We're Not Worthy! We're Not Worthy! (Notes on The Knight and The Wizard)

GoldenPigsy's been waiting for this one for a long time, since before I even had a blog, I expect.  Two years ago, I studied abroad in Australia, and Pigsy gave me his copy of Gene Wolfe's The Knight.  Being the dutiful, perfect friend that I am, I read it during my time there.

And understood, at most, 2% of what I read.

I got the basic plot down, that a teenaged boy from America writes to his big brother Ben about being transported to another world, one that is actually seven worlds in which humans inhabit the 4th and middle one, called Mythgarthr.  After a little while, he gets transported to the 3rd world, Aelfrice, where Queen Disiri turns him into a full-grown, beefy man.  He returns to Mythgarthr and begins his quest to find the legendary sword Eterne, for when he finds it, Disiri, whom he loves greatly, has told him that she will see him again.

Mind you, this is a long, dense tale, and what I just told you is pretty much what they write on the back of the book, so clearly my understanding by the end was somewhat limited.

I didn't bother with the sequel, The Wizard, at the time, but for some reason I made sure to buy not only The Wizard but also my own copy of The Knight before returning to the states.  I don't know why.  I think that using foreign money makes it feel like you aren't spending anything at all.  Also, prior to that, I happened across $170 of Australian money on the street (I kid you not; three $50 bills and one $20 fluttered across the sidewalk one night, so I scooped them up, looked around, saw no one crying over lost cash, and took them myself), so really you could say that God wanted me to buy these books.  He also apparently wanted me to buy a Nintendo DS game (Hoshigami Remix), some green tea frappachinos from Starbucks, a blanket, some alcohol for my boxed-wine-guzzling friends, and multiple $3 busrides to and from Circular Quay (where the Opera House is), but that's besides the point.  That money was meant for The Knight and The Wizard, I am sure.  Call it divine intervention.

Now that I have had a bit more experience with reading, I decided to have another go.  This is the primary reason for my lack of book reviews lately: I've been reading these two books since I finished Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire a month ago.  I've never been a fast reader, but these two books just take a long time.  But I finished them both... finally... and can now report to you what I've observed.

Let me start by saying that this is not a proper review.  I am not qualified to give these two books the review that they deserve, nor am I sure if I know anyone who is.  As I said, these books are dense, and by that I mean that there's more going on than just the plot.  In high school, GoldenPigsy and I read Dante's Divine Comedy (which was not, as the title may suggest, a retelling of Jim Carrey's Bruce Almighty starring Dante from Capcom's Devil May Cry game series).  Our teachers informed us that Dante's three poems had four layers of meaning, derived from an old way of interpreting Biblical scriptures:

Literal (what happened?)
In the Second Circle of Hell, Dante watches as famous lovers - like Paris and Helen from the Trojan War - are flung about by tempestuous winds.

Allegorical (meaning behind what happened as it relates to us)
The winds whipping the lustful around like ragdolls represent the chaotic nature of desires of the flesh.

Moral/Tropological (what have we learned today?)
It is wrong to give in to temptation, for lust is as unpredictable and temporary as a storm.

Anagogical (meaning behind what happened as it relates to life beyond our world)
Giving in to sinful desires of the flesh will throw your spiritual life into turmoil.  (I'm pretty sure I butchered that, but who really understands anagogical interpretation, anyway?)

In other words, for every scene, there are, in a way, four scenes.  Think of them as four different-colored lenses through which you read the text, thus putting Dante and other interpretors of Biblical scripture centuries ahead of their time in terms of fashion.

As it turns out, Gene Wolfe converted to Catholicism upon marrying a Catholic woman, and this heavily influenced his writings.  The world represented in The Wizard Knight series will illustrate this point in a moment, but first, allow me to talk a bit more about The Knight.

The Knight is a first-person narrative told in the form of an absurdly long letter written by an American teenager, who takes the name Able in this new world, to his older brother Ben.  Able rarely takes the time to properly explain what's going on; in fact, you may turn to the next chapter to find him somewhere else completely, without the slightest bit of detail on how he got there.  You'll more or less hear about it later, so that by the time you finish both books, you know the full story.  You just have to be patient and trust that Able will explain things later whenever you read a section and say "what the hell?"  This also includes several little asides and remarks where he'll mention some character whom you haven't even met yet, like if he talked about some type of sword and said, "ah, yes, Pigsy was always the best with those."  If you've never met someone named Pigsy, you can understand why this can be a difficult read for the first time through.  He writes these things, obviously, after everything has already happened.  The difficulty comes with the fact that Able almost expects you to be in the same position as him: having already experienced everything he talks about.

Anyway this is a story about "Sir Able of the High Heart" and his transformation into the knight he always wanted to be.  Initially, The Aelf queen Disiri turns him into a large, hunky man physically, but the remainder of the book is all about him being a knight in more than just his muscles.  He learns from a knight named Sir Ravd, he fights bandits, he travels on a ship, he takes up service with a duke, and he travels north - towards the land of the Giants - to hold a mountain pass until winter in service of said duke.  When he makes a promise, he keeps it.  His love is only for Disiri, and he will not be with any other woman.  He strives to be just and fair, just as Sir Ravd was.

The first time I read this, I really didn't get Able as a character.  It was my own fault; I misread some things and skimmed over others, so I thought Able brutish and unjust, when in fact he is neither.  He's a great character, a good model for other knights.  Because, you know, we have so many of them around nowadays.  The reason I thought him brutish and unjust during my first read-through was mostly because he can be, um, forceful, when situations call for it.  Not overly-violent, mind you, but he asserts himself when needed, and to the unaccustomed eye it can look as though he's just throwing his weight around because he can.  Let's just say that you don't see a lot of compassion in his actions; he's not meant to be a Christian example, after all.  The human world here has a decidedly Norse flair to it, so think Vikings, not Jesus.

The Wizard picks up right where The Knight left off, only several portions of the narrative are Able's telling of another character's - primarily the squire Toug's - adventures separate from Able (that he later hears of from the characters themselves).  After the events of The Knight (which I won't spoil for you), Able takes on a certain magical quality that makes him almost literally a god amongst men.  All of his friends are busy dealing with the Giants - Lord Beel has been instructed to serve as ambassador to them, and his daughter, Idyn (which I think is a lovely name), is to wed the King of the Giants - and much of the second book is devoted to dealing with these fleshy pillars of anger (they are called the Angrborn, after all).  The Wizard maintains the style of The Knight for the most part, but Able is considerably wiser in The Wizard, so there is more discourse on the nature of the worlds and the history behind the different beings Able encounters.

It is the set up of the worlds that I found to be the single most fascinating aspect of the series.  Mythgarthr, the world of the humans, is the fourth world in a heirarchy of seven.  The world above ours is called Skai, which we see above us in the form of clouds, the sun, the moon, the stars, etc.  Below us is Aelfrice, whose sky... is us!  Trippy?  I thought so.  When the Aelfs in Aelfrice look up, they see us.  There is no sun, but light is supplied by whatever is in Mythgarthr.  Below Aelfrice is Muspel (think of the base of a volcano), where dragons dwell, and below that is Nieflheim/Hel.  Take a guess who lives there.  So, ascending: Hel, Muspel, Aelfrice, Mythgarthr, Skai, Kleos, Elysion.  As you go higher and higher, the beings become more and more perfect, meaning that the uppermost world entirely consists of "The Most High God".  This guy, a perfect being, decided in the beginning that he wanted to create something, so he made the second world, Kleos.  However, since he was perfect, anything different than him must be by definition imperfect, so while the beings of the second world are near perfection - in fact, they are angels - they are not quite perfect themselves.  The excess/unwanted materials from the second world were then used to create the third, Skai, and so on and so forth.  Skai is where the Overcyns live, who are, essentially, the Norse gods like Thor and Odin (called here Thunor and the Valfather, respectively).

Doesn't that make a little too much sense, theologically speaking?  Gods like Thor and Odin (and, I like to think, Zeus, Hera, Apollo, etc.) are one world above us, with angels above them, and The Most High God above everything.  So The Most High God is a god over angels, who are gods over the Valfather & Co, who are gods over humans.  This makes us gods to the Aelfs, who are gods to dragons, who are gods to whatever lives in Hel, meaning that, while it's okay in The Knight/Wizard to worship the Valfather and pray to him, the one who deserves the most worship is The Most High God.  It's like Gene Wolfe found a way, using Catholic/medieval hierarchies, to toss multiple theologies into one, coherent world, and I think that's bloody brilliant.

I can't say it better than GoldenPigsy did in a recent email, though, so I'll let him further explain:

The levels of the world are a conflation of Neo-Platonic Medieval/Catholic cosmology and Norse myth about the levels of the Yggdrasil tree. Mythgarthr is Midgard. Skai is Asgard. Utgard, the giant's castle, in Norse myth is the name of a realm on the same level as Asgard, but separate from it. Nieflheim in Norse mythology is the roots of the Yggdrasil. Muspell -- this will be no surprise to you -- is the fiery realm of dragons.

The upper two are not variations on Norse myth. Kleos is literally what certain Medieval thinkers thought outer space was: a realm of angels. The highest is simply God and nothing else. The way the worlds are stacked is in keeping with the hierarchical structure that Medieval people applied to practically everything. Divine right of kings ring a bell? You have authority the closer you are to God, and the people beneath you look up to you as a model in order to become more like Him. The peasant looks up to the duke who looks up to the king who looks up to the Pope who looks up to God. The son looks up to the father who looks up to etc. etc. In The Wizard Knight, The Valfather is the model for earthly Kings, for fathers and rulers. Thunor (if I remember right) is the model for Knights and sons and retainers. The King is the model for dukes; the Knight is the model for squires. Michael (lol!) the archangel is the model for the Valfather. Who's the model for Michael?

Yeah. There's a few different valid interpretations of what's going on. There's an adventure/fantasy story here, and it's an awesome one, but there's more to it than that.

Wolfe is brain-melting good. Didn't I tell you so?
 
Yes, Pigsy, you did (several times), and yes, you were right.  One of the most brilliant settings I've encountered in a very long time, one that made me think about my own beliefs and how I view the world.
 
Because the events were related directly by Able himself, sometimes (read: often) you get the feeling that he misinterpreted what he saw.  Certainly it's common to feel as though he didn't tell you everything, but this is apparently part of Wolfe's style: narration told by the main character, who is constantly unreliable.  If you're looking for a straight-shooting story, this is not it, but if you want something that will make you think, then check this series out.  I never thought I'd be glad to have my brain feel as though it was back in high school English class, but there you go.  Oftentimes I felt like I needed a pen and a notepad, and I mean that as a compliment, both to the richness of the books and the skill of dear Mr. Wolfe.

And for the record, I was entirely joking when I suggested that they turn the game Too Human into a videogame version of these books.  While Too Human could have done well with the basic setting of The Wizard Knight, it goes without saying that the style of the books could not possibly lend to a videogame.  I fear that it would turn into the recent Dante's Inferno game, which seemed to have achieved the setting without too much trouble (but a giant Cleopatra who births badguys out of her breasts?  Really?), but utterly botched/didn't care about the spirit of the original poem.  It'd be kind of like turning The Hunger Games into a videogame, as well.  Can you imagine a videogame that actually requires you to hunt down and kill other teenagers?  You'd basically be playing Halo 3, and nobody wants that now, do they?

Too Human, or Too Poorly Written?

I talk about plot quite often on this blog. In Hollywood, a film can still do well without a good plot if it is well-directed or acted, has great action scenes, or generally contains lots of eye-candy (see: Avatar). For novels, plot is considerably more important, though, again, not strictly a necessity. Instead of being able to fall back on a great actor, director, or visual effects artist, a novelist without a plot can create an interesting setting, or write so well that plot becomes secondary to his or her style.

So what about videogames?

Better yet, why should we even care about the plot of a videogame?

It's an understatement to say that games have come a long way in the past quarter-century.  Thirty years ago today, the world met Pac-Man.  Twenty-five years ago, North America saw the first Famicom, or Nintendo Entertainment System, along with everyone but John McCain's favorite plumber, Mario.  At that time, the pinnacle of electronic home entertainment was an 8-bit man in overalls hopping across platforms as he bounces on the heads of mushroom men and evil turtles.  Any background or story pretty much spawned from what you made of the game's pixelated world.

Today's game systems feature increasingly robust online capabilities, so that now anyone can experience the joy of playing Halo 3 (rated M, meaning that you're supposed to be over 18 before you play it) with a horde of prepubescent 11-year-olds who are more concerned with taking their new dirty words for a spin than they are actually playing.  The online mode has fundamentally altered the layout of today's gaming community.  Now, with every game made, the producers have an important choice to make: do we make a single-player game, or one with lots of multiplayer capabilities?  On older systems, when they went with the latter, the result was rarely anything special, and the single-player experience suffered accordingly.  If a game tried to be multiplayer-centric, it pretty much had to abandon a single-player mode entirely to be successful (see: Mario Party).  It seems like the games I remember playing the most were the rare gems that found that balance between being something that I could play when my friends weren't there and something that I could play when they were, like Star Fox 64, 007: Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and even Super Smash Brothers.

Somewhat ironically, now that the Xbox 360 is around, and its online modes are so good (it comes with a headset that you can talk into!) multiplayer games have undergone a sort of reversal, where now it's actually quite difficult to play one while in the same room as your friends.  Splitscreen is so 2003, gosh.  Seems like the only games that still do that are Rock Band/Guitar Hero and just about anything on the Nintendo Wii, which shuns online modes in general.  This worked out great for myself and my friends, who had the joy of growing up with local multiplayer and then gaining online multiplayer once we split apart for college.

It's hard to generalize about plots in games, since the genres are so varied.  Of course RPGs (Role-Playing Games) are going to have better plots than a racing game or a sports game.  In fact, when it comes to a sports game, I don't want a plot (ahem Blitz: The League)!  Therefore, for the sake of argument, I will be referring to the genres that are technically supposed to have stories to them: RPGs, Action-Adventures, FPSs (First-Person Shooters).  As a side-note, though, I recently played a demo of a new racer called Split/Second, and while it didn't exactly have a plot, its premise was simple and brilliant.  You're a contestant on a reality show, and during the race you have the opportunity to press a button that will blow things up as your competitors drive past them, thereby potentially destroying their cars and launching you ahead of them in the standings.  It was uncomplicated, effective, and intuitive, and I highly recommend it.

So, what would you do if you were told to write a storyline for a videogame?

Would you write a linear plot - like a book/movie - that happened to feature lots of opportunities for battles (some kind of war game, perhaps)?  Would you write a detective story with branching plotlines depending on what the gamer uncovers (like the excellent Heavy Rain on the PS3)?  Or would you write the flimsiest piece of crap that you could to allow for maximum gaming in the hopes that the game developers have more talent than you do?  Do you present your story through in-game cutscenes, rendered cutscenes, text, or dialog that goes on while the gamer plays?  Do you hire voice-actors, and if so, should you try to get a big name (like Haley Joel Osment for the Kingdom Hearts games or John Cleese for Fable III) or find the cheapest actors you can (Dynasty Warriors!  Just Cause 2!)?  If the setting is fictional, how much backstory do you provide?

The list seems endless, and just about every option has been tried, to varying effect.  I've seen games with no voice acting but the most wonderful storylines (Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy VI, Skies of Arcadia) and games with voice-acting better than many animated movies (Kingdom Hearts, Bioware games like Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic).  I've seen games where the world's history is presented to you only in the instruction booklet (this happens more often than you might think), and games where a character walks and talks to you while you still control your own guy (making for some hilarious moments of personal space invasion that, sadly, doesn't even faze the speaker), and games with slick, stylized cutscenes that look more like comic book frames than anything else (Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2).  A great story can come in just about any form, when it comes to games.  It just depends on what the developers have at their disposal.

Believe it or not, I'm writing this post specifically because of one game, one that is somewhat related to the next post that I shall be writing.  It's called Too Human (for the Xbox 360, 2008), a hack-n-slash, loot-drop game whose setting is a sort of science-fiction retelling of Norse mythology.

Two quick, unimportant definitions first:

Hack-n-slash: the type of game where you control one guy (Baldur, in this case) who slices his way through hundreds of enemies as he progresses from room to room.  You have a health bar that depletes every time you get hit.  These games are primarily about the action.

Loot-drop: when the enemies die, they routinely drop new weapons and armor for you to try on or sell.

Yay!  Anyway, I knew very little about Norse mythology going into this game.  I knew that Thor was the god of thunder (and a great character to play as in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance because everytime you kill something he says "The son of Odin is triumphant!" or some other nonsense), and Loki was the trickster god responsible for Jim Carrey's The Mask, and Odin was important somewhere in there, but that was about it.

The story of this game is presented as if you have been dropped right into the middle of the game.  You are given no backstory except through things that character mention off-hand, and with everyone who speaks to you you must figure out who the hell they are on your own.  You learn that Baldur's wife or something died at some point, and after a mission or two you learn that some guy named Hod was responsible.  For the entire time, the game plays as if you are somehow supposed to know the full backstory already, and believe me, it's frustrating.  I realize that game developers probably aren't all that concerned with getting the gamer emotionally invested in their game, but it couldn't hurt to try.  Some games do well with less story (like the "sandbox" style Just Cause 2, where I spend more time hijacking helicopters, flying them as high as they'll go, then blowing them up and freefalling for a good five minutes before pulling my chute as close to the ground as I can without giving the landscape a fresh pockmark), but your missions in Too Human are not just to go out and kill mindless monsters; they are directly involved with the game's overall plot, like the mission where your character decides to hunt Hod down and kill him for revenge.

After thoroughly not caring, I went and did a bit of research on Norse mythology, thereby learning much of the backstory on which this game apparently based itself, but even then the game made changes that still elude me.  Granted, I've yet to finish the game, so perhaps all will be revealed in time, but there's a subtle difference between evoking mystery and confusion, as I believe I mentioned in a recent post (the one on The Warrior Heir, I think), and the writers for this game don't know the difference.

That, and the gameplay's not very fun, either.

I'm not saying every game has to have a well-told story. That'd be ridiculous, and more often than not all I want to do is plop down in my chair and beat up a few thugs or blow up some expensive-looking machinery or kill 2000 unfortunate Chinese men from the Han dynasty.  I'm not even saying that all games in the style of Too Human have to have engaging plots (just look at Blizzard's masterpiece, Diablo II: 95% action, 5% plot, and it's one of the best games I own).  I'm just saying that if you're going to make a game as obviously plot-centric as Too Human was, then spend the extra money on hiring writers who give a crap.  Hell, I'd have done it for free if they'd have just called me up.  I could have written something better.  Or, ideally, they'd have remade Too Human as a game version of Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight series, which I shall be reviewing next.  Stay tuned if you want to hear what a REAL story based on Norse mythology is like...

Two Heads are Better... (Iron Man 2 Review)

I'm going to do my best to go see - and subsequently review - as many of the 2010 movies that I previewed as I can.  We'll see how well I actually do with that...

For now, however, it's been easy, as I'd been planning on seeing Iron Man 2 with my friends since before I even bothered writing that post.  I have a friend who basically IS Iron Man (he and some cohorts designed an iPhone app that can drive a car), and he happened to be in town this weekend, so of course we had to go see it.  Before getting into the movie itself, though, I have to say that the latest trailer for The Last Airbender left my wife and me with our jaws on the floor.  Ho. Ly. Crap.

I read a blog entry recently about the superhero movies of the past 22 years (I'd give you the link, but it was on IMDb's "hit list", and unfortunately it's gone now and I can't find it.  Sorry).  Specifically, it pointed out a general trend in superhero flicks ever since the 1978 Superman: a trend away from "world saving" and down to "self-saving".  The superheroes of today increasingly no longer face a global threat (oh noes!  Lex Luthor is going to destroy the world!) but one of personal strife (oh noes!  My daddy doesn't like me!).  After seeing Iron Man 2, I can safely say that the series isn't following this trend... so far.

A trend it MAY be following, however, is one that I mentioned in my 2010 movie preview blowout.  So far, Marvel movie trilogies follow a pattern: the first movie is pretty good and shows the hero's origins as well as an appearance from some signature villain; the second movie is all out better than the first; the third royally sucks and forces Marvel to either reboot the series (Spider-Man) or resort to spin-offs (X-Men).  Read on to see whether I believe that the Iron Man series follows this trend or not.

Now, the first Iron Man had some certain shortcomings to live up to with its sequel.  Iron Man was good, particularly for an origin story, but a lot of people felt like the "villain" - Iron Monger - hardly had any screen time, not entirely realizing that the terrorist group of the first film (called the Ten Rings) was actually an adaptation of one of Iron Man's best - though "politically incorrect" - villains: Mandarin, who unleashes mystic powers from ten blingin' rings that he wears.  Therefore, Iron Man villains as a whole got quite a bit of screentime, but oh well.  I guess the reference was too subtle for most.  All this to say, people have been expecting to see more of Whiplash - Iron Man 2's primary villain -  than the roughly seven minutes of screentime devoted to Iron Monger.

They got their wish.

Iron Man 2 is more or less an improvement over its predecessor in every way.  After a brief prologue, it kicks off six months later, and clearly Tony Stark and his Iron Man suit have become rather popular with the public.  Unfortunately, not all is well with Tony.  The palatium used in his handy dandy chest-mounted nightlight is slowly killing him, and somehow, he discovers that alcohol helps treat the symptoms, so as time goes on the poisoning gets worse and worse, and so does his alcoholism.  The Tony Stark of the comics had a similar bout with booze, yet I don't recall it being a literal way of dealing with problems.  Having the alcoholism be a way to fight his own demise (movie) vs. a way to forget his troubles (comics) creates a fundamental shift in how the audience views Tony.  What if he attacked the bottle just because of the strain of being himself?  Would today's audience sympathize with him as much as they apparently do with the movie version?  I don't know, and apparently the filmmakers didn't want to find out, either.  I thought it cheapened Tony as a character a little bit; the Tony Stark of the comics is a very deep and at times controversial character (just check out the Civil Wars series of Marvel comics and see if you still love Tony after that), but the filmmakers must not have wanted to make you doubt his heroism.  Nice job, Hollywood.  Way to fundamentally lighten the character's psychological makeup.

The one great thing about the alcohol issue is that it brings about the introduction of one of my favorite heroes, War Machine.  When Tony becomes so involved with alcohol that he can barely stand, his buddy James Rhodes (aka "Rhodey") commandeers a suit and makes a few military adjustments, as you may have noticed from the poster above.  The only strange thing, though, is that Don Cheadle plays Rhodey this time round, whereas in the first movie he was played by Terrance Howard.  I don't know the reason for the switch - Terrance Howard is still alive, leaving one to assume that he and Marvel didn't see eye to eye concerning money - but I do have to say that I preferred Howard's performance to Cheadle's.  The movie even felt the need to make Rhodey's entrance very, VERY obvious.  By this I mean that when you first see him, the movie blasts you with obnoxious signs that "this guy walking in is supposed to be Rhodey even though he didn't look like this last time!"  Oh well, Cheadle does fine when he's replaced onscreen by the War Machine suit, so I couldn't complain.  As for the other actors, everyone does an admirable job for their roles, particularly Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Sam Rockwell (I didn't even know he was IN this movie!) as Stark's business rival, Justin Hammer.  I'm fairly convinced that Rockwell's one of the most underrated actors of today, at least in terms of actors who occasionally still get to star in huge, mainstream blockbusters.  I guess my sentiment's a bit limited, then, but still, I always forget just how good he is.

This was one of the most comic-bookey movies that I've ever seen.  The action is more over-the-top (ahem Black Widow), cheeseball lines abound (Nick Fury: "I've got my eye on you... [hold pose for five more seconds]"), and a lot of times the whole thing just feels silly (the entire sequence that leads up to War Machine's debut).  I don't mean that in a bad way.  It is what it is.  But where The Dark Knight feels like a psychological thriller starring a billionaire who just happens to sometimes dress as a giant bat, you are always keenly aware that Iron Man 2 is, first a foremost, a comic book movie.  There's a wealth of fan service (none of which I'll ruin for you, save War Machine, who's already been revealed in the trailers and posters), and there were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, mostly involving - I'm assuming - some spectacular ad libs from Mr. Robert Downey Jr.  You will be entertained in this movie, but I felt the plot a trifle forced at times and serving as little more than an excuse to introduce War Machine and Stark's alcohol problems and also set up not only a third movie but also the upcoming Avengers film.  Overall this was a shallow experience, but one of which you will love every minute.  Go check it out.

And stay to the end of the credits, please.  If you know anything about Marvel comics, you won't be disappointed.

*UPDATE*

So, my wife was kind enough to inform me that I am mistaken on one particular count.  Apparently, the dark liquid that Tony drinks for much of the movie is chlorophyll, not alcohol, rendering my argument about Hollywood cheapening the character of Tony Stark more or less useless.  Sorry, Hollywood.  My bad.  You guys still have to work on your character development, though, if you even know what the phrase means.

'Tis but a Scratch (The Warrior Heir Review)

If you're wondering where my book reviews have disappeared to lately, the simple answer is that I'm in the middle of a two-book series that's so dense it's taking me forever to finish.  In the meantime, though, I realized that I never did write a review for a book that I read before Collins' excellent Catching Fire, so I'll do that now.

The Warrior Heir (Chima, 2007) is the first in "The Heir Trilogy".  To be honest, it caught my eye almost exclusively because its cover looked interesting in a cheesy-cool kind of way, but who hasn't done that with a book before?  The Warrior Heir is written in - what's it called? - third-person omniscient, where the main character is "Jack" and not "I", yet you still know what he's thinking.  It occasionally jumps around to other characters as the author sees fit, to give you a fuller story and to try to not confuse you, though, as you'll see, Chima doesn't entirely succeed.

The story primarily follows Jack, a teenager with a rather odd problem.  He'd been told all his life that he was born with a heart defect and had to undergo special surgery, so he's always had to take some medicine prescribed to him by a doctor from London, Dr. Longbranch, but one day he forgets to take it, and suddenly he finds that it's as though a haze has been lifted from his body.  His senses are sharper, and he's much stronger and faster.  As it turns out, he's part of a line of Weir - a secret group containing Wizards (magic missile!), Enchanters (these aren't the droids you were looking for), Soothsayers (look into my crystal ball), Sorcerers (here, I made these special anti-poopstain underwear for you!), and Warriors (um, hyah?).  From the title, I bet you can guess which one Jack is.

To put it bluntly, I didn't care for this book.  To put it a bit more accurately, I didn't really care one way or the other about this book.  I found out that it's Chima's first (I seem to be making it a habit of reading "first" books lately), and boy does it show.  Not only is her plot weak, confusing, and meandering, but her editor should be shot.  Typos abound, and there were two occasions in which the same thing was said twice - once by a character, once by the narrator.  It was sloppy and embarrassing to read.

The characters are alright - Jack's your typical, bland hero who's as clueless as you are.  His Aunt Linda's persuasive and highly dominant in all her scenes, and Jack's two best friends - Will and Fitch - show at least a little personality here and there.  There's the neighbor with a secret (Snowbeard, as if you'd never guess from his name), and the mentor with a dark past.  Not to mention all of your typical "schoolyard" stereotypes.

A good writer can have a clueless protagonist while still keeping the reader interested and aware of what's going on, but when the reader becomes even more confused than the hero, you know you've got a problem.  The latter is how I felt with The Warrior Heir.  All Weir are born with a stone inside them indicating what kind of Weir they are (wizard, warrior, etc.; you know, like Dungeons & Dragons classes), but Jack was born without one, even though he was technically a Weir.  How someone can be Weir without the stone that makes them so, I don't know, and I don't recall Chima ever sufficiently explaining it, but that's what happens here.  Even though he was meant to be a Wizard, the most powerful of the Weir, the doctor from London (a Wizard herself) decided to experiment on him by implanting a rare warrior stone while he was a baby.  Wizards, you see, hold a tournament every so often to determine which house (Red Roses and White Roses - of the "War of the Roses" from your history book) will hold the most power until the next tournament.  Each house brings a Warrior champion, and they fight to the death.  Therefore, the Warrior Weirs have pretty much gone extinct, which is why Dr. Longbranch gives Jack medicine to subdue his powers: she doesn't want other Wizards learning of his existence until he's ready to receive training from her and her Rose house (whichever one it is; I don't remember or care).

Maybe it's just that my memory ain't what it once was, and that I'm in the process of reading something somewhat similar that blows this one out of the water, but this book was riddled with plot holes the size of Jasmine, my 18-pound cat who at this very moment is doing that weird kneading thing to the bit of blanket on my feet.  Jack and his friends join his successful Aunt Linda in a hunt for a special sword, Eterne - excuse me, Shadowslayer - that helps draw out Jack's powers or something.  It's so hard to say, because Jack shows abilities both of the Warrior and of the Wizard, but no one ever tells you which one is which, so when Jack starts shooting fire out of his sword, I actually thought that was him being a Wizard until another Warrior does the same thing later.  Anyway, once the plotline with the sword comes to a close, you enter another one that I guess you could call the "training" montage, though during the entire sequence Jack is never given a reason for why he is being trained.  He just is, and that should be enough.  Turns out, of course, that he's being trained as a Warrior champion for an upcoming tournament, in which he will be pitted against another Warrior in a battle to the death.

It is this last bit that serves as Chima's big mystery for like the whole second half of the book: who is the Red Roses' champion? (now that I say that, I recall that Dr. Longbranch is with the White Roses.  Now you can sleep tonight)  The problem here is that I called it before it was EVER brought up to be a mystery.  I won't ruin it for you, of course, but the twist was so obvious that it just made things boring, like "yes, yes, we KNOW who it is, please Chima, you're killing me, and I wish you'd do the same to your editor."  Add in other ultra-typical elements, like the school bully who specifically has it in for Jack, the ex-girlfriend who tries to mess with Jack's emotions, and the "I'm getting so cool and important that I'm forgetting my friends" subplot, and you have one of the most standard - possibly sub-standard - young adult books I've ever read.  Again, I can't strictly say that it was a bad book (save for atrocious editing), but it definitely wasn't good.

That being said, my wife read the next two in the series and could not put them down.  She more or less felt the same as I did about The Warrior Heir, but from what she says, The Wizard Heir and The Dragon Heir are much, much better, which is good to hear.  I like seeing writers improve, and Chima needed it.  I'll let you know how the next ones are once I get around to them, but I expect it'll be a while.

But please, don't expect much from the ending.  The climactic moment was so out of left field, so impossibly unpredictable, that it was nowhere near the "aha!" moment that I think Chima wanted it to be.  I'm trying to think of a sufficiently similar example out there for you, but nothing's coming to mind.  I guess... imagine the Helm's Deep sequence of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.  Remember how it ends?  Now imagine that you had NEVER BEFORE been introduced to Gandalf or Eomer and had only vaguely heard mention of the Rohirrim prior to that moment.  Would you be a little confused?  Would you feel like it was a bit of a cop out on the writer's part?  I don't know if I've ever been so disappointed with an action-adventure's finale before.  Ugh.

2010 (or What's Left of It) Movie Preview Extravaganza!

As I bear witness to more and more trailers, I am beginning to realize just what an excellent year for movies this shall be.  Remember 2008?  That summer was excellent (Iron Man, Horton Hears a Who!, Cloverfield, WALL-E, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Hellboy 2, Tropic Thunder, Speed Racer, and of course The Dark Knight), but 2009?  Pitiful.  Seems all I remember were Up and Star Trek, which were both absolutely incredible, but far outnumbered.  Now, to be fair, I was in the middle of wedding planning at that point, so I didn't go and see a whole lot, but it didn't seem like there was much worth seeing.

The reason is simple.  The good old Writer's Strike from a few years back took its full toll on 2009, when movies that would have been written during the strike would theoretically come out.  My guess is that this is why Avatar came out in 2009: writing clearly wasn't a necessity for ole' Jimmy Cameron.

So, I decided that, to help keep track of all the excellence (or perhaps not) that's set to release this year, I've crafted this handy-dandy preview for the movies of 2010 that generally fall under my interests.  I'm sad to say that The Back-Up Plan didn't make the cut, nor did the new Cats & Dogs movie.  You'll just have to see for yourself what does.  Note that I'm not going to include movies that are already out, like Clash of the Titans, Date Night, or How to Train Your Dragon.  That'd just be silly.  This is a preview, after all.

Iron Man 2

Release Date: May 7th
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow
Premise: Tony Stark is back with his Iron Man suit, now known to the world for who he is.  But has his public unveiling backfired, with the military and the government after his technology?
Reason to Watch: The first one was pretty good, and Marvel movies tend to follow a trend where the first one is good, the second one is incredible, and the third sucks.
Reason to Avoid: Replacing Terrance Howard with Don Cheadle?  C'mon, guys.

Robin Hood

Release Date: May 14

Starring: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett
Premise: Reboot alert!  Do I really have to say what this is going to be about?

Reason to Watch: Russell Crowe has this habit of rocking every movie he does.

Reason to Avoid: Might take itself too seriously.  Also, who decided that they should turn Marion into Xena: Warrior Princess?

Shrek Forever After

Release Date: May 21

Starring: Mike Meyers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy
Premise: It's It's a Wonderful Life meets Shrek, in which our green hero gets to see what his world would be like if he'd never existed.

Reason to Watch: It's the final chapter in what has overall been a pretty good series of animated movies, and it appears as though they've laid off the pop culture references in favor of a plot.

Reason to Avoid: It'd have been better if they'd written Shrek into a world in which Shrek 3 never existed.

MacGruber

Release Date: May 21

Starring: Will Forte, Val Kilmer
Premise: Ex-special ops MacGruber must return to what he does best to stop his arch-nemesis from blowing up Washington.

Reason to Watch: The trailer looks promising, and this has always been a semi-amusing recurring character of SNL.

Reason to Avoid: The trailer lists it as "the best SNL sketch movie since Wayne's World".  I love Wayne's World, but that's little comfort.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Release Date: May 28

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arteron, Ben Kingsley
Premise: The Prince of Persia must stop an evil Vizier from potentially destroying the world.

Reason to Watch: The videogame was awesome.

Reason to Avoid: Ben Kingsley enjoys picking crap, and why are white people playing Persians?

Splice

Release Date: June 4

Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chaneac
Premise: Since cloning is illegal, scientists decide to see where the line is drawn by making a mutant human.

Reason to Watch: We don't have enough good sci-fi thrillers these days.

Reason to Avoid: Mutant humans (not including X-Men) haven't been very popular since Total Recall.

The A-Team

Release Date: June 11

Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley
Premise: Reboot alert!  Four veterans who were wrongly accused of a crime must clear their names and find the true culprits.

Reason to Watch: Hollywood's reboot of a classic TV show.

Reason to Avoid: There should be a cap on the number of reboots that Hollywood's allowed to do per year.  Also, no Mr. T, lest he makes a surprise cameo.

The Karate Kid

Release Date: June 11

Starring: Jackie Chan, Jayden Smith, Taraji P. Henson
Premise: Reboot alert!  When his mother moves to China with him, Dre learns to defend himself from a wushu master.

Reason to Watch: Jackie Chan and Jayden Smith are each excellent to watch, in my opinion.

Reason to Avoid: Many, many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Karate is NOT Chinese.  Good lord.  That's like making a movie about the Civil War and calling the North (or South) "Redcoats".

Toy Story 3

Release Date: June 18

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen
Premise: Andy's off to college, so Woody, Buzz and the gang are off to a toy's equivalent of a retirement home: a preschool.

Reason to Watch: The first two were awesome.  The cast is stellar.

Reason to Avoid: None.  This is made by Pixar; they can do no wrong.

Jonah Hex

Release Date: June 18

Starring: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich
Premise: When a man's family is killed and his face seriously scarred, supernatural things begin to happen around him as he seeks out revenge.

Reason to Watch: Interesting concept; John Malcovich with mutton chops.

Reason to Avoid: Thousands.  It's changed directors several times.  The hole in Josh Brolin's cheek is unsettling, though nowhere near so much as Megan Fox's horrific butchering of a Southern accent.  Looks to be DC's version of Ghost Rider: good concept, poor execution, horrid female lead.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Release Date: July 2

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Premise: Bella is caught between Edward and Jacob while a vampire army plans to exact revenge on our young heroine.

Reason to Watch: I understand why this series is popular.  Really, I do.  I was a psychology major, and I would LOVE to run a study that examines the differences between Twilight fans and the rest of the world.  Also, this one should be the most male-friendly, what with the possibility of some fighting and all.

Reason to Avoid: Among other reasons, the next movie down comes out the same weekend.

The Last Airbender

Release Date: July 2

Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone
Premise: In a war between the Fire Nation and the nations of Earth, Air and Water, one young boy, the long-awaited Avatar, may be the only hope for peace.

Reason to Watch: Based upon one of the best cartoon series I've seen in a long time, and it's guaranteed to have awesome special effects as well as interesting views on spirituality.

Reason to Avoid: M. Night Shyamalan's past few movies haven't been so hot, but at least he didn't write this one.  Oh wait, yes he did.  Uh oh.

Despicable Me

Release Date: July 9

Starring: Steve Carrel, Miranda Cosgrove, Kristen Wiig
Premise: A trio of adorable children befriend Gru, a would-be supervillian who begins to think that stealing the moon may not be the best idea after all.

Reason to Watch: Still hard to say, but this seems like your classic, heart-warming tale about an eccentric super-villian succumbing to the cuteness and love of adorable children.

Reason to Avoid: Hard to say.  Russell Brand is in this movie, does that count?  It does for me.

Predators

Release Date: July 9

Starring: Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace
Premise: Reboot alert!  A group of elite fighters find themselves stranded on a planet with the deadliest hunters known to man.

Reason to Watch: Adrien Brody as a special ops gunman?  What the crap?  Is there nothing this man can't do?

Reason to Avoid: The Predator movies are not usually known for their quality.  Also, Topher Grace is in this movie.  He's not usually known for his quality, either.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Release Date: July 16

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Monica Bellucci
Premise: A sorcerer recruits a boy unaware of his powers to fight his arch-nemesis.

Reason to Watch: Nic Cage is awesome in all he does, even when it's clear he's not even acting.  Special effects look good.  Plot's classic and good for younger audiences.

Reason to Avoid: Comes out the same weekend as the next movie down.  Also, Nic Cage's movies lately haven't been so hot (except for Kick-Ass).

Inception

Release Date: July 16

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Ellen Page
Premise: A company creates a dreamworld made from one man's mind, then infiltrate it to steal his idea.

Reason to Watch: This looks seriously awesome.  Plot sounds weird as hell, but just check out the trailer.  Psychological thriller of the year, I guarantee it.  Oh, and it's directed by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento)

Reason to Avoid: Any that seem to exist are probably just illusions from your own dreamworld.

Dinner for Schmucks

Release Date: July 23

Starring: Steve Carrel, Paul Rudd, Stephanie Szostak
Premise: (Sorry for the poor picture) Remake alert!  Tim's company holds a monthly event called "dinner for idiots", in which the employee who shows up with the biggest doof wins certain benefits.  He believes he has found a winner in Barry (Carrel).

Reason to Watch: Paul Rudd and Steve Carrel could have starred in Catwoman and it would have been awesome.

Reason to Avoid: Haven't seen any ratings yet, but these two have a habit of starring in R movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and I Love You, Man, which are both great, but don't appeal to everybody.

Ramona and Beezus

Release Date: July 23

Starring: Joey King, Selena Gomez, Bridget Moynahan
Premise: Ramona Quimby's always causing trouble for her older sister, Beezus.

Reason to Watch: Anyone who's a fan of the books should totally dig this adaptation.  The girl they got for Ramona looks perfect.

Reason to Avoid: No special effects in a family movie?  Who DOES that nowadays?  Hopefully America won't be so shallow.

Beastly

Release Date: July 30

Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens, Mary-Kate Olsen
Premise: Semi-reboot alert!  A modern-day retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast fairytale.

Reason to Watch: Interesting look for the "beast", and I'm curious to see how they make the old tale modern.

Reason to Avoid: Vanessa Hudgens.

The Other Guys

Release Date: August 6

Starring: Will Ferrel, Mark Wahlberg
Premise: (Sorry for the poor picture) A pair of New York detectives seek to be just like their idols... only things don't go exactly how they intended.

Reason to Watch: Will Ferrel and Mark Wahlberg could be a potentially brilliant comedic pairing.

Reason to Avoid: Ferrel's gotten a bit stale lately.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Release Date: August 13

Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin
Premise: In order to win the heart of Ramona, Scott Pilgrim must defeat her Seven Evil Exes.

Reason to Watch: The comic book-style effects might just be zany enough to be awesome, and what teenage boy doesn't want to prove himself to his girlfriend by destroying her jerk exes?

Reason to Avoid: Like Will Ferrel, Michael Cera keeps on playing the same character over and over and over and over...

The Expendables

Release Date: August 13

Starring: Every B-movie action star EVER... plus Jet Li, minus Jean Claude Van Dam
Premise: A team of kick-ass mercenaries blows stuff up.  Does the plot really matter?

Reason to Watch: See category labeled "Starring".

Reason to Avoid: See category labeled "Starring".

Centurion

Release Date: August 27 (limited)

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Olga Kurylenko
Premise: After the Roman Ninth Legion almost gets wiped out by Celts, the survivors cross into Celt territory... I'm guessing to extract revenge.

Reason to Watch: Haven't seen a lot of sword-and-sandal lately...

Reason to Avoid: The last sword-and-sandal movie I saw was Clash of the Titans.

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Release Date: September 10

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller
Premise: (Sorry for the bad picture) As the T-Virus continues to spread, Alice and Claire make for Los Angeles, a supposed safe haven.

Reason to Watch: Milla Jovovich.  Also, a little bit of zombie-killing never hurt anyone.

Reason to Avoid: The first three were each a bit of a gorefest.  Also, once a series reaches its 4th, it's often best to, you know, stop (See: Shrek Forever After).

The Eagle of the Ninth

Release Date: September 25

Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, Donald Sutherland
Premise: (Sorry for the bad picture) A band of intrepid soldiers embark on a quest to steal back their plotline from Centurion.

Reason to Watch: Um, Donald Sutherland?

Reason to Avoid: Come on, this movie's about the SAME group of soldiers that Centurion's about!  That just seems criminal.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

Release Date: September 25

Starring: Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham
Premise: Soren's always listened to tales of the Owls of Ga'Hoole, famed warriors from long ago.  Now he may get the chance to follow in their... wingbeats?

Reason to Watch: Visuals look fan-friggen-tastic.  Directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen).

Reason to Avoid: As someone on IMDb put it, this may be this year's Golden Compass.  God I hope not.

MegaMind

Release Date: November 5

Starring: Will Ferrel, Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt
Premise: When MegaMind, a supervillian, finally kills the hero, he grows bored and decides to build a new one.  But when the new hero turns evil, MegaMind must turn hero to stop him.

Reason to Watch: Solid cast; Ferrel's MegaMind might just be eccentric enough to work.

Reason to Avoid: The Incredibles will probably be better.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

Release Date: November 19

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson Rupert Grint
Premise: Harry, Ron and Hermione seek out a way to finally defeat Lord Voldemort, once and for all.

Reason to Watch: The Potter story is all about love, and good triumphing over evil.  If nothing else, this should set up for a killer Part II movie next summer.  Also, this one's in 3D!

Reason to Avoid: Nitpicking fans of the books have a lot to complain about in previous Potter outtings.

Red Dawn

Release Date: November 24
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Isabel Lucas, Josh Hutcherson
Premise: Reboot alert!  A group of teens defend their town from invading Russians... AND Chinese.
Reason to Watch: Russians and Chinese make for great badguys, AND they both love red, so the title makes sense.
Reason to Avoid: It sounds like they're just making the same movie again, only adding China.  Hmm, sounds like The Karate Kid.  Weird.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Release Date: December 10

Starring: Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley
Premise: (Note: poster-picture is fan-made) Two of the Pevensie children return to Narnia to travel with Prince Caspian to the edge of the world.

Reason to Watch: This was arguably one of the best of the seven Chronicles of Narnia novels.

Reason to Avoid: Not a fan of Christian symbolism?  You probably don't like the Chronicles of Narnia movies or books, then.

TRON Legacy

Release Date: December 17

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde
Premise: Almost-reboot alert!  The son of Flynn from the first movie rediscovers the game machine in which his father has been trapped for the past 20 years.

Reason to Watch: Cool special effects, potentially huge sentimental value.

Reason to Avoid: You'd think there should be a limit to how much time is allowed to pass between a movie and its sequel.




So, there you have it.  31 movies of potential awesomeness.  A whopping 7 are reboots (8 if you count Eagle of the Ninth as being a reboot of Centurion), 8 are sequels, and 7 are adaptations.  Perhaps my taste is just in things that I've heard of already, so selection bias may be responsible there.  Whatever the case, this looks to be a killer year.  Alice in Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon, and Kick-Ass were all excellent and made up for Clash of the Titans.  If 75% of the above-previewed movies are as good as those three, 2010 will be little short of epic.  Can't wait.

His Power Level is.... OVER 9000!!!!!!!! (Disgaea Review)

If you know me, you should be shocked that I've yet to review a videogame on this blog.  Well, your troubles are over, mister, because that's what I'm here to do.

I am a big fan of videogames.  Have been ever since I sat in my big brother's room and watched him play Tecmo Bowl.  My parents had a suburban with a TV mounted in the back of the center console, and my dad was clever enough to rig up a VCR under one of the back seats and a Nintendo Entertainment System under the other, so for long car rides we played a lot of Baseball All Stars and RC Pro AM and the occasional Legend of Zelda, though I was worthless at that one.  I've gotten better and would wager that, in my prime, there was no finer Biggoron swordsman in all the world when it came to Ocarina of Time.  When my childhood best friend moved in next door and we got to know each other, I discovered that he and his older brother had a whole closetful of games at their disposal, and I was hardly seen in my own home again until my parents, who missed me dearly, were distraught enough to buy a Super Nintendo for my "first grade graduation".  They'd gotten it from a friend, so it came with about fifteen games, among them F-Zero and Star Fox, which quickly became two of my favorites.  It's sad to see that neither franchise has transitioned onto the newest consoles, but oh well.  Not everyone's so lucky as Mario.

In many ways, games have come a long way since then.  Near-photorealism is upon us (just look at the racing games out there nowadays).  Gone are the days of text-based dialog.  Everyone's voice-acted nowadays, for better or worse (better = Kingdom Hearts; worse = Just Cause 2, or any of the Dynasty Warriors games).  Soundtracks have become so well-composed that you can buy them in stores (though just last night I encountered a band dedicated to making electric-guitar versions of 8-bit game themes from the late 80's and early 90's, so the classics live on!).

In many other ways, though, games have perhaps NOT come very far.  As mentioned before, sometimes the voice acting is so bad that you wish you just turn it off completely (but you can't.  Ever.)  Storylines have become much more complex thanks to dramatic increases in memory to allow for longer games (see: any Bioware game, like Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, or Jade Empire), yet oftentimes the storylines, simply put, are utterly worthless.  Depending on the game, you may end up "playing a movie", where you find that overly-long cinematic cut scenes take up more of your time than gameplay (see: Xenosaga), or you may find yourself playing through a game whose story is so convoluted that you don't have the slightest idea why you're doing things in the first place (see: Too Human, which I shall be discussing further in a later post).  Many games nowadays have become so shallow in their stories that it's embarrassing to me as a writer.

And don't even get me started on game-movie tie-ins.  Just don't.

One of my favorite genres is strategy, specifically grid-based Strategy-RPGs first made famous (as far as I know) by Final Fantasy: Tactics.  This basically involves having about 8 characters spread out over a map separated into a grid a bit like chess.  The characters move one at a time, depending on their speed stat, and you go around taking out the enemy until there's none left on the board.  You win, you move on to the next map after some story, and you repeat, with character customization going on in-between battles.  If it sounds simple, it isn't.  Final Fantasy: Tactics featured 20 different classes for your non-storyline characters, and each one offers a completely different way of playing: warriors, archers, black mages, white mages, or the oddball calculator, just to name a few.  These games in this genre are deep, time-consuming, and have a reputation (to me, anyway) as having some of the best storylines around.

Enter Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

From what I understand, Disgaea first arrived in Japan for the PlayStation 2 in 2001, then in the US two years later, while I was in high school.  I don't know how exactly I became aware of it, but somehow or another I picked it up.  What followed was possibly the closest experience to taking drugs that I've ever experienced.  My grades slipped because I had to keep playing.  I didn't see my friends.  I definitely didn't see my parents.  My cat started spending more time in the gameroom with me, leaving me to suspect that my parents hired him to make sure I didn't die of exhaustion from playing too much, like that Korean guy did with World of Warcraft a few years ago.

My total playtime for Disgaea?  142 hours, 35 minutes and 35 seconds.  That's not including the combined 148 hours, 55 minutes and 7 seconds I've spent on the two sequels, or the 111 hours, 44 minutes and 43 seconds on Makai Kingdom, the spiritual spin-off made by the same company.

Total time spent on Nippon Ichi's Strategy-RPG drugs?  403 hours, 15 minutes and 25 seconds.

That's almost 17 straight days.  I kept waiting for my friends to stage an intervention.  Had they done so, I may have reclaimed two weeks of my life.

And I would have been worse off for it.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness stars Laharl, the son of the Overlord of the Netherworld.  He awakens to find that his father has died (from choking on a pretzel, as you later find out), and that Laharl has been asleep in his coffin for two years.  His vassal, Etna, has woken him because other overlords have begun to fight for his father's throne, and it's up to him to claim it for himself.  What follows is a multi-chapter story about your typical anti-hero as he tries, in vain, to act like a big tough demon.  He meets an "angel assassin" in the form of Flonne, your typical Japanese young girl who is all innocence, to the point where she doesn't even know what an assassin really is.  Their relationship provides the majority of the character development, as Flonne strives to teach Larharl what love and goodness are and he tries to ignore her and continue his masculine, hilarious path towards domination.

Aside from the surprisingly poignant moments concerning love and its ability to turn demons and angels into friends, it's the humor that really pushes the story along.  This is one of those games that knows it's a game, kind of like how Deadpool of the X-men universe knows that he's in a comic and often comments on it.  One of the "overlords" you fight is this super-effeminate man who's so overconfident yet so impotent that Laharl renames him "Mid-boss", since there's no way that he could be the boss of the whole chapter and must therefore be a mid-chapter miniboss.  Also, Etna has a horde of slaves at her disposal: an army of demonic penguins called Prinnies.

I love these guys.  They speak in high-pitched voices and call everyone "Dood!" as they pull bombs and knives from their goofy little fannypacks.  They are human souls sent to the Netherworld for their sins.  They are lazy, overworked, and utterly expendable.

Other sources of humor come from a cameo by overacting Power Rangers (one of whom speaks as though reading deadpan from cue cards) and a zombie who wields the ultimate power-up: a horse wiener.  Seriously.  When Laharl finds out that this zombie wields a horse wiener, he almost runs for it because he's so scared.  Disgaea's sense of humor is kooky and wacky in the way that only a Japanese game can be.  Just check out the item list I provided at the end of this post if you still aren't convinced.

That's all well and good, but what's the gameplay like?  This is a videogame, after all.

Simply put, it plays similarly to what I described up top about Final Fantasy: Tactics.  You use about 6 or 8 characters on a grid-style map, only this time you choose all of your characters' actions at once, let them fly, then let the computer take a turn.  This allows you to set up combos between your characters, and chains where several of your guys attack the same enemy in a row.  This makes your attacks do more and more damage as the chain increases, forcing you to strategize which of your characters will attack in what order so as to unload the most damage.

To make this even more complex, strewn about the maps are geo panels, which are colored squares with different effects like "experience + 50%", or "attack - 50%", or "invulnerability".  This throws a huge monkey wrench into the mix, for you may come across a map where multiple enemies are lounging behind a solid line of geo panels that say "no crossing" or something like that, meaning that you have to find some way to circumnavigate the panels in order to get to them, even if it means throwing your team to the right side of the map where a bunch of badguys lie in wait, perched on "attack +100%" panels for the sole purpose of making your life a living hell.  The game becomes one huge puzzle where you not only have to pit your spatial skills against the computer but also your mathematical skills.  Despite the sometimes juvenile humor, this is a thinking man's game, and I'm not even going to go into what it takes to set off a "color chain".  Just believe me when I say that I've spent thirty minutes at a time without moving a single character or taking a single action.  This is chess on the most bizarre of steroids.

I saw a poster recently.  It was one of those "inspirational" posters that have become so immensely popular on lolcats-style websites like Failblog or, of course, VeryDemotivational.com.  It said "Disgaea: Like getting your degree in statistics, but with anime characters and demon penguins", and I think that pretty much sums things up.  This game, and its sequels and spin-offs, is all about numbers.  Where most Strategy-RPGs have a level-cap of, say, 100, Disgaea allows you to level up all the way to 9999.

That's right.  Level 9999.

None of this sissy level 100 crap.  By the time your character has attained level 9999, he's probably doing so much damage that the game can't even show the numbers in the bottom-left-hand corner like it usually does, but must resort to something like "2113923k" or more, depending on how insane you are.

Your character classes have better versions of themselves to unlock, and your characters can "reincarnate", which means that they start over at level 1, but their base stats will be higher depending on how many levels they have stored up from reincarnating multiple times.  This means that your goal is not to just get your guys up to level 9999.  Your goal is to level him up as much as you can, reincarnate him, and repeat until you've built up thousands of levels so that your base stats rock (for instance, if your base attack stat is 40, say, instead of 20, this means that as your guy levels up, his attack power will be twice as high).

Then, to top it all off, there's the Item World.  Items are every bit as complex as your own characters.  Weapons, armor, and accessories like the above-mentioned horse wiener often contain "specialists", which are little inhabitants who increase the capabilities of your items in various ways (raising its attack, defense, poison resistance, etc.).  If you wish for a more powerful version of your sword, say, you can go inside it, where you can find its specialists and "subdue" them, which makes them twice as powerful AND allows you to move them from one item to another.  Every item is its own dungeon.

Now you see where those 17 days went.

The further down into your items you go, the stronger they get.  Regular items have a level cap of 40 or 60 (I can't remember), while rare items have a higher cap, and "legendary" items have a cap of 100.  If you can make it all the way to the 100th floor inside that item, you will face a boss who wields the item of the next-highest rank over your own (so if you are inside the 2nd-best sword, for instance, the boss on the 100th floor will be using the 1st-best sword, which is in fact the only way to obtain the very, very best weapons).  With each level that you descend, the enemies get tougher, and leaving prematurely requires that you use a Mr. Gency Exit, of which you don't get a terribly large amount.  Thankfully, you can leave after every 10th floor without a penalty, and you can always go back inside after having left.  You just have to be able to survive ten floors in a row, ending with a boss battle.  Good luck with that when you're down in the furthest reaches and the enemies are perhaps dozens of levels higher than your allies.

This game is a strategy-RPG-lover's dream.  There is so much to do that you're never left with an empty checklist.  You're always leveling up, or finding better items, so you are always telling yourself "just one more" until you find that it's 1:30 in the morning and you have a paper due tomorrow that you haven't even started.  The story and characters are irreverent, but they have soul and I promise you will care for them by journey's end.  The 2D sprites don't look so good on today's TVs, but you don't play Strategy-RPGs for their graphics.  Maybe that's why, in today's world of so much flash and so little substance (here's lookin' at you, Avatar), Strategy-RPGs seem to have so little market.

I will leave you with a brief list of some of my favorite weapons and their hilarious one-line descriptions.  Please note that these are actually from Disgaea 2, as I have misplaced my Disgaea 1 strategy guide and don't want to bother scouring the internet for the information.

GLOVE WEAPONS

Double Slap - Sorry baby!  Why you make me do that?
Playful Punch - Ow ow ow OUCH!  It's not funny anymore!
Father's Fist - I'm not angry.  I'm just upset.  Now come here.
Slap Back - Cook your own dinner from now on!
7 Year Kill - Not bad, but I wish it worked faster.
Star Shatter - Finally, a way to punch the sun.

SWORDS

Lazy Sword - Buy a better sword later.
Broadsword - It's broad!  It's a sword!  It's a Broadsword!
Bastard Sword - A real jerk at times, but gets the job done.
Katzbalger - Cool, but don't use this on your cat.

SPEARS

Ashigaru - Your standard, stabby spear.
Beckdoraban - Whatever it means, the name sounds strong.
Trident - Basically an oversized fork.
Bone Spear - Good, but it could gain a few pounds.
Benkei's Glaive - Useful when guarding bridges.
Halberd - Cuts, jabs, spins, and makes julienne fries!
Elder Spear - Complains to younger spears.
Singularity - You'll never find another quite like it.
Gungnir - Like a small dog, returns when thrown.
Holy Longinus - The Godkiller.  How is that holy?

BOWS

Toy Bow - You've gotta be kidding.
Elven Bow - A famous elf used it to return a lost ring.
Assassin Bow - Best if shot from a grassy knoll.
Demon Bow - Made in Hell by underpaid, overworked imps.
Angel Bow - Made in Heaven by underworked wimps.
Forest Bow - Ironic, because it's made of dead trees.
Platinum Bow - Has sold over 1,000,000 copies.
Soul Eater - Beware its strange foot fetish.
Evil Hunter - When evil's afoot, shoot it in the leg.
Lovely Cupid - Girly love energize!  Maximum limit reached!
[NOTE: That's the best bow in the game...]

GUNS

Trumpet - Make sure to put your lips on the right end.
Godfather - It'll make you an offer you can't refuse.
Spray Gun - Works best on oversized insects.
Intoccabile - It means Untouchable, so hands off!

AXES

Gang Axe - Come here and let me axe you a question!
Primitive Axe - Inspired by a giant monolith.
Dwarven Axe - They're fun to toss, but you'll get in trouble.
Kill All - No, really.  It kills all.
Serial Axe - Snap, crackle, pop!  You're dead.
Master Axe - This is for you, the master of axing.
Emperor's Axe - Used by Czars to keep the proletariat in line.
Diabolic Axe - Overlords and axes - like chicken and waffles!

STAVES

Magician Wand - Will not help pull rabbits out of hats.
Cardinal Staff - Hit 70 home runs with this.
Druid Staff - *Stonehenge not included.
Force Staff - You won't need a target computer anymore.
Chief's Staff - Great for slap shots.
Crimson Wand - Can it... BE any more red?
Omniscient Rod - Sees you when you're sleeping.  How creepy.