Wir Wetten, Sie Können Nicht Sehen

Right then, I advise that you start by watching the following video clip. Fair warning, this clip features a Chinese man swearing in English on a German game show.



This is from a show called Wetten, Dass...? The show features members of the public attempting to perform various stunts, ranging from the bizarre to the nerve-wracking, but always difficult. Meanwhile, big-name celebrities come on the show to small talk with the host, and try to bet whether the MOTPs will be successful or not, with a forfeit attached to incorrect guesses. (For example, in the clip above, Jackie Chan incorrectly bet that the girl would be able to break the bricks without breaking an egg in her hand, so he had to perform the task himself. He did it a bit too well, I think.)

The Jackie Chan clip was not my first exposure to the show, although it was one of the first. My first Wetten, Dass moment was a man balancing a stack of Jenga blocks on a pole on his forehead, while his partner proceded to play the game of Jenga on a raised platform, trying to raise the height of the tower from 10 blocks to 15. They succeeded, but with some incredibly tense moments when the man had to stop his partner while he regained balance of everything. Sadly, the clip is no longer online, though I do have it saved on my computer. If you're looking for more ridiculous bets, I'd recommend this one, this one,, and... oh what the heck, this one.

Wetten, Dass...? has been on the air for 29 years now, although only showing six or seven episodes per year (not unlike the previously-reviewed Schlag den Raab). In its history, the show has been riddled with a few controversial moments, but has still stayed strong and popular as ever. At one point in time, the Wikipedia page boasted that the show would regularly attract over 2/3 of all German-speaking viewers (the show airs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), a rating comparable to the finale of M*A*S*H or a Super Bowl, except every other month. To give you an idea of how ridiculously popular the show is, Pope John Paul II offered to appear on the show via a video link. (The offer was declined, on the grounds that it would set the precedent for future celebrities to appear only via video instead of in person.)

For the record, there was a short-lived American version on ABC a couple years ago. It wasn't anything special. Moving on, then...

Obviously, there's a reason why I bring this show up, and here it is. On an episode that aired this weekend, Samuel Koch attempted a bet in which he would jump over four out of five moving cars using special spring-loaded shoes. Dangerous stunts of this nature had been attempted before, but, spoiler warning, never had there been a failure of this nature before. After having cleared the first and third car (and cancelling the second car when he realized he didn't get enough speed), Koch clipped the windshield of the fourth car with his head, which caused him to over-rotate his flip, landing him flat on the ground in no subtle fashion. As far as I know at this point, Koch is still in critical condition. If you care to watch the video of the incident, click here, however, be forewarned that though the accident itself is not graphic, it's still incredibly hard to watch. The accident occurs about halfway into the video.

Whether or not you watch the clip, there's something I really want to point out about this incident. After the accident occurs, the cameras do not return to Koch, except for one zoomed-out split second, which I would assume to be a mistake. The rest of the time that the cameras are rolling (five or six minutes' worth), the shots focus on wide audience shots and celebrity reactions, and the host giving a few final words. The live feed was cut, and a back-up episode was put in its place.

What I really appreciate about this scenario is the deference given to the injured Koch. In a rather un-American fashion, the cameras do not scramble around him to get close-ups of his silent suffering, but stay completely out of the way, and avoid catching a glimpse of him at all costs. I could only imagine that if this were American television, the director would sic the cameramen on the limp body, trying to get shots of his anguish from every angle. Then, we'd be treated to numerous slow-motion replays and once the body was out of the way, the show would continue normally. As an overly-broad example of this, think of most injuries you see during a football game on TV and how they're managed on-camera. I'm really glad that was not how Koch's situation was handled.

Surprisingly, this is actually the second instance of this sort of respect for the injured I've seen on German game shows. (Surprisingly, I watch German game shows.) On an episode of Schlag den Raab from sometime this summer, a BMX bike-racing event saw a number of crashes taking place, between both Stefan and his opponent. However, in one moto, both Stefan and his opponent crashed on the same obstacle, a small bridge of some sort, if I remember right. Stefan's opponent recovered fairly quickly, but Stefan had some rather brutal injuries and was effectively "out" for a few minutes. During this time, while the host's audio continued, the only camera shot shown was a zoomed-out overhead shot of the course, with the emergency crews helping Stefan just on the edge of the screen. No close-up shots were used until Stefan had recovered from his crash a few minutes later. (Replays of the crash would be used later, but with tasteful restraint.)

Koch's accident (and how it was handled) really makes me think about the standards by which our media operates. I can't remember where I heard it, but someone once uttered the phrase "If it bleeds, it leads," in regards to journalism in America. Part of me wants to believe that we have higher standards than that, but yet I know we don't. To a certain extent, I'd be willing to bet that this story wouldn't have made it onto Yahoo! News if Justin Bieber weren't supposed to perform right after Koch's bet (Ta, David at Bother's Bar for the link). It's this sort of incident that makes me wonder if we're doing something wrong with our media. It's rather late now, so I'm not exactly able to wrap up my point how I wanted to, but this incident is something to consider.

My Nanoblogging Is Your Microblogging - Episode 1

Honestly, this sort of post is why I would be better off with a Tumblr account, but hey, here we go. Besides, I just finished a 15-page research paper on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 and I need a good way to celebrate.

1. Oh God, the Doghouse Just Fell Off the Front of the Lorry
As I'm typing this paragraph, I'm losing my "Top Gear" virginity. I've heard enough stories about some of the ridiculous things they've done on this show, and I've been itching to watch this show for some time now. Thanks to the magic of Netflix on a video game console, I'm now on my third episode and loving it. (Season twelve, if you're curious.) I love the fact that I (as well as many other friends of mine) am/are not HOLY CRAP NOW THAT OTHER LORRY IS ON FIRE (ahem) Sorry about that. I love the fact that many of my friends and I are not car fans, but this show definitely has enough humor to appeal to a wide audience. I'm hoping to keep watching more of this, because it's quite good. I understand that there's an American version debuting on the History Channel on Sunday... Honestly, I'm a bit scared. I don't know if we can really match the unique British-style humor and general enjoyability I'm seeing here.

2. Poker? I 'Ardly Know 'Er
I preordered Poker Night at the Inventory back on September 3 (or so my tweeting indicates). It was an impulse buy, half because because I was in the mood for something poker-y at the time, half because it had a bunch of characters I recognized in it and the concept seemed ridiculous enough to work. It's now mid-November, and the game is still slated to debut Mid-November. Having now seen the preview video, my thoughts are faltering a little bit. If, from what I gather from the video, the game boils down to playing poker with four characters from random games, there had better be a ton of witty banter to go along with it, or else the game is going to go stale pretty quickly. I'm still hoping for the best, but I'm starting to feel leary about my (under $5) decision, and the fact that no actual release date has been finalized yet worries me a smidge.

3. BIT.TRIP FALL POINT AND LAUGH
Another impulse buy, I bought BIT.TRIP BEAT. Verdict: Not worth the price. If you're not familiar with the game, just think of a one-player Pong in which everything you hit is timed to coordinate with the music. This should be a good concept, but something kinda falls flat in the final package. One thing I really like about the game is that each level takes (totally guessing here) 10-15 minutes to complete, so it's really an endurance challenge. Unfortunately, each long level builds up to a rather underwhelming boss battle at the end. The first boss is the only slightly novel boss (level two is just Breakout, level three is Pong against the AI that's heavily stacked against you). And after three bosses, that's it. The entire game is three levels long. It's sadly not worth the $9 I paid for it. That said, it still is a decent game (except for the bosses), the music is pretty good, and the endurance factor makes the game oddly replayable, so I'd still recommend the game to a friend, but only after the price drops to at least $5, if not $3.

4. One Day, I Will Regret Everything I've Written on the Internet
I've been thinking a lot about the future of this blog. While I would like to continue using it as a place for musings about games, television, and other media-based oddities, it's getting to that point in time (namely, near the end of my college career) when I need to start thinking "professionally". I don't think the quality or nature of my posts would change, but I think I need to spruce things up and make this place more presentable. The Uniqlock? That's gotta go. The Onion Ring Tally? That's staying. The somewhat overused Blogger template with some minor color tweaks? That's something that's really got to be changed. In fact, it'd probably be for the better to get out of the *.blogspot.com domain just for the sake of additional "professionalism" and buy an actual domain name for myself (although choosing a professional-sounding name is going to be hard, considering that I'm already battling against other famous people). In any case, I'm thinking I've got to fix things up for the sake of "professionalism", as much as it hurts. I'm thinking of throwing up some sort of portfolio for projects and writings I've done, plus keeping the blog (and archives) alive. So my main question is, does anyone have any suggestions for how to get started on the breaking-free-from-Blogger-and-starting-to-look-professional process?

No Ordinary Blog Post... wow, that was unclever

For a class, I was assigned to follow one of the television shows that debuted this fall. I was lucky enough to have been able to grab ABC's "No Ordinary Family," which airs Tuesdays at 8pm EST. I say that I'm lucky because it is just as interesting and intriguing as I had hoped, and it was also one of the few shows that didn't look terrible. (I feel kinda bad for the kid that got stuck with "Lone Star"...)

"No Ordinary Family" follows the lives of the Powells, a slightly dysfunctional family that becomes slightly less (or more?) dysfunctional after a family vacation to Brazil results in a plane crash into a mysterious lake. As a result of something in the water, the family develops superhuman powers, such as father Jim's (Michael Chiklis) super strength and ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound (though NOT fly), mother Stephanie's (Julie Benz) 600mph running speed (and a side effect of a ridiculous metabolism), daughter Daphne's (Kay Panabaker) who can read minds, and son JJ's (Jimmy Bennett) genius mind.

On the whole, the show is fun to watch, and the running plotlines (such as Jim and Stephanie's constant arguing over when it's "right" to use their powers and JJ's initial reluctance to tell his parents about his powers) make for some interesting drama. I won't say the writing is entirely perfect, though. There are moments where the dialogue and action feels sorta... oh, what's the word... hokey. For instance, there are times (which seem to pop up at random) where you can't help but feel like everyone around the Powells are completely thick and miss the obvious signs that something just plain ain't right with this family. I'm saying this while well aware that we, the audience, have the omnipresent eye and know everything that's going on, but it still feels like someone somewhere should have picked up on something.

While not entirely proving my point, I would like to reference a scene from this week's show. In this episode, Stephanie's prying parents stop by for a surprise visit, and the family try to keep them entertained (and to keep their secret safe). Steph's father (Bruce McGill), still under the impression that JJ's thick, schools his grandson for a few games before the following scene occurs. (Note: Video will likely expire about a month from when this post is written.)



Well then, how many things did we spot wrong with that scene? Trust me, you've got to see the amazing stuntwork that takes place later in the episode, it's equally sad. Not all of the show is this terrible, but there are those moments of hokeyness that just drive you up a wall.

In any case, the main point of the class assignment was to follow the show, and pay attention to the ratings. To be honest, "No Ordinary Family" is against stiff veteran competition, including apparent old-person favorite "NCIS," younger-skewing powerhouse "Glee," and... well, "The Biggest Loser" returned for another season. Let's give them a hand. Right then, the ratings (as of this Sunday, when I first scrawled out this chart):



Wa-hey, a pretty consistent third place! For being the rookie for the time slot, I'd say that "No Ordinary Family" is holding its own fairly well (though I'm not a network exec, so I could be way off). There's something about those Tuesday 8pm numbers that scare me a bit though. While "NCIS" consistently holds rating well over its nearest competitor on most nights, "Glee" wins over the 18-49 demographic on nights with new episodes. "Dancing with the Stars," normally a powerhouse for the older demographic, creamed "NCIS" with last week's early results show. These two factors lead me to believe that while "Glee" gets the younger crowd (and subsequently, the advertising), "NCIS" gets the points from the Neilsen Nursing Homes across America.

So where does that leave "No Ordinary Family?" Limbo, I guess. It's holding its ground, but it's not really excelling. Seeing that it hasn't gotten the "Lone Star" treatment yet, I still think there's great potential for the show. Most of the casual remarks I've heard/read about the show say that it's "interesting." I hope ABC continues to back this show, because they really do have a unique show on their hands. I've somewhat fallen in love with the plot, despite its flaws, so I hope this show catches on, possibly in a different time slot where it has more exposure. Oh, and some more consistent writing would be lovely.

De-ta De-ta Tsu-ki-ga

About a month ago, I bought Hacker Evolution and Hacker Evolution: Untold on Steam (because they were on sale, natch). In the last month, I've gotten through three levels of the first game, mostly because I've not had the time to play it more. Similarly, I've been wanting to write about for all of the last month, but I've not had the time to, though my thoughts have been accumulating since then. (And some of them spilled out in a Skype conversation with a friend which I wish I had recorded, because it would've made writing this so much easier. Dang it.)

If I'm remembering all of the details properly, Brian Spencer's (sorry, I'm really not familiar with the name) Hacker Evolution is set in the year 2025. With technology controlling so many aspects of our lives, it would only be a matter of time before the technology went sentient and needed hacking into in order to stop it. (On a sidenote, I kinda hate how I tend to overgeneralize plot synopses for the games I review and make them sound unnecessarily snarky. I really do pay attention to them, but my memory really is that terrible that details evade me quickly.)

The game is played by hacking computers to acquire information and complete tasks. This is done by manually typing out commands in a MS-DOSsy interface, such as "connect servername.com" or "download filename.exe". As you decrypt servers, crack their passwords, and transfer money (the process is done automatically, sadly), your actions are slowly traced, but you can "bounce" your actions through other servers that you've unlocked to slow down the trace time. So in a nutshell, the optimal strategy is to try to unlock servers and use them strategically to minimize the damage you do to yourself later. There are other observation-esque puzzles along the way, but they haven't really stood out as incredibly difficult (or not yet at least).

At the risk of sounding like a Valve fanboy and pointing to the same game in two consecutive reviews, I want to mention something about Portal. When you play through Portal, you're learning the different mechanics of how to play the game while the game is still going on. If you don't believe me, play through the game again with the developer commentary on. They're very specific about how they want to introduce new concepts (how a portal works, how to manipulate storage cubes and other objects, how to fire one portal, how to fire both portals, etc.), and reinforce concepts before moving on to new concepts. I'm sorta surprised to say that knowing the way that Valve sets up their games has actually helped get through other games, like navigating Left 4 Dead 2 maps on my own.

That said, I think that teaching the player how the game works is something Hacker Evolution does wrongly. Rather than progressively introducing new concepts over multiple levels, HE throws a ton of information into the first level for you to absorb. Mind you, it's clearly a tutorial level, and it takes you through everything step by step, but it's all done very quickly, and chances of retention are slim.

Or at least, slim for an incredibly thick person like me. I played through the first level with general ease, trying to soak in all of the details. By the time I started level two, everything I learned in level one was gone. I restarted the game with another account, taking notes on a notepad with all of the commands. Or so I thought, because there was one command I wrote down but couldn't remember how to use, so I ended up playing the first level a third time before I could finish the second level. The third level ramped up the difficulty rather significantly, and it took about five attempts to beat. (By the way, my average for solving a level so far is about 15-20 minutes, so each successive try is somewhat aggravating.)

In addition to this, there's one other hitch that isn't clearly explained upfront in the game that would have been greatly appreciated. As I played through each level, I always assumed that each level, though connected by one plotline, were independent of each other. As it turns out, your progress (including your funds, your computer upgrades, and your trace rate) is completely carried over from level to level, meaning that at the start of the fourth level, I'm already in a pretty bad state from where I left level three, and there's no way to go back and redo levels. This newfound dilemma concerns me because at the beginning of level four, you're confronted with a side mission (not required to complete the level) where someone offers you a ton of cash if you hack something for them. I definitely need the money at this point, but I can't help but be paranoid that whether or not I take this mission will effect how the rest of the game plays out. In fact, it's all enough to make me want to restart the entire game again just so I could be in a better position by this point in the game.

One final gripe, I swear, I came into this game expecting a nice mental challenge. I'm somewhat of a cryptography buff, and I like the challenge of solving a nice, juicy code. The Steam page for both of the games state that (my emphasis added) "The concept behind Hacker Evolution is to create a game that challenges the gamer's intelligence, attention and focus, creating a captivating mind game. Solve puzzles, examine code and bits of information, to help you achieve your objectives." Sadly, so far the game has mostly been a test of focus, as each level is a mental endurance test. I hope the puzzles pick up to a greater depth later on, but all in all, I'm disappointed I'm not manually cracking any codes yet.

(*sigh) Crap, that was way longer than I had intended... Despite everything I've complained about above, Hacker Evolution is a good game. It's a challenge, and it's a bit aggravating to get started, but if you can stick it out, beating each level is an amazing thrill. It's visually unimpressive and the puzzles are a bit lackluster to start out (although it looks like they add some new elements in the sequel, which I'm trying not to touch until I beat the first game), but that's really not important for a game of this nature. What's really important is that for twenty minutes at a time, I felt like I was trying to tackle some huge international crisis using only my wits and a crappy computer, which, rather disappointingly, is not that distant of a memory for me. Hacker Evolution is immersive fun, the biggest hurdle is just getting into it.

Steam Link

Tetris + Music + Portal + ?????? = PROFIT

This might be the fastest game review I've ever written for personal purposes. I literally purchased a game less than an hour ago, and I'm already starting to write about it. Furthermore, I'm going to attempt to finish up writing about it in under half an hour. Pics might come later tonight, but I'm determined to get a word in about this game pretty quickly.

But then again, where would my game reviews be without a pseudo-related tangent to kick them off? Apparently at PAX this past weekend, some more details about Portal 2 were finally dropped, namely, a release date. Portal 2 is, as of the time of the writing of this post, set to debut on February 9, 2011. So mark your calendars, but do it in pencil, because we all know that Valve doesn't exactly run on the same system of time as the rest of the world. (For full disclosure, my source for the date is this video showing a co-op mode demonstration, so here's hoping it's semi-legitimate.) [Edit: Apparently, the date has been out for a few weeks now. Whoops.]

Game review, then. Over the summer, a friend of mine introduced me to a NES gem called Rampart. The object of the game is to try to maintain as large of a kingdom as possible while destroying your opponents and defending against your enemies. While this probably sounds like every tower defense game out there, the main twist is that your kingdom is formed by a miniature game of Tetris. You have a limited amount of time to build and repair your castle walls in between rounds (oh who am I kidding, the build/repair stage is the round), and only areas completely surrounded by walls will count for your score and be usable in the next round.

From the first game I played with my friend, I was hooked. The gravity-less Tetris twist is really fun to play with, and the panic to try to close off a portion of walls before time runs out gives you an amazing rush. I'm honestly amazed that I had not heard of Rampart before, because it's truly the sort of game that's right up my alley.

Enter Chime. At first, I noticed that Chime was a music-based game (though not one where you can use your own music like other previously reviewed games), but then I noticed the Rampart-like gameplay. With all that and a pretty low price (of which a portion goes to charities), I jumped on the Purchase button like a hobo on a ham sandwich. (Unrelated, I've heard that expression used more times in the last week than probably the last ten years of my life.)

Rather than building walls around hollow courtyards, the goal of Chime is to use your stash of pentominoes (I think it was all pentominoes?) to build solid blocks (3x3 or larger) to claim territory. When a block is made, you have a limited amount of time to continue adding pentominoes around the outside to make it a larger block, adding to your score and your territory claimed. When the timer for a block runs out, it becomes inactive for a short bit.

Meanwhile, you've got some sort of music playing in the background. The tempo of the song determines the speed of the Beatline, which scrolls across the board from left to right. When it crosses an inactive block, it clears it, giving you a small time bonus and letting you build in that space again. Unused scraps of pentominoes "age" as the Beatline passes over it, and if left unused too long, will wipe the board clean of unused pieces. This helps to get rid of junk on the board, making it easier to build again, but it also kills off your combo bonus. Claiming the entire board unlocks a special bonus stage that... well, I don't know, I haven't gotten there yet, but there's a ton more points available for that.

On the downside, there are only six songs (thus, six levels) to play with. Each "song" isn't a strict song as much as they are loops that you can add different elements to, but they're still pretty good. Note: This is as far as I made it in the half hour I allotted myself. Dang it. And coming from such names as Philip Glass, Moby, and Jonathan Coulton (yes, it's that song... see, there was a Portal tie-in all along!), you know it'd have to be good stuff. Six songs might get repetitive, but you hardly notice it when you're caught up in the game.

For only five bucks (and since a portion of that goes to charity, I wouldn't expect any sales anytime soon), Chime is definitely worth the price, even with how little comes in the package. At the very least, it's a very fast-paced puzzle that satisfied my Rampart needs, and has a heck of a lot of replayability along with it. Chime definitely gets a seal of approval from this humble blogger.

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