Japanese 101: Day 7

So, it's been a week. This really isn't to proclaim to the internet how amazingly fantastically amazing the experience has been; these entries are mostly just going to be to get my thoughts in order, track my progress, and might eventually give me the opportunity to rant at myself if my efforts start slipping.

Going over the initial lessons in the Hiragana workbook, a lot of my fears have been put to rest. The language isn't that complicated, that is to say that the perception I was exposed to didn't hold that much water. It's not this language that you have to be born into to fully grasp. It's possible to learn it, just as much as it's possible to learn German or Spanish, but you just have to go about approaching it a different way.

After one week, I haven't made much progress. I've learned exactly eight Japanese characters, how to say them, and how to construct a few words using them. That's about it. The following lessons cover the rest of the Hiragana "alphabet" and then how to construct more complicated words. The sentences come eventually. Learning the alphabet is the easy part, though. Everything after that sounds about as daunting as I've always perceived it to be. Hopefully not.

Knight's Game of the Year: Twenty-Ten Edition

It was a pretty good year for gaming, especially for fans of RPGs and FPSs. We saw the release of Bungie's "final" entry in the Halo franchise, Halo: Reach, the redemption of Obsidian Entertainment with Fallout: New Vegas, and Rockstar make a valiant effort in making American westerns cool again with Red Dead Redemption.

And let's not forget BioWare's major release for the year: Mass Effect 2. Can't forget that.

I had a lot of fun this year, though 90% of all the games I bought were released in Autumn. Needless to say, my holidays were busy - not to mention rewarding. Some truly masterful games were released in 2010, a year I thought was surely going to end up being a little dry for the most part. So, I figured I'd go over the best of them, the worst of them, and lead up to the game that, in my opinion, was the Best of 2010.

Hence the title of the blog.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

What's this game doing here! I can hear you asking yourself that from here, but don't worry, I'm not going to sit here and tell you Black Ops made this list because of its enthralling story, its amazing level design, or Sam Worthington's flawless American accent...because that would be a great way for me to lose the few strands of credibility I still cling to.

No, this game is a runner up because I had a great deal of fun with it. Call of Duty has become an annual event all its own, and because Activision is so afraid of dropping the ball, they throw a metric shit-ton of cash at whoever happens to be developing the next game; in this case, it happened to be Treyarch. The result is a game with an action-packed campaign and a very, very addicting multiplayer mode. It's no Bad Company 2, and just a short step below its predecessor, Modern Warfare 2, but it's definitely fun while it lasts.

MASON!!! I SAID IT'S FUN WHILE IT LASTS!!! ALL CAPS, MASON!!!

Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition

I know DA:O technically wasn't released this year, but this new edition certainly was. Buying it was a good excuse to replace my original broken copy and to play all of the DLC that was released for the game over the course of the year. On the whole, I mean, most of the add-ons were, ah...negligible? They really didn't serve any sort of purpose other than to earn BioWare some easy money. (How else to you explain a repackaged zone with no voice acting and no story as DLC?)

But the few add-ons that really did work for me did A LOT to make the whole DA:O experience much more enjoyable and, dare I say: complete. It was great returning to Ostagar, helping out the Dryden family, and giving my Warden a heartwarming ending on top of the one he already got. If you've never played the game, this version is the one to own.

I'm not buying Dragon Age II to watch how Hawke's story turns out; I want to see what happened to my Warden, plain and simple.

Fallout: New Vegas

I waited a very long time for this game, and it did not disappoint when it finally arrived. Obsidian have always been a company of talented individuals who find some little way, here and there, to improve upon the classic RPG model. Whether it was your influence over your party members in KotOR II: The Sith Lords, or the dynamic story line and the "intent" wheel in Alpha Protocol, Obsidian always finds some way to deliver...and then proceeds to shoot themselves in the foot almost immediately after.

Obsidian would be right up there with BioWare in terms of writing and immersion, if they didn't ALWAYS fuck up the quality assurance process. New Vegas was, in my opinion, Obisidan finally doing everything right. They were given all the exact same tools that Bethesda had used during the creation of Fallout 3, and still managed to turn out a game that throughly trounced its predecessor. The writing was superb, the lore was deep and well-defined, the world was beautifully depressing (depressingly beautiful?), and the amount of control that you had over the story was...well, that's Obsidian.

Don't wait too long to make another RPG, my friends. We need you on the frontline.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

This game really took me by surprise. When UbiSoft announced they were releasing another installment in the AC series so soon after the stellar, involving, and masterful Assassin's Creed II, I was sure, you know, that was that. UbiSoft had decided to make the series their Call of Duty, to rush out a sequel once a year, which would arguably lead to a decline in quality.

Oh, and they're adding a multiplayer mode to it, you say? Well, shoot, there goes the series. At least it ended on a high note...

But imagine the shock I got when I actually played the game and found it to be BETTER than Assassin's Creed II, and by a very wide margin. The improvements were small, but they made all the difference. The storyline was just as long as its predecessor, but much more dramatic and immersive. Fixing up Roma and training up assassins made the whole journey much more personal, and the sidequests were many and most were unique enough as to not feel so repetitive.

And the much dreaded multiplayer actually turned out to be original as hell. It was fun, addicting, and frustrating beyond all belief. Whoever thought it up and refined it to this level should be given a medal. Definitely one of the best multiplayer experiences in a very long time.

However, I do hope that UbiSoft tries not to leave off on such a confusing cliffhanger for the next game. Does wonders for dramatics, but it definitely sours the overall feel of the story. Endings are important, UbiSoft. A bad one can leave a lasting impression that might actually bring down what was a flawless experience. Just ask Fable III.

Mass Effect 2

ME2 a runner up?! Blasphemy, says I!

For that, I'm sorry, but lemme defend myself here. The Mass Effect series is shaping up to be one for the text books. It has a well-defined universe, unique races, fantastic characters, and a story only gets better as it progresses. If people want to argue that it is BioWare's magnum opus, I won't be waiting outside your house the next day to throw bricks through your window.

But see, I buy BioWare games because they make RPGs, not because they make Gears of War. Mass Effect 2, to me, represented a big step back in what RPGs rightfully should be. Your decisions have little impact on the story, most of the tried and true elements of the genre were stripped away in favor of a streamlined experience, and, frankly, most of ME2 revolved around gathering your team - like a space-bound version of Ocean's Eleven.

Ugh, I should be talking about the good things. There were many. This game was beautiful, I loved the characters, and going to new planets for the first time was very exciting. I loved this game, I love this series, and I'll be in line to buy the final chapter at midnight at the end of this year. Definitely.

Game of the Year: Red Dead Redemption

Gah! What can I say about this game that hasn't already been said! I've sunk dozens of hours into Red Dead Redemption, and I've not regretted one second of it. The story, though flawed in a few respects, is absolutely amazing, not to mention emotional. The ending encouraged one of the few moments in my long history of gaming where I simply could not react. My jaw dropped, I stared blankly at the screen for a long time, and then slowly regained my grip on reality long enough to save my file.

But even setting the amazing story aside for a moment, there are just so many things to do in this game. You can do a whole lot of nothing and still feel like you're being productive; the world is just so vast, so beautifully crafted, and it seems to take on a life of its own no matter where you look. You can stand on a hill, look out into the distance, and watch as a storm comes rolling in, darkens the land, makes the trails go soggy. Sometimes I boot up the game just to do some sightseeing, that's how remarkable New Austin and the piece of Mexico it borders really are.

And let's not forget Undead Nightmare.

RDR is an intense and unforgettable experience. I can't wait for Rockstar's next release, LA Noire, nor can I wait for the other big releases this year:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Mass Effect 3

Poke'mon: Black and White

Dragon Age II

Modern Warfare 3

Gears of War 3

The untitled Assassin's Creed release.

This is going to be a great (and possibly better) year for gaming! I know it! MASON!!! THIS IS GONNA BE A GREAT YEAR FOR GAMING!!! MASON!!!

Buch's All-New Saturday Morning Cartoon Line-up

Lately I've been kind of depressed and concerned that I'm stuck in an awkward 'man-child' phase that should have ended a few years ago. I keep finding myself collecting nostalgic videogames, making silly jokes and losing the silent, aloof smart-guy quality I used to have when I was actually a child. It's strange: as a kid I acted like a lonely guy in his late twenties. Now -
I have it all backwards. I'm clinging to childhood joys...

And I'm starting to think the reason is just that somebody has to! Kids today don't have a fun, colourful childhood. I see them dressed like adults, more smartly than adults sometimes, cursing without finding it funny - just cursing. Just talking like everyone. Renting 15-rated comedies at my shop, because there's nothing else for them now.

Where my generation had Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, today's youths have Twilight, whatever animes they can understand and Epic Movie. Where we had Spiderman, Spiderman, Radioactive Spiderman, they have Tobey McGuire crying because the stress of his three jobs made him punch his girlfriend. I see these kids looking through the DVDs, trying to find which films rest halfway between what their parents are watching and what they actually want to watch. And they get something like Watchmen. It's the closest they can get.

The famous Saturday Morning Watchmen video is hilarious, but what's kinda sad is that it seems so funny nowadays. If 'Watchmen' had been mainstream in the early 90's, they would have made that show for real. And though it would have driven Alan Moore to homicide, it would have been really good. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a ridiculous parody of the dark, gritty comic it was based on, too, you know? And we loved it. There was even a Rambo cartoon. That was a movie about a traumatised war veteran killing cops. We had cartoons based on absolutely every succesful movie, toy line or videogame character. Absolutely every one. Whatever happenned to that?

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So because of a) this chip on my shoulder about the kids having nothing to watch, b) my sad reflections on my own immaturity, and c) three glasses of wine, I present the new summer line-up. Here's a list of recent (or recent-ish) movies that are just crying out to be turned into cheerful, enjoyable half-hour cartoons. On the television. For kids.

Dear TV producers: if you'd like to use these ideas, I will accept payment in the form of strawberry-flavour Nesquick milkshake mix.

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THE PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN

The pitch: In an age of swords and shenanigens, charming, rogueish, Bohemian pirate Captain Jack Sparrow commands the motley crew of The Black Pearl, seeking treasure, adventure... and rum! Every week it's a new mishap, a new mis-step and a new foe: Blackbeard, mermaids, voodoo zombies, the evil squid-man Davey Jones himself... or just the usual trouble from his old friends Barbossa and the East India Trading Company. Whatever he's fleeing, Captain Jack is always just sober enough to save the day, and fight crime!

Honestly, though: Well why not? I would have loved a 'Pirates' series on CITV.

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JAMES CAMERON'S 'AVATAR'

The pitch: Heroic marine Jake Sully now lives happily with the peaceful and mystical Na'vi aliens on the jungle planet Pandora. Whenever the human miliatary, lead by the cruel Commander Nevarius and his mechs, return to the planet trying to destroy the environment and steal their precious Unobtanium - it's up to Jake, his true love Neytiri and their tribe's best warriors (Ka'lor the strong, the wily and cunning Jee-las and the hilariously overweight Colbo) to save the planet, fight crime and put things right!

Seriously: Seriously! I don't know that it would have to be in CG, but just picture it! That movie was made for half-hour adventures. Cameron apparently is making two sequels, but why? The story (such as it was) is told already. If you're going to add to it needlessly to make a few bucks, do it like this.

The theme tune: Av-at-aaaaaaar! He's my av-atar... comes from afaaaaarrr... beyond the staaaaaars!

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NEO AND THE HEROES OF THE MATRIX

The pitch: Stuck in the middle of the never-ending war between humans and machines, chosen-one Neo and his band of cool, leather-wearing pals must bend the laws of physics to save the people of Zion from killer robots. Neo and his team spend half their time flying for their lives in the crumbled remains of Earth, and the other half thwarting the machines more subtlely in the virtual world of the Matrix, by foiling the Agents' sinister schemes and fighting crime.

Seriously: It would be like Swat Kats, this one. or like the old Batman cartoon. It would be the cool one, with stylish, angular drawings and lots of black.

Also: Here's another movie that was spoiled by two pointless sequels. It could so easily have been a fun, non-canonical kids' series.

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TOY STORIES

The pitch: Whenever young Andy's back is turned, his collection of toys come alive! Restless, lovable and wacky, every time they show their true colours, Woody, Buzz and the gang always seem to wind up getting into trouble, and sometimes even find the time to fight some crime. However, they get back home within 30 minutes, and at no point do they wordlessly embrace the inevitability of their own deaths, holding hands while rolling toward a furnace, treasuring the flicker of humanity they were allowed to experience. Adults find the show predictable, but the kids have fun and are less likely to self-harm in later life.

Seriously: I loved Toy Story 3 so much, but they were silently holding hands as they waited to die. In a furnace. Also I would like to see a series based on Up! in which no-one ever dies tragically within the first ten minutes. The Toy Story series would be like Rugrats. Rugrats was fantastic.

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HOT TUB TIME MACHINE: The Animated Series

The pitch: Adam, Lou, Nick and Jacob are four lovable losers who have lost sight of the present... and the past! Unable to solve life's problems with a little hard-work and common sense, they invariably choose to travel through time in their magical, time-travelling hot tub! But of course, things just never go according to plan. One minute they could be travelling back to the day before Adam's anniversary to pick up some flowers, and the next - oops! - suddenly they're giving those flowers to Jesse James, or ineptly fighting crime in the prohibition era! How will they cope with that one? What temporal trouble will they get into next?!

I know: This would be exactly like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures, I realise that. Give me time.

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THE SOCIAL NETWORK

The pitch: Heroic, brilliant (yet quiet and mysterious) billionaire Internet magnate Mark Zuckerberg needlessly-tweaks his beloved 'Facebook' by day... and fights crime by night! Whenever The Troll and his evil Cyber Pirates plan to steal personal information or flood the Information Superhighway with illeagally copied mucic, The Social Network will be ready! Utilising all his contacts from all the corners of the Web, Mark has assembled the ultimate force of technological justice! Marshalling representatives from Google, MySpace, various porn-rings and that Chocolate Rain guy, the mastermind and true force for good is always alert, proving that no criminal scheme can stand up to the properly-organised power... of friendship.

Seriously: Did you ever see M.A.S.K.? I would watch this.

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I'm kind of losing track of what I was trying to do here...

But I have more: just imagine The Expendables, Alien Versus Predator, Inception: The Series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Mass Effect or Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Those would be pretty cool, neh? How about Machete, Let Me In! or The Hurt Locker? Maybe even Saw? Fifteen or twenty years ago, I guaruntee all of those shows would have been made, there would have been less rubbish sequels in the cinemas, and kids would have had something to watch.

Maybe I'm just a twenty-something fool refusing to let go of the childhood joys he was too scared to embrace at the proper time. But I honestly believe that no story has ever been told which can't be improved by some bright colours, a good moral at the end...

...and a cool guitar theme. No story at all.

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I Think I'm Learning Japanese

Last August, a couple of my friends and I decided (perhaps in vain) that in exactly one year, we should save enough money to take a two week trip to Japan. Sounded like a great idea; none of us have been out of the country and the three of us have been consistently fascinated by Japanese culture since we were in grade school. We wanted to be able to draw a line between this image of Japan that is perpetuated by the American otaku and, you know, what it really is. Something beyond Naruto and Pocky.

At first, I didn't take it too seriously. My friends are great, but they are not, ah...punctual? Not to say I'm any better, but three broken wheels don't get the gravy train a rollin'. But this year, I've been all about bettering myself intellectually. I'm gonna try and read a lot more, learn a lot more, worry a lot less, and learn to love the bomb.

I've already done a lot of reading this month. It's a lot for me, in any case. I've been cracking open old textbooks and digging out classic SF/F literature to burn through. My goals this year are to read twenty books, go to a foreign country, and learn a foreign language. Japanese is shaping up to be that language, though I'm beginning to think I might have jumped the gun. I haven't learned a ton, but I wanted to talk about what I did.

I'm pretty good with Spanish. I'm no conversational speaker by any means, but I can understand it pretty well. Learning it, it was really only a matter of word replacement, conjugation, and sentence structure. Looking back, it wasn't too difficult to get a basic grasp on it all. It also helped that if you could speak it, you could write it, and vice versa. The biggest thing I've learned whilst trying to tackle Japanese and knowing absolutely nothing to begin with is that it's really, really, really not like learning Spanish.

If none of this is news to you, bear with me. I know I'm late to this centuries old game.

With Japanese, there's a process to it. Learning how to speak it does NOT mean you can write it, but learning how to write it might do the trick. The problem is that there is a lot to learn, because there are three different "alphabets" that you'll have to learn if you want to have an understanding of Nihongo.

Hiragana: This is pretty much the phonetic alphabet of the Japanese language. They are the building blocks of words and phrases - and most children in Japan learn a lot of it by the time they're out of the first grade. Learning Hiragana is essential, and it then segues into...

Katakana: Which is used to translate foreign words into Japanese. It's how Japan is able to write out words like "taxi" and "toilet"; they have their own words for those. My little book here states that 80% of the words used in Japanese advertising are those produced through Katakana (gairaigo). If Hiragana is the base, then Katakana is the structure built upon it. For Westerners, at least.

Kanji: I don't know a lot about this yet (haven't gotten the book) but it's supposedly the last part of this language that you should learn. Instead of writing things phonetically, Kanji supplies symbols that represent entire concepts, like "sea" or "bird" or "cat". It sounds difficult, in that you pretty much have to learn a new symbol for every concept, which has to set off some kinda weight limit in your mind at some point.

I've learned a few speaking phrases in Japanese (the basics) but can only write them out in Romaji, which is how you spell Japanese words in English. But I've been slowly making my way through my Hiragana book, and I've learned to write out my first word:

Comb.

Yeah, suck on that, America.

Sorry. Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun. It feels like this new world is steadily opening up to me, word by word. I may have only taken the first step, but I'm keen on taking a few more.

Book Review: The Acts of Caine: Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover

Gritty fantasy. It's not something I have a lot of experience with, but its existence makes several different kinds of sense. Most of the fantasy that I've read in my life follows a group of adventurers that play by the rules, be it their own or those set up by society. They have codes of honor, a strict sense of morality, an oath they must bear for the rest of their lives. The villains are usually just the same, save for the fact that they kill people for selfish gain. So, it's odd to finish a book and not quite know who the villain was, who the hero was, and who really came out on top as the victor.

It was an interesting ride, one that I should've taken a long time ago.

Heroes Die is set on dystopian Earth and Overworld, depending on how you look at it. Earth has been overtaken by a rather harsh caste system, and the main form of entertainment is the exploitation of a parallel dimension (Overworld) where elves, dwarves, dragons, fairies, and magics are very real. Earth trains up people called Actors, who are then transfered to Overworld to seek out bloody fame and fortune through Adventures, which can then be resold as "movies" of sorts. Caine is the best and most popular Actor of that generation, and he wants out of the game. But just when he thinks he's out...

His estranged wife, an Actor herself, is disappears in Overworld and the Studio has no way to bring her back to Earth. What's worse, due to the way she was transfered to Overworld, if she isn't found within the next week, she'll fall out of sync with that dimension, and will subsequently be torn through various parallel dimensions where humans have no right to exist. It's a death sentence of the worst sort. So, Caine goes back in, with the caveat that he must kill Ma'elKoth, the self-appointed Emperor of the human Empire in Overworld.

There's a lot going on in this book.

It has betrayal, gang wars, regicide, torture, incest, human sacrifice, decapitations, disembowelment, rape, mindrape, soulrape, prostitution, necrophilia... and I'm still gonna sit down here and recommend this book to you. Let me tell you why.

Most fantasy stories that you will read will play things very safe. For all intents and purposes, fantasy is a genre that always tries to be dignified. It tries to portray life as something cleaner, funner, happier. It often portrays a place you'd want to escape to. Fantasy has become Utopian fiction, in a way, and it's caused the entire genre to ruthlessly cannibalize itself. Stover pulls a one-eighty on all of that, and just kinda lets you sort it out for yourself.

On the one hand, you have an adventure that I can only compare to those of Conan. It's full of that bloody, primal fury that will have fans of good action almost clapping as they read. It's also written (for the most part) with a voice of eloquence and obvious intelligence (again, much like Conan), which allows for a really immersive trip into Overworld. But beneath all of that, there is quite a bit of social commentary: in that this is a violent book about violence. Caine's actions, good or ill, are all as a direct result of the dreaded "supply and demand" system. He's there because people demand it, and in return, he supplies the blood.

The main conflict Caine faces with this (besides overthrowing the Empire) is to show that the Studio and its executives and their consumers do not own him. He's a worker, he does a job, but he's not a slave.

If Karl Marx could write fantasy, I suspect it would turn out like Heroes Die.

The moral dilemmas are not in short supply here, and the repercussions don't die with Caine's enemies. All of Caine's actions come around to bite him in the ass at some point. This is a book that will make you think if you'd like to, but it's also a book that you can enjoy for the action, the over-the-top scenes of violence, and it'll make you wonder whether or not you should have enjoyed it as much as you did.

He's doing this for you, after all.

Heroes Die lacks the subtle touch of Stover's later works, but that was probably on purpose. Stover can be poetic when he wants to, life-changing if he's bored, and can show you a universe you didn't know existed if you open yourself to what he's really saying. There's a of that here, but it's buried deeper than I would've liked it to be. Overworld itself is the real accomplishment here, as well as the introduction of Caine, a character I am eager to pursue through his next few books.

Read this book if you want to see what fantasy's like when life gets in the way.