Fallout: New Vegas on PC (8/10)

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Although it’s a massive 30-40 hour game, New Vegas is really just an stand-alone expansion pack to the wonderful Fallout 3. If there were graphical enhancements or gameplay tweaks, I didn’t notice them. But that’s okay. I liked the way Fallout 3 played and more of the same can’t hurt. This time around I was already well-aquainted with the mechanics so I was able to be more thorough in my exploration of the map. I managed to discover every area and, quite frankly, I’m a bit peeved that there wasn’t an acheivement for that.

The story has you waking up after having been buried and left for dead. The main goal is to find out about the man who shot you. This could be interesting, I suppose, but I was a bit ho-hum about the main plotline. That’s okay though. There are ton of little stories to be had all throughout the game world. Plus you get to run around in your boxer-briefs if you so choose.

Knight Vision: Hymns for the Invisible Church by Knights of the New Crusade, The - LP (9/10)

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This is what happens when you give up on new music. You stop paying attention to music press and new releases and then great stuff like this record from The Knights of the New Crusade slips by. I’ve reviewed the Knights in the past here and here, and it’s more or less the same Christian skuzz rock formula as before. And here’s a term that probably doesn’t get tossed around in garage rock reviews much, but Knight Vision comes across as a very well-researched record. It even closes with a relatively epic (7 minutes) track that features musical saw and exotic tribal drums. It’s like an exorcism on the cheap.

King Kong (Deluxe Extended Edition) (7/10)

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Buying this DVD was worth it for the extras (besides, I got it for less than five bucks). The movie itself was alright. As one might expect from Peter Jackson, the effects are great. The story moves along but it is not terribly deep, it’s riddled with clichés and there’s some truly questionable acting (especially from Jack Black). But, again, the bonus features are very interesting and go into great detail about the technology and processes behind the film.

Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn on PC (7/10)

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I have had this game sitting on my video game to-do list for a long, long time. This is regarded as one of the best cRPG games ever. It is perhaps deserving of that praise simply for sheer imensity of its scale and attention to detail. Unfortunately, like other older RPGs, the game makes no concessions towards more casual players. There are a gazillion magic spells with which to become familiar. Gear and weapons are identified by numerical stats and dice roll probabilties rather than simply saying, “Powerful sword of lightning damage” or something. I must have looked up what THAC0 meant half a dozen times and I still don’t quite get it. At times the game is just plain unfair, like when you walk through an unmarked door only to die instantly from the attacks of magical creature on the other side. It’s like dying until you chance upon a strategy is part of the intended game mechanics. Like the first Baldur’s Gate I found myself having to cheat my way through 2 or 3 of the battles near the end of the game. I may have been able to win those fights (I doubt it), but after 40+ hours of hacking away at this game, I simply wanted it to be over.

During the majority of the first half of the game, when I wasn’t being killed every two minutes, it was really enjoyable and addicting. My OCD tendencies had plenty of ways to be satisfied by the many, many side quests and stories. Combat actually requires real tactical thinking (which is probably I was getting killed all the time), which is an element sadly missing from most modern RPGs and every Japanese console RPG since the dawn of time. I think it’s time for another game in this style but modernize it so you don’t need a degree in advanced nerditude just to understand the manual.

The Muppets (8/10)

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Generation X’ers like myself tend to have a bit too much nostalgia towards The Muppet Show and the first couple Muppet movies. Sure they had their moments, but we tend to forget just how much of that stuff was just stupid hippy puppeteer self-indulgence. That said, as far as kids movies go, this sure beats the hell out of Space Chimps or Chipwrecked! There are plenty of Kentucky Fried Theater style sight gags and moments of self-aware parody to keep both parents and kids  entertained. The plot really tugs hard at the nostalgia angle to the point where eighty percent of the movie is just depressing and down-beat. Still, the film manages to entertain and provide laughs between the attempts at conveying emotion in a puppet frog via strange hand-driven head pulses.

The Last Page - Pen and Ink Drawing with Digital Coloring

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Digging through some old files, I found this is a comic strip I did for the last issue of the Madison, Wisconsin art magazine, Artzine. I had previously done a few other comics for the ‘zine on while I was graduate art student in Madison, but this one I did after I moved to Chicago in the early oughts. The “Scott” in the last panel was Artzine’s editor and the current proprietor of Western Exhibitions Gallery here in Chicago, Scott Speh. This is a pen and ink drawing that was given shading and tweaked digitally.

View a close-up of the full image here.

Pictures of the Socialistic Future by Eugene Richter (7/10)

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An incredibly prescient book from the 19th century that basically lays out everything that is wrong with the practical application of socialism decades before the first socialist states came in to being. Unfortunately, the story is more of an afterthought. However, just like the lunches that socialist “occupiers” want, this book is free: http://mises.org/books/socialisticfuture_richter.pdf

The Psychic (7/10)

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Fulci! Certainly not the greatest Italian director, but he has his moments. This film, also known as Sette Note in Nero, follows a formula you probably have seen many times before. The climax is foreshadowed (in this instance as a psychic vison of a grisly murder), and you spend the rest of the movie putting the pieces of the future vision together until the events finally take place. Of course, there are twists and red herrings that add to the suspense, but you get the idea. If it wasn’t for a cliff jumping suicide in the first five minutes of the film (a sequence which steals an super cheesy effect from Fulci’s own Don’t Torture a Duckling, and is just as out-of-place here as it was in that other movie) you’d never know this was a film by the master of close-up gore. Well, to be fair, there are a ton of zoomed in eye shots (ala Manhattan Baby), but, other than that, is a by-the-numbers thriller that kept me entertained for the most part.

Tension (7/10)

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I thought this was a pretty good film noir. There are some truly silly plot points, like a character going incognito by not wearing glasses or the cop hooking up with one of e suspects. But, overall, there was a nice amount of suspense and twists to keep me paying attention until the end.

Phineas and Ferb: Make it Stop!

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At times an issue emerges of such great importance that I feel compelled to take a stand in hopes of bettering our world and insuring the continuation of our species. I am speaking, of course, of the destructive influence of the Disney Channel cartoon, Phineas and Ferb. Children seem to love this show. That is understandable because what are children other than smaller, stupider versions of adults (with blemish-free skin). What surprises me is the number of adults who claim to like the show. I feel it is time for us adult television consumers of taste to stand up for quality cartoon entertainment so that we can go drink martinis on our back porch knowing that our children are inside being raised according to the highest standards children’s television programming.

Now, before I lay out the specifics of my case against Phineas and Ferb let me preface this by saying that that it is not the worst cartoon out there (I would watch it over Dora or even The Suite Life with Zak and Cody any day), and I will admit to liking the occasional joke from the show. However, the show is such a blatant example of everything that wrong with most TV animation that I have to single it out.

1. Horrible Art and Character Design

The thing you notice when you first see an episode of Phineas and Ferb is Phineas’s big, ridiculous triangular head with his blank expressionless face. Ha, ha! That’s so silly! Then it sinks in. They never deviate from the character sheet. Seriously, do a Google image search and the most variety you will see is the occasional frown or sleepy-eyed Phineas. Compare this with the artistic insanity of Bob Clampett or John Kricfalusi where every nuance of emotion is rendered in exaggerated, malleable glory. There is no strict adherence to the character sheet. If the mood calls for a squishy wet Stimpy, there is no limit to the imaginative use of drawing in a Ren and Stimpy cartoon. I imagine that the slave laborers at Disney Animation are whipped if they come up with any sort of drawing that strays from the monotonous look of the characters on the patterned bed sheets that they are cranking out at the other end of the factory.

2. Zero Dimensional Characters

Not only do the characters look bland, they are written with the same committedness to blandness that one finds in a hospice bedside meal. At least in hospice you can look forward to a late afternoon sponge bath from an orderly (hopefully a former member of The Fat Boys). Take a moment to think about some of the great characters of animation such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck or even Spongebob Squarepants. We know these characters. We know that they will each think, emote and act differently given the same situation. All we know about Phineas and Ferb is that they might, er… build… something? This harkins to the experiment posed by RedLetterMedia in their excellent review of the Phantom Menace. In that video, various people are asked to describe characters from Episode I without reverting to their job or physical appearance. It proves to be an impossible task.

Take a look at the main group of kids in Phineas ‘n’ Ferb, there’s the nerdy kid, the bully, the girl with a crush on Phineas. Sure they all have different “jobs,” but in the end they all react and behave exactly the same. There’s no dynamic or conflict other than the occasional, “I, ‘the bully,’ did something mean to ‘the nerd’ sometime in the past but that’s okay, we are all pals just the same.” Extend beyond this main group of characters and the same applies. Candice exists only to bring an end to the boys’ daily activity, Perry exists only to give Doofenshmirtz an antagonist. I guess that you could argue that Doofenshmirtz has some character to him, but, unfortunately, he’s a captive of the rigid and formulaic plots of each episode. Speaking of which…

3. Plots and Jokes Built Entirely on a Formula a.k.a. Boring Story Telling

Okay, now I hear you saying, “Now, Mr. Webmaster Sir, there are plenty of great cartoons out there, like South Park for instance, that are drawn horribly and aren’t deep character studies, but dammit they’re funny!” True. But unlike that show, Phineas and Ferb relies almost entirely on formulaic plots and catch phrases for jokes. The shows are so mechanical and by-the-book that, more often than not, the supposed laughs come from pointing out the slight variances from the standard plot bullet points. This leaves no room for going off the ranch and trying something creative and fun. It’s like a half-hour animated jack-in-the-box: keep turning the crank and listen to that familiar little weasel tune… eventually, “Pop!” and the lid flies open and Jack the clown of your nightmares springs up. This can be pretty exciting and fun the first time around, but after you reset the clown and turn the crank again, the only people who will be amused are two-year-olds and the drooling idiots who buy Rihanna albums (sometimes one in the same thing).