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2011 Academy Awards

By Andrew on January 25th, 2011

Say what you want about the Academy Awards, but I quite enjoy them. They usually serve as a decent barometer of what movies are worth the effort of tracking down in the dead of winter when nothing decent comes out, and therefore they help to occupy the massive gaps of dead time between my university classes. Additionally, the movies that get recognized are the types of movies I find myself enjoying more and more these days. As I’ve said before, my age and interests would normally dictate that I anticipate the next big budget super hero explosion-fest over the discrete dramatic piece which no one in my demographic has heard about.

And yet, I feel that I’ve grown weary of the aforesaid action packed monsters. They tend to lack natural charm and charisma, or failing that they attempt to manufacture their own (either literally in the case of cyber Jeff Bridges from “Tron: Legacy”, or cynically in the case of, say, “Scott Pilgim vs. The World”). It doesn’t take hundreds of millions of dollars to craft a great film. All it really takes is a skillful acting/directing partnership.

The official list of nominees was announced earlier today, and as usual, I’ve spent the last few weeks leading up to this point deliberately trying to track down and watch the contenders for the top prizes. I’ve seen six out of the ten movies considered for Best Picture, which actually isn’t half bad. This should hopefully mean that my tentative predictions aren’t complete shots in the dark (for your benefit as much as my own).

Actor in a Leading Role
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”
James Franco in “127 Hours”

My vote: Colin Firth
Likely winner: Colin Firth
Reasons why: It’s about bloody time. Jeff Bridges earned his for Bad Blake in “Crazy Heart” last year, and his performance as Rooster Cogburn in “True Grit” was virtually identical, if far less hygenic. Colin Firth also had a go for it last year with “A Single Man,” a portrayal just as worthy for the award, nevertheless still outdone by him in “The King’s Speech.”
Why I might be wrong: I have yet to see “127 Hours” and “Biutiful.”

Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”

My vote: Geoffrey Rush
Likely winner: Geoffrey Rush
Reasons why: Geoffrey Rush’s performance was arguably better than Colin Firth’s, and while I’m willing to concede that Christian Bale might put up a good fight, I have a hard time imagining a different result than as I’ve predicted.
Why I might be wrong: I have yet to see “The Fighter”, “Winter’s Bone”, and “The Kids Are All Right.”

Actress in a Leading Role
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”

My vote: Natalie Portman
Likely winner: Natalie Portman
Reasons why: If only out of sheer difficulty, and I’d call that reason enough. Apparently, Natalie Portman actually spent six months training just for the role, and did a considerable amount of her own dancing in the theatrical cut. That sort of physical commitment and investment ought not to be overlooked.
Why I might be wrong: “Black Swan” is the only nominated film I’ve seen. For all I know, the other contenders could all be phenomenal.

Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

My vote: Amy Adams
Likely winner: Amy Adams
Reasons why: It’s true, I haven’t seen “The Fighter” yet, so this is nothing more than a shot in the dark. However I’ve been finding it rather difficult to overlook the buzz surrounding this performance, so I don’t mind going out on a limb. Helena Bonham Carter, aside from the fact that I can never endorse Tim Burton’s muse, had scarcely anything to do in “The King’s Speech,” while Hailee Steinfeld’s performance in “True Grit” was impressive, yet unremarkable.
Why I might be wrong: I have yet to see “The Fighter” and “Animal Kingdom.”

Animated Feature Film
“How to Train Your Dragon” Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
“The Illusionist” Sylvain Chomet
“Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich

My vote: “How to Train Your Dragon”
Likely winner: “Toy Story 3″
Reasons why: Although I personally liked “How to Train Your Dragon” more, even I won’t deny to where this Oscar is inevitably going. You just don’t bet against Pixar. And besides, “Toy Story 3″ was nominated in the proper Best Picture category while the other two contenders weren’t. That’s rather telling, isn’t it?
Why I might be wrong: None.

Directing
“Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky
“The Fighter” David O. Russell
“The King’s Speech” Tom Hooper
“The Social Network” David Fincher
“True Grit” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

My vote: “Black Swan”
Likely winner: “The King’s Speech” or “The Social Network”
Reasons why: In most cases, awards for Best Director and Best Picture go to the same place, and I’m hedging my bets on “The King’s Speech.” The reason I’m putting forward “The Social Network” too is because it’s no secret who are the front runners for every major award. I personally vote for “Black Swan” because there’s a rather particular skill set to directing effective horror/thriller films on which straight dramas don’t necessarily rely. Again, I have no doubts that my personal vote is incredibly likely to be wrong.
Why I might be wrong: I have yet to see “The Fighter.”

Best Picture
“Black Swan” Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
“The Fighter” David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
“Inception” Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
“The Kids Are All Right” Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
“The King’s Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
“127 Hours” Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
“The Social Network” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
“Toy Story 3” Darla K. Anderson, Producer
“True Grit” Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
“Winter’s Bone” Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin,

My vote: “The King’s Speech”
Likely winner: “The King’s Speech” or “The Social Network”
Reasons why: It’s a two horse race, plain and simple. Films like “Inception” and “Toy Story 3″ just don’t win prestigious awards like these simply for being either summer blockbusters or children’s animation. Of the rest, “Black Swan” and “True Grit”, I imagine, would be the strongest contenders (and yes, I ould indeed love to see the young Aronofsky properly honoured.) Again, I concede the possibility that “The Fighter” has a strong chance too.
Why I might be wrong: I have yet to see “The Fighter”, “The Kids Are All Right”, “127 Hours”, and “Winter’s Bone.”

Films I’ll be tracking down:
- “The Fighter”
- “127 Hours”
- “The Kids Are All Right”
- “Winter’s Bone”
- “Animal Kingdom”

Additional notes:
- Never let it be said that the Oscars can’t remember anything before September. “Inception” was indeed recognized, as was “The Kids Are All Right” (both films were released in July). And of course, there’s “Toy Story 3″  and “Winter’s Bone” (from June) and “How to Train Your Dragon” (from March). The Oscars indeed remember “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” and “Kick-Ass”; they just don’t care.
- Honestly, show of hands if you’ve even heard of “Winter’s Bone” and “Animal Kingdom” prior to the announcement of the nominees? This isn’t because I haven’t, but because I doubt that you have. The amount of worthy films that get released over the course of a year is staggering, but a considerable amount of them fall under the radar. In the same way you can argue that “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” and “Kick-Ass” escaped Academy consciousness, consider that a stellar film or two you haven’t heard of never even made it into yours.
- Between Nolan and Aronofsky, I’m far more pleased to know that the latter has a shot at Best Director. Nolan is great if you’ve only seen his Batman movies and “Inception”, but “Memento” and “Insomnia” easily eclipse his blockbuster work.
- I personally didn’t much care for “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”, but even I’m willing to give Edgar Wright credit from some stellar directing. If that was a race of ten as well, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him represented.

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Requiescat in Pace, Chipper

By Andrew on January 20th, 2011

As most of you know, I have a pet budgie. Or rather, I had one. Earlier tonight, he died. Not naturally, but rather through the carelessness of my father.

At around 9:20 tonight, I came in through the kitchen to grab a glass of water when I saw Chipper sitting happily on my dad’s shoulder as he read the newspaper. Normally, I would’ve picked him up and spent a few minutes playing with him, but for whatever reason, I decided not to tonight. I grabbed my drink and headed back to my computer.

About 10 minutes later, I heard my dad make a ruckus as if some accident had happened. I ran through as I normally do since his errors tend to amuse me, but as it turned out, an accident had befallen my budgie. My dad forgot that he was sitting on his shoulder, and when he had got up from his chair, he leaned back and crushed the bird between himself and the chair. I’m not a vet, but presumably this broke Chipper’s spine.

I came through just in time for my dad to hand him off to me, since Chipper by far thought the most of me out of any family member. In fact, I was in the process of teaching him to fly to my right shoulder on command whenever I snapped my fingers. He’ll never finish learning this trick.

Not to sound too poetic or over dramatic about it, but Chipper died in my hands. He breathed his last in my palm as his eyes shut for the last time.

This isn’t a picture of Chipper, but he more or less looked exactly like this, except for more yellow head feathers.

I occasionally wondered how I would feel if he died, in the same way one wonders what they would do without their own loved ones. Strange as it sounds, I was terribly attached to this poor bird. He always kept me company, tolerated my teasing him, and was reliably at home, happily nipping at his bells, chasing his reflection, and being terrified of his own shadow. He was a great budgie, the sort of reliable companion you always look for in a pet.

Yes, I know he’s just a dumb bird, no more or less remarkable than the millions like him out there. That doesn’t make him any less special to me, however. In fact, I wager that I was just as special to him. He only flew to me, would prefer to sit on my shoulders, and was in damn near constant danger of flying out the door after me whenever I left the house. It’s one thing for something to be your favourite without return, but when that affection is reciprocated, it’s something else entirely. It makes it all the more difficult to let go.

He’ll be a difficult friend to replace, even though I’m going to the pet store tomorrow to buy another one (hey, at least I’ll get to pick my colour this time). That sort of bond with Chipper was over two years in the making, and it’ll take a while to establish such a thing with this new bird. Depending on how sociable he is, it’ll probably take weeks for him to be comfortable enough to leave the cage of his own accord. And can we trust him with his flight wings not to get lost in the house? Not to the make a break for the front door the second he gets the chance?

Poor Chipper… it’s so unfortunate that he left the way he did. At least he had the benefit of dying in the hands of his best friend, but it’s a meaningless comfort to know that he was snatched away in the prime of his life; a young bird who wouldn’t have been due to die for another half decade at the very earliest, if only one of his keepers could’ve been bothered to pay more attention.

In keeping with the Pixar inspired naming scheme, I suppose Chipper #2 will be called Neurotic, seeing as he would have every right to be that way living in such a terrifying place with that reckless ogre who is my father. Bully and Snob would make good names for owning two birds at the same time, I suppose.

And finally, I know a Latin poem about this sort of thing. Catullus wrote this in the first century BC to lament the loss of his girlfriend’s pet sparrow, which is kind of the same thing, I guess. A fitting tribute and send off to a bird that meant a great deal to its keeper:

Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque,
et quantum est hominum venustiorum:
passer mortuus est meae puellae,
passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.
nam mellitus erat suamque norat
ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,
nec sese a gremio illius movebat,
sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc
ad solam dominam usque pipiabat.
qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.
at vobis male sit, malae tenebrae
Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis:
tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis
o factum male! o miselle passer!
tua nunc opera meae puellae
flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

Grieve, O Venuses and Cupids, and all men of finer feeling: the sparrow of my darling is dead, a sparrow, darling of my girl, whom she loved more than her own eyes. For he was honey-sweet and knew his mistress better than a girl knows her own mother, and not moving himself from that lap of hers, but hopping around here and there he would sing to his mistress alone: a sparrow who now goes through that dark journey from whence they deny that anyone returns. But curse you, wretched shadows of hell, which devour all that is pleasing. You have snatched away such a darling sparrow from me. O wretched deed! O poor bird! Now through your fault, the swollen eyes of my darling redden with weeping.

Obviously, you would replace “sparrow” with “budgie,” but I’m not sure that there’s a Latin word for that (budgies being from Australia, decidedly never a part of the Roman empire or indeed Roman consciousness). There are other things you would switch out or amend, but in general I just like image of lines 11-16, which I personally find to be rather powerful. At any rate, this is Catullus 3.

Goodbye, Chipper, my first and favourite pet. Just because I intend to replace you so soon does not mean that you’re forgotten. You were a great pet, a true source of joy and companionship. Take comfort knowing that your death truly saddens me, a person who doubts they would be terribly upset if either of their sisters got hit by a bus.

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Students, take note (Article)

By Andrew on January 16th, 2011

Eh… being an (over?) achieving undergraduate isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Early mornings, long days, late nights, extracurricular malarkey (like this), a part time job, trying to stay healthy, etc. It’s just such a strain. Regardless, I fired off this quick article for The Newspaper on Wednesday night for Thursday’s issue, and that will probably be the extent of my contributions for the foreseeable future.

Of course, I’ll still be updating their website and creating a weekly crossword, but those are far easier things for me to deal with. Just check the website and pick up the weekly issue to see my efforts (which I assume are things you’re doing anyway, right?), and you won’t need to bother checking this space as much.

At any rate, here’s the article. It deals with a website that offers a note exchange service for U of T students. I suppose it would be kind of interesting  if more people in my classes used it, but at the current moment it’s rather pointless for me. I was supposed to get additional quotes from professor of e-commerce/marketing/whatever else Tim G. Richardson, but that kind of fell through because he couldn’t be bothered to answer the simplest of questions, “what do you think of ___?” Oh well. It’s a little unbalanced and kind of vapid, but I suppose that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot something: The illustration is courtesy of Stephanie Kervin. I’ve been told that I should be plugging the illustrations and their authors as much as possible, so here we go: click these words!

Notesolution.com helps students fill in the missing pieces

We’ve all been there. Be it from illness or laziness, we’ve missed a class and suffered a large gap in the course-going experience. We’ve done all the necessary prep work, and downloaded the lecture skeleton from the blackboard website (if the professor’s generous enough to make it available, of course). But without the comfort of someone else’s notes, preferably notes infinitely more diligent and coherent than we could ever hope for, we’ll never be able to assuage the guilt of having missed a few hours of our pricey higher education.

Sure, we could send out electronic cries for help to our peers, appealing for their precious notes with a promise to return the favour sometime down the line. But such is often an embarrassing prospect when we recall the many times we scoff at others for making the same pleads. This whole “begging for notes” game simply isn’t cool.

Thankfully, a more dignified approach has arrived, offering U of T students the ability to get the notes for the material they’ve missed without resorting to spamming desperately the inboxes of their classmates. A way to give the common ‘stay on top of coursework’ new year’s resolution a fighting chance.

“That’s where NoteSolution.com comes in,” says Kevin Wu, who co-founded the project along with U of T graduate Jack Tiantai. “In essence, NoteSolution.com provides a knowledge exchange portal that allows students to find supplementary material for all of their courses. When you sign up, you gain access to all of the additional material contributed by other students.”

Currently only available to U of T students, NoteSolution.com is a website that cleverly encourages the exchange and sharing of notes between U of T students across the departments and programs of all three campuses. Using its own unique currency of credits, students can spend their initial wallet of 100 credits on downloading notes at 20 credits a pop, and earn more through referring friends to the service, submitting their own notes, or having their own notes downloaded by others. Study guides are also available during exam crunches, and surplus credits can even be redeemed for gift cards.

The glaring concern with a site like this is the notion that students may use the detailed notes of others as an excuse to cut class with a clean conscience; certain professors already tend to decline making their lecture overviews and powerpoints available for that very reason. This is why the positive reception from many professors and student unions, including UTSU, may come as a surprise.

“[NoteSolution.com] makes it a priority to reward all users for contributing their knowledge to future students,” continues Kevin Wu. “Students, especially those in first and second year, can expect great things as they now have a portal to connect to and gain from the experience of upper year students.”

Despite being a rather young site, NoteSolution.com already has an install base of over 4,500 U of T students and plans to expand to York, McGill, and Waterloo in the near future. Several professors and student unions, including UTSU and UTSC, have openly endorsed NoteSolution.com. As a site that so easily allows students of all disciplines and experience levels to share their knowledge with one another, it’s not difficult to see why.

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2010 in Video Games

By Andrew on December 31st, 2010

A brief retrospective of 2010 in video games

It’s never a good sign for any form of media when, although you might have enjoyed the immediate experience, it fades entirely from memory after a scant few hours. That happened a lot in 2010. I’d watch a movie, and forget most of what I saw before I got home from the cinemas. I’d invest dozens of hours in a video game until completion only for it to leave no lasting impression on me whatsoever. I’ve invested not altogether insignificant portions of my life into these hobbies, and for what? For shallow thrills that whittle away my spare time until I have to return to my real obligations? I’d like to think I was doing something more worthwhile with my free time… Perhaps I should give this whole “reading” thing a crack, although somehow I doubt I’ll feel any more or less fulfilled through it.
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Plasmids were tonnes more fun in this game, that I do remember.

I played quite a few games in 2010, that much is for certain. But I can’t for the life of me remember what any of them were like without the case or some random screenshot I’ve stumbled upon online jogging my memory. You may recall that I adore BioShock. Well BioShock 2 came out in February, and despite having the triad of propaganda posters which came with the Collector’s Edition hanging from my bedroom walls, I’m at a loss for things to say about it. Something about a crazed psychiatrist rebuilding decaying Rapture as a monument to the collective as opposed to its intention as a monument to the self, proto-Big Daddies, and a campaign so short that it might as well have been DLC. Despite the markedly improved gameplay, there’s nothing compelling me to return to it. This is precisely my point.

I’ve played quite a few good games in 2010, but once I beat them, I never thought twice about them again. Only one or two games managed to leave any sort of lasting impression on me, while the rest were fleeting distractions. Fun for the moment, but lacking any special quality that makes me yearn for another visit to their world. While that may have sounded disheartening, I suppose if I can get a lasting experience from any pass time at least once or twice a year, maybe it’s been worth it after all.

A Bullet Point Roundup in no Particular Order

BioShock 2: I’ve already offered my piece on this game in the second paragraph of this article. Technically proficient and a mechanical step forward, but missing the invigorating sense of wonder and excitement that makes me so treasure the first game.

Decided not to use a picture of a Veyron which might scare people away. Just looking at that front end gives me the chills…

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit: Criterion is renowned for the Burnout games, a series of arcade racers blending a ridiculous sense of speed with spectacular crashes and highly aggressive racing. When they came on board to breathe new life into the aging Need For Speed series, my interest in the franchise was piqued for the first time. Burnout style cops and robbers racing with licensed high end cars? If the police really gave you Aston Martins and Porsches to bust street racers, I’d be first to sign up. The thing is, Hot Pursuit swiftly devolves into flashy shallowness through bland track design and an array of largely identical handling cars. Okay, so 911s have a hint of oversteer and Nissans act a bit floaty, but really, it’s all meaningless. It’s just eye candy gussied up as a racing game. It’s sense of variety and thrill is purely imaginary.

Gran Turismo 5: I was looking forward to this game for quite a while, and sadly I have not yet felt the desire to jump headlong into such a dense racing simulator. I’ve given it about an hour in the Honda Civic Type-R, but not much beyond that. Frankly, it seems like the first couple of dozen hours are quite the bore before the really good stuff opens up, and I just don’t know if I’m currently willing to invest so much into a game which may or may not be all that I’ve hoped for.

If only it played as well as it looked…

Civilization 5: The simple truth is, this game is incomplete. It’s rudimentary hex-gird-based single-unit-per-tile combat is coupled with an idiotic AI that doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s a glossy presentation covering up gaps in important statistical information. It’s gorgeous renderings of historical leaders voiced in their native tongues distracting from one dimensional diplomacy. Sure, there have been patches and tweaks, but if it had spent just a few more months in development, it wouldn’t have needed such extensive debugging and revising. As it stands, I’m not sure that it’s a game I want to be playing. Not necessarily due to threats of highly addictive “just one more turn…” gameplay for which the series is notorious, but because I don’t know why I should spend my time with a game that could easily render it meaningless with the next patch. How else can I put this? It’s a pleasant disappointment, and I’m not entirely sure that’s a valid summation.

Super Meat Boy: Oh come on, you already know that I think this game is pure, unadulturated brilliance. But it’s not the sort of game that offers any kind of longevity, despite what my investment of 23 hours might indicate. Once you beat the core game, you can leave it behind comfortable knowing that there’s nothing more to be done with it. Everything else is just for the game’s own sake, not yours.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable: This is a game I initially bought as a novelty, something foreign and distinctly Japanese to mock that wasn’t just another god awful Final Fantasy. The hyper stylized tale of Japanese high-schoolers who save the world from evil forces to the tune of peppy pop-rock music using turn-based-combat… while I’m not exactly confident that this is as insipid as yet another American war shooter, somehow I can’t help but feel that both examples currently exemplify eastern and western trends in action gaming. And yet, it grew on me. Sure it was largely by the numbers turn-based-combat, but it was also a cross between the dungeon crawling of Diablo and the addictive time/resource management of Harvest Moon. With a surprisingly well executed and involving narrative full of well rounded characters (even though the pacing was erratic), I came to absolutely adore this game.

It’s a dangerous thing to find non-suggestive/comparatively normal images for this game. Trust me.

I quite liked my high school years, but it’s a fun daydream to imagine how anything – not just high school – might have played out differently. Thus,  I found a definite charm in reliving the experience through the actions of my character in a different way than I myself did. What if I was more sycophantic? More interested in doing well academically? More concerned with the feelings and troubles of my friends? Fair enough, no high schooler ever has had to juggle studying by day and saving the world by night, and it’s in your best interest as the player do cultivate strong relationships for tangible combat bonuses, but the daytime gameplay of social interactions and time management was firmly grounded in the real world. You could hang out with friends, date other characters, go shopping, work a part time job, watch movies, or say, “to hell with it all!” and just head back home to spend the night studying for the upcoming exam. And in all instances, there was a reward that felt genuinely worthwhile. Your character earned higher grades through studying, became more popular through being charismatic, and tried new things through building confidence. And in each case, there was the treat of making a new friend and exploring a new dimension of the narrative. I can’t remember having ever played such a fascinating game that was genuinely interested in exploring relationships and personal connections.

It’s by no means perfect. As I’ve said, the pacing is completely bonkers being a routine of several hour chunks of nighttime dungeon grinding followed by several hour chunks of daytime teenage living. The combat itself is ultimately tedious and repetitive with the same boring animations, context, and battle music, and it takes a few hours for the game to really hit its stride. But all of this doesn’t really matter to me because it offered a new and exciting experience that was richly rewarding. People often discuss life changing books, movies, and songs, and in such a conversation I might put forth Persona 3 as being a life changing game. It causes you to reexamine your life and relationships, urges you to make every choice count, and constantly reminds you that time is a precious commodity. I’ve put 86 hours into this game, and I’d love to be able to put in 86 more.

Yes, you can hogtie prostitutes and leave them on train tracks to be crushed. I even got a trophy for doing that!

Red Dead Redemption: In the interest of being progressive, I’m obliged to hold this game higher than both Super Meat Boy and Persona 3. The former is a retro tongue and cheek 2D platformer that doesn’t bring new ideas to the table so much as polishing to a mirror shine long standing ones, and the latter is a port of a game that’s actually four years old. Red Dead Redemption on the other hand is, for all intents and purposes, a brand new game. It’s a gun-slinging western set in the dying old west of the early 20th century, and features a vast and uncompromising open world with a stunning art direction. From story’s beginning to end, it’s a rather average 8-10 hour romp of third person cover based gunplay, but all aspects of this achingly beautiful open world are full to bursting with things to do that I’ve spent over a hundred hours inside of it striving towards 100% completion (which I’ve earned, by the way).

What I like most about this game is how immaculately well made it is. Looking past the occasional bug and hiccup, there’s a real beauty to the writing and design. Galloping on horseback through the dust and desert feels sparse and threatening, and it’s terribly easy to get lost in the scenery, either by shooting animals, picking flowers, or doing favours for the rare people to be found in the wilderness. The few flaws of repetitive missions, inexplicably efficient and intensive combat, and an ending that is either cheap or utterly miscalculated depending on overall feeling, do little to diminish what is generally a rather endearing and thoroughly singular experience. It’s equally as fun as it is enlightening, and definitely stands as the best of 2010’s triple A lot.

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So there you have it, a highly subjective and perhaps more intimate than I would’ve liked examination of video games and movies in 2010. I don’t know what’s next for me and this website, but it’s a safe bet that the next thing you’ll see here will be my first article of 2011 for The Newspaper.
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Cheers, and all that seasonal well-wishing malarkey.
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Super Meat Boy

By Andrew on December 28th, 2010

Super Meat Boy

I’ve died 7,555 times. I’ve only completed 67% of the game’s content. At this rate, it stands to reason that I’ll need to die another 3,778 times to get to 100% completion. That is, of course, assuming uniform difficulty. But the difficulty isn’t uniform, and I don’t have the mathematical mind necessary to crunch the numbers further. Still, to die over 10,000 times to beat the game fully? To die at a rate of 343 times an hour, 5 times a minute, very nearly once every 12 seconds to make it two thirds of the way there? And presumably exponentially more than that to finish the final third? That’s an insane rate of failure.

And yet, I find myself coming back for more. Super Meat Boy has that effect on you. It’ll throw you into pits of lava and used syringes. It’ll eviscerate you hundreds upon hundreds of times on contraptions of circular saw death. It’ll make you feel utterly hopeless towards the perilous and infinitely lethal hoops through which it demands you jump. And yet, somewhere deep down in that sadistic core of brutal 2D platforming mechanics, it loves you. As often as it marches you to your death, it nourishes you with lovingly crafted visual design and catchy, invigorating background music. It may not nourish you at a rate of nearly once every twelve seconds, but somehow it balances out.

Pfft… Child’s play.

Super Meat Boy is the 2D platforming debut of independent developer Team Meat, currently available for download on PC and X-Box 360 with a forthcoming Mac release on the horizon. In it, you play as the eponymous Meat Boy, an adorably rendered cube of meat who was beaten up and had his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, stolen by the nefarious Doctor Fetus. You then proceed to guide Meat Boy through various colourful worlds (most of which are eventually coloured red with your own blood, mind you) in order to defeat the villain and win the girl in the traditional Mario mould.

You may think that the narrative is pathetic and ultimately a superficial vehicle for classic, tried and true 2D platforming gameplay, and you’d be right. Keep in mind that, if anything, it’s not necessarily disposable in its simplicity – after all, Nintendo have been refusing to throw it away for 26 years and counting – but disposable in the bizarre renditions of iconic archetypes. Men of meat and sharply dressed unborn children? We’re not exactly operating in the real world here…

At any rate, the context for the game’s action is so simple as to be established in its entirety even before the opening title credits. It’s a throwback to the glorious days of tough as nails 2D platforming in the NES/SNES era. You think Demon’s Souls was tough? Or how about the old Donkey Kong side-scrollers? Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts? The classic Castlevanias? May God help you with Super Meat Boy, then; a game so hard it would make the boys from Contra shrink in fear.

All Super Meat Boy gives you is a jump button and the directional arrows (as well as a uselessly toggled speed key which should really have been default, if I’m honest), puts about a million spinning blades between you and Bandage Girl, and then crams in about a million more. Before you know it, you’ll be inventing expletives in order to express your frustrations. The game quickly makes you realize that there’s not nearly as many curse words as there should be.

What could possibly make such a bleak and deliberately infuriating game worthwhile? What’s the gratification, what’s the payoff? Super Meat Boy is a rarity in that, for the first time I can remember in years, victory is its own reward. Once the game stops holding your hand about midway through the first world (if you want to argue that it was ever holding your hand in the first place), every level seems to present its own unique challenges. All you’re able to do is run and jump on a 2D plane, but absolutely every possible thing that can be done with that mechanic is explored across an assortment of 300 levels.

Sometimes, it’s all worth it just for the replay montage.

Never before has such variety been expressed through such simplicity. You’ll frequently spend dozens – occasionally even hundreds – of super meat children on completing a level which on average takes no more than 20 seconds to get through once you’ve figured it out. You’ll applaud your perseverance then immediately wonder what on earth the game could possibly throw at you next. Then you’ll see the next level. You’ll see the chasms you must jump, the dizzying maze of deathtraps in your way, and the seemingly impossible timed actions that the level design demands. The infinitely looped music will chime in once again with a pumping riff and you’ll hurl yourself headlong into the mercilessly cruel challenge that awaits. And if you have the fortitude to tough out the entire game, you’ll do this 300 times. You’ll feel like a champion 300 times. For $7.49, that’s quite the ego-boosting bargain.

The reason Super Meat Boy works so well is because of its sheer speed. A lot of games demand lightening quick reflexes from their players, but such is often unbalanced when it’s the only thing about the game that’s fast paced. In Super Meat Boy, everything is quick. The music is energizing and high tempo. Meat Boy himself moves at an initially uncomfortably swift pace given how precise most of the actions must be. The game rewards a fast performance by opening up a crueler version of the current level if it’s completed in a fast enough time, and always has a timer in the top left hand corner which is tuned to hundredths of a second for online leaderboards. And how do you think that it’s even possible to die at such a blisteringly fast pace as once every twelve seconds? It’s not by waiting around for load times, that’s for damn sure. All of a sudden, Meat Boy being skinned in Ferrari Red seems appropriate.

Super Meat Boy certainly isn’t for everyone, but this is just a fact of the genre and is through no fault of the game. Mechanically speaking, it’s fair and sound. It’s immensely rewarding in its difficulty and challenge, and while the core game up until the final showdown between Meat Boy and Doctor Fetus should be attainable by anyone sufficiently buoyed by the game’s lovingly retro charm and presentation to endure the punishing difficulty, the extra chapters, dark worlds, and warp zones will certainly push them over the edge. Still, this is a good 100 levels worth of content well within the skill set of almost anyone. And at the bargain indie game price, throw a couple of bucks Team Meat’s way and support a truly stellar and wonderfully realized title.