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October 1st, 2014 – 2:29am – Star Trek Binge; or, Why I’ve Stuck to Handhelds Lately

After a long night of transitioning the site over to October, modifying one little bit of CSS and then another, and a routine backup of all things Nerd Bacon (not to mention backing up my backups and moving large amounts of data to my external HD), I zoned out like I typically do: in front of some Star Trek.  

I watched a little bit of The Next Generation back when it was airing new episodes, and I guess I enjoyed it in whatever way my 8 or 9 year old brain could comprehend.  I also vividly remember the premiere of Deep Space Nine, because this kid in my 2nd grade class was all pumped up about it, and I remember getting on the playground the day after it aired and arguing about who got to be Odo that day; you know, the shape-shifting living pudding guy (who, looking back on it, is far more freaky and unnerving looking than I remember).  I at least remember being aware of Voyager, though I don’t think I was regularly watching anything from the series at that point.

I’m a firm believer that pretty much any decent TV show can be interesting if watched in bulk, and with all the praise heaped on Star Trek, I figured it was about time I sat down and worked my way through it.  I wouldn’t call myself an ardent sci-fi fan, though I can enjoy the genre, and I did go through a rather uber-nerdy Star Wars phase back in the 6th grade.  (However, I’m of the firm opinion that Star Wars, at least the proper movie universe, is more fundamentally fantasy rather than sci-fi.  Just think about the supernatural references to “The Force,” all of the honor and tradition behind the Jedis, and the sort of predestination/prophecy element that rules over many of the characters – it’s a far cry from the dilithium anti-matter warpcore buffer array matrix talk going on in Star Trek, not to mention the very active role that technological advances such as warp drives, transporters, replicators, subspace, holodecks, etc. play in the overall storytelling.  Star Wars all but ignored the science half of science fiction whereas Star Trek hinged on it.  Replace Wookies with Orcs, lightsabers with Excalibur, and The Force with witchcraft and badabing, Star Wars could be the next installment of Middle Earth history.  Fact.)

Mmm kay, now that I finished being irrelevant, back to Star Trek.  So yeah, picking up where we left off, I’ve watched a ton of it.  I watched all of TNG, which I found pretty interesting at first, but I thought it got less interesting as the seasons wore on.  And it wasn’t really the fault of the writers.  It wasn’t like the show got worse or that the stories weren’t as good, it just got tiring after about 4 seasons.  Regardless of what order I watched the seasons in, I think no matter what I would’ve gotten tired after 3 or 4 of them.  Knowing what I now know about Roddenberry’s vision for the show, I’m not surprised.  Many of the reasons I ultimately came up with as to why I lost interest were nearly on par with tenants that Roddenberry was adamant about adhering to.

Roddenberry was strictly opposed to interpersonal conflict on the Enterprise.  Don’t get me wrong – I don’t expect or want Melrose Place on a starship – but would it have killed him for the characters to grow and evolve a little?  Oh that’s right, Data was always trying to become more human, but surely I can’t be alone in thinking that his entire search had become almost farcical by the end of the show.  “Oh that Data and his humanity, chuckle chuckle”…it was like a running a gag after a point.  The opportunities were there…Deanna and Riker, Deanna and Worf (yeah, last episode wasn’t good enough, Gene), Riker’s capability as a captain vs. his allegiance to Picard, Geordi wanting to be on the bridge with the rest of the crew…I mean simple things that don’t have to be major arcs, but a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to know that this crew’s experiences are actually having an effect on them.  Throughout all 7 seasons, I think the only moment that genuinely touched me were the last few seconds of the final episode.  We saw these people together for 7 years, but that one little scene at the end was the only time that I actually felt like these guys gave a damn about each other.  We should’ve had a touching moment like this at the end of the first or second season, not waited until it was all over.

My other main gripe: The Prime Fucking Directive.  Clearly this was intended to be a cornerstone of 24th century space-faring philosophy.  It only gets brought up all the time.  But it was rarely handled with any consistency.  Yes, I can understand some huge moment once or twice in the series where it’s necessary to go against it, but they practically went against it every episode.  I won’t go into detail, but the very premise of the show is 100% contrary to the Prime Directive.  Prime Directive = don’t interfere.  TNG = seek out new life and new civilizations.  Had the Prime Directive been taken seriously, the crew would’ve kicked it in the ready room and watched the inhabitants of a planet scurry around, making damn sure not to interact with them.  But that would’ve been pretty fucking boring to watch for 7 years.  Ultimately I’m glad they didn’t take the Prime Directive seriously for the sake of entertainment, but in the end, it seems so stupid to put that much emphasis on something which is essentially ignored 98% of the time and only evoked as a deus ex machina the other 2%.

My final complaint revolves around how anthropocentric the show was.  For such a perfect and evolved vision of mankind, humans were remarkably self-centered, self-righteous, and self-assured.  We never got to see enough positive cultural diversity on a show that portrayed so many different cultures.  Instead, there’d be a little tiff, Picard would meditate, and then, like a disapproving father, shake his finger at the the “primitive aliens” and tell them how wrong and backwards they were.  It’s incredible how intolerant humans were to these differences in tradition and ritual and how condescending their attitudes were to other customs.  The aliens always got some patronizing lecture that basically asserted humanity’s absolute perfection and implicit authority in all matters of morality.  It made me roll my eyes more than once during those 176 episodes.  Oh, and all that shit goes against the Prime Fucking Directive anyway.

What’s more is that this whole “the human way is the preferable way” persisted even on the Enterprise.  Just look at Data – always aspiring to become a human, as if humanity had become the paragon of perfection.  Why didn’t he want to become more like a Ferengi? Oh yeah, because they’re greedy and selfish.  Or a Klingon?  Too violent!  Vulcan?  More emotionless than Data on day 1 (in fact, while watching Voyager, I see that Tuvok (the Vulcan character) is basically occupying the same niche that Data did on the Enterprise except it’s not as interesting because Tuvok isn’t interesting in developing any emotion or changing at all).  It was as if humans had the jump on the thousands (or millions?) of other races in the galaxy, and of all things, humans are what Data should sink his energy into emulating.  It would’ve been more interesting had Data been taken with some other race, or even better, if he was more accepting of the ways in which he was objectively better than humans and embraced his own unique sentience.  He could’ve still developed emotions in his own way and grown to be a likable character without the constant musings on what it means to be human.

Worf was treated the same way (in my opinion, Worf and Data shared a lot of the same story lines), although the writers were a little less sure about whether or not to completely dismiss his status as a Klingon.  But even on his best days, Worf was still treated as a pariah.  Many people have compared Klingon culture to that of the Ancient Orient, but honestly, the allusions to the “scary black man” of the 80’s are staggering.  People were scared of Worf, like he was going to flip out and “bussa cap” at any moment.  The point is, that in the context of the rest of the crew, his Klingon heritage was treated as a disease that he was rewarded for overcoming on occasion.  “We’re so glad you’re not like those animals on that Bird of Prey, even though we still kinda think you are” – that was the thought running through every crewman’s head whenever confronted by other Klingons.  The writers continued to conflict viewers by alternately trying to portray Klingon rituals as honorable while displaying Klingon culture as primitive and unsophisticated.  What poor Worf wrestled with was not his ethnicity, but the writers’ indecision.  I mean damn, he really got the short end of the stick on the show.  Even worse, he was chastised and eventually disowned by the Klingon empire because of how “human” he’d become.  Back to the connection with Data – Worf gained acceptance by adopting more human behavior, blatantly suggesting that his “human side” was preferred, and despite his own inner conflict, he himself ultimately preferred (based on numerous choices he made) the benefits gained from his increased humanity rather than those of practicing a more Klingon way of life.

The whole lot of it reminds me a little too much of cowboys and Indians.  Well, Columbus and the indigenous peoples of the Americas to be more correct.  Cowboys and Indians were like 300 hundred years later.  But it does sort of eventually end up in similar circumstances.  Accept our generous technological advancements, but use them to become more like us.  We’re civ-il-ized.  You’re prim-i-tive.  We will peacefully coexist with you as long as you do things our way.  But if you cross us, we’ll fuck you up like you’ve never seen.  Good.  What’s left of you is nice and docile.  You can continue with your traditions in private, just make sure you operate like us on social and economic levels.  Wait, you want to be more like your ancestors?  You want to reclaim your previous identity?  You’re fucking dead.  The cowards and children that are left over will be herded like sheep into safe little areas of economic insignificance so that your descendants can marvel at our benevolence and be gracious that we didn’t completely wipe you out.  And then, a few borrowed words later, we can all feel comfortably transcendent about our ability to meld cultures and preserve “alternate ways of life.”  Seriously, as inoffensive as all these alien encounters start off and as peace-loving as the crew was, ultimately their humanity god-complex would consume and decimate those without the means to defend their traditions with comparable force.

The last order of business is how The Next Generation handled its really juicy stories.  The kind of stuff that I would really be inclined to get into, like alternate universes, Q, the Borg, Q, and Q, were mishandled…egregiously.  These, along with several other clever ideas, managed to cut themselves short of being super awesome.  Instead of exploring things like the nature of existence (Q), or what worlds beyond the influence of humanity might look like (Borg), all we get is that near-gods aren’t clever enough to get humans to accept a chance of obtaining omnipotence (Q) and that the combined technology and experience of hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of assimilated civilizations can be undone in a heartbeat with a single idea (Borg).  Alternate universes and “what if’s” are one of my favorite plot contrivances in fiction, and TNG (and especially Deep Space 9) turned these exercises into total snooze-fests.

Instead of using god-like beings, distant civilizations, and alternate dimensions and timelines to really dig into the science of the matter and posit bigger questions to think about long after the episode ends, everything just ends up touting the resilience and infallibility of 24th century humanity.  Even the humans from different timelines and parallel dimensions weren’t quite as clever and transcendent as those from the real universe.  I get that the focus was the crew, and that we’re supposed to be rooting for them, and that they’ll prevail at the end of the day, but really, can’t the audience be challenged even a little bit?  Can’t we get a dose of science beyond theoretical technobabble that starts getting our philosophical gears ticking?  Apparently not, because the crew of the Enterprise D is/was just too damn perfect to ever have their status quo flipped, or even shaken for that matter.

No, I don’t hate TNG.  I think what burns me is the enormous amount of potential that I constantly saw in many of the episodes and how that potential was either unrealized, squandered, or rendered inert due to various contradictions (you know, like the Prime Damn Directive).  Out of what I’ve watched so far (all of TNG, all of DS9, and right at about half of Voyager), it was certainly the most engaging show.  Picard more than held his own as both an actor and a character, and the remainder of the cast really wasn’t so shabby despite Roddenberry’s inability to let them grow and change.  I’d never call it a “bad” show, but it really isn’t a “great” one, and its inconsistencies do get the best of it at times.

What I really wish is that the writers and producers would have (or perhaps were allowed to have) a little more unfettered fun with the series.  Let people be imperfect, and let the audience connect with those imperfections.  Let us gander in awe at an alien with incredible abilities once in a while; let us not judge them for their diversions from humanity.  And most of all, let us off the hook occasionally from the formality, regularity, predictability that comes with a series.  One reason why I think high-concept genres like horror, fantasy, and sci-fi work so much better on the big screen is because a complete story can be told, from beginning to end, without any real expectations.  People can die, shit can happen, the story can go where it needs to go to serve the concept.  Unfortunately, TV often follows certain conventions, negating the element of surprise during the majority of episodes.  To television’s credit though, this is rapidly changing, which is why shows like The Walking Dead have become so successful.  It’s precisely because anything can, does, and will happen that keeps series like this so refreshing.  But TNG, like everything else, is a product of its time, and though I hesitate to fault it too much, I can’t help but wonder how much more awesome something like TNG would be were it made today.

Stay tuned!  I plan to cover Deep Space 9 in similar detail soon….

September 30th, 2014 – 10:34am – October and More

Well, only a few hours of September remain, and I’m excited to get into the Halloween spirit, both inside and outside of The Bacon.  I’m looking forward to getting back in the swing with Castlevania, as well as digging through some other horror-esque games.

I’ve also been working hard on some minor site redesign.  If you haven’t had the chance, check out how awesome the Video Game Reviews hub looks now – http://nerdbacon.com/video-games/ .  It was just a jumble of logos, but over the past couple of weeks I made buttons of them all and then went back over all of the pages to create a new layout.  This was mainly done to account for the link being much more prominent in the fixed header at the top of the page.

You can probably expect to see some other forthcoming changes when it comes to the slideshow.  There’s still a lot of CSS to work out, but about half it is ready to go.  Thank god for the excerpts though; they’ve made a drastic difference when it comes to the neatness level of the site.

I haven’t gotten around to as much gaming as I would’ve liked to these last few weeks, instead putting a lot of time into the site.  Hopefully the improvements are evident, even if they are minor.  Now if we can just start having the content roll again we’ll be good to go!  November, December, and January were our most productive months last year so hopefully we’ve got some busy times to look forward to as the holidays approach.  Which reminds me, I’m starting to get pretty excited about what we’ll see as the last of the 8th generation consoles turn a year old in the next couple of months!

September 14th, 2014 – 7:28pm – Been A While!

Whew, it’s hard to believe I’ve gone 2 weeks without cranking out a review or finishing up my Top 10 list!  To be fair though, I have been heavily involved with the site and completely engrossed in Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Universe in Peril for the 3DS.  Forever ago I played Lego Batman and substantial portions of Lego: The Star Wars Saga and was preparing for what amounts to the same basic mechanics, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the updated gameplay.  I also picked up the similar yet not-quite-the-same Lego Marvel Super Heroes for the Wii U, which, despite having the same cover art as the 3DS game, lacks the “Universe in Peril” subtitle and is apparently an entirely different game.

In other “news,” I’m pretty excited about getting some of these layout changes off the ground.  I’ve been doing as much testing as fiddling as I can without impacting the actual site, because with all of WordPress’ machinations at work, it’s easy to ruin everything with a misplaced semi-colon.  David and I worked out the system of badges (now fully implemented) which I’m pretty proud of, and our PHP wizard Gerald/Variand is going to write us a script to easily display these badges across multiple areas of the site.

We’re also in the middle of a push for new writers, so going through applications is taking up quite a bit of time as well.  Between the recruitment, CSS redesigns, badges, our regular day-to-day operations, it’s been a busy couple of weeks.  Oh, and the discovery of the “excerpt” and more importantly how to properly use it has been an awesome addition to our arsenal.  Finally I (with admittedly a lot of help) have been able to start getting WordPress to work for me instead of having to work around it.  Although retroactively adding excerpts to our previous posts will be a long and arduous endeavor…

Castlevania may be on a break, but it is not forgotten!  I resolved not to get too overzealous since October is coming up, and we really want to keep as many reviews as possible grounded in horror-related games.  A handful of Castlevania games will be perfect.

Ok, I really need to be doing something other than writing here, namely my Top 10 list.  Hopefully it won’t be too long before I check in again!

August 30th, 2014 – 6:38am – An End in Sight

It looks like an ending to my Castlevania quest is on the horizon.  I’ve moved through several games recently, and I’m already waist deep in yet another one.  I only have a few games left, and 2 of them are overlaps, which I’ll probably review for the sake of completeness, especially since I already have them in my possession.  Let’s see what’s left:

• Order of Ecclesia (which I’m playing right now)
• Lament of Innocence
• Curse of Darkness (although the versions are identical, I have both the PS2 and Xbox copies)
• Mirror of Fate (the “original” 3D version on the 3DS, in contrast with the downloadable HD version via PSN)
• Harmony of Despair (exclusive download-only game)
• Lords of Shadow 2 (I’ve played some of it, but probably need to completely revisit it)

But then what will I do…?  I would like to revisit some of the older 8 and 16-bit games with my current knowledge, but I’ve had fun these past 9 months or so focusing so intently on a series.  It gave my collection some focus and it helped me figure out what to play when I was overwhelmed.  It tends to limit my scope a little, but it also gives me a little more specialized, expert knowledge.

In other news, our Nerd Bacon email is seriously fucked for the time being, but I’m trying not to get in too much of a twist about it.

August 21st, 2014 – 4:12pm – Did I Spend that Much on the Same Damn Thing(s)?

Below is my collection of Game Boy-related cheat devices.  I was SUPER happy to find the Xploder, though apparently it isn’t the cool model that first attracted me to this new unit.  (Scroll to the bottom of my GameShark SP review to see a picture of the Xploder’s awesome design.)  What’s worse is that the Xploder wasn’t cheap by any means (I cringed a little when I confirmed the purchase) and on neither Amazon nor eBay can I find any other Xploders for the GBA.  This may be up for a resale very soon…then again maybe not.  The one I now have in my possession is almost identical in size and shape to the GameShark SP.

Moving on, I also spotted Pelican’s Code Breaker for the GBA…and it looks exactly like the other two.  It was also pretty damn pricey, but not even near the Xploder.  (Seriously, the Xploder was unbelievably $$$.)  So now I’m worried, super worried in fact, that these 3 devices are all a little too similar, though this might not be such a bad thing if the GameShark ever craps out on me.  But GOD these things were expensive.  I guess the good news is that they’re actually rare enough for me to sell quickly for a decent price if needs be.

I threw in the Action Replay (damn near the same shape) and the GameShark Pro (for Game Boy Color) as well as the GameShark and Game Genie for the original Game Boy as well, just for good measure.

Oh and for the record, I think I’ll be testing out the Xploder tonight with my last GBA Castlevania game, Aria of Sorrow!

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August 18th, 2014 – 1:54pm – More Pictures!

I plastered these up a while ago, and I probably do need to get better shots of them at some point, but they’re worth sharing.  This is one of 2 Intellivisions I own (David gave me the other one, and it’s a completely different model I might add), and I got all of the stuff below for a mere $20.  The guys at EdMckay’s found it cleaning out their storeroom and offered it to me since I’m always asking about what they have sitting behind the counter.  It’s an amazing find.  Getting old consoles is one thing, but finding all these little components and add-ons and in such condition is way, way cool.

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August 10th, 2014 – 10:49pm – Back to the Belmonts

It feels good to put another Castlevania game under my belt after a bit of a hiatus, and I’m sure I’ll get through a couple of others before taking another extended break.  Long games like this are draining and exhausting though, and as much as I want to jump right into Harmony of Dissonance, I’m also in the mood for lighter fare.  I did spend the majority of last night’s gaming time unlocking the remaining characters in Mario Kart 8…if only I could find myself up to the task of doing the same on Mario Kart Wii.  I’ve also given over a few minutes to the Wii’s Castlevania Judgment.  Is it as bad as everyone says?  I don’t know yet, but the control scheme is pretty tiring with all the swinging involved in each and every attack.  It is at least interesting though, so I’m definitely primed to play more.

As for what else is on tap for the near future….who knows?  I need to get back to my list from a couple of months back, but I also want to put in a little more game time with a few Wii games I’ve been juggling lately and crank out some solid reviews.  It also wouldn’t kill me to go ahead and finish up Lords of Shadow 2 and the 3DS version of Mirror of Fate that I’ve been intermittently chipping away at.  So many games, so little time.  But the Castlevania list is getting smaller…

• Harmony of Dissonance
• Aria of Sorrow
• Dawn of Sorrow
• Order of Ecclesia
• Harmony of Despair
• Curse of Darkness (as of a couple of weeks ago I have both the PS2 and Xbox copies)
• Lament of Innocence
• Lords of Shadow 2 (and DLC)
• Mirror of Fate (original 3DS version, as compared to the HD version downloaded on the PS3 that I previously reviewed)

August 7th, 2014 – 11:38pm – My Return

Well folks, I spent last week at the beach with my family (who I incidentally spend all my time at home with too) and have been out of the NB loop a little.  Settling in this past week has taken a little longer than I thought, but I’m slipping back into the old routine.  I had a chance to get into several portable devices while I was away and managed to crank out a handful of articles, so I wasn’t completely off the radar.  Anyway, to anyone out there wondering, I just wanted to say that I’m back and will very soon be back to emailing, poking, prodding, recruiting, writing, and most importantly, gaming!

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