[Logically Speaking] Santorum vs. Gay Marriage

I generally try to keep politics out of Cathode Tan, but sometimes politicians just say things which are simply an affront to logic itself.

And yes, I'm talking about Rick Santorum. Faithful Cathode Tanners also know that I'm a fairly staunch advocate of gay rights - though I generally just consider it advocating human rights. Anyone who has actually spent time with a loving, faithful gay couple and walks away with the thought that "we should totally ban that" ... well, I just can't see how it doesn't come from a place of fear and ignorance.

When the politicians use logic to cover up that fear and ignorance - it requires logic to set that right.

When Santorum is asked about gay marriage, he often applies the "slippery slope" argument, that for instance legalizing gay marriage would in turn open the door to legalizing polygamy.  Here's Santorum laying out his so-called argument:

Rick says that if we are going to have a conversation about one, we have to distinguish the other for him.

So let's do that.

Let's outline Rick's logic.

1. All people have the right to be happy.
2. Because gay marriage would make some people happy, it should be legalized.
3. However, marrying multiple people would also make some people happy.
4. Therefore, if we legalize gay marriage - we will need to legalize polygamy as well.

This is a classic straw man argument.  The formula here goes:

1. You have proposed X.
2. I can prove Y is similar to X.
3. Y is undesirable.
4. Therefore, X is also undesirable.

The problem is, of course, that X != Y.  It's a substitution for a real argument when you lack the facts to actually distinguish X from Y.  This is why it works for Santorum as a stump response.  The potential voter is prepared to talk about gay marriage, not polygamy - and so is placed in the same camp of not really being able to distinguish X from Y.

The first fundamental problem comes from Rick's first statement.

1. All people have the right to be happy.

Which is a) not the original argument and b) isn't factual.  We have a constitutional imperative, as it were, to the "pursuit of happiness" - but we have laws in place because if being a serial killer makes you happy the state still has the right to track you down and place you in the electric chair (your state laws may vary).  So no,  not everyone has the right to be happy.

A more factual opening statement would be:

1. The state should not create laws which impede a citizen's pusuit of happiness without proof of harm to the state or citizens.

At this point we don't need to worry about introducing ridiculous arguments like I can kill people because it puts a smile on my face.  It should also neatly remove equally ridiculous arguments like "legalizing gay marriage would open the door to bestiality or pedophilia" since proof of harm in such cases easily fall under sexual and/or physical abuse.   So let's continue with this as our opening statement (we'll lump citizens and state into one here as well).

1. The state should not create laws which impede a citizen's pursuit of happiness without proof of harm to the state or other citizens.
2. There's no evidence which shows gay marriage causes harm to to the state and therefore should not be made illegal.
3. However, there's also no evidence that polygamy causes harm to the state and therefore should also not be made illegal.
4. Therefore - if we legalize gay marriage, we should legalize polygamy as well.

So ... that's a more realistic framing of Santorum's argument.  And there's one problem, at least for Santorum.  In this state, it actually holds water.  Without proof that polygamy causes harm - perhaps it as well should be legalized as well.

You read it here first: logically speaking - Rick Santorum supports legalizing polygamy.  Once you remove the moral panic aspect of it, at least.  Of course, Santorum's biggest stock is moral panic.  If he's going to try to attack polygamy as well as gay marriage - he should really get some facts on both first.

The case against polygamy is rather complicated and gets very quickly wrapped into cultural specifics like child marriages.  However, existing laws in place should provide the protection of children.  Probably a more utilitarian issue also provides a segue into a core issue of the rest of the debate - legalizing polygamy could likely tear a hole in our tax and estate code that current lawbooks aren't really willing to deal with.  It's not the definition of marriage which causes an issue here, it's the fact that you've now compounded the possibilities of what was previously defined. "1 Man, 1 Woman" simply makes for an enforceable tax code - far more than "X number of men, and X number of women."

The ramifications on divorce alone would keep the lawmakers busy for years.  So we can leave whether polygamy would result in direct societal harm and state that our current legal structure isn't yet equipped to deal with it.

You know, kinda like how lawmakers are currently handling the Internet and plenty of other technological issues.

Since gay marriage is clearly a different issue than polygamy and we've laid out a case for why polygamy should not be (currently) legalized which does not effect our case for gay marriage, our argument now looks like this:

1. The state should not create laws which impede a citizen's pursuit of happiness without proof of harm to the state or other citizens.
2. There's no evidence which shows gay marriage causes harm to to the state and therefore should not be made illegal.
3. Therefore we should legalize gay marriage.

We can remove polygamy completely as it has no bearing on either the original statement nor the outcome.  The only real issue at stake here is our second statement.   There are now studies which show that gay marriage raises well adjusted kids, some evidence that lesbians may be better parents than their heterosexual peers and even some that state it is good for the economy.  Also, statistically speaking - even if gay marriage were to become legal in every state ... the overall percentage of gay marriage would still be extremely small - so any impact on society (good or bad) would likely be minimal making our second statement fairly safe.

The problem Santorum has from a logical perspective is that the slippery slope began not when people began to propose gay marriage - but rather when the federal government got into the business of defining marriage in the first place.  By placing this definition on the books, it clearly opens the door for changing said definition down the road.  If Santorum and his ilk really want to "defend" the nation from gay marriage - the only logical method would be to bar the government from legalizing marriage at all.  Remove the federal definition, and you remove any chance that the government will "permit" it.  By insisting on a definition is to invite a debate on changing that definition - that's simply how our government works.  This would in fact be the most direct route to get what the far right wants - a definition of marriage organic enough to be bound by local laws and morals.

Of course - this would also remove the benefits of formalizing legal marriage.  Tax benefits, a legal framework for familial issues and a definition for estate laws all directly benefit society.  In other words,  all the reasons why legalizing polygamy would be inherently difficult (if not undesirable) are justifications for creating a legal framework for marriage.

So now our argument looks like this:

1. A legal framework for marriage benefits society.
2. Excluding gays from marriage benefits fewer people than inclusion.
3. Including gay marriage into the legal framework will increase the benefits offered from the marital legal framework.
4. Therefore, gay marriage should be legalized.

Any questions?  If you're going to respond in rebuttal, please:

• Don't use religion as justification.  This is why we have separation of church and state.  Leviticus quotes may simply get deleted.
• Same goes for gay bashing.  Take it elsewhere.  Or preferably, nowhere.  Insults and the like may also simply get deleted.
• If you're going to quote studies, please link to them.
• As a warning - beware of editorials which can't prove causation.  Yes, I've read them.

[In The News] The Old "Consoles Will Block Used Games" Returns

Long time readers of Cathode Tan might remember back when the PlayStation 3 was about to roll out, we got tons of interesting news posts of very dubious quality, not the least fervent that the PlayStation 3 wouldn't play used video games. It started with a rumor based on a patent, got twisted, add a big of blog phone game and then the Guardian was reporting the rumor (only to get it later vetted and pulled).

Well ... it's baaaack. Via Kotaku:

But that disc detail could be far less impactful to the next generation of game consoles than the assertion I've heard from one reliable industry source that Microsoft intends to incorporate some sort of anti-used game system as part of their so-called Xbox 720.

It's not clear if that means that the system wouldn't play used games or how such a set-up would work. Obvious approaches—I'm theorizing here—like linking a copy of a game to a specific Xbox Live account could seemingly be foiled by used-game owners who would keep their system offline. My source wasn't sure how Microsoft intended to implement any anti-used game system in the new machine.

-- Sources: The Next Xbox Will Play Blu-Ray, May Not Play Used Games (And Will Introduce Kinect 2)

Emphasis mine. First, let's set aside the notion that the next gen Xbox will use Sony's Blu-Ray for a whole other rumor-busting post. Let's focus on the concept of reporting something based on an anonymous source who can't provide any actual details on how this might work. If you can't detail how this might work - I don't see what the point is in reporting it at all. How this would work is the story. Last time, people were actually thinking the PS3 would scratch a notch into the disc to determine if it had been played.

We'll also set aside the questionable grammar of describing obvious approaches and only describing one approach and instead focus on the notion that the theory is hypothesizing using Microsoft's paid online service for punishing used game owners.

Because yeah - that sounds like a decent business strategy. Hey, I finally signed up for Xbox Live. Why aren't my old games I bought at GameStop playing?? Unsubscribe.

So not so much obvious, more like ridiculously bad customer trust.

Look people - the games industry might see the used games market as some kind of "grey market" area where they don't see any revenue while GameStop sells a $59.99 game once for $59.99 and then again for $56.88 ... but Microsoft's (or Sony's) role as a game publisher isn't going to override their need to sell consoles and XBox Live. And any strategy down this general direction would do just exactly that.

And that's aside from the point that I've yet to hear anyone give a technical method which would actually work. Bad business and sketchy technology? Not buying it. Let's wait for some real 720 news.

Which out of the original article is ... uh, yay! Kinect 2!

[Gratuitous Plug] To Trust The Wolf

So my brother wrote a book which you can grab from virtually every e-service on the planet.  The summary:

As the mundanes riot against the control of the witches, threatening to tear the fragile realm of Raioume apart, the Gran Mater of the Coven races to defend one little girl who holds the key to mankind's future, only to find her beset by ancient demons the Gran Mater had assumed long vanquished.

So begins the story of Perdita Perrault, an awkward but precocious young witch who struggles to find her place in the world, a path which ultimately leads her to the Gran Mater's greatest enemy, the vicious and blood-thirsty Wolf King, Lupus Rex.

To Trust the Wolf is the first book of the Little Red series of novels, set in a land filled with political intrigue, governed by a matriarchal society led by a martial order, the Red Cloaks. The story of the Gran Mater, Perdita, and Lupus Rex weaves a dramatic thriller against a backdrop of magic, witches, and wolves that will captivate and enthrall. 

-- Smashwords

You can buy it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I've got my copy on Kindle on the trusty iPad - to be read soon during business trips when I once again forget how heavy the volumnious hardback edition of 1Q84 is...

Game Play: Kingdoms of Amalur Demo

It's been about a month, faithful reader (or both of you - if the other guy is still around) ... the holiday drag is now nearly officially over and the gaming hangover which has been the survival of all of those November releases is behind us.

I could tell you about Uncharted 3 - which is simply one of the most technically impressive games on any platform to date.  It's just so ... so ... insanely solid.  The writing, the animation, the graphics, the inner mechanics - everything just clicks.

But you probably already knew that.  You might not have known about the Kingdoms of Amalur demo which just dropped on PSN and XBLA.  It's gotten some legs in the press because of Ken Rolston, of Morrowind and Oblivion fame, coming out of retirement to help retire it.

The main feeling on the net, even before playing it, is that the game is a mashup of Skyrim (or more generally, The Elder Scrolls in general) and Fable.  There's a little truth to that - but I think either comparison is dangerous.  Rolston's stamp is certainly all of this game - in the latter portion of the demo you can essentially go and do whatever you want.  So I tried to steal from a store, got caught, busted out of prison and went on a killing spree on the townsfolk as they tried to reign me in.  And that was all in like twenty minutes.

But the world design feels more like World of Warcraft, or I suppose Fable - if Fable was far less linear.  You don't quite get that "what is over that hill" feeling you get in Skyrim - but that doesn't mean the world isn't open to explore.  The combat mechanics are very difficult to describe - they easily transcend the usual button mash + power attack of most action RPG's by forcing players to dodge and defend themselves ... as well as pay close attention to the tactics of the enemy which change impressively from one type to the next, but I certainly wouldn't call it "strategic".

The thing is - Amalur is so clearly utilizing the playbooks of other games that describing it without making comparisons is difficult.  The problem is if you were honest - you would be making comparisons not just to Rolston's previous games, but WoW, Fable, God of War, most Bioware RPG's and probably wear yourself out by the time you remembered Nethack.

What Amalur has going for it is some excellent design and mechanics.  Unfortunately the demo appears to be plagued by more than a few bugs - I noticed a few "hall of mirrors" ... a graphics glitch when the rendering engine doesn't know what to render.  Other players have reported crash level gltiches.  As anyone who has read Cathode know, I've beaten on the rotting corpse of the horse which is Bethesda's miserable QA process in the past ... and hope Amalur won't have such issues.

One thing that I noted: I don't know if the lack of specific save is because it is a demo, or will be part of the game.  Not being able to have multiple save points would give the game a sort of permadeath like quality (not really, but actions would have consequences you can't take back ... like murdering a whole town).  I'll be curious to see what the full version has in the way of save game control.

Full version comes out Feb. 17th - very much looking forward to it, if it isn't too crash-laden.

Why Skyrim is not Game Of The Year Worthy ( and Bethesda certainly not studio of the year )

The recent marketing spun Spike awards granted the latest version of Skyrim both Game of the Year and Bethesda studio of the year.

I wish I could feel differently, but these accolades are really a sad reflection on the industry leaning towards the figure of sales on a certain product rather than actual quality.  In my initial play of Skyrim, I thought it a high watermark of the RPG genre ... and well it should have been, except for the thousandfold number of bugs which have been found within the game since people have played the game for the hours for which it was designed.

Many professional review sites have boasted playing the game for 50 hours or more.  50 hours on the design of Skyrim is nothing.  Most users play the game for over 100 hours, if not 200 hours before what they consider completion.  Skyrim should not be granted lenience because the designed hours of play is far greater than the industry average ... this should be rewarded greatly but only if Bethesda can offer it without the sacrifice of quality.

Honestly, I don't think they can.  And after their marketing brigade about how Skyrim is based on a completely new engine - which is clearly a false assumption ... I don't know how any gamer can trust Bethesda again as a game studio.

I'm not going to replicate the many videos out there showing the horrendous performance on the PlayStation 3.  I haven't seen this kind of performance, but what I have seen are these insane quest breaking bugs, like the inability to break through spider webs with a two-handed sword:

Spider webs, Bethesda?  Seriously?  I didn't hack this quest in any way ... in fact I can run through it twice and get  completely different results on spiderwebs  which can result in me being able to finish the quest or not.

Someone at Bethesda please explain how this is possibly the result of modern quality assurance.  How is this anything remotely in the realm of acceptable loss?

Update: My video on the map being confusing to use was pointed out to be more of a usability nightmare than really a technical issue with the game.  OK, I'll grant that.  I'll also grant that it was probably a factor of being annoyed at running into both the Blood on the Ice quest breaker and the quest breaker above.

Fine.  It isn't like you have to throw a stone very far to find other examples of quest breakers.

Like this one:

Or this (glitch doesn't happen again for this guy until towards the end of the vid):

Or this (seen this one documented a few times):

Or this one where you can get out of the Mind of Madness quest, and find yourself unable to do anything:

And so on, and so forth, etc. and yada yada.

I may have enjoyed Skyrim, but that really does not excuse the media's ability to completely ignore Bethesda's inability to properly test their software title after title.

Bethesda Owes Gamers Truth on "Creation" Engine (hint: It's still Gamebryo)

I'm not even going to go back and drag up all the posts I've made about Fallout: New Vegas and what a horrible bugfest it was.

The important thing here: it's still broken for some players, even today.

Now, like myself, many other gamers who experienced the nightmare which was Fallout: New Vegas were delighted to hear that it was going to use an all-new engine.  And when I say it was reported to use an all-new engine, I mean: Bethesda themselves stated that the engine for TES V: Skyrim would be all-new.


I'm not even paraphrasing here, not even a little bit.  Now, if you read through that recent FO:NV forum post, you'll see that the user is stating that the game becomes unplayable after the save file reaches a certain file size.

Gee, I dunno?  Sound familiar?  Yup, it's the exact same issue that everyone is talking about with Skyrim on the PlayStation 3.  And what is the most technical explanation for the problem that has been released to date?

It's the one offered by Obsidian, the developer of Fallout: New Vegas.  It explains how the Gamebryo based games use a file strategy to track the changes throughout the game world, and how consoles can have problems loading and managing those changes into memory.  No memory = no performance.

Now, I've been lucky.  I've had a few quest bugs and the occasional performance issues.  I've had two crashes.  I've had maybe a handful of lockups.  From my time with the game, I would say that I'd stick to my guns in that compared to Fallout: New Vegas - it is a godsend, and compared to normal games it is only slightly buggy.

But - that's me.  There's now plenty of video evidence that other players of Skyrim are experiencing what I experienced with Fallout: New Vegas (and to a slightly lesser degree, Fallout).  I don't know why I'm one of the lucky ones - but that isn't really the point.  The point here is that I bought Skyrim because I thought it was an all-new engine, as did many other people.

But how is it that an "all-new" engine has the same fundamental problem as the last engine, with apparently the same save file structure and loading concepts as well?

How is it that items in the world are rendered and handled in almost the exact same manner as the old engine?  Sure, the textures look nicer and Bethesda has cranked up the pretty in all sorts of ways, but someone who has played all the Gamebryo games can't load up Skyrim and deny the fact that the game looks and feels just like the old games did.

All-new engine, my ass.  All new graphics pipeline, perhaps.  Kicking Speedtree to the curb and implementing your own plant-life, sure.  New ways of loading textures, maybe.

But at the end of the day - the so called "Creation" engine is just lipstick on a pig.  Bethesda hasn't even been able to fix the problems with their last game, but they continue to march on with the same core technology ... only this time with more of PR spin to give gamers false confidence.

That's pretty shameful, and there are a lot of Skyrim players ... especially on the PS3 ... with plenty of righteous anger at the company right now.

I really don't know if I'll buy the next Bethesda game.  I can't trust the Gamebryo engine, and I can't trust Bethesda when they say they aren't using it.

Game Play: Skyrim

Update: Obviously I was a bit hasty, as several PS3 owners are reporting that after save files of a certain size, the game will start to increase in lag while playing until slowly becoming unplayable.

My own file size is about 9mb, and I have had a few issues like what is being reported - but can still make an afternoon out of it. Currently on a thumbs sideways kind of judgement. Bethesda has a patch coming out supposedly after Thanksgiving, but no confirmation that patch will fix it.

I'm still a big fan of the game in general, but feel for the PS3 players. And some of the player stories are of the kind I can't recommend it for the PS3 anymore. This is absurd, Bethesda, just absurd.

---

Faithful readers of Cathode Tan (and yes, I am referring to both of your) know that I have frequently felt that for the Fallout titles in particular frequently performed, shall we say, less than the standard amount of quality assurance.  I won't bore with a bunch of old links, but let us just say that the terms "buggiest" "game" and "ever" might have been used in regards with words like "New Vegas".

Seriously, a bug which can be fixed by wearing the right in-game hat?  Seriously?  A few months ago Bethesda released an update to New Vegas which reportedly fixed all the crashes, slowdowns, world holes, and other game breakers.  I tried it out for about five minutes before realizing that my experience with all the previous bugs had sucked every ounce of desire to ever play the game again out of my marrow.

So let us just say that I bought Skyrim with some trepidation.  Sure, I hadn't read any previews mentioning bugs - but it isn't like the gaming media has done a particularly good job calling Bethesda out on these issues, usually sidelining it to a paragraph in a review and then just giving the game a 9/10 anyway.

I've now spent many, many, many hours in Skyrim on the PS3.

Many hours.

And I haven't had a single serious technical problem.  I've run into the very rare temporary slowdown. There was one instance where the ground didn't load and I could fall into it.  Compared to the "grinding slowdown to a crash" of the previous games, Skyrim is quality assurance nirvana.  But more importantly, compared to most games out there - Skyrim is easily as stable if not slightly more so.

Why is this so important?  Why am I devoting several paragraphs starting out this review to it?  Simple.  I'm astonished with how utterly complete the experience is without all the glitches and crashes of the previous games.  That Skyrim is more graphically intense than the previous engine is nice, but being able to wander the Nord countryside without worrying about a crash was the real mission Bethesda needed to succeed.

Skyrim essentially takes some of the best concepts from the recent Fallout games, wraps them within the expansive RPG concepts of Elder Scrolls and delivers them in a very eye pleasing package.  Bethesda is declaring the Creation Engine a completely new engine, as opposed to the Gamebryo engine of the past titles.  How much is completely new I somewhat wonder - there is an awful lot about the game which has the identical feel from the Gamebryo titles ... but whatever is new, old or slightly updated - Bethesda has gotten this one right.

Elder Scrolls fans will be familiar with the core mechanics here.  Wander the countryside, stumble onto adventures, advance your skills by using them, and otherwise take in the open world RPG events of Skyrim.  The amount of content available to the player is insane.  I've currently got about twenty open quests, I think, and I don't know when I'll finish them because I'll stumble onto new ones while questing.

There's some streamlining at play here over the older games.  The crafting is simpler, and I feel as if magical items are more functional and useful than they were in Morrowind or Oblivion.  I find myself using the same strategy as I have before - a kind of mage/warrior/thief hybrid which works wonderfully with Skyrim's skill system.  I've seen YouTube videos of more "pure" builds and it seems that the game properly rewards you for either type of play.

My complaints are rather small.  Item management is still a burden, even once you get a faithful companion to offload some items.  Some missions feel a bit too linear, too hack and slash.  There have been a couple of the puzzles which honestly the solution was more annoying than entertaining.  But these are just tiny issues in an otherwise epic game.

Skyrim is simply one of the best RPG games to ever grace any console or PC.  It's the high watermark of the game design and philosophy of the Elder Scroll franchise.  I'm quite glad to now be in a camp where I can look forward to the future titles instead of dreading a soul crushing experience.

Highly recommend.

Unless you have a PS3. Sadly. Until Bethesda and PS3 gamers can confirm a proper fix.

Movie Watch: Paranormal Activity 3

I've generally been a pretty big fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise.  I got some friends to re-watch the first two prior to heading out to see the third.  I think one of the most positive things about this series is its ability to dig deeper into the history of the story with every installment without feeling overly forced.

By itself, Paranormal Activity 3 holds its own against the first two movies.  There is still the methodic observations on everyday life and scenes where nothing goes on at all just to set that creepy baseline for the viewer.  There is still the judicial use of sound of effects to warn the viewer that something is about to jump above that baseline.

And there is still what I like to refer to as excellent Hollywood magic tricks.  I simply refuse to point to an example because the less you know about what happens in the film, the better, but while the series has special effects - they're extremely subtle and you could almost imagine most of the events of the film happening on a stage in front of you, not something which simply must be pumped through a high end computer to generate.

End the spoiler free section of it.  If you liked either of the first two, highly recommended.  If you haven't, and now that we are in the post-Halloweeen season, I'd probably recommend snagging the first one at least and watch all the films.  But Paranormal Activity 3 is certainly a fun spookfest on its own right.

Is the plot unraveling?
If there's any complaints about the third movie - it's that it raises some interesting inconsistencies with the first two movies.

SPOILERS ABOUND FROM THIS POINT ON

Got that?  Is the bold and all caps clear enough? Ok, then.

First problem that the movie gets itself into is the dubious use of images in the various trailers.  The trailers seem to be sections of the film which were mostly not used in the long run, which is relatively legitimate but can get a little confusing.

This is especially true since one of the key plot points mentioned in the first two films is the girls' house being burned down, which is apparently shown only in one of the trailers (I've seen it, but never caught it on TV).  The timestamp of the trailer, however, points to the house fire happening after the events of the film and my guess is that the makers wanted to keep the "final shock scene" which has been the trademark of the first two films instead of any kind of explanatory epilogue.

Also confusing the references to the girls' mom in the first two films.  Micah makes a crack about not inviting her over in the first film, and the girls talk about her briefly in the second with references not shown in the third film (namely people coming over and their mom crying a lot).

There are two defense for the mentions in the second film.  One is that their mom may have been crying more than we saw in the first film, especially considering the overall discord in the house towards the end ... and perhaps "people" included Dennis' friend.

Or, and this goes for Micah's reference in the first film - "mom" refers to their adoptive mother.  We don't really know what the girls remember or think happened after grandmother walks them upstairs, after all.

Still, this shows a danger of a story being told in a chain of prequels.  You can't expect viewers to try and piece together all these minor aspects - it should be part of the fun.  I don't think the third film necessarily violates anything plot-wise of the first two movies, but the filmmakers should be on notice: Paranormal Activity fans are taking notes.  And any future movies will be judged with those notes in the margin.

Paranormal Activity 4?
When walking out of the theater, I had thought that perhaps this would be swan song of the series.  After all, we have a pretty complete picture of the story in general.  And if they do another prequel, they would probably have to drop the found film aspect or go to reel to reel or something like that.  Neither sounds like a good idea.

But money is money - and Paranormal Activity 3 made a metric ton of it.  A fourth film is almost assured.  Those note taking fans have noted there is a "1992" tape shown in the box Katie brings over ... which possibly indicates they'll advance the story a few years after the events of the third film and perhaps explain the house fire, the adoptive mother, etc.

Another good possibility is having a movie which takes place after the events of PA2.  The makers have clearly made an effort to keep in touch with the original cast members, perhaps to make sure Katie Featherston would be around to portray her more demonic side in what would probably need to be the series finale.

So far the producers, directors and writers have done a good job keeping to the spirit (no pun intended) of the first film, so I'm still confident they can keep the quality up.

First trailer which reminds me of Blair Witch 2, however - and I am so not confident....

Game Play: Battlefield 3

Let's put this review into two distinct parts.

Singleplayer
The offline campaign of Battlefield 3 is stunningly beautiful in parts and quite honestly one of the best written single player first person shooters in recent history.  The story actually manages to make sense for almost the entirety of the game, unlike the plot line of Modern Warfare 2 which I could only describe as a wtfest.


Sadly, the graphics and decent writing get absolutely kicked in the balls by some completely rookie mistakes in level and game design.  Invisible walls inhabit the otherwise immersive world in a surprising number of places.  My favorite was after having held down the fort (metaphorically) for some time, myself and my fellow soldier finally made our way to an Osprey for escape.  Hooray!

Except that my fellow soldier could run into the Osprey, whereas I was blocked by a force field of doom while getting shot at by enemy forces.  That was until he started yelling at me to get on the ramp...

Worse, however, is the number of times your squad will be positioned in a spot which seems utterly reasonable ... and yet is actually a complete death trap.  Try to position yourself in the same manner as your squad and you will get cut to ribbons.

These flaws aren't minor and they aren't rare.  They trip up the game nearly constantly.  If Battlefield 3 was a single player game - I would recommend giving it a pass.

Thankfully...

Multiplayer
I am absolutely enamored by BF3's multiplayer.  Despite several warnings that the Quick Find may be malfunctioning - I have never had a problem jumping into a game.  I think mute may be the default, because the battlefield is devoid of singing, guitar playing, racist, swearing and threatening sounds of other online shooters.  The squad mechanics are simple and unobtrusive.  The servers do not seem to be dominated by clans making teams one sided.

That last bit is, I think, very interesting.  From what I can tell, BF3 seems to try to balance teams in between maps.  I haven't gotten into many situations where a blowout appears to continually occur on a server.  This is a massive relief.  I haven't had a chance to dig into Uncharted 3 yet, but one of my huge complaints with the online play of Uncharted 2 was that their "buddy" system meant that veteran players could essentially mop up levels if they were friends and enough of them were online at the same time.

The vehicle mechanics seem well tuned.  There's the occasional moment of having to run across long distances - but seems far more rare than BF2.  The firepower of vehicles also seems well balanced versus available counter-measures.

I'll undoubtably get into Modern Warfare 3 over the holidays - but for the moment Battlefield 3 is definitely my goto game for online play.  Uncharted 3 may well occupy for some time next week, but if Battlefield 3 was multiplayer only - I'd still highly recommend it.

Game Play: Dark Souls

I was a rather huge Demons' Souls fan ... even if I did find the ending so mind numbingly difficult that I ended up using a rather nasty "cheat" to accomplish. This was after several attempts at finishing the final boss with online players, an attempt which only resulted in my online ratings getting butchered with every failure.

 When I kept reading that Dark Souls, the "spiritual successor" as it were, was going to be even harder ... I was a little apprehensive. Could From Software had decided to just amp everything up from the original - perhaps for the sake of publicity?

Thankfully, the answer seems to be no.  If anything, I'd say Dark Souls is an excellent refinement on the original.  It maintains that crisp sense of combat with an absolutely brilliant grinding design which slowly allows the user to increase their knowledge of the area and increase their skills and ability to deal damage.  I'm certainly not going to call Dark Souls easier ... but it feels like the mechanic have been shifted around more than simply amplified.

That's not to say that there aren't spikes of difficulty.  I tried to assault a two demon tag team event for most of an afternoon, only to get through in ten minutes when I managed to summon two players for aid.  This was true of the first one as well, however - Dark Souls is intended to be played within the confines of the inventive online functionality - and woe goes to the player who isn't taking advantage of the seamless co-op design From has used here.

My only complaint is that the grind can still get to be somewhat numbing.  Impressively - I can't call it annoying.  I don't want to throw the controller across the room because I just got killed by some dextrous skeleton.  But there are times when I just need to take a step back from Dark Souls and give it a rest.

Which is perhaps why the game is so unique.  In this day and age where if a company can churn out enough graphics to distract a player for twenty hours ... it's considered a success.  But Dark Souls insists that you engage it from the mechanics at the very root of the game - and finish it when and how you can.

Highly recommend.

FedEx Does Not Actually Track Your Package

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking: Josh, it's been months since you have written here. And now this. Clearly this is just a rant.

And yes. For one thing, my apologies. I actually get to write with my new job and one of the side effects is that my hypografia is more or less tamed by it. Hence, I'm not writing on Cathode as much as I'd like.

And I am sorry for that, I will try to find the time. So much to catch up on. But, I digress.

FedEx does not actually track your package. And that is fucking ridiculous in an age of technology where I can find the closest and best brewpub to me in a city that I have never been in and do not own a map of simply by asking my phone to find it for me.

I'm not asking FedEx to lojack their drivers. I don't need GPS updates of the exact vector of my package is at any given time. I don't want a satellite feed of where the delivery driver is taking his lunch.

I just think that if FedEx is going to offer tracking numbers, and a page where you can supposedly track your package - that maybe they could actually track your package.

Backstory: The trusty PlayStation 3 got killed by an errant disc with a crack in it, but that is a whole other rant. Sony's customer support was, to be quite awesome without being overly fanboy ... pretty awesome. The PS3 has been to Sony, reportedly fixed, and sent back to me.

When I checked yesterday - the PS3 was supposed to arrive today. The sixth of October, 2011. This requires a signature (thankfully) so I made sure today was scheduled so that either myself or The Girl would be around to sign for it, because forbid the thought any delivery service let you know it might arrive in the AM or PM.

So when around 7:30PM arrived I called FedEx to see if the package was still going to show up today. They said it was still scheduled for today and that the local delivery went until 8PM. So I got a more or less verbal agreement that it would arrive in the next half hour.

A half hour later, I got a very different story.

This time, FedEx asked if I would go on hold so that they could "review the notes" for the delivery. A few minutes later, the person from FedEx informed me that the "initial confirmed date" was actually for Friday, October 7th.

OK. Wait. Let's step back here a second. October the 6th has been happily going around for many hours now. The original estimated date of delivery on October the 4th was ... October the 6th. It has said that all along. Every time I have checked the tracking site it said that. When I called FedEx, they confirmed that. Now that 8PM has magically hit, the estimated date is suddenly ....

October 7th

You know, I admit. I kinda suck at math. Most people don't think that because I work with computers but most people don't realize that people that work with computers have computers around to do math for them. So I'm not going to pretend to know the kind of calculus require to estimate on October 4th that a package will arrive on October 6th versus October 7th.

But I know some people who are good at math. I know some fucking brilliant people at math. And they will all tell you this: whatever equation required to make that calculation does not magically change at 8PM at night. Math simply does not play by those rules, I've been told.

No, what happened is that at 8PM someone at FedEx realized that their shame of a tracking system had been called out and this is the next thing I saw when I refreshed my browser while talking to FedEx:

Now the casual observer might ask ... what should I glean from this, Josh? ... and I will tell you:

That is a FedEx tracking page with no estimated delivery date. Minutes after the package as actually supposed to be delivered it was simply erased from reality.

So I ask FedEx: what the fuck kind of tracking system are you running over there? I mean seriously, I have to call you to report that my package has not been delivered, to go through your automated system, to hit zero a bunch of times, to talk to a human person, to have that human person read some kind of confidential notes, to have that human person inform me that the original confimed date is actually a day later than the original estimated delivery date, to have your tracking system erase the actual delivery date???

Was your software written by chimps? Are there pre-adolescent children involved? Is this some kind of nepotism gone horribly wrong? Please, tell me. Confess. I want to know how in 2011 when I can buy a car from Ford that fucking park itself that you have system that can't even track my package until I call you to ask where the fuck is my package.

Let me inform you of the useful and accurate information an actual human being was able to confirm from me when I called FedEx:

• Where the package was shipped from.
  
• Where was the package being delivered.
  

And so far, that is all I am sure of, because hours later the shipping page was updated with:

Ohhh ... so now you know, because I told you that my package had not actually been delivered on time. We live in an day where you could in theory be tweeted an earthquake before it actually hits you but I can't be informed by FedEx that my package will be late until I fucking call them to ask them if my package will be late. Don't get me wrong, people, it's not that my package will arrive on Friday instead of Thursday. My Thursday has been full of delights and really didn't miss the old PS3 one bit. No, it's that hours if not days went by where FedEx had the entire Internet at their disposal to warn me that my package was running late and that nobody had to stay home to sign for it but instead of actually using technology designed in this decade - I had to verbally berate a probably completely innocent phone operator to get that information updated for me. For shame, FedEx. For shame. I've sent much of this to your twitter account. I'll call tomorrow around the close of business to check to see if if anyone fucking monitors it.

Game Play: Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever has finally arrived, after just under fifteen years of developments, moving through multiple game engines, swapped between different publishers, and passed back around multiple development teams (before finally being finished by Gearbox ... formed by 3D Realms developers who ditched that company during the "early" years of DNF).

A lot has changed since 1997, when Duke Nukem Forever was originally announced. For instance, Zoid's CTF mod came out for Quake 2 in 1998 - which is when Duke Nukem Forever was supposed to originally be released. Zoid's CTF was really the starting point for objective based team play for first person shooter. So every shooter which has ever been made since DNF was announced has taken this concept and evolved it into the kind of online play we see in Call of Duty.

Or to put it another way, Duke Nukem Forever has been in development for as long as team based shooters have started going past pure team deathmatch.

While the shooter genre is a something of a slow moving bunch, there has been paradigm shifts like Zoid's CTF (1998): GoldenEye 007's location based damage and lack of health packs (1997), Half-Life's first person cinematics (1998), Counter-Strike's objective based maps (1999), Deus Ex's hybrid RPG elements (2000), Halo's use of shields over health points and realistic inventory handling (2001), Half-Life 2's use of physics (2004), WinBack's use of cover (1999) and Rainbow Six's first person adoption of it (2006), Vanquish's slide movement (2010 ... almost all of these mechanics becoming either de facto standards (especially in the case of GoldenEye 007 and Halo) or important design choices for titles as they're released.

Fun Fact: The title for Duke Nukem Forever comes from Duke Nukem 4Ever, which was to be a 2D sequel to the 3D classic employing concepts from the old game and some new ones while returning to Duke's original nemesis, Doctor Proton.

And all this time, the development of Duke has been watching these titles released - and apparently then struggling to keep up as best it could. Duke Nukem 3D was a landmark title in it's own right and easily as influential on games like Deus Ex and Half-Life as the above list has been on other titles. It was clear that 3D Realms was never going to be happy with DNF unless it used the greatest technology and using the latest tricks.

The problem is: you can't simply adopt these tricks once you've seen them. And Duke Nukem Forever is a game plagued by this fact.

For instance, Duke uses "Ego" instead of health and the usage is clearly aped from Halo's use of shields (which would later be adopted to the realistic shooters use of damage of health points in general). However, considering that Halo was released in 2001 and DNF had already been in development for five years at that point ... you have to wonder how much redesign that would require.

Fun Fact: According to the game, development began with the original Quake engine and moved quickly to the Quake II engine when the game was being announced. In 1998, after having developed on Quake II engine for 14 months, 3D Realms declared they would use the Epic's Unreal engine. Since then, Epic released Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Championship, Unreal II, Unreal Championship 2 and Unreal Tournament III - each with specific updates and overhauls to the engine.

Moving from a health based system centered on pickups to a shield based system centered on the user avoiding damage to heal is not a simple change. It's not like you can simply remove all the health packs from the game and then add a timer to the player's health bar. The damage the enemies deal needs to be handled, the levels need to provide players with enough area or cover to deal with a bad situation to regain health, the amount of "shielding" a player requires needs to be balanced, etc., etc. It's a core design change that needs to ripple throughout the game.

While Duke adopted the concept, and surely the idea of Duke Nukem being protected solely by his ego is funny enough: it never really seems to handle it correctly. There are sequences which are simply woefully unbalanced because you'll be picking off Assault Captains left and right only to run into a boss where a few blows can kill you but you really have nowhere to protect yourself from. In fact one boss fight in particular seems to have exactly two or three points of cover where the boss almost inexplicably can't hit you momentarily as if to solve this problem. Though, it's still a problem until you find these spots left for you by a benevolent level designer.

Fun Fact: In 2009, Wired removed Duke Nukem Forever from their yearly vaporware awards list as the project appeared officially cancelled and "the joke was getting old". In 2010, Gearbox would officially announce the game's release and the game hit 11th on the vaporware list that year.

Or the fact that back when Duke was King - shooters simply let players collect as many weapons as they could find. This idea of a "primary" weapon and a "secondary" weapon was completely alien. You found a weapon, you had the weapon, you used the weapon, you ran out of ammo ... you found more ammo. Weapon and map design matched this fact: you had weapons which were weak but utilitarian and weapons which were the BFG and used ammo like a mofo. You would simply swap out weapons depending on the situation.

The primary/secondary weapon mechanic that Halo introduced requires some weapons to be more useful than others so that you can rely on at least a common group of ammo and resources to keep fighting even when you used up your secondary BFG style ammo. Duke Nukem Forever adopted the Halo weapon concept but the actual weapon design is nearly exactly the same as it was from 1997. The end result is that you end up using the Ripper nearly the entire time because it's the closest thing to generic plasma rifle the game offers the player. Some situations even insist on the usage of specific weapons - forcing the player to hunt down a obviously conveniently placed weapon pickup just to swap out.

If there was ever a first person shooter which could excuse itself from the idea of only holding two weapons: it is Duke Nukem Forever. Duke Nukem can bench press 600 pounds (according the relatively funny in-game hint notes). Duke Nukem punches alien overlords in the balls. Duke Nukem can take a rocket or two in the face (provided his ego is big enough). But Duke Nukem can't hold as many weapons as he did ten years ago.

This isn't a game burdened by reality, as noted buy some of the more entertaining underwater scenes - so why did it feel the need to grab mechanics from games which are intended to make shooters feel more real?

This mishmash of game design plucked but not entirely cooked from ground breaking titles over the years creates a uneven landscape of good and bad the player can barely navigate through. It's not that Duke Nukem Forever is all bad or without charm - but the design flaws and lack of polish aren't something one can simply power through or laugh about when Duke pulls out another signature one-liner. The game constantly beats the player over the head with the woes from development past and every moment of fun the game offers up is quickly dashed by five more which are either frustrating or simply boring. There are portions of this game which an anyone used to the genre will simply have to wonder if this level was left unfinished. There are portions which seem oddly devoid of enemies, or enemies which seem to spawn simply to elongate scenes, or boss sequences which feel like they never got past the design phase of the creature concept, or maps which clearly don't have the correct lighting and ... on and on and on.

Obviously no game is worth this much development time - it's an absurd question which doesn't need to be asked. We're not talking about genetic research here, we're talking game development and if you can't get the game out in a certain timeline you're game is going to feel outdated. This is simply a law of physics.

The parts of Nukem which work the best are the parts Nukem learned from itself. Unabashed humor, interactive and unique levels, and the occasional feeling of a somewhat epic fight with an unrepentant use of tits and ass - there are moments of pure Dukedom.

The multiplayer has some merit in the sense that it manages some fast old school deathmatch killing. Sadly, the game browser suffers from some network issues (like the age old problem of constantly finding open games which by the time the browser lets you try to join ... the game is full) and there simply aren't enough servers out there to really make the online portion stick.

But Duke Nukem Forever doesn't just feel dated, the damn game still feels unfinished. The Dilbert cartoon at the top of this post refers not just what happens when it is better to ship nothing at all, but was the source of Macromedia's Director 5 being code named "better than gum". While Nukem has more character in the first five minutes of game than some shooter have in an entire game, the Duke's bravado simply doesn't live up to the final offering. This may not entirely be a gum release, but it is a product clearly out the door with the intention of publishing before completely forgotten.

In the early parts of the game, Duke wanders into a bathroom and can, in a now infamous scene, pick up a turd from a toilet. Disgusted with himself he then moves out to a stadium to re-enact a boss fight from the Duke Nukem 3D's end boss fight only to have the action pull back to be revealed as just a video game being played by Duke and a pair of buxom twins.

And honestly, that encompasses nearly everything you need to know about Duke Nukem Forever. There's some crap, and there's parts which will remind you of the original game and there's some parts where Duke is clearly just pick up what he learned from playing games for over a decade.

If you've never played Duke Nukem 3D and you're wondering what all the fuss is about - I have to recommend giving the game a pass. Maybe we'll finally get a proper modern Duke release, or maybe Duke Nukem: Zero Hour for the Nintendo 64 was the last decent follow up the franchise will ever get. For the nostalgic, Forever will likely just be a disappointment. It's surely a moment in history for the gaming industry and while it has some moments - it's probably better a moment to just move on from.

There was an Iron Maiden video game?

And I never knew....

Armchair E3 2011: Nintendo

Of all the big three gaming companies, Nintendo probably had the most to prove. It's not really a terribly good time for the big N. Their sales, while still solid in comparison to the other consoles - have dropped considerably from their previous heights and probably will continue to do so. The 3DS hasn't managed to sell as well as the DS, despite plenty of technical prowess. Microsoft and Sony have both released their motion solutions to the world, and while Sony's isn't doing poorly by accessory standards - the Kinect has sold incredibly.

When the Wii was released, HDTV adoption was slow on the rise and the concept of motion controlled gameswas absolutely and utterly new. The console was inexpensive, easy to use and surprisingly social. The Wii Fit was a brilliant add on, continuing on the theme of user controls that weren't controller based and also giving gamers a reason to learn yoga.

HDTV prices have dropped considerably - and the competing consoles are not only cheaper than when this generation first hit, but they have an excellent library of exclusives, mainstream and indie titles. The Wii has continued to struggle to bring anything but their own first party titles to real success, and while the post Fit era has seen a few gems, it would be hard to imagine a lot of third party developers lining up to release on hardware which is now, to be diplomatic, a bit quaint. This is probably why the vast majority of third party Wii titles are licensed based shovelware.

So E3 would certainly be Nintendo's time to shine.

I would probably describe what they announced more as ... glimmering? Maybe a bit of a glisten?

Since this post is late out of the gate, the Wii U is probably not a surprise to anyone. Quick recap: it will backwards compatible with the Wii, it sports a tablet styled controller with a 6 inch screen surrounded by the expected set of game controls as well as motion sensing and a camera.

The feature Nintendo seemed to thump the podium the most was the ability to display either a secondary screen on the controller, or to send the the main (TV) display to the controller, or flip them, or do a tango, etc., etc. Technically speaking, it's pretty some pretty neat stuff and I can imagine they have cool VNC style tricks going on.

The problem is that unlike the announcement of the Wii controller, the Wii U controller doesn't feel as revolutionary. We've seen this kind of trick before from all the way back to the Dreamcast's VMU and recently with Sony's tethering of the PSP. And while I know I'm missing out on some of the first person experience wow factor that distincts it ... it's also hard to get excited about something that seems like a tablet in a world that is getting increasingly ruled by tablets. If the 3DS is having trouble competing against iPhones ... how will the Wii U not have trouble competing against the iPad?

It's not that Nintendo can't answer these questions - the problem is ... they didn't answer these questions. Mainstream press walked away from E3 still not quite understanding what the console itself was capable of accomplishing. While it's not been confirmed that the hardware should be more powerful than the PS3 or 360 - Nintendo failed to display anything that proved that fact.

Worse, in fact, they showed demos of other platform's software. And then someone in the press realized Nintendo hadn't shown the Wii U working with multiple Wii U controllers, leading Nintendo to confirm that they currently have it only designed for a one controller to work with one console ... which promptly kicks in the shin some of the more interesting concepts of having the secondary display.

For a company which changed the industry with innovative ideas, the Wii U feels like a jumbled bag of other people's tricks. While it isn't surprising that Nintendo didn't talk cost - it is hard to think that a console with next generation hardware and a touchscreen controller is going to be cheap, which was one of the big factors of the Wii's success.

After their announcement, Nintendo's stock dropped sharply. Then it dropped a little more. Nintendo has about three quarters before it has to show the goods ... and they have a lot of information to nail down and offer up before then.

Armchair E3 2011: Sony

Sony deserves, I think, credit for at least being the company with enough muscle to trail Nintendo as the #2 handheld gaming platform. That might sound like a back handed complement, but the path leading up to the Gameboy, DS and 3DS is littered with technology which really couldn't even be considered a runner-up.

Having the Vita their big push now seems a bit like a product plan set in place years ago that nobody forgot to cancel. It's not the Vita is bad - in fact it looks like might actually be the most awesome handheld gaming device ever created by man. Someone has clearly been taking notes on the flaws of the PSP, PSP Go, etc. But even Nintendo is having a hard time keeping handheld gaming in their mighty grasp, with the 3DS falling behind the DS in sales and having little sign of picking up anytime soon. The cheaper DS still clobbered the 3DS last month (though the 3DS cremated the PSP, so...).

If this was last year, I could understand Nintendo and Sony's not having an appropriate response to the onslaught of smartphones and tablets coming out earlier this year. What's odd is that the Sony Experia, with PlayStation certification and a little title called Minecraft, seems a more intelligent response to the current mobile scene than the Vita.

However, all hope for the Vita is I think not lost. The PSP might not have the same size demographic as the DS, but Sony's mobile gamers are quite loyal and since the Vita is well designed ... Sony might be able to hit sales goals if they've been made rational and not overly optimistic. And Sony seems to have potentially outflanked Nintendo, whether it was intentional or not.

And it could be crippling to Nintendo.

I'll have more on the Wii U later, but let's assume Sony pushes harder for the kind of continous client, tight integration that the Vita has with the Ruin demo for the PS3. PSP tethering with the PS3 is already in the bag, and one has to wonder how hard it would be for Sony to replicate some of the Wii U's thunder. It would take what ... some fancy custom VNC software to play my Vita games on my HDTV with my PS3 as an intermediary? OK, so it would have to be some pretty fancy VNC ... but if Sony could steal some of Nintendo's features and position them as value adds for the Vita? That would be a serious win for Sony and potentially a serious blow to Nintendo.

Sony gets high points for showing off new games with new ideas as well. Microsoft's Kinect push is solid, but doesn't show much new innovation for the game. Sony demo'd several games I'm really looking forward to trying out, and much of it feels fresh and new.

But letting Microsoft walk away with a Minecraft exclusive? With Kinect? After all that ballywho about it being on the Experia? That's just embarrassing.