Rhapsody is a dinosaur.  The recently emancipated (disenfranchised?) and price-cut child of Real Networks, Rhapsody has been around for a long time.  Since they’ve started, dedicated Mp3 players have rapidly become less important, as smartphones – all-in-one convergence devices – have found their way into more hands.  The mobile revolution has also brought stiff competition in the music subscription space.  From bargain basement offerings like grooveshark with it’s $3.00 a month subscription, to upstarts like Rdio and Mog.  Let’s not forget about Spotify, the once and future king of subscription services that is almost/any day now/never coming to the U.S.   At the other end of the spectrum are the custom radio sites like Slacker and Pandora.  Finally, let’s not forget that Rhapsody is also competing with Zune on both the subscription and store sides, and Amazon and itunes. 

But this article is about why Rhapsody still beats them all.  So let’s get to it. 

First, let me qualify something.  I have tried, and subscribed to all of these services.  I have owned/still own a Zune and an ipod touch, tested the beta of Rdio, signed up for a month of Mog, used grooveshark extensively on the Palm Pre and evo, and even figured out a way to play with Spotify in the U.S. (thank you proxy servers).  So, lest anyone think I’m just a rabid Rhapsody fanboy…  I’ve tried really hard to replace Rhapsody, because what it gets wrong, it gets so mind-shatteringly wrong that my choice has frequently come down to “run away” or cry in the corner.  The failings are for another post though.  I’m going to talk about what Rhapsody does right. 

One word – convergence.  Rhapsody takes the best features of all of the streaming services and bakes it together in a delicious treat.  Start with an all-you-can eat subscription service at $9.99 a month (or a “family plan” letting you hook up 3 mobile devices for 14.99).  Add to that the ability to not only stream those songs, but also to download them for offline listening (currently available on the ipod touch/iphone, coming soon for Android, and available for any number of dedicated mp3 players).  The ability to download trumps some of the services right there, but not all.  In addition, Rhapsody stores your library in the cloud, so if you’re home at a pc, browse on the website – find albums you like – add them to your library, then on your mobile it will be there ready for you to play.  The library is intuitive and persistent throughout.  You can also make your playlists online or on your pc and they’ll also be available on your device.  In addition to your playlists, you can load up playlists designed by editors, artists sharing their “celebrity picks,” dynamic playlists based on your criteria, or based on your listening activity, or user playlists.  It’s pretty deep, and more than enough options to discover new music.  If the playlist browsing isn’t enough, Rhapsody also has a sophisticated “Radio” system, similar to Slacker.  The edited channels cover all of the major genres you’d expect, and you can listen to channels based on any available artist as well.  You can also create custom channels based on any number of artists (but it looks like this needs to be done from the desktop, to be used on desktop and mobile).

Each of Rhapsody’s major competitors brings something to the table, but only Rhapsody offers the entire feature set, with the flexibility to download your tracks and listen on your choice of device, whether it is the iphone, an Android device, or some cheap Sanza player that you found at Wal-Mart.  Now they just need to get offline listening finished on Android, make the desktop player less buggy, and improve the streaming sound quality on mobile. 

I thought I was done with the whole mess, I read about the Movie for the final book (Breaking Dawn) will be made into two movies. I really thought this could use a bit of a cliff note because the final of the 4 books has the most OMGWTFBBQJEFFGOLDBLUM moments out of all of them..

I found an article online about why Breaking Dawn needs to be made into a movie. I am pretty sure in order to keep this movie from being rated R these moments will be taken out of the movies:

The Human Girl (Bella) finally Coaxes The vampire (Edward) to take her virginity. This is after chapters of begging and pleading in the last book. He said he will only if they get married. I guess neither of them want her ending up like Jessica from True Blood.  So they get married and on their Honeymoon they consumate.. so much so he breaks some of her bones and knocks her unconscious. That apparently doesn’t stop them, and she gets pregnant (who would have possibly thought that someone who is undead can biologically reproduce).

It is an accelerated pregnancy filled with rib breaking, spines being snapped in half leaving Bella paralyzed (the baby is quite a kicker). Bella while still  human craves human blood and that is the only thing she can consume while pregnant. The baby is apparently not human, which freaks the Edward out which not only leads him to try to convince her to get an abortion, but he also tried to convince the Werewolf (Jacob) who is in love with her as well to knock her up instead. Obviously this doesn’t happen and why would it? There are still chapters and chapters left to go! Not to mention the baby is telepathic and convincing everyone to fall in love with her.

So the baby is ready to come out, and well it won’t without killing her (because apparently sparkly vampire skin is also super strong, and was developed inside the womb. so the only way for her to be born is (ready for this???) Edward gives Bella a C-Section.. with his teeth. I don’t get the logic behind that either.. then again it is just Stephanie Meyers world, and we just live in this shit.

So the baby is born, given one of the stupidest names since Pilot Inspektor.. Renesmee. Like this kid isn’t going to be picked on enough. She has a sparkly emo twink of a father and an idiot Mother. And while everyone is cooing over mutant baby Bella is dying. So Edward who is concerned about causing her any pain, puts her into a coma and makes her a vampire.. Problem is she is aware of everything going while she is under.

So Letsee.. Bone breaking knock out first time sex? Check. Spine Severing paralyzing cannibalistic pregnancy? Check.  Going through the vampire change while unable to move and function but is fully aware and can’t tell anyone? Check. What else could be missing??

Oh yeah.. The Werewolf, who has spent the last 2 and a half books brooding and looking to be alone upon seeing the baby falls in love with her. Not in the happy parental way.. fucking falls in love with her, and winds up imprinting (the werewolf love spell apparently) on her. Granted she apparently ages at an accelerated rate and he doesn’t age now.. but still. This makes Roman Pollansky look moral.

For a book geared towards teenagers this is all pretty fucked up, and yet they (as well as their Twilight Cradle robbing obsessed mothers) are eating it up. So really the first 3 books were leading to all of this..Yes parents, you are letting your kids read this junk.

And with that, I need to bleach my eyeballs now.

As the resident estrogen based life form in the group I somehow feel obligated to help those with the Y chromosome to understand this whole Twilight mess. Frankly I feel slightly dirty even bringing it up, but if it helps all of you guys out there with it, then I have done a public service.

Many years ago, the Harry Potter craze had began and I had some trepidation about reading the books. I did and I didn’t regret it. I am now a huge Harry potter fan. Seeing the same rabid fandom for these books (and comparison to the Harry Potter series) I thought I would give it a shot. Upon attempting to get into them I have learned 2 things about the series that I cannot say about any other book I have read: That the movies are way better than the books (which is saying a lot) and I was not able to get through any of the books in the series.

Let me attempt to sum up the series in the best way possible: girl moves to small north western town. Girl meets Pretty pale boy and is upset because he ignores her. Pretty Boy (and his perfectly quaffed hair and angelic good looks) turns out to be self loathing and emo who one minute avoids girl and then next minute is stalking her. Turns out after many chapters that boy and his family are vegetarian vampires and that the girl is so damn appealing that he has a hard time fighting his urge not to eat her. The Author emphasizes that point ad nauseum with such phrases such as “mouth watering” and “appetizing”. The analogy I have used to describe it to my friends who have never read it is that this dude is starving and the girl is the most appetizing cheeseburger on the face of the planet.

I also forget the Most annoying detail of this whole thing: in this universe the vampires sparkle in the sunlight. No horrible flamey death, no getting weak. They fucking sparkle. They are blood sucking disco balls.

So creepy emo sparkly vampire boy falls in love with mousy clumsy girl and they begin to have a romantic relationship pretty much free of any physical contact for fear he may eat her. Girl also befriends a Native American werewolf whose tribe has an ongoing feud with the vampire people. He falls in love with the girl and the tug of war begins. Throw in rivaling vampire families, a vendetta from a spurned female vamp and Mormon like chastity morality and family practices it all makes for a really predictable and poorly thought out story.

So what is the appeal? I think the fascination is more fascinating to me than the story itself. When I have asked my friends who are fans what it is with the whole thing, they go off about its romanticism. They talk about it brings up memories about what it was like being a teenager and crushing on the rebel without a cause type in school and not having them return the feelings. I guess it is a nostalgia thing that I don’t understand. Yeah sure we have all had crushes that were unrequited, but I have no connection with the female character of the series; she has portrayed as whiny, helpless and clumsy who pretty much goes against everything everyone tells her. You can equate her near deaths to the multiple deaths of Kenny from South Park in frequency. She also is portrayed as a girl who feels she has no identity unless she can be with sparkly vampire boy forever.

As I briefly mentioned before, the movies are way better than the books, which I can honestly say is the first time I have ever said that. Considering the movies are so so, that is not saying much. Sure it has some nice barely legal ab-tastic eye candy, but you can get that in a lot of movies. The author Stephanie Meyer has admitted to the fact that this is the first thing she has ever written; prior to this there was not even a short story. She also brags about the fact that she was never into horror or vampires growing up Mormon so she had no real preconceived notion. Both of these facts are blatant; the books are poorly written so much so that one must really wonder who the editor was and why they weren’t shot. With all of the teenage supernatural romance out there these books are really sub par. I can really chalk all of it up to good marketing. That being said if it gets people into books again I can’t loathe it too much… just don’t compare them to the works of J.K Rowling or even worse, Shakespeare (yes it has been done).

So what can we take from all this? That women feel so starved for romance that they lose themselves in a poorly adapted mythos? That we are suckers to a pretty face and excellent marketing? Perhaps. The only thing we can do is hanker down and wait for the storm to pass, as it surely will once all the movies have been out for a while and people move on to the next big thing. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. In the meantime Portal 2 will be out soon to help to dull the pain.

I know.. the mere thought of that phrase will send poor old Dragonwyntir into a rage spiral. But user-ability (no FLASH, anyone??) flaws aside, I love my iPhone. I am an artist and photographer, so the iPhone really appeals to my creative graphic side. Plus it is just too much damn fun.

When I was looking for a new phone, I carefully weighed my options looking at the pros and cons. The winning factor for me was the applications. When looking for cool apps for your phone, there is no contest to the iphone. So without further ado, here are some of my faves:

Photography: The photo apps were really what sold me in the beginning. I am a compulsive Photo taker, and You just cannot beat the options for iphone. Here are some of my favorite photography apps:

Hipstamatic:Ahhh the good old days of analog photography. This app allows you to give your images a old school feel from the days of early color photography. With various film and flash options the possibilities are endless.

Lo-Mob: It is along the lines of the Hipstamatic, but Instead retro film styles it is more of Large format film styles (like Helga camera) and Alternative film processes (like Polaroid transfers). No sure exactly what I am talking about? Check out the website for some great examples of what you can do.

Tilt Shift Generator: Tilt shift Photography is all the rage with the kids these days. It gives your photos a “toy model” feel by narrowing the depth of field and vignetting the areas. this application does the job of a lot of the more expensive SLR lenses for your teeny tiny camera phone. It’s a lot of fun to play with, and really allows you to gain perspective on landscape photography.

Photogene: A must have for any photo buff. This allows you to make corrections  to your photos, in camera.

Art Apps: These are some useful apps for artists/graphic designers/ all around creatives.

Random Pose: When creating characters or you need a model reference and no one is available to pose for you, Random pose is a great alternative. It allows you to flip through their library of CGI anatomy models (both male and female) in various poses. The use the skinless model method allowing you see the muscle tone and get your drawings more life like.

myPantone: Pantone is pretty much the first and last name in color picking. It is the industry standard and is used world wide for color matching, printing, and forecasting color trends. This app gives you access to their complete line of palates as well as a color picker. You can use your camera to help match the pantone color you are looking for. This is a must have for designers of all shapes and sizes, as well as lovers of color.  There is a free and a paid app option, so you can choose your level of color love.

Social Networking: Because most of my friends are virtual ones.

Whrrl: A social networking game much in the vein of foursquare. For those of you not familiar it is the new hip thing where you use your phones GPS to pinpoint where you are and you use it to “Check In” online. It is sort of like a “where on earth is Carmen San Diego” meets scavenger hunt meets ultimate stalker tool. With Whrrl you gain rank and achievements by checking into places falling under certain categories (which fills my need as an achievement whore). It also allows you to upload pictures of your current location adding to the gallery. I personally find it more entertaining than foursquare, and hope that it gains more popularity. I should also mention this app is not just for the iphone: You can get it for pretty much any smartphone.

Qrank: Another little social networking ditty that links you and your friends in an all out trivia death match. You can sync up with your Facebook and play your friends in daily trivia, gain points, rankings and *gasp* achievements! You don’t need an iphone to play, just a facebook account, but having the mobility allows you access to gain achievements by playing in different geographical locations.

App Toys and Gadgets: for the digital kid in all of us.

Lightsaber: Unleash the power of the force with the awesome geek app. It allows you to pick your saber color, handle and even create your own jedi character. Once you have picked you can wield your phone around with the might of the force and make the iconic “whooshing” noises without having to actually do it yourself. a Must have for any fan of Star wars.

Harry Potter Spell Wand: So you are more of a student of Hogwarts than a Student of the force? Well then this is your app. Get sorted, learn spells, duel with your friends and gain points for your house. Now if could get me a house elf all would be right with the universe.

Robot Unicorn Attack: The adult swim fave is now on the iphone. Probably one of the best side scrolling flash games out there to ever question a mans sexuality.

SonicLighter: Why waste butane at your next concert? With this you can show your love for your favorite rock ballad by holding up this app. Made by the same people who brought you the ever popular I am T-Pain App, this virtual lighter gives you color options as well as the ability to set your flame height, blow torch your friends or see the globe and how the rest of the world is illuminated.

An honorable mention:

As a tea junkie Teavana has become my bodega. They have an app that allows me to sort through their blends, make my own and know what time and temp to brew my tea at. It also  helps me to curb my spending by making my favorites and allowing me to keep a shopping list. And if you are interested, the Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls Green is sublime and cannot be matched.

So those are some of my faves. If you have an iphone go and check them out.

Welcome to:

(Queue Jurassic park theme)

I will be reviewing movies that some may accept as “watchable” and also movies that some may find horrible. I will watch classic movies to comment on pure nostalgia, I will watch shitty movies just because. I welcome any comments, suggestions or requests- though I cannot guarantee that I have every movie requested I do have a Netflix account at my disposal.

So where do we go from here?

Two words…

Ghost Dad
(you bet your Jell-O pudding pops)

I honestly don’t get why everyone hates, hates, HATES this movie so much. I have seen much, much worse.
I do have some theories though.
One thing that struck me from the get go was that this movie was directed by Sidney Poitier, Mr. Tibs!
Bill Cosby is a dad (wait for it) who is struggling with raising three kids without a wife and balancing a big time career (though I don’t think they ever explained what he really did). One day he happens to take the wrong cab, driven by an insane devil worshiper (oh the 80s and their fear of devil worshiping cults) who ends up helping Mr. Cosby become a Ghost.
Through the picture Bill learns that family is more important than business and that if you are a ghost you can choke a fool through a telephone!
Bill finds out that he only has a little time before he is gone for good (flickering blue screen and OBVIOUS wire work included- bonus) with the aid of a British occult expert named Edith (pronounced ED-ith, which is the running gag). Bill struggles to learn how to cope with being non corporeal (at first) and he has to close a big business deal before Thursday (when he passes for good) so he can get life insurance for his kids.
One thing that I found odd was the production value. In the beginning it seemed like a standard 80s comedy, picture was good and they had a Janet Jackson song in the soundtrack which was surprising. But after about 20 minutes you start to notice the rest of the soundtrack sounds like some public domain Sci-Fi score from something like an Ed Wood movie or They. This keeps up occasionally through the movie and was a little distracting. The Blue screen effects (later replaced by green screen in the 90s) were very harsh and quite hilarious. There is nothing quite like Bill Cosby with a flight wire harness flying through the wall. I think as the movie progresses you can actually see the budget plummeting.

Not a horrible movie but I think the main reason that people pick at this one is the WTF ending. There is not really an ending. Out of all the conflicts that were set up in the hour and twenty four minutes not much is ever resolved. I am curious to see if any film schools ever studied this movie, it could have happened.

So overall I don’t think Ghost Dad is quite the horrible movie everyone makes it out to be but it is no Leonard part 6 (more on that later for sure)

Hope you enjoyed the maiden voyage.
Until we meet again.

Trowa

Dear movie industry,

Suck it.

I went out this week to purchase some new movies and even though it has been a long time in the making, the movie industry has simply gone too
far.

Why, you ask?

A DVD costs less than $.50 cents to produce- that is by my personal calculations mind you. Most likely it is far less than that even with cover art etc… but more on that later in the post.

It costs on average $19.99 for a DVD. Why? For a while I understood, the DVD had commentary and features and deleted scenes- some even had
blooper reels.  That adds up and I get spending $20 bucks on THAT, however, Slowly it has transitioned to “hey, buy this $22-$24 DVD special edition with a lot of crap”. You buy it and there are two discs, one has the movie and all the “special” crap and the other… is a digital copy of the movie you just bought.
Why?

In this day and age it is easy to watch things on the go and I get that there is an audience for that but why do we have to pay extra for another copy we don’t need just to get special features or the cut of the movie we want? Then they hit the market with 3 disc editions, one disc with the movie, one disc with bonus features- most of them hardly warrant taking up a whole disc (at less than 1G of info at times) and then… a digital copy of the same damn movie you just bought- you know, for friends.

This trend started with the release of Live free or Die Hard. I wanted the “director’s cut” because that version had swearing, I’m sorry but Die Hard without the phrase “Yippey Ki Yay Motherfucker!” is simply not right. In the edit they bleeped the MF with a gunshot, come on people- what happened to R rated action movies? Yes, more sales with PG13 but you drain the life out of it that way. Kids will find out how to get into your movie no matter what the MPAA rates it- they cannot stop everything. But that is another story in itself. (Do yourself a favor and Rent “This film is not yet rated”)

(Bruno no likey)

Now we get DVDs with stickers on them saying “buy bluray and get the most out of your movie”.  These “new DVDs” sport only the feature and MAYBE a commentary if they feel like it.  Seldom do they even have printed artwork on the disc (mostly grey rental discs ready for netflix) and most have stopped even giving you an insert with the track listing. To top it all off they are trying to reduce plastic and they BARELY give you a DVD case that you can safely store your purchase in, because now the “case” has cut outs where the disc sits. You know, so when you drop
the case you have the possiblility for maximum damage to your purchase.  But hey, you can just buy another one right? Money trees are plentiful and fertil- indeed.

The same thing happens to TV DVD sets- IE: The Simpsons. Cardboard sleeves that scratch the hell out of the disc  and hardly do anything to protect. It is not just about flashy packaging- some people want to keep the DVD that they buy longer than a week.

We are a disposable society but some of us still want value for our money.

But they don’t stop with cheap packaging…

Recently, Warner brothers initiated a 28 day hold on their new releases in association with netflix rentals. Their intent is to drive up sales.
They think that if a new release comes out and nobody can easily rent it they will sell more copies of their $20 DVD/ $28 Bluray- and they may be right.
What they fail to realize is that some people, such as myself, rent before buying. I am not going to run out and buy a movie for that price without watching it. So now in a sense they are punishing their customers, forcing them to buy or try to find one of the last physical rental locations to watch their movies.
I had to go to Blockbuster to rent two warner movies. On the receipt it said that I could own the movie if I paid $15 more on one and $17 on the other, after paying $3.50 plus tax for each rental that would make it over $20 per title- no thank you. I enjoyed both films and would like to buy them, however, I will not be buying them now. I will wait and buy them used online for a fraction of the cost. As of now the two titles that I had my eye on are around $10 online and the prices are still droping daily. Once they get around $5 its go time.
They have now forced me to change my habits with watching movies so I must also change my buying habits.

It was also recently announced that Fox and Universal would be doing the same thing. They have perks like an expanded watch it now category but I fail to see how that would do any good- most movies that they are adding are not that good. There are a lot of crap watch it now movies on netflix already, do they need more?

I feel like the studios would do better if they kept their customers in mind and standardized their DVD sales. Sell just the film for $10 DVD/ $15-18 bluray. Then if you want bonus features tack on another $5. If you want a digital copy another $5 and so on. Build your own DVD- Here is what we have available- pick what you want. They could make up any difference in the volume of sales. Plenty of people would buy a single title just to watch the movie for $10- even impulse buyers. Remember VHS? No special features and $15 was okay with everyone. And then the movie geeks can get their extras for a reasonable upcharge. People should not have to convert to HD to get special features. But that is where they are going with it.

Having a choice in what you buy could possibly encourage you to spend more money. As an example I think of the “Special Edition Director’s cut” version of Rob Zombie’s Halloween vs. the ”Theatrical cut”.  I bought the “Special Edition Director’s cut” thinking that I would get both versions of the movie since I paid more, No. There was the feature as Zombie intended and a bonus disc with features. I go to find the “Theatrical cut” which for me was a better version but if I found one in any store it was Full Screen and $25. Never. I ended up tracking a copy down on Ebay for about $10 and when I got it sure enough there was a feature disc which looked like a rental- very cheap. There was also a bonus disc, this one had fancy screen print and- wait a minute- was the same damn disc that was included in the “Director’s Cut”.

The studios should make it possible for you to buy what you want in your DVD, not force you to go find another copy of the film and pay a premium for the version you like but you end up getting another 2 disc set that comes with the version of the film you want but also an exact copy of the special features you already got with the “Director’s cut’. If you get the “Ultimate Edition” it should be “Ultimate”, it should have everything.  I get what happened with Star Wars- Lucas. They are going to keep releasing  multiple “Special Editions” even after he becomes one with the force. They are releasing a BluRay edition of “The Star Wars” pretty soon but if they will have the original version of the trilogy remains to be seen. Most likely they will release the special ones that the die hard fans hate and then a year or so later they will unleash the originals as a bonus like they did with the DVD. But the horrible thing about it is that people keep buying them.

Then there is this…

\”Movie Piracy – It\’s a crime \”

The studios are very protective of their works, and that makes sense but is it that serious of an offense?

At the beginning of each movie we see…

Here are some interesting facts:
-Misusing a Social Security number: A maximum penalty of five years in federal prison without parole and a fine up to $250,000.

-Tax fraud: maximum penalty of three years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.

-Pleading guilty to abusive sexual contact:  The maximum penalty upon conviction is three years in prison, a $250,000 fine

So it is okay for the studios to rip off the consumer, but when the tables are turned you are no better than someone that steals identities, cheats on their taxes and abuses others sexually?

I am not saying to download movies online for free, I am saying that this “epidemic” was caused by the movie industry and as one of the options I would like it if we could skip the pity party and focus on the real problem- greedy actors and the studios that give them everything they want.

Studios need to draw the line on salaries. One of their ad campaigns showed a key grip talking about how he had been laid off because there was so much piracy. No sir, you were laid off because Tom Cruise needed another gold plated humvee- thats why.  Tom Cruise was paid for his roles in Valkyrie and Tropic Thunder… 30 million.  Surely they could have paid good old Saul the Key Grip a few thousand dollars for his work. No, if Mr. Cruise does not have his humvee no couch will be safe.

(The only salary that I feel is justified was the one Harrison Ford was paid for Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull… 65 Million, for being raped on screen. Should have been more.)

So where do we go from here? I say stop buying all the crap they are selling. If you have to have the movie wait it out a bit and look at the used DVD section- you would be very surprised what other people take back to the store. I have purchased a LOT of DVDs used and most of the discs looked brand new- not even a scratch. If you really like a movie try renting it first, yes they still get money from that but not as much as you buying it from the store. If you want to buy it give it a month or so and you will start to see the price for the used copies drop as more new movies are released. And if you start to feel bad for the actors- don’t. Imagine if you were given 30 Million dollars for 3-4 months of work. Now stop drooling… Think about how Tom Cruise’s stunt man might get paid up to $70,000 in an entire year to do the stunts (wearing a neon green hood that is later digitally replaced by the likeness of Mr. Cruise) that make the movie look cool, and it is hard to do that after Mr. Cruise has worked at the fudge factory all day.   Plus the stunt man has to join a union and pay dues to ensure food is put on the table.

Enjoy your “Super-Mega-Ultimate- Omnipotent-Fancyschmancy- collector’s Edition DVD/BluRays” because pretty soon you will have to buy the 3D version of the movie to get special features, and the 3D TV, and the 3D glasses, and the smell-o-vision card.

But what do I know? I’m just a simple cave man- your evil high definition talking boxes confuse and frighten me.

So again, Movie industry- Kindly Suck it!

There is no question that the God of War series of games has been a hallmark of action gaming since the arrival of the original title.  While only playing through pieces of the first game, I borrowed my good friend DLB10000′s PS2 (well into the 360′s life cycle mind you), corded controller and all, and played through the 480p-enabled copy of God of War II to a thoroughly satisfying and epic conclusion (I still reserve the right to bitch about the QTE ending, as it seemed disproportionately difficult with the rest of the game).

In keeping with my tradition of getting a loaner console to play high profile games, I borrowed a PS3 (not from DLB10000) to chew through the recently-released God of War III.

I’ll say it again: if you haven’t played it yet, you should.

I’m going to avoid giving a recap of the old games or a rundown of the current game from a plot perspective, but sufficed to say, this game wraps up the trilogy neatly and with the same level of epic flair that the series has been well-known for.  What surprised me was that, for a game that has (let’s be honest) usually gratuitous violence and sexual content, there are moments of well-delivered voice acting, and even a few thoughtful moments on the state of humanity, and the concepts of sacrifice and forgiveness.  Please don’t misread this as a comparison to Braid or even Bioshock, but it was perfectly appropriate for the proceedings and lent just the right amount of weight to the head-ripping, gut-spilling good times that Sony Santa Monica serves up here.

Let’s talk about the good:

- The graphics!  *gasp*  Whew.  This is a Herculean (yup, I said it) effort on the part of the developers.  Some of the moments actually equal pre-rendered offerings from other companies (that is no hyperbole).  The Kratos model in particular exhibits animation, texturing and layered special effects that never stop being incredible, from the title screen through the final sequence.  The other characters that are extremely impressive are the Titans (these are not the only “big” spectacle, but the only ones I will semi-spoil).  As you know from the ending of God of War 2, you and the Titans were scaling Mount Olympus to conquer Zeus.  In GOW3, the Titans are actual playable levels upon which you run around, and seeing these enormous beasts lumbering around you as you shift to keep your balance is just as awesome as it sounds.  There are very rare moments of weakness in the graphics (the handling of water/liquid is always a trick unfortunately, and never really feels like actual fluid), but as soon as you notice the tiniest of flaws, some jaw-dropping moment will whisk you away to Radville, and you’ll forget all about it.  The fact that a credible game can be built around such wondrous graphical prowess is a testament to great development.

- The sound is similarly well delivered; some highlights for me include the epic-but-never-too-epic delivery of voices from the Gods (I was particularly impressed with Hades and how they mixed his voice), as well as full use of the surround channels for special effects when appropriate (the souls falling to the underworld and screaming on the way down in the rear speakers never got old).  I wouldn’t call the soundscape “subtle” at any particular moment, but it’s always appropriate for the grand scale of this game.

- Gameplay-wise, God of War 3 is just as accessible as the previous games, with some added depth in the use of several weapons and items that can be switched to on-the-fly (and even mid-combo).  These are never put too far out of the way of the player, and all of them (when powered up) are viable options for combat.  My particular favorite was the Cestus; two enormous metal boxing gloves shaped like lion’s heads.  They hurt people in the matter you’d expect them to.

But what’s not really “working”?

- This is not a perfectly polished game; I ran into a couple of very strange bugs during my playthrough (connected to PSN and downloaded most updated patch), including falling through the scenery to my death and once I didn’t even appear when the game loaded up near the final moments of the game, also resulting in a “You Have Died” screen.  These were rare considering the overall size and scope of the game, but they bear mentioning, and in some ways it is a compliment to the rest of the game in that the vast majority of the experience was so flawlessly produced and delivered.

- The platforming sections (though they don’t really happen too often) are just not best-in-class.  The development team has made a conscious and deliberate choice to take camera control away from the player (as they have in previous God of War games).  For what it’s worth, I think this was the correct choice for this game, and it delivered moments of direction (and therefore storytelling) that you just wouldn’t get with a player-controlled camera.  What it means, however, is that sometimes you’ll have a fairly awkward perspective when jumping from one ledge to the next, and in some cases, it will result in your holistically unnecessary demise.  The moments are none-too-frequent as I mentioned, and the generous checkpoint system soothes the frustration.

All in all, I can’t say this enough: this is an amazing game for this generation, and one that deserves to be played.  If you’re not a PS3 owner, go cozy up with your favorite PS3-toting buddy and give this game a play-through; you will NOT be sorry.

Craptastic!

I have been a fan of Resident Evil for many moons. I even attempted to make my own movie and failed fantastically (not because of the script or the lack of motivation- because of dumb, dumb, flaky people).

Wild wild west Alice with annoying Akimbo shotguns.

So the trailer for RE 4 is up and I am completely amazed. Why does Capcom let them do this? Is it just money? Is it really, really funny and I just don’t know? I seriously want to know how they could let something like this go.

I think the movie franchise would have been OK if they had just used a different title other than resident evil and used a different corporation name. Just take the resident evil and umbrella right out- problem pretty much solved.
Those are the only ties to the RE universe and it just drags the name through the mud.
The books are awesome (go read them) and the games were great- of course, but the movies have always left much to desire.

So what if they kept the name and the corporation and continued to let it live in its own universe but didn’t attach well known characters? That is Another way they could have gone about making it, the way they did with the first one. There were no well known characters to piss off the die hard fans but it was faithful to the look and feel of the mythology of the series-it actually added to it and the end was brilliant, that scene where the camera pulls back to the ruined city (sorry but if you have not seen it by now you probably won’t).
Even if they eventually made Alice into a kung fu expert it would not have really hurt the series if they had just stuck with original characters and built around the existing properties, Maybe went with the Evil Alice plan and killed her off (sigh). But they just had to have more well known characters. I think Cameos would have been okay, but having someone as notable as Jill or even Carlos in the second movie without staying true to their character was crap. And then the Nemesis knew kung fu- ubercrap. The nemesis just knew how to kill stars members or other targets- whatever was programmed (even his robot chip would have worked out)- he was a big advanced Frankenstein- not learned in the ways of the deadly arts! I doubt he spent time with Pai Mei, though he was missing one eye…

That is where they jumped the shark.

The first 30 minutes of the second movie were OK but after that mayday!
I really wanted to leave the theater when Alice started jumping around and all the Umbrella people gathered around like a schoolyard fight- But wait… Now the Nemesis has a heart and pushes poor super Alice out of the way of a rocket. I was even ok with the rubber Nemesis suit but Kung- Fu nemesis with manners is just too much.

Looks like the Executioner Majini- but why is it in this movie? Are they in Africa?

The third movie was not so bad if you could get over alice being super and the fact that Claire Redfield had no redeeming qualities whatsoever and was absolutely NOTHING like her character should have been. They almost Made Alice a Terminator-esque character- and that could have worked but fell flat with all the lame wire work. They managed to phone in what could have been a really interesting scene… When they released the “super zombies” (uuugh) they should have done it in the casino. Say the group went to the parking garage to get gas and then got cornered in a casino- that would have let up to the greatest zombie cameo of all time (only to be beaten by Zombieland years later)-

Zombie Wayne Newton.
Picture it… Chills.

The tyrant at the end was pretty lame as well- getting killed with the cube rip off umbrella booby trap- because the first time was not enough and of course we all had to see Milla Jo-Jo-Ba’s eraser nipples for the third time.
Nipples are great but there is a point when you have to leave them behind and work on the story.

Eventually, I actually got to a point where I could accept the three movies, overlooking a lot of the second one, and just hope that one day someone made a really good serious zombie movie (I’m looking at you world war Z, and Frank Darabant with “the walking dead” on AMC- look for it) but after reading a report from the set I am not entirely sure I even want to give this one a chance at all.

I just know they are going to turn Wesker into a vampire, watch…

Here is what it said…

“While we’re not exposed to any zombies on this particular day, we’re told that they are evolving too. In fact, there are completely new breeds of zombies, including “burrowing zombies”, which actually aren’t zombies at all, but infected humans. These are nasty bastards who have been living underground and attempting to burrow through concrete, causing their fingernails and lips to be torn to shreds long ago.” http://www.joblo.com/a-visit-to-the-set-of-resident-evil-afterlife

Really?
Mole-men zombies?
I give up.
And they are going with the, “these aren’t zombies they are infected…” If they aren’t zombies give them a name- like they did in resident evil, don’t say “well we have zombies- but not just ANY zombie…”
And don’t even start with the Trinity- er – Alice slow mo crap… Look-at-these-daggars-they-are-flying-right-at-you-oooooohhh-3D-bandwagon-oooohh.

I don’t care if they used the same camera as James Cameron- I might use the same toilet paper but I don’t dream of a world with blue Thundercats re-enacting Dances with wolves with a hint of Pocahontas.
Maybe soon Hollywood will ensure that we will see a REAL 3D turd- then we will get smell-o-vision again and the electric shocks they used in the 50s for “the tingler” to make us all literally shit ourselves in the theater. I guess we will have to wait for Harold and Kumar 3D for that (yes it is coming).

Meh.

But with Paul (if only I could be Wes) Anderson directing expect another ripoff “homage” to the move cubed, again, and again, and again, and again…
Maybe Alice will wake up on a spaceship haunted by ghosts filled with zombies and aliens stalking her and predators stalking the aliens and just when you think she is a goner Jason Statham will show up and they will escape- or will they? Then she almost dies and has a flashback and we see the bazillianth shot of her eyes and she overcomes her impediment, kills the bad guy/monster and blows up the ship only to land at another location where there are now millions upon millions of mole people trying to take her eyes from her. She draws her sword (yes she has one) and Statham draws a gun and just as they are about to chop up some mole men.

Smash cut to the credits and some lame ass slipknot or other generic new age metal band’s music.

And my eyes roll back.

Here is an episode that may prove to be a watermark for the season. One that marks a transition to deeper and darker areas not revealed through its innocuous title.

The pattern with some of the early episodes seem to be showing the upside and downside to changes in characters’  lives. Awesome found out the perks of knowing a real spy in one episode and how dangerous that knowledge is in the next episode. In First Class, Chuck successfully completed his first solo mission. Now he has to deal with the fallout. Friends and family who are growing suspicious about his mysterious “install trips.” It’s getting harder to tell for Chuck what his normal life even is. But most importantly, it’s getting harder for Chuck to retain the old, adorable demeanor he had before. In fact, he’s now turning it on and off with frightening ease.

This latest adventure has him having to gain the trust of an asset named Manoosh who seems to be on the run from the Ring. He’s Chuck’s doppelganger. Like Chuck he had a brilliant college career that fizzled. He’s a geek who’s partial to Battlestar Galactica and nacho samplers. But unlike Chuck he has no one. No friends. No family. No love interest.

Chuck finds out that Manoosh is more like him than he realizes. Turns out Manoosh has built a partial intersect into a pair of modified-to-the-nines sunglasses. And Manoosh is willing to sell himself to the highest bidder.

The plot is pretty cut and dried and, really, nothing special. In fact, I think the whole building an intersect out of Ray Bans totally devalues the whole mystique of the intersect and Chuck gifted with this huge responsibility. But I go for the Dollhouse argument, meaning that if the tech has been created then somehow, someway that tech can be replicated. And as Chuck pointed out, it was an imperfect intersect. It needed an external source to activate and while it gave Manoosh the physical abilities he still didn’t have the intel that needs to complete his missions. Dude’s gotta know who the good guys and bad guys are.

So the reason for the four stars comes down to the Ron Moore argument. If the show comes down to characters (stupid) then the character beats here left a lot of groundwork in place where you can go fucking nuts in storylines and character development. I love that. This episode left a lot of grist for the milling.

For instance, one of the chief complaints for fans here was how underutilized Hannah was after her big intro last episode. But I think that’s completely necessary because it shows how removed Chuck has become from his Buy More life–his family, extended and immediate.

Indeed, Chuck is starting to see the world through the eyes of a government operative. Family is distraction. Ellie’s suspicions are an obstacle an unwanted variable. Casey and Sarah are colleagues. The Buy More is a front not a life. He has no problem now lying to his loved ones with assured calm and pasted-on smile. Obstacles are what you maneuver around to attain a goal. If you can’t maneuver around it, go through it. Eliminate the obstacle.

Thankfully, he hasn’t gone that far.

But in his dealings with Manoosh–a guy only a hair’s breath away from who he used to be–he may be heading in that direction. And Sarah struggling with that is an understatement. To see Chuck Bartowski so willingly allow this cold lack of emotion is heartbreaking for her, made so palpable by Yvonne Strahovski’s effective performance.

We also see the inherent conflict for Chuck, especially with the final blow when he sends Manoosh underground. I would have preferred it if Zach Levi played this as full-on cross over to the dark side, but whether Chuck is conflicted is beside the point. He makes the hard call and ends Manoosh’s life a s a free man. All because of the way he wanted to make himself more than he was. Not that far removed from Chuck.

I’m making this sound like a serious downer of an episode, but Schwartz and Fedak are smarter than that. They know that the fans want to see some up-Chuck and the creators deliver in kind. On the Buy More front, we get Morgan trying to make a move on the neglected Hannah. Sarah seduces Manoosh as only she can: a Frak Off T-Shirt, toned midriff, and her own smoldering sensuality. Chuck and Casey get up close and personal when trying to escape from a Ring trap. Casey gets tranq happy with Manoosh. Awesome’s paranoia reaches comical extremes.

Yet, brilliantly, while we get the humorous release it leaves a melancholic aftertaste. Morgan’s machinations take an abrupt right hand turn when Hannah inadvertently reveals Chuck’s deception. Chuck has his own trick of the geek trade to get close to Manoosh with a copy of Y: The Last Man, but now he’s using a tome he held dear to his heart as merely a tool, something to allow personal connection to his asset. Chuck ends up using Casey’s little surprise in a surprisingly violent way atypical of the gentle Chuck. Chuck calls Casey Tranqenstein, yet he’s the one who ends up tranqing Manoosh at the end. All Awesome’s paranoia does is make Ellie more suspicious and in the end she teams with Morgan, Jeff, and Lester to investigate Chuck.

The Tranqenstein line gains even more meaning. The mentorship role that Casey has is becoming more pronounced while Sarah can only stand by and watch in sad disbelief as Chuck is gradually becoming a cold monster, the perfect unemotional spy. When Casey monitors Chuck’s deceptive interaction with Ellie he damns Sarah further, reminding her that she had her own hand in this creation. “You taught him well, Walker.”

This episode leaves so many tantalizing doors open, but one that especially pops out is the nacho sampler himself. The producers have a wealth of potential in this character, wonderfully realized by Fahim Anwar. It was the first acting gig for the stand-up comic and thankfully won’t be the last. Here we have a doppelganger of our hero sent underground. That can only lead to resentment, anger, madness, and finally a quest for vengeance. Heaven help Team Bartowski if he were to escape. I always wanted Chuck to get his very own arch-enemy. I might be getting my wish.

But this leaves Chuck in a bad place. Unbeknownst to our hero, the walls are starting to close in, the lies are starting to get picked apart, and inconsistencies abound. The milkshakes and mochas are being replaced with Johnny Walker whiskey. And all Sarah can do is watch heartbroken while her man is drowning.

At one point, Chuck assumes how easy it was for Sarah to use him as the asset, but Sarah disagrees. She liked him. She liked the sweet and innocent guy who created a mock recital for the ballerina girl whose dad forgot to record it for her bedridden mother. That disarmed her. That made it harder.

And it makes what’s happening to him now all the more harder.

We flashback again at the end, this time from Sarah’s perspective. She gets her info about the mark. Where he’s at. How he got there. She sees the picture. A nerd. Goofy smile. Easy as pie.

“Piece of cake,” Sarah smirks.

For Chuck and Sarah it’s never been a piece of cake. And it never will be.

Rating: * * * *

TallGent

Chuck wears his James Bond suit well, and where would Bond Bartowski be without a Bo…artowski girl? That would come in the lovely form of Kristin Kreuk who plays Hannah, a high-tech IT wiz recently let go looking for a fresh start.

While Chuck is completely on his own in a physical sense he still has Shaw, Casey, and Sarah monitoring via earpiece and satellite. It’s a nice change of pace for the show as for all intents and purposes our nerdy newbie has nothing to rely on but his (limited) experience, intelligence, and the intersect, of course.

Then you have Chuck and his Chuckness. He kind of succeeds in putting out Panzer with the tranq pen, but nowhere near as gracefully as you would expect from a first class spy. He takes out Panzer again when he flashes and becomes an expert fencer, but a first class spy probably would have eliminated the threat with extreme prejudice. That’s a kill order, kids.

And that’s the real enemy here. Chuck’s determination to be a first class spy and who he thinks a first class spy should be. He tries for the suave charm of 007 with Hannah, even allowing himself to get drink that’s shaken not stirred. But when it comes to getting his hands messy he won’t go there. I like how the show is gingerly pushing Chuck into this direction. Even if you tranq a guy, they have ways to wake up. And you can’t account for the hidden accomplice. The one not detected in the dossier.

It also doesn’t help that your partner in spine advises to use your lack of one as a tool in defeating the bad guy. At one point Casey tells Chuck to scream as girlishly as possible to distract Panzer before he executes him, and there is a subtle moment of hurt that Zach Levi shows that adds some nice depth. Everything Chuck is trying to get past, everything that caused Casey to grunt in disgust he is now being asked–even after the intersect and training—to fall back on. Eventually, though, survival instinct wins out and scream like a terrified banshee Chuck does.

We also get a very nice overlap between Chuck’s spy life and the civil war threatening to break out in Buymoria between Lester and Morgan. This comes courtesy of Morgan’s secret weapon–his new bodyguard, John Casey. Once Morgan says the secret I-word (insurgence) Casey quells the attempted coup by Lester as only Colonel Casey can. Manchurian Candidate-flava and Lester LOVES big brother Morgan. Totally over the top hilarious brilliance and an organic subplot that flows from the main action. See? It can work!

Bringing up the gravitas, there’s some nice interaction between Shaw and Sarah as he gets to the root of Sarah’s reluctance about Chuck becoming a spy. Because she’s afraid of losing him. Shaw does a great job of guilting Sarah here. Does she stand in the way of Chuck’s potential just for her own selfish desires? But before she can dismiss him as just another spy stooge, she learns that it actually comes from a deep wounded place. He lost someone he cared about in the spy world, too. His wife. And with that a reluctant bond is formed.

Strangely enough, it’s this bond and understanding that allows Chuck to save the day, that and some aerial manipulation via remote by Sarah. The question is does it count as a successful solo mission? I think we’re going to see this play out this season. Chuck can only be a successful spy with his friends and family. On his own, he’s vulnerable. And he got the key and survived to fly back to LA. Call it a successful solo mission.

He also got Hannah as the newest member of the Nerd Herd as a bonus.

So it’s a win. Savor it now, Chuck. Because the thing about wins in the spy world is they don’t last long.

Rating: * * * *

TallGent