Book Review: Masters of Doom

As I said in one of my more recent posts, I'm trying to squeeze out as much reading time as possible as my final days of summer slowly pass me by. And if I read anything that I deem cool and/or awesome, then I'm obligated to write about it here for posterity's sake. So without further ado, here ya go:

Masters of Doom:
Masters of Doom (published in 2003) is about the creative partnership of John Carmack and John Romero, the duo that would play a major role in creating such computer game landmarks as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. While the book is a work of journalism, it is written like a novel with lots of dialogue, scenes, and lots of emphasis placed on characters. Stylistically it almost resembles a geeky version of Ron Suskind's A Hope in the Unseen. This emphasis on character is what makes the book so compelling and readable. I was never a big PC gamer myself and hadn't played the majority of the games mentioned in the book, but thanks to Masters of Doom's compelling character descriptions and brisk pacing, my disinterest in PC gaming was irrelevant to my enjoyment of the story.

The story of Masters of Doom is a typical American rags to riches fable with a modern tech geek twist. Both Johns emerge from their traumatic teen years ready to take the young computer game industry by storm. They pay their dues working up the ranks and eventually start their own game company. Their success accentuates their personality differences. Carmack's an introverted and brilliant programmer, whereas Romero is an extroverted video game celeb. These personalities eventually drive their friendship apart and push each in different personal directions. As I said, it's a classic American myth that trots out all of our culture's favorite cliches and archetypes (the kids who came from nothing and made something of themselves, the loneliness of fame, the eccentric young creatives, etc.) Far from making the story dull, these familiar plot points lend the story a timeless, mythic quality. Despite being published almost ten years ago, this book felt fresh and relevant to me as I read it.

Masters of Doom is also valuable for its behind the scenes info on the electronic gaming industry. I might of never been a big PC gamer, but I was all about video games back in the day, and thus I enjoyed reading about the behind the scenes workings of the industry. It's also pretty cool to read something that sheds light on the personalities creating the games. Compared to pop singers, Hollywood directors, or even bestselling authors, most game designers are relatively obscure. Thus it's interesting to read something that illuminates who makes these games and explores what makes them tick. You'll also absorb a mass of video game history as you read. While Masters of Doom is not a video game history book, gaming history provides the background to the main story and it is inevitable that the reader will pick up some trivia as he or she progresses through the story.

For gamers and geeks, Masters of Doom is a supremely entertaining read. If the subject matter speaks to you I recommend you pick it up.

Bill Gates Kills on Youtube

So I'm reading this book called Masters of Doom. It's basically about the rise and fall of the creative partnership between John Carmack and John Romero, the guys behind such computer game hits as Doom and Quake. It's pretty entertaining. I'll write a post about it later, of course, but for now I bring it up only because it pointed me in the direction of an awesome video. And I only bring the video up here and now because I know I won't have space for it later when I write my post on Masters of Doom.

The video in question (click here to watch it) is a short advertisement which was created for and screened at a Halloween party at Microsoft in 1995. As is detailed in the aforementioned book, Microsoft saw how much money computer games were raking in and wanted to grab a piece of the gaming pie. This video was created in an attempt to brand Microsoft as a viable and attractive platform for gaming.

That's the explanation as to why this vid exists. To watch it now though, on Youtube, makes for some true hilarity. From the video's corny Tron-like premise (Bill Gates running through the world of Doom...inside the game) to the terrible, wooden line delivery, this ancient piece of advertising should be unwatchable to modern eyes. But instead it's pretty awesome. How can you not love the pure surreality of Bill Gates selling his company whilst clutching a shotgun? How about the wonderfully gruesome title that starts off the video ("Microsoft: Who Do You Want to Execute Today?") And of course you can't forget about Bill exacting sweet vengeance on the video game character who dares to interrupt his speech!

Videos like this are the reason I love Youtube. I see the site as an awesomely expansive museum filled with the audio and video of our culture's past and present. And the weird, forgotten, or simply strange cultural images are the ones I gravitate toward the most.

Three Reasons Why Madonna Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

So a few days ago I was thinking about Zombieland. I don't know why, but I was. If you've never seen Zombieland there's a moment in the movie where Bill Murray shows up playing himself. He's survived the zombie apocalypse and is living in his mansion, relatively safe from the threat of the undead. This got me thinking about how the average celeb would fare in the event of a zombie apocalypse. On one hand, they've got plenty of resources and connections, but on the other hand they can be a bit pampered and soft. Of course any given celebrity's odds of surviving a zombie uprising would depend on their individual characteristics. Bear Grylls is significantly more equipped to deal with such a scenario than Ke$ha, for example. I had all this stuff running through the back of my head while I was reading my friend El Lobo's Madonna-heavy blog, which made me ask the question, "How would Madonna do in the event of a zombie apocalypse?" Well, I've done some thinking on the issue and I think that, given her disposition and attitude, Madonna could emerge victorious over her undead foes. Here are three concrete reasons why:

1. She is in prime zombie fighting shape
As she informed us via a rap in her song "American Life", Madonna is fond of doing yoga and Pilates in rooms filled with "hotties". While it is doubtful that there will be many hotties left alive come the zombie apocalypse, Madonna's training regimen should prepare her for life in a more hostile world. Plus, look at those arms. She's got zombie killing arms, my friends. With her special yoga training and muscle bound physique, one could picture Madonna engaging a horde of zombies in hand-to-hand combat, similar to the kung-fu priest in Dead Alive.

2. She has a strong personality
Don't get me wrong, strong and forceful personalities can sometimes be a detriment in situations like this. You push too many people around and sometimes they'll push back. So while I'll concede that Madonna's strong personality could lead to conflict in a zombie infested world, such a personality certainly has its advantages. Check out this classic Youtube video. See how she immediately starts barking out demands? That's totally a perfect demeanor for a leader of a group in a crisis situation to have. It may not be diplomatic, but you can't argue that such tactics get people moving and get stuff done. When Madonna demands that you find her a zombie killing shotgun, you do what she says because, well, who else are you going to turn to? Everybody else is a walking corpse at this point so you really have no other options.

3. She has the power of music!
If the Japanese movie Wild Zero taught us anything, it's that the power of rock 'n roll can be incredibly effective against a shambling horde of undead. And while Madonna's poppy dance songs may be a far cry from the distorted guitars of Wild Zero's Guitar Wolf, she's still got a musical soul nonetheless. They say that music soothes the savage beast, so perhaps Madonna's voice is really all that's needed to turn zombies away from human flesh.

Book Reviews: Arcade Mania and A Violent Professional

Since I just hit my summer break for college a few days ago, I was excited to have some free time on my hands to read whatever I wanted to. Yeah you read a lot in college, but it's not necessarily stuff you're fascinated by or stuff you're in the mood to read. So with the extra time on my hands I was hyped to read something of my own choosing. I decided to pick out two titles to tackle this week: Brian Ashcraft's Arcade Mania: The Turbo-Charged World of Japan's Game Centers (2008) and Kier-la Janisse's A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi (2007). Without further ado, my opinions on these books/details about them, are presented below.

Arcade Mania:
True to its title, Arcade Mania details the types of games populating the floors of contemporary Japanese arcades. Sprinkled in with the book's descriptions of games are insights into Japanese arcade culture and interviews with game players, developers, and marketers. The book is split into different chapters and each of these chapters focuses on a different "genre" of arcade game (such as crane games, fighting games, shooters, etc.) Each section provides the reader with a brief history lesson of the genre complete with a myriad of pictures of old machines and screenshots. Each chapter also highlights a different player and/or game designer who is considered an expert in their designated genre. These profiles turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the book as they give the text a personal edge while providing insight into the way these games are consumed in their home country. It's one thing to know these games exist, it's another thing entirely to know the culture in which they are played. To put it another way, arcade games are the "what" in this context, but the people who play them provide the answer to the "why". It's a bonus that the author found such an interesting cross-section of characters to interview. From the mother of two who doubles as a crane game ninja to enigmatic game creator "Suda 51", the interviewees are nothing if not interesting.

If I had one complaint about the book it would be that it is not detailed enough. But then again, I don't know if depth was the goal here. In both its writing style and layout Arcade Mania resembles a magazine. I don't mean this as a criticism. The book's super fun to look at and is incredibly readable. It's just that those looking for substantial information on arcade game history or sociological insight into the gaming scene in Japan need to look elsewhere. With its light text and killer page design, Arcade Mania should provide those with an interest in Japanese pop culture and/or video games with an easy, entertaining, and factoid-filled read.

P.S.- Those who enjoyed Arcade Mania would be wise to check out Brian Ashcraft's more recent book, Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential: How Teenage Girls Made a Nation Cool. Utilizing a similar picture heavy design to the one found in Arcade Mania, Schoolgirl gives the reader a summary and history of the popularity of Japanese schoolgirls in popular culture (um, excluding porn of course). The book's fun and informative. It's also a great novelty item due to the obscure and offbeat subject matter.

A Violent Professional:
A Violent Professional is a book dedicated to the Italian character actor Luciano Rossi, who appeared primarily in bit parts in genre films during the mid-sixties to the early eighties. Talk about a niche title! I knew little to nothing about Rossi going into the book, but I still read it in the hopes that it could introduce me to some cool movies. This, along with the fact that the book was part of the same series as Mark Schilling's No Borders, No Limits convinced me to take a chance on Violent Professional. Ultimately I'm glad I picked this title up because it's a hugely entertaining and compelling read that also looks great.

Violent Professional is covered in pics of movie stills and publicity photos. And being that most of the movies in here are '70's Italian exploitation films, the photos in the book are soaked in loud, eye-catching, retro cool. The meat of the book is in the text though, and it is in this text that the book shines. Whereas No Borders, No Limits took a more dry and academic approach to its text, A Violent Professional contains much more personality and humor which makes the book easy to breeze through in a sitting or two. In the book's introduction the author explains her admiration of Rossi as an unsung hero of Italian cult cinema. She also describes her attraction to the actor, which leads to her rating each of his films on a scale of one to four hearts based on how hot she thinks he is in each film (she humorously explains her reasoning behind the system, "...I was reading Tigerbeat before I was reading European Trash Cinema.") The heart rating system provides the book with a fun twist that gives it an extra boost of personality without distracting from the facts and information it has to offer.

The descriptions of the films are also great. They make me want to track down a lot of the titles, which may prove difficult considering that many of these movies are a touch on the obscure side. On a final note, those reading Violent Professional should pay close attention to the English titles given to these films, which contain gems of titles such as Confessions of a Sex Maniac and Sex Slayer!

Why Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 Still Rocks

So I've been playing these old Playstation 2 games recently, as a result of this nostalgia kick that I've been on this summer. I previously wrote about my look back on the PS2 rhythm game Gitaroo Man and all the joy and weirdness that it brought into my life. Well, tonight I wanted to tackle some Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The Pro Skater games provided me with countless hours of fun in my younger years, but out of all of 'em number three was totally the best.

Why was it the best? Well, for starters Darth Maul (complete with double-bladed lightsaber) was the first character you unlocked. Now, whatever your feeling on Mr. Lucas, you gotta admit that Darth Maul tearing up a Tokyo skate park is an awesome image/concept. Oh, and that brings me to another thing. The ending competition that takes place in a neon-soaked Tokyo skate park is both incredibly playable and incredibly pretty. Even almost a decade after the game's release this neon wonderland is pretty cool looking and awash in possibilities for high scoring combos.

The goals that the game gives you to complete in each level are pretty solid and inventive as well. You've got the classic "find the S-K-A-T-E letters" and the high score goals, which are necessary stand-bys, but you've also got some creative gems here as well. If you tackle the goals the game presents to you, you'll find yourself starting an earthquake in LA, helping some Canadian kids evade a bully and busting some petty thieves at an airport. These miscellaneous distractions give the game some personality and humor. They also break up the game and keep the player engaged with the material, without deviating too far from the actual skating. My big problem with the later Tony Hawk games that I played (most specifically the two Tony Hawk's Underground games) is that their goals deviated a bit too much from the skating. Here in THPS3 you set the perfect balance between offbeat goals and no-bullshit pure gold gameplay (contrast this with Tony Hawk's Underground, which has you driving a leaf blower at one point in the game...really guys?)

I think another reason that Tony Hawk 3 is so near and dear to my heart is that it just came out at the perfect time in my life. I loved the first two Pro Skater games and have fond memories of playing them on the original Playstation back in the day, but I was a bit younger then and my play time was naturally restricted by age and other interests. By the time THPS3 came 'round in the winter of 2001, though, my interest in video games had reached a fever pitch and I thought nothing of spending hours blissfully lost in a good game. And Tony Hawk 3 was a damn good game! Perhaps there are more productive ways in which I could've spent my youth, but I doubt anything could compare to skating in Tokyo at midnight.

Musings on MC Skat Kat

A few days ago I received a text from a friend regarding the fictional 1980's anthropomorphic singer MC Skat Kat. Said text made my day, as "Skat Kat" was a name I hadn't heard in a long time...a long time indeed. Which is tragic because well, c'mon...it's MC Skat Kat!

While MC Skat Kat made his debut in 1989, my first encounter with the feline wasn't 'til just a few years ago. I first laid my eyes on the Kat whilst doing some late night browsing on the cultural abyss known as Youtube. I came across Paul Abdul's "Opposites Attract" video and my heart burst with a love and nostalgia for the 1980's, a decade I never even lived through. The video, which features a cartoon cat rapping badly over a cheesy and dated pop song, is a perfect example of crass commercialism. And I love it! Commercial products have historically led to a high output of crap, but sometimes that crappy output hits that sweet spot of "so wrong it's right!" MC Skat Kat did that for me. The Kat's image, voice, and dance seemed to have been engineered by a committee devoid of creativity and out of touch with their real target audience. And while this type of thing normally produces dull results, here the product is so surreal and strange that you just gotta love it.

There's also the delight of randomly stumbling upon a semi-forgotten cultural artifact from a bygone decade by accident. Like Wall-E cruisin' about the ruins of a lost civilization, the Internet is a treasure trove of bygone pieces of culture for those willing to explore it.

If my psudeo-philosophical musings on a 20+ year-old Paula Abdul music video are a little too much for your taste, then consider this: it's an '80's pop video in which it is implied that Paula Abdul is involved in a sexual relationship with an animated anthropomorphized cat rapper. How can you not love that? Pure comedy gold.

Girl Assassins A Go-Go: Black Tight Killers (1966)

No Borders, No Limits by Mark Schilling is a brisk and informative book about the action films that came out of Japan's Nikkatsu studio primarily during the 1960's. I read this book a few months back and got a kick out of it. You can read my full thoughts on the book here. Anyway, when I was reading this book I came across a film by the name of Black Tight Killers. Now, this is a pretty cool name for a movie period, but what really caught my attention was that the film was described as involving "...candy-coloured, go-go, James Bondish action..." and a group of female assassins who shoot guns loaded with bullets made of bubblegum. I thought it sounded like the type of pic that was just too eccentric, campy, and cool to pass up and promptly decided I'd have to track it down and give it a watch.

Skip forward a bit to the present. I'm sitting in front of my laptop, totally in love with the epic pop spectacle that is Black Tight Killers! From start to finish, the movie is tons of fun and the visuals and soundtrack are soaked in campy retro sixties cool.

The movie's central character is a photographer played by Akira Kobayashi who, according to Schlling's book was a big name idol for Nikkatsu back in the day. He's playing the roguish and charming pretty boy part here, but he plays it well and has definite charisma. The true stars here, though, are the Black Tight Killers themselves. They're a group of deadly female ninjas that employ a wide-range of eccentric weaponry, from bubblegum projectiles to throwing stars that look like vinyl records! Though the plot that connects the protagonist to the girl assassins is thin and uninspired, it's never present enough to distract from or dilute the utter coolness of the premise.

Black Tight Killers is cotton candy for your eyeballs. Seriously, this movie is dripping with splashy pop art style. It's not going to be everybody's thing, but if you've got a sense of humor and a taste for the offbeat you owe it to yourself to check this one out. It's got a little bit of sexiness/innuendo, a little bit of violence (complete with some excellent garish red blood!), and a whole heaping pile of tongue-in-cheek humor. Really, what more could you want?

A Great Rock n' Rolla!: Gitaroo Man

Back in the year of 2002, A.D. a video game was unleashed upon the American public. The game was called Gitaroo Man. And it was pretty fantastic.

I was probably around twelve or thirteen when I first bought and played Gitaroo Man. Now, Gitaroo Man's a rhythm game, and I had little interest in the genre at the time. What pushed me to buy the game despite of this was the glowing review the game got in Game Informer magazine (Issue #107, page 78...look it up). Game Informer was the primary religious text of my early teen years and what they said was the Truth with a capitol "T" unless proven otherwise. OK, that and the fact that one of the reviewers began his review blurb with "Don't write this off as 'more weird Japanese crap.'" Well, I was a huge fan of weird Japanese crap both good and bad (still am!), so I figured I'd just have to check this title out. I took a trip to GameStop (if Game Informer was my teenage Bible, then GameStop was a house of worship!) and picked up some shrink-wrapped, certified grade-A weird Japanese crap for my gaming pleasure.

I took my game home, fired up the PS2, delighted in the anime style opening cutscene, and promptly got my ass handed to me as soon as it came time to play. But no matter. When I was a kid I had an almost masochistic attraction to video games that were just a touch beyond my ability. I would play the same level repeatedly 'til I got to where I wanted to be. This single-minded intensity would go into overdrive if I knew what I needed to do, but just couldn't execute it perfectly yet. A good game lets you see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it makes you sweat to get to this light. Well, Gitaroo Man did just that for me and it did it perfectly.

The game is deceptively simple, it's really just all about timing button presses that are set to the rhythm of whatever song is playing in the background of any given level. On paper this sounds easy, but it can be tough to keep your cool when icons start flying out from all directions. Once you hit that spot when you have truly mastered a tough song though, it is extremely rewarding.

I recently dusted off my PS2 and gave Gitaroo Man another go, almost a decade after I had initially played it. From an adult perspective, Gitaroo is way more forgiving than I initially thought. Stages that took me hours to master when I was younger, I now pass on the first try. Whereas the game initially took me months to beat in my youth, I can now whip through it in a handful of hours. The fun factor has not faded however, and the advanced "Master's Play" mode still makes for some cruel and punishing (in a good way) gaming.

It would be a tragedy if I were to end this post without talking about the look of the game, so here goes: Gitaroo Man looks fantastic. With it's bright colors, eccentric character design, and witty humor, playing Gitaroo Man is like spending hours playing the greatest Saturday morning cartoon that was never made. The game's story, too, is drenched in cool, cute, and wit. Following the adventures of a nerdy loser named U-1 and his talking dog/mentor named Puma, the game chronicles U-1 as he gets in touch with his superpowered Gitaroo Man alter-ego, saves the world, and gets the pink haired girl of his dreams. Oh, and all this is set to a diverse set of original songs all done in different musical styles.

Interestingly, Gitaroo Man has reached a sort of cult status over the years. Apparently not many copies of the game were printed during its initial run, so used copies of the game now fetch between thirty to fifty dollars on sites like Amazon.com. I know paying that much for an almost ten year old game is a bit painful, but if you can part with the money Gitaroo Man's a whole ton of fun.