Number 4: Bioshock - "Welcome to Rapture" (2k Games, 2007)

The number 4 spot on my list belongs to the opening of last year's critically acclaimed Bioshock. The game takes place in the city of Rapture, an art deco underwater city built as an objectivist utopia by a megalomaniac of a man named Andrew Ryan (a sort of play-on-words/anagram for Ayn Rand). You play as a man simply named 'Jack', who is the sole survivor of a plane crash in the 1940's mid-Atlantic ocean.

Bioshock is a fascinating game because the game tasks you with hunting down and killing 'Big Daddies' - giant 'men' (we never get to glimpse who or what is inside) encased in oversized old-fashioned diving suits. You need to get rid of these Big Daddies because they protect the Little Sisters, small girls who walk around and harvest a material named 'Adam' from the dead bodies strewn around Rapture. You see, upon Jack's arrival you learn that something has gone horrible amiss in Rapture, leaving most of its citizens dead or so drugged-up that they've become ravenous killers. What you learn is that in this "anything goes" objectivist society, a new sort of drug/genetic modification was developed, called 'Plasmids', which gave its users phenomenal powers over the elements, allowing for such things as shooting electricity from one's hands, or the ability to turn water into ice. But something went wrong. It's a bit of a conceit, but is well implemented in the story. Plus it allows for some great old-fashioned advertising, like the old cigarette commercials from the '50's that look so silly and antiquated nowadays.

When you finally get to one of these Little Sisters you are presented with a choice, you can either choose to 'harvest' them, taking all the Adam they've accumulated but killing the Little Sister in the process, or you can choose to save them, removing the leech thing from their backs and returning them to normal, but sacrificing the precious Adam in the process. The first time you are confronted with this option it can be almost terrifying as you see a little girl looking at you in fear with the two options laid out in front of you. It seems that most people are unable to kill the little sister the first time, opting to save her instead.

The game also has one of the greatest twists in modern gaming, and in perhaps all of gaming. I don't want to divulge what it is here, but it's a great example of the reader-response school of literary criticism and really leaves the player to question what their role is in playing a videogame. I honestly felt that my trust hadn't been so much betrayed by the characters in the game, but that it was the actual game makers themselves who had betrayed me. I wish I could say more.

In the "Welcome to Rapture" segment we, as Jack, wake up from the plane crash to find ourselves floating in the water with the ruins of the plane crash around us. Water has never looked so damn good in a game. The fact that you don't have any sort of display at this point leaves a lot of people sitting there for a few minutes not realizing that the game has started. You swim a short way and see some sort of lighthouse protruding from the water nearby. You swim over to it and upon opening the front door are greeted with the statue of a scowling man holding a giant banner that reads: "No Gods or King, only Man". A short trip down the stairs brings you to the bathysphere (a giant diving bell). Upon pulling the lever the bathysphere closes and you are plunged underwater to begin your journey. Giant art-deco statues, straight from the cover of an Ayn Rand novel, appear outside holding signs which say how many fathoms deep you are. A movie screen pops up and a small "Welcome" movie begins to play. You are greeted by the voice of Andrew Ryan, who sounds something like Orson Welles, and he delivers his manifesto for why he built Rapture in one of gaming's great speeches:

"I'm Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question:
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?
No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.
No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.
No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone.
I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...
Rapture.
A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."

After this little movie you are greeted with the city of Rapture before you. An art-deco masterpiece entirely underwater, like something out of Jules-Verne. My favorite part is the giant humpback whale slowly swimming between the massive skyscrapers. Soon you enter Rapture and find that something terrible has occured.

There's no specific endpoint to the beginning of the game, but for this piece I'll say it's when you get knocked out and see a Big Daddy/Little Sister slowly trudging past you, with the Big Daddy sounding like some sort of whale. This level is not only a great introduction to the game, but it effectively introduces you to combat, plasmids, and how to use your environment around you. I could go on about this game, but I'll stop for now. I highly recommend watching the intro to the game, you can find it here.

Nice Speech

Here is a transcript of Obama's speech. He emphasized the differences between his positions and McCain's:

"Now, I don't believe that Sen. McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under $5 million a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than 100 million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy -- give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is that you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. You're on your own. No health care? The market will fix it. You're on your own. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps -- even if you don't have boots. You are on your own."

Obama also undercut the tired LIBERAL/CONSERVATIVE shouting match by explaining how his proposals are actually very centrist:

"It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves -- protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and science and technology."

That sounds like capitalism with personal and social responsibility as necessary elements. Not an overly LIBERAL position, in the cable talk show sense of the word. It'll be interesting to see McCain's response. Obama had Clinton(s) as the model of successful a centrist Democrat. McCain has...Bush? No, no, I think what he's really asking himself these days is - What would Nixon do?

Paul, er - Steve Jobs is Dead!

In case you missed it, yesterday someone at Bloomberg news was updating the obituary for Steve Jobs - yes, they keep planned obituaries on file in case big name people die - and accidentaly hit 'publish'. Whoops.
For a brief moment there everyone thought Steve Jobs had died. But we can all rest easy and put our iPod earbuds back in ears as it's just not true. Hit the link to see the rather lengthy pre-obit Bloomberg published.

Number 5: Doom - "Hangar" (id Software, 1993)

Well, looks like Yoggoth was right on this one. For the number 5 spot on my list of best first levels I've chosen the first level of Doom. A lot has been said about Doom. Though Wolfenstein was the first real first-person-shooter (also created by id Software) it was Doom that really grabbed people's attention and introduced them to the genre. Seeing everything from the eyes of the protagonist was a first for many people. But what really made Doom famous was its use of gore and violence. For its time it was an incredibly good looking game, and the blood, well, we thought it looked so damn real!!

I remember the first time I saw Doom I was blow away. Was this real? Could I really just walk around shooting zombies and other creatures, watching them keel over in disgusting death animations uttering a dying moan as I pumped another round into my shotgun?? Would I get in trouble for playing this game??? For it's time it was an extremely violent game. This was back in the era when Bart Simpson uttering "Eat my shorts" was pushing the limits and offending Barbara Bush. No one had seen a game quite like this before.

In terms of the actual level "Hangar" it's a great little introduction to the game. You start out with the wimpy pistol but in no time you get the shotgun, a highly effective weapon which also produced some of the more grisly death animations. Fighting through a small group of gun wielding zombies the player is soon introduced to the fireball-spitting Imps. An experienced Doom player can get through this level in under thirty seconds, but there's a surprising amount of depth if you take your time. There's a couple of secrets to be found, including access to the outside courtyard. This also makes this level the perfect level for the introduction of the "Deathmatch" mode.

Doom popularized Deathmatch mode for thousands of kids across the country. It seemed so revolutionary at the time - instead of shooting the monsters, you connected up two or more computers and shot your friends! The introduction of Deathmatch helped lay the groundwork for the online deathmatches that you can play today in hundreds of games, from Counterstrike to Call of Duty to Halo. In fact in most games today some sort of "multiplayer" mode is practically mandatory. But there was nothing like it at the time. In fact, once you got a taste for fragging your friends it could be hard to go back to the normal game. For all these reasons, this is why "Hangar" from Doom takes number 5. To take a look at actual gameplay footage click here.

Adventures In Rap #7: "The Show"/"La-Di-Da-Di"

So in my effort to tackle the history of rap as thoroughly as possible, to make sure that I'd heard every last droplet of worthwhile early rap ever released, I gave a listen to Street Jams: Hip-Hop From The Top, Vol. 1-4. While I'd already heard many of the tracks elsewhere (Sugarhill Gang, Run-D.M.C., etc.), there were several I had not. And several I may never need to hear again. I probably could have lived without Full Force's "Alice, I Want You Just For Me," The Fat Boys' "All You Can Eat," Fresh Gordon's "Gordy's Groove," Spyder-D's "Buckwheat's Beat" (yes, that Buckwheat), and Word Of Mouth's "King Kut (Featuring D.J. Cheese)," most of which are about on the level of Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash." While from a historical perspective these songs are fascinating, from a musical and lyrical perspective they leave a little to be desired.

At some point rappers must have realized that you can have the greatest lyrics in the world but if your beat stinks it doesn't matter, and that, by the same token, you can have the slightest lyrics on the face of the earth but if your beat rocks, then no one cares. At this stage the discussion probably went about as far as "Hey, let's just put Drum Machine Pattern #16 and some synth riffs on there and let's go to Chuck E. Cheese."

But Street Jams was not a total wash, thanks to the inclusion of what is possibly the most quoted single in the history of hip-hop: Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew's "The Show"/"La-Di-Da-Di." Amid the plethora of Saturday morning cartoon rejects, "The Show" and "La-Di-Da-Di"stood out like a sore thumb.

First of all, the music isn't total crap. "The Show" has a slinky, jazzy, spacious beat that grooves along with a rich layer of non-dated echo (as well as a comical keyboard riff which occasionally slips into the Inspector Gadget theme tune!). What really sets Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick apart from their 1985 brethren is the level of playfulness, irony, theatricality, and whimsy that they employ. They know how to be silly and yet not give the impression that they're constantly winking at you. They manage to be goofy without sounding like sell-outs. They're simply just...better.

First of all, you've got Doug E. Fresh, "The Human Beatbox," whose beatboxing isn't just amusing as a novelty but is actually filled with ingenious little details and split-second gags. Still, I don't know just how much human beatboxing I could take by itself. That's where Slick Rick comes in.

Slick Rick is possibly the greatest rapper of all time. Maybe in one sense at least. Not as a profound voice of human expression, perhaps, but just as a pure rapper. Whereas most rappers, before and since, have tried to come off as aggressive, Slick Rick is mellow. Every "mellow" rapper who's followed, from Snoop Dogg to Andre 3000 to Shock G to Das EFX, probably owes a little debt to Slick Rick. Some of the mellowness is probably unintentional: Since he spent a good portion of his childhood in England, he has a slight British accent that makes his phrasing even more distinctive than it already is. He elongates, he exaggerates, he plays around with words to create a surreal effect. He is the shit.

Together, Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick have a rapport that is unstoppable. Doug E. Fresh raps a line while Slick Rick makes a little throwaway joke in the background. Their absurdity is well-structured and logical. It's like the two class clowns, whom everybody knows are way funnier than the rest of the kids, getting up in front of the chalkboard and just goofing around for minutes and nobody minding. Like on the opening of "The Show":

Slick Rick:
Excuse me Doug E. Fresh...

Doug E. Fresh:
Yes!

Slick Rick:
Have you ever seen a show with fellows on the mic
With one million rhymes that don’t come out right?

Doug E. Fresh:
They bite

Slick Rick:
They’re never right

Doug E. Fresh:
That’s not polite

Slick Rick:
Am I lying?

Doug E. Fresh:
No, you’re quite right

And so on. I also love Slick Rick's only full verse in "The Show":

Slick Rick:
Well, here’s a little something that needs to be heard
Doug, I was walking downtown

Doug E. Fresh:
Word Rick

Slick Rick:
Word
All along, no one to be with
Step on the D-train, 205th
I saw a pretty girl

Doug E. Fresh:
So

Slick Rick:
So I sat beside her
Then she went rrrr, like she was Tony the Tiger
I said, oh darn, there's been a mistake
Honey, my name’s Slick Rick, not frosty flakes!

Now, although "The Show" was the A-side and the official hit (it peaked at #4 R&B), "La-Di-Da-Di," the B-side, is in some ways even better, and has been even more influential. Here is only a partial list of songs that have sampled "La-Di-Da-Di," just off the top of my head: The Beastie Boys' "Hold It Now, Hit It," Snoop Dogg's "Lodi Dodi," The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize," Das EFX's "Jussumen," De La Soul's "My Brother's A Basehead"...and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Gone are the cheesy keyboard riffs of "The Show." This time around, Doug E. Fresh is the music! Slick Rick takes center stage for a charmingly raunchy tale including the usage of Oil Of Olay, Johnson's Baby Powder, and Polo Cologne for God's sakes. The interplay between Slick Rick as the storyteller and Doug E. Fresh as the sort of Greek Chorus is delightful, like something out of a puppet show or a campfire skit.

At one point an exchange goes like this:

Slick Rick:
Then I dilly

Doug E. Fresh:
dally

Slick Rick:
I ran through a

Doug E. Fresh:
alley

Slick Rick:
I bumped into this homegirl named

Doug E. Fresh:
Sally

Slick Rick:
from the

Doug E. Fresh:
valley

I also love:

Slick Rick:
I woke up around ten o’clock in the morning
I gave myself a stretch up, a morning yawn and
Went to the bathroom to wash up
Put some soap on my face and my hand upon a cup, said
Mirror mirror on the wall
Who is the top choice of them all
There was a rumble dumble, five minutes it lasted
The mirror said

Doug E. Fresh:
“You are you conceited bastard!”

And finally, lest anyone mistake this for some sort of crossover rap, the song goes out with an R-rated bang:

Slick Rick:
And on and on and on she kept on
The bitch been around before my mother’s born
I said, “cheer up!” I gave her a kiss
I said, “you can’t have me I’m too young for you miss”
She said, “No you’re not,” then she starts crying
I says, “I’m nineteen”, she says

Doug E. Fresh:
“Stop lying!”

Slick Rick:
I says, “I am — go ask my mother
And with your wrinkled pussy, I can’t be your luverrrrrr!”

The words of a true artist.

Zrbo Presents: Top 5 "First Levels" of Videogames

As you probably know I'm a connoisseur of videogames. There's a certain enjoyment that comes with playing a game that can't be found through film or music. Especially when a game is new, there's nothing like getting home, ripping off the plastic and popping the disc/cartridge/floppy disc in and firing up that game for the first time, taking in the graphics, the music, and, most importantly, the gameplay.

The following posts will highlight those opening moments of videogames. More specifically I'll be looking at those great first levels of videogames. The top 5 "first levels" I've chosen are ones I believe effectively teach the player the basics of gameplay, give the players a taste of what the game is about and what's to come, and in cases where the game has a story to tell, introduce players to the story and leave them wanting more.

This list is not meant as a nostalgia trip, though you may find a whiff of it here and there. Also, my knowledge of videogames is not nearly complete and there would practically be no way for anyone to have played every single game out there, so please excuse me if "your favorite game" didn't make the list. The following list is composed of games that I have played, though that was not necessarily a criteria of mine. I hope you enjoy what's to come, and I'll try to make it as easy to read as I can for the non-gamers out there. Lad-, er, gentlemen, the top 5 first levels of videogames...

American Politics: Honesty is Catharsis

We've poked fun at John Dickerson and ridiculed Mickey Kaus, but we keep coming back to Slate. What's the draw? The Slate style is easy to read, the stories are kept to 1 or 2 pages, and there seems to be a an effort to offer a narrative, even where no coherent narrative exists, to keep the reader trudging on. These narratives take the form of a mentioned poll or two(replace poll with study for the science writing), an anecdote, and then a novel hypothesis as to why things are the way they are. Of course, these hypotheses aren't always so novel, and Kaus still spends 95% of his blog space covering the John Edwards scandal (Is he smarting from missing out on the fun during the Clinton years? - Ed.), but we get the paid-amateur insight we came for.

That said, there are some good articles in Slate now and then. Jacob Weisberg's column today, "If Obama Loses: Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him" is one of them. These days most political commentary from the big media outlets comes in the form of childish nitpicking and the tortured analysis of each candidate's verbiage and syntax. These remind me of high school political discussions which usually boiled down to something like this-

Abortion!
Taxes!
Welfare!
Freedom!
Nazis!
Communism!
...
Gay!

Shuffle the order of the first six as you will, there's no better rhetorical flourish than calling someone gay at the end of a high school discussion. If that's the level of CNN/Fox commentary, Slate is the round table debate in the college dorm common area after they clean out the human feces that guy who got kicked out smeared all over everything a couple months ago. People are silly and pretentious, but they occasionally site something they read or tell an interesting story, and now and then someone shares a story with a bit more emotional honesty than you're used to. And this is Weisburg's article.

The thrust of it: "If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn't ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin." Skip a few sentances: "You can do the math: 12 percent of the Pennsylvania primary electorate acknowledged that it didn't vote for Barack Obama in part because he is African-American. And that's what Democrats in a Northeastern(ish) state admit openly. The responses in Ohio and even New Jersey were dispiritingly similar."

My own thoughts on the election are similar. I remember telling people during the primary campaign that race shouldn't be a factor in their decision because racially biased votors wouldn't vote for a Democratic candidate anyway. Maybe it will be a bigger issue than I thought. At this point, however, it's become a moral imperative for me, and for the country. If Obama loses because of his race, in an election to determine if the policies threatening an end to American prosperity will be continued, then there was no saving us to begin with. Crisis would then be the only way to bring about balance and change.

As Weisburg ends his column: "You may or may not agree with Obama's policy prescriptions, but they are, by and large, serious attempts to deal with the biggest issues we face: a failing health care system, oil dependency, income stagnation, and climate change. To the rest of the world, a rejection of the promise he represents wouldn't just be an odd choice by the United States. It would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation's historical decline."

You may disagree, but at least he's saying something. New mathematical expressions of tired truisms and endless coverage of manufactured scandal--well those aren't saying anything at all.

It's a Post Post Post Post Modern World

Last night I went to Music in the Park in downtown San Jose with my girlfriend to watch a Beatle's cover band (appropriately titled "The White Album Ensemble"). At the park there we met up with a middle-age couple who are friends of my girlfriends parents. They're the sort of baby-boomer generation types who grew up listening to the Beatles. You know - they actually remember when the White Album was new. They are also big Mac users, each one clutching their new iPhones.

Do you ever feel vaguely irked when you see these young kids, say on American Idol, who during a big power ballad sway their cell phones back and forth like they were holding a lighter? Well folks, that's just sooo 2005! During the final encore this middle-age couple whip out their iPhones, fire up an application which shows a video of a burning lighter and proceed to wave them back and forth as if they were real lighters!! Take that hipster kids! Nowadays we don't use cell phones as faux-lighters, we use cell phones projecting pictures of lighters as faux-lighters!!

The post modernism of it all baffled me in the way the definition of "is" baffles a semiologist. I'm not sure where we're going next ladies and gentlemen, but by the time we're middle-age I don't even want to know what kind of symbol-as-symbol-as-symbol we'll be waving around.

Greetings from Dr. Candle

As a Lost fan I can't believe I missed this. Here's a new video featuring everyone's favorite Dr. Marvin Candle which premiered at Comic-Con. I love how it's a transmission from the past. Reminds me a lot of the episode "Blink" from the new Doctor Who, the one where they're sending transmissions to people in the future through DVDs. Anyone, anyone?

Meesa Not Giving George Lucas My Hard-Earned Money

Raise your hands if you're rushing out to your local multiplex to catch Star Wars: The Clone Wars before it heads straight to the DVD bargain bin. Yeah that's what I thought. I mean, after closing out the prequels on a high note with Revenge Of The Sith (which I enjoyed a great deal), ol' Georgie boy turns right around and releases...the Star Wars movie nobody was waiting for. Yousa thinking yousa people ganna stop encouraging the man by showing up and paying for this crap? Some geeks never learn.

Two favorite reviews. Jeremy Wheeler on the Allmovie Blog:

The Star Wars theatrical experience gets a sloppy kick in the ribs with the arrival of Star Wars: The Clone Wars – a sub-par 3-episode arch from Lucasfilm’s upcoming lackluster animated series of the same name. Undeservedly pushed to the big screen to cash in a quick buck, the computer generated kiddie flick is exactly what fandom has been dreading and the youngest of their kin are sure to eat up – an annoying and utterly boring version of the prequel universe, all presented with an idiot panache that only an 8-year old could appreciate. Make no mistake; this is a far cry from the vibrant and exciting days of Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky’s time with the material. This take on The Clone Wars adapts more of a WB Kids attitude as it relays the untold days of Anakin Skywalker’s obnoxious preteen padawan, as bland politics force ridiculous plotlines such as the Jedi’s helping Jabba the Hutt find his farting tadpole kid, Stinky. Yes, it has really come to that.

And Ebert:

This is the first feature-length animated Star Wars movie, but instead of pushing the state of the art, it's retro. You'd think the great animated films of recent years had never been made. The characters have hair that looks molded from Play-Doh, bodies that seem arthritic, and moving lips on half-frozen faces -- all signs that shortcuts were taken in the animation work.

You know you're in trouble when the most interesting new character is Jabba the Hutt's uncle. The big revelation is that Jabba has an infant to be kidnapped. The big discovery is that Hutts look like that when born, only smaller. The question is, who is Jabba's wife? The puzzle is, how do Hutts copulate? Like snails, I speculate. If you don't know how snails do it, let's not even go there. The last thing this movie needs is a Jabba the Hutt sex scene.