John Adams Was A Bitch

At least in my opinion.

OK…he was one of the founding fathers of our country, and made tremendous sacrifices to keep our nascent nation afloat. That and he tirelessly (and successfully) fought to keep his country out of an unnecessary war.

But other than that he was just kind of a grumpy dick and a less than admirable family man.

At least that’s the impression I got after finishing the 7 part HBO Films mini-series, John Adams, which stars Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney.

It is no secret amongst my close friends that I have a man crush on Paul Giamatti. His exasperated, neurotic, mid-life crisis roles never cease to amuse and amaze me. We’ve watched him rise from “Pig Vomit” in Howard Stern’s Private Parts to America’s second president, and he does a phenomenal job in the latter role. Watching his jowls jiggle with zeal and patriotism made watching the 7+ hour series exceedingly enjoyable. Laura Linney also does an exceptional job playing Abigail Adams.

I highly recommend you put this on your Netflix queue. Take it from me, the guy who was falling asleep during 8^th grade American History; if this series can inspire a ravenous curiosity in me about the history behind our nation’s formation, and the men and women who were at the helm, you just might be able to get into it too.

Year in Review (Because it Always Looks Better in Retrospect)

I’m a bit obsessive compulsive and love 3’s and 7’s. In order to keep this relatively brief for your sakes, I’ll be keeping this to groups of three. 2008 was an awesome year in many ways for video games and I think a look back would be a wonderful way to go into the new year:

3 Biggest Bits of News

I – Final Fantasy XIII goes Multi-console

This is big news in a lot of ways. The first thing is the overall importance of this news and what it means for the video game industry. The FF series has, until now, been exclusive to its given console. The sharing of a console for an FF installment on its release is heretofore unheard of and the change shows Square-Enix’s appraisal of a new market and era for videogames. How? Because in the old days, figuring out which console was truly king was an easy matter, and a console being king in the SNES days was a simple matter of it having better out of the box appeal. Thanks to instantaneous dissemination of information and news (this crazy interweb thing), consumer opinion and responses are extremely organic. As such, even if the 360 has a lead on the PS3 in console sales right now, there’s no telling which console will get the better pull when FFXIII is released, or which one will hold onto the lead in the long run (whereas in previous console generations the winner was usually clear after the first full year on the market). Square responded to the new market and showed that multi-platform releases are the best way to do business, and that is what Square is first and foremost.

The other important part of this news was the collective brick shat by gamers around the globe in response to the news. Immediately arguments ensued and discussions about multi-disc format versus the single disc blu ray PS3 owners will have. Longtime Sony stalwarts can attest to multi-disc format not being a big deal (since it was standard in PSone days) and therefore doesn’t really matter. The major bit to emerge in the face of this news is what no one seemed to pay any attention to: the sister game, Versus XIII, remains PS3 exclusive. In all honesty, based on the story and trailers that have been released, I’m more excited for Versus, and can’t wait to see more.

II – PS3 Begins to Best 360 in monthly sales, 360 takes November though

The PS3 finally began overtaking the 360 from Spring onward, and this generated very little buzz beyond the usual numbers spinning that Microsoft PR is wont to do and generated little fanboy buzz by the way of anything more than the reality: the PS3 was finally hitting stride and catching up to the 360.

What was absurd about the year’s NPDs was the November numbers being spun out of proportion to the point where people were claiming the PS3 was a sinking ship and that even sparked rumors of Sony canceling the PS3. The PS3 sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 275,000 units in the US in November, which is not a bad number by any means, just a slip down from their prior month and a decrease from November 2007. These kinds of small facts get blown up until people extrapolate these kinds of absurd notions and it just goes to show that while the masses may have immediate access to all kinds of information thanks to the internet, the masses are still shityourpants dumb sometimes.

Oh, and in addition to this back and forth between the PS3 and the 360, the Wii jerked itself off month after month on both Sony and Microsoft. I hope every Nintendard waggles themselves to a Mii induced seizure.

III – PS Home Release

It may have been released, but damn was it boring. That’s the first issue. I will say that Home has all kinds of potential, but they’re not utilizing it properly enough. The key is to provide additional content (the Uncharted Rooms for example were a big draw) whether it’s a new way to peruse add ons, explore games and get help, or maybe even download cheat patches (I know I’m not alone in missing my Gameshark).

In spite of these evident potentialities to solidify Home, the big news following Home’s release is the removal of voice chat so people can’t go up to little girls and inform them of what fellatio is.

3 Best Games

I – Metal Gear Solid 4

Kojima-San did it again. Up to his usual tricks with plenty fo fourth wall busting, over the top philosophical and societal commentary, and a magnum opus of a sendoff for Solid/Old Snake, Kojima’s game plays like pure poetry. I may have only played through it once, but that’s honestly because I haven’t had time to do a second play through proper justice, that, and I like sleeping.

II – LittleBigPlanet

This one surprised the hell out of me. I went alternately from being psyched out of my mind seeing the level creation potential of it, to subsequently being intimidated and then put off by the depth of level creation online aspect (I’m not much into online communities, although I do take them into consideration and applaud them). I got a copy anyway though, and was blown away. The whole game is a warm, cuddly and welcoming as the posterchild sackboy is. The online aspect a welcoming environment, the add-ons encourage continuous involvement and experimentation, and the game’s story mode was actually as captivating as it was original. I haven’t even busted opne the level creation in full force yet but the story mode has not left me unsatisfied.

III – Fallout 3

Just read my review in the previous posts. What a game, grandiose, visionary, and just so immersive you run the danger of forcing your friends to call an intervention and hide your console power cable so they can get you to shower and eat.

3 Biggest Disappointments

I – Delays, Delays, Delays

Prototype and InFamous were both delayed until next year. I was excited for both of these games, and it seems (based on the timing) that GTA IV’s release scared both developers into putting their noses to the grindstones for creating their open world settings for the games. While Prototype has been flying under the radar (although confirmed for an April release), inFamous was recently previewed with a hands on by ign.com and Greg Miller (a personal hero of mine), gave it nothing short of superb appraisals.

In the realm of delays, I’ll throw FFXIII in that bunch because we’re supposed to already be on our second and third playthroughs of it and since Square isn’t nailing down a date for it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it means very late 2009 or 2010 even. What we know for certain is that there’s a demo coming out (Ironically, the demo is PS3 exclusive) with FF VII: Advent Children Complete in March. If the demo is coming out in March, that means it’s at least 2 quarters until we can reasonably expect Square to finish it’s polish and sheen on the game, hence my prediction of late 2009 or early 2010. The upside that may allow me to err in the favor of earlier than later: The demo is already promised to have roughly five hours of gameplay, which can only mean that the full game will be near completion, and/or the game itself will be even more massive than previous titles. Square has, historically, revolutionized the RPG genre generation to generation, so hopefully FF’s tardiness this generation is not from lack of innovation but rather from surplus.

II – Spider-Man Web of Shadows

Yeah, I’m calling out specific games here. SMWoS, where did you go wrong? The gameplay was fun, the story utilized some unique mechanics peop
le had to love (the power of choice between classic Red n Blue or the Black suit) evil or good path choices in the game, and the most impressive array of Spider-Man canon characters to ever grace a spidey game. The game, unfortunately, suffered terribly repetitive missions and aggravating structure. There were also some clunky cutscenes that made even the vaguest of Spider-Man fans raise eyebrows (why, for example, was MJ constantly calling Spider-Man Peter in public?). While swinging and employing the new battle system was exhilirating, I couldn’t get over the fact that Luke Cage forced me to do a mission killing four thugs in sequence using a specific move on each one that was near impossible to time on its own, but far more difficult to execute on the four moving and shooting thugs. Spider-Man’s Brand New Day in the video game world should have slept in.

III – Resistance 2

What the hell did they do to Nathan Hale? The original game found its footing and appeal in the unique style of setting that it lodged in post would be WWII era that you believed. While the chimaera hideouts took you somewhere farout and truly “Resistance”-y, you never felt as if you had left the 1940’s alternate history Naughty Dog had crafted. This game, however, abandoned that and left you feeling as if you’d been jettisoned to whatever godawful year in the future Halo 3 takes place.