Batusi

I was recently in a conversation with someone about the Genesis/ Mega Drive version of Sunsoft's Batman, which is something close to my heart. This sparked some interest in further dissection of the game, which is what we'll do this week.

Let's get one thing out of the way, first: Batman is a shitty video game. Often unimaginative, most of it has to do with running from one end of a playfield to the next while punching bad guys dressed as street thugs and mimes. Some light platforming is sprinkled in to break up the running and the punching, but most are obviously out of place (like the pits in the museum level). A few stages break the monotony and turn it into a scrolling shooter as you take control of the Batmobile and Batplane, but these levels wind up being more about attrition than skill as you stumble through the lousy collision detection while deciding when it's the best time to break out those precious missiles you've been stockpiling. It's really not a difficult game, and it's fairly short, so if one were interested in playing through it you wouldn't kill a whole afternoon. You can probably buy it for a dollar off of eBay if you're so inclined (and still had your Genesis laying around).

But like a lot of Sunsoft games of that era, and especially like it's NES counterpart, the Genesis/ MD Batman is best remembered for its sound design and music. In comparison to the contemporary SNES, the Genesis has taken some heat over the years for having inferior sound, and much of that is probably true, to be fair. Still, I'm a big believer in great art overcoming restrictions, and a lot of the best Genesis music is a testament to that (Thunder Force IV, Streets of Rage 2, etc.). There seems to be agreement that the really good music that was composed for the system was percussion-based, and I suppose I agree, but a lot of Batman's music sets a different tone. While the more driving compositions from the first level and the museum stage are probably the best remembered, a lot of the percussion is more subtle than some of the more contemporary proto-electronica of 16-bit game music, and the opening and ending themes are really eerie and atmospheric. When I sit back and listen to it again, it seems more like the score of a television series than a video game in that it's not too hard rock (also like a lot of other games at the time), but clearly not as faux symphonic as much of the industry to would go one generation later.

All of this was scored by Sunsoft super genius Naoki Kodaka, whom worked on not only the NES Batman game, but also classics like Blaster Master and Journey to Silius (which, I'll admit, I've never played, but it's also supposed to have an amazing soundtrack). Sunsoft was was never really a major player in the 8- and 16-bit eras, but was respectable enough in hindsight. Their composers developed a method of making the NES's meager sound capabilities sing like Aretha, though. Essentially tricking the machine into using the percussion channels to play a bass sound, they coined a method supposedly called "the Sunsoft bass" for a lot of their output, which, again, were only above average games with music that was better than it deserved to be. A lot of it is probably floating around the internet if you're curious.

Enjoy a quick sample of some Batman tunes to get your weekend bumping.

Well, That Tears It

After leaving Don Jon (which was kind of a letdown, but we saw Gravity earlier that day), my wife and I wander into a Lucky store on our way to the parking lot of the outdoor mall. After some quick glancing at merchandise:

Clerk: Hey, man. How's it going? You ever shop at Lucky before?

Me: Yes

Clerk looks quizzically at the Gap jeans I am wearing

Me: No, not these

Clerk: Ah, right. What size do you wear, man?

Me: 33x32, but I'm just kind of poking around

Clerk: (slightly disgusted) Right, okay. Well if you change your mind, the right jeans for you that I recommend are the loose-fitting or standards.

Clerk wanders off, finds my wife

Clerk: Oh, hey. What's up.

Wife: Hi.

Clerk: Is that your boyfriend over there?

Wife: Well, husband, yeah.

Clerk: Oh. He's not into jeans.

Wife: Okay, we're leaving.


There you have it. I'm just not into jeans

Mix Tape: SMTIV

After reeling from the blow taken by my adopted home's baseball team last night (the postseason is a fickle mistress), I came to this morning feeling like I need a win. As a non-sports guy that's finally beginning to understand what the fuss is about, you might think that my adopted home's gridiron squadron is what I should now be paying heed to, especially with a game tonight. Alas, they will only let me down if recent history is anything to go by. Is this pessimism? No, it is Cleveland; a higher power's playground when it decides it needs to just kick something (pro sports-wise).

So let's return out our first love: Video games. A few months ago, I wrote about the songs that would creep into my noggin during my time in Skyrim. People seemed to like it. So, since I'm fairly deep into another long game with a very distinct aesthetic, Shin Megami Tensei IV, I thought I'd go back to the well a little bit, but in a more expansive way. Maybe I was strangely inspired by this week's Retronauts episode (your homework, BTW). Regardless, I present to you the SMT IV Mix Tape:

"Ode to Isis"/ "Will You Smile For Me Again" by ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
This one is guilt by association, actually. When Trail of Dead released the album Worlds Apart in 2005, it was only about four months after Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne was released in North America. These two opening tracks sounded like, well, the world was about to end, which is exactly what happens in the numbered SMT games. Every time I play a game in the series now, be it one of the "proper" ones like IV (and even Strange Journey) or offshoots like the Digital Devil Saga or any given Persona, these songs always come to mind. A short symphonic arrangement with dramatic chanting, "Ode to Isis" sounds very apocalyptic in that sort of traditional Hollywood way, and makes for an appropriate kick off to Trail of Dead's fifth album; one that played a little faster and looser with style and genre compared to other indie rock bands of the time (it's also seen as their first "prog-like" record). It leads well into "Will You Smile", a song that lives and breaths on its fierce guitar/ drum attack intro and conclusion that bookends something of a quiet, but unnerving midsection. It's a pair of tunes that never really pop to mind unless I'm playing these specific games, and I think that says something about how well they couple with SMT.

"Idle Hands" by The Gutter Twins
It's hard to not to think of songs that associate with religious imagery when you're playing through a game that takes place in a Tokyo already overrun by angels and demons. This song, taken from a superb Greg Dulli/ Mark Lanegan side project rife with these images, finds itself being very stirring boss battle music, if only for its very straightforward rock sound perhaps. Produced to make the synth and string arrangements sound just as surface as the Dulli's lead guitar, it was a very apropo single for the duo's band, maybe even the best example of how both musician's tastes gelled into a cohesive whole. While the majority of the album seems more in line with Dulli's Twilight Singers work (which is not a detraction), "Idle Hands" is a driving, snarling stomp that feels satisfying when you're doing just that to a cyclops whom just told you to fuck off.

"Big Time" by Randy Newman
This is a little bit of a new one, but still sort of an old fave. A cover by Newman for his end of the Peter Gabriel Scratch My Back/ I'll Scratch Yours covers project (and only one of which is what we can consider pretty good --sorry, Pete), Newman's "Big Tim"e adds something a little sinister to Gabriel's ode to greed. While the original, something of a classic from Gabriel's most commercially successful album (So), had a wry smirk its way of poking fun at the Gordon Gecko mentality of the time when it was written. As with all great covers, Newman takes this concept and makes the song his own, singing it with the tired groan of a man that might have felt that hunger for more than he needed at one point. I feel as though this song fits in with much of the music already found on SMTIV's soundtrack with some of its jazzier tracks. While I certainly wouldn't consider this song completely in line with that, it seems to fit, and comes to mind when I'm wandering the Tokyo "overworld."

"Between Sun & Moon" by Rush
Yes, I swear a Rush song dug (clawed?) its way out of my subconscious. And it's a Rush song from an album that, from what I understand, is deeply maligned by the hardcore Rush set, AND it's something I probably hadn't heard in close to 10 years. Way to go, video games. You always let the weirdest shit percolate. Honestly, I have nothing to say about this song; it's an okay album track, but after digging it out to listen to it after all these years, I can't even say it's one of the tunes I remember liking. Still, SMTIV decided that I needed to stroll down the most nerdy alley of memory lane. Let's all take a moment and be glad that it's not in a subdivision of something potentially worse. And no, that's not another Rush reference.

End of Side 1.

Agents of S.H.R.U.G.

I won't spend too much time on this, but let's talk about S.H.I.E.L.D. For being born from a medium that's thrived on serialization for close to a century, I've probably only seen one superhero television show that's ever worked, and that was Smallville (but only the first handful of seasons; talk about outstaying your welcome). S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't Smallville. I tried to keep my expectations low, and I wasn't even planning on watching it last night at all, but you know, people get bored. I was bored, and S.H.I.E.L.D. bored me further. These fragmented sentences should probably mean something, but they don't. Let's also blame that on S.H.I.E.L.D.

The bullet points (without actual bullet points): I thought it was predictable, unoriginal, and had that incessantly quippy Joss Whedon dialog that makes normal conversation sound overly dramatic and insufferable. I wouldn't want to spend ten minutes with any of these people, let alone 43 of them for 24 weeks. You shouldn't, either, because you probably watched all of this go down before on the first season of Heroes.

To be fair, I think it hits a good time slot, though. Kids will eat this stuff up, and at 8pm. it's positioned to do very well with the 8-14 set. Does that mean I should be fairer to it because it might be aimed more for a younger crowd? Nope, I still thought it was a weak TV pilot. Broad appeal is one thing, but it sure didn't appeal to me.

Can it get better, though? Probably. I have a feeling that enough dough will be tossed at it that Disney will at least try to buy it into quality (for better or worse). I'm sure ratings were through the roof, too, and unless the show turned off more people than just me, the old maxim that quality doesn't matter if people are buying it will hold true. It's a good premise for a TV series, though, so part of me is pulling for it in some deep recess that's a sentimental sap for my Marvel reading days. Let's hope that they turn things around over the next few episodes, but I'm just not that psyched for b-list Avengers characters.

But a Gotham Central/ Commissioner Gordon TV show? Yes, sir. YES, SIR.

Concessions and Complaints

Fine, internet. You win. I started watching New Girl not so long ago and found that it's pretty dern funny, just like you kept telling me. Wait, you say, shouldn't blogs that normally concern your typical nerdery talk my ear off about "decent" TV like Mad Men or Boardwalk Empire? Probably, but you'd be unfairly throwing NG under the bus as I have for these past two Schmidt-giddy seasons. Hold your pretense at bay and go enjoy them (especially the first one).

I find that it has a fair amount of heart like a lot of great, enduring sitcoms had, but what really makes it stand out is the writing. Each individual character is very clearly voiced, and none of them stand out as a main character to be followed outside of the titular Jess. But even she takes a gracious back seat to the three male roomies much of the time, whom can riff capably with each other at a rat-a-tat speed. Pay careful attention and you'll get your requisite goofball nerd references, but tossed in with such left field nonchalance from its turbo-douchiest club turd character that it doesn't seem like pandering ("There are plenty of things to be down about; the deficit, air pollution in China, The Hobbit wasn't very good..." -a personal favorite).

But since the third season of the show has started, it's time for me to calmly lay out my objections for its current course. By the end of the second season, NG succumbed to the siren call of all sitcoms by consummating the love affair of two main characters, Jess and Nick. Now, yes, nearly every television show does this, but you can probably count on one hand the sitcoms in which it works. I like NG enough that I don't want it to devolve into the idiotic soap opera latrine that Friends spent ten years digging. While I applaud the fact that the show took two entire seasons to commit to this sort of character development -restraint by many television shows' standards- it's an awfully fine line to walk having two characters become intimate and make that show not turn into a grating shmoop-fest.

Having said all of that, let's examine a couple of the shows that actually pulled it off and why:

Cheers
Seasons: 11
Why it worked: Diane left
Cheers is fondly remembered as one of the most consistently funny television sitcoms in the medium's history. Part of the reason for this is that main character Diane Chambers (played for five seasons and in late-season cameos by Shelley Long) left the series after season five. Womanizing bar-owner and washed out ball player Sam Malone (Ted Danson, the other main character) carried on a long standing on again/ off again relationship with Diane, something of a social class opposite, through most of those seasons, and her leaving the show forced the writers to find a way to reinvent it without sacrificing both the original premise and the clever interactions of several of its characters. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Even Long didn't want to rehash the same stories over and over, as most shows where leads share a romance often find themselves doing, and Sam could return to being a bar-owning Lothario. The introduction of Kirstie Alley reintroduced the cat-and-mouse game that Sam played early on with Diane but with an opposite result, which lead to some genuinely funny television.

Scrubs
Seasons: 8 (No, the last one doesn't count)
Why it worked: The writers probably hated each other
Scrubs, to be fair, was a haphazard television show in terms of tone and overall quality. The early seasons were constructed to be reflective of life after college, with all of the uncertainty, fear, and eventual triumph or defeat therein. Roughly around the third season, the series grew closer and closer into a cartoon show staffed by live actors. While still funny, main characters went from seeming like real people with TV-necessary quirks to being neurotic caricatures that needed to be slapped in the face. Among them were main characters John "J.D." Dorian (the star and narrator of the show) and Elliot Reid whom both worked at Sacred Heart Hospital as interns before making a name for themselves later in the series as attending doctors. Throughout the show, J.D. and Elliot would occasionally hook up and even date, but it never lasted to the end of any given season. They even spent entire seasons apart and dated melange of guest stars, something the show was sort of known for. Routinely, the writers would bemoan the "will they/won't they" relationship of the characters (as seen as extras on the DVD sets, sorry I can't find a link), so J.D. and Elliot would often go down in flames in terrible ways, freeing the characters to be interesting in their own right. By the time the show was really winding down in season 7, the writers relented and let the two of them connect, and by the time the proper series ended with season 8, it was perfectly clear that the show was never about their relationship as it was about characters becoming functioning, confident adults. Love was clearly only part of that for them.

Coupling
Seasons: 4
Why it worked: Brevity + narcissism
Coupling was a smart, dirty U.K. sitcom that ran from 2000-2004, with each season spanning a mere six episodes apiece. Unfairly pegged as "the English Friends," Coupling took the premise of its erroneous comparison and bent it just enough to make it unique. Perhaps that two "main" characters of the show, Steve and Susan, got together during the first episode of the series, but the three guys/ three girls dynamic that revolved around love and sex took care of the problem immediately without sitting on the fence about it. Or so you might think; during the third season, the womanizing Patrick began a committed relationship with the vain Sally, and it worked, and partly because the show simply didn't give itself a lot of time to dwell on too many bad stories. The other key ingredient was that Patrick and Sally were completely full of themselves with just enough earnestness underneath to make them seem like people you've probably run into in your own life. Sure, they were more of side characters in the grand scheme of things, but the constant narcissism made for good comedy, even in its weak sauce final season. If anything, they were the Schmidt/ Cece analog that New Girl has been building stories around since season 1.

It is clear that New Girl does not share the qualities that helped these other shows survive the Burden of Booty. While it might seem as though the Scrubs method is the best chance it has, and I would wager more bagels that you can probably eat that it's the route the show will take, the fact that there is no real central character to follow for reflection might make this romantic trip uphill that much harder. I suppose we'll just have to sit back and let Jess and Nick show us on Tuesday evening at a time.

Grand Theft Hair

So are you at home playing GTA V? I am not. That isn't to say that I'm opposed to taking the -day- week off of work to play a monumentally hyped game is a bad idea, but you know, Grand Theft Auto never did it for me. In general, really, open world games don't really seem to be my bag. No one trait of these games -- be it the driving to the fighting -- never really seem built well enough that I could forgive so many other flaws, so I tend to get bored with them quickly. I do like the writing, though, and I used to love watching friends of mine drive aimlessly through Vice City at night while listening to Mr. Mister, but from a raw gameplay perspective, I guess my interests always lay elsewhere.

But I can't exactly say I'm playing better right now. Yes, the emphatic arm-waiving that resulted in the first five hours of Shin Megami Tensei IV has since cooled. It was as hot and heavy as you'd find in a freshmen dorm, now cranked down to conversations about whose turn it is to fold the laundry. Still, I'm plugging along through it in hopes that things pick up now that I'm kicking it in Tokyo, so let's keep our demon fusing fingers crossed. Outside of that, it's been Hitman: Absolution, which is yet another game I would have never played if it weren't for PlayStation+. Stealth murder games are really just large, elaborate puzzles staring bald men in black suits, a concept that doesn't change my life into a Maxell ad. It's fine so far, but, you know.

Anyway, I hope all of you mischief-making bank robbers out there are showing Los Santos what's what.

Summoning

Last night, after much hemming and hawing, I finally began to play Shin Megami Tensei IV. Why the long wait since I mentioned starting it July? Mostly because I'm an idiot, apparently. I only wanted to play through the introduction and found myself, four hours later, finally tearing myself away from it because the 3DS battery was giving me the blinking red Morse code of "turn it off and go to bed." Even now, several hours removed, I want to run right over to my handheld wonder machine and get back to demon fusing.

That's not a feeling I get very often anymore. I find that it's probably because I'm getting older and have had enough video game experiences at this point that very little surprises me. So why the strange excitement to play (and, therefore, expound upon) SMTIV? Maybe I'm like Don Draper and only like the beginnings of things (in that non-infidelity sort of way), I guess. Everyone likes new games that they just start, I suppose. But when I think about it, and remember my mindset last night, it seems as though this new(ish) 3DS JRPG is scratching an itch that I've been having for months now.

Myself, I'm something of a lapsed JRPG apologist. For years I would defend them to anyone whom would listen, and if you took a peak at my library of games, you'll probably find a 60/40 ratio of this specific genre vs. a mishmash of everything else. But the vast majority of them are from the PS1-PS2 era --something of an Eastern role playing Age of Fire. It represented the better part of 10 years of my life where I was learning how to clearly identify the aspects of what made video games good and bad. Nostalgia aside, the trajectory of qualities I appreciated in the games within the genre has followed a slow, steady descent that's basically hit a subbasement sewer system in this current generation. Am I saying that gameplay for a JRPG these days is necessarily bad? No, I enjoyed playing Eternal Sonata and Final Fantasy X-2 on the merits of their combat alone. But as the last 10-15 years have gone by, the writing commonly found in these games began to bottom out, and as I get older, I cannot, in any way, justify sinking the time required to play one of them with a story that basically talks down to me. I have felt this way since finishing Final Fantasy XII; not the best, or even most compelling plot in the series, but it was one told in such a way that my intelligence and good taste weren't insulted. Since then, it's been a rapidly drying sea of pandering idiocy.

2009, then, was the year that I basically threw in the towel. BioWare released Dragon Age: Origins, which finally gave me the interactive storytelling I never knew I wanted, and Atlus published FromSoft's Demon's Souls --perhaps my favorite game of this generation-- that stripped away what had felt like unnecessary bullshit for years. Both were meaty, satisfying experiences from different sides of the RPG continuum that, essentially, ruined the traditional Dragon Quest/ Final Fantasy need that fueled not only a large chunk of my video game buying, but almost embarrassingly bigger chunks of my free time.

Last night, as I am wont to do around this time of year, I had a serious jones to play some Final Fantasy XII, but I can't; my (second) backward-compatible PlayStation 3 died on me about a year ago, and I'm stuck looking at around 50 games that are basically doing me as much good as a pet rock. Because I couldn't think of anything else to do with myself, in went SMTIV, and back came the memories. It was a tidal wave that I don't want to stop, and at this point, my expectations for the rest of the game are so high that it can only possibly let me down.

But it's only been about 4 hours, so who knows? Either way, I'm more excited to find out than I have been in years.