Red Review- WWE Supercard

Solitude is something that is increasingly hard for me to find.  More and more the stressors in my life are either finding or creating opportunity to insert themselves into my life.  Increasingly I cannot spend my free time, my money, or even my talents doing the things that I want to do with them.  Increasingly my life is spent doing things because others are either unable or, more likely, unwilling to do so for themselves.  This is why I so very much treasure work.

Five days a week for a huge block of the afternoon, I have a place I can go to where the main stressors of my life cannot bother me.  Work.  At work, I can spend the time listening to music, catching up on podcasts, thinking deeply about philosophical concepts, working on my writing, just doing what I find to be purely pleasurable as I work hard and diligently at my job.  Sure the environment may look bleak, but to me it is an oasis.  A sanctuary.  The one place that I often want to be.

Sometimes I will spend parts of the day just hanging out at my workplace's breakroom.  I will read magazines, catch up on what's happening on social media, and play video games.  These are handheld portable video games, but they are video games that I derive enjoyment out of.  This is part of the solitude that I enjoy, and I very much do not like it when anything intrudes on my solitude.

WWE Supercard is a recently released collectible card game that was recently released on many platforms, including the iPad.  The game includes many of the great dynamic WWE superstars currently on the roster, as well as Hulk Hogan.  The gameplay in this collectible card game is simplistic, not containing the kind of mana or health systems you see in Magic The Gathering or HearthStone. You simply pit your cards, and the stats that are contained on the cards, against another user's cards, and the stats that are contained on their cards.  WWE Supercard is easy to get into and addictive to play, ideal for playing on the go..... that is if you can actually get it to work on the go.

WWE Supercard suffers from the same problem that I came across with The Sims Freeplay.  In order to play WWE Supercard, you need to be connected to the internet and a server set up by the makers of the game, 2K Sports.  You cannot play WWE Supercard while you are offline.  Why?  Why do I need an internet connection to play a game that is downloaded to my iPad?  Why can't I just play the game on my iPad when I am not connected to the internet and have the results of my play session saved to my iPad?  Why can't I play this game against bots that are included with the game, or other randomly generated non-human players?  Why do I need an internet connection to play WWE Supercard?  Why can I not play WWE Supercard in my place of solitude?

WWE Supercard: C-

Red Review- Tyrant

During the World Series, my TV screen was awash with ads for a upcoming series on FX called Tyrant.  The ads were vague as to what the show would be about, but nonetheless I was intrigued to see if this new show would follow in the tradition of great dramas on FX, a tradition that includes Rescue Me, Sons Of Anarchy, and The Americans.  Tyrant debuted on June 24th.  I usually try to watch three episodes of a show before I make a judgement about whether or not I will continue to watch it.  The third episode of this series debuted on July 8th.  I believe I can make a judgement as to whether or not I will continue watching it.

Tyrant is a drama set in a fictionalized Middle-Eastern country and focuses on the two sons of the President of this fictionalized country, the older of whom is groomed to inherit the country upon his father's death.  The younger son, Bassam "Barry" Al Fayeed, fled the country, and his family's opulent wealth, to become a pediatrician in California.  Even though he is strongly opposed to it, Bassam's wife, Molly, convinces Barry to travel back to the country of his birth, after nearly twenty years of being away, to attend the wedding of the eldest son of his older brother, Jamal.

Jamal, as it turns out, is not a very nice person to the citizens of the country he is to inherit, as well as the people around him.  About a half-hour into the pilot episode, we find Jamal raping a woman in her house with her husband and son sitting outside the room where this is taking place, hearing everything that goes on.  After he's done, Jamal exits the house set in this impoverished neighborhood, steps into his clean red Ferrari, turn on some 80's hair metal, and drives off with his security detail in tow.  The rest of the pilot episode doesn't paint Jamal in a very good light.  There is a scene where Jamal enters a room where his son's soon to be wife is getting ready for the ceremony.  Jamal talks to his soon to be daughter-in-law about how important it is to his son that his wife be pure, and then reaches up her dress and breaks her hymen.  The reason that he does this is never really conveyed, other than to make Jamal look like a psycho.

While Jamal is abusive to all people, Bassam is much different.  Bassam stands in stark contrast to nearly everyone else inside the power structure of this fictionalized Middle-Eastern country.  Bassam wants to solve everything through talk and mutual agreement, while everyone else seems more than willing to use their power and influence to put down any perceived threat by force.  In such a situation, Bassam could serve to calm the fires of dissent that exist among the general populace.  However all Bassam is interested in is getting back to America and away from his family.  Even when his father dies, Bassam cannot be wavered from this point.  It takes Bassam's uncle, the leader of the military in this fictionalized country, sending armed military forces to the plane that Bassam tries to flee in to get Bassam to stay for, at the very least, his father's funeral.  The end of the pilot episode of Tyrant sees Bassam and his family stuck in a situation that Bassam wants desperately to leave, but is momentarily unable to do so.

The next two episodes see Jamal ascend to the Presidency upon his father's death.  Jamal's ascension comes despite him being laid up in the hospital after an assassination attempt involving Jamal drunkenly driving his Ferrari off of a steep embankment after the woman who he had previously raped bit through his penis while giving Jamal oral sex.  Bassam continues to begrudgingly go along with his role as consolt to the new President, but comes to accept his role after he sees the rampant wanton violence inflicted on the military by the populace, as well as his brother's cruelty to others and wanton sexual depravity.  Bassam stays in the fictionalized Middle-Eastern country, keeping his family nearby as the emotional support he will need in order to endure his family and what they have done with their power and wealth.

This all sound like the basis of a great long-running dramatic series.  Many characters with rich backstories waiting to be unveiled to the watching public, all in conflict with global political intrigue throughout.  The problem comes with the articulation of the characters that drive this series.

Tyrant was created by Gideon Raff, the creative force behind the Showtime series Homeland. Homeland has received criticism over the way that it portrays people of Muslim and Middle-Eastern descent, pointing out how the series portrays some Muslims as being backward, behind the times, and unfit to exist in decent society.  Some of those criticisms can be laid at the feet of Tryant, except for one problem: The vast majority of the characters in Tyrant are of Middle-Eastern descent.  The only characters that aren't of Middle-Eastern descent are the ambassador from the United States and Bassam Al Fayeed's wife Molly.  The rest of the characters carry the taint of being portrayed in a way that is, in one way or another, based on some stereotype that the West has of people of Middle-Eastern descent.  That is the problem that I have with this series.

While the political intrigue in Tyrant is something that I would normally find compelling, the jingoistic portrayal of the people that fill out this series is something that I cannot abide.  Tyrant could have served as a way for Gideon Raff to show the deep knowledge of the people that he, as a Israeli, grew up around.  However, Tyrant will do nothing to silence those critics, critics that include me.

Tyrant: D

Red Review: NBA Rush

The concept of level grinding is something that I latched onto when I first started playing RPG.  I sincerely liked being about to spend hours doing the same tasks over and over in an open field for the sole purpose of leveling up a secondary character or gaining an ability that I may end up never using.  There were times when, instead of looking for a job, I spend all day leveling up characters in whatever Final Fantasy game I was playing at the time.  In recent years I have recognized that level grinding is not just found in role playing games.

Like many of the previous games, MLB 2K13 has a section in the game called My Player.  In the My Player mode, you create your own baseball player and use the player to play out a major league baseball career.  While you can play as your character in the MLB postseason and even play in the World Series, most of the game takes place in the regular season.  In the regular season you do the same tasks over and over, usually out in an open field, for the sole purpose of gaining experience points.  Most of the My Player mode in MLB 2K13 amounts to level grinding, doing the same tasks over and over in an open field for the purpose of leveling up your character and gaining better abilities.  MLB 2K13 is not the only sports title that utilizes a level grinding system.

NBA Rush is a recently released free game on iOS developed by RenRen Games USA.  In the game you take on the role of a basketball player as you avoid obstacles, collect coins, and defeat the alien menace.  No, really, the point of the game is to collect coins and defeat aliens.  If this sounds vaguely like the plot of Space Jam to you, you're not alone.  The basketball player you can play as depends on which of the many players included in the game you have unlocked.  For this reason, Joakim Noah should feel insulted by NBA Rush.

Joakim Noah is currently an NBA basketball player.  He rose to prominence thanks to his play in the NCAA Tournament, playing for the Florida Gators.  He has since gone on to have a fair to middling career playing for the Chicago Bulls.  While some would say that his career has been disappointing to this point, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would say that Joakim Noah is one of the worst players in the NBA.  No one, that is, except for RenRen Games USA.

When you start NBA Rush, you are given three players to play as.  These players are replaced as you gather coins and unlock players, assumably players of better skill.  Joakim Noah is among the first three players you receive in the game, along with Kawhi Leonard and Jose Calderon.  If you can play NBA Rush  fairly well, it's fair to say that you won't be playing as any of these players for very long.

Other than the possibility of feeling insulted by the rating of the players you play as, or the general ratings of the players on your favorite team, there's nothing really wrong with NBA Rush.  The game's not too terribly deep, but I get the impression that's not what the game is supposed to be.  NBA Rush is the kind of game that you can play on the go, or while waiting for something else to happen, that you can quickly get some enjoyment out of and then leave without much consequence.

NBA Rush: B-

Red Review- Grand Theft Auto V

It's rare that stress gets to me. My job is one without stress, I don't have a romantic life and therefore no real romantic stress, and my financial situation is quite stable. The only thing that really bothers me is my family. Sometimes I just feel my family just asks too much from me. Sometimes it seems like anytime I have some time off, or some extra money, they try to take it away from me. That is what is stressful to me, and sometimes I need to just get away from it.




I legitimately wish I could take a vacation from my family. Not my work, my family. Unfortunately I can't really choose to do one or the other. I need to get away from both because once I get away from work my family starts hitting me up to do shit for them. It's not like I can go to a hotel and still go to work while avoiding the main source of stress in my life. As a result, rarely go on vacation. What I actually do to relieve the stress from my family is drive. Driving allows me to get away from the stresses of life, if only for a little while.




Every so often I will hit the roads for a good long drive. Sometimes I pick somewhere, a restaurant or a store I've never been to, and just go there. Sometimes I just pick a direction and go. Given where I live, I can't really go West, but North, South, and East all hold have great places to see and great places to drive near.




The Grand Theft Auto series has also allowed me to just drive around in the game environment with no real structure or point. There is a simple joy to finding a nice, clear, smooth stretch of road and just driving on it. Driving on it for as long and as far as it will take you.




There is also a simple joy to hitting motorcyclist with your car. Fuck motorcyclists.




Grand Theft Auto V: A

Grand Theft Auto Diary: #4: Golf Mini-Game Review

Of all the sports that I have played in video game form, the one I have played the most is golf.  One of the few PC games I have really gotten into was a golf game.  When I was in college, my friends and I talked about how good, or bad, in my case GOOD, we were at Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004.  The only sports video game that I pick up on a yearly basis is Tiger Woods PGA Tour.  The devotion that many people have toward football, soccer, and even hockey video games, I have toward golf video games.

The reason Tiger Woods PGA Tour has hooked me so deep is the gameplay.  I'm one of those gamers who thinks gameplay is THE critical element to a video game.  Not graphics, not sound, not story, not online connectivity, not anything else, gameplay.  If a video game does not have good gameplay, in my opinion, the game sucks, and I think Tiger Woods PGA Tour has the best gameplay experience in sports video games.  The amount of control that the player has over every single shot that is taken throughout a round of golf is astounding to me.  Every big and little detail of the shot can be controlled by the player.  From big changes that address how the player can shape their shot to address trees and other obstructions, to little changes to the ball's trajectory, spin, and the angle the ball falls at as it approaches the playing surface.

The difference between the amount of control that the player has over the golf ball in Tiger Woods PGA Tour is especially apparent when compared to the amount of control the player has in other golf video games.  Let's take, for example, Golf for the NES.  I remember playing this game as a small child, and no matter how much time and effort I sunk into this game, I still sucked at it.  I was not alone is this.  The adults I was around who also played this video game also sucked at it.  Even my dad, who actually plays actual golf in the real world, sucked at this game.

The problem with Golf for the NES is gameplay, and how much control the player has over where the golf balls ends up.  In short, the player has little to no control as to where the golf ball will actually end up.  The combination of power bars, limited ability to know where exactly you are sending the ball, and a seemingly randomness to how things like wind, lie, and elevation changes will affect how the ball travels, only add to the lack of control the player has over the golf ball.  While frustration is the name of the game for many people who play actual golf in the real world, frustration is the only thing that most people who play Golf for the NES experience.  This apparent lacking in the gameplay experience of the game is why I much prefer the gameplay that is presented in Tiger Woods PGA Tour to the gameplay that is presented in Golf for the NES.

The gameplay that is presented in the golf mini-game in Grand Theft Auto V more closely resembles Golf for the NES than Tiger Woods PGA Tour.  The gameplay in this golf mini-game is dependent on power bars, which is something that, in my opinion, is something that really should be done away with.  Also, the wind appears to have a sometimes minimal and sometimes substantial part of how the flight of the golf ball will be altered during flight.  Factor in the seemingly randomness that comes with how lie affects how the ball travels, and what is presented here is a exercise in frustration.  While the player is able to see where the golf ball might drop before they take a shot, the spot that is shown is where the ball will initially drop, not where the golf ball might actually end up after it stops rolling.

While admittedly you can't expect the best golf experience out of a mini-game in a world where the point is to rob, shoot, kill, rob, shoot, and kill people, I expected better than this.  While I may have been spoiled after the great experience that was Rockstar Games Table Tennis, the disappointment I feel about the golf experience in Grand Theft Auto V does not give me a good feeling about the other mini-games in this games.  I guess I'll have to go back to killing random people because they are there and banging semi-attractive strippers because I somehow filled up their satisfaction bars.

Grand Theft Auto V: Golf Mini-Game: C-

Red Review: Arrested Development: Season 4

There's a technique that I use as a writer that I question the effectiveness of.  In Random Generation- The Long Version and A Jumbled Perspective On Love, I utilized what I call the Random Approach.  In the Random Approach I write out the piece on full, number each of the sentences in the piece, pull out my random number generator, and start generating random numbers, putting the corresponding sentences in the random order that the random number generator is giving me.  Such an approach forces me to think about how a narrative is put together and how I should approach storytelling in my future projects.  That is the thoughts that I have, my audience may have had different thoughts.  It is my belief that some, if not many, if not all, of the people that read the piece that I put together using the Random Approach looked at the piece and went "What the fuck?"  Such a reaction can happen when a writer uses an approach to narrative storytelling that the audience may not understand or is not used to.  Such a reaction is what many people may be having to the fourth season of Arrested Development, recently released on Netflix.

The fourth season of Arrested Development follows the Bluth family in the time between the end of the third season, set in 2006, and the end of the fourth season, set in 2013.  Each of the episodes follows one of the main characters of the series, most significantly Michael, George Sr., Lindsey, and Tobias.  There are many events that take place in this season, which are told from the perspective of each of the main characters of the series, each adding in their own details and their own various roles to the events that go on.  Often events that occur in one episode play into events that are seen again in a different episode from a different character's point of view.  Often episodes begin from earlier points in the story than where the last episode left off.  Often things that are said or occur in one episode are referenced, and sometimes made more funnier, by things that go on in another episode.  The result is a complex, interconnected, interdependent, narrative web that makes up the entire season, and that is the problem.

Many people watch TV while doing other activities, such as cooking dinner, eating, checking email, working, or drinking large quantities of alcohol.  Such viewing habits can prevent the viewer from being actively engaged in the television show that they are allegedly watching.  It is that active engagement that is needed to fully enjoy the fourth season of Arrested Development.  In order to fully understand and enjoy the fourth season of Arrested Development, viewers need to watch all of the episodes in order and without distractions.  While watching in order may not be such a tall order, undistracted watching may be.  If you do not watch this season of Arrested Development attentively at all times, there may be something, or several things, that you will miss, and thereby not achieve full enjoyment.

That's not to say that the new season of Arrested Development is bad, it's just something you need to devote time to.  You can't just watch this show in the same passive manner as you would other shows.  The narrative web utilized by Mitchell Hurwitz and the other writers on Arrested Development requires you to pay full attention to what's going on at all times, which is not something that the audience may not understand or be used to.  There may be times that, while watching this season of Arrested Development, members of the audience may go, "What the fuck?"

Arrested Development: Season 4: B+

Red Review- The Witcher 2

By now we all have seen The Room.  If you haven't, take a minute right now and go see.  Don't worry, I'll wait.

Good.  Now we all have seen The Room.  The Room is the perfect convergence of a bad story, bad acting, bad cinematography, bad location design, just bad bad bad bad bad.  Despite the film's mastermind's frequent assertions otherwise, The Room seems to be the perfect purposely bad movie.

The Room also contains frequent sex scenes.  About ever ten minutes in the movie, there will be a scene of inexplicable love making.  Seriously, you can practically set your watch by the frequency of the fucking in The Room.  Does the frequent sex scenes make The Room better?  No.  In fact, the frequent sex scene is another thing that makes The Room the perfect bad movie.

This is Tress Merigold, a character in The Witcher 2.  The first time you see Tress Merigold in The Witcher 2, she is butt ass naked.  Seriously.  Tress is not butt ass naked for no apparent reason.  In fact, Tress being butt ass naked in the situation that we first fall upon that character is perfectly reasonable.  Still, Tress is butt ass naked.  In fact I don't think I had ever seen female public hair in a video game before I had played The Witcher 2.

The first scene involving Tress Merigold being butt ass naked is not the only erotic scene in this game.  The Witcher 2 contains frequent scenes of explicit sexuality.  Many different scenes with many different characters.  There is a pretty tasty one involving Tress Merigold and Gareth of Rivia, the protagonist of the game, that occurs early on in the game.

Does the frequent use of sex scenes in The Witcher 2 make the game better?  Not really.  The Witcher 2 is bogged down by it's complex menu screen, hard to find mission points, and high difficulty at the start.  Sure The Witcher 2 is a beautiful game, as the sex scenes make apparent, but a game cannot live on good graphics alone.  In my opinion, the gameplay must be solid and compelling in order to constitute a good game, and the gameplay in The Witcher 2 is not up to the standard set forward by such games as Dragon Age and Skyrim.  If I wanted to be immersed in the frequent sexual exploits of a hot as all hell redhead, I would lose fifty pounds then hop on Craigslist.

The Witcher 2: C-

Freeplaying Helmet In The Bush

Red Review- Assassin's Creed III

I've been waiting.  Waiting patiently, silently, still as a stone.  I've been waiting here in this field.  I've been waiting here among these bushes.  I've been waiting here for her.  Her.  It's been a long time.  A long time spent contemplating, planning, preparing, waiting, waiting, waiting.  I've been waiting here for a long time, and finally it's paid off.  My patience, my planning, my dedication, has paid off.  She is here.  She is alone.  She.  She.

Missing Woman Found Dead In Field Near Murray North TRAX Station

I'm not saying that I'm responsible for this.  What I am saying is that my patience has paid off.  Patience I used in waiting for the perfect situation, the perfect moment, the perfect prey.  Patience I learned while playing Assassin's Creed III.

 

Assassin's Creed III- B+

  

Red Review- The Sims Freeplay

Earlier this year, I got really into Sim Social on Facebook.  I got a lot of SimMoney, built as big of a house as you can build, got a girlfriend, and spent many hours Woo-Hooing her.  However, like many things on Facebook, I quickly grew bored with it.  It wasn't that Sim Social got boring, it was that I wanted to Woo-Hoo people in Mass Effect.

Even after I stopped playing Sim Social, I still had the bug in me to play The Sims.  I wanted to play The Sims on the go, while I was mobile, in the middle of doing other things that should be a higher priority to me.  So, I sought out playing The Sims on my various mobile devices.

There is no version of The Sims on Vita, which is odd since you would think the touchscreen would serve well to the experience of the game.  Also there is no good version of The Sims on Nintendo DS.  There are versions of the game on DS, but they suck.  Hard.  Then I found out about The Sims Freeplay on iPad.

This is really what I wanted.  If I could have played Sim Social on my iPad I would have probably continued playing it in some capacity.  So I started downloading this game.

The Sims Freeplay is a large file to download, larger than any of the other games I have on my iPad, and even larger than some of the TV shows and movies that I have on my iPad.  By the way, did I mention I have an iPad?

So I downloaded The Sims Freeplay and started playing the game.  The interface is easy to navigate with your fingers and doesn't require any kind of motion based input.  This is a good thing because I really fear being asked to shake my iPad and sending it halfway across the room.  Controlling the lives of multiple Sims can be a handful at times, but once you get a handle on it, guiding your Sims throughout their lives is a breeze.  Romantic options are available in the game, so you can have your Sims Woo-Hoo eachother.  You can even engage in lesbian Woo-Hooing.  Kinky.

I started playing The Sims Freeplay at home.  Like many other gamers out there, I wanted to play this game outside of my home.  For example, at work before I start my shift.  So, while at work before I started my shift, I pressed the icon to play The Sims Freeplay.

I don't have ready access to wireless internet at work.  If I do want to wirelessly access the internet at work, I have to steal the internet from the scrapbooking supply store next door.  Not having ready access to wireless internet serves as a problem with The Sims Freeplay due to the game needing to access Electronic Arts's servers in order to play the game.  Apparently the large file size that comes with this game does not include the ability to save the game you are playing to the iPad.

This inability to play The Sims Freeplay serves as a real hinderance to playing the game.  This also serves as a hinderance to the job system in The Sims Freeplay.  In this game, you can not do your job at anytime you want.  In the game you can only do your job at certain points in the day, based on what time it actually is where you are.  If you want to be an artist, your starting position has you working from 5 PM to 12 AM.  You cannot set it up so that your Sim goes to work at the time they have to show up for work, you have to choose to send your Sim to work at that time.  This is a problem if, for example, you do not have access to wireless internet, and because of that do not have access to the game, at 5 PM.

This inability to play The Sims Freeplay anywhere you want despite it being on a device you can take anywhere you want is a real problem for this game.  Sure I can play the game at home, but I am not always at home.  In fact, most people are not at home, or anyplace else, where they have ready access to wireless internet all the time.  It makes no sense to me why Electronic Arts would set up this game to be played in this way.

The Sims Freeplay: C-