Okay a quick hodge podge of a post on the various things which I've thinking about lately. Certainly nothing of import and nothing real political but with the kid here now it felt nice to blog something without having to check my sources or even having my blood pressure rise.

Movies

I was thinking last night as I was watching Support Your Local Gunfighter last night that they just don't films like they used to. And maybe because its the first post of the New Year or that oddly enough the female lead from SYLG died this week that I'm getting nostalgic. Not only was the movie extremely tame but its also entertaining. Now I admit that I have a soft spot for old Westerns especially the comedic and even musicals. Because we all know Paint Your Wagon is the shit. Everything from Stagecoach to the Shootist in terms of Johne Wayne was a mainstay in my household and indeed it was the fact that my wife had made me hot chocolate (yeah that's right, hot chocolate, with whip cream if you must know) in my John Wayne courage cup (a ludicrously over sized cup with the Duke's likeness on the outside with a quote on courage inside the rim) that made reflect upon this issue. My favorite as a youngster was always El Dorado. Mitchum makes a far more convincing western drunk than Dean Martin from Rio Bravo. I also hold it against the Sons of Katie Elder which could have been a fine film otherwise. And for no real reason I just wanted to throw in True Grit, while the sequel Rooster Cogburn was a bad idea no one can deny that seeing a fat, drunk John Wayne telling bad guys led by to fill Robert Duvall "fill your hands you son-of-a-bitch" is just too classic. And it was filmed in Colorado to boot.

And as I went to get my umpteenth cup of coffee I thought of the irony of turning away from a present which I don't much care for to revel in a past that never really existed. And in point of fact John Wayne was a conservative prick. I mean don't get me wrong, his westerns are the shit but seriously, has anyone bothered to watch any of his cold war era propaganda? Sickening. But he's still the Duke and part of what I like about westerns is the sense that the world is big enough that if you happen to disagree with someone you can just give them some extra berth. So we'll move on.

Video games

As I've noted before I'm a video game junkie (at times) and since my PS3 is currently down and I don't have any real time to play anyway I might as well blog about video games that I've played. I know this is kind of sad but bear with here. First and foremost is the extremely disappointing Call of Duty: World at War. Development of the newest installment of the franchise was handed off from Infinity Ward to Treyarch who butchered it. After last years release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare a whole new standard was set for the previously played out First Person Shooter (FPS) genre. This was done mainly by taking it out of the overcrowded and over hyped WWII genre and creating a modern fictional conflict which while closely resembling the Iraq invasion also tied in a Russian civil war which added some very enjoyable moments to gameplay. Along with an indepth plot line which sees your Marine character killed in an atomic explosion to the finale of the game where your entire SAS team (besides you) is wiped out and your mission (though successful) covered up. In lieu of that, in World at War we are given the standard march to Berlin, but this time from the Russian side starting in Stalingrad. There's also a raid on Guadalacanal (where my grandfather fought incidentally, but with the 3rd Marine division, not the 1st as is portrayed in the game). The feeling is that, "sure it's the same old thing but this time it's darker". So okay is this game you get to use a flame thrower or get the chance to execute prisoners. You see Germans executing the wounded at Stalingrad, the Japanese torturing captured Marines and a bevy of surrendering Germans executed all in pursuit of the anti-climatic climax which is, (wait for it) raising the red flag over the Reichstag (take note Garibaldy). But the story and levels are all so familiar, restrictively linear, all so redundant that this was just painful to play through. All in all this game is a piece of shit and that being said a must buy. "Why" you ask? Two words, "Nazi Zombies". I shit you not, when you beat the game you unlock a minigame which has you holed up trying to fend off ever tougher waves of the undead.

Man, there's just something about Nazis and zombies that makes you want to put a bullet in their head. To see it brought together, even in an imperfect manner is just fills a spot that nothing else can.

Oddly enough though, the game has consistently been in the running for some of the "game of the year" reviews for '08 which I found kind of surprising, but the again there's no accounting for taste (this blog proves that). Though that honor has consistently been given to Grand Theft Auto IV which was an extremely solid addition to the franchise. Also in the running was Metal Gear Solid 4 which was a cinematic tour de force. This is important as I'm not a follower of the series, but even I was blown away by the seamless interweaving of entertaining third person shooter gameplay and cutscenes that tie the previous four games together in a way that blurred the line between video game and movie. One of the things about the next gen systems such as the Xbox360 and PS3 is that they have the technology not only to support games like the above mentioned titles but that they allow players to choose the way in which they want to play the games. This may involve simply allowing player to complete a task in a number of ways or making choices that affect the way the rest of the game is played. But the game that really takes it to the next level in terms of player choice while still keeping a solid game together is Fallout 3. While coming up a little short on the FPS end of things it more than makes up for it with its intricately weaved world of post apocalyptic Washington DC. Though I should note that it was named the top role playing of 2008 by gamespot.com. Again Fallout was another franchise that I never cared about, but this most recent installment though being handled by a new Developer (Bethesda) has been a great addition to the series that has won over hardcore Fallout fans and newcomers like myself. The depth, the subtle references to other games, cultural (unfortunately my wife likes musicals so I knew the Rogers and whats his name songs) and literary (it had an H.P. Lovecraft reference which blew me away) references which are scattered throughout the game make it (for me) easily the top game of the year.

One of the things that I've enjoyed with the development of the next gen systems is the fact that not only are looking to mature your technology and games, but you are also dealing with a maturing audience who while still enjoying all of the classic elements of gameplay are also maturing themselves and enjoy games that not only stimulate the forever adolescent located in all of us but something a that tickles the intellect at the same time. While games like GTA are sometimes a little light on depth Metal Gear Solid's plot was relied heavily on the idea of private military corporations and created what was be called a "war economy" in a way that I found to be reflective of the times in which we live where private for profit corporations blur the line between themselves and the state. Another game that does this is the horror game Dead Space (think the original Alien) in which an engineer has to go through a mining ship now infested with a aliens which reanimate dead flesh and come back to life. Again what could have been a jump out scare you game (which it does do, quite frequently if I might add) layered subtexts of religion, social structures and environmentalism in as much as the the premise of the game is that Earth has entirely run out of resources and is now scouring the galaxy, literally cracking open other planets for their resources.

In this sense I feel that games are morphing into a role once filled by early horror movies and classic science fiction. I still think books like I am Legend, Childhoods End along with the original Night of the Living Dead (among others) provide some great social commentary whilst still being a great read/movie in their own right. That is one of the reasons why I enjoy video games so much. But lest I get too high on my horse I thought I would end with a clip of Fallout 3's "Bloody Mess" perk which is fairly juvenile and self explanatory.

Fucking spectacular.

UPDATE: As of the 27th it appears that new downloadable content for Fallout 3 will be downloadable, but only for Xbox and PC. So PS3 owners like myself are shit out of luck due to the fact that Bethesda just made a deal with Microsoft (who produces the xbox). Now this is just bullshit, putting corporate rivalries before gameplay is a sure fire race to the bottom especially when the original game was put out on multiple platforms. If the a game comes out on just one platform (ala Metal Gear Solid or Left 4 Dead) then fine, but to put out the original for all of us and then pull the rug out from under our (PS3 owners) feet for follow up content is just utter crap. Bethesda should know better than this and I will be writing my angry consumer letter shortly