Wasteland 2 on PC (9/10)

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Soon after I plunked down a few Kickstarter bucks for Broken Age, Wasteland 2’s campaign popped up. Back in my Apple ][ days I knew about, but never played, Wasteland. If I was going to commit time and effort to an RPG, it was going to be Ultima. However, after my migration to Windows, the game’s “spiritual successor” Fallout was one of the first big games I played (it was also the first thing I ever bought on eBay back in 1998. The box smelled like cigars). I really liked the more recent Fallout 3 / New Vegas games, but, like many old-timers, I longed for the deep, turn based combat of the first two games of the series. Brian Fargo’s Kickstarter video promised to bring party-based, turn-based, post-nuclear-based gaming back… to base. To have. I was sold.

And now, unlike some other well-known Kickstarter projects that I perhaps mentioned a paragraph ago, Wasteland 2 has arrived on schedule! And, whaddya know, it delivered on all of its crowd-sourcing promises. The game-plays and feels very similar to the first two Fallout games, but it uses a 3-D engine with fluid animation and camera control. This is still an indie-game, so the game engine and art assets lack the polish of a triple-A title. There’s quite a bit of slow-down during explosions and the occasional weird rendering bug (every once and a while I would lose camera control in combat and would see a glitch where I was panning shadows around instead of changing the view). But these bugs where rare enough not to be a huge problem.

There are two things that really shine here. First, I forgot just how fun and satisfying tactical turn-based combat is. The meditative pacing and planning makes getting that one big kill just at the right moment feel like a real accomplishment. Second, the game is filled with ambiguous moral choices that helped really get me invested in the characters and story. Whereas a game like Mass Effect has very obvious good guy bad guy dialog options, Wasteland 2’s choices will have you allowing one evil faction prosper by eliminating their just-as-bad rivals in order to save a third group that will help you on your main mission. No one gets everything they want and that makes for a unique experience for anyone who plays the game.

Your choices matter. In fact, I was able to get the game to an unwinnable state because I hadn’t bothered to have more than one character develop a certain skill. I’m not very good a character management in RPGs. Fortunately, I only had to go back one save state, before a final level-up, to avoid this problem. I can see a lot of younger gamers hating this sort of outcome, but for me, it just raises the stakes.

All-in-all, despite it’s rough edges, Wasteland 2 was worth the wait and is a worthy successor to both the original Apple ][ version and the subsequent Fallout games.

The Ideal Copy by Wire - CD (10/10)

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After 154, Colin Newman picked up where 154 left off with A–Z and Graham Lewis went the experimental route and formed the almost unlistenable Dome. It seemed that Wire was no more. And then, several years later, comes The Ideal Copy (well, actually Snakedrill EP was first). This second incarnation of the band has them distancing themselves from their punk roots in favor of synths and electronics. At this point they are still straddling that sweet spot between dance music and rock that I like so much (Killing Joke veered this way for a while). Just about every song on this disc is great, but I do tend to hit the skip button when “Feed Me” plays.

Chairs Missing by Wire - CD (10/10)

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Of all the Wire releases, this one is my favorite. The music ranges from dreamy (“French Film Blurred”) to punky (“Sand in my Joints”) to poppy (“Outdoor Miner”) to epic (“Mercy”), all while maintaining the same mix of the punk rock energy of their first LP and a more arty, synthesizer-based sound. Their next LP, 154, would dive a little bit farther into the experimentalism with mixed results—also a great album—but I think I would still pick Chairs Missing in a bar fight.

The Golden Spiders by Rex Stout (8/10)

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Nero Wolfe is a dick. It’s a wonder that this mostly unlikable character spawned such a successful series of books. This is the second book in the series that I have read and it was pretty good, especially the opening chapters. Things get a little too convoluted at the climax, with an array of underdeveloped characters vying to be tagged as the murderer. It eventually does make sense, but, by then, who cares. Thankfully it was a short read, so I left satisfied.

Pink Flag by Wire - CD (10/10)

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Wire’s first album is the one that all my punk rock friends consider their best. For me, it’s a great record but it lacks the experimentation of later releases. That said, Pink Flag is leaps and bounds better than most of punk records of the same era. They are much more aligned with the artsy side of punk than the rock ‘n’ roll-y side of the movement (ala the Ramones or The Clash). There are so many great tracks on this: “Three Girl Rhumba,” “Ex-Lion Tamer,” “Fragile,” “1 2 XU,” and the list goes on…

Look (8/10)

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I am a crowd supporter for Penn Jillette’s upcoming Director’s Cut movie and the story goes that Penn watched this movie and immediately sought out the director Adam Rifkin for a movie he had brewing in his head. The result, Director’s Cut, is poised to be the ultimate meta-movie, filled with found footage and movies-within-movies (I hope it turns out awesome). Look is a found footage movie that’s a tour de force of editing as a story telling device. The premise is that the movie is made up entirely of surveillance footage. There are three or four disparate story lines going on that eventually meet at the end. I thought it was going to be more of a commentary on surveillance culture, but the use of found footage is more of a thematic and stylistic device than a key plot point. And, while it takes a while to hook you in, once the stories start to pick up it’s pretty riveting.

Wendy and Lisa by Wendy and Lisa - CD (4/10)

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This is another one of those CDs in my collection that I bought because I wanted to buy something while I was out at the Northwoods Mall Musicland. “Waterfall” was a MTV hit and I really liked it (and still do), so the rest of the record had to be just as good, right? Well, not really. There are way too many sappy ballads and nothing else comes close to the driving catchiness of that one single.

Pure Guava by Ween - CD (8/10)

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This was my introduction to Ween. At the time I thought of them as They Might Be Giants with profanity. In hindsight I think the appeal was that they were, like us, a couple of nerds playing around with a cassette four-track who weren’t afraid to try whatever they could to make a cool song. Listening to them now I realize they haven’t aged well. Nowadays, anyone with a computer can make songs a gazillion times more creative than this. That said there are a few great moments on this disc including “Push th’ Little Daises,” “Reggaejunkiejew,” and especially “Don’t Get too Close (to my Fantasy).” If you are going to buy a Ween album, this one will suffice.

Weekend by Kim Savage

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With Mark and Helena’s marriage on the ropes, Mrs. Lassiter plans the ultimate weekend to spice things up. To complicate matters, the guests include Mark’s new secretary/fling, Helena’s photographer “friend” Ken, Mark’s buddy Ben and his showgirl gal-pal Trixie, Helga the naive niece from Minnesota and Mae, the bitter drunk lesbian author. Sounds exciting, right? Well, unfortunately this is not a terribly interesting story. While it has its share of sleaze, the story lacks the pulp/crime intrigue that I usually enjoy in these books.

There is the typical share of character pairings and debauchery, but the only minor moment of tension comes during a brief barroom brawl when one of the girls get accosted by a couple of drunks. The only worthwhile moment for me was in the description of a “wash martini.” So, for this book’s excerpt I have included that page here:

His infectious grin calmed her. “All right, I suppose there’s some truth in what you say. So what do you want me to do, go downstairs and give a strip tease?”

His eyes swept her from head to toe. “Mightn’t be a bad idea, Mae. But no, nothing that radical—I just thought you might like to know that Mark is concocting Martinis. Wash Martinis, to be more specific.”

“Wash Martinis? What in blazes—?”

He nodded gravely. “Wash Martinis is what I said. A rather fiendish mixture brewed by our genial host. Fill the cocktail glass with dry Vermouth, pour it back into the bottle and re fill with good yellow gin. Add a twist of lemon peel—then duck before it hits you . . .”

She could not help smiling. “That I’ve got to see. Deal me in, will you?”

“Come on downstairs. The clans are gathered in the living room watching the performance.”

 She hesitated. “Look, Benton. Be a good sport and bring one up to me. I don’t feel much like facing the rest of the crew. You know, nerves and all that sort of thing. I’ve been a little on edge for most of the day and if I went down I’d probably do or say the wrong thing. How about it?”

 “Sure, Mae, I understand. Guess that’s what they call author’s license. Sorry you won’t come.”

 “Thanks . . .”

 “Tell you what, though. I’ll have a pitcher sent up, and then you can get stinking from drinking. Maybe. that’ll snap you out of it.” 

“It always does.”