Jul 2 2014

The Tower of Joy

Now that the dust has settled on Game of Thrones season 4 and the long wait for the next book/season begins, I wanted to take a minute to provide newer fans with a little conjecture and a little back story on their favorite medieval fantasy. If you’re a fan of the show and sometimes wonder what the heck everyone is talking about when it comes to the Mad King? Or who this Aegon Targaryen guy is and why his statues are everywhere? Have you ever wondered what the big deal is with Jon Snow’s bastard status? And what was Prince Oberyn yelling about during his fateful battle with Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane? Then this post is for you…

I know fans of the books have rehashed this material over and over, but I thought I’d shine a light on the history behind HBO’s breakaway hit for those that haven’t had a chance to dive into the novels or the thousands of forum posts devoted to the subject. While this skirts the line of spoiler, anything that would be is theory at this point so no one really knows until the next book comes out.

No major spoilers for anyone caught up with the current season of Game of Thrones, but might be a bunch of names and places to anyone not.

George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is a cultural phenomenon. From HBO’s series Game of Thrones to video games, books, spin-offs, graphic novels, and more, the series’ popularity has never been higher. You can always tell the popularity of a show by the number of knock-offs there are on other stations, and right now Game of Thrones has inspired everything from Vikings to Black Sails, from Camelot to Reign, White Queen to Once Upon a Time.

You know you’ve made it when South Park makes fun of you, and Game of Thrones got a trilogy…

The thing that sets Martin’s books aside from others in the genre, is the sheer scale of it all. The creative minds behind the television adaptation have done a painstaking job of bringing the books to life on the screen. Naturally, some things are going to be lost in translation, especially with a story that spans three continents, thousands of named characters, and dozens of locales. One of them is the history of the realm. Even hardcore fans of the show may miss a lot of the subtext when so many names and faces are flashed in front of them, barely to return… And it makes retelling the history of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros through memory and flashback a hard thing to do… So the showrunners have decided to leave most of it out. With its focus on the major families of his kingdoms of Westeros, the Starks, the Lannisters, the Tyrells, Boltons, and the southern Martells, A Song of Ice and Fire is a series that stretches across thousands of miles, as well as years.

Martin traces the history of Westeros back dozens of millennia to the original, more magical inhabitants of the Seven Kingdoms, and ties the events that happened then with the drama and action that plays out across the pages. While the kings and queens play their games of thrones, readers are treated to flashbacks, memories, and the oral tradition of storytelling. Remember when Bran told the story of the cook that killed his guest in the wake of the Red Wedding? The books are littered with stories like these, and none of them are more compelling than the rich history of House Targaryen, the dynasty that ruled the Seven kingdoms for three hundred years before Brandon Stark was ever born… And the Mother of Dragons, Queen Danerys Targaryen, is the last of their line…

Or is she?

House_Targaryen_Family_tree They were silver-haired, fair-skinned people from Valyria, across the Narrow Sea. The Targaryen family conquered the known world from the backs of their great, fire-breathing dragons. They themselves were refugees from a homeland that was destroyed in a cataclysmic volcanic event called the Doom of Valaria, that echoes the fable of Atlantis. House Targaryen brought order to the continent in a wave of bloody conquest and all of the great lords of Westeros, from the Starks in the north to the Lannisters in the west, bent their knee to King Aegon I, the first of his name.

As with most great things, time took its toll on the dragonriders. After hundreds of years of in-breeding and arranged marriages, the “blood of the dragon” began to weaken, as did their mighty fire-breathing beasts. The last dragon born in the world was a small, feeble thing… As was the mad King Aerys II. He was the last Targaryen to rule as king, and his reign ended twenty years before the events of Game of Thrones. After his imprisonment during a rebel uprising by a rival lord, Aerys II grew increasingly paranoid and delusional. The Mad King began ordering his Pyromancers to produce large amounts of a deadly flammable liquid known as wildfire. He believed that because he could not command the might of a dragon, he would ensure he at least had the power of a dragon’s breath to threaten his enemies. However crazy the Mad King was, he was still loved by his people… And in the books, many common folk declare their fealty to House Targaryen still. Thus the origin of King Robert’s nickname, The Usurper.

MiguelRegodónHarkness_Rhaegar_Targaryen Before Robert’s Rebellion shook the political landscape of Westeros forever, Prince Rhaegar Targaryen was set to take the throne as the Mad King’s first-born son. He was the most popular prince to ever live in King’s Landing, and all of the girls dreamt of being his queen. He was a tall and elegant young man with flowing silver hair. He often lost himself in the libraries of the older castles, pouring over histories of the Seven Kingdoms and seducing women with his talent for song.

Until one day he read something in the old scrolls that changed him forever.

He marched up to the courtyard the next morning and began training with a sword, eventually wielding deadly skill with a blade. Prince Rhaegar was a beloved hero across the realm who garnered more applause at tournaments than the lords who hosted them. When it came time for Rhaegar to marry, he was one of the first Targaryens to marry outside of the family bloodline. He was wed to Elia Martell, sister of the Red Viper Prince Oberyn, of House Martell, the most powerful family in the South. The royal couple had two children, a boy and a girl, but Elia became bed-ridden after nearly dying in childbirth.

What did Prince Rhaegar read that fateful day that made him put down his harp and pick up a sword? What could he have read in scrolls that had been collecting dust for thousands of years? We dont’ really know at this point, but it has to do with a prophecy from millennia before, and the Prince That Was Promised.

In Clash of Kings (season 2), Danerys Targaryen, who is Rhaegar’s youngest sister, enters the House of the Undying. There she has many visions, including that of Prince Rhaegar, who died years before. She opens a door and sees Rhaegar and Elia in a flashback, naming their son Aegon, and declaring the boy is the Prince That Was Promised… The prophecized hero that would lead mankind out of darkness (a prophecy that has absolutely everything to do with Game of Thrones). However, in her vision, Danerys also hears Prince Rhaegar say, “the dragon has three heads, there must be one more” without any further explanation… 800px-Roberts_Rebellion But it is implied in the books that Rhaegar sought a third child after his wife became ill giving birth to their second. All because of something he read.

Indeed everything changed one fateful day when Jamie Lannister (not yet the Kingslayer) was just a boy of 15… And Prince Rhaegar Targaryen changed the fate of his family, and the entire world, with a crown of blue roses.

When the great Tourney at Harrenhal took place at the sprawling castle, Prince Rhaegar emerged as the champion, defeating even Ser Arthur Dayne, who was the greatest swordsman in the land. However, when Rhaegar went to name the next Queen of Love and Beauty (as was tradition at such an event), he placed the crown on the lap of a beautiful young woman named Lyanna Stark… Striking a spark that would ignite the country in flame.

Ned Stark later remembers it as the day “when all the smiles died.”

A year later, for reasons unknown, Prince Rhaegar “kidnapped” Lyanna Stark, who was betrothed to Ned’s good friend, Robert Baratheon. When Ned’s brother Brandon rode to Kings Landing against his father’s wishes to demand his sister’s release, he also challenged Prince Rhaegar to come out and die. In return, the Mad King arrested Brandon and his friends for conspiring to kill the prince, and demanded their fathers come to the capital to answer for their crimes. When Ned’s father and his companions arrived, Aerys murdered them all then and there. Lord Stark demanded his right to trial by combat, and was roasted alive in his armor while his son Brandon watched, himself strangling to death in a horrible device that tightened as he tried to escape.

War swept across the countryside. Robert’s Rebellion hastened the end of the Mad King’s rule, and of House Targaryen.

350px-Regis_Moulun_A_United_Cause Jamie Lannister, sworn to protect Aerys, learned of the king’s plans to ignite the vast quantities of Wildfire under the castle keep in Kings Landing. When the Mad King ordered him to ride out and kill his father, Jamie saved the city and his father’s life by opening the King’s throat on the steps of the Iron Throne… But because no one knew about the King’s plan to ignite the wildfire, he was scorned as the Kingslayer from that day on.

Lord Tywin brought his army to the capital under a flag of truce, and instead, turned loose in the Red Keep and slaughtered the last of the Targaryen bloodline. Aerys’ throat was opened by the sword sworn to protect him, while Prince Rhaegar’s wife and two children were murdered by the Mountain. Prince Rheagar met Robert Baratheon on the field of battle, and in an epic fight that saw both men gravely wounded, Rhaegar met his death after a blow from Robert’s mighty warhammer. Meanwhile his mother, younger brother, and unborn sister were smuggled out of Westeros before Lannister swords found them.

Battle_of_the_Trident_Robert_Rhaegar_by_Mike_S_Miller Days before, Ned Stark took six of his best men and rode after his sister Lyanna… Who was “held captive” in the Tower of Joy, near the Red Mountains of Dorne. When he arrived, he found three knights that eluded the rebels the entire war guarding the tower. They were the King’s most trusted and skilled warriors, including Ser Arthur Dayne, the greatest swordsman to ever live.

In Game of Thrones, when Ned breaks his leg and is sick with fever, he recalls the day he saw his sister die in a “bed of blood.” As he and his men approach the tower, Ned calls out to the men of the Kings Guard, telling of the end of the war.

“I came down to Storm’s End to lift the siege.” Ned shouts, “The Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty… I was certain you would be among them.”

“Our knees do not bend so easily,” said Ser Arthur Dayne

Ned’s wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.

“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

“No,” Ned said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.”

It is this memory of Neds that stitches so many of the series’ elements together, long after his death in the first book. Because after the battle, only two men survived, Ned Stark and Howlan Reed (father of Jojen and Meera, Bran’s fur-clad companions in the North). However it is what Ned found in the Tower of Joy that drives one of the series’ most guarded secrets. According to the Targaryen side of the story, Rhaegar did not kidnap Lyanna. Instead, they say the two were in love, and he helped her escape her arranged marriage willingly. With the knowledge that Rhaegar wanted a third child to fulfill some long-lost prophecy he read as a child, we can only assume a few things from here.

In his dream, Ned recalls his sister’s cries for him as he ascends the tower, smelling roses and blood, and he wakes remembering a promise he made, so many years before. Ned Stark makes a secret promise to his dying sister, who has been shacked up with Prince Rhaegar, and who lays in a bed of blood. There’s also the matter of the three Kings Guard outside, three of the most accomplished swords in the realm, and they’re guarding a woman alone in the mountains? This all right before Ned makes the long trip back to Winterfell… With Jon Snow, his supposed bastard, in hand…

Asiulus_Promise_Me_Ned Ned never speaks of Jon’s true mother, not even to his wife. Could the promise he made to his dying sister be for him to keep the secret of her son’s father? Is Ned so melancholy and tight-lipped about Jon Snow’s mother because he knows that the boy is truly his nephew, and heir to House Targaryen? If so, it would make perfect sense with the clues scattered throughout the entire series. From Darnerys’ vision to the Red Woman seeing a blue flower in a wall of ice during her own prayer (remember, blue flowers). From Ned’s dream, to Danerys’ vision of Rhaegar declaring “there must be one more” dragon, there is enough evidence to make a good argument that Jon Snow is really the son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark.

If so, if Jon is really Lyanna and Rhaegar’s son, and the only living male heir to the Targaryen throne…Then is he the “Prince That Was Promised?”

Legend tells that when the Others (White Walkers) came during the Long Night and defeated the world of men the first time thousands of years before, that the Prince That Was Promised arose. The legend of Azor Ahai tells that the hero of man created his flaming sword Lightbringer, after two unsuccessful tries. The third and final sword he made he hammered for 100 days and nights before cooling the blade by piercing his beloved wife’s heart, thus sealing in her soul and the power of Lightbringer.

If you read between the lines, you can see how Rhaegar had three children, and the final killed his love, Lyanna… Three children, three swords, the last ending in death.

Is Jon Snow the reincarnation of the Prince That Was Promised? Is he Lightbringer himself? Am I completely wrong, and full of shit?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

Apr 30 2014

The Fall of Don Draper

Mad-Men-Season-7-Poster-Sun-April-13

Of all the decades in the history of this country, no time period receives more attention than the 1960s. After World War II, it was easy to see America as the nation of heroes, cowboys, and soldiers that earned its place in history alongside the nations of the world… A beacon of industrialized light in the post-war haze… Guided by the manufacturing boom and the concept of the suburbs in the 1950s, the 60s were the true beginning of the modern era, when television brought the world into our homes, fracturing our own concept of self forever.

By 1969, the country was reeling. JFK, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were all killed by assassins’ bullets… Political tension rose to a height not seen in 100 years, and the United States struggled to survive itself as the younger generation threw off the yoke of the old. When the US began sending troops to fight for someone else’s government on the other side of the world, more than one person questioned why their boys were going to get shot over a jungle half a world away. Meanwhile marches and protests were erupting all over the country, with African-Americans fighting for their right to exist in a nation that told them they were second-class citizens. Coupled with a rising number of women in the workplace, the onset of the peace movement, and the emotionally rebellious nature of rock n roll, the country watched on TV as America limped its way into the last year of the decade like it had been beat one too many times with a rolled-up newspaper.

Somewhere, in all the concrete and glass of New York City, Donald Draper is curled up on the couch in his high-rise apartment feeling much the same way.

After six seasons of watching the star of AMC’s Mad Men dodge one bullet after another, whether it be his cheating, drinking, or his descent into professional purgatory, Don Draper has always been able to flash a smile, turn on the Draper, and the rye-soaked cocktail napkins would practically fill themselves with award-winning campaign ideas.

Just like Mad Men itself, all good things must come to an end…

Born Dick Whitman, he was raised in a whore house by a cruel, abusive step-mother before he jumped at the chance to join the Army. In Korea, Dick soon realized that all the adolescent zeal in the world wasn’t going to save his ass from a bullet. So he swapped dog tags with a deceased lieutenant, one Donald Draper, and Dick Whitman, the young boy who was nursed back to life from the brink of death by a kind prostitute (before she scarred him for life by giving him his first handy), started his life over again as Donald Draper, decorated war hero. He worked as a salesman before cornering a young Roger Sterling and charming (aka Drapering) his way into one of the most prestigious advertising firms on Madison Avenue. The rest as they say, is history.

Flash forward a decade or so, and Don Draper was on top of the world. His second wife, Megan, a younger, vivacious late-twenties French-Canadian girl now stars in a popular daytime soap opera. His ex-wife has remarried and moved the Draper children into a castle with an up-and-coming politician. Life as a wealthy, powerful, and most importantly needed ad man is good.

Last season we saw Don return to his philandering ways after his marital bliss subsided from season 5… Once his version of what he thought his wife should be doing didn’t mesh with what she actually wanted, well, it was inevitable. From artist progressives in Greenwich Village to countless secretaries, Don’s mistresses have always played a specific role for him, like everyone else. When you grow up abused by the one person who is supposed to love you unconditionally, you tend to have glaring emotional and psychological problems.

Don’s problem is a simple one. His gauge is broken. He confuses intimacy with love.

The Former Mrs. Draper said it best, as they lay in the glow of their post-tryst/ex-sex while on a trip to visit their son’s summer camp last year, talking about Don’s current wife-

“That poor woman. She has no idea that loving you is the worst way to get close to you.”

As Megan’s career took off, Don’s focus turned to his neighbor’s wife Sylvia, brilliantly played by Linda Cardellini. It was fascinating to watch the two dance around their ignorant spouses during dinner parties and elevator rides, through dimly-lit restaurants and bright lobbies. However, as things grew serious, and Don sought more and more out of the relationship… Naturally things took a nose-dive.

As Don and his partners sought to bait and hook the big fish, Chevy Motors, the agency started a “working weekend” at the same time that Don’s mistress told him it was over. To make things even more interesting, everyone in the office got “energy serum” shots and was tweaked out of their minds on speed all weekend as well. Chevy means a whole new level of business for the people at Sterling Cooper & Partners, especially Don, who we realize hasn’t been working on Chevy at all by the end of the episode. Instead he pours all his talent and effort into some sort of super-pitch to get his mistress back. In the time span of 45 minutes we watch a man on top of the world, spin out of control… And it’s frightening to no end. Don spends the entire time out of his mind, trying to nail down the philosophical nature of love and human connection into a couple of sentences that he can spout before she slams the door in his face… He knows she doesn’t want to talk to him, he knows he only has a few seconds at best to get his message across and try to save whatever his idea of the affair is… Does he realize that he’s also describing advertising?

In the end, after spending 72 hours awake, spun out of his mind, trying to find the right words to say to his now ex-mistress to convince her to listen to him… She gets in the elevator while he’s riding down for work Monday morning and the two ride down in complete silence. It’s a heartbreaking and disturbing scene as Sylvia holds back the tears and Don just stares into space… As if nothing ever happened.

But something did. Something inside Don Draper broke last season… Or maybe the break was always there, and he simply couldn’t run from it any more.

As one thing leads to another, Don breaks down in a meeting with Hershey’s Chocolate, recounting a story about his childhood in a brothel where a Hershey Bar was the only connection to a real childhood he had… Needless to say it doesn’t go well, and soon Sterling Cooper & Partners gives Don a mandatory suspension, to which he tells no one. Instead he lets his wife move out to LA to pursue her acting career, stringing her along, telling her he wants to move to the new west coast office. Instead of letting anyone know he’s been suspended, Don keeps up the facade. Of course Sally, his teenage daughter, comes into the city for a funeral/shopping trip and discovers his secret when she shows up at the office.

140421_TVC_MME2donsally.jpg.CROP_.promovar-mediumlarge “I told the truth about myself… And it wasn’t the right time.” He later tells his daughter Sally when she discovers he has been lying… Spouting one of the best lines a parent could ever say to their child, “How could you let me lie to you like that?”

“It’s more embarrassing for me to catch you in a lie than it is for you to be lying,” She replies.

As the final season of Mad Men cruises through its initial seven-episode run on AMC Sunday nights, the changes are coming fast, and they’re coming hard. Don Draper’s life is upside-down, and for a man like him who must have control at all times, things should get very interesting. He has already fessed up to his wife about his job, but only after she kicks him out for flying all the way to LA just to correct her behavior regarding her career. As of last week’s episode he’s also back to work, with a contract designed to make him fail and lose his partnership. If we’ve seen anything these first three episodes it’s how “well” SC&P is running without Don, who was once the center of the agency… So it was a huge surprise to me when he accepted the terms of the return contract. No drinking, no schmoozing, no funny stuff… Oh and now he reports to Milquetoast McBlandy, Lou, Don’s replacement… I expected him to tear it up and give them the finger. I wanted him to pack his bags and move to LA to join co-worker Pete in his idea to start a new agency. I want him to surprise us all and not do the same thing he’s always done.

But then I realized, that’s what he would’ve always done before… The old Don Draper would have never taken that deal. This new Don Draper, we don’t know much about him.

Like the opening credits of Mad Men, we’ve watched little Dick Whitman rise to the top of Madison Avenue before falling through the cracks in his own life… With only a handful of episodes left in the series, it’s anyone’s guess where he goes from here. Don-Draper-on-plane-Mad-Men-season-7

Side note: AMC, you really screwed up the last season of Breaking Bad with the split-season-make-us-wait-another-year-for-the-ending, and now you’re doing it again. I hate you, so very, very much…

Apr 3 2014

How I Prepared for Game of Thrones Season 4

I find myself in a strange position on the eve of HBO’s mega-hit fantasy series Game of Thrones’ fourth season. I tried as long as humanly possible to not jump feet first into the world of Westeros… Sure I liked the show and watched it every week without fail, and yeah I might’ve picked up a t-shirt or two along the way, but all-in-all I’ve fought the urge to pick up the books or play any games or spend hours looking into the early history of the First Men and how they lived in harmony with the Children of the Forest until the Andals came and conquered the seven kingdoms… Oops…

Shit, there I go. I lay all blame on the broad shoulders of George R R Martin.

So yes, in the dark hours of this last winter, I picked up Game of Thrones, the first book in the series. It was just sitting there waiting for me to pick it up… And then I couldn’t put it down. Of course. I don’t know what I was expecting, I don’t think I had any expectations, but now I see why the show is what it is to so many people. You see, I didn’t WANT to read the books. I have a complicated relationship with adaptations thanks to my undying love for Stephen King. I realize that some things are just better left on the page.

Well, I couldn’t wait any longer… And now I’m paying the price… Story of my life. Now I’m well into A Clash of Kings, and ready to start watching the second half of Storm of Swords… The part of the books that season 4 is based. I don’t mind. I’ve resigned myself to my fate as quickly as I could.

What can I say? I’m hooked…

The books are amazing, his writing is brilliant, and I don’t care if I’m on a runaway train headed for a head-on collision at the end of the line. You see, I’m not a fan of waiting. Patience is a virtue, that sometimes just eludes me… Plus like I said, I’ve been through this once before, and I used to feel a little burned by the way The Dark Tower wrapped up. I remember waiting, wondering, lamenting every story that came out instead of… It was horrible. I stopped reading King for years because he just wouldn’t sit down and write the damn ending. Then when it came I was overjoyed at the prospect of an ending, until it was over. I love the ending of The Dark Tower. It wasn’t at all what I imagined, and that’s the point.

I’m a writer, while not necessarily a big-shot published so-and-so, I still understand the pain of writer’s block. Just ask the novels I’ve been letting collect dust for well over a year now… Inspiration is a tricky thing, and nothing feels more wrong than forcing writing… But in the end, if it’s a person’s job, and there are millions of people out there waiting with bated breath, hanging on every Google News alert for misinterpreted signs of your next book, I might be a little more motivated to lock myself away in my mansion and force myself to wrap shit up.

Martin has been writing The Winds of Winter for awhile now, and still has one more book to go before the series is over- A Dream of Spring. The internet is flooded with reports of the show ending before the books do, what will happen if the show catches up to the books, if Martin doesn’t publish fast enough… All the speculation, all the pressure… It’s got to be rough.

At the same time, it’s the best part of the series. The End. How much fun is it to write all the stuff you’ve been building up to? THE BEST! Maybe that’s just wishful thinking though.

**SPOILERISH**

As HBO’s visual version of Westeros prepares to return in a few weeks, many are wondering how last season’s Red Wedding can possibly be topped? I myself, have never had my heart and stomach wrenched by a television show more than when Walder Frey’s men viciously stabbed Robb Stark’s pregnant bride in the stomach over and over again as arrows rained down from above, washing away any hope of a Stark family reunion with a tidal wave of blood. When Michelle Fairley screamed at the end of that episode… That sound will echo in my memory forever…

Anyone who has read the books or has succumb to the pull of the internet knows that there are some MAJOR deaths coming up this season as well… I don’t want to say anything, mainly because I don’t know details, but I do know that the North will never forget, and the Lannister family is about to get a little smaller…

Now that the oldest, most noble house in Westeros has been brought to its knees by the usurping Lannister clan, the political climate in the capital is about to get even muddier. John Snow is back at Castle Black, destined for leadership, and Stannis Baratheon is headed North to help defend against the coming tide of Wildlings. Arya Stark is on the run with The Hound, headed for the Eastern shore and a trip across the Narrow Sea, while her sister Sansa has been married off to Tyrion Lannister- possibly the only man in Westeros who can still save the “kingdom” if his freaky family would just step aside and let him. The psychoboy King Joffery is set to go toe-to-toe with grandpappy Lannister as the powerful Tyrell family cements itself to a doomed house.

With Bran Stark and his gang of merry Wargsters headed into the white beyond the wall in search of the Children of the Forest, can the parapalegic boy find the three-eyed raven and save the world? Meanwhile the recently eunuch’ed Theon Greyjoy, aka Reek, is held captive by the traitor Roose Bolton’s bastard son Ramsey… And let’s not forget our favorite Mother of Dragons across the sea. Daenerys builds her armies as her ancestors did before her, all the while her three dragons grow bigger and bigger, and far less easy to control…

Never turn your back on a Targaryen with a dragon.

This season is the build-up to Martin’s Dance with Dragons/Feast of Crows experiment, in which he originally set out to skip the story ahead five years, but quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen and instead basically cut one giant book in two. Dance and Crows take place at the same time, and each one covers the events on different sides of the narrow sea. It will be interesting to see how the writers on HBO’s show choose to blend the books together over the coming seasons.

That on top of Martin’s hints that the series might wrap up with a big-screen finale due to the effects-heavy needs of the climax- and fans are champing at the bit for both new episodes and the new book that “should” be out late this year or early next. Either way, as long as HBO takes its time, there’s still a lot of story left to cover before the show catches up… And if he can get Winds of Winter out soon, or even better, write them both at the same time, then fans of Game of Thrones should have nothing to fear.

Winter is no longer coming, Winter is here…

Jan 30 2014

Infinite

“There’s always a lighthouse. There’s always a man. There’s always a city.” – Elizabeth Comstock, Bioshock: Infinite

It’s like a dream. No sense of time, no sense of how I got here, or what’s going on… But alas I find myself in a dinghy off the coast of Maine, accompanied by the strangest pair of siblings I’ve ever met. Stormy seas churn the water around the small boat while my two companions chatter away about things I don’t understand. Up ahead, the turning beam of an island lighthouse pierces the darkened sky. The brother keeps rowing while she hands me a small box, smiling. There is something about these two, a glow about them, as if they had their own source of light.

As she hands me the box, she states matter-of-factly, “bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.” Inside the box I find a dusty old photo marked Elizabeth, a silver key with a cage on it, a few pamphlets and pieces of paper… and of course, a gun.

Where I come from, there’s always a gun.

The year is 1912, and I’m standing in the pouring rain, trying not to capsize the damn boat while I climb a ladder to the dock above. The chattering twins wave goodbye, resuming their nonsensical arguing over particle physics and quantum mechanics, and I begin to wonder if the things they’re saying aren’t, in fact, somehow important… Somehow vital… Like clues to a puzzle I haven’t seen…

I make my way to the roof of the lighthouse, but only a large glass door greets me, barring passage to the inner chamber. On the outside of the door are symbols I remember from somewhere, but I can’t seem to place them… Until suddenly it dawns on me, and I pull out the photo and turn it over. Drawn on the back are the same symbols, with hash marks next to them. I figure what the hell right? And I hit the symbols in time, each one sending out an organ-like sound into the dark grey clouds above… Each symbol a different note… Then I wait, but not for long.

Behind me, above me, all around me, sound waves shake the foundation of the island as thundering blasts from some unseen horn seem to come from heaven itself. Deep red lights burst through the clouds with each thundering blast, shaking the glass panels around the top of the lighthouse. For a minute or two the music from the lighthouse and the music from the clouds seem to talk to each other, holding some kind of deafening tonal conversation…

Then, just like that, it’s over.

The doors open behind me, and I find a dubious looking chair has swung up from the floor. With nowhere else to go, I sit down. “Prepare yourself pilgrim, the bindings are for your protection.” A woman’s voice tells me as the doors clamp shut, an alarm blares, shackles spring out of the chair around my ankles and wrists, and all I can think of is what a fool I am for walking right into this obvious trap. I’m gripped with the realization that no one is going to pay my gambling debts, no one is going to offer me a way out. This is it. The Pinkertons have set up some elaborate trap for their number one most wanted ex-employee, and I stepped right into it. My name is Booker DeWitt, shamed at Wounded Knee, the horrors of war, and the depths of the bottle. I gambled my way into the worst kind of debt, and now I’m going to die in some kind of electricity-chair trap. I close my eyes, drop the box, waiting for the end…

But then the building starts to shake… Like an earthquake I feel the lighthouse begin to sway in the black stormy sky. There’s a rumbling underneath me like a million fires, and for a second I think the lighthouse is collapsing as I open my eyes to see it begin to fall away through a small hole in the door. I stare at that tiny black hole, covered in the dark of the storm clouds, until suddenly a shaft of light blinds me. It’s not until then I realize I wasn’t falling at all, but flying. The rumbling was not the lighthouse collapsing, but some kind of engine beneath me.

Not a trap, but a flying machine, taking me high into a perpetually cloudy sky. The woman’s voice counts off the altitude as I rocket up past fifteen thousand feet, and the engines cut out. I brace myself for the fall, feeling my stomach drop, but it doesn’t come. Instead I glide down slowly toward the tops of the billowing white clouds, only to see gleaming white towers of brick, mortar, and stone.

This is Columbia, the mysterious city in the clouds that disappeared decades ago after its tyrannical religious leader, the “Prophet” Zachary Comstock, declared it the truer ideal of America and seceded from the Union… And the setting for Irrational Games’ 2013 blockbuster Bioshock: Infinite. A city that has shrugged off the shackles of modern American life for a utopia in the Clouds. Governed by the Prophet and his vast army of soldiers and mechanical monstrosities. Columbia is an ever-growing Eden in the sky. The last bastion of true American ideals as the world below descends into the chaos of the 20th century.

Held up by quantum particles suspended in space (and time), a technology developed by the city’s brilliant scientist and co-founder Rosalind Lutece, Columbia is an awesome sight. Whole city blocks, squares, museums, theme-parks, even a floating beachfront all hang gracefully in the sun-lit afternoon, linked by a vast network of rails and gondolas that carry people and freight from one place to another. Columbia is breathtaking. A steampunk masterpiece of lush gardens, fairs, carnivals, and houses. Imagined by Comstock, funded by the US government, and held in place by Lutece’s quantum-levitation machines, Columbia was completed in 1893. Originally presented as a floating Worlds Fair, the enormous city circled the globe for years touting the supremacy of the United States of America… Before Comstock’s true vision of a modern-day Ark came to fruition…

The world of Columbia is one of the most original places I’ve ever explored, and when I say explored I mean ran through frantically while dogging bullets and mechanical soldiers sporting Gatling guns. From its floating city streets to its flying ships; from “super-powers” known as vigors that enable you shred through waves of oncoming soldiers to phonographs that scratch out a ragtime version of Tears For Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World… This place is never quite as it seems.

Thanks to 2K and Irrational Games, Infinite (the third game in the Bioshock series) gives us one of the more imaginatively realized settings in video game history. A flying city where experimentation into quantum physics has allowed the upper crust to thrive amongst the technological marvels brought through from other dimensions and other times (getting the Tears For Fears song now?). A place where on the surface everything gleams of peaceful utopia… But just below the cobblestone streets and the green gardens lies a horrible truth… This American Utopia only exists if your skin color is white… A fact that snuck up on me during the first few minutes of the game when I found myself caught up in Secession Day festivities that included an old-fashioned, all-American stoning of a bi-racial couple. Heavy topics like racism, slavery, inequality, and quantum string theory aren’t usually present in your average blockbuster adventure game.

Nevertheless, Bioshock Infinite still manages to be one of the best I’ve ever had the privilege to play through.

A mission to save a girl soon turns into a fight to save the known universe as inter-dimensional travel and catastrophic powers threaten to rip apart the very fabric of time and space… And only one man, tortured by guilt for deeds he can’t remember and a past he can’t seem to escape, is the only hope for the future of mankind. With Elizabeth, in tow, Booker must battle the forces of The Prophet as a brutal civil war rages across Columbia. When she’s not tearing holes in between dimensions or fishing ammo out of thin air, Elizabeth is an entirely sympathetic character that exceptionally contrasts Booker’s anti-hero status.

Bioshock: Infinite is available on PS3, XBox 360, and PC. It’s even available for free for Playstation Plus subscribers, which is how I laid hands on this instant classic. Despite never making it far into either of the first two Bioshock games, Infinite got its hooks in deep from the first few minutes. Blending elements of sci-fi, mystery, steampunk, and fantasy together, this game’s plot is one of the better thought-out stories in recent gaming history… With a twist that will have you mulling over the implications for days, and an ending that will send you straight to the internet to find out what the hell just happened, it’s no wonder Infinite was voted third best game of 2013 behind Grand Theft Auto V and The Last of Us.

In fact, the only complaint I have about an otherwise immaculate game, believe it or not, is the insanely graphic and over the top violence. Normally I wouldn’t have an issue, but in this beautiful world of gorgeous backgrounds and suspenseful storytelling, it’s out of place. So much so that it detracts from the game itself. Yes it’s a video game, but do we really need to see Booker shoving his grappling hook spinning hand-thingy into bloody face after bloody face?

I suppose it’s on purpose. A contrast. Something to show the hypocrisy and the brutal truths of Columbia in their own light… But as much as Elizabeth looks like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, it’s hard to turn around and pop a guy’s face off when she’s watching. It makes the violence more real and yet sterile and detached at the same time. Oh well… I don’t mind, but Infinite is something I’d love to show my son more than the first few minutes of. Irrational is limiting itself by succumbing to the bloodlust of its hardcore fans. Why not every once and awhile make a game where the evisceration of your enemy isn’t the hook to get people to buy it…?

Oh well, for a game that I downloaded because it was free and played because I remembered hearing it was great, I can’t believe I almost missed this gem. Most movies don’t get a plot this realized… Even if it starts to get a little dodgy at the end due to all of the multiple universes and time travel and what not… It’s still one of those rare games that manages to expertly use pacing, acting, setting, and storytelling to evoke real emotion. I found myself at the end of the game, knowing that my next button click would reveal the final twist and end the game, and I couldn’t do it. I found myself in the strange position of saying goodbye to a character in a video game… Because after everything we’d been through together, it just somehow seemed right.

Guess I should go back and play Bioshock I and II now…

Highest recommendations.

Jan 14 2014

24: Live Another Day is Almost Upon Us

Mock me if you must, but I love 24. Always have, always will. It’s the perfect blend of cheese, suspense, soap, action and intrigue… With constant plot twists and character deaths, 24’s real-time format was a groundbreaking success and one of the best shows of the pre-Mad Men/Breaking Bad era.

See not that long ago, in a country just like this one, there was this shady little hobbit named George… And George got himself, mostly through the political connections of his ex-president/CIA chief daddy, elected President of the United States. However, George wasn’t really the president. He was just the talking head for an administration that was unlike any other in recent history- a group effort… See George, well he’s not the brightest bulb in the donut shop, but he did have some very, very smart friends… And those friends also happened to be devious evil dickwads who controlled the government, media, and the people of the United States for almost 8 whole years of terrifying hell. With 9/11 and anthrax and 2 wars in the middle east… The country was stretched to the breaking point.

It was a perfect time for a different kind of hero. A secret agent who did what he had to do, no matter what, to protect the country that continuously kicked him in the balls over and over again… That man was Jack Bauer, of the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit… CTU. He saved Los Angeles, America, even the world over a period of 8 increasingly terrible seasons. He shot more terrorists than anyone ever knew existed, hell he even shot a few of his fellow agents now and again (RIP Ryan Chappelle). He tortured suspects for information to a ridiculous degree (propagating the myth that torture is remotely good for getting information), but he did it because he had to… Because in the world of 24, there was always the one thing that made it such a brilliant show: A ticking clock.

The constant threat.

It reflected our society as a whole… All our fears, all our reactions, all our prejudices, and oh all our ignorance. At the same time, it was just a kick-ass show. Goofy but suspenseful, soapy yet still had some truly TV-history making plot twists. 24 was a mirror of the post-9/11 society, but with awesome lines like, “I’m gonna need a hacksaw” or “You’re going to tell me what I want to know it’s just a matter of how much you want it to hurt.” Then there was my favorite pastime the 24 drinking games. Every time Jack Bauer says “DAMNIT!” you take a shot.

At the same time, television itself was a different machine than it is now. Supposedly we’re in the Golden Age of television right now. A Renaissance, of sorts, for long-form visual story telling. To an extent, I agree, but only because I look back and I remember what it was just 10 years ago. When seasons were 23-25 episodes long and were stretched out over the whole year with RE-RUNS in the middle. When there weren’t as many serial-form shows, and it was mostly the X-Files and Law and Order.

Then 24 came along, re-inventing the wheel with a real-time format. A whole season that played out one hour at a time over the course of a day in the life of special agent Jack Bauer. It was brilliant. While it suffered from the bloated and lengthy season format, often throwing in the lamest of the lame plot lines to fill up space (I’m looking right at you Kim Bauer, daughter of Jack and dodger of Mountain Lions), it told a story that no other show had, in a way that no one had tried before… And it worked. It was extremely popular and won a ton of awards before it faded into obscurity after 8 loooooong seasons.

Who knew that watching the same guy do the same stuff over and over could get old?

Now days we have better TV in the sense that it’s smarter. Shorter seasons, better writing, better stories, and a seriousness that demands respect that keeps some people at arms length watch NCIS and Law and Order: CSI clones. HBO started this thing almost twenty years ago with OZ, The Sopranos and The Wire, but only until the last few years have basic cable channels like AMC and FX been able to produce shows that could compete on a level above all the popular clone shows and reality TV. The Networks are still struggling to recapture the fire of Lost, throwing anything out there that will get a bite.

And that’s why 24 is coming back to Live Another Day. A 12-episode arc that will continue the show’s real-time format, but will break it up so the hours are scattered. Thank god, with London traffic I don’t think Jack could get anywhere to save anything if he had to account for every minute of every hour. For example, we’ll get 8:00 am-11:00 am and then 2:00 pm-5:00 pm, that kind of thing.

Wait, since it’s overseas will the clock be 24-hours now? That’d be cool.

Jack Bauer returns May 5th on FOX, and I can’t wait. Super agent on-the-run Jack Bauer is transplanted to London this time, where he’s hunted by the chick from Chuck, and pitted against his old friend and ally Chloe O’Brien, Super Hacker (played by Mary Lynn Rajskub). Jack’s ex-love Audrey is back, and her father James Heller is the president now (should make for some great “Jaaaaack”‘s). We also might see the return of Tony Almeda… a return for Jack’s one-time friend and colleague turned terrorist was hinted by the show’s executive producer David Fury who said he’d just had dinner with Carlos Bernard and that we could “read into that” what we will. Sounds like he’ll be coming back if you ask me.

Hopefully it won’t suck. There I said it. It’s still FOX, and it’s still network television… so it easily could. Especially if they stray from what makes the show work so well: Jack Bauer doing what Jack Bauer does so well. Too many side-plots and somebody’s junkie brother are not necessary this time, especially given the shorter format.

We will see on May 5th.

Jan 10 2014

The Definitive Grand Theft Auto V Review, aka ‘The Final Word’

Welcome back from winter break everyone!

Now that the dust has settled and the holidays are behind us, it’s time to get back to work. To kick off the new year I’m taking a second look at last year’s massive blockbuster:

Grand Theft Auto V.

If you want to skip straight to the meat and potatoes click here

If you’ve been stuck under a rock, GTA V hit the shelves last September to a record setting release. It made a whopping $800 million the day it was released, has sold nearly 30 million copies so far. It is quickly gaining on Mario Kart Wii, which holds the top spot as the #1 selling console game of all time at 34 million. Did I mention that Mario Kart Wii has been out for over five years? In the long-run, GTA V could sell as many as 50 million copies, if and when it is adapted for next-gen consoles like the Playstation 4, XBox One, or over to PC.

So far GTA V has shattered every sales record, brought Activision and Call of Duty to its knees, and cemented Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive as the hottest and most respected game makers in the business. All of these records broken, sales made, and it was only released on two consoles – the XBox 360 and PS3. Right now, both the XBox One and PS4 are selling like hotcakes at around 4 million each, people are adapting faster to this generation than the last. It only makes sense that Rockstar would capitalize on this fact. That’s almost 9 million next-gen consoles sold, of which I’m willing to bet 80% of whom would all run out and buy a Game of the Year Edition of GTA V come summer time… I know that I would personally slap down another $60 to set foot in a suped-up Playstation 4 version of GTA V and Online… But that’s a story for another press release.

Point being, Rockstar still stands to make even more money off of this masterpiece of modern entertainment, and you know what? They deserve it. GTA V is top-to-bottom one of the greatest achievements in digital history.

Preface: My adoration for the Grand Theft Auto series is obvious… That being said, there are a thousand other sites out there that have put much more blood, sweat, and tears into the game… For instance, if you’re a GTA fan and don’t know about GTAVO’Clock, you’re missing out on one of the best Youtube channels around. ComputerandVideoGames.com’s extensive and sometimes exclusive coverage of this game is unmatched by even the big boys at IGN, Kotaku, or Gamespot.com… Don’t forget the hilarious antics of the GTA V Mythbusters on DefendtheHouse. All of these guys deserve props before I get started.

What follows is my version of a review that’s been written a hundred, if not a thousand times over the last four months so I’ll try to keep it fresh.

See?

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

This story began a few years ago, in the early 2000s. Somewhere off the East coast of a fictionalized America, with a man named Niko Bellic. Niko immigrated to this Bizarro-America on a freighter from the Balkans. Niko was a survivor, a soldier, a man with a burning desire for vengeance for a betrayal years before that brought him to the dingy shores of Liberty City in search of the one who wronged him. He also represented a fresh face for the Grand Theft Auto series, whose protagonists had until then been Americans. This allowed Rockstar to delve to an even deeper level of social commentary all wrapped in a hilarious vision of American society that they have committed to bringing us for some time to come. Through Niko and Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar introduced a gritty, realistic version of New York and the country, and a new direction for the series. A series that until then was mostly cartoon violence and sex with prostitutes in a open-world sandbox setting. Liberty City was the real star of GTA IV, ask anyone who has played it. A technical marvel of game programming, a living, breathing city where a player could get lost for hours driving at high speeds through Times Square in a bus or gunning down bad guys with the game’s rough shooting mechanics. Despite the game’s obvious faults (“Hello cousin, want to go bowling?”), it, more than any other, was the one I always came back to play no matter how long it had been.

If Liberty City was a living, breathing city, San Andreas is a living, breathing world. This Bizarro-California is a massive, sun-soaked state complete with most of California’s major landmarks. Where fake plastic people compete for fake plastic lives in the spotlight, and everyone is looking for their big break at the hands of some other poor unfortunate. I’ve been down to LA plenty of times, they really nailed the feel of the place. Desolate and yet crowded, dingy and beautiful, heaven with an extra serving of hell. Los Santos and the surrounding state of San Andreas is an amazing place to be set loose in.

They story starts with a prologue set around the same time Niko stepped off a freighter in Liberty City. In the frozen tundra of the Canadian border region of America, three assholes try to rob a bank. Not the first bank to be knocked over by these particular assholes, it would surely be their last. Because as Grand Theft Auto V begins, we are dropped head-first into a firefight that kicks off as soon as the assholes leave said bank. Instead of the usual opening movie you see in games nowadays, it’s straight to the shootin…

And shootin we do good…

Immediately the new cover system (adopted from Rockstar’s brilliant shooter Max Payne 3) gives an immersion that was never available in a GTA game before. Bullets whiz by, ricocheting off walls and chipping away at the cover you’re desperately ducking behind, officers duck behind cars and move from cover to cover trying to flank you, and the sound of your assault rifle bounces off the walls of the enclosed warehouse entrance… It quickly becomes overwhelming. That is until you suddenly remember this is a GTA game, and all guns blazing is the law of the land.

Swapping targets, getting head shots, rolling between cover, it’s all a little daunting at first. While not as fluid and seamless as Max Payne 3 was, it’s exhilarating in the least, and third-person ass-kickin mayhem at its best. The three assholes fight their way across the snow-covered parking lot, turning cops into hot, steaming splashes of red in the never-ending white. Escape from the bank becomes a test of will that’s only dampened by the sneaking feeling that you can take a lot more bullet damage in this opening scene then you’ll ever be allowed to again. Well, outside of the Paleto Score that is.

Once you reach the getaway car you’re suddenly trying to steer a speeding truck down an icy road while cop cars whiz by in the other direction. A roadblock sends you careening down a snowy dirt road, trying to beat a train across the intersection. Well this being a prologue, it doesn’t work out. The truck crashes, two of the assholes get shot while the other, Trevor, reluctantly escapes into the blizzard. At the camera pans up into the falling snow, the first of many extremely well-done cut scenes recounts the aftermath of the failed bank robbery. A snowy grave-side funeral, a man in the shadows watches as a coffin gets lowered into a plot with his name on the stone. He is Michael Townley, aka De Santa, and he is just one of the three playable characters in Grand Theft Auto V.

Flash-forward ten years later to 2013, GTA’s Bizarro-version of Venice, Vespucci Beach, stretches for miles in the golden sun of the Los Santos sky. Ultraviolet rays beat down on bikini-clad girls and board-shorts wearing boys all playing in the sand as dogs circle their masters looking for thrown balls and above gulls caw in the afternoon air. The beaches give way to beautiful, rolling hills to the north, all covered by vineyards and farmland. To the north-east is the Grand Senora Desert, a vast and arid landscape just begging for exploration. Beyond it, the Alamo (Salton) Sea dotted with trailer parks, meth labs, and oil derricks galore. From the sea to the mountains, to the forest and beyond. Every single day of the five years it took to make Grand Theft Auto V shows through in the way you are completely immersed in this world. A world that seems to teem with life. People, deer, dogs, cougars, birds, sharks, fish, and more burst from every corner of a map that goes from high mountain peaks to deep ocean trenches.

I could spend an entire post writing about the way the sun sets over Mount Josiah, west of the desert. The way the day fades into beautiful hues of red and orange that stop you in your tracks more often than not… Or about the sudden thunder storms that bring much-needed rain to the baked hard-pan of this amazing landscape. How the lightning cracks like brilliant white fire in the night sky, sending echoes of thunder and light across the horizon. Rockstar has done so many things right, it’s almost impossible not to get lost in the dizzying display of colors and sound.

Let me just tell you about the sound…

I’m standing on the corner of Vinewood Blvd and Power St., and I’ve ducked out of the rain, into the safety of the nearest sunglasses shop, and everywhere I look I see Los Angeles. I’ve been to LA, I’ve walked the Hollywood streets and seen the wax museum, the adult movie marquees, and the endless lines of souvenir shops… It looks exactly like this. As the rain makes its way up Vinewood Blvd, car tires start screeching on the wet pavement and people begin covering their heads with umbrellas and newspapers. Soon the cursing starts, pedestrians swearing at the weather and grabbing cabs or ducking out of the rain like I am. It isn’t long before puddles are gathering on the stars’ stars that run up and down the sidewalks, and thunder can be heard booming in the distance. The rain makes driving a mess, and soon the sirens start echoing off the buildings while the rain hammers away at the concrete and metal that surrounds me. Car radios, car noise, and people… People everywhere… This is not a video game, this is something else.

Before long the rain begins to stop, the birds start chirping again, and like it never happened, the city welcomes the burning light of the sun. San Andreas is gorgeous from top to bottom, from the bottom of the ocean to the top of Mount Chiliad, to the barrio to the desert trailer park… Even in it’s most ugly form, Grand Theft Auto V is breathtaking.

The city of Los Santos itself is bigger than the entire map of Liberty City in GTA IV, and even it is just a fraction of the entire map of V. In other words, this game is huge. Grab a bicycle in Vespucci Beach and head north. See how long it takes you to bike around the state. Trust me when I say you won’t make it… Somewhere along the way a stranger will stop you, often yelling for help. It can be a bachelor tied to tree by his bachelor party friends, or a drunk couple who need a ride home from the bar in Sandy Shores, redneck America. Or maybe you’ll run into one of the game’s many armored cars, just begging you to toss a sticky bomb on the back. Or a dot-com millionaire who’s had his bike stolen, or a golf champion whose wife is tossing his crap out on the front lawn. Its little side missions like this that allow you to just pull back layer after layer of content in this masterpiece.

Back to the asshole in therapy. Michael De Santa (aka Townley) is a whinging, self-obsessed narcissist who thinks he’s just a normal guy… He thinks that his former life of crime is as much a memory as the 80’s action movies he’s always watching to escape reality. He’s retired, he’s rich, and he’s miserable as he wastes the days in his own version of witness protection. How he got there, and why it’s not exactly a government-approved retirement is all part of the underlying mystery that plays out over the course of the game. See, Michael’s old partner, Trevor, the one who escaped in the snow… Well… He’s a psychopath… A methamphetamine-fueled psychopath at that… And he thinks Michael was shot and killed that day.

In a way, Trevor Phillips represents every person that’s ever found themselves lost in a GTA game. He’s the lurking psychotic part in all of us. He’s the middle finger we wish was an RPG in traffic. He’s the obscenity-laced tirade we don’t go on. He’s not the killer, he’s the weapon.

Trevor Phillips is also the funniest game character ever given digital life. His lines are hilarious, he’s always doing crazy, sometimes disturbing (RIP Floyd) stuff, and you can not count on his next move through the entire game. See one of the moves that Rockstar decided to make when they went with the three-character-switchable game play model was to give us drop-in scenes. These little vignettes play every time you switch to a new character on a new(er) save game, and their purpose is to immerse the player even more and suspend disbelief. It works beautifully. Swapping characters makes the camera pan up into the sky and drop down on the guy you’re switching to. That guy is always in the middle of doing something, and more often than not, it’s hilarious. Trevor gets all of the good switches of course. You never know if he’ll be drunk and slurring on a rooftop, mid-heave of throwing a biker off a bridge to the cement below, or exposing himself to the denizens of Los Santos… And of course, Trevor gets all the good lines…

“I want him to be the kind of guy who understands that all the money in the world won’t save him from a nasty guy who thinks he’s an asshole…”

Rounding out the cast of characters is Franklin Clinton, a young twenty-something gang banger from the ghetto trying hard to break out of the old life of petty crime and into something bigger. While sharing a house with his aunt, Franklin and his buddy Lamar Davis are the center of GTA V’s beginning chapters. It’s these two miscreants that Michael runs into while leaving his therapist’s office down in a beach-side house straight out of Californication. There’s the obligatory “how-to” missions that get the story going, mainly following Franklin and his work for a shady tax-defrauding car salesman named Simeon. Between repoing whips and the occasional gun-fight with rival gangs, Franklin’s story introduces us to another of GTA V’s playable characters, Chop the Dog.

This time around, with the implementation of Grand Theft Auto Online, Rockstar has pushed everything into the cloud. Almost every aspect of your gameplay is tracked and compiled in their online Social Club. You can join “crews” of friends in GTA Online, check out stats, and even take care of Chop in a mini-game available on the iFuit (Apple jab) app that you can download on almost any smartphone or tablet. If you take care of Chop on your iPad, he’ll be a “better dog” in the game. This is my first complaint, the NEED to care for a virtual animal and the fact that failure to do so makes for an uncooperative pup in the story. Only insofar that he won’t perform stupid tricks, but still… There should really be an option for taking care of Chop in the game… For those without the extra tech or time to play another game to satisfy a dog (ewww).

Since I’m on the subject, I might as well roll straight into my main complaint, the car mechanics. Not the driving mechanics mind you, they are unmatched in any previous GTA or even racing game I can remember. (Except for the inherent problems with using a stick to drive a sports car at 200 mph) I’m talking about cars themselves. GTA V gives every character a safe house with a car park of some sort, and an extra four-car garage somewhere else across the city. On top of that, every character is given a “default” car. They’re not the best cars, in fact, they’re pretty crappy on the scale of cars in the game. They can be modded and tricked out to a degree, however, non hold a candle to some of the cars you can buy on your in-game phone’s browser or any accessible laptop. The default cars follow you around most of the time, but the problem is that Rockstar gives you the ability to buy $1 million super cars and then every time you start a mission it gets lost.

Well, it gets towed to the local impound MOST of the time, but sometimes it just disappears. This can be infuriating in a game based on cars, that’s set in a city where everyone drives cars everywhere, all the time. It’s impossible to buy a super car, go mod it out, and then use it practically. If you go start a mission, you’re ALWAYS using some sort of other mission-specific vehicle, or need something with four doors… Which the super cars don’t. Instead, you’ll finish a mission, then have to cab it to the impound every time to get your whip again. That means more often than not you’re driving to get the car you want to drive or you’re driving to leave the car you want to save. In GTA Online you get a 10-car garage and a for-hire mechanic that can deliver vehicles to you at any time, any place there’s a main road. Even more importantly, in Online your car follows you everywhere. If you designate a car as your main car, it follows you after missions, everywhere. When you’re done raising hell you’ll turn around and your car is right where you left it parked. You can also buy insurance in Online, so when your million dollar super car explodes or launches into the drink, you can order another for a fee. Rockstar REALLY needs to bring these options to the single player campaign.

All this really means is you have to adapt, and fortunately Rockstar gives us plenty of options. Garage issues aside, if you’ve got a car you really enjoy driving? Just make sure to park it in your garage before you head out for a mission. Problem solved. The call-a-cab and skip-the-ride routine still works for instant travel anywhere on the map. Need to do a mission? Catch a cab, boost a car, etc. Want to go for a nice Sunday drive? Get your good car out of the garage and cruise, just don’t forget to put it back.

“I’m not sure shooting people online counts as networking.”

When Franklin’s boss Simeon sends him on a repo into the classy side of town, things get interesting. A simple sneak-in and drive-away turns into a confrontation between Simeon and Michael, who recognizes a tax fraud scam when he sees one, and doesn’t take too kindly to Franklin’s boss ripping off his son. Michael wrecks the dealership, causing Franklin to lose his job. Soon the two develop a mentor/mentee relationship, and before you know it the missions, and the mayhem, begin rolling in. When their antics draw the attention of the news media after a daring day time heist, somewhere in the desert a psychopath sees a ghost.

Let me take a minute to talk about the glowing center of Grand Theft Auto V… A series of complicated heists that require set up, materials, disguises, planning, etc… All of which you’re in on most of the time. Whether it’s Michael’s brainiac buddy Lester calling out options for sneak attacks or the great Trevor Phillips himself scrawling marker on a Vespucci Beach condo’s wall, heists are always set up beforehand so you know what you’re getting into. Due to the massive popularity of GTA IV’s mid-game bank heist, Rockstar wisely chose to make these heists the backbone of GTA V. This gives the game structure that it lacked before. A unifying theme that ties the whole game together. There are a half dozen major heists, and any of them are more fun that any of the missions from previous games in the series.

Some of them are lifted straight from the movies that so prominently inspired GTA V, especially Michael Mann’s cops and robbers in LA classic Heat. Like the dump truck smashing the armored car or the downtown Los Santos shoot out at the end of the game that spills from block to block as waves of cops try and stop you from escaping with the loot from the last heist. Even little things like names, characters, the way the game looks or the way Michael’s wardrobe so closely matches Robert DeNiro’s from the film. It’s a good thing, trust me. If you’re going to rip off a movie to make a video game, you could do WAY worse than Heat.

Heists are supposedly coming to GTA Online some time in the next month or so, which means even more planning, teamwork, boosting getaway cars, buying/stealing supplies… All kinds of good times. It’s what Online is truly lacking at the moment. Something to link all of the random crap together.

The jewelry store heist has Michael enlist the help of Franklin and Lester to help him knock over a Rockford Hills shop in order to pay back a ruthless Mexican mob boss that Michael pissed off in a fit of mid-life crisis rage. After rounding up disguises, an exterminator van, and some handy knock-out gas, the boys raid the store with the help from hired goons. These goons you either meet throughout the game like Packie McCreary from GTA IV or other characters will introduce them, like Trevor’s meth-cook but level-headed buddy Chef. On the way out, before the daring underground dirtbike race, Michael mouths off to one of the guards outside… Spouting, “You forget millions of thing every day pal, make sure this is one of them.” A line from the prologue, and one that goes out on the evening news.

We first meet Trevor Phillips while he’s balls-deep in Ashley, the on-again/off-again tweaker-girlfriend of Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and the Damned’s protagonist Johnny… They’re obviously doing meth and having a good old time in the trailer park when Trevor sees a news report that sends him over the deep end he’s been circling for quite some time. In one of the few cameos from previous games, a now meth-addled Johnny comes looking for his girlfriend just in time to get curb stomped by Trevor in a fit of homicidal rage. Our first five minutes with the man and he’s already cornholed a tweaker and stomped the brains right out of a prominent GTA series figure.

Needless to say, Trevor is the man.

From time to time the choice to swap characters will disappear while the game steers you in a particular direction in order to hurry the story along. Taking over Trevor for the first time is one of those moments. While Michael and Franklin hide out in the wake of the jewelry store heist, Trevor decides to ride the wave of homicidal rage, taking out the local competition in the meth and guns trades. In a blaze of gunfire and bile, Trevor wipes out the drug-dealing Lost Motorcycle Club single-handedly before he sets his sights on the Aztecas, who control the local gun running. Along the way he goes to war with a rival clan of redneck meth cooks and pisses off a Triad mob boss looking to get into the meth biz. Once Trevor Phillips Industries (also Incorporated, Enterprises, and many others… the inconsistent name is a running gag in the game) secures the black market operations in Blaine County, Trevor finally gets the lead he’s been looking for and grabs his juggalo tweaker buddy and heads for the city, recanting a bit of he and Michael’s past along the way.

Trevor’s arrival in LS marks the end of Grand Theft Auto V’s first act, and the beginning of a long and kick-ass story that takes our heroes from high-altitude hijackings to underwater break-ins. The tension between Trevor and Michael builds, all the while you’re never really quite sure who is playing who, or who is undercover and who is making moves to take over the town. Wrapped up in a government conspiracy, the three amigos must put their differences aside in order to pull off that one last score…

GTA V is an amalgamation of every type of game out there, from racing game to shooter, from tennis to golf and all the places in between… There’s even a hunting game, a darts game, a parachuting game, races on sea, in the air… More content than any other console game I’ve ever seen. It’s engaging, well-paced, and absolutely hilarious. I’ve never laughed at a game as much as I did while following the antics of these three idiots… Hell as much as I STILL DO every time I play.

Then there’s the layer below the game itself, the movies you can go to the theater and watch, the 24-hour television, radio, and internet programming to distract you, the alcohol, marijuana, prostitutes and strip clubs. The pier has a roller coaster and Ferris wheel for pity’s sake. There is so much fun packed into every inch of the map, you’ll find it hard to focus on any one thing at a time. I often find myself having to choose what I want to accomplish ahead of any play time in order to commit myself to getting something done. Otherwise I’ll spend hours driving in the country side, catching massive air from sand dunes, bicycling, bmx jumping, breaking into high security military compounds to steal tanks or jet fighters… And these are all a la carte… Let alone the hours of mission running, Online play, or race/deathmatch creating you can do. The story is complex and multi-layered, the voice acting is the best I’ve ever heard, and the technical wizardry at work that lets this beauty run so well on a 7 year-old machine makes GTA V my favorite game of all time.

Never have I seen a game that is worth SO much more than the $60 I paid for it. It’s almost unheard of for me to STILL be committing unhealthy amounts of time to a game that’s been out for four months. I have barely touched the Playstation 4 sitting in the house because of one reason: I can’t play Grand Theft Auto V on it.

Until then I’ll be slumming it with the PS3 and having a brilliant time doing it.

Highest possible recommendations.

Aug 22 2013

Grand Theft Auto Online is About to Change Everything You Know About Online Gaming

The Internet is alive with anticipation and the buzz is almost unbearably loud. Its a fan-boy’s wet dream, and its only going to get worse as we draw ever closer to September 17th. The imminent release of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V is shaping up to be the ultimate swansong for this generations Sandbox… and more. They’ve pushed the envelope of both graphics, storytelling, and the open-world concept.

Rockstar is one of the most, if not the most respected and revered publisher in today’s gaming world. Ten years ago they single-handedly redefined 3D game-play with Grand Theft Auto III, then promptly followed it up with the motorcycles, helicopters, and planes of Vice City. At the end of the Ps2’s life cycle, Rockstar released GTA: San Andreas, which featured a map that covered all of Southern California and Nevada from Los Santos (LA) to San Fiero (SF) to Las Venturas (Las Vegas). It was the pinnacle of the Playstation 2, and a game that millions devoted countless hours to the over-the-top gang warfare, character customization, bicycles and jet fighters and parachutes that San Andreas brought.

Not to be out-done, Rockstar revolutionized the current generation as well with the brilliant and realistic Grand Theft Auto IV. Set in the same fictional Liberty City (NY) from GTA III, this time around the sandbox became highly detailed and realistic, shying away from the silly antics of the San Andreas days. GTA IV brought gritty, thought-provoking satire and offered the most realistic simulation of a city ever built inside a computer. Rockstar immediately followed that up with the expansive and ever-fun Red Dead Redemption, which brought the open world sandbox style of GTA to the old west… With what most consider to be the best western ever made.

You like what I did there?

From all accounts they aren’t letting up. Grand Theft Auto V, which takes us back to a re-imagined San Andreas, comes out September 17, and its already being hailed as the next step in sandbox evolution. With Rockstar’s largest, most detailed map yet, this Oceans 11-type heist-fest is set to steal countless hours from you over the next few months.

But wait… Rockstar isn’t done.

Over the past few days I’ve poured over interviews, read reactions, and soaked up everything I can learn about what is is going to be a total sea change in multiplayer gaming. Let me phrase that a little differently:

Grand Theft Auto Online is about to blow every other online gaming experience out of the water.

In an interview with Rockstar’s Leslie Benzies, it was recently revealed that the game engine behind GTA V and GTA Online is fully expandable, meaning there is not limit to the size of the world that GTA Online can inhabit. He was quoted as saying that it was their ultimate goal to simulate The World.

So what started as a game engine to build the world of Grand Theft Auto V with quickly became the jumping off point for what is now looking to be one of the greatest achievements in online gaming history. So much so, that Rockstar has even pushed out the release date of GTA Online to Nov. 1st so that gamers can become accustomed to the single player world and the changes in game play. I’m blown away by the technical achievement here alone. For the head of Rockstar to say they can theoretically simulate the Earth, with cities and countries, people and all… The implications of that are just enormous. Benzies said that they wouldn’t stop until they’d simulated life.

For anyone that’s played Grand Theft Auto IV, that’s not too far a leap. If you’ve spent time in the living, breathing, bustling Liberty City, then you know how just standing on a street corner can prompt some of the game’s funniest mechanics. I once stood outside a cafe, letting the camera drift out over the street as I lay the controller down. Eventually there was a “crash” as an auto accident happened on the street in front of me, both drivers get out and start yelling at each other… Then one punches the other guy and hops back into his car and speeds off! This is exactly why GTA IV (and now V) are the most immersive experiences you can plug into. I mean come on, you can sit in your apartment and watch clever, satirical television programs made by the geniuses at Rockstar. The levels of GTA V are even deeper, and Grand Theft Auto Online brings it all live.

You can form crews, perform co-op heists, buy stocks, property, cars, insurance (in case some asshole steals your ride), the amount of detail put into this world is mind-boggling. There are the regular Deathmatch modes, other co-op missions, races on land, air, and sea, military jet dogfights above the city, air-support for elaborate heists that you and your friends (or strangers for that matter) can pull off for more cash. There are ATV races, jet ski races, launching-off-mountains-on-motorcycles-then-opening-your-parachute races, there is tennis, sports, gambling… Rockstar went ALL OUT this time… There are nearly 500 different missions that mix and match each time to create the most fun you can have online with both hands on the controller.

Now there aren’t any specific plans to release GTAV or GTA Online for next-gen consoles as of yet, but with Microsoft and Sony both set to release their next generation consoles this fall, it’s only logical that they will. Rockstar has built this all-inclusive simulated world, and they intend to keep it, expand it, and let it evolve as the years go by… So it’s no stretch that they wouldn’t force people to play on their Ps3’s and Xbox 360s five years from now. That means it’s perfectly safe to get the game if you’re planning on upgrading to a next-gen console this holiday. Just don’t throw out your old one yet, cause if you’re like me, a guy who still plays GTA IV to this day, you’ll be playing GTA V and GTA Online right up until it’s released on next-gen consoles.

When GTA Online releases, it will be seamless. There’s a wheel on the game’s heads-up-display that allows you to switch back and forth between the single player’s three main characters… And on Nov. 1st a fourth character will simply appear. You’ll be able to click on it and as the camera pulls back, up into the sky and then back down again on another portion of the map, it will drop you right into multiplayer mode. It’s all controlled from the in-game iPhone knock-off, and then loads during the character-switching animation. That means no lame party lists, no waiting in lobbies for other players to join, no countdowns while you furiously try and select your loadout, none of the old-school multiplayer annoyances. Rockstar has made the transitions in GTA V and Online as immaculate as possible.

You’ll first appear at the airport, a fresh face to San Andreas, and be guided by some of the single player’s characters through the first couple of missions, to give you a feel for the set up. In Online, just like the campaign, the game is all about money. There’s a real, fully functioning economy in San Andreas, where you can purchase stock, real estate, and different houses, condos, cars, and more. You can customize every aspect of your character from clothes and tattoos, as well as your vehicles- paint jobs, rims, convertibles!! Each multiplayer mission nets you more cash, which you’ll need to remember to drop off at the bank, cause if you get capped out on the street by another person, they can steal it! That means once you get going, you’ll have to go to ATMs and such to keep your daily expenses paid (weapons, cars, etc) without carrying enough to make yourself a target for other players.

From planning elaborate heists that require multiple people, to simply robbing a liquor store while your buddy waits in the car, Rockstar has made the criminal underworld simulation as detailed and as realistic as it can be. They’ve also re-done the combat mechanics of GTA, no more run and gun and try to not get shot. They’ve simply taken the cover and combat system from last year’s masterpiece Max Payne 3 and transplanted it into GTA. That means no more clunky gunfights… We get a true cover system, aiming, and even slow-motion bullet time for some instances! They’ve kept the driving mechanics from GTA IV (where the cars feel real because they have weight), and refined them. Better camera angles, more responsive steering and brakes, and the best of all? Slow-motion bullet-time driving in some cases as well!

All in all, it would appear Rockstar listened to the fans. Gone are the days of drive here and kills him missions, now everything ties into the heists, their planning, execution, and fallout. They took the great start they had in GTA IV and expanded it, making every single aspect of game play as good as it could possibly be… And I can’t explain in one post the extent to which they have gone to simulate a detailed and changing world in GTA Online. Even long after the single player campaign has been finished, people will be logging into GTA Online for years to come. If everything I’ve seen works are well as they say it will, one day you might log into GTA Online and start the game in your actual hometown, then travel out into the countryside to wreak havoc and mayhem from there.

This world is gigantic, it’s layered incredibly from the clouds to the bottom of the ocean, and it’s designed to expand well beyond the borders of Los Santos. This is the future of the sand box, and Rockstar has done it again.

Jul 12 2013

Pacific Rim Gives Guillermo del Toro a Chance to Shine

Before I get into it, I told myself I wasn’t going to write another glowing review without saying something first: I don’t love all movies. While it might seem like I offer up glowing praise for every piece of celluloid on the planet, the simple fact is that I don’t go to bad movies. I skip the White House Downs and the Texas Chainsaw Massacres. Those I watch when I have the time… On Netflix or cable or whatever. I also don’t feel the need to write reviews of the shit I do see. Does that make me a bad reviewer? I don’t think so. It makes me a practical one. I don’t write reviews for idiots. If you don’t know what you’re getting into when you go see Step Up 2 the Streets, then I’ not going to waste my time or yours telling why you shouldn’t. People go to see movie because they like the subject matter, they hear it’s really good, they like the people making it, or they’re just curious. If Grown Ups 2 is your thing… By all means go see it! I won’t pay to, but that’s cause I have to pay to see my movies and I’m not rich. I go see the ones I really want to see, and if it is a great story, or even just deserves to make more money, I want to spread the word.

That being said:

If any movie deserves to make a billion dollars this summer, it’s Pacific Rim, and if there is any justice in the world it will. Not since Avatar have we seen such an original universe so rich and full of life from top to bottom. We don’t get a lot of big-budget Hollywood action movies that aren’t sequels or adaptations, and here is a glaring example of why originality still counts for something. Director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy I & II, The Devil’s Backbone) already proved his big-budget chops with Hellboy II, one of the best comic adaptations ever made. With Pacific Rim, he gets a chance to shine. You hear a phrase every once and awhile, that “here is an auteur at the top of his game…” And to some degree this is completely right. However with a Guillermo del Toro film, you feel something more, something you don’t often get mid-summer:

Life.

You remember when George Lucas went back and added all that digital crap to Star Wars to make it seem like a busier, more complex universe? Well what he was trying to do (albeit failing) was inject life into the “world” of the movie. Details, details, details. You see, if you provide a vibrant, believable backdrop to the action going on, the setting and the story feed off of each other… A perfect storm of yarn-spinning if you will… And it all stems from the imagination.

Guillermo del Toro chocks more life into Pacific Rim than 10,000 Hollywood-reboot-blockbuster-franchises put together. That’s easily his greatest talent. He takes these huge, fantastic ideas set in lush, vibrant settings, and sells them like gold on the screen. I mean come on, a future where giant monsters start coming through a dimensional tear at the bottom of the ocean? That’s a huge pill to swallow when it comes to suspending disbelief. Del Toro does it without breaking a sweat.

Every single second of Pacific Rim had me glued to the screen, shoving candy and popcorn in nervously as I ran the gambit of emotions from suspense and scares to awestruck fascination at the amazing display of sheer kick-ass robot power… To even real human connection, humor, love, and grief… This film contains all of the reasons why we like to go to the movies in the first place. It has heart, it has a fantastic story, the special effects are seamless, and the entire time I felt as if I wasn’t just watching a movie, but that I had a front-row seat to del Toro’s endless imagination.

Despite the marketing machine that would have you believe this movie is another Transformers, don’t believe it. Pacific Rim is one of the few that breaks the mold. There are bits and pieces of different stories we’ve heard before, but never like this… And the best of all? There so man of those Karate Kid, stand-up-and-cheeer moments that you’re going to find it hard not to yell at the screen during some of the fight scenes. It’s epic action film making at it’s best. For what it is, there’s nothing else like it in the history of film. Seriously. This is the special effects bonanza that all the other CGI actioneers in the last few years have promised. It’s the perfect summer movie.

Can you tell I think you should go spend your money on this? Guess what I get for saying so? Not a goddamn thing… In fact I’m paying to tell you… But that’s ok… Cause hopefully some people will agree!

Set in the near future, giant skyscraper-sized monsters called Kaiju start attacking the major coastal cities. After we kill off the first few with conventional weapons tanks, missiles, bombs, (all at the cost of tens of thousands of lives) it becomes clear that the attacks aren’t going to stop. A new kind of weapon must be built:

The Jaegers. Giant battle machines that are driven by two pilots. There has to be two pilots because, of course, the neural load of the Jaeger‘s systems is too much for one to handle alone.

So teams of pilots join minds, linking to the opposite hemisphere of the other pilot’s brain in what’s called “the Drift…” a place inside the memories and minds of the pilots, where their special suits allow them to become the giant machines in body, mind, and even spirit.

They’re Rockem-Sockem robots, there’s no denying it… But I’ll be a monkey’s uncle it’s as if del Toro captured all those childhood toy-time fantasies and served it up on the screen. I forgot I was watching a movie, got lost in the story, and loved nearly every second of it.

Let’s face it, most movies just sit there on the screen. You watch them, they’re done. You might talk about them afterward with your friends, but for the most part movies are fast-food. Pacific Rim is like a kick-ass, authentic, seven-course meal at La Casa Del Toro.

I don’t want to spoil any of the plot, but let’s just say the war goes well for awhile… but the Kaiju keep getting bigger, stronger, and meaner. Until one day the unthinkable happens to the world’s most hot-shot pilots. Faced with a growing threat, and dwindling support, the Jaeger program is mothballed in favor of building giant walls along the shorelines of the world. Soon the Kaiju start coming more often, and it’s up to the a rag-tag group of heroes, rejects, and geeks to save the world.

It borrows heavily from Independence Day, but thankfully not in a Randy Quaid kind of way… More like a Will Smith/Jeff Goldblum chemistry kind of way. The cheesy-yet-still-easy-to-swallow way.

Go see this movie in IMAX but bring your ear-plugs if you’re not deaf like me. It’s big, loud, and bad ass… It’s more than the sum of its parts, and it deserves to be seen. I’m ready to see it again, it’s one of those movies where you miss half off what’s going on because there’s just SO MUCH GOOD STUFF!

If there’s any justice in the world Guillermo del Toro will now be cemented as an A-list action director who can deliver the goods when it comes to original, thought-provoking films that appeal to all ages and tastes… And hopefully it shows that not all blockbusters have to be sequels, reboots, or rehashes.

Jul 8 2013

World War Z Movie Review

I’m a zombie guy, always have been. Vampires are alright, werewolves eh… But zombies? Yes please! I know it’s so freakin cool to like zombies these days that it’s almost cool NOT to like them anymore… Popular culture just works that way. Popularity is like a zombie apocalypse. It’s manageable when there’s only a few of them, but as soon as you attract the attention of the horde, it’s all over. Ever since I saw George Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead years and years ago I knew that these shuffling, mindless, flesh-ripping monsters were really just a symbol of our modern society. In the good old days social commentary and satire went hand-in-hand with exploding heads and fists full of entrails.

Zombies have changed since 9/11. Now it’s all about social anxiety.

It used to be a voodoo curse or a weird green comet that reanimated dead flesh, sending it slowly in the direction of the all-nourishing brains. Now it’s all about the end of times. It’s a secret biological weapon or a mutated infection that sends our feverish husbands, wives, or kids into mysterious comas that end tragically with them gnawing on our ribcage. Now days it’s all about the system breaking down, the safety of our everyday lives being dowsed in gasoline and set on fire… And why not? We don’t need zombies to see this kind of human atrocity every day. Remember this is the same human nature that causes neighbors to stab each other over food or water during hurricanes and turns policemen into shoot-first-ask-questions-later militias…

That’s the true fear we see reflected in the images of the Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, and now, World War Z. It’s not the inevitable zombie bite that scares the crap out of me, but the way that people react to it. How fear can twist the mind into something unrecognizable. It’s the stripping-away of our morals, our rights, our comfortable sense of home and safety. The de-evolution of mankind apparently happens in the blink of an eye.

We lose our shit quick. We are a world already torn apart by unspeakable violence, disease, political unrest, and worst of all… Apathy.

This is the stage set in World War Z. A fast-paced, lean, and severely disturbing experiment in big-budget zombie movie making. No one who has read Max Brooks‘ novel seems to be pleased with the movie as far as I know… Luckily for me I haven’t read it yet. I’m still pissed at him for stealing my idea for the Zombie Survival Guide… But that was years ago. My point is this: apparently if you want to enjoy this movie you can’t be a WWZ novel fan-boy.

But I got into this movie, big time. It sucked me in from the opening credits, a montage of news footage and doomsday talk all set to a creepy, frenetic soundtrack by rock gods Muse. I also went to see it early on in the day, before my bullshit meter was filled up. It’s really the best time to see a scary movie. Most zombie movies are inherently campy, even the Walking Dead has a thick slab of cheese on top. It can’t be helped. It’s partly the gore, the make-up, the shufflin’ hordes I mentioned earlier.

World War Z side-steps the cliche by taking a few pages from Danny Boyle‘s low-budget masterpiece 28 Days Later… Which is in my opinion the scariest damn zombie flick ever made. With World War Z it’s almost as if Brad Pitt (and the studio) said, “Ok this is a great book, but let’s just use the name…” then they proceeded to make a Hollywood prequel to the Danny Boyle movie. Plagued by rewrites, bad press, and massive reshoots including an entirely new ending, this movie was destined to fail.

Fortunately the rewrites and the reshoots were a good call. Despite it’s flaws, World War Z is a solid piece of action film making. I was on the edge of my seat from the first few scenes til the credits came up at the end… And Holy Shit did I mention the zombies are scary? I mean mercilessly-vicious kind of scary? Like a flowing river of running, grabbing, chomping pack animals? These aren’t your Romero zombies baby, these suckers are more akin to wild animals infected with rabies and meth. They head-butt through glass to bite you, then on to the next person. They’re a spreading disease, not a legion of the undead.

Right away we’re introduced to Gerry Lane (Pitt), an ex-UN hot shot who wrote a controversial paper that got him an early retirement at home with the family. His comfortable little home life provides the emotional core to the movie, and co-star Mireille Enos provides a solid supporting role… Even if her part was cut down significantly. The star of AMC’s the Killing, Enos is underutilized here… (at least she isn’t Matthew Fox, who had his entire role trimmed down to two scenes and one line). The Lanes are going on a trip to Philadelphia, and that’s where they find themselves in the middle of a zombie outbreak.

The scene is perfect. Quick cuts and some shaky-cam provide a sense of forboding as the family is stuck in a traffic jam that seems to stretch on forever. Soon the station-wagon is clipped by a passing motorcycle cop, and Gerry gets out to retrieve his side mirror. The buildings seem to loom over them in the downtown traffic. It’s claustrophobic, confusing, and brilliantly shot. When an explosion further up the street a few miles raises the panic meter, another motorcycle cop drives up and ushers Gerry back into his car. He shrugs his shoulders and does just that, before one of those physically-impossible speeding vehicle effects sends the cop sailing through the air as a garbage truck goes crashing through the lane next to them, plowing through parked cars like a hot knife through zombie. Soon Gerry, sensing he needs to get the hell out of there, falls in behind the truck, like Moses and the Red Sea of Philly traffic. Before they can get clear the car is t-boned by another escaping vehicle and the family is sent reeling. As Gerry pulls his wife and kids out of the Volvo he hears a noise… Behind the screams… Some kind of terrifying animal snarl. More quick-edits of people running and panicked faces are spliced with frightening images of zombie faces. It’s a good effect. You see them in the crowd, like Gerry, and then the music comes up… And the snarls are getting closer.

Remember Philly!

In this movie there are Zombies leaping from tall buildings, crashing down with bone-crushing force, only to jump up and pounce on the nearest victim… All to spread the infection. It takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes for people to “turn” and the lingering “how the hell does something that works that fast get through an airplane ride to disburse across the globe?” question will bug you through the whole thing. Suspend your disbelief. It’s worth it. This is one of the most suspenseful action/horror movies that has been pumped out of the Hollywood machine… And while it doesn’t do justice to the political satire and social commentary of the novel, it works none the less.

In the end, World War Z is the “scariest” zombie flick I’ve seen in years. The CGI is perfect, the story is just enough to get us from one terrific disaster scene to the next, and even though it ballooned over budget and out of control, I’m glad it made some serious money. This one deserves a sequel!

Jun 26 2013

The Last of Us (PS3) – Review

Let’s talk about magic. Not the Harry Potter, wave your wand kind of magic, but the real kind. The kind you feel on a first date, or a beach, or any time when events, emotions, thoughts, everything just seems to flow in harmony. When your ears are ringing from the comprehension that something truly special is happening… It doesn’t happen as often as it should in life. Especially in the realm of entertainment. Entertainment is another beast altogether. It’s manufactured magic… And most of the time you can tell the glaring difference between the two.

Movies, and lately TV, have always been the perfect medium for manufactured magic- just as any other art stirs emotion, thoughts, questions, etc… But at the same time, for every Godfather, Unforgiven, or Indiana Jones, there are 200,000 direct-to-video Steven Segal movies hoping to cash in. That’s the thing about entertainment. In it’s most refined form, it’s strictly for profit. It’s not coincidence that movies make billions of dollars these days, they’re designed to. However, luckily for us, even manufactured magic is magic. Let’s face it, there are great movies, and then there are Apocalypse Now’s… Just as there are great shows and then are Mad Men‘s.

Well, the 8th dimension has just been blown open. Now we have great video games, and then we have The Last of Us.

I’ve never played anything like it. Technically it’s a video game, in that it comes on a game disc and you play it on a console… But when the opening scene of this unfathomably fantastic adventure begins… It’s all magic from then on.

The Last of Us is the story of two people, Joel and Ellie, and how they survive 20 years after the world as we know it ends. Do you remember that scary picture of the tarantula that had been over-grown by the Cordyceps fungus? I do. It looks like some kind of monster from under the sea. As the spores from the fungus replaced the spider’s cells with its own, it changed it into the freakish alien-looking horror it became… While the spider was still alive. Ultimately, the spider dies and the spores are released into the air to find the next host. Scary right? Well imagine it happens to people. The spores have mutated, speeding up the process, turning regular people into mushroom-headed nightmares that attack and kill anything they see or hear.

It’s a twist on the old zombie apocalypse, one that’s rooted in real, disgustingly terrifying science.

The Last of Us starts off on the night of the outbreak, with animation done so well it looks Pixar-real. Animation in a game is key, and the motion-capture technology used to bring these characters to life is as good as it gets. The movements are real, the faces, eyes, and the mouths all move perfectly to suspend the disbelief. The characters have weight, they don’t spring like normal video game avatars. They move deliberately, it’s one of the dozens of tiny details that work together seamlessly.

After the heart-wrenching opener we cut to Joel in Boston, 20 years later. He’s older, greyer, and hard as f*cking steel. The story picks up when Joel and his girlfriend Tess, a pair of morally-ambiguous smugglers, people who ferry goods and services in and out of the Quarantine Zone, get roughed up by a local henchman. Boston is one of the few remaining Zones that are still functioning, although the more time you spend in the Zone, the more it feels like these people are just dying a little slower than the infected that roam the dark corners of the world. The story doesn’t fall back on exposition, it drops you in the middle. It doesn’t stop to explain everything that isn’t vital to the main story, and therefore doesn’t insult the intelligence of the player.

In fact, this “game” is all about not insulting the intelligence of the player. It takes every zombie-horror-survival cliche and turns it sideways. There is never a moment in the entire 17 hours of play that feels stale or tossed in… And did I mention no load times? Usually in games you’re waiting for a little bar to fill up in order to play the next mission or level… Here, it’s all one seamless experience. There’s no breaking the fourth wall to pull us out of the world we’re submerged in.

Seriously, there were times I referred to things in the game in the first person. Like, “well she’s been traveling with me for this long,” that never happens for me. I play a lot of video games and not once have I felt personally responsible for the outcome of the story. Why not? Because I’ve never been invested like I have in The Last of Us. I’m telling you, this is not a video game. It’s a simulation.

There are moments of pure shit-your-pants terror, where the controller is slipping from your hand because your palms are sweating from adrenaline. All because Naughty Dog, the makers of the uber-popular Uncharted series, plays it straight and lean. There’s no over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek here… There is brutal, unforgiving, and yet ultimately beautiful “game” play. From the scariest depths of spore-ridden basements to the stunning views of an over-grown world where nature has taken back what man had built, this is a phenomenal experience.

I won’t spoil a thing that you don’t already know. Joel and Tess meet up with Ellie, a young teenager, and they are paid to smuggle her out of the Quarantine Zone to the local militia/freedom-seeking Fireflies outside… But of course, things go wrong along the way, and it’s up to you to guide these characters across a ravaged landscape chocked full of scary fast zombies and even scarier fast people. Early on one character muses, it’s not the infected you have to worry about, it’s the people that are unpredictable.

The Last of Us is a triumph in every way. It succeeds in flushing out a world only glimpsed in films like The Road, Children of Men, or I Am Legend, in which the environment itself becomes a central character. It take you out of your living room and into a world so dangerous, so unforgiving, that the only choice is to be even more brutal. Eventually you come to truly care about the characters on the screen. When they’re hurt, you feel it… You really do. More than once I found myself tearing up, feeling grief, feeling betrayal, feeling the cathartic struggle for life. I cannot recommend this “game” enough. It’s the reason why the PS3 was made, and a fitting swansong for one of the best entertainment consoles ever made.

Bravo Naughty Dog. This is truly a work of art.

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The Last of Us (PS3) – Review

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