If I were to design a motion control game

I'm not terribly excited about the prospect of a motion control future for video games. Waving the Wii Remote around is already an obnoxious experience most of the time. I wouldn't want to have to writhe about with my whole body to play a game. Oh wait, I already did that with the EyeToy. It sucked. Well, okay, it was an interesting novelty, but I don't need more of that.

Part of the joy of video games is that I can do so much in the virtual world that I wouldn't be able to in my real life. It's not about simulating real activities, but about doing and being more and better. In Dynasty Warriors, I tap a few buttons, and, on screen, Guan Yu spins around and wrecks a hundred guys. The feedback is tremendous relative to the input. I would probably die if I had to swing my arms or a wand for each of those kills.

Those Microsoft and Sony concept videos and tech demos of people jumping and dodging around for real do not appeal to me. Without at least a Wii Nunchuk, how do you even navigate the virtual map of, say, a first-person shooter? Am I supposed to run in place and duck around my room? That's not even feasible for a lot of people or rooms.

But it's true that I lack imagination, and hopefully the developers working with the technology know much better what they are doing.

In the meantime, here's my idea for a simple sword fighting game using Sony's Sixaxis controller:

Attacks are performed with traditional button inputs. To block, you hold down the shoulder buttons and then fold the controller in. To parry, you hold the shoulder buttons and quickly tilt the controller to one side. To counter, you hold the shoulders and tilt forward. When two fighters lock swords, you grip all shoulder buttons as deeply as possible and then rock the controller side-to-side in a rhythmic manner. Rather than focusing just on the motion control, the emphasis is equally on using the depth of the analog shoulder buttons to simulate the tactile feel and tension of gripping a sword.

The End of a Saga

Yes, after a little over two years of searching, I have finally managed to acquire a copy of the Aura Battler Dunbine Vol. 11 DVD, thus completing my twelve-volume collection.

For those unaware, Dunbine was an 80s mecha anime from Sunrise and Yoshiyuki Tomino, better known as the creator of Mobile Suit Gundam. I picked up the first DVD after hearing that one of my favorite shows, Escaflowne, was heavily inspired by Dunbine, which was also about a teenager magically transported from modern Japan to a medieval fantasy universe full of giant mechanized suits of armor. The episodes I saw were pretty good, but buying the rest was not a high priority, and I only remembered it after I found volumes 2-10 for dirt cheap. Alas, 11 and 12 were less readily available.

Dunbine had been a commercial failure right off, so US license-holder ADV produced very few copies of the last two volumes. Thus, by the time I got around to collecting, volumes 11 and 12 were already among the rarest anime DVDs in America. I didn't like it enough to pay the ridiculous asking prices for each, but I lucked out on a copy of 12 about two years ago, and, with that purchase, I thought I could see the finish line. So close yet so far.

Obtaining 12 did not make 11 any less rare, and I was left waiting for lightning to strike a second time. As more and more time passed, this situation grew increasingly irritating. I was eventually driven to seek out alternative means of watching the episodes, but, as a collector, I couldn't stand having this gap in my box set. As far as I was concerned, the whole thing was worthless without 11, but, even as fruitless months turned to years, I couldn't abandon hope and give up on what I'd already collected.

A few weeks ago, a new copy showed up on the Amazon.com Marketplace for $79.99--less than half what it usually goes for on eBay. Checking the seller's info, I immediately recognized the username "shawnek." There was no doubt in my mind that this was Shawne Kleckner, CEO of The Right Stuf International, a small-time American anime licensor that has a much larger presence as an online store that specializes in all domestic anime and manga releases. I had done business with the store in the past and always come away satisfied. In fact, TRSI was where I got Dunbine 12, when, miraculously, a stock of about twenty copies just showed up at regular price. That was already well after it had started going for ridiculous prices elsewhere. TRSI must have found a forgotten stash, and I kept checking back in the hope that they might uncover a pile of 11s as well, but it never came to pass.

Fast forward to now, and, sure enough, "shawnek" must have found at least one stray copy in the warehouse, and, for $79.99, it would be mine. I was maybe a little disappointed that he decided to go the Amazon Marketplace route--clearly, he wasn't comfortable listing it on his own always customer-friendly TRSI at such a markup--but the price was still a steal compared to what anyone else would ask, while, at the same time, I suppose it had to be just high enough that the buyer would have to want the item itself and not the mere hundred bucks from flipping it. All things considered, I'm satisfied with this transaction.

And thus ends at last the saga of my search for the complete Dunbine.

New Slurm

Even six years since its cancellation, the official announcement of Futurama's return as a full-blown television series is not altogether surprising, considering how it has thrived through cable reruns. And the recent direct-to-video features demonstrated that the cast and crew were ready and available at any time to pick up where they left off.

I remember watching the show while Fox was still airing first-run episodes, but, for some reason, I found it a lot funnier watching it nightly post-cancellation in cable syndication. I found the direct-to-video movies to be a mixed bag, but I'll be looking forward to its real return as a TV series.

The Essentials #32: Metal Gear Solid

When Konami's Metal Gear Solid arrived on the Sony PlayStation in 1998, my video game diet still consisted primarily of 2-D fighting games, with the occasional racing game or JRPG now and again. I considered myself an enthusiastic gamer, but I didn't go out of my way to follow the industry through magazines or websites, or even really discuss them outside of when I was playing them. So if Hideo Kojima's stealth action game was a big deal, I didn't know it.

I mean, I was vaguely familiar with the 8-bit Metal Gear. I had even briefly tried out the NES version, but, after getting helplessly mauled by the dogs at the beginning of the mission, I dismissed it as pretty terrible by the action game standards even of its time. Snake's Revenge was equally unremarkable. I certainly didn't recognize it as a series to be revered alongside other Konami staples like Castlevania and Contra, and I hadn't been waiting for a 32-bit revival. Yet, looking back now, if there were one single game that I would credit with having kept me playing video games to this day, it would have to be Metal Gear Solid.

I didn't purchase Metal Gear Solid on release day. I acquired it a year or two later, after already having played 989's Syphon Filter. In fact, I picked it up on sale precisely because I had heard, somewhere or other--the sentiment was common enough that it had trickled down to me without my having to conduct research--that Syphon Filter was actually a mediocre wannabe imitation of Metal Gear Solid. Given that I had already been enjoying the supposedly lesser title, I figured it was worth a look to see how much better the cinematic game could get, although I still don't think I would have bothered but for the Toys "R" Us coupon that allowed me to get it for five dollars off its already reduced Greatest Hits price. And thank goodness I did, because it was way better than Syphon Filter!


When Mario 64 added a third dimension to video games, I personally wasn't all that excited. I had tried the game, and, to me, it was still just running around and jumping on things, mostly just for the sake of jumping on things. The new dimension that I sought, though I hadn't realized it, was what Metal Gear Solid brought with its revelatory degree of immersion achieved through cutting-edge technology, spectacular art direction, and bold storytelling.

The density of this script and the level of detail of this world and these characters were as nothing I'd seen before. Final Fantasy had some gorgeous backgrounds, but they were always pre-rendered and static. Metal Gear Solid was all real-time, which allowed for dynamic camera work that felt truly cinematic. The voice acting, no longer a mere novelty, was of a much higher caliber than anything that had come before it. This was no Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Resident Evil. These were actual actors with notable voice credits to their names. Liquid Snake, voiced by Cam Clarke (AKA James Flinders), despite a blurry and expressionless face, possessed more screen presence than many Hollywood actors. This first would also be David Hayter's least exaggerated and consequently best performance as Solid Snake, at least until Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

The story was perhaps not a drama on par with the greatest in film. With weepy characters like Meryl and Otacon, it was really more melodrama, while the cadre of villainous freaks could only have existed as video game bosses. And, while this was all so new that I was still unsure how to critique the verbose dialogue, even then I found the consecutive speeches on the "selfish gene," the "asymmetry theory," and "Gulf War babies" to be a bit much. But what it lacked in finesse it made up in audacity and raw power. Syphon Filter, though a fine game, was not visionary. Its script read just like a movie, but not a great one. The bolder, more eccentric Metal Gear Solid, on the other hand, operated with a forceful conviction that expressed no intention to merely imitate any previous work of any medium. It felt like a blockbuster, but it was also fantastic in that Japanese video game way. How often, after all, did James Bond ever go up against cyborg ninjas or bipedal, nuclear-equipped tanks? And there was an anti-war story in there too, as well as something about the Human Genome Project, although, at the time, I just saw it as comic garnish to the action.


I think, even more than the real-time cinematics, what I most enjoyed was the Codec radio, which was quite unlike a movie, or any other game for that matter. These optional dialogues allowed the game a volume of personality normally reserved for epic-scale RPGs, but these weren't just random townspeople talking to you for no reason. The conversations between Snake and his support crew were often interesting, amusing, sometimes even a little touching. I often found myself spending over ten minutes doing nothing but listening to Codec dialogues.

Of course, back in those days, I valued Metal Gear's story and gameplay equally.

To my surprise, while I had been expecting some sort of gun-based action game, this was almost more of a puzzle game. The first thing I did was load up the VR training exercises, and I quickly gathered that Metal Gear Solid was based almost entirely around patterns. Upon entering any room, the first thing to do was to find a good spot to hide and observe the enemy movements and map layout. I would spot the holes and then make my move. It was not a game about pulling off precision headshots while evading fire. Beyond just skill with a gamepad, there was a level of thoughtfulness and strategy at work as I perceived solutions to these puzzle boards. And it was fun!

But the experience was at its very best when gameplay and cinematics merged. While the series is these days criticized for its non-interactivity, Metal Gear Solid was a game which truly allowed the player to live the action movie moments that no other video game could offer. Rappelling down the side of a building? Check. Taking out a helicopter with a missile launcher? Yep. And it all flowed effortlessly, never taking the player out of the experience, thanks to a perfectly balanced default difficulty level. The final vehicular chase sequence down that tunnel was, up to that point, the most exhilarating video game sequence I'd ever experienced. Yet, if it was possible, I was even more excited after it was over than I had been during it, because this game showed me a vision of the future of gaming that I had never before dreamed of.

Metal Gear Solid was the first title to evolve the video game experience from what I had known since I first started gaming. I look back now and wonder how things might have gone differently, had I never picked it up at Toys "R" Us that day. Considering the other games I was enjoying back then, would Street Fighter, Castlevania, and Final Fantasy really have kept me in the game? I think I would have still played Street Fighter now and then, but it wouldn't have been a year-round thing. I've already grown somewhat bored of Castlevania and Final Fantasy. No, Metal Gear Solid is not the best game I ever played, nor is it my favorite, but it may have been the most important in my development into the gamer I am today.

The Twin Snakes

In 2004, Konami released a Nintendo GameCube remake developed by Silicon Knights. Conceived jointly with Shigeru Miyamoto, the object was to introduce Kojima's classic to the Nintendo audience, in the process updating it for new technology with enhanced graphics and gameplay mechanics out of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The result was a mixed bag that most fans would not consider a canonical part of the series.

The ability to aim and shoot in first person made the game drastically easier and removed a lot of the thoughtfulness that went into sneaking. On the other hand, enhanced senses on the AI and the addition of radio men made some parts harder to slip through. With a few very subtle exceptions, the level designs were left the same as in the original, and, in that respect, Twin Snakes felt almost more like a port of a six-year-old game than a full-fledged remake for a new generation. Featuring much simpler layouts than in MGS2, most rooms were just boxes. It felt dated.

No less controversial were the redone audio and visuals.

The original PS1 voice recording sessions were conducted without the benefit of a sound-proof studio, and, with the better sound systems of 2004, all sorts of gnarly background noises became newly apparent in the old files, so Konami decided to bring the entire cast back to re-record all the voice acting for the mostly unchanged and still massive script. In the process, they also effected a few significant changes in the performances. For starters, Naomi and Mei Ling had their accents removed. I personally thought Naomi's English accent gave her a cold-blooded edge appropriate to the character, and I know a lot of players loved Mei Ling's wild Chinese accent, but, apparently, based on their backgrounds, those characters were never supposed to have had accents in the first place.

The ninja was re-cast entirely, with Rob Paulsen taking over for Greg Eagles, who would reprise his other role as the DARPA chief. If you grew up watching cartoons in the late 80s and early 90s, then you know Paulsen's voice. He is probably best known for having played Raphael on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but he was in practically every show, almost always playing the sarcastic characters. To say the least, his sardonic, even slightly shrill voice was an odd fit for a psychotic reborn ninja. Even though Paulsen is a professional, who can modify his delivery to suit a role, in this case, I found his voice just too recognizable to the point of distraction.

Konami and Silicon Knights also replaced all of the music, with the exception of Rika Muranaka's vocal theme, "The Best Is Yet To Come." The new stuff was not bad, but I can remember maybe two tracks off the original score, and none from Twin Snakes.

In terms of the visuals, the updated graphics were mostly a nice upgrade, and it was cool to see the old characters with actual faces on the polygonal models. That said, compared to the PS2 titles, there was something a little off about Snake's face. From an artistic standpoint, the Twin Snakes designs were neither better nor worse, nor even necessarily less faithful to Yoji Shinkawa's artwork, but it was another slightly distracting discrepancy next to the canonical Kojima games.


Most contentious were the redone cut scenes by Japanese film director Ryuhei Kitamura. The director of Versus and Azumi, Kitamura injected a lot of slick over-the-top action choreography. Some of it was cool, much of it was excessive, but, for me, the one inexcusable change was to the ending. In the original, Snake was pinned hopelessly under his jeep and would have been dog meat had not the FoxDie virus activated in Liquid right then. In Twin Snakes, Snake slithered easily out from under the vehicle and looked ready to go another few rounds. Liquid, battered and gasping for air, could barely lift his gun. Clearly, Snake had the upper hand, and, as a result, the FoxDie was rendered almost extraneous.

Whatever its flaws, I would say Twin Snakes is worth playing for any fan of the series. But I wouldn't consider it a suitable substitute for the experience of the original.

Metal Gear

While replaying the Solid titles again in preparation for the release of MGS4, I also took the opportunity to finally play through the 8-bit installments for the first time via the PS2 ports included on the second "Persistence" disc of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence.

To be sure, the original Metal Gear, first released in 1987 for the MSX2 home computer, was a dated product, but it was also surprisingly playable even over two decades later. In fact, besides Metal Gear Solid, it was the only Metal Gear that I actually had fun playing.

Gameplay was simple yet elegant. As in the PS1 game, you would enter a room, observe enemy patterns, and then slip through a perceived hole. This must have been an even more novel experience in 1987. During the course of Snake's first mission, you would also have to evade cameras, detonate plastic explosive, spot laser tripwires with infrared goggles, and don a cardboard box. I was especially surprised when I came upon a sequence that required me to use a remote-controlled missile launcher to take out the circuit box powering an electrified floor. When I did the same thing in Metal Gear Solid, it felt new and inventive. Who knew that Kojima was actually reusing an old trick from eleven years prior? It even had an early precursor to the Codec, although the feature was more often used for lame gags than to dispense useful advice, let alone story.

Indeed, aside from the fantastic twist at the end--the unexpected origin of the "Campbell flips out" moment in MGS2--there really was no story to the original Metal Gear, so, except for history's sake, I don't see much reason to play through it now. While the mechanics are easy to pick up, the game is still a chore due to tons of backtracking, heinous pitfalls and level design that's twisted, nonsensical, and maddeningly repetitive.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

More relevant to the plot of the series was the second installment, originally released in 1990 for the MSX2.

Although Metal Gear Solid essentially kicked off a new series, it was itself very much the sequel to Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which featured both Gray Fox and Big Boss prominently in a much more fleshed-out script than the first game possessed. Even Master Miller was there, and, to my surprise, the real thing was about as inane as the Liquid-with-shades version. No wonder Snake was fooled.

The version included in Subsistence, by the way, was actually a little more than a port. The character portraits in the original MSX2 version were all made to resemble real-life actors (and Albert Einstein). For the Subsistence version, those images were replaced with new Yoji Shinkawa artwork, and, while it was amusing to see Sean Connery as Big Boss, it was far cooler to see Shinkawa's rendition of Gray Fox's pre-ninja face.

Here we had the real roots of the trademark Metal Gear storytelling. Villains would subject Snake to long philosophical speeches about war, while allies would be spilling their life stories after having barely met you. Even four sequels later, it was strong stuff, and, for any fan of Metal Gear Solid, I would say that Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is well worth experiencing, despite its often irritating gameplay.

In relation to its predecessor, I felt about this sequel very much as I felt about Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The fundamental design was the same as in the first game--you still progressed via an overhead perspective while trying to stay out of enemies' sights--but the formerly elegant experience was now muddied with all sorts of new complications.

MG2 featured the introduction of the radar, but there were no vision cones, and, as in the first game, enemies could spot Snake clear across the length of the screen. Moreover, the guards could now turn in eight directions, and I would almost always find myself foiled as I walked into a diagonal stare. Also, guard routes were much longer and could span multiple screens. Given their slowness and the radar's limited usefulness, I often didn't have the patience to wait and see where they were looking when. After a while, I gave up trying to play it straight and just ran like crazy, knowing that their bullets could not catch me, and the alarm would be silenced once I entered a new area. (That, by the way, is a reliable tactic throughout the series.) Still, there were some great moments, many of which were recreated in Metal Gear Solid. In one familiar mission, Snake would have to make an undercover female by stalking her to the ladies' room. And the "shape memory alloy" trick? Yep, Kojima first used it in 1990.

But I was personally more excited to experience the scenes that were actually referenced in the story of Metal Gear Solid. In that game, hearing Snake describe to Naomi how he fought Gray Fox hand-to-hand in a minefield, I was imagining the most hardcore fistfight of all time. When, years later, I finally arrived at that moment in MG2, and Gray Fox said to Snake, "I've been waiting for this," chills ran down my spine. But then the fight turned out to be totally lame! The mines, no threat at all to either man, only lined the edges of the small room. Meanwhile, Fox himself just ran in a circular perimeter around Snake. For the entire fight, I just stood in one place and punched Fox every time he passed by.

The fight against Big Boss, on the other hand, was superbly designed, absurdly conceived. Big Boss himself was the cyborg this time, and he was indeed tough. The only thing that could hurt his rebuilt body was a makeshift flamethrower that Snake would have to construct from components found during the fight. At the end, Big Boss would gasp, "It's not... over... yet..." But, actually, it was. And that part where Snake found out that Big Boss was his father? Never happened.

Possibly the most ridiculous moment in the entire series, however, was a boss fight against the Albert Einstein-esque scientist, who would grab Snake from behind and lock him in a chokehold. The only way to save Snake was to direct several remote-controlled missiles around into the old man's back. Why was Snake being overpowered by an old scientist? Why did it take multiple missiles direct to the body to take the mere human out? And why wouldn't Snake himself be killed in the explosions? Ah, 8-bit Metal Gear...

E3 '09 Announcements

Quite an exciting E3 this year, and it's just in time, because, with no new Metal Gear or Resident Evil to look forward to, my "anticipated games" list was looking pretty lean. There were still big titles like Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, and God of War III on the schedule, but, for me, the only must-play was Bayonetta.

The biggest actual news may have been on the hardware side. With Microsoft and Sony both taking up the motion control gauntlet, we may be on the cusp of that major shift in gaming first heralded by the Wii. At the very least, it would seem to signify a new phase for this hardware generation.

At the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Activision's insane peripheral-filled future, Microsoft's controller-free 3-D motion camera technology sounds extremely ambitious, but I'll need to see some real games before I get too excited. The "sleek" video reel looked like any old EyeToy commercial, and the less said about Peter Molyneaux's creepy boy version of a Nintendog, the better.

Nowhere near as sci-fi as Microsoft's promises, Sony's wand looks like a cheap toy by comparison. It's basically EyeToy crossed with Wii MotionPlus. Sony's live demonstration was at least more convincing than Microsoft's pre-recorded video, but they were still basically showing off lame EyeToy demos for the casual crowd.

New 2-D Mario! On console! Four players! To be honest, I think I've played more Mario Party titles than straight Mario platformers in the last ten years, but I'll definitely be getting this. It first of all reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, one of my favorite cooperative games of all time. Not only that, but the deeper I got into multiplayer LittleBigPlanet, the more I wondered how much better a four-player Mario game would have been. Now if only they'd gone ahead and called it "Super Mario Bros. 4"...

Nearly as cool is a brand new Metroid developed by the post-Itagaki Team Ninja. As may be expected from the Ninja Gaiden Sigma team, the trailer is full of frenetic action, but there is some concern that it might lose the traditional adventure elements. Still, it's a fresh take on a series that has shown remarkable flexibility in recent years. Between this, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, this is the most excited I've been about the Wii since it launched.

Final Fantasy XIV! Aaaaaand it's a MMORPG. Worst. Megaton. Ever.

Team ICO finally unveils its next project, The Last Guardian, although the reveal was ruined by the recently leaked "Project Trico" video. Though the leaked footage was supposed to be old and outdated, the debut trailer is just a cleaned up version of the same material. It looks a lot like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Not altogether surprising right now, but it'll probably still end up becoming the PS3's greatest game.

Speaking of which, given how well Guns of the Patriots wrapped things up, I had kind of been hoping that the next Metal Gear might wipe the slate clean, and, as much as I personally reveled in Kojima's peculiarities, there was unquestionably a lot of room for cleaning up. I had pictured a reboot a la the new Star Trek movie--something that would adapt the rough characters and concepts without being chained to Kojima's polarizing style. But then I considered that a reboot would be too easy. In Solid Snake, Kojima gave us a hero that actually aged, and, even if that character is done, it may be worth keeping that universe alive to continue pushing both its creators and its audience in new directions. Thus, although Solid Snake's story may be over, Raiden will be taking over on console, while Big Boss is back on the PSP.

Sadly, no show-stealing trailer this time for Metal Gear Solid: Rising. The only notable news right now is that it's going to be cross-platform. Funny, however, that it was announced during Microsoft's press conference, but was a no-show at Sony's, even though it's supposed to be coming out on both 360 and PS3. It's crazy that, in this age of such catalog parity, Microsoft and Sony must compete for exclusive presentations of non-exclusive titles.

Surely the more imminent release, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was the one shown off this E3. As always with Kojima Productions, it's a spectacularly produced trailer, but the game itself is obviously not as exciting as a full-fledged console Metal Gear. I also wonder how consequential this "missing link" story will feel, after Guns of the Patriots gave us a pretty complete picture of Big Boss's entire character arc. On the other hand, I would really like to hear another side of that story...

For me, the most exciting reveal of the show by far was Konami's Lords of Shadow. Based just on the snippets from the trailer, which I've watched about a dozen times, it already looks like a top-tier Devil May Cry clone. Add in the Castlevania name and Hideo Kojima's involvement, however, and this instantly shoots ahead of Bayonetta as my most anticipated title.

Coming from Madrid-based MercurySteam, in association with Kojima Productions, this should be the game to finally restore the series to relevance and establish it alongside Metal Gear as a premier property for Konami. The budget is clearly far beyond any previous installment, and, while it's still early, the production looks to be up there with the best in the genre, including Bayonetta and God of War III. This is hardly Patrick Stewart's first video game work, but his narration nonetheless lends the trailer a level of class well above the admittedly juvenile tones of Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and Bayonetta. The video exhibits a dramatic maturity beyond those games or any previous Castlevania titles.

This may be the biggest Castlevania since Symphony of the Night. But is it really Castlevania? Metroid: Other M looks to be treading unfamiliar territory for that series, but this is even further removed from everything we know about Castlevania. Indeed, Lords of Shadow was actually already shown last year as a new IP for Konami, and it feels like the Castlevania branding was a very recent addition to the project. I mean, literally, it's as if they already had the trailer done, and, then, at the last minute, they went back and simply slapped the Castlevania name on the logo. Aside from the broadly similar Gothic milieu, the only thing linking Lords of Shadow to past games is the whip, granted that's a significant detail. There are no sub-weapons to be seen, no platforming, no Ayami Kojima art or Michiru Yamane music. The trailer makes no mention even of Dracula or other vampires. I'm willing to accept a break from most of those things, because, honestly, I don't think the old Castlevania universe had any potential left for an A-list production.

The big question raised, of course, is where this leaves Koji Igarashi and the new Alucard game teased less than a year ago. On IGA's watch, Castlevania was one of Konami's more prolific and reliable franchises, but it seemed to have plateaued as a 2-D game relegated to handhelds, while the series struggled any time it tried to extend onto console, Castlevania Judgment being a particular low point. Still, everybody loves IGA, and I personally own copies of all his Castlevania titles, including Judgment. Though eccentric in appearance, he's always struck me as the most affable of the Japanese industry personalities. I would hate to see him go the way of Team Silent, unceremoniously replaced by an outside studio. If Square-Enix can have five different teams developing Final Fantasy, I don't see why there can't be two Castlevania series running at the same time, and that's what I'm hoping is going on. Maybe IGA will continue old Castlevania as the "Dracula" series.

Midway to Midlife

"Happy birthday!" said the passing co-worker, as he spotted the balloons adorning my neighbor's desk. "How young?"

A lackadaisical "twenty-five" was my neighbor's response.

I couldn't help raising an eyebrow at this information. He was a few years younger than I would have expected. A wearily apathetic man with a receding hairline, his Asian features were otherwise ambiguous enough that he might have been ten years older or five years younger. Rather, it was the details of his life that suggested that he had to at least be older than me.

"It only gets better!" assured the passerby. He patted the birthday boy on the back before walking off, whistling a tune seemingly to smiling cartoon buddies that he alone could see. But I had not been the only one listening in with interest.

The lady seated behind me twisted her head around to chime in. "Wow, twenty-five and you're about to be a father!" she exclaimed.

His wife, you see, a fellow employee, was due almost any day now, hence our surprise at his age. Although he was a little younger than me, he seemed further along the road of life. Granted this new perspective, I considered that I was wasting my vital years--albeit we worked the same job--but, no, I would not have traded places with him. I wasn't ready yet to stand where he stood. And I didn't know the half of it yet!

A significant pause later, after our female co-worker had already turned back to her work, my neighbor finally responded. "It's not my first," he uttered, without averting his gaze from his computer monitor.

The lady whipped back around as she again spoke my thoughts aloud. "You're twenty-five and supporting a family of four on two graders' incomes?" she gasped, jaw agape.

As I said, we worked the same job, so I had some idea what he earned, and the math just didn't compute. So how were they managing?

"She lives with her parents. The baby stays with them." His delivery remained lethargic and matter-of-fact, but he had to have known that his explanation would only raise more invasive questions.

I thought about jumping in at this point. The conversation was progressing in a dangerous direction, and the woman, eyes lit up and mouth grinning with amusement, looked eager to push it toward its explosive climax. I can't say I wasn't also intrigued, but I didn't want to remember having been the guy who did nothing when this family became breaking news the day after.

Alas, I couldn't think of anything meaningful to add. I didn't have enough life experience to be taken seriously on this topic. I convinced myself that maybe this self-examination would be cathartic for him.

"So you and your wife don't live together?" the lady prodded.

"I have my own place," he confirmed.

At this point, I made my only contribution to the dialogue: "Sounds hard."

I'm far from being a master of psychology, but, since I lacked the credibility to comfort him directly, I thought that, by sounding overly pitying, I might encourage a contrary reflection within him.

"Nothing I can do about it now," he replied. Not at all the response I had hoped for or anticipated.

It didn't sound like a joke to me, and his neutral expression remained unchanged, his gaze still fixed on his work. But the lady could stifle her hoarse laughter no longer.

"Are the in-laws cool?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Meh."

Terminator Salvation

As a special effects flick, I enjoyed it. As an extension to the Terminator franchise, it's yet another unnecessary addition to a story that already had its perfect ending in T2: Judgment Day. Still, I didn't mind another jaunt with John Connor, Kyle Reese, and the T-800. But the plot does suffer from severe logic issues that are impossible to ignore, especially as the movie's very premise basically draws the viewer's attention to them.

Rather than taking place at the brink of the timeline established as of the last movie, Terminator Salvation is set in 2018--more than a decade before John Connor sends Kyle Reese back to 1984 (and the script largely assumes that we already know the details and significance of that event). In a way, therefore, it actually occurs before the first movie, though, of course, it also takes place after the third. So now there are at least three temporal periods dragged into this mess of a plot, and those of us familiar with the previous films are aware of events on both sides of this installment's present. Things get really diabolical, however, when you consider that John Connor, as a character who lived through the last two movies, is also aware of those future events (and has apparently used that information to install himself as the prophet of the resistance).

Terminator Salvation is thus a movie focused on a war where both sides--John Connor and Skynet--already know how the next several years will play out, and presumably have known for as long as they've existed, since their futures also contain their origins. So what is even the meaning of anything that happens during this present period? What's done is done, right? Or are Connor and Skynet now five-dimensional beings, who somehow wage war across time, at all times simultaneously, even as they write (and attempt to rewrite?) their own histories? These are the maddening questions that this impossibly convoluted movie raises (unknowingly?) and seems at a loss to answer.

I understand there are problems intrinsic to any time travel plot, and the first two movies did not escape them. But they were still far simpler, more elegant affairs that left enough haze in the fate department that we didn't have to assume headache-inducing circles at work. T2 was even kind of intriguing specifically because the characters were working toward a paradox that they themselves could not fully puzzle out. Terminator 3 went back on that, and now, with this fourth film, the loops have become impossible to process, though I was fool enough to try. And none of the time traveling even occurs during Terminator Salvation!

I think what I was really hoping for was a Star Trek-style reboot that would have brought things back to a clean slate, not even necessarily for the benefit of new audiences, but because what came before had already gone too far. This movie is pretty much the opposite of that.

Terminator Salvation is otherwise noteworthy for being our first real look at future John Connor (albeit not all-the-way future John Connor), a once mythic character who, despite having barely appeared in past movies, became oddly revered within geek circles. (At least, in my travels, any "save the future" plot would always be described specifically as "a John Connor mission," despite the presence of arguably more prominent heroes in both of the first two movies.)

Christian Bale's performance as the living legend has been criticized as one-dimensional and monstrous, but I think his is the right approach. Because of what he's seen and what he knows, he's distant and maybe a little hollow, and there's a presence to him that's almost more than man. Witnessing his steely intensity, I did come to believe that he might be the one guy who could take on the machines.

Such a character would be hard to stomach as the lead, however, and the movie was at its best when it focused on the other heroes, leaving Connor as the story's true protagonist viewed from a distance. In fact, all other issues aside, I found the movie to be at its weakest during its third act, when it pushed Bale's Connor back to the fore, somewhat at the expense of the other characters.

Now, moving on, whatever happened to James Cameron? And why hasn't Matthew McConaughey ever taken on another Reign of Fire-type badass role?