VIDEO GAMES: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Now, here's a category I don't address very often: video games. I just assume that most of you fall into two categories: those who don't care, and those who do care, but are so far advanced beyond my meager gaming experience that my little anecdotes will seem as quaint and hopelessly outdated as an Amish village. And yet, here we are. And it's a long one, too.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I wasn't going to buy it until the cheaper "Greatest Hits" version came out at some point down the road, but a friend bought it for me as a belated Christmas present (thanks, Lew!), so that settled that. And wow, is it an impressive game. It's gorgeously rendered, it's got a wide variety of challenging and interesting missions, it's got a fantastic voice cast (Samuel L. Jackson, baby!), and it's insanely gigantic. I've been playing for a couple weeks, and so far I haven't explored much beyond the city limits of Los Santos, which represents about one twelfth of the game map. In fact, I've hardly even scratched the surface of Los Santos. There is so much to do and explore.

Which is where I have a problem. When does so much become too much? Unfortunately, in San Andreas, almost immediately.

I'm not against a richer gaming experience. I'm not looking only to steal cars and shoot things, although that's the main selling point, let's face it. But at some point, the designers needed to step back and say, maybe enough's enough. Take all the things you need to do to maintain your character. You need to take him to restaurants and feed him to increase his health, and you need to select between various meal combos, with varying prices and fat content. If you get too fat, you have to go to the gym, where you can work off the fat, add muscles and stamina, and train to learn new fight moves. You need to show your gang affiliation by going to a clothing store and buying the proper color clothes; you can choose attire from shoes, pants, shirts, jackets, and head scarves all the way down to watches, heart-printed briefs (!), and Groucho Marx-style joke glasses (???). Then you have to go to the tattoo parlor, and pick the ink you want for your lower right arm, upper right arm, lower left arm, upper left arm, left chest, right chest, stomach, etc. Then you need to go to the barber shop, and choose from a variety of hairstyles and facial hair combinations. I've got the cornrows right now -- that cost five hundred bucks! But that helps increase your sex appeal (yes, there's a separate stat for sex appeal), as does your physique, your tattoos, even the last car your drove. You also have to be concerned with your respect level. You earn respect by completing missions, or by killing enemy gang members, or by doing I don't know what else, because the game is so vague on it, and then, the more respect you have, the more gang members you can recruit to go with you on missions. Plus, there are statistics you have to work to improve for swimming underwater, driving each different type of vehicle (car, motorcycle, bicycle, plane, boat, helicopter, and who knows what else), and firing each different type of weapon.

Whew! That's a boatload of things to worry about. And that's just the things you can do to customize your character. That doesn't even scratch the surface of the things you have to do with him in the game. And, like I said, the game is so goddam vague about what you need to do to accomplish your tasks, that it gets mightily frustrating. Take dating, for instance. At a certain point, you begin dating a girl from your neighborhood. You have to stop by her house at different times of the day to try to find her when she's actually home. Then you pick her up, take her to a fast food joint, diner, restaurant, or bar that she might enjoy, or indulge her in the other things she likes doing (like drive-bys!). Then, when you work up enough credit in the dating meter (yes, there's a separate stat for that, too), you get to have sex with her. No, I'm not kidding. (You don't get to see it; the camera remains outside the house. But you can hear the participants. My favorite line is when the girlfriend says, "Damn, I hope I don't get pregnant again!" She must've missed that Smallville episode.)

Those are things I was able to deduce from gameplay. But here's some things I was only able to learn by going online and looking up a walkthrough guide (specifically because I suspected I was missing something in the dating portion of the game). If you max out the dating meter, you are rewarded with a pimp suit. Sweet. I imagined there would have to be some kind of reward for that, but the game sure doesn't tell you. Also, you can go around the city and find flowers that you can pick for her for when you show up on your date. What? How the hell was I supposed to know something like that? And when you drop her off, you can get out of the car, walk her to the door, and attempt to kiss her. Really? Dang, I've been staying in the car and letting her walk her own sorry ass to the door. I'm a bad date. But I didn't know! How can you conceivably know something like that, if you don't read the cheat guide first? (You can't. Which is why they make the cheat guides.)

I don't want to cheat. I like finishing a game on my own merits, and then going back through and using all the hints and cheat codes and finding all the secrets that I didn't the first time through. But this game will take me literally weeks to finish for the first time. Will I really want to wait that long to find out what I'm missing? If I do, will I really want to jump right back in the game and play again? For example, I discovered glimpsing through this online guide that there are various spots at high altitudes (skyscrapers, mountain peaks) where you can find a parachute, which you can actually use. That sounds great! But would I ever have found out about it, if I hadn't accidentally run across it online?

It comes down to, which way of playing robs me of the most fun? Getting the satisfaction of doing it on my own, but missing out on all the cool hidden stuff? Or using the walkthrough to find the hidden stuff, but having the game spoiled for me?

There are other problems I have with the game. The targeting system drives me absolutely insane. You can have a guy standing five feet away from you, shooting you point blank, but when you try to target him and return fire, often you can't get a lock, and wind up targeting an innocent bystander across the street, or you don't target anything, and wind up firing straight into the air. Grr!! Also, what's up with my damn garage door? It's supposed to open when you approach it, but every damn time I go up to it, I just stand there, and nothing happens, and I have to run around a little bit and try to trigger the door. Every time!

What really drives me insane is that there's such a great game buried under all of this. The missions are so cool, and use so many different skills. In one, you have to sneak through a house at night and steal some items without waking up the owner (after you complete that mission, you can then go burglarize almost any house, and then fence the items for cash). In one mission, you have to race through a burning building armed with a fire extinguisher (that's how you meet your girlfriend). In another, you have to invade a mansion in the hills to steal a notebook, and perform stealth kills on the armed guards from behind. Another mission, you have to raid an army base and use a forklift to steal weapons. Then in another, you have to take out all the gang members in a neighborhood, which claims that area for you, and opens up a whole new part of the game, territory acquisition (and defense).

There's so much worthwhile in the basic gameplay that all this extraneous stuff really detracts from the experience for me. I don't want to have to worry about whether my clothes make me more attractive or not. But I have to worry about that and more, if I want my character to be developed enough to make it through future segments of the game.

It's still very early in the game for me, so maybe I'll get more into it all as I go along. But right now, despite being ten times bigger, San Andreas has yet to match the fun and excitement of the previous game in the series, Vice City.

TV: Smallville

A couple thoughts about this week's Smallville. Definite spoilers ahead -- this means, you, Mike! -- so I'll put some filler space in with this picture of all the Smallville babes.



Wasn't that nice?*

Okay, spoilers:

Chloe lost her virginity -- to Jimmy Olsen??? What the fuck! That's quite a bombshell. And quite a plot contrivance. I mean, if this episode weren't all about givin' it up (complete with teen pregnancy PSA at the end), do you think Chloe's little character development still would've happened? I doubt it.

And what was up with Ma Kent's freak-out? "I'm so disappointed," "sanctity of marriage," "you should know better," blah blah blah. Bitch, chill! Red kryptonite, remember? Red kryptonite! What are you, new? It was completely out of Clark's control. Alicia dosed him with red kryptonite and for all intents and purposes kidnapped him. And yet Ma Kent still berates Clark for it. But clearly, the message wasn't intended for Clark's ears. She might as well have turned directly to the camera and delivered that speech to the home audience. This episode was one big mixed message: "Look at how hot and sexy all these youngsters are. Are you getting horny? Are you? Yes? BAD! WRONG! DON'T DO IT!!!"

And was there supposed to be a political message in Ma Kent's "sanctity of marriage" rant? That's a loaded phrase to use, these days; it's pretty much interchangeable with "I hate gay people." Is that really the message Smallville is trying to convey? If so, that's very disappointing. And also, does that mean Clark and Lex can never consummate their love?

---

*Is that picture too big? Does it mess up my site on your browser, and squeeze the sidebar to the bottom of the screen, below all the entries? It's hard to get pictures to fit properly in this template. I'd change templates, but I'm afraid I'd just mess everything up even worse. Does anyone have any ideas how I can fix it so I can show any size pictures on a Blogger template, without losing all my sidebar links, comments, etc.?

COMICS: Wed. 10/20/04

Only bought three new comics this week, but they were all good.

Fantastic Four: Entertaining issue, and interesting solution to the problem at hand -- if a little too pat to be believable. Reed can switch powers from one person to another, but can't remove the powers? That's kinda dopey. But it resulted in fun comic goodness, so I forgive it. And hey: Galactus. What more can you ask of a Fantastic Four book?

Plastic Man: Funniest issue yet. I laughed out loud several times, especially at the self-referential stuff. Like when President Lex Luthor says he's waiting for the paperback of Identity Crisis to come out. Or when Woozy Winks, on seeing the vice-president, says, "Hey, it's that guy from Smallville!" (Woozy must be watching the repeats on ABC Family.) And excellent use of real Dubya quotes for the final punchline. I think this book is actually getting better each issue.

Madrox: I'm not wild about the art. But the story is interesting, as is the idea that each Madrox duplicate has a different personality, and might not be so willing to go along with the original's plans anymore. But, as regards the opening scene -- I think if I were Madrox, I'd create a duplicate before getting punched in the face.

Also, the 2nd TPB of Batman: Hush came out, and, true to my word, I refused to buy it. As should you all. Screw those greedy bastards and their double-charging ways! Collect your storylines in one book, DC, or you can stuff 'em! (I'm looking at you, too, Marvel.)

TV: Various premieres

Smallville: I don't care for the Lois Lane character. I don't find the actress attractive at all -- which I may be alone on, judging from my recent search engine traffic, which I presume has been generated by my one mention of her name in this post. (I refuse to mention her name again, because, while I still find the search engine hits for "Misty May's ass" amusing -- by the way: Misty May's ass -- I'm not quite as pleased by all the "[actress' name]+topless+nude+naked+tits" hits I've been getting.) And the character is 100% unlikeable. I know, Lois Lane is traditionally brash and aggressive and so forth. But actresses such as Margot Kidder or Teri Hatcher have made those traits disarming and endearing. This actress just comes off as a royal bitch. I can't believe Ma Kent didn't smack the living hell out of her when she burst into her house like that.

Margot Kidder's appearance was fun, but what was with all the WB promos touting her "surprise" cameo? No, you just frickin' told us she would be on the show. That's not a surprise, dumbasses. And is black kryptonite a comic book thing, or is that a Smallville original?

Also, Lana's new boyfriend is a tool.

I enjoyed the hell out of seeing Clark fly, and that take-off was stunning. But this show greatly exceeded my daily allowance of Tom Welling's ass (which, for future reference, is 0%). (Man, I dread the search engine hits that sentence is gonna generate.) If you want to keep putting Lana in the shower, on the other hand, I'm okay with that.

So, Allison Mack and Sam Jones are out of the opening credits. Interesting. It looks like they've left the door open for Chloe to return, but Pete -- not so much. Did anyone even mention his name this episode? And why does Clark insist on being such a doofus about concealing his powers? He uses his X-ray vision on Chloe's coffin, sees it's empty, and instantly tells Lois, "Chloe's still alive." Way to play it cool, there, Clark.

A little too much business to deal with in this episode. Hopefully, now that everything's settled down, the next will be better.

Veronica Mars: The number of shows on UPN I have ever enjoyed has just doubled. (From one -- Enterprise -- to two. And I'm not counting Buffy; the WB developed it, they get the credit.) I really enjoyed this show. The lead actress is very appealing, and her character is smart, brave, and funny. I got a kick out of seeing two TV stand-bys as her parents: Enrico Colantoni (of Just Shoot Me), and Corinne Bohrer (whom I've had a crush on since she was on E/R -- no, not the one currently on the air, but the 80s sitcom starring Elliott Gould and, unbelievably, George Clooney).

The show was created by Rob Thomas, who also created one of my favorite cancelled-too-soon shows of all time, Cupid (which I've written about before). The look of the pilot is a little disappointing; I have to assume it was shot on the cheap, considering it's on UPN, and it shows. But the acting and the writing are more than entertaining enough to make up for that.

I got a little put off by how much misery is dumped on Veronica's head in this one episode. We learn: her best friend was murdered; her father, the Sheriff, botched the investigation and was fired, leading to their dreary financial situation; the man her father accused of the murder was her best friend's father, which led to both her boyfriend (her best friend's brother) dumping her, and her total ostracization by all her former friends; her mother, an alcoholic, ran out on her, and may even be having an affair with the best friend's father; and, to top it all off, at a party she was drugged and raped. It was at that point I said, "Oh, come on!" What else can be done to her? Will she develop a brain tumor? Will her dog get rabies? Will a piano fall from the sky and land on her? Geez, enough already.

But an awful lot of future plotlines were established here, and I think this show could be a real winner. Except for the fact that it's on UPN, which probably means eight episodes and out.

Lost: I loved it. But I'm holding off on talking about it here, because I've already written a column about it for Forces of Good, which will be going live a week from today. Don't forget to check it out!

So all I have to say is: seriously, do not miss this show. It's fantastic.

TV/COMICS: Smallville

I just noticed the ad on the back of the new Y: The Last Man. It's for Smallville, and it says:

"It was only a matter of time until... Lois."

Tom Welling is pictured up top, and in the lower left is a generically attractive girl I've never seen before, who presumably will be playing Lois. And at the very bottom it reads:

"Tom Welling Erica Durance SMALLVILLE"

Well, if that ain't a big "Screw you!" to everyone else on the show. Not only are Kristin Kreuk and Michael Rosenbaum -- you know, the actual stars of the show, been there for three seasons now -- not pictured, but this no name guest star, this total unknown, is actually being promoted as if she has second billing.

I understand the WB is trying to aggressively promote this new character to attract new viewers, but still, the treatment of the other actors is fairly unseemly. Hell, maybe there are no other actors anymore -- didn't they all either move to Europe or get blown up at the end of last season? Maybe they weren't bluffing.

TV: The Fastest Men Alive

There's a new fastest man alive: on Sunday, Ben Gatlin won the gold in the 100-meter dash, in an incredible 9.85 seconds. Even more incredible, the silver went to a time of 9.86 seconds, the bronze to 9.87 seconds. Fourth was 9.89, fifth was 9.94, sixth was 10 even. That's inconceivable to me. How can you even register 1/100th of a second difference? Is one guy's nose longer than the other's? You can't help but think of that Seinfeld joke about the minute differences between Olympic heroes and nobodies. "First place, [moves head back two inches] dead last. [Moves head forward two inches] Greatest guy in the world, [moves head back two inches] never heard of him."

(I promise I won't write any more about the Olympics today, except to note that I've been enjoying the women's diving competitions for all the wrong reasons.)

Meanwhile, the fastest man alive is missing in action on Justice League Unlimited. Where the hell is the Flash?? We're four episodes in, and he hasn't even had one line yet. I can't even recall if he made an appearance in the first episode. Not to say I haven't been enjoying the show. Last week's episode with the Justice League Babies was hilarious, especially young Wonder Woman's crush on young Batman, but it was a light, inconsequential episode that probably should have come later in the season, after the new rotating cast premise had been better established (apparently, this was originally supposed to air as the fifth show of the season, rather than the third). And this week's Hawk and Dove episode was decent, if not overwhelming. The voice-casting of Hawk and Dove was inspired (Wonder Years brothers Jason Hervey and Fred Savage, with Hervey here switching roles as the younger, kinder brother, Savage playing the older, tougher one -- come on, you couldn't have had a guy named "Savage" play the Dove, could you?); in addition, Michael York was a great villain's voice, and Ed Asner as Hephaestus had some cute, borderline naughty wordplay with Wonder Woman (involving the tightness of her costume).

But dammit, where's the Flash? Is Michael Rosenbaum too busy on Smallville to make the trip to the voice sessions? Hell, he's practically out of the opening credits as it is; the new opening animation suggests Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the Justice League, and Flash, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter are now merely part of the giant supporting cast -- featured supporting players, yes, but not the headliners.

Maybe it's just as well; the writers have never really known how to portray Flash's powers accurately. When they've used him to the best effect (as in the brilliant "A Better World" two-parter), he's nearly a match for Superman; more often, though, he's a clown. Comic relief, that's one thing, but he's just a clown, in and out of battle. He's been taken down by the lamest villains, and his speed, which should be supersonic at the very least, near light speed at best, is often reduced to barely that of a speeding car.

Over on Teen Titans, the same can be said of Beast Boy. His powers are phenomenal, but he rarely uses them to their true potential; hell, most of the time, he forgets he can turn into something that can fly. This week, while in wolf-form, he got his foot trapped under a rock. Rather than turning into any of a hundred animals that could've escaped (from an elephant to an earthworm), he turned back into his human form (still trapped) and tried to reason with his attacker, Terra. More emotionally affecting, perhaps, making heartfelt pleas to his erstwhile friend, but stupid from any practical point of view.

When the writers have used him well, Beast Boy has been more than a match even for the Titans' arch-nemesis, Slade (though, having defeated Slade a couple episodes ago, BB reverted to his usual clown-like self and allowed him to walk away with Terra in tow). I don't mind comic relief in my superhero teams; I just wish more often they'd live up to their superheroic capabilities, rather than taking all the pratfalls.