"What's Tibetan for RPG?"

In lieu of being stuck between pondering the meaning of life and soaking up literary knowledge for school, I choose a third possible activity for today: hugging my favourite console in this house. I know I just did a piece on BioShock yesterday, but the moral of that story was the whole hyperlink think, so I'm completely justified talking about another one of my prized possessions: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves!

This game has won numerous awards last year and has also captured a place in my heart as one of the most exhilirating games of the past few years. Earlier, in 2007, Naughty Dog put forth Uncharted: Drake's Fortune as their flagship in the line-up for the PS3 release list. Although this first game certainly is a gem, its sequel is comparatively the Hope Diamond. In my opinion, the first game felt too action oriented and limited in its degree of exploration. There just wasn't enough diversity in the different environmens, seeing as how ninety percent of the game took place on an island -which is quite limited in its climate conditions and offers little changes of scenery. So I'll be focussing my attention to Naughty Dog's pride and joy: Among Thieves.

From the very first moment you press the 'start' button and watch that intro movie, you feel like you're watching an actual movie. The wrecked train alone features a buttload of details and then I'm not even talking about the polygon count that has gone into Nathan's body and face! The whole scene is oozing with eye candy -not to mention a lot of Nate's blood- and you can't help but become completely submerged in the world according to Nathan Drake, explorer and daredevil.

Feel the love...

By having a protagonist like Nathan Drake,  there is no point in trying to resist his charm offensive, you'll fail. Trust me on this one. He makes jumping out of a tumbling building and crashing through the window of the adjacent one look like kid's stuff and still has the time for a whole array of slick one-liners and sarcastic remarks. This is the stuff that Hollywood dreams of! It should come as no surprise then, that a film adaptation is already in the works. And since no main character comes without a romantic interest (or two), Nathan is accompanied by new girl Chloe Frazer and last year's girl Elena Fisher, both are quite the eye catchers. Although at times, Chloe's bright blue eyes come off as bit frightening, but once you divert your goggles to her more appealing assets, all is well again.

My favourite level has to be the one set in the besieged Nepal. There is just so much going on in that scene! Civil war has never looked so goddamn beautiful! At some point, while making my way across the ravaged city, I fell through the floor of a roof (you can actually see each tile fall apart one by one) and landed in a small, but unbelievably detailed room. While looking frantically for a way out, I turned my attention to the window and saw little specs of dust floating in the ray of sunlight. If that doesn't scream next-gen, then I don't know what does!



Uncharted 2 is paramount when it comes to the action-adventure genre. Games such as Assassin's Creed or Devil May Cry also offer an enjoyable gaming experience, but they come nowhere near as close to a cinematic experience like Uncharted does. Feel free to disagree with me on this one, but mind you, don't knock it, until you've tried it!

Nuaghty Dog has delivered us the Holy Grail of its genre and I can't wait to see what the third installment will bring and how they'll incorporate the Game Engine 2.0 to revitalize the Jak & Daxter series!



God bless the Hyperlink

It was high time to reconnect my beloved black console with her long lost friend, the World Wide Web. Like clockwerk, the screen faded to black and an automated message informed me that an update was available. As my black box was buzzing with exitement, I decided to peruse the Playstation Store.

It amazed me how much this glorified online webshop had grown and expanded. At first, it was hard to find my way around the PS3 Content, PS3+ Content, PSP, and all those other joyous acronyms. But once I saw the name 'BioShock' light up my 52inch screen, I knew I had arrived at my destination.

The awe-inspiring sight of the Big Daddy -or Subject Delta, depending on which BioShock game enjoys your preference- invoked all sorts of delicious imagery across my retinas. I was reminded of the Little Sisters I had adopted, forced to gather ADAM and subsequently rescued by removing the slug from their bodies. I could see myself drilling my way through yet another ADAM-infused, crazed Splicer who thought he could beat me. And of course, how could I forget, those first moments when the bathysphere opens and you emerge in the disturbingly beautiful world that is Rapture.

Indeed, BioShock has had a tremendous influence on me since the day I bought the PC version. I dare say 2K has made the most influential and innovating game of the last decade. Of course, some of you will disagree with me, and I grant you your diverging opinions, but to me, Rapture and its eery beauty will always prevail over the next Tomb Raider installment or Call of Duty war epic. And it's not just the haunted Art Deco style and Rapture's intriguing population that won me over, but the whole story behind this underwater dream-turned-nightmare.

When I think of all the times Wikipedia has been the five-course meal to my hunger for knowledge, I can't even begin to imagine a pre-Wikipedia life. Naturally, I had to look BioShock up on this glorious encyclopedia infinitus and I found myself unable to stop clicking those eye-catching blue words.

First, I looked at 'alternate history' and immersed myself in these works of fiction that took pride in discussing the question "What if ...?" From there, I jumped to the section involving time travel (what did you expect?), jumped back to 'alternate history' and then to 'video games', which included the Resistance and Fallout series. Finding myself too far off from my little submerged Valhalla, I leapt back to Rapture and came across the name Ayn Rand. Rand was a Russian-American writer who acted as a source of inspiration for 2K's masterpiece. Her work of fiction entitled 'Atlas Shrugged' has now made it to my Top Five Book 2 Buy.

I think this shows just how immersed and omniscient the Internet has become. Knowledge can be consumed with the mere touch of a button, links are made instanteously and the best part is that you don't have to do a damned thing. Everything is right there in plain sight, awaiting your every move.

I might be jumping the gun here, but I think that in about three or four decades, the Internet will render scholastic education obsolete. Teachers can talk all they want, but who wants to listen to the sleep-inducing nagging of a dissatisfied fifty year old, when you can just as well learn all about it in the comfort of your voice-controlled, holographic computer screen? With Dolby Digital Surround Sound, of course.

You got a good thing coming

There are moments in life when all you can do is be deliriously happy because of the way everything starts to come together. Today was such a day.

I started at 10 in the morning when the booksale at our school actually had two out of the three books I needed. That's like a 66.67% success rate! A milestone, if I say so myself!

The second good thing occured three hours later when my former English teacher invited me to participate in a video for her research project. Who was I to say 'No', right? The whole thing is still hush-hush, so I can't really elaborate on the specifics, but I can tell you that there's a good chance this thing's going to go national if the research adds up.

And my third and most joyous moment happened approximately one hour ago when I opened my Inbox. Last Friday I answered a vacancy in a youngster's magazine. I added a copy of the articles I wrote for 'Den Hub', our school news paper which never saw the light of day and I wrote a little motivational speech detailing why I applied for the job.

Monday passed. Tuesday passed. Wednesday passed. I started to think CJP-magazine wasn't going to work out for me after all. That is, until I looked at my mailbox and I saw an email from CJP. My heart skipped a beat as I opened it. The second line of the mail contained all I could ever hope for: an opening in the Game section of the magazine!

I thought I was going to lose it. Here it was. Actual proof of a future in journalism. No longer the hope of turning my portfolio into a work of fiction or the distant dream of becoming a writer, but solid, viable proof that someone out there was interested in what I had to offer. I immediately responded and as of now, am reveling in the prospect of turning in my first real article. I'm definitely keeping you posted on further developments!

Then, when I thought I was done for the day, that I'd used up all of my lucky cards, a friend asked me to bartend Saturday night. How could I refuse such a thing after all the good things that happened today? Surely, I wasn't going to test Lady Luck's patience today of all days!

Signing off now, hope you all had a great Thursday too! Talk to you guys again soon!

Beyond right and wrong

Rules. Put in place by the powers that be. Put there to help guide us towards what society feels is right. Then why do we find breaking them so much more satisfactory than following them? Have the rules lost their relevance? Or have we lost our sense of right and wrong?

In life, there are certain things a person must never do. Killing another person is an extreme example of this, but others include: stealing something, telling a lie, disobeying your parents or cheating on your loved one. The truth is, there is an encyclopedia worth of things you shouldn't do. Still, each and every one of us has broken one of these rules at one point or another. But what exactly tempts us to do such a wreckless act?

Are we just simple branches getting swept away by the powerful gusts of wind or do we bend, but not break? And if we break, does that mean we're weak?

I'm not the spokesperson for morality and obediance, so I'm not going to start preaching about what is right and wrong, because essentially, that distinction is highly subjective. To one person, kissing is a form of cheating. Stealing food because you'll otherwise starve isn't considered stealing to another. If we must draw a line between right and wrong and good and evil, surely, it must be in our heads. It must be a mental divide that keeps us in check.

No matter how hard society lays down the rules, there will always be those eager to break them. That is the paradox of rules: there needs to be chaos before order can be imposed.

But if rules are always broken, can there ever be peace? Does such a thing exist? For the better part of your reasoning, peace will always be found in personal justifications. Your own version of sugarcoating the truth.

It seems that the majority of morals are locked within the confines of our minds. Good, as well as evil, is what me make of it. We reshape the two in order to fit our needs, not the other way around. Perhaps therein lies the danger, because how do we know for sure that what we've done is purely altruistic and not selfish when we're the ones making the rules?

How can we be sure we're doing the right thing?

A sucker for happy endings

The story of Cinderella: young girl turned houseslave by evil stepmom and dito step-sisters is aided by her fairy godmother into going to the ball. Here our enchanted little slave meets her Prince Charming. Cue the spotlight dance, the almost-kiss, the race against time and the grand finale that culminates in the marital bliss of Cindy and Prince. Cut. Print it. Walt Disney's got the happy endings down to an art.


I confess: I myself am a sucker for happy endings. I mean come on, secretly, we were all rooting for Romeo and Juliet to hop on the first horse drawn carriage out of Verona and into the sunset where they'd live happily ever after, weren't we?

This morning I saw 'The Bodyguard' with Kevin Costner and Whitney -IHIIIAAA will always looooove yooouuu- Houston. Even though I never saw the movie before I could vividly remember this profoundly sad ending where the bodyguard takes a bullet for the diva and dies on stage. To me, this would've made the most sense, what's more, this was how it should've ended.

Essentially director Mick Jackson had three possible endings: the bad (but actually best) ending: Costner dies in the arms of Whitney, leaving her with the inspiration for singing "I will always love you", face it, audiences love the whole good-guy-dies ending (Titanic, anyone?). The good (sorta) ending: Costner lives and he and Whitney live happily ever after. And finally, the neutral (aka sucky) ending: Costner survives the two bullets to the chest and continues to work as a bodyguard (for a priest!), while Whitney carries on with her singing career. Result: everybody loses.

Now, hypothetically speaking, if you were the director of this movie, which ending would you choose? The bad -but really, best of all- ending, right? I knew it! Well, 'fraid old man Jackson got his endings screwed up, because he chose the neutral ending. Result: everybody loses plus the movie receives a 5.5 score out of 10 on IMDb.

Surprised? I think not. Guess Jackson should've followed Disney's lead. Maybe if he had, Whitney would've had a great career, instead of  a great high from all the coke that followed. But to each his own, ay?

The minor league

Alexander The Great.

Charles Darwin.

Aristotle.

Caesar Augustus.

Mahatma Gandhi.

Che Guevara

Marie Curie.

William Shakespeare.

George Washington.

Plato.

Achilles.

Adolf Hitler.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Margaret Thatcher.

Elizabeth Tudor.

...

When you look at human history, you'll see that certain figures found a way to escape being swept away by the sands of time and became immortal in the minds of all future men. Odds against them, being just tiny specs in the multitude of humanity, they did something so profound and noteworthy with their lives that they earned their place in the books of history, instead of just becoming part of a collective noun.

It makes you wonder how any of us can ever hope to achieve that kind of greatness, to earn the right to be remembered, not just by your loved ones. It makes us wonder about how deeply a single person's life can affect the course of history.

If Alexander The Great had never lived, what would've happened to all the Greek city-states that he united under one glorious empire? Would they have fallen apart or would someone else have risen up in Alexander's place? And if Elizabeth Tudor had been denied the English throne, would England have still won against the Spanish Armada in 1588? Would England have become the superpower it is today, or would Spain have emerged victorious?

When I flick through a history book, I sometimes get the feeling that nothing I will ever do will be good enough to land me a place between the pages of the great men and women of history. It feels as though all those people are playing in the Majors, while I'm still in the Minor Leagues, waiting for my big break that may or may not happen.

I always fantasized about writing this book that would change the world. It would make me immortal as a writer and countless of people would be inspired by my words and I'll have earned my place among history's Hall of Fame.

These are just child's dreams, but I like to think that, in some way, this pushes me to be the best version that I can be. It makes me want to succeed even more in life, even if it is just to earn a byline in some book. I guess all I'm looking for is a way to be remembered long after everyone who knew me has gone as well. You might think this foolish and unattainable, but if writing a sonnet like Shakespeare is enough to achieve greatness, I might just start writing poetry or the next tragic lovestory.

I feel this way because I don't believe in the afterlife. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell. But I do believe that one can live on through the memories of others. The mere fact that, when I look at a movie like 'The Motorcycle Diaries', it makes me think of Ernesto Guevara and the road he took in life, a road that led him to fame, or infamy, depending on your POV. It makes me think about him as an actual person who lived just four decades ago. That makes my own journey a whole lot easier, knowing if he could do it, I too could have the potential to do something like that.

These people were like us. Ordinary human beings who decided to do something extraordinary with their lives. Whether it was through sacrifice or the refusal to bow down to an authority, they made their mark. Their actions echoing throughout the years, throughout the lives of others.

This seems like a good way to be remembered, not just for the person you were, but for the things you did. The lives you changed or will change. The people you loved and who, in turn, loved you back. The fact that no person ever really dies, they simply live on through others. In memories, in genes, in characteristics, in career choices or even as simple as the colour of someone's eyes.

A great way to go from the Minors to the Majors, all the way to infinity if you ask me.

The psychic apparatus

After watching yet another scintillating episode of Sex and the City, I started thinking about secret desires and how our world seems to be filled with them.

From babies to seniors, we all have these secrets desires that consume our every thought. Some are primal, others are new. But all of them share a specific need: the need to be fulfilled. Just how fast we decide to give in to them is up to us. We can either play it coy and wait until all of the pieces start to fall together or we can take action and force our dreams into reality.

These secret desires are what guides us subconsciously. We can try to fight them, but one way or another, these primordial needs get the better of us, if we let them.

For some these are harmless delights, such as the eating of a muffin or the purchase of yet another materialistic outburst. Others however, tend to have a more raw urge that cannot be found in any department store. These are the desires that can shape a person's character. The way that person perseveres or surrenders to it defines him.



A Streetcar Named Desire



Still, if we choose to succumb to what feels natural to us, does that make us a bad person, a selfish person even? And if we choose to ignore the incessant calls of our Id does that make us strong and pragmatic?