Sexuality and Visual Storytelling in the Witcher series

    This is an essay sparked by a recent discussion of the game Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings over on the Witcher forums. Basically, the heart of the controversy was the fact the Witcher 2 had a lot of attractive female characters who were sexualized at the expense of their believability. The usual response to this sort of thing occurred. Plenty of people said that men were sexualized in video games as well, that complaining about attractive people is silly, and the ever popular "if you don't like it, don't buy it."

    I'll be honest, there's merit to the rebuttal even if I agree with the overall impression there's something slightly off in the games. Sex is a natural part of life and everybody should have it (save children and people I don't like). There's nothing wrong with attractive people and physical beauty is something the world could use more of. Certainly I could stand to look less like Jonah Hill and more like Channing Tatum.

    The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is also an odd game to complain about. The Witcher 2 is filled with assertive, intelligent, multi-faceted female characters from all walks of life. It has female villains, heroes, and side-characters working alongside the male protagonist. They routinely interact with each other as well as Geralt, passing the Bechdel Test with flying colors. It even drastically dials down Geralt's James Bond-like habits from the first game, to the point I was disappointed in some places (I really wanted a Saskia and Sile romance option).

    The sexual content was drastically amped up in other areas, admittedly. It's one of the two mainstream games I can think of with nudity (the other being Heavy Rain). There's a four minute sex scene involving Triss Merrigold and Geralt taking a bath together in an elvish underground springs. Triss even made an appearance in Polish Playboy, joining the not-so illustrious ranks of Bloodrayne and the girl from Indigo Prophecy. I don't think nudity is a big deal, personally, but that's not what's bothering me.

    No, I think there's a point to the naysayer's argument. Sex has a tendency to inundate every element of visual storytelling to the point that it actually starts to dilute itself. For example, let's look at what the elven women are wearing in the game versus what they were wearing in the original.

  

This is the elven outfit from the first game. Very practical and woodsy, good for the Witcher's terrorist-like Scoiatael.

    This is the outfits the elves are wearing in the second game. I must say, I'm surprised to find they have tape to keep those outfits on. It must be an invention of the local alchemists. I'm not interested in a bunch of random elves so it doesn't serve any purpose to titillate while it distracts from the realism of the game. In short, their sexualized appearance only hurt the game's immersion.

    Now, I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. I have a healthy interest in the opposite sex, just ask my wife. However, I do think there's a point where sexualization actually undermines the narrative. It offends me not as a red-blooded American male but as an author where the storytelling is undermined.

    Let's take another example from the original Witcher in the opposite direction. The character of Princess Adda who is, not to spoil, a manipulative psychopath.

     Forget the anachronism of the fact she's dressed in fishnets and a mini-skirt, the visual storytelling indicates that Princess Adda is a femme fatale. She overtly uses her sexuality to try and manipulate Geralt and is unafraid to flaunt it in court. This kind of storytelling says a lot about a character without words. Now if we put every woman in court in the attire of someone off to go clubbing, the effect is lost. What is a statement about the character becomes nothing more than the current fashion.

    One of the cool facts about the original Witcher was also the fact that it had a variety of female character models. Plenty of them were reused but they were notable, at least to me, for bothering to include old women. The male character models also included "obese merchant", which I appreciated.

    I think it helps the storytelling to include different sorts of body types and faces in video games. Princess Adda, Triss Merrigold, and Shanni are meant to be breathtakingly lovely compared to the average woman in the game world. We get a better sense of who they are if there's a greater contrast to draw. Unfortunately, that's somewhat diluted in the Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings because almost all of the women you encounter are gorgeous. Let's take Saskia, the Joan of Arc-esque peasant rebel you encounter in the second act.

    Bluntly, Saskia is beautiful and I don't have any problem with her character design. It's a different sort of beauty than Triss and I applaud the game for taking time to show varying kinds of feminine beauty. The problem is that the visual storytelling is slightly incongruous to the character of Saskia. Saskia is a firebrand rebel, a serious knight, and a dragonslayer. The fact she has her upper cleavage exposed is one of those, "something is not right with this picture" moments.

    The irony is that I think the artists are underselling themselves. If Saskia had a proper breastplate capable of defending her bosoms against arrows or whatnot, she wouldn't suddenly become a hideous troll. No offense meant to Mrs. Troll in the Second Act, who is one of my favorite third-tier characters. No, Saskia is lovely and practical clothing wouldn't change that. I'm just saying believability is hurt by an element of her outfit.

    It's ironic because I support the ridiculous outfits that the Lodge of Sorceresses wear in the game series.

    The Lodge of Sorceresses is a collection of vain, scheming, and thoroughly unpleasant women who live in a world where the only method of control a woman could exert was through magic or manipulation. They dress like peacocks and keep themselves magically beautiful as a way to bolster their self-image and exert a subtle form of control over the men around them.

    This would be a form of sexism by itself if not for the fact that it is not the only method for women to exert themselves in the game, it's only their method. The Witcher 2 is kind enough to provide counter-examples of heroic women like Saskia.

    The male form of visual storytelling can be equally important. The character of Geralt could very easily have been a white-haired pretty boy like Sephiroth if not for the fact that the game goes out of its way to illustrate he's scarred and battered by his many experiences. Let's take a look at him, shall we?

    Compare and contrast Geralt to his bard companion, Dandelion.

    A picture is worth a thousand words. You learn a great deal about both men just by looking at them. Geralt is a battered warrior who is still attractive in his own way. Dandelion is a flamboyant ladies man who would be at home in an Errol Flynn movie. The fact the two men are friends despite their widely disparate personalities helps fuel most of the comedy in the game.

    I don't mean to write this article to bash the Witcher 2. Really, I don't think I would complain this much if not for the fact that the Witcher series is head and shoulders above 99% of games out there in its gender policies. Halo is great, but there's like three women in the franchise and one is a naked computer program. The Witcher 2 has a huge number of empowered female supporting characters and that's rare enough in the gaming industry, let alone a genre traditionally dominated by male heroes doing manly things.

    Indeed, I would argue the Witcher series is usually above the curve when it comes to presentation of feminist issues. Women may be sexualized and the portrayal of things from card-hunting to attire is a bit on the immature side but it is a series with countless female characters who are fully realized with roles beyond eye-candy. They are proactive with their own thoughts, feelings, and desires that Geralt does not dominate.

    Yes, there's sex and lots of it but mature subject matter doesn't preclude a proper handling of gender issues. A good place to start would be giving characters appearances appropriate to who they are and what they're supposed to be, not necessarily making them hideous, but acknowledging the characters don't have to be sexy 24-7. I doubt this will change but I hope future editions of the Witcher franchise will fix its mistakes while continuing to have so many strong, intelligent female characters.

    Thanks, everyone.

The Witcher review

    The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski is one of my favorite fantasy epics, though it's difficult to put into words why. I suppose the best way to explain is it's fantasy noir. Yet it's actually a lighter shade of black, the protagonist and his motely band of associates are heroes precisely because they're flawed individuals who'd rather be doing something other than saving the world.

    Most fans of the series across the pond are probably familiar with the game series as opposed to the novels. Sadly, the entirety of the novels haven't been translated into English and you need to be a super-fan willing to read fan copies in order to enjoy them.

    Like me.

    The first Witcher game, appropriately titled The Witcher, had a vaguely Planescape: Torment-esque premise. The protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, awakens with amnesia only to find out he's a semi-famous monster hunter existing in a world overrun with problems. The plot of the game had your usual monster slaying but the majority of problems facing the world weren't related to demons or the occult. Instead, the Medieval fantasy world he inhabits is troubled by classicism, racism, and social injustice.

    Just like our world.

    The game had its flaws. You had to run around the setting to a ridiculous level. In its attempts to be mature about sexuality, it came off as tawdry (ironically, when it had surprisingly well-developed female characters who weren't just treated as sex objects). I'll address this last part a little bit later. Likewise, the systems were made for a controller as opposed to a PC. The Xbox 360 version WOULD have fixed many of these problems but it got trapped in development hell. Really, I wish they'd release it anyway but that's just a fanboy's greed talking.

    Still, what appealed to me about The Witcher was the fact that the setting was ambiguous but with a sense of clearly defined morality. The hero isn't a murderer and a torturer who just happens to kill "bad" people. He's a regular guy who just happens to have the profession of monster killer and would happily prefer to stick to that. The rapists, bigots, and killers of the world are still scum. It's just that the environment they live in takes a blind eye to their excesses. Geralt can take a stand for what's right but it'll have consequences.

    I think a lot of games fail to do moral ambiguity right because they're afraid of the backlash. It requires more than making both sides reprehensible. In fact, you need to be able to make both sides admirable as well. The Witcher manages this, much to my initial surprise, giving players the option of taking sides in conflicts which appeal to their morality as opposed to one the game has artificially constructed to be the 'correct' side.

    My favorite conflict is between the Scoia'tael and the Order of the Flaming Rose. The Scoia'tael are seemingly a justified group of freedom fighters working to end the oppression of nonhumans and achieve equality. The Order of the Flaming Rose appear to be a group of noble, pure-hearted paladins who are out to defend the innocent for moral reasons. Both have dark sides but have reasons to act the way they do. You have the choice to side with one or the other (or remain neutral) with consequences relating to both but no real answer as to which as the "right" one.

    Really, the only major flaw is the game tries a little too hard to make Geralt into the James Bond of gaming. As mentioned above, the first game has something of a reputation for its treatment of sex. Geralt has the opportunity to sleep with more than a dozen women in the game, which goes well beyond mature gaming to the decidedly silly. The game further digs itself a hole by having each 'conquest' rewarded with a card depicting the woman in a state of undress. I think video games should depict sex more positively than violence but there's a difference between being sex positive and just being silly about it.

    Still, that doesn't overcome the fact The Witcher is an amazing game. Its characterization, plots, and storytelling are top notch. Each of the NPCs is fully realized and Geralt is one of my favorite characters in fiction. He's far from a blank slate but a multifaceted character with flaws and prejudices. Of Geralt's many potential love interests, I was especially fond of Triss who is a character from the books now fully realized in the games.

    One thing I will recommend, though, is that everyone pick up the Enhanced Edition of the game as opposed to the original. The difference in quality of the writing and picture quality is the difference between a solid eight and an even ten. Whatever the case, The Witcher is an excellent buy even with a few years on it.

The Big Sleep review

     The Big Sleep is one of the progenitors of Film Noir along with The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Third Man. The Big Sleep is the great Detective novel adaptation, bringing to life Raymond Chandler’s immortal character Philip Marlowe.

    Philip Marlowe is played by Humphrey Bogart but has a personality diametrically opposed to Sam Spade. Whereas Sam Spade is mean, Philip Marlowe is charming. Whereas Sam Spade is gritty, Philip Marlowe is genteel. Whereas Sam Spade is self-interested, Philip Marlowe wants justice. Watching the two movies back-to-back gives you a sense of Film Noir’s two different types of protagonist embodied by the same actor.

    The plot of The Big Sleep is confusing to causal viewers and isn’t going to make any more sense if you pay attention. Why? Because there are plot holes large enough you can drive your car through. Famously, the creators of the movie contacted Raymond Chandler to ask who killed a certain character in the movie only for the author to admit he had no idea.

     Really, the heart of The Big Sleep is its atmosphere and mood. Humphrey Bogart's character moves from scene to scene with the tension never breaking. Chandler’s Law is a famous line by said author where he said, whenever the plot slows down, have a man enter the room with a gun. That is fully in force here with plenty of scenes where our hero is threatened out of nowhere.

    Ostensibly the plot involves the attempt by an unknown party to blackmail an old millionaire with two beautiful but ‘wild’ daughters. The plot takes numerous twists and turns with the blackmail element fading under an increasingly high body count. Philip Marlowe manages the plot with surprisingly aplomb, not only dealing with the increasingly Byzantine plot but romance not one but two ladies.

     The Big Sleep, in his own way, a prototype for the later James Bond films. There is a bevy of beautiful women scattered throughout the story, all attracted to Humphrey Bogart’s character. While the movie is relatively tame by modern standards, it pushed the envelope considerably for its time with sexual innuendo and outfits designed to show the attractiveness of its cast.

     Chief amongst these lovely ladies is Lauren Bachall’s character of Mrs. Rutledge. The sexual and intellectual equal of Philip Marlowe. She is not a Damsel in Distress but playing the game every bit as well as our hero, often running her own schemes counter to his plans.

     Really, you wouldn't be mistaken if you said the chief reason to see this movie is Boggart and Bachall's sizzling chemistry. It's rare, even today, for movies to give the love interest lead every bit as much to do as the male protagonist. Bachall not only manages to entertain in the scenes she does get, her character is a central part of the intrigue going on.

     I'm also fond of Marlowe's foil, Eddie Mars, who is a character who seems above board but is involved in virtually everything corrupt in the city. Figuring out just whose side he's on is a big part of the movie's appeal. The answer doesn't come until the very end.

    In conclusion, The Big Sleep is an excellent story with plenty of things going for it. I recommend it to all fans of Film Noir. The story isn't quite as memorable or tightly written as The Maltese Falcon but that is hardly a condemnation. There's a reason Raymond Chandler's works remain the bedrock on which Hardboiled fiction is written.

Max Payne 3 review

    "It's like Baghdad with G-strings."

    Max Payne 3 is a difficult game for me to rate because it's exceptionally well-crafted, has lots of interesting scenes, and stars my favorite character. It's also a game which, sadly, isn't as much fun as the originals. Sadly, it took the wrong lesson from its immediate predecessor and tries to be dark rather than fun. Penny Arcade Extra Credits talked about Max Payne 3 getting too grim and gritty. I stupidly disagreed, thinking Max Payne was always that way, but they're right. This game is ridiculously grim and gritty.

    Not fun ridiculously grim and gritty like Warhammer 40K either.

    I'll get the flaws out o the way first since everyone should know about them. The game play is 90% as fun as the original Max Payne games. Bullet time is preserved, shoot-dodge is always entertaining, painkillers remain in place of regenerating health, and the addition of targeting help made the game much more enjoyable for me. The problem, unfortunately, is the damn cover mechanic.

    It sucks.

    I know, I usually go into rants about subtext and storytelling first but the game play  needs to be talked about here. The addition of cover to the Max Payne series adds nothing to the experience and is counter-intuitive. When you want to 'run and gun' like in the original games and which bullet-time is made for, you often find yourself overwhelmed with hordes of enemies. Instead, you have to hide behind boxes and fishing boats or whatever to inaccurately fire at mooks until you've thinned their ranks.

    It's not fun, at all.

    The next problem is the game takes itself a little too seriously. By a little, I mean a lot. Max Payne has always been a brooding antihero. He's a cold blooded murderer, morbidly obsessed with his dead family, and possibly suicidal. The fact Rockstar didn't find this dark enough bothers me. Instead, they feel the need to make Max Payne an alcoholic addicted to pain killers determined to drink himself to death. This would okay if the game gave any reason for Max to crawl out of the bottle.

    Many reviewers have commented that Max Payne 3 is informed by the 2004 movie Man on Fire. The premise is fundamentally the same, Max Payne takes on security work in a foreign land only for the subject of his contract to be kidnapped out from under his nose. The difference is that Densel Washington's Creasy makes an emotional connection with the daughter Pita. Here, Max can barely hide his loathing for his charges and only halfheartedly goes after them.

    In fact, the lack of interesting characters is a major problem with the game. Max Payne 1 and 2 are filled with a breadth of interesting, oddball personalities. You have Vinnie Gognotti, Nicole Horne, Alfred Woden, Vladimir Lem, and video games' arguable best femme fatale Mona Sax. The cast of Max Payne 3 is restricted to one unlikable Brazilian family, your semi-likable partner, and the antagonists.

    Finally, the game's fetishism of violence bothered me. Now, I know you're probably going to think that's weak, Max Payne is an action game after all. However, the game takes the original series slow-motion gunfights and turns them into execution porn. Heads explode, bodies are mangled, arms explode, and the game lists rewards for things like crotch shots. What's annoying is the game still has the audacity to act like Max's bloody crusade has deep emotional consequences. You can't go, 'Headshots are awesome, here's a slow motion replay!' and have Max moan about how tragic being a killer is.

    So, after all that, I bet you think I hate the game. You'd be wrong.

    Max Payne 3 is a game that I enjoyed and am looking forward to the sequel to. It's still a Max Payne game and quite entertaining. Just so you don't think I'm going to harp on its flaws without talking about its merits, I'll go into an explanation of what I did like about the game.

    The titular character is still recognizable as the same one from the original games. As much as I think his depression was a little too much, Max's monologues and witticisms are spot on. James McCaffrey does an excellent job of realizing an older, wiser, and more troubled Max. I can easily buy that the original two games have wrecked Max's health and lead to substance abuse. In real life, professional athletes are often a mess in middle age due to the amount of punishment they put their body through.

    The game, itself, is beautiful and manages to capture an action movie sensibility. There's scenes like Max jumping out a window and firing at a mook holding a hostage that are so gleefully over-the-top you just want to stand up and cheer when you pull them off. The game play isn't just restricted to third person shooting as well. The game brings back classic rail-shooter staples like helicopter gunfire and firing from the back of a speedboat. These levels were a welcome homage to the arcade titles of my youth while simultaneously breaking up the tension from slaying hundreds of mooks in Sao Paulo's slums.

    I found myself invested in Max's journey through the events of the game, watching him come to terms with the fact there's no way he can escape being a killer. The opening monologue of the game is a nice "take that" at the players for insisting on Max return to kill more people.

    Max Payne: So I guess I'd become what they wanted me to be, a killer.  Some rent-a-clown with a gun who puts holes in other bad guys.  Well that's what they had paid for, so in the end that's what they got.  Say what you want about American but we understand capitalism.  You buy yourself a product and you get what you pay for, and these chumps had paid for some angry gringo without the sensibilities to know right from wrong.  Here I was about to execute this poor bastard like some dime store angel of death and I realized they were correct, I wouldn't know right from wrong if one of the them was helping the poor and the other was banging my sister.

    If you're in a game which can do that statement not only with a straight face but actually make it meaningful in the following story, you've managed to succeed at something wonderful. So, while I didn't enjoy Max Payne 3 as much as I enjoyed Max Payne 2, I will say the game is hardly a failure. I just think Rockstar should go back to the original games and incorporate more of the elements that made them so much fun. If they can incorporate the beautiful cinematography and artwork of the game with the original's vivid characters, you'll have something amazing.

 7.5/10

The Maltese Falcon review

     This isn't going to be a long review. Much like L.A. Confidential, except amped up to a thousand, everyone knows The Maltese Falcon is good. However, you should know it's entertaining. Having recently rewatched the movie, it's amazing how well it's held up. Despite countless cribbing of elements from the fedora and trenchcoat to the Femme Fatale, The Maltese Falcon stands on its own.

    Really, it all boils down to character and Humphrey Bogart's performance as Sam Spade.

    Sam Spade isn't a nice guy. He's greedy, misogynistic, homophobic, unconcerned with the death of innocents, and more interested in beating people up than justice. What do you say about a man who is carrying on an affair with his partner's wife only to try and brush her off after said partner's murder? That's just one scene that illustrates Sam Spade isn't the sort of hero you'd expect in cinema.

    Sam doesn't have any real stake in the Maltese Falcon affair. His partner has been murdered but he's largely ambivalent about the man in death as well as life. Sam doesn't express any real loathing of the villains for their actions either, he's the kind of guy who notes there's murders every week so why should be concerned about these ones? The cynicism of the character drips through every scene and there's no eleventh hour redemption for him. He's as crusty and bad-tempered at the end as he was in the beginning.

    Really, the meat of the story is Sam playing all the various parties involved against one another. Unlike your typical knock-off of Sam Spade, he rarely draws his gun and his fists don't do much more than annoy his enemies. Instead, Sam achieves most of his goals in the movie through the use of his wits. As Batman would say, criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, so Sam's strategy is to consistently appeal to their greed. They think he's on their side, so they let information slip and attempt to recruit him to their cause.

    The thing is, I'm pretty sure Sam WOULD join with one of them if he didn't think they'd shoot him in the back the moment he turned around. Sam's greed isn't just an informed flaw, he's genuinely capable of making deals with the bad guys for money. It's just he's dealing with a group of treacherous weasels. They don't trust each other and Sam knows well they can't be trusted in turn. They don't trust Sam either but are all convinced he can be persuaded to their cause.

    Contrasting Sam Spade is Mary Astor's Brigid O'Shaughnessy. She plays a weepy, sweet, innocent girl who appears to be the polar opposite of a femme fatale. Except, well, Sam sees through her disguise within minutes. It's an interesting character that lies to the hero's face then and when called on it, lies some more. It's one of the first realistic depictions of a sociopath in cinema. Right up until the very end, she's attempting to manipulate Sam by playing the helpless damsel-in-distress. The fact she's a dangerous monster is something she never let's the mask slip on.

    Sydney Greenstreet's Gutman is my favorite character after Sam Spade, however. He's one of the original affably evil villains in cinema. You really get the sense he admires Sam Spade and wishes he could recruit him as an ally. When Mister Gutman turns on Sam, and it happens a few times, you get the sense it's strictly business. Plus, you have to admire a villain so cold he can mutter the line, "I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, it's possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon. "

    Peter Lorre's character Joel Cairo is the only character modern audiences may have a problem with. A flamboyant Dandy, the movie was written with the idea audiences would be repulsed by him. Repeated allusions are made to both Cairo's homosexuality and the implications are we're supposed to think of him as a deviant for it. Due to changing values, Joel Cairo comes off as  the sanest one in the group. He's still a ruthless criminal but the intended effect is lost.

    Good riddance, I say. He's still an interesting character.

    Overall, I like The Maltese Falcon for its ability to tell a story drained of idealism. Sam Spade wants cash and possibly sex from his client. He's also willing to betray her, possibly, for a bigger payday. The villains are not caricatures, all of them want an object because it's valuable as opposed to any irrational motives. The tight plotting means there's possibly only a dozen characters overall and it works extremely well due to all of them being distinct. The Maltese Falcon may well be the first Noir movie and is certainly one of the best examples of the style.

What is Noir?

   Film Noir is a style of movie popular during the 1940s and 1950s whereas criminals exist in a world of deep shadows and moral ambiguity. Literally, Noir translates from French as black and that is the essence of the thing. Darkness both figurative and literal is the nature of Noir and anyone who wants to create an example of the genre needs to embrace it in all of its forms.

     It's a genre which has older roots still in the Pulps and Detective stories of the previous decades. The term "Private Eye" actually comes from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which got its start in the Old West for example. Noir arose from the fading romanticism of Westerns to the cynicism of the Great Depression.


    While critics would argue with me over the definition, I believe Noir isn't limited to crime pictures and is more a sensibility than a genre. Cyberpunk is, essentially, science fiction Noir. The Western can be Noir once stripped of all its romanticism. You could even, theoretically, create Medieval Noir though I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.

    The first thing one should do when creating a Noir piece is to strip it of normal heroism. This is harder than it sounds because most writers naturally try to make their protagonists a little larger than life and admirable. Noir heroes, by nature, have to be either extremely flawed or bad people who just happen to better than the alternative.

    Occasionally, an author may subvert this by creating an honest cop or hero figure but this morality has to be distinctly at odds with the way the world works. In Sin City, Hartigan is an honest cop in an over-the-top parody of a Noir city. His honesty and nobility result in horrific personal consequences for himself and others.

    This doesn't mean that the story can be lacking in heroism period, it just is something that needs to be handled carefully. Noir protagonists are often motivated by greed, lust, anger, and revenge as much as higher motives. When they do something genuinely noble, it should be with great reluctance. Take Rick from Casablanca. The ending wouldn't be nearly so powerful if not for the fact he has adamantly resisted doing the right thing throughout the movie.

    Moreover, the hero isn't just the person who is lacking in heroism. The entire world has been drained of brightness. The world is corrupt and there's no real hope of it getting better. The sense of decay and corruption afflicting not just the protagonists but everyone in the world is a major part of what makes Noir work.

    Another quality that is depressing is that the victories are personal ones as opposed to societal ones. It's impossible to root our corruption in City Hall, but you might be able to save someone from being murdered by the Mayor's goon squad for example. The events of the Noir-themed Bladerunner have no impact on Replicant slavery but allow Decker to achieve a bittersweet victory.

    Authors may or may not choose to make the bleakness of the setting an environmental one. Urban sprawl, endless rain, and nighttime are typical of Film Noir for a reason. I'd argue that the affect of Noir can be achieved with environments not normally associated with it as well.  

    Mad Max successfully manages to create a Post-Apocalypse Noir through the inherent banality of highways and their surrounding environments. Max Payne is a Noir video game set against the worst snowstorm in New York history. Amusingly, Los Angeles is a setting for many successful Noir because the glitz and sun of the region is a deliberate contrast against the sleaze underlying it.

    Noir is a sensibility where there are no easy answers, endings are never completely happy, everyone is flawed, corruption is rampant, and mankind is never going to be any better than it already is. The trick is understanding this doesn't make life not worth living. Noir heroes continue to muddy through life, trying to find answers, even if they're not to be found.

    Maybe it's why the genre is so successful. We've all felt like that from time to time.

Max Payne 2 review

    Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne prominently displays the subtitle, "A Film Noir Love Story" on its cover. I believe this directly lead to its commercial failure. Maybe I don't have a very high opinion of the average fourteen-year-old gamer, mostly because I was one, but I suspect plenty of people instinctively shied away from the title because of the presence of romance in their shooters.

    This is probably unfair but I think the video game market still has a long way to go before its primary audience is capable of appreciating deep emotion. Unfortunately, I can't just blame it all on adolescents unwilling to admit girls aren't icky. The fact is Max Payne 2 is a substantially different title from its predecessor.

    The original Max Payne was a bizarre hybrid of Matrix-like gun porn and insane humor. It was above Frank Miller's Sin City in its strangeness but not by much. Max Payne was about a cop going on a last dance of murder and revenge, fully aware he was going to end up either dead or in jail.

    Which makes a sequel difficult to write.

    Max Payne 2 resolves this issue by dialing it back, a lot. In many ways, it feels like a prequel. He's not an insane killing machine bent on slaying every mobster in New York but a police officer once more. He still kills a bunch of people but always within the bounds of the law, sort of like Dirty Harry. This took a lot of suspension of disbelief on my part. I can believe in zombies and aliens but thinking Max Payne would ever be a cop again took some work.

    The gonzo sensibility of the original game is largely absent. In many respects, this plot is no more unbelievable than a typical action movie. A group of hit men impersonating house cleaners are wiping out a lot of the Underworld's criminals. Max Payne stumbles onto one of their missions and ends up getting involved in a mob war. It's pretty tame compared to the original game's government conspiracies, Norse mythology, and evil megacorps.

    That doesn't mean it's bad, really. On the contrary, it's an extremely well-written thriller. The game slowly takes you through the plot step-by-step until the revelation of its ultimate mastermind. For a third person shooter, the storyline is remarkably deep and methodical. At the heart of the things, of course, is the titular love story.

    Max Payne 2 is all about Max Payne falling in love with hitwoman Mona Sax. It's pretty much a replay of Batman's relationship with Catwoman, except Max is honest enough to know he's no better than Mona and she's a lot more professional about her business. It's an interesting relationship because Max's chief motivation in the last game was avenging his wife and child's murder. Mona is pretty much the polar opposite of the late Mrs. Payne and this helps me believe the romance. I don't think Max would fall for anyone who reminded him of his wife.

     The romance is believable as such things go, starting with a mutual attraction and growing from there. Max's willingness to protect Mona forces him to make some uncomfortable moral choices and I happened to like this. Too often there's nothing really forcing the two main characters apart where here it's the fact that Mona is a hired killer. Even so, we believe Max is ambivalent enough about his own morality to stay with her. All of this almost makes up for the fact Max Payne 2 flat out isn't as good as the original.

    I know, I'm a blasphemer. Max Payne purists seem to all agree Max Payne 2 is superior to the original in all ways. The fact is the Cleaners grew boring as enemies after the first level and continued to show up as the main antagonists for a substantial portion of the game. The plot is also streamlined to the point there's not too many surprises. There's one major revelation later in the game but it's nothing approaching the original's layer after layer of conspiracy.

    The gameplay is decent, the controls are fine, and the graphics are top notch but I can't say I had as much fun as in the original. The construction site level, which forms a major part of the second act, contained several sections which were frustrating and plain not fun. I can't recall any such moments in the Max Payne and they definitely affected my enjoyment factor.  Even the opportunity to play Mona Sax, something I normally would have eaten up, was hurt by the fact you play her in the least worst parts of the game.

     Just to be pendantic, I also miss the Norse symbolism from the original game. While a New York Street Cop has zero to do with Ragnarok, it was a quirky enough addition that it was memorable. The fact there's no references to it was disappointing. What's sad is there were plenty of opportunities to insert it. If there was ever a Loki figure in video games, the main villain of Max Payne 2 fits the bill.

    In conclusion, Max Payne 2 is a great title but it doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. The developers made the mistake, in my opinion, of attempting to take the title too seriously. The results are wonderful but I don't think it was quite as good as it could have been. I wonder what the game would have been like if they'd kept the love story and tight plotting but preserved the original's over-the-top elements. I think the results would have been amazing.

     8/10

L.A. Confidential review

    I initially hesitated to do this review because there's not really much I can add. I mean, the movie came out in 1997 and all the film critics loved it then. I love the movie. So, really, what is this review going to add to them? Honestly, not much. Plus, this page is mostly devoted to science fiction and fantasy, which L.A. Confidential most certainly is not. However, it's my blog and I can blather on about a movie I love if I want to.

    What is the appeal of L.A. Confidential? Well, it's a Neo-Noir movie which is masterfully written and acted. A note before we proceed, I personally hate the title of Neo-Noir because it needlessly overcomplicates things. L.A. Confidential is a Noir movie. It's even set in the proper time frame. It just happened to be written in a different time period than the original Film Noir pictures.

    What is Noir? That actually deserves it's own article and I'll have to find time to do that someday. The short version is everyone is an a-------. Seriously, that's probably the best definition I can give for the Noir sensibility. The world is painted in varying shades of black with the best characters in the world being a lighter shade of gray than the purely evil people who fill the world. Good people may exist but they're completely powerless or painfully naive.

    Los Angeles makes a surprisingly good setting for Noir films because it's more or less the polar opposite of New York in terms of visuals but possessed of an equally seamy underbelly. Hollywood, big business, and police corruption have always been features of L.A. so it stands to reason that there's plenty of stories which can be told about it.

    The premise of L.A. Confidential is really too complicated to get into. It's a mystery which involves plastic surgery, mob hits, tabloids, prostitution, blackmail, and all the wonderful ick that makes Noir so wonderful. The actual plot isn't actually all that complicated but the stuff happening around the plot is absorbing to watch. The setting of L.A Confidential is a slice of life from the West Coast circa 1952 or so, exaggerated to wonderful effect.

    The heart of the movie, of course, is it's characters. The two main cops aren't particularly detailed but archetypal. Bud White (Russel Crowe) is a wife-beater-beater who takes out his frustrations on every misogynist he can lay his hands on. Edmund Exley (Guy Pierce) is his smug rules-lawyering counterpart, who isn't so much an honest cop as a guy who believes he can get better results simply by being smarter than everyone else on the force. There's a third detective, Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), who just wants to be sort-of famous by being technical advisor on a police procedural while occasionally scoring headlines for a local tabloid.

    There's not a bad performance in this movie. Everyone from Danny Devito's slimy reporter to James Cromwell's Irish-American Precinct Captain are note perfect representations of their role in the story. The movie eats, breathes, and bleeds Los Angeles sensibility. It's not historical Los Angeles but the City of Angeles that exists in our minds, just like the Maltese Falcon depicted the New York which existed in the 1930s and 1940s public's mind.

    Just about the only flaw the movie has is it's sensibilities somewhat too perfectly reflect the attitudes of the time period. The only black characters in the film are criminals or relatives of them. The only homosexual character in the story is an off-screen presence whose exposure will result in him doing something unforgivable. We're enlightened enough as a society we can depict realistically the attitudes of the period without condoning them.

    I point at this movie for anyone who wants to do a Noir piece. You don't have to imitate the setting but the seamless blend of action, corruption, and grotesques is the heart of the genre. One of my favorite scenes is where a grieving mother is unable to identify her daughter's body because of the later's extensive plastic surgery. It's such a bizarre premise that it says something about the kind of world they live in.

    I recommend everyone check it out.

Why I hate torture in fiction

    In the 1971 Dirty Harry movie, Scorpio kidnaps, rapes, and buries alive a teenage girl. When Scorpio refuses to reveal the location of the girl, Callahan tortures the killer by standing on his wounded leg. Scorpio confesses, but the police are too late to save the girl.

    A variant of this scene has played out in hundreds of movies and tv shows. It's not always a girl whose time is running out. Sometimes it's terrorists who have hidden a bomb. Other times it's, I dunno, the location of a drug lord who is going to escape after killing a bunch of people.

    The actual reason for it doesn't matter, the point is the hero needs to get answers from a guy quickly. So, he beats or whatever the suspect until he talks. Unlike in the above example, this method usually works and the hero is proven to be a hard man making hard decisions.
   
    God, I hate when this happens.

    Part of this is the reality subtext. Torture is a somewhat questionable resource in real life. Yes, if you happen to have caught someone with reliable intelligence, beating it out of them seems like a good way of acquiring information. The problem is that television rarely depicts the inherent problems. I'll avoid talking about the real life use of torture and instead talk about why it annoys me in fiction.

    The first problem is that an intelligent suspect will usually realize that if he gives up information under torture he's screwed. Let's go with Scorpio, above. By confessing to kidnapping, rape, and murder there's no real place for him to go except the gas chamber.

    In Man on Fire, starring Denzel Washington, the leader of a local gang confesses to trying to kill a little girl under threat from the hero who loves her. What does he think is going to happen to him now? Doesn't he realize that confession has sealed his fate? According to Hollywood, no.

    In the case of low level bad guys, this makes sense. They're not going to be thinking too clearly. However, when you're dealing with a major villain, the whole idea that they're going to fold like a deck of cards seems rather silly. Obviously, if the heroes cut a deal with the villains, it's going to feel problematic as well. Still, there's a reason why detective work and talking killers are so popular. Even the later feels more authentic to me.

    Next, there's the problem of the fact that torture always seems to work even with fanatics. In your stereotypical 24-esque scenario, our heroes torture an Al-Qaeda operative into revealing where he's placed a nuclear bomb.

    Call me crazy but, really, what prevents the operative from sending the heroes on a wild goose chase? They don't know whether the bomb is located under a high school (it's actual location) or a sports arena (something off the top of his head).

     Then there's the issue that torture requires you to already have managed to capture someone who knows something important. Yes, it's more dramatic to have to interrogate someone than find a note which gives you the evidence to find what you need but I think that's mostly a matter of writing. You can make finding evidence dramatic and it's equally possible to get suspects to give up information without assuming beating it out of them will work.

    Finally, it's just so overplayed. It's not really a hard decision to torture a guy who know to be bad. In real life, I don't support the death penalty. It's not because I think serial killers or terrorists should live, it's because I am deeply suspicious that the people sent to die are going to be 100% guilty. If you're going to torture someone in your fiction, maybe you should be willing to go the extra step and have it not work for your hero.

    I think Dirty Harry makes an excellent use of torture by our protagonist because it's not effective. Callahan gets Scorpio to cough up the girl's location but it doesn't do any good and results in the killer getting off scott free.

    There's also the inherent fact torture isn't particularly courageous and is, in fact, somewhat cowardly. A hero who manages to stand up under torture or endure it for a short time like Rambo in Rambo: First Blood Part 2 is a character who wins our respect. The torturer, on the other hand, is not endangering himself. Torture, inherently, is done from a position of power.

    A hero who engages in it just shows the audience he's willing to be a bully. We forgive Callahan because he's torturing the guy out of desperation and rage, not because we think it's going to get results.

    I think it'd be more interesting to read about one of those heroic 'hard men making hard decisions' torturing a guy for information only to find out he genuinely didn't know or was innocent. It doesn't change the fact he's doing it for a 'good' reason but it's something different and shows the dangers of the practice.

    My .02.

Is Grim and Grittier better?

    Penny Arcade Extra Credits did a recent piece on the concept of 'Hardboiled' elements in games. It used one of my newly favorite series of Max Payne as an example, highlighting the differences between the original two games and the latest installment produced by Rockstar.

    Hard-Boiled 

    I don't actually agree with a lot of the podcast, which starts with the premise Max Payne was self-aware and tongue-in-cheek. As a fan of the Max Payne series, I point out the first game was somewhat gonzo and bizarre but I'd argue the second game was a completely straight example of the genre.

    Still, I understand where they're coming from. A lot of people mistake sex, drugs, violence, and nihilism for "maturity." Even more so, a lot of people mistake mature for better. There's nothing inherently better about the Wizard of Oz than Citizen Kane, even if the later has a more involving story.

    During the mid-to-late nineties, there was a glut of comic books which attempted to subvert the traditional superhero ethos. I.e. superheroes don't kill, superheroes are role-models, and superheroes make the world a better place. These stories were mostly based on the trend set by the seminal graphic novels The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen.

    This period is called the Dark Age of Comics because it was of questionable artistic value. While The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen had a lot of interesting things to say about a variety of subjects, a lot of the comics were just excuses to show people getting slaughtered in particularly violent ways. The Darkness, a character which I am fond of, was guilty of a lot of these excesses.

    That doesn't mean dark and grim stories are bad. Quite the contrary, Film Noir is one of my favorite genres and you can tell a lot about my tastes by the staggering amount of love I feel for zombies. Darkness has every bit as big a place in fiction as the light. The Maltese Falcon wouldn't be nearly as good a movie if not for Sam Spade's ambivalent approach to morality.

    I think, instead, it's important for writers to make sure there's a purpose to their story's darkness. Max Payne is a tale about a police officer whose wife and child are heinously murdered, which leaves the titular character with the choice of meandering along or going out in the blaze of glory by killing every mobster in New York.

    The story is driven by Max Payne's suicidal desire to join his wife. Max, himself, isn't all that likable of a protagonist but we sympathize with his pain. If Max was simply a guy who decided, to kill a bunch of criminals just because then the story loses much of its value. It becomes an exercise in empty spectacle.

    This relates to Anti-Heroes, Crapsack World, Villain Protagonists, and Downer Endings. These are three of the major elements of making a story grimmer and grittier. If you're unfamiliar with any of these terms, I direct you to Television Tropes.org, one of my favorite website. For those familiar with them, they're basically subversion of the typical heroic narrative.

    Of the three, antiheroes are the easiest to sell to audiences. Everyone likes to read about flawed heroes and there's a certain illicit thrill to characters who live on the edge. My favorite character in urban fantasy is Harry Dresden who is a very heroic guy cursed with guilt over killing his stepfather. The Darkness is about mafia hitman who lost his true love due to the mistakes he made.

     A Crapsack World is pretty self-explanatory. They're worlds where it seems the entirety of the planet is either destroyed or hopelessly corrupt. Some of the most interesting stories of good vs. evil can be told in environments where the later is all-pervasive. One of the reasons I think Post-Apocalypse stories are inherently hopeful is, usually, things can't get any worse.

    Villain Protagonists are harder to sell. Iago, Richard the Third, the Lannisters, and Michael Corleone are all bad people. They can be sympathetic, Michael even convincing the audience he's an anti-hero at various points, but ultimately do more harm to the world than good. To sell them to the audience, they need to be the heroes of their own narrative.

    Downer Endings are something that need to be carefully managed to avoid not ruining the reader's enjoyment. Chinatown wouldn't be half the movie it is if not for its infamous conclusion. 1984 is brilliant because Winston can't maintain his convictions in the face of Big Brother. However, some book endings have caused me to turn off the television in disgust.

    For Downer Endings to work, I believe events have to follow themselves to a logical conclusion. They're forgivable in horror movies because, nine times out of ten, it's believable for the monsters to get the better of the heroes. Even so, usually audiences want a small ray of hope like a lone survivor or the creature getting put down for a time. Still, sometimes it's best for an ending which is bleak and uncompromising.

    I think the best occasion for a Downer Ending is when the ending is making a statement about something. A book about nuclear warfare which ends with everyone dying in the end is bleak but the point is that atomic weapons are bad. A book about corruption where nothing is able to be changed is powerful only when there's something to be said about the system. When monsters kill the heroes, it should be because the heroes are flawed or the monster itself is the star.

    Grim and Gritty definitely has a place in storytelling. However, it's important to keep a perspective on the matter. I believe the value of darkness is directly proportional to the value it places in the story. I am against it only when it is done for its own sake and think that's when it becomes obvious and usually pretty tasteless.

     There's other ways of making stories darker and edgier. You can throw in copious amounts of violence, nihilism, swearing, or sex but none of these things makes a story inherently better. Which is more memorable, anyway, Obi Wan Kenobi allowing himself to die at Darth Vader's hands or random hooker 24# getting killed in a police procedural?

    Stephen King said swearing shouldn't be avoided in novels when it is appropriate for the characters to do so (especially when confronting something horrible or terrifying). Likewise, I think swearing for the sake of swearing, is equally ridiculous. I think this applies to all stories and writers should bear this in mind.

    Find out what you're story is saying and apply an appropriate amount of darkness and/or light to it in order to make it work for you.

    My .02.

Why I like to write urban fantasy

    Medieval Fantasy is an overworked beast. It's not that the swords, sorcery, and dragons genre doesn't have stories left to tell. I, myself, am writing a dark fantasy series and still enjoy such as Rob J. Hayes' Best Laid Plans and M.L. Spencer's Rhenwars. The success of George R.R. Martin's stories involving politics, intrigue, and dragons show there's plenty of life in the old boy yet. It's just that a lot of authors never try to move beyond it when they set down to write fantasy, which is ironic given the premise of the genre is unbinding your mind from reality.

Vampires in Detroit.

    During the 1970s, shelves were covered in rewrites of J.R.R. Tolkien's original epic. Most of these works have been forgotten. In the 1980s, this flood shifted to becoming pastiches of Dungeons and Dragons with TSR putting out hundreds of books set in their various settings. The D&D rules system eventually gave rise to Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft, which has now permanently left a scar on our fantasy subconscious. I say this as a person who owns all of WoW's books and devoured TSR's novels like Happy Meals growing up.

    This isn't to say that original works haven't been created in that time. God knows, there's plenty of gold amongst the dross. Stephen R. Donaldson created the antithesis of the "journey of a Modern Protagonist to fantasyland" in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant books. George R.R. Martin set the world on its head with his sex and violence filled deconstruction of Medieval life. It's just that a little more variety would be welcome. George Lucas made a billion dollars just by transplanting a typical fantasy story to space. Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is out there but remains as strong an alternative fantasy series as exists due to it's collision of American fiction tropes. Which is why I like urban fantasy.

    Urban Fantasy is, literally, fantasy stories set in cities of the modern era. I separate this from "Fish out of Water" stories where a Modern Man heads to the past. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Ultima, and the Chronicles of Narnia are just fantasy stories in my mind. Urban fantasy has some overlap with magical realism, paranormal romance, and horror but is really its own thing. I also think it's different from Harry Potter in that, aside from brief visits to the Dursleys, it's all set in the wizard's world.

    No, I think what separates urban fantasy from other worlds is the idea that the protagonists are living in 'real world.' It doesn't have to be a strict one-to-one ratio. Vampires could have "come out from the coffin" and magic-users could be as common as Doctors but people still live in the United States and go to the movies. I think urban fantasy can be directly compared to comic books where the world is filled with mutants, aliens, and monsters but life more or less goes on as normal. The real world + [insert fantastic elements] setting adds a lot of credibility to the storytelling in my view.

Rural shifter murder mystery action!

    Next, I believe a major element of urban fantasy is there's a balance for the darkness. Hellblazer, the seminal occult series by DC comics, skirts the line between Urban Fantasy and Horror due to the existence of John Constantine himself. Despite Earth being depicted as an unrelenting hellhole and John's own questionable morals, the series consistently shows him getting the better of the Hell's forces. Just by the fact one man is standing up consistently for human free will, the world is slightly less dark.

    The Dresden Files, possibly the ur-example of an urban fantasy series, goes a step further and has the White Council. While it's not without its flaws, the White Council balances against the darkness of the otherwise standard horror monsters. It's a world where good, evil, and gray co-exist without diluting any sense of the other. Seth Skorowsky's Damoren take different views of this subject with the former having a 'hero' in name only while the latter is motivated by a strongly moral but vicious group of champions.

    Part of the appeal is also that the books have the most well-developed and written-about setting in history: our world. An author can spend more time developing characters and their interactions because the reader can assume anything the book doesn't contradict is the same as on Earth in the present day. This isn't an excuse for lazy storytelling but works as resource management, allowing more attention to be placed on the protagonists.

    I chose to write Esoterrorism with a very specific ethos in my mind. I loved fantasy, I loved monsters, and I unrealistic spy fiction. They seemed a natural fit to me and the two genres were a better fit than I expected. Thus, my original idea morphed into becoming the Red Room series. It was the kind of setting where the characters gained a sense of authenticity being people who'd grown up in our world, only to be shoved into not only a world of vampires and fairies but international intrigue.

Spies, monsters, and monsters.

      I came up with the idea for The United States of Monsters (Straight Outta Fangton, I was a Teenage Weredeer) when I wanted to parody the drift toward treating vampires all as handsome rakes as well as the treatment of shifters. Straight Outta Fangton deals with a poor black vampire named Peter Stone who has none of the advantages most super-rich privileged undead do. My I was a Teenage Weredeer novel took a typical young female heroine and put her through the hell of dealing with a town full of secrets as well as horrible stress.

    Another thing which urban fantasy has going for it is inclusiveness. While many books don't take advantage of this simple fact, it's a truth that it's far easier to justify the diversity of humanity in the modern world than in a Medieval fantasy setting. One of my favorite moments of The Dresden Files was introducing the character of Sanya, a African Russian atheist who wields one of the holy swords of God. That's a memorable character.

    Eventually, of course, the urban fantasy genre may become over-saturated and no one will be doing anything different with it. I disagree, however. Time will continue to march on and we'll always need to update the 'Real World' with our hopes and our dreams. Besides, if it does, we can always try something different. I'm already envisioning 1970s urban fantasy! Take down that evil Nixon with his vampire henchmen!

Dead Rising 2 review

    Dead Rising 2 is the sequel to the extremely popular Dead Rising game. I've already reviewed Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, so I'll avoid rehashing what the series is about. The short version is: zombies, lots and lots of zombies. Of course, you probably guessed that from the cover and/or title.

    Like Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, the game stars Chuck Greene. Chuck is a father of a young girl named Katey. Poor Katey infected with ZOMBIEITIS (for lack of a better term) and needs an expensive shot every twenty-four hours or she'll become one of the undead.

    Chuck, in order to feed this expensive habit, trades his dignity as a former motocross star and survivor of the Las Vegas outbreak to compete on a nightmarish zombie-killing game show called Terror is Reality.

    I didn't buy Dead Rising 2 at first because I, erroneously, thought the entire game would be about the Terror is Reality concept.  Thankfully, this isn't the case. The tasteless psychopathia on display during TIR is only one notch below The Running Man. Even the short segment you play in called "Slicecycle" was too much for me.

    The real meat of the game takes place after Chuck has competed. Someone, their identity unknown, has released the thousands of zombies kept by the show. These zombies swiftly slaughter everyone in the Las Vegas knock-off of Fortune City. Yep, poor Chuck who survived the Las Vegas outbreak is once forced to fight off hordes of the undead. It's especially problematic because his daughter needs her Anti-Zombie Medicine to stay alive.

    That's the premise in a nutshell.

    Chuck is a markedly different hero than Frank West. Whereas Frank West was a somewhat sleazy reporter, more interested in getting his story than helping people, Chuck simply wants to protect his daughter. Comparing the two, I have to say I prefer Chuck because he strikes me as a believable kind of hero. Chuck's priorities are his family above his personal safety but he’s willing to risk the later to help other people as long as the former isn't threatened.

    There's a lot of twists and turns in the story, some of which I approve of and some of which I don't. To be honest, some of the later ones seem cribbed from Resident Evil and should have been removed in the development stage. Still, the plot hangs together remarkably well and is a great deal more intricate than Dead Rising's.

    Really, though, I doubt most gamers are playing Dead Rising 2 for its story. No, the real reason people play Dead Rising is to kill zombies in a sandbox-style environment. For that, Dead Rising 2 delivers in spades. There's hundreds of ways to kill them with every conceivable weapon imaginable. A new system is creating "Combination Weapons" which range from the sensible nails in a baseball bat to a pair of chainsaws on a boat paddle.

    The real flaw of Dead Rising 2 is that you are on a timer and can't do all of the missions while exploring the environment to your heart's content. Yeah, the timer adds a sense of urgency to the story but it also means that you won't be able to do as much in your first playthrough as you might like. There's also something else which bothers me and that's the damn difficulty.

  
    Seriously, this game is damn hard. There's no cheat codes and the timer makes it impossible to level up enough to take down the problems you might want to address later. Yes, I know I'm a big whiner but I'm really not all that good with video games despite how much I love them. I'd kill for a Dead Rising 2 Causal setting.

    The graphics and level design of Dead Rising 2 almost, almost, make up for it by themselves. The casinos, malls, and maintenance tunnels give Fortune City a garish and colorful feel to help with its social satire (yep! I'm doing another one on this game series). The sense of wealth and its power is all pervasive.

    Unfortunately, the game has an inconsistent tone. Its characters and plot vary from zany humor to grimdark seriousness without any transition. Some might say this is a hallmark of the Dead Rising series but I recall the original as being slightly more even. Still, I can't say it ruined my enjoyment as the serious parts are moving while the funny parts are entertaining.

    In conclusion, Dead Rising 2 is not a game without flaws. It is, however, devilishly entertaining. I recommend any gamers with exceptional patience and/or skills to pick this one up. Even if you don't finish it, it's still worth the price of purchase.

9/10

A word regarding self-publishing

    Self-publishing is like getting a tattoo.

    Bear with me.

     Amazon.com is now freely making their services available to publish your book on Kindle or in paperback form. There's also plenty of wonderful services which will happily take your money to crank out a book, slap together a cover, then put you up there as well. Vanity Press has existed as long as books were in existence, publishers more than willing  to take money from people who think they have the next Great American Novel.

    This isn't bad.

    Self-publishing provides a niche for people who don't want to go through the hassle of agents, editors, publishers, and so on. In our age of instant gratification, it's the fastest way you can get your book out now.

    Now.

    NOW!

    Ahem.

    Getting back to the analogy, self-publishing is like a tattoo. You will live forever with the consequences, even if it's something stupid you did as a young adult.

      I will use myself as an example. I haven't been published by a decent publisher yet, so I can't tell you how to become successful. I can tell you how to avoid my mistakes, however. One of my mistakes was embracing the "now, now, now" philosophy.

    I was convinced that I had what it takes to be a published author. Clearly, I was more imaginative and brilliant than 99% of the Americans pitching their book out there. Please cut me some slack, I was eighteen. Unfortunately, I had more money than sense and decided to self-publish my opus.

    No, I'm not going to tell you what the book titles were so you can track down a copy. In fact, I've done my absolute best to find every copy of these books for the purposes of destroying them. If you find a copy of one of them and ask if I'm THAT Charles Phipps, I'll lie to your face and say no. You see, the books were garbage.

    I don't mean the storytelling was bad, though it was. I mean, they were amateurish junk. I had no one but myself to edit them and the results are, to me today, appalling. Grammar errors, overused words, poor punctuation, and bad mistakes all round. Each copy is a physical testament to my hubris.

    Later, I would be taken in by a con artist company who agreed to publish my work promising huge sales only to find out it was actually just a scam to get me to sell my own books. Really, as scams go it's less than most but I misread the situation badly and it put me off writing for over five years. Once more, though, it was me wanting to exceed the reach of my grasp.

    Writing is hard. It requires constant never-ending revisions to make sure something reads right. Why do you think it takes most authors a year to punch out a proper book? It's not because they couldn't do more if they wanted to. It's because quality takes time.

    This isn't an indictment of self-publishing. If you're comfortable with the product you're going to release to the public, by all means do so. Confessions of a D-List Supervillain (which you can see a review of on this site) was self-published and it was extremely enjoyable. It's mostly an issue of making sure you don't sacrifice your integrity as an artist because you don't need to put your work past the critical eye of an editor.

    If you have a book, I suggest you take it to a writing group or have unbiased readers look it over. Not just your family and friends, they're bound to say it's the best thing since sliced bread. Have people with skill at grammar look it over, professionals if you can afford it, and be sure to listen to any criticisms they have. The result may be hours and hours of painful slog, but will almost certainly improve the final product.

    That way you don't have to have an embarrassing tattoo twenty years later.