A Song of Ice and Fire (spoilers, maybe)

Around the time the Lord of the Rings movies came out I got a hankering to read the books again, but elected not to because I didn't want to look like the wanker who's reading something because of the movie so they can feel superior to their philistine moving-picture-bound friends. I came across a similar dilemma when the new HBO series, "A Game of Thrones" came out. I hadn't read the books, mostly because up until now I haven't read a huge amount of epic fantasy. But I guess the Dresden Files series was some kind of gateway drug, because here I am neck deep in the series with the next several books lined up at the library. Anyway, the dilemma - do I read the books and risk looking like a wanker or not? Then I realized I'm past the point in my life where I give a fuck whether something I know I'm going to enjoy is trendy or not. If all the scarf-wearing hipster morons started playing D&D, would I stop playing? No, I would not. But I think that pursuit is safe for now, the nerd stigma far outweighing any ironic appeal they could bludgeon out of it.

Right, books. I like them. Of course I would like them, there's dragons and kids with wild animals for pets. I'm very easy to please when something presents me with dragons. But I should probably give a slightly more thought out reason for my opinion than "OMIGOD, DRAGONS!". The narrative is paced well in general, though I'll admit sometimes I get annoyed when the book switches characters on me just as I was really getting into the storyline I was reading. Its a small complaint, and I know Martin meant to structure it that way, but I'll admit sometimes when I get really invested in one of the character's story arcs I'll skip to the next section that features them. Yes yes, I'm cheating. But I always go back, and usually one of the next characters' stories hooks me so I get absorbed in what they're doing. Which is good, because one of the biggest pitfalls in a narrative that skips around like that is only having one or two characters who are actually interesting - then people like me start to breeze through whole sections without really paying attention because maybe something important is going to happen but HOLY HELL this guy is a plodding twit. But Martin's characters are on the whole very interesting and well-written, and their various arcs are compelling on their own as well as part of the over-arching plot. They're all very human, with their own motivations and reasons for acting the way they do, and even the ones that are painted as the villains have a certain pathos. Except perhaps for Jaime Lannister - mostly because he hasn't really been part of the story for a while. Really he only showed up for a hot minute to bone his sister and shove a little boy off a ledge, then got captured in battle and hasn't really been heard from since. Not very sympathetic.

I like Martin's writing style as well, its embellished enough to compliment the setting without being too overblown. I've heard fantasy mocked before because sometimes authors get lazy and all of a sudden everything is "gold as the setting sun", or "carved delicately from the crystalline remains of a thousand winterfey", and the names all have too many vowels and hyphens. But he manages to steer clear of that particular trap, mostly. Also, its an easy read. I don't mean its simplistic, but anyone who's stared at the same page in an Umberto Eco book for an hour can tell you that sometimes you just need a nice, accessible narrative.

So all in all, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. I've heard from a couple people that they lost interest in the series after the second book, but I don't think that's going to happen to me. There are some seriously dire events on the horizon, and I don't think I have enough of the second book left for them to actually unfold.

Oh, and the series is good too.

Better late than never: Final Fantasy XIII

I wanted to wait to sum up my feelings on Final Fantasy XIII until I'd actually finished the game, but I've come to accept that that may never happen. As long as there are more interesting things to do (like play games that are actually good, get my eyebrows waxed, or bang my face against a concrete wall), Lightning and friends will probably forever be stuck just steps away from the climactic final boss. Seriously, when you stop playing right before the end of the story the game has completely lost you. I think I only got that far because at the time I didn't actually have anything better to do, and I felt some sort of sick obligation given my deep love for earlier entries into the series.

FFXIII received good reviews from many sources I'm familiar with, though mostly each was a different way of saying that Square Enix had "distilled the JRPG genre down to its essential form". In my opinion that's a positive way of saying they stripped all the interesting bits off of the genre's mouldering corpse and wrapped it up in snazzy new graphics - not something I generally give gold stars for. Oh wait, they didn't strip away all the interesting bits like exploration, complete freedom to pick and customize your party - you just have to play through the 30+ hour story first. In abstract I can see what the developers might have been thinking, since most people who play JRPGs do all the extra bosses and side missions and such before going to what should be a stirring and emotional final battle. But since they've done all those extra things the party is so powerful that you can kill the final boss by trotting up and swatting it firmly across the nose. Anti-climactic, but that's the nature of the beast. And hell, usually by the time I get to the final boss in one of these games I'm so impatient to see how the story ends that I don't mind an easy battle.

But moving all the fun extra stuff to "post-story play" might have worked if the story was interesting enough and the battle system was fun. Neither of these things are true, but I'll start with the story. It made about as much sense as a wizard hat on a giant turd, and about three hours in I was ready to stuff most of the characters into a sack and hurl it off a building. Lightning I would allow to live, mostly because she spends a good portion of the game being as annoyed with everyone as I was. Its as though Square knew they were creating a bunch of annoying twats, but it was all ok because you get to vicariously knock the crap out of one of them through Lightning. Some of them get less annoying later in the game (I'm looking at you, Hope) but by then the ship of my hatred had already sailed. Anyway, back to the story. You have your two cities who may or may not be at war with each other, giant god-things that were responsible for the well-being of all citizens and could inflict quests on mortals to serve their ends, but if the wrong god-thing gave you a quest you were branded a traitor and chased to the ends of the lands. And if you finish your quest you turn into crystal and sleep for a thousand years. Or something. Really, I stopped paying attention halfway through and just enjoyed the pretty cutscenes. Because for all its faults, FFXIII is a damn good-looking game. You might say that I can't remember what the story is about because its been a few months since I played, but I swear to you it really is that weird and confusing. Now I'm at the end and I know which god-thing I need to kill, which might destroy the world or it might not, but at that point I was just too tired to care.

And so I arrive at the battle system, which is what most people were referring to when they talked of distilling the RPG formula down to essentials. You only have two stats, Strength and Magic, and each character has a limited number of jobs they can do. The point is, or so the game assured me, is to find cunning combinations of the various jobs to beat the enemies most efficiently. All well and good in theory, but for the most part there is a limited set of job sets (called Paradigms) which are actually useful. Sure, you can use other Paradigms - if you want to get your face eaten off by the first wobbling lump of gelatin you come across. So the combat basically boils down to switching between the same five or six Paradigms and mashing the Auto-Attack button until you get thumb cramps. The attacks are another example of the "Sure, you CAN do it this way... if you want to lose" type of "freedom" FFXIII contains. You CAN pick your characters' attacks manually, but the combat is so fast paced that by the time you do so some brightly colored monstrosity has already kicked your balls in. One could argue that the Chain Stagger system adds strategy to the whole mess, but you are still just mashing the same button only it might help if you timed your mashings a bit. The only redeeming quality is the same as what got me through most of the story - its really pretty to watch. So even though all I was doing was jamming the same button down over and over at least I could watch Lightning and Fang flip around like the laws of gravity were merely a polite suggestion.

Around Chapter 11 (which is VERY late in the story), you finally get some freedom to wander around the landscape. But the game makes a not-so-subtle point of letting you know that you should not do that until you finish the story. Most of the monsters range from being inconveniently hard to downright impossible, and there are several areas of the map that are completely inaccessible until you... wait for it... finish the goddamn story. Because presumably at that point you will be high enough level to take them on. In fact, if you read the game guide it flat out tells you to just keep going and come back later. Well fuck you, I said and proceeded to get myself sliced up proper by a giant wolf-lizard. This only made me more determined so I doggedly searched for the right combination of preemptive strikes and weapon combinations until I handed its ass right back to it - and then repeated the process until I had enough experience to beat the next tier of inadvisable fights and so on until I got to the limit of the current skill tree. That's right, you can't fully upgrade your party until after the story is done, and by this time I felt like the developers were beating me about the head with the damn story so I gave in if only to make them shut up about it for a while. Of course, all my ill-advised free ranging had powered my party up a considerable amount so even though the following fights were probably supposed to be challenging, I was breezing through them with little more than a couple titty-twisters and a whack on the head. So if the developers were trying to avoid the super-powerful endgame party problem, I found a way around it anyway. Teach them to railroad me.

And shortly after that came the point where I stopped playing. I'm not sure exactly what distracted me away from FFXIII, but that doesn't matter because a ham sandwich could have done the job at that point. As I've said before, generally once I get this close to the end of a game, I'll stop all the piddling about on side missions and race to see how the thing ends. But here I saw the end in sight and all I could say was "Meh". I may go back and finish it, but only if there is absolutely nothing else to play. And the sad bit is the thing did so well with the critics that Square is probably going to decide this dumbing-down of the RPG battle system was a good idea and continue something like it down the line. Which would mean a permanent end to our relationship.

I love sarcastic Hawke.

Fenris: *angst angst angst* Freedom tastes like ash. *angst*
Hawke: I always thought it tasted like chicken.
Fenris: Yes, joke. That's your answer to everything.

Pretty much.

DA2: A Revision

I know I said earlier that I was playing the game on Hard because it seemed like more fun, but thanks to a game breaking bug I switched back to Normal. To save my friends who might be playing some pain and lost hours - be very careful if you get Isabela's friend meter up to the point where you get her "Thumbs up" bonus! If she is taken out of the party for some reason (like you entering your house), make sure to check your passive abilities. If the "Thumbs up" bonus is still there, your game is bugged. Every time you reload from that save (or any later save based on that one), the game will take that 5% attack speed away from Hawke's stats because Isabela isn't present. Permanently. I noticed this because I had to do a lot of reloading to get past some fights - and then there's the "Hey! I didn't want those friend/rival points! Better go back." situations. Eventually my dual weapon rogue was moving slower than an arthritic sloth and I had to go back to a previous save where I had just gotten Isabela's bonus. Seriously, when your tank with the gigantic hammer is moving faster than you... something is not right. Anyway, Bioware's working on a patch, but in the meantime since I've already tripped the bug I have to be really careful where I save and I can't afford to be dying and reloading. Sigh.

By the way, if you've already triggered the bug, just reload a save where Hawke's attack speed is pretty much normal and ALWAYS make sure to save the game outside during the day somewhere in Kirkwall (hightown, lowtown, docks, etc.) WITH Isabela in your party. From what I've gathered on the Intertubes, that should keep your stats from getting any worse. Don't reload autosaves, either. I love you, Bioware, but that's just annoying.

Dragon Age 2: The Gushening

Dragon Age 2 has been out for almost a month, and I feel I have ingested enough of its delicate flavor to form a complete opinion of the game. Granted, it is an opinion slanted in the direction of total adoration, but really what can you expect? Its Bioware. I have flat-out never disliked any of their offerings. I loved the original KOTOR even though every half hour or so my character would be randomly transported into a wall on the other side of the map and I'd have to reload my last save. Let me tell you, the quicksave key was my very best friend throughout. Anyway, when I really like a game I tend to turn into a volcano of nerdy anecdotes, singeing friends and coworkers with small eruptions of glee. Eventually I sit down and write the inevitable Mt. St. Helen's of fangirl joy. That was not meant to sound dirty at all, I swear. So, anyone who isn't a gamer or is trying to avoid TEH SPOILERZ should probably back away slowly.

I'll start out by saying its not a perfect game. My theory is if Bioware got together with Bethesda and made an action RPG, that would be a perfect game. It would tear a whole in the space-time continuum with its awesomeness. Bethesda's amazingly beautiful and open environments are something everyone should take a lesson from. I joke about riding my pretend horse around the pretend world of Oblivion just enjoying the pretend scenery only because that is completely accurate. There wasn't much of that in DA2. In fact, as many players have already complained, most of the environments were recycled to the point of being boring. What do a dragon-infested mine and a hideout for slavers have in common? They apparently are both in the same cave, just on different points on the map. Seriously, I realize there will be recycled environments since the whole game takes place in one city over ten years, but only ONE stock cave? One lava-festooned evil lair? There were times on my first playthrough where I couldn't access a part of one cave, and I just thought it was something that would become accessible later as the years went by and someone cleared the way. No, it was because I was going to be in that exact same map later for some other quest on the other side of the world. Disappointing, but not a deal breaker for me.

That being said, I appreciate the efforts of integrate a new art style into the series. As much as I love Origins, it did kind of look like just another fantasy game. The Hanged Man is probably my favorite in-game tavern ever, and the statues in the Gallows really convey a sense of oppression. I even liked looking at the loading screens.

Alright, now the bad stuff is out of the way, its time for the gushing to begin. I've known for a long time that Bioware was doing a framed narrative for DA2, and that was one of the things I looked forward to most. Its a new way to tell a game's story, and it sounded so awesome I really hoped it worked out. I thought it did, but I might be in the minority there. I've read reviews that the story wasn't nearly as engaging as Origins', but I have to take exception to that. In Origins, the endgame was in sight pretty much from the beginning - defeat the giant evil dragon. There were some surprises along the way (some of them huge and epic), but there was always that goal in mind. With DA2, it was a little more fuzzy. There were these Qunari hanging out in the city for who knows what reason, and the mages and templars don't really like each other, but how the climax of each conflict was actually going to play out wasn't set in stone. Some people might not have liked that, but I really did. I found myself speculating on how things might play out, and some of my guesses were right. Most were wrong. And as much as I loved Origins, there wasn't a moment to compare to seeing one of your companions betray you completely and blow up a goddamn CHURCH to start a war. With materials that you helped him gather. It was heart-wrenching, even more so because he knew he was doing something monstrous and expected you to kill him for it. I couldn't - he was my friend and incidentally my only healer. Also, watching the sequences where Varric is telling the Chantry Seeker your story were awesome, especially on a second playthrough because you see the subtle clues that tell you what's going to happen next. Maybe not as grand and sweeping as vanquishing a Blight and crowning a new king of Ferelden (and, if you're me, marrying the guy and becoming queen), but the story was more personal. It was Hawke's story, which could be any number of things depending on how you play, and I loved that. I'm in the middle of my second playthrough right now, and I'm still fascinated.

Moving on from the story of Hawke to the character. My Bioware protagonists are always female, but I have two Hawkes running right now. There's the snarky but good hearted dual-weapon rogue, who is a mage sympathizer and a slavery hater but isn't above demanding coin for services rendered. And then there's my "evil" Hawke - a staunch templar supporter who keeps slaves and hates blood mages. Did I mention she IS a blood mage? So she basically runs around catching apostates and sending them to the Gallows, a poster child for might of the Templar order, all the while consorting with demons through her own blood. Dastardly. Seriously, she's almost painful to play she's such a duplicitous bitch. That's just an illustration of how different your main character can be - I could just as easily be playing a "good" Hawke who supports the templars just like my blood mage, but does it because she genuinely believes its right.

And, of course, there's your companion characters. Where to start? I usually have one or two NPCs that I'm not super excited about. In Origins it was Zevran, Mass Effect it was Ashley, KOTOR was Bastilla (I know, I know - but seriously, she only got interesting once she turned to the dark side). In DA2, its probably Sebastian. But he was a downloadable character - all the characters packaged with the original game were amazing. I thought Isabela the pirate was going to be just your tritely lecherous swashbuckler. Lecherous, yes. Trite, no. Her dialogue was some of the funniest I've ever heard. And Varric the dwarf... I never thought I could love another dwarf after Oghren, but apparently its possible. Here's just a snippet of his wonderfulness - this happens when goody-two-shoes Sebastian is asking for your help.

Me: Why is everyone looking at me?
Varric: Hawke said sarcastically.
Me: You know, I hate it when you do that.
Varric: Hawke muttered in an angry aside to the dwarf.

Varric rules.

I'm sure some people just surfing by the Bioware social site might think that DA2 is some kind of dating sim, because an astonishing amount of the discussion is about the in-game romances. Obviously, it wouldn't be a Bioware game without the ability to bang at least one or two of your party members. Its not required, but really. Show me a person who doesn't at LEAST have a roll in the hay with Isabela and I will show you someone who is partially dead inside. I mean, she shows up at your HOUSE for gods sakes. And yes, Adriel Hawke (the good one) swings both ways, and yes she banged the pirate. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But she goes with dudes for the long haul and ends up with Fenris the lyrium-branded escaped slave. That situation is just too angst-ridden to stay away from. Seriously, though, a dedicated person could probably sleep with half the party with some careful planning and a bit of prevarication. That sounds like something Lineth Hawke, the evil blood mage, might do. She destroys people's souls.

Going along with the romance angle, the new friendship system is pretty awesome. In Origins, either your characters loved you, or they hated your guts and might leave you. In DA2 there's an extra dimension with the addition of rivalry. If you make choices that a character disagrees with, their opinion moves further down the rivalry path but it doesn't necessarily mean they hate you. For you are Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall! So they still respect you, but they're a little more antagonistic when you talk to them. As a for-instance, there's Adriel Hawke's relationship with Fenris - she helps mages get out of the Gallows every chance she gets, and that drives him crazy. In game terms, I pretty much had him locked into permanent rivalry by the end of Act 1. He's constantly warning her that one of these days a mage is going to prove to her that not all of them deserve freedom. Which incidentally does happen but luckily he doesn't get all "I told you so" about it. However, he respects her for helping him escape his former master (who was a mage, which explains his extreme hatred for the whole magic thing), and even though he's a little snippy in conversation he gets really protective of her towards the middle of the game. Lineth Hawke is friends with Fenris, what with her anti-mage stance on everything. I gave Fenris the same gift (a book) with both characters and the dialogue was radically different. In both cases he tells you he was never taught to read, and you can offer to teach him. For the friend, he is grateful and says that maybe its time he learned. For the rival, he gets defensive and exclaims he doesn't need your charity, then backpedals and apologizes for overreacting. The rivalry idea was a pretty ingenious addition I thought, and honestly I've found some of those relationships to be more interesting than the friendships.

Although I could never be rivals with Varric. He and I agree on everything. And he likes to tell stories about me. Even he and Lineth Hawke are friends, weirdly.

I suppose I should talk about the combat a little bit as well, because Bioware did promise more exciting combat. I know there's probably some people out there that think they dumbed the series down for consoles - I am not one of them. The combat in Origins was fun, but it didn't look or feel very dynamic. The combat in DA2 feels more or less like the result of injecting the action RPG formula with some God of War stem cells while it was still developing. Which I think is awesome. And for the tactical purists out there, there is Nightmare mode. I played my first game in Normal mode, mostly. I admit I switched to Casual towards the end because I seriously needed to see how things worked out and combat had become a hindrance to that end. In Normal mode, you don't really have to pay attention to what your party's doing if they have a halfway decent set of tactics - the pre-arranged set of commands you can configure for each of your companions - and you can just wade through hordes of enemies with Hawke. My second game with Adriel the rogue I am playing on Hard, with one brief switch back to Normal. Hard mode definitely requires more than just your preset tactics for each character; I've found myself using the pause-and-play strategy that was so popular in Origins in almost every battle. My brief switch back to Normal mode was the Ancient Rock Wraith. Anyone who's played the game knows what I'm talking about - that thing is goddamn RIDICULOUS. Even in Normal mode I used almost all of my health potions and was down to my healer at the end there. It was a close battle. The people who can play on Nightmare have my respect. I know where my limits are, and Nightmare mode probably would cause me to throw my controller at the TV. But Hard is a good challenge for me, and now that I kind of know what's going to happen next I don't feel the need to rush and lower the difficulty.

Alright, I think I'm done now. Now, if you haven't played the game go out and buy it for fuck's sakes. I need someone to nerd out with.

damn I'm pale

So I arrived in Sacramento earlier today, and I just have one thing to say - Holy Sweet Fuck its HOT. Its take-5-cold-showers a day hot to me, having lived these last cycles in the Northwest. Everybody else seems to be dealing with it just fine, and they also probably have over twice the amount of Vitamin D in their system as me. Not everyone is tanned, but I think I'm the whitest cracker in the zip code.

Now, off to sushi and Spamalot! I'm so wearing flip flops to the theater... the High Heels of Doom are just going to have to stay in the suitcase.

Pop music will turn me into a murderer yet

I swear to all the deities above, if I have to hear that goddamn Katy Perry "California Gurls" song one more time, I will seriously loose my shit. Her voice makes me want to claw the ears from my head. Actually, pretty much everything that's on the pop stations right now is slowly turning me into Jack the Ripper. Why, you ask, do I even know what's on the popular radio these days? Well, when you work for a corporate food joint, there are certain things you have to deal with - terrible music being one of many.

There are so many things to hate about this song - first, that its already been done better by the Beach Boys. It must be said that not everyone in California walks around in Daisy Dukes and bikini tops, but that should be obvious. The phrase "West Coast represent" makes me die a little inside every time I hear it. I haven't counted, but I'm pretty sure there are only 15 words in the entire song. Inserting "Oh-0h-oh-OH" every few seconds doesn't count as being lyrical, children. And finally, I realize putting dong references into one's music is more prevalent than it should be, but "We'll melt your Popsicle"? That is just confusing. I'm pretty sure there aren't too many dudes out there who would like to have their popsicles melted. Tweaked, rubbed, tugged, and stroked perhaps - melted, not so much. As far as not-so-covert wiener jokes go, I have to hand the prize to Lady Gaga. "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" is so ill-advised its just hilarious.