More Pop Culture Musings



I’m beginning to think I’m one of the most shallow people on the Earth, the way the simple things like video games, movies, comic books, novels, animation, and my fiancee make me extremely happy. While the rest of the cool kids are dressing all Goth and reading Nietzsche in the cafe while expounding about the miseries of the world and how no one can understand their pain…



I am at home having fun with no complaints.



Oh, I used to have complaints. Plenty. Close friends will remember the dread that rolled around at Valentine’s Day, knowing that yet another venemous “Fuck You” mail was on the way from me since I was so miserable at being alone and stuck in a far flung corner of the world while everyone else was living the life of an urban sophisticate, hanging out at swanky restaurants, trading amusing bon mots and generally being TV People who were smart, interesting and always good company. Of course over the last few years things have evened out some. Finding The One (Or at least I’ll tell myself she’s The One) and realizing that aside from her, my life was hunky dory has brought me to an almost Buddha-like state of sublime indifference where it is nearly impossible to anger me. It would seem that I now have a reputation for being the rational, chilled out one that usually has something sensible (Or at the very least inanely entertaining) to say. I have to admit, it’s a nice head space to be when NOTHING bothers you and you’re more or less at peace with the world.



Mind you, it also makes for incredibly boring posts such as this one, which lack any kind of drama whatsoever, but I figure something juicy will happen at some point like I’ll lose a limb or something and then I can make posts about physiotherapy and how I was ready to quit until my therapist screamed at me and I swear to God, I heard the Eye of the Tiger theme song playing as he shouted “GO! MOVE! WIIIIIN!!!”



Okay, so I’m vacuous. I can live with it.



Anyway, here are the toys that I am currently enamoured with.



Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas



Yeah, I actually finished this (And when I say finished, I mean I was stupid enough to go for 100% completion) quite some time ago, having mainlined it like heroin right from tearing open the gift wrapping on Christmas (I have the coolest fiance in the world), but it bears repeating:



THIS MAY VERY WELL BE THE BEST GAME FOR THE PLAYSTATION 2.



The sheer epic size of the environment, the sandbox mentality of allowing you to do practically anything from gamble to shoot hoops, to mugging people to visiting a strip club, to carjacking, to strafing a street with an attack helicopter or harrier jump jet… It’s almost frightening how much fun–and frustration–I had while obsessively playing this game. If I had to level any one criticism at this game, it would be my usual hobby horse–story.



Not that the story was bad, and not that there even wasn’t enough of it, so much as it occasionally wandered into areas that left me thinking there would be more exploration of a particular storyline (I’m thinking now in particular of the missions for the government agent) only to have it abruptly end. Ultimately, it was a matter of closure. I think that the way the various storylines concluded had an unsatisfying emotional payoff, compared to the build up. The government agent was one. The resolution of the OG Loc (Or Ogloc, as Lazlow calls him) was an ENORMOUSLY frustrating let down, since I had a lot of pent up anger at his terrible rap that I was hoping to personally show him, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Even the final showdown, which, as a game, was very satisfying, was, as a concluding cutscene, not quite as satisfying as I had hoped. But aside from that one nitpick, the emotional payoff, this is one of those games that has cemented itself in my personal list of all time greats, the one that I would reccomend without hesitation to anyone that has a PS2.



Suikoden IV



Man, the Suikoden series… What can you say about a game that bases itself on the Chinese legend of 108 stars of destiny (aka extraordinary people with amazing talents) and puts it into Japanese RPG form? Though Konami has never seen fit to throw the kind of budget at it that they’ve given to games like Metal Gear Solid, the Suikoden series has always been a minor favorite with me largely because it seemed like the budgetary constraints always forced the game developers to concentrate on characterization and storyline. Suikoden I and II were amazing games on the PS1, and Suikoden III is one of my favorite RPGs on the PS2 because of the three storylines (GEDDO IS THE MAN!) that eventually converged into one immensely huge and very satisfying story that left me thinking, “Man, what a great experience that was.”



Sadly, this newest installment failed to live up to that.



The gameplay itself took a bit of a retro approach, simplifying itself and hearkening back to Suikoden I/II (And perhaps even FFVI on the SNES) simplicity. The story itself was unevenly paced, with a not terrific ending and final boss encounter, and perhaps most disappointing of all, the characters were nowhere near as fleshed out as they were in the previous game. Partly I think this is because Suikoden III had those initial three storylines, and thus PLENTY of space and time to give the characters a complexity and history that a single, fast moving storyline cannot. This is by far the shortest Suikoden game I’ve played, even with getting all 108 stars to join my forces. Though this game was still FUN to play. I can’t really complain too much about the actual mechanics of the game, I was simply let down by the narrative aspects. On the other hand, Suikoden IV is now tagged by me as a special game since it was the one I mostly sat and watched MY FIANCE sit and play. She creamed through the game while I sat back as gaming strategist, lending her newbie gaming enthusiasm with my decades of gaming knowledge so that together we made short work of a game that, while fun, still left the both of us thinking it might be time to dust off Suikoden III and let HER have a go at it this time…



Katamari Damacy



GENIUS.



Let me say that again, this time with swearing for emphasis.



SHEER.



FUCKING.



GENIUS.



My favorite geeky website, IGN, has described this game as “Happiness in a box,” and I have to agree, that hyperbolic description fits this to a tee.



The premise is simple. You are the Prince of the cosmos, which means apparently that you’re an engagingly simple looking cartoon character with a cylinder for a head and sticks for limbs. Your father, the King Of All The Cosmos, had some brief seizure of insanity that resulted in him wiping out the stars from the sky. He puts the task to you, his tiny, tiny offspring (And I mean, like, you’re only about 1 cm tall) to take a Katamari to Earth, and use it to gather up enough materials to repopulate the sky with stars, constellations, stardust and comets.



So, you roll around a ball with “gravity” properties in that it attracts objects smaller than itself to it. As these objects add to its mass, its gravitational properties increase. So you can start out with a tiny ball that can only pick up thumbtacks and buttons, and eventually end up with something that rips buildings right out of their foundations and has islands adorning it like fridge magnets.



It sounds simple and insane, and yet I can’t remember a game I’ve ever had so much fun playing. The incredibly hypercute J-Pop soundtrack goes beyond being inanely happy and reaches a nirvana-like state of True Joy. You CANNOT play this game without grinning and laughing. There’s something infectious, something maddeningly joyful about rolling this damn ball around, with elephants, cars, and schoolchildren stuck to it, while a chorus of happy Japanese children sing about being Happy Rollers in the background.



This is one of those experiences that simply cannot be communicated. You have to sit down. You have to play this game. And once you’ve played it, you have to have it. Play it when you’re in a bad mood, it will make you feel better. Play it when you’re in a good mood, it will make you happier still. Hell, I’ve got some of the music playing in the background as I write this, and my feet are happily tapping away.



Kill Bill Volumes I and II



This may very well be my favorite Tarantino work.



I didn’t watch them both back to back. I actually watched Volume I then got around to purchasing Volume II a day or two later and completing the story. The fight at the House of Blue Leaves was one of the most fun (Damn, but I use that adjective a lot…) and impressive looking fights I’ve ever seen, even without bullet time or camera angles/tracking shots you KNOW could only be done with a computer. The energy, the vicious glee, the sheer enthusiasm Tarantino showed for spilling blood–elevating it to a scale where it could no longer be taking seriously and you almost had to judge it like you would a gymnastics event, “Ooh! Three decapitations in a single stroke! Straight nines except for one 6.0 from the Russians!”–brought the fight a surreal level of artistry that transcended typical macho fist or gunplay and took you to a headspace where the movement and death was a poem. A fun poem. With screaming. And Japanese schoolgirls. And fountains of blood.



I suppose what I most liked about the movie(s) was the fact that Tarantino wasn’t trying to create a film that was… anything more than it was. It was a revenge story, simple as that, and when he decided to create a sleek, streamlined, purposeful movie around that one premise, with no ambitions to teaching life lessons, communicate a political agenda, or make a social commentary, it lent the movie a purity and sense of purpose that I really haven’t seen since the original Star Wars trilogy. When a movie Is What It Is, rather than an excuse for merchandising, or cashing in on a particular trend (Hey! Comic books are in! Let’s do John Constantine: Hellblazer, but make him American and cast Keanu as the the title character (WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?!?)) it gets down to what art is all about, a mixture of talent, imagination and desire to create something personal that perhaps other people will respond to. Kill Bill does that. It was entertaining, it was gorgeous to look at, it had some terrific pacing, action, memorable characters and sequences, and even had a mindblowing interpretation of Superman that I’d never considered before. It is, in every single way, a labor of love on Tarantino’s part, and when a project takes on that importance for the creator, it always has an effect on the audience. Speaking of projects…



The Computer Animated Series



Nope, still can’t talk about it too much in detail, but I figure that THIS, at least, might be interesting to readers, since I am obviously not.



We’re now moving into the stage where we’re seeing some preliminary models for a test. All around, I’m quite impressed with the level of talent by the people involved. It’s pretty scary to see a CG sequence in a videogame or a movie and then hop over to the office and have a guy show you something that’s pretty much like what you just saw, except it’s YOUR idea.



The kicker is, then instead of saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if he looked like this, or had this kind of weapon…” You just say, “Make him look like this, and give him this kind of weapon…” And voila, it happens.



That is a trip.



We’re still probably a few months away (If we’re lucky) from having anything that we can show to the public, but things are still moving along fairly smoothly at this point and once it happens, yes, I’m sure this blog will generate more interest as the flack begins to build and every armchair critic who is convinced that he or she has better ideas will start blasting me for being in a position to do what they cannot. To those future angry writers, I have only this to say if you bother going through archives…



GET YOUR FILTHY PAWS OFF ME, YA’ DAMN DIRTY APE…



Okay, that’s not what I wanted to say, but I’ve always wanted to say that. What I meant was…

GET YOUR OWN DAMN COMPUTER ANIMATED SERIES AND THEN MAYBE I’LL START TAKING YOU MORE SERIOUSLY…



And that, I think, is all for today.



Again, apologies for not being a particularly interesting person, but then that’s the price you pay for being happy. Oh well.