The "Magic" Of Christmas Music

I've been in a massive time-crunch the last few hours. My day was filled up with work I normally never have to do on Mondays and put me considerably behind schedule and in a nasty mood. (Good thing my wife wasn't home to enjoy it!)

But it occurred to me that I might be able to break the curse by making some hot chocolate with peppermint and putting on some Christmas music. The old fashioned kind you can only hear on AM radio. Or CD's created from old records you can still hear the scratches from.

I am normally anything but a fan of "old fashioned" music, but there's something about the Christmas season that allows me to enjoy really old-school Christmas music. Folks that know me will tell you that I'm no fan of empty tradition or nastolgia when it comes to the church, and particularly corporate worship. But when nostalgia comes separately from either of those and wrapped in green and red colored music, it somehow get's the "go ahead" from my brain to come on in and make itself comfortable. And sometimes just when I really need it!

Ninja Assassin (Movie Review)

Ninja Assassin grabbed me with it's visually exciting trailer and the fact the that Wachowski brothers were producing. But they should have stuck to just making the trailer this time.

Fans of old school martial arts movies with there unrealistic violence (guy gets stabbed 10 times and keeps on fighting like nothing happened) will enjoy this throwback that that level of realism. With a lot of action and blood spraying everywhere, this is a visually intense movie. At first. But the shocking combat violence that starts the movie and had me on the edge of my seat gave way to repetitive CGI blood splattering that was over the top, fake and devoid of emotional intensity. How many times can you really be shocked by a pint of blood squirting out of a single wound? Add to this the fact that the blood looks extremely digital and you've got an experience that seems to be shooting for "style over substance", but doesn't even quite get that right.

I will say that many of the action scenes are a real pleasure to watch, despite the blood FX. The cast is composed of people who can execute fight scenes extremely well and the movie shines in this department. If you want some cool, violent, ninja action, you won't want to miss this flick. Sound effects and complimentary CGI give the action some comic book, over the top flavor that is mostly cool, rather than fake. (But yeah, still a little fake.)

Anything beyond that will likely escape you, however. The script, despite being co-written by comic book giant J. Michael Straczynski, drops the ball by giving us an unneeded b-plot that centers on a female international police-type person investigating the hidden world of Ninjas. She is naturally caught up in a dangerous world she had no idea existed and blah blah blah... Her character is never given any substance and so I couldn't have cared less about what was happening to her. They would have done much better to spend more time on the protagonist. A Ninja who defected from his clan of assassins and is now on the run from them. His back-story had far greater potential and some very good moments. Straczynski's comic book banter came through with a few cute one-liners, but the actors didn't seem to know what to do with them, making them feel out of character and out of place for the movie.

The cast, as I mentioned, is composed of many very good stuntmen, but no strong actors. The "B-plot" actors did alright much of the time, but gave me no reason to invest in them. Our "good-guy ninja" had little personality, but a good plot thread to keep me interested.

This movie is highly unlikely to lead to worthwhile conversation. One character briefly states that "everything has a heart", even plants and trees. This, along with obvious elements of revenge and a misguided sense of "honor" in the Ninja clan might act as springboards for conversation, but the movie is not written well enough to provoke any significant thought and is ultimately a fun but forgettable experience.

Quality: 7.0/10

Relevance: 5.0/10

Back On Track With Dragon Age!

Well, I decided to go ahead and re-start my game last week, playing without the disfunctional downloadable content (that EA STILL has not addressed) and without connecting to the internet, so that I'll be able to play Dragon Age downstairs on our new TV if I want. Replaying the first six hours of the game was not tedious AT ALL! I was surprised at how much fun it all was even the second time around with the same character class and everything!

Over the weekend I found some extra free time and had two 3 hour+ game sessions, which I haven't had in a loooong time. But this is SO the game for long game sessions! I haven't enjoyed a game this much since... well, "Neverwinter Nights"! (also by bioware)

I also installed the game to my 360 hard drive (about 6-7 gigs I think). Although it doesn't help much or at all with load times, the console is much quieter and hopefully generating less heat, so I can keep having a few more of these longer game sessions as I find the time.

The Box (Movie Review)

Although the trailers for “The Box” were not flashy or filled with special effects, the premise caught my interest and I had the feeling that this movie would provide a unique experience in some way. I was right.

Within the first 20 minutes of the film, I felt as though I were watching an episode of the classic “Twilight Zone” tv series. A couple experiencing financial frustrations is offered a strange box by an even stranger visitor. They are told that if they press the button on the box, they will be given 1 million dollars… and someone they do not know will die.

The obvious moral dilemma plays out in ways one might expect, but the mysterious origins of the box and the stranger kept me interested in seeing where the story was heading. Odd happenings begin to pile up around our main characters, setting a weird and sometimes creepy atmosphere in which the story unfolds.

It’s obvious that effort was made to re-create a “classic sci-fi” feel to the film. The story is set in the 1970’s (which somehow aided the strange feel of the movie) and the score feels a bit like 1950’s sci-fi scoring, but with a modern enough sound to never feel antiquated.

Performances were handled well by all involved and the script portrays the lead characters realistically in most respects. Special effects are few and nothing new, but not particularly bad. Where the movie fails a bit is in the last third of the movie, where the nature of the antagonist is revealed(though not fully) and feels a bit unoriginal. Considering how effective the movie is at setting up a complex mystery, it fails to deliver a satisfying reveal.

This movie easily provides opportunity for meaningful discussion. It presents an unforgiving view of natural human tendency(that of selfishness). Do we value human life when it is not someone we personally know? Additionally, two references to Jean-Paul Sartre and one character’s “afterlife” experience make this an undeniably philosophical film. Given that Sartre was an Existentialist, there is nothing concrete or objective stated about the afterlife (as most forms of existentialism teach that meaning and religious truth are created by and for the individual only), but it is certainly implied in the film that, much like dogs apparently do, all protagonists go to heaven. Or at least to a “warm embrace”, as the script describes it in character dialogue.

Overall, this is a good movie that “Twilight Zone” or classic sci-fi fans should definitely not miss, but that has a third act that may not satisfy some. It plays with themes of human moral nature, right and wrong, the value of human life and the afterlife, all of which could easily lead to good discussion afterward.

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images.

Quality: 8.5/10
Relevance: 8.5/10

"Brave And The Bold" Getting Boring And Old

DC's ongoing team-up book, "The Brave And The Bold", has taken a turn for the worse in recent months. Whether the blame goes to new writer J. Michael Stracynski or the editorial decision to go from story arcs to a "one-shot" format, I don't know. But I don't like it.

Stracynski is actually doing a fine job. I shouldn't be too hard on him. But the one-shot format is not what I've been buying this comic for. Although the artwork of George Perez felt a little static after a few issues, I really enjoyed most of the story Mark Waid was weaving. I buy comics for ongoing plots worth investing in, but with the tag line "Lost stories of yesterday, today and tomorrow" added to this title, declaring its new "one-shot" story status quo, DC can consider me off of this title until they change it back to an ongoing arc format.

My TV Hates Me And All My Stuff

My wife and I have been saving for quite awhile and the time was right (because of some great sales) to replace our old TV with a new one.

I'm VERY pleased with our purchase, but I don't think our purchase is pleased with me. After hooking it up, I discovered that it had somehow killed our cable box in the process and it doesn't like playing video from our VCR. (Yeah, I know it's old school, but apart from some ancient VHS tapes our son likes, we only use it to record shows now and then and can't justify the cost of a DVR between the existence of our VCR and Hulu.)

Our TV also decided that we should have to reconfigure our audio receiver and learn all over again how to set it up for the various uses we give to it. So hooking up a single TV caused some form of disfunction in every appliance it touched!

I'm about halfway through getting everything functioning as it should, but GOOD GRIEF!

Humans have enough trouble getting along with each other. Do we really have to make technology in our own image?

Preparing My "Eldritch" Powers!

Tomorrow night will be the first full game session with the new fantasy RPG system I've been learning. Eldritch RPG is a "paper and pencil" fantasy RPG for people like me who are not interested in heavy, detailed "simulation" style paper and pencil rpgs. The combat system resolves quickly and the rules structure is "abstract" rather than an attempted simulation of reality, like Dungeons and Dragons or most other PnP RPGs.

Although I still had to brush up on the rules a bit today, I'm hoping to spend most of my time creating atmosphere as I gamemaster. Trouble is, sometimes I get so excited while playing that I rush through battle descriptions and other atmospheric elements too quickly.

Here's hoping I can bring to mind lots of fun dark-fantasy details like the spraying of orc-blood, the clanking of armor, the brilliance of magic and the horror of monsters.

Hmm... Where or where can I go for some quick inspiration...

Looks like it's time for more "Dragon Age: Origins"!

Moving Forward With "Dragon Age: Origins"

After waiting the 72 hours EA said it would take to get back to me, I sent them an e-mail yesterday just to remind them that I still exist and so does my problem with my downloadable content. Then I got on some forums at EA and found that I was far from the only one having similar problems. And all seem to be experiencing silence from EA, despite having "support tickets" saying they would be contacted.

Compared to what others are running into, my problem is pretty small. The game won't load games saves utilizing one item of my downloadable content unless I'm connected to the internet. Once the Xbox 360 loads the save, I can disconnect from the internet if I want. So if I really need to be online with my PC while playing Dragon Age on my 360, I can be. Moving my ethernet cable from one connection to the other is just a minor pain, and I've decided to just go forward and play the game, since EA is being very unpredictable in their respoinse time right now.

All that said, this is an AWESOME game! Apart from some minor rough edges in the graphics, the world is incredible to look at and explore. The sound effects are earthy and atmospheric. (I love the sound of my armor clanking as I move around my environment.) The characters are very well voice acted and the story is engaging.

Combat on the "Normal" difficulty is just right so far, with enough complexity to keep me on my toes, but not near enough to have me pausing and micro-managing a ton. (Which I'd rather do the second time through the game with a magic user.)

Religion in the game is an interesting animal so far. It's become almost standard in fantasy games for the chief monotheistic religion to be dominating, legalistic, hypocritical and arrogant, feeling as though the writer has a particular beef against Catholicism or Christianity in general. Meanwhile, the druids and monks, who seem modeled after Buddhism or Native American Pantheism in their doctrine, are the serene, likeable, "right" religion.

Although I haven't seen a strong Buddhist counterpart in Dragon Age yet, the chief monotheistic religion is handled well so far in character, if not in theology. And even regarding theology (apart from an odd legend involving The Maker "marrying" a mortal woman) the presentation of The Maker and his followers avoids the stereotypes common to the genre, and for the first time in a game like this I'm taking the role of a monotheist without feeling like I have to be an arrogant jerk.

Whether the religious aspect of the game interests you or not, the bottom line is that it wouldn't interest me as much either if the rest of the game weren't so well done and engaging. After just 2-3 hours with this game, I think I'm in for a wonderful experience, provided more glitches don't show up in the future...

Consoles=Computers?

The main reason I have always played far more games on video game consoles instead of computers is because of all the things that can go wrong or be wrong that prevent you from playing your game on a computer.

Install this update, need a better video card, need a better sound card, need more RAM, and of course all of the other strange error messages that can potentially pop up, requiring technical "know how" that I "know not".

With a video game console, you pop in the game and it plays. No matter how new or old the game is, if it says it was made for my console, my console will play it, right?

Well, a disturbing trend may be changing that in the long run. As consoles go online we begin to see downloadable content and even patches to fix bugs in games. I haven't had reason to complain until now, when a bit of downloadable content for my copy of "Dragon Age Origins" seems to be messing up my gameplay a bit.

It doesn't break the game or anything, but if I want to use an in-game item I payed for with real world money, I have to be connected to the internet on my 360. I only have one ethernet cable in my room and I use that for my computer. (I don't have any interest in online gaming and so haven't gotten a cable or wireless adapter for my 360.)

EA is working on the problem, but I suspect the solution will involve me having to restart my entire game, so I have put off playing it for now. Pretty frustrating. And not a good sign for the future of consoles.

Out Gaming!

I'm heading out for a weekend of "Descent"! I think we might even finish the campaign this weekend! Woohoo!

Better get to bed if I'm gonna have the energy to thrash on him tomorrow!

The Game I Bought My 360 For!

It's been over a year since I dropped a ton of saved up money to get my Xbox 360, and FINALLY, I've got a game that I'm really enjoying. Dragon Age Origins is the latest RPG from Bioware (Knights Of The Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect) and plays similar to KOTOR and Neverwinter Nights, though different enough to clearly be its own animal.

I don't review games, but I have to say that my first hour of this game was so enjoyable that I'm going to play it again! The story was engaging enough that I want to think more carefully about my character customization options so that the game will be an even more personal experience!

But if I'm going to have time for that tonight, I have to finish working first. So, uh... bye!

On The Move!

Been on the move today! Almost no time to post! Sick kid, self-imposed deadlines, "free" microsoft points, Dragon Age anticipation, Deck Building and Heroes catch-up. Considered posting on each of these topics, but you'll just have to pick your favorite and guess at what I might have said because I'm OUT OF TIME!!