Epistle to the Apostate

Hey, Yago --

Read your article. It's interesting, and it needs a response. I hope there will be better ones coming, but here is one.

Note: my disagreements with you are in no way meant to be arguing with your feelings -- as an explication of your reaction to the Warriors circa 2016, your piece is illuminating, and you are, of course, allowed to have the judgments you have. But I think your judgments and mine, when contrasted, might point out some interesting differences in how and why to watch basketball. So that is my intent here: to highlight some contrasts in our judgments so that we can both maybe learn something interesting about how / why to watch basketball. Please take my comments in that spirit!


If I can begin by attempting to summarize some of your objections, this may help.
1. Steph Curry receives adulation in arguably excessive measure and for extremely suspect reasons: he's not a plucky underdog, he's a rich kid who grew up with a lot of advantages; he's not really a small man, but he's a little baby-faced, light-skinned, etc., and just in general is a kid who seems to have been genetically engineered to be non-threatening; also there's this weird xian crap around him, which, yuck
2. The Warriors are winning excessively and excessively easily, and this removes some of the compelling nature of the games
3. Their style may prove detrimental, as other teams attempt to copy-cat them
4. Their style may prove detrimental, as it may come from an excessive focus on the quantitative aspects of the game and "efficiency" in general

I actually agree with more than a little of all this. Let's go bottom to top.

I personally don't perceive an excessive focus on efficiency / quantitative approaches to the game in the Warriors' game. Doesn't mean it's not there, just means that I'm not perceiving it, because what I'm perceiving is one magnificent player (Curry), and some remarkably versatile supporters (Dray, Iggy) along with a lot of role players (Klay, Bogut, etc.) execute a style that shouldn't work as well as it does at such a high level that most teams can't compete with it. On a raw personnel level, this team doesn't seem to me like it should be that great. On an efficiency level, the paragon is James Harden: get fouled or get a 3, play no D so you get the ball back, lather, rinse (or stir the tea), repeat. This team shoots a lot of threes, but that's because Steph is peerless at it and Klay is streaky but competent there. But there's not the overwhelming focus on threes or free throws that you'd expect to see if they were truly an efficiency-minded team.

As for (3), well, I'd rather see teams try to play like the Warriors than like James Harden. For one thing, the Warriors play defense, and they run beautifully. (Their gang-rebounding and cherry-picking is one of my favorite things about them -- at any given time, anybody might get the rebound that triggers a break, and almost anybody might be able to bring the ball up the court. THAT is the ball I love, building on the great versatility of the players they have.)

I think we may differ most here on (2): as long as the style is appealing to me, the wins and losses are less important. (I think I learned this from growing up watching the Nuggets -- I knew they weren't gonna win anything, so I learned to root for and appreciate the way they played.) And since I'm not a die-hard Warriors fan, I also don't have a huge amount of investment in their wins or losses... Obviously there's a continuum: maybe you're a 60/40 wins/style guy, maybe I'm a 60/40 style/wins guy. (I mean, it's not just an exhibition: it's not actually the ballet, tho my appreciation for basketball and ballet actually works more or less the same. I do care about the wins. Just not to the exclusion of other stuff. This is what I take Shoals to have championed with "liberated fandom", for what it's worth -- watching and appreciating the game without deferring to a rooting interest...)

And as for inevitability, I think that's an overstatement. They've lost to two sub-.500 teams. (If I hadn't retired as a Nuggets fan, that win would have made my year, I bet.) The Grizzlies and Cavs both had long stretches where they looked like they'd completely solved the Warriors -- and, as I said: this roster doesn't actually strike me as that great, beyond Curry. Take him out, or reduce his effectiveness, or do the same for Green, and this is not an extraordinarily good team. Put it this way: if they have to rely on Klay and Barnes for extended stretches, their opponents will be very satisfied...

With respect to (1), I agree with all of your assessments. That said, I find myself able to watch without thinking about any of those externalities. I enjoy watching him because he is a lights-out shooter, a phenomenal finisher, and possibly the best ball-handler I have ever seen. When I see these things, I am not moved to consider the discourse surrounding him -- as a once-failed, now-retired sportswriter, I have that luxury! ;)

That discourse matters: I am not telling you to ignore it or pretend it does not exist. But I'm mostly going to!

Another mind I respect deeply on basketball belongs to Tom Scharpling, and he has a similar read on Curry: for Scharpling, Curry now feels like a rich bully.

Cant root for the Warriors anymore. Curry went from thrilling to imperious douche, a rich kid who can’t disguise his worst traits.

— scharpling (@scharpling) December 25, 2015

I understand and appreciate this point without agreeing with it.

Honestly, the thing about the narrative about Curry that drives me the most nuts is about "athleticism". It's the same idiotic thing people said about Steve Nash: "he's not 'athletic'", evidently because he doesn't jump high enough? But eye-hand coordination is an athletic ability, and Curry and Nash are both off the charts there. Speed and quickness are athletic abilities, and they were both exceptional there. Endurance is an athletic ability, and both have that. Both are enormously talented athletes, and anyone who downplays this is a fool -- or, perhaps, trying to advance a pernicious agenda.
Anyway. I don't expect I've changed your mind -- nor was I trying to! But I think you differently value wins and losses than I do, and I think you're more embedded in game-external conversations than I am, and those are both...malleable. You might like the game better from where I'm sitting. You'd definitely like Curry better.

Your pal, Fat / Collision / Etc.

Timbuk2 Especial Claro Review: Not for Me, but Great Customer Service Wins the Day

A while back, I covered my abiding respect and affection for my Jandd Hurricane messenger bag. It was and is the stoutest and most robust bag I've owned—but it was really starting to show the wear that comes with age, and it came time to find a replacement daily driver. This is not that story.

This story lives somewhere between the story of the Jandd—a story about an adequately designed and beautifully built object—and the story of the U-Turn Audio—a story about a maybe-adequate object betrayed by abysmal customer service. This story is about the Timbuk2 Especial Claro.

Going out into the world for a new bag was thrilling and stressful. I love that kind of shopping: zooming in to check pocket details; stroking my chin over fabric types; trying to parse "weather resistant" vs. "waterproof"; squinting at different volumes and weights. But it's stressful, because I haven't been on the market for a really long time. "Ich kenne mich nicht aus", as Wittgenstein said, when he was looking to buy a new bike bag. So I spent untold hours on the internet, and more than a few hours boring the bejeezus out of Noodles talking about bags. I checked every site I could find—bag sites, review sites, shopping sites, everything. I pestered my friends with late-night texes about their bag and life choices. I stared at every person carrying a bag within eyeshot, judging, assessing, creeping the fuck out (probably).

Eventually, the planets aligned and I realized something incredibly important: I have insane numbers of coupons for ten wing-wangs off at LL Bean and those coupons stack. This means I could throw coupons at a purchase until I ran out of coupons or until the remaining charge was less than ten wing-wangs! Also? I get free shipping from Bean, because I am secretly an important man.

Let's take a secretly an important man break!

What all this meant was that I could burn a bunch of coupons and get a new bike bag for nine wing-wangs. Also the copy around it said specifically that it's for Serious Cyclists—and who's more serious a cyclist than me!? Nobody, that's who.

And that is how the Especial Claro entered my life. It was so cool looking! A little too stylish for me, probably, but I really enjoyed wearing it, carrying it, fiddling with it, looking at it, talking about it...I kind of felt like an early William Gibson character. (The "hammered carbon" look feels like a very specific alternate future I wish I inhabited sometimes.) But all was not well in this romance for the ages. Enter: writing letter to Timbuk2's customer support team.

I recently bought (and came to really like) a Medium Especial Claro. I really liked how light it was, and I appreciated its minimal approach to organizational features and pockets -- I tend to packrat a LOT of stuff, so the more pockets I have at my disposal, the more I carry with me everywhere, which isn't actually helpful. Plus I really liked its style: I'm an office drone, and the bag matched that vibe, but with a little flair / style that made me feel like I wasn't JUST an office drone.

But after less than two weeks, the seams under the shoulder strap have started to tear loose. I never carried any kind of load I consider out of line for a messenger bag -- I'd guess a 12-pack of Tecate + a couple bottles of fizzy water and a U-Lock would have been the heaviest load. I commute exclusively by bike, and ride everywhere I go, and I've been using a giant Jandd bag for years, and that kind of load would normally go on top of my everyday carry without any problems. (I had to take everything out to make that load fit the Claro, and it was a pretty tight fit.)

So my question is this: Is the Classic Messenger a better choice for me? I.e., will it allow me to carry the stuff I tend to carry on a daily basis without structural failure?
OR
Should I just go for another Claro and adapt my habits to the bag rather than assuming the bag will adapt to whatever I throw at (or in) it? (This would be the case if the Classic Messenger had about the same carrying capacity and build quality -- because if those things are equal, I much prefer the style and waterproofness of the Claro.) Thanks! Sorry for the novel's worth of backstory and detail, but as somebody who really does live on his bike, I have...well, I have special needs.

They got back to me v. quickly.

Hey [Fat],

Thank you for contacting Timbuk2.

Sorry to hear that your bag wasn't working like it should, can you shoot over an image of the issue so we can take a look?

In regards to your product question, the Classic Messenger Bag will do the trick. A lot of the colorways are made from Cordura Nylon and that is a top of the line Cordura that offers lightness and water protection!

If you grab a medium you will be able to easily fit a 12 pack, fizzee water, and U Lock...I speak from experience.

It will also be able to hold the same amount of weight, if not, more.

It is more likely to get water inside the main bucket if your bag is over stuffed, but the fold over flap on this bag also has water wings so water is less likely to dribble in.

Just let us know if there's anything else I can help with or answer,

Your pals @ Timbuk2
Customer Service

This is pretty much exactly what I wanted to hear.

This is totally helpful -- thank you VERY much! I definitely appreciate it. You should tell your boss that this was exactly the response I was hoping for, too! I'll go back to the store where I picked this up and swop out the Claro for the Classic...

I've attached a couple images of the fraying (both sides). Hope they help! The quarter was just for scale.

The story is pretty much over, but one line from their next email really made me laugh, so I'm including it here.

Hey [Fat],

Thanks for shooting over those images. That's definitely odd and not the type of quality that Timbuk2 is known for. Your Claro should have held up a lot better. I'm going to make sure our product design team gets these photos.

If for some reason the store cannot help with the swap, please let us know. We want to make sure you get the best bag that will meet your needs and let you enjoy your Tecate without any worries.

Cheers!

I like a company that demonstrates attention to detail at every step: from educating me about fabrics (never buy anything that's not Cordura: noted!) to keeping an eye on what I like to drink (Tecate and fizzy water, mainly). I like a company that takes Tecate as seriously as I do, as seriously as Kowloon Walled City takes Tecate—and tone. I like Timbuk2. I sent the Especial Claro back and have been using the Classic Messenger for a couple weeks. It's a good solution for me. But that's a story for a different time.

ANNOUNCING: I Don't Even Own a Television, a podcast

Further to our notes of the other week, it is incumbent upon us to note that our Reviewieran ways continue to spill out into the world, beyond the high walls of our beloved home and land. Yes, I continue to pound the Reviewiera drum, hollering away that SOME STUFF IS BETTER THAN SOME OTHER STUFF—this time, via a podcast, over at the I Don't Even Own a Television podcast.

Every two weeks, the ridiculously talented J. W. Friedman and I get together and riff on one or another really really crummy book. J. founded the podcast in early 2014, and it was on my radar from the first episode, a book from a romance-novel publishing house's action imprint, Harlequin Intrigue (!), an erotic (?) thriller (?) called Pregnesia (!). Episodes that stood out to me from that time:

• Pregnesia, with special guest Jeb "Mobute" Lund
• A Princess of Mars, with special guest Centa Schumacher!
• Ready Player One with special guest Mike Sacco!
• Those Who Trespass, with special guest Jeb "Mobute" Lund
• A Spell for Chameleon with special guest Jesse Dangerously
• The Actuator with special guest Alexander Hinman
• Treacherous Love with special guest Mara Wilson!

Somewhere in the run of excellent episodes with excellent guests, I managed to con J. into letting me guest on an episode. (I think I told him something like "I'm local, I always prefer to yes-and somebody when they make a joke, and I'll show up with beer".) It went well—I sure had a good time—and BOY did we read a lousy book, Brian Lumley's Necroscope. A few episodes later, it seemed to make sense to J. to offer me a gig as co-host, which I accepted the hell right out of, and since then, we've been reading every garbage book we can get our minds around. It's been a lot of fun, and it's a terrifically good fit with everything we've always tried to do here, so if you like hour-long sojourns in the land of abysmal writing, please give I Don't Even Own a Television a shot!

ALSO IT IS EXCITING AND IMPORTANT THAT WE ARE TAKING OUR SHOW ON THE ROAD! We will be guesting on fellow podcast champions The F Plus' live show ONE NIGHT ONLY, October 4, 2015, at Grumpy's in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota! It's gonna rule.

The Fantastic Four, Issue 1 (1961).

 

My five-year-olds have been bringing home these secondary source Marvel comics primers from the library, none of which are actually, y'know, comics. So dad rolled up his sleeves and placed some holds for some those Marvel Masterworks hardcover collections and here we are: me reading the first ten issues of Fantastic Four out loud.

I'm embarassed to admit it, but I don't think I've ever actually read these before. I've seen the cover art, and I think I've seen the page or pages where the four discover their powers after the cosmic rays thingamajig, but no, never read them page by page. Here's my impressions:

Stan Lee reads great out loud. And holy shit is that guy verbose. But he has a real strong rhythm and a discipline that screams of multple stern NYC public school English teachers. The sheer volume of Lee's prose drops off a ton after the first two issues, probably because he's so dang busy creating the future of a multi-platform entertainment super-industry.

Jack Kirby's art in the first issue is pretty raw, I think, but notable. I never realized how much of modern (1990s, at least) comic book art involves you always being able to see the character's face, and that if more than one person is featured in a panel, that you can see ALL their faces. Its as if, if you tried simulating where characters were standing, you would quickly find everyone had their backs to the same wall and were basically standing in a line (thinking of a lot of Jim Lee here, for some reason). Kirby, by contrast, will never hesitate to draw someone's back, especially the Four themselves.

Also striking is how little ink is devoted to actual action sequences.  For example, when the Mole Man's big green meanie from the cover of issue 1 finally makes his big appearance, the battle is devoted one single panel of the Human Torch "buzzing around the monster's head like a hornet." On the next page the Four "race for the surface." And that's it. Kirby and Lee just move on.

So, a little wordy, and the eye candy element is not so strong, but also fun and very theatrical.

-d.d.

City of Saints and Madmen

by Jeff Vandermeer (2006¹)

City of Saints and Madmen collects 16 novellas, short stories, phamphlets, adverts, guidebooks, and notes sharing the setting or subject matters of the merchant city of Ambergris (the most valuable part of a whale), including its festivals, its original inhabitants (a strange race called the Gray Caps, or Mushroom Dwellers), its history, the giant freshwater squid native to the River Moth, the Silence (a epochal event wherein 25,000 citizens vanished without a trace while the whaling fleet was out of port), the death of Voss Bender (the city's composer-dictator, kinda) and subsequent unrest, authors who insist Ambergris is a work of thier own fiction, the Hoegbottoms - the city's preeminient merchant family, and much and many more details regarding this Queen of Fantastical Cities for the reader's delight. Quite unfairly sets an impossibly high standard for the depiction of urban environments in a fantasy setting, and may well come assume a sort of biblical status in one's mind for the myriad ways in which the simple exploration of a place can be a sum experience using different styles, approaches, tone, voice, etc.

The collection starts wonderfully strong with the novella "Dradin, In Love" followed by an about-face in style with the novella-length phamphlet "The Hoegbottom Guide to the Early History of Ambergris." A third novella-length story, "The Transformation of Martin Lake," rounds out what I consider the three pillars of the book as a whole, the remaining short stories informing (and countering!) the novellas and the other stories. "The Strange Case of X" is a veiled auto-biographical novella by Vandermeer about writing about Ambergris and a fantastic valentine (and hate mail?) to the creative writing life.  Then follow 11 shorter pieces which approach Ambergreis from any which angle, concluding with a 71-page glossary.

As each story hits your reset button its easy to forget how much you enjoyed an earlier installment. As mentioned, "Dradin, In Love" is a great kickoff, giving you a first-person seat to the major elements of Ambergris: Albumuth Boulevard, the Religious Quarter and the Living Saints, the Mushroom Dwellers, the Festival of the Freshwater Squid, Hoegbottom & Sons, Ambergris' industrial past (this is one of many subtexts - the presence of great, derelict railyards littered with engines, and other allusions to a lost 'modern' era), but this followed up with the indepth background of "Early History" and by the time you finish the marvellous "Martin Lake" (regarding a painter and the passing of Voss Bender) you've forgotten how much you liked 'Dradin.'

You will leave City of Saints and Madmen with a ripe image of Ambergris' damp, muddled, dispicable-history-laden winding streets and dumpy, moldy buildings.  You will be left with lingering questions about the gray caps, the Silence, and the equally everpresent freshwater squid.  Its violent festivals and art-intwined-politics will leave you more than a little mystified.  But forever after the words "Albumuth Boulevard" will bring a smile to your face.

Required reading from a perspective of another-way-to-do-it, and from world-creation-101.  Highly recommended to anyone needing a shot in the arm of faith in the viability of fantasy.  Best if served with Mieville's Perdido Street Station and Swainston's The Year of Our War.

-d.d.

¹ City of Saints and Madmen has enjoyed multiple printings under different publishers, the first few go-arounds seeing the addition of content.  This review is of the 2006 Bantam paperback editiion, considered the final edition.  The first edition was published in 2002 by Prime Books.

This pretty sums up all the main points

Little Cthulhu


-d.d.

Streets of Astroboy

Turns out the world if full of Astroboy graffitti.


image:Narisa


image:jesper11


image:wadem


image:wednesday Mc Shiver


image:dier madrid; image:UfO


image:rotokirby


image:Rubira; image:nettsu


image: sensemaybenumbed; image:The Daemon


image:ScottD_Arch


image:fooishbar

It goes without saying, the last one's pretty awesome.

-d.d.

The Many Faces of... MITCHELL!!

image:pupkin


image:pupkin


image:pupkin


image:pupkin


image:pupkin

I really need to watch this episode again. Always get seduced by some other, newer re-released episode or set whenever I'm about to take the plunge.

Fat says this episode always makes him cry (its Joel's last), the big ol' softie.
-d.d.

Bostwick

"You love them in red, then you love them in blue, but mostly you love them in red," said Fat suddenly, unexpectedly.

D.D., knowing this to be a quote from something, furrows brow and paces about in concentration for a few minutes. Stops, looks at Fat, "I can't place it."

Fat grins, "MegaForce!" he says.

D.D. scrunches his nose at Fat, his mouth becoming a sort of sideways question mark, "why are you thinking about MegaForce?"

"I have no idea."


-d.d.

Generation S[EGA]

This beauty comes via the 'Yard, off the back of an otherwise generally bland t-shirt that came with the legendary SEGAGAGA box set which Gagaman recently 'quired. I kifed his pic and cleaned it up a little in 'shop. If he's got a scanner he should just platen the thing and make stickers or something. Those hanging controllers are just the tits.¹

-d.d.

¹As Fat might say.

The Streets of Dobuita are Never Lonely

I'm on the fuggin' warpath.

I am in the midst of a four-sided multi-console pronged offensive.

Tired of dicking around, I shelved the (more) recently started stuff (Grandia¹, Shining Force: Legacy of Great Intention², Harvest Moon GBC, Hoshigami³) and went all out on the Really Quite Far Along crowd.

After careful but unnecessary preparations I made my run on the intimidating Ikuto dungeon in Phantasy Star II⁴, and, honestly, it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. Got one last run away to complete it. This will leave me with merely Menobe, Naval and Noah to complete, all of which look considerably less complex in terms of maps (tho presumably more difficult in terms of the randoms). This front on the Genesis/Nomad secure, I pushed on into more daunting territory.

Quickly suffered a set back when I discovered I'd lost some crucial interest in Final Fantasy Tactics⁵ on the PSOne (I'm on the fourth and final chapter), but put it in a holding pattern and redoubled my efforts on Pokemon:FireRed, yielding punitive results: the 8th and final gym badge, a massive leveling grind to eventually beat the dogged Rival Trainer, and advancement to Indigo Plateau, the HQ of the Pokemon League. When not slaughtering Weezings, Grimers and Machokes, I put my non-handheld efforts into Shenmue, where I'd left off on the gripping forklift-operator/get-in-fist-fights-after-work-stage.⁶

I hadn't really touched Shenmue since the kids were born back in October so I guess I forgot how much time I'd put into to it. Like many others, I'd gotten stuck at on that goddamn "sneak into warehouse No. 8 in the old warehouse district to meet master Chen" stage on Disc 2, and had walked away from the game for a bit. I eventually figured it out⁷ and did the forklift thing but once you get that job the game takes away the joy of going to Dobuita during the day from you.

Instead, you wake up to yr alarm and then yr automatically getting off the bus down at the harbor and then yr automatically sitting on yr forklift revving the engine as you and yr mates get ready for yr patently illegal "morning race" around the docks (and you don't even gamble on it!). I guess walking all the way to and from work might wear some folks out but some sort of "Go to Directly to Work / Putz Around a Bit First" option would have been nice.

Anyways the Harbor forklifter segment feels considerably more, uh, I guess the term would be "action game on rails" (like rail-shooters, but with Shenmue): you wake/race/move boxes around/get a clue at lunch/move more boxes around/get in a fight at night, walk home, save, sleep, repeat.

To Shenmue's credit, just when yr starting to get a bit bored, shit seriously escalates. I don't know if its predetermined or if I just got lucky this way but on Christmas Eve (!) Nozumi gets kidnapped, you race a motorcycle to rescue her, fight like 8 and then 10 guys at once, and give Nozumi a ride home on the back of the hog while some ballad plays. Then you and Gui Zhang fight, and then the two of you fight 70 guys non-stop using a simplified version of the Virtua Fighter engine, but its like this totally awesome '80s action flick, 'cept w/o the guns, but totally with the quips! Then comes Ryu's best line in the game, "TAKE ME TO LAN DI!" after kicking Mad Angel ass all over the docks. Then there's some other shit but basically yr on the boat to Hong Kong.

But there's all these dangling subplots, and as awesome as the game was, I'm just disappointed because all that's left is to get Shenmue II on import. And then that's it. I mean, I can tell from the Shenmue experience that Shenmue II prob doesn't resolve all the shit left hanging from the first installment.

One regret, which I suppose I could use an old save-state to rectify.

Okay, two regrets.

First, I'd like to spend a day in Yamanose, Sakuragaoka, and Dobuita, respectively, just paying attention to the comings and going of their respective residents, taking in the detail. You pick up a lot of this detail as you plunge forward with the whole revenge-yr-father's-murder thing, but the clock is ticking, afterall, so I feel like I missed a lot.

Secondly, I hand drew a map of Dobuita at one point, based on the one posted at several points in that district. My intention was to label every building on the map, since every building has a name, whether it be the resident business or an apartment-type building.

Again, y'know, must-avenge-father's-death, kinda a priority.

-d.d.


¹ As much as I adore Grandia, I've left it sitting for the time being, lest the list of Vested Games grow too large. However, I did spend an evening with it a few weeks ago, and am still thoroughly smitten. When the current Offensive of Completion is, uh, complete, Grandia's a the top of my list.
² I was splitting Nomad time between Phantasy Star II and Shining Force fairly equally until deciding to Get On With It with PSII. Tactically, Shining Force had just kicked it up a notch by adding an enemy unit which fires a laser (!?) capable of hitting (and usually killing) the majority of active units (allies and enemies, non-discriminately) on the field in one shot. Jeepers!
³ As a quick aside, I have not found Hoshigami to be as mind-numbingly difficult as some reviews have led me to believe. I will confess that, as is to be expected of an Atlus title, the menu and command structure of this tactical RPG is rather counterintuitive, and it does do the Fire Emblem thing where characters can not be revived… but otherwise good old leveling at the "Tower of Trial," which exists specifically for the purpose of leveling, has made the battles thus far in the campaign challenging and interesting, but not impossible.
⁴ As I near the end of Phantasy Star II, I figured I'd maybe actually go back to playing it on the teevee rather than exclusively on the Nomad. Man, those 16-bit graphix and colors just take a beating when all blown up on the big screen. Immediately yanked the cart and re-fired up the Nomad. Contrary to most stuff I've read abt the Nomad, I've found that sidescrollers and shooters like Sonic, Streets of Rage 2, Gunstar Heroes and my beloved Ranger X all kinda suck on the Nomad. Too much of those games lie in the details, and I'm sorry, but I just have difficult seeing little stuff like the rings in Sonic on the Nomad screen. RPGs, on the other hand, which are usually poo-pooed as bad for the Nomad due to small text size, I've found to be excellent since speed, reflex and detail don't matter as much.
⁵ I initially purchased and got really really far in Final Fantasy Tactics back in 2001 or so, then, for reasons kinda lost to me, just stopped playing.
As I started the 4th chapter (for the second time), I realized that FFT's greatest strength is also kind of its fatal flaw: the job system. Now, I, for one, think the job system's the best, to the degree that is the primary source of moreish-ness which drives the game – the self-set goals to get character X to master-level Dragoon and character Y to master-level Geomancer and so forth is far more engaging than much-hyped but ultimately dry-as-fuck grand narrative (seriously, its retarded, unless there's some seriously mind-blowing gigantic twists in the finale I don't know about, but at this point the narrative's ultimate end seems pretty predictable to me).
But around the beginning-to-middle of the fourth chapter you'll probably have attained most of those high-level job goals, and are suddenly left with just the actual battles and the narrative, and while those high-level jobs sometimes allow you to fuckover the game, the game also still treats you like a little bitch a bunch with just ridiculous high-leveled bosses and such, all of which just leave me with a big case of "meh." I'll still give it another go.
⁶ I remember that rainy march day in 2007 well. I was supposed to meet Fat after work for a couple pints, but he was running later than me, so I hit the nearby Goodwill to kill time before heading to the pub. I walked out that Goodwill with a Dreamcast microphone, 4-in-1 VMU, Phantasy Star Online, Soul Calibur, a Dreamcast Gundam game (which Fat bought off from me), and Shenmue, all for 4.99 each (or less, tho' I think they were all 4.99) in hand.
⁷ Got so frustrating I was forced to make a map, prob the 1st time I'd had to do so for a video game, like, ever.

'Course, then along came Phantasy Star II…

idolizing yr kills with Suda 51

Two of the most interesting writers on these 'nets are Leigh Alexander and Alex Kierkegaard.

Alexander says this:

a glorious exercise in simultaneous reverence and irreverence

Kierkegaard says this:

This game fucking sssssssucks and I fucking hated almost every moment I spent playing it.

Predictably, they're both talking about the same game: No More Heroes. As far as reviews go, Kierkegaard wins on points, mainly for the above sentence, perhaps the greatest opening sentence in the history of reviewing. On the other hand, Alexander is right: No More Heroes is an absolutely fabulous game. I just finished it, and turned right around and started a new campaign on Bitter (=hard).(1)



Reviews abound for this piece, and I don't care to rehash them. I just want to heap a little praise on the best game I've played in 2008, and point out two things nobody seems to have mentioned much.



The first is that while this is a savagely violent game, with blood fountains that'd make Samurai Assassin's creators blush, a lot of the boss battles feature genuine emotional content. Yr protagonist, Travis Touchdown, is a complete prick about most of these moments, which actually only adds to the feel. --I'm at great pains to avoid the dreaded SPOILER here, but I will say that the final cutscene of Holly Summers touched me more than any videogame moment in my career.(2) And there's a lot of laughs, as well: the game intro is presented like a movie, a Tarantino movie, actually, and there's a couple lines in it that brought forth my trademark gleeful cackle. Quite a few lines and gags brought this forth, all the way to the end of the game.

The second is that the game is simply drenched in women. The plot is driven by Touchdown's (desire for a sexual) relationship with the delightfully batty Sylvia Christel. A couple of the best bosses are women, and the best cutscenes, pre-and-post-fight, involve these characters.(3) You buy your weapons from a contemptous Doctor Naomi, and if it's not clear already, this little game is going to inspire some seriously pervy cosplay.



I suspect strongly that these two game elements are related.

A couple other notes. There's a set of cat-interactions--not quite minigames--that I think are an explicit nod to Shenmue. Then there's a couple minor features that are absolute trademarks of Grasshopper Manufacture (Suda 51 & Akira Ueda, afaik), a couple features I am a HUGE SUCKER for. One is a whole lot of visual character customization.(4) Nearly 100 shirts, a dozen jackets and pairs of jeans, a bunch of belts, a couple pairs of sunglasses. I spent around 27 hours on the game, and a surprising portion of that was playing dress-up with Travis. Another killer feature is on display with the customization: huge inventories of items, many with flat-out-funny item descriptions. It's these little touches that make Grasshopper originals must-buys for this kid.

Anyways, this game was thoroughly fun to play, and masterful at doling out rewards. I dunno if I'll play a better new game this year. If I don't, I won't be sad in the slightest.



-Fat(5)

1.
Well, admittedly I did start it up on continue mode, so that I have all the unlocked stuff. So it's still pretty easy.

2.
The emotional content is accessible because of a beautiful localization job--the script (translations) and the voice acting are both outstanding. The game is admittedly unpolished in some other areas, as every review proclaims, but the work in these areas is without fault.

3.
No offense, Destroyman, but you just don't rate next to Shinobu, Bad Girl, or the SPOILER. Rest In Peace, Holly.

4.
Confidential to Suda 51: accessorizing is important. Changing belts and sunglasses is crucial, and I'm glad you built this in. (Jackets, shirts, jeans, anybody can do this--it's yr attention to accessories that makes us know you love us.) But man...it's gotta be the shoes. I want to change Travis' shoes! Next game, you best make this happen.

5.
Okay, okay. The Eurogamer review is excellent. And it occurs to me that I was led to Alexander's work by the most interesting writer on Kotaku these days: Maggie Greene. Worth noting.