Issue 2:
Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By
Medulla Vesuvius
In my mind right now, Wild Bill is at the controls of the Apache attack helicopter while Snake Eyes and Rock n’ Roll hang onto the rails for dear life and Destro shakes his angry fist at them as they rise into the air, making their death-defying escape. “You’ve not seen the last of me,” he yells at them, as if they could hear him over the rotating chopper blades.
If you’re a dude and grew up the same time as I did, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve probably even seen similar scenes in your own head, albeit over twenty years ago.
There was a time when there was no distinction between my own world and the world of G.I. Joe. There was a seemingly endless roster of action figures like: The Baroness, Cobra Commander, Grunt, and so on, all of them trained killers. (When I was a kid, I thought Hasbro’s quality control got a little lax when they let in outsiders like Sgt. Slaughter and Refrigerator Perry. In my opinion, that was faking the funk and I’m still not sure what the powers-that-be over there were thinking.) And of course, this illusionary world of easily-identifiable, paramilitary heroes and villains was also maintained by a weekday afternoon cartoon, complete with a moral of the story, which I equate to Jerry Springer’s parting thought at the end of his shows. Unlike their baffling short-term inclusion of non sequitur guests like football players and professional wrestlers into the production line, this idea of a parallel cartoon was a marketing goldmine.
But I digress; today I would like to talk about those fantastic action figures. Of course, G.I. Joe didn’t have a monopoly. My world was not indistinguishable from G.I. Joe-land. It was pretty equally divided into four parts, (interestingly, all were kingdoms at war between two opposing factions)- the continent of G.I. Joe- ruled by Duke and Cobra Commander, the continent of Star Wars-overseen by Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, the Transformers universe-inhabited by the likes of Optimus Prime and Megatron, and who could forget the epic struggles between He-Man and Skeletor, the supposed Masters of the Universe? And I had plenty of collected specimens from all toy humanity, (and robot-anity.)
But one huge, unbreakable rule held together all my playtime action adventures like Newton’s Laws of Specific Gravity: characters from one world were never to interact or even see a character from one of the other worlds. So, as much as he might have lobbied, Merman was never allowed to break-dance with SoundWave or make out with Scarlett. How could Obi-Wan Kenobi exist in the Transformers world? He was at least twice the size of Bumblebee, the little yellow Volkswagen. That just defied all logic.
A child at play is supposed to be the icon of all things imaginative–wild, unfettered, disconnected from reality. But not for me. Playtime for me was an exercise in orderliness, appropriateness, and quiet reflection. My insistence on keeping the worlds separate like a little eugenicist is only the tip of the iceberg.
To me, the term “Action figure” is a misnomer. For, when I “played” with these toys, there was no actual action involved. Like the God of a Deist, I drew pleasure in setting up the figures, but little else. I can remember spending what were probably hours, quietly setting up the whole cast of characters into the perfect depiction of a battle scene or reconnaissance mission and then observing my handiwork, just like a little rationalist. I wanted to create a perfect moment, frozen in time. This aversion to the tactile was probably why I never became a huge Transformers fan. And before you make fun of me and say that this method of play was all kinds of wrong and sad, remember that some of those little figures had holes in their feet for easy posing with the appropriate accessories. It’s not like they were made with handles.
Every now and then, when I left the house and joined a neighborhood friend with their G.I. Joe or Star Wars collection, I would be appalled at how they would barbarically move their figures around, making ridiculous explosion sounds, talking for them and even throwing them across the room. Such unrefined insolence! (To this day, I still can’t make the sound a kid makes to signify a punch.)
Now, I’ll leave the psychology and analysis of my frigid playtime to the mental health professionals and list my faves from each toy continent:
G.I. Joe: Stormshadow, (the white ninja)
He was Cobra’s foil to Snake Eyes. All black vs. all white. I wonder what they were trying to say with that? Why couldn’t they combine to form a more complete whole? Like yin and yang? Or a delicious OREO cookie? Always the strife and combativeness with these people! Anyway, kids come out of the womb with a propensity to love ninjas. And dinosaurs.
Masters of the Universe: Man-at-Arms
He was a man of few words in the cartoon, which is appropriate, since he’s a man-at- arms, not a man-at-mouth. I wonder what caused his green skin.
Star Wars: Bossk, (the bounty hunter that looked kind of like a pickled hippopotamus head on an upright body)
Here’s another one who didn’t care much for chit-chat. I don’t think there’s any evidence of conversation with him in the movies. Maybe a snarl or growl while the camera panned up at him in The Empire Strikes Back. There’s just something about a beast in a space suit that caught my imagination. It’s the best of both worlds-evolution to the point of creating and controlling technology, but not at the expense of primitive, bad-ass ugly looks.
Transformers: Bonecrusher, (a bulldozer, one of the yellow and purple Constructicons)
I like construction vehicles, what can I say? Also, how cool is the idea of a robot greater than the sum of its’ parts? Where Stormshadow and Snake Eyes failed, the Constructicons succeeded in coming together for the greater good. Or evil, as the case may be.
Maybe you, dear reader, can remember your favorite action figures. Feel free to share.
Issue 2:
Various and Sundry
By
Galdrysyll Soeval
Choosing a faction as part of character development is a common theme found in many early role playing games. Every player belongs to some group or clan that forms alliances and starts blood feuds with some other group or clan. So when early massive multiplayer online role playing games like Everquest started, the concept of faction was built right into the game play. At the time, faction was a relatively complicated endeavor and involved an understanding of a player’s racial selection, location and deity selection to help determine the character’s moral perspective.
As these games evolve into entities like World of Warcraft, the concept of faction, at least on the surface, appears in a simpler form- “good versus evil,” and is represented in World of Warcraft as being members of the Horde or members of the Alliance. Unfortunately, determining which group the factions of good and evil are tied to is a difficult aspect of the game.
At the outset of character creation, it seems obvious that the Alliance must be the faction for good when the choices are elves, humans, dwarves, and gnomes; while the Horde must be the faction for evil when its’ choices are trolls, tauren, orcs, and undead. Even the look and feel of each group’s environment makes the determination seem easy. On the one hand, the Alliance player discovers a land filled with lush green valleys and clear blue waters. They encounter villages and towns with a rustic feel that remind one of the romanticized days of Camelot. The places they visit have lofty names like Stromgarde and Aerie Peak and are filled with gentle forest creatures including bunnies and baby deer. On the other hand, the Horde player struggles in deserted wastelands with outposts and nomadic camps filled with siege engines and the evidence of war at every turn. They travel and have adventures in places with names like the Barrens and Desolace and face the ravages of wild boar, poisonous spiders and stinging scorpions. Who better to receive this kind of wretched treatment than the evil of the horde?
However, it’s not until game play and experiencing the players that their true nature comes to full view. In the newbie territories, it is not uncommon to find Alliance players initially preying upon the vile bunnies and fawns that plague the area around their villages. As Horde, you face the challenge of defeating those wild boars, spiders and scorpions and trying to survive the other difficulties of the terrain. Many of the starting quests for the Alliance involve stripping locations of value from squatters to expand and spread the wealth of so-called good to the other members of your faction. The Horde faces difficult challenges policing the minions who are no longer loyal to the clan and who show their disloyalty by seeking powers outside those considered “honorable” amongst the horde’s members.
As play progresses, an Alliance player may find himself on a raid to the lands of the Horde to free the world of their wretched nature by striking against not only the guards, but women and children in Horde villages as well. A Horde player may find himself in the position of defending his village from the lofty Alliance, overwhelmed by their numbers and, at times, powerless to do anything but watch in horror as Alliance players stand over their body and kill them again and again until the attackers grow tired and move on to new prey. At higher levels, an Alliance player may find himself setting out into the distant reaches of horde territory, hiding in the shadows to lay an ambush against those evil low level Horde players who may someday get in your way. As Horde, you might sneak out into the lofty reaches of alliance territory, dodging large alliance ambushes, to find the secrets that have created the imbalance that exists in the world. At which point, you finally face the darkest creatures that strangely bear an uncanny resemblance to those races in the Alliance who call themselves “good.”
In the end, identifying which of the two, Horde or Alliance, is truly “good” or “evil” depends on the player’s perspective. Just like in high school, if you are one of the beautiful people who find strength in numbers and take pleasure in the misfortune of others, Alliance is definitely for you and must be the side of good. If you are that stand- out, that geeky kid in the corner who faces life’s challenges with honor and stands by your friends when things are at their worst, Horde is for you and must be the side of good.
So, the next time you meet one of those WoW players, ask them “Alliance or Horde?” and you’ll know exactly where they stand.
Issue 2:
Escaping Life
By
Rascal Stallion
Today, I am a gangsta.
I am a hardcore, bitch-slapping, car jacking, tough as steel street thug born with a deficiency of whatever pussy gene gives a man a conscience. I will reclaim the streets for my beloved Grove Street gang, striking down with furious anger every hood, ho or po-po that stands in my path.
What is it?
GTA: SA is the latest installment in the GTA franchise, a much-maligned series of games that has drawn the ire and horror of parents and politicians alike. As if kids wouldn’t already want to play it, this ringing authoritarian endorsement virtually guaranteed it would become a best seller, regardless of its M rating.
The story opens with your character, Carl “CJ” Johnson, returning to his boyhood home of Los Santos (Los Angeles) following the suspicious death of his mother. You are immediately accosted by the police (voiced by Mace Windu and the recently deceased Chris Penn) and dumped in a rival gang’s neighborhood.
Upon finally arriving home you find Grove Street and the gang you left behind are but a shadow of what you knew from your youth. To the people of Grove Street you are just the guy who ran away when things got tough years ago. Now, with your hood in shambles, it’s up to you to rise up and lead Grove Street back into a golden age. You must earn your fellow homies’ respect by being fearless and ruthless as you reclaim what was once yours (and everything else you happen to want.)
Your adventures pit you against rival gangs, la policía, the ROTC, government agents and even La Cosa Nostra. Needless to say, your hands are so full you hardly have the time to tend to your pimping responsibilities.
You have to learn to drive both a car and a boat, as well as fly planes and helicopters. Some missions require stealth while others require a more direct approach to the action. Sometimes you’ll opt to use a sniper rifle from long distances, while other times a knife is your best choice. San Andreas offers a very wide variety of tasks you must tackle to progress.
CJ is fairly customizable, too. You can choose his clothes, haircut and build. This is fun because you can look as tough or ridiculous as you want.
The game map is gigantic. GTA: SA takes you from the streets of Los Santos to the hills of San Fierro (San Francisco) and the glitz of Las Venturas (Las Vegas.) Each metropolis, surrounded by expansive country sides and deserts, features landmarks that will be easily recognizable to anyone who has visited the cities that inspired them.. Believe me, exploring all that San Andreas has to offer will give your thumbs quite a workout.
What sets it apart?
Grand Theft Auto has been such a successful franchise it has led to the birth of countless imitators (I’m talking to you, True Crime.) That said, the folks at Rockstar Games have always managed to stay ahead of the pack and once again offer the best game of this type on the market.
The radio feature is out of sight. Every time you get into (read: steal) a car, a random radio station plays. There are ten or so completely different stations, each one featuring a high quality mix of songs. You can hear anything from Eddie Rabbit and talk radio to 2 Pac and Toto. Let me tell you, doing a drive-by on a rival gang and then backing your car over their corpses a few times is infinitely enhanced when accompanied by the sounds of NWA.
Additionally, each station has an individual vibe and boasts a fine cadre of DJs, including characters voiced by Wil Wheaton, Andy Dick and Axl Rose.
This brings to mind the overall voice work, which is top of the line. There are too many stars to name, but pay attention for David Cross and Bijou Phillips. Rockstar doesn’t mind tossing a chunk of their budget in this direction and it shows.
Will I ever want to play it again after I beat it?
San Andreas takes a very long time to beat, and even then there is still so much left to explore and conquer. It is a good game to put away after you have exhausted yourself winning it and then pick back up a few weeks later to see what else you can find. There are girls to date, hos to pimp and a full casino in which to blow your money. Occasionally I’ve spent a few hours just playing the blackjack and video poker features within the game.
Several vehicles unlock additional challenges. Just steal a taxi, firetruck, or police car to see what I’m talking about.
Who knows, some day when you get home from work you may need to blow off some steam. Just load San Andreas into your XBOX, steal a sports car or motorcycle and see what kind of crazy jumps you can find. Or, if you prefer, take your sniper rifle up to the top of a nice building and then blast your worries away. If the army shows up to stop you just blast them with your bazooka and escape or reset the game and start sniping again.
Final thoughts
Pure and simple, this is a fun game. It’s not the decline of Western Civilization some would have you believe. In fact, if this were a movie instead of a video game it wouldn’t even be graphic enough to land on anyone’s radar. Just play it and have fun. Don’t worry about the moral decay of the nation, which is going to happen whether you play this game or not. You might as well have a little fun.
Look- chances are if you’re any kind of gamer, (outside of the meatheads that just buy sports games and movie adaptations), you’ve already taken a ride through San Andreas. If somehow you haven’t (and you’re old enough to have pubes) shut this stupid website down right now and go buy yourself a copy. If by chance you don’t like it, give this article to someone else who hasn’t played it and talk them into buying your copy.
Issue 2:
Life in Space
By
Mr. Atoz, The Librarian
All Our Yesterdays
Rating: “Indeed, Captain“
Synopsis:
Spock, Kirk, and McCoy beam down to Serpeidon to warn the planet of a nearby star that will supernova and destroy the planet. However, they discover the planet is deserted except for Atoz the Librarian (No, it’s not me…………..or….is it?) Not only do they discover Atoz, but his duplicates, which have been programmed to occupy the library with him. The three heroes discover that the planet’s inhabitants have retreated to different eras of the past, thanks to a device called the Avachron. As the Enterprise boys are checking out different eras, Kirk hears a scream and finds himself in Olde English 17th Century. McCoy and Spock run after him, but end up in an icy location.
Kirk saves the woman, but is arrested for trial as a witch, while McCoy gets sick in the new cold habitat. He and Spock also meet Zarabeth, a woman who is a prisoner there, exiled by a tyrant for really doing nothing wrong. Being in the past, Spock begins to revert back to being a Vulcan of the past- barbaric and passionate. He and Zarabeth fall for each other. Meanwhile, with the help of a reluctant constable, Kirk is able to escape prison and find the point in the Avachron door he went through. McCoy has to convince an angry, passionate Spock that they must find Kirk. They eventually do make it back to the present and back to the Enterprise before the supernova destroys the planet.
Let’s get one hard, indisputable fact out of the way: time travel is cool. There aren’t very many aspects of this episode that aren’t classic science fiction. Not only do you have time travel, but you also have a planet about to be destroyed by supernova and you have android duplicates. AWESOME!! On the other hand, I think the story drags somewhat, especially in the scenes with Kirk stuck in the 17th Century (or wherever he was). The best aspect of the episode that gives it some intelligence is Spock’s reverting to a Vulcan of thousands of years ago. The things I like about Spock are his infallibility, calmness, intelligence, and mysticism. Contrast that to the angry, violent, passionate, Spock we see here and it’s hard not to be intrigued.It would have been easy to just make the sudden change in Spock’s demeanor, but I like how it’s treated here as a slow development in character and temperament. (”Slow” is relative in that the story is confined to a one-hour episode). The best moment in the show is when McCoy gives Spock one of his typical cracks on Spock’s heritage, and Spock just turns on him. It’s a little surprising. One thing that I actually don’t like about the episode is that I can’t understand why Spock falls so hard for Zarabeth. There’s nothing that special about her that would make Spock not want to go back to the Enterprise (which is an important plot point). My best guess is that Spock is just so passionate that it doesn’t take a whole lot to bring his sexual and emotional impulses to the surface. (That, and Zarabeth being the only female in sight.) If I think long and hard about it, however, I am left to ponder if Spock’s ancient Vulcan makeup would have allowed him to be attracted to a humanoid female. If Spock had reverted back thousands of years, we’re left to wonder, if not assume, that the Vulcans had not yet had contact with humans or humanoid. Would he not have been possibly violent against an unknown species? Then again, it was a slow reversion.
Another major thing that holds the episode back is the sheer boredom of Kirk’s plotline. You have to have a plot with Kirk since he is the captain, but it’s just your typical “How is he going to get out of this one?” It really drags. The Spock/McCoy/Zarabeth storyline is 100 times more interesting and keeps the episode afloat.
Issue 1:
Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By
Medulla Vesuvius
“Rock over London. Rock on, Chicago. Choosey moms choose JIF.”There are literally hundreds, maybe thousands of lines I could have chosen from the catalog of songs by Wesley Willis to start this little missive. But why not choose to begin with a typical Willis-ian ending?
Why not choose the unconventional route?
That question has been rattling around inside my cranium the last couple days as I’ve listened to Rush Hour, an album by Wesley Willis. For you see, the crux of the matter is as follows: Wesley’s music was anything but conventional.
Now, some of you might say, “Not so, Miguel. Wesley was nothing short of formulaic in his methods: ’start the keyboard accompaniment with the Intro button pushed, do a few lines of spoken-word verse and howl out the title of the song as the chorus, repeat as desired and leave room for an “instrumental” break.’”
But Darling, you forget this formula only makes sense once you’ve heard Willis before. Let’s look at the bigger picture, shall we? In relation to all music that came before and has since come along, Wesley’s still defies comparison. (I would go so far as to say that his music even frustrates those who would attempt any kind of theoretical criticism, but more on that later.)
Can you think of any other recording artists who so obviously couldn’t sing a melody and whose literary level was just above that of a fourth grader? Can you think of any other creative minds that couldn’t be bothered with the task of making their own musical lines, so instead they entrusted the task to the auto accompaniment feature of a chintzy keyboard? Of course not. Mind you, none of the previous has been a value judgment; rather it has been an intentional statement of facts, more or less. I feel that Wesley’s music transcends questions of “well, is it good music or bad music?”
I’m still not sure to what extent Willis’ schizophrenia affected his ability to analyze his creative output. Obviously it did affect his creative voice, but I can’t help but wonder what went through his head as he performed his music in front of small crowds of people in little dives across the country. Was he aware of the ironic response of some people? Did he notice the sly, smug smiles on some of the faces in his hipster audiences? I’m not sure how cognizant he was of the various appreciative schemes that people brought to his music.
And that’s exactly what fascinates me about the phenomenon of Wesley Willis- the depth of the gulf between artist and his audience. There is no such thing as technique or subtlety in his artistic world. There is mere expression, pure and simple. There is no attempt to speak for a generation like a folk artist. There is no attempt to tell the truth with three chords like a punk artist. There is no attempt to capture the common heartbeat of humanity like a pop musician. There are simply the creator’s thoughts and their release into the wild.
So, while many people approach music so that it will “speak to them,” or help them organize their own experience, they’ll find no such comfort with a song that says, “The vultures, the vultures ate my dead ass up.”
But in Wesley Willis’ music is one of the last vestiges of the individual artist who creates, consequences be damned. His life seems far removed from that of the monstrous music business. I doubt he ever had record companies pressuring him to write a hit single to sell albums. And I don’t imagine he ever felt the pressure to give audiences what they want.
Life did not smile upon Wesley, suffering from schizophrenia and finally dying of leukemia in 2003. He’s kind of like Job in the Bible. It’s ironic that his act of creation, using the little resources he had been given-a keyboard and no specified singing ability or musical knowledge- said a lot about the human condition and the lonely, self-directed search for the sublime.
In the music of Wesley Willis is one man’s attempt to transform the unsilence-able voices in his head into homemade grasps at speaking the unspeakable.
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