Welcome to Pages of Fun!

This is the personal Web site of Robert Wm. Gomez. I am an artist, musician and nerd living in Chicago, Illinois who has been maintaining this site (in one form or another) since 1996. Enjoy your visit!

The Constitution of Liberty by F. A. Hayek (8/10)

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Hayek is never light reading but it is dense with ideas. The book is divided into three parts. The first section was the part that really spoke to me. In it he basically makes the case for liberalism, expanding on John Stuart Mills’s On Liberty. You need to allow ideas to flourish, even bad ones, because that is the path to progress. The next two sections get a little to deep into the weeds for me, first explaining how to craft laws with liberty in mind, and then how modern welfare statism erodes liberty. Finally, this version of the book closes with the seminal essay, “Why I am not a Conservative.” That alone is worth the price of admission.

The Messenger on PC (4/10)

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Stylistically, The Messenger has a lot going for it: masterfully rendered pixel graphics and a rich chip-tune soundtrack. Come to think of it, that describes just about every “indie” game that is released these days. Unfortunately that’s not enough for me.

My biggest gripe with the game is that is based around an annoying mechanic in which you can double jump after successfully landing an attack. My thumbs were not designed for that twisting motion. I was constantly failing because I would simply miss buttons and success only came with random button mashing.

The first section of the game makes you think that this is simply a Super Meatboy collection of challenge levels, but just when I thought I was done, the game opens up and becomes yet another Metroidvania. Seriously, stop it with the Metroidvanias. Anyhow, you know it’s a bad sign when a game reveals that there are going to be hours more playtime and challenges but your reaction is disappointment.

London Fields by Martin Amis (4/10)

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I really disliked this one. Overly long and rambling. It sets itself up as a murder mystery in which you know the victim and then introduces you to three other characters: a ruffian darts player, a family man, and the book’s author/narrator. The “twist” is apparent almost immediately within the first couple of chapters. You can probably guess it from my lame synopsis one sentence ago. It’s only my literary OCD that allowed me to finish this pompous stinker.

Alice: Madness Returns on PC (6/10)

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I played the original American McGee’s Alice back in the early 2000s when I was easily impressed by just about any 3-D game. It was probably a $5 bargain-bin CD-ROM from CompUSA, and I managed to finish it even though it was pretty bad.

This sequel is definitely much slicker looking, but beneath the goth-girl art direction it’s still a fairly uninspired platform game. The biggest problem is straightforward and boring level design. For example, you are given the ability to shrink down, but you never use this ability for anything except walking into secret keyhole rooms. This is the sort of mechanism that a Mario game would build an entire world around.

And then there’s the combat, which consists of locking on to a target and mashing the left mouse button. Half the time the camera is positioned in such a way that you can’t see what you are doing anyway. There are a couple of larger enemies that offer a little skill-based battling, but most of the time combat is just an annoyance.

The game really wants you to care about its story, but it’s just an incoherent, mumbled mess of found “memories” and illustrated cut scenes. In the end, the whole affair feels like a Psychonauts rip-off, and, in hindsight, that game wasn’t really that great either.

The Red and the Black by Stendhal (8/10)

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Do you long for the iron-fisted rule of Napoleon? Do you seek glory in battle? Have you memorized the Latin Bible? Then you too will root for our protagonist Julien as he tries to gain glory and status in a world without heroes. That description of the plot sounds a bit more exciting than the book really is, but it does represent the general themes of the story. Although there is dueling and a sprinkling of political intrigue, ninety percent of the book is Julien seducing women of society as a means to his ends. The novel is a little too long for my tastes but it managed to keep this pulp novel loving idiot engaged through all the mushy lovey-dovey bits.