‘Tomb Raider’ heading into “uncharted” territory.

Raider of tombs.

After almost a decade of solid output from Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider Anniversary is my favorite of the Crystal Dynamics era), we’re getting to meet Lara Croft all over again with the March 5 release of Tomb Raider. I was relatively curious about the new direction, with its themes of survival and development. We are supposedly going to see how Lara Croft became the Lara Croft we met in 1996 and idolized years on in much the way Daniel Craig re-introduced us to James Bond, Christian Bale to Batman, Bomberman to Bomberman: Act Zero, etc. I was never big on this franchise. I remember enjoying Tomb Raider 2 and 3 at most, but never actively bought into Lara Croft as the pop culture icon she is revered as. She is simply an avatar for me to explore mythical tombs, flip switches, and fight off ferocious beasts. Still, I grew heavily interested in this new Tomb Raider, and then I saw it in action. (Does anyone else notice a normal arrow causing a barrel to explode?)

You can probably tell from the title of the entry where I’m going with this. Everyone has compared it to Naughty Dog’s Uncharted games in both positive and negative connotations. I’ve enjoyed the series for two-and-a-half games. The series works less for its mechanics and more for its summer blockbuster-level writing and dialogue from its memorable characters in ridiculous situations performed under great voice direction from talented actors. They are ten-hour interactive adventures that are fun to experience, but as the years passed, I had grown tired of seeing certain designs transferring over to some games: the structural damage that forces the player to take a new path to the next objective, the camera cutting away to said structure breaking apart, the stale gunfights that drag out and appear so often that they feel almost intrusive when I’m more curious to see the next set-piece.

From the footage I’ve seen, Tomb Raider just appears to be going in the same, safe direction of padding small side activities out to keep the game “long,” and filled with “content,” the moments some would refer to as “suspense” of having the player quickly press a button in a timed event. I suppose from the developers’ perspective, the “cinematic gameplay” is a winning formula, since it worked for a blockbuster franchise that owes part of its success to this franchise. With all the hype of a mature narrative, Lara learning to survive and players experiencing what she is willing to do to survive hell, I was hoping for something… else. Uncharted can be Uncharted all it wants. I want Tomb Raider to do … something else.

Personally, I’d have loved actual tomb/ruins exploration designed as puzzles of a sort. Not necessarily matching symbols or a slide puzzle and a door opens, but figuring out how to get to the next area and objective. Portal is the closest game I can think of that is a realization of my wacky thought process. I at least didn’t think being a survivor of a shipwreck and overcoming that would include gunning down hundreds of enemies with a shotgun in the process.

I understand I’m being a bit unfair not having actually played Tomb Raider. That’s fair. However, I don’t believe that simply being positive about a product I haven’t experienced yet is any more valid than the reverse. Everyone reacts. I hope this game proves me wrong.

Occupy Fantasy Zone!

I’ve bought a number of games on the Wii Virtual Console, and aside from games I have actually played in my youth, I’m not positive that I’ve seen the endings of any of them. My reflexes may simply not be up to par versus 25 years of difficulty that combines fast reflexes, the skill to develop said reflexes, and old-fashioned luck. I was put to the test when my friend visited yesterday and she and I took to a SEGA Master System game from 1986 called Fantasy Zone.

Fantasy Zone was originally an arcade game that, going by its Wikipedia page, was ported to many consoles of the day (including the Nintendo Entertainment System, although it is not licensed and appeared under the “Tengen” brand). The Master System version is available on the Wii Virtual Console at 500 Wii Points.

Two players can enjoy Fantasy Zone, although it’s a matter of Player 2 waiting for Player 1 to lose a life before it’s their turn. Players control a ship called Opa Opa (I like saying “Opa Opa!” out loud) through eight levels in a much brighter, friendlier, more colorful version of what resembles Williams Electronics’ Defender from 1980. Shoot the enemy bases located throughout the stage while avoiding and shooting at as many enemies as possible. Defeated enemies drop coins for the player to spend at the shop that appears in the stage as a red orb. Upgrade Opa Opa’s engines for speed, wings for movement, and weapons for more firepower. In true retro gaming fashion, upgraded weapons are on a 15-second time limit which might not be useful for boss battles unless you get really lucky. Fantasy Zone has such a cute and radiant look about it that it almost seems like it uses it against you, as my friend and I came to learn that Fantasy Zone is a ridiculously hard game.

Fantasy Zone. Absurdity documented.

The only way to lose a life in Fantasy Zone is to take one bullet hit or simply touch the enemy, familiar to anybody who has played a side-scrolling shooter in the last two decades. That will seemingly happen a lot. I was using a Gamecube controller throughout my entire experience while my friend operated the Wii Classic Controller. I couldn’t tell you whether that was an improvement over the Master System controller. Regardless, Fantasy Zone is still a test of skill, some luck, and knowing where to place the pixels to avoid any kind of contact with the enemy. In our earlier runs, I was struggling, watching Opa Opa slowly fire its default beam and crashing into things I didn’t know were enemies. Then after looking at the on-screen manual, we discovered rapid fire! Rapid fire meant blazing through stages until the boss wiped the floor with us on some capacity. I very much enjoyed how surreal the bosses looked: stage one has what is basically a leafless stump version of the Whispy Woods boss from Nintendo’s Kirby games. It fires… well, we’ve decided they’re nuts — cashews or chestnuts, maybe. The second boss shoots its red nuts while shielded by blue walnuts. My favorite boss is probably the army of snowmen that come out of nowhere by round five.

The thing that really got my attention about the game is that it had a backstory that is represented by scrolling text when the main menu is left idle. In the “space year” of 6216, the “interplanetary money system” had collapsed and a group of menacing creatures is stealing money from all planets, so Opa Opa is sent to destroy these creatures who want to build an enemy fortress in the Fantasy Zone. So, somewhere in their solar system, planets are on the brink of economic collapse because of a small percentage of beings, and money taken back from these beings goes into (Opa Opa) defense spending. I wonder if the people that this affects are protesting at a park somewhere. Just kidding. Maybe Ronald Reagan was their leader! Okay, I’m done!

It’s unfortunate that I don’t have any real nostalgia for Fantasy Zone, since I was strictly a child of Nintendo in the ’80s. In fact, I don’t remember what drove me to purchase it on the Wii Virtual Console in the first place! I’m guessing my friend did recommend it to me, otherwise I might have confused it for another Master System game. Sometimes I do manage to confuse it for the Wonder Boy series. Fantasy Zone is such a great example of retro gaming. Highly recommended!

E3 2012: Am I already too old for this?

Last week, the big game studios showed up for the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, better simply known as E3, to give us a taste of what’s to come in the next few months to a year. I didn’t go, because I am not press or a developer. I can only write as someone whose relationship with these companies extends to me handing them money for their product. Spike TV and its associated web site Game Trailers were nice enough to broadcast all sorts of game demos as well as the major press conferences themselves.

I honestly wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach this piece. Even after the official first day of E3, I had talked about the conferences to death on Twitter and message boards. With the exception of Ubisoft, who showed some great-looking content, none of the conferences did anything that ‘surprised’ me or grabbed my attention. After Halo 4 footage that does its best Metroid: Prime impersonation, Microsoft began to sell the idea of the Xbox as an entertainment brand, beyond playing a game and paying for extra content. Watch television shows and movies on Netflix and Hulu Plus. Catch up on Game of Thrones and Veep on HBO Go (which requires paying for a cable subscription, HBO, and then an Xbox Live Gold membership). Their big moment came when they introduced Internet Explorer and their Smart Glass app, which serves as a sort of PDA for entertainment. Get cast biographies for the movie or show you’re watching. Turn your tablet (iPad) into an interactive map for an adventure game. While this may sound convenient or fun, the way it was demonstrated indicated that Smart Glass seeks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. I’m not sure I need an interactive Westeros map while I’m already trying to remember names on Game of Thrones. I’m already using GameFAQs to get help with games, and also I’m not using my tablet with my entertainment as frequently as Microsoft wants me to.

The real stars of the show were South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone who took the stage to quickly talk about the upcoming South Park: The Stick of Truth, developed by Obsidian Entertainment, but delivered the conference’s only major highlight with this quote:

“How many times have you been watching an episode of South Park and thought, ‘I’d like to be able to watch this on my television, while hooked into my mobile device, which is controlled by my tablet device, which is hooked into my oven,’ all while sitting in the refrigerator?”

Somewhere in the conference was an Usher performance and a Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 demo where people shot things and were shot at. It was everything I was already expecting from Microsoft after their terrible conference last year and it delivered for all the wrong reasons.

Last year, Ubisoft delivered upon the world Mr. Caffeine, a manic gentleman who informed us of upcoming “Tom Ca-lancy” games and used Wayne’s World references to do it. Survivors of the conference refuse to talk about it to this day. This year, Aisha Tyler took the stage for Ubisoft, and I’m not sure if ever a huge upgrade took place than having her host, because she was great and very enthusiastic. Her only crime honestly was having to share the stage with a Tobuscus, a YouTube ‘personality’ who went by Toby where silly, scripted back and forth banter ensued, and then we saw games.

Ubisoft had probably the most solid line-up with Far Cry 3, whose demo was one of the strangest, drug-fueled demos I had ever seen. Rayman Legends, which is exclusive to Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U system, is looking like a solid follow-up to the fantastic Rayman Origins, which I talked about earlier this year. I’m hoping Rayman Legends will feature as great a soundtrack as its predecessor. Ubisoft also showed new footage of Assassin’s Creed III, which I have ordered from Amazon despite its October release date. Perhaps the biggest and most talked-about surprise is the new game coming titled Watch_Dogs. The demo showed a man walking around a huge virtual recreation of Chicago and proceeding to gather information about its residents with a device that allows hacking of mobile devices and also jamming communication signals and even manipulate traffic lights as he sees fit. The demo concluded with this man in a shoot-out with his antagonists, which honestly presents a slight concern over how much taking cover and shooting I will actually do in Watch_Dogs. Regardless of this, although I’ve never visited Chicago, the world was stunning and was also impressed by the number of NPCs walking around the town without a hint of frame rate dropping. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

The evening of “Day Zero” closed out with Sony’s press conference which, aside from Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls, and footage of the Vita game Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, did very little to catch my interest. We got a demo for God of War: Ascension, the next title in the seven-year PlayStation series, where Kratos kills more things in the same way he has for the last seven years. I’m sure the fans have already eaten it up, especially when Kratos killed an elephant minotaur by cutting it in half. One thing I was looking forward to was Sony’s plans for the Vita. It’s almost common knowledge at this point that the PlayStation Vita isn’t off to a particularly strong start across the globe, with its predecessor the PlayStation Portable outselling it in Japan. I’ve seen more doom and gloom comments than positive ones despite the device being four months into its launch in the United States. Sony unveiled… a Call of Duty logo and an Assassin’s Creed spinoff game. In fairness, I do think the Assassin’s Creed title has plenty of potential to get major use of the device’s hardware, but E3 is the center stage to show people what you’re up to and what to look forward to and to get the folks excited for it (a point I will reiterate with Nintendo). Instead, we got Wonderbook. Wonderbook, from what I understand, is an augmented reality software that utilizes the PlayStation Eye Toy device where you have interactive experiences with storybooks. It might sound fun for the kids, but it didn’t look “explain this product for 15 to 20 minutes” fun. While I think SCEA President Jack Tretton did a decent job onstage and successfully got the crowd excited for God of War and The Last of Us. Quantic Dream showed footage of their newest game, Beyond: Two Souls, which stars actress Ellen Page. I’m not sure what kind of game it will be. Will it be another “interactive experience” (i.e. quick-timer event) game like 2010′s Heavy Rain?

A few nice details here and there about games, mostly lackluster, and then there’s Nintendo, which I will talk about tomorrow because there’s a lot to address.

Naughty Dog hears you. Patch coming for ‘Uncharted 3′ aiming and motion-blur issue.

After days of cries that the aiming in Uncharted 3 is rather off and counterproductive, Naughty Dog community manager Arne Meyer has stepped up and addressed players via the Naughty Dog forums and even asked for volunteers from NeoGAF to come to their studio in Santa Monica, CA to speak with employees and test out an upcoming patch that will supposedly fix the aiming and add the motion blur effect, which is missing from the retail release of the game. Two NeoGAF users, CartridgeBlower and AwesomeSauce, stepped up to the plate and you can read their feedback on the NeoGAF link above.

As nice as it would be to have this kind of oversight prevented and observed before the final product ships, it’s also nice to see the studio actively seek out opinions, suggestions, and having a dialogue about a potential problem.

You can also read Meyer’s article concerning what Naughty Dog set out to achieve with the single-player aiming in his post on Naughty Dog’s official site. In it, he says that the concern was accuracy, that weapons now fire directly from the barrel of a gun and its recoil must be taken into consideration as opposed to being fired from certain angles and missing by a wide margin. He also says the aiming is “identical” to the second game, which is flat out untrue. I’m not sure what exactly the post is talking about. I tested out the differences of the aiming between Uncharted 2 and 3 and I had absolutely no issue hitting targets with an AK47. Speaking of which, Naughty Dog also sought to weaken the distance of the weapon since many players supposedly used it too much for their liking.

I played a little of Chapter 4 in Uncharted 2 and the way Drake moves the targeting reticule is absolutely responsive to my input on the analog stick. Uncharted 3 is slow, even after a significant sensitivity increase and not as responsive. What players might not see is the inner reticule that expands and shrinks depending on a weapon’s recoil as part of its aim assist. Regardless, Naughty Dog has acted on the issue and I was still able to finish Uncharted 3 on Normal difficulty. While the aiming is undoubtedly better in part two, I honestly did get used to Uncharted 3‘s system towards the end.

Update: Microsoft and EA on FIFA breaches — “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ars Technica broke the story, as did Giant Bomb and Joystiq.

To be honest, I’m shocked that I constantly see comments in my inbox from people who fell victim to this ridiculous breach of security. I had written the entry almost one month ago, but the media outlets finally decided to say something after supposedly hundreds of users submitted their tales of woe.

Microsoft’s and EA’s responses more or less amount to “We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

They’re claiming they have seen no evidence that this is going on, or on a level significant enough to raise an issue about it. Why would they? Microsoft doesn’t need a PR problem on their hands, as certain Xbox Live procedures dealing with credit card information are already questionable. It’s not even certain how exactly customer accounts are compromised. The people who have been affected by this issue do not seem to be simple-minded idiots who click on “FREE PLAYSTATION 3!!!” banner ad links and fill out personal information. These are people who know how to secure information to the best of their ability. What is it, then, that allows this to happen while Microsoft and EA play dumb and then lock an account for nearly a month as they investigate the matter? Hell, in a lot of cases Microsoft prove themselves to be completely inept in the matter regarding customer support and send people on an irritating back-and-forth trek of obtaining information from their banks and creditors only to have to make a fourth call to customer support.

I’m glad it’s finally being made aware and good lord at all the comments I’ve received. Thanks to all for sharing your woes. Hopefully something is being done about this and it works out for everyone. Can’t EA at least say “We’re sorry our game contains a Douchey Account Exploit Mode?”

Extra Life Charity: Play Games. Heal Kids.

On Saturday, October 15, I’ll be participating in the Extra Life charity. I will be playing games in a 24-hour marathon session in the name of Children’s Specialized Hospital, part of the Children’s Miracle Network of hospitals in an effort to raise money for them. I think this is a fantastic cause and I encourage anyone to please help out and sponsor if you can. You can sponsor any amount you wish, with the minimum being $1, one dollar, an hour.

Thanks very much!

My Extra Life Page

Xbox Live users hacked, victims in the name of EA’s FIFA DLC.

Late this past August, my friend noticed she had a large number of unauthorized charges on her credit card. Someone, somewhere, had gained access to her Xbox Live account and charged an enormous amount of Microsoft Points. Immediately, she phoned Microsoft’s customer support service, who claimed to have put the account on hold and will take up to 21 days for the investigation to find results. Despite this claim of account suspension, the unauthorized user was still able to purchase additional points and she was able to watch these points diminish slowly but surely on the official Xbox site, seeing them spent on downloadable content for EA Sports’ FIFA 2011 soccer game. We took to Google immediately and found a related post on the site Giant Bomb. It wasn’t much help, but we at least saw a degree of comfort that she was not the first.

My friend naturally disputed these charges with her bank, barely. They needed information from Microsoft, which Microsoft does not give out but that an investigation was underway. Microsoft also claimed several times they would actually give her a call and update her the investigation. They did not. Ever. Unfortunately, because of some strange technicalities in their terms of service, Microsoft customer support claimed they saw no problem, that they could not help her in any way and that communications between the customer representatives and the agents of the fraud department are limited to the point where the reps don’t know some of the things the customer is even talking about. After successfully contesting the issues with the bank, Microsoft actually tried to dispute the claim filed and say that these charges are legitimate. My friend is no fan of soccer, so naturally she would never touch a FIFA game in her life, but now FIFA 2011 sits in her game history like a stain on a nice carpet. Not only that, but regardless of how many Microsoft Points you may have had prior to this breach, Microsoft is inclined to perform a points adjustment and you may be left with less than the amount you originally had, if any at all.

I took the search to perhaps the largest game forum on the internet, NeoGAF. I discovered that this was bigger than I had anticipated. Several of the forum’s users have been attacked by these thieves in the same fashion: charge points, purchase FIFA content, get away scot-free. Success with disputing these charges has been rather up and down, it would seem:

Thread 1 – Started May 24
Thread 2 – June 13
Thread 3 – August 30

One issue seems to stem from Xbox Live’s recent Family Account option, that allows a user to create additional accounts for family members and “gift” them Microsoft Points and edit their user options. Unauthorized users may access your email associated with the account, or the account itself, purchase this family pack and a points pack for resale across a number of sites like eBay.

Taken from my friend’s letter to Microsoft reps:

From what I can tell, hackers can gain access to the victim’s accounts in a couple of different ways.  One way is by calling Xbox Support and pretending to be the victim.  They speak to a representative long enough to get a bit of information on the account, and then hang up and call back and use that new little tidbit to get a little further with the next rep.  They do this until they have enough information about the victim’s account to gain complete access.

Another way that I have read about seemed specific to FIFA ’11, where a hacker can e-mail EA support with some jargon that confuses the EA server into sending the hacker the victim’s Xbox and EA account information.  I’m not sure of the legitimacy of this claim but during my search I found videos about it on YouTube, as well as websites explaining how to do it. 

I’ve also seen reports of phishing sites offering free points for the victim to click and stupidly enter their account information.  

Once the hacker has access to the victim’s account and purchases the points, they can create a family account and restore your gamer tag to their console to make it part of the family account.  This way they are able to use your points even when your account is locked.  

They also seem to be selling accounts with the stolen points on sites like tradetang to customers who unwittingly buy them, thinking they are getting a great deal.  The auctions for these accounts make claims such as “Dear friends: Since the points might expire, please use up the points within the warranty time” and “The accounts are not gold.  And it is better not to buy gold membership for the account because it won’t last too long.”  How that doesn’t send red flags is beyond me.

Besides the unauthorized charges themselves, the unfortunate thing is how unreliable Microsoft’s Xbox site as well as their Windows Live site can be. Many users experience error pages that prevent them from successfully editing their account passwords and other details in order to increase security. Microsoft has also notoriously made removing credit card information and disabling auto-renewal payments for Xbox Live a hassle. Customers can either phone customer support and ask for the options to be removed, or remove it from the Xbox Live Dashboard but needing to add another credit card, which possibly negates the entire reason for removing your information in the first place. I recommend at least purchasing a prepaid Xbox Live card from a local retailer, as well as Microsoft Points cards. It’s unfortunate that we cannot depend on security like this from a major corporation, let alone two, right, Sony? We have to do our part as well, and although this sounds like common sense, this could happen to even the most experienced users: make sure to have a strong password, never give out credit information if you can help it, and don’t click on shady, suspicious links that claim to have amazing prizes and what have you.

I think sites need to make this issue aware, and Microsoft and all corporations that ask us for credit information for utilization of a service, to please work on updating your security measures and not just casually pat the customer on the shoulder and say “We’ll see.”

Microsoft Xbox Support
@XboxSupport 

 

 

 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes — Closing up the Summer 2011 shop.

I am going to instill a truth upon you. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the best film that Hollywood has served us this summer, hands down. This movie could have been something of a disaster at worst, and just a mediocre, soulless cash-in (you know, like the 2001 Tim Burton movie) at best. Movies like 30 Minutes or Less, Final Destination 5, and the remake of Conan the Barbarian are all set to close out another season of blockbusters, but really, you should close your summer out with a tale of the risks of science, its battle, or rather struggling coexistence with nature, and a simian revolution that carries more emotional weight than a number of films you will see this year.

Originally I wanted to write a formal review. I have seen the movie two times, and I will watch it again when it’s for sale on Blu-ray. I own the soundtrack, because the intensity that is present when Rocket attacks Caesar in a quest for dominance. Caesar, of course, has an advantage here that later leads into the film’s climax on the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The movie introduces us to Will Rodman, a scientist employed at Gen Sys, whose primary research consists of a solid treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Tests are performed on apes, one of which is Bright Eyes, who shows rapid progress and increased signs of functionality and intelligence. Rodman’s boss thinks this treatment is ready for sale, but the proposal meeting with the board goes terribly wrong when Bright Eyes becomes manic and incredibly aggressive, attacking employees before ultimately taken down by building security. The board mistakenly believes this is a side effect of the ALZ-112 treatment, when the reality is that Bright Eyes has given birth and was protecting her child. In the aftermath, the apes are destroyed and Will reluctantly takes the baby chimp home.

We then get an insight into Will’s life outside of Gen Sys, where we meet his father Charles, a musician and teacher who is dangerously succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease and so the audience now has an emotional stake in Will’s battle to perfect this treatment. The amazing thing about Lithgow’s performance is that his dangerous fits were somewhat similar to his character on Third Rock from the Sun in his states of mania, forgetfulness, and near-insanity. Lithgow knows how to do drama, though, if you’d seen the last season or so of Dexter. We go through years of bonding and interaction between Will, Charles, and baby ape Caesar, who grows into a highly intelligent ape as it is explained that Bright Eyes’ reception of the ALZ-112 treatment passed on genetically.

The film does a fantastic job in characterizing Caesar. He isn’t merely visual effects, nor is he just “Caesar the ape.” He is simply Caesar. The film successfully lets us know this is his story. He does everyday human tasks, as mundane as we see them, but he also retains the sharper, more finely-tuned survival instincts as an animal. The film is a battle of science versus nature.

Traffic reports suggest you stay away from the Golden Gate Bridge today.

Caesar continues to show rather advanced signs of intelligence and cognition, yet his instinct to protect his family unfortunately lead to his detention at an animal control center. Typical red tape, court orders, etc., prevent his release, but Will also continues research on a new variant of the ALZ-112 after his father finally succumbs and passes on after noting Caesar’s progress.

From there on, Rise of the Planet of the Apes should have solely focused on Caesar, and it mostly does this. At first I was left wondering why we were still with Gen Sys, with Will, with this treatment. However, almost like a stage play or even a game of chess, all of the characters, these roles, play their parts in a finely-stitched story. Caesar is portrayed by Andy Serkis, who brought Gollum to life in Peter Jackson’s direction of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the titular gorilla King Kong in Jackson’s 2005 remake of the 1933 film. Serkis plays the role in a way where he is not only trying to establish his leadership with the other simians imprisoned with him, but with us, the audience. We want to follow him every step of the way. This is why the film succeeds. With a few side plots carefully making its way into the battle, they bring some interesting plausibility to this revolution, where it will lead, and what this means for our race and our future. The film raises a few issues about identity, where we truly belong in life, and differences between pride and tyranny as evidenced when Caesar orders other apes not to kill the humans, and thus the audience does not turn against Caesar. The goal is to have their voices heard and to experience a freedom they fought for and will use to their advantage in the long run. Don’t kid yourself. This is a rather frightening thought from the human perspective, but all we can do is watch with awe. By the end, every emotional moment goes above and beyond, and this is truly one of the more emotional films to have released this year.

To top it off, Patrick Doyle’s score is amazingly intense and helps carry our emotions and expectations through to the grand finale.

"I have to go now. My planet, that is to say your planet, needs me."

The heroic tale of Green Lantern!

This movie has, um, spoilers, so seriously, stay away if you plan on seeing this in the immediate future. I am also writing this entirely on memory and on a bottle of Gatorade so bear with me.

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Green Lantern is the tale of a heroic test pilot who is chosen by a magic ring to become a superhero because he is fearless. Replace heroic with “complete asshole,” though.

Hal Jordan is undoubtedly fearless, except for the part where he chokes in a test flight because he sees a picture of his dad and has a Vietnam flashback of him blowing up in his plane. He and his love interest, Carol Ferris, who is his love interest because he doesn’t know any other women I guess, test their skills against her father’s new super prototype pilot-less plane that does not make silly mistakes that pilots make, like having instincts. Hal Jordan decides the best way to win is to go against the rules of engagement, use his wingman as a decoy and has her shot down, and then when his plane goes to shit, our fearless hero freaks out and damages the plane and the two prototype planes. Oh, and because he freaked out and bails on his plane anyway, having his wingman get killed was just adding insult to injury and, in combat, would have resulted in Hal being court martialed, tried, and possibly charged with manslaughter.

This results in him getting (correctly) chewed out for destroying billions of dollars’ of equipment and getting many engineers fired from their jobs. He responds with “Shit happens,” because shit will indeed happen.

Meanwhile, in much more interesting outer space, a creature that feeds entirely on fear (the color yellow), uh, is a complete dick, and hurts one of the Green Lanterns so badly that he dies crash landing on Earth. He asks the ring to go find his replacement, and finds Hal. Fearless Hal, from which he will now be identified, and scared out of his fucking mind, is magically transported to the crash site and, through deleted scenes or bad editing, happily accepts the ring, NO QUESTIONS ASKED, and the lantern, and laments the death of his new friend the alien as opposed to being completely shocked and bewildered that a fucking alien crash landed on fucking EARTH.

Fearless Hal becomes the Green Lantern, is given a five-minute tutorial on how to be Green Lantern (click the Help button!), which says he can create anything he wills but the ring has to be recharged in 24 hours or something, like a smartphone. Sinestro is so upset by the death of his mentor he decides Hal is (correctly) a complete jerkass wimp and Fearless Hal quits being Green Lantern. He is reminded by another Green Lantern that the ring chose him for a purpose, because he is fearless. So fearless, in fact, that he nearly pisses himself several times throughout the movie.

Meanwhile, a balding Peter Sarsgaard is called to perform an autopsy on the dead alien and at this point in the movie we have no reason to bear ill will to this character. However, the yellow alien shit they found in the dead Green Lantern manages to enter Sarsgaard’s circulatory system despite wearing rubber gloves and OH NOES HE IS NOW THE VILLAIN! He meets with his father, a loony ass Tim Robbins, who seems to like his son and apologizes to him for the theatrics regarding his super secret lab, but Sarsgaard hates his dad–I guess because he pokes fun at him that he can’t get dates or something. Okay!

Fearless Hal and Carol patch up their, uh, relationship, and says she doesn’t hate him even though he sent her to “die” in a test flight, got tons of people fired and embarrassed her father in front of the US military who made the wise decision of sending their best pilots up, including the douchiest one, against the drones he was trying to sell for whatever reason. Oh, and he ditches her the moment she brings up his dad. Outside the bar they were drinking at, Fearless Hal is accosted by three of the men he got fired earlier that day or week and, in true heroism, uses the Green Lantern ring to make a giant fist that sends them all flying and probably crippled for the rest of their lives. That’ll show those assholes for being angry about losing their jobs because of one douchey pilot.

Somewhere in here, Sinestro is pleading to the Guardians about how they should probably do something about Parallax, since he killed a bunch of Green Lanterns and wiped out like two planets’ worth of people. The Guardians DO NOT GIVE A FUCK, nor will they for the rest of this movie. Sinestro calls a meeting and gets his fellow GL Corps all rallied for a fight, and off they go to fight Parallax. They get their asses kicked. Whoops. Apparently these GLs were pretty scared and got their souls sucked out or something.

Peter Sarsgaard feels weird, and powerful. Oh man, he can read minds and tap into memories! He uses his powers on a douchey college student before running away and screaming in one of about five scenes of him screaming.

Meanwhile, Carol patches shit up and manages to land the military contract for her father’s company. A big party is held. Fearless Hal is there, too, even though he is on suspension and grounded as a pilot, who runs into Peter Sarsgaard. They hate each other, for some reason, I think. They have one line of awkward dialogue and then Carol comes in. I guess Sarsgaard really hates that Carol likes Fearless Hal’s abs more than his balding head. Tim Robbins is there, too, being a jovial dude, but man does Sarsgaard hate him. So much that he tries to crash his father’s helicopter but fails, because the Green Lantern shows up and makes a Micro Machines race track to save the day! Oh and a large display almost crushes Carol after she crashes into the band’s instruments, but she is saved by a foxhole Fearless Hal created or some shit.

After this scene, Fearless Hal has a one-on-one with Carol, where he expresses concern that he is afraid of this new ‘job’ and thinks he sucks at it, and Carol tells him “Well, you do kind of suck.” Fearless Hal goes away and I guess takes a walk to think about what a douche he is. In all of this, Tim Robbins’ secret government scientists try to solve Peter Sarsgaard’s Giant Headed Villain Syndrome, but he’s not having that shit. He starts destroying the lab and the employees, and in swoops in Fearless Hal to save the day, except for the part where Hal couldn’t save Tim Robbins, who gets roasted the fuck alive. Jeez. At this point in the movie I am trying to figure out why Peter Sarsgaard hates Tim Robbins so much, and Fearless Hal. I mean, he is a complete douche, but there is more to it than the film will ever show us.

So, Peter Sarsgaard attacks things, and we don’t know why. Fearless Hal is useless, and a dick. Sinestro decides they should fight fire with fire and builds a yellow ring of fear to use to destroy Parallax, the ACTUAL villain of this movie. Fearless Hal decides enough is enough and visits the Guardians again and pleads with them to let him take down Parallax in what is probably a suicide mission. Once again, the Guardians DO NOT GIVE A FUCK, but when Fearless Hal calls them afraid, they DO GIVE A FUCK, in the same way Marty McFly in Back to the Future went ape shit if he was called a chicken. They give him the go ahead after he gives an inspirational speech he most likely looked up on IMDB seconds before delivering it… to do what he was doing already. One wonders why he needed permission to go fight evil that’s like right above their heads.

Peter Sarsgaard, who physically mutated into Tommy Wiseau, director of the masterpiece The Room, kidnaps Carol, I guess, somehow, and threatens Fearless Hal to, um, NOT be Green Lantern I think or he’ll pump Carol so full of that yellow alien shit that she’ll be so fugly to the point of undateable (he SERIOUSLY says this!). He just doesn’t like Hal, and why should he? I can’t even answer that. The movie never shows us why. Hal tricks Sarsgaard into wearing the Green Lantern ring and OH SHIT IT HURTS HIM BECAUSE THE RING CHOSE HAL! Okay, with the fake villain defeated, it’s time for Hal to take on Parallax, who is two parts squid, seven parts feces, and all Smug (as seen in the South Park episode of the same name). Hal makes a bunch of shit to fight it off, most notably an anti-aircraft gun. Next scene, without ANY transition whatsoever so this is not just poor transitioning on my part, they’re in outer space. After endless efforts to down Parallax, Hal decides the sun should burn this motherfucker. So the rest of the battle is Hal nudging Parallax ever so slowly to the sun. Did I mention there is anENTIRE GREEN LANTERN CORPS, THOUSANDS OF THESE MOTHERFUCKERS, JUST HANGING AROUND instead of, like, ASSISTING WITH THE BATTLE? This is taking too long, both the movie and I think, and Hal finally nudges Parallax enough that the sun’s gravitational pull yanks him in and cooks it. Hal is exhausted and almost burns himself, until the Green Lantern Corps, five of them anyway, arrive in time to yank him back into space and the day is saved.

Hal tells Carol “I have to go now, my (new) planet needs me!” and the credits roll. Goodbye, Poochie, we’ll miss you! I mean, Hal!

The major spoiler here? Hal Jordan is the villain of Green Lantern.

Expansion!

I’d been giving this some thought. As of late, I haven’t played anything frequently enough to provide any sort of substantial commentary. I’m just now continuing my game of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn for the Nintendo DS, which I started all the way back in December. Since the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade program launches in July, I’ll at least have something to try out. To be honest, I’ve been sitting on writing an entire piece on L.A. Noire for quite some time, but I have to start collecting my thoughts.

In fact, lately, I’ve been watching more films and reading than playing games. So, as of today, I am expanding this blog to include all forms of entertainment. I simply hope to come away a better writer from this experience. The first will be commentary on X-Men: First Class.

See you then!