The rise and fall of the intergalatic dream

As always, my reviews are not spoiler free.

It's almost a waste of time for me to "review" Halo: Reach. There was never much possibility that I would like it less than Halo 2. (Gamers, despite what you've have read, there is a weak mission [the space flight part of the space flying mission], and some terribly-built encounters and wonky AI.)

It's good though. It's a classic Halo campaign (perhaps too classic) without the Flood and with a new layer of graphical polish.

Much like Bioshock 2, though, the strong story moments occur too late in the game. Nothing with an emotional impact happens until the sixth mission (of 10). The climax, Six "going down with the ship," is interesting, but the most interesting aspect of the sacrifice happens after the end credits.

But there is a bit too much game-y ness. For instance, you fight alongside indestructible members of Noble Six until, inexplicably, they are taken down one-by-one by a single bullet or a couple of Elites in the story scenes.

Of course, that's just the story mode. (And I've already finished that.) The real strength of Halo is, and always has been, in the multiplayer. Reach is beyond anything that Bungie has ever released. There is potentially a limitless amount of content available to play, or create. With the addition of the Arena and the daily and weekly challenges, it's almost too much for my OCD-addled brain. In a good way.

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HOT: Watching YouTubes of other people wasting their lives playing Minecraft.
NOT: Playing Minecraft.

Chromophobia

Pigeons are ugly because our cities are ugly.

With the peppered moth in mind, just imagine what urban fauna would look like if Neoclassical architecture mimicked itself off the true colors of antiquity. Or if American had been colonized by the Eastern Orthodox Church instead of the chromophobic Protestant Church.

Space Oddity

Metroid: Other M
Hats off to Team Ninja because they have done the seemingly impossible: they have made the first truly terrible Metroid game.

No, it's not due to the purple prose or the interminable inner monologues (although they certainly don't help). It's due to the clunky controls, the auto-pilot gameplay, the absence of atmosphere, the generic environments, the cumbersome perspective shifts, the lack of discovery, and - although I shouldn't count this against the game- the audacity to position itself in the same narrative continuum as Super Metroid.

I can't decide what is more embarrassing: that Nintendo was bested by a couple of copycat Mormons or that professional video game critics' standards are so low that this game is currently resting with a 79 on Metacritic (particularly when compared to Inception's 74).

Grade: D-

Warten auf eine unausweichliche Katastrophe

In honor of Werner Herzog, on his birthday:

Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they - they sing. They just screech in pain. It's an unfinished country. It's still prehistorical. The only thing that is lacking is - is the dinosaurs here. It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape. And whoever... goes too deep into this has his share of this curse. So we are cursed with what we are doing here. It's a land that God, if he exists has - has created in anger. It's the only land where - where creation is unfinished yet. Taking a close look at - at what's around us there - there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of... overwhelming and collective murder. And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle - Uh, we in comparison to that enormous articulation - we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban... novel... a cheap novel. We have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery and overwhelming fornication... overwhelming growth and overwhelming lack of order. Even the - the stars up here in the - in the sky look like a mess. There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment.

God bless this man.

David, one last time

At this point in my life, I probably shouldn't care. And with Utah joining the PAC-12 next year, the Utes have officially surrendered their coveted cinderella status. But boy did it feel good to watch the Utes stick it to the BCS one more time. Coming full circle by beating Pitt once again made it all that much sweeter.

Cheers everyone!