RANDOM REVIEW, TECH, Videogames

RANDOM REVIEW: Band Hero

Gamers often complain about ‘those bastards that buy Madden every year.’ Well, I have to confess, I am one of those bastards, but instead of Madden, music games are my sweet, sweet digital crack.

Of the thirty-eight boxed Xbox 360 games gracing my living room, nine of them start with “Guitar Hero.” If we add five Rock Band games (no Green Day for me, thank you) two Karaoke Revolution games, and DJ Hero, that brings the total of music-based games in my Xbox 360 library to seventeen.

As I’ve written before, music and videogames are the two great tastes that taste great together. So yeah, when it comes to music games, I am “that guy.”

I was mildly interested in Band Hero when it was initially announced as a “family friendly” version of Guitar Hero, something for parents that weren’t interested in introducing their younglings to the musical stylings of Slayer or Nirvana. While some of the songs on the Band Hero setlist looked like they would be fun to play, there wasn’t enough Good Stuff to justify dropping sixty bucks on the game. I figured I’d wait for the inevitable price drop. Fast-forward about a year later and I find that my Friendly Neighborhood Electronics Store has marked it down all the way to $17.99, so I figured, why not?

Band Hero isn’t quite what it says on the box. It isn’t just “family friendly Guitar Hero.” Don’t get me wrong, it is family friendly, but that phrase only tells part of the story.

Band Hero is Guitar Hero for girls.

Its so sparkly!!

Seriously, there is no better way to put it. Take Guitar Hero 5, coat it in pastel colors, dip it in glitter, drop several scoops of pop music on top and you get Band Hero. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with making a music game for the younger crowd, though. After all, their competitors at Harmonix made Lego Rock Band so that kids can have some fake plastic rock fun, too. But for Pete’s sake, the interface looks like it was designed by Lisa Frank. I haven’t seen that much purple since the 80’s.

Also, Lego Rock Band, at least has some, well, rock with Lego versions of Queen, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop as well as music from those iconic performers. Band Hero has Taylor Swift, Adam Levine and No Doubt. Yeeeah. I’m sorry, but except for maybe No Doubt, those guys don’t exactly bring the house down. Even then, there are some pretty cool classics we haven’t seen in any of these games before like “Mr. Roboto” by Styx, “Black Cat” from Janet Jackson and Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

One feature that I found odd was the ability to perform as your Avatar in the game. The Avatars look just

SECURITY! There's a Muppet on stage!

plain weird on stage next to the other characters, like Muppets. Otherwise, it’s Guitar Hero 5, which was pretty good from a technical standpoint but had awful music. I actually had more fun playing this game than Guitar Hero 5, which says something about how lousy 5’s songs were.

Your decision to purchase the game (or really any music game, for that matter) will depend on how many of its songs you like. A quick dash to Wikipedia will determine whether Band Hero is worth it to you.

If you have kids, or just really like pop music, there are worse games than Band Hero to drop a twenty on. Underneath the sparkly presentation is a pretty good game. Now if you’ll pardon me, I need to play some Gears of War in a feeble attempt to salvage what masculinity I have left.

Rock Band for the Xbox 360 gets a 3 out of 5: G00d

I grade on a 1 to 5 scale. My “review philosophy” can be found here.

JUST SAYING, TECH, Videogames

The Meaning of Game

I recently participated in the Extra Life fundraiser alongside the staff of original-gamer.com A few days left before the event, everyone was busy posting in various social networks around the Internets in an attempt to raise more funds for hospitals in the Children’s Miracle Network.

One friend’s plea for donations added the statement: “Make gaming mean something!” I paused for a moment after reading that. To me, it insinuated that playing videogames otherwise had no meaning, and I wasn’t sure that I agreed with that sentiment. While I am aware that those words were chosen to make a point about doing something for a worthy cause, it made me think just the same.

According to some people, playing videogames is an activity that serves no purpose except for burning time. I’m fairly certain we’ve all heard it from parents, relatives and significant others: they’re a waste of time, they’re rotting your brain, they’re burning your eyes out, why don’t you shut that thing off already, and so on and so forth.

The question then becomes: Why do we play video games?

One reason I play videogames is that they challenge my mind. From Tetris’ never-ending rain of shapes to the hidden pictures of Picross, puzzle games have always had a place in my game library. Outside of the realm of puzzle games, action-oriented games occasionally pause the action with an occasional brain teaser and many action-adventure games incorporate problem-solving into their gameplay. As an example, the Legend of Zelda series features dungeons that challenge a player’s mind in addition to their reflexes, often requiring the player to figure out how to use the tools they have available to reach new areas. The Ratchet and Clank series has the lead character solving puzzles in order to unlock doors.

Secondly, playing a videogame that intertwines its story with its gameplay makes me feel as if I am a part of the story as opposed to just passively watching one. This isn’t easy to accomplish by any stretch of the imagination, but when it is done well, a player can feel more emotionally attached to the characters and to the story as a whole. Gears of War occasionally forced the players to walk so that the characters could interact with each other without interrupting the gameplay to show a movie clip. Final Fantasy VII went as far as to permanently kill a player’s character partway through the game, which added a significant in-game consequence to the actions that took place in the story.

Finally, videogames are fun to play. I play video games to have fun whether it is by myself or with friends. Early video game advertisements featured pictures of happy families sitting around enjoying games instead of watching television. That ideal lives on in the family-friendly multiplayer games of Nintendo. Rock Band can also provide hours of enjoyment for a group of friends.

Many other games play to compete, those that relish the near-endless competition that is found online are catered to by Sony and Microsoft. Across the country, video game tournaments large and small are held and there are even professional gamers (such as this one) who make a living playing games.

One can also learn from video games, and indeed, one of the current trends in workplace training is to use simple games to teach repetitive tasks to employees. On a more personal note, playing Pikmin taught me a lesson that I’m not sure I wanted to learn about war, of all things. More on that later.

Video games are not meaningless, and the act of playing them is hardly a passive activity. Just like any other form of art, a videogame can mean different things to different people. As long as videogames continue to provide compelling experiences that cannot be reproduced in other media, we will keep playing for whatever reason they mean to us.

JUST SAYING, Videogames, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT

DANGER: THIS VIDEOGAME WILL KILL YOU!!

Warning screen from the PSP game "Gladiator Begins"

Click the pic to see the silly

This is the warning screen you see upon starting the game “Gladiator Begins” on the PSP. Seriously, y’all, this is ridiculous.

BUSINESS, CONS, RANDOM REVIEW, TECH

RANDOM REVIEW: Sprint Overdrive / Clear Spot 4G+

Overdrive next to a deck of playing cards

Well, as 'standard' a deck as I could find anyway...

UPDATE: My Overdrive bit the dust almost a year after this review was written, read the update here.

Smartphones may be smart and all, but in my opinion there is no substitute for having an actual computer when I need to do things on the Web. In addition to being a huge nerd, I have two websites to take care of (www.firststormmanga.com and this one) and so a smartphone doesn’t always cut it. I like to have a full-sized keyboard and screen for when things need to Get Done.

Back when I was with T-Mobile, I used the built-in tethering that came included on my T-Mobile Dash, which ran Windows Mobile. I thought it was odd that it wasn’t disabled, but once I started to use it, I found out why. Tethering on 2G was dirt slow. It did work, though, and I could check my e-mail and do some very light browsing even while in the technological black hole that is my hometown of Odem, Texas.

I eventually ended up bidding T-Mobile and Windows Mobile a not-so-fond farewell and signed on with Sprint, getting a spiffy new Samsung Moment in the process. I found an app to tether with, but it was limited and I wanted a less hacker-y solution. A few months later, I looked into what Sprint had to offer and had two options: I could get a USB stick for my laptop for free or an Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot for fifty dollars, both coming with the usual 2-year contract yadda yadda. FYI, Clear Wireless also sells this device as the Clear Spot 4G+ but its ‘official’ name is the Sierra Wireless AirCard W801.

I went with the Overdrive because I was starting to go to conventions, and my experience with hotel Wi-Fi up to that point was that it was either: slow because of all the convention attendees, not there at all, or really expensive. Fifty dollars didn’t seem like too high a price to pay for the convenience of having WiFi and the attached data plan was going to cost the same either way. I thought it would be handy to have a connection that I could share when on the road.

The Overdrive isn’t too big, it is just a little bit wider than a standard deck of playing cards (see pic above). There isn’t much to it: on its top are a display and the power button. The front has a micro-USB charge port and a micro-SD card reader. The back has a switch for enabling or muting the sound, and that’s it. I was also hoping for a little blinking red light on top, but oh well.

Holding down the power button for a few seconds starts up the Overdrive. After taking about a minute to boot, it attempts to connect to a network. If I may digress for a moment: I have griped about boot times in portable devices in the past, but I’m just going to have to let it slide from here on out, because nearly every portable device short of a Nintendo DS is going to take some time to boot. Its just something I’m going to have to live with from here on out. Oh well.

Once it has connected to a network, the Overdrive’s display will show its SSID and WiFi password. Once you connect to it using a computer and type ‘overdrive’ into a browser you will be taken to the device’s setup page. There you can specify an admin password, select a WiFi security type and change the Overdrive’s SSID and password to something more memorable. Once you have that done you are ready to go, the Overdrive’s ID and password is displayed on its screen and up to five Wi-Fi devices can be connected to it at a time.

Broadband on the road, baby!

The Overdrive’s 4G connection works great. I have seen it go as high as six megabits/sec with a good signal, the results at right were with a 60% signal according to the Overdrive’s setup page. While that is peanuts compared to a cable connection, for a portable connection it is great. The Overdrive has the ability to fallback to a 3G connection if 4G is not available. It does get a little squirrely on occasion, but not any more so than any other wireless device I’ve owned.

I have had my Overdrive for about six months so far, and I have been very happy with it. I do have one complaint that I will address in a few paragraphs, though. As Odem does not have 4G right now (and to be frank, I’m not holding my breath) the Overdrive’s ability to use 3G is a life-saver when visiting my parents. I have used it at a few Texas conventions and for a few days in Los Angeles, and it has exceeded my expectations.

You can leave the Overdrive’s settings as is or use the admin password to adjust its settings. Among other things, you can choose to not display the WiFi password on the screen, or even set the WiFi to auto-disable when it is plugged into your computer’s USB port if you don’t feel like sharing. The Overdrive’s webpage also shows the actual signal strength as a percentage, which comes in handy when I am looking for a ‘sweet spot’ to place it.

As with many wireless devices, the fly in the Overdrive’s ointment is its battery life. At about three hours, it isn’t terrible, but it is short enough that it will run out of power before most laptops. It can be charged via a computer using the included USB cable, but I highly recommend packing the charger in your laptop bag.

On a technical level, the Overdrive works great: you push the button, it connects to the cellular network, and then you and up to four friends can have Internet just about anywhere you go. While the battery life could be better, it isn’t bad enough to be a deal-breaker, but it is something to be aware of. Another negative is that the service does not come cheap. Clear and Sprint are currently charging about sixty dollars a month for the service which consists of unlimited 4G and 5GB of 3G data. If you don’t mind paying for the convenience, though, you might never find yourself “off the grid” again thanks to the Overdrive!

NOTE: The author received no compensation for this review.

RANDOM STOPS, Videogames

RANDOM STOPS: “Play Again” At Corpus Christi’s Classic Video Game Store

On any particular day on the corner of Everhart and Corona in Corpus Christi, Texas, you may find Link or Master Chief beckoning you over to a store called Play Again Classic Video Games.

Come on Down!

In business since 2007, Play Again specializes in classic video games, currently defined as everything from the Playstation 2 going all the way back to the original Odyssey.

Where it all began...

Upon entering, you see that two walls of the interior are almost completely covered with shelves of cartridges and some CDs. The store is decorated with video game and anime memorabilia: atop those cartridge-filled shelves are board games based on popular 80’s titles and boxes for various systems both old and relatively new.

Games!

A few tables and seats by the front door invite customers to come in and talk shop, and accessories for older systems can be found in the back.

Those Wonderful Toys...

Store owner Marco Castillo is always happy to talk shop. He asked not to be photographed for this article, saying that “we are one big team and not just one face.” With several years of working in video games, he has some interesting views on where the industry is currently at and where he feels it should be heading:

R9: How did Play Again get started?

MC: Play Again Classic Video Games got started by two friends of mine that owned independent game stores in California, where I was living at the time. I was working at Sony Electronics in Silicon Valley and got tired of working for others and felt my life needed some new direction. I would visit my friends’ stores and noticed that they seemed very happy and often counseled young folks through life’s big and little challenges. I think it was that concept of helping and counseling people in this environment that was the thing that snapped me into action per se. I can safely say that we have been in business now for over 3 years and I have helped out all kinds of people from the simplest technical problem to the deeper relationship issues as well. While it may be an endless job I, would not ever want to give it up: its just too much fun and fulfilling.

R9: Do you play current-gen titles, or are you strictly a retro gamer?

MC: I own a DS, Wii and PS3 and will be getting a 360 since we will soon start to repair the current gen systems. I really like the DS the most of this generation of gaming, there is just so much to choose from and companies appear to feel comfortable to make games for it that often would not make it to the larger consoles. I really do try to play everything I can get my hands on and make it a point to try everything from the first person shooting games to the cheerleading and DDR style games. I hear the word “hard core gamer” being bandied around, in my opinion a hard core gamer is a gamer who is willing to try any game and is not tied to any genre or system or platform. When I used to work in the video game industry people defined hardcore as people who play first person shooter games, I really think that is a bit myopic. I think the term should be dropped because lately it seems to me that it is taking kind of a negative tone to those types of people who have no real human social life and are becoming socially inept. I think gamers are neat people; I wanted to create a place for gamers to come out and meet people in person and find a girl or guy and play games in person. Call me old fashioned but meeting people and interacting with them while doing the thing you all have in common is a fun way to live life.

Ok, I see I went off topic…to answer your question I play a lot of classic games because they are quick fix get in and get out games since I work 7 days a week at the store.

R9: As an independent store, how has the consolidation of the brick-and-mortar videogame chains (EB/Gamestop merger, Gamecrazy going under, Blockbuster on the ropes) affected you, if at all?

MC: The big chains are a very interesting case to me, we really do go out of our way to try to make friends with all game stores in our area. Since Wal-Mart, Gamestop, etc are all selling modern games, it has not really affected Play Again too much. We often send people to our friends at the other stores when they are looking for anything in this generation of gaming and it seems to be a real friendly relationship that we honor and enjoy.

For the record, I don’t think it’s a good sign for gaming that stores seem to be closing up, it might be a sign that the industry is changing again.

We have noticed that since so many people are growing tired of sequels of games many are going back to their roots and wanting a SNES, PS1, Genesis or any other retro system. I think gaming coming back to its roots is a great way for us to be reminded that in the end of the day, its not just about the graphics, it all about the game play.

R9: You appear to be primarily a brick-and-mortar operation; do you have any plans to increase Play Again’s online presence?

MC: We do indeed; when I first opened I was pushed by so many to have a very robust online store and to get it opened immediately. I had noticed that after research and falling back on my Silicon Valley experience the only way to do a website is the right way, and in this case to make it work well from the beginning. When I first opened it was just me and one employee and we didn’t even really have enough games to satisfy the local market much less the worldwide one, but we saw the importance of getting a website done right. In the end we held off the idea until one can be done correctly taking into consideration logistics, mailing, communication, labor and product supply. We hope to hire our web person when we do our expansion.

R9: The industry seems to be in a bit of a rut right now, with sequels upon sequels littering the release lists. What do you think needs to happen for the industry to move ahead?

MC: That is an interesting question; I think the rut of the industry is a many faceted problem. I think the market has become too saturated with games and game making people. People often call the “Golden Era” of games the times of the 8 and 16 bit system days. I think it was a bit different back then; games simply were not coming out as fast, reusable / licensable game engines really did not exist on a very large level. The idea of taking someone’s engine and doing a graphic mod really kept the games coming out to a smaller amount with longer design times. I think that was the biggest strength and weakness of gaming back then, but games often were quite fresh and original many times. With the dawning of rapid design tools like flash, games come out quicker than ever and all have that simple flash look that the cartoons of today are so unfortunately saddled with. I yearn for the time of hand drawn animation and games on a wider scale again!

The other day I saw a commercial for a tech school that claims, “Hey you! Unemployed person, stop playing games and start making them!” I realized that once gaming became the next gold rush, there were going to be a lot of people making them and not necessarily a lot of people becoming the overnight millionaires that many believed the Silicon Valley tech bubble of the late 90’s and 2000’s tried to be as well. When you have too many people rushing to make money it always comes at the cost of quality and originality. I hate to say it but I think some of the best games came when game makers were not the millionaires but the lower salary people who were doing it simply because it was what they really believed in. Can you imagine if paintings all of a sudden became real money makers? People would swarm in and paint like there is no tomorrow, and what would we have, a whole bunch of paint on canvases and very little art.

I personally think one of the best things that can happen to this industry is to scale back. I think it should cut the people who really should not be in that business/art field and regroup and decide that it’s ok to take time to make a game. It will be ok not to rush it out, and its NOT ok to make too many sequels. Its sad but we live in a “sure bet” world of: “if your game cannot project to make over $1 Million dollars than we simply wont do it.” Thus, we have lots and lots and lots of sequels and very little originality. Seriously people, you pay good money, (often $50 – $80) for a game. Don’t you deserve a new and fun experience every time? It should not be an accident before we get another original game like Katamari Damacy.

R9: Is retro gaming is making comeback, and if so, why? Is it because of a desire of younger players to find out where it all began, nostalgia on the part of first generation gamers, or a combination of the two?

MC: Humm.. I think that retro is kind of making a comeback in some ways. We get the luxury of being able to talk to many people, men and women, young and old alike and we have found one thing: people really do want straightforward games. You will notice I did not say simple games. People say that to make games for families or girls and women that the games need to be simple, but I have to very much disagree. I think families and women want straightforward games, games where you don’t have to learn complicated moves or remember esoteric key combinations to do the simplest stuff. I think the moment some nerd figured out the dragon punch for Street Fighter II and decided that he wanted to impress the exact girls that were playing the game by thoroughly handing them many defeats, gaming changed forever…and not in a good way.

You see, the concept of women playing games or even fighting games, while may seem very foreign now, was not so foreign back in the early days of arcades. Gaming and arcades in the 80’s were full of games like Frogger, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Street Fighter II etc that were straightforward games, not simple or easy, and they were just fun to play for everyone. I think we lost our way in some respects and I think many people are getting back to when gaming was just fun and straightforward. There is a good reason that at one point it was cheaper to shingle your house with the Mario/Duck Hunt cart than it was for actual shingles, but today that game goes for quite a bit more money. People want to return to the days of easy to get into, get in-and-out-of, straightforward gaming.. at least that is what we see in our store.

R9: How do you feel about the current trend of “new arcade” games, such as Geometry Wars? Are there any that have succeeded in capturing the feel of the classic games that they clearly draw inspiration from?

MC: I really do like games that are an homage to the game they are honoring. I loved Geometry Wars on the DS and the Wii. I am really enjoying the new version of Sin and Punishment on the Wii as I was a big fan of the Japanese N64 version. I did not try a Boy and His Blob yet but would like to give it a run since the first one was such a cool game. I think it might be harder to remake a game than just make a new one in some ways, because with a remake people have expectations and sometimes our memories are fonder than the game itself. Go back and play some of your most well remembered games, I am betting that a few of them like movies will now turn out to be kind of flat experiences. When we create the legend of a game or movie in our head that is often bigger than the actual game, any remake of it will have a very rough time meeting those tough expectations.

ES: How long have you been involved with gaming?

MC: I am happy to say I am a child of the 80’s, I was a teenager during the original video game wave and was pretty much born with an Atari joystick in my hand. I was always that kid that was always reading the magazines and saving his money for the game he wanted and never seemed to have enough for all of the ones I actually did want! I have been doing this store now for over 3 years, and have worked in the game industry for another 3 years and in Silicon Valley for almost 10 years… I have to say its been quite a ride and one that I would not mind doing over again!

ES: Are there currently any plans for expanding Play Again?

MC: We are currently planning to expand the store into our sister store where we are hoping to give our locals a place that is focused on meeting people of the opposite gender and share the love of gaming in friendly competition in a relaxed anime inspired café gaming shop. I am working with the person who is going to open it and it looks like everything is going well and we hope to have lots of community based events and fun things for people to do until the wee hours of the night in a safe and welcoming environment for everyone.

R9: Is there anything else you would like to say?

MC: Gaming, anime & cartoons are lots of fun, meeting people for real, going on dates and discussing things in an adult manner are the cornerstone of what we as gamers are. Somewhere down the line we have been pigeon-holed as less than that and lost our way. I just want to help us find it again and enjoy ourselves at the same time.

I would like to thank Mr. Castillo for taking the time to answer my questions. If you are in Corpus Christi and are looking for a long lost cartridge, need a system repaired, or just want to rekindle the old SNES vs. Genesis debate (or Atari 2600 vs Intellivision for us older gamers). then check out Play Again Classic Video Games located at 5301 Everhart Road, just one block off of South Padre Island Drive. With a knowledgeable staff and a love of all things classic, they will be more than happy to take care of your retro gaming needs. Play Again Classic Video games can be found on the Web at: http://www.playagaincvg.com

Contact Eduardo “RANDOMIZER9” Soliz at edsoliz@gmail.com!

CREATIVE, ORIGINAL-GAMER.COM, TECH, Videogames, WORDS

Why So Serious? WHY NOT?

I’ve been writing opinion pieces, game reviews and doing voice-overs for Original-Gamer.com (and occasionally here) for a few months now, and for what its worth, I always try to play it straight. Well, except the voice-over stuff, unless its something I wrote myself, I don’t have much of a choice there. -shrug-

I play it straight because I don’t believe in pandering to the least common denominator. If gaming is an artform that is just now ‘growing up,’ as some claim, then the people that report on it are probably just a few steps behind. As I said at the end of my second article, The Numbers Game: “if we want others to take games seriously, we must take them seriously ourselves.”

But why aren’t videogames taken seriously? Is it because of their relative youth compared to other artforms such as television and film, or is it because of the immaturity of those that cover it? Granted, this is the internet, but there are very few places where videogames are covered without a wink and a snarky attitude. What the gaming press needs is the equivalent of The Wall Street Journal or Variety, but what we’re getting is Mad Magazine.

Now, I openly admit, I don’t practice what I preach: I crack jokes in my reviews and perhaps I shouldn’t ‘write myself’ into them. The latter, I do because think it is important for the reader to get a sense of where I am coming from. For better or worse, my score will be influenced by whether the game was something I was REALLY REALLY REALLY looking forward to or was just something that got tossed into my lap. I think it also helps the reader if they are made aware of my biases for or against the game coming in.

Am I impartial? Admittedly not, but let’s be honest, nobody truly is.

In any event, while I am pointing out the problem, I don’t really have a solution. The best that I can hope for is that the ‘serious guys’ get popular enough to, well, be taken seriously. Now, does everybody have to take gaming seriously? Not really, there will always be a place for the snarks and clowns, and if worse comes to worse I can always go back to joking about how much I suck at fighting games.

RANDOMIZER9.COM, WORK

MEMORANDUM

To: Me

From: Recently Unemployed Me

Re: Being Unemployed

Okay, so you lost your job. It isn’t the first time, and while it may be comforting to think it will be the last, you never know. You dug yourself into this hole, and you are going to be the one to dig yourself out of it. Remember these things:

It is not the end of the world. Yes, it is easy for me to tell you this from where I am sitting, but you have a plan and it is time to execute it

You have been here before. Remember the mistakes you made last time and do not repeat them.

Always be pessimistic in your planning: hope for the best, but assume the worst.

You are not alone: you have friends and family that want to help. Let them. This is not the time to retreat into a cave and shut everyone out.

Smile. Have fun. Enjoy life.

To survive, you will have to sacrifice and you will have to suffer. Deal with it. When you are back on your feet you will appreciate the things you had to do without even more.

The only truly bad job is having none at all. Try something new.

Do the things you said you would do “if you had the time.” You now have the time.

You will get angry, you will get frustrated, and you will get upset. Don’t bottle it up. Get it out of your system and move on.

Above all else, do not fall into despair. Have faith in yourself and keep moving forward.

Good luck.

PODCASTS, WHATS GOING ON, WORDS

WHAT’S GOING ON

WORDS / FICTION: My short story “First Storms” and article “The Fun-Suckers” are featured in the third First Storm Manga compilation, you can read both at the First Storm Manga website.

I attended the Distant Worlds II concert in Houston recently, and did a write up for original-gamer.com

PODCAST; After finally getting over the ‘space flu’ I get back in the saddle with two new episodes of 300 Seconds: “Those Steenking Badges!” and “Stories From San Japan 3”

CONS, SAN JAPAN, THE LOLIHOLIX

Yeah, I’m The Drummer!

Drumming is Serious Business!

I learned how to play drums in grade/high school. I was a band geek through and through, but after school was over, I didn’t pursue it much, though I never lost the desire to maintain a beat, tapping my hands on any available surface whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Eventually, Rock Band came around and I rediscovered my love of playing music, albeit in virtual form. Despite what the naysayers believe, it is possible to learn some drumming basics with the game. If nothing else, learning how to keep a beat is a skill that can be applied to any instrument or form of music.

Earlier in the year, I was asked by my friend and guitarist Eagle-Bear to join The Loliholix, a band in which he played. They had lost their original drummer and needed a new one. I warned him that while I did know the basics, I was not accustomed to playing on a full set. He said that we had plenty of time to prepare, and had the utmost confidence in me. Awww.

After acquiring an electric drum kit (ah, the joys of apartment life) and several months of practice later, I played in my first two gigs. The first was at the San Antonio Chinese Society Family Fun Day on July 3, it was fun and a good way for us to get our feet wet before San Japan. It was lots of fun playing to a small crowd, and while it seemed a little odd to be playing J-rock at a Chinese event, they enjoyed the show.

San Japan was The Big One that we had been getting ready for. I had two big concerns: the occasionally dropped drumstick and also, just what to wear. It sounds funny, but I knew that Kiwi (bass) and Jamie (singer) were going to be all decked out and I wanted to have something different. I found an elegant solution to both problems: I bought a pair of batting gloves which give me a better grip on the sticks, and when combined with a Superman shirt worn over my Loliholix t-shirt, looks like a half-assed costume. Maybe I’ll add the fox-ears (which look like bat-ears on my huge melon) next time.

Performing at San Japan was awesome. The stage, the energy of the crowd, the loudness of our music, everything blew me away. Granted, it wasn’t perfect (I whiffed a few cymbal crashes but thankfully didn’t drop my sticks) but we got lots of compliments and I even signed a few buttons. We are hoping that San Japan serves as a springboard to playing at more cons, and I really hope we get to play at RealmsCon in a few months as Corpus Christi is near my hometown.

At the minimum, though, we will be playing at Mizuumi-con 4 and San Japan 4TW next year though and I can’t wait!

RANDOM REVIEW, SAN JAPAN, Video

RANDOM REVIEW: Gold Digger: The Movie

INTRODUCTION

Fred Perry’s Gold Digger comic book is one of the oldest examples of what some call “Amerimanga,” where an American comic artist adopts the style and conventions used in Japanese comics, or “manga” as they are known in Japan.

It is also one of those comics that I repeatedly saw on the shelf of the comic shop but just wasn’t intrigued enough to actually buy. At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Recently my friend Chris Holm (who is apparently creator Fred Perry’s biggest fan/stalker) told me that Gold Digger was Tomb Raider before Tomb Raider came along. After sheepishly admitting to Mr. Perry that I had never read his work at the South Texas Comic-Con, I bought a copy of “Gold Digger Max” to see what it was all about.

I like what I have seen of Gold Digger so far, Fred Perry has created a fascinating world that is filled with exotic locales and lots of interesting characters and adventure. He does a good job of tightrope-walking between world-ending seriousness and comedy. It is a shame that it took me so long to discover it. Comparing it to Tomb Raider is something of a disservice because it is so much better than Tomb Raider.

Fast-forward to the third day of San Japan :3 and as dealers are oft to do on the last day of a con, the Antarctic Press table is having a sale. I figured I would give the Deluxe Edition of “Gold Digger: The Movie” a try. According to the box text the movie “retells the very first Gold Digger adventure” so I figured it might serve as a nice little introduction to the GD universe. After having a bite to eat for dinner and doing laundry for the week, I fired it up.

SOUND PROBLEMS

As the top menu appeared, I heard a blast of music. I quickly reached for my receiver’s remote and immediately turned down the sound. I figured I had left the sound up from listening to the radio earlier but that is not the case. The DVD is just loud. I normally have the sound adjustment on my PS3 maxed out, because DVDs tend to be relatively quiet, but in this case I ended up turning it down to zero to make sure I don’t end up with angry neighbors or blown speakers. After making the adjustments, I shrugged my shoulders and started the movie.

THE MOVIE

My initial impression is that Gold Digger: The Movie is intended for fans of the comic: it is assumed that the viewer already knows certain things. As an example, there is no explanation given as to why Gina and Brittany refer to each other as sisters until near the end of the second act. We also never find out just why the Digger sisters are looking for the Time Raft, and wouldn’t a 7-foot tall were-cheetah prove that some myths are valid? That is my inner anal-retentive nerd talking, but a viewer unfamiliar with the series might be a bit puzzled at certain aspects of the movie. I need to show it to someone unfamiliar with GD to see if my inner nerd should just be quiet and enjoy the show. Actually that’s probably true, anyway.

The story is fairly straightforward: The first third of the movie establishes the adversarial yet good-natured relationship the Diggers have with each other and showcases their bad-assery in two Big Fights. The middle of the movie features plenty of exposition and of course, we have the Climactic Battle at the end. In truth, though, the movie is really all Gina and Brittany, and we gradually learn more and more about them as their adventure unfolds. The sisterly bickering between the two survives the transition from comic to animation quite well and provides some of the movie’s funnier moments. The other characters aren’t quite as well developed, and the villain does his duty,

SUMMARY

Much to my chagrin, sound issues persist throughout the DVD. There is an odd echo whenever Gina Diggers speaks and Dreadwing’s voice sounds overprocessed. This effect seems to lessen over the course of the feature but it never goes away completely. The audio mix also gets a bit weird in the second act. The music becomes too soft, and there appeared to be one or two ‘dead air’ moments. In one scene Brittany is on the ground struggling to escape and while she appears to be growling or grunting we don’t hear anything at all.

As I watched the 3rd episode again to hear Fred Perry’s commentary, the audio completely turned to crap in the last few minutes. This combined with Gina’s echo and the loud volume at the start make me wonder if something happened during the process of making the DVDs or if the audio was just poorly done to begin with. I also thought it might have have been my Playstation 3, but the same thing happens when I play it on my iMac.

The animation gradually improves form episode to episode and really shines in the action sequences. It is fascinating to see Fred Perry progress as an animator throughout the adventure and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

Gold Digger: The Movie doesn’t quite do as good a job at being “Gold Digger 101” as I had hoped, though. As I mentioned near the start, there seems to be an assumption that the viewer already knows certain things.

The voiceover work ranges from good (Gina Diggers) to adequate (Dreadwing appears to be trying to channel Tony Jay but doesn’t quite pull it off) to annoying (I quickly found Brittany Diggers’ voice grating but I think that’s more a reflection on me than anything else) to inconsistent (Elves). Overall, it does the job, though.

Technical issues aside, fans of Gold Digger will be excited to see it come to life. Strangers and neophytes to Fred Perry’s fantastic world might find themselves scratching their heads now and again, but nevertheless, Gold Digger: The Movie provides an hour of action-packed fun and I recommend it.