Reflection on Gotham's Dark Knight

Over the last 2 months, my previously-Batman-less girlfriend and I have watched all 7 Batman films.

Batman: This original Batman has the same weakness that all of the live action movies have: not enough Batman roaming the shadows and laying down his own justice with various gadgets. That said, it DOES have my favorite Bruce Wayne. Micheal Keaton's Bruce Wayne is as quirky-looking as you'd expect for a rich person who lives in a creepy mansion, puts on a suit and stalks a scary city at night. This movie also has the most maturity to it, in that Wayne's romantic pursuit takes a while to develop, and there aren't a whole lot of neat effects to subdue the kids. This movie also has my favorite ending (top of the city hero shot + great score track).

Yes.

Batman Returns has an awesome opening sequence that gives you more to look at than credits. You also get to hear the Danny Elfman theme with more oomph. Batman Returns doesn't waste any time cutting to shit you want to see. Batman's backstory is established, so a little chaos in the streets brings one of the series'  great shots: Wayne stands with the Bat Signal on him to a music cue. This movie brings an interesting mood to it. It's still as dark as the first movie, but with a little comical twist. The part where Batman does a 180 in the Batmobile just to boost his flaming jet on the fire-spitting juggler comes to mind. Secretary Selina Kyle's relationship to shady CEO Max Shreck is also comical at times, and gets really jarring when he pushes her to her death. I still jump every time, even though I know it's coming. But good lord, this Catwoman is sexy, and it's pretty awesome that she considers getting even with her CEO once in for all worth sparing half of her nine lives. There's a scene when she talks to Penguin about working together and who's got the upper hand, and it's got innuendo, physical comedy, and two really good actors making a great moment.

Batman Forever is a favorite because a change in director brought such a goofy movie that only takes a nugget of itself seriously. This movie starts off with 30 minutes of one-liners and really stupid exposition. Then we get to see a return to darkness with brooding Bruce Wayne and Two-Face's killing of Dick Grayson's parents. This movie has a lot of style and color compared to its predecessors, and the Riddler is infinitely quotable and as Jim Carey as possible. Wayne's love interest in this is Dr Chase Meridian, which is probably the most gorgeous Nicole Kidman has ever looked. They throw more one-liners at each other, and some really light, obvious psychology, and then we get treated to one of the best shots in the Batman series. At some point, Batman jumps off a roof to chase the villains, and the camera pans up and down his figure, cape-a-flying as the theme gets  going. I feel like the director wasted this shot because our hero falls right through a tube to his own burial. Ahh well, the Bat vehicles are the best in the series. The final note is that I am a huge fan of the corny running towards the screen in slow motion at the end of the movie.

Batman and Robin doesn't have much going for it, as you can tell the film's agenda is in merchandise and partnerships with fast food. Poison Ivy is really sexy, but Bane sucks. Mr Freeze's jokes are hilarious, and George Clooney doesn't make a good Batman or Bruce Wayne. The vehicles are really impractical and look ugly. On the other hand, this movie has my favorite Batsuits with heavy leather capes and silver accents. The movie also boasts my favorite-looking Gotham. Both the Schumacher Batmans have Greek/Roman statues embedded in the city and buildings, and add great atmosphere to all of the chase scenes.

Sorry Nolan, didn't like your tumbler as much as the others.

10 years later, we get Christopher Nolan to direct 3 more-realistic, dark and serious but consistent movies. Batman Begins has really good suspense, and boy do they make you wait to see Batman...in all 3 movies. In almost 8 hours of the movie, you see Batman for a quarter of it. Christian Bale is neither my favorite Batman nor Wayne, but he certainly couldn't be accused of not trying. With the Nolan trilogy, we get consistently great acting, great lines, a great score, and some great combat. The first movie has some really great scenery, and Alfred is fantastic in the whole trilogy.

The Dark Knight is simply as perfect a movie as I could ever hope for. There's nothing else to add.

The Dark Knight Rises is severely lacking in Batman, and the Bat could possibly my least favorite vehicle in the franchise. I thought Bane was interesting, but to have some brains - intelligent villains with a plan are so much better to watch! They didn't spend enough time on Catwoman, and the story's crazy timeline was hard to ignore. The movie does, however, have my favorite music of the trilogy, which is Bane's menacing theme. I am very very interested in seeing Nolan direct a Batman team, whether he works together with Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, or all of them.

I may have botched a reference here or there, but it was really nice going through such an exciting and eccentric part of American culture with my girlfriend. She liked all of them, and ended up liking the last movie more than anyone else I know.

PAX 2015: A first of many to come!

 

Rocket League tournament@SONY

For those of you who don't know, the Penny Arcade eXpo is a 4-day weekend of tabletop games, videogames, anime, cosplay, gaming culture presentations, and there is a ton of winning winning winning! At TGS, Tokaigi, and other conventions, you stand in line to play a game demo for 15 minutes or watch a trailer on a huge screen, all while on the lookout for hot booth babes or cosplay. You can find this at PAX, but there are a lot more ways to walk away with stuff: gaming tournaments on every system, scavenger hunts based on finding qr codes throughout the 8-building grounds (holy shit, right?), games played while waiting in line, and tons of even-if-you-lose concessions. 

(B)Link

Tickets to this event were sold out within hours of going on sale, and that was 3 months before the event. Luckily, applying to work at PAX opened after that, and lil ol me was accepted to join the ranks. The Enforcer[E] crowd are good people. Nerds of every caliber who were there to help other nerds be nerdy. My favorite part about the event was talking to people: PAX is so very social, which I cannot claim is true for other expos of its type. My Japanese is conversational, so it's not all lack of skill and effort on my part. But, the host culture means that TGS and Tokaigi attendees talk to their own groups, and leave the noisemaking to the presentations. To contrast, I had a dozen attendees during PAX come up and talk and hang out (well, I WAS at a lounge with beanbags) and struggle with eye contact and stumble through sentences about Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda. I'm not poking fun at these people, I'm saying they overcame their uncomfortableness to talk about cool shit. There were lots of tips when and where to wait in line for limited pins and giveaways. With the exception of my family and friends, it was the most genuine group of strangers I've ever rolled with before. 

I've never been more aware of the getting-to-know-someone process than here because there were no professional guidelines or barriers to limit the context of conversation.

This poor bastard was bleeding for 96 hours.

Some of you reading this might be like my co-workers who ironically live in Seattle and look down on gaming culture. I hope you open up and welcome gaming into your life, because pretty soon you're gonna be the weirdos who don't game out! Also, there are major economic opportunities: I met two people from Tulsa who said there weren’t any PC cafes there, and the only arcade had games that were 30 years old. Not to mention the fact that there probably aren’t any connections to Japan or anime. $10k, open an arcade for all the IT people who need a place to spend it!

The biggest sour point was that I wish I had had friends to attend PAX with on my off-hours, though. However, there were almost 1000 [E]s, so it was pretty easy to chat up one of them when I was feeling like doing something other than gawking excitedly. I’ve also heard that going with a group means you’ll inevitably spend time doing things you don’t want to do.

NintIndies...I see what you did there!

Highlights of the event: NintIndies had a room in the Sheraton Hotel with a dozen titles: Typoman, a sidescroller with live word puzzles; Runbow, an 8-player frantic platform racer; and a game called Shantae, a sidescrolling adventure game with leveling up. Also, there was an [E]-only Magic: the Gathering draft tournament where I won the first of three rounds, but ultimately had to concede because the second round took place a little too late for my tastes. Had a blast, though.

WRONG ARIES, dude...you're looking for Ares!

One thing that didn’t rule about that weekend was how much non-PAX time I wasted not being there. Friday and Monday were work days, and Saturday’s power outage meant an extra 2 hours burned in traffic/waiting for the bus. 

All in all, the event was A++++ 10/10 would buy from again! 

Games in 2015: Summer

June:

Heeeeere's J...urassic Park...y!

This month in Seattle was met with record high temperatures, making sitting inside playing games on a big heat-generating tv a bit of challenge. That said, I got to three of the Telltale Jurassic Park episodes. Each part is ~2 hours each, and is a nice fast gold trophy run.

Another title I started for 30 minutes was Time and Eternity, a hand-drawn, animated RPG. This game was painfully boring, and consisted of 2d jerky character movement over horrible 3d graphics, in a poor battle system. The explorable areas are separated by scenes of talking, talking, talking. Your character envies a cute little dragon because IT gets to bathe with...his wife. That's right, a husband is jealous of an animal that gets to see his wife naked. This game sucks, and stings extra hard because I actually paid money for this, and put it ahead of the 80 free games I have waiting on my PS3 hdd.

I....don't know either. Fun, though!

Lastly is a beautiful anime-sprite action/JRPG called Battle Arena Princess. The story is Japan's usual mix of crazy, cute, and inappropriate comments in some culmination of a very disengaging story. The gameplay is sidescroller beat-em-up, with certain modes where you fight soldiers in the foreground and command an army in the background.

July:
Since I'm traveling, I also started some 3DS games: Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright and Kid Icarus. Prof Layton is a mystery/thriller game with dialogue and cutscenes to power the story from puzzle to puzzle. Some of the puzzles are ashamedly easy, but others are a nice challenge. It's just that the puzzles are so contrived in the story: a character doesn't trust you until you can navigate some witches through a maze. A baker lets you stay the night at her house after you arrange bread in a certain pattern and discard the extra. In typical anime fashion, the girls are all smokin hot, but that's more of an observation than a complaint. The Phoenix Wright side of the game has you reviewing a witness' testimony line by line, and objecting when something s/he says doesn't matched up with your inventory of evidence.

It's pretty satisfying when it works!

Cheeky as hell...

Kid Icarus: Uprising is awesome except for one thing. The controls are really screwy: it's a rail shooter, so you use the circle pad to dodge and move, and the L-button to fire, resulting in hand cramps for me. You aim with the stylus. You also drop the 3DS and curse the developers for shitty controls. The music is great, the graphics are cool, and the banter between Pit and the Goddess Palutena is a hoot! There's a sliding difficulty scale that has you bet hearts (points) to get more hearts, to buy weapons n stuff. The level design is also reaaaaaaly awesome, especially when you go through Pandora's Labyrinth as the creepy, aloof entity becomes the butt of a lot of jokes. It's nice to have a hero that talks some shit!

August

Burnout is such a better game!

I caved in and bought a PS4! My first title was free: Drive Club, in all its 16GB glory. I figured a car game would be a great showcase for new-fangled current-generation graphics. Boy, was I wrong. This game looks about as good as Burnout Paradise on PS3. The cars look alright, but the surrounding environments are bland, and the racetrack spectators look horrid. I didn't have much hopes for gameplay, as Burnout Takedown and Revenge are pretty much the only good racing games that exist. Going in loops just isn't that fun if your car doesn't take damage and you can't ruin your other racers' days by nudging them into a pillar, bus, or cafe front!

Bringing the battle to Seattle.

Now, I've borrowed the super-enjoyable Infamous: Second Son. This game is a little more pretty, but everyone knows it'll be another few years before the PS4 comes out with a game that breaks barriers in technical capabilities. The story has some nice touches! Instead of a generic city, or NYC-based territory, the game takes place in a miniature Seattle, and your lead character-Delson Rowe-is Native American. It is so refreshing not to play a run-of-the-mill white character, and his loyalty to his tribe has a minor impact to the overall story. The antagonist is a woman who appears utterly ruthless until you get to the very end. Delson is able to absorb powers from people, and also learns their backgrounds and motivations. When you finally see her story, it's not really enough to deter you from wanting to get even, but it is a nice bit of depth to take in. I finished the good karma playthrough; now I'm doing Expert mode and am on the evil path.

Next on my list is Final Fantasy XIII.3 Lightning Returns. I played the prologue and it's such a different game, which I hope will grow on me.

American Airlines - no dignity, no pride, no class.

I know that we Americans are the best in the universe at hyperbolizing, but American Airlines is the worst airline in existence. Here's the letter I recently sent to their email, because agents no longer talk to you directly. Ohh, and heads up, US Airways and AA are the same company.

"I'm 22 hours late to my destination. 1) My 6pm got rebooked to 6am the next day. Then, 2) that 6AM *takeoff was aborted on the runway (USXXXX). I was rebooked to a later flight that was supposed to give me a 5 hour layover in PHI, but 3) [US XXXX] has gotten delayed over an hour so far, and the airport kiosks aren't reflecting that. There are no agents here, either.

*While I appreciate their safety concerns, a company that just pocketed $1.7bn in 3 months shouldn't be flying broken planes.

"At least it's the weekend, but we're starting to encroach on my work and wages. To you, these are isolated events. To me and several other customers, this is one long frustrating ride from an airline that makes headlines about record profits. I absolutely can not imagine this being an acceptable business practice, and feel that I have absolutely no recourse against you, AA/USAirways. I want you to know that you can get away with this kind of treatment without consequences, but it would be really nice if someone read this and tried to make your service match your image. I see you have the big money, but from an experience like this, it looks like you could spend it helping customers get from point A to B at least somewhat closely to the times we see when we purchase tickets."

This guy knows what's up: No (au bon) Pain, no gain!

As I write this post, I overheard someone say that the departure agents at the front of the airport were told them to sit at the gate by 3 just in case they can make up time.

It's also worth noting that my originating flight from Seattle to Baltimore, via Alaska Air, was flawless. It fit the schedule precisely, and there were absolutely no hiccups, like flight should be. If this ends up delaying enough so that I can't go into work on time tomorrow, this will reach the point where it really was more viable to pay more money on Expedia to get assigned a different airline. I've already had to feed myself for an extra 2 *meals.

*good, delicious, fantastic, wonderful. I got to eat Au Bon Pain (not found in Seattle) and Popeye's (not good in Seattle).

Sorry, people. This is incredibly whiny for a relatively minor inconvenience to my otherwise stellar life. However, if no one talks about it, then nothing will ever get done about it. Accepting that businesses can walk all over us peons isn't how to get them to change themselves. Why not call them on their pledges, promises and mission statements?

Bring it on, gaming industry!

Now that developers are delivering complex and realistic contexts for us to experience, I have a couple gripes with modern gaming.

Thanks for the three choices...

One thing that makes me roll my eyes is games that don't allow you to assign your own buttons/controls. I appreciate the developers carefully thinking out a scheme that works optimally for most players. However, I think the characters' actions are designed before the input. This means that unassigned, custom controls are something so painfully simple to implement in control options that I can't think of a good defense for not including them. It's like only having a red house available as your option. At some point after the house was built, there was a stage where the house wasn't painted, and passing along the burden of painting it is something easier for the builder to do. 

That's what daddy likes...PS4 lets you
manually reassign for the system

Except I see at least half of the games I play with no customization. Even more insulting is when a PC game does this. To tie this gripe into something more meaningful; there was a story of a disabled gamer who was able to rig his own device to play games. The catch was that he required those games to have assignable buttons. So, not only do I look at shooters that use the shoulder button as fire instead of the trigger with absolute distaste (I'm looking at you Spec Ops: The Line, and Uncharted), this guy is getting robbed of these games entirely because game studios are taking a "Daddy knows best," approach. Well lay off the crackpipe, Dad, R trigger/R2 is the only way to fire! Lack of customizable controls doesn't bring any benefits, but including them does. Gamers who really like your control scheme will use it; others like me may lose favor; and people like the McGuyver of Disabled Gaming don't get to experience some games at all.

Yep.

The second tired thing in gaming is the white male lead. There are articles about it here, and PBS Game Show did an episode about it. That doesn't mute my voice, though. I'm tired of playing in worlds with only white people. I live in Washington State, for crying out loud, I know what white people look like. Some of my favorite games are lead by white characters: God of War and Uncharted stand out. At least God of War's Kratos was voiced by a black person, and the Uncharted series delivered really interesting, flushed out characters, and also had foreign languages.

But I knew Master Chief was white before the absolutely unnecessary face reveal, and most of the western RPGs are just wall-to-wall whiteness. Even if you can design your character to be black as midnight, usually the voice is so obviously white.

I guess only light skinned humans survive into 2100s...eesh.

There is also that core of people that love to call street black language "racist," even though quite a bit of people sound like that. It's one thing to have the only black character in a story sound like that and drop random n-bombs; it's another to have a character who speaks the language in his or her own way because of their background. Or whatever. The Mass Effect Trilogy was disappointing in this regard: all 3 games, my superficially black character sounded like Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager, not the Kenyan princess I had imagined. This is my complaint as a black gamer, but I imagine other minorities feel a bit peeved playing the same racial stock over and over.

My last gripe is that game development focus is all screwed up. While Microsoft and Sony are too busy converging on PCs, Nintendo is the last company trying to innovate. New IP is rare, and the last two generations are mostly franchise favorites. The difference is that Nintendo always tries to make gameplay center around the latest gimmick in their systems. For example, while PS4 games are touting 60fps and Xbox one holds the crown for awesome marketplaces, Metroid and Zelda have you using the Wii wand to aim your arm cannon and swing your sword. The Wii U versions use the Wii U pad's screen for inventory and map management, while all the action happens on your main tv. Nintendo's gameplay additions fundamentally change the experience, whereas the Sony and Microsoft counterparts simply look prettier.

smarm alert!

The Xbox One Kinect is so well-integrated; voice commands work well, motion capture is great, but so many titles don't utilize these features because Microsoft was too worried about chasing dollars to try and become its own console. Sony's Move sucks, and they should have given up on motion-capture this generation and focused on controller-in-hand games.

The biggest shame is that console gaming development is shifting in Japan to mobile games, and all that aforementioned innovation is on its way down the toilet. I cry about this into my pillow at night.

Game plan: 1,2 out 1 in

Not my collection exactly, but you get the idea.

I am in trouble. Between my $50/yr Playstation Plus and $50/yr Xbox Gold memberships, I have a flood of games. I'm reaching the 200-game mark of free games for both systems, and there are still attractive games out there that I want to buy. Also, with summer hitting, my dedication to the hobby is going to drop. My plan to keep my collection from spiraling out of control is to beat-and-delete 2 downloaded free games, and then finish-and-sell 1 disc-based game before I pay for a new game, of course avoiding the full 59.99 at all costs (<-- see what I did there?). Techbargains.com is a great place to make sure not to pay full price for games. There are 2 titles I'm looking forward to: Final Fantasy XV and Rainbow Six.

Choosing 6 games from my expanding library is no problem, but this leads me to minimizing collections. I've moved in and out of the USA to Korea, Thailand and Japan, in addition to 4 addresses in Washington. Every time, my collections become more of a burden, and loses both financial and sentimental value. 7 years ago, before Thailand, I threw away 150 DVD cases and almost 100 game cases, reducing it to two DVD binders. In the 10 years I've pinged around Asia and Washington, I've never had the bookshelf to proudly display my library of titles. I am glad I made the decision to ditch the two boxes of plastic. DVDs were replaced by BluRays, and now it's all digital; you can use that space to hang photos, or art that you traded with a friend, or drawings from loved ones!

Impressive collection, but let's calm the fuzz down, here...

Games are much more time-consuming than movies, so it's incredibly unlikely that you'll have time to go back through your old favorites with 10- to 100-hour stories. If you're keeping it as a collector's item: more power to ya! But, there is a dearth of free-or-near-free games out there, through the console subscription services, and also emulation. So before you buy another bookshelf or storage bin for that musty collection of games or movies, get some loved ones together and reminisce over your favorite scenes and moments, and then sell/donate those puppies!! Your investment in a collection makes you want to build it more and more: when do you stop?

At this point, I've made my case for movie and game collections; I still have an art collection of stuff I purchased overseas. These two plastic bins have been cumbersome to move, leave with friends, and otherwise store, and I've never had a chance to display most of it. This is my own hypocrisy and burden I refuse to part with.

However, you may still find another collection to minimize with my 3 out, 1 in policy. What's your collection?

Changing tactics for late students

My classroom stress has dramatically dropped off, since I only teach a few hours per week. I am allowed the luxury of not having to commit to students for long periods of time, so I may as well make that short time pleasant for all of us. One constant obstacle is absences and tardies.

coming to class 4/5ths of the time
is all we ask...

Attendance is a big issue for international students because our governments expect students to go to school. If students don't meet these expectations, they are expelled, and sometimes deported. This puts everyone in an awkward position. After arriving a few days before class begins, our students have a really short time to figure out their new schedule and lifestyle. At the same time, teachers have to deal with constant interruptions, and the staff have to issue warning after warning to notify students of their attendance percentages. As a teacher, it is really easy to show you're annoyed at late/absent students for the stress of getting them caught up, but I think the real detriment is that the class misses out on their input.

American classrooms rely on students' comments and ideas, and I don't know how many of our international guests know this. That's right, we don't just need your money; we need you! The easy choice might be to hope that the laggards are kicked out so that the attentive hard workers can go on undisturbed. This is my biggest struggle as a teacher of ten years. There have been countless times when I wished all the losers would melt away and leave me with the winners. But, that's not only unfair, it's also lazy of me.

People need time to figure out expectations. I need to be a better communicator in making students feel their active presence is important, rather than simply shaking my finger and warning them about the dire consequences. This, with my teaching and other entertaining skills, will give my students a  much sweeter experience.