Selecting games for non-gamers can be a bit of a tricky experiment. You want to pick a game that is accessible, because non-gamers don't have a lot of "skillz" and get frustrated easily, but you also want to pick a game with enough depth and variety that it sucks them in. It's a fine line, and I'm happy to say that so far at least it appears that Heavenly Sword was a good choice for the first parental PS3 game. Two nights ago I visited my folks with the ChiliDragon and they tried out Heavenly Sword for the first time. When Chili and I arrived, my mother was not yet back from her political volunteering. She's one of the key folks running Larry LaRocco's longshot Senate campaign against Jim Risch here in Idaho. For those of you who even remotely follow politics, Idaho is perhaps the reddest state in the U.S. after Utah. The odds of a Democrat getting elected to the Senate are roughly equivalent to Sony going three months without releasing a new version of their PS3 console. It just isn't in the cards. So, with my mom - who admittedly is the more anti-gamer of my two parents - out of the house I figured it would be a good time to get my dad started on Heavenly Sword. We started the game up and I let him drive while I acted in the role of "Driving Instructor". In other words, I gave encouragement and small hints of advice. I pointed out rather general tips as he played to help him do better. (Example: If attacking once does damage, try stringing a combo together by hitting the same attack button three times in a row.) My dad was quickly hooked. In fact, he got surprisingly obsessed with the game. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. As my readers may have noticed, I myself have a bit of an obsessive personality. Once I got my teeth into something it takes a lot to get me to let go. I had to get it from somewhere...right? Well, I get it from both sides of the family. My dad cleared the first two fighting stages of the game pretty quickly. This isn't a real surprise. I think that a monkey on cocaine can clear the first couple of stages of Heavenly Sword. It was the first stage of the game where you play as Kai that my dad first ran into trouble. It also became very clear what the overall goal of Sony's Sixaxis controller at that point. Watching my dad nearly perform Olympic level gymnastics trying to make use of the game's aftershock controls was comedy in its purest form. Of course, envisioning my father in one of the outfits the Chinese gymnasts dressed in was not pleasant. Good and bad times mixed together. But with a little coaching my dad proved a surprisingly good student. Once he mastered the art of zooming in on targets the archery became much easier for him. Don't get me wrong! He still stunk at it. But he was clearly having a ton of fun. Right around the time my dad got to the first cannon operating scene of the game (also requiring Sixaxis controls but not nearly as forgiving as the first bow level) my mom arrived at home. Do any of you out there have parents who qualify as back seat drivers? Well then, welcome to video game playing with my parents. I love my mom, but she has this innate belief that she always knows how to do anything and everything better than everyone around her. (Again, I had to get this tendency from somewhere...) She got shockingly hooked into shouting advice at my dad. Imagine a nearly sixty year old parents who have been married for close to forty years having their first experience playing video games together. Mom: "Left! Shoot left! Hurry up they're getting closer." Dad: "I AM shooting left. This isn't as easy as it looks! " Mom: "No you're not. You're shooting right." Dad: "Hey, do you want to try this?" Mom: "Well, I know the difference between right and left if that's what you're asking." Good times! Well, my dad failed the cannon stage spectacularly. His basic problem is that he wasn't snapping off a couple of "distance" shots to see how close his aim was before using the "aftertouch" controls, so when he did use the aftertouch he was forced to over correct his aim making it very difficult to connect. I admit, when my mom, my video game hating mother, took hold of the Dualshock 2 to prove to my dad that she could drive better than he could, it was one of the high points of my life. After a little coaching by me prior to her first attempt, she did better than my dad had done in several attempts...even with my dad firing out comments like these... "You really killed that mountain!" "That snow will think twice about mouthing off to you." ...when my mom struggled with her first couple of shots. Talk about a clutch performance! Anyway, the cannon stage in Heavenly Sword is a bit challenging. I was a little worried that my parents would get frustrated and give up when they didn't pass it immediately. But they're more competitive than I thought. My dad started getting better. He didn't get frustrated when he didn't pass the stage instantly, but instead got very encouraged when he did just a fraction or two better with each attempt. At one point I briefly took the controller to demonstrate a few pointers, showing that the best approach was to get your aim as close as possible before firing off aftertouch shots. He listened closely and did better immediately. Sadly, Chili and I had to leave at this point, but both of my parents seem remarkably hooked. This may work out after all. When I called my dad today to see how he was doing with my mom having left for the Democratic National Convention...he was playing Heavenly Sword when he picked up the phone.

One of the most pervasive urban legends in U.S. politics over the last two decades is that Democrats are "tax and spend liberals" and Republicans are fiscally conservative. The origins of this myth trace back a couple of decades prior to the 90's when Democrats had huge majorities in both houses of Congress. But how true is it presently? Let's first take a look at the two tax plans of Senator McCain and Senator Obama. One reader of the blog before this one stated that Obama was going to be raising taxes and McCain was not. According to most nonpartisan sources, this isn't the case.



Actually, Senator Obama's tax plan is the more generous one for what most people would call the middle cla$$. While it is true that Senator McCain's tax plan does cut taxes, it is a very regressive tax cut. Before I go further, I want to explain a couple of quick definitions.



A regressive tax is one that burdens the lower income brackets more than the higher ones. For example, a sales tax is an example of a regressive tax, because the burden hits lower income folks harder than it hits higher income folks. For the sake of argument, lets assume that everyone reading this is mortal and needs to eat food in order to survive. Let's also assume that the sales tax on food is 5%. It varies a bit by state, and some states have eliminated it entirely, but work with me here. Since everyone needs to eat, the person who makes $20,000 a year flipping burgers at McDonald's is much more impacted by that 5% sales tax on food than the person who makes $250,000, because the 5% tax represents a much larger portion of their available money. So while the tax rate is the same for everyone, some people are hurt more by it than others just because of their relative incomes. Speaking of incomes, the "Income Tax", which is what most people think of when the word "taxes" comes to mind, is a progressive tax in most modern countries. In other words, the people who make more money pay a larger percentage of their income than the ones that make less. Using the earlier example of one person who makes $20,000 a year and one person who makes $250,000 a year, the person who makes $20,000 a year might be exempted from the Income tax entirely by being beneath the federal poverty level (haven't looked lately, so don't hold me to this) while the person making $250,000 may pay 50% of their income out in taxes. As you make more money, a larger percentage of it is taken in taxes. A good argument can be made that a progressive income tax isn't "fair". After all, theoretically at least, government tends to give the same level of service to each citizen regardless of how much money they make in a lot of areas. Why should the rich person pay more to help fix the roads than the poor person when they both drive roughly the same amount? Of course the poor person might argue that he/she has worked just as hard but just hasn't had the same genetics/luck/karma etc. as the rich person. Not all of us are born with equal gifts or equal wealth and so on and so forth. I'll leave this argument for another time. The point is that, speaking from a strictly income based standpoint, McCain's proposed tax break is slanted towards what most people would consider "the rich" far more than Obama's. I make no judgments on whether that is fair or not. As I said, there are good arguments either way. But the fact of the matter is that the McCain's proposed tax cut, much like the previous Bush tax cuts, benefit the upper income brackets more than the middle and lower income ones. From a fiscal standpoint, there is a phrase that goes along with tax cuts for the rich. "Supply Side Economics" refers to the belief that cutting taxes spurs the economy by making people spend, invest and otherwise earn more. A cla$$ic example is that if you cut taxes on an entrepreneur, they will then in turn go out and start a small business, which will eventually grow into the next Google and you the government can make much more in taxes than they would have before. In other words, if you cut taxes, people will be motivated to work harder because they keep more of their paychecks. They'll make more money which means that even though you're taking a smaller percent of their paycheck the government will make just as much, if not more, money in the end. "Supply Side Economics" is sometimes better known by the name that George H.W. Bush (father of the current president) gave it. He called it, derisively, "Voodoo Economics." Like with most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Sure, tax cuts probably do stimulate the economy a bit, particularly if they are structured to maximum effect. (Billionaires will probably invest in the economy with or without a tax cut. People making $75,000 a year would likely invest more after a tax cut than before.) However, thinking logically, there is probably a diminished rate of return at some point, otherwise, why not just set the tax rate for everyone at 1%?



Taking the Supply Side argument to the extreme, wouldn't the government make the maximum amount of revenue in taxes that way? As I said, it is an extreme example, but it does prove the overall point. Supply Side Economics has its limits. Moving back onto the overall point, my original hypothesis of this post was that the common perception of Republicans being tax cutters and Democrats being tax raisers was inaccurate. I've shown that with Obama/McCain. Let's go a couple of steps further and see the behavior of a couple of recent presidents. This is a reasonably good analysis, both from an economic and from a distribution perspective, of the Bush Jr. tax cut policy. As you can see, the Bush Jr. tax cuts have been deeply slanted towards what we would call "the rich" and extremely detrimental to the national deficit. (So much for Supply Side Economics...) In fairness, this is an oversimplified analysis. My argument would benefit from some deeper review, but that is beyond the scope of this blog. The information is out there, please don't hesitate to search. As always, consider the source carefully. What about the previous president? Bill Clinton's tax cut policies were much more progressive. (Refer to earlier in the blog.) In particular, his tax policy was much more directed towards the middle income brackets than the versions favored by the House and the Senate (then controlled by Republicans.) Analysis can be found here. So obviously, it isn't always true that Democrats are going to raise the average person's taxes while Republicans are going to cut them. In fact, Ronald Reagan himself, who is spoken of with such reverence in conservative circles, passed several "revenue enhancers" (translation: tax increases) while he was president.



In other words, this election season when you hear campaign advertisements on how one candidate or the other is going to raise your taxes, don't take it on faith. Do your research. Whether or not it is "your" taxes being raised really often depends on how much money you make. Likewise, if you hear a candidate talking about how they will lower your taxes, look to see if your income bracket is the one that will be benefiting from the proposed tax break.

Well, As you may or not be aware, the Democratic National Convention is right around the corner. Senator Obama needs to pick his running mate before the convention, which naturally has the U.S. media in a feeding frenzy about who he will select. My personal favorite choice would be for him to pick Gov. Bill Richardson. "Change" has always been the biggest theme of Obama's insurgent candidacy, and a black man and an Hispanic man on the same ticket certainly visually qualifies as "change".

This pick makes sense on many different levels. Bill Richardson has a resume longer than my...well, it's quite long. This balances out the perception that Obama has a thin resume. He's from a swing state, which helps with the electoral college math. He'll also bring in huge numbers of Hispanic voters. Alas, all indications suggest that Bill Richardson is not in the running. Obama has had a rough last month. Senator McCain, the Republican nominee, has not been exactly sparing in his attacks. Aside from comparing Obama to female celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears - thus implying that Obama is not only an airheaded celebrity, but also an effeminate girly man. McCain's also repeatedly run ads and made comments to the media suggesting that Obama wants to lose the Iraq war so he can win the election. McCain's said that Obama has put his own good ahead of that of the country. Despite this, McCain has consistently insisted that he isn't questioning Obama's patriotism. One wonders what McCain would have to say before he admitted that he's questioning Obama's patriotism. Would he have to openly accuse Obama of playing golf with Bin Laden before it would qualify, in McCain's bizarre logic, as questioning Obama's patriotism? Obama supporters like me have actually grown a bit frustrated. We've been waiting for Obama to hit back. McCain has just a plethora of weak spots to attack. You can run an ad quoting McCain as saying Social Security is an "absolute disgrace" in Florida for example. I'm sure "God's Waiting Room", as Family Guy refers to Florida due to its huge population of senior citizens, wouldn't appreciate the implication that McCain doesn't fully support Social Security. Or, you could attack McCain's top economic adviser calling America a "nation of whiners" and saying that the recession is a "mental one". Or, you could just run a tape of McCain's many, many memory lapses and slips over the last couple of months and suggest that McCain might be going senile. Sadly, Obama has been a better man than I am. He's done none of these things, and McCain has completely caught up to him in recent polls. Any of the more tame Obama attacks have been met with a fusillade of "how dare you say mean things about McCain? Don't you know he's a POW?" McCain pretty much has one response to anything these days. Noun. Verb. POW. So, this introduces the need for a game changing event. You don't know how painful this is for me to say. Actually, some of you who may have been reading my blog for a while might know how painful it is, but I have to wonder if a Hillary Clinton VP selection is suddenly back on the table. IF this is being considered, and it is a big if, then this is how I think it should go down. Obama and Hillary should run a joint ad that goes like this: Open Scene: Hillary Clinton hard at work for America late in the evening hours. It's nearing 3:00, and her phone rings. Hillary: This is Hillary. Obama: How did I know you'd be up? This is Barack. Hillary: Barack! What a pleasant surprise. I didn't think you would be calling at 3:00 AM. (A play on the nasty 3:00 AM red telephone ad that Hillary ran.) Obama: Well, I'm ready to lead in an emergency, and the thought of McCain getting into the White House and continuing the last eight years of the failed Bush policies certainly qualifies. Hillary: You can say that again. It is hard to believe that the media still gets away with painting him as a Maverick when he voted with Bush 95% of the time last year and 100% of the time this year. Obama: That's when he shows up at all. He hasn't cast a vote in the Senate since April. Hillary: So we're agreed, we need to get you into the White House. How can I help? Obama: Come be my VP. America needs us both. Hillary: I thought you'd never asked. I'd be honored. It's funny. It gets some pertinent points out about McCain's allegience to Bush's policy positions and it helps put the nastiness of the Democratic primary behind them. It also is a great story that the media would eat up, particularly if it first ran, literally, at 3:00 AM in swing states. Thoughts?

Over the weekend, I followed through on my previous blog promise of spending my recent performance related work award cash on a PS3 for my recently downsized father. Before I go further, I do want to once again say thank you to everyone who replied to my previous blog post. I promise that I will start replying to your comments going forward. Usually I think that I am pretty good at making sure anyone and everyone who comments on my blogs gets a reply, but I have really slipped on this lately. Time to double back down. Back on topic, on Friday I slipped out of work early to go over to my parents' place and setup their new PS3. For a couple of days previous to that, I had been loading the Parental PS3 with a bunch of music and pictures that would appeal to my parents. The idea was that I wanted to overwhelm them with the fact that in addition to a good Bluray player (and the Blueray movies "Batman Begins" and "Troy"), they were getting a multimedia device that could assist with all of their favorite hobbies. The fact that it is a video game console was intended to be a secondary consideration in my presentation. After all, my folks still have some residual prejudices against video games and I wanted to ease them into being gamers slowly. I arrived at my parents house around 1:00 PM local time and got to work. It was very early on, just after getting their upconverting DVD player uninstalled the PS3 unpacked and in the install position) that I realized I had forgotten a couple of very key things. 1. The PS3 controller 2. An HDMI cable (Damn Sony for not including one of these with the PS3...or at the very least a freaking Component Video cable!) Well, as it just so happens the local Best Buy electronics store is closer to my parents' house than my own home is. Since I was unsure when my father would get home (he's been "working" from home a lot lately since he got notified he was losing his job) I decided to just go to Best Buy and purchase a couple more items. The idea had been that my little sister would take my dad out to lunch or something to get him out of the house and delay him, but somehow they never connected and none of the family could locate my dad during this key time. Well, as bad luck would have it my dad got home before I got back with the new Dualshock 3 controller and HDMI cable. So even though I wasn't fully setup and ready to go, my dad was thrilled with the gift. He's really internalized the message that I have been trying to push, which is that the PS3 is a much better overall value than a stand-alone Bluray player. Even though the PS3 wasn't functional and working yet, he was thrilled and very excited. So, I got home and started getting back to work to try and get him up and running. This is where I started running into a few problems. 1. The PS3, though hooked up via S-Video cable, was completely blank on the screen. 2. My dad's plasma apparently only had one HDMI hookup, occupied by the HDTV receiver. 3. My dad lacked a Component cable. Yes, in my haste I had forgotten to check to see if my dad's TV had a second HDMI hookup before buying a $60 cable. And yes, in my haste I neglected to consider if there might be issues hooking up a PS3 that was previously hooked up to my 1080P capable TV to my dad's 1080i capable set. Fortunately, these problems were relatively easy fixes. A quick google search revealed that Sony had nicely included an easy fix for the resolution issue. Holding the power button in with the PS3 off for a few seconds and listening to a second "beep" sound resets the PS3 to defaults. And a second quick trip to Best Buy, this time with my dad in attendence, resulted in a component cable and three more Bluray movies purchased by my dad. (National Treasure 2, Eragon and Harry Potter...no accounting for taste.) So, by the time ChiliDragon and my mom got there I had everything except for the internet hooked up for my dad and he had been happily exploring the music and pictures that I loaded for him. For a guy who hadn't held a video game controller since we played "Ice Hockey" for the regular NES together when I was a kid, he adjusted pretty quickly. Anyone out there who has a PS3 probably knows that it is incredibly grouchy where internet security/connectivity is concerned if you try to go the wireless route. It took ChiliDragon and I the rest of the weekend to finally get that bastard up and running and we had to eventually just turn the security off to accomplish that. (Mainly ChiliDragon to be honest.) But you want to know what? It was all worth it when my mom, the same mom who has hated video games for years, accidentally slipped up and referred to my dad's new PS3 as her new PS3. My folks love it. They particularly like the idea of the Playstation Store. They like being able to start a picture slideshow while having music playing in the background. Folding At Home was a big hit with them as well, as they're pretty civic minded. They really loved the idea of being able to download movies and TV shows without needing to leave the house, and without adding additional clutter in the form of cases and the like. By the end of the weekend, I'd even convinced my folks to download a couple of game demos. (They chose "Overlord: Raising Hell" and "NCAA Football") Another thing that they've become very fond of is all the various types of movie formats that the PS3 can play. I have season 2 of Dexter in Xvid format that would be unplayable on a regular DVD player, but the PS3 handles it easily. All-in-all, I suspect that my parents are well on their way to being video game players going forward. My dad asked me to loan him a game for when my mom is at the Democratic National Convention. (She leaves this Friday.) I gave him Heavenly Sword. I figured that the game is a bit of a button masher and he'll like the story and the voice acting. Updates to follow. On a sad note, I have also continued my trend of life dealing me rollarcoaster moments. My parents' dog, a beautiful and sweet golden retriever named Maggie, died this weekend of cancer in her stomach. The PS3 has been a wonderful distraction to take the minds of my family members off of this tragic event. Would you believe that a year ago, my parents had five pets? They had three dogs and two cats. Well, less than twelve months later my poor parents are down to just one cat and no dogs.

Hi folks. First off, I want to extent a big thank you to everyone who took the time to express support after my previous blog entry. Even though I didn't reply to each individual comment, I did read and appreciate them all. So, here are a few more details. My dad works for the same company as I do. In fact, he's worked there for 29 years. Put into context, that is as long as I have been alive. Sadly, while it is illegal to discriminate based on age there is approximately a 99.99% chance that he lost his job due to being old. In 29 years, he has never gotten anything that even hinted at a negative performance review. The most recent performance review, just as these layoffs were being announced, rated him very poorly. As neither he nor his family members are idiots, we can do the math on what happened here. You'll have to take me at my word when I say that there is zero, repeat zero slippage on the part of my dad. He remains a far better man than I am on every level, from work ethic to selflessness. That recent performance review was, to put it mildly, complete BS.



This leads me to my own situation. Whether it is karma, dumb luck, or something else, I was rated the top performer of the fiscal quarter for my entire organization. (A multibillion dollar organization...) During yesterday's all-hands staff meeting, I got a rousing ovation as I was announced - to my great surprise - as the recipient of this award that, in addition to being a tremendous feel good, carries with it a tasty little cash prize award. Needless to say, I no longer have any fears whatsoever that I am going to lose my job. Rating someone as the top performer of your entire organization and then canning them is a good way to get your butts sued. As an added bonus, half of that extra workload that I mentioned in my previous blog post has been given to someone else. So, all-in-all, my personal situation is dramatically improved since my last blog. It is quite a turnaround in a short time and I feel a bit dizzy. I'm left with decidedly mixed feelings. I feel honored that my own contributions are so recognized and appreciated, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that my dad got royally screwed. My father, may whatever hypothetical higher power that may or may not exist bless his heart, is putting on a very brave front. He knows that the same organization that has just recently treated him so very shamefully currently employs both his children. He doesn't want to leave either my little sister or me with bad feelings about the company we work for so he is acting like he is not very bothered. My clandestine spy (mom) reports otherwise. I've decided to do the following. As I would not be the person I am today or be nearly as successful career wise as I currently am without my father's wonderful guidance over the years, I have chosen to spend part of my cash prize for being performer of the quarter on him. I've gone ahead and purchased a PS3 for him. Those of you who have been reading my blogs for a while know that my dad was considering buying one because he wanted a Bluray player. Well, he's not the type of guy who buys stuff for himself very often. I've bought it for him. I've got it set up at my house and am throwing a bunch of music, family pictures, etc. on it for him. I plan on sneaking over Friday afternoon while he's out of the house and setting it up with the movie "Batman Begins" playing on it so he finds it like that when he gets home.

Hi folks. My company is in the middle of doing layoffs right now and I'm currently doing two jobs, both mine and that of a peer of mine whose last day is today. This situation is expected to persist for a couple of weeks. While I am not really expecting to lose my job, since I'm very good at it and have been doing it for a while now, one never really knows. Also, the added stress of twice as much work as before leaves me feeling pretty tired and grumpy in the evening. Expect me to be quite absent for a couple of weeks during this rough stretch. Jim

In the past, I've written a few different thoughts on how to build an active and successful blog that has regular traffic and obtains a consistent readership base. It has occurred to me recently, mainly based on one particular reader asking for additional writing advice, that I've never really written any sort of blog that contains any opinions on the subject of writing itself. What makes a good writer? How does someone become one? Can anyone be a good writer or do you have to have some sort of natural gift or talent to learn it? I know a wide variety of people on Gamespot. Some I would cIassify as excellent writers. Others, I'd call fair. Others probably rate below that. Writing is ultimately a very subjective discipline. What makes for good writing will vary a bit based on whom you talk to. The advice that I am about to give here is a mixed bag. Some of it comes from teachers I've had over the years, some from friends, but ultimately, it is what I have found works for me personally. Others might find it worthless and to those I suppose I can only accept that each of us finds our own way and what works for me may not be the correct path for them. However, these thoughts have helped me. If they are of value to you who read this then I am glad and wish you well. Practice, practice, practice. Yes, I know it is cliche. As I told Yeah_Write recently, just because something is cliche does not automatically mean it is of no worth. Some thoughts and ways of expression become cliché for a reason. A certain piece of advice can be both cliché and correct at the same time. This is one of them. Practice, endless and repetitious practice, can do nothing but improve a person's writing. But it only works if it is something that I like to call Perfect Practice. Perfect Practice, by my definition, is practice wherein you learn something, anything, that helps you do a better job next time. Imagine for a minute that you are fighting a boss in a video game that you are playing, and you get killed very quickly. You are frustrated and think that the game is unfair. So you try fighting the boss again after a quick reload. You die just as quickly. True, you are practicing fighting that boss. But without learning something from your practice all you're doing is wasting your time. Unless you learn something, no matter how minor, from your practice then that practice is worthless. Maybe you learn that the boss in question has a counter move when you use a certain spell or attack? If you learn even that, then you are that much closer to your objective. It is the same with your writing. Don't just write again and again for the sake of getting in "practice". Focus on one particular flaw that you see in your writing and practice not making that one mistake. It could be something as minor as your having a tendency to deploy fragment sentences, or not using commas in the right places. Maybe it is something else. Ultimately, it is something different for everyone. Pick one thing and practice that until it becomes a habit, and you will have employed Perfect Practice. Have something to say The best writers that I have seen always write with a message that they want to convey. They don't always come right out and say it. Indeed, often times they don't express it openly at all but lead the reader around by the nose without the reader even realizing it until that very reader has accepted the truth of the message wholly without realizing it. (Next section will contain spoilers to "The Dark Knight" Batman movie.) The recent "Dark Knight" Batman movie is a picture perfect example of this. Some of the coded messages in that movie would surprise a lot of people if they stopped to think about them. Ultimately, that movie is, in many ways, a coded endorsement of much of what the current Bush Administration in the United States has tried to accomplish.



Batman, the hero of the movie, does not act like a hero for much of the story. He breaks the law over and over again. He extradites the mob money man from Hong Kong by force in violation of international treaties. He beats up a crime suspect in custody. He spies on millions and millions of people in his efforts to track down the Joker. And for these things, and several other examples in the movie, he is lionized. Meanwhile, the man who attempted to play it by the book, the politician that Batman professes to admire, Harvey Dent, eventually fails and has that which he most loves taken from him because he wasn't willing to get his hands truly dirty. He then turns into a despicable villain in his own right, Harvey "Two Face". While Batman, the guy who was willing to break any rule, rewards the trust of the guy who follows him by giving up his spying capabilities when they are no longer needed.



In other words, the message is clear. Only the people who are willing to do anything and everything it takes to take down the "bad guys" can be trusted, and we as a society repay that trust by turning on them instead of leaving them alone to do their jobs. Regular politicians who want to play by the rules are two-faced scum bags who will fold and become one of the bad guys when the chips are down. Can anyone say "Vice President Dick Cheney"? Right now he is universally hated the world over, yet most people leaving their theaters probably did so thinking about how wonderful Batman is, despite the fact that Batman's behavior was an unspoken endorsement of the very methods that they hate in Dick Cheney. Ultimately, that is my point. The writing of the new Batman movie was wonderful because it had a message that it wanted to convey and it expressed that message in a way that was both entertaining and got it accepted. People who stop and think will probably realize that the comic book bad guy "The Joker" is just that; a comic book character. Maybe, just maybe, methods that work and are appropriate to battle a comic book bad guy may not be appropriate in the real world, but how many people will think that way? Most will probably, without even realizing it, look marginally more favorably upon the next time they read a news story about lawbreaking in the pursuit of stopping terrorism. Writing becomes better when you have strong feelings and emotions behind it, but can harness those feelings and emotion rather than just ranting away. Yes, a love song will be better if you're thinking about someone you love when you write it. Yes, writing about something sad will be aided if you are in a sad mood when you wrote it. This is the nature of the world. Feeling something very strongly helps us expressing it, but only if you can control your emotions and focus them in a positive direction. I'm not saying all of your writing should be some sort of propaganda piece. But your writing should have something important to say, or, at the very least, something important to you. Realize that you suck That's a bit of a blunt way of putting it, I know, but stay with me a moment and I will explain. When I was about nineteen years old I enjoyed freeform roleplaying on online chats dedicated to that very purpose. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, freeform roleplaying is an entirely chat based way of roleplaying that is comprised of two or more people writing back and forth in response to each other in a chat describing their actions. Here's a very simplified example. Player 1: Gondalore the Mighty, Paladin of TightyWhitey the Pure God, swings his two-handed broadsword in a vicious overhand arcing motion in an attempt to decapitate the foul thief who attempted to pick his pocket. Player 2: Fast Eddie, being a master thief, recognizes quickly that his pickpocket attempt has gone awry. With his spectacular agility he is able to throw himself to the side to avoid the attack, hearing the blade whistle in the air just above his head. Realizing that the jig his up, he takes off running to try and get away. Player 1: Gondalore bellows out a challenge, "Hold thief! Face thee the divine justice for your treacherous deed." He then attempts to chase after the nimble thief, huffing and puffing mightily in his full plate armor. You get the idea. Anyway, when I was there I met an incredible writer. She wrote posts that were amazingly vivid, incredibly moving and astonishingly detailed. The characters she created and showed off in her writing were wonderful and alive in the way she expressed them. I was a rather prominent member of my particular roleplaying community, but felt that she could probably teach me a thing or two and after a few months when we had become friends, I went to her for advice. We chatted and she talked about the people whose writing she liked in the community. She specifically did not mention my name. Being young and more than a little arrogant (and why not? I was a popular and renowned roleplayer in the community in question) I asked her why she hadn't mentioned me. Well, she replied that it was because my writing sucked. Understand that I was in awe of this woman and she told me flat out that she thought my writing was awful. At the time it was a pretty crushing experience to learn that, yes, I sucked. She pointed out innumerable problems that proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I did indeed stink as a writer. I think that if I hadn't liked her as much as I did, and admired her writing as much as I did, I'd have had a very difficult time accepting it.



I did eventually accept the criticism. I stopped thinking that I was a great writer already and focused on where my writing was weak. It was the first step I ever took towards actually becoming a better writer. Today, I remain profoundly grateful towards this person for her courage and friendship, which she willingly risked to express how bad I was. Develop your own sty.le Don't imitate someone else's. At the end of the day, each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses as a writer. While there are certain base attributes that everyone needs to have in order to be competent, such as good spelling and grammar, once the basics are mastered everyone should develop a st.yle all their own. Too often, the mistake I see is the attempt to mimic the st.yle of a favorite writer that they know of. A writer always has their favorite books or authors, and often they grow so attached to how those works impacted them that they strive to imitate the writer in question. Sometimes this is intentional. Other times it is done unknowingly. It never works.



I'm not saying you shouldn't appropriate good traits of a particular writer. Why not learn from someone who has mastered a particular method of expression? But you shouldn't try to be that writer. It almost always fails. How can you be better at being someone else than that person is at being him or herself? I'm not saying it is impossible, but not only is it extremely difficult, but its also very empty. After all, if the only reason you're a good writer is because you tried to be like (insert writer name), then will you ever feel like you are a good writer? I wouldn't. I'd just feel like (insert writer name's) shadow. Well, that's it for now. I'd write a nice conclusion wrapping all of this up, but I don't feel like it, and after how damned long this blog post has gotten I doubt anyone here feels like reading one. Either take the advice or don't. Now shoo! Go get some Perfect Practice in.

Who is Jennifer Hale? Chances are you already know the answer to that question. You may not know her by that particular name, but if you're a fan of video games you almost certainly know her by another. Does the name Bastila Shan ring any bells? If that name doesn't sound familiar then do the names Naomi Hunter or Emma Emmerich? Certainly, it would take a very ignorant gamer not to at least recognize either the name of Samus Aran or that of Commander Shepard? These are just a few of Jennifer Hale's aliases. Bastila is, of course, a Jedi from the Knights of the Old Republic games and the player's main love interest in the first game. Naomi and Emma are prominent figures from the Metal Gear Solid Series. Samus is the main protagonist from the Metroid games and Commander Shepard is the lead figure from Mass Effect. (Hale did the voice work for the female Shepard.)



Jennifer Hale is a voice actress and probably everyone in the video game industry is familiar with at least one of her many roles, even if they didn't know the name of the person behind it. She has voiced an incredible number of the most famous female characters in video game history. The roles listed on her official wikipedia page are nothing less than a tour de force of the industry's most important and best beloved female characters. You won't find Lara Croft or Alyx Vance on that list, but you'll find plenty of other household names. Hale's versatility to replicate so many different voices across such a broad range of female characters is remarkable. So why is it that many people probably have no idea who Jennifer Hale actually is when most of us have probably fallen in love with at least one of her characters over her incredible career? Compare the wikipedia page that I posted for her to the one for Ninja Gaiden director Tomonobu Itagaki. You'll find that there is really no comparison between them. Hale's page is barely more than a laundry list of different roles she has played. It doesn't even contain a picture of her. Tomonobu Itagaki's seems to contain his entire life story. One of these two seems to be viewed as a real person with an actual biography and history while the other is apparently less real than her Fall-From-Grace character from the renowned RPG Planescape: Torment. Why is this?



I suspect at least part of the answer lies with Hale herself. She's a mysterious figure and part of it apparently by choice. Looking at her official website, I can't find a single picture she's chosen to show that doesn't have her face either blurred, partially covered or in some other way hidden from view. It's an odd paradox for an actress that she seems fully intent on hiding her face from public view.



Oh sure, a Google search will turn up a picture or two , but Hale herself almost seems to want to hide behind her characters. An alternative explanation is that she has no need to hog the glory or the credit for a great game when she is just one piece among many that make such amazing games a success, but I digress.



Usually, wherever you look around for information on Hale, it shows barely more than the same list of parts she's played that her Wikipedia page shows. She remains an intensely private figure. Personal details about her are remarkably hard to find, be it on her own website or through Google searches. She's been some of the most important characters in video game lore and we hardly know her. Does this woman even exist beyond her characters? This is the complete opposite of some of the other prominent figures in the industry who almost seem to want to wallow in the fact that we know who they are. Itagaki, for example, is rarely seen not smiling for a camera with sunglasses on, indoors or out, to show how cool he is. He's always there, thrusting himself front and center into the spotlight. You can pretty much find out everything there is to know about him in about fifteen seconds. He is as shallow as his games are. Pretty to look at and fun to play, but ultimately rather forgettable and containing little complexity in storyline or character. To a certain extent this dichotomy is understandable. After all, Itagaki is the director of some popular major video game titles, not merely a two-bit voice actor. In a manner of speaking, he would be Hale's boss if they ever actually worked together for a game. (Which seems unlikely given how Itagaki portrays female characters in the Ninja Gaiden and the Dead or Alive games he's done versus which roles Hale tends to enjoy and accept playing.) But it does invite the question, why, with a resume and a history as impressive as Hale's is, do so few people have any idea who she is?

I would think that companies that secured Hale's services for their next major game would go out of their way to broadcast that fact. When an A-List Hollywood actor signs on to play a role in a new movie, the director almost always makes sure that the entire world knows this fact. The actor is a star after all. Let's look at Russell Crowe for example. We can name off the top of our head three or four movies we've seen and enjoyed him in without even thinking hard. Having Russell Crowe sign on to your next movie makes it more likely that people will go see the movie. Having him agree to be in it helps sell it, so naturally when he agrees to work on a film his image is used in commercials, trailers, etc. to help market it. So why not do the same for games? Why not include in game trailers, when you're listing all the exciting things that an upcoming game has to offer, the major selling point that a star actor has agreed to work with you on it? Why not say something like: "Featuring the voice acting talents of Jennifer Hale, the lady who brought you such memorable characters as Bastila Shan, Samus Aran and Naomi Hunter"? It isn't hard to see how this could be a good selling point either. Hang around long enough, and you'll find a female video game character that you'll grow deeply attached to. Maybe not in the romantic sense, but in a sense that you grow to urgently care what happens to them and feel genuine unhappiness if they experience hardship or tragedy. Good actors make you grow attached. Lots of people go watch Denzel Washington act because they had a great time the last time they watched him act. It could and perhaps should be the same with characters in video games.



Good voice acting can make a character come alive and seem real in a way that nothing else can, because it is real. It is a real person's voice! This is something that stellar graphics just haven't mastered yet.



Mass Effect was justifiably lauded for its remarkable facial expressions and body language, but nobody is ever going to mistake the characters on the screen for real people. As good as the graphics are, we never forget that they're just good graphics and hence that the characters are just that: made up beings. Graphics just have not advanced far enough to be indistinguishable from reality at a glance. A voice on the other hand is different. We can all recall thinking we heard someone talking to us only to realize "oh, it was just the TV." When sound work for a game is done well, and the player has high quality sound equipment to listen to it on, our ability to differentiate between the voice of someone who is physically present and a voice coming from a game or show is diminished enough to approach zero. I can think of no better way to aid immersion into a game, no more effective method to blur the line between fantasy and reality, than superior voice acting. Maybe that is part of the problem. When someone has been consistently great for a long enough time, we start to take that greatness for granted. We fail to really appreciate it until it is gone. One of the things that helped sell the recent Metal Gear Solid game was the line "this will be my last mission" in the trailer. Suddenly people realized, "Holy ****! It's the last time we'll get to appreciate the Snake character!" Well, I'm not going to forget to show appreciation. Hale has brought too many characters into my life that I'll remember forever for me not to appreciate and applaud her efforts. So, to end this I just want to say "thank you" and "a job well done" to all the people, like Hale, who labor behind the scenes to make us a game that we'll never forget about and go back and play a decade later. So, to Jennifer and to all the others like who her labor in anonymity, thanks for all your efforts to bring something memorable and special into the games that we play.

While I know I said that Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was going to be the next game I wrote a review for, the recent news of the next KOTOR game becoming an MMO instead of a traditional RPG that I would have loved and adored has motivated me to go back and play an older RPG and reminisce about "The Good Old Days (TM)". Therefore, you get a review for one of the best rpg titles of all time instead. Apologies to those who are disappointed by this. I'll get to Uncharted eventually I can assure you all. As always, if you enjoyed my review and found it helpful, please go here and give me a thumbs up! Planescape: Torment The Good: One of the best storylines ever devised for a video game. Highly memorable characters. Lots of highly impressive side quests. Innovative protagonist who can switch character cla$$ at will. Fascinating setting and environment. For the time period, excellent graphics. Thrilling sound track. Lots of user created mods and patches. Quest resolution almost always provides far more experience than combat. Multiple endings. The Bad: Buggy unless patched. Little voice acting. To some, endings are unsatisfactory. If Planescape: Torment is not the greatest game of all time, then it certainly is a contender for the title. Released to rave reviews and lackluster sales, the game never spawned a sequel that it should have had and fans everywhere have clamored for. So we are left with something highly unusual in modern times: a game that received almost unanimous positive reviews that didn't spawn at least two additional follow-up titles. But what is it that makes this game so great that it can match up successfully with most modern titles even today, nearly a decade after it was first released? Any answer to that question must first begin with the storyline, which puts nearly all storylines in modern day games to shame. In total, the game's script contains roughly 800,000 words. This is the equivalent of a 2667 page book if we assume three hundred words per printed page. To say that the storyline is fleshed out is a bit of an understatement. But anyone can just throw a lot of words at a storyline.

The true mark of a great story isn't the amount of words that it contains, but the depth of the themes included. This is where Torment shines the brightest. Torment's storyline touches deeply upon some of the most important themes that mankind has struggled with throughout the course of human history. When is it too late for a bad person to be redeemed if they've led an evil life? Is it possible to cheat fate? Do gods create men or do men create gods through the power of their belief? What can change the nature of a man? These are just a few of the questions that the game, and the game's main protagonist, grapples with through the course of his journey of self-discovery. To talk too much about the storyline would be to ruin it, so let's move onto the thrilling characters the game features. Any discussion of the characters must, of course, begin with the one you play, who is appropriately titled "The Nameless One".



Not your typical hero.

The Nameless One wakes up in the mortuary (morgue) with no memory of how he got there or why he isn't dead, a bunch of instructions from someone literally tattooed onto his back, and an animated, floating skull babbling at him. He is, apparently, immortal. This then, is the ultimate freedom that many rpg titles strive for and never quite achieve. You are offered the ultimate choice that an RPG can present: define who you are completely from scratch. Granted, you've had past lives and clues of who you have been are scattered everywhere, but who you are now is left up for you to determine based on your choices throughout this long game, of which there will be many. The Nameless One is hardly the only interesting character you will meet in the game. Developed by Interplay, the predecessor to renowned RPG developers Bioware and Obsidian, the cast of supporting characters is top notch. The floating skull I mentioned earlier who is present when you wake up in the Mortuary is one of them. Others include a beautiful succubus demon, who has turned her back on seducing mortals into giving up their souls and fled from hell. She now runs a place called "The Brothel for Slating Intellectual Lusts" where all the prostitutes do is slate lusts of the mind alone. Another is a floating suit of animated armor, with a distinct hard-on for smiting evil doers and anyone who shows any hints of mercy. Still another is an insane mage whose had a portal to the elemental plane of fire opened within him and is therefore constantly on fire…and loves it. I could go on. Suffice it to say that the cast of characters is expansive, original and fun to interact with. You and the supporting characters start in a place called "Sigil", which is also known as the City of Doors because it serves as a interdimensional hub of sorts between the various heavens and hells of existence. Sigil alone would qualify as one of the more unique settings in recent rpg memory, but it is not the only plane of existence you'll visit in your quest to answer the ultimate questions that the game poses. Seldom have rpg settings been so vibrantly unique and alive as the ones you'll travel through during the course of the game, and finding the multitude of various side quests that the game offers is an experience in and of itself. Those side quests range far beyond the typical "go kill person XYZ" or "fetch/deliver the widget". For example, early on in the game you can encounter a man called "Reekwind" who insulted the wrong wizard and has been cursed with, you guessed it, incredible stench. A quest you can undertake is to remove the stench from the man…or you can just decide to make fun of him instead if you so choose. Another example is the quest to convince a mage to provide final death to a zombie he created. A zombie named "Dimtree" was created because a mage was hired by the coffin maker's neighbors to provide the coffin maker a friend, because the coffin maker talks so much that nobody can stand to be around him. Unfortunately, the zombie actually turned out to be much more intelligent and aware of its surroundings than zombies are supposed to be and is now suffering horribly and wants to go back to being fully dead and needs you to convince the mage in question to let him. The variety of different quests that you can undertake is truly staggering. Unlike a lot of games, the side quests in Torment truly are quite optional. You can beat the game without doing a bunch of side questing to power up, which is ironic because unlike other games that almost require you to do side quests in order to become powerful enough to beat the game, the side quests in Planescape: Torment are so much fun that even though you really don't need to do them, most players will probably do a lot of them anyway just to see how they get resolved. And the resolution of quests definitely compensates players appropriately.

Torment differs from games which focus on killing things as the main vehicle to gaining experience and additional powers in that it has few absolutely mandatory battles. True, a player can choose to battle often if they like, but nearly every battle in the game can be avoided if your conversation stats like charisma, wisdom and intelligence are high enough. In addition, you aren't penalized for avoiding combat because you gain far more experience as rewards for finishing quests or having good conversations with folks than you do from mindless slaughter. Torment is a game that truly rewards players for, surprise! Playing a role. If you do decide that you want to kill a bunch of people and/or creatures, and you probably will at some point, then here's the details on how that works. The battle system is based off AD&D Second Edition rules. It is real time, with the dice rolls and the turns happening behind the scenes in the background. You can stop it at any time to issue commands or directions to your party members. A good comparison to the combat system would be the KOTOR games. Different rules/stats system of course, but the actual mechanics of how it works are identical. Another interesting thing to note is that you can switch cla$$es at will throughout the game. Unlike most other RPG games where you chose what cla$$ of character you will play when you create the character and then it is set for the duration, The Nameless One can switch between being Fighter, a Wizard or a Thief almost at will once he has access to the proper trainers. The in-game explanation for how this is possible is that the protagonist isn't so much learning new skills as he is remembering old ones. Since he's an immortal, he's held a wide variety of different professions during his many lives. So if you get tired of solving quests by bashing someone over the head and would prefer to zap them with a few well-placed spells, then there is no need to start over. Just switch up your cla$$! Of course doing this does have some drawbacks. You get some extra rewards for specializing such as rising in levels quicker and, based on how you allocate your stats, you may be better suited to play one cla.ss over another, but the freedom you're allowed to make those choices is truly remarkable. By modern standards, the graphics in Torment are, of course, subpar. The game is a decade old after all! However, by the standards of the time period it was released in, the graphics are top notch and they hold up well enough today to not be a distraction from the overall fun of the game. The graphics are also supported by a very solid soundtrack. The main theme is the best music overall but many of the themes for the individual characters that you meet in the game are equally well done and memorable. And while voice acting is rather minimal, what is there features nearly a wide selection of some of the more memorable voice actors both in and out of the video game industry. (For example: Jennifer Hale, who voiced Bastila Shan from Knights of the Old Republic and Lady Aribeth from Neverwinter Nights.) While some of these choices are surprising, such as the voice actor who did Homer Simpson doing one of the characters you can recruit, they all work well. For all that Torment does correct, it isn't without a couple of flaws here and there. Of course one is the sparse voice acting, but that is minor. Much more serious is the buggy state of the game until it is patched. Interplay released an official patch before it went out of business that advances the game to version 1.1, but the cult following that the game has developed has done a great deal more work since. This reviewer recommends the following patches/mods in the following order. 1. The Official Patch 2. Comprehensive WeiDU Fixpack by Qwinn, which includes a number of previously released fixpacks all incorporated together. 3. Unfinished Business which restores a bunch of cut content back into the game. 4. Qwinn's Torment Tweaks which makes a number of minor but very helpful tweaks to the game, such as allowing you to stack items (thus saving valuable space) and rest anywhere. But since Torment has been out for quite some time, nearly all of the original bugginess of the released version of the game has since been fixed. It may take a little bit of time and effort to get the right patches and mods installed, but they are all available. Summary: Planescape: Torment is easily one of the best rpg titles ever released. It is a must-own for any true fan of the RPG genre, and cannot be recommended enough by this reviewer. Do yourself a favor and find a way to pick this title up used somewhere. You won't be disappointed. True Final Score: 10.0

Is this the latest sign that traditional RPG titles are being shoved out the door to make room for more MMORPG games and shooter games? I suppose you could argue that a KOTOR MMO does not necessarily preclude a Knights of the Old Republic 3 traditional RPG title, but in my opinion, reading between the lines, the answer is pretty clear. This MMO is being developed instead of a traditional sequel to Knights of the Old Republic 2, not in addition to such a sequel. This depresses me beyond measure. Is there truly no market in the video game industry these days for single player, story driven role playing games with memorable characters and branching plot-lines? Have we as video game players truly sent the message, via our wallets, that developers should no longer bother with traditional rpg titles and instead focus all their time and effort into making power-leveling MMO games? I would write more analysis, and probably will write more at some point, but right now I'm just too damned disappointed to belabor the point any further.