Last Friday, my wife called me at work and said: “I want to buy a Kinnect.” A Kinnect, for those whom do not know, is a piece of XBox 360 hardware that can read what your body is doing with no controller. It apparently works using a combination of Hermetic sorcery with a pinch shamanic dreamspeaking and a touch of good, old fashioned witchcraft. Nina’s idea was an odd one because: A) My wife had never shown too much interest in this product in the significant time it had been on the market, B) It’s not a particularly inexpensive thing to buy on an impulse, and C) We have no room in our TV nook for the required space for this device. Stunned by this illogical turn of events, I agreed it was a good idea.

So, sure, we needed to re-arrange furniture to the point that we moved the TV and XBox of out the TV room. Now we have a crowded and studio and a separate “couch-facing-an-empty-entertainment-center” room. Now our cable box and DVR attached to a wire connected to what seems to be nothing (but I leave it open to the possibility of it being attached to an invisible ghost TV that I cannot see or hear.) But man, was it worth it. Why? Dance Central 2.

Dance Central 2 is the reason why Nina wanted the Kinnect. If life demands exercise, I suppose dancing it out to a ridiculous assortment of music is a potential better choice than being yelled at via DVD by a muscular, shirtless man (I’m kidding Shaun T, I know you’re attitude comes from a place of love). So Nina has been dancing almost daily for hours at a time. And tonight, after moving the TV to the larger room, I joined her.

Fedoras are optional. You hear me, Maria Bello! We get it! You're a tough lady working hard to earn respect in misogynist police force. Lose the Timberlake cover!

And I cannot recommend it enough. It’s super-fun, a nice workout, and a great way to spend time with Nina. And while my dancing skill are comparable to a combination of Frankenstein’s monster, Herman Munster, and Frankenberry, it does not deter me from trying to look like Lady Gaga in the Bad Romance video. Shit, I had the outfit anyway.

Anyway, what’s been bugging me recently is a shortage of new games that I want to play. I know there have been good games released, such as Arkham City (which I decided to hold off as to play until I receive the game as a Christmas present…Yes, I know that was a dumb move), I am really waiting for some of the big roleplaying games. This week I finally get to play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Next month I get the Bioware Star Wars MMORPG, The Old Republic. Relatively early next year I get the Mass Effect 3. I am dying to play these games, as I have been dying to play them for the years they have been in development.

In the meantime, however, I have been looking to satiate my gaming fix…yet none of the games I have been playing have really scratched the itch. This is the first part of a frustrating though not-actually-that-vicious-but-bear-with-me cycle. It involves me buying video games that I don’t actually want because I am impatient for the games I actually do want.

For instance, I knew Skyrim was coming in November. So, instead of of just waiting for it to be released, I start looking at games to tide me over, using a few different justifications:

1) This games in on sale on Steam (or Direct2Drive, or XBox Live, or GoG) and I would be a fool, A FOOL, to let this opportunity pass me by: This one doesn’t bother me too much because it has yielded some really pleasant experiences at a very low cost. Borderlands (the stylized action-shooter-loot collector) and Sequence (the indie, rhythm-action, RPG) stand out in this category.

2) Let’s buy a game kind of like the one I want to play because something is better than nothing: Hello Dungeon Siege 3. I wanted a game that involved me developing a character and swords and magic and shit, so I talk myself into a solidly average game with middling reviews because I…I just wanted to play it. This is less justifiable because it costs full, retail price despite not being what I really wanted.

3) Shit, a big game just came out and while it has been eagerly awaited by some, it was barely on my radar. For some reason, on launch day I decide it must be mine and drop full price…and immediately feel regret: Rage and Battlefield 3 come to mind. While big games to some, I couldn’t have cared less about them when they were in development. Yet, for want of the actual game I desire, I picked both these games up and immediately regretted it. Not because they’re bad games (they’re not) but they were ill-fitting substitutes for what I wanted to play. And I knew it when I bought them. And I did it anyway.

Finally...the novel experience of playing a soldier in war-torn region of the world. What a fresh and new experience.

Oh, boo hoo. Mr. Disposable Income bought a game he didn’t weally wuv or want but he made to pway them anyway. Yes, but the thing is…my income is certainly much less disposable than this behavior reflects. And these numerous small financial expenditures made me that much poorer…and didn’t scratch my video game itch. It just feels pointless and hollow in retrospect. Oh, well. At least the holiday season approaches so most of the games I’ve been anticipating are starting to manifest. Thank Odin for that.

And guess what? Trailers are commercials. They are marketing ploys to convince pay money to ingest a product. And while we all may crave to see some clips released at Comic-Con or “leaked” footage because we’re so excited, trailers exist to take money out of your pocket and put it in someone else’s.
So, if your movie has some cool visuals, an invested fan-base, and strong original material, it is not a great feat to make an effective trailer. Iron Man 2 is an excellent example. Great cast, cool visuals, and some sweet briefcase armor and I was excited. Yet, the movie, while adequate, in no way lived up to the excitement of the trailer. Good job marketing team.

Trying to sell me with this awesome shot? Nice try, trailer!

So, while I cannot go more than 5 minutes without thinking about a ricocheting thrown shield or Dum Dum Dugan with a shotgun, I am trying to train myself to treat a good trailer like what it is; an enjoyable piece of advertising. I am having mixed results.

What do I mean? Okay, picture this. Your character is some kind of moral paragon. You always make the most noble, self-sacrificing choice is presented. You give your money to the poor and do good deeds while rejecting the reward. You are a model for selfless behavior from top to bottom. But what happens when your character is even in the same room as a random chest, crate, or barrel. That’s right, you loot it quickly and thoroughly. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the same room as the Grand Emperor or your newly reunited long-lost sibling. In a video game RPG, if there is an interactable container of any kind, the game expects you to take whatever is inside.

Talk about an break in storytelling immersion. What kind of noble knight goes rifling through someone else’s belongings right in front of them? And better yet, what kind of backwards artificial intelligence lets me get away with it. For instance, in Dragon Age II, my party found a locked chest sitting next to a handful of guards in the fucking Guard Tower. So what do I do? I sent my rogue character, Verric, to pick the lock and take what’s inside. Does anyone in my party, who, by the way, includes the captain of the guard, say anything about this? Do the guards sitting two feet away? Nope.

Most role-playing games employ this concept of giving items to the the watchful players. Any random container is a source of income waiting for the vigilant. Unfortunately, this rarely makes any sense in the course of the narrative. Even worse, the containers often contain nothing my character would be interested in, but I end up taking it because it’s there. For instance, my character will notice a barrel in an alley. What’s inside? Broken tools and some torn pants. So, despite wearing a city treasury’s worth of gold in enchanted armors and magical rings, my character steals this trash because the game put it there. And what do I do with this trash? I sell it to literally any vendor, who is always more than happy to give me hard currency in exchange for a bag of shit or whatever.

Oh, don't mind me, officers. I'm just going to have my friend steal your belonging. Please continue standing in a circle.

Why can’t games get past this trope. I mean, it was a running joke in the last Bard’s Tale game, yet companies like Bioware continue to use it in their high-end, mature games. It’s to fantasy role-playing games what red, exploding barrels are to first-person shooters. A cliche from a bygone age that needs to be left behind.

And no, I am not talking about true love, the feeling of building something with your hands, or helping someone in need. Yes, yes, that’s all great shit. But what I am talking about is the live, unpredictable, often ridiculous, potentially tedious, but occasionally transcendent pen-and-paper, tabletop roleplaying experience.

I play in bi-weekly Pathfinder (basically a new iteration of 3rd Edition D&D that stuck around when 4th Edition came out) game set in the basic, every fantasy trope in the kitchen sink setting of Forgotten Realms. Last week, while I was running a game something remarkable happened.

In a standard, no-big-deal scenario, the players disturbed a standing suit of exotic armor. Of course, out poured a swarm of flesh-eating cockroaches, intent on devouring the flesh of the living. The experienced dwarf Kasmar, knowing that these creatures could not be killed by mere squashing, threw a flask of oil at the insect pile and hoped to ignite them subsequently.

He missed…and hit Dibbit, the player character kobold, soaking him and oil. Dibbit, being right in front of the insect swarm, tried to drop a smokestick to pacify the roaches. As they started crawling up his extremities and feasting on his blood, he realized this ploy was unsuccessful.

Kasmar, still realizing that fire was a smart means of dealing with this adversary, threw another oil flask at the swarm.

He missed again…and hit Dibbit with even more highly flammable liquid.

At this point Dibbit decided, wisely, to run away from the slow moving roaches. What he could not count on were three things:

A) Botch, the gnome tinkerer, was about to cast Create Flame.
B) Botch was going to live up to his name by critically missing with the spell.
C) The fumble was going to cause Botch to hit his nearest ally with the spell.

So, of course, we now have a flaming Dibbit collapsing. And did I mention Dibbit was an alchemist.

An alchemist carrying several bombs, grenades, and a gunpowder-filled rocket.

This situation was completely unscripted and unplanned for. It unfolded based on a pair of rolled natural 3′s on attack rolls, a pair of 5′s rolled on the direction of a missed thrown weapon, a terrible natural 1, and some poor item saving throws. Only the combination of on-the-fly creativity coupled with the cruel bitch-goddess know as lady luck can create this type of scenario. That is why I never plan to stop playing old-school RPG’s. It’s the only way to experience this kind of absurdity.

Poor Dibbit. We hardly knew you.

Okay, so Dragon Age II has consumed my life in a way that Bioware always seems able to do. But as I stumble to bed, as I have in the last few days, wiped out by a day of labor and a night of obsession, the incoherent semblance of thought runs through my addled brain. Why does this activity, more than any other, compel me to keep going? Why do the hours slip away into days or weeks? How does Bioware, the studio behind some of the best games I have ever played, do this to me in a way no other form of media can? To start, let’s look at other forms of entertainment.

Modern video game narratives are often compared to movies. Often, in action games especially, the plot is a scripted, fixed entity that requires the players play through to reveal the narrative. The use of cinematic storytelling, whether in directed cut-scenes or professionally voiced performances, is employed to communicate to the audience in a way familiar to it. Despite my love of movies, certain video games will hold my attention far longer and with greater intensity than a movie. Even a mediocre story in game form can engage me in a way that the greatest cinematic narrative seems unable to do.

The difference, I imagine, is the work being done. Films are a passive medium. Even the greatest, most thought-provoking, and most challenging film is something you just need to watch. Games, on the other hand, have to be worked through. If I am going to see the next scene, the next story development, or the next conversation, I have to make it happen. And that investment of energy and effort creates a sense ownership impossible to experience in other mediums.

Sleep is for cowards! Or...um...people who have a healthy relationship with video gaming.

Or maybe Bioware is a company of evil fucking bastards who hate my spare time and love depriving me of sleep.

Consider this:

1) Robocop cannot run. He walks leisurely after criminals, engaging in wildly dangerous gunfights with everyone dumb enough to engage him. I mean, a light jog and jumping over a foot-tall hedge will make it nigh impossible for Robocop to catch you unless he decides to shoot you, which brings me to my next point.

2) Robocop’s chief method of protecting and serving is firing exploding three-round bursts into the soon-to-be-corpses of everyone. Non-lethal force consists of him occasionally manhandling muggers and stickup-men by throwing them through walls and breaking as much personal property as cyborgly possible. And this only works if the criminals get close enough to Robocop for him to grab them. Let’s go back to Point #1 to see how unnecessary that is.

3) Robocop drives a Ford Taurus.

4) Robocop keeps his admittedly sweet handgun in a hidden holster in his leg. Robocop’s leg pops open and then he draws his gun, kills everyone, then holsters his weapon with incredible panache. The question is: “Wouldn’t that shit-ton of leg real estate be better served for something like, I don’t know, being able to run…or walk fast. Back to Point #1.

So why is Robocop so well-loved? Robocop has a great supporting cast, a pretty badass costume design, and Paul Verhoeven calling his shots. He is, however, a terrible, terrible cop. But the worst ever?

At least he can handle stairs.

Where to start with this legend? Well for me, there is only one. “Mr. Potato Head, Mr. Potato Head! Backdoors are not secrets!” his amazing line reading from WarGames is maybe my #1 referenced line that no one ever gets. Playing Matthew Broderick’s tech savy pal, his rage-filled scolding of Eddie Deezen is legendary. It demonstrates one of his best and most effective talents: bringing the anger quickly and dangerously with little to no provocation. Maury Chaykin seemed just, plain pissed off all the time and when he brought the rage, he was one of the most intimidating performers around. Not because of the threat of danger the anger signaled, but the anger itself had this palpable power.

He brought a sense of no-nonsense menace to many roles. He was a common criminal after Danny Devito in Twins. He was the kinda sketchy, sweating army officer in Dances with Wolves. Hell, when he was defending his grits in My Cousin Vinny, I expecting him crush with Joe Pesci with his inherent hostility. He would appear all the time and just knock it out of the park everytime.

A few years ago, I remember having the role of some movie producer on the show Entourage and being glad to see him returning to form as the overweight yet screamingly hostile badass you would never, ever want to cross. It was an excellent return to form for him and I just wanted to acknowledge the passing of a great that might not have gotten a ton of attention.

P.S: You know what my favorite part of about Entourage? Adrien Grenier plays Vincent Chase, a somewhat spoiled movie star. So, Adrien and Vince basically have the same job, actors. And they share the same face and body, right? So how come one of them (Vince) is a movie star and one of them (Adrien) is a would-be movie star playing a movie star on a TV show. Adrien Grenier gets paid , and I’m sure paid very well, to be a more successful version of himself on TV. I think that is awesome.

Also, for your entertainment:

I am writing about the concept of the “No Prize.” Back when I was younger, Marvel comics employed this idea. Basically, readers would attempt to find inconsistencies or continuity errors in the comics. Instead of just smugly pointing out these errors, however, they would be charged with coming up with an explanation to this mistake. The reader would find something wrong and use his or imagination to make it right. Then the reader would receive the appreciation of Marvel Comics but no actual reward; literally “No Prize.” I love this idea

I find I employ the “No Prize” idea in my enjoyment of the books I read and films I watch. I want to be entertained by the media I spend my time with, so even if something seems ridiculous or unlikely, I do my best to try to explain how it could actually work out. I want to give everything the largest benefit of the doubt that I can.

I know this seems weird for someone who has been reliably snarky since I started the blog, but I actually find myself working harder to make the story work more than the original writer, sometimes, seems to have.

I do try to be discerning in what I enjoy but sometimes I think we should try to make an effort to make something work even if we need to stretch our suspension of disbelief. If we’re going to hate what we use for entertainment, what’s the point, after all?

For instance, there are spaceship battles in this book but not of the like you’ll see in Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica. How about instead, missiles fired from hundreds of millions of miles away that, due to relativity, may have been fired years in the past or “near-misses” when an enemy weapon detonates a near 100,000 miles away? Or how about the sharpshooting of a turret that can nearly instantly locate and fire on a target when the “shooter” releases the safety. This isn’t badass! This isn’t the cool, fast, tough professional with advanced training or amazing experience. This is the cruel, arbitrary nature of war as far as a rank amateur like myself can tell.

I'd like to believe that world governments are working on Gunstar technology. But I assume none of us will ever be witness to a real Death Blossum in our lives.

And silly post title aside, I really like it that way. It may not be anymore realistic than anything else (I don’t know enough about science, warfare, or the future to say for sure) but it sure feels truer than the aircraft carrier style of BSG or the updated galleon broadsiding in Star Trek. Don’t get me wrong, I love that stuff too, but when it comes to war, death by an ill-fitting acceleration dampening suit might not be cinematic, but it sure is dramatic.