Beyond Good and Evil
Ubisoft
PS/2, XBox, GameCube

"God is dead."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Nietzsche is dead."
- God

"Halo3 is out!"
- everybody else

Okay, Halo3 is out. I get it. You've long put aside your copy of Oblivion and you death-marched your way through BioShock in less than a week so you could be good and ready.

Hey, I'm no different. Ever eager am I to soak up the next-gen goodness that awaits.

The thing is, development times are getting looooonger and looooonger as the consoles are getting more and more capable. So, what do we do while we island hop between overproduced shooters and Objectivist remakes of System Shock II?

We play the back catalog of PS/2 games.

Beyond Good and Evil

In Beyond Good and Evil, you play Jade, intrepid girl reporter living in the maritime community of Hillys. The Hillians are under attack by a vicious alien race known as the Domz. The Hillians are defended from Domz aggression by their increasingly fascistic and creepy military, known as the Alpha Section.

At the start of the game, Jade's home is attacked by the Domz and the children in her care are kidnapped. To rescue them, Jade must go to work for the shadowy Iris Network, a rebel group dedicated to exposing the relationship between the Domz and the Alpha Section.

Joining Jade on her quest is her anthropomorphic porcine uncle Pey'j and Double-H, square-jawed Dudley Doright soldier who speaks of his military training manual ("Carlson and Peters!") with the same persistent urgency that Allison Hannigan's character in American Pie brought to discussions of band camp.

Gameplay consists of dungeon-crawling combat, stealth, vehicle races and collecting photographic evidence.

Beyond Good

Beyond Good and Evil is remarkably well done. It's not particularly innovative: everything in the game is familiar. But it is exceedingly well executed.

The soundtrack, for example, is richly orchestrated but not overwhelming, preferring pianos and strings to the horns and percussions more common to game tracks.

The voice acting is solid and convincing and the writing is a strong mix of humor, drama and quiet moments, threading the needle nicely between the overwrought tone of games like Shadow of the Colossus and the glib wink-at-the-camera attitude of games like Ratchet and Clank.

The stealth game is fun and engaging with cinematic camera angles that make the game both easy to play and fun to watch (a hard combo to hit much of the time.)

The game flow is nice and un-frustrating. Failure and fallback points are usually less than 30 seconds away from death points. Only once or twice did I find myself saying "Are you KIDDING? I've got to slog through all that shit AGAIN?"

Even though it's not a sprawling, open-ended world like Oblivion or GTA, there are a good number of optional paths through the game. To upgrade your vehicle, you must collect pearls, which are used as currency at the Mammago's, the mechanic's shop. Pearls are acquired by completing side quests.

And again, the side quests were chosen not just to make the game bigger, but to give players many different options for completing the game.

You may, for example, collect pearls by competing in vehicle races...or by taking pictures of the different animal species...or by gambling on a bar game.

In this way, the side quests serve not to make the game's world seem bigger, but to make the game itself seem bigger.


Beyond Evil

The only quibble I have, and it's minor, is the final boss battle.

The combat system is not the best feature of Beyond Good and Evil. It's not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a bit button-mashy.

Thing is, there's no improvement arc for combat throughout the game. You don't learn new moves or get tougher weapons, nor do you face increasingly difficult and challenging opponents who demand greater and greater player skill to defeat.

Most fights are relatively easy, until the end. And then you face a big evil bad guy who can summon minions, blast you with lightning bolts, invert your controls, blur the screen and otherwise go all Capcom on your ass, thus sending combat from zero to sixty on the last level of the game.

Conversely, the stealth and photo-taking games DO have a skill ramp. There are no stats to improve, but throughout the course of the game, you must become increasingly clever in the ways you hide from guards and acquire photographs.

It would have been nice to be able to put those skills to better use.

Beyond Beyond Good and Evil

Owing to some bad timing, Beyond Good and Evil was largely overlooked when it came out. Disappointing sales have put plans for a second and third chapter on hold.

With the PS/2 still dominating the console market and the slow drip-drip-drip of praiseworthy titles for the next gen systems, there's an opportunity here to revive what could be a great franchise.

Hit the bargain bins, kids...it's worth it.


Graphics: **1/2
Sound: ***
Gameplay: ****
Overall: ***1/2

Double Jason says "check it out!" (Carlson and Peters, page 101)

WWWDD?


When you find yourself in times of trouble and Mother Mary has apparently bailed on your ass, to whom can you turn for words of wisdom?

After watching this, I think I've found an answer. Just ask yourself: WWWDD...What Would Willem Dafoe Do?

The idea is to think of what Willem Dafoe would do, and then don't do that.

Shall we? Let the blogging begin!

Streets of Fire

In The Untouchables, Sean Connery famously remarks that only a wop would bring a knife to a gunfight (those lace curtain Irish harps being such witty guys.)



But, in Streets of Fire we see that only Willem Dafoe would bring a pompadour, full body white cake makeup and a rubber blouse to a sledgehammer fight.

To Live and Die in L.A.

So, you're a talented but frustrated LA artist with a taste for ambiguously gendered stage performers and you just happen to be a sociopath.



WWWDD?

Counterfeiting! It's the perfect, untraceable crime! No way that'll EVER come back to haunt you!

Platoon



Look, I hate to say this because he's a friend, but Tom Berenger is shithouse rat crazy. Kill him before he kills you, Willem.


The Last Temptation of Christ



Let's see, do I want to get nailed to a tree or bang Barbara Hershey? Hmmm...that is a tough one. WWWDD?

Wild At Heart



Uh, Willem, when I asked you to handle the Sailor Ripley problem "discreetly," I didn't have assassinating him in the middle of a botched bank robbery in mind.

Next time, run the plan past me first, m'kay?

Light Sleeper

Look, Willem, cocaine is indeed a hell of a drug, but it turns people into assholes. So, if you don't like the company of assholes, you may want to consider another profession.

Weed, for example, attracts a more mellow clientèle.

Just ask Mary Louise-Parker.


Body of Evidence

Sometimes it's not what Willem Dafoe does, but who Willem Dafoe does.

Need I even say it? Don't fuck Madonna.

There should be an international symbol for this like there is for STOP!






Speed 2: Cruise Control


Peter Fonda could have told you, Willem: never take sloppy seconds from Dennis Hopper.

And Tom Cruise could have told you: never take sloppy seconds from Keanu Reeves.

American Psycho

When you're investigating a disappearance and one of your interviewees uses "Cliff Huxtable" as an alibi, you may want to dig a little deeper.

Just a thought, intrepid one.

Auto Focus

So the messiah, a drug dealer and Bob Crane wake up in a puddle in a blood-soaked motel room. The drug dealer turns to the Bob Crane and says, "who brought the weirdo?"



That's how you know you're in...Paul Schraderland! The queasiest place on earth!

Spider-Man

Stan Lee is a sadistic motherfucker, okay? If you find yourself in one of his stories and someone offers to strap you into a contraption, politely decline.




It's really easy: don't strap yourself into any radioactive or biochemical contraptions.

It's not that hard to remember. Use a memory trick. Like, if you find yourself about to be strapped into a contraption, just think: "I'm a fucking idiot for allowing myself to be strapped into a contraption."

9 times out of 10, you'll be right. The 10th time, you'll be at the dentist's.


That's all...Jason Peru sez those are dummies, dummy!

Burning Man?

Have you been to Burning Man? Would you like the world to know?

Visit the Burning Man Store!


Burning Jason sez, I'm an )'(sshole!

Near Dark
dir. Kathryn Bigelow
1987

"The blood is the life."
- Vlad Dracul

Quick: name the best teen-targeted vampire movie of 1987. If you said The Lost Boys, put down your cans of hairspray and your Tiger Beat magazines, children, and gather around.

Near Dark is not just better than The Lost Boys, it's better than any vampire movie I can think of. Before next year's likely abomination of a remake hits the screen, I'd like to put a plug in for the original.

Ever since Dracula, we've had this idea that vampires are charming, romantic characters unbound by the rules of society, free children of the night, dark aristocrats allied to secret ancient powers who...

Well, you get it.

With legions of Anne Rice fans out there keeping Bram Stoker's vision aloft on a cushion of pent up sexual frustration, this romanticized conception of the undead has diluted a great culture myth almost beyond recognition.

Which is to say, vampires are nasty, vile, despicable creatures. Not just in their dark little hearts, but on their rotting exteriors as well. There is no (or rather, should be no) contradiction between a vampire's nature and its appearance.

The original European notion of vampires was more akin to the way we think of zombies: barely conscious revenants inhabiting rotting corpses, harbingers of the blood debts of the past, tax collectors for the wages of sin.

Not charismatic. Not charming. Not sexy. Not sophisticated. Not intelligent. Not admirable. Just repugnant.

It would be a stretch to say that Near Dark is true to this vision, but it certainly knocks vampires a few pegs down the romance scale. The vampires in Near Dark are not charming sophisticates. They are vermin. They hide by day in rundown motel rooms or under bridges or in sewers and come out at night to feed on the weak and hapless.

The story centers around Caleb, a young man living with his sister and father somewhere in Midwestern farm country. One night, Caleb meets Mae, a beautiful blond girl who gives him one hell of a hickey. As Caleb's hunger for blood grows, he is drawn to Mae and into her family of fellow vampires. Caleb's reluctance to kill becomes a sticking point among the family members, leading ultimately to the kind of confrontation you'd expect it would.

Okay, so what about this is so great? Well...

I. The acting is good.

Okay, not Amadeus good, but good.

Take, for example, the contrast between the hot Corey-on-Corey action of The Lost Boys and Joshua John Miller's Homer, the "man in a boy's body" vampire in Near Dark.

In The Lost Boys, the Coreys are little more than annoying comic relief. They preen and play to their supposed heart throb images while the older kids play out the story.

Miller, on the other hand, invests Homer with an almost sickening emotional corruption. He is a casual sociopath, uninterested in anyone but himself. The story takes a dark turn when Homer falls in love with Caleb's still human younger sister and threatens to take her in retribution for Caleb having taken Mae from him.

Bigelow wasn't afraid to give a 12-year old actor real work to do.

II. The story is tight.

No subplots, no hunts for the mysterious amulet that will reveal the truth of the vampire curse, no loose threads put in just to leave room for a sequel. All of the drama is internal to the characters.

We're also spared long dissertations on the vampire rules. Vampires are strong, immortal, indestructible, require blood and are vulnerable to sunlight. It's pretty much assumed that we'll know this going in. We don't need a folklore professor from the local college to tell us about it.

III. It's true to itself

Beyond all the basics of good storytelling, this film did one thing brilliantly: it reinvented the vampire.

The vampires of Near Dark are lowlife, desperate pack animals. By de-romanticizing them, Bigelow humanizes them. In fact, the word "vampire" never appears in the film. These people simply are what they are.

In the few moments where the romantic myth is presented, it comes off as self-flattering posture. When Jesse tells Caleb that he fought for the South in the civil war, he holds up his gun to the camera, smiles and says, matter-of-fact, "we lost."

Jesse has nothing left to fight for, and he knows it.

Three stars. Jasonback sez, there's a fly on the ceilin'.

The Dickies

"Dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick."
"How many dicks is that?"
"A lot."
- Reservoir Dogs

"Pussies hate dicks, because dicks fuck pussies. But dicks also fuck assholes."
- Team America


The nominees for best performance on television by a dick are:

Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House in House, MD.

House, MD. is a science fiction series set in an alternative universe where our medical care system is run by clean cut, dogged, dedicated, professionals who routinely run multi-thousand-dollar tests on vagrants with head colds.

Or, as a friend of mine recently put it, it's pornography for hypochondriacs.

Enter Dr. Gregory House. He's surly. He's unpleasant. He's unwashed. He gobbles vicodin like tic tacs. He's more interested in soap operas and video games than he is in human beings...unless they're vomiting blood, then he's all action.

Sherlock Holmes - cocaine + vicodin - the violin + a gameboy - Watson + Robert Sean Leonard - Moriarty + a hot boss - murder + disease = House!

Ted Danson as Arthur Frobisher in Damages.

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.

Other times, you want to go where you can pump and dump your own company's stock and get away with it.

And if you don't get away with it? Try intimidation. Try corrupting the plaintiff pool. Try bribery.

Try it all, Ted, because this is Planet Dick and you are our king!


Glenn Close as Patty Hewes in Damages.

Sometimes you have to fight dick with dick.

Remember, Patty, you're the lawyer here. Your clients don't need to know what your strategy is. You just need them to think they know what your strategy is.

And remember, Patty, you're the mother here, and if your son doesn't like it, you know people who know people who know people...if you know what you mean, and you always do.

David Duchovny as Hank Moody in Californication.

So, you've written a novel. So have a lot of people.
Yeah, but your novel has been published! That's great, fantastic, in fact!
Not much money in it, though.
Yeah, but it got turned into a movie!
Now, we're talking! What's the problem?
Oh, you kind of don't like the movie because they turned it into something accessible that people would actually want to see, hence increasing its profits and making you rich.

I can see where that would get you down.

Here's an idea, why don't you go to a dinner party at your ex wife's place and fuck one of her friends in the bedroom? If you really want to, you can vomit all over some of her artwork while you're at it.

Yeah, but what kind of person would do that kind of thing?

A dick. A big, swinging, David Duchovny Dick.

Rebecca DeMornay as Cissy Yost in John From Cincinnati.

Cissy Yost, is life getting you down? Are you seeing the sins of the hazy, drug fueled years you spent not raising your son visited upon your grandchild? Has your frustration with your useless Kahuna of a husband caused you to inappropriately loosen your sexual boundaries around your male offspring? Can I just say, "eww?" Has the guilt and the shame caused you to harden your exterior to the point where no one in their right mind would turn to you for the slightest comfort or tenderness?

Well, congratulations, Cissy! You're a dick!

Jon Hamm as Don Draper in Mad Men.

Suppose you have your boss over for dinner and he makes a drunken awkward pass at your wife while you're rummaging in the garage for more booze. Do you:

a) confront him in a gentle but firm manner?
b) ignore it and try to avoid drinking with him? Or...
c) pretend it didn't bother you and then march him up 23 flights of stairs after a six martini lunch so he can puke all over a high profile client?

If you answered c), then you just might be Don Draper, enigmatic uber-mensch, ad man, mad man and master of the dick universe!


And the winner is...

Rebecca DeMornay as Cissy Yost in John From Cincinnati!

All the nominees were great, but DeMornay's portrayal as the least mellow surf shop owner of all time truly stands out.

Where other TV dicks eventually show their softer side, by suffering an injury, falling in love or adopting a dog or a baby from Malawi (not a dog from Malawi...that's not safe), DeMornay's Yost matriarch never falters, never wanes, never deviates from her ball busting mission in life.

And it's due in no small part to the support of the rest of the cast. Her husband is a dick. Her son is a dick. Her grandson is a dick. Her grandson's mother is a dick. Her grandson's mother's boyfriend is a dick. And the guys who hang out at the rundown motel where her no-good junkie son spends his free time? Dicks, one and all.

Rebecca DeMornay surrounded by dicks. Now that's must-see TV!

Dick Jason sez, it's an honor just to be nominated.