Cargo

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Last night I finished the single-player campaign of Modern Warfare 2, one of the most hotly anticipated and best reviewed games of 2009. Its 18 single player missions were short but action-packed - it felt a little easier than its predecessor Cod4:MW.

Awash in testosterone, the gripping plotline of MW2 is ludicrous in retrospect, like playing a Michael Bay movie. References to movies such as Red Dawn, The Rock, Hunt for Red October and others are stitched together into a ridiculously over-the-top story about a brutal terrorist attack in a newly nationalistic Russia being blamed on Americans, which triggers a Russian invasion of Virginia and Washington DC. The Russians are somehow in cahoots with a corrupt US General who double crosses you, and, with only sketchy reasons given, the final showdown is fought in an Afghan sandstorm against Shepherd's hand picked team of American forces. In the original game, the main villain who supplied nuclear weapons to Saddam Hussein standin General Al-Asad, was Imran Zakhaev, Russian ultranationalist loosely based on the real-life Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In MW2, Zakhaev's right hand man Makarov has apparently taken over Russia but still manages to find the time to stage and participate directly in terrorist attacks on his own people in order to foment a war with the West. The mission 'No Russian' was the most violent and unpleasant thing I've ever seen in a video game, one that implicates the player in acts of total brutality and critiques the genre of FPS games by itself, while indirectly referencing 9/11 with its civilian airline setting. It has been compared to GTA, but the GTA games are cartoony satires, while this was as real as it gets. It was brutal and scary.

The plot moved incredibly quickly, and elided past many of the questions one might have - such as, is the rest of the US under invasion, or just DC and suburban Virginia? What about the NATO allies, or the UN? Or what happened to the President? Would the rest of the world truly believe that Americans supported openly by the US government would just walk into a foreign airport and gun down innocent civilians at random? I had trouble buying the premise of the invasion, but it was so awesome while it was happening that I didn't mind. The portentous Hans Zimmer score and the voice talent from the likes of Keith David and Lance Henriksen just made it work, and the heartbreaking scenes of a war-torn Washington DC were intense. Another standout mission was the Boneyard, towards the end, just total chaos and bullets flying from every angle - it was the flipside of the airport scene, involving wrecked airplanes (another 9/11 reference) and now, instead of shooting civilians, you're shooting your own countrymen in the back. I found the Boneyard mission almost as brutal and scary as No Russian.

Then came the endgame. I would have preferred a little bit of reasoning behind General Shepherd's actions. Based on his closing speech he seemed to be saying he was trying to prolong/deepen the war or encourage Makarov in some way in order to increase his own power. It was unclear what happened to the US President, beyond seeing a blown out bunker (that was implied to have been destroyed from the inside). Was General Shepherd marshaling a military coup of the United States? It wasn't totally clear but that's what I gathered. The writing could have made that a little more understood. Also, at the end of the game, Price and Soap are fugitives and just killing Shepherd doesn't necessarily end World War 3, setting us up for the inevitable next game in the series (which I eagerly await). Perhaps Shepherd or his successor will be an American military dictator.

When we look back at this decade, post-9/11 and the Global War on Terror, and now into the Obama era of "AfPak" and the resurgent Taliban, there's only a few cultural artifacts that truly capture the complex zeitgeist of the era of war. Battlestar Galactica, from its opening nuclear attack right down to its unsatisfying ending, is one. The Modern Warfare series, along with Rainbow Six and other military FPS games is another. Why do I say that? Game developers need to sell games worldwide. To do this they have to be somewhat apolitical, at least on the surface - something too overtly Rah-Rah Americuh won't sell well in Europe, etc. Or even here. These games are not ultra-nationalist - every time you're killed in MW1 or 2, you get a quote from Gandhi or Donald Rumsfeld or the cost of an Abrams tank or B2 bomber. Infinity Ward is aware of the moral complexities of making a game based on current events and modern warfare.

This moral complexity is subservient to the main goal of video gme writing. The goal of the game scriptwriter is to build a loose story structure upon which can hang a string of action sequences. To do this they need an enemy that can be killed in large waves with impunity. You can't feel bad about shooting Space Invaders. Tangos are the obvious choice, that won't offend anybody too much - who can sympathize with terrorists? But you can't make them anyone's idea of a freedom fighter. Their nationalities are usually obscured or they represent an evil 'faction' of a larger nation (like ultranationalist Russians), and the one pulling the strings has little motivation beyond simple greed or lust for power. The video game version of the Global War on Terror as fought by millions of gamers is the fantasy version of the war, the one we wanted. The one against an unambiguously evil foe. It's the one where the neocons were right, where Saddam DID have WMDs and the invasion of Iraq saved the world from a mad dictator. The one where we kicked ass acting out all the best war movies and action films for real, in response to the straight-outta-Bruckheimer 9/11. But even in the fantasy gameworld, reality keeps creeping in. The war on terror is not simply good vs evil, no war ever is. Our greatest enemy lies, as always, not in foreign sands but in ourselves.

Robert Zemeckis' recent work has striven towards the creepiest animation in the film industry, the resultant work ("Polar Express","Beowulf", etc) ending up distractingly 'off' in a way that looks like a videogame cutscene and at worst induces a vague nausea as we stare at these hyper-realistic, rubber-faced, lifeless and dead-eyed puppets jerk and twitch through dimly lit scenery.

The worst thing about the holiday season is Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", which has now been used so many times and retold in so many different ways a hundred and fifty years after its initial publication that any possible sympathy it it might have as a story is completely and utterly exhausted. When it was published, its purpose was to sell German Christmas traditions to the English (and later, to the anglophilic Americans), to say that if you don't celebrate Christmas with a tree, stockings, feasting and gifts then you're a bad person (and probably Jewish). The reason for this has to do with the house of Hanover and Queen Victoria. The Hanoverians imported German-style Christmas to England in the 18th century, but it had fallen out of fashion by the 1840s when Dickens wrote his story, and Christmas was a somber Protestant affair. Then came Dickens, who redefined it into the consumption-fest it is today. The message of charity towards the poor got turned over the decades into 'buy lots of crap, or you're a Jew like Ebenezer Scrooge'. It even contains a built in memetic defense, anyone who criticizes it sounds like they're saying 'Bah, humbug!'.

This new Christmas Carol movie is to filmmaking what Thomas Kinkade is to painting. It is an utter soulless corporate execration. I'm sure it'll make a trainload of money.

For two hours I had the inner core of my soul ripped out and shown to me. The truth of who I am was on display, all of it. The structures I have built, the families and friends I have gained and lost. My sexuality, my furriness. All the misshapen creatures we are. The loss and regret and the fierce joy and love. The forts and cities of sticks and mud that we build. It's furry fandom, of course, but it's everything else too. Workplace. Family. Friends. All of it is tied together. It's me. It's us.

My life's carefully built compartments came crashing down around me after that movie.

It's strange, in the theater, while I was watching the movie, I was completely absorbed. I cry at movies fairly often, a good Pixar movie will get me choked up. I didn't really cry during WWTA. Of course it was sad and beautiful in parts and I did cry a little. But then the credits rolled and we stood up to go, and it was time to talk with my friends and with Axiom about what I had seen, and as I opened my mouth to say something - that's when I started crying. Right there in the theater with people leaving and getting their coats. Not just a little sniffle, I mean full on boo-hooing in a way I hadn't done in a very long time. I hugged Axiom tightly and wept. Getting home was difficult, I was a raw emotional wreck for hours afterwards.

We happened to see this movie during the Furfright convention in Waterbury CT, and I wandered the con with new eyes afterwards. That night, with my weasel PJs on, my friend Iyu in tow, I ran out to the parking lot, to the edge of the woods. After a long moment out there with Iyu, we came back in to the con hotel, and I crawled into bed with Axiom, and slept.

In the past few weeks I've played through Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Splinter Cell Double Agent, and now I'm working on Rainbow Six Vegas 2. It's surprising how very different each one is from the other, although they're all loosely based around similar themes.

Assassin's Creed was a flawed but decent stealth action game with an interesting premise and I loved the historical milieu. I liked a lot of it but some of the missions were fairly repetitive. Its good parts outweighed the negatives for me. Assassin's Creed 2 looks so awesome I can't wait for November. Da vinci gliders - Hell. Yes.

CoD4 is an excellent FPS and made me actually like FPS games again. Great story, great atmosphere, characters and gameplay although the gameplay verges on twitchy running and gunning a little bit. My favorite mission by far was the sniper-centric All Ghillied Up/One Shot One Kill - I wish the whole game was like that. Looking forward to Modern Warfare 2. I haven't played multiplayer on CoD4, I'd probably die pretty quick.

Splinter Cell DA was good. I do like stealthy games. Again though it was fairly easy to run and gun especially in the final mission where it seems like they ran out of ideas. I liked Splinter Cell's spy-movie ambience and it reminded me of my old favorite Hitman 2 from a while ago, if much more demanding. Conviction looks really great even if it's a radical departure from the slow moving Splinter Cells of yore. If I had one complaint about SC it's that I often missed things without a walkthrough. It wasn't apparent that you could cut that cable or climb that fence, etc. and I had to peruse the FAQs and walkthroughs a lot.

Then last night I started up Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and, while it's not exactly stealthy, I like the tactics and realism a LOT. CoD4 felt like you were part of a large army or in a large war movie. R6V2 is light on story but very much feels like part of a team when you're in the level itself. It's linear enough that you go from room to room battling bad guys but you do have options over how to clear each area and the wrong move gets you killed quick. It values thinking over reflexes which I appreciate, being old.

So, being that these are the games I've been digging, any other suggestions? GRAW2? Operation Flashpoint? I'm limited to whatever's on the Xbox 360. When MW2 and AC2 come out next month it'll keep me pretty busy.

Oh, my Xbox Live gamer tag is Cargo Weasel, add me and I'll add you back!

I was called a hater etc. Let me try to explain.

I am a huge fan of James Cameron. I have seen all his movies. Terminator, Aliens, the Abyss were formative movies for me, I loved them. Later, T2, True Lies, Titanic.. all great. I even liked True Lies. His ocean documentaries he's been making are great.

But Avatar.. that trailer gave away the entire movie. It's Dances with Smurfs. Oh, a twist! Don't you get it? WE'RE the invaders!

First off: Space marines, power loaders. All that shit was cool as hell in 1986 when Cameron basically invented it with Aliens. But now it's been close to 25 years of space marines in every video game and sci fi movie. If I see one more exo skeleton power loader I'll scream. Even district 9 couldn't stay away from that one.

Next: The twist of "WE'RE the invaders!" is not even slightly novel. Example: Pocahontas - another movie which this basically is.

But that's not the main thing. When I heard about Avatar, that it was state of the art effects used to create a whole alien planet full of life forms, I was excited. Oh YES, I thought. James Cameron's been doing all those ocean documentaries, he knows how crazy and weird life forms can get right here on earth! It'll be like a nature documentary, with Earth expedition teams landing and exploring this brand new pristine alien world full of crazy life forms like nothing we've ever seen. Six legged silicon cube creatures! Bring it! There could be all kinds of adventure and plotlines in a story like that. Basically based on my initial advance hearing about the movie, I wrote my OWN movie in my head that would have rocked, and then the trailer came out, and .. oh. Ferngully Troopers. Cats with fronds. Dragons. And blue vaguely feline wood elf aliens. (see: Our Elves Are Better)

So yeah, that's why I mocked it. I was disappointed when I was hoping for "a world beyond imagination".

I'll complete the distance, with some difficulty, but I'm way slower and fatter than last year. The weight I put on over the winter has struggled to come off and I'm still in the 230 range. The word to describe my condition is "undertrained". There's a number of reasons for this, not excuses, but reasons:

#1 - early in the year, in April I jumped out of the gate and went to cycling camp, covering some 200 miles plus in the space of four days. It was awesome, but in some ways I was shooting my wad early in the season as it messed up my training for several weeks afterwards - instead of being kick started into the season I was like "Welp, that was fun, I'll relax a bit before the main season begins". Being the slowest and fattest guy among the cyclists acted to motivate me to work harder, afterwards when I was by myself it was easier to slack off. Also I got hugely negative feedback from my boss about the time off work, which didn't help.

#2 - Cadence Cycling closed down in early May, a victim of the recession. So there went my weekly intensive training sessions and measurements on their power meters and so forth. I was now only tracking my own workouts, which were almost entirely solo. So with no weekly or twice-a-week cycling classes to go to, it became real easy to skip workouts. Working in a group towards an effort like that, even if you don't interact with your class mates outside the workouts, provides a very important social and motivational presence. If I have cycling class every Saturday at 9am, I know not to get too far off the straight and narrow during the week. If it's just a workout on my list of stuff to do, then I can go at 9am, or 10am, or 2 in the afternoon, or (as frequently happened) not at all.

#3 - My eating was bad. I almost signed up for a few months of a nutritional counselor specializing in triathlon dieting, but it was expensive ($300) and I thought "well, I don't need to spend that kind of money for someone to tell me to eat chicken breasts and spinach", so I didn't go through with it, and ate gelato instead, rationalising that the intense workouts would handle the weight. But I wasn't really doing the intense workouts either. So from April to June I *gained* a little weight. Further hurting my motivation.

#4 - Going out running and having trouble, stopping to walk every five or ten minutes was depressing knowing how great my running was getting last year. So it became REALLY easy to skip run workouts, although they were the most necessary of all. I got little bits of enjoyment from running last year when I was getting good at it, but it took a long grind and my fitness evaporated over the winter, making me need to go through it all again from scratch. Blah! Don' wanna!

#5 - Swimming. I didn't get into a pool between March and early July. When I went to cycling camp, I focused on biking and didn't swim, then to get to a swim workout meant getting up at 7am and into the water by 8am to get home and to work on time, and the pool is a twenty minute walk from home and it's raining and blah and crowded and there were a bnch of reasons Not To Bother and only a vague abstract sense of "I should go swimming" to motivate me. Ergo, didn't go.

#6 - the weather sucked, it was really cold up through may and then raining and crappy almost every weekend, only now has it gotten nice out. Not really an excuse, I have warm clothes and rain gear but it was easy to say "meh".

#7 - and the biggest, there's a sense for me this year of "been there done that" with the triathlon. If I really examined my loves it's cycling first, running a distant second, and swimming is fine but getting to the pool and back is a pain in the ass and its monotonous when there. At the early part of this year I debated dropping tris and getting a road bike and pursuing cycling almost entirely. For budgetary reasons I didn't, because I already have all the tri gear. But my motivation did suffer and now I'm seeing the results.

Again these aren't excuses for anything. It's my own fault I'm undertrained, but this is an example of the thought processes and vicious loops that can derail one's training. And the race coming up in the next little bit has been motivating, my training for the last week or two has been exemplary, but it's too little too late to some extent. This race will be a struggle to finish. I know I'll complete it fine and I know I'll have fun. But this is what happened with my training this year and it's why I've been quiet about this stuff since the training camp in April.