day late and a dollar short, vol. 3: shadow of the colossus

I know this has most likely been said before, on numerous websites, and in a much more timely manner, but here goes: Shadow of the Colossus is a flat-out moving experience that is, for the first time, bringing a moral quandary into my video gaming life.


meet our hero, colossus killer extraordinare

I know this game came out forever ago, I know everybody raved about it, but I do have a hard time pulling anything that isn't Guitar Hero or Winning Eleven out of my PS2, so grant me that. And I didn't want to do the game a disservice - I wanted to play this like one would pray at an altar, so it needed to be a special environment and a quiet, focused time.

for those that don't know, the game is an adventure-platformer that, in the strictest gaming terms, doesn't have levels, just massive, incredibly interesting and intricate boss fights. Cut scene, find the boss (including some adventuring on horseback across country and some light platforming to get to some of the bosses), figure out how to stab the boss' weak points, rinse, wash, repeat.

except the developers (who also made another art-house gamer favorite, Ico) do SO much more with the formula than that sounds. You play a warrior who is trying to revive his deceased princess and is listening to the voices at a holy shrine, who tell him to go slay colossus after colossus...presumably in order to revive her.


to kill, or not to kill, that is the question

herein lies the problem. This isn't going out to collect all seven tokens in order to revive her; you must actively slay these gigantic, screen-filling, peaceful colossi in order to make that Phoenix Down work on your girl. I'm three colossi in, and each has ended with my character climbing to the top of the colossus (who is rather eerily trying to shake you off the entire time; your character's grip meter is what makes this whole thing interesting, because you can't hold on forever) and stabbing it in a weak point atop its head.

I would do anything for love, but would I do that? Would you go toe-to-toe with a bear and stab it in its head? The bear is much smaller than the game's colossi, but you get the point I'm trying to make...

...especially when that sort of thought process is backed up by what happens to your character after each colossus dies: a guilt trip. Not only does the thing breathe its last in a wonderfully epic manner, a sort of series of black tentacles of the thing's soul reach out and take your body over, you see tunnel vision, get the option to save, and your character black-out returns to the main shrine, where a few shadows stand over his passed-out ass. Last time after I saved, it was three - the number of colossi I'd slain.

I was told after this game came out that my friend Peter went on a binge, played all the way through it in a day, and saved right at the last boss, trying to decide whether he wanted to go on or not. I don't remember if he finished off his save or not, but he had one of those moments where his conscience took over.

I absolutely love that a few games are doing this now. More need to. Shadow of the Colossus is so simple in terms of gameplay (though the colossi are all fun to figure out the "trick" to, and just as fun to actually battle); fighting the most recent one, I could feel my mind switch from itchy-finger gamer mode to "oh my god what am I doing" story mode. It hurt, and it was very engaging.

I like that sort of engaging.

Underrated albums No. 2: Daft Punk, Discovery

I promised, and now I deliver: not only another “forgotten album” post, but one on something that covers more than one aspect of my personality. This would happen to be….Daft Punk’s Discovery.

seriously, the more I think about it, the more I like the robot-style headwear that Daft Punk sports

This is about as perfect as a techno album can get; Discovery and the Chemical Brothers’ Dig Your Own Hole are absolute transcendent classics. It’s a great dancing album, it’s a great party album (throw on the opener, “One More Time,” and you’ll get the girls back alive in no time…though it does drag in the middle a bit), it kinda lacks when driving around because some of the songs rely on softer tones, but on headphones walking around, working out or doing homework this disc is brilliant. (Heh, Homework. Sorry, I amuse myself).

The pacing is almost perfect, and though only a few songs really stand out as singles, the others flow perfectly together and seem to speed up time in a way. Sure, the two noteworthy singles that are well known in the US – “One More Time” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” – both really pop out of the album and make their presence known, but four of the deep cuts stand out well and the rest of the album is incredibly well done.

These four songs – “Digital Love,” “Superheroes,” “Something About Us,” and “Face to Face” – are just as key as the two singles. “Superheroes” is a wonderfully rising song, and “Face to Face” has a solid backbeat behind an interesting stuttering harmony and singing. But it’s “Digital Love” and “Something About Us” that stand out – as, fittingly enough, beautiful love songs. “Digital Love” is a lament that a love affair was only in the singer’s mind, rising to a roboticized guitar solo, and “Something About Us” is a beautiful little love poem.

Interstella 5555: epic, and full of blue people

Even better, this album isn’t just an album – some may know about the singles from the album being turned into anime music videos, but little do they know, the whole disc was turned into an anime movie called “Interstella 5555.” I haven’t seen it all the way through yet, but, yes, it weaves the music through the plot (ala The Wall, but not, err….fucked up) but with no dialogue and minimal sound effects. “I5555” features art design by Leiji Matsumoto, best known for his work on the seminal late ‘70s anime series “Space Battleship Yamato.”

I just recently found a "Sample Wednesday" by a website that provides a lot of the tracks sampled to make Daft Punk songs, and all the songs from Discovery are accounted for. I honestly can't believe Barry Manilow got sampled by Daft Punk, but there you go. (tip of the hat to palmsout.com)

now, excuse me while I go listen to "digital love" one more time (...that was unintentional, by the way).

goodbye, sweet prince

so, as I've documented elsewhere...my Xbox 360, it is dead, from the dangerous cirque du rouge virus. This happened almost two weeks ago, and after calling Microsoft support last Monday, swallowing a $140 charge, joyously celebrating last Thursday when it was announced that the warranty was extended by two years for problems like this, then waiting all weekend for an empty box...I finally got it today.



it's just a box...

for your princely $140, Microsoft sends out an empty box with instructions (basically, "take out games, take off hard drive and faceplate, unplug and put it in here like *so*" and how not to be a fucktard about applying a UPS label) and shipping supplies to get it back to the repair center in Texas.



I think I got it, but thanks for the instructional help, guys.

so. into the plastic baggie it went, on went the foam blocks, and once that got put in the box, out comes the supplied packing tape. Sharpie on the UPS label, add on the new label right on top, and my 360 will soon be going, going back back to Texas, Texas. As soon as I find a UPS store here.

Over-under: will I get my sweet, sweet, broken console back before the Penny Arcade Expo in late August? I don't know. I don't know, but I'm not completely keen on the under.



goodbye, sweet prince.

A letter to the video game industry

Dear video game industry,

As they say on radio shows, "long-time listener, first-time caller." I've been a fan of yours from the sidelines for many years - since childhood, indeed - but haven't thought it necessary to write in to you like this until now.



The king is dead; long live the king

We all know that you think you did the right thing when E3 was killed off last year...and I think many of us on the outside looking in will agree, on paper at least, that it was the right move. However, in its wake (literally - that's a party this week held by a company - and figuratively), there's an enormous chasm.

You see, E3 had a certain....oh, pomp and circumstance? Yeah, pomp, circumstance, and a flash-flood of light, color, sound and fury that would overrun poor Los Angeles for a glorious week in early May every year. It was like christmas for my friends and I growing up; through high school, we'd check in multiple times daily to see what news had broken. Hell, last year, I watched the Nintendo keynote speech online! What progress, and what importance at the same time!

But now, this year, it lacks the bombast that comes along with booths stocked with game demos and bored 'models' or 'actresses' hired to cosplay for a day or two and take photos with mouthbreathers. Sure, the journalists probably will be able to do their jobs better without all the lights, glitz, and distractions (including the flocks of extra people who somehow ended up with credentials), and the parties will still be held, but it's not the same. Now you're just a conference being held in a hotel in L.A., and that's no fun if there's no yiffing around (check out the pictures. Yowza.)

Why is this important? Because only *now* is technology catching up to what was the most overbloated, slightly unnecessary show in entertainment. What once could only fill out a two-page spread exotically in EGM in a couple of months can now be broadcast 24/7 by somebody like G4, so that gamers truly get the idea they're there. Why kill off the greatest show on earth under those circumstances? It doesn't make complete sense.

Ah well. At least we've got our PAX. Plus, you guys never let us in to E3 (well, not legitimately, anyways).

P.S. the 'new' format is even scaring 1up staffers. Come on, that's gotta be worth some change. Think of the precious 1up staffers here!

-Sincerely,
One gaming fan

I think I'm ready for *this* 'Graduation'...

everybody has their own likes and dislikes. This is just the nature of the world. Let me break down a couple of my likes, aesthetically, here right now:

-Daft Punk's "Discovery" album (I think a post on that in the near future is due);
-Good, smart hip-hop;
-Japanese stuff, including (but not limited to) anime and 'cyberpunk' movies and TV shows.

well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Kanye West's new single "Stronger"...which samples the French techno artists' "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," is pretty well written, and....has a music video that is basically an homage to Akira.


yes, that's really Daft Punk. Yeah, they're kinda weird.

Yeah, that's a fastball right in my wheelhouse. I think I'll keep that Firefox tab open so I can watch it again tomorrow morning. That's the stuff.

I know my friend and Daily Emerald cohort Matt Sevits will hate me for it, but...I like Kanye West. Yeah, some of the shtick is played-out, and it definitely can be shtick-y...but when it's new, and hasn't gotten really stale, it's good. And fresh Kanye is always good.


even the single cover art is cool and Japanese

The question is: will this be a hit or a miss long-term? I'll probably want to buy it now; will I regret that decision once the song is off radio and MTV, and I stumble upon it in my iTunes library in two years?

It sounds like it could be worthwhile. The beat is, as always, very good, but the rhyming is a bit more mature. He's never going to be Jay-Z or Biggie; nobody will. And, granted, there are a couple songs on each album (more on Late Registration than College Dropout) that stand the test of time; Kanye seems to still be developing and maturing, which means he gets better with each album. Hopefully this album reflects that, and the single certainly sounds like it could be.


TETS....urr....KANYEEEEEEEE!!!

At the least, though, it's the first Hype Williams video I've enjoyed in a long while. Something about the video subconsciously "clicked" the first watch-through, then when I went to it again I had the "OH SHIT" light-bulb moment. Lights streaking off the cylces? The nurse coming into Tetsuo's Kanye's room, and him stumbling out with shrouds of bedsheet hanging off his head? YES. So very good. Too bad the katakana scrolling across the screen at times makes NO SENSE (except the soldiers' "GYAAA" when they get attacked near the end).

(and now I want to watch Akira...)

around the horn, sports edition

so a sports-specific update: lots has been going on (and I've been writing about a good deal of it), so let's cover some bases and update some stories...

Mariners defying all odds, now just 3.5 games out



Or, "maybe I should ride the Mariners hard in columns some more." I wrote one hell of a worried column about the Mariners last week, and what happened after that? 8-game win streak (!), one of my two season wishes comes true and Hargrove resigns (!!)...and then they regress to form, get kicked in the balls twice in KC but JARED FREAKING WASHBURN shut out the Royals to get the last game of the series today.

This is where I raise my hands in futility, say "fuck it" and put my Mariners hat back on. You know, I'll take winning 9 out of 11 - including eight straight against two of the top teams in the AL, the BoSox and the Blue Jays - no matter how it happens. All I want for it is to keep happening.

Oregon explodes, Rip City is back



I believe I called this one. Okay, that's not exactly a call, as much as it is a written orgasm, but stick with me here.

The point is that not only do I as a person who's a Trail Blazers fan (not to mention a fan of my hometown - PDX 4 LYFE... or something like that) feel excitement from this, but I can sense it welling up and coming to a head in Portland. The city's opinion about the team has completely turned around in a two year span, and I simply can't believe it. Now I want to buy a Blazers jersey; now I'm proud to be a fan of the only pro sports franchise in the state.

I just can't wait for the ride to start in early November. Gotta get to a few games next year for sure.

Hello, goodbye



Just as I've welcomed one massively talented star onto one of my teams, another takes off searching for pastures new. Yep, Thierry Henry - one of my all-time favorite athletes and one-time captain of my soccer team, Arsenal - has taken off for Barcelona.

I harbor little ill will. He's done so much for the team, the team has done so much for him...it's just saddening is all. Maybe I'm the nostalgic type who wanted to see him finish his career as a Gunner, but hell, what else does he have to prove here? I don't know. I don't know.

It's like dealing with a bad break-up...you're never quite sure how to feel afterwards. I doubt, however, that if he were to return to Highbury Emirates Stadium next year in a Champions League match, he'd get the same reception as Ken Griffey, Jr. got in Seattle a few weeks ago.

How the hipster communes with nature: The Sasquatch! Music Festival

The view at Sasquatch - both on to the stage and of the surrounding Columbia River gorge - is best when it's shared. Photo by Doug Bonham

The one thing you must remember before going to any concert is your ticket. This is a rather simple rule to follow, and a vital part of the experience. As the night of Friday, May 25 inched toward the witching hour and my car hurtled down Interstate 90, cutting down the highway through the Cascade Mountains, it didn’t matter that I put myself and my friends an hour and a half behind schedule. I left my tickets for the sixth-annual Sasquatch! Music Festival back in my traveling companion Tyler’s Seattle apartment. The extra gas my car used stung my wallet, and the ignominy of the mistake stung my pride, but there was something greater to focus on: the two-day concert festival and a lineup of great bands under the wonderful, springtime Northwest weather.

After driving into the campgrounds of the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Wash., approximately 150 miles east of Seattle, Tyler and I set up a tent, drank a beer in celebration of arriving and fell asleep, prepared for the festival’s arrival. It certainly is something to prepare for, between the epic scale of the amphitheater and the task of getting to it in the first place. After that long drive from Seattle into the campgrounds, one must walk a half hour down a dusty trail through rolling farmland, past the campgrounds of fellow concert-goers, and up into line to enter the amphitheater. Tread farther down an asphalt path that snakes past vendor booths and the “Wookie” side-stage, and one finally crests the hill of the deepest edge of the venue’s great grassy bowl and can take in a view that is as breathtaking as any of the performances held on its main stage.

Welcome to the Sasquatch Festival: The running of the concert-goers after the gates open Saturday morning. Photo by Doug Bonham

This is fitting because the ample crowd – making the 20,000-spectator capacity amphitheater seem rather cozy all weekend long – isn’t just at the Sasqutach Festival to enjoy live music, they’ve come from all around to enjoy a spectacle: surviving a weekend without showering, imbibing in the campground, seeing a plethora of tattoos under the Northwest sun, and overpaying for amphitheater food is included along with the music.

The first Sasquatch Festival was in 2002, and since then it has grown into a large, multiple-day and multiple-stage concert festival. In 2006, the festival added a six-band set on the main stage Friday evening onto the full three stages worth of bands on Saturday and Sunday. The festival always features an eclectic lineup slant toward indie and alternative rock, singer-songwriter groups and alternative or underground hip-hop acts; the 2006 lineup reflected this, including such diverse headliners as Nine Inch Nails, the Flaming Lips, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, and Beck, to name but a few who graced the main stage. Though the scope drew back in for the 2007 festival, held over the Memorial Day weekend of May 26 and 27, the headlining acts – Bjork, the Arcade Fire, Interpol and the Beastie Boys – had just as much star power, and the side stage lineups held many quality smaller artists and local favorites.

Representative of the local music scene in the Northwest, many of the best local artists from Portland and Seattle traditionally earn side stage slots, and this year was no different. Seattle artists Minus The Bear, The Long Winters, Common Market, Tacoma’s Neko Case, and Portland groups the Dandy Warhols, Stars of Track and Field, the Helio Sequence and Viva Voce all performed at Sasquatch. For Anita Robinson, the lead singer and guitarist of Viva Voce, just being at the festival this year was a goal; performing was even better. “I’ve been wanting to go to Sasquatch, but it seems like we’ve always been on tour,” Robinson explains. “Plus, getting to play is really exciting.”

Viva Voce: Portland-based duo played a powerful set in the Saturday afternoon sun. Photo from vivavoce.com

Though Viva Voce – which includes Anita and her drummer, co-vocalist and husband Kevin Robinson – have recorded four albums since forming in 1998 and toured extensively, including to Europe, Robinson still represents her adopted hometown, which sparked interest in the festival. “I just know I wanted to be a part of it because it’s a northwest festival and we’re a northwest band, this is our home and we want to be a part of what’s happening,” Robinson says. “I think it’s cool the way it worked out, whoever put the lineup together has a real sense of what Portland bands and Seattle bands and national and international bands would work together.”

Work together they certainly do. Fans gather at the gate to enter the amphitheater early Saturday morning, with many people leaving the campgrounds by 10:30 a.m. to make the trek to the entrance, where security guards search bags for contraband, including full and opened water bottles or soda can or my friend Tyler’s cigarette pack. Though side diversions exist on the outskirts of the stages, including booths presented by Major League Baseball, local Seattle radio stations 107.7 The End and 90.3 KEXP, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console, concert-goer focus aims solely on the stages and the main stage in particular.

Blackalicious rocked the house early on Sunday afternoon with their live set. Photo by Doug Bonham

With the most well known artists taking the stage throughout the day, a Sasquatch-goer could hypothetically get a great show solely by parking themselves on a blanket on the grassy bowl of the main stage, breaking only for brave trips to the portable toilets. Saturday main stage highlights include the party atmosphere of Ozomatli and Manu Chao, the folky indie rock of Citizen Cope and Neko Case, the rampant energy of The Arcade Fire, and the eclecticism of singer Bjork, whose trademark piercing voice struck like lighting around the amphitheatre. On Sunday, hip-hop group Blackalicious wowed the main stage crowd, early ‘80s hardcore pioneers Bad Brains followed them and alternated between lead singer H.R.’s solo-recording reggae tunes and the band’s trademark whirlwind punk rock. After Bad Brains, the Polyphonic Spree had their set cut short due to high winds.

The Sasquatch Festival is no stranger to bizarre weather – in 2006, Neko Case ended her set when a hailstorm of significant magnitude poured down for half an hour. That also delayed the day’s show for nearly two hours, and left many a concertgoer soaked to the bone; some returned to the campground to change, some bought merchandise to add a dry layer, while others reveled, including a group who sledded down the grassy bowl. The 2007 festival’s high winds did not leave anyone soaked to the bone, though it did cause Sabzi, the DJ for hip-hop duo Common Market who performed on the Yeti side stage at that time, to use abort using his turntables.

The Beastie Boys' Sunday night set divided opinions. Photo by Doug Bonham

Common Market was not the only good act to see on the side stages this year. The Beastie Boys, who closed the show from the main stage Sunday night, played an instrumental-heavy set on Saturday at the Wookie side stage to a packed audience. Dressed in sharp three-piece suits, sunglasses, and the wisdom that comes from their years of performing, they did not disappoint in either show – though some fans, including Tyler, grumbled about the song selection on the main-stage show. He ever-so eloquently stated walking to the campground that night, “People there were expecting old-school Beastie Boys, not instrumental masturbation.”

The Slip performing on Saturday at Sasquatch. Photo by Doug Bonham

Boston’s The Slip performed early Saturday at the Wookie side stage as well. The three-piece band, formed by Andrew Barr on drums, his brother Brad on guitar, piano and vocals, and Mark Friedman on bass and guitar, ripped enthusiastically through their set, which featured many extended solos and trips into the realm of jamming. Andrew Barr always looks forward to the festival performance experience, and explains, “I think the biggest opportunity is to get out of that tunnel vision of touring (on your own).” Barr also looks forward to the social side of the festival for bands; finding out around a campfire or over a bottle of wine that musical peers have the same inspirations, Barr says, is a liberating experience. “That’s why we went on the road with My Morning Jacket,” he says. Robinson agrees, adding, “Usually there’s a lot of guys wearing shorts trying to bark at you and telling you to hurry up…It’s the kind of thing where you think and feel like you’ve survived something together. We’ve got some really good friends from shows like that.”

Shows like the Sasquatch Festival offer an experience for everyone – musicians and fans alike, through the good, bad and the ugly. Despite the high winds (as host and comedian Aziz Ansari implied the crowd to yell, “Fuck the wind!”), high food prices ($10 for a 24-ounce beer!), strange campground neighbors (Tyler remembers the drug-dealing ones next to us shouting one morning, “DO YOU REALIZE THERE ARE PEOPLE IN ALL THOSE TENTS?”), it all seems to be worthwhile on the long drive back from central Washington. Even if the heat burns you to a crisp, the bands kind of let you down, and you have work Tuesday morning, at least driving back home on Memorial Day, it is impossible to forget your tickets.

HELL YES

He looks like a 40-year-old...he's dominated the college game WITH HIS OFF HAND...and he's younger than me...


(image from trailblazers.com/nba.com)

THE BLAZERS WIN THE DRAFT! THE BLAZERS WIN THE DRAFT!



MOTHERFUCKING GREG ODEN WILL BE A BLAZER!!!!!

NOTHING can take this away from me right now. NOTHING.

can't we all get along?

Two logos, same school, very different meanings

There is a metaphorical and literal divide here at the University of Oregon between the academic and athletic sides. Divided by close to a mile's walk and a river, the main campus and the athletic department housed near Autzen Stadium epitomize an argument being made all across the United States in large colleges and universities: Are athletics more important than academics to a university? Should they take a precedent?

Yes and no. Yes, as athletic department budgets have skyrocketed (Oregon's budget has increased from $15 million in 1994 to more than $41 million this year), obviously the importance of top athletic departments (and, let's face it, that means the profit sports - football and men's basketball) are very important as marketing tools and ways to keep alumni involved. No, athletics are not more important than the studying being done on campus, but it is in my honest opinion as a college student that professors have FAR more important things to worry about distracting students than a football game during dead week.

It is indeed over games during "Dead Week" (specifically the weekend right before finals hosting the annual Civil War game against Oregon State, moved there due to a game being moved to Thursday night for television schedules) that the argument has returned to the spotlight on campus. And my view echoes that of many other students: this isn't the end of the world, as many professors have thought, and won't mean the end of academic credibility; let's face it, college students will find ways to distract themselves from studying for finals. Hell, it was my opinion freshman year that if I didn't have a Monday final or paper due, that was just one more day for partying - bonus!

And let's throw any argument of "retaining academic purity" (or anything along those lines) for
the student-athletes right out of the window; not only do they have much more academic help than the average student, for many of them they are athletes first and students second. This isn't to say that all of the players on the profit sports aren't here to get an education, just that the reality of college sports has shifted some priorities; not bad, not good, just different.

However, it is a worrying sign, especially here in Eugene. While there are signs that show that alumni who donate to athletics also donate to academics, the fact that it seems influence is being wielded by a select few is worrying. It's always worrying in any other facet of life, but in such a vulnerable time and place things could turn ugly soon.

I understand that it doesn't make professors look quite as good to their colleagues when the priorities seem to shift like this; however, the focus needs to be more on students - the ones who come here to get an education, and a very good education it is still - and the reality is that major athletic programs only add to college experience and can never take away. If a student can't get their act together around the Civil War game for finals week, they wouldn't be able to get their act together when left to their own devices to find a means of procrastination; the problem isn't the game, it's on the individual's priorities.

the frailty of youth

I just killed something in the prime of its youth earlier this afternoon: my sweet, sweet facial hair.

it's something I take for granted, my ability to grow facial hair. Give me a week and I've got a beard pretty well settled in; in five minutes or less, though, it can all be gone. I'm not going to lie, I've grown use to the ability to go through spurts of liking having facial hair and disliking it, letting it grow and shaving it on equally random whims.

the sad thing is, as if to counteract the awesomeness of this power, I am sadly going very bald at the ripe old age of 21. Remember Zinedine Zidane, the French soccer player who headbutted the Italian guy at the World Cup last summer? He famously has the same sort of hairstyle (big bald patch in the back, widow's peak up front) that I do. the only way it looks good is cut short, because otherwise it's a big shining "look at me, I'm bald!" beacon, glowing in self-consciousness.

right now, it's gone because I've gone very close for my hair on top of my head, and I disliked the "big goatee with almost bald = biker" look. so it's clean-shaven and almost bald for now. I'm sure my fun with facial hair will rarely end - I do quite like having a goatee, but not when it's this warm and my hair is this short. but knowing I have the power to construct awesome facial hair the likes of which many men could only dream to have is definitely a feather in my cap.