RYAN STEWART

Fantastic voyage

RYAN STEWART — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:16:05 GMT

A classic RPG gets made over
This is a nostalgia trip worth taking.

CRYING TIME FFIV is one of few games of its era to evoke real emotions.

They say there are no new ideas in Hollywood, but when it comes to advancing sequels, remakes, and general nostalgia exploitation at the expense of more creative concepts, the major motion-picture studios have nothing on the video-game industry. Square Enix has now released its fourth different iteration of the landmark game Final Fantasy IV, this time for the Nintendo DS in all its 3-D graphic glory. In the video-game world, however, it makes sense to update these things, and FFIV both retains its original charm and feels upgraded enough to justify revisiting.

Cecil is a troubled Dark Knight in the monarchy of Baron. Already ambivalent about Baron’s “might makes right” policy, Cecil finally snaps after the king — who’s been acting odd lately — orders him out to sack a peaceful magic-loving village. To quell an uprising, the king sends Cecil and his lifelong friend Kain on what seems an insignificant mission, though in fact it will take them on an epic journey involving brainwashing, bratty ninjas, spoony bards, romance, airships, trips to the moon, and ultimately, self-discovery.

This wasn’t the Square folks’ first attempt at a grand story line, and it wouldn’t be their last, but in 1991 its scope and ambition were unprecedented. The characters range from the noble Cecil to the eccentric Cid to the mysterious, wise Lunarian FuSoYa. The romance between Cecil and his girlfriend Rosa is hardly matched in subsequent FF entries. Indeed, FFIV is one of a few games of the era to evoke real emotions; when two characters sacrificed themselves for the greater good, I nearly burst into tears. The dialogue has been retranslated to clarify certain situations, but some of the character development feels a touch rushed. The narrative economy works here, however — the game is long enough as it is.

In the development process, Square focused on the storyline, so combat and gameplay get short shrift. Several staples of the RPG genre are absent. Characters aren’t especially customizable; for the most part their abilities are fixed. You don’t even get to control which spells the magic users learn. The story also dictates which characters are in your party at a given time — which means you have to battle monsters with what you have. Random battle encounters, standard in the ’90s but a relic today, have survived into this edition, and they annoy with their frequency. And the battles against the scrub monsters can get repetitive. But the boss battles more than compensate. These require strategy, planning, and creativity, as you seek to find and exploit some specific unusual weakness, such as whether a spell is effective when reflected back against the user, or whether a particular weapon can produce a one-hit kill.

David Vandervelde

RYAN STEWART — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:06:35 GMT

Waiting for the Sunrise | Secretly Canadian
Vandervelde's latest takes the familiar Byrds-meets-the-Band sound and bakes it in the sun till golden.

Civil service

RYAN STEWART — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:49:18 GMT

Sid Meier brings Revolution to the people
The upshot of all this building and scheming is that you can turn Paris into an Aztec city and settle Fyodor Dostoevsky in Tenochtitlan.

POWER PLAYS: You can turn Paris into an Aztec city and settle Fyodor Dostoevsky in Tenochtitlan.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Revolution | For the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo DS | Rated E10+ for ages 10 and older | Developed by Firaxis | Published by 2K Games

For some, strategy games can seem intimidating. Monitoring production, expanding your territory, building up an army, and practicing diplomacy with other groups can all start to feel overwhelming, particularly if the most “strategy” you’re used to in a video game is “Should I use the shotgun or the semi-automatic?” The latest installment in designer Sid Meier’s venerable Civilization series, which may be the best-known in the genre, is for those gamers — the ones who were busy playing Quake and Super Metroid while others were playing, well, Civilization.

You start by picking a people to steward through the world; most major groups are represented in the game and come with their own historic leader, like Catherine the Great or Abraham Lincoln. Other than cosmetic differences such as the names of the cities you found and certain capacities you start out with (the Greeks get democracy, Indians get religion) or acquire throughout the years, there’s not much difference among the groups. This is a change from previous installments, which assigned particular attributes to this and that civilization — some were more inclined toward military science, others toward natural science. What’s also different is that there aren’t as many individual classes of civilians, like tax collectors or “humanitarians.” The only people (or “units,” in the game’s parlance) you can create are soldiers, spies, and territory-expanding settlers.

You’ll periodically earn “Great People,” historic figures who can settle in one of your cities to help with your efforts. The upshot of all this building and scheming is that you can turn Paris into an Aztec city and settle Fyodor Dostoevsky in Tenochtitlan. It can be amusing. Less entertaining is sending an army of tanks and bomber jets to besiege a city only to be foiled by soldiers armed with pikes and rifles — combat is hands-off and entirely dependent on the stats of your armies. You’re just giving them their marching orders.

Unkindest cuts

RYAN STEWART — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:51:53 GMT

Ninja Gaiden suffers a lethal blow
Some advice for game developers: just because the Nintendo DS has a microphone does not mean you have to shoehorn the mic into every DS game.

Some advice for game developers: just because the Nintendo DS has a microphone does not mean you have to shoehorn the mic into every DS game. Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword offers hope that producers can figure this thing out while still showing how awkward poorly implemented microphone controls can be.

Dragon Sword once again puts you in the black robe of Ryu Hayabusa, a noble dragon ninja who once again finds his life disrupted by the shadowy Black Spider Ninja Clan. The Clan has kidnapped Ryu’s young ninja apprentice in order to retrieve the master’s blade, the title Dragon Sword. Had this game been made a year ago, it probably would have just used the DS’s buttons for controls, with the touchscreen getting some token usage. But now that the touchscreen has been deciphered, you control Ryu with the stylus alone. Dragging it in front of him causes him to walk, drawing it upward makes him jump, tapping the touchscreen unleashes his shurikens, and slashing at the screen triggers an attack with his sword. You cast spells by using the touchscreen to draw a Sanskrit character. The only function the stylus doesn’t handle is blocking, which you do by pressing any of the DS’s buttons. In combat, different combinations will prompt Ryu to employ various sword techniques, and as with many action games these days, you earn rewards for the style of your attack.

The controls are smooth and responsive, even more so than in previous touchscreen-exclusive games. It can be fun to slice and dice your way through your foes, but since Dragon Sword operates with the DS held like a book, which reduces the width of the playing field, the on-screen action is shrunk down. It’s easy for Ryu to get lost in the hectic battle scenes, particularly when most of the enemies he encounters are the same approximate size (and in some cases, the same color) as he is.

Dragon Sword mostly takes its cues from the 2004 Xbox version of Ninja Gaiden — a game known for its extreme difficulty. But Dragon Sword is neither particularly challenging nor particularly deep. The majority of the in-game events have Ryu getting locked in a room until a gaggle of monsters are destroyed. Most of these enemies are easily disposed of, and fending off wave after wave of them grows tedious after a while. Even when you try to summon the various sword techniques, combat all too frequently finds you flailing at anything that does or does not move. And the boss fights — impressive-looking though the polygonal beasts are — seldom require anything more imaginative than slashing away until the thing dies. It’s the DS version of a button masher.

Black Mountain

RYAN STEWART — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:39:19 GMT

In the Future | Jagjaguwar
The band’s sound comes together best on the opening track, “Stormy High,” which, rather than inspiring you to space out, pulls you out of your seat with its relentless monster garage riffage.

Odyssey of the mind

RYAN STEWART — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:31:22 GMT

A Lost art resurfaces on the 360
If this current generation of gaming lacks anything, it’s traditional role-playing games.

If this current generation of gaming lacks anything, it’s traditional role-playing games (RPGs). The kind with turn-based combat, random enemy encounters, characters who can be customized only through the endless process of leveling up, and an epic story line set in a world filled with mages and knights. Last year saw some solid attempts to revitalize the genre with mixed-bag 360 titles like Eternal Sonata and Blue Dragon, but it’s the recently released Lost Odyssey that purports to be the true heir to the legacy of games like Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy franchise, and though it doesn’t match the grandeur of those classics, it reminds us what the genre is capable of.

Lost Odyssey comes with an impressive pedigree. It’s produced by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man responsible for creating the Final Fantasy games, and the score comes courtesy of Nobuo Uematsu, another Final Fantasy veteran. The result is, yes, a game that borrows heavily from that venerable franchise. Kaim is a brooding warrior cursed with both eternal life and perpetual long-term amnesia. As he, Seth (another immortal, but she’s a pirate), and Jansen (the obnoxious mortal) set off to investigate some suspicious magical activity, it becomes clear that he is haunted by what small fragments of his past remain buried in the corners of his brain. These memories, penned by Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu, might be Lost Odyssey’s biggest achievement: rather than triggering a series of interminable cutscenes, they’re presented in text-only form, to be perused at your leisure whenever you stay at an inn. They’re well written, and worth reading even if you aren’t hooked by the story.

Although it might seem that Kaim is yet another in a long line of taciturn loners trying to put together the pieces of a dark past, it turns out that he was part of a team of immortals who fought together before his memory was erased, and he has a wife and a kid. This break from tradition is aimed to get players to make an emotional connection with him; its success depends on your ability to tolerate two precocious children getting significant screen time.

Combat here is unremarkable. You don’t just input the same commands over and over — by pushing the right trigger at a certain moment, you can add an extra effect to your attacks. There’s a degree of strategy required in battle, particularly for boss fights, but it still grows tedious. Some characters’ natural abilities are redundant and, in some cases, simply useless — which makes for some limiting party combinations.

Rock Band

RYAN STEWART — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:17:22 GMT

Supplementing Harmonix's 58-song set list
Would more Britpop be too much to ask?

Legally previewed

RYAN STEWART — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:27:47 GMT

A look at 2008's anticipated releases
Here’s a look at some of January and February’s more anticipated releases and their legally available free previews.

In a bit of a jam

RYAN STEWART — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:46:58 GMT

The follow-up to video-game smash Guitar Hero lets everybody play — even the weakest link
To suck at an electronic endeavor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of all places, is analogous to sucking at, say, making soup at cooking school.

VIDEO: The Phoenix's trip to Harmonix

Ten songs we’d like to play in Rock Band
Hum, “Stars”
Prince, “Let’s Go Crazy”
Mastodon, “Seabeast”
Dire Straits, “Sultans of Swing”
Neil Young, “Cortez the Killer”
Tom Petty, “The Waiting”
Sonic Youth, “Teenage Riot”
The Replacements, “I Will Dare”
Alice in Chains, “No Excuses”
The Breeders, “Divine Hammer”

To suck at an electronic endeavor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of all places, is analogous to sucking at, say, making soup at cooking school. But that’s exactly what I’m doing.

I’m outside on a gorgeous autumn day in front of the Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center on the venerable MIT campus, playing a demo of one of the season’s most-anticipated video games. I’m seated alongside three “teammates,” all of whom are students, I assume, as a small, curious crowd looks on. We grab our controllers and, as the game starts, I quickly realize I’m in over my head. Targets are whizzing by me faster than I can process them. My hands can’t keep up with my brain. I’m not even sitting down — I’m hovering an inch above my seat. My play is so atrocious that the crowd is mock-applauding any meager success. Mercifully, the round ends, and I discover that I have the lowest score among anyone who has played today. The game is Rock Band, I’m on the drums, and I really, really suck.

Rock Band is the latest game from the Cambridge-based development house Harmonix. (“Harmonix,” by the way, is an awesome name for a video-game company specializing in rock games: it looks and sounds just enough like “Hendrix.”) Whereas Harmonix’s previous video-game smash, Guitar Hero, allowed competitors to go toe-to-toe on the phallic ax of the rock-and-roll deities, Rock Band expands the concept to get the rest of the lads some glory too: not just the guitar, but also the all-important bass, drums, and lead vocals. With songs ranging from “Gimme Shelter” and “Suffragette City” to “Maps” and “Main Offender,” the goal of Rock Band is for the entire group to conquer the world with its omnipotent, face-melting, leather-spandex-wearing, head-banging tuneage. (Leather spandex sold separately.)

Harmonix’s previous output has included such music-oriented duds as FreQuency and Amplitude, and the mildly successful Karaoke Revolution. But it’s Guitar Hero and its sequel, Guitar Hero II, that broke the mold, selling a combined 4.5 million copies, taking over regular nights at bars across the country, and appearing in no fewer than three television shows (Veronica Mars, My Name Is Earl, and South Park). It may have even indirectly influenced the results of at least one World Series (when Detroit Tigers flamethrower Joel Zumaya was shelved with wrist inflammation in 2006, it was later revealed he was addicted to the game). Now, two big-name companies, Electronic Arts and MTV, are betting on Harmonix’s ability to once again deliver a monster of rock.

Strummer vacation

RYAN STEWART — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:57:00 GMT

Guitar Hero 3 is on its own
The first two installments of the enormously popular Guitar Hero franchise were designed and developed by Harmonix, a Cambridge-based company famous for employing a horde of musicians.

VIDEO: The trailer for Guitar Hero 3

The first two installments of the enormously popular Guitar Hero franchise were designed and developed by Harmonix, a Cambridge-based company famous for employing a horde of musicians. The third GH game, following a pair of corporate mergers, has been designed by Neversoft, a company with no apparent musical connection. (Its previous claim to fame was the Tony Hawk skateboarding games.) Since Harmonix has been widely credited with elevating GH to a level that transcends video-gaming and captures the actual experience of playing music, GH fans had to wonder whether the experience would feel different when designed by different people.

Guitar Hero 3 is out now, and it too is an addictive, engrossing experience. The bad news is that it’s plagued by a host of obnoxious details — seemingly insignificant things that keep it from attaining the next level of greatness. The basic gameplay is the same; you’re still strumming along with notes as they descend the screen. The hammer-ons and pull-offs in the faster sections are now exponentially easier to carry off — which would seem to make the game less challenging, except that the notes you can hit in this manner now appear less frequently. It can be a touch disorienting to those who’ve put hours into Guitar Hero — you’ll find yourself expecting notes to be hammer-on-able, only to discover that they must be picked normally. Also, on the tougher difficulty levels, the placement of the three-note chords seems arbitrary. At times, it’s as if they’d been placed to maximize effort rather than to re-create the song. That said, after a few plays, you’ll find yourself adjusting. The soundtrack is solid if not spectacular, with the hits (“One,” “Cult of Personality,” “Number of the Beast”) papering over the misses (tracks by Matchbook Romance, Priestess, and Disturbed).

If Neversoft had simply tweaked the gameplay and just touted all the new songs and left it at that, there wouldn’t be a problem. But the company has made some poor choices in trying to put its stamp on the presentation. The characters and stages have been given makeovers, all of which are cartoonish, hyper-sexualized, or both. Almost every level now includes cage dancers, pole dancers, or some other variety of dancer. Once the each song starts, this shameless pandering does fade into the background. What’s tougher to ignore is the new design of the male lead singer, who’s been transformed into a hulking Neanderthal with a Jay Leno chin, a sloping brow, and deep-set eyes.

Out of the dark

RYAN STEWART — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:03:21 GMT

Marissa Nadler breaks into Boston
Needham native Marissa Nadler got her start as a singer-songwriter.

HIP: On Songs III, Nadler is transformed from coffeehouse folkie into indie-rock songstress.

Marissa Nadler, "Silvia" (mp3)

Needham native Marissa Nadler got her start as a singer-songwriter. And until the February release of her third album — Songs III: Bird on the Water, her first distributed by the hip NYC indie label Kemado through the Peacefrog imprint — it seemed her successes here in the US would be mostly confined to the folk clubs that dot New England. But Songs III isn’t just another girl-with-acoustic-guitar solo outing for Nadler. The disc is a full-on collaborative effort produced by Greg Weeks, whose band, the Philadelphia psych-folk group Espers, backed her in the studio. The result has transformed her from a folksy balladeer into an indie-rock songstress cool enough to be championed by the likes of Pitchfork.

“I think after the years of songwriting and honing my craft that there’s been a lot of growth in how I use my voice,” she offers over the phone from an Internet café in Buffalo. “There’s a little bit more variation going on.”

Nadler’s previous efforts, 2004’s Ballads of Living and Dying and last year’s The Saga of Mayflower May (both Eclipse), may have established her as a talented songwriter, but Songs III, an elegant collection of melancholy material that splits the difference between the dark majesty of Nick Drake and the warm feel of Joni Mitchell, positions her as a more fully formed bandleader. Both accessible and eccentric, the disc finds a happy balance between Nadler’s vivid storytelling and the æthereal textures favored by Weeks and Espers. Organ textures bolster “Silvia,” electric guitar punctuates “Rachel,” and a string section cushions the fall on “Feathers.” Weeks never clutters the mix, but Espers’s embellishments flesh out each song and create a solid foundation for multi-tracked layers of ghostly vocal harmonies.

It’s a fruitful meeting of styles that complements songs of loss and isolation. “Bird on Your Grave” and “Rachel” are farewells to persons who have passed away. “Diamond Heart,” the opener, reads like a direct — and uncomfortably honest — confession to an ex (“I had a man in every town/And thought of you each time I tore off my gown”). The most arresting track is “Silvia,” which is about a woman who drowns herself (“The water is your friend”); Nadler’s vocal is disarmingly sweet, and backed by soothing organ.

Phantom tollbooth

RYAN STEWART — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:06:56 GMT

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass proves worth the wait
Was this going to be yet another instance of the Nintendo folks driving away their core audience in favor of the “casual gamers” market they covet so much?

VIDEO: The trailer for Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

When details emerged regarding Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, the venerable franchise’s long-delayed first foray into DS territory, the skeptical reactions heard throughout the Internet were predictable. Okay, the idea doesn’t sound great on paper: the game is controlled entirely with the stylus and the touchscreen, and it uses the same cartoony, cutesy æsthetic previously seen in the Gamecube’s installment of the Wind Waker series. Was this going to be yet another instance of the Nintendo folks driving away their core audience in favor of the “casual gamers” market they covet so much?

In a word, no. Phantom Hourglass not only lives up to the lofty expectations that come with the Zelda imprimatur as a solid dungeon crawler, it feels, with its intuitive controls and vibrant visuals, like a natural fit for the handheld. It’s hard to imagine Nintendo doing this any other way.

The stylus-and-touchscreen control system is stunning. You move Link by dragging his fairy companion around the screen. You attack monsters by tapping on them. You aim bombs and arrows by pointing at what you want blown up or pierced. You can even plot out the precise trajectory of your boomerang by drawing a path for it around the screen. The only function that doesn’t always work as well as you’d like is switching items: the action doesn’t stop when you bring up the menu. A shortcut button (and there are some here) might have helped. But these complaints are minor; the simple fact that this works at all — let alone that it works as well as it does — is a real achievement.

The game is a direct sequel to Wind Waker, taking place briefly after the conclusion of that game’s story. Link is still a young adventurer, traveling with a band of pirates led by Tetra, who’s actually Princess Zelda traveling under an alias. As is her wont, Tetra/Zelda gets kidnapped, but her usual captor, Gannon, is not the culprit — she’s taken aboard a Ghost Ship by a mysterious, vengeful spirit. Wind Waker vets may be tempted to roll their eyes as they realize that this game is also headed for the high seas. But here the ship is an ordinary steamboat rather than a schoolmarmish enchanted skiff that scolds you every time you veer off course, and there’s nothing in Phantom Hourglass anywhere near as tedious as Wind Waker’s quest for Triforce pieces strewn across the ocean floor.

Pigpile

RYAN STEWART — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:51:40 GMT

Yet another Madden
With its virtual monopoly on video-game football in place, the Madden franchise has become less essential with each successive iteration.

SAME OLD SAME OLD: You’ve played this one before.

With its virtual monopoly on video-game football in place, the Madden franchise has become less essential with each successive iteration. The games haven’t necessarily been worse from year to year, they just play, look, and feel mostly the same, save for updated rosters and player ratings. Yet it’s hard to blame EA for its lack of ambition: Madden 07 sold 1.8 million copies on the PS2. Madden 08 may not buck the trend on sales (even with all the other big draws releasing this fall), but, once again, it fails to improve significantly on its predecessor. Hell, if you haven’t made the jump to a next-gen console, you probably won’t notice much difference between this version and the one you were playing back in 2005.

Yes, if you just want to play a quick game of football, Madden is fun, particularly if you don’t mind putting up with some occasional silliness. You still have to put up with wonky AI, useless commentary (would EA dare to curtail further Madden’s participation in the game which bears his name?), and the unsightly “QB cone” of vision. Madden 08, moreover, has incorporated one of the most obnoxious things commentators do on-air: relaying their conversations with coaches and players to the viewers.

The new on-field feature is the “weapons” system, which allows players with a particular skill to use it to their advantage, like making an amazing catch or blowing by a speedy defensive back. There’s also the new “read and react” system, which allows you to detect certain opposing players’ skills and adjust your game plan. Nice, but not exactly groundbreaking. And could we have teams behave like real football teams at the ends of quarters? Why do I have to keep calling plays when I’m up by 24 with 1:15 left? The play-call screen shouldn’t even come up with under 10 seconds to go until the fourth quarter, and only then if the score is close.

The problem for those who “just want to play a quick game of football” and maybe do a season or two with your favorite franchise (I’d imagine this title will have particular appeal to Atlanta Falcons fans, as video Mike Vick is free to play for them here) is that they still have to buy the whole game. Some might enjoy Franchise Mode, where you can set the prices of your concessions and build a new stadium. But it’s hard to imagine anyone deriving much joy out of Superstar mode, in which you compete in such events as “the bench press.” Hyping customizable championship rings on the back of the box as a new feature just shows how hard up for innovative ideas EA Sports is.

Patton Oswalt

RYAN STEWART — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:22:31 GMT

Werewolves and Lollipops | Sub Pop
Oswalt takes aim at Middle American targets in a conversational manner that suggests he knows he’s among friends.

The goggles do nothing

RYAN STEWART — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:15:45 GMT

The 25 greatest movies in Simpsons history
On July 25th, The Simpsons Movie will hit theatres.

On July 25th, The Simpsons Movie will hit theatres. But throughout the show’s 18-years-and-counting run (and think about that for a second: kids who were born when the show debuted are now about to be freshmen in college), the family has more than its share of experience with the cinema. Here, then, are the 25 best “movies” in the show’s history, excluding actual films that existed in our universe as well. (Screenshots via Duffzone.org; links go to YouTube.)

'Tis the season

RYAN STEWART — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:22:16 GMT

To stay inside and watch awesome movies
Yeah, yeah, summer . Go outside, hone your tan, toss a Frisbee, blah blah blah.

Yeah, yeah, summer. Go outside, hone your tan, toss a Frisbee, blah blah blah. Sometimes you don’t feel like going anywhere or doing much of anything. Sometimes you all you want to do is loaf in your apartment on your couch with some snacks, a fan, and a mindless movie. Here are ten films perfectly suited for summer, ones that will keep you entertained and won’t give you a farmer’s tan.

BATMAN BEGINS
We love Christopher Nolan’s treatment of the character as an uncompromising ass-kicker with a gadget fetish. But really any comic book superhero movie will do: substitute Donner’s Superman, Spider-Man 2, X-Men 2, or even Burton’s campy Batman depending on your preference.

BEVERLY HILLS COP
Your vacation this year will not be as entertaining as the one the Detroit Police Department forces Axel Foley to take, so why not accompany him for the ride? Incredibly, Eddie Murphy is still as funny in this in 2007 as he was in 1984.

DAZED AND CONFUSED
Thing is, you can jump into this movie at any point and still get transported away to suburban Texas on the last day of school. This film captures the freedom granted by youth that most people don’t appreciate enough when they’ve got it. (Plus you’ve got Ben Affleck as the rock-dumb jock in overalls, and Parker Posey yelling “Wipe that face off your head, bitch.”)

DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE
No list of summer movies is complete without the brainless action film. The first Die Hard might be the most entertaining movie in said category, but it takes place at a Christmas party, and Christmas isn’t summery. The third though, Die Hard With a Vengeance, takes place in the summer, and, contrary to what Mr. Willis says, it does the job quite nicely.

DIRTY DANCING
"That was the summer we went to Kellerman's." There's nothing unsummer about Dirty Dancing. It's the epitome of sex in the hotter months: backseats, rearview mirrors, nylons, and eyeshadow. "I carried a watermelon," Baby mumbles, trying to seem so cool. But she's just hot, and charmingly aloof in the Merengue.

FRIDAY THE 13th
If you haven’t watched it in a while, you’ll be pleased to know this summer camp slasher is still scary.

GHOSTBUSTERS
So, admittedly this doesn’t have a lot to do with summer, but if you live in an urban setting, you can grab some friends when the movie’s over and head to your roof and re-enact the scene when they roast the hell out of the Stay Puff Marshmallow man. It’s fun. No, seriously.

Space junk

RYAN STEWART — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:19:14 GMT

Konami’s Lunar Knights
We were supposed to have a new Zelda title for the Nintendo DS six months ago. But here it is, May 2007, and we’re still Zelda -less.

LACKS FOCUS: All you and Lucian want to do is slash away at the undead minions.

My Zelda jones is reaching epic proportions. We were supposed to have a new Zelda title for the Nintendo DS six months ago. But here it is, May 2007, and we’re still Zelda-less, with no official release date in sight. So we have to look elsewhere to get our adventure-RPG fix on the handheld.

Lunar Knights has all the makings of such a game. Lucian is a vampire hunter whose only companions are a big sword and a flying cat named Nero. Lucian’s goal is to rid a cursed area of vampires by first defeating them in battle and then launching them into the sun on a spaceship. The usual.

The action is pretty standard: hack your way through a dungeon, kill zombies and skeletons, throw some switches, beat a boss, build up your abilities. Also, you have to find those areas where the moon shines through so you can recharge your energy. The pint-sized Lucian works as the classic loner anti-hero — Hideo Kojima and his staff are, after all, the same people who brought us Solid Snake of the Metal Gear Solid franchise. The space component is where the DS’s touchscreen comes in, since these missions are standard shoot-’em-ups — you touch an enemy to fire at him. It’s a little forced and tacked on, but these sequences actually provide a nice diversion. Also, there are legit cinema sequences, with vocal dialogue and a reasonable approximation of anime on the DS. Such touches enable this dungeon crawler to live up to its pedigree.

Or at least they would if the game had focused on Lucian slashing away at the undead minions. Unfortunately, Kojima Productions had to throw in the bungling young novice warrior, a bubbly, overeager gunslinger named Aaron who travels with an angry floating sunflower. Just as Lucian gets energy from the moon, so Aaron gets his powers from the rays of the sun, and that sets up a dark/light metaphor. On top of being an unnecessary Scrappy-Doo, Aaron is not very good in action when he first shows up; his long-range weapons are slow and don’t get the job done. Once you get control of both characters, it’s easy enough to use just Lucian and ignore Aaron, but — wouldn’t you know it? — there are sections where you have to switch back and forth.

Number of the beast

RYAN STEWART — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:02:47 GMT

Baseball stats demystified
It’s become the creationism v. evolution argument of baseball.

CONTRASTS: Because GMs now know better, the guy on the left (Youkilis) is starting for the Red Sox while the guy on the right (Hillenbrand) is riding the pine in Los Angeles.

It’s become the creationism v. evolution argument of baseball. There are those who prefer the old school approach – looking at a guy’s raw skill along with things like “grit,” “hustle” and determination – and those who prefer a numbers-based approach, which attempts to assign a different kind of value to things that happen on a baseball field. The latter practice is commonly called “sabermetrics,” after the Society for American Baseball Research (or SABR,) and if sports columns, books, talk radio, television, and interpersonal conversations are to be believed, even now, 30 years after its unofficial “founding,” it remains one of the most misunderstood concepts in sports. Fortunately, unlike creationism and evolution, there are some pretty well-defined answers to this. So here, in short, is a quick explanation some of the common misconceptions about what sabermetrics are all about.

Myth #1: These stats are a “new” concept
Not really. Back in 1977, Bill James, a security guard with a math jones, studied the numbers and compiled the information in the book The Bill James Baseball Abstract. Given the audience James found almost immediately, it’s safe to assume he wasn't the only one thinking of it at the time. As James's research proved, this information was always out there; it was just a matter of looking in the right places. Events that “don't show up in the box scores” actually do, for the most part (except for defensive plays; more on that in a second). To take on-base percentage as an example, a hitter's ability to avoid making an out has always been something measurable — people simply weren't really measuring or placing value on it.

Myth #2: These stats are redundant
It's a common tenet of the SABR-haters: “hey, I love stats, but back in my day, we used a little thing called batting average and runs batted in!” But neither of those statistics really paint a full picture of a player's actual value.

Choke artist

RYAN STEWART — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 18:04:19 GMT

MLB 2K7 is a waste
In this age of exclusive licenses, the annual iteration of each major sports video-game franchise can often be described as “$50 for a roster upgrade.”

ROSTER UPGRADE?: So what’s with Randy Johnson in pinstripes?

In this age of exclusive licenses, the annual iteration of each major sports video-game franchise can often be described as “$50 for a roster upgrade.” The PlayStation 2 version of MLB 2K7, which carries an exclusive third-party MLB and MLBPA license, bucks the trend in two ways: it costs only $30, and the rosters have been out of date since mid January. Randy Johnson is still a Yankee, for crying out loud.

2K7 feels as if it had been rushed to shelves. The gameplay doesn’t work that well most of the time, notably in the field, where, it seems, fielders who aren’t user-controlled are unable to catch fly balls. If an AI-controlled player finds himself in the wide halo indicating a pop-up’s expected landing point, the ball will usually bounce off his head if you don’t switch to controlling him. That’s not just counterintuitive, it’s idiotic.

The presentation is similarly awful. 2K Sports would do well to heed the advice of the popular baseball blog and fire Joe Morgan. Jon Miller and Jeannie Zelasko, too. Replace them with the sounds of the stadium. Few who play baseball video games need Morgan to point out that pitchers “throw the high hard one to try and get the hitter to chase.” We know that already; that’s why we selected a high fastball with two strikes. We don’t need to hear Paul Konerko’s résumé each time he comes to bat. We especially don’t need to hear these tautological clichés at every opportunity. I did laugh out loud when I heard Angels utilityman Chone Figgins referred to as a “feared hitter,” so the broadcast team deserves credit for that much.

The game touts its use of “real scouting reports” — you can even purchase these in season mode to get a competitive advantage and exploit your opponents’ weaknesses. Although this wrinkle is interesting, it also makes the player rankings somewhat befuddling. If you’re consulting with scouts, why not also ask their input on who’s actually, you know, good at baseball? And the game seems to reflect the past more than the present: does anyone really think Todd Helton rates a 100, Jason Varitek a 96, and Shea Hillenbrand a 93 in the year 2007? Here’s a radical idea: hook up with some of the eggheads who project baseball for a living (like Baseball Prospectus or Diamond Mind) and get them to rate players based on what they might still be capable of rather than what they’ve done already.

Don't look under that rock

RYAN STEWART — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 22:28:12 GMT

Domestic animals with opposable thumbs means certain doom
Someone on the internet has actually gone through the bother of copyrighting the concept of “What if Cats and Dogs Had Opposable Thumbs Day.”

A chilling vision of things to come?

Someone on the internet — they’re called “Wellcat.com” — has actually gone through the bother of copyrighting the concept of “What if Cats and Dogs Had Opposable Thumbs Day.” They cast it as a fun little idea: imagine if your animals had free access to food, or possessed the ability to take themselves for walks. Wouldn’t that be silly?

We say no. This is not a situation that would be ripe with cuteness. Exactly the opposite, in fact — we see this scenario as ending in nothing less than the end of civilization as we know it, with humans becoming enslaved and some sort of “petocracy” taking over. Observe:

Step One: The Basics
Pets with evolved digits would learn what to do with them. It would start with picking up morsels of food off the floor (or off any unattended plates within reach). Gradually, the animals would mimic the process of opening doors (toy breeds and smaller cats would likely still find themselves helpless in this regard). For a while, there’d be a few cases of animals — mostly cats — letting themselves out the door and simply not coming back for one reason or another. But for the most part, life would not change a great deal for humans in this phase.

Step Two: Adaptation
Regardless of cats’ and dogs’ newfound ability to do things with their forelimbs in this scenario, the canine and feline brain would still operate at a relatively low level. But they’d still be highly trainable, and this, readers, is what would become humanity’s undoing. Lazy souls would show their pets how to operate a can opener. Some might show their dogs how to scoop their own excrement. Cats would learn how to empty and change their own litterboxes. All it would take would be a few abnormally intelligent dogs — border collies, poodles, German shepherds, and mutts are generally considered to be the smartest breeds — to put two and two together and realize that humans do most tasks with the aid of simple tools. This could lead to them crafting their own tools, aschimpanzees in the wild have started doing recently.