I could swear that Bionic Commando was nowhere near as loved by gamers back when it was actually out and up for sale on the NES during the system's run as it is now. Maybe that's just because there was no internet, then, and it was between difficult and impossible to judge what games - besides the first party Nintendo ones, of course - were popular outside of your group of friends. Whether or not I'm right, though, Bionic Commando is apparently a pretty big fucking deal now, as the current-generation remake, Bionic Commando Rearmed, was downloaded by a whole lot of people for $10. As a big Bionic Commando fan (I've replayed it every several years since its release), I wasn't sure what to think, and as a dude who owns the original on Nintendo, I wasn't sure if it was worth the cash.

I think it helps the value of the game that it's pretty far from being a straight port. I could probably go on for pages about all the changes they've made - some for the better, in my estimation, some not - but I'll try not to bore you, and just hit you with the major updates instead.

• All of the weapons have been completely reworked except the gun you start the game with. Most significantly, the rocket launcher is no longer a fast-firing overpowered weapon that takes bosses out in four shots, one second. It takes awhile to reload, no matter how close you are to the target, and if you are in fact too close, the explosion will kill you, too. You also get a third button, which throws grenades.
  
• The boss fights have almost all been significantly reworked; they all have "tricks" now that you have to find out. Past that, they're pretty easy, though some (the foundry guy) are fucking annoying, in my estimation, and none of them are that fun after the first "ah-ha!".
  
• You have unlimited continues from the get-go (good move).
  
• The game saves. Thank fucking god - no two hour marathons to make it to the end.
  
• You have a life bar from the start, and the health pills make it bigger rather than giving you a refill on use.
  
• You no longer chose what to bring to each level with you; you have all your weapons and items all the time.
  
• There are several secrets per stage, including power-ups and challenge rooms (more on those later).
  
• The presentation has all been reworked, obviously. The sound is noise-techno based on the originals, and is well done in my opinion. Graphics are 2D-3D, and I guess they're good, but I have actually lost lives at parts because I thought the background was the foreground. Sometimes the levels get really cluttered, and it's hard to tell what matters and what's just eye candy. Additionally, some aesthetics have been reworked; the jungle level is now a snowy mountain, with bear traps instead of man-eating plants.
  
• The neutral areas aren't exact copies of each other, and nobody shits a brick if you shoot in them. Actually, they're not neutral areas, anymore, they're friendly areas.
  
• There's a hacking minigame that's so easy on regular mode it's almost pointless, and no badguys drop in if you fuck it up. Extras are added outside sometimes, though.

So that's the gist of it. For most of what's above, I just shrug and say, eh, it's different. Some things are worse, some are better, and it mostly evens out.

The real value of the game, however, comes in the three new added modes. The first is multiplayer, which supports up to four people at a time. You pick a stage, you pick a time and kill limit, and you go at it. You have your basic weapon and grenades, and can pick up those that drop from the top of the screen on occasion. What makes multiplayer so fun is what makes the main game so fun: the swinging mechanic. I am shocked that no one has really ripped it of in the many years and console generations since the original. Swinging around is goddamn fun. Swinging around and fitting in a well timed shotgun blast to take out the guy sitting next to you on the couch is probably even more fun. The multiplayer is not truly inspired, nor will it displace Super Smash Brothers Brawl as the multiplayer console game of choice, but it's entertaining.

Challenge Rooms are the other added mode. They throw you into a minimalist environment with wireframe graphics and a ticking clock, and tell you to get from point A to point B as fast as you can. Most have an intended solution (which can be damn hard to figure out), but some have branching paths, or multiple ways to approach the same obstacles. The average room takes between four and twenty seconds to complete, though some toward the end move more toward a minute and change. Your time is ranked against the rest of the playing population, and it is fucking mind boggling to see some of the times that people pull off. Part of the disparity between me and #1, though, comes from the fact that the challenge rooms are fucking hard. Holy fucking shit hard, in fact. Far, far, far harder than anything in the game itself. They require a degree of precision not even hinted at by Bionic Commando proper. Beating a level in Bionic Commando might require a half dozen attempts. Maybe. Some Challenge Rooms took me over fifty tries, and some I can't even fucking beat. And I'm pretty good at this game, I swear to fuck. Don't believe me when I say this shit is hard? I submit the following evidence.

The last and best added mode is two-player coop. Capcom did something that I badly wish other games would do in general: just add fucking two-player coop. Don't worry if it breaks the fucking balance, don't worry if it an entirely new experience, don't worry if the challenges in the game require you to make use of having two players, just don't fucking worry about it. If I want to play with my goddamn friend, fucking let me. Which is exactly what Bionic Commando does. If you're close enough to be on the same screen, you are, and if you're not, it splits. There are very, very minimal changes to the boss encounters, and that's it. And it is a fucking blast. Nothing tricky, nothing complicated, just the fun of swinging around and shooting bitches with a friend.

So, up to this point, my review is pretty positive, no? An old game I love, brought out of the archives, dusted off, polished up, and re-released for a fairly reasonable $10 download. The extra modes probably make it worthwhile, yeah? These were my thoughts. And then I got to the last level of the game - the completely new last level - and I wished I had a boxed copy of the game so that I could piss on it and then drop kick it into the woods. The last level is fucking terrible.

Bionic Commando - the classic version, or the untouched parts of the remake - is a pretty tough game. There are plenty of instant-death pits and spikes, and some of the swings are demanding enough that your timing must be exact. Generally, I don't have a problem with this, though, and I didn't understand why until I played the last level. The challenge is tolerable in Bionic Commando because the average level takes five minutes to beat. You die, you get a game over, big fucking deal. Just go back and do it again. No big loss, and you'll probably do better next time. Not fucking so for the last level. There are three distinct parts, with the first and third being as big as two regular levels, and the other about one. It's not five minutes to beat the last level, it's twenty of thirty. I had the first part down to the point where I didn't lose a life. Still took ten minutes, though. So when I get to the second part, and I die, and I die, and I die, and I have to go back and do it all again, I'm pretty fucking pissed off, because I have to go through all that shit that I've already done a dozen times, and I don't fucking want to again.

The last level is also an order of magnitude harder than the game proper. The two extra optional levels they added are stupid hard, but that's okay, because they're optional. Most of the Challenge Rooms are fucking stupid hard, but that's okay, because they're optional. The last level is not, and the degree of difficulty is maddening. Even worse, though, is that the new content in the game all suffers from the same problem: the level design is shit. It is weird to me that the level design from a twenty year old game is better than the modern shit, but it is. The second part, in particular - which you have to plow through ten minutes of shit to even get a shot at - is the very embodiment of shit design focused on generating frustration.

The very first time I got to the level, I walked to the left and straight off a fucking edge and to my death because it looked like the ledge kept going. But it didn't, and the graphics were crap enough that I thought the edge that kept going in the background was actually in the foreground. After that, I do some obscenely hard swinging shit across platforms that disappear and reappear, and I'm on a stable one. And I see fucking nothing at all to swing to. I lose a few men swinging wildly to the left and right, hoping to find something barely off screen. And then, finally, I realize the issue: the ledge I need to move to is in the upper left hand of the screen, where it is obscured perfectly and entirely by my health bar. Mother. Fucking. Piss. How could testing have not seen that shit? How could anyone think that a destination rendered invisible by your interface is a good idea?

I have no fucking clue, but apparently someone thought it was, because the next amazing thing you'll notice is that you're making your way across these ridiculous fucking platforms that disappear and reappear, and you keep moving, all the while this close to death, and then you get to the edge, and, again, there is fucking nowhere to go. You search for an answer as the platform next to you disappears, consider a tricky swinging move to advance more to the right hoping for more ledges off screen, and then you run out of time, the platform drops, and you fall. At which point you land on the ledge below you that you couldn't see, because it's not in fucking range of the screen. Yes, that's right, once again, your next destination is off the fucking screen. That is not fun-hard, or anything of the sort, it is fucking bullshit-hard. That is the very definition of shit level design.


So by the time I finally made my way through the rest of the grueling level, I was about ready to choke the people who remade the classic. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Only one thing worthy of note remains in the game: you might notice that the game has an M rating, despite no crude language and bloodless shooting that's more cartoon than realistic. Well, remember the end of the original? Yeah, the remake of that is what earns the M rating - five seconds of game time for an M rating - and it is hilarious.

But not enough to make the last level worth it.

The thing that distinguishes the truly great writers from all the rest is that the greats of history can write about anything at all and make it worthwhile. Vonnegut, Orwell, Hemingway - they can pen a short story about walking to the post office to drop off a letter and somehow instill their writing about the act with wit, humor, and insight. With most writers, and particularly every fantasy writer I've ever read, it's more about the content. The story that's being told, the characters that move it, the world it takes place in - those are what you read the author for. Those are what all the words are written in service of.

Roger Zelazny stands as the lone exception to the above. He's the only fantasy author I've ever read that I thought was a fantastic writer in addition to being a fantastic storyteller. With Jordan, Goodkind, Anthony, and the rest, I tend to take the words in at a steady pace, as my main drive is to know what happens next. With Zelazny, I found myself rereading sentences and paragraphs because they were so artfully constructed. Put concisely: the man can write.

While I can say with confidence that Zelazny is by a good margin the best fantasy writer I've ever read (and is way up there on the general list, too), I'm not sure if I would put The Chronicles of Amber in the top spot all by itself. It's way up there, too, for certain, but I think there are other series I've been more invested in. To be fair, though, this is probably because the entire Chronicles of Amber contains less pages than any two Wheel of Time books. And as another point in Zelazny's favor, every other fantasy series I've read has had something (or things) about it that pissed me off and ruined chapters or books - Amber has no such problems. Perfect, no, but free of glaring or major flaws, yes.

The Chronicles of Amber contains all of the aspects that make the epic fantasy genre something I spend so much time with. A sizable cast of detailed and complex characters, a web of shifting and interweaving plot lines, memorable scenes, and a setting so detailed it seems real. The premise, in particular, is unique and compelling, and the two main characters are sympathetic, admirable, and real enough that they're likely my favorite protagonists in the genre.

I really can't say enough good about The Chronicles of Amber. It is fantastic, no doubt, no question. When I finally finished the series, I was left wanting, a little depressed that it was over and done, without any more to come. Fortunately for me, however, there are seven short stories on Amber out there, six of which I've just ordered. And The Chronicles themselves are always there for a reread - which I've contemplated already.

Before I touch the movie itself, a little something about the experience. I went to see the newest Coen Brothers film at eight PM on a Sunday night at a rather nice, new theater. I give you this context so that you won't blame the following on my choice of viewing location. I went to sit down in my seat next to a man, only to find some Sweet Tarts occupying the chair I was standing over, about to take. I looked at them. I looked at him. He looked at me. In retrospect, that was probably a sign to go find another seat, but it seemed inconsequential at the time. I asked him if they were his, and it took him a second, but he said they were, and with that he finally moved them.

Some minutes into the twenty-fucking-eight (I timed them) fucking minutes of fucking commercials (is nine-seventy-fucking-five not enough fucking money? We need to pay by watching commercials, too?) and previews... sorry, let me go back to that. I spent almost 25% of my time in that seat in that theater watching motherfucking commercials and motherfucking previews. One fucking third of the movie's length was equaled in shitfucking goddamn advertisements of one breed or another. Never ask me why I don't go to the theater often.

Back to my story, some minutes into the previews and ads, I hear the pop-hiss of a canned beverage being opened from the man beside me. Harhar, I think, he brought in pop. Understandable. Sure. Whatever. My brow furrowed a bit and then cleared with realization a number of minutes later, however, as he let out a theater-wide belch, laughed, blamed it on his girlfriend, and I caught wind of his beer-belch. Motherfucker was busy getting drunk in the seat next to me at a goddamn movie on a Sunday night.

People often like to deny it, but stereotypes do come from somewhere, and this fucker was one of them. A joke would happen in the movie, everyone would laugh, and then a good second later, the man next to me would let out with the positively stereotypical "hur hur hur" of a moron. He drank more beers, he burped more beer burps that I could smell all too well, and he breathed through his mouth loud enough for me to hear. He left the theater for a minute or two - not long enough to get outside for a smoke, I am certain - and came back positively fucking reeking. I don't even know what he smelled like, but holy shit. Thankfully he only decided to add his own dialog to the movie on one occasion - that shit could have driven me to rage.

In any case, there is only one word for his behavior: classy.


That aside, the film:

I am not a movie buff, not by a long shot. If nothing else, you know this because I have seen only one Coen brothers film, though it ranks among my favorites: The Big Lebowski. Unfortunately for me, I am realizing that it's not a very representative film for them, and unfortunately for me, the advertisements for Burn After Reading somehow made it seem like a comedy on par with The Big Lebowski. It is not.

The Big Lebowski is never really that dark, and even when thugs are threatening to cut off The Dude's johnson, it's somehow lighthearted and hilarious. I've not seen Fargo, but I think Burn After Reading was closer to that than Lebowski. Burn isn't exactly a black comedy, but that's probably more because it's not exactly a comedy than because it's not exactly black. Characters got shot and messily killed, everyone's having an affair, people's lives are going to shit - it's not really an upbeat affair.

Moreover, it doesn't spend much of its time being funny. It's not that it's bad at comedy - that it tries and fails - it's that humor isn't the sole or even main goal. When it puts the jokes out there, they're good, but I'd say there are scarcely any laughs in the first fifteen minutes of the film. Disregard whatever the advertising campaign has made you think the film is; it's not a comedy, it's just sort of... a film. That's sometimes funny.

The other issue I had was that practically every character in the entire cast is a shitbag. Brad Pitt's character is an amusing doofus, and John Malkovich's is, uhh... not as obviously in the wrong as most of the rest of the cast, but they're all pretty fucking morally bankrupt assholes. I couldn't really find anyone to sympathize with. I didn't like anyone. That never helps.

I didn't hate Burn After Reading, but I really wasn't very fond of it. There were laughs, and the closing scene had plenty, but the jokes were a minority of the running time, and outside of that, I didn't really dig what the movie had to give. It's rather dark, the characters are all fuckbags, and the plot just sort of... follows its tail for an hour and a half and then sits down. I've a feeling that if you like the Coen brothers' other material like Fargo you might enjoy Burn After Reading, but if you're not familiar with them or are into The Big Lebowski and The Big Lebowski alone, Burn After Reading isn't a terribly enjoyable watch.

Man, fuck this guy:

That guy. Right there. Fuck him.

People have told me in the past that they thought he was overpowered. I said he was not, because even though he hits like a pile of mountains, he's slow enough that you can see the bastard coming for fucking miles and get out of the way.

But I revise my opinion as of now: he is overpowered. And it's because of his range. Far, far too great. Entirely unfair. I disapprove. Fuck that guy.


Anyway, I had to get that off my chest. Recent lack of electricity has made it difficult to play video games, watch movies, listen to music, and even read books (you ever try that by candle? Fuck that shit, too). I shall have new real content up in due time, though.

I remember hearing about Lucky Number Slevin a few years back, but I don't remember hearing much else. This is somewhat surprising, too, as the cast involves a pretty startling number of big names. The total box office take, at just over twenty-two million, confirms that not much came of the film commercially, though - I would doubt if that even paid all the actors' salaries. Having just watched it, I both can and can't understand how Slevin would gross such a small amount of cash.

Lucky Number Slevin is a case of mistaken identities, of a man being in the wrong place at the wrong time - again and again. The protagonist for whom the film is named, Slevin, ends up getting caught up in a series of gambling debts to gangsters by way of his bad luck, and is tossed back and forth between them. The cast isn't that big, and it's easy enough to remember who's who, but the challenge is in remembering and figuring out who's tied to who, how, and why.

The plot moves along at a fast clip, and is never slow or boring. But what makes the movie, really, is the dialog. It's quick, and it's witty, and it's clever. And herein lies both the movie's appeal and what might turn some off: the humorous banter is interspersed with some rather brutal violence. This is a movie with mobsters at the center of it - the body count is fairly high. Flipping from romantic chuckles to grisly murder can be kind of tricky to pull off. I was fine with it, but apparently not a whole lot of people were with me on that one.

But fuck a whole lot of people, eh? I was pretty thoroughly entertained for about two hours. Lucky Number Slevin kept me guessing and wanting to know what was going to happen next, and the surprises were surprises. Perfect movie? Probably not. Solid watch? I would say so.


And as a related aside, I headed over to IMDB to check my facts on a few aspects of the movie, ended up clicking on one of the discussion threads for it, and found some pretty cerebral discourse on the film. I don't know that Lucky Number Slevin is Shakespearean in terms of literary content, but if you actually look at it, it does perhaps merit a bit of discussion.