The latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, “A Disquiet Follows My Soul”, has left my mind spinning with speculation as to what all will happen before the end.  This led me to review some of my old guesses and hypotheses in seasons past, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m pretty much dead wrong every time.  RDM and crew always catch me off guard, which I think is one of the many reasons I love the show so much.  Read on for a list of some of my predictions that have proven to be wrong – so far.  WARNING – This material is highly spoiler-like for anyone that hasn’t seen every episode!

Boomer isn’t really a cylon, but there’s a cylon that was cloned to look like her.

Wrong!  Turns out she is a cylon, through and through, and was a sleeper agent who didn’t know any better before being activated.

Gaius Baltar is either a cylon, or has a cylon chip in his brain that manifests as his “head Six”.

Wrong!  He’s not a cylon, and there’s no chip.  It’s about something bigger and more mystical than that.  And now that I’m used to the idea, I love the fact that they haven’t explained it and taken away the magic of it.

The twelve tribes that left Kobol to eventually found the Colonies were actually cylons, and the thirteenth was the only true human tribe.

Wrong!  Turns out I had it backwards.  The twelve tribes were human, and the thirteenth was cylon.  We earthlings are cylons, bitches!  I love that I was wrong on this one.

The final cylon is either Carolanne or Zak Adama.

Wrong!  I wanted this one bad.  Cylon Carolanne would have made Lee a human/cylon hybrid, adding another layer to his character as he creeps closer and closer to the presidency.  I think a half human, half cylon leader would have jived with the message of the show.  Also, Carolanne would have possibly thrown an interesting wrench into Bill and Laura’s burgeoning (it’s about time) romance.  Cylon Zak would have made sense out of Kara’s apparent predilection for toaster tail, as well as her destined connection to Earth.  I thought for sure the wrecked viper in last week’s “Sometimes A Great Notion” would turn out to be the one Zak died in.  Plus the guy who played Zak in Season One was cute and furry so yeah.  I wouldn’t mind seeing more of that.  Turns out the final cylon is Ellen Tigh.

The ragtag fleet finally reaches Earth at the end of Season Four.  Galactica is crippled from a battle.  Adama, with a dead or dying Roslin at his side, goes down with the ship.  Galactica burns up in a blaze of glory, accompanied by Bear McCreary’s awesome music.  I cry – a whole lot.  Lee and Kara take up the mantle of civilian and military leadership, respectively.  We never really know what Earth is like – the show fades out to white before we can see.  We never know if it’s a past, present, or future Earth – empty or full of life.

Wrong!  Half wrong, anyway.  The fleet finds Earth in the middle of the fourth season, and it’s not what they expected.  I love it!  Now we as audience are in the shoes of the ragtag fleet.  We ask, “Where the frak do we go from here?”  We have to wait and see if the rest of my prediction holds out, but there’s no doubt that I will cry – a whole lot.

There is one prediction I got right, though.

Felix Gaeta is gay.  Gaaayyy.  Gaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy-ta.

I totally called it.  I knew it way back in Season One when he followed Baltar around, puppydog style, hanging on his every word.

I’ve been browsing around the new White House website and reading up on my new prez.  I was amazed and happy to see that over 50% of the civil rights agenda page is dedicated to “Support for the LGBT Community”.  It’s broken out into its own subsection – the only civil rights topic to attain such focus.  It’s awesome and empowering to have that much real estate on the page!  See the full LGBT section below.

Support for the LGBT Community

“While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.”– Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

• Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.
• Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees’ domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
• Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.
• Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
• Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.
• Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.
• Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, President Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The President will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma — too often tied to homophobia — that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.
• Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS: In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. President Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.

Another day, another crackpot blaming violence on video games.

17-year old Daniel Petric was recently found guilty of shooting his parents over Halo 3 – and no, the dispute wasn’t over who stuck the best plasma grenade. I don’t really care too much about Daniel, as anyone who could shoot a gun at his parents is sick and twisted (his mom died, for frak’s sake!), but I do care about Judge James Burge’s idiot comments (transcript courtesy of gamepolitics.com):

This Court’s opinion is that we don’t know enough about these video games. In this particular case, not so much the violence of the game because I believe in the Halo 3, what it amounts to is a contest to see who can shoot the most aliens who attack.

It’s my firm belief that after a while the same physiological responses occur that occur in the ingestion of some drugs. And I believe that an addiction to these games can do the same thing. The dopamine surge, the stimulation of the nucleus accumbens – the same as an addiction. Such that when you stop, your brain won’t stand for it.

The other dangerous thing about these games, in my opinion, is that when these changes occur, they occur in an environment that is delusional. Because you can shoot these aliens, and they’re there again the next day. You have to shoot them again. And I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea, at the time he hatched this plot, that if he killed his parents, they would be dead forever.

What really catapults this into the crackpotopshere is the notion that the body reacts to video games the way it reacts to drugs.

Uh WHAT?! I wish!

You want to have a conversation about video games causing violence? OK. Bring movies, music, and TV to the table, too, and I’d be glad to tell you why you’re wrong.  Until then I’m just going to scoff and be snarky at you.

via IGN

A friend emailed me this story today and highlighted the almost throwaway comment, “and George Lucas plans to release all six ‘Star Wars’ movies in 3-D”.  This elicited from me a bundle of snarky nerd rage that must have been lurking just below the surface.  I thought my response would make for a good post so here it is, uncut and uncensored:

Yeah I heard he’s been working on this.  As with any incremental release/version/edition, I’m sure he’ll take little poopy shits all over the stuff he STILL isn’t happy with.  Here are my guesses and/or a wishlist:

 -A 3^rd version of the Jabba the Hutt model in the Mos Eisley docking bay scene with Han Solo, but this version will be just as terrible in different ways

-Greedo will now have a curly little villain moustachio and/or a turban so that we don’t feel so bad about Han Solo shooting first – because he DID shoot first, you fuckheads

-The holographic Emperor in Empire will be edited even further so that the GIANT FAT WADDLE of Ian McDiarmid ca. 2005 is even more prominent and the explanation will be that his BIG FAT WADDLE is where Emps keeps all his midichlorians

-A new celebration scene will be added to the end of Jedi – Tattoine, Bespin, Coruscant, and then Chicago where Barack Obama has just been elected president, only Obama’s head will be removed and Hayden Christensen’s stupid head will be in its place but black-ified a la Thomas C. Howell in Soul Man

Don’t get me started on the prequels.  Revenge is ok but the others are dead to me right now. 

Wow.  I think I’m gonna put this on my blawwwwwwg. 

-J

Please note I use “wishlist” with sarcasm.

I have a love/hate relationship with George Lucas.  He is both creator and destroyer of beloved memories.  I dressed up as him this past Halloween, but even that was half homage half ridicule.  One of these days someone will bring balance back to Star Wars.  I just hope George doesn’t have to be dead first.

So I’m a little late to the party here, but I just read yesterday that The 1UP Show is no more.  As of January 7, 2009 the 1UP Network was sold by Ziff Davis to UGO.  I don’t know UGO and I don’t really care, but they’ve chosen not to continue The 1UP Show after taking ownership. This makes me very, very sad.  The 1UP Show is the only game-related podcast that I’ve found to be bearable, and I’m a hardcore gamer.

I love The 1UP Show for the same reason I love Conan O’Brien.  Conan makes the desk-and-chair-based talk show fun because he’s a presence and a personality unto himself.  He’s an entertaining and innovative glue that keeps all the “content” (celebrity interviews and comedy bits) together in one piece.  In the same way, Ryan O’Donnell et al. are a fun and talented group of guys that provide the glue between game videos and developer interviews.  They are passionate about games and have smart things to say about the industry.  It doesn’t hurt that most of them qualify as one sort of eye candy or another (beards & stubble eeeeverywhere *drool*).

I will miss The 1UP Show, but I’m going to follow these guys wherever they go.  Some of them have already landed at eat-sleep-game.com and started an audio podcast called Rebel FM and a new video podcast is in the works at talkingorange.com (Matt Chandronait’s personal site).   I leave you with some of the lyrics to the 1UP Show theme song, which serve as a good explanation of how I feel about my games:

Hey

I don’t wanna go to work today

Wanna stay home and play

All my video games

No

I don’t wanna take it nice and slow

Wanna get ready to go

On the 1UP Show

On the 1UP Show

You know you’ll be a star

On the 1UP Show

You already are

Every day is like some holiday

So long, goodbye

I’m gonna run away right now

Game on, all night

I’m gonna be on the 1UP Show

Game Review – Fallout 3 from Bethesda Softworks (Xbox 360)

War. War has changed. Sorta. But not really. Because war never changes. Or at least that’s what Ron Perlman tells me.

When Bethesda Softworks acquired the Fallout IP from erstwhile publisher Interplay, they announced that the isometric, turn-based RPG would go first-person with Fallout 3. And a million fanboy heads asploded in mushroom cloud rage. Those of us who took shelter in the “let’s wait and see” vault have now emerged to discover a world that is at once new and strangely familiar.

Read on, sweet America, for the full review. But please – no mutants allowed.

Fallout 3 is best described as a first-person role-playing shooter with tactical and skill-based gameplay elements. Let’s call it a FPRPSWTASBGE to keep things simple, k? Character creation is fun and immerses you from the very beginning. The first hour or so of the game allows you to develop your character as he or she grows up in the relative safety of Vault 101, and you’re given the opportunity, a la Oblivion, to tweak your character one last time before you venture out into the Capital Wasteland. The game, like its predecessors, eschews the typical class system of most RPGs in favor of customizable attributes, skills, and perks that allow for just about any kind of character that your rad-fevered brain can dream up. The seven attributes in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system are strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. There are many skills, each one associated with and influenced by one of the aforementioned attributes. Spending points on combat skills will increase damage and accuracy, and adding points to non-combat skills will give you a higher chance of success with special actions or skill checks. Perks are what really make a character feel unique, as they can bestow a number of special effects. Some will beef up your attributes or skills, some will allow for unique dialog options, and some will grant special abilities – such as cannibalizing corpses for health, silent kills on sleeping victims, and one called “Bloody Mess” which…well…we’ll get to that in a minute. My only gripe about the character system is that traits have been eliminated. In previous Fallout games, traits were optional customizations that bestowed a powerful positive effect, but were often balanced by some other negative effect. Traits allowed for the kind of flawed player characters that you can’t quite match in Fallout 3. To be fair, many of the positive traits have been turned into perks, but without their negative effects. Once you’ve crafted your character, it’s time to get out there and start experiencing post-apocalyptic DC.

Fallout 3’s gameplay is a solid mix of exploration, combat, and story-driven interaction with the denizens of the Capital Wasteland. The Wasteland is massive, and exploring all the nooks and crannies is an exciting and rewarding part of gameplay.   Bethesda Softworks happens to operate out of Rockville, MD (my current place of residence) and it was a lot of fun to see all the environmental detail they packed in – detail only a resident of the DC metro area would find quite so familiar.  Rushing through this game and just running from major quest to major quest, without stopping to explore that abandoned building on the horizon, would be a crime. Just be careful where you step, because peril is always just around the corner. Combat is frequent and intense. You can choose to approach the game as a straight-up shooter with ranged weapons or a hack & slash with melee weapons, but you’d be making the game much more difficult and you’d be missing out on one very important – and fun – feature. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or V.A.T.S., is how Bethesda Softworks has chosen to integrate the turn-based tradition of Fallout into the latest installment. With the press of a button, and the click-whirrr that makes a Fallout fan quiver with excitement, you’re in V.A.T.S. mode. Combat is effectively paused and you can target specific body parts on your opponent. Accuracy percentages and damage indicators let you know which squishy appendage is your best bet – and which will be missed the most when it’s gone. Use your action points, another character stat brought over from the originals, to queue up attacks and then watch the stylized slo-mo blood & gibs fly. It just never. Gets. Old. Evar. That was my one fear about it, that it was just fancy bullet time and that it would get tiresome to watch. It doesn’t. It’ll make you squeal in delight. Add the aforementioned “Bloody Mess” perk and you’re guaranteed the maximum number of bits and pieces.

The visual landscape of Fallout 3 is both realistic and highly stylized.  Character design and animation are naturalistic.  Even super mutants and radscorpions look and move like they really exist, and are not so over-designed as to feel unrealistic.  One of the hallmarks of the Fallout series is its unique vision of a future past.  The aesthetic of Fallout 3 is that of a1950’s America that really took sci-fi to heart and went all raygun gothic.  Then they got blown up.  A lot.  Finally, add 200 years of dust and decay and you have a good idea of what the world looks like.  The architecture and world design drips with personality.   Costume (I love that I’m breaking out a video game’s costume design into it’s own sentence!) is part Pleasantville, part Mad Max, and part Plan 9 From Outer Space - a truly unique look. The interface is delightfully monochrome and bears the stylized stamp of Fallouts past with the inclusion of the ubiquitous Vault Boy, who makes his mark on just about every attribute, skill, and perk in the game.  It wouldn’t be Fallout without Vault Boy. Not to be confused with Fallout Boy.  The day Fallout Boy shows up in Fallout is the day I perform ritual seppuku with a shishkebab.

Fallout has always been about setting a mood with atmosphere and ambience, and Inon Zur’s score for the game is perfectly suited for the task.  It is understated and subtle one moment,  frenetic the next, and then punctuated by sparse but stirring crescendos.  There was nothing particularly thematic (leitmotif, anyone?) or hum-able yet it still worked so well.   I was particularly delighted to find that he had woven some of the ambient tones and themes from the original Fallout into the mix.  It was further proof that Bethesda Softworks had kept congruence with the franchise as one of it’s top priorities.  Sound effects were excellent.  The report of gunfire is suitably startling and abrasive to the senses, and the slow motion cries of agony from your opponent as you punch his face off in V.A.T.S. mode with a power fist is, well, fun.  The voice acting is superb, with major props going to Liam Neeson in the role of your father and Malcom McDowell’s outstanding performance as John Henry Eden, president of the Enclave (the remnant of the US government).  These two actors lent gravity and a heart that brought the whole thing to life.  But then I can’t forget to mention Ron Perlman and his bookend narrative performances, recorded in between alternating Guillermo del Toro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet gigs.

I don’t want to spoil the story of Fallout 3, so I will only say that you’re on a quest to find your father.  The quest reveals the secrets of your past, the choices you must make in the future, and the dichotomy between compassion and commitment to the greater good – and to survival.  Is it acceptable to abandon principle for security?  To abandon great works for relative safety?  It’s a very relevant question, delivered in the sneaky guise of a video game.  And ultimately the message of the game is, potentially,  more inspiring and optimistic than any Fallout game to date.  The world of Fallout is dark and pessimistic, with the grim humor that I love as the only coping mechanism.  But now it seems there might be a dim light at the end of a long tunnel.  This is, perhaps, Bethesda Softworks greatest contribution to the franchise.

It’s a living, breathing world.  It oozes with danger and style.  Fallout 3 has absorbed over 100 hours of my life, and yet I still want to go back for more FPRPSWTASBGE action.  

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 5 out of 5

Bethesda Softworks has revived and evolved the series with Fallout 3.  I can’t wait to see where they take me next.

Game Review – Too Human from Silicon Knights (Xbox 360)

Silicon Knights’ Denis Dyack, the driving force behind Too Human, caused a stir when he first A) showed a painfully crude build of the game at E3 in 2006 and then 2) bitched and whined about gaming press and internet forum communities when they called him on it. Ever since then it seems like Dyack has been out there wielding both snark and unflattering defensiveness in an effort to convince us that Too Human really is a great game, guys!

Too Human is plain old hack & slash. It’s fun for the first two hours, but starts to feel repetitive and pointless after that. Most of the enemy types blend together and feel downright cheap as the game progresses. Weapons and armor are fun to look at, but they all play the same. The death system screams cop-out! Any time you die a big, slow, shiny Valkyrie comes down and picks you up and you instantly pop back to life a short distance away from where you left off. There is virtually no penalty for death (a tiny hit to your items’ integrity is all you suffer), and therefore no incentive to play strategically. Silicon Knights bucked the traditional use of the left and right analog sticks (movement & camera, respectively) at their own risk and the gamble didn’t pay off. The camera is so frustrating!

Fairly consistent framerate drops mar an otherwise beautiful game. The environments, characters, and enemies are nicely designed. The game is very cinematic, and some of the cutscenes would be phenomenal if not for the framerate problems. Didn’t they test their own game? Or is this as optimized as they could get it?

Music and sound effects are decent, but not particularly memorable. Voice acting is outstanding, with the sad exception of the main character. Most of the characters are subtly played and sophisticated, but Baldur is all growly and shouty and overactedy.

A blending of Norse mythology and cyberpunk, the story of Too Human explores a non-specific future where nanotechnologically-enhanced “gods” serve as both protectors and, in some cases, tormentors of humanity. The narrative is dramatic and it does a good job of teasing you with bits of mystery and intrigue. The one flaw it has is, again, the main character. Baldur is cold and unlikeable and involvement in the story falters a bit because of it.

I really wanted to like this game. Eternal Darkness was such a great game, and this one had so much potential. What a great premise! Norse gods with cybernetic implants! Jörmungandr the World Serpent is a giant war machine! Yggdrasil is the conduit to cyberspace! But unfortunately the narrative of Too Human is like a fine marble sculpture sitting atop a rickety popsicle stick foundation of gameplay. The game smacks of rushed development (which is funny considering it’s been in development since 1999), too little testing, and a stubborn commitment to poor game design choices. Sorry Denis, but if you think you released a great game then shame on you!

♥ ♥ 2 out of 5

The story alone almost bumped this up to three stars. But this is a game, and if you can’t match great story with great gameplay then you shouldn’t be making games. Go make a movie or something!

I’m heading out to Christmas dinner at my sister-in-law’s sister’s house soon. This is probably the one event (maybe Thanksgiving, too) of the year where even I will admit that a hoodie might not be appropriate. So to the detriment of my absolute comfort, but to the benefit of my he-cleans-up-well-edness, I rifled through my winter clothes and found some suitable duds.  Santa was good to me this year. I got a lot of great gifts (GPS yesssssss!) and have enjoyed being with my family. Merry Christmas, everyone!  OK I’m off. Next stop egg nog, cheese platters, wine, and then stuffing my face even more. I’ll be missing those drawstrings before the night is done.

I’m relaxing at my brother’s, watching It’s a Wonderful Life, and having a beer (or three). I’m all alone for the time being, but my mom is on her way and my brother and his family will be home around midnight. I’m missing Nate a whole bunch tonight, but I’m glad he’s with his family. Merry Christmas y’all! And be safe! There’s a killer robot Santa out there!!!