Bayonetta AKA My Brain Melted And Slipped Out My Ear

Let me first announce that the only reason I even looked at this game was because two of my friends kept posting about it on Twitter, and I was so amused by the things they were saying that I had to pick it up. Then I lucked out with a 3 for 2 sale at GameStop, so I chose that one as my freebie. The best time to try new things is when they’re free.

Secondly, I feel I have to note that I have no problem whatsoever with large breasted, scantily clad women in video games. I do not feel it demeans women, I don’t think it’s an insult to them, I don’t feel like it needs to be stopped, it just doesn’t bother me. I think a few people might have mistaken what I was saying for this issue when I was talking about it as I was playing it. No, that is not my issue. Nor do I take issue with the fact that this is the creator’s idea of a perfect woman. Whatever. At least he’s honest.

The game was fun. I’m not going to deny that. I enjoyed playing it and got through it pretty quickly. Maybe it just felt that way because I’d just sunk so much time into Dragon Age II and Fallout 3 before that. The controls were easy to figure out, the special moves were easy to execute. Plus, the bad guys are the angels (good guys), I was into that a lot. The only time I got frustrated or bored was when you have to ride the motorcycle over the seemingly endless highway.

Okay, so the fact that the guy doesn’t seem to know what the word “epilogue” means, and the endless pole dance dance party at the end also bugged me, but only while they were happening.

I’ve stated that I have no problem with Bayonetta being this guy’s perfect woman. It’s a half truth. The way she looks? Okay. But… from what I’ve taken from the game is that this guy wants a busty woman with glasses who dances like a cracked out newbie stripper from the 70′s and wears her OWN FUCKING HAIR AS CLOTHING.

Pick up on the weird part, did you?

Let’s strip this down to the basics, shall we? Guns on her shoes? Cool, I can dig that, I might even wear a pair if I could get my hands on them. The way she stands might be physically painful for any human woman, but since Bayonetta is a witch, she clearly uses magic to keep her spine from snapping. She could use a few lessons in how to shake her booty in a sensual way, but the comedy of it was sort of great. She obviously has an oral fixation, and probably a few cavities. Bayonetta is also so over sexualized that she probably orgasms when she walks, taking down everyone in a 5 mile radius with her moans.

Subtracting everything mentioned here, there’s one thing that sticks out and I really cannot get my head around.

Why. WHY? Why have her wear her own hair? To have those mostly naked cut scenes? There had to be a better way. I refuse to believe that this guy lays awake at night, fantasizing about a girl wearing her own hair instead of regular clothing. There’s a lot of weird shit out there in the world, and I just won’t stand for this one.

Bravo, Creator Guy, for knowing what your ultimate female would look like and getting to make a whole game revolving around her. But please, let’s not ramp up our next wardrobe choice to gluing chickens over naughty bits. I just… can’t.

Wit’ch Storm

Sigh.

Alright.

I don’t remember the first one being this grammatically bad. There was a reiteration of my hate toward apostrophes being placed into words that didn’t need them, which seemed to me to be more rampant in this book than in the other one. But it could just be that the story in this book wasn’t as engaging or entertaining as it was in the first one. There was nothing there to take my attention away.

Actually, there was a lot to hate about this book that has nothing to do with characters or story. Like the fact that it seems as if this man has never been introduced to a thesaurus. Not once. In his whole life. I’m willing to bet, in fact, that he wouldn’t know what a synonym was if I beat him over the head with it until he was unconscious.

Every goddamned paragraph was so tragically repetitive. Once he found a word he liked to describe what was going on, he never strayed from it. This is how elementary school kids write. This is not how grown men with a book series write.

Where I was interested in what happened to everyone in Wit’ch Fire and was anxious to get the next novel to keep on with the story, in Wit’ch Storm the story was flat. The characters somehow lost all of their life. The new characters that were brought in did nothing to enrich the tale, the new information heralded no excitement. The battles felt more like hissy fits.

I am lost as to how this took such a nose dive. It’s as if the first book is sitting on a nice plateau and this one just fell right over the edge of the cliff. Maybe the first book nudged it.

I have no idea if I can bring myself to read any of the following books in this series. I haven’t a single nagging urge to find out where things go next. I don’t even care that I’m potentially quitting in the middle of all of it, not even my OCD can be bullied into giving a shit. It’s just as willing as I am to give up now and call it good. It’s a sad day when not even my OCD can prod me into finishing something.

New new new

Thanks to a friend, I have the newest Koontz book waiting for me to read it.

Unfortunately, it has to wait until I’ve finished Wit’ch Storm. Which I’m kind of wishing I’d waited to read until I could dig up the first one to re-read because I sort of forgot what’s going on.

But I can’t stop now.

It’s the OCD, you see.

Kameo

Let me tell you a little bit about my history with Kameo. It needs to be said, or I don’t think it’ll make much sense, my feelings about this game. My inability to truly feel much about what’s going on.

Once upon a time, I decided to try GameFly. I thought that it might be a good idea, renting games, getting to see what I might like and what I might hate without paying for a whole game. In theory, it’s brilliant. I suspect that for most people out there, it’s a wonderful tool. For me? Utter failure. Complete waste of time. Even though I didn’t pay anything at all for my two week trial with them, I feel like I wasted a lot of effort.

I tried games that I thought I might like, and when I did like them, I went out and bought them anyway. With my track record of games I like when I buy them VS games I hate, there’s not a lot of risk there. I could see where it would be risky for people who just pick up every game they see and give it a try. GameFly would be great for them. So you can see, effort wasted. Time wasted.

One of the games that I tried with GameFly was Kameo. I did like it pretty goddamned quickly, and it also happened to be at the very end of my trial. So I sent it back, went to the store with the intent to buy it and promptly saw something shinier. I can’t tell you now what it was, just that I had to have it more than I had to have Kameo.

Months later, I was back in the store, and lo – Kameo. Cheaply. So I picked it up. Why not? I’d had fun the first time, though I hadn’t gotten very far at all. I took it home and put it directly into my machine, happy as a clam.

And I shit you not, the next day something came out that would once again eclipse my playing of Kameo. And once again, I cannot tell you what that thing was, just that it was bigger and bolder, and called to me so deeply that I ignored the small cries of this newly bought game as I pried the disk out of the tray and shoved it back into it’s case, then onto the shelf. I should note here that I got exactly as far through the game as I had the first time.

A year later. Kameo again. Again it is usurped.

Forgotten in the stacks of games to play, I finally came upon it this year in my quest to finish every half touched game that I owned. I decided that now was the time to let this game shine. Now was the moment. I placed it where it needed to go and sat my ass down on the couch, ready. I restarted my game, because by this time, I had no memory of what I’d learned – however little – and what had happened in the story.

After about a half hour, I realized that I hadn’t gotten very far at all and caught up to where I recalled leaving off very quickly. Kind of sad, really, given all the efforts I’d gone to previously (*cough*). It also occurred to me that not once in my former tries had I ever gotten further than this into the game. Always, something more had come forward and taken my attentions away. For a few hours, I played with fear and trepidation. What if something fantastic were to fall into my lap as I held the controller in my hand? What if it demanded to be played instantly and once again Kameo was thrown to the wayside?

And then I got over it, because I realized I am my own downfall, and if I didn’t go seeking new shiny games, they would not appear.

It didn’t take me long to get through this game. And I did have fun with it. But I just have this kind of apathy going on about it. I don’t care that I played it, really. I guess I’m glad I did, it’s done with, it’s not on my shelf anymore. It’s not waiting for me and mocking me every time I walk by. But I have no sense of satisfaction. I have no feeling of accomplishment. I didn’t put down my controller and think to myself “Holy shit, that was a good game” and I didn’t by any means desire to play it again. It wasn’t a bad game, it really wasn’t. Plus, I am an avid, nearly insanely so, replayer, thus my lack of desire to go through again was and is surprising and confusing.

I don’t know where this feeling – or lack thereof – comes from. Is it because I just let it sit for too long? Is it that I tried too many times to get into this game and it never happened, thus leaving me with an empty hole where my enjoyment should be? I don’t know. I just don’t.

I have passed this game on, a thing I don’t really do, as I like to keep them around so I can play them again at a later date. But I know that I will not ever pick up Kameo again. I won’t ever give it another go round. PLEASE. SOMEBODY EXPLAIN THIS. My world is upside down (I’ll get over it).

Dragon Age: Classes

I’ve played two games of Dragon Age thus far. One as a rogue, the other a warrior. I think the stories would have differed greatly even if my two characters hadn’t been so vastly different (My rogue was a female elf, my warrior a male noble). Just because between the casts the abilities and how people respond to you are so vastly set apart.

I sort of hated not being a rogue. The fact that you ALWAYS then have to cart around either a whiny chantry cunt or a horny assassin elf is a little annoying. (Can you tell my characters aren’t exactly nice?). They both disapprove of so many things I wanted to do, of course, Zevran disapproved of less. Thus, I attached him to my team at all times. I hated not being able to pick my own locks, or guile my way through things. Obnoxious. Always having to switch characters to open a chest or deactivate traps, obnoxious.

On the other hand, I didn’t use nearly as many health poultices as I did when I was a rogue. So by the end, I had stacked up well over a hundred, without ever once having to buy one. I had so many injury kits that I really just didn’t know what to do with them. As a warrior, I was such a powerhouse that nobody even had a chance to get hurt. Plus, as a warrior noble, I was apparently a chick magnet. Not only did I bed Morrigan long before everything I read said it was even possible, but I had the ability to bat my manly eyelashes and lure any unsuspecting female into my tent. Who KNEW there were so many NPCs you could make out with in this game?

My problem with both of the characters I have already played is that neither of them could bed Leliana. She just wasn’t interested in them. Considering they were both quite attractive, I’m leaning toward ‘She just doesn’t dig evil’. Well, I’ll show her, won’t I? I’ll be nice with my next character. Yes sir, I will. Then we’ll play Bag The Bard, and see who ends up in bed with who.

Heavy Metal

Sometimes you can’t go back, and sometimes, even if you can, you shouldn’t. You should just hold in your memory the way things were way back when. There should be no attempt to reclaim youth, or fond memories.

Becomes sometimes those memories fall short.

If I ever needed a clear example of that, I could find it easily in Heavy Metal. Some things can stand the test of time, others make you wonder what the hell you were thinking. Heavy Metal kind of makes me sad to have watched it again. When I was younger, I remember I thought this was one of the best things I’d ever seen. I even remember the magazine of the same name.

I have to believe, now that I’m significantly older than the last time I saw this, that the entire purpose to the movie – and magazine – was the boobs. Perhaps the violence, too. Back then, this must have been one of the goriest things ever. Outside of those two things? I suppose the art is okay, despite some of the characters being ridiculously misproportioned. Funny enough, it’s not just the women. At the start there’s this guy running around with a torso twice as big as the rest of his body.

The last chick in the whole story, the so-called badass? She seems to be less of a badass and more of the “ideal woman”. She’s strong. She’s got HUGE breasts. Long flowing hair. She got make-up tips from The Misfits (oh, not the real life band, the all girl band from Jem). She’s dangerous. Also? She never says a single word! That’s right boys, everything you’ve ever wanted in a girl. Can kick your ass, but can’t tell anybody about it. For some unknown reason.

Really, should have left this one in the past. Where it belongs. So destroyed what was once a nice childhood memory. Take my advice, and leave it the hell alone.

Also – extra slow motion in cartoons is ridiculous. It just leaves things feeling sluggish.

Prince Caspian

A million and a half years ago, I read the Chronicles of Narnia. I’ve only read the set twice, and both before the 8th grade. I remember the most about the first book, because there’s also an animate version of it that I used to watch frequently.

When the first of the modern movies came out, I entertained a re-reading. Now I’m thinking about it again. To fill in the bits I’m sure didn’t make it into the films.

As it stands, this movie is brilliantly stunning. Beautiful to look at the whole way through. It was easy to become involved and lose myself in it because of how fantastic the visuals were, and how well done the story was. Some of the scenes literally gave me goosebumps.

And. And. There’s nothing like a great big Root For The Underdog ballte to get the heart pumping. Boy does this flick have one of those.

Then you add on top of that trees that move like octopus and I have to declare this movie a winner.

The one thing I’m confused about is why the soldiers would jump into the river when the river itself has become the Giant God Of Watery People Soup? Seems to me like one should flee for dry land in the face of that.

Eddie Izzard popping up as a mouse was a very extra special touch.

Wit’ch Fire – Finished

Sometimes, all it takes is a good little rant to push aside the little tiny things that annoy you so that you can become entranced with a story. Luckily, that’s all I needed with Wit’ch Fire.

I’m still bothered by the apostrophes in the common words, but not as much as I was. It didn’t halt my progress as badly, and once the story really got flowing, I hardly noticed.

I actually ended up liking the story enough to put the other books on my to-buy-used reading list. Hopefully they can keep my attention as much as this one eventually did, so that I don’t have to come back here and reiterate my loathing of certain things.

And just for your information: It’s always good to read a non-fantasy between fantasy series. Otherwise your brain will try to uproot information from the other books and try to implant them in the current ones.

Or that could just be me.

Wit’ch Fire – Page 68

I can’t really wait until I’m finished reading this book to talk about this bit that’s bothering me already about it. If I don’t talk about it, then I’ll keep focusing on it, and I won’t be able to finish this without winding up absolutely insane.

So far the story is pretty cool, the writing is not bad. The issue at hand is the copious use of the apostrophe.

Now, this is a fantasy book. I’m well aware of that. And in fantasy books, we have the use of the apostrophe in ways that the English language just isn’t used to. That’s all fine well and good, when you’re naming places and people, and making up entirely new words.

But…

How to say this without sounding like a complete bitch…

When you’ve got words like witch and you turn it into wit’ch, or ogre and you turn it into og’re, I really think you’re just outright abusing the poetic license thing. It’s not necessary. In fact, it’s really quite distracting. Every time I stumble upon the word, it slows me down some. I can be trotting along in a good pace with this book and then BLAM. WIT’CH. Completely derails me and I can’t stop thinking about how annoying putting the apostrophe into normal English words is.

It also reeks of pretentious mindset, a bit. It’s like, now that the author has thrown an apostrophe into it, the word is that much more special.

Feel free to arbitrarily throw dashes and extra vowels into your names and whatnot, give it a good couple of apostrophes while you’re at it. But, seriously, you don’t need to spice up normal words.

But, serio’usly, you don’t need to sp’ice up norm’al words.
Yeah, see?
Now I just look like a dick.

The Black Jewels Trilogy

I picked up this set because 1. A friend of mine said that she liked it a lot, and I trust her choices in most books and 2. They were a dollar per book.

Anne Bishop isn’t the best writer out there, but neither is she the worst. She manages to avoid the purple prose for the most part, though when she does hit it – she hits hard. There were times that I also thought she could use a thesaurus. She tended to use the exact same phrasing for certain characters’ attributes.

Now, admittedly, 1200 pages is a lot to get through in under a week, but I’ve been sick with the Swine Flu, so I had plenty of time just laying around and not doing much of anything, so I got some reading in (after, of course, I could see and think clearly).

It took me a little bit of time to reconcile certain aspects of the story. Made a little more wobbly due to a few of the place/people names. She doesn’t tell you right off the bat what the three realms ARE, but what their names are. At first it’s a little confusing, until you understand that there are three levels of this world, and that people can travel between them.

Everything else she explained pretty okay, or just gave an out and out list at the front of the book to make it easier.

I think this was a really good set to read while I was sick. Nothing too serious, but it wasn’t a nonsensical one-time-read, either. This will probably go in my own personal set of books under “Easy reads” things to settle down with when I just want to fall into a world for a while, or get stuck inside with nothing new to read. But I have to make it clear that it’s not really fluff reading. Not to normal standards, anyway. It’s pretty freaking in depth and involved, not to mention that relationships and the hierarchy can get complicated, fast.

There are things that I wanted to see more of, but they didn’t take away from the book in not being there. They’re just things that I as a reader like more exploration of. Like the animals. The history of the Blood. The dragons. Oh, I would have loved to see much more of the dragons. And maybe more on the individual races.

Actually, I could be happy with a fourth book to give it a good rounded out, dedicated end.

The up in the air -you-guess-how-happy-they-are-from-here whatnot just irks me sometimes. Not for any reason beyond the fact that if I want more, I want more. If I find myself happy with the way that a book ends, or don’t particularly care or think more is possible, I find no anger with those types of endings. But if it’s something I think could go on, and still be really good in doing so, I’ll bitch.

These are definitely fantasy books. No doubt about it. If you’re not a fan of the fantasy, these books are not for you. Otherwise, I’d say go for it.