I Should Not Be Proud of This

One of the nice things about unemployment is the free time.

Actually it isn't nice at all. It's boring as hell. So you find things to occupy yourself while you wait to hear back from any of the employers whom you desperately hope will give you a shot at minimum wage part-time work. Anything to get some income flowing.

Anyhow, I managed to log a few hundred hours in the Omega Force developed Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends during my few months of no income.


Granted, the 340 hours or so were logged over a period of years (I bought the game at least a year after its initial release), during which I was, for the majority, gainfully employed.

And here it is, the final bonus selection.
By the point that you can unlock this mode, chances are that your favorite character will be so highly levelled, and has such a powerful weapon and items that it won't make a particularly noticeable difference when you can gain additional speed or defense.

But its more of a trophy than anything else. I recorded these videos with the help of RockManXZ21 when the old gang was back together. I actually lost the footage until recently, when I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had kept the whole run-through on his hard drive.

Omega Force's games are pretty silly, and the Gold Rush mode has plenty of silly parts, like Lu Bu appearing at the very end, assuming that one has met the right conditions while playing. What he's doing a millenia or so in the future and in Japan is anybody's guess, but it's a cool moment the first time that he shows up. It's certainly unexpected.

That was an unintentionally long hiatus

Really, apologies to those who were expecting more reviews of movies starring Kong Ban and Lin Hsiao-Lan to be posted here during the last nine or ten months.

I'm not going to justify or try to explain what's been going on, as most of that stuff is personal and not really pertinent here. But I'll be writing stuffs here again. In fact, I had intended to put up several reviews that unfortunately didn't survive the switch I made in computers. This is one of those not-pertinent events that led to my posting anti-spree. Shame on me.

Otherwise not too much has changed on my part. Expect reviews of the most eighties movie Hong Kong ever produced, a likely unwanted amount of writing on the various eighties anime (and their sequels!) I've been watching, and possibly a little bit of redesign to the blog's layout.

All this assuming anybody was reading this thing regularly in the first place.

This is not what David Gaider Wants

Last week I received an unusual e-mail from a reader. I call it unusual because its author did not want a) me to tell him or her where to find one of the more obscure movies reviewed on the blog or b) for me to send him or her a copy of the movie for free. (Seriously, people, do actually expect somebody to do that? Stop sending me your addresses.)

A portion:

I'm a BioWare fan. Not even gonna try to hide my fandom here. Relax though, while this email is coming your way because I read your reviews of The Calling and The Stolen Throne, I'm not writing to put your head on a pike. Quite the opposite actually. Basically, I'd love to write professionally. Preferably for video games but hey if I could do prose then I would not be complaining one bit. As silly as this may sound, I've always looked up to David Gaider immensely…

So where's the issue here? Easy. Up until today, Gaider has been... God. Well more or less, I have had several issues with parts of his writing but who can I read without having that? As many writing classes as I've had I'm frankly reading two versions of the same texts as my eyes dance them over - my own version and that of my education's mean eye. This man though has not set off that many red warnings in my head though. He has been who I want to be. Or at least, someone far along the ladder I want to climb, should I be able to go even further. But today I allowed myself to read quite a bit of his criticism, the final pieces of today being your two reviews (sorry, I'm leaving a turd on your doorstep almost by chance, I am really sorry =( ). Everything is changing.

It’s very easy to assume that people who enjoy tie-in fiction are stupid or lacking in self-awareness, but this isn't necessarily true (even if it often is). The young lady who sent me this very much wants to write fantasy stories for video games and fiction, and she feels let down now that she’s realized that her emperor’s ass is showing.

Her reaction is entirely normal – healthy, even. One of the more unnerving aspects of “fandom” is how it disconnects people from the broader scope. I don’t even mean, necessarily, from mainstream or higher brow literature, but from a broader scope of what might be within the fan’s interests. It’s also the sort of attitude that corporate interests try to foster.

It’s almost cult-like in its operation. Fan forums, especially those that are officially operated by the producers of large franchises (Bioware Social, Bethesda Softworks et al), cultivate insularity and reward fanatical obsession. Breaking away from all of the obsession and idolization can actually be stressful for the fan who once sincerely believed her or his favorite game developer or tie-in writer to be "God."

And that sort of cultivated myopia is what I’ve been railing at in the reviews of David Gaider’s fiction, and it’s what the sender of this missive is trying to cope with. She's quite right to be bothered.

David Gaider has done her no favors with his mediocrity, or with his half-hearted attempts to dodge criticism, or with self-important puffery – a trait which is consistent throughout Bioware’s public self-image. If there is one thing that Gaider sincerely does not want, it is for the readers of his fiction and the players of his games to actually educate themselves about decent story-telling and game design. Gaider (and the company that employs him) does not want for the majority of fans to feel the consternation that drips off of this e-mail.

Thankfully, it isn’t up to him. I wish my reader all the best.

The Entropy of Fairy Telling

Lightwing23 e-mailed me the other day, fresh from seeing the splendorous absurdity of Immortals, to inquire about my thoughts, which I provided. I’m sure my readers are shocked.

He also mentioned that he wanted to see more of Tarsem’s work, recalling the adulation I heaped on his previous film, The Fall, but that the trailer for Tarsem’s upcoming Mirror, Mirror dissuaded him. In his words: “There aren't enough bad things to say about that trailer… [It] looks like such crap that my colon actually responded, like ‘hey, speaking of that, I need to, you know, unload.’” Ouch.

He contrasted that with his reaction to the trailer for that other Snow White adaptation, the Kristen Stewart vehicle, Snow White and the Huntsman, which he also thought looked terrible but appreciated the possibility of seeing it as a crossover between Twilight and Marvel Comics’ Thor (Chris Hemsworth plays the role of the huntsman).

I think they look awful in complimentary ways, although I must admit to being far more ambivalent towards Snow White and the Huntsman and its awful following of a truly awful fad. The attempt to take old stories and rework them for contemporary cinema has taken a particular tack which can be summed up as such:

1) Insert large-scale battle scenes.

2) Incorporate sub-Tim Burton surreal imagery.

3) Make it grim/dark/grimdark.

4) ????

5) Profit!

This method can be seen in a number of recent films, but not so clearly as in Tim Burton’s own imagining of Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland. Burton’s inventiveness has declined over the years, to the point that his films now resemble bland computer driven theme-park rides. His Alice in Wonderland is a pastiche, yanking elements from both its literary namesake as well as Carol’s Through the Looking Glass and "Jabberwocky," with a dash of C. S. Lewis’ Narnia to embitter the pot.

We have the cowed Victorian stereotype Alice learning about herself and picking up a sword and armor to do battle with the Jabberwocky in a toothless cartoon world presented to the audience as a dangerous jungle of phantasms. It plays on current trends (action-gurl being the most obvious), as though the original source could benefit from a twenty-first century sensibility and still maintain its integrity. The film could not any more miss the point.

Snow White and the Huntsman looks to follow in its footsteps, albeit without the whimsy that made Burton’s film bearable. The trailer opens with ominous music and narration, the voice of the evil queen. The trailer treats us to images of such startling originality as creepy forests, milk baths, and clashing armies. And, most impressively of all, we see Kristen Stewart, the eponymous character, in a suit of armor wielding sword and shield, sans helm or helmet.

Wondering what possible service a tiny young woman like Kristen Stewart could serve in a massive melee is deafened by the consideration of what purpose massive battle set-pieces could serve in a film based on a fairy-tale like Snow White. It seems almost inspired by Catherine Hardwicke’s recent bomb, Red Riding Hood, another supposedly gritty reimagining of a fairy-tale in which everyone’s skin and hair looks nothing less than perfect, even when chased through the woods by a marauding were-creature.

Films like these are vapid entertainment, which fairy-tales, the most humble folk literature, were most certainly not. I recall a passage from Gene Wolfe’s Castleview:

"They kissed, and it was not (as Mercedes has always heard it was supposed to be) before she knew what was happening. She knew perfectly well what was happening -- that a whole world, new and strange, terrible yet wonderful, was unfolding for her. She understood, when their lips touched, exactly why Snow White and Sleeping Beauty has been awakened by a kiss, knew what those old grandmothers of eight hundred years ago had been trying to tell her, and knew that they had told her, their coded message coming clearly across the years, and that those dear old grandmothers--the bent crones at the firesides--had triumphed, their word not lost with the crackling of the sticks in their fires. That she and Seth or some other like Seth would someday ride on one white horse, laughing in the sunshine."

I’m also reminded that when Seth and Mercedes uncover a book and sword in the illusory castle of Morgana le Fey, Mercedes forgets the book, preferring the sword.

The ultimate purpose of fairy-tales is to transmit those truths about life which the young cannot know because they are young, to assure them of a magic that is not that of occultists or (as it must now be said) generic fantasy novels and video games. They tell children – and remind the teller – of true magic; they tell us that the entropic world in which we live, a world of the arbitrary cruelties of circumstance or fate, is not the whole of things.

What films like Snow White and the Huntsman do is ignore the book for the sword (I hope Mr. Wolfe would forgive me for appropriating his words). The finality of the tale might be similar, or even the same, but its audience leaves with quickly forgotten images of pandering simplicity: girls in armor, clashing armies, and eroticized evil.

If Snow White and the Huntsman looks likely to fail as a cinematic fairy-tale, Mirror, Mirror looks likely to fail as anything but an unwitting parody of Snow White and the Huntsman. While the former follows the trends of Burton and Hardwicke, the latter marches down the trail blazed by Shreck.

Shreck’s message – that you are fine no matter how grotesque, smelly, annoying, disgusting or objectionable you or your actions are – is an ugly reversal of the fairy-tale that compliments the grating insouciance to which most mid-tier children’s films of recent vintage aspire. Mirror, Mirror is similar in that respect. “Snow White?” one of the dwarves exclaims in the trailer, “Snow Way!”

The best I can say for Mirror, Mirror is that it might provide a little amusement, much as Shreck did, with knowing performances and pop culture references. Tarsem’s expert visual sense certainly could not hurt it. But for all of the minor amusements of the movie itself, probably the best thing about Mirror, Mirror is that it seems almost to have been an unwitting parody of Snow White and the Huntsman. At least it seems to realize that it is itself ridiculous, even if its writers mistakenly took their source material for being ridiculous too.

Progress

I have not said anything about the closing of the local Borders because it was traumatic enough that I don’t want to dwell on it. I bought my first Zatoichi DVD at Borders. I spent more afternoons than I can well remember hanging out there, reading manga with my best friend from high school. It was a convenient stop on my way back from school; it fed my collecting habits, first with reasonably priced Japanese comics and movies, later with an efficient special order system that suitably made up for my inability to order unusual books and movies from Amazon.com. I even signed up for their discount program, and put it to good use.

Extenuating circumstances prevented me from picking through the carcass of their clearance sale until the day just before they shut their doors for good. I hoped to grab some Wolfe or Vance or Chesterton for cheap; maybe find some interesting popular history titles – I intended to buy various Jonathan Spence books that usually sat on their shelves untouched – only to find that the other bookworms had eaten through the inventory well before I got there. Most of the remaining merchandise was of no interest to me, although I did contemplate buying a table or a plate from their café. The insistence of the manager that potential buyers consider buying shelves and chairs and light fixtures as well persuaded me away. I loved that Borders, but not enough to want it relocated in my house.

So I bought the only what I could justify owning at a seventy percent discount: David Gaider’s Dragon Age: The Calling.

I’ve read about a quarter of Gaider’s second foray into actual fiction. Slow going: it’s pretty dull so far, but I’ve noticed a couple of improvements over The Stolen Throne already.

- First of all, the writing is much tighter. The Stolen Throne had me hitting my face with its incessant flood of adverbs and inappropriate turns of phrase. For instance, the infamous: “Maric stared at her in disbelief. He wasn’t quite sure she could have said anything else that would have been less surprising. Well perhaps a confession that she was actually made of cheese.” So far, no especially egregious instances of childish humor.

Also, the adverbing didn’t start until about twenty pages in, and it’s much less frequent. Every sentence in The Stolen Throne went according to a formula. “Subject verbs object, adverbingly.” It’s a bad formula. It tells, rather than shows. Thankfully, it’s employed much less in The Calling.

- For all the good that it does, Gaider also seems to have taken some notice of courtly formality. Among the litany of complaints I threw at The Stolen Throne was that its author used “my lord,” “your highness,” and “your majesty” interchangeably. The Calling was published shortly before my review of The Stolen Throne hit the net, so I cannot take credit for bringing this to the author’s attention. But since it only figures into a single scene in any meaningful way, it’s not really an issue – just nice to see.

I’ll have a more detailed review of the last book I’ll ever buy from my beloved book store chain location if/when I finish reading it. But it’s a bittersweet experience, even at a seventy percent discount.

The JRPG Conundrum (part 1?)

It’s about that time of year again. Last May, Bioware’s Daniel Erickson claimed that Final Fantasy 13 was not an RPG, explaining that it had no character creation or goofily obvious dialog trees. The reaction was about as expected from the itinerant gaming pundits on the internet: a huge debate over semantics. Of course, most of these guys either have short memories or have not studied their hobby particularly well or, for that matter, have not actually swam past the familiar genre points of Final Fantasy 7, Baldur’s Gate, and Diablo. If they had, they would realize that CRPGs are nothing like the tabletop games that spawned them because no computer program can replicate the human involvement of an actual dungeon master, much less players. Erickson’s definition actually eliminates not only Japanese developed RPGs, but a large portion of the genre’s progenitors.

Semantic arguments serve an important purpose, of course; if one cannot argue about the definition of words, what else can one have to argue about? (What is an RPG if words have no meaning? … sorry, I couldn’t resist) The problem with the argument is that if either side took its position to the most logical end, they would render the term “CRPG” a complete misnomer. That would be logical, disregarding the context in which we use the term “RPG,” but not sensible, and it solves approximately nothing. And besides, it’s old news.

The decline or death of the Japanese RPG is a favorite meme of gamers and game journalists in this current console generation, and there are at least a couple of narratives repeated by those who believe their understanding of the genre, and video games in general, and the people who make and play them sufficient to explain this phenomenon. The first explanation, and in my experience the most prevalent, is that the Japanese developers, conservative and risk-averse, wallow in dated conventions of game-design and that Western developers, more willing to change with their audience and to meet their audience’s demands, have usurped the Japanese position within the industry as the purveyors of what we call RPGs. This set off the argument last year.

The other narrative posits that Japanese developers, unlike their counterparts in the west, failed to grow up with their audience; this is the argument made by people who hate or are at least antipathetic towards anime illustrations and teenaged heroes of ambiguous gender, who balk at the narrative conventions so closely associated with the genre. Both sides miss the point. One focuses on the games as games and the other on the games as media, but both miss the mark in complementary ways.

It’s the latter I focus on because this year’s annual celebration of “What’s wrong with the JRPG” comes as a reaction to a peculiar little game published by NIS America and developed by their equally, eternally peculiar partners, Idea Factory, Compile Heart, and Gust. Hyperdimension Neptunia blipped on my radar thanks to a few mentions on the WAHP podcast and the few sites actually willing to cover odd Japanese games. A niche title in an increasingly niche genre, Hyperdimension Neptunia seems like an odd choice for localization when looking at the overtly moe illustrations and its developer’s track record. The ambivalence towards the Japanese aesthetic here in the west has, as mentioned, never been so pronounced, and even Japanese otaku refer to developer Idea Factory (アイディアファクトリー) as “Idea Fucktory” (アイディアファック), though not without some affection, if I understand correctly.

The game’s plot, as much as any game can be said to have one, is what made it a candidate for an American and European release. Hyperdimension Neptunia envisions the “console war” as a battle between goddesses in a vaguely defined space-opera milieu filled with anime and game references that exist solely as references to anime and video games. The main characters personify game platforms and developers; Neptunia is based on Sega’s ill-fated, never released console that became the Sega-32X add-on for the Genesis, and Compa stands in for developer/Idea Factory subsidiary Compile Heart, and etc. They battle against Airfore, a play on R4 piracy.

The tone of the professional reviews, however, suggests that NISA should not have bothered, no matter how cute their project’s story. The largest professional review sites (IGN and Gamespot) took aim mostly at the “hypersexualized” characters, most of whom resemble very young women. Taking note of this, Eurogamer’s Simon Parkin ranted about sexism, ending his review calling the game a “sexist, senseless and ultimately stupid cultural curio.” He scored the game a two out of ten, which according to Eurogamer’s scoring guide, denominates Hyperdimension Neptunia as “atrocious.”

Not having played the game, I cannot speak to its mechanics, though they look very similar to those in NISA’s previous PS3 release, Trinity Universe. I can laugh at the charges leveled against it and shake my head. Never mind that by any normal standards, highly praised American games feature sexism every bit as noticeable (and often more graphic) as that seen in the relatively harmless sexual fantasies of Hyperdimension Neptunia. A closer look at this game shows just how wrong the accepted narrative of the JRPG decline is; this game, as bad as it seems to be, was developed specifically for the Japanese gamers who grew up playing video games.

In Japan, games are for kids. In America, games are for kids and grown-ups who want to pretend that theirs is not a childish hobby. The Japanese developers who make games for otaku realize that their audience has no vested interest in proving the social legitimacy of their hobby, and the otaku seeks to fulfill his needs through media, as explained by Hiroki Azuma in Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals. Idea Factory, Nippon Ichi Software, Key, Image Epoch and others realize this and provide what their customers want. The games have grown up with their audience, in that these are games that are made for adult consumers. They have grown inert with their audience as well, but that’s another, much more involved matter.

Neither does the claim that Japanese RPG mechanics have not evolved hold up. They have merely not evolved in a way that pleases western gamers who have only recently discovered the sort of games that used to appear only for the PC. In fact, compared to games like Baldur’s Gate, System Shock 2, and Deus Ex, the current RPG offerings on the consoles are significantly dumbed down. Bioware, Bethesda and their peers have found what works, and are now crafting variations on the same concepts that fulfill their customer’s wants, which are sometimes creepy, sometimes sexist, and very often the product of their consumer’s internalized nerdiness. If the JRPG is said to be stagnant for not dramatically changing in the past twenty years (although in subtle, sometimes unfortunate ways, it has), so must western RPGs, and all other games that fit under a generic label.

Make no mistake: the average Japanese developer makes the average JRPG for teenaged boys (Namco’s Tales series is the most obvious example) because that is their primary audience. But rather than acknowledging this fact and readjusting their expectations, professional reviewers persist in treating games developed for a very particular audience on the other side of the planet as though they were made for them by their neighbors. It’s an attitude born of a false sense of superiority and never offers anything that even approaches constructive, insightful criticism. And it is lazy. Damnably lazy.

The truth: Japanese RPGs are not in decline; they are merely declining in the west. Both Euro-American and Japanese audiences have grown apart in interests. That those of us who still enjoy many of the mechanics in Japanese games, particularly the experimental efforts of teams like Gust, have fewer and fewer games localized for our amusement – and that non-critical video game critics who have bought wholesale into so stale a meme as the one about which I just wrote over a thousand words help to drive mainstream disinterest – is frustrating and sad.

Hungry -- Why Play?

I too am flummoxed by the Japanese food obsession. Most of those who would even care probably point to “Iron Chef” as the obvious media exponent, although actual food stuffs from Japan prove better symptoms of this strange syndrome. Japan, after all, created the wonder that is Kobe beef and a million bizarre, sometimes amazingly delicious Kit-Kat bars with flavors as reasonable as hazelnut (which, I can say, are delicious), as odd as ginger ale, and as bewildering as Camembert cheese. If those who would even care also guessed that this bevy of esoteric, often seasonal Kit-Kats played into the Japanese love of collecting, they would probably be on the right train of thought.

The food obsession actually extends not only to TV, but to Japan’s (possibly) largest cultural export: video games. A cursory glance at GameFAQs reveals no “Iron Chef” video game of Japanese origin -- it might well reveal a bit about the shoddy research I put into an average blog post -- though Cooking Fighter Hao attempts to capture the same sort of silly atmosphere in the anime/JRPG style typical (pre-Disgaea) of its developer, Nippon Ichi. Still, food pops up in games where it has seemingly no business.

My first baffling experience with the Japanese food obsession came from Star Ocean: The Second Story, a Tri-Ace developed RPG that I spent inordinate amounts of time breaking, usually in competition with RockManXZ24 (one of our contests involved obtaining one of the best weapons available before the post-game content during the first half of the game, before the second CD). The Star Ocean series’ claims to fame include a few interesting, sometimes time consuming systems, one being the option for the party characters to learn a craft and create items. Alchemy, chemistry, weapon and armor forging seem de rigueur, but one of the first available is... cooking.

As a less than critical teenager, this felt odd, but not insurmountably so, and I took to the task of turning one of my characters (Rena, the female protagonist and walking cliché) into a master chef with as much gusto as one can while engaged in as solitary an experience as playing a two-disc Playstation Japanese RPG. The first few attempts ended in frustration, usually in the form of a “wilted salad” or a “spicy cake.” In order to make a character proficient at any of the item creation options, the character must have right the skills and the talents. The talents are either randomly assigned or randomly unlocked, and the skills bought with ability points gained after a level-up. So I did what any kid with enough time and the inclination to do so would: I played through countless random battles in order to unlock the skills, one of which was “Kitchen Knife.” That skill gives a “Strength x 20” bonus, which would have proven useful if I used that character to attack, ever.

The dishes I eventually created in the game probably made me into a food-nerd, at least to the point that I once thought I would use the “food and food products” category on this blog for more than complaints about energy drinks and the foul marketing campaigns associated with them. I knew what a risotto was and had a vague idea about sea urchin and abalone, but found items like konyaku, ichinogi, and steamed aspic intriguing, if sometimes scary and unappetizing.

Perhaps the great triumph of Star Ocean: The Second Story’s cooking system is how appetizing it made little clumps of polygons and textures seem, thanks mostly to the accompanying descriptions. The game inspired me to actually try cooking, although my attempts to make my own orange soda and risottos never really turned out. Thankfully, doing so in a video game was easier and more fun than learning to carefully measure my ingredients and time my cooking, and it restored my HP and MP on various occasions. Give me a break; I was thirteen.

Star Ocean, for what it is worth, never really made me hungry; that honor goes to Odin Sphere, the 2007 side-scrolling brawler cum RPG from George Kamitani’s studio, Vanillaware. The game’s gorgeously animated and highly detailed 2D graphics generated a lot of hype, but the game’s item management system (and slowdown issues) made more than a few eyebrows arch after its release. I love it, personally, if for no other reason than Café Pooka and the Pooka Kitchen, where the player can order dishes made out of items bought or found during the actual gameplay.

The graphics, as previously stated, are stunning, and the illustrated food looks more delicious than the real French dishes they’re based on. Neither the dainty eating animations nor the gorgeous environmental graphics, with their warm color schemes and ambient motions, hurt the effect, although I could do without the repetitive, squeaky saccharine quality of the voice acting.

Part of the game’s appeal is its evocation of faerie, and the dreamy quality of the eateries fits right in -- if Alfheimr has restaurants, they look like this -- but they serve a more utilitarian purpose too! To increase a characters hit points in Odin Sphere, he or she must eat, and preferably only the best, most expensive foods. Why? I didn’t know, but apparently, saving the world from intergalactic wizards or from a convoluted pseudo-Ragnarok requires the gastronomic development of a true epicurean. The twilight of the gods can wait until I've finished my pork chops. And will Expel and Need please stop careening towards each other? I'm trying to brew some sake, but it's never truly dry enough for my tastes... and my MP is low.

But y’know, I think the Japanese have it right. I would not pay a cent for a wasabi flavored Kit-Kat or watch a single episode of “テレビ朝日/Ai no Apron,” but at least the Japanese respect the inherent goodness of food. I wince at the snobbery shown to certain regional cuisines; I despise the pervasive notion of food as caloric fuel almost as much as the prevalent use of food and eating for self-gratification rather than pleasure. Food unites humanity in a more dignified manner than what we do with it biologically (especially towards the end), and Tri-Ace and Vanillaware, whether consciously or otherwise, recognize that saving the world requires good eating.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but unless Dragon Age 2 recognizes the glorious nature of bottom fermenting yeast and parsnips and mutton, I shall resign myself to the fact that at least one section of the occidental world just doesn’t understand food. It’s the same one to which Gamer Grub and Mtn Dew Game Fuel were marketed.

For Those Who Love or Hate Uwe Boll

So, it seems like world wide Street Fighter 2 mania really hit its nadir when enterprising film makers decided to adapt it into live action motion picture entertainment. It was for the tremendously awful 1994 film by Steven E. De Souza that Raul Julia gave his final performance before his untimely death, though the two unfortunate happenings were purportedly unrelated. It's arguable that the success of Paul W.S. Anderson's Mortal Kombat film might have been unrelated to Street Fighter's failure as well, though it hardly matters now.

One wonders what became of the actors for this... thing. I like to think one or two of them died of embarrassment. Though not quite as outrageous as it looks from the clip above, the Korean Street Fighter 2 television series deserves its minute infamy. From the opening it's clear that the production value and technical proficiency are on a level just below that of a bottom tier Mexican telenovela. I watched part of an episode with RockmanXZ24, who laughed hardest at the game footage in the opening, which looks to have been taken with a vhs camera pointed at an arcade cabinet monitor. The interlacing is rather noticeable.

Having seen a full episode, I've got to say that I wasn't expecting so many faceless ninjas to get pummeled. Neither was I expecting for Ken and Ryu's master (God help me for knowing this: in the Street Fighter canon, he's known as Gouken, but I don't know Korean and doubt that they're using that name) to play such a large role, or to relate, in flashback, how he once fought M. Bison so hard that the collision of their chi set off a nuclear explosion, which looks quite like that stock footage that shows up in other low budget movies which need shots of huge explosions.

What can not really be seen in the opening is how skilled the actors actually are as martial artists. In the episode I watched, most of the fight scenes involved Ryu, and the actor who plays him is fantastic to watch. The same goes for the actors who play Bison and Ryu's Master. It's a shame that the choreography is dated, looking much like what can be seen in low-level, mid-seventies Hong Kong kung fu movies. The special effects, when they appear, are hilarious. Keep in mind that when this series aired in Korea, Hong Kong produced wild films like Kung Fu Cult Master, which pushed the limits of non-digital effects like wire work. Korean Street Fighter tries to do this as well, with hilarious results, particularly for Ryu and Ken's trademark Shoryukens and Hurricane Kicks. The "hadoken" is created with theatrical smoke, which is funnier than it sounds, but somehow, not as funny as the amateurish wire stunts.

Also notable: the actor who plays E. Honda, while not big enough to be a convincing Yokozuna, seems to really like jiggling his man-boobs.

The emergence of a short film produced as a bid to reboot Mortal Kombat as a film franchise set the nerds abuzz all over the internet recently, many of them upset or at least mystified over the attempted "real-ized" take on what might be the most insanely convoluted and silly story in service of a game where story could not possibly matter any less. At the very least, it doesn't attempt to present Mortal Kombat as faithfully as this series does Street Fighter 2.

Six Games You Won't Play (which I want)

Atlus hasn’t announced a U.S. release date for Etrian Odyssey 3, but there’s not much chance that they won’t release an internally developed game in English, especially since Etrian Odyssey was a surprise hit among an underrepresented and loyal niche audience. I know that I’ve mentioned that I love dungeon crawlers, but aside from reviewing The Dark Spire way back last summer, probably haven’t said much about the genre besides the fact that I like it.

That the first-person dungeon crawler has seen resurgence is undoubtedly a good thing to me, but it really comes at a weird time for the game industry. The style itself originated on American PCs, but now it appears neither on PC nor under the distribution of American companies. Etrian Odyssey 3 might be most comparable to one of the latter Might and Magic games (after 4 but before 9, obviously) -- just as Class of Heroes was very much a latter era Wizardry and The Dark Spire called attention to its being a reworked Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord -- but probably a very select group of its players will know that, and of those, only a few will have played a Might and Magic game to completion. If I am wrong in my assessment, you are free to blame the internet for giving me a false impression.

But there has been much talk from both gaming “journalists” and fans about the recent demise of the Japanese RPG, and occasionally the entirety of the Japanese gaming scene. Both assertions are false, but it might seem true if the only games you’re looking at are a gaggle of by-rote, briefly Microsoft exclusive games from Tri-Ace, From Software, and Square Enix. All of the most interesting Japanese RPGs are on the handhelds. And while there have been some surprising localizations (like pretty much every dungeon crawler mentioned above) there’s a stifling atmosphere for games that are “too Japanese.”

The following are games that I think look incredible, and that have been hyped up pretty well among the enthusiast faithful. The chances that any of them will see localization are, none the less, pretty low.

Brandish: Dark Revenant
Brandish was originally an overhead action game for the PC98 which featured lots of inventory management and a huge labyrinth filled with traps and puzzles. It also had the unusual visual device in which, rather than the character turning around within the dungeon, turning is represented by the whole dungeon moving underneath the character, which is fixed in more or less the same spot. It is hell to play in 2D, but with this PSP remake’s 3D graphics it’s neither a jarring effect nor an unusual one, and it has Falcom’s expert dungeon design.
Chances somebody will localize it: Marginal, at least, since Falcom has been trying to get their work licensed in the US.



7th Dragon
This game has been making waves for a while, in part because it was directed by Kazuya Niinou, director of Etrian Odyssey, and produced by Rieko Kodama, who is responsible behind much of the Phantasy Star series. It’s got EO’s cutesy graphics and character customization in a more familiar Japanese RPG package. Sega published it in Japan back in 2008 and American fans are still waiting.
Chances somebody will localize it: Pretty much nil at this point.


Blood of Bahamut
Described by a lot of people as being a handheld, 4-player take on Shadow of the Colossus, Blood of Bahamut is now this generation’s Bahamut Lagoon, a legendary Square RPG for the SNES that never made it to America. They’re even made by the same people.
Chances somebody will localize it: It’s the new Bahamut Lagoon.


Zettai Hero Kaizou Keikaku
Another in the long line of Nippon Ichi tactical/strategy RPGs, Zettai Hero Kaizou Keikaku is another tongue-in-cheek number crunch fest from a company that rarely makes anything but that. This one looks sillier than usual, but boasts cameos from anime characters like Dokoro-Chan, as well as various Nippon Ichi fan favorites. It also supposedly has no level caps and oodles of content in the form of extra missions and rare items. You already have to have debilitating, Ulillillia levels of OCD in order to appreciate some Nippon Ichi titles; this one supposedly trumps all that have come before it. Prism Rangers!
Chances somebody will localize it: Let’s see what NIS America does after Sakura Wars V.



Soma Bringer
This game has been around long enough (early 2008) for fans to have created a working translation patch. Developer Monolith is infamous for the overlong and bland Xenosaga games on the PS2, but Soma Bringer is actually something of a Diablo-like (this will be an accepted term at some point, I’m sure) with silly anime graphics. Lots of customization and rare weapon drops here.
Chances somebody will localize it: Very, very low. Glory of Heracles, but not this? Really, Nintendo?


Classic Dungeon
Another Nippon Ichi game, this time an action RPG with faux 8-bit graphics, Classic Dungeon also promises an insane amount of content, including sprite building. You can make your own 8-bit avatar. As with the game above, it looks to be something like Diablo in its stat building, loot hoarding mechanics. It almost looks like a deeper, more involved and portable companion piece to From Software’s forthcoming PS3 game, 3D Dot Heroes. The difference is that the latter has US release date.
Chances somebody will localize it: Waiting on NIS America. Not real hopeful.


I can think of others, but this list is getting long. The good news is that even though all these are probably staying in Japan, at least we have a good chance of seeing Etrian Odyssey 3. Atlus’ Japanese website has a party creation tool (that’s mine at the top; yes, my guild was named “Grengarm” in the two previous games as well, and if you know the reference you are a nerd) so you can see what your potential party might look like. I played with it for a while, and felt better. As long as EO3 is released in English, I’ll probably be so occupied with sailing, multi-classing and basic dungeon crawling that I won't miss all of these games.

At least not too much.

Fantasy Title Generator Game

Lightwing23 and I have been friends for a little more than half of our lives, which is funny if one considers that we have (in his words) “the best love-hate relationship ever.” Our tête-à-tête doesn’t consist of one-upsmanship, always; but when it does, the passive-aggressiveness is never less than fun and never more than that either. And in that spirit, I’ve suggested that we collaborate, in a loose sense, between our blogs. This was the first thing that I wanted to do when I considered what might be feasible: The Fantasy Title Generator Game.

The Rules:
- You have 15 points.
- Words from tier one are one point; from tier two, two points; from tier three, three points. Proper names are tier four, and take up four points.
- “the,” “of,” "a," and “and” are all free words.
- You can use up to five points on a single title.
- You must use all fifteen points.
- You must write a short synopsis for the books you come up with

The Words:
Tier 4:
Any sort of proper name (i.e. Odin, Thor, Hogar, Conan, or anything you make up)

Tier 3:
God(s)
Queen
King
Lord
Dragon
Sword
Ring
Talisman

Tier 2:
Legend
Tale
Assassin
Wolf
Shadow
Fire
Ice
Mage
War
Thief
Lightning
Thunder
Blade
Fox
Curse
Valkyrie
Medusa
Knight
Wizard

Tier 1:
Gold (or golden)
Black
Moon
Lance
Blood
Divinity
Blood
Radiance (or Radiant)
Pool
Goblin
Invincible
Devil
Consort
Crown
Iron
Steel
Light
Song
Truth (or True)
Sacred
Virile
Wind
Stone
Dark
Power
Fact
Scimitar
Sun
Stars
Couch
Virago
White
Ruby
Jewel

My titles:

White Virago: Consort of the Virile Lance (-5)
In the land of Wrikania, the race of humans fought a bitter war with red scaled, tentacled Draakhen, leaving the population in danger of extinction. In the Wrikanian society, women are prized for their virility, but by the Draakhen for their alabaster skin. Etria is a powerful warrior-priestess, charged with the protection and procreation of the human race, who is forced into the harem of the Draakhen Lord, endangering her life, but also that of the Draakhen's supreme leader. In this Normanesque fantasy, Etria must escape from enemy territory clad only in the Draakhen's harem attire, which is practically nothing!

Adapted from the Sega Genesis game, WarSong (-3) tells the tale of Garret as he fights to regain his kingdom from an evil usurper. No random encounters!

Radiant Devil Fact (-3) tells the story of young Stenton, a printing agent who disagrees with the direction of publication in his country, controlled as it is by the religiously implemented government agency of materials, media and propaganda. He learns that the devils against whom he publishes tracts are in fact the true life blood of the world, and finds himself fighting with them for the sake of their philosophy of personal freedom and meritocracy. (Translated from Japanese.)

Nyasdofijasdokmnfoia (-4)
In this stunning evocation of Lovecraftian mythology told in Stephanie Meyer-esque prose, Rubia Weiss' move to Spoon, a lonely, rainy town in New England, brings her social life to screeching halt. But when she meets Timmy Nyas, a brooding student who glows in starlight and has the raw sexuality of James Dean and all the members of the all the boy bands of the nineties combined -- who also happens to be an exiled god from before recorded human history returned from his sojourn in space and just happens to be hanging out at the small town's high school picking up girls -- her whole world changes! Now unable to keep his elder god status a secret, Timmy must try to keep his beloved, much younger and less experienced and thoroughly chaste lover safe from Nyasdofijasdokmnfoia (pronounced Nie-ass-thbbbbbbbbbbth) the assassin of the gods.

That's it for my fifteen points. Expecting Lightwing23 to post his on his blog sometime soon.

This game was given to me via e-mail by an acquaintance of mine (who doesn't, to my knowledge, have a fanciful internet alias like the rest of us). You, reader, are welcome to play it too. In fact, you can either add or subtract a word before passing it on. I added "virago."

Fantasy by Warhol

This was inspired by Lightwing23's (referred to occasionally on this blog as Waffler) write up of the shamelessly derivative "Inheritance" novels. He's actually much nicer about them than I would be, but then, I've only read Eragon and found that to be more than enough. By contrast, Lightwing23 has read all three novels and is apparently willing to read the next one, assuming that Paolini can still get it published. Unfortunately, we already know that he can.

Actually, not all of the books whose covers I put on that image are terrible (Tolkien is certainly not terrible). What's terrifying is that even the worst of those books and series have devoted readers and die-hard admirers.

I've probably said more than needs to be said about tie-in novels, but the willingness of some genre fans to absorb the same crap in an endless cycle is never less than irksome. I mean, really, Terry Goodkind is a best seller? He's not even writing for a pre-existing fanbase. Unless you're counting Tolkien's. Or maybe Ayn Rand's.

This is probably one of the more obnoxious posts of late, even by the standards of this particular blog. I'll turn off photoshop and get back to playing Nightmare of Druaga.

Snowy Day

I’m drinking hot tea and typing on my computer in the middle of the afternoon while listening to “Life in a Northern Town.” I’m not being wistful, although it probably sounds like I am; it’s a snow day and I don’t have to work because of it. The Dream Academy just happens to be a favorite of whatever internet radio station my PSP decided to play for me.
Snow used to be an excuse to spend a day playing instead of working. For me, not having to go to my actual job means that I get to spend my time working on things that actually matter, like finding a new job that isn’t part of the construction industry. I suspect that young kids no longer know what a snow day should actually feel like, what with all the activities parents force their kids to participate in. I haven’t seen a single kid in the neighborhood building a snowman, and it’s a real shame. The snow is dry enough to ply and wet enough to pack -- perfect for play.
It’s rare to get that kind of snow in north Texas.

The 2009 Bad Sex in Fiction Award...

Just fucking give it to Nick Cave already.

The prize hasn't had such great material to work with since... well, Norman Mailer's last novel. Ok, that wasn't that long ago. So let's just say it hasn't had such great material since ever. I haven't read most of the books on the list. Now I want to.

The Legend of the Generic Title

Localization isn't easy. I think that everybody can at least agree on that. Nobody ever agrees on how mainstream appeal and fan service should be balanced, though lately, the situation has improved. Remember the early days of DVD and Dimension's releases of various Jackie Chan and Jet Li classics? It's easy to forget that only a decade ago, nobody could expect original language/subtitles or an uncut version of a Hong Kong film on DVD. But even now, distributors screw up in really weird ways, particularly when they try to market these films. Knowing that most customers at brick-and-mortar stores probably won't buy a Tang Dynasty retelling of Hamlet with a bunch of foreign people doing fancy, flighty kung fu, it should surprise nobody that The Weinstein Company's subsidiary, Dragon Dynasty, tried to make Feng Xiaogang's clunky Oscar-bait, The Banquet, seem like a more conventional wuxia/fantastic martial arts film.
But did they really have to give it a title reminiscent of the most uncreative kind of pulpy fantasy?

Not to pick on it too much, but "Legend of the Black Scorpion" combines the three words nobody with any taste ever wants to see in sequence. "Legend," in spite of the logical evidence to the contrary, is actually an anagram for cheese. You have no reason to complain about a cheesy movie if it's known as "Legend of the..." because it tells you what you're getting right in the title. Another problem: "Black Scorpion." That wouldn't be so bad, were it not preceded by "Legend of the," which makes everything sound worse. If I saw a movie which said "Deathhammer Valkyrie Bikini Vixens" and picked it up only to find "Legend of the..." in tiny script, my estimation would rapidly diminish.

Also, the black scorpions really aren't a particularly large plot point in The Banquet, and it really isn't a giant cheese fest. I understand that a good portion of the audience that Dragon Dynasty caters to wouldn't be interested in a period drama that takes its cues from Shakespeare. But still, that's one damn goofy title.
Dragon Dynasty isn't the only the distributor to make that mistake. New Line Cinema actually helped produced Kim Young-Jun's 2005 wuxia film, Shadowless Sword, which received fairly good coverage from fans who were reminded of the fun that early nineties Hong Kong used to offer. Now, Shadowless Sword sounds plenty evocative to me, but somebody at New Line decided that "Legend of the..." simply made it better. I still think it sucks.

This practice of simply dropping "The Legend of..." before an adjetive and a noun began with Dimension's release of Swordsman 2 as "Legend of the Flying Swordsman," for which there are actual, justifiable reasons. The same cannot be said of Sony's retitling of Corey Yuen/Wong Jing's weird unofficial adaptation of the "Lone Wolf and Cub" manga, New Legend of Shaolin. The original title sounds generic enough, but Sony's new title makes it sound like what a bunch of marketing shills have mistaken for a generic kung fu movie title. That's worse -- I'm sure of it.

Not every martial arts movie receives the lazy designation as a legend of whatever. Equally popular in the days of Dimension Home Video releases were titles that went "The __________" -- you can insert your own tough and/or cool sounding word. The most annoying was "The Legend" because it has "Legend" in the title, and the film it was applied to, Jet Li's comedy kung-fu vehicle Fong Sai-Yuk, deserved a more interesting title. In a fit of sheer ridiculousness, when Dragon Dynasty re-released it, they did so under the title, "The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk." Bleaaoashdoaghdfhahaghagh.


Ugh. The worst of these actually came in the form of "The Enforcer." The dubbed, cut version of another Corey Yuen/Jet Li collaboration (Wong Jing was involved too), My Father is a Hero, Dragon Dynasty actually offended many fans when they re-released the Dimension DVD almost completely unchanged, without any audio options or even substantial bonus content. Now, if you'll notice, "The Enforcer" doesn't sound anything like My Father is a Hero, and while the intended title is damnably cheesy, "The Enforcer" just doesn't say anything at all.

Not to pick too much on Dragon Dynasty, but their recent release of the big-budget period epic, Battle of Wits, received one of the worst re-titles of the bunch. Aside from not being a martial arts film, Jacob Cheung's Warring States era drama highlights the battles not only of armies and strategists, but of the era's prevailing philosophies. What did Dragon Dynasty choose to call it?
Yes, making your movie sound stupid will really help sales there. So, a battle of warriors? I'm glad you guys cleared that up. I might have thought I was watching a battle of intellectuals, or a battle of actors, or a battle of underpaid People's Liberation Army in costume. Also, thank you for reminding us that a guy who choreographed stunts and fight scenes for one hit movie, also worked on this one, even though his input clearly wasn't a driving creative force. Awesome work, guys.

Dragon Dynasty looks like its going under. Bey Logan stepped down from his position within The Weinstein Company (DD was his project) just a few days ago. Let's wish them good luck in the future, and shed a quick tear for all the movies that they didn't have a chance to release, and then package in a totally silly or intentionally misleading fashion. No matter what, the fantastic visual quality, bonus features, and erudite commentary that often accompanied their releases will be missed.

Finally, if anything annoys me about kung fu movies, its the title "Faster Blades, Poisonous Darts." I don't know when this title first came into being, but it's used on all sorts of movies. IMDb is still confused to this day whether "Faster Blades, Poisonous Darts" is the Cheung Pang-Yi film, Lone Ninja Warrior (and this one has a billion other informal and bootleg titles) or the Chu Liu-Xiang film starring Adam Cheng, Night Orchid (which is also known as Demon Fighter, etc). Granted, the incompetence of IMDb's staff and users will one day be immortalized in song, in the great halls of nerd-Valhalla. I understand there will be Mountain Dew.

I could go on; I could tell stories of bootlegs with titles like "Chessboxing Matrix" and "Thugs, Hoes and Scrillah," but there's no need. For all of its problems, many of us love this genre. But the hobby would be more fun without the stupid re-titles.

A Forced Whimper -- The End of Mike Judge's "King of the Hill"

The final episode of the Mike Judge's much beloved, and long-in-the-tooth "King of the Hill" aired this past Sunday. Well, the final two episodes aired back-to-back without much in the way of fanfare. Of course, Fox runs promos for the upcoming Seth MacFarlane travesty, "The Cleveland Show," at an hourly interval. It's a wonder that Mike Judge and Greg Daniels received any luck, much less acclaim, with such a mild mannered show on a network so taken with vulgarity. Speaking critically, one must admit the shows many failures in the final season -- forced jokes, lethargic pacing, and meaningless subplots drag many of the last episodes into mediocrity -- but even at its worst, "King of the Hill" never disappointed on any account other than its own high standards.

Watching the finale Sunday night, I reminded myself of that. It was bad: a perfectly acceptable mid-season episode with a tacked on ending to signal the end of the series. One would think that after thirteen seasons, there would be not only more closure to the series' running gags and themes, but some sense of finality. Instead of going out with a bang, the series fizzles on a whimper.

There were good episodes in the last season, certainly. The episode about the Canadians that move into Boomhauer's house for the summer hilariously sends up the mostly fictional tiff between America and her northern neighbor with lawn mower contests and the best line of the season ("I stayed in the killing fields of Laos for two extra years just so wouldn't have to immigrate to Canada!"). But most of the episodes repeat gags while the characters suffer from the redundancy. Take the episode where Peggy tries too hard to be cool to fit in with the rich, snobby parents she meets taking Bobby to cotillion. Why do we need yet another example of Peggy trying too hard? This has been done more than once -- in the episode where Bobby wants to go to a coed sluber party, and in the episode about "Harlottown," and in the episode where the Hill family changes churches.

"King of the Hill" is one of my favorite shows, so please forgive me for writing passionately about it. You see, I know people like Hank and Peggy Hill -- my parents, my neighbors and my old scoutmasters. No television show has ever captured the sort of people that actually inhabit an environment like that of small towns in Texas and then ruthlessly caricatured them in such a sweet, endearing way. Among the criticisms lodged at the show by liberals, especially towards the latter seasons, was that Hank was always right, that the writers essentially excused bad parenting from Hank and Peggy, and that the whole show celebrated what they considered a decadent, flag-waving redneck lifestyle. These are incredibly silly by themselves, but the irony comes from conservative critics who decried the stereotyping of Texans and gentle ribbing of Hank's uptight nature, believing it underhanded contempt. Of course, none of this is true. Hank is naive (he and Peggy don't understand why Boomhauer has a camcorder in his bedroom, for example) but he isn't stupid. Bill, Dale and Boomhauer -- the object of more pointed satire -- all have moments of clarity, and even wisdom. Peggy's persona of self-confident, pseudo-intellectualism seemingly masks deeply rooted insecurities and usually make her the object of derisive humor, but she isn't just putting on a show; she really is that confident.

The point of the show was not to push a political agenda, but to be funny. There is great humor in Hank's uptight, sheltered perspective and in Peggy's mix of eccentricities and earnest fulfillment of her role as a Texan lady. There is humor in Cotton Hill's bitter, borderline insane drive to hell-raise and girl chase well into his golden years. The show is more about its characters, who are sympathetic no matter their deficiencies, and deficient no matter their capabilities. It is television that shows people as people. How many other shows even try to do that, much less with conservative, semi-rural Texans?

More than anything else, "King of the Hill" chronicled the way that its characters coped with life, with disappointments, even with death. At the same time, Greg Daniels and Mike Judge and their writers always found the humor in such things. Even the episode where Hank's father dies made me laugh, even as it made me very, very sad. To that end, it was the opposite of animated comedies and bland, by-the-numbers, yet vulgar sitcoms with which Fox attracted an audience.

The final episode -- a somewhat half-assed story about Bobby joining a meat appraisal team and Hank buying him a junior "Char King" (a grill) so that they could cook steak together -- left me underwhelmed. It doesn't show any of the brilliant truth that made the series so fascinating, opting for a fairly silly plot that involves a bus-hijacking by a rival meat appraising team. The final moments, which brings the entire neighborhood together to eat steak, recalls the end of season eleven. In that episode, Lucky and Luanne get married, after Hank convinces them not to sue him or Dale to finance an impractically lavish wedding. The wedding scene not only provides cameos for all sorts of minor characters throughout the series (including Chuck Mangione!) but the ending, where Hank and his friends comment, about how Hank just gave away a bride, and how that's really something, proceed to open up a beer. "Yup."

That should have been that: a wedding. All comedies end with a wedding. Comedy is about life; weddings not only celebrate the joining of two, but look forward to the creation and fulfillment of new lives. It fits; a broad reading of Shakespeare will illustrate how well. For Hank to have decided he has just done something, and to continue doing as he does every other day, resonates far more than the trite, almost saccharine ending of the series finale.

This, of course, was partly the fault of Fox. The network canceled, then commissioned new episodes, then canceled again. Mike Judge's most recent project, "The Goode Family," aired its final episode on ABC even before "King of the Hill" aired its finale. Judge intended to make "King of the Hill" on the opposite side, gently teasing goofy, self-important left-wingers while showing them as genuinely well meaning people. Unfortunately, left-wingers are neither as funny nor as endearing (to me, at least) as uptight conservatives, and judging from his show, Mike Judge doesn't have the affection for them necessary to make sweet fun of the Whole Foods customer, the fashionable environmentalist, the unquestioning Obama supporter.

Thus, a great series ended with a forced whimper. It is still one of the best things ever made for television -- an extraordinary, undervalued contribution to American culture. I say that unironically. Mike Judge will make more good things, God bless him.

Expanding Collection and Fortuitous Timing

I don’t want to bore anybody with an account of my recent financial situation, in part because relating a blog post to a recent event (the recession) dates it much faster than I’d like and in whole because it’s a boring subject about which nobody wants to hear me whine. But fortuitous timing has allowed me to fill out my video game collection with games, good and bad, from the previous console generation without much cost.

While movies are generally my entertainment of choice, I’m actually so nerdy that I can’t settle for just one girl repellent fixation. Video games fit quite nicely with my collections of weird science fiction and fantasy novels, my kung fu movies, and epicuriousness. So when I discovered that I possessed an unused Gamestop gift card, (graduation present from several months ago) I headed straight to their website, to see which Gamestop location had which games that -- should I own them -- I might actually play.

The interesting thing about Gamestop is the price they ask for their used Playstation 2 and Game Boy Advance games. For PS2 games, it has gone lower and lower in the past year, to the point where I can buy a relatively rare game, used, for anywhere from two to ten dollars. GBA games, popular and unusual, can cost anywhere from six dollars (Riviera: The Promised Land) to twenty (Summon Night: Swordcraft Story; I own the sequel). The Final Fantasy ports are even more expensive. I ended up buying Yggdra Union, Mystic Warriors, and Orcs and Elves (a DS port of a cell phone game), all for fewer than twenty dollars. Since I still have store credit left, I plan to head over to a different location and purchase Riviera, King’s Field or Wizardry, and possibly the GBA version of Mazes of Fate. I’ll have gained six or seven games for thirty dollars. It’s an incredibly nice feeling to have picked up a good handful of games because Gamestop would rather have money than excess stock, even if they’re still expecting animu fans to shell out twenty dollars for mediocre GBA games. The economic environment isn’t pleasant or sunny, but at least it offers a chance to round out my collection of Koei crap and Sting developed RPGs.

The mall is a strange place. Gamestop and Barnes and Noble used to be the only stores I would go inside; the theater was the last resort, a place I’d only go to see a movie if there were no other available showings. It doesn’t seem like the sort of place to find a video game specialty shop, but there it is, a "Console Gaming Exchange" store, housing an absurd collection of games for nearly every system released in the United States. If I wanted to, I could have bought an N-Gage. Serious -- an N-Gage. (I could have bought the only English version of Xanadu Next too) I really had to convince myself that I shouldn’t buy Record of Lodoss War for the Dreamcast, which was hard, because it looks quite fun. Now, Record of Lodoss War cost about fifty dollars, and thinking about that, I have to wonder: do nerds even come to buy games here? Games like unusual Dreamcast RPGs and the imported Super Robot Wars games are priced according to collectability, but wouldn’t it be easier to buy them off ebay than to drive to the mall? It might even be cheaper too.

I have no desire to collect games for the sake of collectability, which is the mentality I wrestle with as a collector of movies. I own From Software's PS2 launch games not to say that I own them, but because I actually play them. Eternal Ring actually appeals to me. Maybe if I just wanted to have it for the sake of having it, I'd have bought it from an ebay seller or from the specialty shop with the manual and original packaging. I bought it about eight weeks ago from Gamestop for two dollars in an "artless" case. To be honest, I really wouldn't want to pay any more.

This whole post is quite topical. It'll be obsolete very quickly. Incidentally, I like the title. It sounds Engrish.

Yoshitaka Amano + Gene Wolfe = ?????

The first time I read Gene Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer, it was for a college class on fantasy and science fiction literature taught by another author whose books and teaching method I hated in equal measure. As much as I disliked him, and the class he taught, he actually introduced me to one of my favorite authors. I spent the majority of my time in college avoiding any real work or learning, as I mostly took courses where I was at least familiar with the material. Wolfe made me feel stupid. I tried harder after that class.

Much before I went to college, I supported a brief infatuation with visual arts, spurred by my discovery of Yoshitaka Amano -- an artist who provides images for video games and anime yet quite highly esteemed by critics and fans. Neil Gaiman likes him. Neil Gaiman also likes Gene Wolfe. Yoshitaka Amano mostly draws nancy-boys and fairies and the sort of stuff that makes guys like Christian Nutt squeal in delight. Gene Wolfe writes brainy science fiction with almost transparently Catholic themes that offended a good portion of the class for which I was required to read The Shadow of the Torturer. Put em' together and tell me that you didn't just imagine something along the lines of David Bowie rocking out in Papal vestments and Star Trek make-up to a synth-rock doxology of his own writing.

It isn't that I now dislike Amano or his artwork. It's just that seeing something that I liked far more as a thirteen year old mixing with something I came to as an older, hopefully (though not likely) somewhat wiser person fills me with a certain inexpressible dread.

I’m even more terrified by how much I like the combination.
Severian looks like he came out of Final Fantasy back when Final Fantasy didn’t embarrass me so much. Writing about current Final Fantasy can make you feel like you need to assert your masculinity.

Writing about Wolfe will make you feel like you need to proof-read.