(This is an entry for this).

First thing I did with my first few months of salary was to finally buy myself a gaming PC so you’d probably know, I love games :). And not your average junkie too: I really love them, have played many many games, and find it puzzling why people can spend Ks on a gaming rig, or a car, or handphones, but find the concept of actually buying an original game - prices have dropped a little because of the weak dollar - completely alien.

That’s a discussion for another day though, since I’m writing this to share my favourite game of all time. You’d think it’d be a recent whizzbang shooter like Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, or maybe Half Life 2 - all fantastic games in their own right. After all graphics have improved to such realistic levels titles even a few years back can sometimes look positively outdated.

But yet I feel the best game of all time is Baldur’s Gate 2 (and its expansion Throne of Bhaal ), released a full 8 years ago in 2000 by the now-defunct Black Isle studios.

Granted I’ve always leaned towards RPGs rather than FPS. The former tends to be more story-centric and involving, rather than a twitchfest - although the lines are beginning to blur nowadays. But I think BG2 was one of the few games to have a perfect combination of action, gameplay, story, setting, and even decent multiplayer.

The freedoms given in the game, set in the Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms setting, still puts many later wannabes to shame. After an intriguing introduction where you fight your way out of a dungeon and watch as a childhood friend is kidnapped, you are free to explore Amn and its surroundings as you please, though the game reminds you about your main quest every now and then. And no mere Fed-ex side quests these; the game throws at you pirates, vampires, werewolves, djinni, liches, and even dragons! Indeed, it’s been observed that the second chapter of BG2 is practically as fleshed out as the entirety of some other games.

And when you finish with that, you find out that it’s just the beginning as you travel over the seas and into the Underdark.What completely separated BG2 from other games though was its gameplay - due mostly in part to its Infinity Engine. I still haven’t seen an engine, 3D or otherwise, that has been as able to capture epic, spellslinging battles as Baldur’s Gate did. And these battles were hard too, even on your second or third time through, which gave you all the more satisfaction as you finally downed that dragon or mind flayer.

It was also one of the few games - then and since - which had interesting companions, all of whom would change your party’s playstyle, and how you experienced the game. All had their own storylines and subquests and there were more enough combinations for multiple playthroughs.

In 2001 came the expansion Throne of Bhaal, and it brought the game to dizzying heights of epicness - up to that point most studios had never done a DnD game with characters levelled so high. And somehow it all still worked, timestops, comets, devas, fire giants and all, and it still captured the adventuring spirit of the series.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played through BG2 (4? 5?) and I find that as I write this I’m tempted to pick it up and try a new character and party build :P. I’m not alone either: there’s still a thriving mod community centered around the game. If you like RPGs and have never played this, you aren’t a true RPG fan :).

That’s it for my favourite game of all time!

Popularity: 17% [?]

Out of boredom I started watching Human Weapon and Fight Quest  a while back.Both are serial semi-documentaries that explore various martial arts around the world. They are very similar (but Human Weapon aired first) - the only differences I could see were that HW had cool motion-captured animations explaining the forces behind the main techniques of each art, while FQ’s hosts were more critical of the martial arts they went up against.

There were real whoppers in Human Weapon’s coverage of Malaysian silat though - to believe their version of silat’s history, 20% of Malaysians practice silat and “thousands of silat warriors” died to achieve our independence in 1957! I’ve a clip that shows what they said at the beginning:

Popularity: 30% [?]

Dark Knight Returns

Batman first came alive for me when I read Frank Miller’s landmark graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns (1986), which told the story of an aged Batman returning to fight crime. Its grim take on superheroes and mature themes remain an influence on comic books today (and who could forget the iconic panels of Batman showing Clark who’s boss?)

So The Dark Knight was a much awaited movie for me. Batman Begins was a decent film, but most of the time was spent on the origin story (no super powers, borrring..) and let’s face it you can’t remember the villain’s name, can you? TDK would feature two of Batman’s most famous opponents: the Joker and Two-Face.

Living up to Hype

Early reviews had nothing but praise for the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, which half worried me, would I go in expecting too much? Superhero movies are a dime a dozen now; this summer alone has seen Hancock, Wanted, Iron Man, Hulk, and Hellboy all grace the screen. Is there space for a hero with no powers?

There is :). What I liked most about TDK was that yes, Ledger’s performance deserves all the accolades you can throw at it. But less mentioned is that the rest of the ensemble: Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), and even Alfred (Michael Caine) all put in stellar performances (Morgan Freeman was good too, but at this point I go “WTF not YOU again” whenever I see him in a movie). In fact, given that I already knew Ledger would be awesome, Eckhart’s portrayal of Harvey Dent knocked me off my feet. He could easily have been overshadowed by the Joker, but his descent from being the “white knight” of Gotham into Harvey Two-Face was tragic and believable. Watch the movie in a different way, and The Dark Knight could just as easily been about Harvey Dent.

A Script Apart

I think that TDK is the film it is because it all meshes together; the acting, the costumes, the action the cinematography, all based on an amazing script. It’s easy to take a superhero movie and turn it into a blockbuster - just get the origin story right, maybe add a catchy theme, put in the fancy CGI, a DID (damsel in distress), a cheesy dialogue about how good triumphs over evil. And trust that the otakus will rush in anyway. Or if all else fails, just pull in Will Smith (god Hancock was bad). TDK has raised the bar, so much so that I look back now to Spiderman - which before this was generally regarded as the standard for superhero movies - and think “Cheer up emo kid!”.

Depicting morality outside of black and white is not just elusive to a hero movie. All movies - heck, games, books, music; every form of art has always struggled with putting forth a valid painting of gray. That is the real reason why The Dark Knight is not only the best superhero movie, but the best movie this year. Batman deals with getting the job done without feeding his darker side. Gordon struggles with having to deal with a corrupt force, his friends among them. Harvey has to balance himself on a pedestal, set up as the moral beacon of Gotham. The insane, anachronist Joker sets up impossible dilemmas for the Batman, one after another. Beneath the violence and choices lie moments that make you think: Now what would I have done?

Light spoiler ▼

It’s a whopping two and a half hours long, and scorns the typical “Intro-conflict-resolution”, but trust me it’s all worth it, all the way to Gordon’s closing monologue, which would have been cheesy in any other film, but in TDK it sums up perfectly; how the best of us can fail, and how it is in our nature to need a hero to project our hopes and fears to - which Batman paradoxically cannot be, and in the end, the people of Gotham get the hero they deserve.

The Dark Knight is required watching this year, or be prepared to be left out of many dinnertime conversations to come!

Postscript: Shattering records

TDK is on its way to breaking box-office records, and has shot to the top of IMDB’s highest rated movies, which is unprecendented:

Popularity: 39% [?]

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.”This may be the best four minutes and twenty-eight seconds of your week.”, said the entry at Boing Boing. Well it’s only two days into it, but I’ve a pretty good feeling it will be.It’s basically a goofy dance done by Matt, “a 31-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut” - done in countries all over the world, most times with sporting locals. There’s really something magical about the whole thing.

From Matt’s site:

A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said “Hey, why don’t you stand over there and do that dance. I’ll record it.” He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It’s actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.

A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on. Now Matt is quasi-famous as “That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny.”

The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride gum. They asked Matt if he’d be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they’d be paying for it. They said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.

…

Things settled down again, and then in 2007 Matt went back to Stride with another idea. He realized his bad dancing wasn’t actually all that interesting, and that other people were much better at being bad at it. He showed them his inbox, which, as a result of his semi-famousness, was overflowing with emails from all over the planet. He told them he wanted to travel around the world one more time and invite the people who’d written him to come out and dance too.

After you watch this I’m betting your first thought will be “Damn ima quit my job now!”.

And if you wondering, no Malaysia isn’t one of the countries he visited :((. Singapore’s in there somewhere though.

Popularity: 52% [?]

Diablo III! You have to love Blizzard, when they do promos they sure do it right. Rather than leave us hanging with initial announcements, then drag on the PR campaign with the odd screenshot, concept art, staff interviews, etc, they usually already have working footage of the game - which is what the fans really want to see.

Kotaku has the links. It looks like it will  be in 3D, but it’ll retain the isometric perspective. Plenty of footage up already.

[Update] Here’s an interview from IGN as well.

Any guesses when the game will be out? I’m betting on a Q4 2009 release :).

Popularity: 39% [?]

Massive spoiler alert! Don’t read this if you haven’t seen the movie.
Read rest of post…

Popularity: 49% [?]

Indy 4 is almost here!! The early reviews are starting to trickle out already but I’ve been forcing myself not to read them - I gather it at least doesn’t suck though. Which at least says something given all the hype surrounding it.

To entertain myself (and you!) during the wait, I’ve been comparing what we know of Crystal Skull to the previous Indy movies. All pics of Crystal Skull here are from the trailer (and yes, the 130MB version ), so no danger of spoilers here!

Indy’s Sidekick

“Mutt” vs Short Round (Temple of Doom) vs Henry Jones, Sr. (Last Crusade).

What’s a hero without a trusty sidekick? Crystal Skull sees Shia LeBeouf (Transformers) in the role. Seriously though, what kind of name is “Mutt”? There’d better be an explanation.

I’d say most of us didn’t find Short Round as cute as we could have if we weren’t Asian ourselves. He does get a good one liner “You call him Dr. Jones!” and his own jingle that overlays with the main Raiders theme nicely though. I liked him and he’s a fan favourite, but I think that Sean Connery’s performance is just too hard to top :).

Femme Fatale

Irina Spalko vs Elsa Schneider (Last Crusade)

S: How dare you kiss me!
*kiss*
I: Leave me alone - I don’t like fast women.
*kiss*
S: And I hate arrogant men!
*kiss*

The love scenes in an Indy movie are always hilarious. It’s hard to top Alison Doody’s performance as the sexy Nazi from the Last Crusade, but if there’s anyone who can it’d be Cate Blanchett! As if to make the point, her bobbed ‘do is the total opposite of Schneider’s blonde bombshell look. Will Spalko pull a double with Mutt too I wonder…

Archeological thingamajig

Crystal Skulls vs The Ark of the Covenant (Raiders) vs Sankara Stones (Temple of Doom) vs The Holy Grail (Last Crusade)

(No pic of crystal skulls in the trailer :( )Ah what is Indiana Jones if not for treasure hunts? Unlike some other movies (*ahem*National Treasure*ahem*Tomb Raider), the story leading up to them is usually the right balance between an afterthought and being too convulted. I personally liked the Holy Grail’s plotline best.

Scary tribes

Scary tribe vs scary tribe from Raiders vs scary tribe from Temple of Doom

Many movies have Nazis, but savages never go out of vogue in Indiana Jones. Kali worshippers from ToD were the scariest hands down… they freaking tore out human hearts, roasted their victims as human sacrifices, poked a voodoo doll of you full of needles if you got too annoying, and converted you by forcing you to drink blood!

Life-threatening Trap

Revolving column vs Gigantic Boulder (Raiders) vs Crushing Ceiling (Temple of Doom) vs Tomb filled with burning petrol (Last Crusade)

Another Indiana Jones staple, served with copious amounts of creepy crawlies. I’d say the crushing ceiling from Tod was the most entertaining since it looked his closest to death.

And that’s it! I can’t wait! See you next week with a review!

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Been practically “off the grid” the past week - discovered and promptly became a fanboy of How I Met Your Mother, a CBS sitcom now in it’s third season. A little surprising for me since after the end of Friends and Will and Grace I thought the whole “group of young adults in the city” sitcom thing had been milked dry.

The premise seems generic at first. It’s told from the perspective of Ted Mosby in 2030, telling his children the story of how he met their mother. I was actually quite disappointed with the pilot - the characters seemed generic, and I was like “Bah I know how this’ll go”. For all the brilliance of Friends, you always knew Ross would end up with Rachel. But HIMYM pulled a doozie when it ended its pilot with future Ted stating to his children “And that’s the story of how I met your Aunt Robin.” Jeng jeng jeng!

At first I only continued watching because I wondered how the heck a show would last when it told you up front that no, its flagship couple would in fact *not* end up together, but gradually I began to appreciate what set it apart.

Flashbacks and creative narration have always made for good viewing - Friends had the hilarious bits of the gang in college, Will and Grace had that amazing episode where Will first came out to Grace. And House isn’t a sitcom, but the Emmy-winning episode Three Stories is a shining example of the method. HIMYM exploits these techniques to the fullest, using its narrative setting to jump back and forth in the “story” for that episode (because of this, HIMYM isn’t performed live and every episode takes about three times as long to produce).

It also rewards viewer loyalty by doing this even between episodes! In the third-to-last episode of Season 2, the story centers around Ted, but we see flashes of Marshall wearing a hat at his wedding table, and of Robin’s apartment with a particular ornament missing. The next two episodes tell us the stories behind them and weave deftly into the season finale. A far cry from the more episodic (and rerun-friendly ) format of other shows.

And of course there’s Barney, who steals every scene he’s in. I’m not sure whether it’s because Neil Patrick Harris ( who recently sort-of criticized Britney Spears guest appearance on the show ) is just a damn good actor, or if he gets all the best catchphrases (probably both). I’d watch the show for him alone!

The rest of the cast aren’t bad, but they pretty much stick to their roles, letting the script and direction shine instead. I thought Robin was too good-looking to be believable at first, but after a certain episode in Season 2 (”Let’s go the Mall!”) she was redeemed.

HIMYM uses Internet buzz well. Barney constantly refers to “his blog” in the show, which is an actual one hosted at CBS and updated regularly, but sadly it seems that its archives got lost in a site revamp. Josh Radnor, who plays Ted, has a blog at TV Guide.com, it’s not updated regularly but has some pretty good stories.

And yes, I’ll say it: HIMYM is as awesome as Will and Grace, and even - wait for it - Friends. Yes it’s that awesome! Too bad it doesn’t seem to be showing on Astro any more.

Popularity: 52% [?]

I think it’s amazing how US politicians are able to make fun of themselves (in a good way).

The Colbert Report was held in the University of Pennsylvania last week during the Democrat primary (For all the whiners about advertorials, it was titled “The Colbert Report: Doritos Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania Primary Coverage From Chili-Delphia - The City of Brotherly Crunch!” ).

Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama made appearances.

The screen backdrop “went down”, prompting Colbert exclaim “Are you telling me there’s no one in this theatre who can fix the mess we’re in?” In comes Clinton to the rescue. A quick fix later, she quips:

“I just love solving problems. Call me anytime!”

“Really?”

“Sure. Call me at 3 a.m.!”

Lol.

Later on was John Edwards, the ex-Presidential hopeful who guest-presented the “Word” section. He joked about how he was being courted by both sides for his endorsement: “I’ll support whoever presents the platform that is consistent with my values”, he said - with “UNIVERSAL HAIRCARE” written on the sidescreen.

Obama was less frivolous. He wasn’t in the theatre but made an appearance through a live feed, on the screen that Clinton fixed earlier. He preached a bit, but ended by putting “Distractions” “On Notice”.

All in all a good day for Colbert, and  he’ll probably be attributing Clinton’s win to the “Colbert bump”.

Meanwhile, I wonder when we’ll see Pak Lah pretending to fall asleep during a speech or  TDM saying “correct, correct, correct!”.

Popularity: 45% [?]

You reach the season end of a show you recently started watching… :(

BUT then you notice the scrollbar at the bottom - there was another episode left to watch!!

How I Met Your Mother has been growing on me . Been getting cranky after being too long away from sitcoms! It seemed lame at first but blossomed out after the middle of the first season. Surprising for a show that tells you in the first episode that the main love plot ala “Ross and Rachel” is doomed not to work out! Not quite up there with WnG or Friends yet, but I’m giving it time. Barney especially is a legendary character.

Exhibit A: ”The greatest pickup line of all time”

Popularity: 52% [?]