Virtual Dork: Thoughts on Xbox's Games with Gold promotion

Earlier this summer, perhaps anticipating the livid audience response to initial statements the new Xbox would require an online connection and restrict access to used games and other content, Microsoft announced its Games with Gold promotion. Modeled after Sony's Playstation Plus free game giveaway, Microsoft promised two free games would be released each month from June through December, dropping two titles at E3 (Assassin's Creed 2 and Halo 3) that would definitely be on the roster. The rest would be surprises.

Though I'd already played the two announced titles when they released, I was looking for a good reason to renew my Gold subscription earlier this summer in order to watch HBO Go on the pathetic Sanyo that was included with my rental unit here in Spokane. I'm squinting to see players in Call of Duty, so if I've stared at you funny in the last several weeks, know that's the reason and not that I'm losing my mind (probably). In any event, the first announced game, Fable 3, had not graced my console yet so I plopped the money down for a year's subscription and dutifully downloaded the three-quel overnight on my hamster-wheel ran WiFi.

This is a commentary on the game's we've received through the promotion so far. It would be unfair, I think, to compare Microsoft's offering with Playstation Plus. Sony clearly has a superior setup, offering games like Saint's Row the Third and Uncharted 3, both of which released in the last two years. The most recent offering from Microsoft to date has been Fable, which released in October 2010. Only one game is available at a time, whereas Playstation has a suite of options available each month. Finally, Sony has been running their promotion for quite some time, whereas with Microsoft it's a finite deal that feels a little reactionary, to be perfectly blunt.

Still, we're getting free games. During the summertime, that's a great thing, because the dog days are usually also the doldrums for fresh, blockbuster titles. With GTAV still an agonizing month away, Microsoft has been offering some decent diversions. Let's see how they stack up.

Fable 3

I have memories of playing the original Fable, but it must have been at a friend's house because I never owned the original Xbox. I thought it had been ported to the Playstation 2, my console of choice during the last generation. I may be confusing the game with Psychonauts, thought the relative quality of that game (even when compared to Lionhead's latest offering) makes that confusion unlikely.

Fable 3 is a tonally ridiculous game. You're supposed to feel some sort of compassion for the bizarre, cartoony humanoids of Albion who speak with regrettably ridiculous British accents and generally act as though Chaucer's Miller were their moral compass. The combat is fun, the possibilities for amassing wealth seemingly limitless. But when you throw in the moral weight of decisions whether millions of your people will die and one of the achievements requires you making that choice in a chicken suit, there's just not really any storytelling weight here. Add to the fact the nebulous nature of the evil facing your kingdom and an ending that I suppose is designed to make someone, somewhere cry, and this game is perfect for diversionary purposes. But Zelda-killer this is not.

Score: 3/5

Defense Grid: The Awakening and Assassin's Creed 2

I haven't spent enough time with Defense Grid, an Xbox Live Arcade title, to form an opinion. I've already played Assassin's Creed 2 and didn't download it again. I won't judge them for this piece yet.

Crackdown

August's first downloadable title was 2007's Crackdown, a game conceived by David Jones, the mind behind Lemmings and the original Grand Theft Auto. Primarily known for containing a beta key for Halo 3, Crackdown sold well enough to spawn what critics called an uninspired sequel in 2010 just as Jones finished up work on his ill-fated MMORPG answer to GTA, APB (All Points Bulletin).

Jones' prints are all over this game. It's fast, fun and tremendously shallow in the story department. Gunplay is satisfying, though twitchy. Driving is ridiculous and should be avoided in favor of your agent's incredible aerial abilities. As you progress through the (woefully short) story mode, your character earns new abilities through floating orbs that require platform puzzling to solve, not unlike lookout towers in Assassin's Creed. There are more than 500 to collect scattered throughout Pacific City, and if the ambient sound wasn't so terrifically awful I likely would have pursued them all. It's just that addictive.

When you've taken out all the bad guys, the game tosses what seems like an expository curveball at you: the disembodied voice of the "Agency," the group you've been working to help clean up the streets, has designs of municipal autocracy that you've helped him achieve. I'd be blow away if I wasn't yawning. Good time-waster, little more.

Score: 2/5

Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Case Zero

The original Dead Rising was a massively popular title for the 360 published by Capcom in 2006, just a few months after the console was launched. I've been meaning to pick it up, but never really bothered with it. I purchased my Xbox 360 the summer of 2007 and by then my interest in the launch games had waned considerably.

Dead Rising 2 takes the solid foundation of its predecessor (according to reviews of that title) and builds upon them, making the save feature much more accessible to players and introducing a level of tonal absurdity that could only be inspired by a Japanese game company. You're in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, your daughter has been bitten and requires constant medical attention to avoid "turning," and you can wear assless chaps.

Yes, that's right. Assless chaps.

I haven't finished Dead Rising 2 yet, but so far it has — in my estimation — the cream of the crop of titles released under the Games with Gold promotion. Though the story is absurd, there's a real sense of urgency and progress here as the timer ticks down on certain objectives. Old-school saving IS frustrating, but the game more than makes up for it by designing a combat system that is just so damn fun. Squishing zombie brains never gets old, and thanks to the constantly regenerating undead masses in the over world of Fortune City, Nevada, you have plenty of time to oblige them.

Score: 4/5

Dead Rising 2 is the first game in the Games with Gold promotion I feel like I would have picked up for a price had I played a demo of the game beforehand. I hope the selections continue in this upward trajectory, which brings me to a wish list of games I want to see released over the next several months. Of course, GTAV will consume my free time beginning Sept. 27, but the option of starting a download that you can finish later is an ingenious offering by Microsoft for the busy gamer. And I intend to get my money's worth.

Games with Gold Wish List

Shadow Complex: This 360 exclusive Xbox Live title seems like a no-brainer. I planned on purchasing it back in 2009 but the time got away from me. There was a lot of outcry when Microsoft went with a XBLA title as its second GWG offering with Defense Grid, but I doubt anyone's going to complain if this Metroid-clone makes the list.

Telltale Games Presents: The Walking Dead: This is likely wishful thinking, as no game near The Walking Dead's launch window last year has been released yet. Perhaps as one of the final offerings, just as Season 2 is being released by Telltale, isn't too much to ask for? Microsoft has already given away one episode of the first season at Christmastime last year, which I hungrily gobbled up. If they released the next four for free as well, I'd be doing a happy zombie shuffle.

Bioshock 2: Microsoft has been making a habit of releasing sequels during the GWG promotion, and Bioshock 2 seems like a safe bet, especially with the episodic content of its successor, Bioshock Infinite, set to release sometime later this year/early next year. The original Bioshock is a classic, but I was kind of turned off by the return to Rapture without Ken Levine's involvement. Playing the game for free would alleviate those concerns.

Minecraft: This is extremely unlikely, seeing as how the genre-defying first-person builder is basically printing money on the Arcade. But perhaps, once market penetration reaches its max, Microsoft will decide it's OK to give the 360 port away for free.

L.A. Noire/Max Payne 3: Give me something from Rockstar (not Table Tennis, though). The first is probably more likely, given its age, but either gun-toting title would make for a fun 2 weeks this fall. I could see Red Dead Redemption too, but I hope not. I've already played that wonderful game to death.

Mass Effect: The original 360 exclusive has been on my list for awhile now, but I haven't had the necessary encouragement to run out and buy it. Microsoft would be able to push out one of its exclusives and attract new players to the series, a win-win in my book.

What games would you like to see released free in the coming months? Let me know in the comments!

An Inexplicably Close Look at an Obscure Song: "Summer" by Sum41

So I've been doing a bit of warm weather inventory here at the Shallow End, which invariably leads me to that list of oft-repeated tunes — the ditties you just can't escape — iTunes' collection of my "Most Played" tracks. The top 10 is nothing to write home about and encompasses about everything you'd expect. The 57 seconds of brilliance that is "Stu's Song" from "The Hangover." A melange of '90s One Hit Wonders, and the world's most perfect love song and best with the word "Wanna" in the title (eat it, Spice Girls): Hootie's "Only Wanna Be With You."

But #2 is an entry I simply can't get my head around. It's the eighth track off of the unfortunately titled "All Killer No Filler" by Canadian punk band Sum 41, whose only real claim to fame in 2013 is that their lead singer, Deryck (that's not a typo, apparently they enjoy consonants up North) Whibley's fling with Avril Lavigne. I have to give the boys credit, though. A Rockstar (video game company) sticker is  has a conspicuous cameo in the video for "Motivation," one of the few angst-ridden tunes of my teens I still return to from time to time without wanting to travel back in time and punch a hole through my own skull.

As we all remember from early 2001, Sum 41 hit it big with "Fat Lip," that song you sang in your bathroom mirror because clever lyrics like "The doctor said my mom should have had an abortion" seemed incredibly edgy at the time. Sum 41 became the third most popular punk band with an unexplained number in their name that summer, and made the rounds of TRL and whatever subsequent noise VH1 was throwing on the air. All Killer No Filler went platinum, the Warped Tour was cool again and swimming pools everywhere emptied for impromptu skate competitions.

Why, then, did an unreleased track find its way onto my Most Played list?

Unlike Fat Lip, "Summer" is a bit of a conundrum lyrically. Gone are the references to trashing house parties and unsupervised El Camino binges, replaced with what reads like verbal overflow in which our narrator admits he's "awkwardly speaking with nothing to say."

One could argue the entire period of "punk pop" from 2000 through its fiery death in 2005 could be described this way. These were the years when Blink 182 was still writing about prank phone calls and some band that looked like Incubus felt compelled to tell us they weren't perfect. Yellowcard was signing about sunny California while trying to recreate Groundhog Day and the second incarnation of the Cure was trying to confuse teenagers with overwrought allusions and fancy adjectives.

What did it all mean? In the end, a whole lot of nothing. And that's what "Summer" is. It's a nice upbeat song that perfectly encapsulates the "whoa!" of everything speeding around you, and just as quickly you realize the time is up and it's been wasted. We find ourselves, as fans of this music, admitting vicariously to our former favorites: "The worlds not learning from you." 

Or maybe I'm just looking a little too closely and being a little too harsh. Here's to summer, you fans of that late 90s/early 2000s punk sugar. The rush will end someday, but replay "Summer" and live in it for just a while longer.

Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Movie Review-Captain America: The First Avenger

In the midst of dubious foreign policy in Libya, a looming debt crisis being spoken of in apocalyptic terms, and even our biggest sports stars involved in what appears to be money-grubbing labor negotiations, perhaps now is the perfect time to revisit the ideals (real or imagined) that make this country great. Enter Captain America: The First Avenger, a shot in the collective arm of the United States to the tune of $65 million in its opening weekend. The film is a competent companion to Marvel's current stable of independent Avengers flicks, establishing a narrative focus for the character while also providing some impressive fireworks along the way. However, like those other films, Cap lacks the ideological depth that films like Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Kick Ass, and the current Batman trilogy illustrate the comic book medium is capable of.

To that end, the performances here fill stock roles that we've come to expect from the genre, without any particular character dominating the action in any memorable way. Evans (THE HUMAN TORCH WAS DENIED A BANK LOAN!) is a pretty believable Cap, exuding the charm, charisma and selflessness we would expect from America's hero. When he tries to bring some emotional depth to the character in the form of mourning for a fallen soldier, however, the act gets a bit tired. The love interest (Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter) is similarly forgettable and formulaic. Sure, she grabs a tommy gun at one point to take out an assailant and puts a wayward private on his ass in boot camp, but her appearances throughout the film are meant mainly to bring out Evans' doughy eyes and remind the audience the American spirit can conquer anything it sets its mind to (which, of course, works on two levels, as Carter is a Brit enlisted in the American army for some reason or another).

Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, and Hugo Weaving all provide perhaps transcendent ensemble performances. Jones is your typical Doubting Thomas, brought into the cult of Cap just as easily as Carter eventually falls for the leading man. Tucci once again attempts to steal the prize of Actor Who Takes The Least Number of Flattering Roles from Steve Buscemi by portraying a grizzled and disenchanted German scientist who defects and mentors Cap through the transformation process. Weaving steps into the role of villain as masterfully as ever, though he's given little to work with other than Red Man (I knew there was some anti-Commie stuff in this film, too!) who wants to destroy world and rebuild it with himself as leader. We've seen this a hundred times before, and while Captain America brings some interesting period piece elements to the show, it doesn't do anything interesting or meaningful with them.

In fact, all the shortcomings of the film could be attributed to a shallowness that pervades all 2 hours and 4 minutes of its run-time. Nazi ideology and iconography is removed completely from the film, replaced by the faceless Hydra who walk, talk and act like Nazis but allow the film to make a PG-13 point about war and America without dragging unnecessary political baggage into the fold. In fact, after the first hour of the film, the mention of Hitler and the Nazis ceases altogether, leaving the believability of the film to hinge on the ideas and values Cap stands for. Of course, those ideals and values include the introduction of the token African-American soldier who is Harvard educated and drops in at just the right moment to save the day. The viewer expects a certain amount of vapid ideology when walking into a movie called Captain America. But this film takes that presumption and uses it as a license to make a film that says little, if anything, about America that doesn't seem to be tired or a cliche in this modern world, and ignores completely (through the loss of Nazi ideology as the enemy) any moral high ground upon which America's (and thus Captain's) superiority could be argued.

Still, on the other hand, Captain America does exactly what a comic book movie providing exposition for an obligatory multi-hero sequel film should do. It provides a creation narrative for both the idea and the abilities of the hero in question without allowing ideology or unnecessary plot complications to get in the way. Put simply, Captain America is a thrilling ride that pays homage to conceptions of America that may or may not still exist in this modern, complicated world in which we find ourselves. It will certainly be interesting to see how Marvel handles the transition to the modern world for Cap in the upcoming Avengers film. As an independent picture, however, Captain America answers the call of duty...but does little to go above and beyond it.

3D Note: If you're thinking of seeing the film in 3D, I'd advise against it. The only cool effects occur during one particular combat montage in the middle of the film, otherwise you're getting pretty basic touch-up animations that have little, if any, "wow" factor.

Verdict: 3.5/5 stars