Random Thought of the Day #2

Whenever I play Fallout 3, I can't help but think of an image of a Nuclear Explosion, and then pulling back to see two guys in Raider Armor sitting on beach chairs, clinking together their bottles of Nuka-Cola as soothing jazz plays in the background. And I can't help but think that it's not an original image, that it's so iconic that SOMEBODY had to have put that in the marketing somewhere, and yet I look and it's nowhere to be found. Huh...

Random Thought of the Day #1

The song "I Stand Alone" from the movie Quest for Camelot is a very Disney-like "I Want" song about wanting to be left on your own and not have to deal with anybody else. It's a "Do Not Want" Song.

It's still a really cool song, though

Quest for Camelot is a really weird movie, but a fun one that's been a family movie staple with my Mom for a long time. Wouldn't mind seeing it again one of these days.

I Have Returned. (for now)

Hey internet, sorry I haven't posted anything in at least one forever. Getting a job in conjunction with me breaking my junky old laptop with an already busted keyboard has made making time to write in this space more than difficult. Especially considering how lazy I am in general.

Anywho, I've been doing a lot. Pacific Rim was freaking awesome, wished I saw it more than once. The Theros MTG Expansion is pretty sweet, probably talk about it more when I get a Fat Pack. My Uncle had a heart attack, but he's doing fine now, and I'm getting to see him more often, which is nice. And there's loads of stuff more to talk about when I finally get into a position when I can update this space on a whim. Hopefully to happen in the upcoming week or so when I finally get Mah Ohne SmartFone! I have a pretty good Idea of what I want to get, but I'm still Ironing out the details. And that will be shortly followed up with a brand spanking new laptop that hopefully has a smaller capacity to overheat and fry itself like my last one did. But I suppose it all depends on how much money I have left over by Black Friday, due to exuberant amounts of spending on other projects that will be discussed as I continue to update, which hopefully will be getting close to regular now that I have a fun idea that will put things on this blog more regularly than movie reviews or video game/tv show thoughts/impressions.

All 10 of you who have waited patiently for me to put something here, I thank you. I'll be posting later today, and potentially every day after, with my Random Thought of the Day. My job, and the odd chores my Grandfather has me do around the place, leave my mind free to wander, and some of the stuff I think about is just so out there, even I'm surprised by it. I'll be putting up one a day, just with some crazy idea, funny realization, or just plain weird thought that popped into my head that's interesting enough to share.

Hope you enjoy!

"I Haz A Job!" Or "Sorry for the lack of updates, Here's an exlpaination!"

Hey guys, sorry that I have almost half-abandoned my only just newly redesigned blog. But I have an excuse! The long and short of it is, I am now employed. Not only employed, but employed from midnight to 7am, tuesday-friday, and for a good long while. This Basement Fan is now a Barcode Reader, and I'm not-hating every minute of it.

For further explanation, I am now part of a security firm called Securitas, one of the biggest guys in the private security business, claiming to be the descendants of the Pinkerton Agency, and if you see a van or truck with a flashing light on the top of it at Walmart or something, there's a good chance it's a schmuck not too dissimilar from me. The people I'm responsible for making sure their stuff doesn't blow up is currently Del Monte Pet Food Products, who make everything from Meow Mix to t-bone shaped doggie treats. I have a real badge, a uniform, and a baseball cap that's also a hard hat (or, the coolest mundane utility I've ever owned.)

Like I said, my job somewhat consists of making sure their stuff doesn't blow up, either through inattentiveness or active malice, but it's mostly just making sure that people clean up their messes, making sure that everyone can get out in an emergency, and at all other times make sure nobody can get in who's not supposed to. At our particular site, they do this by having us scan barcodes next to important places and checkpoints throughout the plant. A lot of barcodes. We go around the inside and outside on patrols, and every door, docking station, fire extinguisher, silo and room has a barcode to scan, and we average at around 5-9 miles/day worth of walking just around the plant. Many of my previous user names, everything from old-youtube to Steam, was some variation on Barcode Reader. I didn't think anything of it at the time I created it, it just sounded cool. But now it seems disturbingly apt, and makes me glad I haven't officially changed any of my usernames to Basement Fan, as was my want after creating this blog.

But the hardest part of my job isn't the walking. It's the sitting and the waiting in between that really makes you go "ughhhhhh." I bought a couple of notepads, one to write story/personal ideas on and one, as it later turned out, was the perfect ratio to create mockup's of Magic Cards, so I spend some of my time not glancing over the front desk creating magic card concepts based on silly ideas. Currently, I have developed Strong Bad/Homestar Runner themed cards, and it's a more than amusing way to pass the time between patrols. The only problem is that I can only put a few minutes into these hilarious notions before I hit a block and start to zone out. And that's a problem. Fortunately, I have co-workers who are not unpleasant to talk to, so that helps things go by just as well. Other distractions include reading a book and checking CNN.com, which is the only website other than the weather channel that we are allowed access to on the desk computer. And Dell.com, for some reason.

Something that's very interesting about my position is that I get to see just about every part of the plant; making, shaping, drying, packaging and storing. Being able to observe the factory process while not being a part of the process is fascinating to me. I now feel like I have a much better understanding of the American Industrial Complex, not to mention the fact that every day I feel like I'm in a Modern Marvels documentary. There was a webcomic that came out a while back, called Questionable Content, which is actually just a slice-of-life type of thing, and one of the people in it was talking about how surprising it was that he got a job that he didn't hate. It wasn't his dream job or anything, it was just a job that he could happily go into work everyday for. This is exactly how I feel about this job. It's not great, and at the moment the hours kind of suck, especially for the outgoing socialite that I am (harhar) and I do honestly miss going out and doing things when I felt like it. Going to the movies, going to the hobby shop, hanging out with my Uncle Ben, all now take at least a weeks worth of preparation in order to have even the slightest chance of becoming a reality. Especially when I still have yet to efficiently iron out my sleep schedule to a point where I know exactly when I'm going to be asleep and when I'm going to be awake. But I can handle it. I do not dread going into work every day, and the best part is that they are very accepting if you want to change your shift. One of my co-workers had only been there a month before me, and she requested a transfer to a second shift supervisor position on the other side of the plant, and she got it. Not to mention I can request to be put at a different place, like a walmart or a dillons or something.

And the best part of it all is that, after a few months of buying necessities and car repairs and other big purchases, plus a bit of throwing stuff into savings, I'll be able to sufficiently live on my own in either a cheap apartment or even a small mobile home. What I save on gas would pay for utilities and such, and I'll still have enough to pay rent, buy food and even put a little away into savings. If everything goes as planned, and if I can finally get 40 hours/week, I'll be officially self sufficient. I'll still be able to check up on my grandpa regularly, make sure he hasn't had a stroke or anything, but being closer to either town makes trips to either town, and all the fun things to do inside of them, not only more doable, but more appealing. That's a few months away yet, but I'll be looking forward to it all the same. At that point, I won't be a fan from a basement anymore (probably), but I still want to keep this blog going as long as I keep having cool, fun ideas that MUST be shared. :p Thanks for still reading, if you have been, and I intend to start making the most of my free time now that it's actually valuable.

Talk to you later, everybody!

Look Who's Got a New Paint Job!

I have been a lot more hesitant than I like about putting out new postings this past month, partially due to being busier than usual, but also due to me waiting for a piece of artwork that I can proudly display as not only being descriptive of the blog, but also as descriptive as possible of "me." And so, without further ado, I present a wonderful new banner for the Basement Fan blog, created by Tominalley, who's artistic prowess has been an absolute joy to watch as it grows and matures alongside the artist.

With the jolt of sheer creativity generated by my first impressions of this image, I intend on posting quite a bit more often. I have had a lot of new Ideas that reminded me why I started the blog in the first place; the storage bin for all the crazy and/or insightful things that go on inside my head. And now all that's left... is the doing.....

(If you want to see more of Tominalley's art, check her out on her Deviant Art Page. As you can see, she does Commissions!)

It's Magic!

"You playin' Cards again, Zac?"
- Grandpa

This post has been a long time coming, mostly because I've been spending all of my free time actually playing the game of Magic: The Gathering (or at least buying/interacting with the cards). As it stands, I have spent about 6-man-hours of work on this entry this past week or so, and about 20-man-hours of work on sorting and decking my cards. (If that says anything.) The rest after the jump.

Family Ties - Emotion Picture Show.

I don't know if this is weird for anybody else, but I have a very strong connection to just about every member of my immediate family. I have a Mom, a Dad, a Brother and a Sister, all of whom are still living in Iowa, while I stay here in my Grandpa's Basement (which is as of this writing, in the room down the hall on the main floor). I am not as close to my grandfather, mostly because he has been a lot more accepting of the grumpy-old-farmer role in the past 10 years or so than that of a grandpa, but he's still a member of my family and I care about his well being, even if helping him can sometimes be a hindrance (though that problem has well subsided these past few months). The point being that My Family is a very big part of my life, and for some reason today had me wanting to be participating in that more than in a very long time. Just at this moment, I think it might have something to do with the year anniversary of me being "moved out." And now I'm homesick out the wazoo.

12 months, 1 year ago today, I unofficially moved from a big house on a forgotten corner of Keokuk, Iowa, and while I've had many opportunities to go back and forth between my homes on vacations, I always knew that at the end of the day, I was supposed to be out on my own (more or less). But sometimes, especially today, I become inexplicably homesick, remembering all the things we used to do together, thinking of all the times when we worked together to make the family work, as dysfunctional or out-there as some may have called us, we stuck together, and we were proud of it.

Every Sunday night, after a morning of church, a nice, quiet lunch, and possibly a nap or two in between, we watched a family movie. Usually it was between Mom and Dad on who's choice it was, but almost always we had to come to a consensus of what to watch before we sat down to watch it (occasionally adding another 45 minutes to the running time as a result). It would be anything from an episode of Doctor Who, to a musical from the 60's, to some cheezy sci-fi movie my dad found online, to the Phantom of the Opera movie, to to just a good old fashioned family-centric movie from something like Pixar, or Miyazaki, or whatever. Whatever it was, it was either a movie we had already seen, or we had known that we would enjoy the experience. My brother usually baked some brownies to perfection, along with the occasional popcorn or pudding, and I don't think ever once have we watched a movie without throwing off a few good riffs at the movies expense, even if we loved the movie beyond measure. It was a very communal experience, almost telepathic in terms of knowing who would make a good joke next, and knowing throughout the course of the movie when to laugh, when to gasp, when to sing along, and when to get teary eyed. Video games were what I did when I wanted to either be alone or be with my siblings. Movies were what I did when I wanted to be with my family.

Now, movies are a luxury to me. The last movie I saw in theaters was The Hobbit, and I never got a chance to see it the second time that I wanted to on the big screen. Movies on dvd are now what I watch when I want to fall asleep with a familiar tone filling my ears, or occasionally when I genuinely feel like I need to feel a certain experience at any given moment, like Wizard of Speed and Time for a desire to get back into making movies, or Batman Begins because I want to see batman. The only problem is that these aren't special moment's anymore, and I whole-heartedly blame Satellite TV. If there was one thing that I would choose not to ever have in a house that I live in, it's 24-hour television. Not only because lots of the stuff on there is as stupid as bag of hammers that got dropped on an idiot, but because it saps all of my desire to watch any of the stuff I'm NOT paying a monthly fee for. Now, if I was to loose satellite, I would be sad about a couple of things, NCIS being one (I never would have though I would have liked that show until I decided to spend a few hours with my grandpa watching a marathon), the HUB being two, and the occasional run of classic Twilight Zone and other pre-2000's cerebral-sci-fi short films as a tie for third. EVERYTHING else about what I currently have access to sucks the life out of me wanting to watch all of the amazing things I already have a hard copy of. The biggest problem is that it's Right There, and the fact that it's so much a part of my grandpa's daily routine, that the only way I'll escape it is if I move out, and the only way I'll move out is if I can get a job that can support both an apartment and going to school.

But sadly, I digress. (losing steam can do that to a writer only doing one draft) The main idea here is that going to the movies used to be an event for me, because it almost always involved at least one other member of my family coming along, and a part of that shared experience made the whole better. Now, this weekend I am going to go see a double feature of Jurassic Park, one of the iconic movies of my childhood, and Iron Man 3, the first wave in the most recent set of movies designed to split both children and childless adults from their money in equal measure. All by myself. With only my thoughts and my internet connection to console me after it's all said and done, and if I'm lucky I can spout all of my thoughts at my family over the phone, which is fascinating if they've seen the movie, but possibly grating if they haven't.

Being a Fan from your Grandpa's Basement means having to appreciate the stuff that you love on your own terms, but still... Sometimes you remember when you were surrounded by likeminded people who you could talk with for hours about how fun something was that you experienced together, and regret the times when you felt like that wasn't enough. At the close of writing this, I decided to do something I don't think I've ever done before: Offer a chance for anybody in my local peer group to accompany me to the movie. I don't know if anybody'll be able to show, but making the effort is what makes the difference. In closing I want to tell my Family who may be reading this that I love them very much, and that I want them to know that I miss them probably as much as they miss me. I thank them for all they do, and I don't know if I could live without them. :)

Bioshock Infinite: Vol 3 - Discerning the Transmundane (ADDENDUM)

I can believe I forgot to talk about one of the most interesting parts of the game: "You got your Science in my Fiction!" "No, You got your Fiction in my Science!" discussions that have sprung up around it. As I mentioned before, some of the biggest idea's talked about were the more complicated timey-wimey, parallel worlds things, but a couple of people have actually touched on the subject leading up to and after it's release, so here you go!

Bioshock Infinite: Vol 3 - Discerning the Transmundane. *spoilers*

You know you're a fan in your Grandpa's basement when you ask him, "You ever read a book or seen a movie that ever made you sit down for a good long while and think about it?" and his answer is to simply shrug and say "No."

It's officially been 3 weeks since I finished Bioshock Infinite, and I hope that's given everbody who wants to play the game spoiler free enough chance to finish it and know what's going on. If not, This is your official Spoiler Warning. (Goodness, I hate that term, but what can you do.) The ending that everybody's heard so much about will be discussed in detail, along with the variety of mindbending stuff that goes down throughout the game, so you've been warned. (Everything after the jump.)

Bioshock Infinite: Vol 2 - Experiences

One of the coolest things I've been able to do when talking about this game is just how much you never need to have played anything that came before it in order for you to appreciate it. It's almost completely self contained, and what little nods their are deftly and tactfully placed to never get in the way of what's happening in front of you, which is very important, given how much important information is given visually, as well as vocally. There are no Cutscenes, there are no Quick-Time-Events, there's only the player and what that player experiences.

This entry is primarily focused on the general feel of the game, what the story is about, introductions to the key character's and so forth, and especially on my thoughts of what the game does right (which is alot). The hope is this to prove especially helpful to people who have yet to play or purchase the game, to further explain why I think this Action-Packed FPS has one of the best crafted experiences of this game generation. (This will contain minor spoilers, but heck, saying anything about the game that wasn't in the trailers is basically a spoiler)

First off, let's start where the game starts, in 1912 with Booker DeWitt, the dude on the box. Part of Booker's history was that he was part of the 7th Cavalry at the Battle of Wounded Knee. For those woefully unaware of what that battle entailed, it wasn't so much a battle as wholesale slaughter of native americans by the U.S. Military, and upon hearing of the brutality, the President gave certain officers the Medal of Honor. Tormented by what he saw and did, Booker tried to moved on, eventually becoming a Pinkerton Detective, and for anybody who knows about who the Pinkerton's are, you'll know that that wasn't much better. And what's worse, he eventually got fired from that position, and we never find out what he did to deserve being let go from a thug-for-hire firm. But Booker is given the chance at redemption: "Bring us the Girl, and wipe away the debt." as the trailers so often explained. So Booker goes to the previously-unknown-to-him floating city of Columbia, where religious fundamentalism and patriotism gone mad are fused to make a semi-functioning utopia, where George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are deified, with their leader and "Prophet" Father Zachary Comstock taking the place as one step below God (I don't recall Jesus being mentioned very much, if at all). Columbia itself was originally America's pet project to show at the 1900 World's Fair, but after Columbia used it's "defensive" weapons to essentially put down the Boxer Rebellion (against U.S. orders), Columbia, under Father Comstock, decided to secede from the Union because America wasn't "American Enough" for them.

On Columbia, Rascism, Elitism, and a dozen other "isms" abound (just take a look at that photo), while strangely Misogyny is frowned upon, as compared to other places attitudes towards woman at that same time (this becomes clear as things are revealed throughout the game). They also have conjured a form of superpowers in the form of Vigors, potions that permanently give you the ability to do a variety of remarkable things, such as fireballs, enemy levetation, possession, and, of course, a fistful of loighting. The technology of Columbia is that of emediately post-lightbulb New England, with use of steam, clockworks, particle physics and early robotics, often powered by said Vigors. Henry Ford is quoted as saying "when I asked the people what they wanted, they said a faster horse." And that's surprisingly close to what happens in Columbia, when all of the ground transportation are mechanized horses, often with technical failures. The way in which it present's these fascinating techonogies combined with people's general apathy leads to a very interesting feeling of mundane extraordinaries, you've never seen any of this before, and lots of it seems unethical, but the people around are usually just like "meh." Well, needless to say that after a while, some cracks begin to show when the people of the worker's district of Columbia (heh heh), almost entirely populated by blacks, jews and irish, begin rising under the banner of the Vox Populi, an organization built around trying to equalize Columbia led by Daisy Fitzroy, who came to Columbia in hopes of a new life, but only found an even worse version of what's on the ground. And all of this gilded beauty on top of the rippling chaos is swirling around the character of Elizabeth, whom the city refers to as The Lamb of Columbia, but doesn't even know she exists.

Elizabeth is the girl that Booker is supposed to bring. She has spent the past 20 years of her life locked away in a tower, safeguarded by the Songbird, a Steampunk gargoyle-bird-thing who's relationship has been equated to, by the developers, that of an abusive boyfriend. The reason for her being kept locked away is somewhat unclear, but it quickly becomes obvious that it has something to do with her inate ability to open tears in the space-time continuum, reaching into other dimensions, other worlds, and occasionaly bringing something back. She doesn't know how she can do it, but it's something she does, nonetheless. Throughout the course of the game her true identity becomes more and more clear, as well as what she means to you, but what never grow's any less is how much you're able to care about her, as a charater and essentially as a person. She hasn't spent all those years in a tower moping around; she had a lot of books, and a LOT of time. She's intelligent, fun, compelling, and, most importantly, not helpless. She can actually do quite a bit more than you can, even without the ability to bend time and space. She can pick locks, decode ciphers, and can even ressucitate you if you're near death. And that's not including all that she can do during combat. She doesn't need to be protected in a fire fight (she's either behind cover, not a target, or fending off assailants with a good hit to the junk.) And she actually can scrounge around the battlefield looking for ammunition, medicine bags and Salts to refill your Vigors, and can then throw them to you in the middle of combat with the push of a button. And she can go wherever you can go, even up onto the Skylines, a metal zipline, ridden on by using hand-mounted magnetized hooks. Columbia's unofficial rapid transit system. Not only is Elizabeth one of the most interesting characters to ever appear in a video game (let alone female characters), she also has one of the best companion AI systems ever made. If you'll indulge me, there's a video describing all of the amazing stuff that Elizabeth can do, and is also a great display of her personality.

 

The only thing that bugged me about how Elizabeth interacted with both Me and Booker was that, in a situation where she was really upset at me for something I did, there was a slight disconnect when she was still being the most awesome companion AI ever created and helping me out, even though what I thought of her character at that point would be a little bit less helpful in terms of giving health or ammo. Her dialogue is less warm and receptive, but if I would fix one thing about the game is that if during that one moment in time where she didn't know if she trusted you any more, she would be much more reluctant to do these nice things for you, even going so far as not reviving you if you died. (spoilers, you never die permanently from combat). I can see why they did that, they really wanted to focus on making her a likeable character, and even one moment where she showed her distaste at you during high-intensity situations, if not handled properly, would be worse than any brief moment of disconnect.

And speaking of Combat, one of the interesting things about it is that, while it's relatively average as a shooter, as just an action game where you happen to be shooting stuff along with blasting it with vigors and leaping onto it from sky rails, it's incredibly intense. I'm more or less competant at shooters, but even I had trouble hitting targets at close range occasionally, that was more than made up for by how visceral the combat feels, in a "the game would be better if it didn't have crosshairs at all" kind of way. The bigger enemies you fight throughout the game are all contextual, horrifying and significantly tougher than any of the standard gun-toting fare. There's the Handymen, sickly/terminally ill individuals given something resembling immortality in the form of a grotesque mechanical body, conscripted into the heavy physical labor that the minorities can't accomplish on their own, and are often set loose into the fray whenever Booker seems to be doing to well against the militia. They're actually one of the toughest enemies in the game, more akin to the Big Daddy in terms of bullet-spongyness and threat to the player. Then there's the Firemen, almost exactly like Handymen, except they're highly trained in Vigors having to deal with burning things down. And of course, there's the Motorized Patriot,

A sort of clockwork Hall of Presidents George Washington manequin, with American flags for decorative wings and a fully functioning Gattling Gun, who spouts Jingoistic mantras at you in between long bursts of gunfire. One of the small details that hard to notice is that if it takes enough damage, the porceline mask begins to crack and eventually reveals the inhuman mechanics underneath. That's actually one of the big things I like about this game, the sheer amount of detail that the vast majority of people who play it will never catch up on, and that barely anyone will see all of (as you might be able to tell from the video with Elizabeth, you can just hear the developers crying whenever somebody just runs straight to the door.) For example, there are a wide variety of audio-logs scattered throughout the world, and each and every single one has something unique to add to the story, but some are behind locked doors and you don't have enough lock picks, some are just in a place most people wouldn't think to find, but they tried to make it so that at least some people will try and catch 'em all by making an achievment out of it.

Sometimes the best secrets come from little moments that occure just when you're in the right place at the right time. One is when you come across a black servant sitting in a corner smoking a cigarette, and he tries to lie and say "I aint even never had a one before!," but then Booker says that he won't rat him out, then the guy stops talking like an exagerated stereotype and thanks him, this is especially meaningful after you realize that the guy might get lynched, or worse, if anybody catches him with it. One of the other hidden jems was something that I totally missed out on my first playthrough, and I don't know how it happened, but here it is.

It's the little things...

That's another thing I really liked about the game. Booker is unique to almost all other FPS protagonists; He's not a blank slate, but at the same time, he has the ability for the player to empthize with and at times project onto him. He has a voice, but that voice doesn't displace what the player is feeling, and it doesn't contradict what Booker is feeling. Booker and the Player are two entities, but the player is encouraged to feel the way Booker would feel, and Booker allows the player to feel a wide range of emotions at any given moment. He's not a bad guy, but he's also a guy that's able to kill dozens, if not hundreds of people, and he knows that. The line between written character and played character is so well treaded, I'm having a hard time coming up with another FPS character that does that. Who has dialogue and has emotions, but it's almost never out of synch with what the player feels. That's what I love so much about the guitar sequence, because in a behind the scenes thing, it's revealed that the guy who does the voice of Booker is the one playing the guitar. It's a nice moment, and it doesn't change Booker's character, it enriches it.

I want to talk about the Founders (the dudes lead by Comstock) and the Vox Populi, the key antagonists in the game. While I find it interesting that it was these two political extremes that were chosen as the games thematic backdrop, it's even more interesting to see how it doesn't demonize either side. Or rather, it presents every fascet of what those opposing ideals mean, and it's left up to the player how much of that is evil and how much of that was a good ideal turned corrupt. Like I personally feel (and I understand that the game was designed to more encourage this view) that religous fantascism in the game wasn't what caused all the terrible things to happen to the people of columbia, but merely the catalyst by which a power hungry mad man took control, with little-to-no risitance. Religion, especially as depicted in fiction, has a tendency to make good people better and bad people worse, and as many will see before the game is over, that's how it happened with Father Comstock. The things that are said by these people, especially by another class of enemies called "the brotherhood of the raven" or something like that, are some of the best excuses I've ever heard in a video game to kill someone while they're not looking. This "brotherhood of the raven" is encountered shortly before finding elizabeth, and it's essentially the KKK if it rolled around in the mud for too long and took a fancy to birds. Before you even meet them, you get to see a statue of Father Comstock wrestling with a 3-headed snake, with each head fashioned after charactatures of the 3 main nations of asia, symbolizing his victory in squashing the Boxer Rebellion, and then you get to see a picture of John Wilkes Booth assassinating President Lincoln, with Booth donning a halo, and Abe Lincoln with an obvious pair of devils horns. Yeah, John Wilkes Booth is their patron saint, and then you see them in their black hoods chanting and marching in place. I try to set myself up as a good person when playing games, I never kill anybody I don't have to, and when I get the drop on somebody I like to do a non-lethal takedown or just a quick conk on the head, even if it technically counts as lethal. But nothing felt more satisfying than blowing the cult leaders head off with a revolver litterally called "the Handcannon" from one floor above, announcing my presence to the rest of them as I get ready for the next shot. Never before do I think I've ever said "oh, you so gotta die." aloud to any of my enemies, or even targets, but I said it then and I stand by it. (It's actually kind of an example of Booker tactfully letting me be the architect of my actions but still staying in character, since earlier in the game I had the chance to throw a baseball at a mixed race couple or the stageman who was orchestrating the show, and I chose the showman. So my booker is distinctly anti-racist. I don't care if it makes me sound self righteous, but that makes me feel pretty good.)

Then there's the Vox Populi, (that's Voice of the People in I-looked-it-up-even-though-I-can-sort-of-read-latin latin.) They're a tough nut to crack, specifically because you spend less time with them, and their agenda kind of goes in crazy places after you play through long enough. Let's just say that their "If you're not with us you're against us" views, while a little cliche, are no less impactful on both Booker and Elizabeth. It's actually kind of interesting because previously, I didn't think their agenda was so bad, as is the intent, since you're supposed to be going through all kinds of figurative hoops to help them out. But after a while, they eventually turn on you, saying that you now "complicate the Narrative." And that kind of struck a chord with me, because (caution: politics) while I never voted for Obama, I always thought it was cool that 1) we finally had the black president that all those futurist movies were alluding to for the past couple of decades, and that 2) it proved, on a surface level at least, the old american mantra "Anybody could grow up to be President." This past election season kind of bugged me when I saw pictures of people wearing t-shirts like "Put the White back in the White House," making me think that, even though I voted another way, I kind of hoped Obama would win just to prove that guy wrong. The buzz surrounding that image was about how at this juncture the narrative of america might be a little bit more important than the policies, and I wanted to agree with them. Then Bioshock Infinite put me into a position where I would have to be killed by the person I just finished trying to help, in order to "maintain the narrative." and I kind of realized that just because you're on the right side of history, doesn't put you on the right side of whatever morality you're proposing to be remembered by history. Daisy Fitzroy, the leader of the Vox, wanted Columbia free for everyone, but if enough circumstances happened in the right order, she would just as easily want columbia for herself and her thugs. This isn't because of race or reversed discrimination, but because she tasted the power that comes with leading a movement, and she couldn't resist. So very much like Comstock.

I think that's all I can say right now without spoiling any more, but if this hasn't convinced you that you need to at the very least check out this game, then either I need to work on my righting skills or you shouldn't have been reading this far in the first place. If you can't buy it, rent it. If you can't rent it, find a friend who can. If you don't have a friend who has it, or don't play games, or have less free time, watch somebody else play it. There's a plethora of Let's Plays on YouTube (I'll include one I find particularly entertaining, even if it's not very good for Proxy-play) and lots of further discussion throughout the net if you just want to absorb the entire game experience before actually playing it (you sick freaks). I'll be posting my (supposedly) last entry on this single game later, and that'll be FULL of spoilers. Recomend playing through the game yourself before reading on, or at least watch somebody play through. The experience honestly is so well delivered that just having it told to you kind of makes the fact that you learned the information so cheaply kind of depressing. See you guys soon-ish!

Bioshock Infinite: Vol 1 - Intro

I didn't know if this game was going to be any good. I first heard about this game when Tobuscus did one of his "literal trailers" of the E3 demo that came out all the way back in 2010, and it was the only thing that the developer, Irrational Games, was working on since the original Bioshock, even further back in 2007.

For those not in the know, Bioshock was a game that took place in the underwater city of Rapture, an Objectivist Utopia turned to chaos, with the player stumbling apon it and just trying to survive, using weapons and genetics-augmenting superpowers called Plasmids. Along the way, meeting lumbering beasts called Big Daddies and their stewardships, the Little Sisters, who collect the genetic materials that make Plasmids work. If you encounter one and defeat the Big Daddy, you can choose to release the little sisters, or harvest them. It was "the highest rated game of all time" according to Metacritic, and was so good, the publishers of the game wanted a sequel more than they wanted the original team to work on it, so when Irrational Games (the people who made the first Bioshock) declined to come back for a direct sequel, the publishers decided to farm it out to somebody else. As you can imagine, it didn't do nearly as well.

So when I heard that the original creators were coming back for one that was different but the same,I was intriuged. I had yet to play the first Bioshock game at that time (I still haven't gotten all the way through, but that's mostly due to losing my copy), but I knew that what it was all about. As more and more of it came to light, this new title looked like it was going to be more in the vein of a spiritual successor, rather than an actual sequal, with the throughline of calling it a Bioshock title being that it was all about a city built around an idea, and that city falling apart as the idea falls apart. And you got to have a fist full of loitning. This time, it was a city in the sky, built around American Exceptionalism with a relgious bent taken to Jingoistic extremes, and the minorities rising up against them, starting as a equal rights labor movement, but slowly taken to extremes and turning into all-out terrorism. Now the fact that video games were finally starting to tackle these kinds of issues was really cool already, but among the many good things I saw coming out of the developmental process, what stood out to me the most was the emphasis on the character of Elizabeth, a girl, raised and locked away in a tower by a giant mechanical beast called the Songbird and had the ability to tear open the fabric of space-time to bring in usefull tools and allies. I had a lot of high hopes for this, especially after finding out that it would release on my Birthday at the end of February. Then I thought I started to see some cracks; the game was looking radically different then it did a year ago, it had gotten delayed for a 3rd time (though only by another month, so I wasn't too bumbed about that), then the box art was revealed.

 

Now, I am well aware that those of you who have no idea what the game is even about will look at this and think, "Hey, that looks kind of cool." And that's OK, because that's actually exactly what this piece of artwork was supposed to do, encourage people who would otherwise be scared off by the overly thematic overtones of the franchise and give them a chance to see the games asthetic without the baggage of having to know what the game is about to know what the cover's about. But when I first saw it, my first thought was "Is that it?" Not only is Elizabeth, one of the most important characters in the game, not on the front, Booker (the player character in Infinite) has almost the exact pose, gun toting and everything, as Nathan Drake from the first Uncharted game. It didn't have anything to say about the story, the character, and even the setting is left obtuse until you turn over the box. But then I finally listened to what the developer and director, Ken Levine, had to say about it, and I'm kind of sad to have had to hear it twice before I got it.

"If you put a burning american flag and a dude with a gun slung over his shoulder infront of 10,000 people, people like it. If you put in front of a Hardcore gaming site, people hate it." He went on to say "We don't make comprimises on our games... The Cover doesn't having s*** to say about the game... It is possible to hug the baby so tightly that it dies, if we have to make compromises on a cover to reach a wider audience, I'll compromise on a cover." He even mentioned that it wasn't even his favorite cover, but the beautiful art that he really wanted (left) a) wouldn't work on a 8 1/2" X 5" box front and b) wouldn't have the same kind of reach-out-and-grab-your-eyeballs feel of certain other pieces of artwork. Not to mention the fact that they shortly afterwards put to a vote online what the art would look like on a reversable cover, and while it's more in-tune with what the game is about, I gotta admit that it's not much better in person. (below)

"The mind of the subject will deseperately struggle to create memories where none exist...."
              -R. Lutice. Quote on back of alternate cover.

This cover is much more apreciated after you've actually met Songbird.



I've played the game. I've finished the game. The game is REALLY good, and the cover didn't change that. If anything, the only problem it had was not giving the proper amount of limelight to the character of Elizabeth, and that actually made me more interested in the character that was on screen, not any character that was promised in advertising. It is kind of depressing that it took me this long to deconstruct the mountain that I made out of that mole-hill, but at least now everybody who wanted to play the game as early as I did knows that it's a good game, and the people who don't know squat about it are hearing us say how good it is. I highly recommend that people get this game. It's available on almost every platform, It has one of the best told stories in a game since the first game (yes, it took Bioshock to beat Bioshock), and it deserves all the praise it's getting. I'll be back shortly and I'll talk about what the game is actually about (limited, but still some spoilers) and then I'm going to play through the game a second time and give a comprehensive analysis of all the mind-bending stuff that happens throughout the course of the game, let alone all the well placed artsy stuff I love to pick apart. Till then I'll just give you a taste of what the game's like and leave you with this great quote I stole from MovieBob's blog.

"Oh, you only have one interesting, big-idea, theoretical scifi concept built into your narrative, and it's only to explain the more video-gamey part's of your video game? That's cute..."
Bioshock Infinite, to the Assassin's Creed series.

Introducing......

Hello, I'm Zac and I live with my Grandfather, 300 miles away from the rest of my family, 45 miles away from the nearest Gamestop, and 1 mile away from the nearest small town. There aren't any tragic or obtuse reasons why I'm all the way out in Kansas, while the rest of my family's over on the opposite side of Iowa, only that said Grandpa was recovering from back surgery and I didn't have a job, so we decided to take that opportunity to get me out into the world (finally), and start working on my Grandpa's farm for the summer, and now, as it seems, the forseeable future. It's not a "farm" in the traditional sense, more of a big yard that he keeps his far-from-typical pets in. My Grandpa raises Whitetail Deer (primarily), along chickens, the occasional dog, and a cat that's been in the family since I was a kid. In the past, he's raised rabbits, longhorn cattle, and Moas (a type of Emu or Ostrich), plus a half-dozen other things I don't know about, alongside the legend that at one time he had a giant snapping turtle living in his swampy, disused swimming pool. I say this mostly to prove that, while my Grandfather may be as country and old-fashioned as they come, we are in fact related by nature of being in love with the out of the ordinary. Which is interesting, because my Grandpa has little-to-no appreciation for any of the things I'm interested in (he accidentally sat through all of The Dark Knight with me one time, all he had to say afterwards was "huh.") but we still get along, more or less. He hasn't kicked me out yet, after almost a year of being here. But that means I spend most of my off-time in my room or down in the basement, whenever I'm not awkwardly trying to appreciate the ball game that grandpa's watching, just so's that I don't completely alienate him.

Needless to say, I'm a Fan, as it is called these days. A BIG Fan (though not as fannish as some). I love Firefly, I love Doctor Who, I love Lord of the Rings (books and movies equally, though for different reasons), I love Star Wars, I love Avatar: The Last Airbender, I love Strong Bad, I love Assassins Creed, I love Portal, I love Halo, I love Loading Ready Run, I love Extra Credits, I love Magic the Gathering, I love Skyrim, I love Batman, I love Good Movies, I love Bad Movies, I love Gaming, I love to pick apart these ideas and stories and experiences to figure out why I love them (and sometimes hate them), I love watching and listening to intelligent people talk about the things I love, I love watching people fall in love with the things I love. I'm starting this blog because there's just so much love of these things that I wan't to share, and sometimes it takes more to say them than Facebook or Twitter has room to say. This blog is my storage unit for all of the feelings, opinions and love that I have for the nerdy things I love, in the hopes that others might also find insight, and also that the friends and family members that I occasional vent these feelings and opinions onto will instead be able to apreciate what I have to say on their own terms.

I'm a Fan from my Grandpa's Basement; it's not easy, and sometimes it's detrimental to the reason I'm with him, but part of me growing (the unofficial reason I'm with him) is learning how to be a fan while also having to get stuff done, especially the stuff I don't want to do. This place is where I can put the Fan in me, so that I can still be me, but also be the help my Grandpa needs.