Battle Royale Done Right: A Review of the "Hunger Games" Trilogy

For whatever reason, when Suzanne Collins was gaining national renown for her series "The Hunger Games," I somehow managed to remain completely oblivious and avoid hearing anything about it. Skill, I guess? In fact, I don't think I consciously remembering hearing anything at all till a couple months ago where I heard it was a really good series. I put it out of mind for a while, but then I got  B&N gift card that I decided to spend on two books I knew I wanted (new Discworld and Gaunt's Ghosts :-D) and found myself with $5 unspent. After browsing for quite some time trying to find a cheap book that sounded interesting, I ended up grabbing "The Hunger Games," as in the first book, and decided to wait on picking up the others in the event it was at least half way decent.

The most impressive part of my ignorance, however, was that after reading both the online description and the back cover, it wasn't till months later when I actually started reading the book that it finally hit me what the novel was truly about: a group of teenagers killing each other in an arena. Sound familiar?

Please Do Not Switch Off The Console

Real life, you say to me with a smirk on your face, should be more like video games.

The goals should be clearer, the tutorial shouldn't last so long, and character interactions should be more clear. Most of all though, you should be able to save and reload a checkpoint.

You laugh, equally at your own cleverness and at how you think you could organize life much more neatly. You get up and leave, but I stay and think.

Would it be three save slots? If it was, how would you choose what to save? Would you choose that one perfect day, where everything seemed to go right and you wished it would last forever? Would you save that day and make that wish a reality?

Or would you simply save your youth, far away from the aches and pains both physical and otherwise?

Or perhaps you'd save that moment before the final argument that tore her away from you, right before you uttered those words that seem foolish and immature in retrospect.

When I ask you later, you seem confused that I haven't moved on from your simple joke. Don't be foolish, you tell me, we've way past having limited saves. You can save whatever and whenever you want, you say, and focus back on your meal. But I continue to think.

If you can save whenever you want, where do you draw the line? Do you save right before every hug, never sure if you'll look back one day and realize it was the last she ever gave you? Do you save as soon as the fractures appear, foretelling an end that you never suspected or believed would arrive? Do you save at the first kiss, back when the possibilities seemed as endless as your joy? Or do you save at the very beginning: right back at the first clumsy, confusing relationship that set the tone for all to follow? Do you use that to save yourself from all the mistakes and bad habits you would later pick up?

Do you reload endlessly? Do you search for the perfect words, the one gesture, the glowing chance that perhaps could reverse her decision? Do you keep trying, over and over, as each attempt proves as futile as the last? And when you finally abandon hope of that moment, do you go back five minutes? 5 days? 5 months? Where do you stop?

You thought that nothing could compare to the heartache that would follow you, polite guests in the corner of your awareness who nonetheless refused to ever truly depart. But perhaps you never considered the pain and suffering that awareness of true futility could bring about, the biting truth that there was truly nothing to be done, a truth that burns right to your core, eating away all the self-deception and what-ifs. Perhaps there was some comfort in uncertainty, the belief that maybe next time you'll get it right. You wouldn't want to face the alternative.

I try to bring this up with you later, only to face your annoyance that I haven't let this topic drop. Leave it alone, you say. It was just a joke. It wasn't anything serious. I wish I could reload and never have said it, ha ha. You give me a look.

But I can't move on from the thought, and suspect it's a deeper question than you're willing to admit: you don't believe your own lie.

What would you save?

(-HTMC)
[first draft]

Retcon To The Future: Thoughts on Expanding Universes

So the other day I was playing through the Gears of War 3 DLC "Raam's Shadow," which in a very cool move by Epic is technically a prequel to Gears 1, detailing the fall of one COG-controlled city a couple of weeks post-E-Day. It's a very interesting idea and makes a very stark contrast to the ruin that is the Gears 3 present.

However, one thing I noticed is something that has bothered me in the past that I decided to finally write about: retcons, for lack of a better term. In this case, weapons and enemy types that were not in Gears 1 that are suddenly appearing in this DLC.

In some cases, it makes perfect sense. The retro lancer being in the campaign makes sense, because they would have been around and were only not used till Gears 3 because the Lancer 2.0 was still in abundance/in production. It kind of makes sense a Scorcher would be around, since perhaps Delta Squad would not have used it since it's a speciality weapon.

However, it becomes a problem with other things. For instance, the One-Shot makes an appearance, in Locust hands no less. If either side had access to such a powerful weapon, why did it not make an appearance in Gears 1 or 2? Similarly, Grinders and Bloodmounts show up, and I question why they weren't walking around in Gears 1. Additionally, the Command Center upgrade was added to Gears 3, which allows you to remotely call down Hammer strikes. They decided to add this in to the DLC campaign, and you use it multiple times. If this technology existed, why in Gears 1 and 2 were there all those times when a Hammer strike would have been invaluable but wasn't sure because of a lack of a targeting device? Why wouldn't they just use this apparently common remote targeting system?

"Out of character," as it were, I totally understand why Epic did this. They didn't want to scale back things to only stuff that was available to Gears 1, since that would limit gameplay options, but from a universe perspective for me personally this is the equivalent of breaking the 4th wall. I know it's a relatively minor issue, but it bugs me all the same.

Other series have done things similarly. I was annoyed in Starcraft 2 when it was revealed that the Protoss had a ton of giant, robot death walkers they waited until after the destruction of their homeworld to release. Sure, it made sense to give background to a new unit, but from my in-universe perspective it seemed unrealistic and bugged me.

Similarly, Star Wars EU post-prequels is a huge offender. After the release of Episode 1, seeing Gungans in cantina and just around in general suddenly because very common. In a general rule, it seemed like just because something had been shown in the prequels, it suddenly became essential to include as much prequel races, items, etc in the books and comics, including Luke stumbling across a ship of the type Obi-wan and Anakin fly in episode 2. Again, I understand the intent, but to me it just seems incredibly shoe-horned, especially in a setting that is as widely expanded and defined as the SW EU. Especially irking is the idea of the Clone Wars: prior to the prequels, people never talked about them in detail and it was mostly hushed up. This idea made sense to me, since no one wanted to be heard slandering the Empire, most participants in the Wars were either dead or clones, and even many modern wars aren't talked about much anymore in most circles. However, post prequels all the mystery is shed, and suddenly everyone knows everything about the events and it's a complete atmosphere shift in every way. I know why they did it, and why there's a shift, but it ends up feeling very inconsistent overall.

Overall, although I realize the temptation of adding in new stuff to maintain overall consistency, stuff like this just really tends to bother me, although I couldn't necessarily explain why. I realize the occasional necessity, but I think it's oftentimes overused. As usual, I welcome your feedback (as if I could stop you :-P)

-HTMC

I Shan't Forget: A Review of Remember the Name by Pay money To my Pain

For perhaps the first time ever, I ended up listening to a Japanese band and it wasn't because one of their songs was used in an anime I watched (instead it was because of a South Korean SC2 broadcast, but that's another story). Because I feel like I have more to say about this album than others I have listened to, I have decided to pull it out of the mini-review rampages and feature it in an independent review.

Artist: Pay money To my Pain (abbreviated PTP)

Album: Remember the Name

Genre: Japanese Alternative / Metal

5-Starred Songs: 9  (out of 14)

Roaring Riffs and Lilting Lyrics Mini-Review Rampage, Music Edition #3

To clarify a point that was brought my attention, a bit of background before the reviews. As readers of the blog have noted, I tend to refrain from giving any kind of numeric score or anything of the sort with my reviews; I feel they're generally not useful if you're looking for a true review rather than seeking to validate your opinion. Thus, it is kind of odd that for my music reviews I've kind of been assigning a score in terms of the number of 5-starred songs.

There's a couple reasons for it. First off, it's an easy metric; it's not some number I'm pulling from nowhere, I don't have to think about it, I just have to look at my iTunes library. Secondly, although I'm reviewing the album as such, the way I listen to music tends to mean that if I don't 5-star a song, it's unlikely I'll ever listen to it; thus, you can view 5-starred songs as the number of songs in an album that I personally would re-listen to (and do).

Perhaps this means I should be doing individual song reviews rather than album, but there's a key reason why I don't, even though it kind of sucks: my backlog of albums means if a song wasn't memorable, as logically follows I don't remember it and probably don't have anything to say about it. Considering my short-story reviews tend to be broken down into individual stories as well as the collection as a whole, it probably follows that albums deserve similar treatment, but the backlog means this would be more work than I'm willing to do.

In the future, once I'm caught up, I may change my methods, but no promises. Keep in mind that while the metric is useful, since if I 5-starred every song on an album (such as the case for At Mount Zoomer) it probably means I think the album as a whole as fantastic, the reverse is not necessarily true. Although I suspect you already know, the written words are more important than a vague number, and although I will continue to provide the number it  is by no means the main point of the review.

Big Ships Go Boom: Experimental D&D4E Air Combat

For the semester finale of the D&D4E campaign I'm currently co-DMing, I decided I wanted to do something a little bit different from normal. Drawing inspiration from equal parts the Avatar: TLA finale, the airborne sections of Gears of War 3, and tabletop Warhammer 40k, I gave my players each an airborne warship, set them adrift amongst roughly 40 or so enemy warships, and let them wreck havoc.

Overall, I thought it went surprisingly well. Because every character was "identical" and the possible actions were limited to about 3, combat went smoothly and quickly. In addition, because the die rolls were always standardized and no math was involved (only checking a small chart) people caught on very quickly and nobody ever flagged. I think it was a much-needed breath of fresh air in terms of how combat normally went, and a really cool new thing for my players that also gave them a chance to wreck serious havoc (their final kill-count was 24 ships at 32 people per ship). I figured I'd share the rules I came up with, in case anyone has feedback or wishes to adapt them for their own use. Enjoy!

Unending Appetite: Mini-Review Rampage #6

Although I have managed to cause a significant dent in the Beast that is my backlog of things to review, it still remains strong. Thus I soldier on, maintain a brave facade despite my trembling within, and continue to do what must be done. Be warned: the following set contains much more raw emotion that the previous few installment.

You have been warned.

Everything is Noise: Thoughts on Fluency

Academic post ahead, you've been warned.

So since the all of the applications I've been making on things to do for next year revolve around being abroad, I've naturally been thinking a lot about foreign languages recently. In addition to this, I received Goethe-Institut certification as being fluent in German (German version of the TOEFL).

It's an interesting point because, I guess, it was nice to receive official confirmation of my ability to speak the language. Having studied the language for almost 8 years now in addition to spending a language-intensive 6 months in Vienna, I had already felt pretty confident at calling myself at least "conversationally fluent" although I had always hesitated at calling myself fully fluent.

The Crafting of Worlds: Addolorata

So I'm currently in the beginning stages of planning for a winter Black Crusade campaign of 3-5 sessions in length, which naturally means a lot of background, character, and rules creation, some of which is sharable to the general public. The following is the setting details for the players, who have already seen it but I figured I'd post as well because, well, why not? Feel free to give feedback. :-D

Beer-Pong Is Boring: An Analysis of "Sports"

A couple days ago I had the pleasure opportunity to observe a South Quad "Beer Pong Tournament" for a couple hours. Naturally I'd seen the game being played a couple times, and also participated myself once in an energy-soda pong game, but I have spent very little time around the game compared to a lot of my contemporaries (I think). Thus the tournament, in which a number of my friends and acquaintances were competing, proved to probably be the most exposure I've had to the sport.

I watched a number of games before eventually leaving. The reason, as evidenced by the post title, was boredom. It was a fundamentally boring game to watch. However,  I began to wonder why exactly I thought this was the case, and began to think of it in terms of other "games" and "sports" I've both played and watched.

The conclusion I've come to from my own self-analysis is that the "game" of beer pong is missing a fundamental element, which I will term for ease of use here "defense." Obviously the game has a skill component comparable to basketball or some similar hand-sport: how often can you get the balls into the cups, especially as the number of targets diminishes. However, when you're not shooting, what are you doing....?

Nothing. That's what.

Making the Noise Marines Proud: Mini-Review Rampage, Music Edition #2

I'm getting bad at coming up with clever introductions to these, so I'll just continue on and start the first music review. Feedback is as always welcome!

Artist: Wolf Parade

Album: Expo 86

Genre: Alternative (Indie Rock)

5-Starred Songs: 6 (out of 11)

Wolf Parade has for quite some time now been one of my all-time favorite bands. Their debut album, Apologies to the Queen Mary, while not perfect, was quite impressive and got my hooked. Their second album, At Mount Zoomer, is as close to a perfect album as I can imagine existing: every song was great, and I had no complaints, and it still sits as one of my personal "best albums of all time." Therefore when they released their third (and probably final) album, I had some trepidation. Could it possibly match At Mount Zoomer, or was I bound for disappointment?

The answer to both queries, weirdly, is no. It wasn't quite as good as At Mount Zoomer, but it was still a great album nonetheless. It opens with the rollicking, catchy, and upbeat Cloud Shadow On The Mountain, and cycles through a number of other upbeat, powerfully strumming-along songs such as Cave-o-sapien and Yulia. Overall the album is probably the upbeat of the trio of albums, and probably comes closer to pop in some ways, but it's still very thoroughly a Wolf Parade album even with the shift of emphasis. Although not a perfect album, overall it still did not disappoint, and is a great listen.

The Beast Hungers: Mini-review Rampage #5

We can't stop here, I'm on a roll... or something. No introduction needed, just more reviews!

The Road (Book + Movie)

I somehow managed to avoid the big craze when The Road became super popular and talked about, and all I managed to hear was that it was "incredibly depressing" and really good at the same time. Thus I decided to finally pick up the book, and after finishing it watch the movie (because yay Viggo Mortensen). It tells the story of a man and his son in a post-apocalyptic world, walking along the titular world while trying not to die. My impression of the book: overall, kind of meh. As a disclaimer, I've never found horror stories actually scary, and while it was kind of an interesting premise, I never felt an emotional tug at any point during the father and son's journey. Perhaps it's because I had just come off reading some much more depressing novels (Song of Ice and Fire anyone?) but I honestly did not find the book compelling at all. Part of it was that it was a little too vague, which I know was intentional, another part is that I really didn't like McCarthy's style in this book. It felt needlessly "artsy," and that he was trying to be different just to be different. Overall it was pretty unmemorable and pretty forgettable.

The same goes for the movie as well. Despite a strong presence from Mortensen, the movie follows the book incredibly closely, and suffers for the same reasons. Overall I think both were overhyped way beyond their actual value; I honestly wouldn't bother.

A Tune for the Worst: Mini-Review Rampage, Music Edition

So in addition to all the books, movies and television shows I've been watching, I've recently got a mad rampage to apparently catch up on all the music I haven't been listening to for most of college. This literally means I've apparently listened to over 40 albums and counting in the past 4 months, and rather than intermixing this huge number with the regular reviews, they're getting their own section until I catch up and stop being so ridiculously behind on my reviews. I don't think I've ever really written music reviews before, so I think this will be interesting; feel free to give feedback.