Let me start by saying I’ve never read Alan Moore’s source material, and I think that allowed me to be a better judge of the film as a standalone piece of work. And what can I say about it? For the first two hours, I thought it was electrifying visually, but thematically it was about as subtile as a 2×4 to the forehead. And that last half hour? Read on…

Every review I’ve read makes mention of the opening credit sequence and the accompanying Bob Dylan tune. I hate that about reviews. Review 101 – explain in detail the first moments of a book, movie, album, to set the tone for the reader. Unfortunately, The Watchmen doesn’t work that way. It plays very much like a serial, and even without being familiar with the comics I could sense where the chapters would begin and end. All that was missing was the chapter cards. And each chapter has its own devices, its own theme, and if the movie followed the source material closely I could tell where over the course of time the comics seem to have lost their way. So that opening sequence? It would have made a great music video, but by no means does it represent the film as a whole.

But about that music. Zack Snyder cleverly used music that we are familiar with as anti-war sentiments, and I think that on whole he made some good creative decisions with its use. Aside from “All Along The Watchtower”, that is,  which has been overused in pretty much every anti-war film ever made.

This was a world which takes place in 1985, and an alternative 1985 as well, in which I had trouble losing myself. See, in a world where superheroes existed since World War II, would we really have a Cold War? Would events have really played out as they did in our world? Would superheroes only exist in America? There wouldn’t be a Vietnam War, there wouldn’t be a Cold War with Russia. Nukes wouldn’t have existed, countries would have bred superheroes as their WMDs. Alan Moore’s alternate reality is implausible, and I don’t care if it was thematically anti-nuclear sentiment from the era when it was originally written. It is very difficult to digest that such an enormous butterfly wouldn’t have caused a bigger change in the course of the future.

Which brings me back to the music. I would have appreciated more anti-war music specific to the ’80s, like Frankie Goes To Hollywood, but again an alternate world would have had very different consequences, and most likely Frankie Goes To Hollywood would never have had the reason to exist – Wham! probably still would be around to ruin our lives, because they never had a reason to begin with. But anyway, my biggest beef is with the source material, of which I am probably in the minority.

And for all those special effects, why did Snyder use the worst makeup jobs in the history of film to convey historical figures? That guy was Nixon? Please. It would have been better if he opted for some Forrest Gump-type effects, using stock footage, voice impersonators and digital effects to create a more realistic and believable future.

Still, I was engaged for those first two hours with the film’s creative plot and representation of its characters. So what killed it for me? That last half hour, which completely squeezed every last bit of enjoyability out of the film for me. All I could think was, “I sat through two hours for this?” It was pure Scoobie nonsense and left favorite characters killed, issues unresolved, and a complete downer of an ending.

Maybe in 1999, that ending would have played a little better. Back then, people were richer, happier, they had jobs, career prospects. America was thriving, on top of the world, and enjoying life. They could afford to be shit on for a few hours knowing they would emerge unscathed and feel a little more thoughtful as individuals. Or at least they had the illusion of being thoughtful, which lasted about as long as a fart in the wind. But in 2009? No way. People are losing their jobs, their homes, their retirement. They are scared. They want their spirits to be elevated. They don’t want to get mind-fucked for three hours and sent out in a world that’s no better off than the one to which they escaped. We need an Iron Man, or another freakin’ Ghostbusters for cryin’ out loud. We didn’t need The Watchmen.

Am I glad I saw it? Yeah, kind of. I now know what The Watchmen is all about, and I’ve absorbed what probably is the most visually stimulating film since Fight Club. Would I recommend it? Hell, I can’t stop telling people how awful it was.

So there you have it. My review.

The birth of my children have had an obvious impact on my life, aside from the whole “responsible adult” thing. As a lifelong geek of technology, videogames, comics and movies, my first reaction was that I would have to give up those things and shelter my children from them, because society says those are not what makes an adult responsible. But then in 2007 on a warm late-summer day along the New Jersey shore boardwalk, I was inspired by a t-shirt which made me think I didn’t have to abandon those things at all, but celebrate them with my children and find a way where they could enhance and even benefit our daily lives.

Thus, My Dad Is A Geek! was born.

Since then, I’ve been preoccupied by my fulltime career and birth of my son, but the idea of MDIAG! was one that would just not leave me. Now that my kids, ages 2 and 1, are getting to an age where “freetime” is slowly sneaking back as a word in my vocabulary, I’ve decided to plunge headfirst into this project and grow it into the dream I’ve had in my head for the past 18 months.

Over the past two weeks I’ve posted more than 50 news stories, a couple of original articles, and am coming off the tail end of New York Comic Con coverage. Whew! And I hope to keep thinks rolling full steam ahead in the coming weeks and months (and hopefully years!). So you’ll see an obvious drop-off of posts here, aside from my daily Twitter digests, at least for a while. Most encouraging is, for the first time, my daily visits at MDIAG! have eclipsed my traffic here, so I gotta go with what the stats tell me. The readers have spoken!

In the meantime, you can always follow me on Twitter, and please check out MDIAG! (did I mention we need some help?).

Thanks,

Spot    ^_^

Take for example the recent trend of naming their games the most ridiculous title ever conceived by upright humans. Okay, Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories isn’t too bad, as long as no one realizes Re: is pretty standard nowadays for reply or regarding, not remake. But not to be outdone, two new chapters in the series – 358/2 Days and Birth by Sleep - are inconceivably bad.

This isn’t some Lost In Translation situation, this is all about Japanese developers thinking they are clever and creative to use the English language in a way it was never meant to be. How about the untouchable Hideo Kojima – you know, the guy who probably cost Konami millions of dollars by refusing to port Metal Gear Solid 4 to the Xbox 360? Smart man. That brain came up with Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, which was titled because he likes Joy Division. It might not even sound that out of place, if it weren’t for Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. So what do we get with Metal Gear Solid 4 - Substandard?

What about that tired trend of making every DS entry from a storied franchise have a subtitle that starts with the letters “D” and “S”? Dual of Sandwiches, anyone? And who could ever forget classics like Irritating Stick or Infinite Undiscovery? Japan is the land where shit is polished into Shinola, no doubt.

With some practice, I think I could make a pretty rich living in Japan coming up with names for games to reach Japanese audiences. Instead of Call of Duty, let’s call it WW3 .reload. Or instead of Halo, call it Ring of Space: Unavoidable Flood. Or Mass Effect could be called Space Jockey: Death by Talk. When anyone in Japan asks what’s for desert, are they told 4/1 Eat Prepare:  @Epilogue?

So let’s play a game, I’ll call it .Histerical Game. Take a normal game, say Gears of War 2, and give it a Japanese title, say Bandana of War re:Under/Ground. Post in the comments section or send me a Twitter with your creations. I’m looking forward to a good laugh!

1. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - PS2
2. Max Payne - PS2
3. Grand Theft Auto IV - Xbox 360
4. God of War - PS2
5. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men - Xbox 360

Now, this is one person’s opinion, and everyone’s entitled to one so I won’t argue its validity, but rather I’ll merely acknowledge its existence. There are several personal factors which might have influenced his selection, such as age, financial status, or other means which would prevent or hinder him from access to any given game. I’ll also say the games on his list are no slouch, either. But I ask the question, do they have what it takes to stand the test of time and be heralded among the best the industry has to offer – past, present and future?

I look to my own experiment of listing my favorite games, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. What I found was a list which largely consisted of games in the 10 to 15 year age range. In my analysis, I asked the question, “will there ever be a modern classic?” And what I’ve found is by looking at the GI list above, the answer is, “maybe”.

It seems I informally enforced my own criteria in selecting my all time favs. On top of the said personal influences, I looked to see which games have indeed stood the test of time for ten years or greater. In addition this time period covers videogame past generations of two or more, the most recent game being from the Dreamcast gen.

So then as I dive deeper into what makes a game “the greatest of all time”, why don’t we all implement such selection criteria? Let me give some examples:

• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says an artist is eligible 25 years after the release of their first album.
• The Pro Football and Major League Baseball Hall of Fames requires a candidate to be retired at least five years before eligibility

The Computer Gaming World folks maintained their own Hall of Fame for years. Although the exact selection criteria used is unknown, the most recent game on their list was Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn from 2001, which more or less also gave it a five year waiting period before eligibility. Gamespot ceased their selection of The Greatest Games of All Time back in 2007, when the last inductee was Grand Theft Auto III, released in 2001. So it appears as if the gaming press implemented their own criteria individually, but never has there been a universal, official standard process.

That’s where I invite everyone reading my blog and Twitter posts to help define this. Let’s come together and standardize the selection process for the greatest games ever made. We might all have different games on our individual lists, but at least we’ll all be picking from the same pool.

Comment with your ideas for selection critieria to this post, or send me a Twitter, and I’ll compile the results and ideas into a later post on the blog.

Videogames are no exception. Microsoft has been on the gaming forefront with its implementation of the Xbox Live Gamer Card, which has been aped unabashedly by Playstation – and largely ignored altogether by Nintendo. Ironically Microsoft succeeded on the console front but failed miserably with the implementation of Games for Windows Live on the PC; whereas Valve Software’s Steam service is considered the de facto standard for the PC gaming community. The problem here is these are three separate, closed communities.

Looks like J Allard was on to something, though. In a 2.0 world where individuals are aggregated and propagated through the tubes like yesterday’s dinner (yes, I did go there), social networking in videogames can only succeed if users are able to live well beyond the limitations of their consoles. That is where sites like gamerDNA and Rupture come in. Unlike Steam Community, which is exclusive to PC gaming, gamerDNA and Rupture pull together these separate gaming networks, such as XBL, Playstation Network and Steam, to create an overall gaming profile for a user; but more importantly provide additional social features to connect gamers across the Web.

Having used both services for a few weeks, the nod for the better service right now goes to gamerDNA for how it allows users to find others based on the games they enjoy, not just their current gaming activity. For example, I can browse all users who have Wipeout XL on their games list, and determine from their overall profile if I’m interested in adding them as a friend. I can take “quizzes”, which, like some crazy concoction of pipes, beakers and bunson burners one would find in a Mad Scientists laboratory, compiles the results to determine my player personality, as well as connect me with gamers who share similar personality traits. There’s the Twitter-like Shout Box, I can comment on any experiences aggregated from my external gaming networks, and all this can be broadcast back out through the web via Twitter, tumblr or RSS. Most important, gamerDNA has the biggest and most accessible community between the two services, which is imperative if you’re looking to connect with other gamers.

I’ve compiled a list of features between the two sites in the table below. If you’re at all interested, feel free to add me as a friend here and here.

[UPDATE] gamerDNA’s own Sam Houston dropped by with a couple of corrections regarding World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online integration in the form of dynamic signatures. I’ve added this information to the table below. Thanks Sam!

I say unanswerable because, like any media, it is difficult to compare different genres or styles and say one is better than another. On top of that, no game is perfect; every one has flaws that are difficult for me to overlook, and as I get older, forgive. But impossible as it may, I set forth to discover for myself, what are the games I consider “the best”.

Here’s what I came up with:

• Sony PlayStation: 3
• Sega Saturn: 8
• Sega Dreamcast: 3
• PC: 1

No Xbox, no PS2, and nothing from the current generation of consoles. What gives?

For starters, there is an obvious lack of original PlayStation titles. Don’t get me wrong, there were a ton of great, generation-defining games for that console. But in reflection, they just don’t hold up. The original Resident Evil? Um, who wants to go back to tank controls. Tomb Raider? Antiquated. Final Fantasy VII? Dated. These games were significant for when they were released, but they just didn’t stand the test of time.

What about the N64? Surely Zelda or Mario should be on this list; Mario 64 probably should, if I ever get a chance to play through it. But I’ve never been a big fan of Ocarina of Time, as stated in an earlier post. Goldeneye? I think we’ve all been down this path lately – it was good in 1997, but it’s pretty underwhelming now.

And why are there so many Saturn games on the list? Probably more attributed to personal preference, but the benefit that console had was its arcade conversions, which catered to those short bursts of one-on-one competition that still work great today. I can pick up and play any of the Saturn games on my list today, without hesitation, and still have the same great experience I had 10 years ago.

As Leigh Alexander wrote, the four-month bell cure is more prevalent today than ever before. Banjo-Kazooie lived a great life as an improvement on Mario 64 for years, before it fell out of favor as a collect-a-thon. Today is a different story – BioShock, Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 all were considered the top of their class when they were first received; now they are reeling from the critical backlash in mere months. Hell, Little Big Planet and Mirror’s Edge seemed to be D.O.A. after months of industry praise prior to their release. The curve seems to be tightening, which can’t be good for the industry.

So can there ever be a modern classic? A game that we gamers are confident can stand the test of time? The closest one in this generation has to be Call of Duty 4 because of its multiplayer legs. That is until COD Next comes out in 2009…which in turn asks the question, does the modern iteration cycle of gaming franchises hurt a game’s chance for immortality?

It’s kind of like the problem with movies today – Wizard of Oz was a classic, preserved in time to be viewed each Holiday season. The original Star Wars saw theatrical re-releases yearly and continued to pack in audiences. There were these cinematic classics that were sacred and treated as such. Until video came along. Now a movie like The Dark Knight sees home video release five months after the theatrical premiere, which it will then be saturated in to the public conscience to the point it is forgettable. Kinda like Forest Gump, or Titanic, or a slew of other best-pics of yesteryear. The Polar Express has tried to do this by re-releasing in IMAX 3D every Christmas, but the list of theaters willing to carry it are dwindling by the year. Then there is A Christmas Story. It landed like a dud during its theatrical run, but found its legs on video and has since blossomed into a modern-day film classic – if not by quality then at least by tradition.

In a similar vein, could it be the forgotten games of today could become the most memorable ones in the future? Could the PS2 be remembered by Katamari and not GTA III? Or the Xbox remembered by Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee and not Halo?

Only time will tell.

Might. That word got me thinking.

There’s a couple of things going on here. One is the ever-increasing rift between the gaming critics and the “New Age of Video Games,” or what might be commonly known as the Wii Generation. The press have been up in arms for the past two years Nintendo is no longer addressing its core audience. One can argue the core audience has shifted from die-hard Mario disciples to the casual market. And indeed, that is what is keeping Nintendo miles from the competition. So why fault Sega for trying to capture a segment of this market? Or Microsoft, with its Lips/Movies/Scene-It! trifecta? The press dismiss these games almost immediately because reviewer opinion is highly subjective, and most reviewers at mainstream outlets are hardcore gamers. People like N’Gai Croal and John Davison have seen this disconnect, and in the latter’s case have positioned themselves pretty well for its future.

The second thing is regarding the quality of game reviews. Sure, someone like Gerstmann will never rank Sonic Unleashed at the top of their Game Of The Year picks, but can they use their subjectivity to pen an objective viewpoint? I know that sounds contradictory but hear me out for a second. What I’m talking about is not to play through a game assuming the role of a six year-old, especially if one has no connection to that mindset. And it’s not to go down the typical review checkpoints to see if it satisfies technical and mechanical baselines. It’s something else, and it got me thinking. How does Roger Ebert approach reviewing a film that is clearly not for his demographic? Babe was a childrens’ film, albeit one with adults in mind. But if he dismissed it because it had a talking pig, how would it have played for the general audience?

So I came up with this experiment – review editors take notice. What they should do is give every staff reviewer a casual or kids game to critique. Pair that game with a film of similar and comparable tone. Let the reviewer write the game review, and then compare that with Ebert’s film review of the film to which it was paired. Even though the media is different, it should provide some insight to Ebert’s thought process, which in turn can be applied to the reviewer’s repertoire for approaching future games in the same vein.

The goal here is not to dumb down the reviews for the targeted audience, nor is it to dismiss a game because it’s not for the critic’s demographic. It’s to be able to see what’s not good for the reviewer may be good for the reader and the ability to explain why.

“…really?”

Just because Ziff-Davis is shuttering its remaining publications like CGW and PC Magazine, and the once-great Electronic Gaming Monthly, or EGM to you young-ins, is anemic to the point of flatlining, doesn’t mean it’s all doom-and-gloom for the rest. Page Flippin’ is going to be a somewhat-regular column of all that is good in the gaming mags.

In recent months, new EGM EIC James Meilke has taken the magazine in a direction we all wished it went ten years ago – a decidedly Japan-centric, fanboy slant – and proved that was the wrong idea for its general audience. The coverage, although it has been more niche-focused, seems only skin deep and lacks the depth the material requires. Perhaps its because of the never-ending bloodletting of the 1UP staff – almost every major article was penned by Meilke himself, a tall order for someone whose full-time job is to actually run the magazine.

But where EGM is failing, others are succeeding. Take for instance the awesome Rare profile OXM did a couple of issues back. Or Game Informer’s clever preview of Left 4 Dead, weaved within a multi-page, comprehensive overview of Valve Studios. These are two examples of excellent and creative writing which satisfies both the “hardcore” and general audiences. It’s also evidence that these magazines and, to an extent their publishers, respect and encourage traditional and fundamental journalism.

So how do these magazines follow up such standout features, and more important, can they?

Let’s start with the January 2009 issue of Game Informer, of which EIC Andy McNamara introduces MMO Report, the first of many new regular features for the magazine. Where EGM has unsuccessfully tried to shove PC gaming coverage into a page or two, GI has consistently covered PC and console gaming for years. The MMO Report shows their continued dedication to covering all aspects of gaming. Here are some other standouts from the issue:

• Afterwords with Lionhead Studios Design Director Dene Carter fields tough questions from the magazine’s readers about the critically and commercially acclaimed Fable II, like “Was there ever a point in development that the game had a more comprehensive property management system?” or “Why did you add co-op functionality on the game if we could not bring our characters into the other player’s game?”
• Achievement Dos and Don’ts, like “[do] chart the player’s progress toward unlocking achievements”, or “[don't] make multiplayer achievements if multiplayer is an afterthought”. What would normally be a page-filler in any other magazine is a thorough critique on the implementation of achievements in Xbox Live games.
• Continued exclusive reveals, such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Guitar Hero: Metallica. Among the wealth of news, some inadvertent (or maybe not) disclosure why Lars Ulrich is such a dick: “at my house, we didn’t have any video games allowed…so when Guitar hero III came out I broke my own rule and I asked our friends at Activision if it was possible to get one of these since there was a Metallica song on there.”

Now on to the January 2009 issue of OXM:

• Independents Day covers the top XNA Community Games, thankfully profiling the creators of the games themselves and not the totally annoying community manager (and ex-1UP alumni, go figure) Kathleen Sanders. And if you still haven’t played Weapon of Choice, you now have no excuse.
• Dead On Live,  a rundown of some older XBL titles and what you would find if you tried to play online. It was interesting to see Shadowrun still had a dedicated audience, while GTA IV was “flatlined”, although this clearly was written before the recent uptick in XBL stats.
• Based on how all other outlets were holding onto their Riddick news, it’s clear OXM had the exclusive on the Assault on Dark Athena information. Too bad the embargo was broken before this hit newsstands, but embargoes are bad anyway.
• The whole identity theft issue with Xbox Live has been covered to death over the past year, but Get Your Hands off My Gamertag! seems to recap the information in one concise and complete package, while updating with current trends and providing valuable tips on how users can protect themselves. It’s reminiscent of the DRM article Dan Americh put up a few issues back, where he guided readers through the process by doing it himself and documenting his findings. I applaud OXM by continually putting themselves in the readers’ shoes in order to provide the most accurate information.

So there you have it. Those of you brave enough to step away from your RSS readers and head to the newsstands will be awarded, or at least surprised, at what you’ll find.

How I Met Your Mother
Ghost Adventures
Kyle Orton
Electronic Arts
The Blur Reunion
Netflix on the NXE
Hellboy II, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, The Dark Knight – all the great comic book movies this year (in ascending order)
Giant Bomb
Cheap Ass Gamer
Nintendo DS
DRM Free MP3s at Amazon.com
Joss Whedon
Buffy, Firefly, Angel, Army of Darkness - awesome comics based on film/television franchises
Return of The X-Files
Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern

But most of all:

My Kids

I always thought Viva Pinata had the underpinnings of a good game, it was just in a sour wrapper (oh what a pun!). And I wrote years ago how I thought it would have better legs as a PC game. But lo and behold, Rare decided to make a DS version, and I have to say this is probably the best possible incarnation of this title. Not only does the dual screen presentation and touch functionality make it snappy and more user friendly, but it remarkably does this while packing the Xbox 360 game in its entirety to the little handheld platform.

Sure, it still has some of the shortcomings, such as the linearity and lack of online play, but it trumps its next-gen brother in others. Load times are reduced to the point of being non-existant, which helps tremendously when popping in and out of game menus. The encyclopedia, which was buried behind loading screens and menus in the Xbox 360 version, is but a quick click and touch away. And the encyclopedia is essential for progressing through the game, mind you.

The DS game has not only vindicated Rare’s original concept, but proved this is the platform on which it should have existed all along.