I have left my blog malnourished long enough, but I hope to keep it well fed in the coming weeks as plenty of games are releasing, meaning there is plenty to discuss.

For now, though, I want to talk about Heroes. The first season caught me by surprise and instantly turned me into a fan. It was a well written show, had plenty of interesting characters (though some less interesting ones as well), and I found the story and plot twists to be well done and thought out (even if you could tell halfway through that they needed to run some plot-hole damage control).

The second season started up, and everyone expected big things. Instead, they got a similar plot to save the future, as well as thirteen episodes of not much happening. Overall, it was supposed to be similar to the first half of season one, where not much happens until all Hell breaks loose, and then once more building up into one climax. People weren’t happy with this, and it has created quite a negative effect on season three.

This is why I hate people. I blame them for all the problems with Halo 2 and 3, as well as the existence of Alien vs. Predator 2 (not the game, but the movie. The game was awesome).

To summarize for those not keeping up, or yet caught up, season three moves pretty fast. Too fast, in fact. Each episode seems to have at least one plot twist, just about each one unnecessary. The characters do not develop in a natural manner, but instead shift in ways that makes them seem contradictory. In fact, if you were to put the second and third seasons back to back, many of the actions of the characters would make no sense. This is nothing to say of the characters that have suddenly vanished off the map from previous seasons.

The very plot twists themselves are absolutely ridiculous, almost taking on a Lost quality. While plenty of them are predictable, they are only so because of how absurd or soap opera they are.

The biggest disappointment of this all is that the season’s premise is actually a good one. While the first two seasons had a major focus on how there is a hero inside everyone, even the most unlikely, the third season tackles with the idea that there is a villain within everyone as well. Turning some characters into villains would create a lot of interesting conflict, development and make you eager to see what might happen.

Yet it is executed poorly. The writers handled the issue irresponsibly, by randomly choosing characters to flip-flop instead of gradually building them into their new role as a villain, and with good reason.

Beneath the cut, I will go into further detail, but to those that haven’t caught up, be warned of plot spoilers.

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Just a notification to all those interested, the English fan translation of Mother 3 has been completed.

It came as a surprise to me how many of my friends at school haven’t seen the original Alien film. To me, it is simply a classic. It is a perfect representation of what a horror film should be, focusing more on the psychological than on gruesome shots of blood and cheap thrills to get girls to jump out of their seats shrieking like banshees. Clearly plenty of folks out there agree, as every other year there is a new film claiming to be “the scariest since Alien”.

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Everyone hates the new Facebook layout. At least, I don’t know a single person that enjoys it. Personally, I’m not much a fan either, though I don’t seem to hate it nearly so much as anyone else. Still, my first reaction was “How the Hell did this pass usability testing?”. Trying to find the familiar links was a pain at first, and the very look of it just gave a queasy feeling.

Yet whenever I tried to describe why it was so terrible, I found any truly good reasons to escape me. I couldn’t say “well, this here is a perfect example of bad design”. So exactly what’s wrong with it? Why is it such a terrible new layout? All I’ve really heard from people is “it is/looks horrible” and “I can’t find anything”, for the most part.

So let’s try and figure out what is really going wrong with it.

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It isn’t often that I get addicted to Live Arcade games. I don’t know why, but most of the games end up being fun for a little while, but don’t have any lasting appeal. I wasn’t even sure about grabbing Castle Crashers at all, but a friend of mine had purchased and given me a 1600 MS Points card with which to buy the game. Gratefully, I accepted and downloaded the game. I played it briefly single player, and found it to be enjoyable enough, but as usual didn’t find it to be all that amazing.

Then I played it with my roommate and his brother, and together we got the full Castle Crashers experience.

There are just some games that aren’t meant to be played alone, and Castle Crashers is one of them. This technically puts it in the category of “party game”, which is quite fitting. Not only is it great for multiple people to play, but it is entertaining for an audience as well. As I played with my roommate and friends, there was always at least one observer, and never did any audience member get bored and just walk off. I imagine watching isn’t nearly as fun as playing, but the art, music and humor all combines to be an entertaining experience to watch as well as play.

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Religion. It’s one of those tricky topics that I’m always afraid to bring up. Being surrounded by Atheists, Agnostics, Wiccans and more, I have sometimes felt as if I should apologize for the actions of my fellow Christians. Other times I have felt like bringing a baseball bat to the head of any of those jerks that suggested anyone that believes in a God is a dullard. Either way, someone is pissing me off.

This time it was the other Christians.

I saw on television today that Sarah Palin, the running mate for McCain, is against sex education in schools. I don’t care about the actual politics at the moment, I just want to let you all know this is a foolish perspective to have. Bad Christian! No communion for you!

It seems that Christian parents feel that the way they raise their kids should be the way all parents should raise their kids.

Wait, scratch that.

Most parents feel that the way they raise their kids should be the way all parents should raise their kids.

There, that’s a much more fitting generalization.

It’s true, though. No matter the faith, all parents are irresponsible jack asses that think they know what is best. Considering that just about everyone in the world is an irresponsible jack ass that thinks they know what is best, this shouldn’t be too surprising. If you disagree with me and think people in this world are nice and aren’t horrible, selfish bags of flesh, I suggest you read the news. If that doesn’t convince you, Google 4chan.

However, there are some matters that Christian parents are particularly irrational over, and as a fellow Christian it is my duty to point the finger and say “UR DOIN IT RONG”.

The first problem is that you are so uptight you not only expect but demand that your child remains abstinant until marriage. In some cases, your child may comply. In a lot of cases, your strict and strong attitude on the matter will only encourage them to have sex as soon as possible. It’s kind of like the age limit on drinking. Because it’s there, teenagers are going to drink themselves stupid. Compare how teenagers and College kids drink in America compared to other countries with less strict rules about it. We look like idiotic children in comparison.

This is a mentality that needs to be understood. The more you try and tighten a leash onto a kid, particularly a teenager, the more they will think it’s a noose and fight you to set themselves free. If you try and force your child to behave, they will only want to lash out and fight back. If you let your child know the rules, but also let them know you trust them to obey, then they will be more likely to comply.

And if they break that trust, you are free to whoop some ass.

So to summarize: if you demand that your child remain abstinant until marriage, it will only make them want to do the opposite.

The second problem is the parents themselves will not take the responsibility to educate their child. Most kids have learned about sex by time they are ten anyway. I remember being in grade school and hearing all the other kids talk about Playboy magazines they grabbed from under their dad’s bed. By time kids are old enough to learn about sex, they already understand some of the basics.

However, parents are, as stated previously, irresponsible jack asses. They will either expect their kids to learn on their own, or they will just insist that they don’t have it until marriage. This generally leaves them to learn about sex from what is in movies (which is typically “it’s completely fine to have sex on the first date…assuming you have a first date”), in pornography (let’s count everything that is wrong with this method of learning) and their friends (who likely learned from the first two and tried to apply it to personal experience…or is simply talking out of their ass).

If Christian parents really want their children to be responsible and intelligent about sex, then the best thing they could do is allow schools to educate them. My highschool had a sex education program my sophomore year that taught about multiple forms of protection, as well as various STD’s. They basically teach teenagers how to be responsible, how to avoid catching and spreading diseases, and how to appropriately use the different forms of protection. It turns out that there are incorrect ways to put on and use a condom! It may seem simple, but this is a nation where Pop-Tarts need instructions on the box.

I have heard some parents assume sex education also means they teach teenagers how to have sex. This is untrue. The furthest they really got was oral sex could be a bad idea if the other person had STD’s. Which is kind of common sense at this point, but again, Pop-Tarts. They do not hand out the Kama Sutra as a textbook, or go over the intricasies of how many places to place a penis. It is simply about how to avoid pregnancy and the spreading of STD’s.

Also, they mentioned that abstinance is the only 100% sure way of avoiding said difficulties so much that it could be a drinking game.

Of course, with Christians wanting their children to avoid sex until marriage, why should they worry about all these things? Well, as should be made obvious by now, you cannot control your children. You can do your best, but in the end they are left to make their own choices. That choice may be to have sex, and you sure as Hell didn’t teach them how to do it safe since you spent so much time telling them not to do it.

But the primary issue is that not all parents care if their children wait until marriage or not. That’s not to say most non-Christian parents are fine with their children screwing anything with two legs that looks remotely human that comes their way. However, not all parents worry about their children having sex before marriage, and to demand that schools do not teach sex education means the children of those parents aren’t learning to be safe, either.

Parents, it is completely possible to separate your religious values from your political beliefs. As I said, I do not believe in wanton sex personally, and part of that comes from my religious background. However, I support sex education in schools because, in a nation where religious belief is a freedom, not everyone is going to agree on when someone should have sex and when they shouldn’t. In the end, it’s best to take a road that both sides are fine traveling.

After almost a year, I have finally finished reading the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams. As a short summary, it is excellent. While many look at The Lord of the Rings as the ultimate fantasy trilogy, typically because it was the first major fantasy epic of its kind, Tad Williams has easily written a story that tops it in every angle. Instead of trying to imitate Tolkien, Williams takes the cliche and turns it on its head, making the world of fantasy feel new, fresh and exciting again.

Of course, the main trial of the series is just how long it is, and how long it takes for anything to happen. In a world where people demand instant satisfaction, Williams’ book will have a hard time keeping interest.

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It is typically in my nature to write impressions or a review of a game, but Too Human is a bit of a different case. There are plenty of excellent things that the game did, but also there are plenty of areas that could’ve used some improvement, and will hopefully be worked on for the second in the trilogy (assuming the first does well enough for a sequel to come out and not have the Advent Rising thing going on).

Firstly, I’ve completed the entire single player campaign, and it was in fact a very great game. It was fun, and the story was enjoyable. Screw the scores, it delivered a fun experience very successfully. Silicon Knights did a very good job creating a unique control scheme for the title, as well as taking  the monotony of constant mouse-clicking in your typical looting RPG into smooth combat. While there aren’t many particular moves available, they all become pretty necessary for survival, as well as vary the combat up. There is also so much loot in the game that it never gets tiring. It actually provides many rewards when leveling up begins to take longer, allowing your character to constantly become more and more powerful. It’s all a very rewarding experience. (more…)

There’s a series of videos posted onto YouTube called “Game OverThinker”, where a guy discusses matters of the games industry to various images. A few days ago he put out “Can it Happen to Us?“, where he compares the games industry to the comics industry. The idea is that comics originally focused on a young audience, though at some point their original readers had grown up. Around this time, Alan Moore and Frank Miller brought in Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, comics that were aimed towards the adult reader. They were violent, contained sexuality and possessed more complex stories than what you typically got out of a comic.

Since then, he states that the comics industry has taken the violence and the sexuality and pushed them into comics, aiming towards an older audience while abandoning the youth (as well as completely ignoring the complex stories aspect of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns). He looks at the comics industry as being in trouble, which it technically has been for a while. Or at the very least it hasn’t been selling as well. In the end, kids aren’t interested in comic books, and he blames it on the fact that they are primarily targeted towards an older audience.

He then ties this to the current video games industry. The most critically acclaimed games, as well as best sellers, of this day and age are most often M-rated titles made for adults and not children. The Game OverThinker states that games are, ultimately, toys and that the games industry could soon be seeing a similar end as comics have, where only the hardcore audience supports it.

In a lot of ways, the Game OverThinker is right in his comparison to the comics industry, but there is one vital area that he is wrong. Video games are not toys. I’m not going to say all of them are art, either, but they are very much an entertainment medium akin to books or film. They are certainly not toys, or at least not anymore.

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For years I’ve been told I need to read Watchmen, and when I saw the trailer earlier this summer I told myself “I need to read Watchmen”. This week I grabbed myself the graphic novel collection, read it, and loved it. It is the first piece by Alan Moore (what a hairy bastard) I’ve ever read, and it has urged me to go out and grab a copy of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as soon as I could. It’s such a great and well executed graphic novel, and there’s so much to say and discuss about it. I guess DC comics really does have more than Batman going up their sleeve, it’s just not in their mainstream super hero department.

However, since the trailer I’ve been hearing quite a bit of discussion and negative views on how well the graphic novel could transfer to film form, or people nitpicking over certain photos released (particularly seen on their Flickr account), etc. Now, I think this movie could do a fantastic job going from comic to movie, but then again, nothing has truly jaded me since I read The Lost World and then saw “David Koepp has some dinosaurs on a jungle and then a T-Rex in San Francisco and Steven Spielberg thinks it’s an awesome idea”.

To those who haven’t yet read Watchmen, note that there will be spoilers beyond this point, so I suggest you don’t read them unless you don’t care about that sort of thing.

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