The unusual suspects

Another passion of mine. Video games. They've come a long way since I first set my hands on an Atari. I realise, owing to conversation with a friend of mine, that I tend to gravitate towards game play more than graphics. I agree with him wholeheartedly.


It's not that I don't find flashy graphics entertaining. It's just that their novelty wears off quickly unless followed by some substance. Take the latest offering for the multi platform crowd - Prototype - A pretty game in which you play an genetically enhanced Ned who can flying kick helicopters and chuck cars like cards. While entertaining for a while, it falls into an unsatisfying grind of watching the same little computer people explode when you so much as touch them.


That said, I've played some grossly underrated (yet brilliant) games in the past few months and would like to recommend them to you.


Etrian Odyssey 2 for the DS is one such game. It's a first person dungeon crawler which is part Tower of Drauga, part Might and Magic. You create a party of 5 adventurers out of the 10 or so classes (12 after you unlock the secrets) and proceed to climb your way up the mysterious world tree upon whose crown rests a magical city. The tower (and it's 25 odd floors) are conveniently filled with monsters who show up in random battles as well as F.O.Es who are grossly overpowered monsters that give you no experience, but instead reward you with rare items. These once sold to the shop gives you access to some powerful weapons for your boffins. The game is unforgiving. If you die (and fail to run away to the town where you start from) it's game over.
The game's difficulty is not hard to master, but a casual gamer may find the learning curve a bit steep. I had a couple of false starts and got my party wiped clean on the first floor because I didn't quite know when to stop and go back to town. The bottom touch screen of the DS is used in a way that is what makes the game unique. It uses it as a parchment on which you are to draw the map of the dungeon. The game really does treat you as an adventurer and rewards you for collecting information on monsters and completing the map accurately. The F.O.Es are the only enemies visible on the map as different coloured orbs floating about and each floor has it's respective colour scheme. Once you've passed 5 or so floors, you've crossed a stratum and can continue from there rather than trudging up from floor one.


Then there's Swords and Sandals series. A game designed entirely in flash by an Australian company called Fizzy Games. It first started out as a game on the popular flash portal Newgrounds.com and was made by a person known as HeChaos. The premise of the game is to put you in the shoes of a gladiator in a fictional time and have you go up against other gladiators to increase in level and armament. Simple enough premise.
Subsequent versions of the games have added a little more to the mix by giving you an increasing amount of stuff to equip, a class system, magic, mana and a rudimentary skill tree that affects your play. In the background to the cartoony graphics and a guitar riff and a bunch of Australians screaming "LOOOOSEERRRR" the game runs on very D&Dish number crunching system.
The game's ever present "little fat kid" does the computations for your benefit. Every piece of armour you can equip gives a boost to a bar above your life bar which acts as a buffer for all attacks against you. However, critical hits completely bypass your armour and attack your health bar instantly, making the game a bit biased towards pure melee classes.
The game has many versions apart from the standard gladiatorial fight fest. S&S4 being a board game, with your gladiator being your piece on the board, making you spin a dice to get to the end and being marked for achievements such as most gold earned, most gold earned in minigames, most fights won, etc. Then there's S&S crusaders, an strategy variant where instead of gladiators it gets you to buy armies and control provinces for a cash flow - all the while pitting your forces against the opponents. Most of the games are prone to buggy gameplay due to their construction in flash, but on the flipside, they're tiny (25mb) and can be a good trivial escape from boredom. You can play a demo at www.Kongregate.com or www.Newgrounds.com but you have to pay £10 to own a full version.


Lastly, there's Elements. It's a card game (again designed in flash) by a person called Zanzarino whose production values are impressive. An odd bastard child of Magic: the Gathering and the Japanese Duel monsters, the game gives you the choice to specialise in one of the 12 elements and then starts you off with a deck comprised of cards related to the element (plus the Quantum deck which works for all elements).
You are then challenged to play through the game using these cards. You can play the ever increasingly difficult A.I. or you can go ahead and play against human opponents.
The mechanics of the game are robust. The objective of the game is to deplete your opponent's HP by attacking them. Summoned monsters, certain spells and equippable weapon cards called permanents can damage the opponents life points directly. You can play an infinite number of cards from your hand in any turn (provided you have the corresponding Mana) and each card has a special effect that can be triggered once per turn or, in rare cases, infinitely. At the beginning of every turn you are awarded with 1 mana per "pillar" of the element you have played plus 1 of the element you are a master in (3 random points of mana per Quantum pillar you've played).
The game allows you to have as many elements in your deck as possible allowing you to create a permutation of cards suited to your gameplay. You could balance out the very defensive earth element with the very offensive fire element. Or you could bolster your survivability by adding the life element that allows you to heal damage to your health bar. The difference that Magic the Gathering players will pick up is that there is no barrier between your health bar and the damage you get from the opponents monsters and/or spells as well as the fact that you cannot subsitute one type of mana for another when summoning. You can play cards that postpone damage or reduce it but you cannot stop it, making an average game about 5-10 minutes long. I still keep finding little nuances and tricks when I play it and it makes the game all the more richer and intricate. With over 100 cards its easy to make a deck that plays uniquely.
The game penalises your score for losing and is fairly hard to master so consider resetting your deck every now and then until you find that winning combination. The best part? It's absolutely free of cost. There is an option to donate via paypal to keep the game afloat but contributing is up to you. The maker of the game doesnt really stress on it too much. You should definitely give it a go at http://www.elementsthegame.com.

These games are by far nothing compared to the behemoths churned out by the likes of EA and Rockstar, however their endearing presence and odd quirky nature appeal to a certain form of gamer. Some might say it appeals to 'Oldies' or people living in the past. I beg to differ. Games have always been about playing them rather than gawking at the 'realistic' imitation of life.

Not much of a game without some play isn't it?

Oh Glasgow, my Glasgow

Glasgow.

What can I say? It's a bittersweet city. A city that, if it was a person, would be a person with mild schizophrenia. Having lived in Glasgow for a bit, I can only relate the oddities and virtues that stood out to me.

Pigeons. Nearly everywhere else I've been, pigeons have been like jittery neurose ridden things that would fly away if you looked at them wrong. In Glasgow, you can walk around George Square and pigeons have the right of way. They will look at you with blood red eyes, chip dangling from the mouth like a Bogartesque cigarette, asking you what your problem is. They only fly away if you try to jump on them. Probably saying "Whit yae daen, ya fanny!?"

Seagulls. The size of decently sized microwaves tip to tip flying in the sky, squawking threats against the food you are holding, little dogs and your life (In that order). I will admit I orchestrated a strategic retreat from a fallen hamburger which was set upon by these flying Grim Reapers. I felt a deep sadness for the hamburger, being ripped bun to bun by the gulls.

Glasgow, like most cities, is divided by areas. Namely the center, north, west, east and south. Each area has it's own distinctive flavour of resident who is the predominant shade in which the respective area is painted.

The West End, Bohemian students flitting about making trips to the supermarkets for bits of food and gallons of liquids, forever rolling herbal cigarettes. Affluence is present in the West End like a rash.

There's the East side used to be the domain of wealthy merchants and businessmen until they started shifting towards the West End, following the trail of money. Now it's like the poorer cousin of the West End, after being mugged blind by capitalism and promises of grandeur.

Then there's the South side. You can see so many chiselled, weathered faces in the South that you might think that the words "gruff" and "tough" were coined there. The average age is around 40 and its a part of town you can feel intimidated yet safe. Oh, it has a forest called Queens Park right in the middle.

I admit I don't know much about the North side. As far as I am concerned it's a dark no man's land devoid of human life. The two things that are there in some degree of plenty are colleges and Car dealerships. All in all, a bit like New York (from the movie Escape from New York).

Then there is the City Centre. Cosmopolitan, Cool and ...well, full of something else with a C. The Centre is where most visiting Londoners will confine themselves to when "oot on de toon". While entertaining nonetheless, the misconception about widespread violence in Glasgow is often a myth perpetuated by sporadic drunken fisticuffs and blatant rumour mongering. Glasgow's more intimidating than violent at best (Although, violence is exceptionally brutal when it occurs).

Speaking of violence, one is bound to mention Neds. No, not a collection of Ned Flanders. Neds are an abbreviation for "Non-Educated Delinquents". Glasgow's version of the British Chav. They often speak in a dialect that isn't quite intelligible. It's not quite Glaswegian as it is a mish mash of words that only they can understand. They also function quite like small mammals, being as they can only display strength in numbers. The moment you make a threatening move or display a show of strength they scatter.

I often get asked, "why Glasgow?" when I tell people I could have gone to New Zealand (land of the lord of the rings) or Cardiff (Welsh capital of ..... don't really know much) or the bustling life of London. I often wonder "why not?"

I love the pace of this city. It flows well, and I never feel homesick. I'd like to think of Glasgow as my city now, even though I wasn't born here. D'yaknowhaaymeen?

Urban Language.

While most of us have occasionally dipped into UrbanDictionary.com and found ourselves some classic terms that describe nearly everything, Some of these terms are beyond the normal scope of the world while some are just convenient rearrangements.

Still, they contain merit. And for that very reason I'm going to paste a few of my favourite to know (if not say) in the post. So, In alphabetical order:

America: A country that claims the name of an entire continent to itself alone for no compelling reason.

Awkward Turtle: When you're in an awkward moment, place your hands on top of each other, and spin your thumbs forward. Thus creating the creature know as awkward turtle.

Beer Summit: The meeting of President Obama and any parties for which an injustice has occurred. This meeting must take place in the White House and be broadcast throughout the media.

Dudevorce: When two male best friends officially end their friendship over a lame disagreement, usually concerning a girl.

Facebook Alzheimer's: When you get a friend's request from someone that you have no idea where you know them from. The worst part is you have mutual friends from work and school! You post messages on each other's wall and they never know you have no clue as to how you know them.

Facebrag: To use Facebook as a platform to brag. Normally about a job, internship, trip, purchase or anything else that nobody really needs to know but you'd like to tell everyone because you're awesome.

Hiking in Appalachia: To have an extramarital affair. Stems from the disappearance and subsequent reappearance of South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford(R). Gov. Sanford was thought to be hiking in Appalachia. In actuality, he was having an affair in the South American country of Argentina. (this one made me laugh for a while)

Parking Karma: The uncanny ability to find an open parking space in a desirable location of a busy parking lot.

Problem Saturation: A process by which Mainstream Media addresses an issue incessantly, building up to a sense of pending doom. Of course, the problem, while worrisome, does not pose the grave threat they would like you to believe. Finally, MSM abandons coverage of the problem completely, moving on to another problem.

Running Latte: showing up late to work because you stopped for coffee along the way.

Sarah Palin Effect: The principal that expertise on a certain subject can be gained through geographical proximity to it, i.e. Palin's knowledge on foreign affairs with Russia on account of Alaska being geographically close.

Weenis: The loose skin on your elbow.

Writer's Crap: Derived from 'writer's cramp', writer's crap refers to a stage when one is only capable of writing utter crap. (I think I'm suffering from this now)

Zinedine Zidane: The only thing Brazil is afraid of.

Opposites.

Opposites attract. I find that to be the most inane drivel ever spoken by a human being. Why? Apart from the romantic notions and blithering ideals of love, opposites create unnecessary friction, and ultimately some form of spousal abuse.

Naysayers might go on as to quote many an example to me but it doesn't make sense to me. I was recently talking to C and realised how much we had in common. Like a near telepathic link to what the other was thinking.

This, of course, stems not from some supernatural force but more a common understanding. The romanticised notion that is "opposites attract" is just a bit flawed.

It may be the case that you are attracted to someone who is your opposite in most terms. Your attraction would almost be based on a subconscious form of envy, i.e. you see a quality they have that you like. It's rather simple. It's got appeal because by being with said opposite you somehow feed off that facet of their personality. It gets boring after a while.

Yes, shoot me. I said boring. I will not go into analogies or fall into becoming a twisted agony aunt on relationships. The point is that the term "opposites attract" is a dangerous concept - it's too absolute in its form.

Social science and "the mystery method", in my opinion, are two really deluded forms of human endeavours. While I will give Social Sciences a higher credo, because it is not focused on this aspect of human courting and has to do with a wider scale of human social interaction, The mystery method is a simply mind bending mish mash of survival of the fittest and nascent psychology which caters to a hollow, mentally bankrupt society.

It assumes that a woman is passive and the man must initiate contact as well as the ultimate aim of all human relationships is to procreate. I see the ones amongst you who like disagreeing with things thinking "oh? yes, but isn't it?" It's not. Anyone who simplifies it to that is just looking for it.

But get a load of this. Adam Lyons, a 'dating' coach, has simplified the human courtship process into a simple, easy to understand formula.

(Comfort - Rapport) + Qualification + Sexual Escalation = Attraction.

The thing is that both of these endeavours to understand human courtship fail because there are too many bits and factors that are unpredictable. It's nigh impossible to measure it or confine it within methods and theories.

While I am no purveyor of the truth, I do understand that people are more inclined towards similarities as well as complementary differences. Opposites can only do one thing - be wildly attracted to each other and then crash into themselves.

Please, leave this thing alone to remain a mystery.

After all, as said Oscar Wilde:

"The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death."

A moment of clarity

Everybody in this world has these moments of clarity when all the tumblers fall into place and we unlock an answer so accurate, it's weight hits us with the force of the sky falling on our heads.

I first recognized the moment of clarity when I read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The starting of one of the books had this paragraph.

"And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever."

It was this paragraph that got me thinking - Don't we all have that kind of feeling once in a while? An epiphany, a disclosure or an revelation that sudden creates a sudden expansion of all mental functions.

Many people say that they've never had this sort of thing. Truth is they have experienced it but cannot identify it. It's treated with a glove of jovial contempt in general, denied as being 'too poetic' or 'useless', but these moments are what makes life worth living.

Its funny but I find myself addicted to these moments of clarity. Funny because you cannot predict them or have them on command. Yet watching a good movie, reading a good book or just listening to music can sometimes give me a clear thought.

Hitchhiker's was one thing that did that for me repeatedly. As were the works of the late Spike Milligan. I've even had one playing Street Fighter. I wont list them but they were hilarious or revealing in their own right.

I've had moments of clarity about people. Whether it be by talking to them or interpreted through their actions. The thing is you should never discount such a moment because invariably it releases you to a sense of wondrous disbelief - "Why didn't I think of that before?"

So the next time you have something like that, savour it. These moments are few and far between. To end, I will illustrate this with a popular Zen saying.

"When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much."

Vagabond

Tastes evolve. When you were a kid you loved flashy, weirdly animated and often simplistic cartoons or shows. The good guys were always good and the bad guys were always beaten.

When you grow up you tend to re-evaluate the current situation. Maybe you see layers of complexities in the stuff you thought was simple or simply find something that blows you away. In that vein, I admit to have read and watched many a morose anime series and read many a manga from the former.

That is until I read Takehiko Inoue's 'Vagabond'.

Takehiko is known widely amongst the western world for his iconic manga about basketball called 'Slam dunk'. I've read that too, but this is miles and miles above the fantasy world of Shonen manga. This is a masterpiece in itself.

The manga deals with a re-telling of the life of Miyamoto Mushashi loosely based on the novel by Eiji Yoshikawa. While the novel is an epic work spanning at least 6 books detailing Mushashi's rise as a swordsman in the midst of Japan's feuding lords, the manga deals with it in a more personable manner, making it easier for the reader to get into the mind of someone we can only imagine.

Miyamoto Mushashi, inventor of the Hyoho Niten-ichi ryu style of kenjutsu, was a 16th century swordsman in Japan. At a very early age he showed skill with a sword others could only dream of. Stories of a boy from the country who bested students and masters from reputed schools of swordsmanship with a wooden sword made him grow into a living legend. A man who was and is considered the archetype of a samurai in many a mind.

But how did he reach this pinnacle? How did he become the Mushashi? That is where Takehiko Inoue's work provides an interesting insight.

Takehiko's work and basis of Mushashi's life is grim and dark. In the manga Shinmen Takezo, Mushashi's birth name, is a boy castigated by villagers as being a demon child after he assaults and kills a swordsman who issues a challenge to the townsfolk. His violent and angry ways fuelled by his cold hearted and anarchic father, Takezo leaves the village aged 17 to fight in the war between the Tokugawa and the Toyotomi families for control of Japan. Along with Takezo goes his boisterous and reasonably untalented friend Matahachi who wants nothing more than to prove he is a man and Takezo's equal. Their lives run parallel to each other in the manga and are beautifully inverse in their odd relationship as friends.

The Mushashi in the manga is a beast. A demon forged by the sole purpose of being "invincible under the sun". He fights mercilessly, kills without remorse or hesitation and lives a destructive life. The manga portrays this in a most graphic sense, so be warned it's not pretty or nice. Reading a little into the manga, the reader is able to recognize Takezo/Mushashi's reasoning behind his way. We realise his motives for being this way as a justification of his existence.

When he isn't drawing his sword against a foe, Takezo is a quiet youth. Forever in his thoughts, polite and righteous Takezo deals with his day to day interactions in a humane way. He is almost portrayed as being more animal than human in thought, surviving on instinct. It is later that he, through his interactions and reflections realises what he is doing and has done all his life. He understands the concept of karma and his hand in creating a "cycle of death and desperation".

While my understanding and portrayal of the manga may seem complicated, the language and method used by Takehiko Inoue is simple and straightforward making it one of the most easily read manga I have ever come across.

What really shines through is the artwork. Characters are realistic. The odd rare super-deformed heads and anime conventions of emoticons are present, usually for comic effect, but they are unnoticable in the sheer work in making the character's feel believable. The picture I put up with this post is one of the examples of how the manga is drawn. Takehiko uses both pen and brush in liberal doses to create a fluid, almost Sumi-e form of expression. The swordfights are brutal affairs, dealt within a few panels - No acrobatics - No special moves - No superhyperpowered laser beams. All players are human, with human limits. The 'good guy' or the main character suffers real injuries that take a believable time to heal.

All this serves to negate the suspension of belief for this manga. Quite the opposite that by showing these characters who are so strong yet so fallible, Takehiko defies most anime and manga conventions. To anyone who thinks comics are unreadable things, I would recommend Vagabond.

You can read Vagabond here. It is marked mature for its graphic content.

Adventure Boys and Memories

Today I'm going to write about a manga and an anime I've recently seen. Both of them are fairly dated yet they are in themselves works of art.

Lets talk about the manga first. It's known as "Adventure Boys" or "Boken Shonen". Drawn and written by noted mangaka Adachi Mitsuru and serialised between '98 and '06 it's his best work till date.

sidenote: Most japanese comics are 'serialised' or released chapter by chapter in magazines that are compilations of different mangakas. This makes reading them a more involving affair and gives many artists their 'breaks'. Popular magazines include Shonen Jump and Weekly Shōnen Magazine.

Adventure Boys comes in the form of 7 well told stories. We've all reached a point in our lives where we can look back on our youth. It's odd that sometimes our aims when we were young and our aims now conflict and sometimes suffer the ravages of time and sensibility. The manga tells us stories of this disillusionment of our youthful ideals through the eyes of the young.

The artwork in the manga is Mitsuru's traditional style which he uses in his more mainstream manga - Detailed backgrounds and props foreshadowed by simple facial and bodily forms. This drastic contrast lends to the apparent innocence of the subject matter.

Mitsuru's story writing is even more engrossing - he keeps it simple while letting the reader form their own thoughts about the direction things are going in. He doesn't hold your hand and lead you through the pages - he offers hints, tips and nudges in the right way. It covers a wide variety of subjects including the changes in friendship's, childhood beliefs, atrocities and even the innocent concept of love and belonging.

If this makes you want you to throw up, stop reading and skip to the movie below - still - I would reccomend reading this when no one else is looking lest you feel 'lame' or 'stupid'. The stories in this manga are applicable to all of us. So put your egos in a box and read.

All in all, a highly recommended read for anyone and not just manga lovers. You can read all 7 chapters online here.



Next, I'd like to talk about Memories by Katsuhiro Otomo. If any of you've watched the cult classic Akira and recognize it's makers name, then Memories will not disappoint.

‘Memories’ is a movie made up of 3 unrelated segments. All based on stories written by Otomo and directed by friends of his who have worked with the award winning artist/director in the past.

The first segment is called 'Magnetic Rose' directed by Koji Matsumoto and screenplay by Satoshi Kon. Set in a time in the future where space debris is eliminated and retrieved by ships serving as intergalactic garbage trucks. One such ship receives a mysterious S.O.S. from a highly magnetized region of space. What's more strange is that the S.O.S is actually an operatic piece. The crew find themselves drawn towards the source while wondering what lies there....and whether it's friendly.

The second one is a more humorous, sarcastic take on human frailties. 'Stink Bomb', directed by Tensai Okamura and screenplay by Otomo, is a comedic masterpiece of insane proportions. All hell breaks loose when a biological weapon is let loose towards Tokyo, prompting the entire Japanese self defence force to combat the terrible onslaught. The onslaught being brought by a single, weak, mild mannered lab assistant, Nobuo Tanaka. On a Honda super cub scooter. This is made of so much Win.

Sidenote: Here's what a Honda cub looks like. note the sheer unimpressiveness of the thing.

Finally, there's the short yet epic 'Cannon Fodder'. If you ever thought anime wasn't your cup of tea and the flashy lines and cheesy dialogue put you in a state of catatonic disapproval then this is what you need to see. The exception to the case, written and directed by Otomo himself, Cannon Fodder is equal parts Orwellian nightmare and a study into the world's (current) state.

All three shorts carry a pedigree in artwork, music and screenplay with them. The medium of animation, not restricted by physical boundaries or materials, allows the stories to come alive in ways most film makers can only think of. The segments provide you with a mix of all genres nearly at once - sci fi, action, comedy, drama and thrills - while not making it a mish mash of the same.

You can watch a medium quality, subtitled version of this film here. Let it buffer for a bit and be sure to click accept or the file wont play.