Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do.
Instead of doing anything else this weekend, I am currently packing my backpack to go to Tulsa, where I will play in a tournament, on our B Team. Normally I would be playing a majority of the points, but I got my shoulder x-rayed yesterday and I have an AC sprain in my right shoulder.
I'm still going, though, and I more then likely will still play. I can play ultimate with my shoulder, it's just sortof painful.
I don't want to do any of these things, but I am.
Wednesday I'll be back in Springfield, which is comforting, but it seems amazing to me how incredibly far away Wednesday currently is. I have a list of foods I will eat when back in Springfield. It is a comprehensive list, and I will not compromise in my completion of my goals. If that means eating 4 meals a day while I'm back, so be it.
I can't remember what it feels like for my shoulder to not hurt right now, and in all likelihood I'm going to hurt it some more this weekend and just slow my recovery down. But after this weekend, I don't really need to use it anymore. After this weekend I won't play anymore ultimate for weeks, maybe even months. I don't like that fact, either.
I have to get packed for my fun-filled weekend.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Paul Fucking McCartney
by Brendan Cavanagh
Over the summer, my friend and I spent countless hours in his basement spinning records, shooting pool and exchanging personal philosophies on each and every iota of life's minutiae. A slight argument arose while discussing which Beatle's voice each of us would prefer to have as our own, if we had the ability to sing. He chose John Lennon, whereas I chose Paul McCartney. It was hard, at that time, to articulate exactly what it was about each voice that we admired, so we made a pact to make each other a mix of the songs we felt best conveyed the particular style we wished to possess: the unique or emotionally evocative way a song, or even just a single line, is sung. The process took a while to initiate, but ultimately we compiled what we felt were adequate mixes, and we'll exchange them upon my return home from school this weekend.
Admittedly, it was an agonizing process. How can one be asked to narrow a plethora of perfect examples of songs to an hour and twelve minutes worth of playtime? My friend made the pointed observation that all of the songs rejected from the definitive CD could be slapped onto another playlist to produce just as good of a mix. But after hours of painstaking, meticulous construction, here are the songs I feel demonstrate the desirable nuances of Paul McCartney's voice, assembled in a fashion I felt flowed well as a CD (I sure hope he doesn't see this before I give it to him):
Paul Fucking McCartney
1) Why Don't We Do It In The Road? (The Beatles, 1968)
2) Medley A. Kansas City B. Hey Hey Hey (Beatles For Sale, 1964)
3) I've Just Seen A Face (Help!, 1965)
4) Magical Mystery Tour (Magical Mystery Tour, 1967)
5) Fixing A Hole (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
6) I've Got A Feeling (Let It Be, 1970)
7) Oh! Darling (Abbey Road, 1969)
8) When I'm Sixty-Four (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
9) Got To Get You Into My Life (Revolver, 1966)
10) You Never Give Me Your Money (Abbey Road, 1969)
11) Get Back (Let It Be, 1970)
12) P.S. I Love You (Please Please Me, 1963)
13) I'm Down (B-side to "Help!", 1965)
14) Lady Madonna (A-side with "The Inner Light", 1968)
15) Michelle (Rubber Soul, 1965)
16) Baby's In Black (Beatles For Sale, 1964)
17) The Fool On The Hill (Magical Mystery Tour, 1967)
18) Helter Skelter (The Beatles, 1968)
19) Free As A Bird (A-side with "Real Love", 1995)
20) Lovely Rita (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
21) Hey Jude (A-side with "Revolution", 1968)
22) I Saw Her Standing There (Please Please Me, 1963)
23) Blackbird (The Beatles, 1968)
24) Golden Slumbers (Abbey Road, 1969)
25) She's Leaving Home (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
26) All Together Now (Yellow Submarine, 1969)
Do you have any differing choices? Or an arguable case for another Beatle's voice? Drop a comment below.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
S[t]imulation
I just peeked into my floormates playing Skyrim. Holy shit.
This brings me to my next point: I will die without having digested every delectable bit of media out there I would so love to consume.
I've always loved video games. I am, after all, a boy who grew up in the 2000s. There are so many massive and finely crafted video games that would entrench my consciousness for dozens of hours, if I played them all, I would have no time for anything else in my life. I've bought 3 video games this year, 2 of which have bogged me down significantly in the weeks in which I devoted myself to them. I can't simply play games at a tepid pace, they must be beaten fast and furiously, with urgency and prioritization of the fate of whatever fictional world I'm exploring over that of my own well being. Seeing, only for a moment, a friend of mine, playing Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I saw what could be sixty fewer dollars and a couple hundred fewer hours of my life. I could, but I won't. I'll restrain, and I'll miss out on a beautifully made fantasy world that was designed for the sole purpose of me to enjoy exploring it. Additionally, I could do this at no risk at all to my actual self, aside from gaining a few pounds maybe.
My senior year, I fell in love with music. I have specific groups or artists whom I do not miss. On the flip side of this, I have artists who, while I acknowledge I'd probably like them, I skip out on to keep my circle tidy. I don't have time on this earth to listen to every last song. This fact saddens me, because each song could be the one that provides a new feeling of comfort or enjoyment. And I let most of it slip through the broad cracks.
I also just finished The Wire. I cannot deny now that I have spent at least 88.5 hours in the past four months watching that show. It's checked off the top of the list. Now comes the rest of the list of television productions I want to thoroughly explore.
I read a book once, I'd like to take the time to do it again, if I could ever find it. Reading gave me a feeling of accomplishment and positivity that the other media don't provide. It also made me yawn and fall asleep early.
People spend lots of time on smartphones, if they've got them. People frequent games such as Angry Birds, Words With Friends, Four Square, and countless other network creations. I am panicking here. I cannot imagine allowing myself to indulge in such time consuming stimulative yet entirely meaningless side forays. I spend enough of my time jerking off Twitter and Facebook to tire me out for the day.
Class! Have you guys seen this shit? Unrealistic reading assignments, for one class per week, let alone four (or five or six). I'm taking a class in which they literally expect me to be able to recall and analyze moderate-to-major events of a 2500-year period. I have another class in which I consistently get 5-out-of-10s on my current events quizzes. And I work 15 hours a week. Yet they somehow expect me to write a novel in papers over the course of a semester. And yet I somehow expect myself to oblige.
Shit, I can't remember the last time I saw a movie in theaters. It was, maybe, X-men First Class? Which I saw twice. Over summer. When I had nothing to do. I see all these movies coming out to up and down ratings, all the work that actors and actresses I gravitate toward being thrown into a pile known as movie to-do lists. And yet all I really wanna do is watch Black Dynamite again.
I enjoy people. I like being around them, interacting with them, and getting satisfaction from improving their mood. I like the feeling of tipsiness that comes over me when I've had a few alcoholic drinks. I like the word "score" in the context of obtaining something, whether used by patrons old or young. I miss the shenanigans and endeavors of the middle-school child. I miss being in the middle of responsibility and risk-free adventurousness. I miss climbing. I miss falling. I miss not realizing the danger of environment. I want to seek out such feelings of liberation with people I enjoy the company of.
All this and I'm supposed to remember to pray before bed.
Sleep is such a comforting feeling. It is more so now than it was then. It used to mean the end of getting to do stuff. Now it means the end of having to do stuff. Such is the difference in leading a life rife with responsibility. The freshman fifteen missed me last year, this year it's gone straight to my eyes. I yearn for respite and am greeted each morning with a feeling of overwhelming. I am fighting a war against my bucket list, and I am losing as it grows to disheartening lengths.
Balancing out the necessary with the enjoyable is what makes adults adults. That responsibility, that resistance to doing nothing but work and Six Flags for the rest of your life, that's awfully hard to accept. In college, I feel (I hope) this sensation is magnified. It's all being shined on for the purposes of conditioning us, so that when we get out of here, we find ourselves with a nickel of time at the end of the day to sit back sip our own Kool-Aid. We learned how to get our work done quick, and now we have time to breathe each day. Or maybe not. Maybe this stimulus overload is something of a superhighway from this world to the next.
And to think, we have the balls to want to create.
--Eliot Sill
This brings me to my next point: I will die without having digested every delectable bit of media out there I would so love to consume.
I've always loved video games. I am, after all, a boy who grew up in the 2000s. There are so many massive and finely crafted video games that would entrench my consciousness for dozens of hours, if I played them all, I would have no time for anything else in my life. I've bought 3 video games this year, 2 of which have bogged me down significantly in the weeks in which I devoted myself to them. I can't simply play games at a tepid pace, they must be beaten fast and furiously, with urgency and prioritization of the fate of whatever fictional world I'm exploring over that of my own well being. Seeing, only for a moment, a friend of mine, playing Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I saw what could be sixty fewer dollars and a couple hundred fewer hours of my life. I could, but I won't. I'll restrain, and I'll miss out on a beautifully made fantasy world that was designed for the sole purpose of me to enjoy exploring it. Additionally, I could do this at no risk at all to my actual self, aside from gaining a few pounds maybe.
My senior year, I fell in love with music. I have specific groups or artists whom I do not miss. On the flip side of this, I have artists who, while I acknowledge I'd probably like them, I skip out on to keep my circle tidy. I don't have time on this earth to listen to every last song. This fact saddens me, because each song could be the one that provides a new feeling of comfort or enjoyment. And I let most of it slip through the broad cracks.
I also just finished The Wire. I cannot deny now that I have spent at least 88.5 hours in the past four months watching that show. It's checked off the top of the list. Now comes the rest of the list of television productions I want to thoroughly explore.
I read a book once, I'd like to take the time to do it again, if I could ever find it. Reading gave me a feeling of accomplishment and positivity that the other media don't provide. It also made me yawn and fall asleep early.
People spend lots of time on smartphones, if they've got them. People frequent games such as Angry Birds, Words With Friends, Four Square, and countless other network creations. I am panicking here. I cannot imagine allowing myself to indulge in such time consuming stimulative yet entirely meaningless side forays. I spend enough of my time jerking off Twitter and Facebook to tire me out for the day.
Class! Have you guys seen this shit? Unrealistic reading assignments, for one class per week, let alone four (or five or six). I'm taking a class in which they literally expect me to be able to recall and analyze moderate-to-major events of a 2500-year period. I have another class in which I consistently get 5-out-of-10s on my current events quizzes. And I work 15 hours a week. Yet they somehow expect me to write a novel in papers over the course of a semester. And yet I somehow expect myself to oblige.
Shit, I can't remember the last time I saw a movie in theaters. It was, maybe, X-men First Class? Which I saw twice. Over summer. When I had nothing to do. I see all these movies coming out to up and down ratings, all the work that actors and actresses I gravitate toward being thrown into a pile known as movie to-do lists. And yet all I really wanna do is watch Black Dynamite again.
I enjoy people. I like being around them, interacting with them, and getting satisfaction from improving their mood. I like the feeling of tipsiness that comes over me when I've had a few alcoholic drinks. I like the word "score" in the context of obtaining something, whether used by patrons old or young. I miss the shenanigans and endeavors of the middle-school child. I miss being in the middle of responsibility and risk-free adventurousness. I miss climbing. I miss falling. I miss not realizing the danger of environment. I want to seek out such feelings of liberation with people I enjoy the company of.
All this and I'm supposed to remember to pray before bed.
Sleep is such a comforting feeling. It is more so now than it was then. It used to mean the end of getting to do stuff. Now it means the end of having to do stuff. Such is the difference in leading a life rife with responsibility. The freshman fifteen missed me last year, this year it's gone straight to my eyes. I yearn for respite and am greeted each morning with a feeling of overwhelming. I am fighting a war against my bucket list, and I am losing as it grows to disheartening lengths.
Balancing out the necessary with the enjoyable is what makes adults adults. That responsibility, that resistance to doing nothing but work and Six Flags for the rest of your life, that's awfully hard to accept. In college, I feel (I hope) this sensation is magnified. It's all being shined on for the purposes of conditioning us, so that when we get out of here, we find ourselves with a nickel of time at the end of the day to sit back sip our own Kool-Aid. We learned how to get our work done quick, and now we have time to breathe each day. Or maybe not. Maybe this stimulus overload is something of a superhighway from this world to the next.
And to think, we have the balls to want to create.
--Eliot Sill
Monday, November 14, 2011
Nick - Five Things I Did While Quarantined In My Room
So this weekend, because I have mono, I did not go anywhere. I didn't go to parties, I didn't go to PK Barnjam practice, and I certainly didn't go to CU Improv Fest.
But I did do some interesting thing. Here are five of them.
I figured, hey, I can't go anywhere, so I'll just bring the party to me. So I started a cover band. It was me on drums, I played lead guitar, and I filled in for the vocals most of the time. Unfortunately, our lead guitarist was terrible. We could never find a bassist. The singer never learned the words to any Blur songs. And when our drummer developed an opium addiction, everything just went downhill.
Yeah, I know, I'm no good with football most of the time, but I figured I might as well learn. So I started a fantasy football team. I'd call this a success. My team scored a lot of touchdowns. Our defense was really good. Our offense kicked the ball a lot of times. My linebackers drew way more lines than any of the other teams in the league.
You probably hear it all the time. That constant, ever-present ticking. Whether it be the wristwatch of the guy next to you or the clock in the back of the room ticking so faintly that you've tuned it out. Well, I'm here to tell you that it's way more than just a noise they make. Clocks are expressive creatures. And if you're willing to put in the time to listen and understand them, clocks will open up to you. In fact, if there's one thing I realized this weekend, it's that I no longer have any use for human friends.
One day, I was just sitting here thinking, and then I realized the nature of all things. It's pretty zen. I would explain it to you, but you probably wouldn't understand.
After reaching enlightenment, I suddenly felt empathy toward all living creatures. I realized, these poor creatures have no structure to their lives. They live in anarchy. Who better than me to give them government? I dumped out my large canister of oatmeal, and proceeded to name each and every grain. Then I assembled my new subjects, and gathered all the objects on my desk for a conference. After an extensive election process, Nick's Room now has a fully functional democracy. Nick's Running Shoes were elected president, with That Funny Metal Coily Piece On The Back Of The Refrigerator as his vice president. Parliament consists of two parties; the National Democratic Labor Party, run by The Halloween Card My Aunt Theresa Sent Me, and the Progressive Party, headed by a very special piece of oatmeal named Klobb. I'm happy to report that this new system is so far stable and functional.
What did you do over your weekend?
-Nick.
But I did do some interesting thing. Here are five of them.
Start a Blur cover band
Fantasy Football
 |
| I found this by Googling "how do I football" |
Yeah, I know, I'm no good with football most of the time, but I figured I might as well learn. So I started a fantasy football team. I'd call this a success. My team scored a lot of touchdowns. Our defense was really good. Our offense kicked the ball a lot of times. My linebackers drew way more lines than any of the other teams in the league.
Learn the language of clocks
 |
| I found this by Googling "clocks talk" |
You probably hear it all the time. That constant, ever-present ticking. Whether it be the wristwatch of the guy next to you or the clock in the back of the room ticking so faintly that you've tuned it out. Well, I'm here to tell you that it's way more than just a noise they make. Clocks are expressive creatures. And if you're willing to put in the time to listen and understand them, clocks will open up to you. In fact, if there's one thing I realized this weekend, it's that I no longer have any use for human friends.
Reach enlightenment
 |
| Little known fact: when you reach enlightenment, your chakras glow. |
Begun my new life as ruler of this room
 |
| I found this by Googling "I am their ruler" |
What did you do over your weekend?
-Nick.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Robert - Influence
Conor came to visit this weekend. Sort of. At some point he noted the pressure that surrounds our friendship at every second, in that the sum of its parts essentially amounts to a competition more than it does a friendship. It was an astute comment. I noticed my already-stellar sense of humor unconsciously sharpening to a point this weekend.
Soon, a terrifying existential crisis began to form. Without my friends from home, without Conor, do I simply deteriorate slowly into nothingness? Do I depend on him for personality sustenance? What am I without him? My unstoppable comedy was quickly replaced by mortifying fear and chewed fingernails. I kept all lights dimmed for fear of seeing my own reflection in the mirror, or worse, Conor's. I began to dwell on what makes Conor me.
My entire pattern of speech, apparently, and all the jokes I make. Much of my being, really, has been his result. I say this not under my own conclusion but on the conviction of every single person that has ever interacted with both of us. Repeatedly, friends of Conor's who are acclimated with his style of speaking will see a picture of my face and conclude that I talk exactly like him. I don't understand how this is. After double-digit occurrences, though, it's hard to continue ignoring it. There is a pattern here, and an unarguable conclusion which must be drawn: I am Conor.
Soon, a terrifying existential crisis began to form. Without my friends from home, without Conor, do I simply deteriorate slowly into nothingness? Do I depend on him for personality sustenance? What am I without him? My unstoppable comedy was quickly replaced by mortifying fear and chewed fingernails. I kept all lights dimmed for fear of seeing my own reflection in the mirror, or worse, Conor's. I began to dwell on what makes Conor me.
My entire pattern of speech, apparently, and all the jokes I make. Much of my being, really, has been his result. I say this not under my own conclusion but on the conviction of every single person that has ever interacted with both of us. Repeatedly, friends of Conor's who are acclimated with his style of speaking will see a picture of my face and conclude that I talk exactly like him. I don't understand how this is. After double-digit occurrences, though, it's hard to continue ignoring it. There is a pattern here, and an unarguable conclusion which must be drawn: I am Conor.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
How to Beat your Siblings at Everything
The author, 19, and his then-17-year-old brother fighting,
but only because they don't know if they remember how to hug.
by Mr. Brendan Cavanagh
Being the elder brother to triplets a mere year and a half younger than me, I have had to make extensive strides over the years to ensure that my superiority is always acknowledged and respected. Often this can be tough, especially since I've gone away to school for the past year and a half and therefore must exert my influence across state boundaries and time zones. But! If you adhere to the methods presented in the following list (snippets from my upcoming memoir), and you're the eldest sibling in your family (sorry only children, maybe later!), you TOO can reap the fruits of your deserved birthright. Primogeniture, baby.
Chapter 5. When you find yourself in a situation in which you and one of your younger siblings are arguing over who has the right to something- let's say the choice of which channel to watch- simply declare that it's your right to choose, and then patronize them to death by excessively repeating things like, "I know it sucks- it really does! I mean, if I were in your position, I would be upset, too." Speak with the most dryly sarcastic-come-empathetic tone. Trust me, it pisses them off to great lengths. They will become wildly irritated and will quickly give in because of what an utter asshole you are, usually evidenced by a snot-and-tears response of unintended exasperation much like, "Godyouresuchafrgggndick!" before they storm off to another room. This is an easy tactic to employ if you are the most selfish person you know.
Chapter 22. If ever engaged in any sort of physical, hand-to-hand combat with a sibling (hopefully one of the same sex and near your age), whether malicious or facetious, I find that the best defense mechanism and catalyst for victory is the Ultimate Punch, which I borrowed from the movie Hot Rod. As the below video points out, you must first cock back both arms, then propel them forward with fists clenched so as to double punch your opponent's torso, while simultaneously bringing a single leg up swiftly to land a crushing blow to the pelvis. Don't get the impression that this move can inflict any actual pain; no, rather, it is used as a diversionary measure which results in your opponent falling backwards into the nearest piece of furniture as they laugh hysterically at your pathetic attempt to combat them. As they laugh in oblivious indignation, pounce on them and pin them to the ground for three seconds, or give them noogies until they call "uncle," or whatever you must do to have your sibling concede defeat. Therefore, you win the fair fight without actually harming your sibling, unless they wet themselves laughing at how redonkulous the Ultimate Punch looks.
Don't be fooled! Your sibling will never see it coming...
Chapter 30. Want to sit shotgun in the car? I wish I had an easy solution to this one. Get there first. Or call "Shotgun no rocks" or whatever phrase is appropriate. In this case, if you snooze, you lose.
Chapter 31. If you want to have any chance of beating your siblings in James Bond 007 multiplayer video games, you have to be Player One on the console. Now, there are a couple ways of securing the first pole position. One way is by asking (nay! demanding) your sibling to grab you a drink from the kitchen while you steal away into the living room and grab the first controller before they can get their plebian paws on it. Or, if by some chance your sibling gets the first controller before you, all you have to do is pretend to check the integrity of the disc or the console while surreptitiously switching the first and second controller plug-ins. OR, if your sibling decides to throw a fit because they, too, want to be Player One (but if you incorporate my methods in your familial rapport, then they shouldn't speak out all too often), then refer back to Chapter 5, and patronize them until their face melts in reluctant, but understanding subservience.
Chapter 35. If things are getting a little slow, and you're worried that your siblings are starting to deem themselves about equal to you, find a food item of theirs that they've been saving to enjoy later, and eat it. This can be a Hershey's bar hidden on the top shelf of the unspoken candy cabinet, or leftover tacos from Xochimilco buried in a box behind several boxes of juice on the bottom shelf of the fridge. Then blame it on Dad. Foolproof.
For more tips on how to train your younger siblings, feel free to contact me! I'm always willing to come to the aid of a first-born.
Uncharted 3 Kinda Sucked
Spoiler. Alert.
May God strike me down, IGN, if what I'm saying holds no true value. But fresh off beating Uncharted 3, I'm not awfully impressed. Impressed, you know, based on the 10 outta 10, game-changing standards you gave me. Maybe the rating was assigned to show that IGN has turned a corner, and is just gonna start giving 10s to must-plays instead of the monotonous 9.5 we've been seeing for years. They promised me perfection, and what I got was greatness; that's my complaint here.
I played Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (the first one!) and was alternatively wowed and bored. The game delivered epic firefights, an alluring plot, and a real movie feel. For once I felt a game had spawned from its story as opposed to its gameplay mechanics and the “wouldn't it be cool if we could do ______ in real life?” factor. Well, maybe that plays a part, but that's beside the point.
The original's story bored me until I encountered a supernatural mindbending twist toward the game's conclusion. For the gameplay this worked wonders. You were brought a new enemy (which was not a Nazi zombie) and forced to change your game. That end bit won me over. Uncharted was a must-have franchise.
Uncharted 2, the game whose release induced me to buy the original and its successor, was a whole realm of level ups. Every aspect of the game had been improved upon, and the boredom I experienced from the first game was demolished by the incorporation of fantastic and astonishing set pieces. Seeing a gameplay trailer for Uncharted 2 in which you had to jump off a building as it collapsed into another building basically sold me on the franchise. Good work, Naughty Dog.
I found new gameplay mechanics at every chapter. What's this, a riot shield? Hey, a propane tank! Oh look, a discernible main villain! And how about that character development? Elements missing from the first one were supplied. The only drawbacks were a bit of cheese from the classic (yet completely lovable) cast and some copycatting of game one in terms of storyline. (Insert last-minute supernatural twist here — but let's not bullshit, it was still really cool.)
So when IGN planted a 10, a God-game stamp on UC3's forehead, my expectations exploded and reformulated into an entirely different monster.
The game I bought, though, colored over the lines of the second installment, this time with prettier ink.
Uncharted 3 begins with a new feel to it, lunging you into an actual passable fistfighting segment. It was fun, it was cool, it was useful. It made Conor O'Brien's UC strategy of punching out everyone ever way more plausible. After that, you are thrown to Nathan Drake's entirely shrouded past. You gain some of his origin story. Cool! Then you go back to presenttown and rock the cradle a bit, beating bad guys to clues for the next thing on your map. Same old, same old. Only this time there seems to be a chance in hell that the bad guys would be where they would be, in other words, there was less “How in the fuck did these guys get into this hidden tomb before me?”ing. You make an epic, epic escape from a magnificent set piece, and move on.
One of the game's three new minor characters (Yes, I said three, minor characters.) then breaks his leg and is never ever seen or heard from again. The only remnant of his existence we have is Elena Fischer (who somehow just so happens to be roped into every game, which I'm actually totally cool with) mentions him, asks about him, and gives us no reason why or how the hell she knows who he is, much less why she cares.
So you begin your quest; you, Elena and Sully, ole pal. You get separated because, well, the game would be lame if you had a partner the whole time. You find yourself on drugs, which leads to one of the game's coolest yet least important sequences in which you sprint through the streets of a crowded Middle Eastern city while fucked up on a hallucinogen. After this, some bitchlady named Catherine Marlowe tells you that your last name isn't even really Drake (thus making you NOT related to Francis Drake! probably) your mom committed suicide and your dad gave you up to the government to raise. All of which is neat, but none of it matters. Nate's attachment to Sir Francis Drake is so strong that it needn't be one of lineage for the story to be effected. And Nate's parents? Yeah? Ok. Also, how did Marlowe obtain these files? Why does she care to notify Drake that she knows? Why are neither of these questions answered?
The problem with this game is that it's trying to be a movie told from the first person. As in, entirely from the first person. As in, we have no idea what the fuck anyone but Nathan Drake is doing. And we have no idea who Marlowe really is, why she's after this croc pot of treasure, what her relationship is with Talbot (who probably hated it when the kids in his elementary school called him “tablet”) and what she thinks of Drake behind his back. There aren't those filling scenes. Metal Gear has those scenes. Resident Evil has those scenes. Final Fantasy has those scenes. GTA has those scenes. Uncharted has Drake talking about his entirely implied failed marriage to Elena (who, and this is one of my pettier qualms, looks different and less distinct). Chloe, character who is in this game for a reason I actually don't know, hinted at a past with Drake at the beginning of UC2 and has yet to fill us in on that.
Speaking of past, UC2 threw two characters that Drake's known before our way without telling us anything about that past. One of them turned on Drake, which was interesting. In UC3, a character with no implied or expressed past joins Drake's crew (and his reasons are not given when Elena, a journalist, asks for them from Drake). There's no new elements here.
Fast forward a couple grand set pieces, including a boat (that FUCKING boat) and a train (I meant “plane,” but I thought it symbolic that I typed train instead), and bam, you're in the desert, and the game is ending.
You go through a grand sequence of fights (which do unfortunately dip into the “How in the fuck did these guys get here” aspect), which caused me many a death, (Side note: I'm generally bad at this game, I trudge through it with zeal.) and lead to the granddaddy of all the hidden tombs. It's the Atlantis of the Sands. The Golden City. The big balls of the game. You open a huge door and, like last time, there's this huge fucking world, (again, more plausible than UC2, it's not underground, it's in the middle of the desert). But the problem is, it's the same thing again. Grand, beautiful city to finish the game in. And you bet your ass it falls apart. As the game climaxes with two of the least satisfying main-villain kills in my relatively brief history of gaming, you run away from the grand, beautiful city because you it's crumbling to shit and you make it out alive thanks to Salim. Who's Salim? Oh, he's the Tenzin this game, except they didn't have time to give him a backstory this go-round.
I cannot help but feeling this is a frankly better ending.
So you escape, there's this feeling of “I'm glad I won't be getting shot at anymore” mixed with “where's my gun, because this game failed to blow my mind so I now want to do it myself.”
Looking back to what Uncharted has done through its history: it set a precedent, then it evolved that precedent, then it expanded that evolution. I'm afraid your Wartortle is leveling up, but refusing to become a Blastoise. This game feels like the last one. With no innovation in the gun system, no new toys either (like the propane, hammer, and riot shield all were), a new melee system that's repetitive after a minute or two, a limited enemy gallery (those big guys who you repeatedly kicked in the nuts were random and silly). You had this nonsubtle focus on set pieces, and in this, Uncharted found the Titanic, Drakes on a plane, and a super cool burning mansion. But beyond that, you have more unbelievable survival — as in, Sully repeatedly dying and then never actually dying; not the hundreds of bullets Drake takes over the course of the game — more tomb chasing, and the same dude-killin'. The puzzles were pleasantly innovative and not boring. The spiders were a cool effect. The childhood scenes were fun. The drug scenes were entertaining, though useless (Arkham Asylum's Scarecrow, anybody?). The desert scenes were necessary but point/ephiphanyless. And the end was ripped right out of UC2, minus the supernatural aspect, but plus the pretend supernature of demon-headed reincarnated baddies, who were as easy to nix as their former versions. The game was cool to have, incredibly fun to play, but not very fulfilling. This game features the worst final boss fight of the three, no question. In the end, you miss the treasure for the sake of saving the world yet again (you think Drake would learn), Sully finds some scoop on the tail end of the hunt, and you get married to Elena again. The ending scene is short — shorter than the last one, I feel. Wouldn't this be a red flag? Your game is supposed to supplement the storylines you left out in the first two, not leave you with crumbs of an ending.
The villain in this game, Catherine Marlowe (whose name I'm spelling with an E on the end purely out of hunch), is half there. She's an ex of Sully's, and incredibly wealthy and in it for some power, though she seems not like the kind of person to seek infinite power, or to want to unleash unprovoked evil. Yet, that's her. Then you have Talbot, who acts as the real bad guy of the game, he's the one who pisses you off most. Like Navarro in the first one. Lassaravich, the villain from UC2, was nasty. Marlowe is as such, but to a lesser extent. The only difference is she's a woman whom Drake wouldn't punch.
In the end, the game leaves you feeling accomplished, but not whole. There's something more to be put in here, as the game's only 22 chapters long. You don't get a sense of completion, it seems more like you just ran out of story in which your background could be laid. At least when Street Fighter made non-sequels, they had the decency to title it the same and just add words to it. I feel like I just played Super Uncharted 2: Among Deceived Thieves Turbo Redux. In Final Fantasy, the sequels are of different worlds. Maybe Uncharted would have been best parting with Nate for its sequels, a la GTA. GTA is on its fifth installment right now, and its been around since the '90s. When a new GTA comes out, it's balls out. They upgrade everything. They make every aspect worth every additional dollar. I feel like Uncharted just went the Madden route, updating rosters, adding a nifty element or two, but I'm getting the same experience sold back to me for 60 more dollars. At least I beat the damn thing. You bet your ass I was gonna beat the damn thing.
It's a great game, but to call it a masterpiece is frankly incorrect.
--Eliot Sill
May God strike me down, IGN, if what I'm saying holds no true value. But fresh off beating Uncharted 3, I'm not awfully impressed. Impressed, you know, based on the 10 outta 10, game-changing standards you gave me. Maybe the rating was assigned to show that IGN has turned a corner, and is just gonna start giving 10s to must-plays instead of the monotonous 9.5 we've been seeing for years. They promised me perfection, and what I got was greatness; that's my complaint here.
I played Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (the first one!) and was alternatively wowed and bored. The game delivered epic firefights, an alluring plot, and a real movie feel. For once I felt a game had spawned from its story as opposed to its gameplay mechanics and the “wouldn't it be cool if we could do ______ in real life?” factor. Well, maybe that plays a part, but that's beside the point.
The original's story bored me until I encountered a supernatural mindbending twist toward the game's conclusion. For the gameplay this worked wonders. You were brought a new enemy (which was not a Nazi zombie) and forced to change your game. That end bit won me over. Uncharted was a must-have franchise.
Uncharted 2, the game whose release induced me to buy the original and its successor, was a whole realm of level ups. Every aspect of the game had been improved upon, and the boredom I experienced from the first game was demolished by the incorporation of fantastic and astonishing set pieces. Seeing a gameplay trailer for Uncharted 2 in which you had to jump off a building as it collapsed into another building basically sold me on the franchise. Good work, Naughty Dog.
I found new gameplay mechanics at every chapter. What's this, a riot shield? Hey, a propane tank! Oh look, a discernible main villain! And how about that character development? Elements missing from the first one were supplied. The only drawbacks were a bit of cheese from the classic (yet completely lovable) cast and some copycatting of game one in terms of storyline. (Insert last-minute supernatural twist here — but let's not bullshit, it was still really cool.)
So when IGN planted a 10, a God-game stamp on UC3's forehead, my expectations exploded and reformulated into an entirely different monster.
The game I bought, though, colored over the lines of the second installment, this time with prettier ink.
Uncharted 3 begins with a new feel to it, lunging you into an actual passable fistfighting segment. It was fun, it was cool, it was useful. It made Conor O'Brien's UC strategy of punching out everyone ever way more plausible. After that, you are thrown to Nathan Drake's entirely shrouded past. You gain some of his origin story. Cool! Then you go back to presenttown and rock the cradle a bit, beating bad guys to clues for the next thing on your map. Same old, same old. Only this time there seems to be a chance in hell that the bad guys would be where they would be, in other words, there was less “How in the fuck did these guys get into this hidden tomb before me?”ing. You make an epic, epic escape from a magnificent set piece, and move on.
One of the game's three new minor characters (Yes, I said three, minor characters.) then breaks his leg and is never ever seen or heard from again. The only remnant of his existence we have is Elena Fischer (who somehow just so happens to be roped into every game, which I'm actually totally cool with) mentions him, asks about him, and gives us no reason why or how the hell she knows who he is, much less why she cares.
So you begin your quest; you, Elena and Sully, ole pal. You get separated because, well, the game would be lame if you had a partner the whole time. You find yourself on drugs, which leads to one of the game's coolest yet least important sequences in which you sprint through the streets of a crowded Middle Eastern city while fucked up on a hallucinogen. After this, some bitchlady named Catherine Marlowe tells you that your last name isn't even really Drake (thus making you NOT related to Francis Drake! probably) your mom committed suicide and your dad gave you up to the government to raise. All of which is neat, but none of it matters. Nate's attachment to Sir Francis Drake is so strong that it needn't be one of lineage for the story to be effected. And Nate's parents? Yeah? Ok. Also, how did Marlowe obtain these files? Why does she care to notify Drake that she knows? Why are neither of these questions answered?
The problem with this game is that it's trying to be a movie told from the first person. As in, entirely from the first person. As in, we have no idea what the fuck anyone but Nathan Drake is doing. And we have no idea who Marlowe really is, why she's after this croc pot of treasure, what her relationship is with Talbot (who probably hated it when the kids in his elementary school called him “tablet”) and what she thinks of Drake behind his back. There aren't those filling scenes. Metal Gear has those scenes. Resident Evil has those scenes. Final Fantasy has those scenes. GTA has those scenes. Uncharted has Drake talking about his entirely implied failed marriage to Elena (who, and this is one of my pettier qualms, looks different and less distinct). Chloe, character who is in this game for a reason I actually don't know, hinted at a past with Drake at the beginning of UC2 and has yet to fill us in on that.
Speaking of past, UC2 threw two characters that Drake's known before our way without telling us anything about that past. One of them turned on Drake, which was interesting. In UC3, a character with no implied or expressed past joins Drake's crew (and his reasons are not given when Elena, a journalist, asks for them from Drake). There's no new elements here.
Fast forward a couple grand set pieces, including a boat (that FUCKING boat) and a train (I meant “plane,” but I thought it symbolic that I typed train instead), and bam, you're in the desert, and the game is ending.
You go through a grand sequence of fights (which do unfortunately dip into the “How in the fuck did these guys get here” aspect), which caused me many a death, (Side note: I'm generally bad at this game, I trudge through it with zeal.) and lead to the granddaddy of all the hidden tombs. It's the Atlantis of the Sands. The Golden City. The big balls of the game. You open a huge door and, like last time, there's this huge fucking world, (again, more plausible than UC2, it's not underground, it's in the middle of the desert). But the problem is, it's the same thing again. Grand, beautiful city to finish the game in. And you bet your ass it falls apart. As the game climaxes with two of the least satisfying main-villain kills in my relatively brief history of gaming, you run away from the grand, beautiful city because you it's crumbling to shit and you make it out alive thanks to Salim. Who's Salim? Oh, he's the Tenzin this game, except they didn't have time to give him a backstory this go-round.
I cannot help but feeling this is a frankly better ending.
So you escape, there's this feeling of “I'm glad I won't be getting shot at anymore” mixed with “where's my gun, because this game failed to blow my mind so I now want to do it myself.”
Looking back to what Uncharted has done through its history: it set a precedent, then it evolved that precedent, then it expanded that evolution. I'm afraid your Wartortle is leveling up, but refusing to become a Blastoise. This game feels like the last one. With no innovation in the gun system, no new toys either (like the propane, hammer, and riot shield all were), a new melee system that's repetitive after a minute or two, a limited enemy gallery (those big guys who you repeatedly kicked in the nuts were random and silly). You had this nonsubtle focus on set pieces, and in this, Uncharted found the Titanic, Drakes on a plane, and a super cool burning mansion. But beyond that, you have more unbelievable survival — as in, Sully repeatedly dying and then never actually dying; not the hundreds of bullets Drake takes over the course of the game — more tomb chasing, and the same dude-killin'. The puzzles were pleasantly innovative and not boring. The spiders were a cool effect. The childhood scenes were fun. The drug scenes were entertaining, though useless (Arkham Asylum's Scarecrow, anybody?). The desert scenes were necessary but point/ephiphanyless. And the end was ripped right out of UC2, minus the supernatural aspect, but plus the pretend supernature of demon-headed reincarnated baddies, who were as easy to nix as their former versions. The game was cool to have, incredibly fun to play, but not very fulfilling. This game features the worst final boss fight of the three, no question. In the end, you miss the treasure for the sake of saving the world yet again (you think Drake would learn), Sully finds some scoop on the tail end of the hunt, and you get married to Elena again. The ending scene is short — shorter than the last one, I feel. Wouldn't this be a red flag? Your game is supposed to supplement the storylines you left out in the first two, not leave you with crumbs of an ending.
The villain in this game, Catherine Marlowe (whose name I'm spelling with an E on the end purely out of hunch), is half there. She's an ex of Sully's, and incredibly wealthy and in it for some power, though she seems not like the kind of person to seek infinite power, or to want to unleash unprovoked evil. Yet, that's her. Then you have Talbot, who acts as the real bad guy of the game, he's the one who pisses you off most. Like Navarro in the first one. Lassaravich, the villain from UC2, was nasty. Marlowe is as such, but to a lesser extent. The only difference is she's a woman whom Drake wouldn't punch.
In the end, the game leaves you feeling accomplished, but not whole. There's something more to be put in here, as the game's only 22 chapters long. You don't get a sense of completion, it seems more like you just ran out of story in which your background could be laid. At least when Street Fighter made non-sequels, they had the decency to title it the same and just add words to it. I feel like I just played Super Uncharted 2: Among Deceived Thieves Turbo Redux. In Final Fantasy, the sequels are of different worlds. Maybe Uncharted would have been best parting with Nate for its sequels, a la GTA. GTA is on its fifth installment right now, and its been around since the '90s. When a new GTA comes out, it's balls out. They upgrade everything. They make every aspect worth every additional dollar. I feel like Uncharted just went the Madden route, updating rosters, adding a nifty element or two, but I'm getting the same experience sold back to me for 60 more dollars. At least I beat the damn thing. You bet your ass I was gonna beat the damn thing.
It's a great game, but to call it a masterpiece is frankly incorrect.
--Eliot Sill
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)