tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-110174282024-03-07T19:25:55.316-05:00Soul KerfuffleKerfuffle (noun) - A big commotion or fuss.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.comBlogger236125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-83231428887095465692009-12-04T12:08:00.004-05:002009-12-04T13:01:13.787-05:00Best of the Decade - AlbumsAs another cross blog venture, my good pals at <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/">The Philosophy of Time Travel</a> and <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/">LastBestAngryMan</a> have invited me to participate in a number of top 5 lists as this decade draws to a close. We have <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/2009/12/tptts-top-5-albums-of-decade.html">very</a> <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/2009/12/top-5-of-decade-albums.html">different</a> musical tastes in terms of our favorite stuff, but I also think we all are willing to listen to a lot of different stuff so there is some crossover.<br /><br />Lists like this are by their very nature completely subjective, but the point has always been to simply tell everybody they are wrong about everything.<br /><br />5) <b>Kid A</b> by Radiohead<br /><br />This album represents for me the height of Radiohead's greatness - better than everything that came before and much better than everything that has come since. They take their first steps here into really stretching into experimentation but still keep some pop hooks, and the result is just tremendous. Everybody knows at least one or two songs by Radiohead just from osmosis, but what is interesting is that all these years later, you still have a chance of hearing something from <i>The Bends</i> or <i>OK Computer</i> on your radio but very little chance of hearing anything from this album which surely must be their best.<br /><br />4) <b>Yankee Hotel Foxtrot</b> by Wilco<br /><br />This album is for Wilco what the <i>Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock</i> must have been like for T.S. Eliot: once you produce something this good, how can you live up to it again? Keeping with that analogy, we still haven't seen Wilco's equivalent of <i>The Waste Land</i>. They are still making great music (and I just saw them in concert this year incidentally), but they've never been able to replicate the heights of fancy and genius they hit with this album early in the decade. That's not a knock against the band as few have ever hit heights like this. From the very beginning lyrics: "I am an American Aquarium drinker" you know you are going to get something a little bit different - but through it all it remains a coherent, sometimes heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful work that stands as something to be listened to from beginning to end.<br /><br />3) <b>Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Vol 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness</b> by Coheed and Cambria<br /><br />Rock Band was basically the greatest thing to happen to these guys in terms of popularity as the fantastic track "Welcome Home" from this particular album is featured in the game, and was also featured in the preview for the movie "9". But more than just that particular single, this is the 3rd album in a series of 4 that comprise an entire sci-fi rock opera by the group, telling a singular tale that, while often clumsy/impenetrable in terms of narrative, serves to tie the whole project together in a single thread. This 3rd volume is in my opinion the strongest with so many great tunes that stand alone, but in particular "Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)" and "Apollo I: The Writing Writer" rise to such bizarre heights of creativity in subject matter while at the same time keeping coherent metal hooks - it's just brilliant stuff all around. All 4 albums are terrific, but this one for me is the best of the project.<br /><br />2) <b>Takk..</b> by Sigur Ros<br /><br />Sigur Ros stands alone in their own category of music making right now for me insofar as I firmly believe they are the most important band out there today. You could argue there are other bands that are better but the reason Sigur Ros is so essential is they are in the unique position of being <i>legitimately popular</i>. How this, by pop standards, <i>weird</i> group from Iceland became pop icons is completely lost on me but I'm totally okay with it because it really shows that all is not lost - people WILL listen to truly great music given the opportunity. If you had told me when <b>Agaetis Byrjun</b> was released that "Svefn-g-englar" would feature prominently on an episode of the TV show "V", I would've told you that was patently absurd. It was very difficult to choose between this album and <b>()</b> (also called "Two Sausages Kissing" in jest) only because () was probably more important for the band's development, but I've listened to <b>Takk..</b> too many times not to make this the album I choose. I remember hearing <i>Glosoli</i> for the first time when I saw the band in concert - they were touring just before the release of Takk.. - and having my mind utterly blown. When I think of the Platonic model of "hope", I think of that song.<br /><br />1) <b>Lateralus</b> by Tool<br /><br />This is bar none my favorite band, and this is my favorite album by that band. I get it that Tool isn't for everybody (just people who know what they're talking about), but it is tough to find a musician anywhere who won't at least admit that these guys are all absolutely ridiculous when it comes to the technical talent on display at every instrument in this band. <b>Perfect Circle</b> is a nice project for Maynard and I enjoy them, but <i>this</i> is where Maynard's home is, and this is where he does his best work. It's amazing that this album came out in 2001 and nothing has come out that has been better, including Tool's own <b>10,000 Days</b> which, while awesome, didn't quite hit the level of Lateralus simply because track for track there are absolutely no weaknesses on Lateralus. Perhaps the way I can most easily sum up the level of this band is to relay this story: after seeing this band in concert with one of my friends who is a musician, he simply turned to me and said "Well, that was intimidating." Indeed.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-13463004734185921802009-07-31T13:59:00.003-04:002009-07-31T14:11:15.881-04:00Chat LogSome context for below - tonight the local minor league team, the <a href="http://wilmington.bluerocks.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t426">Wilmington Blue Rocks</a>, are having "Cowboy Monkey Rodeo Night", which involves monkeys dressed as cowboys riding on dogs.<br /><br />This led to the chat below with a good friend:<br /><br /><b>me:</b> tonight is awesome<br /><br /> Cowboy Monkey Rodeo night + fireworks<br /><br /> Monkeys in cowboy outfits riding dogs<br /><br /><b>Friend:</b> shouldn;t they be called Dogboy Monkies?<br /><br /><b>me:</b> Cowboy Monkey will lasso you good for suggesting this<br /><br /> they don't round up dogs<br /><br /> they ride them<br /><br /><b>Friend:</b> yeah true<br /><br /> what do they round up? Squirrels?<br /><br /> COWS???<br /><br /><b>me:</b> what they round up are <i>good times</i><br /><br /> Goodtimeboy Monkeys<br /><br /><b>Friend:</b> now that would be illegal - making monkeys round up squirrels while riding dogs<br /><br /> then - you feed the losing team to a shark<br /><br /> THAT'S good times<br /><br /><b>me:</b> I don't want to live in a country where you can't watch monkeys dressed as cowboys riding dogs herding squirrels tossing them to sharks<br /><br /> and you can quote me on thatYeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-2915759576752769902009-04-14T10:50:00.003-04:002009-04-14T11:28:47.325-04:00HarryOne of the many things that makes baseball the greatest sport in the world is that it represents stability - every March, players start training for April. Every April, thousands of fans show up for Opening Day at their respective ballparks, filled with the hope of possibility - even if their team is predicted to lose 100 games this year, it hasn't happened yet: everybody starts 0-0.<br /><br />As the oft maligned former commissioner Bart Giamatti said: <i>It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.</i><br /><br />In other words, it appeals because there is so little about the game that ever changes. It is as familiar as the spring, as familiar as the sun rising and setting.<br /><br />When Harry Kalas died yesterday, it surprised me that it hurt. It didn't seem to me at first like I had any right to really be affected: after all, I didn't know Harry personally. I never met the man. I was just a Phillies fan, one that probably took him for granted too often like many others, so used to him calling the games that it didn't even cross my mind that someday, he wouldn't be around to do it. Harry called every Phillies game of my entire life - his presence was as ubiquitous as the Phillies themselves, as <i>baseball</i> itself.<br /><br />I stare out the window at what is a gloomy day here in Delaware, and I know the spring will come. I know that everyone will eventually move on, myself included, because baseball, like life, goes on.<br /><br />But for right now, for this moment, Harry is gone, and with him the spring and the promise that both it and baseball bring. The promise they represent - that there are windows of opportunity in life where <i>anything</i> seems possible - for now seems to have disappeared.<br /><br />The feeling will pass, as all things do, and no matter how much we might <i>want</i> things to stay the same, no matter how much we might want to turn on the game tomorrow night and hear Harry call it, comforted by the familiarity of it all, it won't happen. We learn to adjust.<br /><br />Baseball represents that too, you know: the game may not change, but the people do. It's not a bad thing or a good thing, it just is.<br /><br />Right now though, I just want it to feel like spring, the way it did on Sunday when the Phillies won and Harry called the game, and everything was exactly as I thought it should be on an afternoon in April - and now can't ever be precisely the same again.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-19127045662267550782009-01-08T09:23:00.003-05:002009-01-08T09:59:01.734-05:005 Most Anticipated Films of 2009I absolutely love movies, but I dislike going to the movie <i>theater</i>. In the past 2 years I've seen maybe a half dozen movies in the theater, and very rarely will I go on a busy movie day (like a Friday night) if I go at all. I like a nice Sunday matinee, but really with TVs and DVD players being what they are, with all of the easy access we have to movies via Netflix, movie channels, TiVo, Netflix on TiVo, etc. it just seems kind of silly sometimes to go to a movie theater when I (personally) can be guaranteed to enjoy the experience at home. Going to the movie theater is not a sure good time, mostly because of the occasional rudeness of other movie-goers.<br /><br />But sometimes you just can't avoid the hype and you find yourself unwilling to wait for the DVD release.<br /><br />My buddies at <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/">LastBestAngryMan</a> and <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/">The Philosophy of Time Travel</a> agreed we would all post our top 5 most anticipated films of 2009. Here's the top 5 movies I'm most likely to see in the theater in 2009, which by proxy means they are the most anticipated:<br /><br />5) <b>9</b> - This film will mark the real feature film directing debut for <a href="http://www.shaneacker.com/">Shane Acker</a>, who really cut his teeth doing animation with Weta during the <i>Lord of the Rings</i> films. Here's the deal with this one - Acker made a 10 minute or so short film around the concept a few years ago. The movie is embedded below. The film coming out in theaters this year is the whole story. The visual style is super cool and I'm always a fan of animation in all its incarnations.<br /><br />Short film "9":<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/964QHmjLqa0&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/964QHmjLqa0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Feature Film Trailer, featuring a terrific song by <a href="http://www.coheedandcambria.com/">Coheed and Cambria</a>:<br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JIpZxBczWUg&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JIpZxBczWUg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br />4) <b>The Lovely Bones</b> - There are two big reasons I'm looking forward to seeing this. Number one, the book is absolutely terrific and for me exceeded the critical hype. Number two, Peter Jackson is directing, and the material from the book is something I think he could prepare a feast with. No trailer available yet.<br /><br />3) <b>The Wrestler</b> - This movie is technically out right now in the US but only under limited release. I check every weekend to see if it is out around Delaware but so far no luck. The number one reason I want to see this: I haven't seen a Darren Aronofsky movie yet that I haven't loved. I also have a soft spot in my heart for the material here because when I was a kid I was a huge fan of pro wrestling. There's a lot of Oscar talk swirling around Mickey Rourke's performance in this one, if that kind of stuff matters to you.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/61-GFxjTyV0&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/61-GFxjTyV0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />2) <b>Public Enemies</b> - It's a 1930s crime drama starring Christian Bale and Johnny Depp directed by Michael Mann. If you need any more explanation than that I have no idea what to tell you.<br /><br />1) <b>Watchmen</b> - I'm worried about this movie. Really, really worried. There is a very good reason that <i>Watchmen</i> is the only graphic novel on Time's 100 greatest novels list: it is an absolute masterpiece. It is also really, really complex and has always seemed like it would be a nightmare to faithfully translate to the big screen. We already know that at least one key element (the <i>Tales of the Black Freighter</i> framing device) will not be in the movie. There are more and more reports suggesting that the ending has been changed. The director's original 3 hour cut was apparently loathed by the studio and who knows if it will survive tampering. The whole thing is a recipe for a colossal disaster.<br /><br />But I had a lot of the same skepticism with <i>Lord of the Rings</i>, and boy was I completely wrong there. This easily gets #1 because it is probably the only movie I will <i>definitely</i> see this year in the theater, and that's because there's no way I'll be able to avoid it. A great deal of my friends love the graphic novel as much as I do, and I'll be unable to avoid discussions of this movie when it is finally out.<br /><br />Hopefully they will be discussions about how we were totally wrong about all our concerns over the movie.<br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2VLA0tg5yI0&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2VLA0tg5yI0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-59580873331111541732008-08-27T08:23:00.002-04:002008-08-27T11:06:27.005-04:00The Peace TeamYou don't need to know the ins and outs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to know that it's bad. In fact, it has been <i>so</i> bad for so <i>long</i> that whenever another bombing or act of terrorism is reported, it just seems to roll like water off a duck's back for most folks.<br /><br />It says something when a story of cooperation is more unexpected and surprising than a story of people blowing each other up. It says something sad about the way things are there. But it also says something awe inspiring at just how far some people will go to try to change things, even on the tiniest of levels.<br /><br />-------<br /><br />When you say "football", people from different parts of the world will think of different things. Most, of course, will think of what we call in America "soccer". In Australia though, they think of their own variation of "rugby" - Australian rules football.<br /><br />In 2002, Australia hosted the first ever <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/AFLHQ/Development/InternationalCup/tabid/10241/default.aspx">Australian Football International Cup</a>. The idea was to promote interest in the sport in other countries by hosting a tournament that Australia itself would not participate in. It's the kind of thing I can't imagine America bothering to host - we'd want to win our own tournament, after all. But since Australia has the only professional league for their unique sport, it made sense to sit out this tournament because winning was almost guaranteed. Why not give other teams playing their sport in other countries a chance to compete and measure their talents?<br /><br />The tournament was enough of a success that it was hosted again in 2005, and now it will happen a third time here in 2008. This year 16 teams from around the world will compete for the trophy, the most since the tournament started.<br /><br />When you look at the <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/Development/InternationalCup/Teams/tabid/12091/Default.aspx">list of teams competing</a>, one jumps out at you: <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/Development/InternationalCup/Teams/PeaceTeam/tabid/12099/Default.aspx">Peace Team</a>.<br /><br />A strange name for a side participating in a rough and tumble game.<br /><br />-------<br /><br />In January of 2008, Australian football legend Robert "Dipper" Dipierdomenico, along with some other league representatives, presented the rules of the game to a room full of 100 young men. Out of that 100, 40 were selected to participate in a 3 day clinic to learn the basics of the game.<br /><br />The unusual part of the story: these young men were a mix of Israelis and Palestinians, and the clinic was in Jerusalem.<br /><br />Perhaps crazy enough was the idea of getting a team of men completely unfamiliar with the sport ready to compete internationally in just under 8 months.<br /><br />But even crazier was the idea of trying to do it here, with <i>these</i> men.<br /><br />The team faced complications trying to train that would be completely unheard of elsewhere. The coach's instructions needed to be translated to both Hebrew and Arabic. The team was shut out of their Israeli training facility for 4 days during a visit by President Bush when all Palestinians were denied access, including Palestinian members of the team. Team members received threats from both sides of the conflict, either enduring the usual hate from one side or being called "traitor" by the other. Palestinian team members needed to obtain work permits for <i>every</i> training session, sometimes traveling upwards of 4 hours through various security checkpoints.<br /><br />The pressure was too much for a number of the players. Some of them, facing threats from their own friends and neighbors, left the team.<br /><br />In spite of all of this, a few kept practicing. A few kept playing. In spite of the lack of a proper field (they played on soccer fields) with proper goalposts (they had none), they kept learning.<br /><br />The first time the team had seen real goal posts was when they arrived in Australia a week ago.<br /><br />They play their first match of the tournament today against Great Britain.<br /><br />-------<br /><br />New Zealand and Ireland will be the favorites going into the tournament. The Peace Team will probably be lucky to win a single match.<br /><br />But win or lose, they will do it <i>together</i>.<br /><br />"Everyone knows the story in Israel and Palestine, the occupation, the killings, bombings, we came here to show the people, we came for the peace, we need the peace," says Palestinian ruckman Fares Switte.<br /><br />In January, it's not likely Fares Switte knew what a ruckman was.<br /><br />But then again, in January, the whole notion of a team like this was pretty unlikely too.<br /><br />-------<br /><br />After the tournament is over, the players on the Peace Team will return to their normal lives. They will return to face the same strife and conflict they faced before they started playing together.<br /><br />They might even return to find themselves reviled in their own homes.<br /><br />But they'll return changed in this small way, knowing this simple thing: if we can <i>play</i> together, we can <i>live</i> together.<br /><br />-------<br /><br /><i>Note: For a tremendous introduction to the various factions and pieces in play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I can't recommend the game <a href="http://www.peacemakergame.com/">Peacemaker</a> enough. It is easily the most engaging introduction I've ever seen, better even than any book I have read on the topic.<br /><br />And yes, it has a Mac version.</i>Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-16115883255039509912008-08-15T09:29:00.007-04:002008-08-16T09:33:59.537-04:00The Olympics, and LiquorIt's an ever shrinking world.<br /><br />On the one hand it means we tend to fight a little more over resources that we all need.<br /><br />On the other hand, it means we have a better opportunity than ever to learn to live with each other.<br /><br />I'm a big fan of the Olympics. I'm talking about an event where we get to see sports that we probably won't see for another 4 years, but with a built in rooting interest. We root for our country. We root for the human interest stories. We root for the ideal that we can all, just maybe, get along for a couple weeks.<br /><br />Of course the ideal is not reality. The Olympics are bringing some of China's questionable government practices out into the world spotlight. The games are sometimes overshadowed by stories of the conflict in Georgia.<br /><br />In spite of these things, sport goes on. The beauty of sport as a fan is that, for the duration of the match, game, whatever, you aren't thinking about those things. It is not a good idea to <i>ignore</i> what goes on in this world. But it's not a bad thing to set it aside once in awhile.<br /><br />-----<br /><br />Imagine you've got a tumor in your belly growing so large that it begins to push all of your internal organs, liver, intestine, kidneys... all to the sides of your body.<br /><br />Imagine that the hospital that is trying to treat you has just been taken over by a group that is likely to kill you if they see you.<br /><br />Imagine that it doesn't matter anyway, since the doctors have told you there is nothing they can do to save you.<br /><br />Imagine you are two years old.<br /><br />This boy exists, and he lives in Iraq, the child of a Sunni family whose hospital had been taken over by Shiite militia.<br /><br />On the other side of the world, in Boston, <a href="http://www.raytyemedicalaidfoundation.org/">someone</a> hears of this, a wealthy, 85 year old liquor tycoon whose own son died of an incurable form of cancer.<br /><br />The world is shrinking.<br /><br />The elderly fellow from Boston pays for the young boy's family to fly to Jordan where there is a very dim hope of treatment with the tumor so far advanced.<br /><br />The doctors in Jordan do not know what will happen, but it is the only hope.<br /><br />It is not a miracle <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/08/13/iraq.baby/index.html">what happens next</a>. A miracle would be something that defies all explanation.<br /><br />I don't yet believe that acts of human kindness defy all explanation.<br /><br />-----<br /><br />The pursuit of athletic excellence is an ideal, just like the pursuit of global peace. They may both be fleeting things sometimes, but that doesn't mean they don't occasionally exist, even if only in very small batches.<br /><br />For just a few moments, when Michael Phelps breaks another world record, for a fleeting moment he is the pinnacle of athletic excellence.<br /><br />For just a few moments, when a young Iraqi boy walks out of a hospital in Jordan after treatment paid for by a elderly man in Boston, <b>they are</b> world peace.<br /><br />The world is shrinking. And it is not a bad thing.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-44873630880309961202008-08-06T08:41:00.004-04:002008-08-06T09:20:55.810-04:00The Big 3-0Aaaaand we're back.<br /><br />So as of today I am 30 years old. Things couldn't be better.<br /><br />I've <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2006/03/old-man-in-young-mans-body.html" title="Old Man in a Young Man's Body">written before</a> about what I think the advantages to getting older are and I still stand by those things. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Watterson">Bill Watterson</a> once suggested that people who remember childhood as an idyllic time were probably never children, and that's a statement I agree with. It's not like being a kid was bad (it wasn't), but it's a pretty amazing (and sometimes scary) thing to have a modicum of control over your life.<br /><br />I also maintain it is awesome to be able to have the authority to scold those younger than you are. Age is the type of completely arbitrary authority that just increases with every passing day. Just this morning I pulled into the parking garage at work and there was a young fellow blasting music out of his car. Just the fact that I could legitimately think to myself: "That young punk, what's he doing playing music at that volume this early in the morning" and actually have a small part of that thought be automatically accurate (the part about him being "young" compared to me, not necessarily the part about being a punk, he's probably a real swell kid, I mean after all he is arriving at work at 7:30 AM just like I am, probably during his summer vacation) is the type of thing that I find internally amusing enough to keep me in a good mood.<br /><br />So, where have I been these past several months? Well, I haven't been doing anything particularly epic. Since getting married, Jules had been busy studying for the Delaware Bar Exam (a 3 day test which she finished taking last week, results in October) and I've been doing... whatever it is that I do.<br /><br />And frankly that's what I LIKE doing. There was a time in the heady days of my youth (you know, like 8 years ago) where I would have been terrified of the notion of working a 35-40 hour a week job, settling in to some kind of routine. Now it's really what I enjoy most. Some of my best times are just relaxing at home talking to Jules, reading a book or watching baseball on the tube together. I'm a much more boring guy than I used to be, but I consider that to be a good thing.<br /><br />So why haven't I been updating the blog then? What's the excuse? Well, there really isn't any. But I've been thinking during all those months I <i>haven't</i> been writing about what this blog <i>is</i> exactly. Is it a journal? Is it a blog about games? Shouldn't it have a theme of some kind?<br /><br />And I've kind of decided that there are enough blogs out there that spend their time discussing games, and enough blogs out there that are just journals. There are enough blogs out there that complain and mock various things, and really I'm not as good at any of that stuff as they are.<br /><br />So as of today, I'm going to try something new with the blog. I'm going to go for a general theme of optimism. A general theme that says "life can be pretty cool." That may still involve games that I think are fun and self-deprecating personal anecdotes and some of the other random stuff I throw up here... but the gist will be the type of kerfuffle that puts a smile on my face.<br /><br />We'll see, maybe it will put a smile on yours. And if you got this far, thanks for not unsubscribing from this thing.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-32863537787088353912008-03-28T12:47:00.006-04:002008-03-28T13:19:15.304-04:00I Can Prove It With Google ResultsI'm starting to see the following expression used more and more in various publications these days, particularly by journalists:<br /><br /><i>Searching for <b>X</b> on Google produces <b>Y</b> results in <b>Z</b> seconds.</i><br /><br />If you haven't seen this before, let me give you a couple of examples:<br /><br />From <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1206614810253">Law.com</a>:<br /><br /><i>Online virtual worlds are wildly popular, attracting millions of people every day, and a recent Google search for MMORPG yielded approximately 32 million results.</i><br /><br />From the <a href="http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/285877">Toronto Star</a>:<br /><br /><i>Partner new Blue Jay shortstop David Eckstein and the word "scrappy" and a Google search will advise you of some 5,300 possibilities. In just 0.38 seconds, too.</i><br /><br />From Jose Canseco's new steroid book, <i>Vindicated</i>:<br /><br /><i>Put in 'Alex Rodriguez' and 'infidelity' and you'll get like fifty thousand hits.</i><br /><br />The gist I guess is that there is supposed to be some correlation between <b>X</b> and <b>Y</b>.<br /><br />People, please stop this madness. Maybe you think it's a cute gimmick and a nice alternative to the old stock "<i>Meriam Webster defines 'infedility' as...</i>" type of intro, but all it does is expose you as a complete idiot. For the love of god, there <b>is no correlation between X and Y</b>. It's a firk ding blasting search engine, it goes and gets as many results as it can.<br /><br />Allow me to demonstrate via the following examples of my own.<br /><br /><i>If there was any question that more dinosaurs are wearing pink hats now than ever before, just pair "pink hat" with "dinosaur" in a Google search. You'll get 635,000 results in 0.17 seconds.</i><br /><br /><i>I always thought bananas were funny looking, like they're from another planet. You might be surprised to hear that a Google search of "aliens plant bananas" yields 526,000 results in 0.29 seconds. Bananas may be the proof we need that we are not alone.</i><br /><br /><i>Recycling for the planet is one thing, but what about recycling what our own body produces for ourselves? A quick Google search of "lose weight by drinking raw sewage" gives you 153,000 results in just 0.32 seconds. It's obviously an idea worth considering.</i><br /><br />To writers everywhere, I am begging you this last time to please stop this insanity, or so help me I will Google "[your name here] is completely brain dead", thus proving forever that somebody needs to pull your plug.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-64340708613129437182008-03-20T09:14:00.011-04:002008-03-21T10:21:50.261-04:00The Great Game Throwdown: RPGsBoth the <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/2008/03/great-videogame-throwdown-rpgs.html">LastBestAngryMan</a> and <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/2008/03/great-video-game-debate-take-7-role.html">The Philosophy of Time Travel</a> are way ahead of me here, but this marks the final installment of the Great Game Throwdown.<br /><br />Being nerds of the highest quality, we have saved the best, Role Playing Games, for last.<br /><br /><b>5 - Planescape: Torment (PC)</b><br /><br />One thing you'll find in common with most of these choices is the quality of the stories told.<br /><br />What's kind of sad is that not many heard this particular story.<br /><br />Made by the RPG kings at BioWare (now a <a href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=29520">part of the EA conglomeration</a>), <i>Planescape: Torment</i> was designed on the same Infinity Engine on which the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games were built. The world of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape">Planescape</a>, however, is a far cry from the prototypical stuff one associates with the <i>Dungeons and Dragons</i> franchise, and I think this probably hurt sales of the game.<br /><br /><i>Correction: Astute reader Dhruin correctly points out that the game was actually made by Black Isle Studios using BioWare's Infinity engine, not by BioWare itself.</i><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0pCKiEVi9qsBF4Rh62T1neRvpOOtBKOIHh68kTeTBnqfjMtZ3eCBokfUOWXKVqPLCY6W5B_4nrTf3wb5y6gdx-JnM5wT_RBxRpNuY76_vCVDRvQNZifcrep2vA6vlxPtLfQZ07A/s1600-h/planescape_01.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0pCKiEVi9qsBF4Rh62T1neRvpOOtBKOIHh68kTeTBnqfjMtZ3eCBokfUOWXKVqPLCY6W5B_4nrTf3wb5y6gdx-JnM5wT_RBxRpNuY76_vCVDRvQNZifcrep2vA6vlxPtLfQZ07A/s400/planescape_01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179815129974422914" /></a><br /><center><i>The Nameless One, pictured here with his sidekick, Morte the floating skull</i></center><br />But that's too bad, because the story is nothing short of awesome. One of the major themes deals with "consensus reality", the notion that if enough people believe in something it becomes real, and that's really what the Planescape universe is all about. The game capitalizes on this in very clever ways, and in the end it is one of the more tragic plots I've played in a computer game.<br /><br />A terrific game, and one I wish I could play again.<br /><br /><b>4 - Final Fantasy VII (PS1)</b><br /><br />One of the things I've kind of been struggling with when doing these lists is what exactly the notion of "great" is.<br /><br />For the most part I've been posting games that are great to me <i>personally</i>. Games, like music, are usually a matter of personal tastes.<br /><br />But there are certain bands that whether we like or not, we can't deny they had a major impact on music in general. The same holds true for certain games.<br /><br /><i>Final Fantasy VII</i> isn't my favorite game in the Final Fantasy series (that would be FF IV, which was actually FF II here in the US. I know, it's confusing), but it has to be considered one of the most important games in the history of RPGs, if not video games period.<br /><br />The game had such enormous impact and such a complex storyline, unprecedented at that time, that it introduced an entire generation of gamers to the possibilities of the video game medium. When critics attack video games as nothing but murder simulators, it is games like FF7 that gamers present as their defense.<br /><br />The iconic moment of Aerith's death in the game is one that anyone who has ever played the game remembers perfectly, and is often cited as the moment people realized that video games could be so much more. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDueojNDOhBupRdPvbkketzwtmh_JlFhthzIsUnRqNAbo9KcPtSkaAwnkiv1Rf_0qJnoIyIyqp1PHDmuTg3EzwICxWY92cyaZe3RjL8U-GzefvS0FeZ1uU7rUbawKa4w-iGyyUcg/s1600-h/Aerith.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDueojNDOhBupRdPvbkketzwtmh_JlFhthzIsUnRqNAbo9KcPtSkaAwnkiv1Rf_0qJnoIyIyqp1PHDmuTg3EzwICxWY92cyaZe3RjL8U-GzefvS0FeZ1uU7rUbawKa4w-iGyyUcg/s400/Aerith.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179822147950984594" /></a><br /><center><i>Aerith, a gaming icon</i></center><br /><br />Final Fantasy VII proved that this is a medium that can move people, and a medium that can move people can surely be considered art.<br /><br />Yes, art. And I don't think the importance of FF7 in this argument can be understated. It's a game about which people have written books and graduate theses. <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_84/474-A-Play-within-a-Play">Countless articles</a> have been written about the game's impact. People still write <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_114/1472-Midgar-is-Burning">fan fiction and chat about the game</a>.<br /><br />Is it a <i>great</i> game? I don't know. It's not really a sandbox like some of these other games, and you're kind of forced step by step through the story. But the story was unprecedented, the emotional impact real, and the significance, I believe, yet to be paralleled.<br /><br /><b>3 - Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)</b><br /><br />The Elder Scroll games have built their reputation on being insanely open-ended. On the one hand that usually means the main story isn't particularly tight (at least I found that to be the case with <i>Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall</i>). But it really doesn't matter because the game is more like a huge sandbox anyway.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEd2VR_SF2PzAuOkCoFlvpQtifitnhbLhZfJGHZVZ0HRrc5RKKaT3bFuU58YgIfPecX4PQgUaKY5JvlK_DWuR9omKaj-_57KCFd0yNaaQ1eFj3RTbBcvX31fIgbdltRQJzNjfz-g/s1600-h/oblivion.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEd2VR_SF2PzAuOkCoFlvpQtifitnhbLhZfJGHZVZ0HRrc5RKKaT3bFuU58YgIfPecX4PQgUaKY5JvlK_DWuR9omKaj-_57KCFd0yNaaQ1eFj3RTbBcvX31fIgbdltRQJzNjfz-g/s400/oblivion.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179830832374857122" /></a><br /><center><i>Portals to other dimensions are great space savers for your closet or garage</i></center><br /><br />I know LBAM picked <i>Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind</i> on his list but I've got to go with <i>Oblivion</i> for the following reasons:<br /><br />- Story felt tighter and more interesting.<br />- The side stories/quests were better quality for me.<br />- Game was significantly less buggy.<br /><br />They're all great games and you can easily get 100+ hours of gameplay out of any of them.<br /><br /><b>2 - Chrono Trigger (SNES)</b><br /><br />The best game ever to come out on the Super Nintendo, hands down.<br /><br /><i>Chrono Trigger</i> has a terrific plot line that actually uses time travel and makes it not suck. Wonderful, clever characters. For my money the <a href="http://chrono.ocremix.org/">best soundtrack</a> a video game has ever had. Multiple endings. A mode where you could start the game from the beginning with all of your existing experience and gain access to even MORE endings by beating the game at different times in the plot line.<br /><br />I've always wished they'd release an updated version of this game for the Nintendo DS or something. I'd buy it the second it became available.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWecy6_qw_H0hjie8-TIgy2QNcKDO95QmsxW7IyGRFOw-DLsLDVtPuBQcuwRetz0EkPozp2Dh9ejKWF07zC7ZpuhgyrDEjooqR_9crsAm7tag4VzNL6bEk6JF1WOlEsDJezZy7g/s1600-h/chrono.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWecy6_qw_H0hjie8-TIgy2QNcKDO95QmsxW7IyGRFOw-DLsLDVtPuBQcuwRetz0EkPozp2Dh9ejKWF07zC7ZpuhgyrDEjooqR_9crsAm7tag4VzNL6bEk6JF1WOlEsDJezZy7g/s400/chrono.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179831755792825778" /></a><br /><center><i>You know it's the final battle because there are, like, LASERS in the background</i></center><br /><br />A sort of sequel, <i>Chrono Cross</i>, was released on the PlayStation and was a decent game in its own right, but it didn't capture the pure magic of the original. If you can find this anywhere, even on an emulator, I really encourage you to do so.<br /><br /><b>1 - Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (PC)</b><br /><br />Here's the thing about BG2: everything I said about every other game in the list applies here, and then some.<br /><br />Did BG2 have the incredible cultural impact that FF7 had? I highly doubt it. But for me it's the coming together of dozens and dozens of other great design ideas into one flawlessly executed package.<br /><br />Great story? Check. Great characters? Check. Great soundtrack? Check. Open ended enough to feel like you're not boxed in? Check. It goes on and on.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7PYDjZMJANFUca6SeKnnq8jsuOP_VH4Moza0_C_OVRWOLWkxiFq1Todok97AQjuaia5lg82YsPH919cpwKpjzoQLKXXQ3eAt51okv5mZb_DyeXyzGcDiGS5YQs8gFTbW8O58bcg/s1600-h/baldursgate2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7PYDjZMJANFUca6SeKnnq8jsuOP_VH4Moza0_C_OVRWOLWkxiFq1Todok97AQjuaia5lg82YsPH919cpwKpjzoQLKXXQ3eAt51okv5mZb_DyeXyzGcDiGS5YQs8gFTbW8O58bcg/s400/baldursgate2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179832069325438402" /></a><br /><center><i>The hand painted backgrounds still look good</i></center><br /><br />Even the expansion pack, <i>Throne of Bhaal</i>, which ends the story once and for all, is incredibly satisfying. But BG2 is capable of standing alone. This is BioWare at the height of their powers.<br /><br /><b>Worst Ever - Neverwinter Nights</b><br /><br />Maybe it's harsh. Maybe the game wasn't really that bad. Maybe it's simply crazy for me to criticize the same company that produced the Baldur's Gate games.<br /><br />But I remember sitting at GenCon in Milwaukee the year this game first got demoed. I remember being blown away by how easy it looked to create your own adventures, control your own story, etc. BioWare was selling this as the game that was going to be able to bring the tabletop experience to computer gaming. I left absolutely convinced that <i>Neverwinter Nights</i> was going to make it possible for my friends to play D&D together forever, wherever we might end up.<br /><br />I realize now that translating the tabletop experience to a video game is just an impossible goal. The developers probably knew it too. It was probably just a marketing ploy. But none of that makes the end result any easier to swallow.<br /><br />It's not just that the multiplayer aspect of this game fell way below the hype and expectations. The single player game is actually several steps <i>backward</i> from games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, games <i>the same company made</i>.<br /><br />The storyline is cookie cutter. The combat is elementary. You can only control one character plus one sidekick. The initial release of the game had a horrendous bug that crashed your game after the 4th chapter. The dialogue trees would repeat themselves. None of the attention to detail and careful QA was in Neverwinter Nights that we say in every other game made the company up to this point.<br /><br />BioWare would bounce back with <i>Knights of the Old Republic</i>, which barely didn't make this list (it would come in at 6th). They made another classic with <i>Jade Empire</i> after that. Now that the company has been purchased by EA, I'm skeptical that they'll ever release a really excellent game again, but I'm willing to wait and see.<br /><br />But Neverwinter Nights was truly a low, low point for me. Not only did it fail to deliver on what was promised, it failed to deliver on anything really <i>fun</i>.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-15080094976838388182008-03-04T15:23:00.003-05:002008-03-04T15:43:16.363-05:00RIP Gary GygaxThe "Father of Dungeons and Dragons", and really tabletop gaming period, <a href="http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/report-gary-gyg.html">died today</a>.<br /><br />I don't think <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gygax">Gary Gygax's</a> influence in gaming today can be overstated. Along with Dave Arneson, the man basically helped invent an entirely new way to play games, and in the process, an entirely new way to make friends.<br /><br />It may seem nerdy and cheesy to those who have never sat down with others to sling dice, enjoy good company, and hopefully tell a good story together, but his impact on my life is, as one friend said when he heard the news, "greater than any of us might care to admit."<br /><br />But it was huge. When I got married a month ago, the guys that were standing up there with me were guys I had played <i>Dungeons & Dragons</i> with.<br /><br />Even today, modern computer RPGs use systems that Gary Gygax helped pioneer. They use design paradigms that we take completely for granted now, but somebody had to invent them. Mr. Gygax was that guy.<br /><br />Part of getting old is seeing your heroes pass away. Here's hoping the hobby he created lives on for a long, long time.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-49020548879545485192008-03-02T10:42:00.004-05:002008-03-03T11:42:13.558-05:00The Great Game Throw Down: First Person ShootersThere is no genre in gaming that kicks the crap out of me like First Person Shooters. For reasons unknown, I am just not very good at these. That's kind of a funny thing, because I've played quite a few of them, and college was full of FPS sessions on the campus network. There was a game or two where I became competent, but at some point these games got too fast and confusing for me to handle, and I now spend most of my time getting fragged.<br /><br />Seriously, I've gotten so bad at these games that there are some of them I can't beat even with cheat codes.<br /><br />I'd also argue that this is a genre that has stagnated worse in the last few years than any genre we've covered. <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/2008/02/great-video-game-debate-take-6-first.html">The Philosophy of Time Travel</a> does a good job in his list of going through some of the landmark games innovation-wise, but you'll note that most of the "innovation" is really just graphic improvements and quality storylines. Those are nice things, but they're not <i>innovative</i>. With First Person Shooters however, I'm not sure how you really take them anywhere new because I think this is also a genre where people have very definite expectations now about how the game is supposed to work. Improvements to physics engines (I can blow more stuff up) and graphics (it looks really pretty when I blow stuff up) are as close as it gets.<br /><br />But I'm also far from an expert in this category, so I could have it completely wrong. Here's a look at my list anyway, a list that will probably appeal to people who are also terrible at these types of games.<br /><br /><b>5 - Heretic</b><br /><br />This game was built using the <i>Doom</i> engine (we'll get to Doom in a second) but was set in a medieval setting. The engine was modified to add the ability to look up and down. I liked it because you got to shoot things with a magic staff, although I constantly ran out of ammo. Fortunately that's where cheats come in.<br /><br />The game was successful enough to spawn some sequels, but I really can't figure out what the order is supposed to be. The incredibly hard <i>Hexen</i>, for example, was based in this world (<i>Hexen</i>, incidentally, was strongly considered for the "Worst Ever" award due the crippling difficulty of its puzzles/key chases. This is the kind of thing that hard core FPS players probably consider one of its strengths).<br /><br /><b>4 - Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast</b><br /><br />This was a really cool game but another one that was tough to beat without cheats (for me). But any FPS game where you get to swing around a light saber has to be considered reasonably awesome, and this one was better than the first in every conceivable way. This was developed by the same company that made <i>Heretic</i>, incidentally, and a lot of critics still consider it one of the best <i>Star Wars</i> games ever published. I might agree with that if I was any good with this genre, but the ability to deflect blaster shots with the light saber was pretty great.<br /><br /><b>3 - Duke Nukem 3D</b><br /><br />Probably not the greatest game, but it was one that I was actually <i>good</i> at for a short period of time. This was the shooter of choice my first year of college. I don't think it really introduced too many innovations (except possibly the jetpack, but I don't know for sure it was the first to do that), but it was a well executed game that was certainly fun.<br /><br />The sequel to this game, <i>Duke Nukem Forever</i>, is something of a running gag on the internet. The game was officially announced in 1997 and has been in development ever since. It received the Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award from <i>Wired</i> in 2003.<br /><br />Ever hopeful, 3D Realms put up a <a href="http://www.3drealms.com/duke4/">new teaser</a> in December of 2007. They just don't ever stop making this game.<br /><br />You can read all about its hilarious, tortured history <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever">here</a>.<br /><br /><b>2 - Doom</b><br /><br />This game provided me with two very important developmental moments in my life.<br /><br />1) The first time I killed something in a game with a chainsaw.<br />2) The first time I played real live mutliplayer against somebody.<br /><br />The days of <i>Doom</i> were the days of 2400 baud modems and the like. All the modems were so different that it took heroic efforts to get them to talk to each other for games like this. My buddy and I spent an entire day back and forth on the phone trying to adjust the settings on our modems, attempt to connect, reconnect, etc. The problem also was that neither one of us had a dedicated phone line for the modem... the notion was considered real extravagance back then. So we'd try to connect, then have to hang up and call each other back, often getting busy signals as one guy was trying to call the other guy or still attempting to connect.<br /><br />It was worth every second though, because I'll never forget how excited I was when we could actually see each other walking around on the screen. For awhile we didn't even shoot, we just ran around in circles and chatted, almost unable to believe it actually worked.<br /><br />Thinking about <i>Doom</i> reminds me just how far technology has come. It's pretty awesome.<br /><br /><b>1 - Quake</b><br /><br />I can certainly appreciate this game's significance. It's basically a standard now against which other FPS games are compared. Even the sequels are measured against this game (some favorably, some not so favorably).<br /><br />I have to wonder if <i>Quake</i> got it so completely right that there was really nowhere else to go? I mean the physics are basically perfect in terms of deathmatch. The weapons are all awesome and basically get copied in every game since. The modding community has made it so you can play it so many different ways. I mean, what's left really to do?<br /><br /><b>Worst Ever - Extreme Paintbrawl</b><br /><br />The most hilarious video game reviews I have ever read to this day remain written about this game.<br /><br />In fact, they were so funny it made me actually want to get the game just to witness the spectacle. So I ended up picking it up one day out of a bargain rack.<br /><br />This isn't just the worst <i>shooter</i> ever, it's absolutely the worst <i>game</i> I've ever played in my entire life.<br /><br />The AI is coded up like this:<br /><br />1) Run straight<br />2) Goto 1<br /><br />I'm not kidding. This means that your teammates just end up getting stuck in corners.<br /><br />But that's if the AI is actually <i>working</i>. Otherwise they just end up sort of violently twitching in place until they get shot.<br /><br />"Practice" mode consists of dropping you into one of the game's five fields and leaving you there - no targets, no practice opponents, nothing. You can basically practice running around in circles.<br /><br />Paintballs often get stuck in midair.<br /><br />Keep in mind during all this that since this is paintball, you're out as soon as you get shot.<br /><br />Ironically, the game actually uses the Duke Nukem 3D engine.<br /><br />Read TPOTT's list <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/2008/02/great-video-game-debate-take-6-first.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Read LBAM's "list" <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/2008/02/great-videogame-throwdown-first-person.html">here</a>.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-28661901220194781282008-02-26T14:38:00.002-05:002008-02-26T14:41:53.475-05:00Dwarf Fortress for MacI'm a couple days behind on this, but a Mac version of <i>Dwarf Fortress</i> is <a href="http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/">now available</a>.<br /><br />If your last excuse for not having tried this game is that you own a Mac, you are now out of excuses (unless you still have one with a PPC processor, in which case you are still out of luck).Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-46735268575490311702008-02-15T14:15:00.010-05:002008-02-20T08:19:32.291-05:00The Great Game Throw Down: SportsAfter the thorough stomping I administered in the Strategy/Sim category, we move on to Sports. With no ado whatsoever:<br /><br /><b>5 - Mike Tyson's Punch Out!</b><br /><br />Which do you think Mike Tyson is better known for? Biting off half of Evander Holyfield's ear or <i>Punch Out!</i> on the 8-bit NES? The way you answer this question can sort of define you as a person.<br /><br />An altogether great game that just about everybody has played at some point or another. Everybody remembers certain annoying fighters in the game that were their nemesis too. For me, it was Soda Popinski, who kept me from the upper tiers more than most of the other fighters. He had this horribly annoying laugh and was also purple, the color of pure evil.<br /><br />It's very satisfying to watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FgJpTJb6uw">this video</a> where the guy houses the purple jerk in 1:08. I wish I knew this trick back in the day.<br /><br /><b>4 - Excitebike</b><br /><br />I'm a sucker for any game that allows a high degree of customization. <i>Excitebike</i> was way ahead of its time because it allowed you to build your own tracks, which was by far the coolest part of the game. The gameplay was ridiculously simple so that anybody could learn it quite quickly, but the real fun was making impossibly hard tracks by stringing gigantic jumps and obstacles together and just trying to figure out how to make it to the finish line.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOCHBowUtoOZJ2TrRiGq1E0JdnybTah0_VAdnHHQmTg-KgN0UCYgshQolCwfiaYPhRQBICHn1gezyVfxm8plM5RDWn9AdJt47xjf9UNCGcJGOkwZcgY-NdLGQIvGoYIJZ6zV9pNQ/s1600-h/Excitebike.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOCHBowUtoOZJ2TrRiGq1E0JdnybTah0_VAdnHHQmTg-KgN0UCYgshQolCwfiaYPhRQBICHn1gezyVfxm8plM5RDWn9AdJt47xjf9UNCGcJGOkwZcgY-NdLGQIvGoYIJZ6zV9pNQ/s400/Excitebike.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5167290516985447682" /></a><br /><br /><b>3 - Football Manager 2007</b><br /><br />Known here in the states as "Worldwide Soccer Manager 2007", the story of this franchise is actually pretty interesting.<br /><br />The company <i>Sports Interactive</i> used to release their soccer sports management game under the title <i>Championship Manager</i> via publisher <i>Eidos</i>. However, for the 2005 edition of the game SI signed on with publisher <i>Sega</i> while Eidos held on to the brand name of "Championship Manager". This led to a lot of consumer confusion, especially when SI's release of the latest version was delayed. Eidos wasted no time releasing Championship Manager 2005 which wasn't put together by the same team.<br /><br />Since then SI has put out its regular yearly edition of what is now called "Football Manager" (except in the states where "football" isn't played with your feet), and this was the version that got me hooked.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2Iq05dDQRzV4Gjh1GQhj02l7Lsq_2VXb-1ckqi3UUaUioywxfevhpI5tyoQFiHJ4x-oPVD-3O1C0areociQvufVqn8hQN0Or-e1BNK7m7qf1mK2KBEjkvh7dWR5d-8wlp-VAzw/s1600-h/Skinny-New2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2Iq05dDQRzV4Gjh1GQhj02l7Lsq_2VXb-1ckqi3UUaUioywxfevhpI5tyoQFiHJ4x-oPVD-3O1C0areociQvufVqn8hQN0Or-e1BNK7m7qf1mK2KBEjkvh7dWR5d-8wlp-VAzw/s400/Skinny-New2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5168762513946936594" /></a><br /><br />I'm probably behind the curve compared to European players of the game, who have almost certainly jumped to FM 2008 by now. In fact, critical reception of FM 2007 overseas was really not that great. But it was the first version of the game I've ever played and I'm still playing the darn thing.<br /><br />I've always dug sports management games like this where you don't actually PLAY the games but are in charge of every other aspect of managing a franchise. <i>Baseball Mogul</i> and <i>Out of the Park Baseball</i> are two great examples of these types of games in baseball. But there is something magical about the beautiful game, especially when you see your carefully considered tactics play out on the road to a trophy.<br /><br />The English football league system is much more complicated than in the US also. In English football, the bottom teams get "relegated" to lower leagues, while lower tier teams that finish on top of their respective leagues get "promoted". This means that if you don't perform, you won't be in the same league next year, which is a pretty serious incentive to do well. Imagine, for example, that this system was in place in American baseball. The Kansas City Royals would be playing in the minors.<br /><br />So it's particularly fun to try to build a lower tier team into a top tier contender. Playing the game has given me a much greater appreciation for soccer in general, and I watch it avidly on weekends now.<br /><br /><b>2 - Tecmo Super Bowl</b><br /><br />Video game football reached perfection with this game. It's just that simple.<br /><br />This game is so awesome that people STILL release roster updates for it (check out <a href="http://www.knobbe.org/">Tecmo Bowl Repository</a>).<br /><br />Madden had a few years there back in its early days where it was fun. NFL 2K5 was the last really excellent football game to come out in the past several years. But none of them were ever as fun and entertaining as Tecmo Super Bowl.<br /><br />You've probably seen this before, but here's a video of Bo Jackson lapping the field a few times.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8PBvOxicz-0&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8PBvOxicz-0&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br /><b>1 - MLB Power Pros</b><br /><br />This is not the best game ever. In fact, I'm going to fully admit that in a few years this choice might end up looking silly.<br /><br />But I can't stop playing this game, and it's existence has pretty much single handedly kept me from going out and buying a PS3 or Xbox360.<br /><br />I could pretty easily make a top 10 of just <i>baseball</i> games, I've played so many of them. This game is a combination of everything I love about all of them.<br /><br />It has the player customization and development of Baseball Stars.<br /><br />It has the career mode style of MLB The Show.<br /><br />It has the incredible stat tracking of a baseball management game like Baseball Mogul.<br /><br />It has all of the pure FUN of playing the game like RBI Baseball.<br /><br />In a word, it's perfect.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOBACnzYhxuY_D1-kQ7j4u_YqGPy8IsTcxWfEzxHp4vWinCS1SQ1be8Bk1mxT30S5bgTHvgMJLbncHaWhpx6nOAkuaCZ0D5OxuRGMdn2Wv4Qt-n3tYpWuF8sgh_nw9Ia4JfE8VFw/s1600-h/mlbpp-screen01.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOBACnzYhxuY_D1-kQ7j4u_YqGPy8IsTcxWfEzxHp4vWinCS1SQ1be8Bk1mxT30S5bgTHvgMJLbncHaWhpx6nOAkuaCZ0D5OxuRGMdn2Wv4Qt-n3tYpWuF8sgh_nw9Ia4JfE8VFw/s400/mlbpp-screen01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5168763969940849954" /></a><br /><br />I do question whether we'll ever see an updated version of this game because from what I understand, sales in the US have not been great. And that makes me sad. But if you are a baseball fan and you haven't played this, you are doing yourself a great disservice.<br /><br /><b>Worst Ever - Madden 2005-Present</b><br /><br />Around 2003, EA Sports and the Madden franchise stopped trying very hard. They were content to release small amounts of new content, comfortable with the fact that people would be willing to shell out $50-$60 for a yearly roster update.<br /><br />Then NFL 2K5 came out for $19.99. And the gameplay was years ahead of Madden.<br /><br />Rather than deal with a coming franchise war as people figured "Why not?" for the $20 price tag, EA made the most sensible business decision possible.<br /><br />They went to the NFL and negotiated an exclusive contract to produce video games.<br /><br />Now, with absolutely zero motivation to make improvements to what was already a stale franchise devoid of any innovation whatsoever, the Madden games really <i>are</i> nothing more than roster updates.<br /><br />And why should they ever be anything more? Without any competition, people still line up to shell out $60 a year for these sorry excuses for "new games". Madden 2009 will still be Madden 2004 with shinier graphics and a roster update. And that's annoying, especially since there was at least one other franchise out there that would have pushed football video games forward.<br /><br />Taken individually, none of the last 3 Madden games are BAD. But taken as a collective, taken in the context of what MIGHT HAVE BEEN, these games are an example of why exclusive deals suck for the consumer.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vGCtqDJKyYIHQRJpMIyASkfb0KiKjucHdqGDBelcQbIR2n-qA3fYo8_VW9gMN80vO8F0Q53Y9g2ZKCyl6P_SNiaPKFgPrS7Xxoq_pk2SbBQHxWN7Vbxut45YxmCgGmlt0V8hKA/s1600-h/maddensuck.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0vGCtqDJKyYIHQRJpMIyASkfb0KiKjucHdqGDBelcQbIR2n-qA3fYo8_VW9gMN80vO8F0Q53Y9g2ZKCyl6P_SNiaPKFgPrS7Xxoq_pk2SbBQHxWN7Vbxut45YxmCgGmlt0V8hKA/s400/maddensuck.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5168764996438033714" /></a><br /><br /><i>Update</i> - LBAM <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/2008/02/great-game-throwdown-sports.html">here</a>. TPoTT <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/">here</a>.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-27857322294776052302008-02-12T11:42:00.000-05:002008-02-12T13:56:54.660-05:00The Great Game Throw Down: Simulation/StrategyI'm a bit behind the others on this one, as I just returned from my honeymoon a couple of days ago.<br /><br />Imagine my surprise that in my absence both <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-video-game-debate-take-4.html">The Philosophy of Time Travel</a> AND <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/2008/02/great-videogame-throwdown-simstrategy.html">LastBestAngryMan</a> got their lists so horribly, horribly wrong, particularly their egregious choices for worst game. I'd almost think they were doing it just to spite me, if I didn't respect their integrity so much.<br /><br />Yeah, probably spite.<br /><br /><b>5 - The Sims</b><br /><br />Anyone who doesn't have this on their list has either never played the game or is lying. It's that simple.<br /><br />What looks, on the surface, to be the absolute dumbest idea for a video game ever is actually one of the greatest. That's Will Wright for you.<br /><br />The object of the game... well, okay there is no object really... but you control the lives of some "Sims" through their daily routine... kind of like real life, except not... including making sure they get to work on time, decorating the house, cooking meals, etc.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4bjv_ZWqIz0SP_pDtS8qgEbo2h6Pl3F61h0BvKaOyuIIud3jrRpKhHnPpFCm22VDS4Ucd3hXf1oozlMJhdDR2hh6ONTpHxethngWstn2T8bYKprP3sen6uVTCa33E1Vyvvtaog/s1600-h/sims.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM4bjv_ZWqIz0SP_pDtS8qgEbo2h6Pl3F61h0BvKaOyuIIud3jrRpKhHnPpFCm22VDS4Ucd3hXf1oozlMJhdDR2hh6ONTpHxethngWstn2T8bYKprP3sen6uVTCa33E1Vyvvtaog/s400/sims.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166163122429985970" /></a><br />Yeah, there really is no way to make this game sound particularly fun. You just have to play it. This is the one game that I've ever seen my wife (that felt kind of weird to type) get completely addicted to the way I've gotten hooked on many other games in the past. She got completely caught up in trying to get her Sim all the way down the legal career track that she almost forgot about her <i>real</i> legal career. It was awesome.<br /><br />While she enjoyed helping her Sims succeed, I mostly enjoyed tormenting them. One of my favorite tactics was to somehow lure a Sim into a room, then pause the game, sell the door, and replace it with a wall so they would be trapped. Sometimes I'd put a picture of a clown in there with them or a mirror or something to make it extra creepy. Most cruel would be putting a phone inside because the increasingly hungry Sim would repeatedly call for pizza over and over again.<br /><br />I realize this is starting to sound pretty sick, so I'll just stop now. Anyway, it's a great game and one you can play pretty much anyway you want.<br /><br /><b>4 - Armageddon Empires</b><br /><br />Look, I've mentioned this game a <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/12/top-10-favorite-things-about-2007.html">couple</a> of <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/10/cool-games-you-may-not-have-heard-of.html">times</a> already, and if you haven't been persuaded to <a href="http://www.crypticcomet.com/games/AE/armageddon_empires.html">try it</a> by now you probably won't just because I mention it again. But this is a game that is starting to pick up more and more acclaim, and thanks to a recent mention in <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/02/04">Penny Arcade</a> I suspect it will get even more success than it already has. It really is a stunning achievement for a development team that small... heck, it would be a stunning achievement for a <i>large</i> dev team.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTqMTZgO_w009uo__L0e7s9-nRMEnPnSRQTIDy4YLCuRwpmJD_LRT4K0oPUVRkhxJ7NXfg63Jo_LyuIXbBSlX34qNqsUUKHhLySP__JcweESzpyODWfi3-BpgFwj2wXXodflRQsA/s1600-h/XenopodAdvance.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTqMTZgO_w009uo__L0e7s9-nRMEnPnSRQTIDy4YLCuRwpmJD_LRT4K0oPUVRkhxJ7NXfg63Jo_LyuIXbBSlX34qNqsUUKHhLySP__JcweESzpyODWfi3-BpgFwj2wXXodflRQsA/s400/XenopodAdvance.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166166257756112066" /></a><br />Seriously, with a free demo version available you have absolutely nothing to lose. Except hours and hours of free time.<br /><br /><b>3 - Starcraft</b><br /><br />One of the things that made this category tricky was that we lumped these two genres together after repeated arguments about where certain games should go. <i>Starcraft</i> is the only RTS (Real Time Strategy) game on this list, even though that's one of my favorite genres. In my opinion it's the best in that bunch and therefore worthy of a spot. It has three very different but amazingly balanced races, plus a terrific single player campaign that is a ton of fun.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZRcyPtH2cjbPfmyYX0x4ZLoZDwrV9ysHBrxiRdUcCh5Pz9DbgxVyKQ1ljWF2afpxusqUFf9mVQlv4MmEDQH9Kvz2nr3BSikNFysuQldEqfhGizI9BpjXxFuFcznpYjsZO8TEUw/s1600-h/protoss.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZRcyPtH2cjbPfmyYX0x4ZLoZDwrV9ysHBrxiRdUcCh5Pz9DbgxVyKQ1ljWF2afpxusqUFf9mVQlv4MmEDQH9Kvz2nr3BSikNFysuQldEqfhGizI9BpjXxFuFcznpYjsZO8TEUw/s400/protoss.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166166983605585106" /></a><br />But with RTS games, multiplayer is where it's at, and one of the things that made this game so great was the free play over the internet via a service called "Battle.net". This was pretty revolutionary for its time, and meant that you could find a game anytime you wanted. It also meant that you could perform all kinds of immature, jerk internet moves that have become all the rage now.<br /><br />For example, one of my favorite things to do in this game was get in a 3 way free for all, but secretly one of the 3 would be a friend (often my buddy Ed down the hall in my college dorm). Either Ed or I would create a "secret alliance" with the hapless third person, moving our armies into his base for "protection". Then, we'd cancel the alliance and launch an all out assault against the fellow whose defenses had already been breached. You'd think this would get old after the 100th time you do it, but it really doesn't.<br /><br /><b>2 - Civilization IV</b><br /><br />Easily the best <i>series</i> on this list, every single one of the Civ games is great. But this is a series that has gotten better with every single version, and Civ IV is the latest and greatest. I've played this game way, way too many times and every time has been a blast. There are few things more satisfying than starting with a single settler at the beginning of the game and building a mighty empire from there. This is one game that makes you say to yourself "just one more turn" over and over and over again until the sun is coming up and your eyes are bleeding.<br /><br /><b>1 - Dwarf Fortress</b><br /><br />To spite me, my compatriots put this as their worst game ever. So now is where I win the argument for once and for all.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfSdxGZExltv1yM7MIy86-YRK2NPxSDKnPuiDOOThp40BgcYA0zJuTzmJbzxrRJC3jvuUPGbkR100juUS2b3CJvTw9qgCxsoQpijk_kZ9rlhJnTQAfWlisfqLTleFtFyIDZjcyA/s1600-h/kol-miner.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfSdxGZExltv1yM7MIy86-YRK2NPxSDKnPuiDOOThp40BgcYA0zJuTzmJbzxrRJC3jvuUPGbkR100juUS2b3CJvTw9qgCxsoQpijk_kZ9rlhJnTQAfWlisfqLTleFtFyIDZjcyA/s400/kol-miner.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166167645030548706" /></a><br />Yes, the graphics take some getting used to. Yes, the user interface takes some getting used to. But the gameplay is so good, so deep, so completely unparalleled by anything else out there, at times you can't even believe what you are seeing.<br /><br />Let me give you an example by way of a story.<br /><br />During the building of my second fortress in the game, I had survived my first winter and with the first batch of immigrants I had about a dozen or so dwarves. At this point I was attacked by a horde of goblins, and I was woefully under prepared for the assault. The goblins went marauding through my petty defenses, slaughtering dwarves in their wake.<br /><br />But then one brave dog came to the defense of one of my crafting dwarves. The dog was perfectly positioned in a chokepoint of the fortress and started killing the goblins one by one. Eventually it had killed all but one or two goblins before falling to the ground, bleeding to death. This drove the dog's owner (the aforementioned crafting dwarf) into a grief fueled frenzy, and he killed the remaining goblins with his bare hands, sustaining a horrible wound of his own in the process.<br /><br />The assault being over, there were only a few dwarves remaining. The dog died, and the crafting dwarf who killed the last couple of goblins was hauled off to bed by the survivors. There he stayed for many weeks, and I assumed that he would likely die of his wounds.<br /><br />Unbelievably, he survived. When he came to, though, he was mad with grief, and he immediately killed a fellow dwarf who was bringing him water. He then went on a kill crazy rampage. Checking his profile, it appeared that the horrors of war had broken him, and I watched sadly as he killed every last survivor of the goblin invasion before drowning himself.<br /><br />The last dwarf he killed was an engraver who commemorated the terrible goblin invasion by making an engraving of a dog fighting a goblin in the dining room wall.<br /><br />And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the kind of stories this game is capable of producing.<br /><br /><b>Worst Ever - Master of Orion 3</b><br /><br />This is the only game I have ever purchased that I took back to the store <i>the next day</i>.<br /><br />Imagine Microsoft Excel came in a box that said "Master of Orion 3" on it and you've got this game.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggR8O__QdFrbnLhzfso2SWKSubwCxxdhk-PMcP21n4onfb9QdQHayQd7krLXz0gRHPnanQF29Y_OuZaW5bZb2CRvYZdQyAxnFQhhfaz6z_tqiz6hyphenhyphenEyepHeMQtd2xeNxTOQV_Tlg/s1600-h/moo3pic4.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggR8O__QdFrbnLhzfso2SWKSubwCxxdhk-PMcP21n4onfb9QdQHayQd7krLXz0gRHPnanQF29Y_OuZaW5bZb2CRvYZdQyAxnFQhhfaz6z_tqiz6hyphenhyphenEyepHeMQtd2xeNxTOQV_Tlg/s400/moo3pic4.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166162628508746914" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqibOvoZj4mXfKj716u_LP-eI8TdUykdkA1vJFwdVHgspNehPmKMyBRV7t95sRTj3SN6kQOv09g7RdEE16MqDSOS6-223phZEi1P0qMO5rErRDdR4ZxXH5UlMCffLAhHvLUc4m9Q/s1600-h/excel.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqibOvoZj4mXfKj716u_LP-eI8TdUykdkA1vJFwdVHgspNehPmKMyBRV7t95sRTj3SN6kQOv09g7RdEE16MqDSOS6-223phZEi1P0qMO5rErRDdR4ZxXH5UlMCffLAhHvLUc4m9Q/s400/excel.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166167924203422962" /></a><br />Excel, you have found your long lost brother.<br /><br />What's so unbelievably horrible about it is how crippling <i>disappointing</i> it is. The first two games are absolute classics of the genre. This one should have been bundled with Office. It's "Spreadsheets in Space".<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7oqSByFSqjJf8F0iXCyFFGmILvWKycFXrYB53JP8EHq3N_3Z-KAkt-nPJi6HuD1WjaN-uK2kUo3IXAKDpRTPn6kr5VMxJ7UfaiS1lcuu6sdmRja1YCY7g9n5FpFaRIyVLMcrAgQ/s1600-h/moo3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7oqSByFSqjJf8F0iXCyFFGmILvWKycFXrYB53JP8EHq3N_3Z-KAkt-nPJi6HuD1WjaN-uK2kUo3IXAKDpRTPn6kr5VMxJ7UfaiS1lcuu6sdmRja1YCY7g9n5FpFaRIyVLMcrAgQ/s400/moo3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166162065868031122" /></a><br />And Microsoft Excel has more competitive AI than this game. The enemies are so colossally stupid that even though you often have no clue what you're doing, you'll still win. Meanwhile Excel can find all kinds of ways to trick you. People who think the <i>Dwarf Fortress</i> interface is complicated have obviously never played this game.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-84683460366861543242008-01-25T11:08:00.000-05:002008-01-25T17:37:07.033-05:00The Great Game Throw Down: AdventureThis was the toughest category to narrow down so far. There was a time when adventure games, particularly in the point-and-click style, absolutely dominated computer gaming. Nowadays adventure game fans are lucky if one decent adventure game gets released a year, and even luckier to actually be aware of its existence.<br /><br />But these were the types of games that really got me into computer games in general. I remember staying up late during a sleepover at a friend's house playing the first two King's Quest games. I can remember trips to my Dad's office to play King's Quest V, because our home computer wasn't speedy enough to handle it. And I remember back in the day before the internet calling the Sierra hint line since I couldn't just Google up a walkthrough when I'd get stuck.<br /><br />There's also a ton of great adventure games I've never played, and I'm actually pretty excited to see the other guy's lists because a lot of these old games have become abandonware and you can download them, legally, for free.<br /><br /><b>5 - Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge</b><br /><br />My favorite game in the hilarious <i>Space Quest</i> series starring Roger Wilco, the janitor. This particular game involved a plan by the evil Vohaul to unleash an army of cloned vacuum cleaner salesmen on an unsuspecting universe.<br /><br />This was also the first game I played that paused when you typed your commands. This was a huge step above frantically trying to bang out the correct phrase in previous games of its ilk (I was killed many times in the original Space Quest trying to figure out the right combination of words to get Wilco to crush a deadly robot with a rock).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNxld9pi_QgklI2tMc6ZdBtq29kKmydjVYH5jGZFfAlAYMBk-KkHAPVO8ctl_lur96OZbOQLKssS5H-PDORgPsO4c7NHWZEFDo45n1EDBXGg6Q066YEr4qbvAQ7FSAi9KA02agfA/s1600-h/sq2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNxld9pi_QgklI2tMc6ZdBtq29kKmydjVYH5jGZFfAlAYMBk-KkHAPVO8ctl_lur96OZbOQLKssS5H-PDORgPsO4c7NHWZEFDo45n1EDBXGg6Q066YEr4qbvAQ7FSAi9KA02agfA/s400/sq2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159465719611108354" /></a><br /><center><i>Vohaul is fat</i></center><br /><br /><br />The fine folks at <a href="http://www.infamous-adventures.com/">Infamous Adventures</a>, who provide free, graphically updated versions of some of these types of games, have recently announced they're working on a remake of this game and I'll be looking forward to taking the trip down memory lane.<br /><br /><b>4 - King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow</b><br /><br />In my opinion the best of the venerable <i>King's Quest</i> series, which took a sharp left turn towards awful immediately after this game (<i>King's Quest: Mask of Eternity</i> is a lot like <i>Highlander 2: The Quickening</i> in that you try to pretend it doesn't exist).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXT5X0JvgYgpjUVbw9ggH7rC0BJY4NLx0DOe4FdXIFAEp07EM-hJvancrqX9uNe4Vgaph2QT10Zxq08nYCtezsWF9jjjGjL_Pg3dmnqphKmESUd6rDotLaiUkq9RoBIJw68Y3fQ/s1600-h/kq6.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXT5X0JvgYgpjUVbw9ggH7rC0BJY4NLx0DOe4FdXIFAEp07EM-hJvancrqX9uNe4Vgaph2QT10Zxq08nYCtezsWF9jjjGjL_Pg3dmnqphKmESUd6rDotLaiUkq9RoBIJw68Y3fQ/s400/kq6.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159475890093665330" /></a><br /><center><i>Yeah, well, I didn't like that boat anyway</i></center><br /><br />I like this one best because it had my favorite story of any of the KQ games: in the end it's a classic "hero rescues the princess" story, but the stuff you did to get there was a lot of fun. It also featured the song <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_in_the_Tower"><i>Girl in the Tower</i></a> which actually got popular enough to get some radio air time. That might have been a video game first (I have nothing to back that up).<br /><br /><b>3 - Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle</b><br /><br />If anybody were to put this game at #1, I would have a hard time arguing with them. Not only is it the sequel to the venerable <i>Maniac Mansion</i> which could <i>also</i> qualify for top 10 lists, but included in the game is a computer where you can <i>play the original Maniac Mansion</i>.<br /><br />The game has a wacky plot and was developed when LucasArts were at the height of their adventure gaming prowess.<br /><br />The gist of the story is this: a nerd and his two house mates travel back in time in a Port-a-Potty (called a "Chron-o-John") to turn off a toxic waste producing machine that an evil Purple Tentacle drank in the present day, giving it terrible powers. By doing this they hope to prevent said Tentacle from ever having to chance to drink the waste and become the dread beast the toxins morph it into.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSpg5DBV3X8Ie88DcuspEsQY3uTacxzGN8XQlS07Sa-9VM-M-qt9meZBHkZj5sujdLQHKmcNX_asMf-vY9moRhQ36o_giV-hP0FRLv0J0JeJRwkXMOCkHPrwHl1lM0mOMSOyoITA/s1600-h/tentacle.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSpg5DBV3X8Ie88DcuspEsQY3uTacxzGN8XQlS07Sa-9VM-M-qt9meZBHkZj5sujdLQHKmcNX_asMf-vY9moRhQ36o_giV-hP0FRLv0J0JeJRwkXMOCkHPrwHl1lM0mOMSOyoITA/s400/tentacle.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159476091957128258" /></a><br /><center><i>You can see the Purple Tentacle means business</i></center><br /><br />It gets better, because the "Chron-o-John" requires a diamond to operate but the one the heroes use is a cheap imitation diamond, and so the machine malfunctions and sends one person 200 years into the past (where you interact with George Washington and the like), one 200 years into the future (where the Purple Tentacle reigns supreme), and leaves one stranded in the present.<br /><br />It's an awesome game and one that made me laugh many times.<br /><br /><b>2 - Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers</b><br /><br />It's tough to pick a best game in the <i>Gabriel Knight</i> series, which remains my absolute favorite adventure <i>series</i> to this day. There are only three games in the series and each is very different in terms of the graphics and controls since they were produced so many years apart, but the original GK sticks with the classic point and click model and for my money tells the best story.<br /><br />And story is where the GK games really, really shine. All three of them are compelling, ranging from hunting lost Wagnerian operas that cure lycanthropy to solving the mystery of the holy grail (in a game that had a story that bore startling similarity to the <i>Da Vinci Code</i> <b>4 years before</b> that book was published).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSanY3SVyVZB5pl6iQBapXlEY7W62HT42Qk7Siu2ZL4KsHJHil1xlG7Pd-S1-0bYA8AIcp3hXsG6mFglUJQ2Vi6PGQsSA2dgTQtINarsyZVyQH6OkMZCt0XJhbNGQiNFds0qfwcA/s1600-h/gabrielknight.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSanY3SVyVZB5pl6iQBapXlEY7W62HT42Qk7Siu2ZL4KsHJHil1xlG7Pd-S1-0bYA8AIcp3hXsG6mFglUJQ2Vi6PGQsSA2dgTQtINarsyZVyQH6OkMZCt0XJhbNGQiNFds0qfwcA/s400/gabrielknight.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159476761972026450" /></a><br /><center><i>You can tell Gabriel Knight is a badass because he walks right through police tape</i></center><br /><br />Fans of the series have been hoping beyond hope that a 4th Gabriel Knight game will happen someday, somehow, but it seems increasingly unlikely, which is sad because the two main characters were left in a very interesting place at the end of the third game and I'll probably never see how it all turns out.<br /><br /><b>1 - The Longest Journey</b><br /><br />Without question one of the best stories I've ever seen told in this medium. It's as close to a perfect game that can be produced in this genre. It's a combination of fantasy and sci-fi with truly interesting, believable characters. I play this game and can't believe Neil Gaiman didn't write the novel first.<br /><br />Just <a href="http://www.longestjourney.com/">get it</a>.<br /><br /><b>Worst Ever - Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh</b><br /><br />The fact that I even have to mention this game and not just extend the adventure category to a top 10 makes me sad, but them's the rules.<br /><br />The original <i>Phantasmagoria</i> was written/created by the same woman who did the King's Quest series, which is really surprising since the game was a major departure from the kid friendly KQ games (it included grisly murders, "adult situations", and even a rape scene). Phantasmagoria was part of the "full motion video/interactive movie" craze that swept this genre when designers though it would be awesome to use real actors and bundle a game across a zillion CDs instead of just plain old graphics (incidentally I think the only game I ever played that executed this remotely well was <i>Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within</i>). Most of these "interactive movie" games were horrible games, and this mode of design I believe had a huge hand in bringing down this genre to the niche market that it is today.<br /><br /><i>Phantasmagoria</i> was bad, but <i>Phantasmagoria 2</i> was a million times worse. The game starred a hallucinating computer tech who keeps having horrible, bloody visions of awfulness. What that means is the game tries to give you cheap scares because random blood/gore/other nonsense would happen whenever you performed the most trivial action. This wore thin because something violent/horrible would happen <i>every time you did anything</i>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRhITY2XojsXrMisrGLRseFhrZUTtYEqaDWxs1xNZ8DFapFy6P3NYFnwjP2SFbSVbipOzLABMILZFqPhnwnvENfxnZ2teLRMrQltRK1WKHZUiVau_wH4kemdDplKaLcPJVaPmFA/s1600-h/phant2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRhITY2XojsXrMisrGLRseFhrZUTtYEqaDWxs1xNZ8DFapFy6P3NYFnwjP2SFbSVbipOzLABMILZFqPhnwnvENfxnZ2teLRMrQltRK1WKHZUiVau_wH4kemdDplKaLcPJVaPmFA/s400/phant2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159466561424698402" /></a><br /><center><i>I don't remember the context of this shot from the game, but that might be because there wasn't any</i></center><br /><br />Add to that the fact that the plot made absolutely zero sense (aliens were somehow responsible) and the puzzles made less than zero sense (combine the fungus with the blue alien, combine the starfish shaped alien with the horseshoe... if you don't get it it's because it MAKES NO SENSE) and you had an exercise in frustration that spanned across <i>FIVE FREAKIN' DISCS</i>. I think it was grim curiosity that kept me playing all the way until the end, much like when I saw <i>Apocalypto</i> in the theater. With every scene you just couldn't believe it could get any worse, but gosh darnit it did and when all was said and done you wish you could carefully drill the portion of the brain that was storing the memory.<br /><br />Here's a great example of a cheesy scare scene in the game. The music really adds to the whole ambiance of suckage:<br /><br /><center><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/krKNiPmhVc0&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/krKNiPmhVc0&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></center><br /><br />Here's a death scene. The acting, the music, the cheap effects... I mean my lord they combine to create an absolute cornucopia of awful:<br /><br /><center><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-pQPU9TSTSk&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-pQPU9TSTSk&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object></center><br /><br />See The Philosophy of Time Travel's list <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-video-game-debate-take-3.html">here</a>.<br /><br />See LastBestAngryMan's list <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/2008/01/top-adventure-games.html">here</a>.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-19644889409643737142008-01-23T09:36:00.000-05:002008-01-24T10:16:21.651-05:00The Great Game Throw Down: Platformers<b>5 - Pitfall! (Atari 2600)</b><br /><br />I have fond memories of playing this game obsessively because if you sent in a snapshot of the elusive "gold bar" to Activision, you would receive a <i>Pitfall!</i> poster.<br /><br />I don't remember what the poster looked like, but the box for this game was magnificent:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv-P5RDm5-zDwbk1AzLs_P9FZTfnUOT_4hQVEqXMura7w-3T2ZxVD1T3_VE90M2JlQ-G4q3ZLz14sewDF3bDp5dzlJQE9FgZMgdlrOunHiJertM5kTVW5_Qk53DFSPW7y3Nym4hg/s1600-h/pitfallbox.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv-P5RDm5-zDwbk1AzLs_P9FZTfnUOT_4hQVEqXMura7w-3T2ZxVD1T3_VE90M2JlQ-G4q3ZLz14sewDF3bDp5dzlJQE9FgZMgdlrOunHiJertM5kTVW5_Qk53DFSPW7y3Nym4hg/s400/pitfallbox.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159037030335359970" /></a><br /><br />What's great about this box (besides the rainbow coming out of the protagonist's back) is that it is truth in advertising. What you're looking at on that box is the <i>entire game</i>. Go from one screen to the next and you will see the same thing over, and over, and over again. That kind of audacity is just not something you see in video games anymore with people requiring things like <i>plot</i> and <i>context</i> and <i>endings</i>.<br /><br /><b>4 - Rygar (NES)</b><br /><br />I debated putting this on the list because I don't know that any game brought me closer to tears of frustration more often than <i>Rygar</i>. But I kept playing it anyway because there was something hypnotic about just bashing things with a flaming yo-yo.<br /><br />That's right, a flaming yo-yo.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0dSsKUvnzuvwuDJrJa00rypd15WGdrRO1PAm88zSRuG34PKivZ7ePp3heOwXzeKY4djAKGtmY9CDvensThZreZdQ5TbKZ2JYHFi0ILn-Ho7zFytukSMyl_H_qBEvDPBRxJ-OkA/s1600-h/rygar-nes.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0dSsKUvnzuvwuDJrJa00rypd15WGdrRO1PAm88zSRuG34PKivZ7ePp3heOwXzeKY4djAKGtmY9CDvensThZreZdQ5TbKZ2JYHFi0ILn-Ho7zFytukSMyl_H_qBEvDPBRxJ-OkA/s400/rygar-nes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159038134141955058" /></a><br /><br />Look at how bad ass this dude is. He is vaulting over what looks like some orc <i>while wielding his yo-yo</i>.<br /><br />Actually my brothers were much better at this game than me (not surprising since my brothers are better at <i>everything</i> than me). I remember marathon sessions of this game because unbelievably, there was no save or password feature despite the game's absurd length. So basically you'd have to break for lunch and possibly dinner to have any hope of getting to the end. It's that kind of "screw you" to the player that makes this one a classic.<br /><br /><a href="http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/rygar/rygar.htm">Hardcore Gaming 101</a> has a detailed analysis of Rygar, if you'd like to learn more about the game's historical significance (which I still believe can be summarized simply with "flaming yo-yo").<br /><br /><b>3 - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1)</b><br /><br />The Castlevania games are probably the best platforming <i>series</i> out there (with apologies to Mario and Mega Man), and <i>Symphony of the Night</i> is still the best of the bunch.<br /><br />The game introduced a leveling up concept to the series, and as World of Warcraft has ably demonstrated, there is nothing more addicting than leveling up. Add to that the fact that when you complete 100% of the game, you discover that there is an <i>additional</i> 100% of content you need to finish, and you're locked in for awhile.<br /><br />A lot of what puts these games on my lists has to do with fond memories, and I remember visiting my buddy Jay in the Bronx one weekend during college. We played this game for about 48 hours straight while rotating turns at the controller. Anything that inspires that level of insanity has to be good, right? Now based on that logic go out and buy yourself some crack.<br /><br /><b>2 - Contra (NES)</b><br /><br />Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start.<br /><br />'Nuff said.<br /><br /><b>1 - Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) (PC)</b><br /><br />I'm going to be accused of being obnoxious for putting an independently made, lesser known, <i>free</i> game as my #1 choice, but I'm telling you it deserves it.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Story">Cave Story</a> has a surprisingly complex plot, terrific gameplay, a wonderful cast of characters, and you can download it free on PC or Mac. When thinking about this list and this game I had to go fire it up again and it is just as awesome as ever.<br /><br />I mean c'mon, the main character's name is "Quote" and the female friend is named "Curly Brace", you know you're in for something original.<br /><br />Go try it <a href="http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/">now</a>.<br /><br /><b>Worst Ever - Captain Novolin (SNES)</b><br /><br />Many attempts have been made to make video games educational tools. Some of them have succeeded. Captain Novolin is the Hindenburg.<br /><br />The game was targeted towards kids with diabetes to help teach them about taking insulin and staying away from sweets. Actually playing the game however teaches you nothing but a desire to throw oneself out of the highest available window to end the pain.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/H580n3fbk60&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/H580n3fbk60&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />Fast forward a couple minutes in to see actual gameplay. The controls are so bad that it is difficult to avoid actually getting hit by the enemies (such as the evil bouncing donut), and you have no obvious means of attack to aid your chances of survival. Imagine if you're a kid with diabetes and you're thinking "Hey, this superhero has diabetes, it can't be all bad." Then you play this game. If I saw a box of Dunkin' Donuts after playing this mess for a couple of hours I would just curl up into the fetal position.<br /><br />See The Philosophy of Time Travel's completely wrong choice for worst game ever <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-video-game-debate-take-2.html">here</a>.<br /><br />See LastBestAngryMan get so angry he refuses to even name a top five <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-game-throwdown-platformers.html">here</a>.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-33039841277975299912008-01-22T16:31:00.001-05:002008-01-23T08:30:07.713-05:00The Great Game Throw Down: FightersOver the next several weeks, two of my fellow friends and bloggers from <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/">LastBestAngryMan</a> and <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/">The Philosophy of Time Travel</a> will be listing our top 5 all time favorite games in a variety of categories.<br /><br />Games on any type of platform are acceptable. I will also be using the blog space to rip their selections to pieces when they don't agree with mine.<br /><br />To get the ball rolling, here are the <b>Top 5 Fighting Games</b>:<br /><br /><b>5 - Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360)</b><br /><br />So the first game I'm going to mention here is a game I have never actually played. However, judging by the almost anatomically impossible females in this game (a quick search of "Dead or Alive" in Google Images will explain) you know that this game <i>must</i> be awesome. The girls are so popular to drooling teenage geeks everywhere that they even made a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_or_Alive_Xtreme_Beach_Volleyball">volleyball game</a> featuring the <i>Dead or Alive</i> girls in tiny bikinis.<br /><br />Incidentally a <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/doa_dead_or_alive/">movie was also made</a> based on this series, and it netted a whole $270k or so at the box office before being yanked from the theaters and relegated to bargain bins everywhere.<br /><br /><b>4 - Mortal Kombat 4 (Arcade)</b><br /><br />This makes the list because my friends and I used to play it all the time in college under the name of "The Kick-Punch Game", since mostly all we did was mash buttons and never bothered to learn to many of the moves.<br /><br />One move we DID learn, however, is the most hilarious fatality in Mortal Kombat history:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qBOnKg0TMtI&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qBOnKg0TMtI&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br /><b>3 - Super Smash Bros. (N64)</b><br /><br />Playing this game is like trying to pull a pack of rabid squirrels off of you while running from an angry swarm of bees. You really don't have much idea where you're going or what you're doing because you're too busy just trying to survive.<br /><br />I do however have fond memories of getting pummeled repeatedly over the holidays by my younger brothers in this game.<br /><br /><b>2 - Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Arcade/SNES)</b><br /><br />Probably one of the best, most balanced fighting games ever (by reputation, I really have no clue) and certainly one of the best ports to the SNES. I spent a ton of time playing this game, even conducting tournaments with all of the characters with my brothers. I don't know that I ever really got any good at it but it was an awesome game.<br /><br />Sadly, the last film the great Raul Julia ever appeared in was the movie version of "Street Fighter", which was just a terrible shame.<br /><br /><b>1 - Mortal Kombat 2 (Arcade/SNES)</b><br /><br />This was the only fighting game I ever played obsessively in the arcade mall when I was a lad. I got good enough at the game that I could often hang out at the mall for an hour or so just on fifty cents, as the rules of the arcade floor made it so that you were forced to queue up against the jerk who was winning and knock him off the machine before another could step up.<br /><br />With Mortal Kombat 2, I was that jerk.<br /><br /><b>Worst Ever - Shaq Fu</b><br /><br />If you have never heard of this game before, nothing can prepare you for the horror.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/M8c-1OlpkHU&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M8c-1OlpkHU&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />The LastBestAngryMan's top fighter <a href="http://lastbestangryman.blogspot.com/2008/01/joint-blog-venture-on-videogames.html">here</a>.<br /><br />The Philosophy of Time Travel's top fighters <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/2008/01/best-games-list-fighting-game.html">here</a>.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-37927576061943903732008-01-22T08:38:00.000-05:002008-01-22T09:20:39.747-05:00Quick HitsWith the wedding now 12 days away, as you can imagine things have been a little busy. Add to that the fact that I'm trying to get a <a href="http://motorcyclemanifesto.blogspot.com/2008/01/site-update.html">big project</a> done at work in the middle of all this and you basically have a situation where when I do have some free time available I haven't been spending it blogging.<br /><br />In lieu of some meatier updates, I'm just going to do a real quick rundown of some things I've wanted to blog about but haven't done so yet.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Last weekend I spent about an hour or so putting a bookshelf together. It's one of those "no tools required" bookshelves so that anti-handymen like myself may end up with something that has an outside chance of actually holding up books when completed.<br /><br />I used to love to play with Lego when I was a kid, but I have zero skill (or desire to develop skill) when it comes to building things. I have no idea why this is. I love design when it comes to writing software, which a lot of people seem to think is like building. I say anything you can do while eating M&Ms is not really "building". Building to me requires some kind of physical component, and it's that lack of ability to make my hands do what my brain is telling me that usually results in the problems I have on any type of home improvement project or sport.<br /><br />The bookshelf sat in the box for several weeks before "Build the damn shelf" ended up on last weekend's honey-do list. Obviously I complained as much as possible to avoid more construction projects ending up on future lists, but I dutifully built the darn thing. For me there's not even a sense of satisfaction when I finish putting together a piece of furniture because I usually end up with four or five critical pieces that I missed putting in their proper place; I'm more concerned with the structural integrity of what I've just "finished" than any feeling of accomplishment.<br /><br />At any rate all of my comics and tabletop gaming books are on the new shelf, so if it collapses the worst thing that will be hurt is my pride, which I'm pretty sure consists solely of scar tissue at this point.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Speaking of the "building", I've been using ASP.NET as the back end for this web based project at work that's been monopolizing my time.<br /><br />Is there any company that so has so thoroughly screwed itself lately as often as Microsoft? The mess of a release that was Vista has been well chronicled. The Xbox 360 had unbelievable failure rates: even though the console has sold well it's difficult to tell if Microsoft has made a single dollar yet on the console due to having to replace so many of them. Their developer tools are the best in the business, but they release new versions of their languages too often to be comfortable keeping up with the latest and greatest, particularly since the backwards compatibility from one version to the next isn't always there.<br /><br />ASP.NET is just a mess in terms of how it expects you to design. My problem with the very basis of the thing is that it tacks on too many new tags and components and they don't ever seem to render quite the same across browsers. When you are doing web design there is only ONE thing you really should be thinking about: making the app cross browser compatible. ASP.NET is the absolute worst tool possible for doing that if you use it the way Microsoft seems to want you to use it.<br /><br />Instead of using all of the special stuff that comes with ASP.NET I've just been writing small web pages that will never get seen by the user that handle all of the heavy lifting (database calls, etc.) and writing the whole front end in plain ol' HTML and Javascript. I'm using <a href="http://www.prototypejs.org/">Prototype</a> to make all of the calls to the back end. I've basically taken away everything that makes ASP.NET special and that seems to be what works best.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Prepare for the most annoying two weeks in American sports. Seriously, does it get any worse than the build up for the Super Bowl?<br /><br />Also, when is it going to be okay to start suggesting that the Packers may have won another Super Bowl by now if Brett Favre had retired?<br /><br />***<br /><br />Jules and I went car shopping last Saturday and got her a new ride. Car shopping is another experience that I have found pretty unpleasant in the past as well, but this time with some good research and a target price in mind the whole thing went reasonably smoothly. The downside is that it made me want a new car, as the Hyundai Accent I'm driving right now runs fine but is missing some amenities, like <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/02/pansies-paralyzed-by-frozen-water.html">door handles</a>.<br /><br />***<br /><br />There's a lot of buzz starting to build around the latest Wii game: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1WOEMGtAqg">Endless Ocean</a>. It's being praised for being "innovative", which I think these days means that it isn't a first person shooter.<br /><br />I haven't played the game and probably won't because I sold my Wii over the holiday, but after reading some reviews it looks a lot like the space exploration simulator <a href="http://www.shatters.net/celestia/">Celestia</a>, which similarly has no goals, plot, etc. but is just a gigantic sandbox. It also came out several years ago and is free.<br /><br />Point I'm making here is I'm not really seeing the innovation angle on <i>Endless Ocean</i>. It looks like it might make a nice screen saver though, and the soundtrack does feature at least one tune by Hayley Westenra, who can flat out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAHLqisSc88">sing</a>.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Somebody needs to take away my copy of <i>MLB Power Pros</i>. The debate about whether or not to get a PS3 or Xbox 360 this year has been put on hold indefinitely by this game.<br /><br />You know how when you were a kid playing baseball games you would make a team with all of your friends on it? That's basically what I'm trying to do with MLB Power Pros right now, which means I've been playing Success mode nonstop trying to assemble what will be the most awesome team ever (still working on a name, but it's a tossup between the Juicers and the <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/12/word-of-year.html">Djerkababalash</a>).<br /><br />***<br /><br />Andy, who is basically the reason <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2006/10/view-from-top.html">people find this blog</a>, started one of his own. Make sure you <a href="http://tptt.blogspot.com/">check it out</a>.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Finally, if anybody has some book recommendations toss them out there as I'm almost at the end of my reading queue and I'll want to stock up for the honeymoon.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-81618232228945181442008-01-07T09:48:00.000-05:002008-01-07T10:18:14.708-05:00American Gladiators is AwesomeI don't watch too much TV. I only say this because if a picky snob like myself endorses a TV show, you know it has to be awesome.<br /><br />So let me just say right now that the new <a href="http://www.nbc.com/American_Gladiators/">American Gladiators</a> which debuted last night is a shining example of just what is possible with the medium of television.<br /><br />If you're not familiar with American Gladiators, it's a contest between 2 reasonably athletic but otherwise average schmoes against gigantic roid monsters who could snap a loser like me in half with a menacing glance. They're so badass they don't even have normal, god-fearing Christian names. They've got names like Stealth, Titan, Militia, Fury, and Hellga. These are names that let you know they mean business.<br /><br />The contestants play various games against these gladiators. Each game is worth points and the objective is to build up a lead against your opponent which translates into a head start in the final one on one showdown between the contestants in the <i>Eliminator</i>. The <i>Eliminator</i> is what an obstacle course would be if it was designed by Lucifer and the Marquis de Sade on a bar napkin over a couple of cocktails. People limp across the finish line of this thing looking like they've just run 4 marathons in a row while being <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/11/congrats-everyone-we-did-it.html">beaten with a shoe</a>.<br /><br />Let me just summarize the high points of the debut episode last night:<br /><br />1) Five minutes into the program, one of the female contestants blows out her knee getting tackled into a wall. She further destroys it attempting to hobble back to the home base and twisting it awkwardly. She ends up on crutches and is out of the competition.<br /><br />2) About seven more minutes after that, Gladiator Militia blows out his arm swinging from rings, attempting to catch a contestant also swinging on rings.<br /><br />3) Over the course of the next half hour, at least 4 piledrivers are executed on the contestants across 2 different events. We get to see the replays from the contestant's perspectives thanks to cameras mounted in their helmets (you didn't think the helmets were actually there to prevent head trauma did you?).<br /><br />4) A guy has such a huge lead in the Eliminator that it appears over until he reaches the final obstacle: a treadmill that is on a very steep angle up. You have to run up this thing against the flow of the treadmill to get to the finish line. Completely exhausted by the rest of the <i>Eliminator</i>, the dude falls down at least 6 or 7 times trying to make it up that last ramp, giving the other contestant time to catch up and win the match. Watching the dude try to get up the ramp was what I imagine it would be like to watch Sisyphus try to push that boulder up the mountain: you feel bad for the guy, but not bad enough to stop laughing.<br /><br />5) A woman cracks open her forehead on one of the first obstacles in the <i>Eliminator</i> by leaping into a steel beam. Blood running down her face, once she passes that obstacle she then has to get on the "barrel roll". On this thing you are standing at a great height looking at a barrel on a ramp lying horizontally. You have to grip the thing and then a helpful fellow pushes you down the ramp, spinning you at a rapid rate while you struggle to hold on. Confused and bleeding, the woman does not hold on very long and falls, landing almost head first. She tries to get up but falls down again from dizziness and disorientation. Undaunted she eventually finishes behind her opponent with her face covered in blood. Her daughter screams in the audience when she goes to hug her.<br /><br />The show is on again tonight and I absolutely can't wait.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-67894175436653538292008-01-04T09:31:00.000-05:002008-01-04T09:48:21.230-05:00If Golf Looked Like This, I'd Play It Every DayOkay, it's pretty well known that I'm <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/07/approaching-doom.html">not</a> <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/08/golf-outing-part-i-pregame.html">real</a> <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/08/golf-outing-part-ii-reckoning.html">good</a> at golf.<br /><br />Yesterday gaming website <a href="http://kotaku.com/340145/cruisn-isnt-the-worst+looking-wii-game-anymore">Kotaku announced</a> that Konami would be porting terrible coin-op game <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target:_Terror">Target: Terror</a> to the Wii as what is apparently a never ending parade of horrific third party ports continues.<br /><br />What these two things have to do with each other is that in the spirit of Wii game publishing standards, the port will include several mini games (nobody loves mini game collections like the Wii). One of those is a golfing game that looks like this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbWPZMsZOLcAb0-qgTKzZtPVjFn6bqvhKoqk6JeVdLJQN0emIsr0HraVdd5Y5_z9Y-3p_GBhYGriluX_xbv6gUIOOkiIUG9j6QEeCYX6foauYaHZroJKeX23OO3dnGRBaK9U8GNQ/s1600-h/golfexplode.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbWPZMsZOLcAb0-qgTKzZtPVjFn6bqvhKoqk6JeVdLJQN0emIsr0HraVdd5Y5_z9Y-3p_GBhYGriluX_xbv6gUIOOkiIUG9j6QEeCYX6foauYaHZroJKeX23OO3dnGRBaK9U8GNQ/s400/golfexplode.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151631325635033650" /></a><br /><br />Look at that thing for a second. This is the most spectacular screenshot I think I have ever seen for a video game. As near as I can tell those are <i>hooded terrorists</i> on those golf carts. Some of them in the middle appear to be sinking into the earth. The guy actually hitting golf balls looks like he is standing on the driving mat but is actually hitting the balls <i>off the grass</i> at the terrorists in an effort to defend his right to appear in a game this horrendous.<br /><br />Let's not overlook the attention to detail as well. Next to the whimsical sign "Replace Your Divots" you can see a shadow effect. What makes this fantastic is there are no other shadows to be seen <i>anywhere else on the screen</i>.<br /><br />If I hadn't sold my Wii over the holiday, you can bet <b>Target: Terror</b> would be on the very top of my list of games to purchase in 2008.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-17768096622659402332007-12-31T08:56:00.000-05:002007-12-31T13:25:53.368-05:00Top 10 Favorite Things About 2007At the end of last year, I did a <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/01/top-10-favorite-things-about-2006.html">top 10 list</a> of my favorite things that was probably of interest to no one but me. Well tough noogies. I'm doing it again.<br /><br />Before I do though, it's kind of interesting to take a peek at last year's list and see that some of those things still rank pretty high. I still play <i>Dwarf Fortress</i> (#10) and <i>Guitar Hero</i> (#6) like crazy. I haven't read a book this year that was better than last year's conclusion to the <i>Prince of Nothing</i> series (#3). But there were plenty of highlights from 2007 that made it the greatest of years so far.<br /><br /><b>10 - Armageddon Empires</b><br /><br /><a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/10/cool-games-you-may-not-have-heard-of.html">Earlier this year</a> I mentioned a couple of games that were taking up my allotted gaming time. <i>Armageddon Empires</i> was one of them and it still is my favorite computer game of the year (<i>Dwarf Fortress</i> being disqualified due to inclusion on last year's list). It's a single player game and you can get an entire session finished in a couple of hours, but the number of permutations is so crazy that you'll never play anything resembling the same type of game twice. It's a wonderful strategy game made by an independent developer and if you haven't <a href="http://www.crypticcomet.com/games/AE/armageddon_empires.html">tried it out</a> I encourage you to do so.<br /><br /><b>9 - The Fountain</b><br /><br />This movie came out in 2006 but was only in the theaters for a couple of weeks due to absolutely terrible box office performance. I didn't see it until it arrived via Netflix in May of this year.<br /><br />The history of this movie is tortured. Originally it was budgeted for huge amounts with Brad Pitt slated to play the lead, but as folks started to realize just how outside the norm this thing was going to be the money began to disappear. When the money disappeared, Brad Pitt disappeared.<br /><br />Despite all of these setbacks, Writer/Director Darren Aronofsky would not stop finding ways to keep the project alive. And we're lucky he did.<br /><br />The film spans three (sort of) separate plots in three separate time periods, but they're all connected by a man coping with death by trying to find a way to prevent it. Hugh Jackman gives the performance of a lifetime in what is without any question whatsoever the best movie I have seen since Lord of the Rings and one that in retrospect I wish I had seen in the theater. There are space sequences in this movie that rival <i>Space Odyssey: 2001</i> in terms of sheer beauty.<br /><br />I don't mind admitting I cried like a baby at the end of what was an unbelievably fast 90 minutes. Julie was fast asleep though, so be warned that this probably isn't for everybody, but I have never seen a movie that dealt with life and death in such original and profound terms.<br /><br /><b>8 - MLB Power Pros</b><br /><br />The second of two video games to be featured on the list (available for PS2 and Wii), this is the most fun I've had playing a baseball game since <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_Stars">Baseball Stars</a> on the original 8-bit Nintendo.<br /><br />It's like the perfect combination of my favorite features from baseball video games over the course of eternity. There are an unbelievable number of different ways to play this game, and what really sets it apart is the "Success" mode which allows you to take a made up player through college in an attempt to get him a minor league contract. To make it through Success Mode you need to balance your studies, a part time job, potentially one (or three) girlfriends, and make sure you get enough practice in to increase your skills. It's a total blast, and if you get through Success Mode... um... successfully, you can then register that player as a free agent in an already existing season OR make him part of a team that you assemble yourself.<br /><br />The cartoony graphics might disguise what is the deepest baseball game I've ever played. Hopefully poor commercial sales of this long running Japanese series don't prevent a port next year as well.<br /><br /><b>7 - The Diamond Mine</b><br /><br />Once back in college I finished a first draft of a novel. It was called <i>Stick Figures</i> and was basically the most pretentious and boring piece of drivel anybody could ever have been cursed to read. Perhaps fortunately, my computer caught fire a few months after I finished the first draft. The <i>coup de grace</i> on the hard drive would be performed when the landlord tossed it (along with a lot of other stuff in the house) into the basement while I and others were in the process of moving out.<br /><br />During 2006, I finished National Novel Writing Month but didn't actually finish the <i>novel</i>. To this day this is a source of major disappointment to me and a serious indictment of my motivation considering there are two video games on this top 10 list. It would have been better to have two drafted novels.<br /><br />On the bright side though, this year for National Novel Writing Month I did a children's/young adult book called <i>The Diamond Mine</i>. It wasn't as large in scope as the previous year's project and I was actually able to complete an entire first draft. In fact, I finished it a few hundred words shy of the required 50,000 which led to some <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/11/28k-words-later.html">wacky results involving zombies</a>.<br /><br />I did a little bit of work over the weekend editing, and it felt good. It's up to me to stick with it and finish a final draft, which would be a first for any piece of written material for me since college (this blog does not count).<br /><br /><b>6 - Dodgeball</b><br /><br />Yes, I'm still <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2006/06/true-underdog-story.html">playing</a> <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2006/12/lessons-learned-losing.html">dodgeball</a>.<br /><br />This year Julie and I joined a <a href="http://www.delawaresportsleague.com/">new local league</a> with rules that match the infamous <i>Dodgeball</i> movie a lot more closely (catches bring back a teammate, for example). It's less competitive/serious than the old league which I think makes it a bit more fun overall.<br /><br />Typically teams are named with some kind of double entendre involving "balls". Our team bucked the trend by naming ourselves "Smarter Than Sexual Innuendo". Sadly, this proved too many words for the organizers to handle and they started calling us "STD" in an alphabetically challenged attempt to abbreviate our name. Depressing.<br /><br />What wasn't depressing was capturing a division title with two playoff wins, including one against a previously undefeated team. Our run ended in the finals against a team that had a coach. You heard that right. <i>A recreational dodgeball team with a coach</i>. They had a very intricate rotation system that probably rivals that of Liverpool's soccer team. I'd laugh if that wasn't so sad.<br /><br />But it was always a blast, and I'm looking forward to the next season starting up in a few weeks. It's a great stress reliever and an excuse to hang out with friends.<br /><br /><b>5 - Burning Empires</b><br /><br />At the beginning of the year, I started checking out some independent tabletop RPGs. The problem was that our <i>Shadowrun</i> group started to have more and more trouble meeting (not anybody's fault, just people's situations/availability changing), and the amount of work that was required by the GM (me) to prepare for games that may or may not be happening was starting to make things a tad wearying.<br /><br />Enter <a href="http://www.burningempires.com/">Burning Empires</a>, which would <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/03/look-at-burning-empires.html">change the way I thought</a> about tabletop games forever. I even did an <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/04/luke-crane-author-of-burning-empires.html">interview with the creator</a> of the game to try and learn more about it.<br /><br />Shortly after that a couple of my buddies and I started playing an almost weekly three person game of <i>Burning Empires</i>, and it has been some of the most exciting tabletop gaming I've done in years. My only regret is that we haven't had <i>more</i> time to play because we could be starting a second campaign now.<br /><br /><b>4 - Wedding Season</b><br /><br />It was a big year for weddings, with some of my closest friends tying the knot. It's just cool to see people so happy, and I'm grateful to still have such fantastic friends for these many years.<br /><br /><b>3 - Wednesday Nights</b><br /><br />If you're wondering where such wacky ideas as the <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/03/21-to-rule-them-all.html">infamous pickup basketball game</a> and the <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/12/mitchell-report-pool-results.html">Mitchell Report Pool</a> have come from, it's from the crew of local gents that I have the pleasure of hanging out with regularly on Wednesday nights.<br /><br />The story of this crew goes back to when Julie was doing a clerkship for Family Court in Wilmington. She worked with several other girls there and they all became very close friends. By proxy, the boys associated with these girls were forced to hang out.<br /><br />And a good thing we were. Perhaps more shocking than being able to stand each other, we have actually genuinely become friends.<br /><br />We all have been getting together on Wednesday nights for almost the entire year now at a local bar (Wednesday is half price pitchers and burgers). We have spent most of those Wednesdays arguing about sports, in particular baseball or our fantasy football team's starting lineups. That's right, we actually <i>shared</i> a fantasy football team. You can imagine the number of arguments this produced. It was glorious.<br /><br />But much like the <i>Burning Empires</i> game, it's good to know that you're going to see friends on a weekly basis.<br /><br /><b>2 - Phillies Win Division</b><br /><br />It's sad that my beloved Phils got swept in the playoffs, because it's made a lot of people forget just how awesome it was that they were there <i>at all</i>.<br /><br />In one of the biggest comebacks in history (or one of the biggest collapses depending on your perspective), the Phils made up a huge deficit against the hated Mets at the end of the season to capture the division pennant for the first time since 1993.<br /><br />The thing that made it so delightful wasn't just that it was my favorite team coming back to beat my least favorite team. It was that, for once, the collapse <i>wasn't us</i>.<br /><br />I'm looking forward to seeing what the Phillies can do in 2008. There's no reason to believe they shouldn't be major playoff contenders again.<br /><br /><b>1 - Trolley Square</b><br /><br />This year's award goes to my move with Julie to Trolley Square in Wilmington, Delaware.<br /><br />A few months ago Jules and I moved in together. We moved into a neighborhood near a lot of our friends, and it has been fantastic. It's great to actually be sharing a place AND be able to walk down the street to see people AND be able to walk to restaurants/bars in the area. It's been a bit of a lifestyle change, but one very much for the better.<br /><br />It's also great, with the wedding coming up in just over a month now, to know we're going to really enjoy where we're going to be.<br /><br />Here's hoping that in 2008 wherever you end up is where you want to be too.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-90816004011006366272007-12-27T16:25:00.000-05:002007-12-27T16:59:46.518-05:00The LOTR EffectDuring my Christmas visit to my parents in Georgia, I saw my second movie in the theater of 2007: <i>Sweeney Todd</i>.<br /><br />Now if you like Broadway musicals you should just go ahead and see this immediately. Ever since Chicago it seems like Hollywood rolls out a couple of musicals during Oscar season for folks who can't make the trip to New York City to see one in person. Sweeney Todd is getting great reviews and if singing is your thing you will almost certainly dig this.<br /><br />I, however, fell asleep about 20-30 minutes into it. I think it was right around the time that Johnny Depp starting singing a love song to a razor blade that my brain just shut down defensively. I remember bits and pieces because it is hard to sleep <i>completely</i> soundly in a chair and I think I snored myself awake once or twice, but in one man's opinion this thing was about as dull as it gets.<br /><br />The last movie I had seen in an actual theater though prior to <i>Sweeney Todd</i> was <i>300</i> back around March. The only other movie I really planned to go see in the theater this year was <i>Transformers</i>, but that got derailed due to <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/09/furniture-shopping-or-fourth-circle-of.html">an impromptu visit to Hades</a>.<br /><br />I used to go to the movies on a fairly regular basis, and the realization that I had only seen two films all year got me thinking about why it was my zeal for the movieplex has been on the wane. The Christmas season made it abundantly clear: <i>Lord of the Rings</i>.<br /><br />During those glorious three years when the <i>Lord of the Rings</i> movies would come out around the holiday season, I saw the 3 best movies I will probably ever see on the big screen. That doesn't necessarily mean the LOTR movies are the best 3 movies ever (<i>Editor's Note: They are</i>), but these were legitimate movie-going <i>experiences</i>. Epic in scale. Epic in length. Special effect whizbangery and ass whooping combat sequences. I mean these movies had it all and you got twice as much for your movie dollar due to the length as pretty much anything else out there.<br /><br />What can possibly compare to that now? When I see a 90 minute movie now all I can think is "Boy I'm glad I didn't shell out the bucks for that in the theater." That's a ridiculous and unfair standard, but that's just the way it is now. Everything is left wanting compared to <i>Lord of the Rings</i>. Even when I saw <i>300</i>, which I actually <i>enjoyed</i>, I couldn't help thinking when I left: "Not as good as Lord of the Rings."<br /><br />Again, that's an absurd and unfair standard. But with a decent TV at home and a Netflix subscription, why would I want to shell out the money to go to the movies these days? The odds are very good when you go to the movies now that:<br /><br />1) The movie won't be as good as LOTR.<br />2) You will hear somewhere between 5 and 8 cell phones ring depending on the length of the film.<br />3) You will end up sitting in front of some idiot who will not stop postulating about what's going to happen next in the movie.<br />4) You will end up sitting next to some idiot who will not stop asking questions about the movie because they are confused.<br />5) You will sit behind two people making out to complete the circle.<br />6) The floor will be sticky.<br />7) You will drink too much soda and have to get up (no pause button in the theater).<br />8) The whole experience will just be a mess but you won't ask for your money back at the end of the movie because you don't want to be that guy that finishes his entire meal at a restaurant before "sending it back" because it wasn't cooked right.<br /><br />There's just no angle I can think of that makes sense when it comes to going to the movies as opposed to just waiting for the darn thing to get released on Netflix. Then if it stinks you have the option of fast forwarding it, turning it off, getting up to make a sandwich, or mocking it out loud with whomever is watching it with you.<br /><br />The amount of pressure on a movie is greatly lessened when you are watching it at home also. After having finally seen <i>Transformers</i> on DVD, I'm pretty sure I would have despised this movie if I had shelled out the big bucks to see it in the theater. But in the comforts of home I was able to just fast forward all of the horrendous exposition (have Turturro and Voight ever been more desperate to cash a check? They must have had some serious gambling debts to have agreed to appear in this mess) and get straight to the part where robots beat each other up real good.<br /><br />That's not to say there aren't any movies in the theater I'm interested in seeing. There are quite a few I'd like to see (<i>No Country For Old Men</i>, <i>There Will Be Blood</i>, and even <i>The Mist</i> come to mind). But I don't know that there are any I can't <i>wait</i> to see like I couldn't wait to see LOTR. And there aren't any I'd <i>rather</i> see in the theater than in the comforts of home where not only will there be no chance of any of those things listed above happening, but <i>I</i> can also make as many obnoxious remarks as I want (unless Julie is enjoying the movie, in which case such a remark would be tantamount to suicide).Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-78378372090642813862007-12-13T14:53:00.000-05:002007-12-13T15:06:54.921-05:00Mitchell Report Pool - ResultsThe <a href="http://files.mlb.com/mitchrpt.pdf">Mitchell Report</a> is released to the general public. After days of speculation and even <a href="http://deadspin.com/sports/is-this-the-list%3F/is-this-the-list-of-players-mentioned-333479.php">a bogus list</a> that appeared on nearly every major sports site and even WNBC in the hours leading up to the report, the wait has come to an end.<br /><br />Keep in mind in that just because a name existed in the report, it doesn't mean they are actually discussed in terms of <i>using</i> steroids. The report is over 400 pages long and very detailed. The parameters of the contest however dictated that the name merely had to "appear" in the text of the report. All I've done is scan the report for the names in our pool to determine a winner.<br /><br /><b>Team Youk(s)</b><br />x - Jason Giambi<br />x - Rick Ankiel<br />x - Scott Schoeneweis<br />x - Brian Roberts<br />Ivan Rodriguez<br />x - Jerry Hairston Jr.<br />Rafael Betancourt<br />Mike Piazza<br /><br /><b>Team Jordan</b><br />x - Jay Gibbons<br />x - Jose Guillen<br />x - Troy Glaus<br />x - Roger Clemens<br />Mike Cameron<br />x - Eric Gagne<br />x - Sammy Sosa<br />x - Andy Pettitte<br /><br /><b>Team Kobe</b><br />x - Miguel Tejada<br />x - Gary Matthews Jr.<br />Aaron Rowand<br />Milton Bradley<br />David Ortiz<br />Josh Beckett<br />Craig Biggio<br />Carlos Delgado<br /><br /><b>Team Bird</b><br />x - Paul Byrd<br />x - Gary Sheffield<br />Juan Salas<br />x - Guillermo Mota<br />Neifi Perez<br />x - Ryan Franklin<br />Dan Serafini<br />Aubrey Huff<br /><br />That makes <b>Team Jordan</b> (yours truly) the winner with 7 out of 8. I get a free bottle of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrogestrinone">the clear</a>.<br /><br />I can't wait to read the entire report over the next couple of days. The stuff on Clemens is particularly juicy (see what I did there? Because the report is about juicing? Man, I am hilarious).Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-9834518695865885412007-12-13T07:57:00.000-05:002007-12-13T08:00:37.223-05:00Merry RoidmasThe <a href="http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2007/12/mitchell-report-pool.html">Mitchell Report</a> comes out at 2 PM today. It's possible somebody will get an early, leaked copy of it, but really, can you even trust that until 2 PM?<br /><br />Seriously though, last night I was like a kid waiting for Christmas. The latest reports say that 60-80 names will be on the list, including All Stars and MVPs, names that will rock the baseball world.<br /><br />This is worse than the Christmas when I snuck a peak at my presents and knew I was getting a Nintendo.<br /><br />All I want for Roidmas is Roger Clemens.Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017428.post-56583303638305700092007-12-12T08:07:00.000-05:002007-12-12T08:57:36.081-05:00Word of the YearMerriam-Webster recently announced the winner of 2007's "Word of the Year" award, which was determined via the always reliable internet vote.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/07words.htm">This year's winner was "w00t".</a><br /><br />The article mentions that "w00t" is not currently listed in a regular Merriam-Webster dictionary but this award "might just improve its chances." If you ask me, that is awesome.<br /><br />I get into a lot of debates with people about language, particularly at work. A lot of people are driven crazy by the newest slang or even differences in regional dialect, but I think it's cool, or possibly even "pimp" (the kids are still saying that right? Somebody help me out here).<br /><br />I've always just thought that the entire point of language is the free flow of ideas. You're expressing yourself and trying to convey your thoughts. As long as you are able to do that and the person you are talking to can basically get what you're trying to convey, then language is fulfilling its primary purpose. How you pronounce the word "water" makes no difference whatsoever to me as long as I recognize the word.<br /><br />However, not everybody agrees with me on that. There are plenty of people out there who think that putting a word like "w00t" into the dictionary just serves to further "dumb down America". I disagree with this for a number of reasons.<br /><br />First of all, <b>words</b> go in the dictionary. "w00t" is a word. If you don't think it is then look up the <a href="http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/word">definition of "word"</a> in the same dictionary you are ostensibly trying to "protect" from "dumbing down".<br /><br /><i>word (noun)</i><br />1 - something that is said<br />2a - a speech sound or series of speech sounds that symbolizes and communicates a meaning usually without being divisible into smaller units capable of independent use<br />2b - a written or printed character or combination of characters representing a spoken word<br /><br />I think that "w00t" qualifies based on any of those definitions.<br /><br />Second, a dictionary is not some static text in a vault. It is supposed to be a reference, and as such needs to be updated to keep pace with that which it references. Disagree? <a href="http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/dictionary">The dictionary itself doesn't</a>.<br /><br /><i>dictionary (noun)</i><br />1 - a reference source in print or electronic form containing words usually alphabetically arranged along with information about their forms, pronunciations, functions, etymologies, meanings, and syntactical and idiomatic uses<br /><br />See that? It's a document containing <b>words</b> and a bunch of crap about <b>words</b> including <i>where they came from and how they are actually used</i>.<br /><br />The dictionary is a reflection of language, not the other way around.<br /><br />Third, new words get into the dictionary all the time without people making a stink. It's only weird looking words that the kids say while listening to their "rock music" and playing their "video games" that get people upset. For example, the word "nanoscience" isn't in the Merriam-Webster dictionary yet either, and yet universities are teaching classes on it and the National Science Foundation has a whole section of their website <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/news/overviews/nano/index.jsp">devoted to it</a>. I don't hear anybody making a stink that they shouldn't be using that word because it isn't in Merriam-Webster, and if they <i>do</i> put it in next year I'm sure nobody will then either. But "w00t", a word I'd wager is being used a lot more often than "nanoscience"? English professors everywhere start weeping.<br /><br />To me, the bottom line is communication. That's the point of language. If people are inventing new words and new slang, that means that there are new ideas and new ways to express those ideas out there. I'm not saying "w00t" is representative of some new age of enlightenment, but people are using the word a lot and therefore it should probably go in the dictionary.<br /><br />How much sense does it actually make to only use a dictionary when reading an old book that uses words you've never heard or seen before? Doesn't it make just as much, if not <i>way</i> more sense, to be able to use a dictionary to look up words <i>people are actually using regularly</i>?<br /><br />Anyway, even if you don't like it, "w00t" will probably be in the dictionary in a year or two. And there's one very obvious thing to say about that: w00t!Yeagerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02094244295900113594noreply@blogger.com11