"Soon I Will Be Invincible" by Austin Grossman

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The thing with authors, they can get really damn good before their first published novel.  In retrospect, I feel bad for waiting the months I did for Austin Grossman’s debut novel, “Soon I Will Be Invincible” to come on paperback.  It is the first novel in a while (and I read a lot of novel), that I read through as frivolously as I did with this one.

A few years ago I actually had a girl in my bedroom.  There were 20 seconds spent between the time she entered my room and the time she, on her exit, called my a bloody nerd.  I really like superheroes, and I really like books, and I really like having 30+ posters and 200+ holes in my drywall - a portion of my posters are used to cover up the holes from other posters.  Naturally, my friend at the bookstore (Black Bond Books) recommended this to me.  Naturally, I bought it.

It took me 2.5 chapters to notice the two different icons rotating through alternating chapters.  The ray gun denotes a point-of-view from the hilariously-stereotypical villain, Dr. Impossible; wherein, the eyeball denotes the cyborg-heroine Fatale. It is a really well done use of two different point-of-views, their connection is not mysterious at all, a la Lost, but are very nicely placed.

Soon I Will Be Invincible doesn’t so much play with the clichés of superhero comics as bathe in their pulpy froth.
— Austin American-Statesman

I have tried my own, but this quote really does describe this novel to a tee.  I described this book to a friend as a well written B-movie in superhero form.  They aren’t pulling any a Deadpool here and talking to the reader, but the characters acknowledge and sometimes argue about their character cliches, even while being interrupted mid-evil-scheme monologue.  It is almost Heroes-esque, in the sense that we see more of these lives and the group dynamics than we would in a regular comic.

Take an example from CoreFire, the main super-hero in the book is an all-American, straight A student who got his power saving his writer girlfriend.  His myriad of powers are listed in Wikipedia by a link to Superman’s powers; invulnerable, superstrong, superfast, he can fly and he possesses Heat- and X-Ray vision.  Wherein Mr. Mystic, the resident magician, also found his powers on a trip to Tibet, a la Dr. Strange.   By far, Doctor Impossible was my favorite character in the story, as it just brought a hilarious side to supervillainy.

The novel is a homage to comic books, featuring a mad genius supervillain, Doctor Impossible, who suffers from “Malign Hypercognition Disorder” (”evil genius” syndrome).
— http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Grossman

But it was during a discussion with a friend regarding the odds of Peter Petrelli regaining his body, I think I got the idea down.  Stories are nothing to do with the beginning or the end.  In the case of Peter, the idea is not just that he gets out, it is how. In the case of The (New) Champions, it was not a story of a bunch of archetypal meta-humans and superpowers, it was the personality behind them.  As is the case with this genre in general, a good comic is not about the power in itself, but the power is used to add a more grandiose quality to the telling.

What we learned from Heroes last night

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Ever since his inception, since that fateful day in his clock-fixatory, where he heard a certain tic-toc in his clients head, my friends and I have been in heated debate as to what Sylar does with those skulls he pries open.  The hit NBC television show, Heroes, is now on its third season, and hopefully this one wont be cut off by another Writers Strike Writers Guild of America strike. A lot of stuff happened in these two episodes, ‘The Second Coming‘ and ‘The Butterfly Effect‘, pointless questions and both ones of actual value.  If the title did not give it away, this article will contain spoilers.  But only spoilers if you didn’t watch it yet, in which case you are pretty stupid.

What does Sylar do with the top half of his victims skull?

One of the better parts of the Heroes team is how connected they are with their fans.  In response to the slow moving second season, Tim Kring promised there to be a lot more action.  Kring also admitted he didnt work with Claire and West’s romance well, so he stopped trying that.  There was a long time between the second and third season, and a lot of forum going.  I do not imagine myself to have that unique a perspective, so it came to no surprise that there were, you got it, other people wondering about Sylar’s tactics.  The scene?  Claire Bennet was laying on her back and Sylar was, while sporting a kitchen knife in his gut, fingered his way through her brain.  This was in reference to his former occupation as a clock repairman, and one of the major theories that popped up in many a nerdy conversation.

Does Angela Petrelli have powers?

Simply?  Yes.  But this wasn’t revealed in the most blunt fashion, but rather, in a very Heroes-esque one.  Peter teleported back to ‘Level 5′ Level 5 holds dangerous individuals for the Company in Primatech Research. and was fiercly approached by his mother about his shooting of Nathan.  How did she know?  Like him, she can see the future in her dreams.  Along with the relation Matt Parker and his powers had with his father, this futhers the idea of some powers acting hereditary.

How useless are the Dominican Republicans?

Turns out, apparently, not very.  I imagined Maya’s importance to be with her actual power, although it very well may be, Mohinder found importance in the actual physical happenings of the power; the adrenaline emitted by ones brain during stressful situation.  And with this, Mohinder found a way to isolate the powers and inject himself with it - although genius, this stuff never works in the movies.  The second episode ended with Suresh falling apart, literally.

Is Niki/ Jessica dead?

Yes and no.  In the second episode we are greated with Tracy Strauss.  If we were not introduced to Jessica the same way, her clueless refusal to Nathan’s questions may sound a tad more convincing.  It is not yet stated, but although Jessica did die, Niki seems not to have, but is being controlled by another personality.  We also learned that Nik does not have a case of multiple personalities, but each seem to have their own powers.  Niki had super strength, Tracy has the ability to freeze and Jessica… just seems to have a sexy, sexy business.

I meant this to be a look at questions fans had before the third season started, and have been answered.  And although these are great answers, there are now even more questions.  Theorizing is loads fun!

Tags: heroes, villains

Tales of Vespery-well-done

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When I say Tales of Vesperia is easily the best ‘Tales’ game, I do not mean to ensue that heralding that medal was anything but an act of God. When I say easily, I mean in direct comparison to other games of the series, because even with that in mind, it is not an easy task.

Okay, I apologize, I still have that buzz from playing for a few hours straight.

I admit myself a bit late on this one. After falling in love again with Tales of the Abyss this summer I was sure to get Vesperia the day it came out. Or at least a day after it came out. The problem was that not long before that, Assassin’s Creed dropped in price. I remembered two things that day: I haven’t played it yet, and I should. And so I did, with vigilance. It is a fun game, real fun, but does get tiresome, I mean, there are like 6 types of missions in the entire thing.

I will first give a bit of a prelude to this. I was talking to a friend about my amazing RPG idea, the idea that is more amazing than everyone else’s ‘amazing’ idea. Two of my ideas were the ability to, when grinding, to skip the finale dance sequence a really nice and even, proper HD-resolution cell shading that really does look like animation and. This is about as close to the latter point I have ever imagined getting.

As I am not very far in this game I am not going to comment on the already stellar story, a trademark of the Namco Tales team. At least in the realm of (J)RPGs, I believe the two to be allowed separate grading. As opposed to the entire FPS genre that plays practically the same, and in the rare case the story is not WWII, that part is the only real distinguishable quality. That is why I like RPGs (besides the part where I don’t play against people better than me, and no one will know what a potion-whore I am) they tend to play very different than each other, outside of series at least.

• Graphics: his is about as obvious as the odds of Miley Cryus dating a man 5 years older than herself. This game and the last, Tales of the Abyss, holds the same difference in age, and if there were no graphical revs up I would be disappointed. Even after playing AC (gorgeous!) for a while straight, this game really blew me away. The backgrounds are sometimes blurry, but I excuse that for the fact that the game has done such a great job with the Anime - the animated scenes and CG scenes sometimes take a second look to notice the difference. This is no photo realistic game, but it has done a great job doing what it has tried to do during the entire series.
• Cooking: as small as it is, I think I totally missed this in the last game. They just do a really nice job of showing you what the heck you are doing.
• Synthesis: this was a staple part of one of my other, religiously followed franchises, Dark Cloud by Level-5. It was not something I felt missing from ToA, but I really have fun doing it. I mean, it is no WoW Smithies, but you can create items, weapons, armor and potions (which come up in the story) out of drops with a simple (but not too) building scheme.
• Grinding: there are two things I hate about grinding; repetition and button pressing. As mentioned before, this game has the option to skip the finale dance, which is freaking amazing. Really, I am trying to level up, I don’t care how far or how close I am to whatever, I just keep doing it until I start to glow in funny places. And sweet mercy, they even have an ‘AUTO’ button. Most definitely not recommended for bosses of any sorts, but when you are running through a forst (or three) of generally weak opponents, is it not nice to just be able to sit back and blog? I am not cheap, I am lazy.
• Skits: the skits are really cute. You get to see some of the side-story, quicky kinda stuff about the characters. But damnit, I dont wanna read them all! They are still animated profiles (that now look like from a Manga print) that shake around the screen sometimes, but now you dont have to read as much. Ironically, I hate reading.
• Battle System: Tales of Vesperia works with an evolved form of ToA’s battle system, aptly called ‘Evolved Flex-Range Linear Motion Battle System’ Flex-Linear Motion Battle System was used in ToA. To its benefit, it is a more open battle system than before. Essentially, you run around more while bludgeoning less-androgynous-than-final-fantasy-but-still-kinda-androgynous boss battles. Also known as LATFFBSKABB. La-tiff-bss-kab. La-tiff-bss-kab.
  
• Linked Encounter: I am not sure if this is actually a good thing, as it just makes it more difficult. If you encounter an enemy in the game and while the signature glass is shattering another one walks in, he joins the battle. So its usually twice as many giant boogers or something.
• Repede: he is a freaking dog with a freaking cigar. How bad-ass is that?

As for the story? Honestly, I am not that far. Honestly, story quality in this series is a guarantee enough that you would buy this game already, before the awesome new features. Let me just tell you that so far, the story is great, and so far this game is amazing. Thumbs up for Namco again.

Tags: 360, namco, tales of the abyss, tales of vesperia

“Nicole Kidman sucks” says Forbes

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I like to think myself an avid reader, just perhaps not the most exploratory one.  A few years ago I was at a Scrabble party at a friends place and, in reaction to a debate about the latest Harry Potter novel, Phillip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ series came up.  Not long after that I saw the initial trailer for the box-office flop Golden Compass; starring Nicole Kidman, and I was mad excited.

The dismal rating on IMDb, accompanied with that from RottenTomatoes embarassed many a dear fan.  I was a dear fan.

In this case, I firmly believe the lack of (local) success of this film can be mostly blamed on the producers and a tamed down script.  Regardless, this movie bombed, but luckily (for the sake of a possible sequel) it saw a few hundred million in profits overseas.  That being said, this summers blockbuster, The Dark Knight, has made more than three times as much money with half the budget.

Where am I going with this?  Forbes just named Nicole Kidman (Compass‘ Mrs. Coulter) the most overpaid actress in the business.  Their format for this conclusion is to average the amount she made on her last three movies (The Golden Compass, Margot at the Wedding and The Invasion)  in relation to how much she is being paid.  Her movies have averaged a profit of $1 for every $1 she is paid (or £1, that works too).

This is my beef with Hollywood, as much a popular and trendy beef it is; actors and actresses are repeatedly hired for their popularity and not necessarily their actual talent.  The existence of an actual ‘career’ for Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez and Drew Barrymore are testament to this fact, but save for ‘Jenny on the Block’, I have no idea why any of these examples are even popular at all.  Other cases would be Tom Cruise and his rich-boys-cult, Nicolas Cage’s history of actually decent movies and Will Farrel’s Legend.  Diaz is just a damn babe.

The argument for Kidman seems to be the same one against remakes/ book movies.  I was not even a sperm when the first two Body Snatchers movies came out, so any opinion in regards to Kidman’s The Invasion is completely theoretical.  But I have seen enough book-movies and as aforementioned, I get wet of Phillip Pullman’s HDM series.  As was the case with not properly using Kidman’s talent (argueable), so was the case of not properly using the source material that was given to them.

Thankfully, however, with the success of Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Hollywood is starting to take this genre seriously, and in the wake of Compass’s bomb, so have the writers for the (possible) Subtle Knife sequel.

Tags: golden compass, list, nicole kidman, phillip pullman

And on the 7th day, God played Spore

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I have hopefully come accross, or at least sometimes mentioned, my religious backgrounds.  I am a Christian.  I say this only because of the character of which this article will be about, and his apparently militant faith.

A few months ago, I had one heck of a lot of fun with the Spore Creature Creator.  It is more addicted and incredibly fun as a bag of mables being held by a bucket of monkeys that stacked together, a la Construction, building another monkey.  Dont ask how, but I know how fun both are.  I have my ways.

Unless you are named Van Winkle, in that case, you are excused from not knowing of the ever-infamous Jack Thompson issue.  He was a fourth-rate lawyer that constantly tried to bring down companies like Rockstar for their production of apparent murder simulators.  Their relation?  Neither seem to have actually played either of their respective videogames.

Will Wright, in his genius, pioneered the ‘God-sim’ genre.  Sim City still has a massive following.  For a long time, The Sims (and its multiple sequels and expansion packs) even held the record for best selling video game ever.  Black and White, not as revolutionary, was still a greatly received game and helped anchor his foot into this new genre of his.

Regardless, this came as a surprise to me.  As is any written text, the Bible is up for numerous amounts of interpretation (and why so many denominations) and thusly the Genesis story has been talked about for ages.  The, as of now unnamed, ‘Anti-Spore’ militant, has been quoting the Bible and trying to call EA and Will Wright evil.

I think it is entirely possible that God created civilizations on other planets.  But because Will Wright has brainwashed Frank Drake into thinking that life in the universe gave rise to “super humans” on other planets that are better than us.

It is people like this that make me embarassed to be a Christian.  Had she not pulled another Jack Thompson by actually playing the game she would see how this game has been appropriately dubbed a God-sim.  Religious views aside, athiestic, agnostic or not - if God created the world, would this not be the best way for it to be done?  This game does not, in any way, try to unmount God in his throne at all.  You aren’t denying God, you are playing God, a pre-human God who is just having some fun.

In defense of Anti-Spore, she is seeing some of the light, she is just not noticing it on herself;

Someone informed me that an Attorney, Mr. Jack Thompson may be able to help me. As he has had much success in raising awareness about problem video games.

Does anyone know how I can get in touch with him?

Turns out that Jack Thompson is a terrible lawyer.
People are emailing me so much stuff, I don’t know which people are being sincere and which are not.

For example, I got a message from the supposed mayor of McCamish, KS. Claiming that he will make sure the game is kept out of their store.  I have no way to verify the info, though.

Far too often do I see Christian groups and individuals in a chronic poise to defend themselves.  I see where this is coming, I understand it.  But really, quit trying to be so damned ignorant.  You are making us all look like Jack Thompson-kin.

EDIT: Be it a Rick Roll or not, all the points I made in this thread are applicable.  As said in the linked Destructoid page, “Frankly though, it could’ve gone either way. There are plenty of people out there who would agree with the site.”

Tags: christian, ea, jack thompson, spore