A Tale of Two Games

New video games in my house are pretty rare outside of a sudden and/or unexpected cash influx, and to get two new games inside of a month is like finding the Loch Ness monster hanging out with Bigfoot. Yet, here we are, as I've acquired both Batman: Arkham City and WWE '12. Both are sequels to popular franchise games, but that's about the only thing the two have in common.

Arkham City takes place a year after the events of 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum and opens the world to include a large portion of Gotham City's slums, which have been converted to an enormous prison/police-state. It's a tremendous concept, with gameplay that builds on the original and then exceeds it. There's a very defined version of Batman and his outlying universe that Rocksteady is creating with these games. While it's not the version of Batman I envision of the character due to him generally being a jerk to everyone all of the time and how he oddly feels compelled to save a girl he kind of likes instead of the hundreds of people dying at one point in the story, I dig that the creators are forging their own mythos that plays somewhere in between the comic books and the Christopher Nolan movies.

Additionally, the downloadable content provides some awesome alternatives for the challenge maps as a way to keep them from being too repetitive. Playing as Robin or Nightwing makes the game worthwhile since each one has unique gadgets and different fighting animations. My hope is that Rocksteady continues to pump out the DLC on a regular basis, maybe adding a new side mission or two in addition to the challenge maps because I don't want to have to wait another two years for the next sequel, which will be interesting since the next step up would be Arkham State, and I can't imagine what the scope of that game might entail.

WWE '12, on the other hand, feels like a mixed bag of a game, albeit one that's starting to grow on me. THQ, the folks in charge of both the WWE and UFC license, always appear to have the best of intentions but somehow manage to fall just a little bit short in their sports entertainment endeavors. Their latest addition is an attempt at a reboot by turning away from the Smackdown vs. RAW name they've employed for the last seven years. Unfortunately, it's not a reboot that is successful in reinventing the game, but there are some improvements that don't have me completely hating it as much as my initial impression led me to believe.

Let's look at the positives first. The game has the WWE presentation down. It looks about as perfect as fake fighting which attempts to portray itself as real but also tries not to be real ever can possibly get. The entrances capture every nuance of each wrestler, the moves are easily identifiable, and the level of customization has never been higher. As a visual experience, WWE '12 is the best wrestling game ever produced. THQ has also improved the WWE Universe mode, where you can customize and book three different television shows that build to the monthly pay per view, over last year's initial foray. To top it all off, both The Rock and Brock Lesnar are in the game, which is what really sold me on buying it the first week. The latter is an especially popular guy to make as a created superstar, so it's pretty awesome that we get the real deal this time around. Yet, the game is far from perfect.

One of the main reasons why I don't purchase games too often is because the replay factor on the games I like is really high. WWE or UFC games lend themselves to both long or short periods of play time, so playing one match or a series of them isn't a problem. But WWE '12 changes the gameplay to the point that I almost took the game back the day I purchased it. Cooler heads prevailed since the new grapple system clearly requires a learning curve that I was too stubborn to accept. Even though it was a blow to my pride, I switched the difficulty to Easy for the time being until I start to improve.

At the same time, there are still a ton of problems with playing the game. Running strikes and grapples are nearly impossible to vary thanks to the new tap and hold methods of implementation. Most of the time when I attempt the secondary running strike or grapple, I still end up attempting the standard one. For a game touting that players will have to vary their attack when facing the AI, this doesn't help. The reversals are also spotty (or I just stink at them) despite hitting the right trigger at the prompt on a fairly consistent basis.

By far the worst aspect of the game is the new dynamic camera system that's supposed to approximate WWE television presentation. Instead of the standard elevated camera utilized in the past, the game now takes the approach of WWE TV by showing most of the match from the hard camera side. While this works for their show, it completely robs the player of any depth perception and destroys any possibility of a match that flows as a quality wrestling showcase. Instead, there are tons of missed moves and comical pratfalls that makes playing more frustrating than fun. The camera also doesn't adjust when folks uninvolved in the action, like a tag partner or manager, stand in the way. In an effort to portray realism (ironic considering the subject matter of pro wrestling) by not having tag partners become translucent, they wind up interfering in huge way. Additionally, the referee is always in the way of the action in the match, which I don't remember ever being a problem in a WWE game before.

I guess I still need more time with WWE '12. Maybe getting used to the new control scheme will alleviate some of these problems. Once UFC Undisputed 3 comes out in February, though, I doubt I'll continue playing WWE '12.

Frosh
Monday, November 14 - You took the Fahrenheit 451 final and I checked your agendas. These should be entered into the grade book by the end of the week.

Tuesday, November 15 - After receiving a list of words from The Sniper, you worked with a partner to predict the usage and utilize words in context.

Wednesday, November 16 - You continued the work from the day before and also determined the definitions of a new set of words based on the way they were used in context.

Thursday, November 17 - Having completed the assignment from the previous two days, we read The Sniper together as a class.

Friday, November 18 - We read the story called The Last Spin, which served as an introduction to our Juvenile Justice unit we started the following week.

Monday, November 28 - After completing a quick write discussing punishment differences for adults and people your age, we determined the characteristics of a child, an adult and a juvenile. Our goal was to figure out for ourselves the factors that make up a juvenile and how to differentiate between the three different concepts.


Seniors
Monday, November 14 - You completed the final timed writing and turned in your books for the last annotation check. Please make sure to finish reading the book even if you didn't complete the annotations. Missing out on that 25 point annotation check is one thing, but if you don't finish reading the book, it will seriously hinder your ability to do well on the culminating paper.

Tuesday, November 15 - After turning in the final article selection assignment, you received a final work day to complete the CD Creation project.

Wednesday, November 16 - We discussed in-text citations and how to properly implement them in your paper.

Thursday, November 17 - You turned in your CD Creation project. We then continued reading through Beowulf.

Friday, November 18 - We completed reading Beowulf and you received time to complete the dialectical journals, which I will collect on Wednesday, November 30.

Monday, November 28 - You received the guidelines for a properly formatted works cited page.

Book 32 of 2011

32) God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Athiest and Other Magical Tales by Penn Jillette
One half of the magical duo Penn & Teller, Penn Jillette is a noted blowhard, but an entertaining one. He's cultivated this personality since his act with his partner has seen him become the talkative one of the two and they're pretty successful. The book makes the case for a secular collection of commandments to replace the Biblical version while liberally sprinkling in stories from his own experiences inside and outside of his life as an entertainer. Jillette is firm in his own beliefs and has no qualms discussing them here, as both a libertarian and an atheist.

UFC 139

Sadly, this might be a show that I don't see, but it's got some far-reaching implications for the light-heavyweight and bantamweight divisions, so I'd feel remiss if I just ignored it since my opinion alone is the sole one available on the vast Internets about the sport of mixed-martial arts. Besides all that, it's a card that, while lost in the shuffle of the recent glut of shows, is deep on potentially awesome fights. If Miguel Angel Torres fights on the undercard, then you're looking at a really packed night.

Stephan Bonnar vs. Kyle Kingsbury - Both guys are riding win streaks, Bonnar at two and Kingsbury at four, but it's Kingsbury who has looked the most impressive of late with two fight of the night bonuses under his belt and a wider array of skills to accompany his impressive new physique. Bonnar has languished for quite some time and is getting older as a fighter. Kingsbury is the younger guy who appears to finally be putting all of the pieces together to take his game to the next level while Bonnar starts to settle into a newer position as a broadcaster. By no means am I suggesting that Bonnar hang it up, but I don't like his odds in this contest. Kingsbury will get the decision in what will probably be a slobberknocker of a fight.

Martin Kampmann vs. Rick Story - Kampann lost a pick-em fight against Diego Sanchez that easily could have gone his way and came out the losing end in Jake Shields' UFC debut. Meanwhile, Story, a guy who comes across as the meatiest of meatheads in every interview he ever does, was riding a six fight win streak and probably in line for a title shot until he took a fight against Charlie Brenneman on short notice less than a month after the biggest win of his career against Thiago Alves. In a convoluted set of circumstances that can only happen in MMA, he was set to fill in for an injured Anthony Johnson against Nate Marquardt when Marquardt tested positive for performance enhancing drugs and subsequently got himself fired the day before the show. Instead of headlining against a big name dude in Marquardt, Story wound up facing a dude in Brenneman who had thought his fight was cancelled earlier in the week. IT IS CONFUSING, THIS FIGHTING THING.

Anyway, it wasn't a smart decision on Story's part since his body was exhausted from overtraining and attempting to peak it for a second time so soon after his last fight, resulting in a loss to the much fresher Brenneman. I explain all of this mostly to remind myself who Rick Story is since, besides this story and the aforementioned meathead comment, I always get him confused with Jake Ellenberger. They look alike (with Ellenberger being a little bit more notable for resembling a mini version of Rich Franklin) and are so nondescript and forgettable despite being decent fighters that I can never be bothered to care about their fights. Meanwhile, I like Kampmann enough to remember who he is but only if he's facing a guy that I think can make his fights memorable and exciting. Technically, Story can do that, but I am not in the mood to care. Plus, Story just rubs me the wrong way, if it wasn't already obvious. Story will get the decision, but I'm hoping for a Kampann win.

Urijah Faber vs. Brian Bowles - Here's the first in our triple main event: a number one contender's match for the UFC Bantamweight Championship. It's been well-established that mine is a household squarely in the California Kid's camp, as he is my wife's second favorite fighter. That being said, Brian Bowles is long overdue for a rematch for the championship he lost to Cruz. Bowles' biggest enemy has been time since his year on the shelf after losing the belt hurt his visibility.

It doesn't help that Bowles, despite being an exciting fighter won his last fight in a boring match against Takeya Mizugaki and has a personality that's akin to watching paint dry. There's no doubt in my mind that Brian Bowles is a perfectly pleasant fellow, but, man, he's boring. Whatever excitement he generates in the Octagon pales in comparison to the disinterest he creates in every other possible situation. He is the prototypical MMA fighter in that he trains hard and does his utmost to respect every other fighter he's up against. Ask him who he wants to fight next and he'll say, "Whoever the UFC puts in front of me." That's a fine attitude for some fighters to have, but a variety of personalities creates stars, and what many of these young fighters don't realize is that calling people out and being more than the respectful, hard-working athlete allows them to make a name for themselves off the established name of others.

Urijah Faber is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. He's outgoing, clever and a crowd pleaser outside of his fights as much as he is during them. That's where the lack of personality hurts Bowles. Despite winning two in a row and his sole loss being a literal and figurative bad break to the current champ, Bowles is here in a number one contender's match-up against Faber, a guy who has lost four championship bouts. Because he's a draw that has a large fanbase, and even though his last fight was a loss to Dominick Cruz, Faber is again vying for a title shot that should theoretically already belong to Bowles.

All of this means little in terms of the winner, though. And Faber is going to win because he's the superior wrestler and grappler. Bowles has a tight guillotine choke and dynamite in his hands, but Faber is too fast and too powerful to get caught. Faber will get the win with a submission in the second.

Wanderlei Silva vs. Cung Le - Originally pitting the San Jose native against the much larger and much more dangerous Vitor Belfort, Cung Le instead makes his UFC debut against the former Pride Middleweight Champion. Le is a passable enough wrestler who uses it defensively to employ his devastating and dynamic striking. Without question, Cung Le has the best kicks in MMA. Everyone knows it and everyone he faces plans for them, yet he's still able to employ them every single time, which just goes to show how great he is. Unfortunately, he came into MMA fairly late in life and is getting on in years. Plus, he fights so rarely that rust has to be considered going into this fight.

Meanwhile, Wanderlei Silva is technically younger than Le, but in fighting years, this guy is ancient. For most of his career, he earned his nickname "the Axe Murderer" by plowing through opponents utilizing the windmill strategy. He moved forward non-stop, eating punches in an effort to land more than his opponent and eventually knock the guy out. A guy's chin can only take so many punches, especially from folks who have more technical striking, and now Silva is bearing the brunt of all of those years of abuse. He's 2-4 in his UFC career and his jaw has turned to glass, but a fighter is always the last one to know when to retire. That's just sad. Cung Le wins this by knockout in the first round.


Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs. Dan Henderson - This five round fight appears to have implications for two different weight classes.

Rua is coming off a decisive victory over Forrest Griffin. He appears healthy, which is always a concern with Shogun, and his main weapons are his forward motion and technical striking combined with a great submission game. He's attempting to get back into the light heavyweight championship picture and a win over the current Strikeforce Light Heavyweight champ can go a long way towards making that dream a reality, despite how convincingly he lost the title to Jon Jones back in March.

Then there's 40 year old Dan Henderson, he of the granite chin, caveman face and right hand forged from the power of a thousand volcanoes. Additionally, he's world renowned Greco-Roman wrestler. He's riding a three fight win streak, with the biggest victory coming earlier this year against the vaunted (or overhyped...take your pick) Fedor Emelianenko. With his return to the UFC, Henderson hopes to make a statement that defies what most folks his age should be able to do. He's mentioned that with a win here, he'd like to challenge Anderson Silva to a rematch at middleweight, since Hendo is a small light heavyweight who has fluctuated between 205 and 185 over the course of his career. Can he do it?

Eh, I don't think so. This is a fight that favors Rua and I see Shogun winning with a submission in the third or fourth round.

"Vaya con Dios."

Over the weekend, I took in some live theatre (spelled with the "-re" at the end to make it sound both classy and fancy) in Los Angeles and attended Point Break Live LA. For those unfamiliar, Point Break is Oscar award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's movie about surfing bank robbers and the FBI agent on a mission to stop them. It's a movie that is both awesome and incredibly ridiculous and not something one would normally associate with a sustainable stage translation, what with so many scenes taking place at the beach or in mid-flight during a spontaneous afternoon skydive.

The other thing Point Break is known for is Keanu Reeves and his ridiculous acting because he is terrible. Everyone else in the movie is either competent (Lori Petty) or having a whole lot of fun (Gary Busey), so their personalities work well with their performances, but Keanu is on another level. His line-readings in the movie, along with his truly awful acting, make for a cult classic performance and a unique stage translation. Instead of having an improv actor/comedian play the role of former college football great turned lawyer/FBI agent Johnny Utah, the crew at the Dragonfly casts the role from the audience members present. The audience member reads the lines from cue cards, which allows the individual to embrace the inner Keanu-ness of the part.

Everything is interactive, as the audience members become part of the play when the actors rob banks or run through the crowd to simulate the truly awesome chase scene. The foot chase between Johnny Utah and the bank robbing, surfer, Zen ringleader Bodhi is my favorite scene in the entire movie because the latter at one point throws a dog at the former, and they recreate that moment as faithfully as they possibly can in a theatre setting.

My only complaint is that, for the sake of streamlining the story and theatrical brevity, the cast and crew cut out a large subplot involving a separate gang of surfers who deal drugs and run guns. Some of my favorite moments come from that subplot, including Anthony Keidis shooting himself in the foot, Tom Sizemore complaining about having to wear the surfer attire and sport a stupid haircut while working undercover, and the fact that there is a character named Warchild. Still, as an experience I would enjoy attending again,
this was tops.

Frosh
Friday, October 28 - We explored irony through Alanis Morissette's song, "Ironic." In groups of no more than three, you took the existing situations in the song and modified them to be truly ironic. See, 'cause the song is only true to its namesake in that the situations described aren't, making the whole thing an exercise in irony. Crazy!

Tuesday, November 1 - After going over direct and indirect characterization, you began finding examples of both for a single character in Fahrenheit 451, taking note to use the acronym STEAL (speech, thoughts, effect, actions and looks) when finding indirect quotations.

Wednesday, November 2 - You finished Fahrenheit 451 and turned in your last batch of annotations, which I graded and returned to you. Meanwhile, the class received a work day for the Censorship Project.

Thursday, November 3 - We read through the afterword of the book and used that to discuss some major points about the novel, including how much ownership an artist has over art after its release.

Friday, November 4 - We continued our discussion and also read through the coda.

Monday, November 7 - You received a day to rehearse your Censorship Project.

Tuesday, November 8 - All students began presenting for the Censorship Project.

Wednesday, November 9 - Lather, rinse, repeat the previous day.

Thursday, November 10 - And after wrapping up the presentations, we reviewed for the final on Fahrenheit 451.

Seniors
Friday, October 27 - We started reading Beowulf with an eye for focusing on how it serves as a transition between pagan and Christian cultural beliefs for the Anglo-Saxons while also demonstrating Anglo-Saxon heroic ideals. As such, during our reading, you'll keep track of the truncated version of the story through a dialectical journal. On the left hand side, you'll summarize the section we completed in three to five sentences. On the right hand side, you'll write down the section of the heroic journey that the story falls under and two sentences dedicated to either how the section serves as the transition between the two cultural beliefs or how the section demonstrates the heroic ideals.

Tuesday, November 1 - We continued reading Beowulf because that guy is pretty cool.

Wednesday, November 2 - In an effort to better incorporate quotations into your writing, we went over TLQ guidelines, which stands for transition, lead-in, quote. The idea is that quotations should not just get dropped into your paragraphs because that's lazy. Instead, since quotations are meant to back up whatever point you're trying to make, they should be integrated seamlessly into your writing as a way to strengthen your argument.

Thursday, November 3 - This was our third timed writing day, and I asked you to incorporate a quotation into each of your three paragraphs using the TLQ guidelines from the day before.

Friday, November 4 - You received a work day for annotation or your CD Creation project.

Monday, November 7 - We continued reading Beowulf and discussed the battle with Grendel.

Tuesday, November 8 - You received the guidelines for the culminating paper, which is due December 6. The prompt asks you to trace a theme throughout the course of your novel, making sure that you support it with outside sources and valid thesis statement.

Wednesday, November 9 - We expanded on the idea for thesis statements, discussing the ATC3(or 4) format that leads to a valid thesis statement. The catch is to make sure the sentence flows and makes sense. The easiest way to figure out if it does is to read the sentence aloud to yourself after the fact.

Thursday, November 10 - You earned a work day and I forgot that your final article selection was due, so I pushed it back to the following Tuesday.

Book 31 of 2011

31) Wounded Warriors: True Tales of Iraq, Vietnam and Those For Whom the War Never Ends by Mike Sager
Much like Chuck Klosterman's IV, this book is a collection of articles written over Mike Sager's career that, at first glance, appears to focus on veterans who have come back from battle changed. Unfortunately, the "wounded warriors" premise stretches pretty thin to include drug addicts (a warrior of addiction?), kids involved with dog fighting (warriors of poverty?) and Kobe Bryant (...I got nothing.), which ultimately takes away from what would appear to be an important work.

My favorite articles were the titular one about how Iraq war veterans deal with their injuries, be they emotional or physical and the story on the morbidly obese man who comes to terms with his obesity but still has to deal with everyone else's lack of acceptance of it. In both, the motif of the wounded warrior was clear, and he takes the subject matter seriously with a depth that isn't often found in the latter. He'll sometimes switch between his third person narrative to a first person account of the subject's experience, which most writers/reporters don't have the courage to do.

While I didn't care for a few of the stories (the Vietnam veterans sticking around Thailand felt cliche and the Marlon Brando article that ends the book was self-indulgent), I enjoyed his overall writing style and was curious how he managed to secure his access with some of his subjects. Sager gets in deep with the poor Dominican kids who engage in vicious dogfighting, and how he gained the access to a bunch of poverty stricken adolescents as a middle-aged white guy felt like a more interesting story than the one he was telling.

Book 30 of 2011

Let it be known that I originally made a goal of reading 25 books in 2011, which I soon modified to 30 and then 35 as I found myself more and more motivated to get as many books under my belt as possible. With a little under two months left in the calendar year and five books left, I'm curious to see if I can measure up, especially considering that we're entering the hardcore grading period coming up with essays from the freshpeeps and CD projects and culminating papers from the seniors. It won't be a problem, though, if all of the books are like this one because I finished it in two and a half days.

30) Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling
It feels like I've been too effusive with my praise of the books I've been reading lately. Not everything can be four or five stars on the Goodreads scale, right? But then I remembered that I choose what I read and I'm not trying to read things that I don't like, so if I do like it, then that shouldn't come as a shock to me or anyone else. If a book sucks so much that it'll get a one or two star rating, I'll probably stop part way through or only finish it out of spite. (Spite for who doesn't really matter even though it's pretty obvious that it's for myself.) But that leads us to Mindy Kaling's book.

Best known for her role as Kelly Kapoor on NBC's The Office, Kaling's book is a great mixture of memoir and philosophical musings of a successful, early 30-something woman who makes no apologies for having a great relationship with her parents and memorizing her debit card number to make online shopping easier. And it's also hilarious. The publisher released an excerpt shortly after the release of Tina Fey's book, Bossypants, and it was clear that it was right in the same wheelhouse.

The chief complaint that I heard about Fey's book after I read and reviewed it was how impersonal it felt, and in hindsight, that's valid. Sure, she discusses her father, her husband and the anxiety of having a second kid, but Fey never goes into too much depth on any of those topics, keeping it light, breezy yet still really funny. Kaling's book, while roughly the same length, reveals more about herself, her thoughts and her background while embracing superficiality without forsaking her insightful sense of humor.

And superficiality sounds like a mean term applied here, but, trust me, it isn't meant that way. Too many famous people seem to stalk fame like a big game hunter and then eschew the notion of it once they attain it. Mindy (Can I call her Mindy? That's how personable she comes across in the book: I want to call her Min or Mindy or M-Dog) has a chapter called "The Exact Level of Fame I Want," and that honesty is as endearing as it is refreshing.

Her writing style really works well, here, too, since I finished this in pretty quick fashion because the pages feel like a breathless Kelly Kapoor monologue. She's talented in such a way that she can use the phrase "...or whatever" effectively every single time. That takes an intelligence I'm not used to reading in my everyday life considering how often I see similar phrases used in student writing.

Other things of note in her book: She loves romantic comedies but not what they've become. Her chapter on best friend rights demonstrates just how different groups of female friends are from male friends. The chapter on karaoke etiquette shows that M-Dog and I would get along famously in person. (And she would probably hate the term M-Dog, preferring DJ Mindy Min.) The entire section on romance and guys reminds me of my wife and leads me to think that the two of them would be pretty great friends, too.

Where Tina Fey's book makes the reader want to be friends with her, Mindy Kaling's book makes me think being friends with her is possible.