Internet stuff

(RAMBLINGS)
With all of the media that we consume on a daily basis, A thought occurs... why not put a large amount of it in one place?
Well for one that would be a crap ton of stuff... I mean try putting youtube videos,Music, episodes of tv shows, a games, maybe a football game, and internet reviews on one page. ok ok actually you probably could do that, but not on a blog :P
Anyways that's beside the point... actually that is the point, wait what ? nvm
(RAMBLINGS)

Here's some new internet videos, some of them cool stuff, other music, others still deep philosophical vids.

Intro to eden of the east, amazing anime(but dont watch it till I get back to Eugene :D), and the song grows on you


Ever wanted to strip down and look at what the human race is from an "alien" perspective?
Well this is a funny video :D


This is Phelous, he's Canadian, and awesome.... hmmm I wonder are all Canadians awesome ?? I'll have to run some tests (brbz)


Below is one of my favorite "new" internet reviewers, I say "new" because ive been watching all of his stuff almost religiously for about the past month now but i dont think ive commented on him before... anyways Heres The Spoony One in his review of mazes and monsters, the video that convinced me I need to DM


RL fallout,
4 t3h |\|3rD5


If you have the desire to be deep and introspective and truly see that we are insignificant as humans in the grand universe(or if you just got stoned cuz ) you cant go wrong with a little Carl Sagan.

(all seven videos on the Sagan series)

I think I shall leave you with that traveler,
this is _d0m saying I'll see you at your next dose
may the council look after you till then

treat KA-WA-II - ness

Welcome Back, Me!: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Hello everybody! Sorry it's been such a long time since I posted, but hopefully it was worth waiting for.

I recently finished reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, written by Haruki Murakami, who is a well-known modern Japanese fiction writer. After reading this book, I completely understand why. I was given an except of this book to read in my Modern Japanese Literature class, and it did not give the book the justice it deserves (although it did peak my interest which got me to read the whole thing, so I guess there's that). A review of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is apparently not something that is new to the blog-o-sphere, but here's my two-cents anyways.

To give you an idea, the book runs just around 600 pages (my copy, anyways), the excerpt was maybe 30 pages of that. The expanse of this novel is phenomenal--as you can probably guess from the page count--it covers months in the life of Toru Okada (the protagonist), plus it takes you back in history with stories from older characters. These stories often overtake the main storyline, which can make the book a little hard to read, but it truthfully adds so much to the story, I don't think the book would work without it.

I guess you want to know what the book is about, huh? That's where things get...complicated. It's very hard to nail down exactly what the book is about, because at that 600 page count, it covers so many different things. To begin with, it tells the story of a failing marriage and the search for a missing cat, and the overall drive for Toru is to get his wife back. However, within that there's some strange supernatural aspects involving wells, women who "heal" people through prostitution of sorts, a brother-in-law who doesn't seem to be who he says he is...all connected in a way that Toru must unravel in order to get his wife back somehow.

Probably the hardest part about this book for many readers will be just how Japanese it is. Murakami takes great care in his descriptions, which are fantastic, but often very little will happen in a chapter and that can deter some readers. I personally enjoyed the descriptions, especially when Kumiko (the wife) first leaves--you can truly feel the lagging that Toru feels as he waits for her to come home and doesn't know what to do with himself. Murakami received the Yomiuri Literary Award for this book, and those who read this novel will understand why. However, if you don't enjoy a book that drags once in a while to make a point and you don't have the patience for a 600 page read, you probably won't enjoy The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and that's just the honest truth. But, if you think you can read this (you should know better than I), I highly recommend it. It's weird, but oddly mesmerizing, with by no means a "fairy tale ending" and a great read for the right kind of person.

Pokemon Blue

There are at least two games that I have been meaning to review for a few weeks now (Bioshock and Dead Space) yet have been pushed to the side for a variety of reasons. This week, that reason was Pokemon: Blue Version. A few friends of mine have put together a tournament which I will be participating in, so I've been dusting the cobwebs off of my game and trying to remember exactly how the original games worked. I can't keep the Pokemon I've been raising because we're supposed to start training on the same day in the interest of fairness. However, I thought I'd try out a few combinations and mess around with some different Pokemon off and on until the match. Then, it became all-consuming. I haven't stopped playing the damn thing in three days. So, without any other games and as a last resort, I am forced to review it here and now. Luckily, Pokemon raises some interesting questions so I don't look like a complete asshole.

From the instant the intro cinematic with Jigglypuff fighting Gengar (somewhat of an unfair match-up) began playing, it felt like I was main-lining nostalgia. It was coursing through me and I couldn't get off of the couch. There is an almost zero percent chance that anyone reading this review has never played any Pokemon game and I doubt many of you have never played the originals, so you can imagine how I felt picking my first Pokemon again and kicking my rival's ass (His name is too dirty for this blog) and catching a Rattata because it was the only Pokemon I could find that wasn't a Pidgy. All of this is so indelibly tied to my childhood that I have to recognize that I am going to be horribly biased in this review. I have loved every minute of playtime in my game so far, but I can't accurately measure how much of this is from the gameplay and how much is from memories. This whole time I've been wrapped in a warm, fuzzy woolen blanket of nostalgia and I can't say whether some of that wool is covering my eyes.

So to really start this review, we need to talk about story. It is an extremely simple road narrative about a boy going out in the world to become the best Pokemon trainer, like no one ever was. It has been done many, many times in all forms of art, but is a very powerful structure. I never get tired of road narratives. The first Pokemon games also did a really good job of populating the world with interesting characters and sub-plots. I love Team Rocket infinitely more than the lame criminal organizations that followed if for no other reason than they were actually evil. Yes, they were stupid enough to station a look out guard in front of a poster that hid a secret switch, thereby negating the whole point of hiding the switch, but they were also into really heavy stuff. They were stealing Pokemon, they were running gambling operations, they kidnapped the head of Silph Co and they even killed a Marowak. They committed murder, which none of the other lame asses ever did. Team Aqua and Magma either wanted to make everything all ground or water, which is so stupid; who would ever want to do either of those things? Or Team Galactic wanting to destroy the world so that they can rebuild it? That's crazy but also too supervillian-y. Team Rocket is just a bunch of thugs who want to get paid. They are a strangely realistic element in a world populated by magical animals that fight each other for no real reason. Really, the story wasn't necessarily strong, but it was relatable. It was about growing up and finding your place in the world. Of course, the road has been used as a liminal zone (a place in-between places) where change happens since The Odyssey or even before. Therefore, it is a natural fit for this game's classic coming-of-age story. Then the antagonists were so good and main protagonist such a blank slate that anyone could slip into the role. It may not be Hemingway, but the game resonated in a very universal way.

Beyond story, the game also resonated with its use of the Pokemon themselves and the amazing gameplay. The game is really just a turn-based RPG in a lot of ways, but the developers tweaked the formula to create a majorly-addicting masterpiece. You have the basic stats of attack, defense, speed and special. These haven't really changed throughout all of the games, though the special stat has been split into special attack and special defense. Overall, they are basic stats that all RPG's use, though the names may be different. Then the Pokemon have their attacks. Each Pokemon can only have four moves, which is ingenius because it simplifies the actual gameplay while adding strategy and variety to the experience. Then of course, there is the gotta catch 'em all hoarding aspect of the game. You are encouraged to collect all 150 Pokemon in the game, which forces you to trade between Red and Blue, as some Pokemon can only be found in one version and some only evolve when you trade them.

I'm starting to realize that going in-depth into the gameplay is completely unnecessary. Pokemon games have changed in very minor ways throughout the generations. New Pokemon have been added (though they look more stupid every generation,) new evolutions, time, date, beauty contests and a million other tiny things have been added, but the skeleton hasn't changed. Pokemon is about catching things and then making them fight. It works because of it's simultaneous depth and simplicity of the gameplay, the bond that grows with these imaginary creatures as you raise them, the timelessness of the narrative and now, after about thirteen years since it first appeared in the United States, it works because all of us old fogies in college have fond memories of our pocket monsters. Are the graphics good? No. Who cares?

I realize that my contributions to this blog are about art, so I need to look at this game from that perspective as well. Is Pokemon art? No. No it is not. This is not to say that it isn't a great game. It is. I think it's fantastic and more fun than it should be. I think there is a feeling among people, and gamers are people despite what some lawyers have claimed, that if someone says that something isn't art, then they are saying that something isn't good. This is not the case, at least not for me.

Now let me completely retract that statement. I know this is bad for an argument, but I don't care. I think it's important that you all know that I've had a sudden change of heart. Pokemon very definitely fits my definition of art. It is a narrative that drives at a deeper meaning and can arouse an emotional response. I think that Pokemon is kind of a beautiful game. Sure the puzzles are silly, the dialogue is often stupid or weirdly translated and the story itself is not really that deep, but I think that's all very true of a lot of silent films too. Pokemon Blue and Red are about growing up. They're about drive. They're about wanting something really badly, working hard and achieving it. Along the way there is real danger and consequences, but you overcome that. There is also a message about conservation that was much more subtle in the original games than the later ones. I don't know, maybe I'm full of shit. It's a classic tale with a very interesting twist that hits many deep themes with a minimalist, almost expressionist world design. That sounds like art to me.

Cool stnuff

Just a few sweet videos Ive found around the net over the past week, I am sorry but all i feel like posting is a few videos im doing enough blogging about RL stuff at least for right now ... so I hope you'll enjoy the following vids :)
And I'll leave you until your next dose with them









Enjoy

Galaxy Railways

Ok just finished Galaxy Railways and as I was looking at a character name list I discovered there's an OVA and sequel series that I haven't watched but I'll probably get around to it. This was actually a surprisingly good show. I went it to it expecting to watch some shitty anime that was watchable and that's about it. Now I fucked up when I started Galaxy Railways cause I started in the middle at like episode 12 or something (because that's the way its set up on hulu episode 12 or 13 comes before 1 and it will take you to 13 or 14 if you aren't careful) and even still I enjoyed the show from the first episode. Granted after going back and watching the first twelve or so episodes it made a lot more sense but you don't need to know the back story to appreciate the story.

The way the story really starts a young version Manabu Yuuki and his older brother Momaru Yuuki sneak aboard there father Wataru Yuuki's space train nick named Big One. Wataru Yuuki is the captain of a Space Defense Force (SDF) train charged with protecting all of the other civilian trains on the galaxy railway system. Manabu and Momaru sure picked one hell of a day to stow away. The are discovered during a rescue mission of a civilian train that is mysteriously destroyed. Just as the Big One is about to leave a dimensional hole tears open and a fat ass alien ship starts to come through. All of Big One's guns prove to be in effective however and Wataru elects to sacrafice himself in order to give the rest of Big One the necessary time to escape. We then skip ahead in the future I can remember how much exactly but now Momaru is a man and Manabu is well on his way. Momaru has decided to follow in his fathers foot steps and join the SDF much to their mothers disapproval who is still shaken by the death of their father. That all happens in the first episode which ends with a phone call from the SDF headquarters located on a planet called destiny telling Kanna (Manabu and Momaru's mom) that Momaru was killed in the line of duty. Fuck right losing a son and a husband to the SDF this does not however discourage Manabu from following in both his father and brother's footsteps and joins the SDF and is even assigned to his Dad's old platoon (Sirius) and his old train Big One now captained by Manabu's dad's second in comand Schwanhelt Bulge. The other notable members of Sirius platoon include Louise Fort Drake Manabu's romatic interest, Bruce Speed Manabu's partner that prefers to work alone because he thinks he's cursed and kills all his partners, David Young Louise's partner and a wise cracking gambling badass, and Yuki a robot medical officer.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this show wasn't some super cheesy poorly written piece of garbage that I had to pass the time with. Instead I found that Galaxy Railways was quite enjoyable. Now I started in the middle which I have done before and I usually hate the show no matter how good it is if I start in the middle of it. This anime however flowed quite well with absolutely no back story whatsoever. You could literally drop into the story at just about any episode with maybe 4 exceptions and the end and but completely fine filling in the blanks that you didn't know because most of it just uses common sense. It's really enjoyable to watch from the beginning though because you can watch all of the main characters develop and grow. The development of the relationship between Spica Platoon (an all female platoon) and Vega Platoon (an all male platoon) is quite enjoyable to watch change although they aren't in many of the early episodes both platoons play crucial roles in the end of the story. This anime had a really gritty real world feel to it that not all anime can pull off. It also had a fair amount of feel good moments in it to to balance things out but in the end they aren't afraid to kill off main well loved characters or take the watcher down some unhappy roads.

This is another definitely must watch I can't wait to check out the OVA and sequel season to see what they're like I hope they're just as good as this one was.

Games and narrative

I suppose there may be spoilers.

I suppose I should start this post off with my definition of an art form. An art form is any medium which purposefully conveys a narrative, which determines what has the capacity to be art. Now, this is not my definition of art itself, which would have to be much longer and more convoluted. The idea of art is tied into too many different facets of humanity and is too varied from one person to another to have any real definition. What is art is what we think is art. Arguing what is or isn't art is as pointless as arguing what is or isn't God.

Based on that definition, what can or cannot be art is based on whether or not you can tell a story with it, and telling stories in video games has always been a daunting task. In most forms of media, the author has complete control of their story. They can write, film, edit, paint or do anything they want to convey some narrative to their audience. Of course, the audience will interpret this story in any way they want, but the author has complete agency to put anything in front of their audience they want at any time. There is no way for someone to stand up in the middle of the film, turn the camera around and look at the crew; it's a one way street.

The great question when considering video games as an artistic medium is how can a developer tell their story through this game. In fact, this was the crux of the argument that Roger Ebert made when he decided that video games could never be art. He was operating under the assumption that, in giving players part of the control within the game, the developer was giving up authorial control. It would be impossible to tell their story because the player could, if they wished, make their player character sit in a corner for three and a half hours. No story would be told simply because the player did not want it. This is my example, not his, but it does illustrate the point he was trying to make: players control the game and, therefore, the story, which takes away from any message that was trying to be conveyed and saps any artistic merit. No matter how we feel personally, this is a valid concern. Though no one would ever sit in one spot for three and a half hours (I hope,) it is possible to play games in a way that the developer didn't intend. The developer has little to no control over the camera or sound cues, making it difficult to time everything just right to create any sort of meaning for the player.

The most ubiquitous solution to the control problem for game developers is the cut-scene or cinematic. Cut-scenes, in case you are interested enough in video games to read this blog but not enough to actually play a video game, are short sequences where the player can no longer control their player character and pre-rendered animation relays plot information to the audience. The camera, the characters and every other part of the world follow predetermined paths that the developer set. They always take place in the middle of a game. Cinematics are a broader category which include cut-scenes as well as beginning and ending animations. Nearly every game for the past ten years or more have used cut-scenes and cinematics to tell their story simply because it is much easier. If you take control away from the player, you can tell any story you want without worrying about the player simply wandering in the other direction. However, cinematics and cut-scenes in particular create a much more troubling problem than developer control. The way cinematics are used today developers aren't creating games, they are creating movies with interactive bits in between.

Of course you need gameplay to make a video game, but it goes deeper than that. For a video game to truly be a video game, the gameplay needs to be the centerpiece; it needs to convey the narrative. If you watched a film but all of the information about what was happening came from a live play right next to it, you wouldn't be watching a film you'd be watching theater. The same is true of video games. Without the majority of the story being in the gameplay, you are playing through meaningless little set-pieces which lead to another cinematic which advances the plot. The cinematic, the short animated film, is the driving force while the gameplay is supplemental. It should be the other way around.

Some game developers seem to understand this. For instance, Valve never uses cut-scenes and uses cinematics sparingly, and only as a means to quickly recap what has happened so far to the player. The Half Life series is famous for keeping the player in a first-person perspective at all times. They effectively use this technique to create a real sense of dread about what is around the corner as well as force the player to really inhabit the role of Gordon Freeman. Freeman doesn't even speak throughout the game. Irrational also uses cinematics sparingly in their fantastic game, Bioshock. The game is all about control, as I will get into more if I ever get around to reviewing it, and Irrational uses cinematics to play with that idea. Whenever the character is not in control of his own actions, the player isn't as well. The only sequences which are cut-scenes or cinematics in the game are the intro, when the player character first chooses to harvest or rescue a Little Sister, the famous Would-You-Kindly reveal with Andrew Ryan and the ending cinematic. All of these, with the exception of the end, are out of the character's control, so it is out of the player's control through the cinematic. It is a very clever use of the device.

However, these games are largely the exception. Most games use cut-scenes as checkpoints which make it so that the player is performing tasks which are loosely tied to the plot until the next section of the story can be revealed. The Uncharted series, for instance, often falls prey to this. They are extremely fun, to be sure, but the gameplay is all set-piece with the story being revealed through cut-scenes. Again, this is not to say that the game isn't fun or even isn't good, but in a lot of ways it isn't a game. Of course, this is taken to an extreme in the Metal Gear series. Hideo Kojima is known for using ungodly long cut-scenes to tell his stories. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is especially bad. The beginning cinematic lasts somewhere around eleven minutes and thirty seconds and many of the cut-scenes are longer than five minutes. This is not counting phone calls.

If video games are to advance as a medium, developers will need to realize that cinematics, specifically cut-scenes, are not the answer to their problem. They need to tell their story through the game itself. This is easier in first-person games, of course, because it is easier to trap a player a room without it feeling too contrived. Still, the movement needs to be made away from the staid cliche of the cut-scene. Developers need to decide what makes games different and use that to tell their stories. Movies aren't just filmed plays; video games shouldn't be interactive movies.

Asian town

I find myself putting off my actual job of  blogging so i'll do a little personal blogging.... that makes sense right ? well at least i dont have to be professional here Muahahahahahhahahahaha Mutha suka
anyways some more music, a little vocaloid, a little not, and a lot of awesome :)

First up my main source of vocaloid tracks Pkjdx just uploaded an fresh batch on tasty jams but I know none of you listen to this stuff so i'll be quick about it and just link um out of the way :P

Aspirin by Luka
Hard and fast this track will wake a motherfucker up


Roaring Hyupunoshisu by Luka
Idk guy i just like this one



Nyan - the japanese term for the sound a cat makes like meow in english.
Nyan has developed into two very separate memes one you have nyan cat(a clip of a kitty with a poptart for a body farting out rainbows and singing nyan nyan all the way home) and on the other hand you have the nyan nyan song (A fictitious commercial theme song for a fish food restaurant from an anime) This is a rock version of the nyan nyan song....
and its awesome



Ok well i guess i should get back to my real work BLeh
TGIF
_dom

Treat
some Uk techno release thats pretty good

Outlaw Star

Alright just got done with Outlaw Star (which some of you may remember from Toonami on cartoon network when you were kids) and it was damn good, better than most. I hate to call this one a master piece or give you guys the idea that I think everything I watch is just the greatest thing ever. But this was still an exceptional anime not doubt about it.

So the main story line follows Gene Starwind, Jim Hawking, and Melfina along with the Outlaw star its computer AI system Gillaim II and the "Crew" consisting of an assasin named Twilight Suzuka, and its spunky Catrl-Catrl Aisha Clanclan as they search for the mysterious Galactic Layline. The anime starts with Gene and Jim kickin ass takin names and gettin laid (well not Jim cause he's just a 12 year old boy but Gene gets some action). Then a woman hires them to be her body guard. They find out that tao magic wielding space pirates are chasing her because she stole something from them. As it turns out part of what Hot Ice Hilda had stolen from the pirates was a briefcase containing an female bio android. Gene and Jim discover Melfina in the case during a crazy magic shoot out of sorts. Then shit ensues and Hilda shows Gene the ropes of being an outlaw in space. We also learn that Gene's father was killed when their ship was attacked Gene's dad was teaching Gene to pilot a ship and as a result Gene has a crippling phobia of space. As they get the Outlaw Star the crew has there first encounter with their other major enemies the McDougal brothers. Who's ship Gene remembers from when he and his Dad were attacked. That's where the story really starts to take off.

This anime has a little bit of everything; from sex-crazed-almost-sexy-til-you-realize-they-have-bird-head-aliens to guns that shoot magic bad ass bullets. The characters are all really bad ass and you can't help but like them all. You'll run in to all manner of cool stuff along the way but a lot of the story has the feel of filler until the last six episodes or so then everything takes off. I'm not saying the filler is bad but the whole time I just kept thinking I wanna know more about the Galactic Layline and see more crazy pirate shit. Still that's about one of the only negative things I can say about this. This show had a real sense of adventure about it and once you get into it you can't quite get out until its over so I would recommend a day and a half set aside for this one.

On the whole this was a really good one I haven't had time for a solid amount of tv watching lately but after I picked this back up today I didn't get up until I'd finished it. I would definitely tell you to watch this one its well above a lot of other anime.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

spoilers

For those astute readers out there, you may have noticed that I didn’t post anything last week. Of course I assume everyone who reads this blog is astute as well as ridiculously good-looking and beloved by their peers. However, it stands to reason that some of you may be more astute, more beloved by their peers and ridiculously good-lookinger than the rest and I’m going to assume that it was you who realized that I failed to post anything last week. I apologize, but such is the power of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

In case you have never played an entry in the Assassin’s Creed series, they chronicle the timeless struggle between the Templars, a shady group of knights who are hell bent on ruling the world, and the Assassins, who want to enlighten all of the people on Earth. They focus specifically on a man named Desmond. He is forced in the first game and volunteers in the subsequent games to spend time in a super high-tech chair called The Animus. The Animus allows Desmond to access the memories of his ancestors through his DNA. Desmond was selected because his family dealt with a device called a Piece of Eden which everyone wants to get because it could turn the tide of the war. This is the very, very abridged version of the story, but I don’t need this post to become a book.

What is really cool about these games are how they meld historical settings with a science fiction narrative. Most of the time spent in these games are in the past, reliving the memories of Desmond’s relatives. The first game dealt with the crusades while the newest games, including Brotherhood, have been set in Renaissance Italy. Ubisoft has used this opportunity to tie together many different historical figures and locations into a rich mythos along the lines of a Dan Brown novel. It seems everyone in history was either a Templar or an Assassin, including Leonardo da Vinci and Nicco Machiavelli.

Now, I am not trying to make up excuses, but the Assassin’s Creed games more than any other series can get me to do side quests. I am generally not a completionist (Bioware excluded) but these games have such compelling side content that it’s difficult not to try and beat it all. In this game, I realized it was going to be impossible way too late. I decided I was going to beat it today, no matter how many puzzles I skipped and I did, though slightly to my chagrin. So I admit that I only beat the main story of this game and never even touched the multiplayer. It was simply too large for one week (combined with school and a somewhat lost weekend especially.)

Moving on from my hack excuses, Brotherhood has certainly lived up to the pace and expectations set by previous titles. It is a polished, compelling game which builds on what the previous installments have created. The game is set almost exclusively in Rome (with the exception of some fantastic commando sequences,) which really grounded the experience. While the different environments were well-made before, it was sometimes easy to forget exactly where you were and some of the environments felt more polished and thought-out than the others. With Rome, everything feels right and like the developers really got every detail down. In conjunction with a fleshed-out, Renaissance Roma is a near-future Monteriggioni where Desmond and his Assassin friends are using the Animus. In previous games, you only left the Animus at predetermined times. Hell, I don't even remember if you could leave the Animus at all in the second one. In Brotherhood, you can leave the Animus at anytime, forging a much stronger bond to the present-day characters. Before this game, it was easy to forget that you weren't really playing as Altair or Ezio, but as Desmond controlling these characters. Now, you know exactly who you are.

The fighting system has been improved somewhat. Though everything feels essentially the same, Ubisoft has added a kill streak system. Though sharing the same name, this is nothing like Call of Duty's kill streaks. All this means is that, if you kill an NPC and then instantly start slashing at another, it will be an instant kill. This can continue as long as you don't get hit and there is another NPC to target. Its a minor change, but it makes the fighting a little more fluid. New weapons have also been added and some refined, like the pistol. None of it is particularly special, though I really enjoyed the crossbow. With its silent bolts, it quickly and quietly got me out of some sticky situations.

Other aspects of the previous game have returned. The building improvement from the last game has been brought back though to a much bigger scale. Instead of fixing up a small castle town, you are improving Rome herself. However, while the sheer size of the task was impressive and the fact that you could buy the Colosseum was really cool, the fact that the buildings didn't change (unless it was a shop) was something of a letdown. When I saw that you could buy landmarks, I was hoping for some kind of change to it. Instead, it just added slightly more money to your revenue stream. I didn't feel like I was improving anything. Subject 16's puzzles, one of my favorite and least favorite parts of the last game, have made a comeback and I love them and hate them for all of the same reasons. Though the puzzles I got to were as fun and challenging as last time, the search for the way to activate them was as annoying as ever. Major landmarks are not marked on the map, so finding the buildings with the glowing hole thingy (no more glyphs) that start it were annoying. I couldn't even do the puzzle because of how time consuming and frustrating it was to actually start the puzzles.

Speaking of frustrating, the controls still need tweaking. While I love the parkour aspect of the game and it is one of the things that makes the series unique, I found myself yelling out in frustration more times than I or my girlfriend would like because Ezio jumped in a weird direction that made no sense while in free-running mode. Nothing is more annoying than accidentally jumping off of a bridge into a canyon mid-mission and being forced to start that mission over. Another thing I didn't particularly enjoy and what really stretched out my time was a new 100% synch with missions. There are secondary objectives with almost every mission now which contribute to unlocking repressed memories that Ezio has about his ex-girlfriend you see for two seconds in the opening sex sequence in the Assassin's Creed 2. I didn't really care about these sequences but, again, this game series has a habit of making me want to unlock everything, so every time I didn't get a 100% synch I wanted to tear my hair out. It was all very frustrating.

These gripes are not an enjoyment killer though. Maybe it was for me, but I had some time constraints (which I ignored but whatever.) The truth is that this is the best entry in a great series of video game that is only getting better. I respect this series for its interesting narrative and its platforming roots so much that I can overlook its annoying control issues. More than that, even, I think I respect these games and Brotherhood in particular because of what it does for games as a medium. Video games are traditionally not particularly reflexive. They're referential, for sure, but they don't really reflect in any significant way on what games are. Assassin's Creed is, in essence, a game about games. Desmond is playing his ancestors through a device which is very different and yet not so different from a video game console. He loses himself in this time and place and has to complete certain objectives or else he loses. That's a video game. Really, the Assassin's Creed games are structured so that you are playing as a man who is playing a video game. Though it doesn't really go much deeper than that and avoids a lot of issues that I personally have with where video games are now, it is a step in the right direction to simply raise those questions of control and ask the question, even in broad strokes, of what is a video game. I think this needs to happen a lot more if we are to advance this medium into a real artform. This is something I will probably get into more detail with soon. I kind of rushed this review but really what is there to say? This is another great historical sci-fi genre bender that keeps upping the ante and i didn't even get to finish the Subject 16 puzzles because of various distractions and time constraints. Go buy it and find out for yourself.

Quick hit

Idk if you've heard this or not

foster the people - pumped up kicks

amazing

_dom

Random bits

Time for another music monday
You might have noticed  that I didn't get around to posting  last week that's because, well I hadn't found a new band to review/ recommend to you guys.
I still don't feel like I've listened to a new album enough to post ... but I shall not go two weeks without posting  so I shall fill you in on a few singles that have really caught my attention! without much more ramblings, let get this prrty strrted.

Okidoki starting us off we've got

XTC "Dear god."
A brief (very brief) introduction.
XTC was a new wave band from Swindon, England and I really doubt any of you know this track unless you did some looking for popular new wave songs . The album was released in 86 so I don't blame you for being a stupid kid ... (god I'm such an old fart when it comes to music sometimes)



^^ note that mtv is playing music videos 'O'


A day to remember "All signs point to lauderdale"
All I have to say is that this track is fuckin awesome blaring in your car whilest you drivith out of town at 80+ Mph.
 because you
"hate this town, its so washed up and all my friends dont give a fuck!" << need I say more


Red Line chemistry " Ultragigantor"
"This song is the Balls"-jcallesano
I think that youtube comment pretty much sums this up, Its a great Hard rock Track to smash shit to, or just rock the fuck out not much more to say.

*note play at max volume for max enjoyment*

And finally this last little bit is just for me...but fuck it your coming along also
DJ sharpnel "PANTS"
ok ok a little explanation, Dj sharpnel Is an alias for a two person team of Japanese techno DJ's,
They contributed to the creation of a little thing called Jcore,and are also heavily involved in the "happy hardcore"(thats nightcore people) and speed core scenes in japan. A major portion of Sharpnels success lies in the usage of sound bits from popular anime and other japanese pop culture. This song "Pants" Is a great example of his sampling skills It  uses sound bites from the anime Chobits, to create this high energy Club speed core song.


*note: hit the HD button... cuz whats the point of all that bass if you cant hear it :P)

Alrighty then that's all I have for you today guys
, hope you'll enjoy this post aaaand if you ya don't ...
well fuck you ...
peace & love
see you at your next dose
_dom