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.

"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.

VitaBeard

Beards are the best. This topic has come up more than a few times before, especially since my beard, at least the important beard-centric side portions, has always come up a subpar. My beard envy was only exacerbated over the summer when IFC aired their original program, Whisker Wars, a reality show about competitive bearding. These guys were so good at growing a beard that they gathered in one place and awarded each other trophies as tributes to their manliness.

The star and villain of the show, Jack Passion, earned the ire of other beard competitors, the Austin Facial Hair Club chief among them, by attempting to become the face of bearding and cash in on his facial hair growing ability. They think he's a sellout. While Passion does come across as a pompous jerk and a sore loser on the show, I can't blame him for trying to go pro and make some cash off of the fact that he doesn't shave. And, heck, it's worked, hasn't it? I follow the dude on Twitter, want to purchase his book, and now I'm relaying his latest endorsement mostly because I want it for myself.

It's a supplement that aids facial hair growth. To be clear, I have no false notion that this is anything other than a multivitamin, and even those are widely considered less than effective when their of the over the counter variety like this one. But I want to believe! I desperately want to think that this one pill, taken 2 to 6 times daily will make my beard fuller, thicker and more luscious. Don't be another Rogaine, VitaBeard. Don't break my heart.

Frosh
On Monday, we continued our discussion of Fahrenheit 451. The important idea that we focused on was the idea of perception and how allowing others to craft the perception of an argument or a rule grants them the power to create said rule's implementation. If others have that power, they control the idea, and controlling an idea is very effective tool when someone has an agenda.

Tuesday, the Link Crew came in and gave a presentation for the first half of the period and you annotated your books for the second half.

Everyone received a work day on the Censorship Project on Wednesday. You will have one more work day next week where you'll receive the rubric for the presentation as well as sign up for a spot to present. As a rule of thumb, I'm usually a much more lenient grader on those who volunteer to go first than I am than those who attempt to go last. Presentations begin the week of November 7. You'll have a rehearsal day on the Monday, and the following three days after that will be devoted to presentations.

Today, the plan is to introduce the concept of irony and attempt to make sure everyone can identify it in practice in our reading of Fahrenheit 451.

Seniors
We discussed the idea and implementation of evil, both in practice and as a concept, on Monday.

Tuesday, I collected your Thesis/Theme worksheets, and we collectively attempted to fix the level questions and theme statements of volunteers. Hopefully, you took this as a chance to modify your own by applying your own understanding to how you should construct your theme.

You received a day devoted to working on either the CD creation project or annotating your lit books on Wednesday.

Thursday, I tried something completely new and foreign to me with mixed results. We discussed archetypes and I asked you to write down your own examples of archetypes in small groups on the whiteboards I provided. However, I don't think my instructions were very clear. I modified them in asking you to come up with an archetype together (My example was the arrogant jerk boyfriend.) and then have each individual in the group come up with a different example (Bradley Cooper in Wedding Crashers and Stu's girlfriend from The Hangover both qualified.) all written on those shiny new whiteboards. With some clearer instructions, I think this is something I'll look forward to doing again next year.

Meta Blogging

This guy is almost as frustrated
as I am with my lack of posting.

See what happens when I get bogged down with doing my job? I fail to update the blog about my job! THIS IS A TRAVESTY AND UNTOWARD! This is a disservice to myself more than anyone because holding off on writing the daily happenings of the class means that I tend to forget aspects of each day, resulting in this blog entry becoming a chore. If details are spotty, that's why. Also, I don't get to do the fun pre-amble as I instead focus on some expository writing on why I haven't been writing, which is the most boring writing to ever exist. But here we are.

Frosh
Monday, September 26 - You needed to have Fahrenheit 451 by this day. We began covering the Elements of Theme in our notes. When creating a theme statement, the key is to first decide on any of the number of topics a story addresses (what the story is about), and then figure out what the story reveals about said topic (what the story is trying to say).

Tuesday, September 27 - We continued our discussion on the Elements of Theme. You also began reading The Scarlet Ibis

Wednesday, September 28 - You continued reading The Scarlet Ibis and worked to fill out your story charts, which, hopefully, led you to creating a valid theme statement.

Thursday, September 29 - Everyone turned in The Scarlet Ibis story chart and then spent the rest of the period working on the newspaper projects in their groups.

Friday, September 30 - Newspaper projects were due this day, and we spent a portion of the period looking at everyone's work. We also attempted to come up with our own theme statement for The Scarlet Ibis so that everyone else could come up with three possible theme statements for the story by the following Monday.

Monday, October 3 - Students received an annotation day to work on their reading of Fahrenheit 451.

Tuesday, October 4 - You received the Thematic Paragraph assignment and we went over themes you created together as a class.

Wednesday, October 5 - I gave you a series of statements that are thematically linked to Fahrenheit 451, and asked you to respond to them with whether or not you agree or disagree. Meanwhile, I also checked your books for annotations on the first 35 pages of the book.

Thursday, October 6 - In small groups, you discussed your opinions on the Fahrenheit 451 anticipation/reaction statements. This led to a whole group discussion where we talked about the views of your group.

Friday, October 7 - You turned in your Thematic Paragraph and took a quiz on the first 35 pages of Fahrenheit 451.

Tuesday, October 11 - We graded the first quiz together as a class as a means to discuss the first half of Part One of Fahrenheit 451.

Wednesday, October 12 - I collected your annotations for the rest of Part One and you took an in-class essay addressing the need for people to read books.

Thursday, October 13 - We finally went back to discussing your take on the anticipation/reaction statements. The goal here is to make connections to the book and clarify some of the more confusing aspects of it by framing your understanding through these statements.

Friday, October 14 - You received a day to annotate your books.

Monday, October 17 - We spent this day becoming acquainted with the library.

Tuesday, October 18 - I assigned your Censorship Project and answered questions on it. In groups of your choosing, you began working on a worksheet that explored the meaning of censorship.

Wednesday, October 19 - Your group turned in the censorship survey and then used the rest of the class period as a work day.

Thursday, October 20 - You took a quiz on the rest of part one and all of part two of Fahrenheit 451. After finishing the quiz, you wrote down ten questions on anything that occurs in the first two parts of the book for our discussion on Friday.

Friday, October 21 - We discussed all of part one and two of Fahrenheit 451.

Seniors
Monday, September 26 - You received the Persuasion Portfolio, formed groups and began working.

Tuesday, September 27 - Everyone turned in their Timed Writing 1 Revisions and worked on the Persuasion Portfolio.

Wednesday, September 28 - We watched No Logo and you answered questions regarding the documentary/speech.

Thursday, September 29 - Everyone took the comprehensive lit terms test and turned in the No Logo questions by the end of the period.

Friday, September 30 - Students worked on the Persuasion Portfolio for the last day.

Monday, October 3 - Persuasion Portfolios were due this day. I gave you a proofreading assignment to ensure your understanding of sentence run-ons and fragments.

Tuesday, October 4 - We corrected the proofreading assignment together as a class with some explanation. You then received a day to annotate your lit books.

Wednesday, October 5 - I gave you a list of forceless words that you should avoid in your writing that also contained a few lists of suggested words to improve your analysis. We then explored what analysis looks like by looking at examples and discussing how much summary should be included when analyzing literature. The answer? Very little. Remember that the assumption when writing any type of analysis is that your reader is familiar with and has read the work in question.

Thursday, October 6 - I collected your second Article Selection assignment. We then read about and discussed the Radical Honesty movement and how it could feasibly apply to a person's everyday life. We also started to go over level questions. Here's a lovingly crafted example using a then recent episode of Mad Men as a base that I wrote last year.

Friday, October 7 - We continued going over level question and applying them to your lit books.

Tuesday, October 11 - You received a day to annotate your lit books.

Wednesday, October 12 - As a way to introduce ourselves to Beowulf, we went over a truncated (and sometimes sarcastic) look at the Anglo Saxons and their history.

Thursday, October 13 - This day was focused on your second in-class Timed Writing and turning in your books for an annotation check.

Friday, October 14 - After looking at laws that existed between the fifth and eighth century, you discussed what these laws said about the Anglo Saxon society in small groups.


Monday, October 17 - I assigned the CD Creation project and showed off examples, both good and bad, of past projects. The key for this one is having a viable theme statement that can apply to your lit book before you even attempt to choose any kind of song. Please keep that in mind, since this project is worth 150 points and due on November 17.

Tuesday, October 18 - You turned in your second Timed Writing Revision. I assigned two theme-based worksheets, one asking you to write down subjects and revelations and another exploring level questions leading to a theme, both of which are due Tuesday, 10/25.

Wednesday, October 19 - This was a CD Creation project work day.

Thursday, October 20 - We discussed the hero's journey and where we've seen examples of it in stories we have all experienced before. In a longer form, we applied the hero's journey to Finding Nemo and then you were given time to work on the bonus assignment that was due the next day.

Friday, October 21 - As a class, we discussed the idea of evil, and you answered some questions about its nature.

And SCENE.

Book 21 of 2011

This is the second of three works I'm annotating in preparation for taking over the frosh honors classes for the next school year. Of the three (Animal Farm and Othello being the other two), this is one I haven't read before.

21) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Bradbury foretells a dystopic future where books are outlawed because they make people think too much, and thinking can lead to unhappiness. As for what amounts to happiness, people are both out of control (in the case of crazy teenagers running people over for the sake of something to do) and totally in the dark (as in the case of Montag's wife, Mildred, and her clueless friends). Without the influence of literature, people have lost the ability to ask why and with that all sense of meaning in life.

The story also comes across as muddled in parts, which I'm hoping can be a topic for discussion in class. For what's been described to me as a junior high book, I was surprised at how challenging it came across in the beginning. Too much of the world feels poorly realized in Bradbury's overly flowery diction. The book is at odds with itself: it at once attempts to be very pointedly describing a world without literature and showing the consequences of that idea in practice but also tries to capture the world using the influence of the same.

Those two ideas seem like they would go well together but it feels jarring. Seeing more of the home life of Montag prior to his awakening by Clarisse (GET IT!?) would have helped to make the setting more established. In fact, my edition contains an essay where Bradbury describes two scenes that he included in a play adaptation that would have gone a long way towards, if not fixing my problems, at least addressing them. Reading those last few pages felt like watching a few really great deleted scenes from a movie I sort of liked. He says that he had the chance to include them in a later, revised edition but chose not to because Bradbury felt like changing the book after people have read it betrays the message of the book. I'm not sure where I stand on that idea but I think I agree with him, as art no longer belongs to the artist once other people get their hands on it since it's open to interpretation and analysis. However, it should make for some interesting discussion come class time.