Back on track with teh gamez

Outside of my apartment, I can hear the blaring of Chinese folk songs from a cheap boombox that my neighbors use to practice their ballroom dancing moves almost every morning and night of the week. Although it annoyed me at first, now I've grown accustomed to it and frankly, and much analogously on a larger scale, it's now something I'm comfortable with.

Today, I finally went to 海龙大厦 and got my PSP unlocked, which means I've become part of the problem with my bootlegged games. Zoe also picked up a black PSP, much like mine, except for the identification tag on mine that verifies my PSP unit as 100% Am'rican, proud of it.

Originally, Zoe wanted to take me to a Akihabara-styled Maid Cafe, but when we arrived, the cafe was sans Maids. Zoe surmises all of the maids knew I was coming, and ran off in a combination of fright/disgust. Chalk one more up on the board of things weaboos have ruined for me like a mother calling a son mid-masturbation.

Because I was bored of watching a middle-aged man fail consistently at making a proper roll in Wii Bowling after my continuous failed attempts to educate him on the intricacies of Wii controls in broken-ass Chinese, I took yet again another picture of Zoe in all her long-haired glory picking out accessories for her PSP. Again, excuse the low-res and lack of shame in taking pictures whenever the opportunity presents itself.

"Seriously? That cross-legged, Wii-playing chump is your boyfriend?"

Tomorrow, we head out dark and early for our sojourn to Pingyao, located in the Shanxi province. It's been a while since I've been away from the niceties of modern civilization, so here's hoping I don't mimic typing and/or mouse aiming in my sleep. Because that would be fucking weird/sad.

GFW Radio: 2006-2008

"Hello and welcome to GFW Radio podcast..."

I know I'm a little late to the farewell party, but I had neither the time nor the correct mindset to write something serious and laudatory (as opposed to my typical sardonic and cynical outlook on all things). While trying to come up with kind words for GFW Radio podcast and the unique personalities that shaped the show over its disappointingly short lifespan, I came to realize that I'm honestly no good at writing down kind words. If a distantly-related 8 year-old nephew kicks a field goal in his AYSO game, I can muster up a "way to go there, champ", but that's pretty much the extent of my congratulatory abilities.

Nevertheless, I will do my best to give credit and thanks to where credit and thanks are due. Besides, if I'm going to field a career based on my skills (or lack thereof) as a writer, I'm going to need to broaden my horizons.

GFW Radio, then, is as good a candidate for praise as anything else I've come across in my life. I started listening to GFW Radio on a whim, seeing as how it was associated with the 1up Yours podcast, a show I had just started listening to. I'll be honest; like many other first-time listeners, the "Games For Windows" tagline threw me off. It was when I heard Shawn Elliott mention Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel And Dimed during their conversation that I knew I was listening to something special. After I came down from my cultural-elitist high, I started to appreciate the podcast for what it was; a damn fine gaming podcast that didn't abide by anyone's rules.

1up.com and EGM have always had a reputation for being tough reviewers, and the former cast of GFW was no different. Individually intelligent and collectively brilliant, the minds behind GFW Radio were skilled writers and thinkers first and foremost, and gamers a very close second, a group of enthusiasts that were always the first to actively praise forward-thinking innovation and skeptically call poor game design into question. Oftentimes, an expansive and thought-provoking discourse on integrity and creativity in not only gaming but the journalistic outlets dedicated to the development and final results of games started off deceptively simple enough, beginning with a topic already exhausted on numerous other gaming sites and publications. One podcast that stands out in my mind is the staff's discussion on Jeff Gerstmann's summarily being terminated from Gamespot for a negative Kane And Lynch: Dead Men review, wherein the staff covered not only past examples of PR and marketing strong-arming but also their ideas on journalistic integrity in general.

GFW Radio was smart podcasting, but the personalities that dictated it always had an endearing tendency to stray from their "scripts", with their tangents ranging from comic book recommendations to low-brow humor in the form of "Heroes Of The Web," a segment that will be sorely missed by numerous GFW Radio followers. Shawn Elliott was as skilled a humorist as he was a strong discussion leader when needed, and his numerous hilarious alter-egos such as Ralphie and Whiskey Nerd served to remind us time and time again that the internets really aren't as serious business as many of its denizens might consider it.

With a strong mix of intelligence and humor, GFW Radio's candidness and appreciation of fans served as the icing on the proverbial cake. Tuning into their weekly podcasts was like listening in on a conversation between good friends who had no problem ragging on each other with a brand of humor that only people with the strongest of relationships have access to. From Jeff Green's inability to cite the correct date and year in almost every introduction to Shawn Elliott mercilessly teasing Ryan Scott's love of the DC Comics series Booster Gold, the podcast was lined with a genuine and good-natured chemistry that made each episode, no matter how stale or unexciting the material, a joy to listen to. In addition, the staff at GFW never forgot about the fans, giving on-air shout-outs to listeners who sent them candies from around the world, or airing a PC game-free podcast to express their disappointment with the cancellation of the eponymous magazine and to extend heartfelt apologies to any listeners that started a subscription within the year. Although the GFW staff never made any excuses or apologies for their sometimes strong opinions on popular games, they always made sure the listeners knew where they were coming from in a mature, honest, and respectful manner.

On a personal note, GFW Radio was an inspiration of sorts. Although I do believe games have a while to go before they can be considered art in the same way literary classics are required reading before dying, the staff at GFW opened my eyes to the role gaming journalism might play in nudging game development towards that direction, as both its most heartfelt critic and skepctical proponent. The overall, unifying theme I've gathered from listening to every single episode of GFW Radio? Always demand the best out of yourself and others around you, and for fuck's sake, don't take things in life too seriously.

I'm keeping this dedication short, as I'll let the outstanding quality of the podcasts speak for themselves. Jeff, Shawn, Ryan, Robert, Anthony, and Darren and Sean, I hope you continue kick ass and take names in whatever career path you carve out for yourselves. As long as you guys continue to demand the same output of quality in your work, you will always have loyal fans like myself.

Long live the motherfuckin' Brodeo.

This week in Rock, pt. 1: Teacher Robba, new roommate, and cuterocity

What my students will most likely be doing instead of coming to class.

Today, I finally got my teaching schedule for the upcoming Fall semester, and it's... well, exactly as I expected. Interestingly enough, all my lessons are going to be taught through movies and television series, and the speaking and listening comprehension that comes with it. I was given a couple of movies (don't worry, all bootlegged) and episodes of "Friends", which I hope to use as a springboard for teaching my students the terms "whiny asshole" and "crazed neurotic bitch."

I also got to meet two of my fellow teachers that I'll teaching alongside in the English for Graduate Non-English Majors, both of them pretty cool. One of them's a Black dude from Manhattan who used to teach in inner cities. While rifling through the movies, he said "let's see which one of these movies has brothers in it... Shawshank Redemption, yeah, that's got one brother... lesse, what else?" to which the English program coordinator Patricia understandably responded, "...what?" The other dude is quite a character, a Canadian dude from Victoria. Imagine a hippified, cynical Dennis Quaid and you've got a pretty accurate picture of him. He hates reality tv and has "Raining Blood" by Slayer for a ringtone, so I imagine I'll get along with him.

As for other news, I have a new roommate. I told those fucks down at the league office that I didn't want a roommate, and yet, here I am again finding myself having to share my room, my space, and my freedom with yet again someone who possesses the emotional maturity of a hamster. Then again, in all fairness, the new roommate is, in fact, a hamster, so I guess it's excusable.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Sawyer.


Zoe's mom hates rodents of all shapes and forms (ie. cuddly and widdle), so her pet hamster is staying with me from now on. Originally, Zoe had another female hamster by the name of Kate (named in reference to Kate and Sawyer from Lost, a series Zoe caught up with in a record time of like a week), but Kate was given away 'cuz there was too much spawning taking place. So now, I have an adorable little hamster that brightens my day by this much more. Granted, unlike my last roommate, Sawyer doesn't do my laundry and hang up my clothes without asking me, but then again, on the bright side, he doesn't do my laundry and hang up my clothes without asking me.

While on the topic of the wonderful world of pets, we went down to the Tongzhou area to meet with Zoe's friend and browse the largest dog market in all of Northern China (according to the people at the dog market who have never strayed beyond the borders of the municipality). I was this close to buying a two month-old male Welsh Pembroke Corgi pup, a beautiful and well-behaved tan-colored creature that Zoe had a lot of difficulty putting down.

The problem is, with the break coming up, I'm not going to have enough time to take care of the little critter for at least a week, and I don't want to start off as a dick owner who's never there. I ain't down with that Michael Vick shit, son. After the holiday, we're going back there to rescue hopefully the same pup from the cloud of dust and Honghe cigarettes. I just hope the dog doesn't fucking eat the hamster.

Here's a pic of Zoe after holding the dog for like twenty minutes straight. Excuse the low resolution, as I snapped this photo on my now-shitty Motorola V3:


As for potential dog names, I decided to stick with my pre-adolescent idea of naming my future dog after a Star Wars character. So far, my list of potential names is as follows:

1) Chewie
2) Wicket

Actually, that's it. Any other names I come up with would be bordering on either obscurity or Star Wars-themed for the sake of Star Wars-themed. Zoe's not particularly impressed with "Chewie", as it sounds too much like 蚯蚓, or "qiu1 yin3" (Chinese for 'earthworm'). She thinks "Wicket" sounds a little better, but then added it might be difficult for a non-English speaker to discern between the word "wicked" and the name of a feisty Ewok that bailed the Rebel Alliance out of trouble like twice.

Oh well. Usually a couple concedes to getting a dog together after a patch of disagreements on raising a child, so I'm thinking of this as a step in the right direction. Too bad kids are fucking vile creatures that aren't nearly as self-sufficient as a Welsh Pembroke Corgi.

Dammit. I should've bought that dog today. Guess you could say I really "screwed the pooch" on this one. And I'm done. Off to sleep for me.

Over here, we call Chinese food "food"

Once again, not really.

The title of this entry comes from a similarly titled blog I had on Xanga (remember that shit?) wherein I bitched and moaned about a place I called home and was living in of my own volition.

Try as hard as I did to avoid such an outcome, my blog inevitably became a jumble of cliched cultural epiphanies that congregated into a linear mess of "self-discovery" and all the nonsense that comes with such a heavy-handed unifying theme. In other words, my blog devolved into a statistic, the requisite "foreigner teaching English in China" blog wherein the same pictures of the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and toothless Chinese man selling street food served as visual reference for the exploits of "meeting new interesting people!!!!11" and "learning the language (OMG SO HARD)." Cookie cutter shit, although it's understandable.

Fast forward about a year or so later after said blog, there's no traces of mystique or cultural preponderance because the mystique is long gone. Beijing has become a place that, like LA, or maybe even Orange County, is simply a place for someone to live. And for me, that's a good thing. Viewing one's surroundings through rose-tinted glasses can only get you so far; after that, you have to face the reality of your situation. For me, the reality of the situation is that I'm now 25, no longer a college graduate, and a few years behind on my projected career path. No self-discovery, none of that actualization of the self bullshit here. Just hardcore career-planning and the like.

In gaming-related nonsense, I found a forum on The Beijinger's website. It appears a few of the forum posters are into games, with even a minuature, compacted console flame war to boot.

In non-gaming related nonsense, how fucking antisocial and scared of making new acquaintances are the people on my floor? I get the whole "immersing yourself in a strange land" thing. It's very romantic. Now get over yourselves.

Ah yes, one more thing. Pictures of my apartment:

The bedroom, where the magic happens. By magic, I mean laggy "WoW."

Another view of the bedroom. Note the unmade bed and the trash surreptitiously stuffed to the side of the desk.

The kitchen. As you might've already guessed, the least-visited area of the apartment by a long run.

A view of the family room. Probably the cleanest it'll ever be.

A view from the balcony connected to my room. I live on campus grounds, so it's nice and quiet at night. Although I do somewhat miss the ambient white noise creeping in like my old apartment in Dawang Lu, nothing beats peaceful silence.

Another view from the balcony. Better view of the city, or rather, the Wudaokou area. I can see the girlfriend's office building from here. Makes me feel like Norman Bates. Except the whole, y'know.

The bathroom. Funny thing about Chinese apartments is the lack of an actual shower, which means the entire ground gets soaking wet. Doesn't mean I won't sing, though.

So yeah, the return to China continues on. Stay tuned for posts detailing why I absolutely fucking loathe the Chinese language and the cultural impact of the Backstreet Boys on Chinese youth.

All's fair, except when dealing with douchebags

Yesterday, while perusing the bookstore at the 五道口华莲 with the girlfriend, I came across a book called Romeo and Zhu Yingtai. Now, for those of you who don't know (most likely all of you, as I just became privy to this information myself not long ago), there is a famous Chinese story that also deals with two young, star-crossed lovers called "Liang Sanbo and Zhu Yingtai." At the end of the story, both lovers (spoiler) die, much like their Western counterparts.

So, as one might guess, this book essentially teaches foreign men how to pick up on Chinese girls. Although the book was shrink-wrapped, the gender/racial specificity can be inferred from the title: White emo cracker and useless Chinese chick.

As some of you may know, I've long harbored a strong resentment towards White male foreigners who carry the White-God cock-swinging-from-opening-in-pants when in China. It's not so much jealousy, as Zoe kicks so much butt, she kicks ass. During my first time here, I came to realize that my resentment is somewhat misdirected; White God-Cock-jocking foreign males were, I decided, simply the most obvious choice for my antagonism. Rather, my resentment is reserved more for Chinese women who see dating a White male as "dating up" on the ladder of eligible bachelors.

Now, I understand there is such thing as personal preference. I have a friend, for example, who will only watch pornos involving hung Black dudes banging petite Blonde barely-legals. When his taste was called into question, he defended himself by saying, "so I'm the only one here interested in watching the best porn ever?"

So yeah, there is taste. I understand that. My issue is not with Chinese chicks who love blue eyes, but with the chicks who make it a point of pride to be seen with a White guy, no matter how frumpy and pear-shaped this dude might be. Somehow, having a White boyfriend means they've "made it" like The Jeffersons. And there's the issue with how the Chinese view themselves as a people, which in my mind, isn't very high. There's a huge stink about nationalism here that just reeks of inadequacy, overcompensation, and general wariness in dealing with all things. There's also the whole thing with Asian girls having no problem finding White boyfriends in the States, but never vice versa. That these Chinese chicks actively throw themselves at all things White makes me feel, for lack of better expression, offended, to some degree, as both an American and as a person of Chinese heritage.

In summation, I guess this all leads back to the book I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I'm fielding a guess here, as I haven't been to every single bookstore in the United States, but I think it's safe to say that you'll never find a book like that in America that teaches foreigners how to pick up on White girls. Multiple languages is not a good enough reason for the lack of these books either; If Shonen Jump will cut down dozens of forests to publish thirty different manga series all dealing with emo pre-teens piloting giant mechs, logic dictates there's most likely a book for anything and everything somewhere out there. But I know there ain't no book like the one I just imagined.

Then again, I probably shouldn't be talking. Yesterday, I threatened to leave Zoe should the day I was ever propositioned by Johnny Depp or Robert Downey, Jr come. I guess I'm no better than any of these chicks.

Dear Internets, Pt.2

Or more specifically, Facebook-ians.

Although both tenses exist within the framework of the now, present simple and present continuous are marked by crucial albeit subtle differences.

Let me illustrate:

"Robert is feels like buying a Hitachi Magic Stick."

See where this sentence is wrong? The "is" puts the sentence squarely in the Present Simple, which either describes a routine habit or a current state of being. Now, the Facebook status update thingy used to be prohibitively locked in the Present Simple tense, meaning future action and et al would have to be indicated by a gerund form (or "-ing") of said intended future action.

With the new facelift (which I'll get to next) in place, the Facebook user now has the option to erase the "is" and replace it with any verb he or she may conjure up. However, this has led to yet another deficiency in proper English, with the following example becoming more and more common:

"Robert wants to buy a Hitachi Magic Stick because I have this sinking feeling that I can't please any woman that I come across."

Wuh-oh. What do we have here? It seems the anonymous Facebook user has gotten their first-person and third-person mixed up, no doubt a tricky art to master by any person of six years of age or older. Although Facebook might have nixed the "is" altogether, the user's first name, "Robert" in the above example, cannot be erased. The sentence is not preceded by an "I" or "I'm", so this means all subject indicators from this point forward must be in the third-person, ie. "he", "her", etc., etc.

English is a tough language to master. There are no vowel or consonant consistencies, and sentence structure allows flexibility to the point of verbal chaos. The only kind of person that might master such a language would be... I don't know. Someone who fucking grew up in the United States of America, perhaps? But, let's be fair here: who actually "grows up" in the USA anyway?

Welcome to America, kiddies. Hope this language that you've been speaking all your life doesn't get you down.

起来，起来，起来

So, I'm in China.

I haven't really been updating this blog (obviously), so I'm about to embark on a mad dash in the name of "making up for lost time" which means a lot of unfinished thoughts and incoherent sentences without structure or overall meaning.

I know it's somewhat distasteful to post pictures of, above all, my new "g4m33n gr4d3" mousepad before pictures of, say, the Bird's Nest stadium and my new apartment, but my brother was calling into question the firepaddiness of the "Fire Pad." To paraphrase him: "Wow. It really does say 'BURN IN HELL' on the pad." Also, I spent a year plus change here getting all cultural-y and shit. So fuck y'all.

Beijing hasn't really changed since I was last here, but in many ways, it has. The weather is still as grimy as I fondly remember, the people still haven't figured out the concept of lining up to avoid potentially disastrous bottlenecking situations, and I guess I still hate god-complex jocking expats. Well, that last one is more about me than the city itself, but isn't a person a reflection of where he calls home, for better or worse? Anyway, it feels strangely... good... to be back.

My time here will definitely be a different animal than last time. The honeymoon period is basically over, as all things I originally found new and fresh are now commonplace surroundings. Also, I'm missing two very dear part-time co-workers/full-time friends to discover new places with. So yeah, the honeymoon is over. But the romance is definitely still going strong. In more ways than one, wink wink fuckin' nudge.

The wink is directed towards my beautiful better half, she who makes me strive to kick ass at all things I might endeavor to undertake, be it powerleveling in WoW to get to level 55, or thinking with great speed and force all things regarding my future career. Yeah, I'm thinking ahead a lot. But I think I hit jackpot this time. And what does the book say about hitting jackpot? You cash out. Wait, scratch that analogy... that makes no sense. As for the nudge, it's for the cleverly placed towering edifice of an analogy I hath constructed with nothing but words as its foundation and wit as the girders and bricks that reaffirm and bolster its great power. I'm also running out of things to write about.

Same old song. Beijing rules, come out here when you have the chance.

Now, pictures:

The aquatic stadium thing-ish-ite (the actual name escapes me), where Michael Phelps blasted many a song by Lil' Wayne on his iPod. Brah. In the background is the Pangu Building, where monthly rent costs approximately my yearly salary. In America.

OMG, it's me. The Beijing subway is one of the best things ever, because it's cheap and takes you as far as your imagination can... imagine. I'm not sure what it is exactly that I'm looking at in this picture. In gaming related nonsense, that's an old-school FFIV action menu shirt from Penny Arcade.

I'll be honest, I don't know who this girl is. She's just a pretty girl I met at the Forbidden City. I pay her 8000 RMB a month to pretend to be my girlfriend and to pretend she's not completely repulsed by me.

The Olympic torch. Gives +15 agility if held on the off-hand, ranged DPS is over 9000.

The Bird's Nest at night. No captions here, except that they did a bang-up job with the lighting at night. Um, caption, caption. Chinese people like WoW?

I've gone about a week and half without any dairy products. Thanks for nothing, you dirty fucks.

These pictures were taken during the Paralympic Games, which really were a spectacle to behold. In the name of good sportsmanship and in doing it's job in symbolizing what the Olympics are really about, I'd say the Games were as much a success as the Olympics. At least little chicks weren't dubbed over because they weren't cute enough. When the Americans took first place in relay, I stood up and belted as much as I remembered of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in all its awkwardly-constructed-sentence glory. With my right hand over my left man-boob. I guess I'm still a big softie at heart.

In video game-related news, I can't get on Xbox Live here, thus negating the reason I brought my 360 out here in the first place. Fuck.

Teh Fire-pad

Behold the firepaddiness of the... Fire-Pad. Yeah, Fire-Pad. Like Spider-Man. The hyphen adds extra leetness, or sadness. You pick.


Burn in hell, indeed. That's what I'ma say to all my opponents under my breath. Behind a monitor. Without a headset. Halfway across the globe.



My very own Chinese "Professional Mouse Pad." I feel like one of the herd now, although the lack of mispellings is starting to make me question the Chinese-ness of the pad.

I think I want a Steelseries.

Well, shucks...

Getting ready to head out to the good ol' PRC, where excitement in the form of teaching a class I'm barely qualified to enroll in and strange concoctions at KFC await me with open arms.

Bags aren't packed yet. That might be a problem.

I've never been big on that whole pre-packing thing, seeing as how I'm going to be needing a lot of the stuff I'm packing away up to the point I leave, thereby negating the effectiveness-in-preparation principle in full. Besides, I've always been the type of person that could effectively live out of his suitcase for an indefinite period of time. Example: After returning back to Beijing for a month-long period and subleting an apartment, I decided not to unpack my clothes into the pink dresser in the name of my impending departure, which led to me hand-washing my clothes in the sink with Tide while listening to music from my shitty speakers and telling myself, "dude, you're going to be out of here like tomorrow, don't hassle yourself with that laundromat shit."

Again, it's going to be tough for me to say goodbye to a place that I feel like I just reacquainted myself with. I'm going to miss my family, my friends, and of course the niceties being around them affords. And it's going to be trippy setting foot in Beijing again for the second time this year. The last time I was there, I explained to my friends that it felt strange being back precisely because it didn't feel strange at all. I've lived there long enough that I could call it a second home, much akin to moving up to Los Angeles again, if the people in LA didn't stand in line, were unruly in public, and trash littered the streets in certain areas. Wait, that basically is LA. What is this country coming to?

It's been a confusingly bittersweet week for me, where I'm both eager and reluctant to leave this place. I think in retrospect, I'm even going to miss the SUV-driving moms with the "My child was an honor student at Lomarena Elementary" stickers shoddily peeling off the bumper like a half-applied brand on a cow's fat fucking ass. That's the weird effect this place has on me; I can't live with it and I can't live without it. Like that U2 song, "Sunday Bloody Sunday."

Of course, I would never admit it while living here, but I am essentially a product of OC, a place that has rendered me from a young upstart into a bitter, cynical elitist who hates his own kind and can't stand pomposity in any way, shape, or form. I think all of my rants have always had a glimmer of optimism and/or a desire and expectation for things to get better in the end. Call me an idealist, but I'm still somewhat a fan of this strange, peculiar race that preys on its own and yet is at the same time capable of creating so much beauty in the world; I'm just consistently let down by my own unrealistic standards. Then again, I'm not one to talk, seeing as how I own a video game that allows me to run around in green armor with a purple gun while shooting orange aliens that sound like bad extras from that "Clone Wars" shit that Lucas squeezed out of a week-old pimple on his ass and then managed to market as, of all things, a movie.

In this cultural war, I am an embedded journalist secretly rooting for the other side to win. That's some shit.

So yeah, I need to get packing. In the way of games, I'm bringing my DS, PSP, and last but not least by any stretch, my 360. Also, I'm considering getting a PS3 out there so I can finally once and for all play goddamned MGS4 and end this knee-jerk earmuffs move I pull everytime that picture of Old Snake slugging a PMC goon in the crotch rears its head on Kotaku. In between all that time, I would like to brush up on my Mandarin and maybe climb the Great Wall again. You think I'm kidding, but I assure you, I'm not.

I'll try to sneak one more entry in before I bounce. If not, see you all on the other side. You guys are simply the best, better than all the rest (whatever the fuck "the rest" means).

This week on Live

Dude, I'm loving me some Xbox Live this week.

First, I played the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo, and man, this game kicks so much ass. In terms of what the demo offered, it wasn't much in the way of stuff we haven't already seen: chopping up stormtroopers, TIE fighters roaring past you, and lots of lightsaber gimmickry. What's refreshing about all that is how well it's done in this game. I think SW:FU embraces what poor movie-based games fail to acknowledge, which is the fact that a game is only as good as its mechanics first and the source material second. The force grip ability is intuitive, and seeing as how the Apprentice's powers only grow as the storyline progresses, I'm eagerly awaiting the moment I can down an Imperial-class Star Destroyer by simply holding down the right trigger.

Not a Super-class Star Destroyer. Those things are like, five hundred times the size of a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Star Wars geekery, blue milk, and Sarlacc couldn't digest Boba Fett because of his armor, and all that.

Also, I read in Play Magazine that the Apprentice is bad-ass, on the scale of Strider-like awesomeness. That's a pretty specific and very encouraging comparison, seeing as how Kratos and Dante are the usual suspects.

So yeah, Force Unleashed was way cool. But what's really been capturing my attention is the XBLA title Castle Crashers.

Braid was cool. So was Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Retro-styled games seem to be making a comeback thanks to the Nintendo DS, and of course, creator-enabled XNA titles on Live Arcade, but like many things, there's always danger of saturation. It's already happened to the "casual" music games, what with Neversoft and Harmonix rushing to sign exclusive artists to their respective franchises. Pretty soon, like all things, I have a feeling these rhythm-based games will go the way of the slap bracelet and collapse under its own weight.

The problem with this competitive one-upping is that the byproducts that rear their ugly heads all lack the one quality which made the original so distinctive: heart. When Megaman 9's creative direction was unveiled, I was both fascinated and skeptical. The game, complete with 8-bit graphics and chiptunes, and deliberate system slowdown to boot, rests on a line that borders a breed of meta we haven't yet seen in a video game. Retro-styled games are fun and all that, but there has to be some kind of innovation and a forgoing of self-awareness that allows the buying fanbase some kind of faith in the forward momentum of the genre. Once stagnation sets in, the lines between laziness and homage become more and more unclear, until the audience itself isn't sure whether they're enjoying a game due to the merits of the gameplay or if it's just nostalgia making them see what they want to see. This is going to be somewhat of a generalization, but look what's happening to games coming from Japan. If there's any kind of evolution taking place, it's more of a allaying-natural selection process rather than of its own volition.

Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin, then, have made quite possibly the most charming Japanese game to come out this year. Castle Crashers is reminiscent of brawlers such as Streets of Rage where your character basically puts the smackdown on wave after wave of bad guys, with a giant finger on-screen telling you to "GO" after you've cleared a zone of enemies. Although the gameplay appears stock at first, what makes Castle Crashers so straight-up fun is how it keeps you on your toes. The boss battles and levelling up always provide you with something new, but the true fun lies in the cooperative multiplayer, where timed-button presses put a unique twist on simply pressing "A" to steal a life from your partner.

What's important is that Castle Crashers doesn't feel retro for the sake of retro. After sitting down with the game for a mere five minutes, I could gather that this game couldn't have possibly existed in any other form. Without the taint of the aforementioned self-awareness, the creators are able to focus solely on what works and what doesn't work in their game. Nothing, from the gameplay, character abilities, and above all, the excellent Miyazaki-meets-Uglydoll animation, feels out of place. Unlike Braid, where I was bothered by the lingering hint of pretension lingering in the air (admit it, you know it's there), the feeling Castle Crashers evoked for me was pure amusement. I could count the times I had a giant grin on my face while playing this game, and I suspect there's more to come.

At one point early in the game, you have the option of entering an arena that pits you against an onslaught of barbarian attackers, with two giant cats on either side lazily swatting at you should you venture too close to the edges. Castle Crashers never really explores this.

And refreshingly enough, for the first time in a long time, I didn't demand any kind of explanation from the game. I just wanted to keep playing, and that was good enough for me. Download Castle Crashers now, dagnabbit.