals I wanted to complete before I finished the main quest, and had downloaded enough mods to make the game less stupid. But then I looked up the wandering monster list, and I deleted Oblivion off my hard drive for the last time.
Ignoring animals and discounting minor variations on the same creatures, that's, what, 20 monsters or so? I'm at level 30, and there's nothing left to look forward except ripping out Xivilai hearts and extracting Deadroth teeth? Fuck Oblivion. There hasn't been a more accurately named fantasy territory since Desolace.
Oblivion got fairly good reviews when it came out, and rightly so. Although the map is huge and you're free to level up your character as you see fit, the game is best if finished in a few weeks. If you find yourself trying to complete every quest, max out your stats, or explore every dungeon, you'll quickly discover there isn't much variety in the world. All caverns are pretty much the same, as are all dungeons, ruins, castles, and that's 15 times true for the planes of Oblivion.
I'm off to try my patience with Okami.
Talk about your impulse purchases.
Starting September 25th, Audible is publishing a "serial thriller" written by 15 different authors, at the rate of two or three chapters per week. The final chapters will become available on November 13th. It's read by Doc Ock, which leads me to believe the entire manuscript has already been completed, edited, and tinkered with. It's such a non-event that details are scarcely searchable on Google, but I can't imagine anyone financing this project if it was predicated on S.J. Rozan downloading the latest chapters the day they came out, writing her part, then FWD'ing it to Lee Child in time for him to get his submission back to Alfred Molina in the recording studio.
Which is too bad, because that was the sort of pressure that made the Green Mile so intriguing. But even assuming that's the case, I still couldn't resist knowing: "What would happen if 15 different people wrote a Jeffrey Deaver novel?"
I hope you're ready to find out, and that you have some vague idea of who Jeffrey Deaver is. (If not, he is, as we say in the game-speek sphere, a mystery writer on rails.) Because I'm going to be posting about it every week. Place your bets for best chapter now.
Jesus Christ, who the fuck does Oprah think she is? Jack Ketchum?
Here I am, home alone with my wife out of town. I'm thinking, "Fuck, yeah. I'm gonna hook up my iPod to the stereo, drink some whiskey, crank the soundtrack to Once, then rock out later to some Jonathan Coulton, make a kick-ass steak dinner for one, do some chores so I look totally awesome when my wife gets back, and play Fatal Frame 2 alone in the dark until I freak out and have to turn on all the lights in the apartment and stay awake until 11 o'clock in the morning when I can finally close my eyes without seeing ghosts coming out of everything."
Instead, barely halfway through that list, I found myself staring at a can of vegetable chili.
"I only have four more cans of chili. I have a bunch of canned tomatoes, but I don't like tomatoes. And if the power goes out and there's reason to believe it's never coming back on again, even if people don't know I have batteries and canned food and water enough for a few days (in case of a earthquake--always be prepared), it's only a matter of time before they break in and take my stuff. And my crowbar is in the car, so I can't expect to man up like Gordon Freeman or anything. Shit, is it even safe to mention that on the Internet? I guess it doesn't matter, because there won't be an Internet so no one can ask.com, 'Where can I find canned food and shotguns?' And when the sky goes black and rain is ash, what's the point of knowing who Gordon Freeman is? My iPod is only half charged, so I only have two hours left of listening to music if the world ends, assuming an EMP won't wipe it out. Is that how EMPs work, or is that 24 logic? Maybe I should invest in vinyl. How prepared am I to survive a nuclear attack, really? I'm not even sure where my wife is, but I know she's staying one night at a hotel so she probably has no food at all. If I lost my glasses, I'd die. And if somehow I made it to the ocean to rest in peace, it would be cold, black, birdless, and in Santa Monica."
Some people are scared of oven timers. Some people claim not be scared by anything. I'll admit to an embarrassing agnostic superstition myself (I don't believe in monsters, but I keep the window of possibility open), though in general, I'm pretty jaded. There's usually a voice in my head that says, "Oh, sure. They're eating a baby. Ooooh! Scary!"
But there's something about The Road that subverts that internal narration. The Mike/Joel and the 'bots in my head get cancelled, and without warning it becomes, "OMFG! THEY'RE TRAVELING WITH A PREGNANT WOMAN AND ROASTING CHILDREN ON A STICK! IS SHE EATING CHILDREN TOO, OR IS SHE JUST A CAPTIVE FOOD RESOURCE!? EITHER WAY, THAT'S GOD DAMN SICK! JESUS FUCK! WHY?"
You know things are bad when I double-punctuate and switch to all caps.
I have viewed, read, and listened to three things in my life that have horribly scarred me forever. I consider them all very well-executed, but I can't recommend them. With the exception of The Road, I'm hesitant to even mention what they are. I don't want to encourage anyone.
But The Road is a post-apocalypse novel (Yay!) that was part of Oprah's book club (Boo? I guess. Just because she's "The Man"...who...encourages people to read books. Never mind). It's "literary" (Actually, when there are descriptions, they're slick--that probably doesn't need quotes.) and high-profile, as it was also mentioned once in Games For Windows magazine. So I feel it deserves a special warning.
Do not read this book. I picked it up at the library and it had no quotation marks. It may not even have had commas or capitalization. My memory's a bit fuzzy on that point.
And for fuck's sake, if you are prone to nihilism, existentialism, or just wondering what's the point of it all, do not listen to this book. It's just that good. At this point, I'm hoping the boy turns out to be a figment of his father's imagination, so I can toss my headphones off, breathe a sigh of relief, and say, "Well, that was dumb."
That would be okay.
The next time you wonder why George R. R. Martin's A Dance Of Dragons has not been finshed yet, ponder this: A new line of miniatures is being devised, based on his books. Within a few months, these miniatures will be completed, and complementary models will be sitting on Martin's shelf.
More to the point: Unpainted complementary models will be sitting on George R. R. Martin's hobby table.
I fear for the day when I learn that book five hasn't come out yet because, "Well, if I had only received one version of The Hound, I'd be halfway through A Bushel Of Bastards by now. But I've had to paint The Hound with a helm, with a half-helm, and without any kind of helm at all. That takes a lot of time."
You may not know that nerdcore music rocks harder live. Before PAX, what I had listened to of Optimus Rhyme had only convinced me that, "Yeah, it's pretty neat." Now, I'm a believer. Part of this is the usual hit-or-miss problems that crop up when small independent groups enter the studio. The group goes in, records a good set, and then some damn fool says to themselves, "Hey, all of that RAWK is getting in the way of Count Lyle's mellifluous voice! I'd better fix that."
Meanwhile, M.C. Frontalot's studio works possess a superior studio mix, but I preferred his live backup to the rotating cast of starts he grabbed for his album. That said, I'm still happy to own both CD's, and not just because he gave me a free rubber band with my last purchase.
Meanwhile, Beefy Live is just as good as Beefy Not Live. This is probably because his backup band is an iPod.
On the other hand, I can pretty much take or leave people covering videogame music. There are still some standouts that grab my attention, but for the most part, I only find myself liking the songs I already know from playing the games they're attached to. My current theories as to why this might be the case:
1- As a child, I only played games with good music.
2- Most covers of videogame music drain the midi-styled charm that made them so catchy, while failing to inject their own flavor into it.
3- No, really, Final Fantasy music sucks.
Talk about a great summer for movies. Although I've discussed Once to no end with my wife after seeing it yesterday, I feel speechless. I have that post Donnie Darko (before I saw the deleted scenes and talked with the man and got that bad vibe from Southland Tales) buzz for the first time in years. Your mileage may vary depending on your musical taste, but as far as I'm concerned Once is fucking brilliant.
I can only imagine the pitch meeting. "It's Blair Witch meets a musical. Two singer-songwriter types confess their emotions through actions and song. Oh, and there are realistic reasons for why they're singing, because it's late at night, they're by themselves, and that's what people do."
If you have a girlfriend/boyfriend/partner/significant other, you should take them to see this movie. If you don't, grab the next beautiful person who inspires you and buy two tickets. You have nothing to lose except opportunity.
