I've been trying to think of a way I can comment on the goings-on of the day without ending up fired, and I think I've worked it out.

I'm excited, y'all.  I'm excited for video games.

I'm excited to use the kooky share button on the PS4 controller to show a moment that made me cry in Jenova Chen's next game.  

I'm excited to watch some Spielberg Halo TV and play some Pooch of Duty.

I'm excited to find a reason to dust of my poor little Wii U and remember how much I love Nintendo.

I'm excited to see PC games shake off the shackles of porting games made for ten year old consoles.

I'm excited to see iPads and iPhones and Chromebooks and Surfaces fight to get our attention back from our living rooms.

I'm excited for immersion, and emersion, and all in ones, and ones in all, and social, and buzzwords.

I'm excited for console wars, and fanboys, and diatribes and internet memes.  

I'm excited for new IPs, and new ideas, and total failures, and what-were-they-thinkings.

I'm excited for indie games that take new technology and make new experiences that could only have worked on a dime budget.

I'm excited for waiting in line and staying up all night to play something new, and then complaining about how it could have been newer.

Video games are my generation's art form.  It's the story telling medium of the now, and of the future.  It won't always been a smooth ride, but it will always be moving forward, and that's exciting.

And when I read something that's cynical, or dismissive, or makes my heart hurt, I'll remember that I'm excited for video games, and that's what counts.

-Dustin

Obviously you want to the end of a game to be challenging. It's the culmination of all the learned skills you've developed thus far, and it should feel satisfyingly challenging so you get that cathartic release of having done some impossible task.

On the other hand, with so many cinematic games, Halo 4 included, the end-game also tries to be this accelerating crescendo of pace and spectacle. They want that "stop the bomb at 2 seconds" action movie feel.

I feel like these two things, challenge and pace, conflict. Challenge almost necessarily implies a greater risk of failure and thus a slower pace. Fast continuous pace implies a smaller risk of failure and thus a lower challenge. I feel like Halo 4 was particularly unbalanced at the end. The game was telling me to "go faster" and yet "going faster" got me killed, and disrupted the feeling that this was a cohesive story about a cyborg who never fails and always saves the day.

I wish games could be smarter with still presenting what seems like and feels like an impossible challenge, like some challenge you've faced in a slower paced part of the game where death didn't feel so disruptive, but did things to make sure you were more likely to succeed. I think if you want to maintain the action finale pace of the story you are trying to tell, you should present the illusion of challenge, but do as much as a game designer to ensure the player doesn't get knocked out of the story by an untimely death.

Rather than just gripe, let me give an example.  At the end of Halo 4 (no spoilers) I finished what I thought was the last part of the "challenge" portion.  I turned off the things, and was ready to put the thing in the thing to make the thing go away, and seen a cutscene.  As I ran to accomplish my final task, I found myself faced with 3 more bad guys.  I had expended all of my ammo of their 15 or so buddies previously, so I had nothing to use on them.  What resulted was a hit & miss attempt to figure out how to kill these guys with 2 bullets in the chamber.  I feel like if the game design focus had been about avoiding pace slow down, they could have seen that I had no ammunition, and done something as easy as conveniently placed an extra gun or some more ammo to help get me past this last wave of bad guys. They could have maintained the illusion of challenge without affecting the pace.

I actually think Halo 1 did this well.  You were giving a challenging, slower paced fight where you set the bomb, and then given a "run for your life" finale that minimized the chances of you having to stop and repeat it.  Halo 4 had a very similar mix, but I feel like they got it the other way around.  I felt like I had beaten a difficult challenge, but I felt like I lost the pace of the story in the process.

Anyways, my 2 cents.  Still an awesome, awesome game.

It's hard to not get excited about the wide world of opportunities Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, and more importantly, Star Wars, has opened up.  So what better time to dust off the old Monotony blog and gush a little about future.

Post Lucas-ian Star Wars

If that phrase doesn't give you goose bumps, I don't know what will.  There's a reason that the prequels, as truly terrible as they were, didn't put an end to Star Wars.  The universe which George Lucas created is by far one best science fiction universes ever conceived.  Whatever existential angst Lucas brought to his beloved fans with Jar Jar Binks pails in comparison to the love we have of X-Wings and Lightsabres.  I mean, it's a universe where fire burns in space, every planet is a short hyperspace jump away, and space samauris can lift you off your feet with their minds.  What's not to love?!

And that's the first point I want to make: there is a treasure trove of great things to work with for making movies in the Star Wars universe, and George Lucas was the one thing getting in the way from those stories making it on screen.  We've already seen many of them off the silver screen.  Timothy Zahn and Kevin Anderson wrote phenomal novels with Lucas's characters.  Bioware built a Star Wars universe that was totally fresh and yet totally familiar, and made us care about characters who had never seen a single moment in any Star Wars movie.  Just imagine the likes of Avenger's director Joss Whedon, or Pixar/MI4 director Brad Bird, both go-to directors of Disney properties, getting a chance to tell their Star Wars story.  Ok sure, the Ewok movies were awful, but entire generations of JJ Abrams-like directors grew up wanting to make Star Wars movies, and now they have a chance, meddling-free.

Likely and Unlikely

As wide a world as the opportunities are, it's probably best to do a reality check of what Disney and the unknown creative talent behind the new movies will likely end up doing, and will almost definitely not do.

Unlikely: Sex, Drugs, and Tie Fighters

I'll admit, the first thing that came to mind was a dark, gritty, Chris Nolan-esque Star Wars.  As cool as that could be, the one big thing to remember is that when Disney bought Star Wars, it most likely wasn't just because it saw billion dollar, Dark Knight box office totals in the future.  Disney knows what Space Ball's so bluntly parodied, Star Wars' vaster profit potential is "moichendizing."  That said, it's likely that films in the future, especially 7, 8, & 9 will be purposefully kid friendly, PG or soft PG-13 affairs.  As much as I would love to see Star Wars incorporate more mature adult themes, I imagine that the folks at Disney will be careful to remember their target audience.

Likely: Expand Universe of some sorts

I don't really expect to see direct adaptations of EU books, as much as I'd love to see the Thrawn triology on screen.  I do however expect to see elements and characters brought out from the expanded universe.  It wouldn't at all surprise me to see Mara Jade, the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4, fleets of clone ships, or even the Solo children.  There are decades, even centuries of post-Retun of the Jedi lore to draw from, and with the popularity of the books with the hardcore Star Wars base, I expect to see directors dip into that well for inspiration.  They would be foolish not to.

Unlikely:  That Star Wars live-action TV show we've been promised

It's entirely possible for the longer future, but even though Disney has a TV station at its beckon call, it's unlikely to be in the works any time soon.  Prequel product Rick MacCallum gave a great candid talk about the TV show only a year back and was clear that it wasn't for lack of stories or lack of talent to get a live-action Star Wars TV show off the ground, it was just too expensive.  The level of effects, practical or CG, to produce a calliber of Star Wars TV show that we'd expect based on the films is still just too expensive to be sustainable.  Great sci-fi shows like Battlestar Galactica or Firefly got away on thinner budgest by build worlds that were pretty easy to shoot practially for a broad majority of scenes.  Firely in particular did a great job of making a world look real and lived in on a micro bugdet, but Star Wars has a ceratin look and feel and expectations associated with it, and the tech just isn't cheap enough yet.  That's why Disney has been pretty silent on the subject, and I expect they will continue to be for the next decade or so.

Likely: Original actors in Episode 7, 8, and 9

They may not be pretty, but they are far from dead :).  I could probably spend an entire post speculating about what Episodes 7, 8, and 9 might be, but the reallity is the original actors are probably too old to be swashbuckling stars we remember.  Personally, I think Leia and Solo are probably off the table.  Carrie Fisher, lord luv her, is probably not fit to return to the screen, and I think Harrison Ford might be done with reliving old characters after Indy.  Mark Hamill, however has kept up a lively career as a voice actor, and seeing as he is the only freakin' jedi left alive at the end of Return of the Jedi, I'm betting we almost definitely see Jedi Master Skywalker in some capacity in these episodes.  Older and grisled, but definitely there.  We probably will continue to see R2D2 and C3P0, as long as Anthony Daniels can keep doing the voice... which is basically just HIS voice, and I'm betting Peter Mayhew can still put on the Wookie suit.  Williams will probably also continue to score the films as long as he lives.  That's a good thing.

No.  No Jar Jar.  Just. No.

Unlikely:  Star Wars original edition cuts

Give it a rest folks.  We all know Han shot first.  It doesn't really matter anymore.

Likely: More Star Wars in the Disney parks

Is this even a question?

It is your destiny

I'm still kind of in shock about the whole thing.  I've joked about it in the past never thinking that one day Star Wars might actually be opened up to the creative minds of my generation.  However, when I think about it, it makes total sense.  Star Wars as a brand has showed no signs of slowing down in the 7 years since the last movie.  Cartoon Network has seen great success with the animated Clone Wars series.  Star Wars merchandise is still as popular as ever.  There's even a Star Wars Angry Birds coming out!  With Lucas clearly weary of the movie business, and a franchise that refuses to be unpopular even after three unpopular movies, I'm suprised it took this long for someone wake up and offer a buy-out.

It's time get excited, get out the Jedi robe from mothballs, and dust off the lightsaber.  A world of opportunity just got opened to some of the most creative minds in film making, and if Disney can show the wisdom to put Joss Whedon at the helm of the Avengers, just think what they could do for that far, far away galaxy.

Obiwan was right.  The force will be with you.  Always.

These are my favorites, things you should play, watch, and consume NOW...

I almost broke my rule by saying 2011 was one of the "best" years in gaming.  Well, it's true.  Last year not only saw a plethora of premiere titles for your AAA gaming rig, but a rejuvenation of independent games thanks to new devices and marketplaces.  

Sword & Sworcery EP is as quirky as its title, constantly breaking the glass wall of your iPad with distinctly un-game-y dialogue, even going as far as to have you tweet your exploits to the world.  But more than that, this game is on old-skool point and click (point and poke?) adventure that feels like playing the genre again for the first time.  From its art to its music, it's wholey new and yet deftly strums the heart strings of every gamer who has ever "used ship-rib on crack in wall."  It's hard to think of a more complete package, and there is no game that shines better on your iPad or iPhone.

Portal 2 had me the moment a potato sack of games landed in my steam account.  Not satisfied with being phenomenal story tellers and brilliant puzzle-crafters, Valve gathered a group of independent games and in collaboration with their developers, wrote Portal 2 levels into those games.  So here I was, playing The Ball when suddenly I burst through a wall and was in the sanitized interior of an Aperture Science lab, GladOs welcoming me to her clutches.  Giddy, stupefied, ... I can't describe how incredible that was.  This ARG (while it only earned us 8 hours off the release time) was a brilliant prelude to a phenomenal game, and an experience I wouldn't trade.  Good thing Portal 2 was every bit the hilarious, mind-bending, co-op-bot-crushing game we hoped it would be.

Bastion.  Some times a game feels like its every control and scheme was hand-crafted to your fingers and hardwired to your brain.  What I thought, the Kid did, and we traveled this lush, haunting, beauty of world in perfect harmony.  There a lot of games with great stories and vivid landscapes, but the way this game "played" has stuck with me.  This was a triumph of design, each weapon, each upgrade, each perk feeling distinct from the last and changing the way you approached a situation.  There was nothing thrown away or misused, in Bastion, it just...all fit.  "The narrator wasn't bad, too.  Heh...not bad at all."

Other favorites

• Dead Space 2 - SOOOOOO GOOOOOD.  SOOOOO SCARYYYYYYY.  Probably 5 bucks on Steam.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution  - so many bodies in so many vents :)
• Skyrim - 200+ hours and going
• Scribblenauts for Ipad - this is the future; Nintendo is dead
• SuperMegaWorm - It's kind of fun to say... SuperMegaWorm
• Batman Arkham City - I'm just waiting for Arkham County next
• Uncharted 3 - It's a movie.  It's a game.  It's the future of entertainment.
• Humble Indie Bundles - Any publishers or marketplaces not jumping on this are fools.  Fools, I say!

2011 was not a good year for movies.  If you watched the Oscars and recognized none of the movies nominated, you'd agree.  Maybe because 2010 was such a powerhouse, with brilliant and deserving films like Black Swan, The Social Network, The King's Speech, and 127 Hours, the powers-that-be decided to cool it on the awesome in 2011.  That said, there were some gems in the pile of pebbles.

Super 8. Was it a 2 hour long reference piece to every Amblin film every made? Yes.  Was it a crude fusion of science fiction and The Sandlot? Yes.  Was it a carefully constructed, Abrams delivered, twenty megaton nostalgia bomb? Yeppers.  Those are the reasons I loved this film.

Rango, an existential journey of an intentionally symbolic thespian chameleon (double symbolism!!) on a journey to discover his identity on the metaphysical planes of the desert of life.  Woah.  What?  Rango was a movie I decided to see late one Sunday night, and I had zero expectations of what to expect other than a cleverly animated, hopefully fun romp of a kids film.  What I got was a film with better action sequences than Cowboys vs Aliens and deeper meaning than Tree of Life.  And it was purty, to boot!  That's called making a film and not a baby-sitting device.

Take Shelter still scares me when I think about it.  There was something about the confluence of losing your mind and the world coming to an end that just got under my skin and refused to be extracted.  When I left the quaint little Havard Exit theatre in Seattle, I was pensive, alert, and thoroughly unnerved.  The plodding pace and purposeful reticence of the movie's main character will probably drive away people with short attention spans, but if you can find a quiet time to give this movie a chance, it will be scariest non-scary movie you watch.  Jibblies jibblies jibblies...

Other favorites

• Trollhunters - Watch this with friends; another fun found footage film.
• Submarine - My favorite film from last year's SIFF.  A director to watch.
• Tree of Life - Mesmerizing. Just. Mesmerizing.
• Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - Beat my expectations; not as good as the TV show
• 50/50 - you will cry and you will laugh and you will cry.
• Thor & Captain America - can't wait to see the Avengers if this is what's in store.
• Martha Marcy Mae Marlene - creepy as heck, but a solid flick
• Midnight in Paris - Basically the secret fantasy of every 20-something in Seattle, including me.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I'd watch the sequel.

Last year I fell in love with a fantasy world.  Star Wars was my first, Potter was pretty, Rings was a tease, and Trek always has my number, but last year I only had eyes for A Song of Ice and Fire.  

We met, as with all great relationships, through friends.  

"Give it a try!" they said.  

"I'm not really a 'medieval fantasy' sort of guy" I replied.  I mean, it didn't really have any magic, or wizards, or spaceships, did it?  I'm not one of those weirdos who goes to renaissance fairs.  I'm a self respecting geek.  Then I made the mistake of watching the first 10 minutes, posted online by HBO.  I was smitten.

With beer and songs we watched the series, and then I moved onto the books.  I've spent the last year savoring each page, willing the story to stetch out so it will never end - usually to willing oblige of Mr. Martin's prose.  

I carved a pumpkin with a direwolf.  I quoted "winter is coming" in drunken tweets.  I even bought a replica 'Hand of the King' pin, which I wear when no one is looking.  My love runs deep.

2011 was a memorable year, a year of great games, good movies, and may favorites; but I'm deciding to label something above it all.  In 2011, Game of Thrones was my favorite thing.

-Dustin

So it's summer (well, at least it is in places that have actually seen the sun in the past...10 months...not Seattle...) and rather than doing a bunch of individual posts about the upcoming summer movies and whether they are worth seeing, I thought I'd just post one BIG one and update it as time goes on.  So without further pomp and/or circumstance... the summer movies:

PRE ARTICLE QUESTION:  How many times have you noticed "strobbing" in a movie? (hold on to that to thought)

I've been struggling for a while about what to write about next.  Sure I could tell you how you should go out and see Rango or Source Code, but rottentomatoes could have told you that much.  So after weeks of pondering, I think I've finally found it, and who would have guessed it, it's thanks to everybody's favorite, beard-rocking Kiwi, Mr. PJ Hobbitbottom. (that's Peter Jackson... to the lay-man)

Well, it wouldn't be fair to give PJ all the credit, but he's certainly the first to cast the die in what could the most consequential change to film & television in a century!!!!  To paraphrase a once famous jazz singer, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You ain't seen nothin' yet."

The chances are by the time anyone reads this, the results will already be in, but rather waiting to analyze this year's Academy Awards, or simply join in the cacphonous blog-shout of the winners, I prefer to weigh in my opinions without the added, and pointless, baggage of passing judgemet on Hollywood's actual decisions.

Why 'The Social Network' shoud win best picture

The truly amazing thing is not that director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin managed to make a spectacular movie -- in fact it might be more suprising if they didn't -- but what's truly remarkable about The Social Network is that by all accounts this should have been a disaster of film.  

As much as books and literature love a good anti-hero, film in general does not.  In movies, we like to see our Daniel Plainviews succumb to madness, our Michael Corleones die alone and broken, or even better, our Riddicks turn out to be not such a bad guy afterall.  Sorkin's Zuckerberg was neither of these.  While it should be clearly stated that part of brilliance of this film was way Fincher & Sorkin constructured a brilliant drama via extraction and embellishment, the Zuckerberg of their story is this perfect balance between admirable genius and geniune asshole, and in the end, he can't really be seen as suffering too much for his crimes or being redeemed by his triumphs.  

This duality hits home in a really discomforting way, as I think we can all see a little bit of ourselves in Jesse Eisenberg's scrappy portrayal of the Facebook founder.  Without that unnerving flashlight into the human condition this movie very well could have been just another Pirates of Silicon Valley.  But what elevates this film is despite being set against the advent of the 21st century's most influential contribution to culture to date, Facebook is not the star of the movie.  Instead it is that honest, if somewhat magnified, duality of human nature that is brought to the forefront in the character of Mark Zuckerberg.

Fear of this kind of honesty, fear of a youth cultural Hollywood doesn't quite understand, fear of movie without out a clear happy or sad ending, all of these things could be reasons why The Social Network might not walk away with its deserving title, but whatever happens there is little doubt in my mind that of the ten nominated movies for best picture, this movie was the year's greatest, and one of worthy of counting itself amongst history's best.

Inception was a fun, good film.  It was not a great film.

Why 'The King's Speech' could win best picture

The simple answer is that it's a great film.  A really great film.  The story of a stuttering king could have easily been Sunday night PBS fodder, but director Tom Hopper and writer David Seidler managed to take this period docu-drama and make it one of the most uplifting commentaries on the admirable qualities of mankind.  Colin Firth's Oscar winning performance (see what I did there) wrenches every seat-squirming ounce of pain from watching a man struggle with his own ability speak, and for anyone who's ever experienced stage fright, it will tie your stomach in knots.  And let's be honest, who doesn't want to hire Geoffery Rush to be their awesome uncle after watching this film?  The movie is sweet without being sacchrine, it deftly avoids mellodrama, and it has by far the most entertaining use of profanity I have ever seen in a movie.  And I've watched Snatch.  

Should you definitely go out and watch this film immediately?  Yes.  Does it subversively unravel the complex grays of human nature?  No.  

So why does The King's Speech stand so good a chance at taken home Oscar gold?

Well, like all competitions, momentum is a serious thing to contend with.  Despite my own personal opinions on best movie of the year, The King's Speech has walked away with two of the most predictive prizes in the business when it comes to forecasting the Academy.  The director's guild and the producer's guild both awarded The King's Speech top honors over The Social Network, and this could represent a swing vote amongst the production heavy Academy membership.  Now of couse The Social Network did walk away with the Golden Globe, but so did Avatar, Atonement, Babel, Brokeback Mountain, and The Aviator.  For those keeping count, that's 5 wrong in the past 6 years.

Besides The Social Network being cursed with a Golden Globe, and this may sound cynical, but The King's Speech is a just a safer choice.  It's a feel good movie that puts into the most positive light its hero.  It doesn't come wrapped in the controversy of an embellished tale that somewhat besmirches a young billionaire who's influence reaches to more people than the members of the Academy could ever dream to compete with.  Not mention Aaron Sorkin is already mired in political opinion from his work in The West Wing, and despite what George Clooney's smug cloud might tell you, the Academy does not like to get openly involved in "opinions."  Remember, Crash beat Brokeback Mountain.  Crash. 

So we'll see what happens at Sunday's 83rd Annual Oscar-palooza, and there's a good chance whatever happens, no one will really care.  I mean, how many of you actually watched The Hurt Locker?  

Here's hoping that Banksy does something crazy.