Punk Rock

I was raised on punk rock. My dad & uncle were two of the OG punk rockers, and, since I was born when my dad was only 20, I was pretty much raised on the Ramones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols and Elvis Costello. My dad, like most of his generation, eventually got bored with 3 chords, and got into post-punk like the Smiths, the Cure and the like. Quite naturally, this meant that I got into post-punk. I hate the term "post-punk," and here's why.

I was speaking with a co-worker who, admittedly, knows very little about punk yesterday, and he started talking about what was and wasn't "punk." This was interesting to me, because he fell pretty well on the same lines as people who claim to know very much about punk. Less Than Jake isn't punk because they have horns, Devo isn't punk because they use keytars instead of guitars, and My Chemical Romance isn't punk because they're music is boring and they're on a major label. I agree with MCR being boring, but other than that, I disagree with all those things.

I understood early on that being "punk" meant doing what you want to do, regardless of people's expectations of you. Later on, I found out that "punk" actually meant doing what you want to do as long as all the other punks are doing it too. It was somewhere around this time that I ceased referring to myself as a punk.

People with mohawks, patches all over their pants and upside down American flags on their walls will tell you that punk is a very specific thing. Misfits, Ramones, U.K. Subs, etc., basically bands that only know 3 chords and play very fast. Now, I like all of those bands, and do objectively realize that the Ramones are the greatest band of all time, but they're not my favorite band. In fact, they're not even on my All Time, Desert Island, Top Five of All Time list. They're not even in the Top Ten.

Why? Because three chords only go so far, and the Cure managed to do much more interesting things over the years, all while keeping a punk ethos. Robert Smith does what he wants, when he wants to do it. So does Elvis Costello. So does Mark Mothersbaugh. So does Blake Schwarzenbach. Unfortunately, some closed minded idiots who call themselves "punk" think that their music is not punk (hence the term "post-punk"). But it is.

A recent spin of Devo's Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo! revealed that Devo is more "punk" than most any band the punks would consider punk today. The songs run the gamut from goofy ("Uncontrollable Urge") to serious satire ("Jocko Homo") to a cover of a "classic" rock song that fans of the original would find blasphemous ("Satisfaction"), and that's only on side one. The music is extremely different from most anything else that was going on at the time (kind of like no-wave, but with an actual melody, and kind of like synth-pop, but less vapid). The songs are intellegent and well written and critical of society. Devo is punk rock, in every way except sticking to a boring, tired three chord structure.

If you're going to say "do what you want, be an individual," don't cry poseur when someone isn't the same individual as you. Ultimately, Blake Schwarzenbach said it best; "'You're not punk, and I'm telling everyone.' Save your breath, I never was one."

EGM

I'm sure everyone's heard by now, but Electronic Gaming Monthly, heretofore the last best multi-platform gaming magazine, is no more. I wish I could say that the news was shocking, but really, it's not. It is, however, very sad.

EGM was the first multiplatform gaming magazine I was aware of, as a young man. I read it on and off for the entire time it was published, though I only subscribed to it for the last three or so years. It was always a treat to read, though, in both the Sendai and Ziff-Davis eras, with a cavalcade of insightful features and insider news, rivaled only by Next Generation, which I also subscribed to in its waining days.

As much as I loved many magazines of days gone by (I loved Game Players/Ultra Game Players, as well as the aforementioned Next Gen, and I even read the occasional issue of Diehard Gamefan), there was always something... different about EGM. I think it might've been the fact that, during the Sendai era, the churned out massive tomes on a monthly basis, which could take an entire month to absorb (the largest issue came in somewhere around 400 pages). Whatever it was, there was always something different about EGM that no other mag before or since (and considering the state of print media, will likely ever) captured for me.

In the summer of 2007, I had a chance to see "Trickman" Terry and the most tenured Sushi-X, Ken Williams, talk about their time at EGM. It was amazing for me to actually meet THE Sushi-X. Yeah, he was a kind of chubby white dude, but even after all those years, even at 24, meeting Sushi-X was a big deal to me, not to mention the Trickman, who, unbeknownst to him, helped me and frustrated me to no end (all James Bonds, indeed, Trickman). I mean... they were celebrities to me, even though they just wrote for a magazine.

Now I interact with some (now former) EGM staffers online, and while they don't have the same aura as Sushi-X and Trickman Terry, they're guys who wrote for EGM, the world's foremost multiplatform gaming magazine! I mean, how cool is that?

Ok, this is rambling a bit, basically what I'm saying is that EGM, and print magazines in general, are generational touchstones in a way that, no matter how good they are, 1Up, GameLife and Giant Bomb will never be, and it's sad to see it go. I already miss looking forward to the next big feature, or cover story, or whatever it may be. I can't really think of a good way to end this, so I'm just going to say that I went to my parents' house and dug my old EGMs out of the attic, and I encourage everyone else who has any to do the same. There's a lot of fun to be had looking back through the legacy of the last best gaming magazine.

Visual Storytelling in Wrestling

I hate the JBL/HBK storyline that's going on on Raw right now, but probably not for the reasons you might think. Yes, I'll concede that it's stupid for us, as viewers, to be expected to believe that Shawn Michaels is so broke that his multi-million dollar salary can't sustain him and his family. Yes, it's stupid for us to be expected to believe that JBL is that rich that he can afford to pay Shawn so much more than his already multi-million dollar salary as to make it worth it to him to compromise his principles.

But that's not why I hate the angle.

I hate the angle because aside from two in ring occurences (HBK slaps JBL, thereby getting Rey Mysterio DQ'd from his Fatal Fourway qualifying match, and HBK takes the Clothesline from Hell without defending himself, allowing JBL to win the aforementioned Fatal Fourway), the entire story has been furthered by talking. JBL talks to the crowd, Todd Grisham talks to HBK, HBK talks to the crowd, HHH talks to HBK, Jericho & Orton talk to JBL, JBL talks to HBK, HBK talks to Cena... STOP TALKING!

Much like in my "Visual Storytelling in Videogames" essay, I want to clarify that I do not hate promos and backstage vignettes. Promos have a function, and have since pro-wrestling began, even moreso since pro-wrestling began on TV (which is not long after anything began on TV), but until the late '90s, they were used much more sparingly. The late '90s were the heyday of the promo, featuring editions of both Raw and Nitro that did not have so much as an arm drag until 45 minutes in. Thankfully, those days are over, but there's still some holdover.

Holdover like the HBK/JBL storyline. Now, HBK and JBL are two of the best "stick men" (i.e. guys who cut good promos) in wrestling today. In fact, I would argue that JBL's at his very best when he's cutting a promo, and he could make a great manager when he decides to leave the ring for good, but that doesn't change the fact that having a storyline play out almost exclusively in the realm of the promo is just lazy storytelling.

It was even revealed that HBK was in JBL's employ in a promo. Can you think of a bigger waste? He could've screwed Rey by slapping JBL before anyone knew he was working for him, then explained in a brief promo that he did it to save JBL's title chances because "blah, blah, blah, I'm a broke millionaire."

He could've saved JBL from a beatdown. He could've done something as simple as putting JBL's foot on the rope when he was being pinned during a match, any match, really. What did WWE's brilliant writing staff come up with instead? "Shawn Michaels works for me now."

Wow. That's some riveting television, that is. Nothing like a goof in a cowboy hat telling me he hired another goof in a cowboy hat. Puts me right on the edge of my seat, that does. How come these guys didn't win any Golden Globes tonight?

On the flip side, let's look at the Jake "The Snake" Roberts/"Ravishing" Rick Rude feud of 1988. It starts with a promo, but one with a good hook. Rude hits on a pretty girl, she turns out to be Mrs. "The Snake." Simple, short, to the point, right? Right. Roberts runs out, punches Rude (Action! How novel of a concept!), a bunch of "enhancement talent" runs out and pulls them apart.

Following that incident, Rude gets some tights with Mrs. Snake's face on them, Roberts warns in a very brief promo that he shouldn't do it again, Rude does, Roberts comes to the ring and pulls them off in front of a live audience following a match. The two have a match at Saturday Night's Main Event in October, Roberts wins, starts a feud with Andre the Giant.

Now, of course, that's a simplification of the events of that feud, but a simplification of this one would read "JBL and HBK talk about HBK working for JBL. HBK slaps JBL, then takes a dive to him in a Fatal Fourway for a title match at the Royal Rumble."

The point is that visual storytelling is not the difficult, especially in a media that are so given to it in the first place. Aural storytelling is not effective in wrestling, it never has been, and it never will be. The crowds are too big and putting lapel mics on the wrestlers would be impossible unless they all dressed like Rick Martel (yes, he is a model).

Wrestling is pure visual storytelling. A great match will always be a great match, regardless of context, because the two (or four or six or sometimes ten) guys in the ring will tell it. A great promo, though? Well, no matter how great it is, without context, you won't know what the guy is talking about, even if he sounds good doing it.

God Hand, et al

All gamers have what is known in the current vernacular as a "Pile of Shame." It's a stack of games, typically ones you own, that you have not yet played to completion, despite critical and/or audience acclaim. For the past two years, one game stood shining atop my Pile of Shame: God Hand.

Clover Studios' saved their best for last with their swan song, God Hand. God Hand puts you in the shoes of Gene, a drifter who, following an attack by some thugs, loses his right arm and awakens to find it replaced with the legendary God Hand. Trust me, it sounds a lot more serious than it actually is. The game is rife with slapstick humor, and this humor only serves to make the game that much better.

Having finally completed it, I can say that it is arguably the best beat-'em-up ever. This is because it's a beat-'em-up that manages to avoid the thing that made the genre stale in the first place. God Hand is not a button masher. In fact, button mashing in God Hand is the best way to get killed. Gene can't block, and as a result, using all the techniques at your disposal (of which there are far more than any other beat-'em-up I can think of), along with your dodge ability, is a requirement to survive past the first boss.

However, there's something about this game that's elusive... It's similar to No More Heroes (which I felt was easily the best Wii game of '08), and, I suspect the forthcoming Mad World, but in ways that're difficult to describe. They're action games, sure, but there's something about them that makes them different from Devil May Cry or Gears of War (which are quite different from each other). God Hand and its ilk seem to take delight in simply being videogames. They are straightforward, with little story, and a massive emphasis on fun vis-a-vis the satisfaction of defeating your enemies.

To wit; killing enemies in God Hand is as satisfying as it is in any game I've ever played. Compare it to, say, Contra, one of the kings of 2D action. In Contra, killing is the main action, but is it satisfying? Not unless it's a boss fight, and even then, the act of killing isn't so much satisfying as the idea that you've survived another stage. God Hand, on the other hand, makes every adversary, from the lowest peon to the final boss, a delight to dispatch.

The fun in these games is not a function of progressing the story, admiring the graphics, or exploring the world. No, the fun in these games is in defeating your foes in the most over-the-top, painful, brutal fashion possible. A secondary enjoyment comes from upgrading your character, but that's only because it serves to make the aforementioned killing that much more enjoyable.

This article is not meant to point out how underrated these games are, because I don't think they are. I understand why God Hand has a 73 aggregate at Metacritic. The graphics don't impress, the controls could certainly be a stumbling block for many, and the game is hard. God Hand, et al appeal to a very particular audience. The same audience that loves bad kung-fu movies. The same audience that loves The Dead Milkmen's music. That is the audience for God Hand. And I am a proud member of that audience. I can only hope that Mad World is half as good as God Hand.

Visual Storytelling in Videogames: A Meditation

I do not like having things spelled out for me in my media. I feel it's the author/creator's way of talking down to me. Anytime I watch/play anything that has to stop the action so there can be a big, long, talky part, it just rubs me the wrong way. Recently, there have been a couple of pieces of media that have done this, and I'm not all that happy about it. This is going to be a series of blogs, in which I'll address the items one at a time, so keep your interweb pointed to this space in the future, if what I write amuses/interests you.

In videogames, visual storytelling is something that used to be an absolute requirement. There was not enough memory in game media of old to cram in fully voice-acted, beautifully rendered cut-scenes. Hell, there was barely enough room for still images and crawling text. Ms. Pac-Man showed the relationship between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man in a series of brief scenes between mazes, using in game assets (except the stork). Mega Man 2 explained the entire game with a brief spot of text and the use of a background image with a building in the foreground.

Well, that's all changed in the modern era. Most games rely on lengthy cut-scenes and dialogue to explain what's going on to the player. I'll pick one almost at random... Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Now, before any fanboys go getting their panties in a twist, let me say that I loved MGS4. It was one of my Top 5 Games this year, and as soon as I finished it, I started up a New Game+. That being said, the 2nd playthrough was much more enjoyable. Why? Because I didn't have to sit through 7 hours of cut-scenes and dialogue. I knew where I was going and what I was supposed to do, and that allowed the gameplay to shine through.

For anyone who hasn't played MGS4 yet, it does a good job of wrapping up pretty much all of the loose ends in the series thus far. It plays out wonderfully, and the ending is satisfying. The gameplay is great, and the first three chapters used a lot of innovative gameplay mechanics that hadn't really been explored much in videogames until that point (following the guy through the streets of the "European city" was both tense and interesting).

However, the whole experience is muddled by the fact that every ten steps, there's a cut-scene. Why do there need to be so many cut-scenes? Would it not be enough to put some more visual cues in the levels themselves? Maybe some walking codec conversations? Something that doesn't completely disrupt the gameplay?

I understand that MGS4 is an extreme example, being that it's the last in a series of admittedly confusing games, but that doesn't excuse the fact that a 6 hour playthrough is not difficult on a 2nd time around, when the first time takes 15-ish hours. Now, of course, you'll be continuing less and getting stuck less, but the thing that cuts the most time is SKIPPING THE CUT-SCENES. The cut-scenes, which, while pretty are very dialogue driven and for the most part, have little action (which is for the best, because I really hate being shown something cool withoug being able to actually do it while playing).

Cut-scenes have their place, it's just not a place in front of gameplay. The cut-scenes in No More Heroes were excellent, and made me laugh almost all of the time. They added to the experience, and watching them wasn't a chore, as in MGS4.

Now, on the other hand, there's a recent game that does an absolutely brilliant job of telling the story with no cut-scenes outside of the opening movie. That game is Valve's latest; Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead is admittedly light on story (there are zombies, kill/get away from them), but what story there is is fully realized through in game dialogue (I particularly love the conversation with the guy in the church during Death Toll) and visual cues.

If you look closely, there is an entire world that is fully realized in brilliant detail in Left 4 Dead. The graffitti in the safe rooms tells the stories of those here before you, corpses covered with sheets tell of those who didn't survive whose friends didn't just want to leave their bodies to the elements, but couldn't take the corpses with them. It's all around. You just have to look for it, and that's part of what made Left 4 Dead such a brilliant experience. Valve proves that visual storytelling still can exist in games, the creators just need to sit and think.

Koslov's Headbutt (or Striking Moves as Finishers in Pro Wrestling)

I have a lot of issues with pro-wrestling today (starting with the fact that almost no one calls it "pro-wrestling" anymore), but the biggest one, the absolute biggest one right now, is Koslov's headbutt. Yeah, I know, seems silly, but let's dissect this for a minute.

Koslov wrestles a guy for anywhere from 2-15 minutes, and at the end of it, he headbutts the guy in the chest and pins him. They call it "The Battering Ram." Why does this work? Ok, bare with me here, but I'm going somewhere with this. Let's take Umaga. Not the greatest performer ever, but miles better than Koslov. Now, we all know that wrestling's internal logic dictates that Samoans have incredibly hard heads (except the Rock, but he must've gotten the recessive "less hard head" gene because he's not full-blooded Samoan), and if he headbutts someone IN THE HEAD, they still don't go down for a three-count.

At what point does a headbutt, ahem, sorry, Battering Ram to the chest outclass and outdamage all the big slams and suplexes this "Sambo Champion" has been dealing out the entire match? And if his head is that hard, why does getting rammed into the turnbuckle faze him at all? Hell, why does getting punched in the head, or even getting hit with a folding chair faze this concrete-skulled monster? I mean, several of the biggest stars in WWE are getting dropped by a HEADBUTT TO THE CHEST.

And this isn't the first time something like this has happened, either. Oh, no. Exhibit A: "Hands of Stone" Ronnie Garvin. Ronnie Garvin, whose work I've never much cared for, used The Knockout Punch as his finisher during his NWA days. The Knockout Punch? So, what, exactly, differentiates "a punch" from "The Knockout Punch"? The only thing I can see is that one comes at the end of a match, the other comes every other second in Garvin's matches.

If Ronnie Garvin can K.O. a guy with a single punch, why doesn't the guy go down the first time he's punched in the head by Garvin? Why aren't ALL of his punches Knockout Punches? And even if there's something different about this supposed Knockout Punch, why does he have to wait until he's exhausted and beat up to use it? Wouldn't he be more likely to hit a good shot right at the beginning of the match? As you can see, this punch leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

You know what's really sad, though? It gets worse with Garvin. Oh, yeah, when he came to the WWF they gave him a new, yet somehow even dumber finisher. The Garvin Stomp. You read that right; The Garvin Stomp. This is where Garvin would systematically stomp on every extremity of this opponent, both arms, both legs, and, finally, their head. It's horrible. If your opponent will lay still long enough for you to walk around him and step on every part of them, wouldn't you just be able to pin them? Moreover, why wouldn't every other stomp cripple them? It's not as if Garvin didn't stomp at all throughout the match before the finish.

Yes, Randy Orton uses this same move now. They call it "The Orton Stomp," but it'll always be The Garvin Stomp, no matter how many good performers actually opt to use it. The differences with Orton are 1) he doesn't use it as a finisher and 2) he actually drops a knee on his opponent's face at the end. I mean, this doesn't save it from being the dumbest move in Orton's arsenal, and making me question if he really is one of the five best performers out there today, but it does make it less painful to watch.

Exhibit B: Johnny B. Badd. Yes, during Marc Mero's tenure with WCW, his finisher was The Tutti Frutti Left Hook. Now, this actually kind of makes sense, as Mero is an ex-boxer, however, he did exactly what Garvin did and punched from the opening bell. Shouldn't all of his punches have much more power than the average wrestler? Shouldn't any non-jab from Mero send his opponent reeling? Yes, yes it should, but it didn't.

Exhibit C: "Big" John Studd. John Studd was one of the best big men in the history of pro-wrestling, but his finisher... well, it was one of the worst. The Heart Punch saw Studd put his opponent in the turnbuckle and punch them in the chest. This supposedly caused some sort of borderline apoplexy, and allowed Studd to make the pin. The only problem is, if he's strong enough that his punches cause minor heart attacks, if directed at the head, as they were throughout matches, shouldn't they also cause the loss of both teeth and conciousness? I'm inclined to say yes. You've probably guessed by now that they didn't.

Now, I'm sure some people are thinking "but, Joe, what about the Superkick (a.k.a. Sweet Chin Music)? What about Kofi Kingston's Jamaican Buzzsaw? What about 'Bad News' Brown's Ghetto Blaster?"

To those people I say the following: those moves are all very specific kicks that require a very specific setup and have a very specific target, i.e. the head. In general in the wrestling business, kicks to the head are portrayed as very damaging, even when they're not finishing moves. You won't EVER see Shawn Michaels kick someone in the head during the course of a match prior to the finish. Brown's Ghetto Blaster was a leaping kick to the back of the head, and you wouldn't see anything like that in any of his matches prior to the finish.

So, back to Koslov and his headbutt. Are we really expected to believe that this headbutt is as devastating as The Pedigree or Tombstone Piledriver or legdrop? Well... ok, forget about that last one, but the answer, apparently, is yes, we are expected to believe it. And tonight, at Judgment Day, there's a good chance Koslov is going to beat Matt Hardy, someone who's been with the company for nearly a decade (with only a brief absence for that RoH thing, but I'm not entirely convinced that wasn't planned to further the Edge feud anyways) with a headbutt. Matt Hardy deserves better than that, and so does the WWE audience. Taz used a suplex as a finisher during his ECW days. Shelton Benjamin uses one now. Koslov's a "Sambo Champion," so why can't they just give him a devastating suplex (belly-to-belly off the top rope, perhaps?) as a finish, and stop making their top guys look like weaklings for getting pinned on a headbutt to the chest?

2008: The Year Downloadable Games Broke

If you're into alternative music, you probably already know that 1991 is generally considered to be "The Year Punk Broke," due in large part to a documentary of the same title that came out the following year. What that implies is that '91 was the year that punk rock not only changed internally (basically going from Sex Pistols/Ramones-style hard and fast to Nirvana-style hard and less fast, time has shown that "grunge" is a label that simply wouldn't stick, and with numerous good reasons), but also broke into the mainstream, and ran hair metal out of the proverbial town on the proverbial rail. 2008 seemed to me to be downloadable gaming's equivalent, which is not to say that games on PSN, XBLA or WiiWare bested the giant that is The November Rush (especially not WiiWare), but they made a big dent, and many downloadable titles are appearing on "Best of" lists for 2008.

The fact is that games like Braid, Castle Crashers, and, of course, Mega Man 9 showed that a game does not need to have a massive budget to turn a massive profit. All things are relative, of course, but if your metric is a cost to earnings ratio, games like Bionic Commando: ReArmed made way more money than most AAA retail titles. ReArmed sold over 130,000 downloads in its first week. Peanuts compared to Gears of War 2, to be sure, but compared to nearly any downloadable console game prior to 2008, that's selling like gangbusters. It's also more than No More Heroes sold in its first week, which, while a niche title, sold enough to secure a sequel.

There's also the matter of gameplay. Downloadable games have significantly less overhead cost (no printed manual, no plastic case, no shipping, etc.), and, therefore, the designers and publishers stand to lose a lot less if a game tanks, so they can take chances. They can make games with new ideas, or they can make games that are designed to make you believe they were actually made 20 years ago. The latter, of course, seemed to work out very well for Capcom.

In fact, downloadable titles in general seemed to work out very well for Capcom. Two of the games on my personal Best of 2008 list were downloadable titles from Capcom (Mega Man 9 & Bionic Commando: ReArmed). Capcom seems to be the first big developer/publisher to realize just how much money they can make, and great games they can release (not to mention nostalgia they can stripmine) using download services. This year, Capcom released more downloadable titles than any other 3rd party publisher (not even counting their real retro releases on the Wii's Virtual Console). In fact, Sony has given them their own storefront on the Playstation Network because of it.

2008 was a paradigm shift. I'm not saying that 2009 is going to see more downloadable game sales that retail sales. I'm not even saying that 2010 or 2012 will see that, but I think things are going to be a lot different in the next generation of consoles, and gaming historians will point to 2008 as the initial tipping point, but for now, I'm just glad that both retro games and retro styled games have a good, safe means of distribution, because, hey, I'll admit that side-scrolling action games are my favorite genre of all time.

-Joe