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There’s something magical about Fridays. Colors are brighter, food tastes better, and the air is sweet with possibility. My friends and I had plans to go to a wine bar, but it’s the sort of wine bar that needs a reservation one week in advance. Another time, Otto.With our plans in disarray, we were forced to reconsider the night’s entertainment, and we were all in the mood for some alcohol. We all came to the same idea at roughly the same time – we would go Bar Hopping (a pub crawl, for you English readers). Bar Hopping is an ancient tradition going back to the dawn of man, where a group of nomads would go from place to place, sampling the different meads and ales in different towns. (The previous claim has not been researched and are probably false.)

The plan – eat some food, then go bar hopping. We ate at a delightful Sushi place on 1st avenue that I wish I could name, because it’s one of my favorite places ever. All of the rolls are half price (salmon roll for 2.50? I’ll take 3), and you can get a pitcher of Sapporo for nine dollars. Nine Dollars. My friends and I ate extremely well and split two big pitchers of tasty Japanese beer. The best part of the experience, even though the meal was no slouch, was the fried ice cream at the end. This is by far the best fried ice cream I have ever eaten, and I’ve had… let’s say 3. In most other servings, the ice cream is coated in a thin, crunchy coating and fried. Here, we have a core of soft ice cream coated by a layer of cake coated again by a crunchy layer, and fried. It has one of my favorite dessert elements, the play of warm cake against cold ice cream. The overall effect is not unlike ambrosia, and I ate it wondering when Apollo would come down with new robes befitting a god.

As we got up from our seats, we all received a simultaneous revelation; walking is hard when you’re full of sushi, Sapporo and fried ice cream. We walked from 1st avenue to 2nd, merrily singing Jam Project tunes to nobody in particular. We popped into a fairly generic bar with three beers on tap and a Big Buck Hunter machine, and promptly popped out. As we left, we noticed a sign across the street. It was… well, you can see for yourself. It had a mystic quality, compelling us to enter. We had to climb a long staircase to enter the bar, like pilgrims on a holy quest.

The bar was very, very crowded when we entered, and there were no fans anywhere on the ceiling. It was hard to breathe. I had Baltika 3, a lager bottled in St. Petersburg (Dave, a Guinness drinker, had Baltika 4). My friend Leon told us that there were 8 Baltikas, each darker and heavier than the last.I’m wondering where I can get the secret 9th Baltika that will teach me the meaning of life.

Eventually, we made it to the end of the space and had a seat. There were windows here, allowing the tiniest bits of air into the bar. The place was festooned (that’s right, festooned) with Russian paraphenelia, such as a faux-Soviet flag and Russian Winnie-the-Pooh. Leon (who is Russian) saw objects from his childhood on the walls, so it seems the decorator has succeeded in giving the place a Russian feel. It’s also very red.

Satisfied, we walked onward into the night. We entered a loud club, and promptly left – I was fine with the noise, but some of my friends weren’t and it wouldn’t be very nice of me to subject them to loud, obnoxious techno. After several blocks, we arrived at a charming Irish Pub. I had Smithwick’s, a dark amber beer that seemed legitimately Irish. We got comfortable booth seats and got to look at a large-screen TV showing awesome commercials (online degrees for cheap!) and a basketball game. The atmosphere was warm, rich, heavy with dark wood, and very friendly.

We walked south, and noticed that we were walking across Mott St. “Mott St?” we said to ourselves, “isn’t that where our teahouse and Chinatown Fair is?”. Arthur and I turned left and walked down Mott, while Leon and Dave went home. After some time, we arrived at the comfortable old teahouse with its charming tan bricks, quiet atmosphere and delicious bubble tea. It’s a great final stop on a bar crawl, a quiet place to catch your breath before heading home. We met up with our friends who didn’t go Bar Hopping with us, and we all left sometime after 1. A great night.

Can someone help me remember the name of that awesome sushi place? If you’ve been to any of the bars we’ve been to, let me know what you thought of them (reader participation!). I’m going to write something like this every Friday, since Fridays are great days for adventure. I might even go back in time someday and describe my trip to Barcade, or the night I couldn’t handle the spiciness of Jambalaya, if anyone wants to read about that.

This concert comes right on the heels of an absolutely kickass show by Kamelot and Edguy, so it had a lot to live up to. The event began with a long line, which was a result of thorough searches of your pockets and bags at the gate. When I say thorough, I mean it – he didn’t even buy me a drink first! I entered, took a seat (Nokia Theater has soft, comfy theater seats. Nokia theater is wonderful) and waited. The club played a mix of music while we waited, drawing heavily from classic metal bands Metallica and Iron Maiden. At one point, they played Frantic, from the universally loved album St. Anger (St. Anger is not universally loved.) This caused the audience to boo and groan, and it caused me to laugh, because the song was hilariously bad. On the other hand, opening band “Savior from California” was just bad. They had generic guitar riffs, generic basslines, generic drumming and a singer tonelessly shouting into the mic. I try my best to give everything the benefit of the doubt, but there was nothing redeeming about this band, and I was quite happy when they left. There must be a law that says awesome shows need to be tempered by terrible opening acts.

Next was Into Eternity, a band that I sort-of-like. They do put out an impressive amount of energy live (although they’re no Edguy), and they’ve got the most versatile singer I’ve ever seen. This singer (who’s name I do not know) has about a million different styles he can work in, and they all sound good. He can do death metal, black metal, low clean, high clean, squeaky falsetto, and I think I detected a hint of screamo. The really amazing thing is when he blends them in one phrase, beginning a line with a sung note and ending it with a harsh scream, or transitioning from a growl into a clear high note in the same breath. This is an ability that makes this band very interesting, and I wonder why I haven’t seen it elsewhere.

At one point, the guitarist had the stage to himself, and used that time to play a masturbatory solo, reminding me again why I hate shred for shred’s sake. Shred is music community shorthand for playing the guitar incredibly fast. A lot of the time, speed is the only thing these solos have – otherwise, they’re boring runs up and down a scale, or they’re the guitarist’s old practice exercises sped up. For example, see all of Dragonforce’s guitar solos. I like that you can play notes really fast and really precisely, but I wish you would use that talent to make music. The singer called attention to this, calling it wankery, which drawn-out shred solos usually turn into. Bad shred solos are mindless expressions of technical skill and dexterity, with nothing musically interesting in that flurry of notes. There is nothing more masturbatory than playing a ton of notes and not doing anything with them.

After Into Eternity, I saw something that amazed me. The sound guys came on to check the drums, the guitars, making sure that everything worked and was connected properly. But then they did the amazing thing – they began to play. The drummer played some bouncy rhythms on the toms, and the guitarist gave us some generic-yet-nice electric riffage. These were the sound guys! I wish every club would have somebody come on stage and entertain us between the major acts. We’re here to see live music, and some of your technicians must be musicians, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken a job at a music club. All you have to do is throw these guys on stage and let them do what comes naturally. The fans will thank you.

For me, Iced Earth is a lot like Edguy. I don’t listen to them often, because they’re not that interesting for the most part. However, their music is pumped with energy and make me really want to headbang, dance and generally move. This is why I love live music, it’s an energy that surrounds you and fills you. It comes from the performers, it comes from the crowd, and it comes from immense waves of sound bombarding your body, making its presence known in the rattling of your bones (you should wear earplugs to metal shows.) It’s hard to get this particular experience anywhere else, so I recommend you go to a good live music show if you never have.

Overall, the show was fun and forgettable, and pales in comparison to the glorious concert I attended yesterday. Unless something awesome comes up, this will be my last concert for 2008. I‘ve seen plenty of great bands this year, and I‘m really looking forward to what I‘ll see in ‘09. By the way, I don’t hate fast guitar playing. I love fast, interesting solos that take the listener for a ride or tell a good story. I just hate fast guitar playing that has nothing else going for it but speed.

Dave Cabrera is a good friend of mine. He’s also one of the most intelligent gamers I’ve met, able to talk at length about gaming on all levels. He’s got a blog, where he talks about anime, games, and the attached subculture with his conversationally funny writing style – it’s worth a look. I had a chat with him, and I thought it was so good that I wanted to share it with you guys.

Chris: What is art? (you probably know where I’m going)

Dave: I SURE DO

Dave: okay, here’s my point of view on it

Dave: the act of defining something as art is irrelevant

Dave: because what people say about art, as far as positive implications

Dave: is that it enriches our lives, teaches us lessons, makes us better people

Dave: because it carries meaning

Dave: but the meaning is subjective between people

Dave: but everything carries meaning. and that meaning changes from person to person

Dave: so we can’t define one object as art and another as not-art when they’re so wholly subjective

Chris: That’s true, some things can carry lots of meaning for some and be meaningless for others

Dave: ebert on videogames

Dave: the medium doesn’t work on the guy

Dave: he doesn’t really want them to work either

Chris: I’d bet large amounts of money that he isn’t giving it a chance

Dave: but in his own words

Chris: and that he’s sitting down with a preconception that “This is stupid”

Dave: film can enrich us and make better human beings out of us

Dave: to him this is a given

Dave: but at the birth of film

Dave: it was more a “oh my god look at this thing” show

Dave: and of course there were the moral decay people saying that this was bad for humanity

Chris: and other people saying it was worthless as an artistic medium

Dave: and when film was primitive, it was REALLY primitive

Dave: the biggest movie, for years and years running, at the start of film, was just a train robbery flick

Dave: like ten minutes long, as i recall

Dave: and at the end, the big special effects shot was that a robber pointed the gun AT THE AUDIENCE and SHOT THEM

Chris: Mind-blowing!

Dave: and we know it’s not like film can’t be trashy and disposable

Dave: it’s not anything about a medium that makes it inherently “more art”

Dave: and i’d argue that the trashy bullshit is art as much as things that are actually good are art

Dave: one is better than the other but still

Chris: If we’re talking about personal value and ideas taken away, we can’t even use words like “better”

Dave: yeah

Dave: quality is subjective

Chris: So, my second question would be – can games convey meaning?

Dave: sure

Dave: i think the big difference between a game and a film conveying meaning is that film has no barriers to entry

Dave: you can definitely sit down and watch the thing and see what’s there

Dave: you might not take it in or enjoy it but you have watched the movie

Dave: videogames have this whole language that a lot of people simply don’t know

Dave: like one of my friends, months ago, was bitching that this girl he was going out with couldn’t even jump over the first goomba in super mario brothers 1

Dave: and i’m like OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE

Dave: because it seems like the most obvious thing in the world to him but to everybody else it’s really kind of perplexing

Dave: “what the hell is this thing”

Dave: http://www.slate.com/id/2202262/?from=rss bahahaha

Dave: this article suggests that “fail” in the 4channer sense will eventually make it into the public lexicon

Dave: god he might be right

Chris: Oh, god

Chris: It’s so catchphrasey and vapid

Chris: …which I guess describes 4chan to a tee

Dave: slate knows what the “kids” are “into” these “days”

Chris: It’s Jell-o pudding pops, right? I think that’s what they’re in to

Dave: yes they love that stuff

Chris: I find it hard to believe that gaming is an arcane mystery – I played Super Mario Brothers at 3 (maybe 4?)

Chris: Then again, children’s brains are remarkably plastic

Chris: There must be a barrier to entry, because overcoming it is the reason that casual games are so successful

Dave: and mario works because people can jump over the goomba

Dave: and yeah, as children it’s very different

Dave: we’re much better as kids than we are as adults

Dave: the BRAINY GAMER had a post on his blog where he tried to show his artsy academic colleagues braid

Dave: and they were all completely stumped, despite WANTING to play

Dave: it was just a mechanical problem

Dave: like “what the hell do i do”

Chris: I can believe that – gamers have pathways in their brains that formed over years of playing

Dave: and we can pick up new schemes pretty easily

Chris: I suppose we’ve got a fundamental notion of video games

Chris: There are goals to strive for, there are threats to be avoided, and there is you

Dave: it might take ten more years before we have a generation that’s fundamentally familiar with games

Dave: videogames, rather

Chris: What do you mean? I think we’re that generation.

Dave: yeah you’re right. i should say a mainstream that is

Dave: a larger mainstream

Chris: Oh

Chris: I think that may never come to pass, though – casual games

Chris: Today’s generation is getting these really shallow experiences

Dave: true

Chris: If something doesn’t change, I think we might be the first and last generation of serious gamers

Dave: nah

Dave: there will always be a market

Dave: people take to something, for whatever reason

Dave: like before wow

Dave: loads of people who weren’t gamers would become hopelessly obsessed with everquest

Dave: for a lot of them it was their first videogame

Chris: That’s a good point

Chris: There’s also the issue that there are many different types of game

Chris: Like, a lot of people love that Progress Quest kind of gameplay and I can’t stand it

Chris: And I love action games and platformers, which many people don’t like

Chris: And I knew some people in highschool who would only play JRPGs. Placing all games under one umbrella is a bad idea, it seems

Dave: it seems that either extreme casual or progress quest are people’s favorite

Chris: Yeah, those have appeal

Chris: for some reason I don’t understand

Dave: well, they’re pretty simple and you’re immediately rewarded

Chris: I think that explains it

Chris: I think a good game to bridge the gap would be like an onion

Chris: In the beginning it’s simple, but gets more complex, building on previous lessons

Chris: Games try that, but even the first level is hard for a non-gamer

Dave: yeah, the problem is really that people even lose to the tutorial

Dave: it might be the hardware itself

Dave: hence the wii being so big

Chris: And then there’s social factors and stigmas. “Games are for those people.”

Dave: yeah

Dave: and that won’t really be overcome until people are all playing games

Dave: which they will be, sooner or later

—

And that’s the end of it. If you have a lot of games conversations, the above might not hold anything new for you. If you thought that one of us made a good point, or said something interesting, or were wrong, don’t hesitate to comment.

I hear that there was an opening act, Arctic somethingorother, and that they were pretty good. I didn’t know that they were playing, because their name wasn’t printed on the ticket. I was busy eating a broiled eel that was airshipped in from Japan. It turns out I don’t like eel, no matter where it comes from. So, I only saw two of the three bands at BB King’s tonight, but that’s okay – those two bands were Kamelot and Edguy.

Edguy’s my favorite band that I don’t listen to. They always put on an awesome show, and it’s because of this energy that everyone in that band positively reeks of. They’ve all got such joyous expressions on, and they’re all so happy to be there that you have no choice but to be happy with them. I’m not an Edguy fan, but they played all the songs I like. I don’t find any of their songs memorable, but they’re all action packed and really solid – a great band to see live. Their front man Tobias Sammet dances, jives, and expends his boundless energy getting the crowd moving. He did a few audience participation games, and there’s one that I especially remember, because he did it before.

He divides the crowd into left and right, and tells each half to make some noise when he points at them. He sets up a rivalry between left and right, making each side want to out-loud the other. Right then, I thought that this was pretty silly, doesn’t the audience know that he’s playing with them? I answered my own question, as people have a tendency to do – people want to be taken on rides, if the driver is skilled enough. We love charisma, which explains lots of world events, and I’ll stop here before I invoke Godwin’s Law on my concert review. If there’s one thing that heavy metal crowds are good at, it’s making noise. Tobias points left, then right, then left, moving faster and faster as the stereo sounds get more frenzied. Soon, the game is over, the audience had a great time, and we’re all ready for the next song. I can’t think of a more apt description for an Edguy show than that.

Have a listen, I think you’ll find why I like this band’s live show so much.

I listen to Kamelot quite a lot. I’d place them in the top five metal acts of all time, and a large part of the metal fandom would agree with me. Their works are rich, textured and emotional, and usually quite a bit melancholy. Everyone is a master of whatever instrument they play, and they have an ear for great composition. Even considering all this, the best part of the band is by far their singer, Roy Khan.

There was a part of the concert where Khan steps backstage, and the other musicians do a group instrumental. This was eye-opening for me. If the other members of Kamelot didn’t have Khan, they’d be – dare I say – boring. Thankfully, they do, and Kamelot gets to be a marvelously interesting band. His is a supremely expressive voice, full of warmth and range and texture. When he breaks into a tearful high note from one of his resonant bottom tones, it’s enough to make the coldest of us weep.

I’m training to be a lead singer, and I look at frontmen with a careful eye when I go to shows, eager to absorb a lesson or two. The Kamelot/Edguy show was a master class, showcasing two radically different styles of lead that are both very effective. Where Tobias Sammet is bright, grinning and in-your-face, Roy Khan is dark, reserved and pulled-in. You can tell this from the amount of motion – Sammet is constantly moving, dancing and jumping, while Khan is much more still, rooting himself to a spot for long stretches. When Khan does move, he has a beguilingly liquid quality, and his whole performance has an intriguing undertone. Khan’s audience participation games are, of course, different from Sammet’s. He sings a musical phrase, and points the microphone to the audience, bidding them follow. Sammet did this as well, of course – it’s a staple of good frontmanning. Of course, when Sammet’s phrases are short and energetic, Khan’s phrases are drawn-out and subdued. I find it immensely interesting that both of these approaches resonate with the audience, as the two couldn’t be any more different.

Here’s a clip of a live Kamelot performance. In the middle, you’ll notice the “call and response” audience participation game.

All in all, it was a killer show, and a great study in contrast. Tomorrow, I’ll be seeing Iced Earth.

http://chrisalgoo.com/Move_Beta.exe

The core gameplay is present, but the awesome polish will come later. Basically, everytime the player does something, a random electronica sound will play. The player will be effectively creating a soundtrack while playing the game, and it’s gonna be really cool. Problem is, I develop on a Vista laptop, so I can’t hear anything.

Game’s still fun, just awfully quiet. I suggest you listen to this music while you play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2omWeiZdKs

Thoughts? Comments?

Also, thanks to Ashley and co for making this easy-to-use-and-powerful game engine. This is definitely my gamedev platform of choice. I’ll keep you posted here, dear reader.

Running with the Devil…. Kings

I’ve been into the metal since high school, and I’ve never seen a combination of words more suited to be a metal band name than Devil Kings. It was pretty well-recieved…. well, it wasn’t hated. Besides, I had Gamefly, so I could return it in a day if I didn’t like it (as it turns out, I returned it in a day, after beating it).

What is Devil Kings? It’s the American adaptation of what seems to be a Japanese game about the Japanese warring-states period, or something. Instead of a historical pretense, Devil Kings creates an imaginary landscape of magic and war. Oda Nobunaga becomes the Devil King, which is much easier to repeat while headbanging and flashing the horns (incidentally, he’s the guy with the Spawn cape in the above picture). It plays like…. well, ever played a Dynasty Warriors game past the original? It plays like that. For those of you that never experienced DW2-6, it goes something like this.

Tactician: We need to take this city, and we’re only gonna send you. You’ll cut through and make it happen, right?
Warrior: There’s thousands of enemies out there! Do you expect me to kill all of them?
Tactician: Here’s a sword. The sharp part goes into the… multitude of soldiers out for your blood. Have fun!

You’re a guy, and there is a teeming mass of other guys for you to kill until you win. The enemies are faceless and nameless (mostly, there are heroes with names floating above their heads), and collapse handily when you cut them with sharp things. Generally, your character swings in wide arcs, allowing you to kill at least 10 cannon fodder men with every swing. It’s mindless twitch gameplay, and it is fun, at least for a little while.

Anyway, Devil Kings is that, with a supernatural gimmick. The hot-blooded young guy actually has fire powers, the evil guy with scary mustache can beat people up with his Cape that He’s Probably Borrowing from Spawn, and the lightning-themed guy can use his powers to bring his enemies to a shocking conclusion. Get it? Because lightning is…. never mind. The game revolves around you killing more and more guys, getting power ups that allow you to kill more and more guys. I usually use that language to make fun of MMOs (eventually moving on to some sort of treadmill metaphor), but it’s deeply rewarding on some level to swing a sword once and have it send 20 poor souls to the Great Beyond, watching your kill count rise in the lower-right corner of the screen. The single player is mercifully short, which prevented me from getting bored of it. I was able to beat it in one sitting (I didn’t actually complete the game, which would have involved beating it with everyone), and I can say that I beat it because the game showed me the credits, so there.

I invite you to watch the following cutscene.

It will teach you three things about this game.

1. It is english-dubbed. That’s a huge plus for me, and tends to be a minus for people who aren’t me. This game has a bit of acting, so you can see here if it won’t stab your ear drums to listen to it.
2. Look at the self-righteous youtube comments from a variety of people who are deeply offended about a video game’s take on Japanese history. This, and similar, might be the rationale for repackaging it as a wholly fictional fantasy game for American audiences. That, and the new name they chose is f***ing metal.
3. A guy drives a spear into the ground, and uses it to flip both himself and the horse he’s on. You’re seriously doing yourself a huge disservice if you don’t watch the video.

In conclusion, it’s a fun romp that you’ll get tired of quickly. Rent it, enjoy it, and never look back. Games like this make me happy to be a Gamefly subscriber.

Devil Kings
Rent it.