ONCE MORE INTO THE FRINGE: a beginner's guide to a great, but convoluted, show.

Fringe is finally available for binge viewing on Netflix and it is arguably the best project Abrams has yet produced. When Lost was screwing up it's story and when the X Files was letting its lead characters calcify into marionettes, the writers of Fringe were behind them furiously taking notes.

This is a one of a kind project, in that we will probably never see a show this weird and wonderful with this kind of a budget ever again. Fringe, ladies and gentleman, is a science fiction unicorn and I’d like to help you get on the saddle. So here are, what I believe, to be the best points of entry to a  show whose first act was its weakest. Bear with it and it will fill that mad science sized hole in your heart in no time.

Season 1 Ep,7: In Which We Meet Mr. Jones

Perhaps you've see Jared Harris around these days, doing his thing all over Mad Men and Sherlock Holmes. This is the reason. His villain arch on Fringe's first season is a high water mark for the show and sci fi in general. While this may not the best episode featuring the good doctor, more on that later, its case of the week gives you a great idea of how accomplished the effects team handle body horror. Here the show gets screaming close to hitting its stride.

Season 1 Ep, 9: The Dreamscape

Oh, look at the pretty buterfliAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHH!!!

If you can walk away from this show after the cold open I'll really be impressed. I thought I’d never see something different in a dream sequence, but the writers and cinematographers found a way to make a warmly lit tavern scene oppressively eerie. If you don’t mind having the pilot's major cliffhanger resolved for you this is a tight little psychological horror gem.

Season 1 Ep 10: Safe

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

Here it is, the one where everything clicked into place. The one when all the cylinders fired for the first time. I don't want to give away too much but this was when the show decided it wasn't going to go the law and order route and dove feet first into it's already deep lore. But you can still catch on if you pay attention. But you'll want to poke through “The Equation” and the “The Ghost Network” to see how the heist all came together. Or at least I hope you'll want to.

Season 2 Ep, 9 Snakehead

Hands down, Snakehead is Fringe's best “creature feature.” Also now that I think about it, it may also be the best standalone chapter as well. Not only does it have a spectacular monster, but the writers drum up a sensible reason for it to exist in the first place. But that’s not why this is a great episode. Sandwiched in between the parable of socioeconomic disparity is Walter's efforts to deal with his doddering mind and old age in general. His sobbing breakdown next to a stranger at a bus stop is simply Emmy award worthy acting, and its a shame John noble never got one.

Don't you just want to hug him?

Season 2 Ep 17, White Tulip

This is it, my last ditch effort. Don't watch this one out of order unless you absolutely MUST see the best Fringe has to offer. And this is one of the best. Unfortunately it directly deals with the fallout of the second season's biggest plot twist and with a show like this, surprise is often it's sharpest tool. But if that really doesn’t bother you, then treat yourself to one of the best time travel stories out there. Or at the very least... one of the very best time machines.

Off My Chest: Will the circle (of navel gazing hindsight) be unbroken?

I'm not going to call Bioshock Infinite perfect. I may even walk back the masterpiece label a few months from now, I may even refuse to give it my personal goty. But the backlash its been getting recently is becoming absurd.

The game had done the impossible. It built up expectations to ridiculous levels, and in the eyes of the first wave of critics, it meet them with aplomb. Which is great because I almost never get to use “aplomb.” Perhaps the reviews were too positive, perhaps it made people’s already soaring expectations even higher, or perhaps some chose to tear down something that didn't fit what they believed would help the medium. Can you guess which one I think it is?

Cliff Blezinski of Raleigh's Epic Games(Gears of War developer) and Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku.com have written articles on why they think Infinite's violence exists to largely diminish it's artistic impact. Hamilton writes “BioShock Infinite is in many ways so, so close to being That Game, the one we can show to our non-gamer friends and say "See? Look at this! It is so awesome! Check out the story! It's like LOST! How neat is this?" Blezinski, whose opinions are sound even though they scream double standard, blogged essentially the same sentiment.

yeah, it ain't subtle.

They make good points...the thing is... the thing that really bothers me...the thing that makes my right eyelid twitch is that both knew exactly what this game was going to be. The violence was on full display from a bare minimum of two years ago. Where were these opinions then? Why was it OK to let Irrational games get a pass only for these folks to rope off it's place in history for being what it never tried not to be? Its just too damn convenient.

The discussion of video game violence, in terms of market saturation, needs to happen. It's a problem. I'd personally love it if the industry took a year off and only produced non violent material. Think about how amazing that would be! Think about what new types of game play could be devised when avoiding the crutch of violent conflict became necessary. I have no problem with this debate, I have a problem with people projecting their personal hang ups on what is objectively a wonderful “product.” A product with a budget and coffers to fill.

Games of this caliber have always been, and always will be, profit first and art second. Violence is the easiest way to sell that product, and that’s the only way a game about 20^th century racism ever got a budget over $80 million dollars. The game trades off intellectualism with popular tastes and everyone knew that going in. So what the hell happened? A bunch of critics,in so many words, called it “art.”*

The actual game may not be as imaginative as this concept piece...but its scary how close it gets.

But could you call Infinite “art?” I'd certainly like too. Daniel Golding at ABC.net would try to choke me to death with his monocle chain, but I think time will be very kind to the game. I'm not even going to bother with Golding, he's...set in his ways, so I'm driving the conversation back to Kotaku. Hamilton wanted validation from his non-gaming peers. That's a great goal, and I hope he finds his bright shining example one day (portal 2). Yes, I agree there was too much shooting, and I would have loved for the last act of the game to have slowed down a bit and maybe eschewed violence all together. I wouldn't have seen that coming. But jumping from that point to practically dismissing its existence because its a shooter is sanctimonious and just plain mean.

These people didn't have to play it, and they don't have to like it. But they can't fault the developers who poured the last five years of their lives into a shooter only to have people like Hamilton hang the entire genre around their neck like an albatross. So please. Talk about video game violence. Talk about better ways for shooters to tell stories. Stop dragging Infinite into it, it knew it was never anything but popular entertainment and it tried some new things. It can't be everything to everyone and it shouldn't have to explain itself that way.

Lets all just take a step back, look at the game's strengths and weaknesses, and talk it out over some cotton candy.

Serenity from Spun Sugar.

 

*He doesn’t use the word, but he really really wants to.

Bioshock Infinite Review: Through the Booking Glass and what Elizabeth Found There

Once in a blue moon, a piece of popular art makes an impact some will claim it doesn’t deserve. Irrational games has done something here a lot of people won't understand. They have once again turned a first person shooter into a barbed critique on human idealism. And once again I find myself not just completely enthralled by the floating city of Colombia, but genuinely moved by it's literal downfall.

The year seems to be 1912. You are cast in the role of Booker Dewitt, a former Pinkerton and wounded knee veteran, as he is sent to a city in the sky to extract a 19 year old girl being held against her will. At least this is the plan initially. Eventually the fringe elements of the story take hold, bringing to the fore front the major, mostly forgotten, racial issues of post civil war America. Seeing a black man in a white suit offering my character a drink while bowing his head is one of, if not the most, disturbing thing I’ve seen in a game. So while its setting may be patently ridiculous, it's history is deadly serious.

For all it's lofty story telling goals, of which it mostly achieves quite handsomely, this is a shooter. By the time you finish the game you will have killed just over a thousand people. The criticism that someone can't remain a relate-able character after engaging in such atrocity in the minute by minute game play is fair. And sadly the game just hangs a lampshade on it. But that lampshade is the cursory reference to being a Pinkerton strike breaker. I certainly didn't hear about them in history class and in that regard it's also fair to say that our past, much like this game, has a lot more blood on it then we'd like to admit to ourselves.

But it works. The game is engaging and exhilarating once you find your favorite gear load outs and tactics. Say I'm pinned down by a bunch of flying squad goons so I throw out a cloud of ravens from my left hand. In their confusion I’ll charge into the fray by hopping on a suspended roller coaster-esque fright track with my skyhook. Then I jump off on top of the flamethrower in the middle, and because of the hat I’m wearing, they all burst into flames. I win.

This ridiculousness will become second nature as you learn the language of the battlefield. You'll stop wondering how a new pair of pants makes your guns reload faster and just go with it. Because even if you hate the combat, a fair share of critics did, the story beats waiting on the other side are more then worth the effort

Infinite in a nutshell is a science fiction fairy tale. You have a princess to rescue who's locked in a tower, guarded by a monster, in a fantasy world. But it takes those elements and through literary slight of hand creates characters you grow to care about as they are tossed around by the tragedy of American exeptionalism. The Sci fi aspects are better left unspoiled, but the character of Elizabeth is not.

Games have tired and failed for years to create a companion character as interesting and emotive as she is. Sure she tries to buy the players affection by “finding” money out of nowhere like a phantom slot machine from time to time, but her story arch is layered in ways most films or novels never even bother with. She seems to be just another eye candy goal post...at first. If you've ever wondered what would happen to a Disney princess if she was thrown into a violent populist uprising (as I have) infinite does not disappoint. Bit by bit she becomes the hero of the whole piece.

Infinite is a triumph. The hypnotic atmosphere coupled with a great script and lovable performances, makes lightning strike twice on this already charmed trilogy. This is a game for everyone, not that its appropriate for anyone under twelve, but that everyone should play it at least once. Especially if they are of the camp that believe video games are a mass opiate devoid of introspection. This is a story and a game that’s proud to be frighteningly weird whilst also portraying its history with stunning honesty. That is what makes it powerful and that is why they'll be talking,and arguing, about this game in history classes in the very near future.

If you finish it, I promise you will never forget it.

Please See Arthur Christmas: review

(written December 2012)

A year ago... last week or something, I saw “Arthur Christmas” and I loved the living tar out of it. I had always meant to do a review, and I can’t remember why I didn’t get around to it. Maybe I didn’t think it mattered, surely people would flock to it, surely it would find its little moment in the sun, SURELY it would at least get nominated for best animated feature.

A year’s gone by and barely anyone remembers it. I know I didn’t until a friend scrolled by it in red box and I stopped her, promising if she hated it I’d get her another out of my pocket. The next morning she found me in the Caf breathlessly explaining it had her from the first line and was incredibly disappointed she didn’t have time to finish the last act. I asked if I could return it myself and promptly tore through it all again. It wasn’t as good as I remembered it. It was better.

Arthur Christmas is, in a nut shell, about the lineage of Santa Clause and the sticky familial tension that arises from having to share “the greatest job in the world.” Malcolm Clause, the current Santa is little more than a figure head after his oldest son, Steve, has turned Christmas into a technologically drenched military operation. There’s nothing he wants more than to take over after his father’s 70^th mission, but Malcolm decides to keep going, devastating Steve and causing one present for one child to go undelivered.

Arthur, the youngest and the most naive, is mortified over the .00000000001% margin of error and sets out with his grandfather, to make sure that Gwen Hines of Trelew UK never has to live with knowledge of being the one child on earth “Santa doesn’t care about.”

The script never lets up, if it’s not being droll or acerbic it’s affecting and poignant. The cast uniformly brings the goods, Bill Nighy (Grandsanta) in particular gets the best lines by far, an opportunity he does not squander. His kneejerk inhumane treatment of elves...

“Elf! Gift Wrap your head!”

“There isn't enough room to breathe! I've got nine seconds left before I black out!”

“... you get one breath!”

...is in itself worth the price of the DVD. But you still have a thinly villainous Hugh Laurie, (Steve) a stupendously adorable James Macavoy, (Arthur) and a scene stealing Scottish giftwrapping ninja elf (Ashley Jenson). Forget what I just said, Jenson is worth the whole DVD. Man, I haven’t even brought up Henry Gregson-William’s  score yet ... that too is another beautiful part of what was already a very special project.

There has never been a Christmas film a FRACTION as funny, well plotted, or genuinely heartfelt as this. Yes, those are fighting words, and yes, I will fight for them. I mean sure, you have to be in the right mindset for it, and I wasn’t totally on board with it at first either. The “yes Virginia” opening was a little too twee for my taste at the time, but it was absolutely necessary and it never goes back to that well again until the last minute or so, but by then it had me by the emotional shorthairs and you’re welcome for that image.

What? OK I'm sorry!

The film works simultaneously as a loving tribute and bitter satire not of what Christmas has become (because seriously how tired is that?) but what it has always been. It’s about family, and most of the time families are hard to deal with, they screw up, and they shatter your expectations. The point is, or at least the point Arthur Christmas tries to make, is that people need to take a step back, think about everyone’s needs and decide what’s best for the whole.

Sometimes it’s compromise, sometimes it’s a pink twinkle bike. 

Please see Arthur Christmas.

Arkham City Review: The Hype is Real

 (Written October 2011)

When future generations look back on the last couple of years, they may disagree about politics, court rulings and economic policies, but there will be at least one indisputable fact that no man, woman, or child will contest. This was one incredible decade to be a fan of the bat. While I am in no way shape or form, a batman “fan” I know a great game when I play it.

Arkham City is the sequel to 2009’s Arkham asylum. A game famous for being based on a licensed property (movie, comic book, or what have you) and was actually fun. It was more than just fun. It was one of the best games of the year, and in the annuls of video game history (all thirty years of it) that was wholly unique.

Unique, but not great. That may sound like I was disappointed, not at all, there were a few chinks in the game’s armor, but they were few and far between. Asylum captured what made batman such an iconic character and let him exist believably in an interactive world. Plenty of time and effort went into his gadgets and free form martial arts fisticuffs, but just as much dedication went into how the writing set up all the best villains from his immortal rogue gallery for the game’s story in interesting ways. It was a fevered and deliberate labor of love, the kind that never gets the right funding to get off the ground...almost never.

Everything that Asylum got right was flawlessly carried over into Arkham city and then pushed just a little bit further. This was no small feat, because I couldn’t have pictured them making a sequel that had all the same exhilarating parts as the first, but felt like a completely new experience. The folks at Rocksteady studios are modern masters of the interactive arts and they know it.

They hit the ground running two years ago and knew exactly what game they needed to make.

1. It needed to be more open ended than Asylum’s isolated island prison: Check.

2. They needed Mark Hamill (AKA: the greatest living joker) back under contract: Check.

3. They needed a dynamite premise that didn’t rip off the original’s “lunatics take over the asylum “gag, but made it seem like the introduction to the main event. CHECK.

I don’t want to give too much of the beginning away, but here goes. Through a strange political agenda running through Gotham’s prison system, the slums become walled off and turned into a laissez faire detention camp; Giving Mr. Wayne a hell of a job shutting it down from the inside, and the player the ultimate batman playground.

This game will melt days off your life. Between a battle of wits with the prison’s warden, a race to save the Joker’s life, and hundreds upon hundreds of secret puzzles and challenges (there are literally over four hundred of them.) you’re gonna need to glue your eyes to your watch if you want to keep your GPA above water. Good luck with that.

This is not a game you rent. This is the kind of game you own, the kind you come back to years from now with a grin on your face. I don’t know if it’s the greatest action/puzzle/stealth game ever made, but I honestly couldn’t tell you how to make it any better than this.

Can't stop staring at this for some reason...

Awake: R.I.P

(written March 2012)

Awake is the kind of TV I wish I saw more of. It takes a popular form of storytelling (police procedural) and gives it a premise so bizarre, yet relatable, that it almost becomes its own genre.

Awake takes place in the aftermath of Det. Michael Britten’s fatal car accident. Afterwards he can’t seem to remember who died in it. It was either his wife or his son; one lives in reality the other in his dreams. So that begs the question . . . which is the dream?

The procedural elements of the show itself are also surprisingly novel. Each episode chronicles two cases with two different partners, though they seem to have random elements in common. In one reality a killer’s apartment number may be the same as the other killer’s parking spot. It rewards those who pay attention.

But while the show ticks off its checklist of prime time TV necessities it finds the breathing room to show a family drama that’s never really been done before, and if it has, I doubt Jason Isaacs (Draco Malfoy’s dad) was there to knock it out of the park. His content confusion coupled with over medicated depression is the highlight of an already exemplary piece of entertainment. He loves the idea he never has to let either part of his family go forever, but he also has to watch them both suffer without the other. It’s heartbreaking.

As it stands, it’s one of the best TV pilots I’ve ever seen. Its complicated premise is effortlessly explained ten minutes in and then segways gracefully into the story as if it’s a show that’s been on for years. If it gets tangled up in its own overarching mystery or becomes the very formula it’s trying so hard to rewrite remains to be seen. I hope neither happens, but that’s all really beside the point. This right here is some mighty fine TV that’s well worth your valuable time and attention.

.

I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle... BORDERLANDS 2 REVIEW

(Written September 2012)
This is my Hyperion brand auto correcting “lady finger” pistol. There are many like it, but this one is MINE. In the Borderlands you never know what’s over the next hill or at the bottom of the next crate. You will burn through hundreds upon hundreds of rifles, shotguns, revolvers, or sub machine guns and not a single one will be exactly alike. Not. One.

Thus is the siren song of the sequel to one of my personal favorite games in all of ever. Borderlands 2 retains the narcotic-esque draw of bigger and better loot whilst handsomely outshining every other aspect in which the first stumbled.

There’s a word I want to avoid using to describe this game, but I don’t want to sound... you know, overzealous. Let’s just say it rhymes with “laster-neice”... it's masterpiece.

Where the first game was pretty, this game is gorgeous. Where the first was kinda funny, the sequel is achingly so. Where the first practically forgot to tell a story, this chapter spins a damn decent yarn.

When Borderlands 2 boils over into an act break it brings the plot developing goods and it brings them hard. Of course if you never played the first, most of the pathos will fly right over your head so . . . tough cookies.

The respect paid to the intricacy of BL2’s continuity is unheard of in the gaming world. Where most sequels start stories from scratch or hire new and indifferent writers; Gearbox software found a few that saw the potential in the world and its loveable menagerie of characters then raised them up miles beyond my rose colored expectations.

Everybody’s back and I mean everybody. If you haven’t found your favorite character yet then you aren’t looking hard enough. Even better, the playable characters from the original, who I totally can’t name from memor- Lilith, Roland, Brick, Mordicai, Have speaking roles and are each fleshed out into the most interesting characters in the series thus far! But enough about the old guard, we need to get to know Jack.

Seriously. He is just the worst.

For my money? “Handsome” Jack is one the best villains gaming has to offer. From the first entitled/painfully delusional line of dialogue I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for him to taunt me, or threaten me, or regale me with another hilariously sociopathic anecdote. Jack is a full tilt delight. That is, until he isn’t. You can’t have a great story if your villain never comes off as either threatening or dangerous. So for the sake of surprise I won’t say much more on the subject, but from the second act break on, I wanted to rip his throat out with my fingernails. Slowly.

But wait, you ask, why are you droning on about the story? This a friggn’ video game! You’re right and it is, my apologies. There is much more to discuss. Great guns don’t mean jack-monkey-squat if there ain’t nothing decent to shoot at. BL2 does not have this issue. If anything the enemies are too varied and interesting. You never stay with the same kind long enough to learn the tactics to take them all down. This is what they call a “good” problem.

You’ll need all the kinds of guns you can get your hands on for all the armored loaders, acidic varkids and flaming midgets you’ll be in the crosshairs of every other minute. But guns alone aren’t the most important decision you’ll make about combat, first, you’ll need a character. Of which presently, there are four.

There’s the runaway elemental Maya who’ll deal all the fire, corrosive, electric, and explosive damage you could possibly want. And you’ll want a lot of it. Then there’s a special opps commando/bitter divorcé Axton with a detachable turret on his back. The local Pandora resident ‘roid monkey: Salvador; who makes up for his stunted growth with being able to dual wield any two guns at once. Last and least we have Zer0. A faceless assassin who speaks only in monosyllables and Haiku. . . also he has a giant blue katana and is invisible so, whatever. (He's my favorite.)

They each have three skill trees and each take a full playthrough of the game to max out. There are hundreds of ways to approach each character and one playthrough takes at least twenty hours. Suffice to say: I’ve been busy. I have only scratched the surface of my Zer0, and I plan to stick with him for a whole ‘nuther go around. That’s how much fun he is.

I can’t tell you what kind of experience you’re going to have in Borderlands 2. But I can tell you to bring friends. You’re gonna want them; because I suppose I forgot to mention the entire game was built around four player coop. The more folks playing, the better the loot, and the closer you get to your friends... unless they also want that shiny purple revolver... then you can set up a trade menu and duel them for it! Gearbox really thought of everything.

From top to bottom BL2 was everything I wanted it to be, from the laugh out loud script, to the surprisingly somber story. From the addicting loot and gunplay, to Jesper Kyd’s Twangy/ techno Sci-Fi western score. This game is, in a word, a laster-niece.

And I'd like to thank Scooter personally for coining the moniker: "Peppernip." It is delightful.