And Fin! (or Of the Years)

This may or may not be my final post of the year, I haven't decided. But, there's no time like the present, especially when you know how terrible you are with keeping up with blog deadlines. NOT ME, YOU.

Anyway, I've decided to do my own Year End Awards! In deference to tradition, I've decided not to do a "best things RELEASED in 2011" but "best things I FIRST EXPERIENCED in 2011". The reason for this is that I felt like it. Plus, I've never done one of these things before, and I didn't do much this year, so not restricting it to things experienced in 2011 is better.

I know the first comment here might be be, "YOU FORGOT/INCLUDED THIS MOVIE WHICH SUCKS AND YOU MUST BE GAY AND STUPID AND I BANGED YOUR MOTHER"

Says something about the collective intelligence of the internet. This is an opinion. If you disagree, good for you! Comment in a respectful way. Or don't.


MOVIES


Best Animated Movie
Toy Story 3- Somehow the Toy Story series managed not to jump the shark after over a ten year wait for the third installment, which I find incredible. 3D definitely wasn't worth it (like it ever is), but that didn't hamper the experience too much. I didn't cry at the end, but I sure as hell came close.

Honorably Mention
How to Train Your Dragon- I really liked this. Not much more to say then.

Worst Animated Movie
Despicable Me- so, so disappointing to me. I'm not a huge fan of Steve Carrel, but it didn't seem like his thing. Just goes to show that the Pixar art style doesn't guarantee a good movie.

Best Comedy
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World- So so so sad that this movie didn't do well fiscally. Really funny, really inventive, and has some of my favorite scenes in all of my movie-going history.

Honorable Mention
Breaking Dawn Part 1- Wait, that wasn't a comedy? Well, I laughed a lot...

Real Honorable Mention
Airplane!- Released in the 1980, this ridiculous movie mocks both horror films and comedy films, as well as itself quite a bit. Hilarious, hilarious film. And don't call him Shirley (Wow, a joke 31 years late)

Worst Comedy:
Break-Up Artist- My sister hijacked the television and put this on. Stale acting with really, phenomenally bad writing, it really impressed me in how terrible it was. At least you've never seen it, and probably never will.

Best Action/Adventure (For Lack of A Better Word)
Pulp Fiction- I really don't know why I love this movie so much. All I can say is I've watched this movie a bunch of times, and I took a while to memorize Samuel L. Jackson's Bible line because I loved it so much.
*MOVIE OF THE YEAR*

Honorable Mention
Die Hard- Alan Rickman as a villain? No movie like that could possibly be bad! Even if in the end he is revealed to have loved Bruce Willis's mother and his father was a muggle and- Wait, Die Hard: Really actiony, classic for a reason.

Worst Action/Adventure
The Last Airbender- In all honesty, I can't be sure how bad this movie is as a movie. As an adaptation of a beloved cartoon, it was tripe on a bike. Terrible, terrible, terrible. I could go on... so I will. They took over a fun-loving, youthful kid and stripped him down to a Keanu-Reeves-Level bland character. And the pronunciation of names? This isn't the adaptation of a book, these names were pronounced literally hundreds of times in the course of the series! How do they still get it wrong!?! Whatever, whatever.

Best Horror
Paranormal Activity- Became really popular for a reason. Slow building, oppressive horror rather than "OOH LOOK OVER THERE SOMETHING JUMPED OUT IT WAS SCARY ARE YOU SCARED"

Honorable Mention
I've seen only two really, so nothing goes here except filler text. So here's a link to a random forum post from a website I like ( I SWEAR THAT THIS IS COMPLETELY RANDOM. ON MY LIFE. WHATEVER, YOU WON'T BELIEVE ME. I HATE YOU.) http://tinyurl.com/cr59by7

Worst Horror
Piranha 3D- So bad that it was funny. Which is good in its own right, but still, not an ounce of scary.

TELEVISION


Best Comedy
Community- It's really sad that nobody watches this show. The funniest show on television, and has been for over a year. If this show gets cancelled and Whitney remains on the air, there will be blood.
*TELEVISION SHOW OF THE YEAR*

Honorable Mention
Bored To Death- This one was cancelled. This show was a peculiar funny, where I did laugh during the show, but when I thought about it later, it really made me crack up. This show made incest both funny and sweet, and I'm not sure I'll ever say that exact clause again.

Worst Comedy
Whitney- This one was really hard to choose, with a lot of really bad pilots this television season. But no show was quite as tiring and just flat out boring as Whitney. This is actually a shame, because Whitney seems like she might be a funny person, but the show is stifling her. Which is weird, because SHE writes it.

Best Drama
Game of Thrones- The pilot of this show made me run to the computer and finds out what happens next.  This show is ballsy, and even after reading the books, is really interesting and extremely compelling. Check it out.

Honorable Mention
Unfortunately, I really haven't been keeping up to date with TV. I guess I'll put Mentalist here, because I genuinely enjoy that show.

Worst Drama
Friend Zone- As I type this list, this show is playing in the background. The same thing, show after show, of friends feeling "something more." Might be interesting if they tried to make it- well interesting.

Video Games


Finally, an area that I actually know things about! All right, let's get down to it!

Best Shooter
Infamous 2- Although not specifically a "shooter", the tight mechanics and interesting upgrades make this game really really awesome.
*GAME OF THE YEAR*

Honorable Mention
Team Fortress 2- Although also a first-person action game, there is a reason this game is still in the top 5 games played on steam daily, after almost 8 years.

Worst Shooter
I honestly can't think of one. Fundamentally, you point at things and they die. Kinda hard to mess up. I haven't played too many this year, but they've all been fundamentally sound. I think I'll drop Gears of War 3 here, not because it's bad, but because it felt kinda clunky. I only played for about 6 seconds though, so take that with a grain of salt.

Best Action/Adventure 
Psychonauts- Really, really funny. Gameplay is fine, but the story is what you go for, and it is presented so well with so many funny characters, that it is hard to dislike.

Honorable Mention
Uncharted 3- So could have been perfect, but the story isn't as tight as Uncharted 2. By no no NO means bad, but a little disappointing.

Worst Action/Adventure
Minecraft- I know people love it, and I know that people build incredible things with it, but I don't really see it as a game. The complete lack of a tutorial is crippling for new players, and frankly, I felt little incentive to come back.

Best Platformer
Rayman Origins- Buy this game. Seriously. Right Now. If you own a console, click on this link, and buy the game right now. I'm serious! This game will sell virtually no copies besides being one of the most imaginative games of the year. Come on, I'll like you if you do!
 (http://www.amazon.com/Rayman-Origins-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B0050SVFB0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325122051&sr=8-1)

Honorable Mention
Limbo- Would have been my game of the year in 2010, but unfortunately the Year of the Playstation dominated in. Still a great, great game. A little short for $10, but unforgettable

Worst Platformer
And Yet it Moves- Felt really clunky and uninteresting, even if it was visually cool.

Best Puzzle Game
Portal 2- Get. This. Game. But get Rayman Origins first. This game is like several barrels of monkeys. Co-op is a delight and some of the best writing in video games today.

Honorable Mention
Braid- Tricksy little beast that does clever things with time manipulation. Although the developer is extremely preconscious, the ending makes it worth it. Play the game just for the ending.

Worst Puzzle Game
Can't really think of one. Sorry!

Best RPG
Witcher 2- This one was really hard for me. If this was last year, Dragon Age: Origins would have come flying out of my mouth at the speed of light. I don't feel like I've played an RPG of that caliber this year, but the Witcher 2 was really fun, even if it was way too difficult at the start.

Honorable Mention
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim- Ah, Skyrim. Very good game, but the bugs and unplayability of PS3 is 100% unacceptable. It works for me, but Bethesda are being real jags about refusing to fix it.

Worst RPG
Dragon Age II: If you had asked me before I played it, this was to be my game of the year. Sequel to an amazing game, developed by an amazing developer, released soon after an amazing game. Alas, the game was totally rushed to get some money for Star Wars: The Old Republic (Which I've been hearing good things about, but I'd rather have a real Dragon Age Sequel). This game was really a huge disappointment, and I can't believe a developer as respected as Bioware would do this.

And that's it! Those are my 'Of the year's. I've decided this wasn't substantial enough to really count as a post, so you'll be seeing another one before years end. Cheers, and see you all soon.

Thanks for reading and considering,
-J.Valett

Life, or Lack Thereof (or Grim News)

I don't want to spend too much time addressing my absence, but I feel like I've got some explaining to do. I goofed. I meant to write about things for a while, but I put it off, and put it off, and I finally decided to man up and write a post. Not that it matters much, but I did write another post, but it wasn't submitted because I felt it was sub-par.

You might notice that this post is significantly longer than some of my others. Hopefully that will make anyone with vengeful feelings feel a tiny bit better.

Death, in many ways, defines life. If there wasn't the threat of death, how would we define life? Death is a lot less prevalent nowadays in our everyday lives, when life expectancies skyrocketed and most of us never see a corpse outside of the media. Media has desensitized death a lot, specifically video games, as death can be both a reward for a job well done, and a slap on the wrist for a job done horrendously. (But don't expect me to go on a tangent about video games being Satanic death and sex simulators. They are not. That's a topic for another time.)

Theoretically, we shouldn't have a problem with death. Without death, we wouldn't have another generation to teach, and to take over after us. Life would lose all sense of urgency, as things that you would have done today can be put off for years and years and years. Death is the great motivator, the force that actually gets us moving and gets us doing.

But it can't be that simple. Most people's problems with death stem from the unknown. We, as a species, have a fear of the unknown. It is the same pathological sense that gives us a fear of the dark, because anything can be in that blackness.

I don't want to believe that nothing happens. I don't want to believe that the heart stops, the blood ceases to flow, and that's it. But wanting doesn't mean a lot.

A lot of religions believe in an afterlife, one that rewards those who did well by others and punishes those who did not. A great incentive to be a nice person, which may or may not be the cause of the belief in the afterlife. People flock to comfort. I doubt many people would conform to a religion in which it was said that after death, everyone gets kicked in the face for the rest of eternity.

Furthermore, why is it assumed that humans are the only species that gets the afterlife treatment. What, according to the religions that advocate afterlives,  happens to monkeys after they die? The concept of an afterlife just seems so human-centric that it doesn't make much sense to me. Are orangutans considered too filthy or too lowly to pass the entrance? Tough bouncer, I guess.

That leaves a couple other alternatives to what happens after you die. I won't get too much into those, as it is useless to spend much time speculating as to what happens after death, as there isn't much you can do to prove any of it.

But even if it could be proven, I don't think I'd want an answer. A single, final word on the matter would be utterly soul-crushing, one way or the other. I want to think about the pros and cons of each theory, I want to consider it. Mysteries lose all intrigue when we start to understand them. That's why Earth has become so boring. We know exactly where everything is and when it came there. That's why space is so exciting.

Just a note: I once conceived an idea that people's souls, or whatever you call them, stay in the body after death and just can't move or talk. All they could do was think. I wrote 4 short stories on them ( cleverly entitled Death: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four), but I've long since lost them.

One of the aspects of death that really frightens me is how I will be viewed after death. It is tradition to kind of just forget everything bad that relatively good people have ever done. I don't like that. Glorifying people who have died doesn't change what they had done. By the same logic, people who are noted as bad have ever good action of their's wiped from their record. I don't like that.

When I leave this world, if I'm remembered in any significant degree, I don't want to be made a hero or a villian. I want to be remembered as a person. One who had done good things, one who had done bad things, one who said great things, one who did stupid things, one who was, in every sense of the phrase, a mixed bag. No one was or is completely evil or saintly.

Death may seem scary to some people, and it definitely is. To hang on the edge of the abyss and take a step (or more appropriately, have the cliff recede until you stand over nothing), not knowing how large the gap is or if there is anything at the bottom: terrifying. But we shouldn't obsess over it.

Death will happen whether or not we fight it. Immortality shimmers in the distance, but for now (which may only be the next fifty or sixty years, believe it or not) we are stuck with death at the end of our stories.

And I'm okay with that.

Thanks for reading and considering,
-J. Valett