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.

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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.

Argo

...that America had next to nothing to do with.

(Written November 2012)

The long rich tradition of great American political thrillers just got a little bit longer. If James Bond’s escapist vitriol makes your ears bleed, than good news! You can drag your date to Argo instead, and I promise you will both walk away both enlightened and entertained.

It all starts with a no nonsense history lesson about America’s … (less than courteous) foreign policies towards Iran. When you see Iran’s American embassy overrun, it never feels like enemy action, it’s just desserts.

The main focus of the story is on six refugees who managed to escape the hostage crisis and hide in the Canadian ambassador’s home for three entire months. The CIA is chasing its tail on how to get them out, Affleck’s Tony Mendez looks on in disgust as they settle on a 300 mile bike ride in the middle of winter. He has a better idea. Fake a location scout for a Canadian movie and fly them out undercover.

It’s a story that only works because it actually happened. As fiction it would have collapsed, but instead we have a brilliant examination of two cultures simultaneously where neither side is outright good or evil. Iran hangs traitors from cranes in public squares, and America would rather have its citizens die tragically than embarrassingly while “playing Hollywood.”

But the crowning achievement of the film is its deft balance of humor, suspense, and abject horror. They shouldn’t fit, it should be a jarring tone deaf disaster, but I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if it won best picture.

The performances across the board are phenomenal, only John Goodman could steer a story this grim back to a light comedy and he does it not by bombast, but with a kind of light atmospheric charm that gives the whole film a kinda tonal bear hug. And isn’t a bear hug from John Goodman worth $8.50? Come on. Cranston also does a decent job as a CIA handler and the hostages all seem to coalesce into one character… in a good way, but blink and you’ll miss the man in black from “Lost.”

Ben Affleck, who also directs, seems to fade into the background, just like a G-man should. He’s there to manage the characters in the film, but he simultaneously manages the audience. When he talks the refugees down from their interpersonal panic attacks, he calms us down too. Seriously, even if you know what happens, you’ll still be digging your fingernails into the arm rest

This movie came out at the perfect time; I don’t have to tell you our relations with Iran are near open conflict. But too many Americans don’t have the patience to ask why exactly things are that way. Just because they say our greatest fault is siding with Israel doesn’t mean that’s what they’re really mad at us about.

This is a great story that happens to shed light on an issue that’s much greyer than the public understands. Even though I knew America had basically helped themselves to Iran’s oil reserves for 30 years while they starved under a puppet dictator, I never really understood. I never saw the anger or the desperation many of its citizens rightfully fume over to this day.

See Argo. I promise you’ll see a bigger picture than the one in front of you.

A Love Letter To A Wasteland

 (Written March 2011)

New Vegas is a game I love almost unconditionally, I played it a year ago and liked it enough but was never “wowed” with it. And then for some reason, every two months since I’ve played it again. I couldn't explain it for the longest time.

I kept coming back, when the game had something to sell (dlc, weapon packs, what have you) I bought it all without a second thought. So when I heard that Bethesda was releasing a version of the game complete with all it's content I knew I had a chance to sell the game to those previously unsold on the post apocalyptic western. Because at this point I knew it wasn't the greatest game in 2010 or even 2008, but that didn't change the fact it was my favorite. The best damn thing I ever played by a mile, last year or otherwise.

The game's first moments find you hogtied in a cemetery as some jerk in a plaid suit (who sounds curiously like Mathew Perry) waxes poetic about your role in delivering a single poker chip to New Vegas before pulling out a 9.mm and shooting you square in the face. It's breath of fresh air to play an RPG that doesn't revolve around your character being a “chosen one” or a Messiah figure. In New Vegas you're just a courier with a bullet in your brain.

The background is thus: Las Vegas survived the “Last” war and has been running off the Hover Dam ever since. Naturally, outside powers are drawn to the last source of electricity in the United States, albeit for very different reasons. The New California Republic wants to reinstate an American representative democracy. While Caesar’s Legion; a massive collective of raiders decked out in dog pelts and football gear, vies to raze the whole facility to to the ground. All this goes on as a secret military power brews inside New Vegas itself, and yet somehow the guy who tried to kill you has the key to the whole dam conflict.

 
This isn't a game about saving the world, it's about picking how it gets screwed, by who, and how much. New Vegas is all about taking sides, under the NCR good people get taxed into poverty. Under the legion, good people get crucified. Yet both make valid points about what leadership the world would need under post apocalyptic circumstances. But seriously, the legion are the villains here, no questions asked.

The flexible nature of it's narrative is the game's greatest strength. I've never seen anything like it. You can join the legion, the NCR, or just blow them both off the map and still hear a story worth telling. Not only that, but every single fully voiced character (there are over one thousand) seems affected by the conflict and communities will have an opinion of you depending on where your allegiance falls.

All the major settlements have opinions you can improve or diminish depending on what you do for or to them. Kill a citizen in cold blood, you'll be vilified and run out of town, gear them up for a successful showdown with a gang of escaped convicts and you'll become a folk hero. No matter how you play the game, you make an impact on the people that live in it. You come to care about the denizens of New Vegas precisely because they care about you.

There's no escaping the fact that the game is a technical re-hash of 2008's “Fallout 3”. But calling it the same game is missing the point. Its a much longer and tighter game than before. It learned from all of Fallout 3's mistakes, like the overabundance of resources and the crushingly low level cap. As well as adding a few clever new features like ammo-loading work benches and campfire cooking recipes just for the hell of it.

But where Fallout 3 was more interested in keeping you moving, do-one-thing-here-then-go- there, New Vegas lets you stick around your favorite towns and outposts longer by simply giving you more to do instead of more places to go. Freeside (the new vegas slums) alone has so much to do that it made me forget all about the strip the first time. I thought I was already there.That's what happens when game writers and designers work in perfect tandem to give you something you didn't know you wanted.

But perhaps the most thoughtful aspect of the whole experience are the companions. Each a three dimensional character that dramatically changes they way you play the game. Sure, you could just use them as well written pack mules, but they each have a story to tell and a quest to finish. You can find them all and change each of their lives forever. Or you can ignore them completely and not feel like you're missing out on the heart of the game... but you would be.

The developers threw an absurd amount of time and effort at these characters. Featuring a talented voice cast including Danny Trejo , Zachery Levi, and Felicia Day. As well as five others, each the most interesting characters literally in cast of one thousand.

But all I’ve prattled on about here was for sale for $60 two Octobers ago, what is this alleged “ultimate” edition selling now for 40 you ask? In short, a butt load. Each of the four (wonderful) dlc expansions as well as all five equipment packs. That's fifty bucks separately.

Hold on though, I’m not done pitching. New Vegas had each of their DLC episodes planned out from the get go. They weren’t cooked up post-mortem for some extra cash. They were all separately foreshadowed in places and by people in the Mojave wasteland and all based around, I feel like I’m running in circles here, spectacular characters.

Dead Money's Father Elijah is one of the best villains I’ve seen in years, a tragic figure with the technical aptitude to pull the world back into civilized society. Albeit a society bent to his homicidal whims.

Honest Hearts centers around “The Burned Man,” the only human being Caesar fears, and his “missionary work” in Zion national park.

Old World Blues answers the question of what science would become if the brightest minds on earth could live forever.

Lonesome Road features the final confrontation with Ulysses, a central presence in every dlc episode and he doesn’t go down without a fight. . . or a bang.

They are each meaty enough by themselves but together they represent a good twenty hours of content even if you rush through them. But listen, don't try any of them under level fifteen and please play them in order. I'm just looking out for your story continuity experience. Old World Blues kind of ruins Dead Money.

I am perfectly aware this all reads like a gushing love letter to New Vegas, because that's exactly what it is. I'm sick of hearing about it's pockmarked history of bugs and technical gubbins, Which are all gone, and now I hope more people can take an objective look at the Mojave Wasteland and see a glimmer of what I see. Which is the best game I’ve ever played.