What works

1. Everything is an improvement.

The first Velocity game had a straightforward, NES-era sensibility to it, reminiscent of games like Metal Storm or Contra. The art direction and level design was simple, some might even say bland or samey, and enemy variety was a tad underwhelming, but it was cohesive and solid, everything fitting together perfectly. On top of that, it had very tight controls and unparalleled gameplay. It was almost perfect, hardly feeling like a Playstation mini.

Velocity 2X might seem like it does very little to build on its predecessor, with many changes so subtle, they can be easily missed, and it's doubtful many will appreciate them. The artwork is still overall minimalistic with its textures and color palettes, but many levels have such fine details and subtle touches (like waterfalls that surprise you with a sense of height) that it's easy to get lost in the sheer beauty of certain spots.

2. Gunning and running.

When I first saw the screenshots of the "on foot" segments, I was a little bit worried. It seemed like the step the folks at FuturLab took off the ship was a timid, cautious one that played it safe and checked with its neighbor. Frankly, it looked like an endless runner. Don't get me wrong, that would have made sense, and I love many of those games like Jetpack Joyride and Canabalt, but it would have felt like a token gesture toward expanding on the original concept. Luckily, I was so very wrong and I couldn't be happier about it. It is, in fact, a fully-realized sidescrolling platforming shooter with puzzles and exploration. There's even some combat and physics thrown in for good measure. It reminded me of Major Havoc with a touch of Metroid, all with the slick polish of WayForward's Bloodrayne: Betrayal. Kai Tana has extremely fluid and graceful animations, whether it's leaping across a disintegration field or firing her palm blaster (which makes me think of Vanessa Z. Schneider from P.N.03, a stylistically similar title I also happen to love) or even waiting for an elevator.

3. That certain... I don't know what.

Actually, I do, but it's a little hard to describe. The short, crude version of it is: it makes you feel like a badass. Word is that the development team had to insist on a female lead even as far back as the first game, when we never left the ship. I, for one, am glad they stuck to their guns and delivered an awesome character who manages to be dead sexy, and does so on her own terms. When you're standing in a chamber of crystal deposits firing that hand cannon in a circle, shards of glass and debris falling all around you, it's hard not to let a smiling, "Aw, Hell yeah!" escape your lips. Before long, you're taking down Vokh patrols like it's second nature. You'll be flinging bombs at switches and turrets like you can see the future. You'll have distributing telepods down like a science. All, this, and you'll know it's you doing it, not some contextual action script set to Quick Time Events or button-mashing. That's a hard feeling to achieve, and this game nails it.

What doesn't work

1. The side scrolling stages have room for improvement.

It was often difficult to use the teledash while jumping or falling, and it would be nice if I could simply tap the screen rather than aiming exclusively with the controls. It would also be nice if your telepod inventory was separate from those you have for the Quarpjet (there's a notable size difference). I actually managed to just about break the game because I didn't realize I'd used up all my telepods back on the ship and got myself stuck. Of course, I could probably have backtracked to the ship, but since I didn't realize the inventory was shared, I thought it was a glitch. On that note, while the idea of the telepods to get through narrow hazards is great, it felt like I was having my hand held for far too long. At various points in the levels, there are these pads you're meant to stand on and aim your telepod at. I could understand these in the level wherein you're introduced to the mechanic, but having them throughout the game feels like there's no strategy to it.

2. Speaking of telepods...

While micromanagement of telepods is vastly improved, namely the fact that you can retrieve spent pods through the map screen, the "shortcut" of hopping over to the last pod dropped by double-tapping the triangle button is a surefire way to get innards smeared across a bulkhead. At least two out of three tries caused me to drop two more pods where I stood. That double tap has to be just perfect, and I could never do it on command. The sidescrolling stages didn't have this problem, which makes me wonder if this could possibly be a runtime issue.

3. Speed Pads Are Worthless.

Velocity is a thinking man's shooter. In a game that already invigorates its genre by favoring pre-planning and exploration over twitch reflexes, having parts that railroad the player onto a fast track feels tacky. What's the point to the thrill of the added speed if you've got to be that much more alert with your teleporting? It's not even as though they're placed in strategic locations that would give you the best of both worlds if you were quick thinking enough to hit each one in rapid succession. To be fair, toward the end, one mission had them placed so close to upcoming walls that I had to resort to the old control method of teleporting, which was admittedly a nice touch. Still, I'd rather speed pads have been part of the DLC or bonus missions.

4. Mission 42 became the bane of my existence and nearly led to a ragequit.

As great as touch controls are for teleporting across the map, it's not half as precise as it could be. I was convinced I'd found a bug because no amount of tapping could get me into a space after deactivating its force field. I restarted the level twice before I found out, practically on accident that the actual "'portable" area in the space is so small that even aiming the cursor with the analog stick felt like threading a needle on the roof of a speeding train.

But my absolute biggest gripe...

5. The calculator is not scientific.

I mean, come on, guys. You know the Vita can handle it. Hell, the PSP could have done it (though the lack of a touchscreen would make things a bit tricky). I'm not looking for graphing capabilities or currency conversion or reverse Polish notation, I just want to know the spirit of the great warrior shaman SoCaToah is watching over me wherever I take my Vita.

What I'd like to see next.

By favoring exploration, Velocity solves the problem of the Vita being widescreen. In typical SHMUPS, the gameplay favors verticality, with many arcade cabinets having their monitors mounted sideways. Velocity, meanwhile, started on the PSP, and therefore added a more pronounced X-axis to the movement repertoire. That said, I would love to see a version of Velocity that favors a vertical screen, namely a smartphone. Between Playstation Mobile and Playstation Now, I'd really love to see what Futurlab can do with more visual real estate.

Cooperative play may not be any sort of a game changer, but it may be a fun idea to explore. As a fan of The Last Starfighter (which, given some of your alien companion Ralan's lines, I think the developers are, too), it would be a great exercise in teamwork to relegate flying to one pilot with weapons and teleporting to a co-pilot.

It may not be the most appropriate way to spend Memorial Day, but I ended up spending as much of my day off work as possible playing Strikers 1945 Plus from Psykio. While the aircraft don't exactly behave like their true-to-life counterparts, they are all based on real aircraft, including my personal favorite, the flying pancake. Made by a company called Vought, the initial idea for the craft known as the XF5U was for it to hover in mid-air after taking off, hence the larger propellers and narrow wingspan, a kind of helicopter/harrier synergy. While that aspect of its testing never caught on, the craft proved extremely agile and durable. It was never mass-produced, but did lead to the development of the modern hovercraft.

Despite its "saucer-like" shape, not to mention a few puzzled onlookers in the Connecticut area wherein it was tested, this was not exactly the start of the UFO craze. Even the term "flying saucer" would not enter the vernacular until 1947, a full five years after the test flight of the F5U's predecessor, the V-173. Interestingly, though, in Strikers, the craft's special weapon is a flying wing bomber, which is believed to be a more direct source of the UFO phenomenon.

I used to be a big WWII buff in middle school, mostly thanks to my English teacher in the eighth grade devoting nearly our entire curriculum to the era. I was most particularly interested in the hardware, especially tanks and aircraft. When I'd come home from school, I'd turn on the Discovery Channel just in time for their show Wings, not to be confused with the sitcom that introduced the world to Tony Shalhoub and Thomas Haden Church. It was a great series, an entire episode devoted to either a single aircraft, or a small subcategory such as stealth fighters or even rocket packs. I especially remember the flying pancake episode because I was kind of getting over my obsession with UFOs, which I used to vehemently believe in before a little bit of history (thanks in part to Wings) showed me the light.

As for the game, I would have loved it back in the day. I adored scrolling shooters (SHMUPS), ever since River Raid on the 2600, and while the historical setting may have been a bit mundane to me despite my interest, it has awesome boss designs and a great level of challenge. While development was handled by Psykio and was made available on JAMMA boards, most people associate the game with the Neo Geo MVS, which had the Plus version of the game, a remake of the second in the series. The art style does have a bit of a Metal Slug vibe and even borrows a few sound effects. It's not as flashy as other shooters like the Star Soldier series, and the music is only serviceable at best, but where this game keeps pace with and even surpasses its brethren is in gameplay. It is solid in every sense of the word. Everything works, nothing is extraneous or gimmicky, and replays feel genuinely rewarding.

I haven't been too well upstairs lately. In fact, this is something I've likely struggled with since at least 2005 when I graduated college. I thought it was simply post-grad blues, something I'd heard and read about often, including one of my favorite books, The Notenki Memoirs, and left matters at that, figuring it would pass in time.

Here's why I was both right and wrong about my slump and its cause. Someone once told me that if you're sad and you know why, then you're just sad. If you're sad and have no idea why, then that's depression. As a rule of thumb, it makes perfect sense; much of depression or bipolar disorder (specifically type II) is being terribly sad for little to no quantifiable reason. The trouble is, though, your mind has this instinct to rationalize anything it doesn't understand any way it knows how, including making connections that simply don't exist. In other words, I wanted to be sad and not depressed, so I gave myself a reason to be sad.

In fact, over the years, I had several new and different reasons to be sad: my degree, my job, my family, moving away from those things, my new living situation, my relationship, losing my new job, being unemployed, getting a job I was afraid of being stuck in, and most any sort of uncertainty or lack of clarity was enough to make me retreat into myself and stay there until I could face it later (which would never come). It wasn't all downs. I had my escapes, namely my art. I jokingly called it my therapy for years, even proud that I was managing how I was feeling and completely on my own terms.

Then it stopped working. I found it harder and harder to become engaged in this activity I once thoroughly enjoyed and even defined myself by. I tried other things, other mediums, which had often worked before (sometimes I feel like writing, other times painting, other times crafting...), but each well I came back to had dried up. It wasn't for lack of ideas; that's never been a problem for me. It was a matter of motivation, trying to justify what all this was for or what I thought I'd gain from it.

I won't get into the specifics of recent events, but the short version is I got a wake up call. I talked to my doctor. I am now getting the help I need and have needed for far too long. I don't claim any sort of expertise on this, so I don't know what sort of advice I can give. Still, what good would it do if I didn't?

It is not weak to admit you have a problem.

Some of you out there have likely heard that, and either doubted it or thumbed your nose at the notion. I know, I was one of them. It seemed like a trap, some sort of litmus test to prove how much of a failure you are for all the world to see.

You are not a failure. You are not weak. You're only a failure if you don't try. You're only weak if you stop trying. It's only giving up if you don't ask for help when trying is not enough.

As a warm-up exercise for a 48-hour storytelling contest being held by Sci-Fi London, I gave myself a challenge to write a story in a weekend. The following text and title illustration) is the result:

The receptionist had no face to speak of, merely a blank, white void with a rather crass-looking speaker grill where a mouth would be. The head bobbed a little as prerecorded segments of speech were spliced and rearranged in real-time to answer simple questions or give directions. The subtle moves were made less so by the sausage curls of the stark, white wig swaying with each tinny syllable. The groomed loudspeaker chimed its canned answers from behind the reception desk, effectively obscuring the horrifically serpentine cluster of fiber optic cables and pneumatic hoses pouring out from the skirt of the white uniform. Its dress form of a body was completely motionless apart from its head and six furiously busy arms. One pair was typing away at a teletype machine, answering a call from a deaf patient. Another were shuffling and filing small computer punch cards whose exact advantage or even purpose was likely beyond the grasp of even the most tenured of staff. The fifth was running a finger over a stack of forms in a labyrinthine pattern, a magnetic sensor in the tip following the metallic ink lines of previous patients' handwriting. The last, after handing off a clipboard to a patient, went back to helping the literate lefty by moving read forms into an outbox. Like the face, the hair, and the uniform, the arms were clad in white, seamlessly ending in fine, silk gloves stretched over the long, spindly, spring-loaded fingers. The only item of color was the red cross in the dead center of the cap which was undoubtedly bolted to the head to keep the wig in place.

Susan imagined a technician standing behind the android, ratcheting the bolt loose to swap out the sausages for a swing bob or possibly dreadlocks festooned with pearly beads. She was so lost in her little daydream, looking back and forth between the animatronic octopus and the clipboard it had given her, that she'd completely tuned out what it was saying. The concussion she was in for wasn't helping, but she knew all she had to do was say "Repeat that" at any time. She also knew there was no one behind her, so she could probably say "Repeat that" as many times as she needed. What she didn't know was how many times she had already said "Repeat that." Her daze was broken when, while clumsily signing her name at the bottom of the form, a messy red drop beat her to the punch in dotting the "i" in her last name. She knew it was her own blood from the gash between her eyes; she'd felt it creep down her nose, welling up at the tip while ticking boxes on the triage form. What she hadn't realized was how much further it had crept beyond merely her nose. Looking down revealed a hand-sized red teardrop on her shirt. It wasn't this bad in the car ride over, she thought. Panic set in as she felt a presence behind her, and tried to form the words she'd lost count of saying.

"Room 106. To your right. Third door on the right." The male voice from behind Susan was distinctly non-mechanical, but almost as cold apart from the tinge of impatience. She awkwardly spun round to apologize, nearly saying sorry to an ID card on a lanyard dangling in front of a blurry splash of pastel pink. Looking up, she found she could no longer blink both her eyes at once, or very quickly, so clearing up her vision to get a better look at the man was a tedious ordeal. All she could really work out at first was that the pink of his scrubs didn't go very well with his olive skin. He leaned forward, which helped a little bit. "My God, that's really bad. I couldn't tell from down the hall. I thought you were just having fun." The impatience was gone, taking the coldness with it. He turned to his left to grab something off the cart he'd been pushing.

"I fell off a horse." She winced as she said it, realizing he hadn't even asked a question, let alone about what happened.

He gave her a puzzled look over his shoulder, "Why would you do such a thing?" She tried to roll her eyes, but got dizzy in the process, and shut her eyes while trying to keep her balance and formulate a retort.

"Look," she managed, trying in vain to point, "I've just been lectured by an answering machine with a stupid haircut, I don't need this from you." How much of this suddenly-difficult thought ended up in spoken words was just beyond Susan's grasp. Fortunately, it turned out to be enough.

"I apologize." he said, followed by a quick battery of questions, like if she was nauseous or felt chills or was short of breath, among others that all blurred together. She lazily swung her head from side-to-side in response to all of the above, even the one about feeling dizzy, which she was as shaking her head with her eyes still closed threw her balance completely off. A hand firmly grasped her arm, making her tense up with a start, dropping the clipboard. She opened her eyes to see him coming at her with a wad of gauze. She reflexively made fists, ready to reach up and push him away. When he gently pressed the gauze against the gash, she felt relief, and a bit of guilt over how defensive she was being.

"You need to apply pressure." He pushed a little harder on the wad of gauze with each word. She reached up, felt about for the compress, and slid her fingers under his. He let go, kneeling down to pick up the clipboard. She looked down, spotting the edge of a tattoo at the base of his neck. Some kind of star, she thought. He stood up, giving the clipboard a once-over before looking back to her. "Can you walk?" He asked. She didn't answer. "I'll walk you to your room."

"Thank you..." her eyes finally focused enough for her to read the ID, "Oliver." She found herself too easily amused at "Oliver with the olive skin." She was bad with names, always making up quick little mnemonics. So rarely did any of them fall into place this easily.

When they got to the room, Oliver tossed the clipboard onto the counter before guiding Susan onto the exam table and helping her lie down. He pinched her wrist between his thumb and forefinger, asking her to tell him what happened without looking up from his watch. She told him of how she and her friend were out riding when the cinch of her saddle snapped. She managed to roll as she fell, but the saddle fell the rest of the way with her, one of the stirrups hitting her right between the eyes.

"It wasn't bleeding like this in the car," she went on, "so I told my friend to just drop me off and come inside when he found a parking space." Oliver rolled up her sleeve and pressed a small handheld device against her forearm. There was a sudden warming sensation that ran up her wrist to her elbow, followed by three beeps. He pulled the device away, subtly mouthing whatever he was reading off of it, then glancing over at the clipboard on the counter.

"Well, Susan, the good news is it looks worse than it is. You may get a scar, but you won't need stitches. You haven't lost that much blood. A touch anemic, obviously, but it's nothing serious. I can just wheel in the Hemvac, clean up and bandage that gash while it's working--"

"The what?" she interrupted.

"It's for transfusions. Don't worry, the name is the scariest part. You don't have any heart conditions, and you're not on any medications, so it should only take about fifteen minutes. Won't even need to call in an RN."

"Oh, only a one nurse town?" She joked, propping herself up on one elbow.

"I'm not a nurse. I'm an orderly." He saw her smile melt to a nervous quiver. He leaned in, assuring, "It means you're fine." He started to leave. "I'll have the doctor paged when I pass the reception desk. He'll give you your discharge instructions when we're all done." He got to the door, stopped, and turned back to her. "What's your friend's name?"

"Simon." She blurted amid trying to process his mile-a-minute prognosis.

"I'll see if he's in the waiting room yet, let him know you're all right."

"Thank you, Oliver."

"It's why I'm here," he smiled, closing the door behind him.

Susan laid back down, staring up at the ceiling in silence. She pulled the gauze away from between her eyes and looked at the stain.

It looked like a star.

A few weeks ago, after discovering what a cottage industry recreating the grail diary from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is, I found out one of the main resources for the chronicle of Dr. Henry Jones, Sr.'s life's work was the instruction manual to the Last Crusade tie-in game from Lucasarts. While hardly exact, it was a very close approximation to the original prop, though a choice number of pages were relegated to in-game graphics. In the adventure game genre, such items are called "feelies" and often not only serve to aid in immersing the player in the game's environment, but also were a surprisingly clever form of Digital Rights Management. Instead of a passkey or online registration or the dreaded "always on" connection, feelies often served as clues or hints, without which the game was unplayable. The "Dial-a-Pirate" wheel from the Monkey Island series is probably the most well-known. PC games have always had an issue with piracy (the real kind, not merely the in-game adversaries), while consoles, with their proprietary hardware and carefully-guarded developer kits, generally fared a little better. As such, copy protection, including feelies, were a rarity. In fact, the only practical example that's best known today was featured in a little game known as StarTropics.

I got to thinking about StarTropics because of a conversation with a friend about the Wii Mini's price point of 100USD. Frankly, for only 30 dollars less than a standard Wii, it didn't strike me as a great deal, considering it didn't even have so much as a memory card slot (I could have lived without the web connection). I mentioned that, were it something like 50USD, it would be in impulse buy territory. Some of you may scoff at that, but Nintendo's actually done something like that before. In 1994, well into the SNES era, Nintendo released a redesigned version of the NES, colloquially-known as the top-loader. It had this really quirky commercial emphasizing that it was only 49.99USD, actually less than a lot of SNES games. Of course, most people were likely baffled that Nintendo was still supporting the NES, and wondered what games exactly were available. The commercial mentioned Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics 2. Watching that commercial again got me thinking about the original StarTropics, released back in 1990.

I was about 9 or 10 when the game came out, and I remember quite a bit of hype about it. What was interesting about the hype was that one of game's main selling points was its similarities to other games, Nintendo Power making frequent comparisons in enemy types in its strategy article. Even the commercials touted, "It's like several games in one." Today, that would get the game labeled as derivative and uninspired, if not outright laughed at. It makes it seem so strange and surreal that, back then at least, we weren't bothered by a game being "familiar" or "similar" to something else. I guess it was because you couldn't always rent or otherwise try certain games, so sticking with what you knew may have been the best plan. Fortunately, we were able to rent it. Despite how excited I was, especially reading all the material in Nintendo Power on it, I don't actually recall playing the game that much, apart from piloting the submarine around the island, probably because it was the only gameplay mechanic I could really get my head around. My brother played most of the game proper, enduring all the exploring and socializing with the people of the village (not enough stomping and shooting for my tastes). Overall, I think my most important contribution to our time with the game was picking the name for the save file. Honey I Shrunk the Kids had been out, and Szalinski ended up being our hero's name.

We didn't have the game for very long, and I don't think we ever rented it again. I'm not sure why. I don't recall hating it or anything; we simply weren't impressed enough to stick with it or ask for it for Christmas from our folks. In any case, we didn't play it long enough to have to confront the biggest problem with renting games beyond the time limit: No instruction manual. Actually, it wasn't the instruction manual that was essential to the game, it was a letter enclosed with it. The letter was to you from your uncle, whom you were trying to rescue in the course of the game. The letter didn't seem like anything all that important, but if you got part of it wet, it revealed a frequency you would access on the submarine's radio.

A lot of retro reviewers like to make a point about how important having the letter was, as there was no internet one could turn to for the missing information. It's a valid point, but not entirely fair. Going back to all the hype surrounding this game's release, the letter was ultimately not necessary for finding out the frequency. Not only did Nintendo Power's companion issue reveal the code in their strategy section, but they even brought it up in the Howard & Nester comic. This was typical of the duo's sequential antics, and all quite ingenious. People might have felt like they were cheating by looking up the code in a strategy guide or article, but putting it in the comic made it feel somehow less so. In fact, you sort of felt like you'd discovered a vital clue hidden away in what was really only a parody to promote an upcoming title.

StarTropics ended up selling moderately well, despite the strange idea to release the game exclusively to the US and Europe (but developed in Japan). While copies are easy to find on eBay, it's important to take note as to whether or not the copy includes the letter if you're a serious collector. Like I said, though, it's not important for completing the game, especially nowadays with sites like GameFAQs. Still, in keeping with the spirit of adventure, Nintendo's Virtual Console release of the game features a "digitized" version of the letter. At the bottom of the letter, below the signature, is an icon of a bucket. Clicking on it dunks the letter, revealing the frequency.

There's no real substituting proper feelies, but it was still nice of Nintendo to try.

Remember, it's dangerous to go alone, take this with you.

So, I’m about to write this journal entry about a NES game I played as a kid, and I decide to check eBay to see what an original cart is going for, purely out of curiosity. I happen upon a guy selling a copy with an opening bid for about five bucks. That’s fairly typical for a NES cart, with higher opening bids if the game is “complete” with boxes and manuals. Imagine my surprise to see this guy is selling a complete version of the game for a mere Lincoln. Granted, it’s an opening bid that could easily launch a bidding war, but it’s still a low start.

Then I read the item specifics, and this is where I could make an enemy of a total stranger… on eBay… again.

First, he says the game has been given an “A” rating, which I don’t believe for a second because that box has clearly been used to hold up the short leg of a table. I could have let that go; maybe he’s got other games for sale and he simply copy+pasted a description and didn’t check it closely. It happens.

Then I keep reading.

He says the box is new and factory-sealed. Remember what I said about the crushed-looking box in the photo? The bottom is held shut with Scotch tape. It would be one matter to say the box is factory-sealed when it really isn’t, but that it has tape on it makes a potentially-innocent mistake look all the less innocent and not at all a mistake.

When I worked in retail, I sold a GameBoy color game to a little kid. The policy with new games is that they can only be exchanged for the same game if the shrinkwrap has been removed. Apparently, there was some misunderstanding between this kid and his mom, like he wasn’t supposed to get the game or it was for someone who it turned out already had it, or something along those lines. Whatever happened when that kid left the store, the result was him and his mom coming back to try and return the game, which had been opened. Returns called me to brief me on the situation, quoting the mother as saying the game was already opened when I sold it to the kid.

Bullshit.

I marched up to the returns counter, and got handed the game in question while one of the managers was talking to the mother. In place of the shrink-wrap was a big, round, clear plastic sticker along the top of the box. I say clear only because that’s what the sticker obviously looked like before it got fixed to a pair of black jeans and then crumpled up in someone’s pocket before being repurposed as a flimsy excuse for a seal. It was barely on there, half of it flapping up and down like a leaf in a breeze. I overheard the mother say to the manager that it was how the game was sealed when I sold it.

Needless to say, I was livid, absolutely seething. This was downright insulting. It’s been over ten years since this happened and, as I’ve only remembered it now, it’s a bit fuzzy and I don’t recall exactly what came of it. I seem to remember the mother and kid’s getting a bit wide-eyed when they saw me look at the game and then look to them over my manager’s shoulder. It didn’t get much more confrontational than that, and I stormed off before the matter came to any sort of resolution. I think someone came back to talk to me about it later, and while they ultimately didn’t believe their crap, either, I think they were given “something” for their “trouble.”

Look, they may have made some honest mistake, but it’s only an honest mistake if you’re honest about it. They weren’t.

Anyway, I’ve sent a PM to the seller to ask for a little clarification. It may not sound like it, given the backstory I poured out now, but I am reserving judgment on the guy for now. We’ll see where this goes.

I've been playing Bioshock: Infinite lately. I know I'm a bit late to the party on this. I tend to avoid big, triple-A titles in favor of smaller games and the only reason I bothered with it was getting it through Playstation Plus. I'm enjoying the game, but likely not for the reasons most people do. I'm in the camp that feels this should not be a first-person shooter because it's too story-driven. As for the story, I have a fascination with audiologs, and while I have to say I don't care much for the ones in this game, I did have a rather fun, if eerie, experience with them at one point I'd like to share.

In Singularity, I found it hilarious that I could stand between a projector and the wall without casting a shadow on the image. I mean, Metal Gear Solid 2 didn't have this problem, but a modern, post-Half-Life 2 shooter... it makes me laugh. I know that it's a programming issue and done more or less on purpose for logistical reasons (one less dynamic light source to deal with), but I find it funny enough to test it out in any game with that kind of setup. Sure enough, Bioshock: Infinite has projectors that bend light, but no synchronized sound. At least, the one playing back surveillance footage of Elizabeth didn't. That's when I got an idea. I went back through my collection of recordings to find the one I'd found in the other room of Comstock talking about Elizabeth's potential, and played it back while re-watching the footage.

That juxtaposition makes something fairly mundane and almost inconsequential into something rather creepy and downright terrifying.

I'll start by saying this isn't a review, and not exactly a first impressions in the traditional sense of how these things go with anime. It's something even more judgmental and prejudiced, with a dash of downright unfair sprinkled on top. I'm only even bringing it up and talking about it because it's becoming popular, which means I'm seeing it everywhere, and while I don't blame anyone for it (love what you love, if you take nothing else away from this), I'm only drawing a line. I'm not building a wall. If you're snickering at that last part, maybe you'll want to keep reading.  I feel like I'm kicking someone's puppy when I say this. The fandom for Attack on Titan is fiercely loyal and surprisingly adoring. I've no doubt it's a good series with a lot of appeal, I simply don't see any of it.  I first heard of the series through VGCats. I saw Scott Ramsoomair's comic about it, and read his impressions. This was followed by a video of the show's opening. Admittedly, it was a good pitch despite a few ups and downs. First, there's the setup that people in a walled city are being attacked by giants. Okay, that didn't really have me hooked. I'll get more into the mystery of the key lampooned in the comic in a moment, except to say that it produced at least equal levels of "meh" in me. Second was the mention that these Titans not only eat people, but actually resemble ordinary humans. Okay, that actually did intrigue me a great deal. I reached my point of saturation on the whole kaiju genre years ago, though I am looking forward to the Godzilla revival. I'm also not a big fan of zombie movies, though I love Re-Animator and certainly respect the craftsmanship of films like Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead. Now, here I am with something that effectively combines the two, flesh-eating zombies that are hundreds of feet tall.It didn't necessarily make me want to watch the show, but the concept did penetrate my psyche a little and I found myself getting genuinely uncomfortable, nervous, and even antsy at the thought. Combine that with the very gripping opening, complete with a chanting chorus, and I certainly wanted to know more.  

However, after reading the Wikipedia article, complete with synopses for all current episodes, my enthusiasm took a downward spiral, and it started the moment I saw the manga's cover. Going back to what I said about the Titans themselves (or eoten, as they're called in the series), they are legitimately eerie creatures. There's an uncanny quality to them, the way many of them have saggy skin, semi-neat haircuts, and blank, mask-like faces. They're not characters in any traditional sense as they've no obvious personalities and seem barely self-aware. There's nothing about them that's meant to look cool or interesting. They will defend themselves and seem to even strategize, but it's fundamental, almost robotic. Again, they're like zombies. There's no reasoning with them, and there's nothing to make you sympathize with or feel sorry for them. It's thoroughly satisfying to see these things get taken down, something that can only really be achieved by delivering a piercing stab to the back of the neck. It's an odd weakness that made me think of the old X-Men cartoon, and now has me curious if there's some mythological precedent to this idea. Anyway, for as effectively scary as the titans are, it all started to fall apart for me when I saw the skinless titan.  

I was very surprised that the manga was so recent (2009 and ongoing) because everything about the art style, practically crystallized by that cover image, evokes something reminiscent of the late Seventies or very early Eighties. That's not a bad thing by any means. "Dated" is by far one of the weakest criticisms that can be leveled at anything; one need look no further than the remastered versions of Metropolis to be convinced of that. In fact, if I had to draw a point of comparison, Attack on Titan reminded me most strongly of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which is a masterpiece. Sadly, that vague association is about the best thing Attack on Titan has going for it. The reason the skinless titan makes me roll my eyes in relation to the "dated" quality of the manga, is that I've seen this cliche in comics of that era, particularly horror titles. I'm not sure why this was such a big thing, comics having characters or monsters that were literally just skeletons with a little more meat on them, yet not emaciated or decaying like zombies. I think it's some sort of inside joke among artists, that after doing so many anatomy studies, what better monster than one with perfectly-formed muscle groups and a lipless mouth that can still somehow deliver perfectly coherent dialogue? Whatever the reason, it smacks of laziness, and isn't all that scary. Maybe it's one of those person-to-person things, but skeletons are not scary and neither is a skinless human able to walk around completely unaffected by not having any skin. It looks silly. 

None of this is helped by the human character designs looking like something Katsuhiro Otomo doodles in the margins of whatever he's supposed to be working on. One of the higher-ranked soldiers has this permanent shadow in the center of his face, which already looks like it's been stomped flat by a heavy boot. Seriously, he looks like Lon Chaney's Phantom. Everyone looks similarly shocked and awed, regardless of the situation. Yes, there are terrifying things going on much of the time, but if we're supposed to believe these are highly-skilled military types with a knack for using grappling hooks and jet packs, the number of scenes in which they stand around frozen in terror (at least, as described in the articles and seen in clips on the Funimation website) isn't helping with the immersion. It's as if the story is so desperate to sell you on the drama, it practically looks you dead in the face and yells, "THIS IS SCARY! DOESN'T THIS ALL LOOK SCARY? ARE YOU FEELING OUR TERROR?!"  

Speaking of the human cast, it is rather heartwarming that so much of the praise this show gets from its fans focuses on the drama and characters rather that strictly the action or even the premise. It's why I feel fairly confident ribbing on the art style and designs as much as I have been, because the fans really don't seem to care that much about it. Yes, there's cosplay and fan art and all that, but it all seems very marginalized. I feel like I could walk up to one of the cosplayers and say, "You're wearing a boy scout uniform with a red scarf and jockey pants." (Obviously, I wouldn't because that's rude, and I fully respect the artistry of cosplay) and they would merely smile and say, "Yeah, it's kinda funny-looking." or make some joke about using tent pegs to take down titans to earn a merit badge, and we'd share a laugh.  While good character psychology and drama can make up for lesser parts of a whole package, it's not a failsafe against a disappointing payoff in those other departments like action or story. As far as the story goes, Attack on Titan does a good job of setting up a premise and making us ask questions about what we're witnessing: 

What are the titans?

Where do they come from? 

Do they have some sort of hierarchy or pecking order? 

Why do they eat people even when it's proven they don't need to? 

What were the early days like before the walls were built? 

Is there any connection between humans and the titans?  

That last question brings us back to the VGCats comic, and one of the main MacGuffins of the story, the key to a basement. When I first heard the title Attack on Titan, and saw this panel of a father giving his son a key with the promise that all will make sense someday, I wondered if this had anything to do with Titan AE. That film had a father entrusting his son with a cryptic promise that all his questions will be answered when the time is right. I learned quickly that's where the similarities end; I don't even think Attack on Titan could really be called science fiction. In either case, when your story hinges on a major revelation which may or may not be a twist or some kind of irony, you're playing a dangerous game with your audience.  Let me give you two extreme examples of major revelations in narrative and what they can mean in terms of an audience's investment.

First, Giant Robo: The Night The Earth Stood Still (or Day, depending on which translation you prefer) is a true classic. It has great animation, fun and memorable characters, and an astonishing score. It also has an amazingly weak ending. Without spoiling it, because you should still see it if you haven't, it turns out that the ominously cataclysmic event the good guys were trying to prevent is actually not in the least bit cataclysmic. In fact, it turns out to be a good thing... that a lot of good people died trying to stop. It's almost comedic, even downright farcical in concept. The reason I don't write this off as a betrayal or even character assassination is twofold, firstly that it's a mini-series clocking in at seven episodes (we'll ignore the fact it took six years for it all to be released), and mainly that everything else in the series worked so well you didn't care if the story was a letdown. It also didn't do that much to hype its mystery, instead giving us a solid good guys vs. bad guys scenario which is still unaffected by the ending regardless. In other words, it didn't make me care about its story, therefore I didn't. 

On the flipside, there's Babylon 5. I was hooked on the show from the start. The moment I saw Ambassador Kosh step through an airlock, I knew this show was going to be something special. Set on a space station in the years following a long and bloody struggle between humans and a noble warrior race called the Minbari, which ended abruptly for reasons not made clear for some time, the major narrative hook of the series was the reason for the end of this war, and what exactly was the connection between the two races. I remember being excited as one episode gave "the reason" as being the discovery by the Minbari that the souls of their ancestors were reincarnating as humans, and therefore making the war a violation of their traditional beliefs. I don't remember being upset by this, per se, but I do remember a feeling of, "That's it?" I gradually stopped following the show regularly after that, with many similarly disappointing revelations dotting the path. Most of it seemed to be trying way too hard to tie everyone and everything together into one neat little package. It shrank the vast and expansive world they were building, and didn't leave me wanting to know more. To be fair, I learned many years later that the "reincarnation" explanation wasn't the full story, that the latter seasons offered more beyond that one reason. I also learned that the rumors of J. Michael Straczynski conceiving this entire plot in a singular flash that he intended to draw out over several seasons instead of one or only a few episodes were legitimate. At the end of the day, though, my fandom of Babylon 5 more or less begins and ends with the episode Grail, starring David Warner, which itself centers around a big mystery that not only never gets explained, but even points out the journey is the most important part of any quest. I can't decide if that's irony, hypocrisy, genius, or some bizarre synergy of all three. I Recommend that episode highly, even if you've no interest in the rest of the series.  

Bringing it all back around to Attack on Titan, the question of what the connection is between the Titans and humans is, what secrets may be revealed down in that basement after 26-plus episodes and counting, what I said about demystifying your universe by tying too many things together,  The main character, it is revealed, can turn into one of these things.  

Done.  

Nope.  

No.  

Whatever's left for this show to say, I don't care. Either the major revelation I'm picturing in my head given all those key ingredients is right, or it's wrong. Whichever may end up being the case, it's lost me. I've no reason to invest in a story if I'm already underwhelmed by everything else, save for semi-interesting monster designs. This went from a show I was vaguely almost intrigued by to not in the least bit interested in. If you dig the show, awesome. More power to you. Keep fighting the good fight. Fly that freak flag high. However, whatever you see in that show, I fail to, and I admit it's a failing on my part. I can't see this show the way you do. It's entirely possible something may change, like a plot that carries on after the revelation (which is most likely what will happen), but I've been down this path before, and the journey's not worth it to me. There's plenty of fish in the sea. I can let this one get away. More for you, how's that?  

Good night, and good luck.

You could say I have something of a love/hate relationship with Nintendo. I grew up with the original NES. We had a 2600 before, but I remember having both and generally favored the NES. Eventually, I grew tired of what Nintendo had to offer and moved over to the Genesis. After a prolonged love affair with that system, followed by a brief spell of PC gaming, Nintendo came back into my life as the 64. I didn't technically have one, my brother did, and between us we bought a few games for it. I'd say I enjoyed it, but part of me was honestly still looking at the Sega Saturn, albeit it was definitely on the way out. I'd made up a list of about five or ten games, thinking, "If I get a Saturn, and the system fails, I'll still have ten good games for it and be content with those until the next console." Not a bad plan, though I say so myself, but it fell completely out the window when I saw a commercial for Final Fantasy VII. I became obsessed and finally got a Playstation for Christmas, circa 1997, that loyalty more or less remaining to this day.

I'm generalizing here, leaving out a lot of details like my Dreamcast, SNES, various Gameboys, even an N-Gage, but the basic point to take away is that I became a shameless Sony fanboy in high school and never looked back. The DS held very little interest for me outside of a few games, but not enough to warrant a purchase (I was quite happy with my PSP). The thing is, virtually all my friends are big DS users, and I do feel left out sometimes, not to mention seeing more and more games that do admittedly pique my interest a tad like Crimson Shroud. Still, it was never really enough to make me start seriously planning. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I've been warming up to the PS Vita, even though I could go on for hours about everything I hate about it (despite that shameless fanboy title I mentioned). Now that the 2DS has been announced and revealed, I've been given pause for thought on which handheld to spring for. 

So, as someone who does not have a 3DS, which should already tell you this console is not for you and therefore its existence shoud hardly offend, here's why I'm genuinely interested in the 2DS. In fact, I have appropriately two main reasons: 

(.) No 3D. I cannot use the 3D effect on the 3DS at all. I've tried at least twice on a store demo, and after not even ten seconds my brain feels like it's trying to make a break for it through my nose. Most people don't have a problem with the 3D, I'm not one of them. Of course, this is where most people say, "Well, you don't have to use the effect, you can turn the 3D down." No kidding, I'm well aware of how a slider works. My issue is why in the world would I pay for a feature I'm not going to use? Yes, it's not simply a feature upgrade. The 3DS is a whole new system that's far more powerful than previous versions. That's not my problem. My problem is there's three versions of the original DS, and only about a year it seems after the 3DS came out, the 3DS XL was released. I'm not one of these guys that has to have the latest version of every console, but when you're releasing more hardware than Sega in their heyday, you're doing something wrong. It does not inspire confidence. In a way, I sort of knew there would be another version of the 3DS, possibly one that would do away with the 3D or cost less so I wouldn't feel like I was paying for a feature I didn't want. 

(..) I like the design. It has no moving parts, no big hinge in the middle. As cool as I always thought the idea of holding the DS sideways like a book is, the idea of opening and closing anything like a clamshell puts this lingering weariness in my head. When I worked in customer service for a cell carrier, long before the iPhone came out, the most popular phone we had was the Motorola Razr, which is what's called a flip phone. I wish I had a nickel for every time I got a tech support call from a customer whose screen went out because the wires connecting the screen to the main body got pinched. Couple that with the simple fact that hinges wear down anyway, and I've never gotten behind the design of any phone outside the classic "candy bar" style, which is more or less what most smartphone are now. 

Frankly, I wonder if game companies don't do enough market research and testing of their handhelds before they release them, hence minor upgrades and redesigns year after year. I always felt a little resentful at the updates to the PSP, even hating the Go version. I know early adoption is a big factor in a lot of consumer electronics gaining footholds in their various markets, but I'd rather they iron out the major bugs like size, shape, and weight before they get it out to me. Now that I've seen Vita memory cards in clearance bins, I'm  wondering if Sony has similar plans for the Vita, possibly a redesign that fixes all my complaints about the current version, like no memory stick support. I think that's unlikely, but even if a redesign is on the horizon, I'd probably be every bit a happy with a price drop in the current version. As for the 2DS, everyone is mocking it and laughing at it, pointing out all the design choices with it, while I'm thinking, "Finally." I do worry that with all this mockery that these haters will take out their whiny, first-world frustrations on the people who choose this system (or receive it as a gift). As someone who grew up during the great Nintendo/Sega rivalry that was the 16-bit era, I can tell you that system-shaming hurts everyone and it takes away the most important aspect of being a gamer: Playing games that you enjoy. 

Good night, and good luck. 

UPDATE: No, I don't. tweaked a few settings in my router so it would be visible/accessible to the PSP, and was able to connect with no problems ("restore default settings" may have helped with that, not sure). The clock is updated, so the games are now accessible once again. Pity, my roommate was looking forward to the hand-me-down :P

So, here's a thing that's just happened now I hadn't realized before: 

I have an old PSP, classic 1000 model, bought it years ago and still love it. 

Small problem, though. The Wi-Fi antenna in this thing is a piece of junk. There's a kind of rumor mill going around with mobile technology (especially phones) about antennae degradation, that over time the materials weaken enough that they can't hold a signal. I don't necessarily think it's true; if anything, it's got more to do with firmware than anything else. However, the fact that I can be sitting literally right next to my router and get a connection error, ultimately being completely unable to access the network certainly gives me pause. In the end, I wrote it off as simply something I wouldn't be able to do with my PSP anymore. It didn't really matter as if I needed to do a firmware update (which is no longer an issue as it's not supported anymore), I could hook it up to my PS3 and go that route. I already do that for any downloaded games I have, especially my Minis. I've also gotten a few larger titles like Gods Eater Burst and Maverick Hunter. In fact, it doesn't even bother me that, since I upgraded my router a few months ago, my PSP cannot connect even if I lucked out because the router's protocols are too new for the handheld to see. It's practically invisible. So, again, que sera sera. 

A few days ago, the battery in my PSP ran down. No big deal. It happens all the time; that's what batteries do. Thing is, when it winds down, I have to reset the clock. Again, no big deal. Unfortunately... 

Because I got Gods Eater Burst and a few other titles via Playstation Plus, they have time limits on them. They remain free so long as I maintain my Plus subscription. Sounds obvious, right? It doesn't expire for at least a year, but the PSP, being a machine, doesn't really know that. It has to check the time against the internal clock of the device, but since that can be changed at any time, it insists the time be set via internet. 

So, it can't play the games I've got on there because it doesn't know what time it is. It doesn't know what time it is because it can't connect to the internet. 

This is a problem. 

Granted, my physical copies will still work, not to mention games I've downloaded outside of Plus, but anything I got through Plus is all but unplayable until I can find a Wi-Fi network to connect to, and if my PSP actually feels like connecting for a change. You'd think it'd be able to do that via a cable connection to the PS3, like it does for firmware updates and game downloads, but that does not appear to be the case, which is weird. I'll see if I can do some sort of ad-hoc through the PS3 and try some sort of daisy-chain setup. Still, even if it works, it would mean I have to do that every time I change the battery or the battery runs down in my PSP. 

May well simply be time to upgrade. Ah, well....