"El Factor X"

El Factor X: 27 años de edad, profesor Danyl tiene una pasión por el canto y se roba el escenario por completo en una increible primera audicion!

The X Factor: 27-year-old teacher Danyl has a passion for singing and manages to completely own the stage in an incredible first audition!

Connie Talbot singing Ben and winning her Britains Got Talent semi final

Andrew Johnston

The X Factor: It’s difficult to surprise Simon Cowell, but Stacey Soloman manages to do just that… Does she have The X Factor?

Jamie Archer AKA Jamie Afro has never had his chance to break into music, despite it being a lifelong dream. Will he get that chance today?

Joseph McElderry The X Factor: Joe from South Shields immediately got a yes from Cheryl before he started singing! But will he be able to perform well enough to impress the other judges?

Susan Boyle – Memory from Cats – Made Amanda Cry – Piers said brilliant!

You voted him, out of thousands of entrants, your X Factor winner 2007! Watch Leon Jackson perform his brand new single When You Believe!

Lucie Jones,The X Factor 2009: Nervous Lucie takes to the stage, but her choice of song is questioned by Simon. Has she got The X Factor?

The X Factor: 24-year-old Duane returns to The X Factor after failure at last year’s Boot Camp. Has he got what it takes for this year’s competition?

Shaheen Jafargholi Britains Got Talent Wins Semi Final,UNBELIEVABLE 12 YEAR OLD BOY SINGS!!!

Nicky Evans, who recently lost her father, tries her luck at the auditions – and manages to amaze even Simon!

Finally…after what seems like months, I’ve completed Demon’s Souls. Not alone of course, as I’d probably still be playing the game if I had played it alone. Took about 40 hours first playthrough, only because I did a bit of grinding and I usually kept the game on while looking on the Wiki for any tips/help on weapons, items, etc. The Wiki helped ALOT and I recommend using it if you haven’t already done so. Everything about this game is well done. The bosses were all well done, even though most of them were pretty easy to discover their patterns, attacks, and weaknesses. The levels were very well done also, except a few of them were very, very frustrating and confusing at times. It took awhile to get used to some of the levels but in the end they were all pretty simple. I didn’t do much PVPing (yet) so I can’t really judge it. Getting invaded though was always very intense, even if you did know where exactly the person popped up. The multiplayer aspect of the game is very unique and in my opinion, one of the best (yet harshest) ways to try playing with (a) random stranger(s) as you can’t communicate verbally. There’s always loopholes though and I did use one of those ‘loopholes’. ;D

I completed the game as a Level 83 Knight. Yeah I know. Not the highest level ever or the rarest class to use. Played as a knight didn’t really make much of a difference it seems as I was still using spells/miracles. I’m just wanting to level my character more, upgrade even more, and just overall, do everything possible in the game, since I barely scratched the surface of the game the first playthrough. I know for sure it won’t take me another 40 hours to complete the game a 2nd time around, but knowing me, I’ll end up taking yet another month to complete New Game+. It only took me so long to get back into the game and finally finish it because there were soooo many new titles releasing, making it very overwhelming to sit back and enjoy just ONE game alone. This game…is definitely one of my favorites this year, not sure exactly where it will rank in my ‘Top 10 of 2009′ just yet, but it’s up there for sure. Now…I’m just wanting to play this again; however, also wanting to play many and I mean many other games at the same time. Too bad I’m busy as hell to be able to enjoy all these great games. New Game+ is something I’m wanting to do at this very moment and I’ll most likely be playing this game throughout 2010 as well. Maybe…just maybe there might be a sequel ‘truly’ announced or maybe From Software will put more interesting events such as the one that took place during Halloween. Only time will tell how long people will be playing this. Compared to Diablo 2, I doubt this game will last 10 years. Hell, I’ll be surprised if it lasts up until next year.

Till then, let’s just keep spreading the word about Demon’s Souls.

- Chrono

Ita leads this morning with a new English translation of the decision in Empresa Eléctrica del Ecuador, Inc. (“EMELEC”) v. Republic of Ecuador. This is a pretty perplexing decision. The core issue was jurisdiction and the tribunal was asked to decide whether the representative of EMELEC before the tribunal was actually the ultimate shareholder of EMELEC  and entitled to bring the proceedings or a third party with no interest in EMELEC.

The facts are, well I’d be lying if I said they were simple. They are rather robustly opaque. EMELEC claimed against Ecuador for expropriation and denial of justice in relation to an electricity concession it ran in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Ecuador alleged that the claimant did not represent EMELEC and so could not bring proceedings on its behalf.

PRT1 was a trust  constituted to hold the ultimate shareholding of EMELEC for the benefit of the creditors and depositors of a bank that was in compulsory liquidation. The trustee of PRT1 was transferred the ultimate 100% ownership in EMELEC. The settlors of PRT1 exercised  a right of termination and substituted for it by the creation of another trust abbreviated PDT.  PDT included no right of revocation and was expressed to be irrevocable. The settlors of PRT1 and PDT attempted to revoke PDT alleging massive fraud by the trustees and created PRT2 to hold the assets of PRT1. The issue turned on whether they succeeded in doing so. The trust agreements were all governed by Bahamas law.

In essence the the tribunal held that the the construction of the trust deeds led to the result that EMELEC was owned by the trustee of PDT and not the trustee of PRT2. Since the suit was being brought by the trustee of PRT2, this meant the tribunal had no jurisdiction.

I found two issues in this decision particularly confusing. Firstly, its pretty trite law that under Article 42 of the ICSID Convention tribunals are required to judge the dispute by the proper law of the agreement. In most cases that means international law and the domestic law of the Contracting Party. In the current case the domestic law is the law of Ecuador including the conflict of law provisions of Ecuador when interpreting a Bahamian law agreement. Nope, not according to this tribunal which did not concern itself with the fact that a document is executed in a completely different legal system, and might fall to be construed in line with the principles of that system.  I could accept that result if the tribunal had adopted any principles of construction, but apparently legally construing a legal document was just too much work.

Second was the altogether odd treatment of trust law in the Bahamas and the equivalent Ecuadorian concept without any reference to the legal nature of a Bahamian law trust, its legal status in Ecuador or in international law. It appears to me that many of the issues that the tribunal seemed to find difficulty in reconciling are explained by simple doctrines of equity, resulting trusts and constructive trusts which I’m aware that Bahamian law recognise. More sophisticated concepts such as the Quistclose Trust designed to deal with trusts for a particular purpose exist in other jurisdictions (perhaps including the Bahamas) so its not at all clear why the trusts stack and fail from the language of the decision.

I accept that the facts of the case and the cross jurisdictional interaction of complicated law of trusts and equity could have made for a difficult decision, but the decision in EMELEC v Ecuador appears distinctly lacking in legal rigour.

For those of you out there that helped out with the 350 movement in Portland last month, three cheers for you!

The Fuz on 350 day

The weather for our bike riding pilgrimage was appropriately divine and lighted the way into pioneer square for the music portion of the event. As we entered, traditional drums from east Asia pulsated around the square from a corner stage. After, a healthy gathering of the Portland multi-cultural enthusiastically cheered as October 24th was officially announced a new Portland holiday.

Pioneer Square

In hindsight, did the event accomplish much? Was there a greater purpose to joining a random biking group on Saturday morning to parade into downtown Portland to meet up with a bunch of greenies? Will the day of October 24th brand into the collective mind of the citizens and contribute to a healthy renovation? Hard to say. But, what happened on the 24th was an interesting exercise in mass mobilization toward a cause. The 350 movement is an internet promoted event that began this year. I have no idea what the final turn-out was across the globe, but groups successful formed from Mexico City to Cairo, Egypt to Sydney, Australia.

Can you see Paul and John from OIT out there?

The ability for the internet to be used as a tool for inspiration and mobilization is something to be duly noted. As social networking continues to diversify, expand and become richer in our lives, the impact of socially conscious mobilization may become more prolific. As the tipping points of different global fronts approach us, these events could have butterfly effects and profound significance. Powerful and sudden changes could spurn from such congregations.

-E.B.

[I apologize for the writing hiatus, {just recovered from injury}, outsourcing the writing responsibility was the idea but the classmates were all too busy studying like they should have been. Forgiveness is pending.]

Credit: icanhascheezburger

Have to agree with one of the comments, though. Should be “searches for rest of rookery” not flock. Don’t get me wrong, is funny still!

Do we care about making a good impression on others? Research findings indicate that we should because such impressions do seem to exert strong and lasting effects on other persons’ perception of us

But what exactly are first impressions? How they are formed? And what steps can we take to make sure that we make first impression on others?

In the words of Solomon Asch, pioneer in study of impression formation, we can put it as forming impressions of others involves more than simply adding together individual traits. We perceive these traits in relation to one another so that these traits cease to exist individually, instead, part of an integrated dynamic whole.

IMPRESSION FORMATION: A COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Impression formation is the process through which we form impression of others. When we meet others for the first time, we don’t pay equal attention to all kind of information/trait about them. Rather we focus on the certain kinds of information which we view as being most useful.

In order to form a lasting impression, we must enter various kinds of information into memory so that we can recall it at later times; we see others through our lens of our own traits, motives and desires.

Cognitive perspective on impression management has provided many valuable insights. Research suggest that although we seem to form impressions of others in a rapid and seemingly effortless manner, these impressions emerge out of operation of cognitive processes relating to storage, recall and integration of social information.

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT: THE FINE ART OF LOOKING GOOD

Impression management is efforts by the individuals to produce favorable first impression on others. Person who perform impression management successfully do often gain advantage in many situations.

While individuals use different techniques for boosting their image, most of them fall into two major categories

• Self -Enhancement- to increase their appeal to others
• Other -enhancement-to make the target person  feel good

Self enhancement

Includes efforts to increase their physical appearance through dress style, personal grooming and various uses of props. Additional self enhancement tactics includes describing oneself in positive terms.

Other Enhancement

Individuals use many different tactics to induce positive moods and reaction in others.

The most common enhancement used is flattery i.e. making statements that praise the target his or her traits or accomplishment or the organisation with which person is associated. Such tactics are often highly successful, provided they are not overdone.

Other tactics involves

• expressing agreement with targets view
• showing high degree of interest
• doing small favors for them
• asking for their advice
• feedback in some manner
• expressing liking for them non verbally
• high level of eye contact
• nodding in agreement & smiling

MINIMIZING THE IMPACT OF ATTRIBUTIONAL ERRORS

Correspondence Biasis

We have a strong tendency to attribute others’ behavior to internal causes even when strong external factors might have influenced their present behavior. To reduce this error, always try to put yourself in the shoes of person whose behavior you are trying to explain

Actor -Observer effect-

“I BEHAVE AS I DO BECAUSE OF SITUATIONAL CAUSES; YOU BEHAVE AS YOU DO BECAUSE YOU ARE THAT KIND OF PERSON”

To minimize this error, try to imagine yourselves in their place.

Self Serving Bias:

“I am good; you are lucky”

Perhaps the strongest attribution error we make is that of attributing positive outcomes to internal causes to our own abilities or efforts but negative outcomes to external factors. This can be minimized by being aware of it.

]]> http://simpleimperfections.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/impression-management/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:28:42 +0000 storylinegirl http://simpleimperfections.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/impression-management/

image from Fine Little Day

My parents go through a frenzy of decorating and re-decorating the house in anticipation of guests. There is a whole exercise of cleaning the house, taking out the best linens, changing the drapes and buying special things for the guest. We were managing the impression.

Like all sick cycles, having formed the impression, we had to live to it at every visit. And we were by far the most gracious hosts and the most tired human beings in the planet.

I do get the idea of making things comfortable for the guest, of taking out the fresh linen and adding a vase of flowers by the bedside. But I don’t get the redecorating, the buying of new things, and the other ‘unnatural’ things we put up when we have guests. It was the whole ’script’ we had to follow that bothered me. And yet, the best times I had when visiting other people were times when there was no outlandish show, instead people went on their business like you were part of the family.

It is different to be a consistently clean, fresh and chic in your house from being chic only when guest were around. I enjoy the new things, the decorations, and the beauty of the house when guests are expected, but it makes me wonder why it has to be this way ONLY when guests were around.

Through the years I realized we were managing an impression. We were trying to persuade people that we were intellectual, elegant and sophisticated; even though we were just plain average.

Now, I am learning to simply be consistent. To appreciate that who we are, how the house is, and all the other in betweens is okay and impressions need not be managed.  Simply be true.

-eM

George Whitefield preaching in 1749

During the whole period of the first Great Awakening in America and Europe the power of the Holy Spirit was an obvious feature.

A season of mighty power
The power of God was evidently touching those non-Christians who were attending the massive meetings. The power of God was also touching those who were repenting. And faithful believers were coming into a new experience of God’s love and guidance as a result of being filled with the Spirit.

Inevitably, and especially where those being influenced were new converts, this occasionally led to a lack of common sense and the usual application of wisdom.

George Whitefield, the great Evangelist of the movement was eager to provide counsel that would help those newly baptised into what appear to be essentially charismatic experiences.

Wise counsel from a man full of the Spirit
In a sermon based on Genesis 5:24 (‘And Enoch walked with God’) Whitefield, in seeking to explain how the child of God receives guidance, wrote the following:

‘In order to walk closely with God, his children must not only watch the motions of God’s providence without them, but the motions also of his blessed Spirit in their hearts.

‘As many as are the sons of God, are led by the Spirit of God’ (Romans 8:14), and give up themselves to be guided by the Holy Ghost, as a little child gives its hand to be led by a nurse or parent.

‘It is no doubt in this sense that we are to be converted, and become like little children. And though it is the quintessence of enthusiasm, to pretend to be guided by the Spirit without the written word; yet it is every Christian’s bounden duty to be guided by the Spirit in conjunction with the written word of God.

Led by the Spirit and guided by the Word
‘Watch, therefore, I pray you, O believers, the motions of God’s blessed Spirit in your souls, and always try the suggestions or impressions that you may at any time feel, by the unerring rule of God’s most holy word: and if they are not found to be agreeable to that, reject them as diabolical and delusive.

By observing this caution, you will steer a middle course between the two dangerous extremes many of this generation are in danger of running into; I mean, enthusiasm on the one hand, and…downright infidelity on the other.’
(George Whitefield, Walking with God, quoted by Iain Murray in Jonathan Edwards, Banner of Truth, p.248. The whole sermon is available here)

© 2009 Lex Loizides

Quote of the Moment: ‘If guns kill people, do pencils misspell words?’ – unknown

—

I stumbled upon this quote on a forum a few days ago,
And posted it on my Facebook page,
Wondering what other people would say about it.

My friend who was with me at the time was very contemplative and awed at it,
Just like me,
However,
It pains me to say that everyone who commented on Facebook made it into a big joke.

It kind of makes me worry that people can’t see the meaning in things.
I thought this one was so obvious,
But I guess not.

—

I don’t know really where I was going with this,
I suppose I could go on some super-long rant about war and the like,
But really,
I’m just feeling sad.

I’ve only played about 5 hours of Demon’s Souls and defeated a few bosses but I’m not entirely sure if I want to continue playing because it’s getting to the point where it’s become a chore to try and make any progress at all. I’m sure most people know by now since it’s been on shelves for a few months now but Demon’s Souls is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT. I’ve only played the first few levels of the game and I’ve got to say I enjoyed it a lot. The combat is very similar to something like Zelda, except the shoulder buttons represent your left and right arms with the light and heavy attacks. The lock-on system is controlled with R3 and can be a bit of a pain because switching targets doesn’t work very smoothly but it’s at least somewhat manageable. The combat and controls are for the most part simple and easy to grasp. Trying to survive can be a different story though because even the smallest mistake could end up killing you.

Every enemy that you kill in the game will give you a small to large amount of demon souls which is basically the currency for everything in the game; weapons, spells, experience and anything else. When you die you’ll have to start at the beginning of the level again and all of your demon souls will be lost. If you reach the point where you died at you can recover your souls but if you die again before then it will all be lost. In addition to all of this when you die you’ll also be turned into soul form (If not in soul form before death) which gives you less health then when you’re alive. The online features of this game could be considered some of the parts it because it adds so very unique elements. You can leave pre-set messages any where in the game to give tips to other players and if they recommend it you’ll get a small health boost. If you’re alive you can summon players that are in soul form to give you a helping hand. The players in soul form will be brought back to life if they help defeat the boss and also will not lose any souls if they die in the host’s world, however the players in soul form will not progress in the game like the host. Lastly you can also break into another player’s world and hunt them down to earn your body back.

Going back to the difficulty again it could easily be looked at as something very similar to an old school Nintendo game. If you die you’re back at the start of the level and you have to fight everything you killed once again. I did notice however in the first level there were some shortcuts you could open up to use if you died but I’m not too sure if that’s a reoccurring feature through the game. While I’m done with Demon’s souls for the time being (I rented it) it’s still a very enjoyable and unique game if you know what you’re getting in to. It can be a bit time consuming but when you finally finish a level it’s extremely satisfying and rewarding. The only reason I’m done playing it for the time being is because I didn’t anticipate that it would be such a time consuming game. So once again and I know I’m repeating myself but if you’re interested in this game just know you’re going to die a lot and it’s going to be a bit of a time sink.

Aung San Suu Kyi even sounds like Nobel Peace.

If she didnt look so graceful and out of place in Confinement; If, sexism aside, she wasn’t female, I would almost compare mine. I am endowed with an illness. I wasn’t always ill. It was something I became, after a series of events in my life which I am now comfortable with my understanding of. I was diagnosed as schizophrenic in 1999, however this term is belated and these days outdated. In this series of writings I will attempt to justify my wellbeing to the outside, my illness I can assure you being of its entirety from the inside.

I can only wish her peace and well being in a life where personal integrity is all one can strive for, and the Buddha is on Her side.

ART CREDITS idharma:buddhachakra

So Tom and I were having an email exchange about the now-infamous (by design, of course) “No Russian” level from MW2.  I thought about writing a blog entry about it, but

a) I’m too lazy

c) I will never actually play this game, unless Tom buys  it and the whim strikes me, and it somehow seems wrong to devote, you know, a whole real blog post to something I don’t even care enough about to play

b) My thoughts are off the cuff and probably wrong, so why formalize them?

In light of all that, I figured I’d just post my semi-articulated thoughts as they appeared in our email argument.  I still think I’m right, basically, but am obviously an impoversihed debater about this for reasons b), c). The conversation commences after the break:

Quoth Tom:  “Alright fucker, here’s what I think, essentially: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/11/19/wot-i-think-about-that-level/

I agree with you that as an exercise in confronting the player with linearity, false choice, and the structured nature of a game narrative, the scene has some merit (although way less than Bioshock – which you won’t play because you are a snob – which did this much better). Other than that, it’s dumb people being dumb.”

Quoth me:  “I read that… I agree that it’s obviously a “tonal shift” from the action-adventure silliness that’s preceded it, and to that extent the game doesn’t quite “earn” its moment of cultural relevance, although “earn” is probably the wrong language.

I will say that it seems very silly and video-game nerd to critique at length how a terrorist attack would “really” look, as in, duh, everyone knows that cops would never attack you like that!  I think this guy misses what everyone who makes a big deal about it is picking up on–that it’s not just a portrayal of a morally dicey situation, or not even a “realistic” one necessarily, but one that models a kind of terrorist violence that’s aboslutely central to the cultural discourse right now, in a viscerally believable enough way to strike people as a) convincing in the moment if nothing else and b) alarming because it packages that sort of undeniably distressing cultural payload in the context of supposedly interactive game controls.  Much in the way that geeks like to put irrelevant “more gamer-ish than thou” details into their video game reviews (this game wasn’t hard enough!), I think that attacking the scene for being intragenericcally inappropriate (in terms of the levels that came before and come after) or somehow slightly deficient at the level of craft is to miss the “reading experience” that the level is intended to and probably does produce for most gamers–even those who think of themselves as too savvy to be affected by a gameplay experience that’s somehow less than 100% perfect.  It makes gameplay shocking, and I think that’s a) inescapable and b) worth something in its own right.”

He:  “I don’t like something about your argument, but I’m not sure what it is. I just don’t think that it makes that much of a difference. I don’t care that it’s culturally relevant, or whether it elicits a response: how do you know it makes gameplay “shocking” you know it has shocked other people. I don’t like thinking that way. Other people are often dumb. Just like Bioshock, I’ll need to play this before I believe/care.

It seems like what you are saying is that you (by some metric) value this scene more than the similar (in its themes of player agency/lack thereof) scene in Bioshock, because this scene depicts something that a bunch of “aware” people are very worried about right now. Bioshock’s scene was about free will/ how games trick you into believing in player choice, and this MW2 scene is about that in a more oblique way. I just don’t think you should be valuing it as you are. What do you mean that what it does is “inescapable?” do you mean that we can’t ignore that it has made gameplay shocking? I guess I think that Bioshock did this (shocked you by confronting you with the artificiality and lies behind the game experience) without being dumb and falsely “intelligent.” According to some interview, the MW2 writer thinks that Hollywood should be taking notes from him, because of how he mixes “relevancy” and “meaning.” I think he should be shot for being a moron.”

Me:  “a) Yes, it’s easy in one way to be a provocateur, and it’s also relatively easy to be proficiently provocative without having a particularly good or interesting theory of what it means to be provocative or why.

b) It may not be good qua game, but I’m prepared to say at least that it’s relevant and new–>thus interesting, as art.  What other game has made the experience of video game killing seem morally troubling, not just in the “you have come to care about these characters” kind of way, but by taking the spectacle of fantasy violence and making it seem real again?  Or at least remind us of real violence?

Taking video games and hooking them back into thoughts about real life, rather than an endless genre hall of mirrors where every game is the bastard child of three or four forms of pop culture, is very hard.  And I think one of the reasons people don’t get or particularly like video games outside of the sizable mainstream that plays them.

You should hear academics talk about them–many, for instance, can’t get over the fact that video games seem very obviously to play out fantasies of endless warfare, which on the one hand is true but on the other misses a whole series of points about the way that the thematic material of the medium has evolved to fit the ludic constraints–how to build representation onto a game mechanic.  Gamers get that this stuff is very far abstracted from real violence–i.e., counterstrike is about your l33t awp skillz and not about global conflict, but people used to other kinds of representational art don’t, and one of the problems that games have is that they haven’t yet found a good way of applying the special technical qualities of their structure to real human experience, in the way the, for instance, novels very obviously have.  Games don’t have anything more than their wallpaper to do with reality–their interest and innovation is largely in the gameplay itself–but outsiders can’t see that, and just see really bad thematic stuff, really childish stuff that’s actually just an epiphenomenon of what’s really interesting.

So even if it’s really “cheap,” a quick connection of a game experience to reality in a way that’s a little more serious than most can only be a good thing–it connects real gamers’ experience of the techniques of gaming directly to a represented world (or at least, contemporary media environment), and it shows non-gamers that video games can make kinds of reference to serious contemporary events that, while they might be exploitative, have a special weight & heft that comes just from their being video games.  So, no I don’t really have a problem with the fact that the guys at infinity ward are pretty obviously douches.”

[End Email Argument]

That last point about the areferentiality of games is probably wrong, but I’d stick to it in a milder form.  I think that many of the claims made by old-school lit critics (like James Wood) about the referentiality of forms like the novel are far too strong, on the other end of things, so I’m not quite sure what it is that I’m envisioning as a neo-realistic renaissance for video games, if “realism” has been more or less a critical term of false consciousness all along… I understand that Simon F writes about newsgames and could probably school me about all of this stuff anyway.

One more thought:  I think that one of my actual insights (as opposed to inaccuracies) is the observation about games and genre fiction.  The thematic/representational frame of most games comes from a sliver of the pop culture universe, and people are scared to leave it.  Maybe, for instance, that’s an explanation for Ubisoft’s packaging of a pretty thematically daring setting (in some ways) in two successive games (AC 1 and 2) in a drier-than-hell pseudo-scifi thematic “wrapper.”

Just got done with the mission “Loose Ends” and rarely have I been so upset with a game’s design. Call of Duty, a series which prides itself on realism, is falling victim to AI bullshit that we’ve been trying to leave in the garbage for the last ten years. I constantly have no idea where to go or what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing, which is mostly my fault, but a greater annoyance is the unrealistic perfection of each and every member of the opposition. Shotgun blasts hit me from a considerable distance, grenades are thrown with pin point accuracy, guys always know exactly where I am, and every single one of them seems to have perfect aim. If you can’t make a game difficult through any sort of detectable or contextually appropriate means, then maybe it’s time to go back to the fucking drawing board, guys. “Harder, better, faster, stronger” is game design 101, and I thought the development community was trying to move past needlessly archaic elements interactive entertainment. I understand that getting hit a million times and killing a zillion guys isn’t realistic, and I’ll take those concessions as intrinsic to game design, but jesus fuck if I die, make me feel like it’s my fault.

I had another 500-600 words which I conveniently forgot to email to myself, so I’ll just get to the gist of my feelings on Modern Warfare 2’s single player campaign; pretentious garbage. Feelings of empowerment were gratuitously replaced with contrived nonsense that seemed to exist only to serve bro culture and/or high fiving morons. “Whoooaaa duuuuude, do you remember the part where you had to pull the knife out of yourself?” The narrative was so completely batshit fucking crazy that, by the end, I literally had no idea who or what the hell I was fighting for. I appreciate the lack of cut scenes as a means to convey plot, but when it’s reduced to two guys against the entire planet with no clear victor, (except maybe the guy who shot up the airport?), what the hell is the point?

Call of Duty 4 had one legitimate masterstroke of narrative conveyance, but the sequel takes that one brilliant instance and does the exact same thing almost three times. Your main character actually dies twice, and comes damn close a second time. That was cool the first time guys and i actually expected it once, but burning a guy alive after you kick him in a hole? Really? That’s not intuitive or genre advancing in anyway, its completely stupid and faux drama for people without a legitimate grasp on reality. Watching DC burning was haunting and, generally, I applaud videogames going off the deep end with their story (it’s an escape from reality, why else would we play them?), but Modern Warfare 2 manages to accomplish this in ways that I found little other than offensive (and I’m totally glossing over the airport level, which was the lamest attempt at making a statement I have ever seen).

As one could probably infer, I’m not too high on the game. I really think the success went to Infinity Wards head, and instead of making something fresh they simply went for something cool. I’m a sucker for artistic vision, and this one comes of has pandering to its audience – with little inspiration to be found.

Really digging multiplayer, though. More on that some day.

heute bei der arbeit an einem sehr formellen anlass (anzug war pflicht), waren neben kreti und pleti auch wichtige exponenten aus wirtschaft und politik da. so genannte vips. dazu gab es ein galadiner.

interessantes phänomen: die leute von kreti und pleti hatten das ziel, möglichst an einem tisch in der nähe der vips zu sitzen. wieso bloss? das sind doch auch nur menschen? oder haben die etwa mehr als zwei beine und arme?

klar, viele haben einiges geleistet in ihrem leben und vieles erreicht und verdienen respekt. aber diese sehr ausgeprägte bewunderung für diese leute hat mich schon erstaun und beeindruckt. vor allem deshalb, weil man sich plötzlich nicht mehr traut, die dinge so zu formulieren, wie man das normalerweise täte. schliesslich möchte man in dem gediegenen rahmen nicht unangenehm auffallen. man hat nicht nur respekt, sondern auch eine gewisse ehrfurcht.

und sowieso: wieso der formelle rahmen? macht ein blazer aus mir einen besseren menschen? wird die feierlichkeit bedeutende, wenn möglichst viele menschen freundlich lächelnd herumstehen und an jeder ecke überdimensionierte blumensträusse?

man kann ja die ästhetik ins feld führen und das sprichwort, dass kleider leute machen. trotzdem frage ich mich manchmal, ob die cervelat- und andere prominenz dieselbe wäre, wenn weniger auf form und auftreten geachtet würde. wären dann an den vip-tischen andere leute gesessen? ich weiss es nicht.

Simply Put:  Like looking through a kaleidoscope after taking a hit of Nyquil.

You know, I used to enjoy fairy tales.  Before I awakened to the realization that the ones I had read were thinly veiled subliminal messages designed to scare white Christian children into staying home and running the farm, I used to take pleasure in the fanciful imagery, the simplistic, funny characters, and the sometimes surprising endings.  There also wasn’t any farm for me to run, so I consumed these tales with a pleasing sense of displacement.  Being far removed from the original context of a thing can sometimes make that thing much more enjoyable.

Hans Christian Andersen’s stories though…something just always seemed off about those.  Whether it was the heavy focus on prepubescent girls, the ubiquitous blushing, or the fact that God was responsible for pretty much everything that happened, even at my young age it was enough to make me wonder what sort of grown man could keep writing this stuff and get away with it.  Turns out that most of Andersen’s stories weren’t particularly popular until later in the nineteenth century, and one has to wonder whether sexual repression of a British, Victorian era variety didn’t have anything to do with the stories gaining traction.  We are talking about a time when it was alright for Lewis Carrol to take nude pictures of other people’s children, and seances were fair entertainment for fashionable parties.  I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that Andersen’s stories might have been appealing more to the adults than to the kids.

Reading the stories again, one can’t help noticeing just how dichotomic everything is.  Andersen’s fairy tales have no interest in the ambiguous dark humor of their predecessors.  They opt to divide everything into good and evil, and then creepily worship the good.  Maybe that was what didn’t do it for me.  I’ve always been a fan of seeing the good in “evil” people, and the bad in “good” people.  It’s the start of making a character multi-dimensional.  I mean, if you think about it, Puss in Boots was kind of a dick.  He killed that ogre just so he could steal his castle.  Not the little mermaid or the little matchstick girl, though.  No, they’re perfect in every single way, not because of anything they do, but because they are little girls and they suffer.  Isn’t that kind of weird and suspicious?  Isn’t the author kind of a creep for making his characters suffer just to make them seem more noble and sympathetic?  I mean, what, she just sits in the street, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for her?  Have her ask for shelter!  Have her steal from a food stand or something!  At least make it seem like she gives a shit about surviving!

But see, that’s what a normal person would do, and that’s a problem, cause then who will the reader feel protective and sorry for?  And that’s really what it’s all about.  It’s about making the reader feel protective towards fetishized images of little girls that don’t exist in reality.  These stories are a boon towards making pedophilia seem normal, and they have to twist reality into some kind of Puritan nightmare (I must save all the pure and sweet, sweet, oh god, so sweet little children from icky, icky adulthood.)  in order to do it.  It makes you wonder why the millions of people who read these stories, to this very day, don’t seem to notice.  Maybe its one of those things they overlook with a cough and a “moving on, now.”

All I’m saying is that there’s a good chance that, with the appropriate resources, Hans Christian Andersen would have spanked it to CP.  That’s all I’m saying.  Also that they built a statue of this man in Denmark (Fact.)  But hey, no judgments. *AHEM*  Moving on now.

The animated series of the Snow Queen isn’t overtly creepy, thankfully.  God knows that anime has enough shows in that vein.  It’s kind of depressing to think about actually.  (Note:  Any show with the words moe, lolicon, hentai, or Ken Akamatsu attached to it is automatically in the running for an immediate and incontrovertible zero.  Actually a super zero, because those shows, ninety nine percent of the time, wouldn’t get a review.  Why spell out what is clear and plain for all to see?)  But yes, the Snow Queen common sensically avoids those tiger traps in favor of other, less repulsive mistakes.

But that would be getting ahead of ourselves.  Let’s start with the visuals.  This show is vibrant, to put it lightly.  Color bursts from every pore, even when its raining or cloudy.  The numerous forests and greenery look fit to burst, so lush and moist are they.  A single rose renders every petal dewey and soft, like something you could eat.  It’s clear that the show is trying to emulate the visual style of an illustrated children’s story, and it succeeds in doing so.

Moist.  That’s a good way to describe the show, actually.  It would look great in a magazine.  But that’s also a problem.  See, the thing about animation is that its kind of expected to move.  To animate, if you will.  And the smoother it moves, the nicer it is to look at.  Even something with a shitty story can still be watchable, even just for showing off, if it has great animation.  The problem with the Snow Queen is that it has this lush, fantasy art, but some of the creakiest and stilted animation to go with it.  If something in the frame isn’t moving, then it is drawn and painted with the greatest care.  If it has to move though, well, then enjoy watching the cartoon equivalent of that cafe scene in Breathless.   It makes you wonder for the reason behind it.  Did they not have enough time or money?  Did they think a show aimed at children didn’t require fluid animation?  The popularity of Disney movies shows that kids certainly don’t mind the extra effort.  Were they, perhaps, God forbid, just a lazy group of animators?  Were they more concerned with story than looks?

I dunno.  Other shows that have poor animation at least try to distract from the fact.  Rose of Versailles had alot of conversation scenes, and Dragonball had fights that achieved a kinetic quality with speedlines and quick cuts.  But for a show like this, which puts so much effort into making lush visuals, wouldn’t it make sense to devote more effort to making things move beautifully?  You’ll get a scene like the one where Gerda falls out of a boat into a lake, and the entire arc of her fall has at least two distinct jump cuts (at least, that’s what my eyes tell me).  And you can forget about anyone running.  They create the illusion by sliding the background like its on wheels, with the character framed in the center, resulting in dozens of sequences where it looks like the character is running in place.  It’s stultifies the desired effect of creating an absorbing, magical world.  It’s like if the rides at Disney World were creaky, rickety contraptions that shot sparks everywhere and were run by smelly carnies instead of curiously chipper people.  I mean, alot of anime, especially the television variety, has limited animation (not all budgets are created equal) but they at least seem aware of it enough to try and disguise it.  This show doesn’t have the same concern for movement, a definite short coming, considering the chosen medium.  Maybe the animators should have made a picture book instead.

And then there’s the visuals themselves.  I know I complimented the effort that went into the detail, but the overall effect they have is a bit strange.  This show uses bloom lighting like its going out of style.  Nearly every scene that takes place in daylight is covered in glowing sunbeams, and it makes everything look hazy and bright.  Coupled with the vivacious color scheme, it causes a lull in the viewers sensibilities.  It’s like looking through a kaleidoscope after taking a hit of Nyquil. 

This lulling is compounded by the flow of the events, in that there is no sense of dramatic pacing or presentation.  All scenes are treated equally here, even the scenes that are supposed to be significant to a particular episodes plot, and it has the effect of blending everything together into this mushy, unmemorable haze.  There is a scene in one of the later episodes where Gerda recieves a magic, wish granting walnut from a random witch.  No explanation of who she is, or why she has magic, wish granting walnuts in the first place.  And she seems to know of Gerda’s search for Kay without being told.  Gerda and two of her new friends, a boy and his sister, recieve walnuts, and they each have wishes.  They go to a cliff top to ask for their wishes.  The boy asks for Gerda’s and his sister’s wishes to come true, like an idiot.  The girl asks for a golden princess carriage drawn by feathered ponies, with a crown and dress to match.  Gerda holds on to hers.  Since the sister never specified herself to be the recipient of all that princess stuff, the random witch swoops in and steals that shit like it’s Black Friday.  Sister is sad.  Gerda, instead of using her wish to see Kay, uses it to give the girl what she really wants; a dream where she sees her dead mother.  Everyone is now happy.  Gerda packs up and moves on.

See, those scenes sound fine on paper, but the way they’re strung together just flatlines.  There’s no pulse, no discernable ebb and flow to the emotions.  There’s no surprises, no flow.  It’s just scenes fading into scenes fading into yet more scenes, like a blurry assembly line, and it’s remarkable how boring it gets.  And that’s not even bringing up instances of random, ill fitting scenes.  In one of the early episodes, a snake oil salesman that Gerda meets tells an unrelated story to an audience for a good three minutes or so, which is pretty long in the scheme of a single episode.  And the aforementioned magic walnut episode randomly inserts a scene of the minstrel Ragi, who travels with Gerda, singing to a party of villagers.  There is no reason for this scene to be in here, and one can’t help wondering if they were just trying to fill time for lack of an airtight, fitting story.

The design just feels so patchwork and stitched together.  There’s no effort put in, excepting the details of individual, still objects.  Of all the anime I’ve seen, this one takes the cake in terms of poor pacing.  I’m not really sure who would like it, to be honest.  Kids like spectacle, but this is too reserved.  Adults like in-depth drama, but the plots are too simplistic.  It’s pretty as a picture, but how much time does a person usually spend looking at a picture?

-Fiero

As you may already be aware, some of us here at Threevue are big fans of Last.fm.  As some of you may also be aware, Last.fm is one of three new apps (joined by Facebook and Twitter) to be integrated into the Xbox 360 dashboard in an attempt to further blur the lines between games consoles and media centers.

For those who aren’t yet aware of Last.fm, it’s a music program which lets you listen to music of your choice, in full, online.  Not content with just doing that, Last.fm will also recommend music to you based on your selections, track your listening habits, provide pictures and biographies for the artists, as well as tour schedules for any touring artists, as well as having a burgeoning community.  On top of all of that, it’s also free!

As is, there are already a number of ways to use Last.fm; via the site, a desktop app, and an iPhone/iPod Touch app,  all of which vary greatly in their functionality; the website is the most feature-packed, whilst the iPhone app is extremely bare-boned.  As a result of this variance, I was naturally a little sceptical when I first heard that this service would be coming to the Xbox dashboard.

However, I finally got around to checking this out today (despite downloading it when it launched on the 17th), and I found myself pleasantly surprised at how robust this app really is.   This version of Last.fm allows you to perform the vast majority of tasks available on the website, plus a few more gamer related things that the site doesn’t offer.  It all works fairly well with the Xbox 360 controller too, though the ability to skip tracks with the triggers/bumpers would have been good.

There are some noticeable omissions though; whilst your listening habits are “scrobbled” to your website profile for tracking, there is no stat tracking functionality available on the dashboard app itself.  Also, the “on-tour” schedule is sadly missing from the dashboard app, as are all of the event planning functions available on the site.  I have personally found these to be really useful as a single-source way of finding out which bands are playing in my city, and when.  There also doesn’t seem to be any way of adding people to your Last.fm or Xbox friends lists through this app, which seems like a huge missed opportunity.

Regardless of these omissions, the Last.fm dashboard app still contains a host of worthwhile features, and is well worth checking out.  Of course, it’s debatable as to how much use you’ll get out of this if your Xbox and PC are set up in the same room, but if you do have them set up in different rooms then this could be well worth your time.

If you are unaware, The SuicideGirls are a group of like minded ladies who like to show off their tattooed and pierced bodies. Fear not as they don’t kill themselves or anything, Suicide is just a name and nothing more. Divulging ever more into the world of technology, the girls have put together an iPhone App which plays like a virtual dating game. Before you scoff at such a genre, even the mighty Mass Effect had a dating aspect to it, even if it was a bit weak. So it’s only fair that we listen to what the lovely NixiePixel has to say about the App in the video above. Ms Pixel likens Seduce a SuicideGirl to a choose your own adventure book reminding me of Ian Livingstone’s Deathtrap Dungeon – a successful book franchise and dodgy PS1 game. Apart from my digression, Seduce a SuicideGirl sounds like it could be a cheap laugh in the good sense of the term with a price tag of 99¢ or 59p to back up such a claim. Keep an eye out here for NixiePixel’s full review of the game.

Having played for a while, here is a short comment about what I’ve seen so far in Hexyz Force.

First of all I should note that I like it. This might seem no big deal, but when people started comparing it to Evolution, I feared the worst. After all, Evolution Worlds was one mediocre game. I only got up to the battleship. Maybe Evolution for DC was better, who knows, but I really didn’t like EW one bit.

Anyway, fortunately my fears were for nothing. While Hexyz Force does share some similarities in the way the battle system works, overall it’s a different game – a better one at that. The design is miles better, and the battle system has been tweaked and modified to be more interesting. Now, instead of waiting ten thousand weeks for a character to finish his attack animation, you attack quickly (thankfully!). Attacks consume RP, which you can recover by defending. Mind you, even regular attacks consume 1 RP. Also, there is a standard rock-paper-scissors element in there, to liven up things a bit… and also an element chaining system slightly reminescent of Chrono Cross, albeit different. Basically, your attacks get stronger when you link attacks of the same element (red – red – red), or in a specific order (blue – white – red), or even both (red – red – blue – white – white). Enemies count toward the linking too, so you’ve got to plan a bit, if you want to make more damage.

The battle system is remindful of Evolution and maybe a bit of Chrono Cross, but also Riviera. Instead of being able to use items in battle, you can only bring whatever weapons you have equipped, and then you’ll be able to use the skills they have. Beware, though, by using them, you’ll consume them. Only the special weapons have unlimited use. See, I told you. Riviera. Not a bad thing though, Riviera was awesome. Aside from that, the standard “gold” has been removed, and exchanged with more contextually relevant “Force Points”. You can use them to upgrade your weapons or also recover your HP outside of battles. FP can be obtained from battles, or by sacrificing items. Items can also be combined to create different items, a la Mana Khemia or Evolution.

Hexyz Force feels like a mix of different games, but one that actually does things well. Should it come to the USA, it should be a good purchase for anyone interested in RPGs.

Simply Put:  A kindergarten play about Batman and giant robots.

There is an animation studio in Japan named Sunrise, and they have what’s known as a reputation for being successful.  In other words they make boatloads of money.  The parent company, Namco Bandai Holdings, is a multimedia giant in Japan and the world, dipping its fingers into videogames, toys, models, cartoons, music labels, trading card games, and amusement consoles.  It’s basically the equivalent of a Japanese Disney corporation, with a little bit of Microsoft thrown in for balance.  The anime made by Sunrise is what we can consider the mainstream (as strange as that may seem for anyone to whom anime appears to be a total niche hobby) and the stuff they produce is what I call the results of the entertainment assembly line. 

Does this mean that the shows they produce are inherently bad?  Absolutely not.  We don’t delve into hipsterism up in these parts.  It does, however, mean that the studio creates their series with a different mindset than say, Bee Train, whose creative workforce allegedly brainstorms ideas for shows while intoxicated.  Sunrise is out to make money, basically, like any normal giant company out there, and in order to do this it will try to entertain you however they think they can do it.  All their shows practically implore you, nay, beg you to watch and buy the guaranteed merchandise.

One doesn’t need to look far for evidence of this.  Take Gundam, Sunrise’s flagship series, for example.  Gundam is a cultural icon in Japan, as prevalent and widespread in the country’s spirit as Mickey Mouse or Star Wars is for us in the states.  There is an earth sized amount of merchandise for Gundam.  There is a 1:1 statue (about 80 feet tall) of a Gundam in Tokyo.  There’s even an academic institution devoted to all things Gundam.  Academic proffessionals actually attend this and make profound statements about how the technology of a cartoon is not so far from being realized in our time.  The sheer anticipation of these people is kind of insane and terrifying.

The point is that people love Gundam, and Sunrise loves people who pay to love Gundam.  The equation concludes with Sunrise wanting to make more anime that are as successful as Gundam.  Sometimes they manage it, sometimes they don’t, but every thing they produce is in service to the one driving motivation.  “Make the company successful.”

So what about the shows they produce then?  Sometime’s they’re meaningful, like Gundam 0080.  Some of them are pure entertainment, like Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star.  Some of them make you want to put a bullet in your skull, like .hack//SIGN and Gundam SEED.  And sometimes the stuff they make is just plain weird, like Betterman and Yakitate!! Japan.  

The Big O threatens to fall into the latter categories but it is barely made watchable by a childlike love for cartoons that gives the show a certain charm, even while it’s goofily tripping up all over the place.  The creators obviously have a deep and very nerdy love for Godzilla movies, Gundam, and the Batman cartoon from the nineties, and it shows in the wild pastiche presentation.  In fact, alot of the more entertaining (re: better) shows from Sunrise seem to fall squarely in the realm of pastiche.  Cowboy Bebop was a jazz infused space western after all, and Outlaw Star is a sci-fi take on Treasure Island (One that is far more entertaining than that bastardized Disney animated version.  Even Muppet Treasure Island was better than that crap).  This can’t replace clever creativity, but the show luckily manages to not be a completely terrible experience.

The Big O seeps at the pores with nerdy love, but doesn’t have a single thought or care to making any sort of sense.  We’ve got this stereotypically cool dude named Bruce Way- I mean, Roger Smith, who is a negotiator in the city of Goth- whoops, Paradigm.  This apparently means he gets paid alot of money to wear tuxedoes everywhere, work with and simultaneously flip off the cops, and basically do everything James Bond and Batman do.  He’s got gadgets, a black limousine that shoots rockets, and whole lot of bad guys to deal with.  When the bad guys try to up the ante with giant robots, Roger Smith calls in a bigger giant robot to fuck ‘em up, all while set to Godzilla style marching music. 

Aiding him in his fight for everyone to be dressed in funeral attire are his Butler and Maid.  The butler has an eyepatch and knows how to weild a chain gun, and the maid is an android with a sarcastic sense of humor.  Together they fight against amnesia, because apparently forty years ago something bad happened and everyone in the city lost their memories.  Cause that makes sense.  The people apparently remember enough to drive robots and commit crimes, however, and its up to Roger to stop them while wrestling with plot holes and severely bankrupt attempts at artistry.  ”Hey, I know how to make this episode seem all symbolic and deep, guys!  Let’s show a drop of water hitting a pool and sending out ripples!”  Okay, what’s that supposed to mean?  “I don’t know, but let’s show it three times in the same episode in case the audience doesn’t get it either!”  Sounds good to me, chief!

The show’s story is just really, really dumb.  I mean, it ends with one of the most blatant, sinful cop outs in all of story writing.  Never, under any circumstances are you allowed to say “but it was all just a dream/virtual reality, you foolish audience.”  Only do this if you like the idea of having the cardboard box you live in set on fire by an angry mob.

But you can see how loving the show is.  It’s so earnest about it that it almost hurts to watch.  It’s like Lenny with the puppies in “Of Mice and Men.”  As soon as he starts talking you know some bunny somewhere is going to end up dead, but damn if you don’t feel some kind of pity for the poor man.  It throttles its beloved cartoons to death and throws them into the Big O stew.  Even the character designs, which are probably the second most aesthetically pleasing thing about the show, are clearly ripped off from the Batman cartoon.

None of these criticisms apply to the music, however.  In fact, I’d reccomend that you skip the show completely, buy the soundtrack, and just make up your own show in your head while listening.  There are some wonderful light jazz noir tracks, the aforementioned monster movie marches, and even Twilight Zone style sci-fi tracks.  The soundtrack is a love letter to the history of television and cinema, and its done with far more respect and gentleness than the pitiable excuse for a story.

So yes, the Big O most certainly does not live up to its name.  But it does have some nice things about it.  It’s got great music, and a love for the aesthetics of dark cartoons, but that love does not lead to a compelling story.

-Fiero

Simply Put:  A show that’s trying to bake cookies with sugar and vinegar.

The Japanese love their mysteries.  They love them almost as much as the English love writing them.  They love them so much that they’ll even make cartoons that also happen to be mysteries.  It makes me ponder the existence of American cartoons about mysteries.  All that my research turns up is Scooby Doo, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (which was technically created in Scotland, but I’m putting it here because it has Sherlock Holmes in the title), and Inspector Gadget, and one of those sucked because you knew who the culprit was at the start of every single episode.

Considering how popular mysteries are in general, and considering how popular anime is in Japan, it seems that it would only make sense that the two would eventually unite in some way or another.  As of now there are several anime that fall square into the mystery genre, like Detective Academy Q, Shion’s King, and Monster.  The most famous and long running of these is Detective Conan, in which a young teen detective gets somehow transformed into a seven year old because of the side effect of a drug given to him by two crooks that was supposed to off him.  It’s an utterly ridiculous concept, and it feels like a decision made to appeal to children by having a “character they can relate to,” (Let’s make solving brutal murders fun for kids too!) but apparently the mysteries themselves have been able to justify the series existence for thirteen years.  It follows an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy, in which a mystery is presented and solved neatly in one or two episodes, with evergreen characters and a chipper attitude.  That kind of format is admittedly a smart way to do mysteries if the goal is longevity, considering that even the original Dupin and Holmes mysteries were written in the form of short stories.  

 It’s not the only way however.  The popular name for them these days is “Thrillers” (which is absolutely not a music video), but they are basically long form mystery stories that have been stretched out over the length of a novel.  As the title suggests, these have the potential to be more exciting, and sometimes even more rewarding.  I remember when I first read “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie that I was fooled right up to the very last chapter, and when I finally found out who the culprit was I couldn’t think about anything else all day aside from piecing together all the little clues I had missed.  ”But of course” and “I see” moments compounded on top of one another, until I felt a serene sense of calm, that all was well in the world.  No book has ever made me react as physically as that one did, and very few have left me as satisfied. 

I would guess that this sort of long term mystery story works best in book form, because of the imagination involved on the readers part.  They imagine the scenes of the crime, and they have to provide the voices of the characters in their heads.  It’s an incredibly engaging genre, one made even more so by the sensory limitations of the printed word.  It’s also highly specialized, it would seem, as most mystery writers tend to write little else, with the reverse true for non-mystery writers.  Although Faulkner did write “Intruder in the Dust.”  Then again, he was Faulkner.

This brings us to Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, an anime that’s currently airing in Japan.  It is another entry in the murder mystery field, and I had the good fortune of watching a few episodes of it with friends.  I say good fortune because its always more fun to point out all the things a show does wrong when someone else is present, because it allows them to bounce back other problems.  Sort of like Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  We begin with the theme song introduction, sung by what sounds like a Japanese version of Nightwish (Compare this to the classical music opening for Masterpiece Theatre).  After some pretty computer graphics, the show proper begins.  The show starts much like “And Then There Were None,” with several characters, most of whom are members of a very rich extended family, arriving by boat to an island, where their family head is apparently about divy up his will to his kids and grandkids.  The first thing wrong with the show is the method of character introduction.  We are introduced to them all at once by title cards, which is really just laziness.  In a movie you can’t put a box on the screen saying “Ben Wilson, Age 33, Likes Spaghetti” unless your telling a bad joke because that sort of thing will jump out at a viewer like a snake bite.  It’s beating you over the head with information that should have been distributed naturally, either through conversation or the context of a situation.  When it happens early on in this show, it’s an annoying little quirk that can be excused, but then that little box pops up for every single character and heavily discredits the show before it even has a chance to build atmosphere or plot.  It’s unnatural and disruptive from a cinematic standpoint.

Then there’s the characters themselves.  My initial reaction was that there were too many to start out with and keep track of.  All their names sounded the same, except for one guy with the name Battler, whose name only stood out because of how stupid it sounds.  It was an information overload.  But then I remembered that since its a mystery, all the suspects have to be introduced somehow, which led me to think of “And Then There Were None” again.  That story introduces eight different characters, but the difference is that the personalities of those characters could be revealed over a natural feeling length of time, due to the novel format.  This show is only a half hour per episode, and in addition it wants desperately to get character introductions out of the way so it can leap right into the mystery.  It doesn’t set a good precedent for how we as an audience are meant to feel towards these characters, especially considering that some of them get murdered.

So what about these characters then?  Well, we don’t get much, because the whole show is dedicated solely to its mystery.  We’ve got the aforementioned, idiotically named Battler, who likes trying to oggle and grab his female relative’s tits.  This is his only personality trait so far, and they try to play it up for laughs, which is about as dumb as it gets.  Not only is it not funny, it makes the character, who is supposed to be the one solving these murders, seem like a complete jackass.  Yup.  This is your hero, dear audience.  A logical pervert in an ugly white suit who gets a free pass from the creators for the sake of ”comedy.”  Except that kind juvenile comedy is something only a moron whose never spoken to a real woman could appreciate.

This does not set a good precedent for the rest of the group.  Most of the characters in this show have zero personality, any emotions they express are contrived and fake, and everything they say is dedicated solely to the show’s mystery.  Particularly annoying is the youngest cousin character, Maria, a disturbing creation that resembles no real girl her age ever to walk this earth.  She is a fabrication, a Japanese horror cliche, a creepy little girl character with no purpose other than to spout gibberish and move the plot along when it gets stuck.  

Even the creators seem to be acknowledging the real reason this character is in the show.  There is a scene where the family is eating dinner, pondering the mystery or something, and this little girl suddenly pulls out a letter supposedly given to her by a mysterious person on the island that no one else has noticed.  As she reads it, her face takes on these wicked looking contortions that would probably get the attention of anyone with half a brain.  She looks like she wants to kill everyone there, and NOBODY reacts to this or calls it out or seems to think its strange.  They just go on acting worried about what the letter says.  It sends a bad message.  ”The only thing the audience needs to worry about here is the plot, not characters, so we can do weird senseless shit like this.” 

There are dozens of these weird little emotional mistakes that make these characters seem less and less human, and therefore, less and less sympathetic.  There’s a subplot later on that’s supposed to be tragic, in which a member of the family proposes to the family maid, even though such a marriage would be a scandal, and she gets killed later.  When the man who proposed witnesses her body, slashed and brutalized in the most graphic fashion, he starts bawling, trying to hold it in and keep it a secret even though the entire family already knows the truth.  Some love.  But this is a good idea for a scene.  In proper hands, with proper pacing, it could have worked rather nicely, but its bungled here, because the love affair is introduced almost immediately before the murder happens.  We aren’t even given time to savor the potential for scandal, much less believe in their love, before half of the “love affair” is dead and forgotten.  It’s a cheap tug at our heart strings, and it does not work.

Up till now I’ve been alluding to the fact that everything in this show so far, even at the cost of character development, is in dedicated service to the central mystery.  Every word out of the characters mouths is for the mystery, so the question we have to ask next is, was it worth it?  Is the mystery good enough to warrant the lacking in other departments?  It’s hard to tell, because the show deigns to throw out all these supernatural elements like curses and witchcraft and creepy little girls.  The gothic cliches are all here, with a creepy mansion, paintings that seem like they’re looking at you, giant gardens, and all the familiar fixings and trappings of the genre.  However, a mystery shouldn’t have to depend on supernatural elements, even if its horror, because the sheer unsolvability of the events should be, in and of themselves, what appears to be supernatural.  That’s why its so much fun when they are solved and exposed.  Everyone remembers the moment where the Wizard of Oz is shown to be just a little man behind a curtain, after all.  That wasn’t a mystery, but it touches upon the same effect.  Once you start seriously entertaining the idea of supernatural horror cliches like witches and the undead, then your mystery starts to lose its credibility.  You can have either mystery or the supernatural, but not both.  Edgar Allen Poe knew well enough to separate these elements, and he dabbled with both.

See, a mystery depends on realism.  They can be Gothic in spirit, but we need the realism to balance against the incredibility of the mystery.  Sure the circumstances of a mystery might be unlikely, but a good one will always leave you thinking, “This could have happened.”  Supernatural elements, by contrast are diametrically opposed to realism by their very nature.  They exist to take us away from reality.  Mixing the two is like trying bake cookies with sugar and vinegar.  You might end up with something that looks like cookies, but they won’t taste very good.

That’s really what Umineko no Naku Koro Ni boils down to, in its initial offerings.  Maybe it gets more compelling later on, but it would still have to account for these early mistakes its making, and judging by how confident the show is in making these mistakes, that doesn’t strike me as very likely.  

-Fiero

I was looking for something to contrast the rather high profile game I’ve been playing (you all know the one), so decided to give Pokemon Rumble a try. It’s the latest in a long line of Pokemon spin-offs but comes with most of the key features that make the original games so addictive. With such praise however comes the cynicism that Pokemon Rumble also feels like the bare minimum of what’s needed for a new game. This does give it a comfortable familiarity but one that’s becoming a bit too familiar. Read on for the full write up.

Pokemon Rumble starts with a brief introduction of the simplistic concept – Play as a clockwork Pokemon that has to fight other clockwork Pokemon with the aim of catching as many as possible that are strong enough to fight in the Battle Royale. Easy. Fighting is real-time rather than turn-based and battles can contain any number of opponents at one time. Yet it still allows the kind of tactics that every good Poke-trainer prides themselves with; Pokemon with the ability of Fire attacks do greater damage to those based on Ice etc. I was given a wind-up Rattata with it’s basic attack to begin with and managed to get into the Battle Royale arena where my butt was severely kicked. Dropping into a kind of hub world, my Rattata was no longer able to partake in the mass carnage but I could enter one of six worlds in order to better my Rattata and ‘befriend’ more Pokemon. If I want to get back in to the Battle Royale I needed to have a level of 100 or more – something that didn’t take too long once I powered through these worlds and their end of level boss. Collecting more Pokemon involves beating them down until they’re knocked out, then walking over their confused body. Not too dissimilar to the traditional method of a Pokeball.

Each world may differ in their overall appearance but only very slightly in terms of layout. Paths are very linear but of course, acquiring Pokemon is the underlying reason for the game so as long as going from A to B contains enough of them to fight and collect, I’m not sure if the core audience would be bothered by the linearity. On the subject of appearance, Pokemon Rumble does have it’s redeeming features like the suitable cell-shaded graphics and colourful environments but really isn’t all that impressive. Yes it looks very nice and one of the better looking WiiWare titles but that’s not a difficult task and characters can look ugly due to their simplicity. It also some game-chugging frame rate issues when lots of Pokemon are on screen at once or lighting effects take place. I’m unsure as to whether it’s due to the Wii’s power or the developer’s struggle to get the game small enough to be downloadable. Either way it’s not very welcome in this era of video games. What is clever is how the Ambrella have managed to make an new Pokemon experience that can still provoke our addiction of collecting. Levels can be revisited to catch anyone that was missed during the first play and those that are caught can be upgraded with a maximum of two different attacks – something that, apart from gathering Pokemon, saves the game from becoming utterly boring. With such linear levels and repetitive combat, the fact that I had a choice of using a Pokemon with a long range, short range or even dizzying or sleep inducing attack felt like a godsend! It also makes each players experience unique and invites the favoured discussion of ‘which Pokemon is best’. Especially when playing the game with friends as both world exploration and the Battle Royale can be played either on your own or as a multiplayer.

Not having played the whole game I’m undecided as to whether Pokemon Rumble is worth the 1500 Wii Points (around £10) price tag. It does play to our desires of collecting these obscure virtual beasts but also feels like Ambrella haven’t exactly been very original with the title. Levels are very repetitive although the Battle Royale, once entered, helps relieve the boredom slightly. I’m keen to invest more time and accumulate more Pokemon but wonder how much longer my interest will last. Since the graphics and indeed franchise is more aimed at a younger market and hardcore enthusiasts, I’d imagine it’s able to tick enough boxes for those players to get their moneys worth.