The United Federation of Charles

It's nice to have reminders that while Disney may definitely be on the side of the megacorporations when it comes to the inevitable cyberpunk breakdown of society, they're still capable of releasing socially relevant commentary in their movies.

If that strikes you as an odd opening to a review about a man covered in the stars and stripes who fights Nazis, I can point you to a hundred other reviews which are of a more "normal" discussion of superhero movies. I am not a normal reviewer, however, I am a die-hard comic book geek and fan of social satire in pop culture that will hopefully be buried with a copy of Neuromancer and Metal Gear Solid 2.

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Captain America's interplay with the Black Widow is one of the film's high points.

    Captain America: The Winter Soldier, despite being a movie about a patriot superhero published by one of the largest corporations on Earth is a fun bit of satire from beginning to end. One so sly in its critique of American foreign policy you might miss it but there if you have the slightest skill at critical analysis.

    The premise of Captain America 2 is Steve Rogers is adjusting to life after fifty years spent in an ice-cube and a world which has just suffered its first alien invasion. Yet, it's not nearly as different as some people would have him believe. The Good Captain is aware that people make nasty decisions when compelled by fear and he's acutely aware that rule by force isn't anything new. Indeed, tyranny is the oldest government known to man.

    A good deal of Captain America: The Winter Soldier deals with a topic that is very controversial in American politics today and that's drone strikes. The problem with drone strikes isn't that they're conducted with machines and will inevitably give rise to the reign of Skynet. No, that's complete nonsense and why the so-called satire of the Robocop reboot was anything but. No, the problem with drone strikes is they're mass-produced obedient assassins and give the government of the USA a cheap, easy, and effective way to kill anyone they want.

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Idealism vs. Cynicism with two very likable characters.

In the movie Real Genius, starring a young Val Kilmer, the jackass anti-hero child prodigies of Not-CalTech have a crisis of conscience when they accidentally create an orbital satellite death ray. Their problem isn't the potential for mass destruction or even trouble with creating weapons. Their problem is the weapon they created allows the CIA to anonymously murder anyone they want at any time. It's a sniper rifle, not a nuke, but one aimed at every single person on the planet at once.

I won't talk about the specifics but Captain America deals with that sort of moral problem. That, in the name of security and fear from terrorism, SHIELD has the kind of super-technology which would make the heroes of Real Genius horrified. What if you could kill any bad guy you want at any time without any fear of retaliation or chance of being stopped? What if you wanted to use this as a deterrent?

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The Winter Soldier is a perfectly effective "Boss" monster.

    Comic books have always questioned "why not just shoot the supervillains" and Nick Fury is nothing if not a voice for practicality in comic books. Captain America, however, has a serious problem with the idea not only could such power be used to kill the supervillains of the world but anyone they deem to be a potential one. It wasn't so long ago, indeed in my father's life, that many of the world's greatest progressives were considered dangerous radicals.

    The funny thing is, this profound idea is introduced in the first fifteen minutes of the movie and becomes part of the background. It's always present, along with the idea of the world being monitored twenty-four seven, so that it remains in the back of a viewer's head while simultaneously not overwhelming the action.

    Captain America: The Winter Soldier is about a guy who is about as anti-terrorist as you can possibly get, having fought the ultimate terrorists in World War 2, having serious questions about the similarities between his old foes and his current bosses. I initially had problems with one of the movie's twists but decided it underscored the movie's themes.

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Falcon adds a great deal to the franchise, highlighting there's heroes like the Captain in the modern day.

     The funny thing is, despite the fact there's an explicit parallel between the bad guys and the Nazis, the movie is not heavy-handed in its handling of the subject. We have perfectly reasonable men and women like Nick Fury and Natasha Romanova believing that any threat to "ordinary citizens" should be dealt with using maximum force. Not because they hate freedom but because they want to protect it from those who would destroy it. It's just the movie is loud and clear that once you open that door, it's not easily closed.

    Chris Evans' performance as Captain America blows the hell out of his ones in the first Captain America movie and Avengers and he wasn't bad in either. The new Captain is a hundred times more human, vulnerable, and reasonable while still remaining the center of what's good.

    There's even a couple of inappropriate comments he makes which are just perverted enough to remind us he's flesh and blood. Even his fight choreography highlights what kind of person he is as he non-lethally disables as many terrorists as possible while his associates flat-out kill them, only resorting to more lethal force when innocents are endangered.

    We get a good sense of how Captain America feels about his neighbors, his dating life, the 21st century, and a dozen other things. I daresay this Captain America movie is equal to the original Iron Man for giving us a definitive characterization of a comic book character. Kudos to not only Chris Evans but the writer, they have done a masterpiece here.

    I've never been much of a fan of Scarlet Johansen's Black Widow, disagreeing with her casting choice. She's a beautiful woman, yes, but I never quite got the feel for the character from the comics. Scarlet Johansen takes the role for her own in this movie, making a distinct character from the comic book version I like a great deal. It also avoids setting her up with Steve, even if I think she's the best character suited for him (and vice versa).

    Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury has always been an entertaining part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but this is his best performance hands down. Seeing Nick Fury removed from his comfort zone as the Grandmaster of the SHIELD knighthood only to be racked over the coals in a way Jacques DeMorlay would pity is an awesome experience. He rebounds well, because he's Nick Fury, but it's a rough ride.

    Anthony Mackie's character of the Falcon also turns a Marvel property I've never been very enthused about into something I adored. The Falcon has always struggled to distinguish himself from being Captain America's partner and, worse, has been part of some of the most unintentionally racist stories in comics. This version is a hero in his own right and one I would love to see as part of the expanded Avengers.

    Strangely, I don't have much to say about the titular Winter Soldier. Despite being such an important part of Captain America's backstory (and the reveal is telegraphed far in advance), he doesn't have much of a place in the story save as the bad guy's heavy. Robert Redford and Emily Van Camp also give excellent performances, though the latter is somewhat wasted since her character is unneeded when there's both Colbie Smulder's Maria Hill AND the Black Widow.

    Anywho, this movie is up there with Iron Man and Avengers for the best of the MU. It's also the most socially relevant.

10/10

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     So, okay, this is basically Metal Gear Solid: The Movie. Sometimes, Hollywood produces a film which is pretty much the exact theme and mood of a property even if it's a wildly divergent example of said property. Van Helsing is as close to a Castlevania movie as you're going to get and the same can be said for The Book of Eli and Fallout.

    The premise of Captain America: The Winter Soldier is about a poor aged veteran dealing with a conspiracy formed within the government to use a superweapon against the public at large. It's about information control and unaccountability of government. It's about the difference between superior genes and regular genes. It's also about idealism versus practicality on the battlefield.

    There's even a tanker level.

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The SHIELD eagle is very Roman and ostentatious. It's also used as a symbolic clue something is wrong.

    The revelation that the Winter Soldier is Captain America's best buddy, Bucky Barnes, from way-back when isn't the movie's twist. The movie telegraphs that Bucky survived from the first trip to the Smithsonian. No, instead, the actual twist of the movie is the revelation that Hydra has infiltrated SHIELD and co-opted its leadership to the point only Nick Fury is uncorrupted.

    I'm of mixed feelings regarding this particular revelation. On one hand, I might have found it stronger to have something other than a Neo-Nazi organization taking over the government and being obvious bad guys. Then I thought about it and felt this was actually superior in the long run. Why? Because Neo-Nazis took over the world intelligence apparatus and no one noticed.

    While its Godwin's law not to compare a group to the Nazis unless you really mean it, I rather like this movie's ethos. That if you removed the racism from the Nazis and all the politically incorrect bits to leave only the National Socialism as well as ruthlessness they'd STILL be the most reprehensible people you've ever met.

    Our substitute for the Red Skull is Alexander Pierce who is an interesting character. A lot of people speculated he was the Red Skull because the original lived in a cloned body of Captain America for a long time in the comics. Others believed he might be the modernized Baron Strucker or other figure. Instead, no, he's just an American politician who really believes Hydra is the best way to bringing order to this fair rock.

    An attitude which is infinitely scarier.

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The movie enjoyed teasing Captain America and the Black Widow but they remain platonic throughout.

     As mentioned, the central premise is SHIELD has developed an infallible drone-strike system to kill anyone their computers indicate is a threat to national security. This ominous idea is not so removed from reality because we do that now. Not just against foreigners, whatever sort of defense that is, but against American citizens who just happened to be abroad.

    Yes, there's the argument they're "bad people" but the kidnapping and torture of innocents shows that the American intelligence apparatus is not perfect. There's also the fact our missile attacks against terrorists have inflicted no end of civilian casualties. One of the most sobering stories I read was the story of "double-tapping" where the USA would drop a missile on a spot and then drop another when they saw people rushing to rescue the survivors buried under rubble.

    People only paled with a "what have I done" when someone explained that rather than collaborators, these individuals were mostly ordinary citizens who saw their fellow human beings in trouble and tried to help.

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Killing people without trial is bad? I never thought of it that way.

    Captain America: The Winter Soldier doesn't go into the specifics of this controversy but simply expresses the Good Captain's disgust with the fact people are being executed without trial or recourse. In wartime you can surrender or negotiate but with the military powerhouse SHIELD is unleashing, it's just (as Harry Lime put it) "Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?"

    CA:TWS demonstrates why Mister Lime's philosophy is bad when HYDRA tallies up just how many dots they need to eliminate from the American seaboard in order to assume control. The number is above 700,000 and Alexander Pierce says they intend to do this sort of tallying up to every country in the world. We also do a cool "zoom" effect where we see those dots being a father at a soccer field and a few of them named, including Anthony Stark.

    I think this sort of satire is effective because it just shows a very simple truth. When you sacrifice power from the people and restraint in law, it's not necessarily you who is going to suffer first. However, eventually, there's the possibility the people in power will be the kind who don't like you. It's a sobering thought and one I'm glad to see addressed in a mainstream Hollywood film.

    Anyway, Captain America's idealism never feels forced in the movie and it's interesting to see him come down so strongly on the side of transparency as well as the dismantling of large-scale military-intelligence efforts. To the Good Captain, HYDRA infiltration isn't the problem, it's the entire organization of SHIELD. Watching poor Nick Fury deal with the fact there's no way his beloved organization is going to survive this disaster is a tremendously moving moment.

    I also love the Black Widow's handling during this story, dealing with the fact she wanted desperately to be on the side of the good guys because she didn't have to be one herself as long as she was supporting them--which is undermined by the realization her side is the same as Hydra. This, in the end, inspires her to make changes in her life she should have done years ago.

    While I think this is the best Falcon they've ever done, I can't say I'm entirely behind his handling in the movie. The movie makes it a point to show Falcon trying to catch up with Captain America despite lacking superpowers. Sadly, the movie goes out of his way to show that he'll always be second best not only physically but morally. Falcon agrees with the Captain on everything as a plot point and it's kind of disheartening.

    Robert Redford's character is a perfectly understated evil with Alexander Pierce never once wavering from Hydra dogma yet having such conviction you have to wonder if he's onto something. When the heroes thwart his plan, he says, "what a waste" versus having a breakdown. Even a scene where he kills his housekeeper for listening into something she shouldn't have was a great moment because he seems saddened he has to do it yet does so without hesitation. It's a testament to his skill as an actor he can make a line like, "I only have to kill about twenty million people to make it work" sound rationale.

     The surprise villain of the movie is Armin Zola who returns as the consciousness of the evil Nazi uploaded into a 1970s set of computers. He's simultaneously creepy, weird, goofy, and fun all in the same scene. There's something awesome about a scene which references Wargames (which Cap has seen!) only to then reveal that SHIELD has failed to stop thousands of deaths over the years due to Hydra's manipulating them from the inside. Zola's appearance is, hands down, my favorite part of the movie.

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This guy doesn't really scream Crossbones to me.

      The Winter Soldier makes several appearances throughout the film but only a few of them stand-out. Since he spends the majority of the film as a brainwashed slave, we don't get much insight into the way the character's mind works. Any future use of the character will depend greatly on where they take him after the events of the movie. I will say, though, his mind-wipe scene was impressive.

     Crossbones, the Red Skull's favorite henchman, makes an appearance in the film but there's nothing particularly Crossbones-esque about him. I've got to say that I would have preferred him to just be a generic bad guy rather than such an iconic characters. Of course, the fact Falcon beats the crap out of Crossbones makes it almost worth it.

     In conclusion, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an awesome movie and has a lot of worthy things to say.

10/10

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    Blood Shadows was a book I reviewed a few days ago and, it just so happens, I read the sequel to in that time. Likewise, I'll be diving into the third book in the series soon thereafter. I suppose that, by itself, is an endorsement of the Blackthorn series.

    The premise of Blood Roses is a young witch named Lelia, our female romantic lead, is told her sister is being held hostage by vampires and goes to the undead-controlled district of Blackthorn in order to do a service for them. Using magics she shouldn't be able to use, Lelia saves the life of influential vampire Caleb's brother Jake. Unfortunately, Lelia finds out the circumstances of her sister's "kidnapping" were more complicated than she suspected. Not only is her sister not a hostage but they have figured out Lelia is a serryn, a subspecies of witch capable of entrancing vampires to drink their poisonous blood--sort of like a succubus is to humans. Caleb has an avowed hatred of serryns and has no intention of letting her leave his club alive, even though he's trapped by his promise to give her safe passage as well as the debt he owes her. Readers may remember I wasn't terribly fond of the previous book's male romantic lead, Kane Malloy, due to the man's controlling nature and arrogance. Curiously, while Caleb is equally controlling and arrogant if not more so, I found him more enjoyable.

    I expect this is because Caleb is not nearly as in control of the situation as Kane was and his attempts to dominate Lelia prove to be extremely poor ideas. Furthermore, Caleb's behavior in the book is highlighte as both self-destructive to himself and his cause. In short, I love it when bullies have their attitudes explode in their face. The fact he is a bully, though, is just part of his characterization. Long-standing fan of noir fiction as I may be, I'm hardly adverse to flawed protagonists and watching Caleb struggle between doing what he wants to do (kill Lelia or turn her over to the vampire authorities) with what he knows to be right (letting her leave Blackthorn).

    I enjoyed this volume of the Blackthorn series because it added significantly to the mythology of the setting as well as its politics. The previous volume hinted at the fact vampires were unfairly ghettoized and imprisoned in the worst districts of the world due to race hatred (though, perhaps realizing this is a pretty big pill to swallow, the author makes it clear vampires are not innocent victims in all this). We also get an explanation for the mysterious vampire prophecy introduced in Blood Shadows but which was left oblique until now. Much like in the Elder Scrolls'Morrowind, prophecies aren’t actually something which will happen but more like an instruction manual in the Blackthorn-verse. There’s a set of criteria and just about anyone can hijack it for their own ends. I find this infinitely more interesting than predestination.

    The character of Lelia is also a very fascinating one. She’s a woman destined to be a vampire hunter but who, despite having no great love for the species, chooses to eschew violence. Being trapped in the territory of cruel and apparently evil vampire Caleb is a near-insurmountable problem for her. Yet, Lelia is not broken by events and does her best to try and stick with her beliefs when it would be easy to turn on her power and destroy the vampire before her. While a fan of Caitlin Parish from the previous book, I find I prefer Lelia due to the perception she's both more emotionally centered as well as smarter (though Caitlin was no dummy).

     Having read the second novel in the Blackthorn series, I'm interested in some of the themes which have been developing. Lindsay J. Pryor has a fondness for placing her romantic leads in direct opposition to one another. Unlike in other Paranormal Romance novels, these are not easily resolved situations. While the protagonists possess a powerful attraction to one another, they are frequently on opposite sides of a conflict that isn't so easily resolved as the Capulets and the Montagues (which ended in their deaths--spoilers, I know!). Watching the characters break down each others' rough spots and go through real change while facing the consequences of their actions puts this above a lot of fiction I've read. Half the time (for example), when a vampire and a werewolf hook up despite centuries of war, it's like their parents vaguely disapprove. No, this makes a really statement about relationships. You have to change and deal with the consequences for them to work.

    I approve.

    The supporting characters of Blood Roses were quite entertaining too. Both characters have very annoying siblings (to them) who are, thankfully, more than just cariactures. It's good to have flawed characters like the leads because we get to see their mistakes impact their family and them get called out on it. I think Lindsay J. Pryor does an excellent job of creating believable family relationships. Both the leads' siblings may be idiots but they're not without merit. Indeed, Caleb's brother is probably the most moral character in the book despite being a lecherous jackass. I also liked our first real glimpse into the vampire heirarchy.

    I had some small issues with the ending as I thought the resolution left something to be desired. One of the major issues between the couple is resolved through a previously-unrevealed rule of sorcery which I didn't much care for. I much would have preferred the consequences of the characters' mutual conditions to be a continuing obstacle they have to deal with. Then again, I love torturing characters and seeing how they're tortured by life so I probably shouldn't be the best candidate for deciding these things. There's also a "hidden nobility" reveal about one of the characters which lowered my estimation of them. After dealing with the unstoppable force of nature which was Kane Malloy, I was looking forward to seeing some "commoner" vampires.

    Overall, I'm quite pleased with Blood Roses. I enjoyed the first book a great deal and this is a marked improvement over it with more entertaining characters, more tightly woven interaction, and more complications for them to overcome. I will continue to read this series as long as she continues to write it, intrigued by the dark and seemy underbelly as I am.

9/10

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Disclaimer: I am writing novels for Permuted Press now, so I may have a slight bias to liking their novels more than I might. Still, I will attempt to be objective.

   Pretty When She Dies is an interesting little book. If I were to describe it, I would suggest picturing a room full of Paranormal Romance readers with the clean-cut Twilight-esque types on one end, the likable girls in jeans in the middle, and the punk girl with a dozen piercings and tattoos in the back. Pretty When She Dies is what the last one is reading. It's a series where everything takes on a darker, harder, edge than is usually found in the genre. Much like the Blackthorn books, it straddles the line between Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy with the former leaning to PR and this novel leaning to UF.

    Way back in the nineties when I was an awkward moody teen as opposed to an awkward moody adult, my favorite pastime was Vampire: The Masquerade. A tabletop role-playing game, V:TM introduced the concept of Gothic Punk. Gothic Punk was a theme which showed a world much darker than our own where elder vampires secretly ruled the world behind the scenes, humans were ignorant victims, and the heroes were the younger vampires who had just enough power to be dangerous but couldn't control their dark sides. Eventually, much like actual punk, Gothic Punk was sanitized to become the unrecognizable backdrop for family-friendly stories where the monsters were about as scary as those in The Hobbit.

    Actually, no, I was pretty scared by Mirkwood's spiders when I was a kid.

    If you're wondering where I'm going with this, Pretty When She Dies feels like a book which embodies the old Gothic Punk feel. Vampires are terrifying, aggressive in their sexuality, and have no regard for the lives of humans. Normal humans aren't all that great either, being a craptacular species of ignorance and cruelty with only the rare diamond shining through. It's a dark world that still has plenty of edge to it. I found this to be a refreshing change and am inclined to recommend the novel on this basis alone.

     Pretty When She Dies starts with Amaliya Vezorak being transformed into a vampire by her college professor. Unlike other settings where vampires are merely misunderstood, this is portrayed as an act of violent assault--as is his dumping the newly turned and hungry young woman in the midst of a college sex party. What follows is a bloody massacre and we get our first real hint this is not going to be your typical vampire novel.

    It's interesting so very few vampire novels are interested in the concept of how someone reacts to being turned. How does one's family react? How does one deal with one's newly liquid diet? Who does one feed on? The first half of Pretty When She Dies charts Amaliya as she attempts to survive being a vampire with no assistance. The fact she knows no rules about being a vampire or its laws are all plot points which provide a good amount of tension.

    Eventually, our heroine manages to find her way to a place where she can learn about her status as the undead and meet our romantic interest for the novel. Even this proves to be an unconventional sort of relationship. Cian, the head vampire of Austin, is a character who nicely upends many traditional vampire romantic lead roles. He's already engaged to a plucky young human woman who believes in his "good heart." The fact Amaliya comes into his life as a home-wrecker who is quite sure they're vampires rather than human puts a fascinating spin on the whole process.

    I won't spoil the rest of the book but it has several unexpected twists and a good use of its mortal supporting cast. Too often, these sorts of books forget humans exist or treat them as something unimportant in the grand scheme of thing. If I'm talking too much about how this book zigs left when most books zig right, this is true. Part of what makes Pretty When Dies entertaining is it does read as a deconstruction of traditional (read: hack) Paranormal Romance plots. Thus, Amaliya is a breath of fresh air.

    Indeed, I doubt I would enjoy this book if not for the fact Amaliya is such a rebuttal to so many tired and worn cliches about Urban Fantasy heroines. Her sexual aggressiveness, implied bisexuality, and willingness to cross lines make her a fun antidote to stale "safe" heroines. I, half-suspected, she'd end up seducing Cian's fiance--though that's probably a little too far for today's still-puritanical audiences.

    Did I like everything? No, I'm sorry to say I did not. I think the stories pacing was a little off and the author could have eased the reader into a world filled with a heightened sexuality and corruption from the world's own. I spent eight years in college and I never encountered the parties where our young heroine finds. Likewise, the causal number of complete scumbags she meets strains belief. Amaliya is not the most introspective of characters but pausing in the beginning to let us get a feel for her condition would have been welcome. Some audiences may be turned off by the breakneck pace and descriptions during the first few chapters before things smooth out.

    In conclusion, I recommend Pretty When Dies but with the caveat that the first part of the story is not my favorite. It takes awhile for Amaliya to settle into her new life and the author to settle into her rhythm writing her. Yet, the book reminds me so much of my wannabe Goth days I can't help but say it was worth the purchase. The book grew on me not only as I read it but as afterward. I'm definitely going to pick up future installments of the series as well. I hope they continue to be transgressive and edgy with Amaliya's dark and sexy side allowed to grow.

8/10

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The relationship between boys (not men) and the 1980s action movie craze is something which is difficult to explain. It's really a meeting of circumstances more than anything else. You see, back when the PG-13 rating was either nonexistent or new (coming to pass because of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), the R-rating had some leeway from movie theaters. It had just the sort of forbidden allure that was intoxicating to boys aged twelve to fourteen.

What did you want to do when you wanted to show how much more grown up you were than Star Wars (even though you weren't)? Well, you went to see one of the many R-rated movies out there in theaters or on VHS. The movie industry was completely complicit in this. Aliens, Robocop, Terminator, Predator, and Rambo (part II and III) had massive fanbases amongst those who were technically too young to see them. I won't lie to you, there were also other allures of R-rated movies that newly pubescent boys would hope to be in these sorts of films, especially the really bad ones. The internet has wiped out the allure of these latter ones completely.

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The Blood Dragons are impressive monsters and easily one of the game's best features.

    What am I blathering on about? Well, what I'm trying to get at is that 1980s action movies were marketed as often as not at kids as well as adults. I could have said that upfront but I wanted to soliloquy about my childhood. Imagine G.I. Joe with more nudity (16-bit), swearing, and blue-colored gore. This will give you a pretty good idea of what Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is all about. It's a cartoon made for adult men in their thirties reminiscing about their childhood as adolescents wishing they were adult men in their thirties.

    It's pure nostalgia.

    The premise of Blood Dragon is you are Sergeant Rex Power Colt, whose name could only come from the fevered dreams of young boys wishing to be awesome. He is a slightly-out-of-date cyborg commando in the post-Apocalypse draconian United States (which has just survived Vietnam 2). In a hilariously unsentimental riff on Apocalypse Now, Rex is sent to terminate his former commanding officer, Colonel Ike Sloan, who has assembled an army of cybernetic soldiers to take over the world. They're called...OMEGA FORCE.

    Dun Dun Dun.

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Nothing says fun like a minigun.

    In a way, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is the anti-Spec Ops: The Line. SO:TL is a video game about the horrors of war and how there's something messed up about slaughtering thousands of digital people onscreen to feel like a hero. Blood Dragon explicitly calls out this attitude as nonsense, having a brief moment where an NPC talks about how video games are fun, improve reaction time, and have no proven link to violence despite numerous studies. SO:TL is about making you feel guilty for wanting to be a hero, Blood Dragon is about being the most stereotypical over-the-top action hero since Duke Nukem but without the crudity or sexism.

    The gameplay is nearly identical to that of the main game, Far Cry 3, which shouldn’t come as any surprise. What the game does is streamline the experience system so you gain powers instead of tattoos. Rex Power Colt has a few fun new abilities as well, such as the fact he can run at 30 mph, doesn’t suffer falling damage, and can breathe underwater. These abilities change the way the game is played and help solidify the sense that Rex is a cyborg badass early on. Rex also has chain-kills unlocked at the beginning so he can slaughter three or four robot enemies at once from the very beginning.

    Perhaps remembering the funnest part of Far Cry were the outpost takeovers, Blood Dragon expands on them. Omega Force's garrisons are larger, better armed, and have a number of alternate means of takeover. My favorite is turning off the energy shields and letting in Blood Dragons to slaughter the troops within. You can also lure them to attack your enemies or distract them with the cyborg hearts of your foes. They're great "boss" enemies and sufficiently hard to kill so that even cyborg badasses like Sergeant Rex Power Colt must use every resource to kill them.

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The cutscenes are done in a deliberately retro-style, which is hilarious.

    The homages run hot and thick in Blood Dragon, starting with the fact Michael Biehn (Aliens, Terminator) is the voice of our hero. The game references Robocop, Predator, Commando, Cyborg 2, Rocky IV, and a dozen other sources with everything from databank entries to more obvious references. I'm particularly fond of Doctor Elizabeth Veronica Darling, voiced by the incomparable Grey Delisle, is a combination of a dozen 80s cliches. All of them, I point out, which make her character laugh out loud funny.

     At heart, Blood Dragon is a funny game and a good example of the action genre. Thus, it works as the best kind of parody. You aren't supposed to take Rex Power Colt's ridiculous jingoism ("I made a promise to Lady Liberty"), muted humility ("Paintings of sad clowns and dogs playing poker are amazing. This is just the job."), and cheesy one-liners (too many to count) seriously but you can. Underneath the joke-a-second storyline, there's a simple but entertaining story about good versus evil. Ike Sloan is an entertaining monster and Rex Colt is a likable hero.

    If I have a complaint about Blood Dragon, it's that its less ambitious than it could have been. The entirety of the game takes place on a single island smaller than the final level of Far Cry 3. This game could have easily been expanded into a full-blown $60 side-entry into the franchise using Far Cry 3's engine. Likewise, the final level comes close to being perfect but fails to deliver a satisfying battle with the villain.

10/10

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    Inglourious Basterds is an example of a bait and switch. On one hand, the movie's posters and advertising depict this as a movie about the titular team. It promises revenge porn against the Nazis on a level akin to Indiana Jones crossed with Castle Wolfenstein. What it provides, instead, is an art film about the nature of revenge porn and how that reflects us as an audience. I went in expecting Django Unchained and what I got was Spec Ops: The Line.

   Quentin Tarantino is no stranger to grindhouse cinema and bloody carnage, so this is a case of "only Nixon could go to China" as anyone else analyizing just how much is "too much" when it comes to dehumanizing another human being would come off as softhearted. Here, Quentin Tarantino asks a simple question: is there a limit to the amount of torture and violence we can apply to a fellow human being even when they're enormous scumbags?

    Is there any critical examination of this going on or it just "us versus them"? SHOULD there be any critical examination? Does it matter if these are real monsters or not? It seems a tad hypocritical Quentin Tarantino made this movie then went on to make Django Unchained but, perhaps, this highlights he's aware of the dichotomy even if he makes no judgements on it.

    Inglourious Basterds is a movie with three groups of protagonists. The Basterds, themselves, who are a cartoonish brand of psychopaths out to revenge their race on the Nazis (they're all Jewish with the possible exception of Brad Pitt's character). Shosanna Dreyfuss, Jewish survivor of Nazi hunters, who is a significantly more "real" protagonist out to avenge her dead family. Then there's the character of Hans Landa, who is an affable analog for Heinrich Himmler. Yes, I'd argue he's one of the protagonists as opposed to the villain (or is both).

    The Basterds are an interesting take on the violent anti-hero as a great number of their war crimes during the movie are things the Nazis themselves did. The carving of swastikas into the heads of prisoners, the murder of prisoners for information, and torture of allies on the merest suspicion of treason. Several times in the movie, we see the Nazis (the title being applied to regular German military as well as members of the party) act in a manner significantly more human than our ostensible heroes. Yet, we cheer the Basterds because they're against the Nazis and on "our" side, no matter how horrific their deeds.

    In truth, the character of Shosanna is the actual "hero" as while she wants revenge on the Nazi war machine, she acts in a much saner manner. Shosanna still wants to carry out murderous revenge against the Nazis but her plan is squarely aimed at Hitler. The indiscriminate torture and terrorism of the Basterds seems like a complete farce compared to her cold, calculating, and thoroughly justified Count of Monte Cristo-esque revenge plan. Shosanna wants to lock Hitler and a bunch of Nazi soldiers in a movie theater and burn it to the ground. Even though it's a horrible death for many people, it's in the middle of a war and one cannot say she is not someone who is not justified in her actions.

    At least, unless you're a pacifist or don't believe in revenge.

    The character of Hans Landa is a curious mixture of both hero and villain. A character based on Heidrich Himmler crossed with Sherlock Holmes, he is a mastermind behind the Holocaust and yet not Anti-Semitic. He kills people because that's job and he's good at it. He's a genius polygot played with tremendous charm and wit. Were he not part of one of the most evil acts in history, one could easily see him as a hero.

   Which, of course, is part of the movie's point. What values a hero espouses seem very unlike the reasons audiences root for characters. There's one seen where an audience of Nazis roots for a hero in a movie about killing people as the audience watches the movie about heroes killing Nazis. In the end, the characters all come together and there's bloodshed followed by a typical Tarantino ending. No lessons are learned, a lot of bodies are left on the ground, and the audience is left to ponder: What did I just see?

    My answer is a mess.

    For all my praise above, I think Quentin Tarantino doesn't really have a message here. He makes a valid point that heroes should be held to a higher standard than just being "guys working for the people we identify with" and that the Germans during WW2 were people too. You could even make a statement the movie highlights the Allies weren't all sunshine and roses (which they weren't). However, the movie loses me with the fact the primary target of the movie is Hitler's Inner Circle and an architect of the Holocaust.

    The Basterds are horrible people, one and all, but it's hard to deny the appeal of retribution when one's people are being eradicated--which muddies the morality a good deal. The Soviets enacted a horrifying revenge on the German people during their retaliatory invasion. Their actions were not remotely moral, but I can't say I don't understand them. Murder and horror happen in war because war is murder and horror.

    Which is why it should be prevented in real life. Tarantino simply observes the horrors of his protagonists, villains, and everyone in-between without making a point. This robs the movie of any real point or power. In a film dealing with issues like revenge, the Holocaust, state-sponsored terrorism, and more--the most memorable thing about the film is Brad Pitt's hilariously bad accent.

   The Jewishness of the Basterds is almost incidental to the story compared to Shosanna's. Given she's a girl who has had her family murdered and would be killed for her interracial relationship with her black lover, it's hard to say there's any moral equivalency whatsoever. Even the sympathetic German soldier who likes Shosanna unquestionably serves a regime whose public face was horrible (let alone its private).

    In short, war is hell and you can't really talk about anti-heroes, villains, and moral standards without acknowledging the dehumanizing effect of it. Quentin Tarantino is more interested in talking about the dehumanizing effect of revenge porn on audiences--which I'm not sure exists. My grand-uncle fought in the Battle of the Bulge and barely survived. He had to deal with a lot of uncomfortable and dehumanizing things.

    Killing fictional people was not one of them.

    4/10

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   So, you want to write a zombie novel.

    There's two ways of going about this.

    The first method is write a book and put zombies in them. Bam. You've succeeded. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has two levels where you meet the ravenous undead. The first has them created by a mad scientist and the second has them rising from the grave as part of a native bravery test. The video game isn't about zombies but they are a part of the story. This, obviously, isn't touching the real meat of the question (pun intended). How do you write a novel focused on the ravenous undead? Not as guest-stars but the main attraction.

    Well, the first thing you have to do is define what what a zombie is in your setting and what rules apply to it. While George Romero created the "modern" zombie, the roots of the creature go back much further. The first reference to the ravenous undead is in the oldest writing known to mankind with the Epic of Gilgamesh. Ishtar uses them as a threat to gain herself access to the Bull of Heaven.

    "If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven, I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living!”

    Sadly, we never get to see Gilgamesh versus the hordes of the dead and he fights the infinitely less-interesting bull. Amusingly, vampires were more like zombies in their original myths. They were ugly, disgusting, and unpleasant creatures who rose from the dead to kill the living. Some were handsome and sired children or looked like their old selves but since the beginning, rotting dead have been a motif. There's also the Voodoo zombie, which is a corpse raised by magic as a servant of the living or a brainwashed human being depending on how you want to deal with the idea.

    For the most part, I determine these rules to be the qualify of what is required to be a zombie versus some other form of monstrous animal.

* It is dead.
* It is decaying or corpse-like to the point it doesn't have vital signs.

    That's it.

    You can do intelligent zombies, mindless zombies, hungry zombies, zombies sustained by magic instead of flesh, zombies coming back because of vengeance, zombies coming back because of a curse, zombies which have destroyed the world, or zombies which threaten only a small fraction of people like Jason at a camp site. There's an infinite number of tales to be told with the ravenous dead and you don't have to stick with the classics. Hell, even Tolkien had the Barrow Wights and the hordes of the dead used by Aragorn to protect Gondor.

    Really, the big question is what your zombies represent. This will determine what sort of qualities you want to attribute to their existence. In Night of the Living Dead, George Romero's horde of the mindless dead exist as an excuse to force class-conscious and racially uncomfortable people into a house together. They're a natural disaster that can be adjusted or altered any way the storyteller wants.

    In the original Dawn of the Dead, the zombies are representative of the mindless consumerism (pun almost certainly intended) which was afflicting American life. In the Resident Evil films, the zombies represent (however obliquely) the military-industrial complex's continued production of ever-more-destructive weapons for seemingly no reason.

    My favorite use of zombies is as a metaphor for plague and sickness. Zombie-ism (for lack of a better word) spreads like a disease from carrier-to-carrier. It knows no difference on class, wealth, race, or age. It brings sickness followed by death and, because of that sickness, the person becomes a threat to the people around them. The fact Zombie-ism is usually incurable only makes the situation more tragic.

    What's next to consider is that zombies, by and large, aren't actually characters. They're a plot device. George Romero subverted this by having a couple of his movies show the undead gradually recovering it's humanity. Twilight-parody, Warm Bodies, was all about a zombie as a romantic figure (the humor coming from how ridiculous this is). Before it was the 1993 movie, My Boyfriend's Back, where an intelligent zombie must adjust to eating the flesh of the living to go on a date with the girl he likes.

   Perhaps the best use of intelligent zombies is in the Fallout games. Radiation causes all sorts of funky effects in the setting and one is that people killed by it during the war, as often as not, rose as deformed slowly-rotting undead called Ghouls. The thing is, aside from their appearance, they were perfectly normal people and subject to prejudice. Fallout 3 added the fact ghouls were not immortal and eventually degenerated into the mindless undead they were feared to be (but only over the course of centuries).

    However, for the most part, zombies are unintelligent parodies of human beings.

    So where does this leave the writer? Well, the important thing to realize in these circumstances, the "star" of the work is probably not the undead but the humans reacting to them. This is a delicate balance to maintain because audiences who read zombie books are, as often as not, there for the suspense. The heroes exist to be lunch until one or more of the group survives (or they all die). So, when crafting the protagonists of your zombie novel, you should question whether or not characters are meant to be expendable or not. By and large, there's usually a "Final Girl" or a small group of survivors to illustrate the dangers of the zombie threat.

    This too can be subverted but should only be when you have a reason for it. Peter Cline's Ex-Heroes novels are about superheroes versus zombies. The traditional narrative of plucky survivors against the undead is subverted by the fact the undead don't actually pose any real threat to the majority of them. Saint George is immune to being bitten, Zzzap is made of electricity, and Stealth is simply too good to be defeated by the undead.

    In this case, the tension is from the fact they are attempting to protect regular humans from the undead. They may face non-zombie threats which menace them but there's a class tension which emerges from the fact superior beings are thriving with "normal" human beings forced to exist in their shadow.

    How much danger are our heroes in and who are we willing to sacrifice to the specter of the Grim Reaper? A protective narrative places the heroes as individuals trying to save others while a survival horror narrative is about living yourself. The two can be combined, as we see in TheWalking Dead, but a real question is how menacing you want your creatures to be.

    Bluntly, it is my recommendation you should always kill some of your darlings in zombie fiction lest you undermine the zombie's threat. Zombies are dangerous and nothing reveals this quality more than body count. When zombies have destroyed the world, as in post-apocalypse scenarios, the need to "prove" their danger lessens dramatically.

    Zombies don't have to all-powerful and dangerous to serve their purpose. Indeed, one of the appeals of the monster is they're rather crap by themselves. A common element in zombie fiction is the zombies, after an initial period of intense danger, become relatively easy to survive if you know what you're doing.

    The traditional Romero zombie is slow because it requires the flaws of humans (overconfidence, treachery, or greed) to make them dangerous. This is why I prefer my zombies to walk rather than run. The thing is, though, zombies don't get tired and they can take all the time in the world (bwahahahah--ahem).

    Another element to consider when writing a zombie is whether or not it's a good idea to include psychos. "Psychos", as coined by the Dead Rising series, are individuals who have been driven mad by the events around them or are simply opportunists seeking to profit by it. Man is the real monster, blah-blah-blah. The thing is, that's actually a pretty effective lesson when it's obvious (more often than not) our heroes would be able to survive if they worked together.

    Psychos offer an excellent opportunity to provide writers with villains who can talk. People often react poorly in traumatic situations and is there any more than cannibal monsters rising from the dead? People might do something insane like try human sacrifices (The Mist), kill their fellow humans so the zombies are distracted by the fresh meat, or even turn to looting as the breakdown of order gives them a chance to fill their material desires (Dawn of the Dead).

    There's also the question of the "Z-word." Zombies are pop-culture monsters more than vampires, demons, and so-on. In fiction, by and large, people have some idea what sort of powers and abilities a vampire possesses. Being intelligent monsters, the idea a vampire surviving unseen is plausible. This is less so with a zombie. You must establish how familiar the people of your book are with the ravenous undead.

    In The Walking Dead, George Romero's movies do not exist, and they never use the Z-word because the rising dead are a completely unknown quality until that time. In Thom Brannan and D.L. Snell's Dog series, zombies were created in direct homage of the creatures from fiction. Do people know "rules" of killing zombies or is it a completely inexplicable phenomenon? There's nothing preventing you from fiddling around with the concept either.

    Alan Wake has the Taken, who are zombies with the serial numbers filed off. The Taken have their souls and minds removed while being re-animated by the black material of the Lake. A horrific fungus might re-animate humans as a monster like in The Last of Us. Mass Effect deals with humans who have been re-animated with nanomachines as cybernetic-corpses. Even changing small bits around can help your work feel fresh and new. It will also leave your reader wondering what sort of "rules" are being followed.

    Finally, the important thing to remember with your zombie novel is figuring out what sort of ending you want to go with. Once you have determined what your zombies are supposed to represent, how much damage they've done to the protagonists, and so on--you must figure out where the story will carry you. In Zombie Apocalypse scenarios, the ending is rarely anything but bittersweet. After all, it is rare for the humans to totally defeat the epidemic. More often, it is simply a matter of surviving to the next day.

    The genre is also famous for its endings where the entire cast is killed, though this is rare now and could anger readers. In short, my recommendation is to just go with what feels authentic versus what feels happy.

    I hope you've found my advice informative. If not, well, see if I help you when Z-Day happens.

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    This is an addendum post to "How to Write A Zombie Novel" based on an observant reader's comment about the controversy over Zombies versus Infected. The difference may not be immediately obvious to the layman but is actually rather controversial in some circles.

    The difference is, in simple terms, Zombies are dead people who have risen from the grave while Infected are individuals who are sick yet now gruesomely savage. The latter was popularized by the games Left 4 Dead and 28 Days Later, both depicting a "different" kind of (lower case) zombie which was both fast moving as well as more intelligent than the Romero undead.

    There's considerable overlap between these two concepts. Indeed, I actually just use the term zombie whenever I refer to them in my hash-tags. However, the differences between the two types of zombie can mean a major difference between how the monster is handled in the story.

    As mentioned, the Zombie is very much based on George Romero's model. They are dead rather than sick and are not required to follow much in the way of biological rules. They can be shot, chopped up, and set on fire without causing them overdue distress. They also tend to be slow-moving because, obviously enough, they are rotting. There's a definite building-dread to these creatures that, ironically, is similar to how human beings became the dominant species on Earth.

    Everyone knows cheetahs are faster than human beings. So are a lot of animals. However, something I learned in college was human beings are actually much better at endurance walks. So, when they caught up to their prey, they were fresh and the latter were dead tired. Zombies are much like this. Our hero can spend the entire movie running away from them but they, unlike their pursuers, have to catch their breath and sleep. The Zombie is like death. You can escape it every day of your life but it will catch you.

    In this respect, the mindlessness of the Zombie is also part of its appeal. A Zombie is a very impersonal sort of killer. George Romero's movies even sympathize with the creatures to a certain extent, highlighting they're remnants of humanity rather than just purely evil. A Zombie's bite will kill you and turn you into a monster but it bears no malice or anger. Thus, a Zombie serves as a decent enough stand-in for death.

    Infected, by contrast, are a bit more hard science. While rising from the dead as a shambling horror is still, for now, in the realm of fantasy--we have people attacking people in savage ways all the time. Rabies, drug-cocktails, violent schizophrenia, and other conditions make it plausible (if unlikely) that something akin to a zombie attack could occur. In short, Infected are "living" zombies.

    This doesn't mean that Infected can be cured. Far from it. The majority of depictions have them as brain-dead but possessing only aggressive instincts and hunger. In short, they're living people have been reduced to a state of heightened mania. This, theoretically, means they're vulnerable to damage (even if they don't feel pain) and have a need to eat as well as sleep.

    Infected, due to the fact they're still alive, are not rotting creatures. They are able to run, attack, and reason to a certain degree. They are as intelligent as animals, for the most part, and may display some communal behaviors. Amusingly, this would apply to the first George Romero zombie who ran after Judith O'Dea's character in a cemetery before trying to break into her car with a rock.

    Resident Evil shows some of the benefits of Infected in they can be adjusted to fit non-zombie motifs. Infected can be linked to mutants and turn into all manner of horrible and disgusting monsters. While Zombies can theoretically be turned into horrible abominations, in general, they tend to be associated with rotting and have no real bodily processes.

    The differences between Zombies and Infected have long-term consequences for each other. Zombies can stay animated forever or will, eventually, rot to pieces. They are supernatural beings and can follow any rules you want to establish for them. They have no natural life-cycle and thus can do more or less anything you want them to. The Infected, on the other hand, should have whatever sort of life-cycle (for lack of a better term) described.

    In most cases, the Infected don't have to last forever. The initial outbreak is terrifying enough as it is. However, unless you intend to have them die of "natural causes" you might want to think of a crude life cycle of the creatures as time wears on. Do they continue to wear the clothes they wore until they're tattered stinking remnants or do they put on clothing out of habit? Do they sleep, hibernate, or enter a kind of weird stasis? Do they hate the light and love the dark or prowl around during the day? These can add a lot of fun to your book if thought about to their natural conclusions as well as interject a kind of fun realism.

    There's no reason the two kinds of undead can't overlap, though. Zombies can run, the Infected can display almost supernatural qualities, and the two sides may blend however the author may desire. In one Call of Cthulhu scenario, protoplasmic aliens take residence in corpses and then re-animate it despite "life" no longer following the functions of a normal human. The intelligent aliens of Dark City are animating the corpses of humans for similar reasons. Likewise, the use of Zombies as metaphors for disease predates the creation of Infected.

    There's no reason authors must keep a strict divide between the two in their books but if they want to, bearing in mind these qualities might benefit them. Thanks for reading, folks!

* Special thanks to Neil Cohen and Rob Pegler.

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    When one typically says the word "post-apocalyptic zombie fiction", you assume the former is caused by the latter. The first intriguing thing about Z-Boat is the zombies are completely unrelated to the fact the world has gone to hell.

    Set in an undetermined time in the future, Z-Boat describes a world where the environment has been totally destroyed by pollution and only a few countries remain due to economic collapse. While I was knocked out of the book by her, presumably humorous, choice of North Korea as one of those nations--we have no idea just how long the world has been in this state.

    I found Suzanne Robb's vision of a humanity on its last legs enjoyably dark. Everyone continues to go about their business despite the fact its obvious the world not just coming to an end but had ended years ago. Humanity is taking its time dying out but the sheer amount of devastation makes any repair attempts impossible (doubly so given humanity is using outmoded rusting 21st century equipment).

    The bleakness is all subtext, though, with the humans of Z-Boat not really caring about the end of the world. Instead, their chief concerns are their paycheck and whether or not their next mission will get them killed. The crew of the titular boat reminded me strongly of the Nostromo's crew from Alien as a result. A collection of individuals in a doomed situation, shady corporate sponsorship, and one exceptionally competent woman who might save a few.

    The characters are an ecletic bunch and the book's chief draw. The Betty Loo submarine is more or less the last stop and all of them have checked pasts of one kind or another. Not all of the crew like each other and tensions run hot and thick between the original crew as well as the newcomers.

    My favorite characters were Ally and Brian, the former being a survivor of a cult-like militia and the latter being the ship's alcoholic Captain. The novel spans multiple perspectives and gives us a multifaceted view of the situation while also making sure we don't know who the "main" characters are. This keeps tension hot when bodies start to pile up.

    Suzanne Robb brings an interesting new approach to zombies as well. Her particular Z-words are notable for the fact infection doesn't destroy a subject's intelligence. Instead, they just become incredibly hostile and focused on feeding above all else. The zombies are thus able to plan and strategize before falling on their former human allies like the cannibals they are. There were times when I wondered if they were possessed by an alien parasite like in The Thing. We got only a short bit from the perspective of these "smart" zombies and I'm hoping for more in future books.

    Readers should be forewarned the actual zombies don't appear engage the crew until the last third of the book. Suzanne Robb is far more interested in the tensions, paranoia, and in-fighting amongst the crew to drop in her cannibalistic creations off the bat. Therefore, the book is something of a slow burn before an explosive climax. This may not to be everyone's taste. Likewise, I question the choice of the surviving nations in this reality and believe others would have worked better.

    One scene also bugged me. A crew member of the Betty Loo is revealed to have taken part in a monstrous crime. One so horrific and destructive that the casualties outnumber Nine-Eleven a hundred fold. When his part in this horrific massacre is revealed, the crew just sort of shrug it off. I'm not sure if the author was trying to make a statement about the callousness of people in the future or simply the idea such tragedies are commonplace now. Either way, it took me out of the book.

    Still, the personal relationships of the crew helped endear them to me so when the zombies finally did arrive--I cared who got eaten and who didn't. This is an important quality for any work of horror and Z-Boat successfully pulls it off. I look forward to future works set in the world of Z-Boat and recommend the novel for zombie and apocalypse fans.

7.5/10

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    Nine hours of cutscenes.

    This is going to remembered as the game's most distinguishing feature. In a world where the majority of games tend to cap about eight hours, the vast majority of this being game play, the lengthy cutscenes in Metal Gear Solid 4 have become infamous. One holds a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for length, extending to the length of a short movie.

    This would all be justifiable if the game play (as well as storytelling) were worthwhile. Unfortunately, the former is decent at best while the latter is crippled by the need to address each and every little plot point point brought up by the previous three games. Hideo Kojima has always been an idea man rather than a figure known for coherent storytelling. Thus, it must have been a daunting prospect when he was hired to create a game to answer all the questions raised in the previous games.

    And by previous games, I mean Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

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The transformation of Solid Snake to Old Snake is terrible but moving.

    I'll get to this later but Metal Gear Solid 2 was created as sort of an affectionate middle-finger to the fans and meant to tear apart expectations for sequels. It created a vast conspiracy, quadruple agents, secret programs for dominating the world, and the set-up for a grand battle between various powers. The thing was, Hideo Kojima never actually intended to answer any of these questions. The next volume in the series was Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and was a prequel to the events in previous games. Fans wanted answers, though, and applied enormous pressure to get a game where they received them.

    Did they get them? Well, sort of.

    The massive number of cutscenes attempt to answer such questions as "Who are the Patriots?""Is Liquid Snake possessing Revolver Ocelot?""Who was Solid Snake's mother?""What happened to Meryl?""What happened to Eva?" and so on. This requires them explaining who a large number of these characters are to new audiences. It gets a bit recursive as after all the explanation, the stories actors have to repeat themselves because their points have gotten lost in digression.

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The grim war-torn battlefields are some of my favorite parts of the game. Sadly, they become rather generic with time.

Much as can be expected, the actual answers are less satisfying than the questions posed. The Patriots are a bunch of soulless artificial intelligences (learned early on), Revolver Ocelot is possessed by Liquid (though there's a twist), and almost every character from previous games has survived only to become a much grimmer person. The sheer amount of continuity in the game is something only a die-hard Metal Gear Solid fancan appreciate. As a self-described member of this fraternity, I appreciated the fanservice but it was at the expense of the series' trademark tactical stealth. I can't imagine the game being very enjoyable to regular gamers and it's probably totally incomprehensible to those who haven't been fans of the series from beginning.

The actual game play itself is improved from Snake Eater but I can't say in such a way as to be amazingly memorable. When events are happening like the Raiden fight against Vamp, you can't help but think it would have been more enjoyable to BE the cyborg ninja versus just watching the character go to town. The Solid Eye and Mark 2 are useful but I can't help but think this was made as a movie (or miniseries) first and a game second.

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The return of old favorites should be cause for celebration but their characterization leaves much to be desired.

    Even the bosses are perfunctory. The Beauty and the Beast Unit is composed of four beautiful women who have been traumatized by war but who engage with the plot only to the extent of providing boss battles. The exceptionally well written novelization of the game by Project Itoh eliminates the Beauty and Beast bosses entirely and nothing is lost for it.

    Really, the most interesting storytelling device is the rapid aging of protagonist Solid Snake. Established in previous games as a clone, his genetics start breaking down Seeing a character go from a man in his mid-thirties to somewhere approaching seventy is a heart-breaking experience. It also "seals the deal" that we're seeing the final adventure of Snake as there's no going back from this.

    If I had any real approval to the story, it's the extensive use of cyberpunk elements. Snake is the lone rebel left in a world which has been hopelessly compromised by technology designed to oppress, control, and kill human beings. Worse, the people who might normally be stopping this have been compromised by the system itself. While it ends on a semi-happy note, the themes of oppression through misapplied science are at their strongest since Sons of Liberty.

    Overall, I've got to say that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is just not that good. Its primary purpose is to wrap up the hydra-like plot of previous games and provide a definitive ending for the character of Solid Snake. This, at least, it achieves with gusto. Still, I can't help but wonder what Kojima would have written if he hadn't had to explain himself.

    6/10

    Addendum: I would actually argue reading the novelization would be more satisfying to fans of the series. It not only manages to trim the story in several places but it contains all of the massive amount of information you need to know in order to appreciate the game's plot given in a concise fashion. It verges on the melodramatic at times but I'm okay with that and give it an 8/10.

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    Tron is a movie with a special place in my heart. I watched it when I was a young child and it captured my imagination. Now, in a very real way, the movie makes no damn sense. It's all about using virtual reality as a metaphor for our children, inadvertent consequences, sacrifice, religion, man's relationship to God, and stuff I have no real idea about. However, it's a movie which has an emotional core that transcends the plot holes.

    The idea behind the movie is, "What if computer programs were people?" Which is, when you think about it, a spectacularly strange idea. In relationship to movies like Toy Story, which have the same premise but different items, it looks normal but the heart of this movie isn't humanity creating a virtual reality on purpose. No, this is a movie based on the assumption we have created an entire new universe filled with sentient beings without us ever realizing it.

    Well, some of the programmers realize they've created AI, but most don't. Tron doesn't take place in the future or even near-future (of the time) but the early 1980s when it was filmed. Back before dial-up internet and the personal computer were a thing, Tron talked about a Gibsonian Matrix filled with oppressed digital people

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The most subversive thing about this film is the Big Lewbowski is God.

    It's a good thing the relationship between Tron and the realities of computer programming are a distant memory because, like with Gibson, the story works better this way. Computers are magic in Tron and the techno-sorcery flies off the screen into the minds of its viewers. To make another comparison to Toy Story, that's a tale about your dolls coming to life. This is a story about you entering into your favorite video game and seeing what life is like on the inside.

    Three years before William Gibson wrote Neuromancer, Tron created the lighter and softer cyberpunk. Technology advancing at a rapid pace which outstrips humanity's ability to use it, massive corporations built on fraud taking over scientific development, and a virtual world ruled by emotionless dictators trying to suppress individual freedom. About the only thing which is dissonant with that vision is the movie's fundamental mysticism. The Grid is saved by God (A computer programmer) coming to his creation as a mortal (a program) to save it from its version of the Devil/Big Brother/Hitler.

    Even the movie's heavy Christian symbolism, which (for once) isn't a distraction from the material (*cough* Superman's last six movies *cough*), is played with. The God stand-in is a goody arcade-owner played by Jeff Bridges. In the heavy-religious symbolism-filled world of Tron, the story dares to say God isn't perfect and may actually be a bit of a dumbass (albeit a well-intentioned one). That's perhaps the most cyberpunk element of it all.

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Who knew the inside of your computer was so sleazy. Even before internet porn!

    The premise of the movie, if you haven't seen it, is Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a video game designer who's had his Space Invaders-esque game stolen by why-wouldn't-someone-trust-me-with-this-name corporate shark Ed Dillinger. Recruiting two of his former co-workers at Not-IBM, Kevin breaks into their R&D labs and accidentally gets digitized by a machine they're building capable of teleportation. No, seriously, I want to work at Not-IBM. They make video games and teleportation devices.

    Once inside, Kevin Flynn discovers the intranet of Encom (Not-IBM) is a full-fledged civilization controlled by an malevolent AI called Master Control. Master Control is about the nastiest artificial intelligence since Harlan Ellison's AM (Master Control predating Skynet by two years). It intends to take over the world through out computer systems and is well on its way to doing so by the time the movie starts.

    MC's also oppressing all of our computer programs, who are a plucky freedom-loving people defended by the titular Tron. Tron is like Luke Skywalker crossed with John Sheridan, doubly so since Bruce Boxleitner plays him.

    Tron is a religious bruiser and worships the Users, which is all sorts of awkward since the first User he meets is Kevin Flynn--who is no one's idea of God. There's some interesting stuff about religious oppression with the Master Control system wanting to stamp out User worship. I suspect a modern day Tron would show the Master Control system perverting the worship of locals. Which, when I get to Tron: Legacy, didn't happen but came close.

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Everyone remembers the light cycles. Why? Because they're awesome.

I won't spoil the rest of the movie but you'd have to be pretty slow on the uptake not to assume Tron and Flynn aren't going to team up to kick Master Control's ass. There's also a rather touching relationship between Tron's girlfriend Sori, Tron, and Flynn which (in the future) undoubtedly led to much fanfic.

God, I love this movie. It's just so very-very fun. The computer generated art is massively dated, sadly, but I think it helps reflect the unreality of Flynn's new surroundings. Its a new sort of world and the dissonance between living actors as well as their 1980s CGI surroundings is evocative rather than distracting. If you haven't seen this movie, you should. You should also buy it for your kids if you have any. You should also feel ashamed every time you empty your Recycle Bin since you're committing genocide.

10/10

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I mentioned in my previous review how much I enjoyed the original Tron movie. Yes, I was shamelessly gushing with fan boy nostalgia when I reviewed it but I don't regret doing so. My childhood was marketed to me by entertainment conglomerates and, for that, I am eternally grateful because they made it awesome.

However, a sequel to a thirty-year-old movie can result in fans of the original being extra-suspicious when the final results are put out to view. Superman Returns and the Star Wars Prequels are just some of the kinds of bad eggs we've had to deal with. It doesn't help Tron is a really strange movie, as I've mentioned before. The modern internet makes the idea of billions of AI living in a digital world no less impossible but certainly more emotionally relevant. We're all connected to a modern-day Grid run by an ubiquitous Big Brother figure so Tron is more relevant than ever (Hi, NSA!).

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The costumes and actors are lovely in this work.

    So what did I think of Tron: Legacy? Well, I would first re-title the movie, Star Wars: Tron: Legacy.

    Next, I would say it's pretty damn good.

    While people have been remaking Star Wars since the first movie came out, I think this is probably a better sequel to its themes and attitudes than not just the Prequels but the two dozen or so other knock-offs I can think of off the top of my head. The generational saga of good versus evil, authoritarianism and rebellion, plus the mystical nature of the Force are all successfully transcribed to this movie.

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The gladiator fights are several times better than the original, which were pretty awesome to begin with.

    So, I say to my fellow geeks nothing is going to feel very original here but it's still being told in an enjoyable way. Like, it's a burger and fries of science fiction/fantasy but it's a good burger and fries. Double-paddies with onions, ketchup, mustard, mayor, and served with a large-sized coke. The original movie was a nice burger too so combining it with Star Wars (which it was pretty similar to anyway) is two tastes which go great together.

    The premise of Tron: Legacy is Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) from the original Tron, has inherited his father's multibillion dollar empire after the latter's disappearance. A mysterious page from Kevin Flynn's old arcade leads his son to a device which digitizes him and takes him to an updated grid ruled by his father's lookalike double, the malevolent Clu (also Jeff Bridges).

    Sam Flynn plays the Luke Skywalker role while Clu is the Emperor crossed with Darth Vader. Despite having some of Darth Vader's properties, Clu has his own Darth Vader analog in the silent assassin Rinzler. It's a minor spoiler but Kevin Flynn takes on elements of Obi-Wan and Yoda in the movie too. Our heroes even take a journey to a Mos Eisley cantina, of sorts. This version, though has Daft Punk playing in-universe DJs versus large-brained Bith playing space jazz.

    FYI, the soundtrack for this movie is awesome. Daft Punk was an inspired choice to do the music and their electronic sounds are worth buying separate from the film. The fact they were able to wear their costumes in the Grid with only minor alterations shows just how perfect they were for the movie. I've since purchased the Tron Legacy soundtrack and also a remix of their work by other artists. I listen to both as I do my writing. It's that good.

    The homages run hot and thick throughout Tron: Legacy, referencing the original movie as well as other movies in multiple ways but without being impenetrable to new viewers. While there's a couple of excessive info-dumps at the start of the movie, just about anyone will be able to pick up on the archetypal story of a son looking for his father in a fantastic new world. While I can't say Sam Flynn is a particularly interesting character, Jeff Bridge's Kevin Flynn and Olivia Wilde's Quorra more than make up for it.

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The city is a gorgeous blue color-pallet and monument to CGI.

Wilde does a wonderful job playing a super-talented cyber-warrior who takes Tron's place in the narrative. There's a nice gender reversal of the traditional, "student falls for his master's child" in Wuxia. The fact she's one of the loveliest women in Hollywood, IMHO, doesn't hurt either. Jeff Bridges shows off his acting chops by playing the now-wise and semi-divine Kevin Flynn as well as the Satanic Clu. It's difficult enough playing two different characters but managing a father-son relationship between yourself is a new level of acting chops.

We also get a really good insight into the culture of the Programs. They're just like humans in some ways, yet profoundly different in other respects. The conflict between the Programs (who are fundamentally non-chaotic ordered beings) and the Isos (who are chaotic--just like humans) drives much of the plot's backstory. We also get a simple but worthwhile moral about the impossibility and subjectiveness of perfection.

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The light-cycles are still wonderful.

    The Christian symbolism remains a major feature of this movie, this time placing Kevin Flynn as the Father and Sam Flynn as the Son. Clu, as mentioned above, represents Satan and the wayward Firstborn. While the fall of Satan has only a minor role in the Bible and is debatable in many circles as having happened at all but the mythology used here will be familiar to those who know the popular consensus. Clu (Satan) fell from grace because of his jealousy of the Isos (Humanity) and has devoted himself to the overthrow of the Users (God) as a result. We even have the Tolkien-reference to Satan/Clu being unable to create but only re-purpose existing programs.

    The world-building of Tron: Legacy hints at a much larger and more fascinating world than the original with plenty of world to expand beyond the existing borders. No sooner did I finish this movie did I want to watch the animated series, Tron: Uprising. Not only is Clu's army delightfully villainous but there's rebels, criminals, and other factions competing on a game field which is only touched upon by the movie proper.

    Some individuals may question the movie's cyberpunk credentials and, fair enough, it's stretching the definition. Still, I loved the depiction of the 21st century's ENCOM as a corrupt and intellectually bankrupt organization. Clu's totalitarian regime is a combination of the Nazis, Roman Empire, and Galactic Empire but it's still an example of technology oppressing technology even if it's just in the most literal sense. Mostly, though, I love the look and that's cyberpunk enough for me to give it the tag.

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Daft Punk didn't need to change their costumes to fit in. They really didn't.

In conclusion, Tron: Legacy is a great movie. Is it a deep movie? No. Is it a fun movie? Very much so. The costumes are beautiful, the CGI is wonderful, the acting is good with some great, and the action is enjoyable. I heartily recommend any fans of the original and science-fiction fans in general to check the work out. I've found it's not only good but gets better with repeated viewings.

9/10

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    The third volume of the Blackthorn series, Blood Torn follows the adventures of werewolf leader Jask and newly empowered serryn Sophia as their world gets turned upside down. Sophia is a vampire hunter belonging to the vigilante Alliance group who gets captured by Jask's pack minutes after discovering her abilities. Jask has a need for a serryn, otherwise he would have just killed her, but wants to "tame" her first. Sophia, of course, is having none of this.

    I've often wondered why the Blackthorn series resonates with me so much more so than the majority of Paranormal Romance. I've mentioned the series straddles the line between Urban Fantasy and Romance several times but it's more than this. This volume made it all finally "click" with me. Why do I like the Blackthorn series so much? It's because the book manages to embody an almost untouched variant of my favorite genre.

    In the nineties, a particularly specialized zeitgeist emerged in fiction. After Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire and White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade, there was a brief surge of fiction defined as Gothic Punk. Like cyberpunk, it was a conflict between the rich and powerful elite versus the poor downtrodden masses. Except, instead of cybernetics and computers leveling the playing field, it was supernatural powers. Elder vampires oppressed young ones while both oppressed the living. Werewolves fought against vampires while fighting each other.

    While I wouldn't call Blackthorn a Gothic Punk series, I will say it resurrects the best of that sub-genre and puts its own unique spin on it. Lindsay J. Pryor's world is filled with fantastically corrupt officials, both human and monster. Urban segregation is a daily part of life with the so-called Third species forced to share their living space with the worst of humanity. The protagonists are those individuals who maintain a shred of idealism (Caitlin, Lelia, and now Sophia) or those who have to play by the world's corrupt rules (Kane, Caleb, and Jask).

    Blood Torn follows Sophia and Jask butting heads about the inequities of the world. Unlike the previous protagonists, who were largely apolitical, both of Blood Torn's heroes have strong opinions on the way things are run. Sophia blames the vampires for the sorry state of the Blackthorn district, ignoring the fact its humans are every bit as slimy as the worst of the undead. Jask, on the other hand, believes it is the people in power in the Midtown and Summerton district keeping the Third races oppressed.

    I'm quite fond of Sophia and think she's probably my favorite heroine of the series. A highly intelligent young woman, she's dead wrong about 90% of her opinions but you can see how she's reached her conclusions. She's a lot more equal in terms of power and will to her romantic foil than previous heroines (who were usually grossly outmatched). I also enjoyed Sophia's ill-advised attempts to play the role of the serryn seductress despite being relatively chaste.

    Jask Tao is a much more measured character than either Kane or Caleb. Whereas Kane was obsessed with revenge and Caleb with his (poor) place on the vampire totem pole, Jask has more sympathetic concerns. He's interested in protecting his pack first, second, and last. Having established a comfortable position in the Blackthorn district, he doesn't wield near the authority of Caleb or Kane but has enough to intervene on behalf of his fellows.

    Unfortunately, unlike vampirism, lycanthropy is a dread curse in this setting. Incredibly painful, it requires a regime of pills or herbal supplements to keep at bay and Jask's pack is running short this month. This vulnerability is something we haven't seen before in Ms. Pryor's series and provides a nice contrast. Watching him try to be the toughest dog on the block and dominate Sophia, only to fail miserably because she's the kind of person to break before she bends is a delight to read.

    New readers should be warned that Blood Torn is not just an episodic installment of the series. It is one which ties directly into the previous two volumes. I thus recommend readers pick up and read them before they try their hand at Blood Torn. This is doubly so because several plot threads introduced in earlier works come to a head. The ending of the book surprised me tremendously and promises drastic changes for the setting.

    Fans of Blood Shadows will be pleased to know we get a few scenes starring previous book heroine, Caitlin Parish. While she only has a small role to play, we get a sense of how her life has changed since the climax of the original volume in the series. I won't spoil her situation for readers but, as in all forms of punk, being good sucks. There's also some hints as to what is happening with Caleb and Lelia but neither makes an extended appearance. I expect for both of them to show up in Blood Deep.

    In conclusion, I find Blood Torn to be yet another excellent addition to the story. The increased focus on world-building as well as the settings politics intrigued me while the romance wasn't scrimped upon. I think of the three couples introduced in the series so far, Jask and Sophie are the most "realistic" (for what value said word has in a world of vampires, witches, and werewolves). While there were some elements I didn't much care for, including Jask's resolution to a long-standing personal problem, the rest of the book kept me entertained. I am eager for the next volume and hope it comes out soon. Expect a cliffhanger, readers!

9/10

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I came to the Borderlands franchise late due to the fact I'm not a big fan of Gearbox or its business practices. Specifically, I felt Gearbox treated fans of the Aliens franchise horribly with their release of the clearly underdeveloped and bug-filled Aliens: Colonial Marines. However, the nature of a company means plenty of people can work on a franchise without having anything to do with its more unpleasant business decisions.

Also, I was bored.

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The town of Sanctuary is awesome.

I haven't yet played Borderlands, so I was coming into this franchise ignorant. My only knowledge of the series was what I managed to absorb second-hand via geek cultural osmosis. The game takes place on a planet called Pandora (no, not the one from avatar), it's a Space Western world akin to Firefly, and the game's chief selling point is the truly staggering amount of guns to choose from.

I can't say the latter intrigued me.

So what did I think about it?

Dammit, I liked it.

A lot.

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The painted style of the game is beautiful.

Part of my enjoyment has to come from the fact the game reminded me a lot of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. The world of Pandora is a crazy one filled with rednecks, psychopaths, mutants, and psychotically hostile wildlife. The locals are incredibly tough, just the sort of individuals you'd expect to grow up on a Death World like Pandora.

Most of all, it's just plain funny. Humor abounds throughout the series from volleyball obsessed hover-plane piloting bandits (Top Gun) to the explosively minded Tiny Tina. The humor is exactly my sort of humor as well--ranging from the light and funny to the darkest black. There's some genuinely moving moments spread throughout the story and the absolute insanity of the game doesn't detract from them. In fact, I daresay it enhances their allure.

The premise of Borderlands 2 is you are a "Vault Hunter." I don't know the qualifications for this position but it seems to be a title bestowed upon adventurers on Pandora who manage to survive looking for the ancient relics of the aliens who live on the planet. Given how dangerous it is to travel across the land, being experienced enough to do an active search for one of the world's vaults is definite proof of badassery.

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Exploding Jason Voorhees never gets old.

Lured to a train by megacorp CEO and all-round asshat, Handsome Jack, you are betrayed and barely survive him blowing it up to kill you. Perturbed by this action, your character is rescued by a deranged droid named Claptrap who essentially pushes you into a revenge scheme. From there, you become involved in a plot to find another Vault and a resistance movement against Handsome Jack. None of this describes how bizarre and hilarious the sequence of events which follow are.

The heart of Borderlands 2 is the character of Handsome Jack, who is one of the most memorable video game characters I've ever encountered. I've fought megalomaniacs, mad men, cultists, evil wizards, and giant turtles who kidnap princesses but none of them have had quite the effect Handsome Jack has. If I had to describe him, I'd say combine Lex Luthor and the Joker into one character with a dash of Charlie Sheen's character from Wallstreet. He's just such a CREEP that you come to hate him early on. Or love to hate him. Either way, you become motivated to want to kill the guy.

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Handsome Jack is an awesome villain.

The supporting NPCs are every bit as entertaining. Despite the fact I had no prior attachment to them, I adored the Vault Hunters from the original game. Lilith the psychic "Siren" is a character who rivals Handsome Jack in terms of writing achievement. She is desperately trying NOT to be a sociopath and failing miserably, only achieving a "pointing" of her pyromania at those who deserve it. Roland is a heroic stoic who is, quite possibly, the only sane man on Pandora and it freaks him out. Other characters like Sir Hammerlok, Scooter, Ellie, the aforementioned Tiny Tina, Angel, and Moxxie the barkeep all win a place in your heart.

Plus, Claptrap is awesome.

Awesome points for a memorable world, story, and humor. I give that an 11/10 and no, that's not a typo.

So, what about the gameplay?

Hmm.

That requires some explanation.

The gameplay is fun but it is scaled for co-op play. Trying to solo this game, I died a lot. I mean, a lot. How often did I die? I think I'm in the area of fifty or sixty deaths and that's from a guy who usually never dies during his games. I had to learn a lot about tactically using my options and there were several missions when I desperately needed a rocket-launcher but the game didn't provide me the ammunition for one.

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Lilith is my second favorite character in the game for multiple reasons. She's just so...crazy.

The search through the bazillion of guns in the game is also one where the game mechanics insist you never become complacent in your use of one firearm. Guns may work greater against animals but are crap against robots while ones which work against robots are garbage against bandits. You're constantly looking for newer and better guns as well as switching between the ones you've already found.

In conclusion, I love this game and recommend people get it. Saying any more would be mistaken. Well, except for "get the DLC if you can."

9/10

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    It's been awhile since the last entry in the Vampire Apocalypse series. This has been frustrating to fans because it was a cliffhanger ending, keeping us waiting when a new type of vampire is about to menace the world and a nuclear winter is potentially in the offing.

    Thankfully, the new entry picks up right where the previous volume ended. A nuclear meltdown has occurred at a nearby nuclear power plant and the human resistance must move, and move quickly, before they're all killed by fallout. As the title implies, this his going to be a horrifying trek with numerous casualties.

    Worse, the villainous Von Kruger has become something new due to the mixture of nuclear radiation and magic he was caught in the center of an explosion of. Given sunlight is a form of radiation, I found the change to make a sort of symbolic sense. Throughout the book, we see how Kruger's new status as a daywalker affects both his mind and sanity as well as attracts a host of new followers.

    Part of the appeal of the Vampire Apocalypse universe is its myriad caste of characters, all of whom are unique and have interesting roles to play. This volume is no exception and Derek Gunn continues to introduce new ones while maintaining the old ones' growth. The high body counts in his stories keep things exciting and it seems no one is safe but the John Connor-esque resistance leader Harris.

    Readers interested in diversity may note Derek Gunn keeps a fairly good mix of ethnicities, sexual preferences, and open gender-roles amongst the resistance's fighters. There's even an important disabled character (who rocks), which is the kind of inclusivity I enjoy in my post-apocalyptic fiction. Too many stories assume the only survivors will be white heterosexual physically-able men and the similarly pale able heterosexual women who love them. Vampire Apocalypse is a great antidote to that.

    Derek Gunn tones down some of the elements which irritated me in previous volumes, particularly the fact Harris was always right. Here, it's obvious he's making the right decision but it's something which is neither well-planned or executed. He also makes a mistake which is very human but so obviously wrong that it hurt my enjoyment of the series overall (detailed below).

    I'm of mixed feelings regarding the continued focus on the Civil War between the vampires and thralls. For new readers, the vampires of the VampApoc-verse are capable of creating superhumans from the regular populace through methods unknown. These are the thralls. Their name should tell you how the vampires see them. The thralls, under the villainous Carter, have since rebelled in his territory and seized power for themselves. This would be wonderful if not for the fact the thralls are all sociopaths every bit as bad, if not worse, than the vampires themselves.

    The conflict between the vampires and the Thralls is entertaining and well-written with the two sides being utterly evil. Watching them destroy one another also let's us know the situation is getting better, even if our heroes are too preoccupied to take much advantage of it. Which brings me to my one major problem with Vampire Apocalypse: Trail of Tears. Something which isn't enough to turn me off the series as is, but deserves to be commented on.

    The logistics.

    Basically, it seems that a lot of the main characters are ignoring numbers issues for their conflict. While this may be deliberate in the case of the Thrall vs. Vampire War, it's a bit of an annoyance for our hero Harris to show it.

    The thralls are rebelling against the vampires and attempting to seize power but they have no means of replenishing their numbers when they lose someone since they're created by vampires. I'd like to see at least one thrall recognize this or, perhaps, actually maintain some basic human feeling. Seeing some thralls defect to the human resistance would bring an interesting dynamic to the story.

    Von Kruger is destroying his own vampire hordes by creating his daywalkers via the "hit and miss" philosophy of bathing them in nuclear fire--which is fine, since they comment on how stupid this is. He's an insane monster so it makes sense for him to not care he's bringing down the world in a nihilistic blaze of self-destruction.

    However, the big problem is the elephant in the room of human demographics. This volume, Harris decides to stop warning the vampires of the fact their serum is killing humans in the pens. Bluntly, given his own group is only a few thousand at most, this is the worst act of genocide in the series.

    If the vampires don't notice and stop the massive numbers of deaths, then humanity is going to go extinct irregardless of whether Harris' group survives or not. It's an utterly irresponsible act which removes all sympathy I have for the lead character.

    Despite this, I enjoyed Vampire Apocalypse: Trail of Tears. It is a dark series which touches on issues like survival and genuinely hard choices like "do you abandon the dying to guarantee the survival of the living?" The fact the resistance is more concerned with surviving than killing their foes is a telltale sign this series is likely to get bleaker before it gets better. Which, honestly, I'm all for. Though, I hope the resistance kills Carter or Von Kruger soon. Those guys are ****s.

8/10

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I wanted to like Remember Me more than I did. It's not just a game with cyberpunk elements, it's one of the first genuine cyberpunk works in a very long time. It has elements of Total Recall, Johnny Mnemonic, The Matrix, and a number of other works I'm fond of. Unfortunately, the gameplay is bland, uninteresting, and only rarley fun. In short, this one of the rare games where the final result would have been better as a movie than a video game.

The premise of Remember Me is that technology has gotten to the point memories can be stored, digitized, shared, and deleted at will. Unlike Total Recall, this doesn't result in everyone lining up to have memories of "Best Spring Break Ever" and the obvious porn applications. Instead, it's treated as something that results in the majority of Paris' poor transforming themselves into memory-junkies while the rich enjoy the profit from the procedure.

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Nilin is a lovely protagonist. Beautiful without being in your face about it (except on the horrible-horrible cover).

   The main character, Nilin, is an "errorist." Which is, of course, a terrorist without the t but it sounds more computer-like this way. Nilin has had all of her memories erased and is in line to be converted into a soulless worker when she's rescued by one of her old comrades. This comrade, named Edge, recruits Nilin to work on various tasks which will help bring down the Memorize Corporation.

    The problems with Remember Me are manifold but boil down to a very simple flaw.

    The game is boring.

    The combat is lifeless and poorly developed, consisting of a "make your own combos" which is surprisingly poor for actually creating combos. It is also rather strange to see your 98lb female protagonist beating the crap out of extremely large armored men, one after the other. The individual finishing moves for all of them are interesting to watch but get old after the fifty or sixtieth time you've done them.

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The imagination which went into the world-building was considerable.

    The use of memory technology in the game is also handled unimaginatively as well as ludicrously. As mentioned, there's no real use of memory-technology in the game except as a means of establishing there's junkies and the elite. The only time it's really used well is in four "re-mix" scenes where you get to alter someone's memory, Inception-style, to manipulate your enemies. Sadly, what should have been the basis of the game is only used those four times and the game thus feels like a missed opportunity.

    Nilin, herself, is a problem as she is a flat character who seems to have very few emotions other than a vague sense of panic and sadness. We never get a sense of who Nilin the person is and her dull, lifeless delivery of lines gets old very quickly. It doesn't help Nilin commits numerous terrorist acts throughout the game including (what appears to be) drowning thousands with nary anyone calling her on the act.

    At one point, Nilin finds out she caused a man to commit suicide and is horrified. I was curious about this since she's killed hundreds of people by now, not counting in acts of terrorism. This doesn't even get into the ethically questionable area of remixing memories without consent. An act which our heroes are never called out for. I like antiheroes as much as the next man but the game doesn't seem to realize Nilin and Edge are bad people.

    They're not even likable bad people. They're just sanctimonious terrorists (which are the worst kind)!

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The city of Neo-Paris is gorgeous to look at. One of the few pluses.

    The supporting cast is a mixture of the inspired and the bizarre. I was fond of Kid X-mas, who behaves as a Boss should in that he was fun to fight as well as memorable. I also liked Scylla Cartier-Welles and Bad Request, two characters who give more human feeling than all of the other characters combined--which is strange since the former is described in-game as an ice-queen. Far from it, I think even her "bad persona" has more personality than almost the entire cast put together.

    I think what irritates me most about Remember Me is there's all the ingredients for a fascinating bit of science-fiction. What if memories could be stored on a hard-drive? What if people were able to get rid of the memories they didn't care for? What levels of violence are you willing to go to in order to achieve your goals? Also, should the rich be allowed to profit from technology which inflicts massive misery? Sadly, none of this gets touched on. The protagonists just decide memory-technology has to go and any method is justified in taking it out.

    So why didn't I rate this game lower? Well, it's very-very pretty. The world of Neo-Paris, despite its pretentious name (is it the original Paris or not?) is beautifully realized with its amazing architecture, horrifying slums, and glorious sense of reality. The art in this game is a 10/10, it's just too bad we don't get to explore any of this world. Likewise, it's nice to see a protagonist of color (especially a woman) but even this is made troublesome by the contemptible cover.

    My advice? Don't buy the game. It's not a horrible experience or offensive but it's just so...mediocre.

5/10

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The 47 Ronin is an excellent teaching example for writers, because it is a movie which excels in establishing what I call "dissonant themes." This is something I've struggled with in my writing and I think everyone aspiring to write should learn from. Writing is like cooking, you put a bunch of elements together in a movie, heat, stir, and serve. The mixture of these elements is what determines whether or not its edible. The 47 is not very edible, despite being made of quite a few yummy bits. It's because they are great tastes which don't taste great together.

The 47 Ronin is a movie based on a play based on historical events which have been adapted a thousand or so times. The (original) premise is that in Feudal Japan, a high-ranking lord embarrasses himself at court due to the actions of a rival lord. As a result, the Shogun of Japan orders him to commit suicide (seppuku).

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Keanu plays his role well--it's just a bad role.

You with me so far?

The dead lord's retainers are made into ronin, or masterless samurai, and are really brassed off about it. The titular ronin enact a revenge scheme on the rival lord, wait a year so he doesn't suspect they've got his number, pounce, kill him, and then commit suicide. If you're upset I've described the plot, understand this is like Romeo and Juliet in Japan. There's a statute of limitations on these things and the 47 Ronin is a story which is centuries old.

The 47 Ronin work as a story because it's a straight forward tale with enough nuance to be interesting. The samurai feel wrong, they want revenge. On a different level, the samurai are acting as a bunch of murderous conspirators to a man who arguably doesn't deserve it. The fact some of the rival lord's servants are honorable men themselves further muddies the issue. In the end, it's one of the great works of art for balancing these factors.

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The action scenes are good in the movie. 4 stars. Well, maybe 3 and a half.

This adaptation disrupts the balance.

The obvious person to blame for this is Keanu Reeve's character of Kai. A supernatural half-white/half-Japanese child is adopted by Lord Asano (Min Tanaka) when he's a child. This pisses off the future Ronin who consider him an abomination. Kai falls in love with Lord Asano's daughter (Ko Shibasaki), another impossible situation, and is stricken when Asano is killed. The thing is, I don't actually think the character of Kai or his romance are all that bad. Do they have any place in the 47 Ronin? Hell no. That doesn't mean they're automatically to be discounted. No, the problem is these two elements dilute the story.

The heart of the 47 Ronin is the revenge tale of the samurai on Lord Akira (Tadanobu Asano). It doesn't matter if the movie makes Lord Akira into an evil monster for the play, throwing moral ambiguity out the window, because that's been done plenty of times in the past. Unfortunately, introducing the dual issues of the samurai learning to accept Kai and the tacked on romance makes the whole thing difficult to care about. There's just too much going on to really get a decent grasp on everything.

Ironically, I think I might have enjoyed a movie about Kai the Outcast. A half-Japanese, half-English boy living in mystical Japan seems like it'd be an interesting story. Sort of a reversal of Kung Fu. The fact the Europeans are caricatured every bit as much as the samurai helps avoid any accusations of racism. As is, Kai just distracts from the samurai's own development and characterization. About the only person who seems to be having any fun is Rinko Kikuchi's Kitsune.

As for the samurai themselves, only a couple of them display any distinct traits. This is Kai's movie, which is problematic since the entire theme of the movie is "bushido is awesome" when it's manifestly not. This is a movie which is all about the equivalent of an Indian peasant who is bullied his entire life, joins the British army, and then has the honor of dying horribly in service of them. You can't really get behind Kai's desire to live and die as a samurai when he's a guy kicked around by samurai his entire life for being born different.

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Supernatural fox-women serial killers attacking women in bed. Best part of the movie!

The movie is a visual treat, however, and the CGI is lovely as are the sets. Rinko Kikuchi is gorgeous and vamps it up tremendously. If it seems like I'm damning the movie with faint praise, I am. It's worth a rental but the saddest part of this adaptation is there's enough original story for a decent Medieval fantasy flick inside this tale without turning it into a really bad adaptation of a classic.

My .02.

6/10

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Captain Scarlett And Her Pirate's Booty is a deliciously fun romp which parodies a lot of mass-media while remaining entirely consistent with the Borderlands mythos. That's quite the accomplishment and something which makes the story all the more fun as you can say it honestly adds to the setting's mythology.

The premise is a simple one, which fits with the fact we are Vault Hunters in the game. There is a treasure, a monster guarding it, we want it, Captain Scarlett wants it, and we're going to kill the monster to get it. Captain Scarlett and the player character are forced to work together to both find the treasure as well as kill the monster--neither side having any illusions about how long such an alliance will last. Hint:It's in Captain Scarlett's introduction she's going to betray you.

The DLC introduces a new area for Vault Hunters to explore, consisting of a vast desert area and a new town called Oasis. Oasis is, sadly, underpopulated with only a single insane NPC trying to pretend the entire town hasn't died of dehydration. This becomes confusing when heretofore other NPC starts giving you quests to destroy her grandmother's legacy.

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Oasis is a delightful town--I just wish it was populated.

The shout-outs are tremendous, starting with the fact you are capable of using Jabba the Hutt's sand skiffs to travel around the area with Captain Scarlett's own "pirate ship" consisting of a replica of the Hutt's vessel. Sadly, there's no use of Midgets as Jawas or Bandits as Sand People in the DLC. As to be expected since it's the case in every science fiction game set in a desert since forever, you also get to fight sand worms. This includes one gigantic one which is foreshadowed at the beginning of the game called the Leviathan.

Plus, of course, pirates!DESERT pirates.

So, with all this, I should love the DLC, right? I do, but there's a couple caveats which need to be brought up. The first is the game has a lot of fat on it. More content is a strange thing to complain about but there's a lot of mediocre unfunny content which brings down the entire experience.

There are dozens of side-quests in this game which are just not worth the effort to play unless you are obsessed with experience. The side-quests involving Captain Scarlett and her crew are fun, the aforementioned grandma ones are great, the ones with Shade are hit and miss, while the ones involving Hyperion robot porn (don't ask) are just jarringly out of place. Each part of the DLC also has a hidden treasure but after the first couple of times, it just becomes boring.

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The amount of attention to the art and feel of the setting is tremendous.

The final boss is also a disappointment for a game which had built up the Leviathan for much of the game. The creature barely bothers to attack you and, instead, sends little sand worms to assault like you've been fighting the entire DLC. It is also extremely vulnerable to attacks against certain parts of its body. I confess, having felt the controller shake during the adventure several times due to the movement of the monster, I felt cheated out of an epic battle.

Boo.

Hell, it gets worse with my discovery the Leviathan doesn't re-spawn indefinitely. You can only kill him once and visit the treasure room of Captain Blade twice, which is a serious error for a game about treasure hunting. I can understand why Gearbox did this but it devalues the experience.

The other bosses in the game aren't particularly interesting either. Captain Scarlett, herself, doesn't get a proper boss battle. Still, I enjoyed the majority of them and also liked the re-skinned bandits that are now a collection of pirates. Fans of Borderlands gear-hunting will also note the game has numerous quest-rewards capable of dealing out spectacular amounts of damage. One of the drops inflicted about 21,000+ points of damage, which is impressive given the next highest I possessed only did 6,000+.

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I love these things. I do.

No review of the DLC would be complete without a discussion of Captain Scarlett herself. Colleen Clinkenbeard does an amazing job at portraying a lovable rogue who is, nevertheless, definitely on the side of the Devils. She's hilarious and one of the best characters to come out of the Borderlands series. I applaud the writers for creating such a memorable antagonist/ally. I will say, though, I was a bit disappointed with the finale of her arc and wanted to see a more final conclusion. Oh well, maybe next crime.

    The story of Captain Blade, the most fearsome desert pirate of Pandora was also quite entertaining. It was interesting to see, in a world so filled with complete bastards, there was a guy who was almost as decent as Roland. His story is one which gets you right in the gut, like a chest shot.

    *sniff*

    The only character I didn't much care for was Shade. The aforementioned insane owner of Oasis, his story is tragic but not to the point you really care for him. The fact he looks like Raol Duke also is a missed opportunity. I would have loved to deal with a Hunter S. Thompson figure on Pandora rather than just a visual homage.

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The re-skinned bandits include some winners like the Anchormen and the Cursed Pirates. Others, not so much like the Grog Men (Suicide Psychos with fire).

In conclusion, definitely pick up this DLC. Just be warned there's a lot of irrelevant side-quests and the final boss battle is a disappointment.

9/10

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Everything you need to know about this DLC can be summarized as this: There is a sidequest where you go kill the Hound and the Mountain before slapping the crap out of King Joffrey on the Iron Throne of Westeros. Yes, the names are changed and the throne is made of guns rather than swords but, otherwise, it is a near-identical recreation. If you find this to be awesome, you will love this DLC. If you find this to be stupid and distracting, then I wonder about you.

The premise is Tiny Tina, the ebonics-using white-girl demolitions expert from Borderlands 2, is hosting a Bunkers and Badass game. This is the 50th century version of Dungeons and Dragons, complete with miniatures, Dungeonmaster's screen, and 20 sided dice. The idea of playing a tabletop game via a console video game with fictional people using a fictional character who is playing a avatar of themselves is pretty much the definition of avante-garde--I approve. That and it's hilarious to imagine my Axton deal with the whining of his fellow Vault Hunters while he's just trying to get into the game.

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Shooting skeletons is harder than it looks. Those guys are TOUGH. Must be the half-damage from piercing.

    The player takes their characters from the main gameworld and puts them in the derivative but hilarious fantasy world formed from Tiny Tina's imagination. They must rescue the Queen ("who is the prettiest queen ever!") from the Handsome Sorcerer and his armies. The player character will face treants, skeletons, paladins, golems, dwarves, orcs, dragons, basilisks, FRIGGING MIMICS (I'm stunned anyone remembers they exist), and a copyright-friendly version of Lolth.

    They go through about half the old Monstrous Manual in this game and I couldn't be more pleased. None of the creatures feel like re-skins (despite the fact most of them are) and even their movements look different. When I kill orcs, I don't think I'm fighting bandits--I think I'm fighting orcs.

    Did I mention there's a gun which shoots swords? Swords that become smaller swords? Which EXPLODE?

    Yes, it's that kind of DLC.

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Zero is the only guy who fits right in--and he's a cyborg alien ninja.

    Wait, there's no other DLC like this so that's a confusing statement.

    At heart, Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep is a celebration of old school gaming and fantasy fiction. There's references to the Princess Bride, Red Sonja's ludicrous outfit, The Lord of the Rings, Fantasia, Skyrim, and even the whole "fake gamer girl" controversy (gender reversed with Mister Torgue). There's also a reference to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic which is so awesome, so unexpected, and so wonderful I had to pause the game in order to stop laughing.

    In addition, the story is surprisingly poignant. At the risk of spoiling, the DLC chronologically takes place after the end of the main campaign. Tiny Tina, though she doesn't show it, is traumatized by the events of Handsome Jack's rampage. Watching her use Bunkers and Badasses to deal with her trauma is heartbreaking and if you aren't moved by the final cinematic, you have no soul.

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Oddly, Moxxie is MORE dressed in this version of the story.

     If there's any problem with this DLC, it's the fact that D&D-influenced fantasy isn't new ground for gamers. I've killed more orcs over my lifespan than Aragorn. So, the opportunity to kill them with guns in Borderlands 2 isn't quite the awesome change it might be. Still, it's a delightful change from the rest of the game and so well-written, it's hard not to think of this as a masteful stroke of storytelling.

     Loot-farmers will find this DLC to be a source of numerous interesting new weapons and mods, including ones which allow you to shoot fireballs and lightning instead of hurling grenades. The aforementioned Sword-Gun Which Shoots Exploding SwordsTM is the standout item of the DLC but there's several other interesting weapons to be had. The aforementioned Mimics are so terrifyingly grotesque that their appearance will have you tense up in trepidation everytime you approach a treasure chest. Given that looting is 90% of Borderlands 2, this is a great way to amp up the game's intensity.

     Really, my favorite part of the DLC is probably the characterization of the Vault Hunters. Mordecai, Brick, Lilith, and (kinda sorta) Roland all are entertaining in their roles both in-game and out-of-game. The fact Lilith is the only true geek of the group and bitter about it, reflecting how many women have been treated in this hobby, is an interesting idea which is played to the limit. It's also cool to see how the group considers Tina to be their surrogate daughter but isn't QUITE sure how to deal with her antics. The Handsome Sorcerer is underused and I would have loved more taunts from our reincarnated master-villain.

    In conclusion, I suggest fans of Borderlands 2 buy this DLC because it's the perfect coda to the game. It also goes to show that silly and fantastical doesn't have to mean childish. Or, as Lilith says in the game, perhaps there's no such thing as adulthood.

10/10

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    The fourth book in the Wearing the Cape series, Young Sentinels continues the adventures of Astra the world's most powerful nineteen-year-old. When last we left our heroine, she was stepping into the role of being the world's most powerful hero, period. This book examines the fact she's still a very young woman, barely an adult, and how other superhuman teenagers are reacting to their powers.

    The continued development of Astra is handled throughout the book, including a shocking twist where she's forced to confront a situation where her powers are useless. I was disappointed with the developments regarding her relationship with the superhero Seven, hoping it would develop into something more. Most of what I liked in this book is her relationship with Shelly, the superheroine Galatea.

    Young Sentinels introduces a number of new characters to the mythos as well, my favorites of which being Megaton and Ozma. Megaton is a typical teenaged boy, contrasting strongly against Astra and possibly her future love interest. Ozma is another fictional character come to life, this one being the titular Empress of Oz.

    As a fan of the Oz books when I was a child and teenager, it was nice to have someone remember the Empress existed. The Ozma of Young Sentinels is a significantly darker character than the one from the books. Ozma merrily turns anyone who offends her into a hat for a short while and is believed to conquer Kansas in the future. As a result, everyone is treating her like a ticking time bomb--a quality she handles with royal aplomb.

    The book introduces a number of new villains to the series as well, including the Green Man (possessing powers similar to the Floronic Man x10) and a group called the Wreckers. We also get a new mastermind to replace the Teatime Anarchist. I won't spoil the new villain's identity but I was underwhelmed--I wanted more insight into their motivations as well as plans.

    If there's a flaw with the books, I'd have to say we don't get as much insight into the "regular world" which was the big appeal of the previous volumes. What separates the series from a comic book is the insight into the lives of the characters. This book is mostly action sequences and battles between heroes versus villains.

    In conclusion, Young Sentinels is a good read and enjoyable but not amazing. It's mostly set-up for future volumes and fight scenes. Sadly, by being more like a comic book, the novel cripples its ability to live up to the full-potential of its medium as previous works did. Despite this, it's really fun to read. Fans of the series should pick it up for this reason alone.

8/10

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