My name is Jonathan Singer and I have a problem.
I'm totally addicted to collecting Gamerscore. I know this is bad. Everything about it feels wrong. My recent readings on Buddhism have been telling me that collecting things is a bad thing, representing the attachment which leads inevitably to suffering. (More on Buddhism at some later time.) But it's a little sick, the time and effort I will put into eking out just a few more points in a game.
Case in point: Eternal Sonata.
I have had this game out from Gamefly since 2/21/08. I realize that it is a JRPG, and those tend to take a long-ass time to finish. But I should have long since sent this game back to the hell from whence it came, freeing up that spot on my Queue for other, better games (like the recently shipped Orange Box, though I question whether I will play any of Half-Life 2. I tend not to like getting involved in things part-way through, hence my not watching season 4 of BSG when it starts this Friday, because I'm still not done with Season 2, let alone started and finished Season 3). I mean, I already wrote about having finished Eternal Sonata and gotten the 300 and change achievement points that are possible on a first playthrough.
Of course, the game was made by a bunch of sick Japanese sadists, who require you to play through the Encore mode (basically New Game +, except you start back at level 1, with none of your equipment and the enemies all have twice the HP and 1.5 times the strength and defense) in order to get the other 600some points. This is awful. Who thought of this?
[Ed. note - At the same time, I have to grudgingly give the developers respect for making the second playthrough punishingly difficult. Once you got the timing of counterattacks and blocks down in the first playthrough, it was childishly easy. I could wipe out even the bosses that my walkthrough told me were really challenging. Really challenging for people who suck at video games, but not really challenging for me. I am a master. Well, this was before I played Encore and had Captain Dolce (oh the names are so awesome, so awesome. {cf. Polka}) sweep the floor with my bloomer-covered ass. I find myself again looking at how the course of the game has been changed forever, which is how I felt every time I got a new party level and found that the battle system was upgraded with some new quirk or other, that totally made things fresh and clean again. It's quite nice to find a game that I've spent so many damn hours on continue to surprise me, even if part of that surprise is discovering the inner depths of anger as I shout obscenities at the TV screen.]
Anyway, basically I've spent another 10 hours or so on this game, after having completed it once, just to get to the first of the second round of achievements, which was worth 79 points. So that's cool, but brings the time vs points ratio to like...7.9 points an hour. Hard math that. I actually busted out a calculator. No, really. I feel I can admit this to you, friendly reader types.
Now, the next few achievements will be easier to get, as I near the end of the game. And one of them is worth a cool 321 points, which is hott as Paris says, but really, it's a bit sick. I've pretty much lost enjoyment in the game and am now playing solely to get the achievements and send the bitch back to Gamefly, never to grace my sexy black Xbox ever agains! My replay(s) of Mass Effect will be far, far more enjoyable, because at least in that game, there are no children at all (yes!) and the adults are, on the whole (Preparation H feels good...), pretty sexalicious. And there is interactive sodomy, as they say.
Irregardless, I feel myself coming close to the end of Eternal Sonata and already, my spirit feels lighter and free. I don't even know what I'm going to do with myself when I don't have a bunch of Japanese schoolchildren babbling at me about Piu Grave and Shade Cometu. I'll miss you kids!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Random blahblahblah
Greetings, friends and foes. I don't really have a topic today, but since work is going so insanely slow today, I figured I'd just open up a new blog entry and get to writin'. My poor body is rejecting me today for my poor treatment of it yesterday evening. I had the pleasure of attending an event hosted by Community Servings called LifeSavor. My company, lovely people that they are, is a corporate sponsor, so we got 10 tickets to the event. Being the social presence that I am, I'm on the short list of people who get invited to things like this, which is pretty awesome if I do say so.
The event itself was pretty awesome. I'm told it's one of the best fundraisers all year in Boston and I could believe it. The scale of the whole thing was mammoth, and it was all donated by other companies. And it's all for a great cause, too. Community Servings provides meals to people with acute life-threatening illnesses (cancer, HIV/AIDS, etc) who cannot care for themselves.
So the event was about 6 hours long and I got totally drunk, along with everyone who was with me. It was all good though, because we went to Meritage for one of the best meals I've ever had. So delicious.
I realize this is a pretty boring blog entry, because my mind is mush today and I don't have anything all that compelling to say to you kids. One thing, though. I just saw the film Soldier's Girl, about Calpernia Addams and the man she met and fell in love with before he was murdered. It was terribly sad, but a really interesting movie. I find transexuals quite fascinating, and if you're at all intrigued by that, this movie does a great job explaining it. Also, Lee Pace is a great actor who does an awesome job playing Calpernia. Anyhoo, cheque it out, people.
The event itself was pretty awesome. I'm told it's one of the best fundraisers all year in Boston and I could believe it. The scale of the whole thing was mammoth, and it was all donated by other companies. And it's all for a great cause, too. Community Servings provides meals to people with acute life-threatening illnesses (cancer, HIV/AIDS, etc) who cannot care for themselves.
So the event was about 6 hours long and I got totally drunk, along with everyone who was with me. It was all good though, because we went to Meritage for one of the best meals I've ever had. So delicious.
I realize this is a pretty boring blog entry, because my mind is mush today and I don't have anything all that compelling to say to you kids. One thing, though. I just saw the film Soldier's Girl, about Calpernia Addams and the man she met and fell in love with before he was murdered. It was terribly sad, but a really interesting movie. I find transexuals quite fascinating, and if you're at all intrigued by that, this movie does a great job explaining it. Also, Lee Pace is a great actor who does an awesome job playing Calpernia. Anyhoo, cheque it out, people.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Impressions: Eternal Sonata
I know I promised a while back that I would post my impressions of this game when I finished it, and while I did finish it a few weeks back, I have not yet managed to get 1000 gamerpoints from it. Damn you, New Game +!
Anyhoo, I'll go ahead and post what my thoughts are, since the encore mode doesn't add anything new to it. Darn, I just realized that I had totally begun writing a post the other week about gamerscore and Eternal Sonata and then forgotten about it in the blur of a bunch of Japanese people taking over my every waking moment. Now that's over, I find myself to be not quite as un-busy as I suspected I would be. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, the farmer next door always used to tell me.
Regardless, Eternal Sonata. So, I got this game probably 2 months ago now from Gamefly, the greatest invention since Netflix. Ok, well it would be if things did not take like a week to ship to me and if they ever gave me the game I actually wanted rather than things I added months ago, on a whim, like Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. WTFBBQ, I say to that? Why did that ever look appealing to me? My least favorite part of Dragon Quest VIII was the whole monster trainer aspect of it. Ghey. Anyhoo, sent that shit back.
So I get this game and decide to delve into the lovely world of JRPGs. I think this may be my first super Japanese JRPG. I mean, sure, I played Chrono Trigger/Cross and all of the Final Fantasy games, but they aren't quite as insane as this game is. Close, but not quite.
First of all, its premise centers around Chopin dying in his bed of good ol' Consumption. (Side note #1: No one ever looks sick in the game. They are all healthy looking six-twelve year olds.) As Choppy dies, his mind transports to a mystical, cel-shaded world where the terminally ill are granted magical powers. (Side note #2: There is never any explanation of why this is or what it accomplishes. Most interesting about this is that those who can't use "magic" can still, say...shoot arrows into the sky that rain down and heal your group. Or swing a giant 40' sword that has green-glowing chains hanging off of it. Not magical at all.) So Choppy insists that the world is all a dream, and naturally, in the end, it pretty much turns out that it is a dream and he simply needed to accept death in order for the dream to continue on without him. Of course!
So the chapters in the game are named after famouse Chopin pieces. (i.e. - Raindrops, Revolution, Fantasie-Impromptu, etc.) At either the intro or the end of each chapter is basically a slideshow presentation on the period in Chopin's life during which he wrote the piece that accompanies said chapter. This slideshow includes images of various locales in France (where he lived), Poland (where he was from), Austria (where he went to school) and Spain (where he died). I'll take a moment to note here that prior to playing this game, I knew absolutely nothing of Chopin and have not even gone and researched him on his wikipedia page. (Side Note #3: I totally want to do this now, but I'll wait so that my knowledge of his life in this post is based solely on what I learned in the game.) During this slideshow each chapter, the piece is played while subtitles explain what they believe his mental state to have been while he wrote it. For instance, Chapter 2--"Revolution"--in the game is about the main cast of characters going to visit Count Waltz (the big bad) to get him to stop raping the environment and his people (figuratively). In reality, Chopin wrote Revolutionary Etude while at school in Vienna in response to the revolution going on in his homeland. He was always a sickly child and felt a strong connection to the freedom fighters of his homeland. He wrote the piece as a show of his support for them, despite his physical incapabilities.
Now, Chopin's music (as I discovered over the course of the game), hardly needs a personal history for you to feel his emotions through it. A tribute, I suppose, to his insane musicianship. His pieces are brilliantly evocative in and of themselves, but I must say, it's nice to be able to understand a little more about where he was coming from.
The best part for me, is that this was explained to me through a video game. And at that, a JRPG that has some of the cheesiest plot and characters evs. I just can't really picture the last time a video game taught me anything. Well anything of factual reality.
Anyway, it compelled me to go buy an Essential Chopin cd on iTunes, to which I am currently listening. I always talk about wanting to get acquainted with other composers and such, but find it difficult to go out and just blindly buy something of theirs and get into it. Maybe this sort of game would work well to get the average person interested in amazing music. Chopin has the benefit of composing solely for the piano, so there's a lot less happening at the same time than in orchestral music. At the same time, the piano is second only to the voice in my opinion for conveying emotion. All in all, I encourage anyone to at least give the game a try. I realize I didn't write about gameplay at all, but it's actually pretty nice. The battle system is quick and efficient, not wasting any time with unneccesary loading times and it evolves over the course of the entire game up until the very, very end. So at least it always stays fresh and interesting that way. There are far worse ways to spend 20+ hours, and you always have Chopin.
Anyhoo, I'll go ahead and post what my thoughts are, since the encore mode doesn't add anything new to it. Darn, I just realized that I had totally begun writing a post the other week about gamerscore and Eternal Sonata and then forgotten about it in the blur of a bunch of Japanese people taking over my every waking moment. Now that's over, I find myself to be not quite as un-busy as I suspected I would be. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, the farmer next door always used to tell me.
Regardless, Eternal Sonata. So, I got this game probably 2 months ago now from Gamefly, the greatest invention since Netflix. Ok, well it would be if things did not take like a week to ship to me and if they ever gave me the game I actually wanted rather than things I added months ago, on a whim, like Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. WTFBBQ, I say to that? Why did that ever look appealing to me? My least favorite part of Dragon Quest VIII was the whole monster trainer aspect of it. Ghey. Anyhoo, sent that shit back.
So I get this game and decide to delve into the lovely world of JRPGs. I think this may be my first super Japanese JRPG. I mean, sure, I played Chrono Trigger/Cross and all of the Final Fantasy games, but they aren't quite as insane as this game is. Close, but not quite.
First of all, its premise centers around Chopin dying in his bed of good ol' Consumption. (Side note #1: No one ever looks sick in the game. They are all healthy looking six-twelve year olds.) As Choppy dies, his mind transports to a mystical, cel-shaded world where the terminally ill are granted magical powers. (Side note #2: There is never any explanation of why this is or what it accomplishes. Most interesting about this is that those who can't use "magic" can still, say...shoot arrows into the sky that rain down and heal your group. Or swing a giant 40' sword that has green-glowing chains hanging off of it. Not magical at all.) So Choppy insists that the world is all a dream, and naturally, in the end, it pretty much turns out that it is a dream and he simply needed to accept death in order for the dream to continue on without him. Of course!
So the chapters in the game are named after famouse Chopin pieces. (i.e. - Raindrops, Revolution, Fantasie-Impromptu, etc.) At either the intro or the end of each chapter is basically a slideshow presentation on the period in Chopin's life during which he wrote the piece that accompanies said chapter. This slideshow includes images of various locales in France (where he lived), Poland (where he was from), Austria (where he went to school) and Spain (where he died). I'll take a moment to note here that prior to playing this game, I knew absolutely nothing of Chopin and have not even gone and researched him on his wikipedia page. (Side Note #3: I totally want to do this now, but I'll wait so that my knowledge of his life in this post is based solely on what I learned in the game.) During this slideshow each chapter, the piece is played while subtitles explain what they believe his mental state to have been while he wrote it. For instance, Chapter 2--"Revolution"--in the game is about the main cast of characters going to visit Count Waltz (the big bad) to get him to stop raping the environment and his people (figuratively). In reality, Chopin wrote Revolutionary Etude while at school in Vienna in response to the revolution going on in his homeland. He was always a sickly child and felt a strong connection to the freedom fighters of his homeland. He wrote the piece as a show of his support for them, despite his physical incapabilities.
Now, Chopin's music (as I discovered over the course of the game), hardly needs a personal history for you to feel his emotions through it. A tribute, I suppose, to his insane musicianship. His pieces are brilliantly evocative in and of themselves, but I must say, it's nice to be able to understand a little more about where he was coming from.
The best part for me, is that this was explained to me through a video game. And at that, a JRPG that has some of the cheesiest plot and characters evs. I just can't really picture the last time a video game taught me anything. Well anything of factual reality.
Anyway, it compelled me to go buy an Essential Chopin cd on iTunes, to which I am currently listening. I always talk about wanting to get acquainted with other composers and such, but find it difficult to go out and just blindly buy something of theirs and get into it. Maybe this sort of game would work well to get the average person interested in amazing music. Chopin has the benefit of composing solely for the piano, so there's a lot less happening at the same time than in orchestral music. At the same time, the piano is second only to the voice in my opinion for conveying emotion. All in all, I encourage anyone to at least give the game a try. I realize I didn't write about gameplay at all, but it's actually pretty nice. The battle system is quick and efficient, not wasting any time with unneccesary loading times and it evolves over the course of the entire game up until the very, very end. So at least it always stays fresh and interesting that way. There are far worse ways to spend 20+ hours, and you always have Chopin.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Why, God, why?
I don't even have the energy to blog about this right now to the full extent that I should.
But honestly, wtf is wrong with the gay community. Can we just take a look at the paragraph he cites about prevention of STDs?:
Preventing STDs is about having good info and resources, knowing your own body, and communicating honestly with yourself and your partners. There are an infinite number of sexual possibilities and contexts, including sex within a relationship, sex with a stranger, and sexwork. Whoever you are, whoever you’re with, and wherever you connect, you deserve respect, a chance to agree on what you’ll do together, and the experience you desire.
Whoever wrote that should probably be shot in the face. Why is it so hard for the gay health leaders to give real, honest, useful advice?
Anyway, fracking retarded. The world's going to shit and I'm staying off sex for the foreseeable future.
But honestly, wtf is wrong with the gay community. Can we just take a look at the paragraph he cites about prevention of STDs?:
Preventing STDs is about having good info and resources, knowing your own body, and communicating honestly with yourself and your partners. There are an infinite number of sexual possibilities and contexts, including sex within a relationship, sex with a stranger, and sexwork. Whoever you are, whoever you’re with, and wherever you connect, you deserve respect, a chance to agree on what you’ll do together, and the experience you desire.
Whoever wrote that should probably be shot in the face. Why is it so hard for the gay health leaders to give real, honest, useful advice?
Anyway, fracking retarded. The world's going to shit and I'm staying off sex for the foreseeable future.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Impressions: Verdi's La Traviata
On Friday, Jase and I went to the latest stop on our musical tour of all that Boston has to offer, Verdi's La Traviata at the Majestic Theatre by Emerson. It was put on by Teatro Lirico D'Europa, a fantastic company that I intend to see again next time they are in town.
Basically, La Traviata's plot was lifted wholesale by Baz Luhrmann for his movie Moulin Rouge. I just spent a bit of time on the wiki entry for that movie and it really re-asserts the fact that Luhrmann is a genius. I mean, taking an artform that is probably not accessible to a lot of people, or at least not widely viewed, and transforming it into something that shows how much emotion modern music can contain. Amazing. Jason and I discussed this during one of the intermissions. I never realized, though, that his idea to use modern music stemmed from Orpheus. He wanted Christian to seem like something of a musical savant, much like Orpheus was.
Anyhoo, La Traviata tells the story of a beautiful young courtesan named Violetta. She leads life of decadence and pleasure, until she falls in love with a man named Alfredo, who convinces her to move to the country and live with him in peace. They do so, until his father arrives and speaks with her privately, urging Violetta to leave Alfredo so as not to disgrace Alfredo's sister. Violetta meanwhile, is dying and feels this is her one chance at love and happiness. Ultimately, she decides to sacrifice her happiness for Alfredo's sister and leaves him, saying she is returning to an old lover. He follows her to Paris and cruelly pays her back for their time together in front of the entire party. His father rebukes him for his treatment of her. Later, she is on her deathbed and has received a letter from Alfredo's father saying that he explained everything to his son and they are both on their way to see her and atone for their mistakes. Alfredo arrives and Violetta sings a duet with him, imagining their future happiness. She decides to thank God at church and relapses, falling to the floor. Alfredo's father arrives and embraces her as his daughter. Violetta suddenly feels renewed and her pain disappears. She stands and embraces everyone, singing about her miraculous recovery. She faces the audience, turns her head to the heavens, the lights dim and a golden spotlight shines on her as she collapses to the floor, dead.
Basically, it's the saddest thing I have seen in a super long time. I wept when Giorgio (the father) compelled her to leave her love and I really wept when she was dying after finally being reunited with her love.
Overall though, the opera examines the cruel way that a woman in her position was treated. How society was happy to use her for pleasure and then discard her as though she did not deserve to be treated with respect and compassion. She knowingly sacrificed her final chance at happiness to protect the chances of a girl who is not even a character in the opera. Alfredo's sister never makes an appearance, but for some reason, by virtue of not being a courtesan, she is presumed an innocent, while Violetta earns no such compassion. Well, not by most anyway. Alfredo's father seems to realize it only after Violetta so passionately sings of her sacrifice, and even then continues to ask it of her.
When he sees how his son treats her, I think the reality sets in for him. He sees that her sacrifice is greater than most will ever make, which in fact makes her more deserving of compassion and love than those on the upper edge of society, who feel she has no worth and is merely a whore.
I learned that Verdi wrote this based on a play by Alexander Dumas: "La dame aux camelias." It was about a real courtesan in Paris who had died within the same generation of him. This was apparently unheard of at the time to write about someone many considered beneath them. It's quite a moving stoy in that way, that he felt passionate enough about her worth that he wanted to immortalize her in one of the great "high society" art forms. And who wouldn't be moved by a story like that?
Basically, La Traviata's plot was lifted wholesale by Baz Luhrmann for his movie Moulin Rouge. I just spent a bit of time on the wiki entry for that movie and it really re-asserts the fact that Luhrmann is a genius. I mean, taking an artform that is probably not accessible to a lot of people, or at least not widely viewed, and transforming it into something that shows how much emotion modern music can contain. Amazing. Jason and I discussed this during one of the intermissions. I never realized, though, that his idea to use modern music stemmed from Orpheus. He wanted Christian to seem like something of a musical savant, much like Orpheus was.
Anyhoo, La Traviata tells the story of a beautiful young courtesan named Violetta. She leads life of decadence and pleasure, until she falls in love with a man named Alfredo, who convinces her to move to the country and live with him in peace. They do so, until his father arrives and speaks with her privately, urging Violetta to leave Alfredo so as not to disgrace Alfredo's sister. Violetta meanwhile, is dying and feels this is her one chance at love and happiness. Ultimately, she decides to sacrifice her happiness for Alfredo's sister and leaves him, saying she is returning to an old lover. He follows her to Paris and cruelly pays her back for their time together in front of the entire party. His father rebukes him for his treatment of her. Later, she is on her deathbed and has received a letter from Alfredo's father saying that he explained everything to his son and they are both on their way to see her and atone for their mistakes. Alfredo arrives and Violetta sings a duet with him, imagining their future happiness. She decides to thank God at church and relapses, falling to the floor. Alfredo's father arrives and embraces her as his daughter. Violetta suddenly feels renewed and her pain disappears. She stands and embraces everyone, singing about her miraculous recovery. She faces the audience, turns her head to the heavens, the lights dim and a golden spotlight shines on her as she collapses to the floor, dead.
Basically, it's the saddest thing I have seen in a super long time. I wept when Giorgio (the father) compelled her to leave her love and I really wept when she was dying after finally being reunited with her love.
Overall though, the opera examines the cruel way that a woman in her position was treated. How society was happy to use her for pleasure and then discard her as though she did not deserve to be treated with respect and compassion. She knowingly sacrificed her final chance at happiness to protect the chances of a girl who is not even a character in the opera. Alfredo's sister never makes an appearance, but for some reason, by virtue of not being a courtesan, she is presumed an innocent, while Violetta earns no such compassion. Well, not by most anyway. Alfredo's father seems to realize it only after Violetta so passionately sings of her sacrifice, and even then continues to ask it of her.
When he sees how his son treats her, I think the reality sets in for him. He sees that her sacrifice is greater than most will ever make, which in fact makes her more deserving of compassion and love than those on the upper edge of society, who feel she has no worth and is merely a whore.
I learned that Verdi wrote this based on a play by Alexander Dumas: "La dame aux camelias." It was about a real courtesan in Paris who had died within the same generation of him. This was apparently unheard of at the time to write about someone many considered beneath them. It's quite a moving stoy in that way, that he felt passionate enough about her worth that he wanted to immortalize her in one of the great "high society" art forms. And who wouldn't be moved by a story like that?
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