Babylon 5

So, about 20 years late (21, actually, from when the very first episode first aired), I've finally watched all of Babylon 5. It's actually a show that I'd be avoiding for quite a while, even though I've been in and out of a space sci-fi mood since about last April (when Fathead got me hooked on Farscape) because let's be honest, when you first look at Babylon 5, it looks super hokey. The CGI is awful, especially now (they should have stuck with models instead of pioneering something new, frankly---it would have aged better) and honestly, just look at the Centauri---they're basically entirely human looking, but with super funky hair. You look at those guys and you just think, "No way is a show that's basically just saying it's enough for aliens to have crazy hair actually any good. No way."

Except it it. It really is.

The first season is, I think, a bit maligned, but even it isn't bad. Now, it's definitely not the best season of the show (although it's not the worst either---that dubious honor goes to season five), but it certainly has its moments and, having watched the original pilot for the show, "The Gathering," I could see where it was building to something the whole time. Hell, I didn't even entirely mind Michael O'Hare's performance (although I quickly decided I liked Bruce Boxleitner better---and not just because he's way more attractive). It starts the ball rolling in terms of the main, overall plot, and it quickly sets up my favorite character, Susan Ivanova, as a hell of a lot of fun (and also, unfortunately, as having no luck in love whatsoever, which I'll get to more later).

It's not wrong to say, though, that the show really gets rolling in the second season. Because Michael O'Hare couldn't stay with the show, due to his battle with schizophrenia, we end up meeting the real hero of our story, John Sheridan (played by Bruce Boxleitner). In turn, he first meets Delenn, who ends being his love interest in the story. We also start really seeing the Shadows, from whom all troubles over the course of the series come, even if it's not entirely direct, as well as the Vorlons (who really only actually appeared in a handful of episodes in the first season) starting to step in more. Essentially, the threads that the first season laid down are really picked up and run with in the second season.

The show then rolls right ahead into greatness in seasons four and five. Babylon 5's greatness is in the tightness (and epicness---the scale of Babylon 5's plot is enormous) of its overall plot. That overall plot is served, of course, by other elements---like the actors and the character development arcs it encompasses---but the fact is that what makes Babylon 5 so great is that the whole plot was (basically) planned from the get go. Yes, there were some changes that had to happen due to actor changes (O'Hare's Sinclair being replaced by Boxleitner's Sheridan, resident telepath Lyta being replaced by Talia and then Talia being again replaced by Lyta, and, of course, Ivanova leaving the show after season four), but overall every plot twist was planned out and you can definitely see that. Things that you would have thought were certainly throwaways from even as far back as the first season always come back. Things are foreshadowed heavily and prophesy is used liberally (Babylon 5 is decidedly a space opera). Furthermore, the show, despite having that well-planned arc, didn't just have one overall plot that was stretched out over the course of five seasons. Instead, it had interlocking, nesting plots. Thus, at all times the main plot felt foreshadowed, but you couldn't just look at what episode you were on in a season to guess whether a plot would be tied up. Indeed, I remember sitting in awe when, in the middle of the third season, what I thought was going to be the big plot that stretched the whole series was neatly tied up. Even more strikingly, the show didn't stall out there but instead launched into another major plot that had been started and paused earlier---one that was still big and epic but which had been forgotten about in the excitement of the other storyline. The show kept going strong despite major plots being tied up long before the end of the show and didn't miss a beat or stall out at all until the fifth season (which is discussed in more detail below).

Another element that worked really well was the way that the show, partially, I think, because it was a work of such a grand scale, referenced other stories. Sheridan, for instance, is a decidedly messianic figure---he literally dies and then comes back. More interestingly is that his messianic nature isn't embraced by him (because he knows that despite the parallels, he may well not live up to what everyone expects and is still just human), but is instead simply lampshaded by the person who ends up being his Judas (another role the that Judas lampshades himself with a reference to the 30 silver pieces). Another lovely bit of reference was that of I, Claudius. The Centauri emperor Cartagia is not only explicitly a Caligula figure, but one that is definitely informed by the portrayal of Caligula in I, Claudius---at one point Cartagia points to a head he has sitting on his desk and mentions that it was the "cure" to an incessant cough, a direct reference to a scene in I, Claudius where Caligula does the same thing to a young boy named Gemellus. Vir and Londo are then, of course, both Claudius figures. Vir is the everyman, a person who still keeps his sense of principle in a world gone mad, and while Londo has gone down the rabbit hole to a certain extent in regard to horrors his people are visiting on others, but he's still just a sane man trying not to lose his head when it comes to Cartagia. And, of course, both Londo and Vir become emperor, eventually, which is a fate that no one would have ever thought of for them. World War II is also referenced a certain amount, which makes sense in a show that puts a lot of its focus on war. All of these references, though, work pretty well, and add something to the show, even if they are somewhat heavy-handed at times (the reference to "Peace in our time" being especially so).

The way characters are able to grow and change over the course of the show is another one of its great elements. G'Kar, in particular, grows. In the first season, I (and, I'm sure, everyone else) thought he and his race were going to be the show's main antagonists. They aren't---and what a tragedy it would have been if they were. There was nothing wrong with the way G'Kar and the Narn started out---beaten down by having been occupied by the Centauri and blinded by a need for revenge---but where it actually ends up going is so much better and so much deeper. The Narn become a living tragedy and G'Kar goes from angry to angrier to someone who is able to selflessly do what's right, becoming a religious figure for peace among his people. It's one of the (many) truly delightful things about the show. You would hardly recognize G'Kar in the later part of the show (starting perhaps mid-season three, although his transformation certainly isn't complete then) but even despite that, the core elements of his character remain the same. G'Kar, much like his foil, Londo, is incredibly dedicated to his people and that always remains. The difference, really, is in what he does with that dedicated, how he directs it, and that really is a world of difference.

Londo, is another character whose story is a great delight to watch. Londo is, essentially, G'Kar's opposite. Both of them are driven by a love for their people (although Londo also always had decidedly more personal ambition as well) but unfortunately that is placed in opposition. The Centauri and the Narn are enemies with a lot of bad blood between them---the Narn resent (rightly) what the Centauri did to them (they had been a peaceful agrarian world) and the Centauri resent that the Narn were able to free themselves; they see it as the beginning of the unraveling of their empire, their prominent place in the galaxy (and indeed, they are a society in decline). Unfortunately for Londo, the fact is that the Centauri's ideals for what they should be as a society aren't necessarily moral and it leads him down a very bad path. The things Londo does out of love for his people are terrible. His actions directly result in the deaths of a lot of innocent people. At the same time, it's an incredibly tragic, sympathetic story. It's heartbreaking to watch Londo innocently make a bad decision out of love for his people and then, having realized, on some level, that it was bad, double down on his decision. He spends a lot of time doggedly continuing down his bad path and working hard to convince even himself that he did the right thing. Then every once in a while you will see a crack in him---see that he thinks he made the wrong decision but feels trapped and so simply tries to convince himself he's right. Eventually, of course, when he sees the path he's on ready to destroy his people, Londo finally changes course. By then, though, he's gone too far and things do not end up well for him. By the end of the show, Londo is a redeemed man (at least arguably---he's certainly turned away from his old mistakes and is trying to atone), but his bad choices catch up to him and now he is forced to do what he can acknowledge is wrong in order to avoid having the blood of even more innocent people on his hands. Honestly, it's a great storyline and having it opposite (and intertwined with) G'Kar's, just makes it that much better.

It wasn't just characters that changed, though, that were good. Ivanova was, in my opinion, the best character on the show, and frankly she stayed pretty static. She had storylines and things happened with her, but that being said, she did stay the same. Throughout the show, she was a tough Russian who'd had a hard enough life (especially in regard to losing people she loved) that she kept people shut out. Indeed, a lot of what happened to her seemed to be her losing people. Her mother and brother die before the show starts. Her father dies in the first few episodes. Her first love turns out to be a reprehensible person. Her girlfriend turns out to be a sleeper agent. The man who's pining after her but whom she's too scared to love sacrifices his life for hers. It's tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, and yet she's still an interesting character despite never really changing. She's tough and sassy but rather uniquely among characters like her, we get to see her cry. Indeed, one of the things I really noticed about her during the first season was how many times she cried. Other shows would have had her be a stoic and to push down her emotions (and she did actually do plenty of that too) and the crying would have been lost with that. Instead we get a person who personifies that fact that strong women can cry too (and often) and still be just as strong and as badass of a character as they were before the waterworks.

One character arc that was much less surprising than where the show went with Londo and G'Kar but actually ended up working very well was the romance between Delenn and Sheridan. It was obvious from the moment they stuck the two characters in a scene together that they were going to hook them up. Boxleitner plays the scene like he's kind of a starstruck by her and you just know where they're going with it. That said, by the time the show is ended and we're seeing the two characters after they've been married for about 18 or 19 years, it's incredibly powerful. A certain amount of that, of course, is that the actors actually have pretty good chemistry with one another. A lot of that is that while at first the romance was somewhat clumsily executed (which was pretty par for the course in Babylon 5 romances and is a point I will cover more in a bit), with this being the main romance of the show they do eventually really start building the romance. By the time we get to the last episode, these characters have had hints of a romance for four years and they've really been working at building it, making it real, for about three and a half. Thus, that last episode was incredibly powerful and a total tearjerker because of them as a couple. Frankly, I never really expected to be that interested in the pair when they first came on scene but by the end I loved them.

Unfortunately, most of the other romances in the show aren't handled so well (and again, the beginning of the Sheridan/Delenn relationship was messy too). They all suffered from what I think the earliest parts of the Sheridan/Delenn suffer from: they drops hints about it every few episodes and we get nothing in between. Half the time the characters barely have scenes together in between. A believable romance cannot be built on so thin a foundation. We don't need dialogue where two characters sit around and pine after one another, but we need enough scenes of them together to at least get those long looks that fangirls are so wont to read into. We need to see enough of them together that we can see good chemistry, a real attraction. Dropping a hint of something and getting back to it way later works great with plot points and even character arcs (we don't need to be following every character all the time and Babylon 5 definitely realized that), but it doesn't work at all for romance. This was one the reasons why the tragic ending of the nascent relationship between Marcus Cole and Ivanova never quite hit home the way it was supposed to. I liked the relationship (especially the way that Ivanova, despite leaving the show immediately afterward, carried what happened with her for years), but it just never quite did what it should have. I should have been bawling when that played out (like I was when Sheridan and Delenn finally did in the epilogue episode). I wasn't. Claudia Christian (Ivanova) put out a great, powerful performance for the end of that relationship but it was undermined by the fact that the relationship consisted entirely of about half a dozen "moments" spread out over the course of an entire two seasons (a whole 44 episodes). Ivanova's relationship with Talia Winters was even worse---they make up one episode and then over the course of just one more, we realize (well, it's strongly implied) that Ivanova and Talia have started a real, honest-to-goodness romantic relationship with each other. One episode. It works, to a certain extent, but again it's only because Claudia Christian puts out a good enough performance that she seems legitimately heartbroken (and good enough to sell a bit of nervous flirting). Garibaldi's relationship suffers from the same problem, except with an added dose of "aw, come on" added to the equation when the love he's been pining over ends up conveniently without her child and married a second time so that Garibaldi can conveniently bust in and get her back. Frankly, I think it would have been much more interesting if she'd been married only once and they would have let her keep her kid---navigating a relationship where the other party has kids is complicated and it would have been interesting to see Garibaldi having to deal with that instead of just having an infant put on the bus because it interferes with pairing its mother off with a main character. Add to that the fact that Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi) just never turned out the sorts of performances Claudia Christian did, and, well . . .

Honestly, the most tragic thing about how poorly executed a lot of the relationships on the show were is that the show works a lot---and quite successfully---with the idea that it's really hard to get over losing someone you love. Many, many of the characters have this. Sheridan, of course, comes to the show still mourning his dead wife Anna 2 years after her death and only gets over her by falling in love with Delenn (which he admits to feeling guilty about). Lennier never seems to be able to let go of his unrequited love for Delenn (which is one of the few romances which didn't suffer from poor development---probably because their roles gave the two so many scenes together) and it's a fair assumption that this same sort of unrequited love was at work with Delenn and her mentor Dukhat. Her relationship with him mirrors the one she has with Lennier (she even repeats many of the the things Dukhat told her to Lennier in the form of direct quotes) and when Dukhat is tragically killed, she starts an entire (genocidal) war in her anguish. When Sheridan finally dies, she never gets over him. Garibaldi never gets over leaving a woman he loved and finds himself trying to fix that mistake more than once years later. Londo gets back into bed with the Shadows just to get revenge for the poisoning of a woman he loves.

Then, of course, there is Ivanova, who is the trope-namer for All Love is Unrequited. Her inability to get over Talia means that she never lets herself have a relationship with Marcus. Then when he dies, she's so distraught over it that she leaves Babylon 5 and can barely speak his name 20 years later---indeed, word of God (in the form of the audio commentary for that episode) tells us that it's the first time she's spoken his name in 20 years. You get all of this lovely, lovely tragedy about how, as great as love is, it leaves you really, devastatingly vulnerable to loss, and it's great to watch, but I do think it would have been so much better if we'd been given more development for some of those relationships. Indeed, it's very surprising how well the tragic theme of not getting over lost love works in this show given that so many romances were developed so poorly.

Romances were the only relationships that were poorly executed, at least in terms of writing, however. For all that the reconciliation between Londo and G'Kar was lovely to watch, it wasn't because of the writing itself. Certainly, we were given a reason why the two would get along now---it wasn't as though they were suddenly simply getting along with no working having been done---but that said, despite the fact that some effort was put into the reconciliation, it didn't really feel earned. Frankly, I think it would have fallen really flat (much like Garibaldi's return to the fold at the end of season four did) if it weren't for the fact that the actors just work really well opposite each other whether they're enemies or friends. It's because of that that, actually, despite the reconciliation feeling unearned, it's delightful to watch the two becoming pals, but that doesn't change the fact that it should have been less rushed, that more care should have been put into it. They got lucky with it and that definitely shows a flaw in the writing.

The addiction storyline for the show's doctor ends up being another poor point as well. It was a really well done, well-developed storyline that ended up going exactly and precisely nowhere. The seeds for the addiction are planted way back and we get to see it very slowly develop into a problem, stay that way for a while and then it comes to head and . . . nothing. Seriously, every other subplot in the show ends up having some impact on the overall plot but this one just results in the doctor wandering around, trying to find himself and then he just goes back to his original job. The addiction is mentioned again, because Babylon 5 forgets nothing, but it doesn't really have any impact. It just goes nowhere and that's very unusual for this show. Indeed, that makes this storyline relatively unique---and not in a good way.

The other poor storyline basically ended up, I think, stalling out much of the fifth season---the damn Byron storyline. It just didn't work. What they were trying to do is add a third side to the telepath war, make it more than just Bester (Mr. Chekov without the Russian accent and a delightful, complicated recurring villain for the show) and Psi Corps versus the rest of humanity. They wanted give us sympathetic telepaths that might be against normal humans, might feel wronged by them. There might have been a way to do it, but unfortunately, Byron was just not likeable as a character. He was supposed to be a Martin Luther King analog, but the issues with telepaths were just way too different from those is racism. Mostly it seemed like Byron talked a lot about peace and being wronged---and then gave normal people very good reason to fear telepaths by casually invading their privacy. Racism was a pretty clear-cut issue, ultimately; the racists were wrong. Telepaths didn't have that, but in dealing with Byron, it often felt like they didn't realize that. Byron also seemed to suck all of the interest out of Lyta as a character. She just sat around being in love with Byron (who was basically just a cult leader). It wasn't until he was finally gotten rid of that Lyta got to do anything again. Frankly, the whole Byron thing actually made me glad that Ivanova (who, again, was my favorite character) left the show. Apparently they were originally going to give her a romance with Bryon. With her leaving, not only did I not have to watch her struggle through yet another failed relationship (which would have made tragically bad relationship number four for her), but it didn't undermine her relationship with Marcus (which, while it could have been executed much, much better, I did still ultimately like).

Once Byron was gone, the fifth season did pick up, finally getting back to stories we could actually care about, like what was happening with the Centauri Prime and the Londo storyline, but it did ultimately make the whole fifth season pretty tragically bleh. Again, the third and fourth seasons were epically awesome, but the fifth season, which did still have interesting places to go, was ultimately kind of a let down after those. It almost certainly would have been a different story if they hadn't thought they were being canceled after the fourth season and quickly tied up some of their main plots, but that's mostly just because we would have gotten an extension of the awesome plot from season four instead of stupid Byron.

Overall, though, this show is amazing. Ultimately there are better sci-fi shows out there (Farscape also had a pretty tight, if not as well-planned, overall plot, and ultimately had better characters), but that mostly just says something about how good sci-fi can get. Babylon 5, despite looking like it should be terrible, is actually a great gem in the world of sci-fi. It's a deep show that looks a lot dumber than it is, and it has one of the most engrossing plots I've ever seen. Indeed, because of this, I will be very excited to see what is done with the show when the original writer and creator reboots the series as a movie. Honestly there is plenty that could deal with being fixed (there was some pretty stilted acting in some places, especially the beginning and that CGI has got to go), but the core is so good that I'm definitely of the opinion that a reboot could be exactly what the doctor ordered. Babylon 5 suffers a bit from its age and from being first in what it was trying to do (giving American audiences a continuous plot over a number or years) but TV and movies keep getting better, both in terms of effects and in terms of executing big plots like Babylon 5's that I can only imagine a reboot will be amazing.

And in the meantime, at least I'll have the canon novels to read.

Snig's Lost Bag

Today I think I must be feeling a bit nostalgic, because I've decided to post a little story (complete with illustrations!) that I wrote some time ago, despite the fact that posting my fiction isn't really what I do with this blog. Enjoy.

Snig's Lost Bag

“Was him.”

“No, it was you. I saw you,” said the farmer. “You took my coin purse.”

Snig took another swig from his beer stein—which was nearly as big as the little green goblin’s entire head—and tried to look casual. “Snig wouldn’t do that. Was that guy, like Snig said.”

“There’s a bulge in your cloak,” the farmer accused.

Snig looked down. “Ah! Snig’s spleen! Is coming out! ‘Scuse me. Needs to find cleric.”

Snig grabbed his hat and hopped down from the bar stool, leaving his beer unfinished. He reached for his bag, ready to make a quick getaway, but found that it wouldn’t move.

“Snig not steal that much,” the little goblin mused, looking back toward his bag, which had already been bulging when he entered the tavern and had gotten only slightly larger during his short tenure inside. What he saw was the farmer’s large, beefy brown hand holding firmly onto the bag, keeping him from moving it even an inch.

Snig cleared his throat and flashed him a wide smile full of large, sharp teeth. “Snig needs cleric for spleen. Let go of Snig’s bag.”

“Give me back my coin purse, you little varmint.”

“Now, now. No need to insult Sniggy. Help you find coin purse once spleen fixed, kay? Bye now!”

And with that Snig gave a mighty heave and managed free his bag from the farmer’s grasp, nearly toppling himself over in the process. As soon as he’d regained his balance, Snig was off like a shot, dodging in between the legs of other customers, underneath tables and chairs as he tried to find the quickest path to the door. The farmer was hot on his heels, pushing aside other patrons, overturning tables and kicking past chairs in an effort to reach the tavern door before the goblin.

Snig slid to a halt as the farmer appeared suddenly in front of the exit. He quickly turned around and ducked between the nearby barmaid’s legs. The young woman, already somewhat top-heavy, was sent bosom first into the farmer by Snig and his overlarge bag. It was a sign of how truly intent the farmer must have been to have his coin purse back that he did not even pause for a casual feel as he pushed the barmaid into another patron and began barreling after the fleeing goblin.

Snig continued to maneuver his way expertly through the dirty and crowded tavern as the farmer continued to chase after him, leaving a path of spilled beer, overturned tables and general destruction in his wake.

For a moment, it seemed as though the farmer had Snig trapped in a corner but as soon as the man reached down to grab him by the neck and wring the life from him, he found that Snig had vaulted onto his shoulder and down his back, making another narrow escape. By now, however, Snig had his work cut out for him. Every patron in the tavern, as well as the tavern’s owner, was doing his very best to catch the little green thief. By the time Snig had managed to vault out the tavern door, his ears had been pulled, his cloak had been ripped and the feather in his hat ruined.

Still, it was always a good night when Snig managed to come out of a place with more stuff than he’d walked in with (which made most days a good day for Snig), and so he gleefully hopped onto a nearby horse, cutting the horse’s ties with the meat-cleaver he kept on his belt and ordered it to “giddy-up!”

It was not until he attempted to make camp for the night that Snig realized anything was amiss. His bag had gone missing.

Snig plopped himself down cross-legged next to the horse and began to think very hard.

“Where bag?” he mused to himself. “Had it in bar, then took stupid-man’s monies . . .”

And thus Snig realized with great horror exactly where his bag was.

“I losted it in bar!” he wailed to the heavens, the points of his ears drooping downward in despair. “Bad peoples took Sniggy’s bag!”

Snig quickly settled it between himself and the horse that this simply would not due and that they would have to go back for his bag.

“Snig little but Snig not get kicked around!” he declared to the horse, who looked nervously back at him as spoke. “Snig take back bag, then turn town into campfire!”

As Snig neared the town, he took the horse into the woods near the southeastern part of town and tied the horse to a tree.

“You stay here. Snig get bag,” he told it as he tied the severed remains of the horse’s reins into a messy knot around a nearby branch.

Having secured his stolen horse, Snig sneaked off into the night toward the tavern, quietly humming his favorite song, “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” to himself as he did so. He quickly made his way back to the tavern and, being as quiet as he possibly could while still humming, began picking the lock to the tavern’s back door. He met quickly with success, which was to his good fortune for Snig’s attention had a tendency to wander and it was likely that if his first attempt to pick the lock had failed, he would have fallen into his usual standby of furtively destroying the door—an option which worked more often than logic dictated it really should.

Watching carefully for any sign of the tavern’s owner or his staff, Snig quickly made his way from the back storage room into the bar’s main area. All the tables and chairs had been righted, although the strong smell of beer still lingered, indicating that the spilled drinks had been cleaned up only in the most minimal fashion, if at all. Seeing no sign of his bag when he first entered the room, Snig ducked behind the bar and began a thorough search for his bag. Finding nothing, Snig placed his mouth wide open under the beer tap and turned it on, stealing himself a refreshing drink as he thought about where to look next.

Remembering the storage room he’d come in through, he hopped back down from the counter and returned there. Fifteen minutes and a number of smashed kegs and barrels later, Snig was finally reunited with his bag.

“Missed you!” he declared brightly, and gave the bulging sack an adoring squeeze. “Came all the way back for you,” he continued fondly, stroking a particularly prominent bulge in the bag’s side.

He gave the bag a final hug and then, having crammed a few more items from a nearby barrel into the bag, began to drag it outside as quickly as his little legs would allow. After a small delay caused by the need to hide from the single town guard’s nightly rounds, Snig finally returned with his precious bag to the spot in the woods where his pilfered horse was tethered.

Feeling quite pleased with himself, Snig plopped himself down next to the horse and began assessing the bag’s content’s.

“Painting . . . check. Snorkel. . . check. Pretty dolly . . . check. Squishy pillow . . .”

Snig went on like that for nearly a quarter of an hour until he discovered that one of the bag’s most precious contents was not to be found.

“Where’s Snig’s chicken?!” he exclaimed, shaking the empty bag in the vain hope that the chicken would fall out of it. “Chicken! CHICKEN!” he called, shoving his head into the bag’s opening.

“Is gone!” Snig finally declared to the horse. “Snig’s chicken gone!”

He was quickly on his feet and replacing all of his other items into the bag. “You guard bag. Snig go back to bar, get chicken.”

But Snig’s chicken was not to be found at the tavern.

“Where could chicken be?” Snig mused, taking another swig of beer from the tavern’s tap. “Has to be somewhere.”

“Chicken in chicken coup!” exclaimed Snig suddenly, a stream of beer suddenly hitting the floor as he removed his mouth from under the tap. “Stupid-man took Snig’s chicken and put in chicken coup! All Snig need do is search chicken coups and Snig find chicken!”

His spirits having been raised by his sudden brilliant idea, Snig skipped gleefully down to the end of the counter, hopping neatly down and scampering back out of the tavern without ever bothering to turn off the beer tap.

Realizing the need for a disguise to avoid the wrath of the farmers who owned the chicken coups he would be searching, Snig returned to the woods and his bag. Digging quickly through his bag, Snig pulled from its depth a well-worn beekeeper’s suit, much too big for him in size. Digging even farther into the bag, he soon pulled out a wad of feathers and some tar, which began using to stick the feathers to the suit. Within a very short period, he had fashioned himself an overlarge chicken suit, complete with a little beak made out of sticks.

Donning the suit, Snig made his way back to town and began searching through the first chicken coup he came across.

“CHICKEN!” he called loudly. “CHICKEN! You! You seen Snig’s chicken?” he asked a chicken standing near the door. Snig stared for a long while at the chicken in question, waiting on an answer. “You sure?” he pressed, after a few long minutes. Yet again receiving no answer, Snig tossed the chicken aside and resumed called for his chicken.

“CHICKEN!” he called again and again, searching under some chickens and shaking others to be certain that his chicken was not hidden inside another.

Eventually Snig determined that his chicken was not in this particular chicken coup and moved on. He searched chicken coup after chicken coup, finding his chicken in none of them. Finally, Snig arrived at the only remaining chicken coup in the area.

“CHICKEN!” he began calling as approached the chicken coup. “CHICKEN!”

“Hey! Who are you?”

Snig turned and found himself once again face to face with the man he’d stolen the coin purse from at the tavern. “I’s chicken,” he told the man, imitating a flapping motion with his feather-covered arms.

“No, you’re not.”

“Of course I is,” Snig insisted. “See feathers?” he asked, pointing insistently at them. “See beak?” he asked, pointing even more insistently at the little stick beak with both hands. “I’s chicken. Chick-en.”

“No,” said the man. “You’re that . . . that Snick fellow.”

“Snig,” corrected the little goblin. “Oops.”

And with that, Snig was off, running as fast as he could toward the chicken coup’s opening. “CHICKEN!” he called. “Come out, chicken! We’s gots to go!”

As soon as he was inside, Snig began rifling through the chickens, looking for his own. Feathers flew everywhere as Snig tossed some chickens in various directions, and others flew frantically away from the little green madman. He dodged wildly as he searched, leaping from side to side of the chicken coup as the farmer’s arm began to grope around inside, searching for the little thief.

Finally, Snig saw it. In the far corner of the chicken coup was a very skinny chicken with feathers that stuck out at odd angles.

The two locked eyes and the chicken’s face fell immediately.

“Chicken!” Snig exclaimed happily. “There you is!”

Snig bounded up to chicken and secured it tightly under his arm.

“We’s gots to go,” he told it. “Mean man trying to get Snig.”

The chicken clucked sadly but made no move to get away as Snig prepared himself to leap past the farmer’s groping arm and out of the chicken coup.

As soon as Snig came skittering out of the chicken coup, narrowly avoiding the farmer’s face as he did so, the farmer was after him, a butchering blade in hand. Snig narrowly dodged an attacked from the blade, leaping over a nearby cow trough.

Snig giggled maniacally as he dodged to and fro, avoiding the farmer’s attacks. He’d been in worse scrapes before and this time he had a plan. He’d promised the horse that he’d turn the town into a campfire and that was exactly what he was going to do—starting with this farmer’s house.

From the depths of his makeshift chicken disguise, three little glass vials with cork stoppers appeared in Snig’s hand.

“Bombs away!” he shouted with a maniacal laugh as he tossed them at the farmer’s little wooden shack of a house. The house was set quickly ablaze by the exploding concoction within the vials and Snig was left to skip happily through town, tossing more of the vials hither and thither as he went, while the farmer, screaming forlornly, abandoned his chase to try and put out his quickly burning home.

By the time Snig had returned to the horse and his bag, there was a thick black cloud of smoke rising up behind him into the fire-lit night. He stuffed his chicken back into the bag where it belonged, grabbed the bag and hopped back onto the horse, once again severing the horse’s ties with his cleaver.

“Let’s go,” he told the horse. “Needs to find campsite. Snig sleepy.”

And so they did.

Bioshock v. Bioshock Infinite

Over the past week or two, I've played through the entirety of Bioshock Infinite, Bioshock and I've also gotten through Episode One of Bioshock Infinite's DLC, Burial at Sea. I enjoyed all of them. Despite the fact that some may write it off as trite or too M. Night Shyamalan, I like narratives that end with a big twist---the only caveat to that being that the twist actually make sense and add depth to the narrative. The fact that it is not a "new"twist that has never been done before doesn't bother me (unless, of course, it's so obvious that I see it coming from a mile away and I think that has more to do with execution than anything).

Here's the thing, though, and I think it's something that people who have been longtime fans of the franchise (as in fans since the first game) would probably ream me over: I like Bioshock Infinite better. It's not that Bioshock is a bad game, but I think that as a matter of my own personal preferences and certain production values, Bioshock Infinite just ends up being the better game.

Now, there are some things that Bioshock does better, especially in terms of gameplay: being able to store health packs and Eve syringes is fantastic. Using "A" to select instead of "X" and clicking the left thumbstick to crouch instead of "B" is just more intuitive and easier to use. Being able to save wherever you are instead of having to find an autosave makes stopping the game when you need to way better. You can carry more than two guns. And so on. Honestly, with only the exception of the fact that in Bioshock you have to switch between your plasmids and your guns rather than being able to use both simply based on which trigger you pull (which is how it works in Bioshock Infinite), Bioshock is actually the mechanically superior game, which is unusual. Normally, the first game in a series has the better story but worse mechanics. Here, the overall story and atmosphere of Bioshock Infinite are better, but the mechanics are actually worse.

That said, mechanics is not to be confused with gameplay---I found the gameplay in Bioshock Infinite more enjoyable, mostly due to little things. Fighting soldiers instead of splicers meant my enemies were less spazzy simply because it was not in their nature to run around randomly and act like crazy loons. This mostly had the effect of me missing my enemies left because, let's face it, I'm not a terribly great FPS player. I set the difficulty to easy and turn down the look sensitivity. Having enemies that are orderly and easier to hit does matter to me. I also found the fact that ammo was at less of a premium in Bioshock Infinite as opposed to in Bioshock to be a very good thing. Now, much of this comes from the addition of Elizabeth, whom I loved as a character, but who was also just damn useful. You simply don't have to worry about ammo as much when she's just going to throw it to you at the right time. It's a life-saver and I loved it. Where in Bioshock I spent a lot of time not being able to use the gun I liked---or even any of the guns I liked (and there were several I hated and didn't want to be forced to use)---in Bioshock Infinite I tended to try not to spend money on ammo and instead hoard it for other improvements (and hoard it I did---because unlike Bioshock, there's no upward money limit in Bioshock Infinite).

Columbia

Rapture as seen in Bioshock.

Rapture as seen in Burial at Sea

Returning to my assertion that the atmosphere of Bioshock Infinite is better is admittedly something of  a matter of preference. I'm not much for post-apocalyptic stuff as a rule---I tend to find the ruination off-putting---which is probably much of the reason why I prefer Bioshock Infinite to Bioshock. We come upon Columbia as a whole, functioning world. We get to see it in all its glory and its gorgeous. Rapture, on the other hand, we come upon when it's in ruins. Indeed, I much preferred being in Rapture in the beginning of Burial at Sea, when we get to see the city as it was in its glory days. Again, it's gorgeous. Now, both dystopias masquerading as utopias, so it is inevitable that both would eventually fall apart, but I think there is still something to be said for allowing the player to fall in love with the city when it's at its best.
cities are

I also preferred the slightly more RPG-esque feel of Bioshock Infinite. Now, neither Bioshock nor Bioshock Infinite could fairly be called an RPG. Not even close. Both are shooters with a linear storyline. That said, the fact that Elizabeth is with the protagonist, Booker DeWitt, and has a lot of different conversations with him reminds me very strongly of the conversations your companions in games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age or Knights of the Old Republic would have and that is most definitely a good thing. It helps the game feel more real, fleshes it out a bit. Where in Bioshock my character is completely silent and rarely interacts with anyone---after all he is stuck on the bottom of the ocean in a city full of complete wackjobs---in Bioshock Infinite there are constantly people having conversations around me and a person with whom my character is constantly having a back and forth with (rather than someone simply telling him what to do, as is the case with Tenenbaum and Atlas). Indeed, this back and forth was very important because it made me feel as though Booker was a real character rather than just a cardboard cut-out. This "cardboard cut-out" problem is a problem that I think many first person shooters have---they're trying so hard to make the player identify with the protagonist by making him (and it's always a him) silent, someone they think that the player can simply project himself on to. Except, of course, we never get to make any choices, because the prevailing story-telling style in first person shooters is linear, so the "character" is basically just a blank. There's nothing there for the player to identify with. Booker, by contrast, has a voice and will make offhand comments. He wasn't my favorite character in the game, but he was much more likeable and interesting than Jack from Bioshock, because it felt like I was playing as a real character.

Indeed character was another place where Bioshock Infinite shined overall in comparison to Bioshock. In Bioshock Tenenbaum was pretty okay, and could have been interesting, except she really only exists as a surrogate mother to the Little Sisters for most of the game. They're her primary concern and while that provides a nice little redemption arc for her, it means that you don't really get to know the character enough to like her. Fontaine was good for plot purposes, but he really wasn't that great and overall acted as a (necessary) plot device more than a character. Andrew Ryan was interesting, but he was also pretty batty and you only got to interact with him, really, for one scene. And that was a cutscene. Otherwise he was just a voice on the radio.

Heads? Or Tails?

By contrast, Bioshock Infinite had the Luteces and Elizabeth, both of whom I really liked. The Luteces were simply delightful, basically just popping into the game to give vague advice to the protagonist and having witty repartee with one another. Also, Jennifer Hale voices the female Lutece, so your know they have to be awesome.

Elizabeth is a more controversial character, partially because there is a certain amount of debate over whether she is a good "feminist" combatant to be a good feminist character (and, notably, despite the overall sexist atmosphere of Columbia, there are some female combatants) and I think she really comes into her own at the end of the game. Where she was not deciding her own fate before, and simply being dragged along, by the end she has given Booker a mandate and noted that there is basically nothing he can do to stop her. She goes from an innocent who's been locked away from the world her entire life to someone who has an agency that others are powerless to stop. Elizabeth's story is one about gaining agency and that seems pretty feminist to me.
character. She's a noncombat character who is depending on a man to protect her (sort of---she's actually ignored in combat by the attacking characters and you're told not to worry about her because she can "take care of herself") and she spends much of her time with people fighting over her and using her as a tool despite the fact that she has some pretty fantastic powers. That said, I personally fall on the "she's totally a good feminist character" side of the spectrum. She doesn't need to be a

Beyond that, I find Elizabeth to be a likeable, well developed character. We get to see quite a lot of her, since she's a companion to the protagonist and thus she really gets the chance to be a real character. Indeed, by the end of the game she really is more of a character than Booker is, and has, in many ways, had a much more dramatic and interesting story arc.

Finally, I also liked the twist in Bioshock Infinite better than the twist in Bioshock. Now admittedly, I was spoiled on the twists before I played both games and it's possible that the Bioshock twist is simply one that only plays well if you don't know it's coming (that said, even preferring the twist from Bioshock Infinite, I did thing they played the twist in Bioshock well---the execution of you finding out is very well done), but I found the Bioshock Infinite twist more fascinating. I felt it was less about shock value and trying to screw with the player than it was about really change and exploiting the relationships between the characters and I liked that. I like characters more than I like plots, so something that serves characters is just going to be a hit with me.

So, there you have it. Bioshock may be a pretty okay game (I did enjoy it), but I like Bioshock Infinite better. I find the atmosphere and storyline to be better, and I actually like the gameplay better too, even if the mechanics are slightly worse.

Frozen

So, I'm a big fan of Disney movies. Always have been, probably always will be. Seriously, pretty art and music? Sign me up. It's right up my alley.

I'm also a big fan of Idina Menzel because she has one hell of a set of pipes. I love hearing her do big show-stopping numbers and I love hearing her do duets with sweet sounding sopranos (because, yes, of course I love Wicked).

Obviously, then, I've been really looking forward to Frozen. It's a Disney movie that has Idina Menzel voicing a main character (who is being billed as a sort-of villain---even better!). Add to that the fact that Kristen Bell is voicing the sweet sounding soprano protagonist and, well, yeah, it was pretty much inevitable that I was going to see this movie in theaters. Multiple times.

Frozen did not disappoint---unlike Tangled, which as the most recent movie produced under the Disney-as-Disney (rather than Pixar---although Brave is a also a notably comparable movie) we-must-have-a-princess-and-her-love-interest formula (AKA the most recent addition to the Disney Animated Canon), is the movie I found myself constantly comparing this one to.

For me, Frozen beats Tangled in pretty much every way. Tangled felt very conscious of its Disney background and how it had to buck the criticisms that get leveled against Disney and the way it portrays girls and love. Frozen too, felt conscious of those things in a way that Mulan, for instance, a movie that was very Disney but also defied a lot of what is traditionally Disney, did not, but unlike Tangled it didn't feel weighed down by all that. It didn't feel like it was fighting being cliched Disney so hard that it forgot to make a workable (or truly interesting) story.

Fair warning, there are some slight spoilers in the upcoming paragraphs. I honestly don't think an of them are things that will really ruin the movie for people---nothing I hadn't already guessed before it happened, even if I hadn't guessed the details, but I'm sure some people would consider them spoilers.

Take for instance the love stories in each story. I didn't buy the love story in Tangled and in the end I felt that as hard as it tried to go against that whole Disney means love-at-first-sight-and-marriage-five-minutes-later thing, in the end it basically just went with that anyway: Rapunzel and Flynn snark at each other in a way that's suppose to be belligerent sexual tension (which I normally love) but just really had no spark and then get over it when they sit in a boat and watch a lantern festival together (and start being nice to each other). So, basically, they fell in love because the scenery was nice and it was a relatively instant thing---they go from not liking each other (for no really good reason) to suddenly being very into each other (just because of some pretty lights). No, it wasn't love at first sight but it wasn't exactly really falling for someone because you've spent time with them and gotten to know them (you know, what real, non-Disney love actually is). Frozen, on the other hand, while still trying to buck that Disney love-at-first sight tradition and point out how silly it is, doesn't resort to it when they need their love story to work. Instead of a moment where a romantic scene makes them fall in love, Anna (Kristen Bell's character and the protagonist of the film) and her love interest simply come to realize they have strong feelings for one another after spending time together on this adventure. It feels much better (and less like the love is there simply because the plot has decided it needs to be there) and beyond that the movie doesn't hinge on it so strongly as Tangled does.

Villains are handled much better as well. For one, Elsa (Idina Menzel's snow queen character), isn't really a villain. She has some of the plot role of a villain at times (and is, in fact, a queen---which is usually bad news in the Disney universe) but she's not an out-and-out villain. She's handled much more dynamically than that and she's not a one dimensional character. Instead, she's more like a more secondary protagonist---the story follows her less than Anna, but it's definitely her story and her messy emotions are very important. Tangled, on the other hand, had a villain who felt like a lost opportunity---in the end Mother Gothel really was just evil. I found that disappointing, because I thought that it would have been much more interesting, in the end, to have had Mother Gothel turn out to be a real person, with real emotions instead of just her own vanity and therefore have turned out to actually care about Rapunzel (much like how Regina on Once Upon a Time has been treated like a real character because of her son Henry). It could have been very poignant (because the story still would have needed to get rid of her) and was instead very disappointing. Frozen had no such lost opportunities. While it's true that the villains of the film really are just villains, that's fine. They feel like they should be more out and out villains and they manage to be fun that way (indeed, there is some wonderful outright deviousness). There's no hint that there could be something to deepen their characters that is then abandoned or ignored in favor of keeping them as a conventional villain. Besides that we do get Elsa, who is treated very dynamically. Where Tangled missed an opportunity, Frozen decided it wanted to create one by having what would normally have been the big villain be a sympathetic character (making it a bit like Wreck-It Ralph).

Frozen also had better music than Tangled. I have more than one of Frozen's songs on my current iPod playlist and liked basically all of them. The only song from Tangled that I really cared for was Mother Knows Best. In many ways this is a shock, because Tangled had music by Alan Menken, who is basically the Disney music god/guru, having done the music for Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, etc. That said, it's true, the music in Frozen is better. It's a bit predictable, sure---before I even saw the movie, I knew Idina Menzel was going to have an awesome, big, heartfelt, show-stopping number---but it was good. In fact, the only really disappointing thing about Frozen's music is that we don't get enough Kirsten Bell/Idina Menzel duets---which is damn shame because what they do have very powerfully evokes Wicked. Still, the point here is that the movie, which is definitely a musical (because, yes, Disney movies should be musicals), feels very much like a musical with very Broadway-esque song placement and scoring---which is no surprise, given that the score writers also wrote the music for Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon.

Moving away from the comparison a bit, I will also say that Frozen obviously benefits from animators who watched the actors who voices their characters and really tried to put those actors into the characters. Anna definitely reminds me of Kristen Bell. The brightness of her expressions are very reminiscent (although meant to be less funny) of Kristen Bell's portrayal of Mary Lane in Reefer Madness: the Movie Musical. Elsa also sometimes definitely seems to wear some of Idina Menzel's expressions, particularly during Let It Go. Beyond that, the animation is just overall gorgeous. The snow looks great, the architecture is beautiful and, damn, the clothes!! The movie has wonderful, wonderful clothes (which, along with its strong female "villain," reminds me in a nice way of Once Upon a Time, which also benefits from some super awesome clothes). This movie is very different from the old, classically animated Disney movies, but I definitely feel like it fits with even the best of them (a title which, in my opinion, goes to Sleeping Beauty).

Even the snow man, who, based on the previews, really could have turned out to be the Jar Jar Binks of this movie, was fine. Sure, I didn't love him by the end, but he worked in context, had a few funny moments, and best of all was actually a rather minor presence in the movie. The trailers focus so much on him that you think he's going to be dragging his "funny" antics throughout the whole file but a good third of the movie has passed before he even truly makes an appearance and once he does, he stays minor, with the focus strongly on Anna, Elsa and Kristoff (the young man that you know throughout the movie that Anna will end up falling for, even though the movie tries to tease that maybe she won't).

The movie, of course, was not perfect. The big story twist was a mite predictable (although perhaps not in its scale) but at the same time oddly sudden, feeling like it came a bit out of nowhere even if it does have enough fridge logic to it to not ruin the movie. Maybe upon multiple viewings you'll see a hint (or hints) of what's to come, but honestly it's a case where you know that making the story they've been devoting time to telling work will require it, but it's really not hinted at in the movie itself (at least not strongly enough to make it make complete sense) until it just suddenly happens. It's not Tangled's falling in love because of pretty lanterns scene or anything as hamfisted as that---hell, it even has some panache (kind of an "oh, snap" moment, if you will)---but I think it could be fairly called a lazy piece of storytelling.

Also, what the hell was up with them not using Idina Menzel for the single version of Let It Go? Who is this Demi Lovato person and who thought she was a better idea that a legit Broadway star with the ability to belt like an all star? No, the single version isn't bad (it has a nice poppy composition), but it would have been ten times better with Idina Menzel (because most things are---can you tell I'm a fan?).

Overall, though, I think this is a great movie. Not the best, perhaps, but right up there with some of the better ones and definitely a sign that even in a world where traditional Disney has been (rightly, in some cases) criticized, their movies can still be truly wonderfully magical. I highly suggest seeing it if you haven't already. Hell, I've already pre-ordered the Blu-Ray (and no, there's not a release date yet).

Ryse: Son of Rome

So, this is a game that has kind of been reamed by game reviewers, criticized as being pretty but ultimately short, simplistic and boring. Well, even despite those reviews, I bought this game on Day One and have now, after having owned my console for a little less than a week and a half, have finished it.

And you know what? I like it. It may not be the most innovative or even engrossing game out there but it's a very good one and it has some really nice detailing which I think other games can learn from.

First, there's the story. It's been criticized as being overly simplistic and, yes, it is just a revenge story line, but even so, it was a solid story with good acting (I really think this game is one to something with its heavy use of motion capture for the cut scenes---it felts like watching a movie in a very good way). Honestly, in some ways playing the game felt a little bit like reading Suetonius, which I thought was about the best thing since sliced bread. Yes, it had a couple of the gods playing active roles in the story in a way that we don't see in Suetonius, but the way criticism was leveled at Nero and his two sons felt very Roman. It was a brand of historical accuracy that the games carries with it throughout and that I absolutely salivated over. My favorite statue of Augustus was all over the place in Rome, Rome is covered with some pretty awesome graffiti (a la the HBO series Rome), they motion captured an expert in Roman combat for the fights and the armor (at least the way it was put together) was period accurate. Even where they modernized, they kept history in mind. For instance, the armor of the main character, Marius Titus, feels very much like Assassin's Creed style historical accuracy. The armor is the right shape as he's wearing a real type of Roman armor, but has way too complex and modern of designs to be actual Roman armor. The hypogeum (the underground area below the colosseum from which cages of lions, etc, were raised) in their colosseum is another example. In the game, complex areas can rise up and turn into the floor of the colosseum. The real hypogeum couldn't do what the one in the game can (in fact, when the game was set, the colosseum hadn't been quite finished yet) but then they drew on a real thing in having there be a hypogeum at all and having it change the terrain (like when they would flood the colosseum for naval battles) and that's pretty cool. Honestly, the storyline shows a good understanding of Rome without being slavishly accurate (hence, for instance, the colosseum being in the game at all) and it definitely made the little history nerd in me squeal.

The game's story line also has some nice strengths in the way it told its story as well. The character of Boudica, for instance, was handled well and her relationship with Marius reminds me very much of the relationship between the Romulan Commander and Kirk in Star Trek: The Original Series' episode Balance of Terror (which is made all the more interesting, I think, because of course the Romulans were inspired by the Romans). And the way they end Nero was rather lovely and had some very nice usage of prophecy that I felt suited the game well, with its classical setting and its usage of gods (thus lending this reference to mythology very satisfying).

The gameplay was pretty good too. Now, the game has been criticized for its executions mechanic (what I call the "kill bloodier button") because once you start them, you can't fail them. You simply get more or less stuff (such as recovered health or XP) from completing them well. Personally, though, I liked them. I hate quicktime events (and these do play like quicktime events) that I have to do over and over again because I suck and because the executions don't care if I fail, I won't have to. Moreover, to me it seems that if you don't like the fact that they can't fail (making the game too easy, I suppose), then I say don't use them. All you'll miss is some bonuses (making the game harder, if that's what you want) and some very gory (almost certainly nauseatingly so for some people) kill animations. Besides, I'm not sure I buy that it makes the game way too easy or is a cheap mechanic. You have to knock your enemies down to low health before you can execute them and some of them only have short windows where they can be executed before you need to beat them up again. It's not like you can just spam the execution button (actually the right trigger) and let the game play itself.

That said, this game is really short. I pretty much blew straight through it, sitting down and finishing it in about 3 gaming sessions. For me, this was pretty awesome because I tend not to finish games (I may not need all of my finger to list the video games I've finished, even though I've played a lot of them) but I can see why people would be unhappy. $60 is a lot of money to pay for a short gaming experience. For me, though, that and the fact that it has a simple storyline are probably the only criticisms of the game that I found truly valid. It's not a perfect game by any means, or anywhere near the best one I've ever played, but it's worthwhile and I'm not at all upset that I spent the money on it.

Xbox One

So, last Friday we got that new Xbox One we pre-ordered.

Guys, it's amazing. Like, seriously, I'm really quite taken with it. It's not perfect by any means but it's pretty sweet.

First off, there's the voice control. No, it's not perfect---I have had to tell my Xbox to do some things more than once, but I really like it and I really like it a lot better than being forced to only use a controller. Telling my Xbox to go to Netflix instead of having to look for the app is awesome even if I do tend to use my controller to navigate the app because voice navigation within apps is pretty poor, frankly, even since my discovery of the "select" command. Still, I like it and I do use it enough that I have found that I have no idea where I put my controller because I just haven't been using the thing, and that's pretty cool. Besides, voice command lets me be the world's laziest person, because I no longer have to lift a finger to turn my TV, Xbox and soundbox on and I can adjust the volume with the same amount of effort. I like being the world's laziest person.

The integration of the Kinect into normal games? Well, admittedly so far I haven't cared or thought much of it. The reaction of the machine to voice commands can be a little delayed, so on the game I own which does use voice command, Ryse: Son of Rome, I haven't really been impressed. Telling my archers to fire by voice is kind of badass (which is why I do it!) but I think it would almost certainly be more efficient to just use the left shoulder button. The response would almost certainly be faster. So, yeah, the Kinect in games is gimmicky, but I don't care because see above comments about being the world's laziest person. I want my Kinect so I can live in the future and not get up off my couch, not for games.

The controller is, as everybody is saying, pretty much no different from the 360 controller, but I personally consider this to be a good thing. The Xbox controller was awesome and so is this new one. In fact it is, indeed, even slightly better. They've made the joystick more sensitive and I can actually tell the difference. The big place where it shows is in playing Forza 5, which, if you read my last post on the new generation of consoles, you'll know was basically the reason we got the console. We always get Forza on release day. Anyway, I play Forza with the controller, which is not the best way to play a racing sim---you'll be able to give much more subtle inputs if you use a racing wheel. When you watch a replay of someone playing a racing game using a controller, you can see that a series of small adjustments, instead of the the smooth continuous ones you get from a wheel, is how the car is being turned. Well let me tell you, I have watched a lot of replays of races I've run in Forza (and had the Xbox's game DVR record some of the best moments too) and my game play just looks way smoother. The newer, more sensitive, joysticks really shine in playing Forza. It's not perfect---sometimes you can see the car twitching around as I make a series of small adjustments---but it really is worlds better.

On a side note here, since we're talking controllers, I have to admit I'm really excited to have some stores get in some demo PS4s so I can compare the two controllers. I'm not a diehard fan of either the 360 or PS3 controller, both worked fine for me, but I did generally find the 360 controller to be better and my impression from the internet is that most people seem to think the 360 controller is better. They're also saying the PS4 controller is a vast improvement and some are even saying it's better than the One's controller. I'll admit I'm skeptical about it being better, because frankly I'm not sure how to improve on the One's controller (maybe give the shoulder buttons slightly less resistance?) and I have noticed that the PS4 is still sticking with the same joystick configuration but I'm willing to entertain the idea. Definitely looking forward to getting to try one out. I still think the touchpad is probably pretty stupid though.

There is some bad with the new Xbox, though. For one, my surround sound doesn't work right with it (even though it works fine with both my PS3 and my Xbox 360) and Microsoft didn't even offer an explanation when I went through the tedium of troubleshooting with them. Basically all I got was "play your games in stereo then," which was not what I was looking for. A real explanation would have been great, especially since a quick browse of the Xbox support forums shows I'm not the only one having my particular problem---where sometimes the main audio doesn't play. We're thinking this is because Xbox only puts out in uncompressed 5.1 and we need Dolby---a specific type of compression for surround sound. Basically, without the compression, our boxes are having to filter out some stuff and sometimes it happens to be the main audio. We're hoping this should be fixed when the promised Dolby patch comes sometime in the near future (or so Microsoft has promised us) but it would have been nice if Microsoft had offered that explanation instead of just telling me to suck it, basically. Customer service fail there, if you ask me.

The other bad thing is that, because it's a new console generation, there are only so many games I want. Right now I've got Ryse: Son of Rome (which is a lot more fun than most reviewers have given it credit for, if you ask me) and Forza 5. I'm vaguely interested in Crimson Dragon but the reviews for that haven't been so hot and I don't want to spend even the paltry $20 on a game I'm so unsure about. I've also got the free Killer Instinct but I don't think I'll be spending more money on it. I just don't like the control scheme on it enough. It really feels too arcade, even for a side-scrolling fighting game (which I do have something of a weakness for---hence my love of the Soul Calibur series). The next time a game I want for the new console will definitely be out (there's no official date for when the awesome Project Spark is coming) is next March, when Titanfall comes out and that's really more of a game I'll enjoy watching Fathead play than play myself. Next is Destiny, which will be out next summer. Sure, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is now out for Xbox One, but while I like the Assassin's Creed games, I only like them so much. I'm definitely not willing to pay $60 on the game. Honestly, if they were going to put a title out on both the old and the new systems, I would have much rather it had been Arkham Origins, which I still need to get to playing. I just like the Arkham series better.

Finally, the One is doing a pretty poor job of being my primary media center when not only can it not handle my surround sound but it can't interact with my external hard drive either. I keep movies and music on there so they can be played through my Xbox 360. I would have happily moved them to my One, but much like the Dolby patch, external hard drive support is coming but not here yet. Instead, if you want to play external media, you must put it on Skydrive and it must stay there. My digital video collection is way, way too big for my free Skydrive space, I can't download stuff from Skydrive onto my Xbox One's copious amounts of free disk space and I'm sure not paying for my Skydrive space when I have an external hard drive for this purpose. Even worse, Skydrive doesn't support music. The only way to play music on your Xbox right now as far as I can tell (which may just mean they're hiding a better option) is through Xbox music, which as near as I can tell is just a version of Pandora you have to pay for. Frankly, that sounds awful to me. That said, I am considering using my free month of the service, because then maybe I can have Two Steps from Hell playing as I race in Forza or brutally (and I mean very brutally) kill the crap out of British barbarians in Ryse. Still, it's pretty stupid and you won't catch me paying for a service when I should be able to play my ridiculous number of MP3s for free.

So that's it. My new Xbox One. The future. It's pretty awesome and I have no doubt it will get more and more awesome as more updates come. I doubt it will win the console wars, but then I also doubt the PS4 will too---not because I doubt either is a good console but mostly because I don't really see a clear winner from last generation and because I think both consoles are probably pretty good. That said, if you're lazy like me, want an awesome media box that also plays awesome games and somehow have the money to drop on an Xbox One, I highly recommend one. Honestly, once they roll out external hard drive support, Dolby and (hopefully) TV DVR, I would recommend it to someone just as a media box---an expensive one, certainly, but voice control!