[plight of…is generally a reflection piece on something on my mind. stream of consciousness and usually asks you guys questions in a formless rant that feels good on my fingers and keyboard]

If you’re like me, you’re a contradictory asshole. Usually I write this off to being human. It’s a cheap way out of arguments with your friends or girlfriend, boyfriend, or whatever without really admitting fault. You say something like “Yeah, I’m a fucking hypocrite but so are you!” And then you explain that existence is rife with contradictions and hypocrisy and maybe it’s just embedded into our collective consciousness, or our meat sacks, or whatever. So when I say I’m divided about Final Fantasy XIII and its insane linearity, I mean it. On one hand, I always wax intellectual about allowing for the evolution of characters, franchises, whatever. I opine with feigned hurt about fanboys who say “Oh, Batman should never act this way!” and “Final Fantasy cannot, must not, simply not have Moogles with three-centimeter ears!”

And yeah, I have a very clear cut, and determined idea of what makes a Final Fantasy.

I am Ian Drinkwater, just another typical hypocrite.

Here’s the deal. Apparently Final Fantasy XIII is the pinnacle of linearity. Reviewers have described it as one long-corridor of doom, where battles are endless, you’re healed after every scrum, and you have absolutely no ability to explore nooks and crannies. The entire ordeal, granted only from what I’ve read, is a stripped down game that features no exploration for the first thirty or so hours, and instead just punches you in the genitalia with gorgeous cutscenes and non-stop action.

I consider this to blow.

On the one hand, there’s this portion of me that believes that Final Fantasy developers shouldn’t be encumbered by the expectations of the fans. Maybe they should consider them, but should they kowtow to them instead of evolving the franchise as they see fit? I don’t think so. It’s a double-edged sword. Rip the fanboys away from everything they love and cherish, and they freak the fuck out. Maintain the status quo, and all you hear about is how stagnant the formula has become.

So what the fuck do you do! I have no idea. I really don’t.

The first twenty, thirty or whatever hours or so of the game doesn’t feature this. It’s been described as corridor after corridor of action. Wash, rinse, repeat. You kick the shit out of some dudes, who probably have laser guns, you are automatically healed after the battle, and then you watch a cutscene and do it all over again. It seems like there’s linearity, and then there’s linearity.

A brilliant and beautiful friend and fellow master of the masturbatory joke pointed out that a lot of games are linear. The example he dropped with Uncharted 2, which while linear to an extent is still an excellent game. It’s an interesting point, and I agree with it to an extent. I suppose my response to that is two-fold.

First, while the game is linear, Uncharted 2 offers sexy chunks of exploration. I’d run around like an asshole hunting for treasure, exploring every inch of the map. There is no such corridor of doom concept in Uncharted 2, or even in stock action games like Devil May Cry, and Prince of Persia. There is a minimal amount of exploration, something to engross you in the world.

And secondly, and on a personal level, and maybe I’m alone in this, but Final Fantasy has always been about delving into and exploring some new world. And a lot of that involves me barging into people’s houses unsolicited and interrogating the same small, fearful child over and over again. Yes hi, I’m a blonde spikey-haired guy with an enormous sword, may I ask you a few questions? What do you mean you don’t know where the super-sexy androgynous grey-haired man went? Well, little child, I’m going to keep asking until you lie or piss your pants.

I like playing Final Fantasy titles as much as I like enjoying their storylines. And if long corridors and repetitive battles are there in an effort to focus more on the storyline, I say I appreciate your experiment guys. It just doesn’t seem appealing to me. I could have suffered linearity in the form of something like Final Fantasy X’s world. It was pretty linear at the beginning. Go here. Do this. Talk to this guy. Now we shuffle you off to the next event. Even then it wasn’t that bad? Why? Because there were still towns you were being shuffled to. Shops to explore, characters to talk to.

But again, I waffle. Maybe it’ll be enjoyable, maybe I’ll love it anyways. Perhaps if I can let-go of my stale interpretation of what a Final Fantasy should be, I’ll be able to enjoy what this Final Fantasy happens to be. I can’t condemn them on the grounds of trying something new, I just don’t know if I’ll find it as magical as the past titles. I’m all for encouraging the evolution of titles, but I don’t feel any sort of intellectual onus to automatically applaud them for it.

Yep, that’s me. Applauding innovation and evolution, while simultaneously decrying an installment in a franchise when it doesn’t meet my expectations. A typical hypocritical asshole.

I’m not sure there’s much middle ground for people regarding the movie adaptation of Mark Millar’s ridiculous, bloody, entertaining comic book Kick-Ass. As a fan of the comic, and ultraviolence in general, I’m beyond stoked that they’re keeping this movie faithful as fuck to the comic book. In a recently released Red Band trailer featuring Hit-Girl, they show just how committed they are to the source material. Twelve year-old Hit-Girl slices the shit out of thugs, drops the word “Cunt” and throws blood everywhere.

Either you’re a sicko like me, and you’re going to love this absurd approach to what heroes would look like in the real world, or you’re shocked, offended, and possibly vomiting. Check out the clip below.

I pre-ordered Final Fantasy XIII today. I was in Gamestop just kicking around, and I was like, fuck it. Let’s slap some cheddar on this sexy piece of shit. And I could! I really could! I was sort of thinking the entire “LOL, Final Fantasy XIII is out” was just some delusion I was suffering. I was concerned that my medicine had stopped working and I had been transported to a land of lollipops and happiness. A land where Tiger Woods wasn’t a nerdy geek, but gather the penultimate tapper of ass, and Square actually released video games.

But it’s all real! They took my money and everything. And I have my pre-order receipt right where it’s safe, tucked hastily into my boxer briefs. I swear to anyone who tries and take my baby away from me, I will assail them with a ferocity typically reserved for the wild plains and cage fights. I will sleep with my receipt and I will happily hand it over, caked in love and goop and fluid to whoever is lucky enough to hand me my copy on March 9, 2010.

Shit’s real!

Captain America Reborn: Who Will Wield The Shield [One Shot]

I’m not really sure what’s going on with Marvel and their handling of the return of Steve Rogers. You see, the dude hasn’t even came back in Captain America: Reborn, and he’s already running about in Invincible Iron Man, and this week sees the release of Who Will Wield the Shield. I’m not sure how this is coming out prior to the final issue of Reborn. I know that they had to add an extra issue to Brubaker’s storyline, and that’s absolutely fucking stellar in my book. Brubaker’s event has me sold, man. The whole thing is a sprawling time-warp mindfuck that has at last issue, left Steve Rogers and the Red Skull throwing haymakers at one another. In the Red Skull’s mind. Hell to the yeah. My medicine is telling me that it’s okay to like big super events these days, if they’re done right. Ed Brubaker sir, you do them excellent. But I would be a happier panda if they released them in, I don’t know, a sensible order?

Brubaker also has the ability to sell me on issues I would otherwise find to be money grabs and superfluous. Take for example Who Will Wield the Shield. Now…is there anyone who thinks that Steve Rogers isn’t going to come up brandishing the Circular Icon of Patriotism? Egg on my face if I’m wrong, but c’mon. He’s Steve fucking Rogers. The Aryan Posterchild who was the only guy strong enough to stop The Guy Championing Aryan Posterchildren.

That said, I’m pretty fucking bummed that Bucky ain’t going to be championing the mantle anymore. He was an interesting chap, to say the least. It is always entertaining to see someone else reinterpret a symbol, either modifying it for their own uses, or simply accepting what the symbol was considered before. Barnes wore the mantle as an oath to the pinnacle of American Idealism. He seemed more dedicated to maintaining the legacy of his his best friend/hero’s life than he was in upholding American ideals. They came as an accessory to the main thrust of his existence as Captain America.

Image United #2

If you grew up in the 1990’s and were a comic book nerd, you have to be the saltiest of haters to not have at least a passing interest in Image United. I mean c’mon, haters. It’s featuring artwork by six of the original Image founders, and covers by the seventh, Jim Lee. It’s got all those comic book characters you fucking fawned over when you were like twelve. I’m not going to front, I was all SPAWN FOR LIFE KID back when I was in high school. I also wear JNCO jeans and used Sun-In to dye my hair orange. Time passes and you change.

But it’s so god damn intriguing, I can’t help but read it. It also stars the original Spawn, Al Simmons, as the ultra-villain! Omega Spawn! Seriously, how can you not be excited for this, in some bizarre, time machine, train wreck sort of way? It’s like getting the band back together! Marc Silvestri, Todd McFarlane, Rob fuggin Liefeld? At the very least, it’s great for a nostalgia trip. I’ll sit there reading about it, think about how many years have passed since then, and then eventually begin to brood about how little I’ve done with my life. They’ll find me in a bathroom, covered in vomit and tears, yelling about what should have been.

On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t read this.

Green Lantern #49

I wish there was a title I was totally stoked for coming out from DC this week. I think I may be a Marvel dongstroker at this point. Alas, I’m sorry. I can’t hate on Green Lantern, though. Geoff Johns is just a solid writer. You know what you’re getting. Unless you’re adverse to tie-ins, then you should stay the hell away from this title. Blackest Night has descended upon pretty much every DC title, so if you hate zombies and Green Lanterns, this title is probably going you into an apoplectic rage. You’ll wake up and find yourself covered in feathers, blood, and regrets. This issue has John Stewart looking down sniper scopes while zombies descend upon him from behind. And he’s also facing past regrets and shit, too.

Then there’s Detective Comics #680, which I don’t read, but I should just for the artwork alone. JH Williams III draws a mighty gorgeous page, and his work on Detective doesn’t disappoint. If you’re like me, which is broke from Christmas shopping and conniving, try and talk a loved one into buying it so you can flip through it on the toilet one day. Always works for me.

I feel a bit curious even bothering to review Avatar. I feel like it is the sort of movie whose fate was decided eons ago. By the nerdigentsia. Right about fifteen months before the trailer even came out, people were totally definitely going to hate it. And for those people, you have a litany of complaints that you concocted during the first trailer, or the advertising campaign, and a lot of your criticisms are probably true. But you know what? Avatar is fucking fantastic. Despite all its indefensible faults, it’s an experience anyone who loves a spectacle should take in. Avatar is two-hours and some change of existing on a different plane, engrossed in a gorgeous, foreign world.

Haters, you go on and hate. It’s cool. But if you’re on the fence, come hither and I’ll try and persuade you.

I took my boy, and exquisite coder of this wonderful site, Bags, to see Avatar on Friday evening. Even bought him the ticket. Yeah, I’m a fucking class act. It’s worth mentioning, since right from around the time that I began jerking off uncontrollably to the original trailer, he began to express skepticism. While I was mentioning how sweet I thought the uber-mechs and the ridiculous dragons and shit looked, he muttered things like “I don’t know, the two worlds don’t seem to mesh” and “I’m just not that excited” and maybe even “It doesn’t seem as fun a way to spend a Friday night as dressing up in my Mom’s underwear.” So Bags was the perfect foil for my fanboyism. If I was guaranteed to love it, then his opinion may count for more than mine. While he was skeptical, he’s was willing to keep an open mind about the whole fucking shebang.

Bags walked out of the theater in love. I could see his erection. It was mountainous. It throbbed and I rubbed it if only because I was so happy he enjoyed the movie as much as me.

Why is Avatar so fucking amazing? You already know the answer. And either you believe in it, or you don’t. Avatar is amazing because of the zillion dollars that James Cameron spent in meticulously creating another world. Pandora lives and breathes, and you’re there alongside it, engulfed by it. I don’t even know why this movie is available for public consumption in some stone-age two-dimension version. Two-dimensions! Pfft! Fuck that, that is so last millennium.

Avatar is beyond gorgeous. People write about visuals this, and visuals that. But Avatar is more about immersion. You’re plunked into Pandora, and boy does she feel real. There are portions that take place during the night, and I swear to you this cheeseball asshole had goosebumps. Pandora is that pretty. Very pretty. Objects whirl and light up in Pandora for no good reason. Smack a flower and it brightens and retracts into itself. Why? Because it is pretty and awesome and it makes you go Ohhhhh.

I kept turning to Bags during the showing. Dude, I’d say. That looks fucking real. And at some points of absurd awesomeness, he’d just turn to me and laugh. It was a laugh of incredulous excitement. As if to say, jesus christ, this is unfathomably cool. And I’d nod and say something like seriously.

The Na’Vi? I dug them. Not only did I dig them, but I found Neytiri downright sexy. She was some beautiful exotic alien lady who I didn’t feel unjust at all in fawning over. A big beautiful blue babe that can rocket arrows into dragons and shit? Sign me up. Raise your hand if you kept trying to see if you could spot areolar.

Avatar is more of an experience than a movie. And I’m heartened by the fact that it is making a zillion dollars, because I want more movies like this. I want to be inserted, Solid Snake-stylee into some foreign world. Embedded into some exotic beauty. The entire film is predicated on you experiencing this world, which is why it makes what I’m about to say okay.

The story isn’t amazing. It isn’t. We probably all know this already. But to be fair, it’s actually a hell of a lot better than I thought it was going to be. It’s standard Uprising of the People plus preachy commentary on everything from deforestation to contractors like Blackwater running around in places like Iraq. It’s a mish-mash of slightly groan-worthy themes. But they’re all conveyed through common tropes. The savior of the people, the disenfranchised soldier, et cetera. It isn’t ground breaking, and it struggles at points.

But that’s okay, I really promise it is.

The next day after I saw the movie I was whipping fluids everywhere as I talked to my Pepsibro about it. I was all, dude, you really have to see this fucking movie. It’s very cool. Very cool. And he asked me, but like, was it a good movie?

No conversation between Pepsibones and I is complete without some sort of Socratic discourse, and I asked him, well, what do you mean by a good movie? And he responded, well like, is the story good? And my response was two-pronged: Is the story good? Yes and no. And does it matter? The story is good enough to connect one excuse for beautiful visuals to another. I would describe the storyline as functional. It serves its purpose.

As a side-note, I really have to give Big Ups to Cameron for his typical propensity for using strong women. As a fan of powerful, intelligent women, I enjoyed seeing Neytiri being a source of strength throughout the movie. It’s nice to see a female role whose personality doesn’t wilt into a messy pile of butter once the big strong dude shows up.

But anyways.

Avatar really is about the visuals. And it is the visuals that can carry the storyline as its weakest points, and glide you through some of the stilted acting. The acting isn’t piss-poor, but there’s some cardboard amongst the actors and actresses. I’ve heard this written away as Cameron’s desire to show the burgeoning disconnect between Sully’s life as an Avatar, and what is becoming an increasingly disconnected and foreign world with the humans.

Please.

I’m a lit major pal, and I know when to throw the Red Flag on intellectual masturbation. The acting is choppy because it is choppy. The dialogue sucks because the dialogue sucks. Nothing can save lines such as “We’re going to fight terror with terror!” and Cameron actually using the phrase “Shock and Awe”, no matter how much academic wanking you want to pull off. It’s cute though.

Avatar is a fun as fuck movie with flaws. There is a soggy middle section and one really awkward elf seance and some barfy dialogue. But none of that stopped me from having my eyepieces rocked with visual splendor. Take it from me, and one skeptical friend, who both left the movie theater jonesing for some fuggin’ Pandora. Slap on your 3D glasses, ditch the snark for like three hours, and enjoy hanging out in a different world.

Oh shiznit, fucking Monday before Christmas. I’m fucking excited for Christmas. It’s one of the more socially acceptable periods where you can be an utter disgusting fat ass. Pretty much everyone just eats to the point where they are rocketing awful, soul-crushing shits. Speaking of which, I’d like to mic half the toilets in the world during this time, and mix them into a caccophony of shit burst and groans of pain. I have absolutely no idea why that thought just came to me while I was typing this.

Monday Morning Commute. Every Monday I’m going to detail the various things I’m either currently or will be watching, reading, playing, and listening to in the next seven days. It’s Monday. You’ve got a long week of school, work, or compulsive masturbation to get through. Tell me the arts that you’re indulging in, to stave off suicide.

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This video is something I’ve been meaning to share since I found it over on warrenellis.com since last week. The explanation on the site can summarize it better than me:

This conceptual video is a corporate collaborative research project initiated by Bonnier R&D into the experience of reading magazines on handheld digital devices. It illustrates one possible vision for
digital magazines in the near future, presented by our design partners at BERG.

The concept aims to capture the essence of magazine reading, which people have been enjoying for decades: an engaging and unique reading experience in which high-quality writing and stunning imagery build up
immersive stories.

Being a hardcore geek and fan of gadgetry, this conceptualization of future electronic magazine tablets has me pretty excited. I’m a fan of magazines and newspapers, they keep me company on many a toilet visits or trips. And while I’ve come to accept they will probably shed their mortal coil sooner than later, I’ve always thought they offer something interesting and tactile. There’s something great about whipping out a magazine on the throne, or in a bus, but also because of how their layout is set-up, and their appearance. BERG and Bonnier’s idea of retaining graphical tables of contents, the ability to flip-through and drill-down, and having the sense of “completing something” as opposed to the endless sprawl of an RSS feed is something I can dig on. It’s a magazine on a tablet. I’m there. Wake me up when something like this exists. Check out the video below.

It’s a celebration, bitches!

The fact of the matter is that we are officially one week away from Christmas, which means it’s okay to celebrate. Unlike other holidays, Christmas cannot be a month-long extravaganza. Fuck Black Friday. Fuck making popcorn balls the second week of December. Fuck “Twelve Days of Christmas,” seven are perfect. The best way to rock Christmas is to save up all of the joy/cheer/goodwill/tolerance for our mediocre culture you have and then spend it throughout the course of seven glorious days; any fewer and you run out of time to do it all, any more and you run the risk of fatigue.

Knowing that today marks the first opportunity to celebrate Jesus’ birth friendship and good vibes, I wanted to sample a likeminded brew. The trip to the liquor store was brief and determined, walking from the cooler to the counter in one swift loop — after all, it isn’t that difficult to find a product marketed as liquid-festivity. Actually, it’s not difficult at all.

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[plight of…is generally a reflection piece on something on my mind. stream of consciousness and usually asks you guys questions in a formless rant that feels good on my fingers and keyboard]

Tony Stark is a dude who operates on multiple levels. He’s a hilarious showman in the movies. He’s a brilliant scientist. He’s a tortured creator living with the ramifications of what he built; twisted and used for evil. Like he shouldn’t have seen that shit coming. I mean, ask Mr. Nobel how dynamite went for everyone in involved.

I like my characters broken. And I think we all do. As much as we like the slings of shields and the deployment of repulsor cannons, we also like to see the cracks within the psyches of those who are so divine on the outside. Is that why people were so obsessed with the Greek gods? Maybe that’s why they floated for so long. We want to believe in those more powerful than us; we want to believe there’s an afterlife, or maybe just an after party when we shed our mortal coils. But we also love the idea that people so seemingly perfect, from a guy who can zip around the world within mere moments, to the Aryan Poster Child who can repel Nazis and Skrulls alike are maybe, just like us.

We love them for their heroics, but we also love them for their ability to have faults.

And maybe that’s why I love Tony Stark so much lately.

There’s something so very schadenfreude about watching Tony Stark’s spiral into oblivion lately. What happens when a billionaire genius is reduced to a vegitative state? What happens when all of that is on his own hands? Siding with the Pro-Registration side in the Civil War, losing the country to Norman Osborn? Being indirectly responsible for one of the death of Captain America? Allowing his weaponry to fall into the hands of terrorists?

It’s enthralling.

Matt Fraction’s been ripping off pieces of Tony Stark’s mind like layers of Iron Man armor, leaving the idealist underneath is exposed. I love in Fraction’s Iron Man Disassembled storyline we see a Stark who is exposed, reduced to his core essence. And what we see is a guy who genuinely wanted to make a difference, only to have shit collapse underneath itself like a poorly played game of existential Jenga.

I’m a sucker for when shit goes wrong. Whoops, a bit simplistic, I suppose. I enjoy the exploration of the paving of hell. You know, with good intentions and shit. Stark wanted nothing more than solve the world’s problems. But his problems? They fucked up. I’m love the flawed, I revel in the mistakes. It seems so very human, especially for a billionaire genius.

How many times have you laid the best of plans, just to see them crumble under unforeseen circumstances? I’m guessing a million, or a zillion. And then compound them with the concept that you’re trying to save the world. It’s fail on a near biblical scale.

As Stark tumbles from his chariot atop Olympus, he’s reduced to a dude in a hospital bed, ruined amongst friends. And as we see him tripping out in some dreamworld, it’s refreshing to see him realizing that he needs help. Parables atop of awesomeness. It’s childish only in its simplicity, but there’s reasons that such lessons have been for thousands of years. We stray from them, only to be reminded of the weather axioms. You’re a brilliant mind, you’re a visionary, Stark. But you’re only a man. And it appears that everyone needs help.

Fraction calls it a classic Campbellian origin story in reverse, and how! Seeing Stark in an Achillean masterpiece unfolding backwards, his armor being taken off piece by piece in epic, gorgeous unfoldlery. Yes, unfoldlery. I made that word up.

So as I said, I like Stark because he’s flawed. He’s an alcoholic. But he also trounces amongst the Gods. And that’s an important secondary portion of what makes him so interesting to me. I know it’s not an original archetype, I know it’s nothing new. But in some defeatist, post-modern mentality, what hasn’t been done? If Tony Stark is an Achillean tale playing out in rewind, then Fraction is rocking his mimetic skills like woah. It is the way he has arranged the archetypes, those he has chosen to fill the roles, and his ability to execute the storyline that makes it so special.

And let’s be clear, there’s a dude who wears a fucking mech for a living in it. That makes a lot of us geeks moist.

For not only do we want to believe in the epic brilliant, the unrelenting flaw, but we want to believe in the power or redemption. We love superheroes, us comic book nerds. We love them like woah. And to a lot of them, there is the concept of rebirth, of reconciliation attached. Tony Stark is the me that can never be. I want to be a billionaire, I want to have a suit of armor, I want to save the world. Of course I do, I escape from the pratfalls and trials of life through men in capes, through aliens and battles. And even though I can never do so, I can live vicariously through Stark and his rotten mind, and his of course, quintessential redemption. The Gods of Olympus remind us of ourselves, they give comfort to us in their flaws, and yet never fail to inspire us nonetheless.

Hey geeks, what the fuck are you fans of? Deep cleavage, maybe? Oh, you know I’m right? How about spells? You know, CAST FIRE and shit? I’m double right. How about side-portions of breasts?

Now guess what! What if I told you there was a game coming out that had tons of deep cleavage, spells and swords and shit, and side-portions of breasts? You’d probably immediately start laughing at me. Saying oh Ian, you fucking dreamer. Clearly nothing, nothing could contain all of this awesomeness!

Well guess what, you derisive assholes! How about Final Fantasy XIII!!!!

Via the ESRB through Destructoid (with my own added emphasis throughout):

Cutscenes occasionally depict female characters dressed in revealing outfits: Holographic dancers — clad in bikini tops, skimpy leotards, and backless chaps — glide above the city during a festivity performance; flying-motorcycle models wear skin-tight tops that expose FUCKING deep cleavage. And during one elaborate sequence, a female character transforms from a crystal statue back to her human form — sparkle effects,  camera  panning, and shimmering lights partially obscure the nude character, though side-portions of her SUPPLE, GORGEOUS, AROUSING breasts are visible (fleeting–one-to-two seconds).

I’m sure there’s going to be tons of tight buttocks and deep pectoral cleavage for those who also enjoy the male persuasion such as myself. I mean, have you seen Snow’s pecs? They’re enormous. They look like enormous gloating continents of muscle, rippling at you, winking, wanting you to want them. And how can you say no? Can you? I’m sure you can’t.

Swords, dudes with huge pectorals, deep cleavage, totally awesome spells, Bahamut, epic strife and confrontation, like, other cool stuff. I know you’re sweating it. Hold my hand, we’ll endure the wait together.