Game reviews...

I think the current system for reviewing games is broken.

I've been playing "Transformers: Fall of Cybertron" and it is a really good game. It is just fun, and improves on the problems of its predecessor in every way. The story is kinda' "meh" but it is visually unique, has reasonably diverse gameplay, the multiplayer is interesting, it basically does everything I could want. In fact, try as hard as I can, I can't really pinpoint anything that is actually wrong with this game. Much like my beloved Republic Commando, all of the pieces in this game come together and just work.

It's kind of weird to have a pair of games act as a microcosm of a systemic problem, but I think that the two Transformers games published by Activision do just that. The first one "War for Cybertron" dropped back in the ancient year of 2010, and the sequel "Fall of Cybertron" dropped this year. Fall of Cybertron launched near the time that Black Ops did, if memory serves me correctly. War for Cybertron came out around the monolith known as Modern Warfare 3. As a quick point of reference, the metacritic score of these four games, on PS3

War for Cybertron- 77
Black Ops- 88

Fall of Cybertron- 77
Modern Warfare 3- 88.

Exactly the same mean score awarded to each franchise following a two year gap. This makes absolutely no sense. War for Cybertron was a good game that was marred by some problems. Maps blurred together, it got repetitive, some Transformers were stupidly difficult to control. I'm of the opinion that Black Ops was one of the worst designed games ever. Moving away from how ridiculous and stupid the plot was, it was incredibly repetitive, unreasonably short, and used a lot of cheap tricks to try to create difficulty. The multiplayer was okay, but the maps got abused really quickly and the matchmaking system just did not work. It worked in that you never had to fight the game to accomplish something. So, y'know what, I thought Black Ops should have been a....60 or 70. The media at large felt it should be higher. Okay, fine. 77 and 88 as they are, I can get behind it.

Flash forward to this year, and the scores above. You have got to be shitting me. One game goes out and improves upon every single problem the predecessor has. The other just...doesn't. Okay, MW3 was not as repetitive as CoD's of the past, but it really doesn't switch up a lot. It has loads of things wrong with it, whereas with Fall of Cybertron I dare you to find a reason it doesn't work.

The way game reviews are handed out right now is broken. Somehow the great game which is created by a small studio with improvements in every way with no hype is exactly equal to a somewhat flawed predecessor. Somehow the good game that looks pretty but offers no substantial improvement over the last gen and has a metric shit-ton of hype behind it is still better. This keeps happening, somehow a game with crazy hype is never bad.

Compare Warhammer 40 000: Space Marine's metacritic of 70, against Gears Of War 3's 91. GoW3 is the better game for sure, but on a scale of 100 is it really 20% better? More examples, etc, etc.

Anyway, this vexes me.

The importance of good art...

Earlier today I was playing Okamiden on my DS, and was struck by how good it looks. It is a 2 year old game on a system that was/is not impressive from a technical perspective, and it might be the most visually appealing game on a portable system I have ever played. There's not really any secret to why Okamiden looks so good, it's the same reason Okami looked so good: The art style is amazing. I'm perpetually amazed at how few game companies seem to get this, or at least how few studios try to exploit it.

B.E.A.Utiful.

 

Okami works because the art style make the game beautiful without being a technical tour-de-force. The draw distance is possible because of there's no a lot "going on" with the environment, but you don't care because of how good it looks. A world is render in Japanese painting style, and you interact with it by using a paintbrush. Notice how much sense that makes?

The unfortunate reality of the video games industry is that the big players can basically choose what battles they're going to win. If EA wants to make a AAA title that has the most photo-realistic graphics ever made, they can do it. Two months later, if Epic Games decides that they shall be the new winners of the graphics war, they have the insane resources available to do it. This isn't inherently bad, and I don't want to imply that they are somehow inferior for making use of their incredible resources. As I see it, there are two problems with this: First, a lot of big name titles are starting to look very alike, and second these games do not age well. Remember the first Modern Warfare? Remember the insane hype that game had for its graphics? Notice how it just doesn't look that good anymore?

Let's compare it against a whole host of stylized games that are technically inferior. Borderlands. Timesplitters. Anything LEGO. WoW. They are just as visually appealing, without requiring insane processor power. One of my favourite games of all time is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The first game had a unique faux-cartoon style, incredible animation, and the most gorgeous architecture design I had seen in years. The art direction on this game was incredible. It looked better than the two subsequent sequels despite being created years in advance. Why? The sequels tried to go to a edgier, darker more realistic aesthetic and it just didn't look as good as the original.

I don't know who decided this was a good idea. But I will find them.

Now why am I going on about this? Since my recent time-dump into Okamiden and Borderlands, I've noticed that immersion became a big deal. If the world I'm playing in isn't interesting, if it isn't something I want to see, I have a hard time forcing myself into the "fun part" of the game. In many respects F.E.A.R. 2 is a very good game. It has good balancing, interesting story, varied enemies and scares the piss out of me. Visually though, it just wasn't something I wanted to see more of. This is kind of a shame, because the concept art I can find for it is freaking amazing. 

By comparison, the art in Wind Waker was amazing. Every part of that world was something I wanted to seek out and feast my eyes on. The world building was scary good, due in large part to how incredibly varied visually every area and enemy was, but at the same time everything was thematically consistent. It was even technically impressive, featuring the best fabric physics in all of 2003. No, seriously, hold the spear and watch how the fabric morphs in response to the terrain and motion.

For shits and giggles I'm going to list off a random selection of games with amazing art direction that need to be seen.

Okami and Okamiden.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Price of Persia (that 2008 one that was kinda' freaky)

Ghostbusters for Wii.

Jade Empire (this game was amazing, and is 10$ on Steam.)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic I and II.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Psychonauts

Borderlands I and II

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

Everything LEGO

Team Fortress 2

Medal of Honor: Heroes 

Timesplitters

Probably the best way to explain why good art is so important is to look at the movie industry. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was create with an insanely large bank of computers and was as close to photo-realism as possible. It does not look good today. Toy Story came out in 1995. It looks fine today. In fact...I can't think of a single Pixar movie that looks bad. They all have amazing art and they all have amazingly immersive worlds. I can't think of another company that can claim that.

Holy shit, we need BioWare and Pixar to team up to make a sequel to Jade Empire.

Aaron Allston should make more money.

Aaron Allston is one heck of a good writer. I first read his work back when I was 9ish and ripping through everything I could find with a Star Wars label. He authored the 3-book Wraith Squadron story arc in the X-Wing series, writing about a new unit of particularly skilled misfits given a second chance by Wedge Antilles. I know the premise sounds bad, I know you groaned, shut up and go read them. Personally, I think that the second book in that story arc, Iron Fist, is the best Star Wars novel ever written. I loved it when I was 10, I love it now, the incredibly distressed state of the book's spine serves only to highlight my enthusiasm. It poses some big questions about the nature of the New Republic, answers some of those questions, examines the logistics of a unit like the Wraiths and does the whole thing without any space wizards. The scene with Face and Phanan? Read it, you'll know the one. It is one of the best chunks of writing to ever come out of Dark Horse Publishing.

Last night I read through Starfighters of Adumar again. After reading through that, it is my fervent hope that Aaron Allston made a substantial amount of money off of that book. If there was ever a book dedicated solely to taking a character written to be a big deal and making him into a person, it is this book. A lot of the EU establishes Wedge as a hero to the Republic, with frequent stories about his daring deeds, and in many ways the rest of the X-Wing series does that as well. Instead of just continuing on with Wedge taking on impossible odds and succeeding, it just opens with the question of "Should he be happy with his life?" Follow that with a fantastic supporting cast of "the big four" Rogues and this book is just amazing. It is funny, it is engaging and the story is downright fantastic.

Caveat to this: I have not yet read "Mercy Kill," so I don't know if Allston still has the magic going. I hope so, and reviews seem to indicate that he does.

But anyways: Go read the X-Wing Series. If you don't want to, read the Wraith Squadron Series, then read Starfighters of Adumar. If you don't want to do THAT, just read Starfighters of Adumar.

Anton Strout, my people and women.

While on my epic road trip around the West with my father, I had ample opportunity to read. One of the series I bought up was the Simon Canderous books, written by Anton Strout. This is also notable because I downloaded 3 of them, only buying one actual physical book, reading them via the Kobo app on my iPod. First I want to get the obligatory review out of the way.The first one is titled Dead To Me, subsequent novels are all titled some phrase with the word "Dead" in them. If you're looking for a good modern fantasy read, I suggest you pick them up, they're good. Good, not great, 6/10, I would watch the TV show. Strout's writing is interesting and easy to follow, the dialogue is witty and rewarding, the plot is pretty engaging and most of the characters are well rounded. In fact, I strongly suspect that I would have enjoyed them a whole bunch more if I hadn't read all four back to back, with very few interruptions in between them. I mainlined the whole series like a junkie and in the process got very aware of the failings of the series. While I recommend them, I do have four complaints I really want to flesh out here.

Paperwork. Seriously, all these fucking people do is bitch about paperwork. Every third paragraph complains about paperwork. If these fucking guys actually did their paperwork instead of just bitching about it there wouldn't be any paperwork to bitch about. I understand Strout's desire to highlight that Simon does not fit well into an office environment, I understand we're supposed to sympathize with his frustrations. No one likes overly clunky bureaucracy. No one likes boring, mundane tasks. But it stops being relateable quickly, and stops being funny even quicker. Around halfway through book two it seems like Strout realized "Oh shit, I've beaten this joke to death." He starts adding mention that reports need to be filled out in triplicate like he's trying to revive the joke. It isn't that funny. It doesn't need to be mentioned three times a page. If you want us to sympathize try outlining what he's writing, why he's writing, consequences for not doing so, just stop rehashing the same unfunny joke.

Funny once.

Budget Cuts. Pretty much same complaint as the paper work thing. It gets overused, it isn't that funny to begin with, and for how much paper it fills it never seems to matter to the story.

Does the fucking world revolve around this guy? I don't even know if this is a legitimate gripe. It just seems like Simon Canderous has a bad case of the Harry Potters. He doesn't so much investigate as everything conveniently happens within three feet of him. Once you notice it, it gets pretty bad. For how many plotlines are inching forward at any one time it seems like everything only happens when Simon is there. Yes, this is a consequence of the first person viewpoint. It still seems a little excessive that Simon never has a quiet night (Book 3 taco night? Come on) and that the world seems to be waiting for his presence in order to move along.

Jane and why she's a problem. I almost feel like this should be a whole other post. It is a pretty big issue. Also worth noting; My opinion on this has been pretty strongly influenced by my sister. Now...judging from the frequent references to various internet memes, call outs to other books and bio at the back of the book, Anton Strout is one of my people. We're nerds. Giant, massive, unashamed nerds. We read internet in-jokes. We have t-shirts with geeky puns. He seems like the kind of guy that I want to go and have a beer with. Still,  I feel that this really needs to be said to him and most of our peers.

Guys, the way we perceive women really has to change.

No, seriously. It is really unhealthy.

Every woman mentioned in the book who sticks around for more than 3 sentences is described in almost the same way. Almost always it is some variation of "athletic" "tight fitting clothes" "fantastic curves" or "sexy body." Literally every single major female character has a handful of token sentences describing her as hot. Now, I'm not requiring that there be a token ugly girl in order to redeem a novel, in fact that would probably just highlight the problem. The issue is that characters are not defined by their inert characteristics, instead every woman is basically defined right away as "hot" or "not." Defining the appearance of female characters in primarily sexual terms and adjudging them in that way immediately says that women are sexual beings first, people second. This is fucked, guys.

Look at Jane throughout the 4 books. There is an amazing number of mentions that she's hot. It seems to be all that Simon Canderous can say about his girlfriend. What's more, most chapter ending conversations with her end with some mention made to how hard she's going to bang Simon later. This gets brought up all the frickin' time. If you recap what gets said about her the most, your take away will be that she's really hot, she wears tight nerdy t-shirts and she's horny a lot. She's just a nerd's masturbation fantasy that has a pretty important and interesting character stapled onto the side. There's a difference between writing a good character who happens to be a hot girl and writing a hot girl who is sometimes a good character.

I really wish that this attitude that women are sex objects first people second was uncommon in "nerd culture," but sadly it really isn't. Books, movies, shows, video games. Name a woman lead or major character who wasn't created as a sex object. Seriously, the only one I can think of in recent memory is Gina Carano in Haywire. When you describe her role in the film or her character, or how she's presented you are more likely to emphasize that she's hard as fuck before you mention that she's hot.

No, seriously. She'll fuck you up.

Other than that...Lieutenant Mira in "Space Marine" (another tremendously underrated game) is the only one in video games I can think of. Alma in F.E.A.R. as weird as that sounds? Maybe...erm...Ashley in Mass Effect 1?

Anyways: This overt sexualization needs to end. Why? So that enjoying RPGs and video games and comics stops being so male dominated. So that "nerd culture" actually gets inclusive. As it stands now, the nerdy girls I know don't like interacting with a lot guys because they're incapable of reeling in their sex-drive the second they see an attractive woman. And fuck you guys, I want an inclusive culture.

In summation: Write better female characters. Stop regarding women as sex objects. We're not in freakin' Junior High anymore. Yes, there are many attractive women, some like what you like, get over it.

The dudes I watch...

Throughout my life I've had the opportunity to train in a wide variety of martial arts. When I was a wee lad I took Judo for ~7 years. In high school, I experimented with Krav Maga and eventually moved to Saskatoon where I discovered Pekiti Tirsia Kali. Three years later I can geniunely say that the time, dedication and energy I have given to that system have been incredibly well spent. To quote the trailer for "The Bladed Hand," I like the martial but I love the art. It is 95% of what I could want in terms of combatives, and has an incredible amount of flexibility to make the art your own. As a side effect of this, it has reawakened my curiosity for all martial arts. I like seeing how different parts of the world decided to fight, how many different ways the human body can be used as a weapon.

One of the divides I've always found interesting is that many "martial arts guys" really don't like MMA. A lot of MMA fans (note fans, not the fighters) look down on many martial arts and their practitioners. I find that most of this argument comes from the dichotomy of sport vs combat. Is an MMA a sport? Absolutely. Do some arts fit into that setting better than others? Yes. Does it really matter? Not really. If you need your system have some kind of validation then you either need to re-examine what you're learning or re-examine why you're there. My take-away from Kali was that it will likely never make it to the UFC. The rules don't allow you to punch a dude in the dick, box his ears and run, nor do they allow you to tie up their arms, pull a knife and start stabbing. It is not a sporting system, it is a combatives system and most attempts so far to make it sporting have been failures. (Notable exception: Dog Brothers. But they succeeded by being crazy.)

Personally, I love MMA when I see a unique fighter. Too many fights and fighters follow this format.

Step 1) Both guys are former collegiate wrestlers. They practice cutting weight so they can be as big as possible on fight day.
Step 2) Both guys circle each other and feint a jab every couple seconds, just so they look like they're involved.
Step 3a) One guy works up some courage. Shoots for a single or a double. Goes up against the cage, drags the other guy down.
Step 3b) One guys works up some courage. Throws a big hook. Grabs up, pushes the other guy to the cage in a Thai clinch. Eventually decides to shoot for a single, drags the other guy down.
Step 4) Guy on top uses side control or sits in the other guy's guard. Throws a couple of punches every so often. Holds the other guy down. Win by decision.
Step 5) Optional step. Guy on bottom tries to get out. He either messes it up and ends up with no guard, or goes for a triangle.

I hate that format. It is boring and predictable. Guys don't train to be martial artists or fighters, they focus so much on conditioning and optimizing how big they can be. They create a gameplan, usually "lay n pray" and will not deviate from it. In theory martial arts instill confidence, confidence that at any time, anywhere, you can get out alive. Instead we see most fighters unwilling to risk being physically smaller and unwilling to rely on technique over anything else. I don't like wrestling, I like seeing interesting technique. Seeing interesting or unique technique, or just being plain bad-ass and is what wins me over as a fan So here are my 3 favourite, currently active, fighters to watch.

Honorable Mention

Lyoto Machida

Lyoto Machida. Why? Because I'm not a karate guy, so 95% of the time I have no clue what the hell he's doing. Then it works, and it is really really cool.

3) Dan Henderson

Dan Henderson is good old fashioned bad-ass. Go to wikipedia, check out who he's fought, and at what weight class. You'll notice that he fights in any weight class, at pretty much any time and does very well. Also note the string of broken legends behind him. Technically, Dan isn't that impressive, he doesn't use feints or kicks or really any kind of submission technique, but that's why I just love this guy. His plan, always, is his right cross. At this point in his career everyone knows that Hendo is going to try to punch you really really hard with his right hand. Simple, really. Just practice not getting hit with that hand, how hard can it be? And then he hits someone with it, and it is like a human off switch. Why I love watching Henderson is seeing how he hides that right cross in his combinations. He'll throw combinations that disguise how he's torquing his body, and then unload the big power shot. The usual method seems to be left jab-right cross-left hook-right hand of doom. In concept it is so simple but in practice he's just so good at doing it. The guy has made a career out of bringing one really good gun to a shootout.

 

2) Vitor Belfort

 

Vitor Belfort has faster hands than you. If your name is not Pacquiao, don't even think you compare with Vitor's hand speed. Belfort ticks a lot of the same boxes as Hendo. He's old, not a freakish athlete, and will fight anyone in any weight division any time. Look at his career, he might be the only guy in recent memory who marched down weight classes. Why I like watching him is because Vitor is a southpaw, I'm a southpaw and I like seeing how to use it. He uses his dynamite straight left to effectively block off any hooks from his opponent's strong side. With that option shut down, Vitor then starts playing around with some really good combinations. Didn't get hit by the first punch? There's probably another coming from another whacky angle. Got knocked down? Vitor is still punching you. Gave up your back to get away? He's probably still punching you. The guy used the Wing Chun straight blast, widely regarded as one of the least likely techniques to score a knockout, to knock out Wanderlei Silva. How did he do it? Didn't give away it was coming, landed the first shot, then used that hand speed to chain punch Silva into a different place. It was really cool to see that technique used.

1) Nick Diaz

 

Massive caveat here: I'm not a big fan of how Nick Diaz carries himself when he's not fighting. I don't like the pot, the taunting, skipping out on press conferences, etc. I don't know what he's like in real life, I'm not judging, I would just like him more if he acted differently. That said, holy shit this guy can fight. When I train the Pangamot/Panantukan dirty boxing from Kali and need someone to imitate, I imitate Diaz. I just love this guy's hand work. He fights like an old timey bare knuckle boxer. John Nash (no, not that one) wrote an amazing article detailing the resemblance right here. Seriously, go read this article. All the other stuff about fighting and martial arts and your opinions aside it is an incredible breakdown of how Diaz rediscovered the wheel hundreds of years later. From a technical perspective, there is no one like the Diaz brothers fighting MMA today. That it coincidentally resembles Pangamot and gives me something to copy only makes it better. Why else is Nick Diaz exciting to watch? Most of the time, he barely cuts any weight, so he almost always fights guys bigger than him. He also is a world class BJJ player, so he is always fascinating to watch on the ground. The best part is that his game plan is the same for everyone: He's going to walk you down and throw 100 more punches than you. You can either stand and throw with him (historically a bad plan) or you can take him to the ground (also historically a bad plan.) This one-size-fits-all approach is always fun to watch and is incredibly effective. The guy is just an exciting fighter.

Other Honorable mentions? Roy Nelson, Nate Diaz, old Fedor, old CroCop and Damian Maia.