Review: Batman Arkham City

Batman: Arkham Asylum had the honor of not only being the only decent Batman game but one of the best superhero video games of all time. Built on a rich, detailed story and containing some of the most satisfying stealth gameplay in recent memory, Arkham Asylum rightly deserved the praise it received. 

Two years later, Rocksteady Studios continues the story with Batman: Arkham City, one of the few video game sequels actually better than the original game it was based on. 

The Story

Two years after the first game, Arkham Asylum has overfilled to the point that an entire section of Gotham City is designated as a prison zone under the authoritarian warden, Hugo Strange. Bruce Wayne is abducted while giving a speech criticizing the new Arkham City, leaving Batman locked inside the prison with his greatest enemies and their armies of gangs. Along the way, the player tangles with classic Batman villains such as Two-Face, Penguin, Mr. Freeze and the Joker as they attempt to thwart Strange's takeover of Gotham. 

The Gameplay

The core of the game consists of fast paced, visceral hand to hand combat. Players control the Dark Knight as he dispatches gang members with everything from Batarangs to grappling hooks to his bare fists. Players can opt to sneak around rooms full of guards, silently dispatching them one by one before leaping from the rafters to silence the last remaining guard personally. Combat flows beautifully, effortlessly switching from blocking to striking to countering with intuitive ease. Gang fights are punctuated with puzzles that make use of Batman's wide array of gadgets and platforming sections that allow the player to glide through the air and swing from ledges effortlessly. 

Overall

Arkham City is the rare sequel that surpasses its original. The plot is intriguing and engaging, the game play is fast and intuitive. Not simply one of the best superhero games of all time, Arkham City is one of the best games ever made. Period

Score

Plot: 5/5

Gameplay: 5/5

Replay Value: 5/5

Overall: 15/15

Understanding Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street is fast approaching its six week anniversary, but still nobody is listening.

What began as an isolated instance of civil disobedience has spread to more than nine-hundred cities in eighty-one countries. The young college students that made up the first wave of the protest have since been joined by people of all ages and professions, including middle-aged engineers, postal workers nearing retirement and unemployed mothers and fathers. Occupy Wall Street is made up of a multitude of different people, crying “We are the 99%” but still, nobody is listening.

Since the protest began in September, thousands of news articles, opinion pieces, blog entries and Twitter updates have covered Occupy Wall Street as it developed. Respected professors of economics, political scientists and sociologists have made the talking heads circuit, offering analysis and insight. Political pundits have blindly tried to co-opt the movement to serve their respective parties. But still, nobody is listening.

If the protesters are not being dismissed as “disaffected whiners,” it is only because of the toxic misconception that the protesters “don’t know why their protesting.” Make no mistake; despite the fact that the protesters haven’t issued a formal set of demands, Occupy Wall Street is not without its goals. Protesters have been making their displeasure known for almost a month and a half, on Wall Street and online.

But still, nobody is listening.

Much of the confusion surrounding the Occupy Wall Street movement comes from its unconventional style. This is decidedly a new kind of protest, the end result of the latest generation of social media focused towards a specific end. It is a protest less concerned with making demands than it is in making a statement. The end result is irrelevant if it provides no lasting change; Wall Street protesters are more interested in making themselves heard than achieving any tangible goal.

But what exactly is their goal? The majority of news sources keep stating that the protesters “don’t know why their protesting.” Because they lack any centralized form of leadership, many have claimed that the group is directionless. Others have claimed that Wall Street protesters are protesting against corporate influence in government and that is certainly a large part of it.

But more than anything else, the Wall Street protesters are trying to be heard. People who feel that their opinions are respected don’t take to the streets and camp out for months at a time. Wall Street protesters are united by their common disenfranchisement. They are a group of people who feel that the only way to be heard is to shout it from streets of New York.

But still, nobody is listening. We write them off as petulant college kids looking for a handout. We claim that they are directionless and their protest is meaningless. We make their protest a topic of political debate but we do not listen to them.

The next time Occupy Wall Street is mentioned, take the time to listen to them. Disagree with them if you will but do not ignore them.

Review: Paranormal Activity 3

Rare is the horror movie series that stays scary.

What was scary in the first installment usually becomes familiar by the second installment and by the time episode three comes out, audiences wise to the series' tricks find themselves feeling bored rather than frightened. That said, the Paranormal Activity series manages the impossible by remaining gruesomely atmospheric and hauntingly amazing well into its third installment.

Paranormal Activity 3 takes place before the first Paranormal Activity during Katie and Kristi's childhood. Their father, a wedding videographer, begins recording when he suspects that something is amiss in his new home. Strange noises, objects moving mysteriously and Katie's imaginary friend "Toby" serve to set the scene for continuously escalating horror that builds to a climax that had half the theater jumping out of their seats.

Paranormal Activity 3 paces itself perfectly. Instead of relying on cheap jump scares or gory scenes of mutilation, it takes its time slowly ratcheting up suspense. Instead of elaborate slasher costumes or overengineered movie monsters, Paranormal Activity 3 works through allusion and suggestion, letting the audience imagine ghastlier horrors than could ever be captured on screen. Bumps, creaks and cheap visual effects are used to great effect here and the way the movie is shot makes it seem realistic and intensely more terrifying.

Paranormal Activity 3 is an ideal horror movie and one that stays with viewers long after the credits roll. There were a few minor technical gripes (such as an over-reliance on a tracking shots) that kept me from giving it a perfect score but at the end of the day, this was a fine example of classic horror at its finest. By relying on suggestion and the infinite power of imagination, Paranormal Activity 3 is sure to have you sleeping with the lights on for the for the rest of the year.

Score 4/5

Review:US!

Rarely do I enjoy reading material assigned for a class. Books from my university's assigned reading list may be thought provoking and informative, but rarely are they entertaining. So I was surprised to catch myself laughing at US!, Chris Bachelder's gruesomely dark satire chronicling the life, death and resurrection of American Socialist author Upton Sinclair. 

Bachelder's novel begins with a bold proposition; Upton Sinclair routinely returns to life, crawling out of his grave like a zombie, when America needs him the most only to be subsequently assassinated once he no longer serves his purpose. This flight into magical realism is handled very well and the author only scarcely reminds the readers that Upton Sinclair is a member of the walking dead. Using that as a jumping off point, Bachelder lampoons everything from American celebrity culture to the establishment of literary canon in his trademark dark wit. Though the ever-present aura of death lingers around Bachedler's America, he challenges the reader not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole scenario. 

At the end of the day, US! is a heavy hitting political satire that is as thought provoking as it is entertaining. There are two kind of books I stop reading; the ones I stop reading because I have hurled it across the room and the ones I stop reading because it's four in the morning. This book falls squarely in the latter category

Score: 4/5

Review: Dream Theater; A Dramatic Turn of Events

Following the departure of long time drummer Mike Portnoy, Dream Theater fans were a bit skeptical about the band's future. Though Dream Theater has in the past changed out keyboard players and frontmen, Portnoy was a founding member of the band and is considered by many to be one of the greatest drummers alive today. So, with equal parts apprehension and excitement, Dream Theater fans turn to the band's latest offering, A Dramatic Turn of Events (Roadrunner). 

My first reaction to this album was not a favorable one, though for reasons other than Portnoy's replacement (Mike Mangini). The overall musical style of the album is something of a throwback to the band's early days. The album is a bit meandering and directionless compared to the airtight Octavarium or the sprawling opus, Six Degrees of Inner Separation. While this may endear many older fans, I am part of the group that believes that Dream Theater got better as time went on. 

This return to formula may be signs of a band who is unsure of its identity. Portnoy served as a chief songwriter and was the driving force behind some of the band's more memorable songs, including The AA Suite, a massive collection of twelve songs chronicling his struggles with alcoholism. Dream Theater seems reluctant to let Mike Mangini write so guitarist John Petrucci has taken over writing the majority of music and lyrics. A fine songwriter in his own right, Petrucci was nevertheless more effective as part of a team. 

Collectively, the album is fine. The level of musicianship is what fans have come to expect from Dream Theater and Mike Mangini proves himself more than capable of matching Portnoy's technical ability. But while the album on the whole is fine, nothing stands out. Every previous Dream Theater album had a track that completely blew me away and this album is sorely missing such a track. In the course of writing this review, I had to go back and listen to the album again because it lacked an identity of its own. 

The plane on the album cover is very descriptive of this album. Dream Theater seems to be stuck in a holding pattern; still flying but not really going anywhere

Score: 3/5

Review: Heroes of Olympus:Son of Neptune

Background

My favorite guilty pleasure is young-adult novels that I can plow through in a day and a half (or several particularly boring class periods). One of my favorite series that I've digested in the course of a week is the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. Percy Jackson follows the adventures of the eponymous hero, a modern day demigod and son of  the Greek God Poseidon, as he attempts to stop the titan Kronos from taking his throne back.

The short series concluded and Riordan now comes out with his sequel series, The Heroes of Olympus. The first book of the series, The Lost Hero, introduced new heroes and focused on the disappearance of Percy Jackson and the discovery of Roman demigods, namely the scion of Jupiter named Jason Grace. The second novel shifts focus back to Percy Jackson as he struggles with amnesia, lost in the mythological world of the Roman demigods.

Review

The Percy Jackson series relies on riffing on classic mythological concepts and bringing them into the modern world (previous books have featured the entrance to Hades in Los Angeles, Mount Olympus in New York City and Hera's Garden in Oregon). In this book, Percy Jackson finds himself in the Roman demigod camp located in Berkeley after being pursued by a pair of gorgons. On arrival, his motivations are questioned and he must venture North to Alaska to challenge the threat of the titan Gaia and her giants.

Riordan paces the book fairly well but it feels like we have tread the same ground before in his previous book, The Lost Hero, which featured an amnesiac demigod switching sides and attempting to stop Gaia. It's handled competently but the plot feels a bit recycled.  Moreover, it suffers from the series' previous issues of relying on the source materiel to the extent that anyone familiar with it should be able to predict the outcome of the story.

Still, for a young adult novel, Son of Neptune is uncompromising. The efficient military brutality of the Roman demigods is brought into the forefront and we never cut away for brutal monster deaths. By the same token, the Greco-Roman gods aren't altered to make them more "kid-friendly" and appear in their wild, cold and borderline sociopathic glory. Caught between vicious threats from the titans and the bitter indifference of their divine parents, Riordan makes it very easy to sympathize with the demigods.

Flaws aside, Son of Neptune is very well done and a worthy addition to the Percy Jackson stable. Definitely worth a look for younger readers and even I, a twenty-one year old college student, managed to enjoy it.

Realistic =/= Fun or How Halo Killed The Games Industry

October 12th, 2011
240 Days Until Graduation

As a child of the 1990's, I was privileged to be young in the height of the video game renaissance. After it became clear that video games were more than just a passing 80's trend soon to go the way of arm-warmers and hair metal, the modern video game industry started developing itself as a major entertainment force.

It was a fantastic time to be a kid. You could go into any video game aisle and, at any given moment, find games about earthworm superheroes, fairy knights fighting monsters, space warriors killing shipfuls of the merciless undead or farming simulators that had a habit of making players miss meals to finish growing crops. Understanding the 90's in video game history is to recognize it as a time of big ideas, where game designers could sell games based on glorified bug collecting and have the full support of a game company to back it

Then, this happened

Microsoft's XBOX killer app would go on so set the video game agenda to this very day. Despite starring a cybernetic super-soldier fighting bug-eyed aliens on a mystical floating ring, Halo infected the game industry with a fatal level of realism by taking what could have been a soaring space opera and drowning it in gritty realism.

Now, realism itself is by no means a dirty word and a lack of any realism ruins the gaming experience. But Microsoft's idea of "realism" skews more nihilistic than most. Realism today means that levels are mostly bombed out cities decorated by smoke and rubble, shooting is done by a "pop-and-drop" cover based mechanic and grim survivalist storylines are populated by grunting, scowling space marines.

Pre-Halo shooters were far more varied starring everything from secret agents to jetpack-riding wunderkind with robot dogs. More importantly, realism was brushed off with a light peck on the cheek in favor of fast, exciting gameplay focusing on jumping and strafing. Most importantly, they were just more fun. Instead of leering down an ironsight from behind a section of broken wall, pre-Halo shooters had players jumping through varied and colorful environments, facing more giant boss battles and swarms of enemies.

Compare modern shooters

To pre-Halo shooters

...and you can see what I mean.

Occupying Wall Street: A Twenty-First Century Revolution

October 08, 2011
244 Days until Graduation

As of writing this, the "Occupy Wall Street" organization will be entering into its fifth week of protest. Battle cries of "We are the 99%" are shouted from the streets of New York as hundreds of new picketers arrive daily. Protesters demonstrating against corporate influence in America have been marching up and down Wall Street in an act of coordinated social disobedience. Clashes with NYPD leading to the arrest of 700 protesters has done little to stop the demonstration and the group has vowed that it is in for the long-haul.

While conventional media has only recently taken a serious interest in Occupy Wall Street, anyone paying attention to social media sites has been well aware of this protest before it even began.

This is a screen-cap of occupywallstreet.tumblr.com, a hub of information related to the Occupy Wall Street movement. From here, users are linked to other Occupy Wall Street sites providing information about their cause, pictures from the picket line uploaded minutes after they were taken and social contacts to organize similar protests across the country. Weeks before the first protester stepped on the picket line, they were organizing and preparing online. 

Much like the Arab Spring Movement from which it draws inspiration, Occupy Wall Street represents the future of organized protest in the United States. Young social activists today can spread information as fast as they can type it and connect with other like-minded individuals.

Occupy Wall-Street represents more than any single group of protesters; it represents the way socio-political demonstration is going to be carried out in the future.

The War of Independence

October 1st, 2011
252 Days Left Until Graduation

There is a new found immediacy to everything I do.

For the first time in my life, I am on a timeline that cannot be lengthened or altered. I have 252 days left to establish myself and secure employment away from home. It is not the fact that I cannot return home that drives me further and faster than I ever have been driven before. I advance with the dawning realization that, should I return home, I would be completely destroyed.

I should explain. Recently (and by recently, I mean within the past four weeks), I have come to the realization that my mother's family is far more dysfunctional than believed. Their relationships with each other are simultaneously self-supporting and self-destructive. It was, and still is, a poisonous environment to grow up in.

From a very early age I was taught that my needs came second to the needs of anyone else, especially my mother. I was volunteered without my consent, taught that my own needs were unimportant when they inconvenienced someone else and that extra-familial relationships were unimportant.

My parent's divorce brought with it vilification of my father and his family and ten years of narcissistic lies have damaged my sister's relationship with my father.

Coming to college has helped put distance between me and my family but still their influence is felt. Financial support is used as leverage for manipulation and basic amenities are given with great sighs of exasperation and implicit demands.

I am in college now to attempt to break that cycle. I want to repair the relationship I have with my family and help it onto some semblance of normalcy. More importantly, I do not want my children to live in the family I lived in.

My independence will not be won easily. My mother has made it clear that I would be more than welcome to move back home where any independence I've won would be snuffed out.

My only recourse is employment. I must get a job by the time I graduate and be able to live away from home.

These are the stakes. These are the reasons I fight.

252 Days Remain