09 May 2007
I’m a bit behind the times, because I only just got around to seeing An Inconvenient Truth. It’s definitely a “must see.” Not like “must see TV,” more like “must see or we’ll all die.”
The picture Gore paints is pretty grim, but it comes off as informational rather than sensational. The film works very well for raising awareness, but not so well as a call to action, leaving you with this “now what?” feeling. But that’s probably a smart decision. By choosing to concentrate on presenting the non-debatable facts the film doesn’t give people much room to question whether we have a serious problem on our hands. But what to do about is mostly left as an exercise for the reader.
The one firm call to action is to visit the web site, which in general focuses on small things you can do, not large lifestyle changes. That’s cool, I guess, but that’s kinda like trying to lose weight by switching to low fat cookies instead of, you know, diet and exercise. Now I’m not saying the solution has to be unnatural liposuction (Which I guess in this context would be what? Stop driving cars altogether? “Reducing” the world’s population by half?). There has to be some achievable middle ground. But to think that we can fix this problem by switching to a different kind of light bulb is pretty naïve. We should do those little things, but they’re not going to be enough.
The title of the film is perfect: there’s a clear truth here and it is pretty damn inconvenient. The facts presented to us demand that we change. What worries me most is that I don’t think people are naturally good at change or compromise… especially Americans. Our whole culture is founded on stubborn individualism. Our days of driving huge cars everywhere to eat heavily packaged fast food have to come to an end. And I don’t trust the average American to let that go. Which I guess means we’re all gonna die… which is also pretty darn inconvenient. Drat.
03 May 2007
GameSpy has a periodic article that they do called What We’re Playing where all the staff weighs in on what games they’re playing (aptly named, yes). I find it interesting because comparing all their lists can give you an idea of what games have broad and/or lasting value. But it’s also nice because you get little two sentence impressions without the pressure of a full preview or review. And as I continue this blog I’m seeing the value in that from their end. I try to complete every game I come across and have something interesting to say, but sometimes the journey to get there is so long that it’s worth throwing in offhand comments along the way.
It’s hard to say how much I love this game. Currently I’m working on 5-starring Hard and scraping by in Expert (currently in tier 6). Both of which are totally owning me, so I don’t know if I’m gonna make it, but it’s still fun anyway. Seriously, if you have a 360, get this game.
I’m towards the end of the GDI campaign. The game totally brings together the classic C&C setting with streamlined gameplay from Generals. However it does seem like I can always succeed by just turtling and then building the uber army (no unit caps FTW?).
Holy crap old school RPGs are long; I’ve been playing this one pretty solid during my commute for months. But at least the job system is interesting, making me feel like I’m not grinding the whole time. After killing lots of time getting uber job combos and all the legendary weapons I’m finally enroute to the final boss.
I’m actually approaching my criteria for being “done” with the game. I’ve completed every soloable quest in Outland and most of the group quests, leaving me for a relatively small quest log. It’s actually kinda annoying because there’s no longer a point for me to play at any time other than in a group. The stuff coming in the next patch looks interesting, but outside of that I may end up putting this game down for awhile after a couple weekends more.
Haven’t got back to this for a couple weeks because of other games. I’ve only finished the first dungeon so I’ve got a lot ahead of me. I’m not yet sold on the wiimote gestures for fighting but everything else seems pretty good.
In my commute time I’ve decided to put this on hold so that I can focus completely on finishing FFV. But I’m eager to return to it as that I had a good time with its predecessor.
27 Apr 2007
Played on Wii
There was an article over on GameSpy awhile back about how innovation in games is overrated And I agree with them - there’s nothing wrong with an incremental evolution of an old formula. But it is quite refreshing when something totally different comes along. Trauma Center: Second Opinion is one of those games (links: GameSpot, GameSpy, GameFly). In it you play the role of surgeon, using your wiimote to slice, dice, and stitch your patients into good health. It’s the sort of experience that couldn’t really happen on any other platform (save the DS).
I was surprised by how approachable they made a game about surgery. I’ve had people with almost no experience with the Wii jump in and start removing tumors in a matter of minutes. The controls are easy to pick up, but the game is crazy intense. You’ve got this clock ticking down, the heartbeat monitor beeping, and if you screw up this person is dead. Well, not quite; if you lose a senior doctor scolds you and takes over… even after you’ve become world renowned super surgeon. I guess they figured the whole “Game Over” screen meaning “You Lost a Patient” would be too much for people to bear. Instead they put in probably the most ego destroying Game Over message ever. But all of this together just builds together to make you feel like a total badass for every operation you complete successfully.
You may feel like a super surgeon while playing the game, but it’s a far cry from being medically accurate. I’m pretty sure that most illnesses are not caused by medical terrorism. And I’m positive I’ve never seen anyone on Scrubs fix anyone by removing biologically engineered creepy crawlies (and obviously Scrubs is the bastion of medical legitimacy). So if you’re looking to use this game as training for your future career in medicine… well, good luck with that. I just hope I don’t find myself on the other end in the O.R. with some Trauma Center grad smothering antibiotic gel on anything that moves.
Occupation viability aside, Trauma Center is an easy game to recommend. It’s fun, makes great use of the wiimote, scales to different skill levels, and is basically unlike anything else out there. Plus chicks dig surgeons.