Video Games: “The Last of Us: Last Behind”

The Last of Us, Naughty Dog’s magnum opus, is already going down in the annals of video game history as one of its greatest offerings, not just because of the beautiful graphics and its gritty world, but because of its story. The tale of Joel, a world-weary smuggler, and Ellie, his latest charge, and their journey across a post-apocalyptic United States and subsequent father-daughter bond is quite possibly the best proof yet of the video game medium’s capacity for gripping, emotional storytelling while still providing an entertaining gameplay experience. It’s definitely earned its place among my top five video games, that’s for sure.

Naughty Dog’s highly anticipated DLC, Left Behind, was released on the PlayStation Network a few days ago, on Valentine’s Day, and I downloaded it the day after, mostly because I had to work a late shift the day it came out. Left Behind focuses on the experiences of Ellie, beginning with Joel’s wounding and her subsequent search for medical supplies to patch him up. Throughout her search and its accompanying dangers in the form of hostile human survivors and Infected, she reminisces on the time she and her best friend Riley, around a year earlier, visited a deserted mall on the eve of Ellie’s experiences with Joel.

Left Behind provides a great deal of context to Ellie and the motivations that drive her throughout the main campaign to come later. It also provides extra opportunities for fans of The Last of Us to explore the world so effectively rendered by Naughty Dog, in which supplies are limited and you have to make do with whatever items you can find and cobble together from the environment. One new feature in particular was very interesting, which involved pitting hordes of Infected and human survivors against one another by, say, throwing a brick in the direction of the survivors and making the Infected aware of their presence. It was an interesting mechanic, and I wish they’d included it in the main game. Hopefully Naughty Dog will include it in their (hopefully) upcoming sequel.

Combat, however, is a distant second to the story of Ellie and Riley, the latter of whom has returned for a final night out with her best friend. Throughout the DLC, they laugh, joke, get angry with one another, and ultimately draw the player in with the kind of human interaction that characterizes The Last of Us and its human inhabitants. It’s a beautifully haunting side story about two young women who, for a few precious moments, become the children that their post-apocalyptic world did not allow them to be, and grow towards a deeper understanding of themselves and of each other.

Left Behind is an excellent addition to The Last of Us, and while others have expressed disappointment at the news that there will be no other single-player DLC campaigns, I’m kind of glad that Naughty Dog isn’t focusing on putting out a million DLCs like other companies are wont to do. There’s only so many stories you can tie on to a main game before moving on to the primary sequel, and by only doing Left Behind, Naughty Dog has kept its world fresh, interesting, and alive for future outings. In any case, your money will be well-spent in downloading this DLC.

Score: 4.5/5

 

 

Books: Andy Weir’s “The Martian”

When it comes to books, my tastes generally lean towards horror, fantasy, or science-fiction, although as I’ve gotten older, I’ve increasingly focused on the former two. The only science-fiction books I’ve read recently were James S.A. Corey’s Expanse series of novels, the fourth of which, titled Cibola Burn, is due out later this year (can’t wait!). 

This is mostly because I’ve always felt lost in all of the technical or cultural jargon that can arise when dealing with hard sci-fi. Die-hard sci-fi fans will probably mentally crucify me for saying this, but I ended up having to put down William Gibson’s Neuromancer after slogging to its halfway point through miles of technological terms that I was trying to follow, but couldn’t keep up with. Horror and fantasy always seemed…simpler, to me, I guess, because horror and fantasy, to me, anyway, have a habit of cutting through the crap and getting to the nitty-gritty in a way that I can follow and be entertained without wondering what the hell is going on (or, at the very least, being introduced to these terms and coming to understand them over time).

James S.A. Corey’s Expanse books are, to me, far easier to relate to than, say, Ben Bova or Larry Niven, because the focus is on the people, and not the world in which they live. While the latter is certainly important in order to gain a good sense of the characters, sometimes it seems as though their experiences are made more hollow and wooden by an emphasis on the wonders of the world around them, and it takes a great deal of skill to be able to relate both to the reader without one overwhelming the other. This is why Andy Weir’s debut novel, The Martian, is undoubtedly one of the best sci-fi novels to appear in recent years, because although the science and technology are integral parts to understanding the protagonist’s plight, it is the protagonist and the people engaged in saving his life that take center stage.

The Martian follows the unfortunate astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist and mechanical engineer by trade who is left for dead on the surface of Mars by his crew following a massive, destructive dust storm. The novel deftly navigates between entries in his log-book and the experiences of both his crew members and the Mars mission control officers on Earth, and while there are a few rough transitions here and there, they pale in comparison to the high quality of writing seen here. The novel follows Watney’s efforts to survive as well as the efforts of NASA officials on Earth to rescue him, and the book contains an effective mixture of gallows humor, good storytelling, and realistic science that makes The Martian believable.

What I enjoyed the most about The Martian was the sense of humor and believable scientific details that could have detracted from the story, and yet didn’t. Weir does a fantastic job of drawing the reader in through the experiences of his protagonist, a very human individual whose humor, intelligence, and down-to-earth characteristics go hand-in-hand with the science and technology that he uses and adapts to survive. There were some points in the log entry portions of the narrative where I felt like I was experiencing an absolutely hilarious lecture on space science and tech, which was interjected with nerve-wracking doses of terrifying realism – namely, that Mars is a barren, inhospitable planet that is absolutely unforgiving and will kill you if you make the slightest mistake.

I was sad to close the book on Mark Watney’s remarkable, humorous, and thrilling journey of survival on the surface of Mars. The Martian has without a doubt earned a place in the pantheon of best books to come out in 2014, and it has my hearty recommendation. Now, if Cibola Burn could just be moved up a couple of months (or two, or three)…

Rating: 4.5/5

 

Ted Kosmatka’s “Prophet of Bones” a Solid Scientific Thriller, But With Some Holes

Before I read Prophet of Bones, I was familiar with Ted Kosmatka’s work. I’m an avid listener of Pseudopod, a horror podcast that distributes a new story every week, and his short story “Cry Room” was released via the same channel. It has since then become one of my all-time favorite short horror stories, and when I heard through the introductory notes at the beginning of the podcast that he had two novels available, I was very much looking forward to reading them. 

I came across Kosmatka’s second novel, Prophet of Bones, when I was perusing the newly arrived books at the local library here in Carbondale. I picked it up and read it over the course of two days, finding that it had an interesting, yet flawed, premise. Prophet of Bones is set in an alternate history in which science becomes defined by creationism circa 1960. The protagonist, Paul Carlsson, is a scientist who is called to study an archeological dig that uncovers bones, which dispels the notion that the Earth is 5,800 years old (bear with me). The dig is funded by a scientific corporation called Axiom, which has its tentacles wrapped around politicians, other corporations, and academia, and when Paul’s findings threaten the Creationist foundations on which it was built, Paul and his friends are pursued by ruthless agents who, predictably, will do whatever it takes to eliminate his findings. 

Kosmatka is an excellent writer, his skills having been developed through his short stories, his previous novel The Games, and his job as a full-time writer for the gaming company Valve. His background in biology and laboratory science serves him well, and provides the novel with a sense of grounded realism that enables scientifically unversed readers to understand the work that Paul does. The thing about the novel that is less believable, however, is the wholesale acceptance of creationism circa 1960. 

It is certainly true that conservatives were shouting their messages surrounding American decline loud and clear during this time. Figures such as William Buckley of The National Review were doing this as early as 1955. But there were too many other things that were going on behind the scenes, especially where the initial rumblings of the civil rights and countercultural movements were concerned. None of these seem to be accounted for in Kosmatka’s alternate history, aside from a few references to secular institutions here and there. 

Like any other work of alternate history, such as Harry Turtledove’s magisterial Great War multi-series, the shift in history that creates the alternate timeline has to be believable. I feel as though the alternate history where creationism became the order of the day would have been more believable if, perhaps, it had come into being during the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan and the religious right in 1980. 

In spite of the lack of believability of the timeline, Prophet of Bones is a thrilling read, and I’m looking forward to reading The Games. 

“An Army at Dawn” an Excellent, if Somewhat Dense, Book about the Allied Effort in North Africa

When I was a kid, I watched dozens of World War II movies on AMC or Turner Classic Movies with my late grandfather, himself a veteran. The Longest Day, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Guns of Navarone, A Bridge Too Far, and several others were added to my repertoire of classic TV shows and movies. There was, however, one jarring similarity – none of the movies I watched at a young age dealt with the North African theater of operations (the only one I can think of was Patton, and no, I haven’t seen Casablanca…I know, it’s a tragedy).

This is one of the reasons why I found Rick Atkinson’s An Army at Dawn to be incredibly fascinating. The first part of a nonfiction trilogy about Allied efforts in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, and then the European continent, An Army at Dawn spans the time between 1942 and 1943, when Operation Torch marked the first American efforts against the Nazi Third Reich and the forces of Vichy France and Italy under Benito Mussolini. It follows Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Patton, Erwin Rommel, and Bernard Montgomery, among other prominent military leaders in North Africa, as they direct troops, plan strategies, and deal with political and national crises between their respective nations.

A former journalist for The Washington Post and a military historian, Rick Atkinson is well-known for other works of nonfiction such as Crusade, which covers Operation Desert Storm as it unfolded in 1991. After reading An Army at Dawn, it becomes clear why he’s won multiple awards for his writing – it is clear, concise, and well-researched, providing intricate details on operations, the thought processes of the men who planned them, and on-the-ground perspectives of American, British, French, German, and Indian soldiers, the latter of which were one of several nations in the British Commonwealth that had joined the war effort.

Conciseness and good writing aside, the only problem I had with the book was its density. The book provides a wealth of information for historian and general reader alike, but in some places, An Army at Dawn sags under the weight of its own informative purpose. Details on battles and their consequences is occasionally packed too tightly, and while it is informative, in some places it’s a little too much.

Nevertheless, anyone who is interested in the history of World War II will get a lot out of Rick Atkinson’s first book in his Liberation Trilogy. I am definitely looking forward to the next book, The Day of Battle, which covers the Sicilian and Italian campaigns between 1943 and 1944.

“Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon” – First Impressions

When I was in my early teens, the SciFi Channel (before they rechristened it as “SyFy” much later, although why they did this when the original was perfectly fine is beyond me) ran a daily series of reruns for different shows on a program they called SciFi World. For example, on Mondays they would have episodes of The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, Tuesdays would have Highlander, Wednesdays Battlestar Galactica (the original), and so on and so forth. Some of the shows they aired included the ridiculously cheesy sci-fi shows that came on in the 1980s, such as Knight Rider and Manimal, amongst several others. It was shows like this, in addition to movies such as Schwarzeneggar’s The Running Man, that I thought of frequently while playing through the first little bit of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, the free-standing DLC for Far Cry 3 that has absolutely nothing to do with the original game and everything to do with the desire of people at Ubisoft to introduce a completely wacky, hilarious ’80s-based shooter that’s soaked in bright neon colors, laser weaponry, cyborg commandos, and so-called “blood dragons” that shoot laser beams from their eyeballs. 

The game comes with several characteristics seen in ’80s-era sci-fi action films: there’s been a nuclear war, the main character is a soldier outfitted with cybernetic enhancements, and there’s a nefarious plot involving commanders gone rogue. The dialogue’s great because they include one-liners that ripped from popular ’80s songs (“Schools out for the summer…school’s out forever.”), and the tutorial sequence is a love letter to those who hate being forced through tutorials at the outset of every game.

The primary factor in Blood Dragon‘s enjoyability is the complete lack of seriousness. As I said in my earlier review of Gunhand Clive for the 3DS, sometimes you need a game or a book or any applicable venue of popular culture that doesn’t contain a bleak package of doom and gloom. The game developers at Ubisoft and the voice actors (which include Michael Biehn of Terminator and Aliens fame) must have had an absolute blast putting this game together, and I’m looking forward to finishing it. 

I admittedly haven’t played through the entire game yet, since my gaming PC is on the fritz. For some reason, it keeps lowering the system performance because it can’t find the AC adapter or its wattage. I’m relatively computer-savvy, but not an absolute genius with them, so if there’s anyone out there that could provide advice, I’d sorely appreciate it. I’d like to be able to play the game without all the lagging inherent in a lowered system performance. But from what I’ve seen so far, it’s well worth your money if you decide to download it from Steam, the PlayStation Network, or Xbox Live. 

“Star Trek: Into Darkness” a Modern Trekkie’s Dreams Incarnate on the Silver Screen

I’ve been a Trekkie for about as long as I can remember. A lot of that stemmed from when I was a kid. I was pretty sick a lot of the time and one of the things I did while recovering was watch reruns of Star Trek that my mom would tape for me (back in the heyday of good, old-fashioned VHS). I loved the adventures of Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise as they embarked their five-year mission in the original series, which would later serve as inspirations for my own writing. That being said, after three lackluster spin-offs following The Next Generation, I was hugely excited when I found out that J.J. Abrams of Lost fame was rebooting the franchise. The first film was great, and the sequel…well, in my humble opinion, it blows the first movie out of the water with an enjoyable mixture of action, humor, solid storytelling, and last but not least, plenty of fan service without excluding newcomers. 

The sequel follows Kirk and company amidst a wave of terrorism unleashed against the United Federation of Planets on Earth. The first such incident involves a bomb blast in London, the second a direct attack on a gathering of the top commanders in Starfleet. Both are perpetrated by Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain, who eats up his screen time with a mixture of intellect and savagery (this guy’s going to get an Oscar someday, amongst all the other awards that are sure to be coming down the pike). Kirk and company pursue him and in the process become deeply mired in an intricate web of lies and deceit that leads the crew further and further into…danger. I was going to make the pun but decided not to. 

At any rate, whether you’re a Trek fan or not, you’ll enjoy the movie if you want a good dose of sci-fi action to liven up your evening. Now the wait commences for the third movie, which J.J. Abrams may not be directing because of his commitment to Star Wars. Hopefully they’ll get someone good to keep the Enterprise going boldly where no one’s gone before. 

Reviews of “Liberation Trilogy” Coming Soon

Hey, everyone! I’ve been missing in action for a few weeks because of the end of the semester, which was absolutely crazy. In any case, Rick Atkinson, a former reporter for The Washington Post and a writer of narrative military history, has just published the concluding book in his trilogy focusing on American involvement in World War II, titled The Guns of Last Light. Now that the last book is out, I can read through the whole trilogy without waiting for any further volumes. 

That being said, I’ll pick up all three books in the Liberation Trilogy soon, and I’ll review them on the blog as soon as I’m able. I’m really looking forward to reading these!

Poems Published!

As you no doubt have guessed from the title of this post, I’ve had three poems published in the online literary magazine miller’s pond poetry magazine (yes, it’s all lower-case). Google miller’s pond poetry, then go to issues, then web issues, and underneath the Spring 2013 section, click on a list of poets, and find “Matthew Nichols.” Click and it’ll take you right to my section. Enjoy!

Review: “Gunhand Clive” on the 3DS

I first heard about Gunhand Clive from a review on the website IGN. According to the review, it was a fun, easy-to-play platformer/shooter that was available for the Nintendo 3DS through the Nintendo eShop. I took a chance on it and downloaded it, and I have to say that, while the game itself only took a couple of hours or so for me to get through, it was  a fun two hours. 

I love it when story and narrative are integral in a video game, especially in the case of games like BioShock or Dead Space, but sometimes it’s nice to just play something that doesn’t need a twisting narrative to support it. Gunhand Clive is one of those games, which follows an age-old formula: bad guy steals the girl, good guy goes after her, guy gets the girl after defeating the bad guy. It’s a formula that continues to sell Mario games on varying Nintendo consoles, and the same is the case for Gunhand Clive, although in this case, what you get is a cool Western-themed, hand-drawn aesthetic that carries perils in the form of enemy gunhands, ducks, rabbits, and environmental hazards.

That being said, Gunhand Clive isn’t going to radically change the gaming landscape, but if you own a 3DS and you’re looking for a downloadable game over which you can twiddle your thumbs while waiting for the next big release, then this one’s for you. You won’t be disappointed. 

Review: The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

I’m not much of a science or math person. I’ve always been a strictly English and social sciences kind of guy, but Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer had been on my reading radar for a while due to the excellent reviews it had been getting. I finally checked it out of the library and read it in snatches when I wasn’t working on my paper or my thesis, and what I got was a deftly written, intrinsically navigated examination of cancer and how science and medicine have approached it over the past several hundred years.

Mukherjee is a cancer research specialist at Columbia University Medical Center, which, needless to say, puts him in a unique position to offer a history of cancer that is not just meant for doctors or scientists. Anyone who is not a scientist but carries an interest in science or medicine (like me) can pick this up, read it, and understand what Mukherjee is talking about, since he is able to provide the history as well as the meanings behind the medical jargon.

Considering that the book covers several hundred years of medical history, the undertaking behind the writing and research for this book had to have been monumental, and it shows in the overlapping developments in cancer research seen in the book. In spite of its readability, the book can be a little dense in some parts and hard to wade through, especially if you’re trying to keep track of all the myriad developments that Mukherjee introduces.

Overall, Mukherjee’s book is an excellent survey history of cancer and subsequent developments in medicine and science to battle it. I highly recommend it.