Music Review: Office of Future Plans

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of J Robbin’s work both as a musician and a producer. Like so many things punk I came to his career later in life (later being my mid 20’s) with Channels being my first introduction and the tip of a very large iceberg of music I would later wish I had been listening to all along. My younger self certainly had the mentality for punk, but I was never as into the style of music as I was other things. It wasn’t until just after college that I finally woke up to punk in a big way. Since hearing Channels though I’ve worked my way backwards through J’s career and continue to revisit his music frequently. As you can imagine, when I heard that he had formed a new band with Office of Future Plans, I was excited to hear the results. The official release is this Tuesday (11/22) but since I ordered the vinyl edition of the album I got to download the tracks as soon as my order shipped this past week. Since adding those tracks to my iPod Wednesday, this album has lived in my car on repeat. I’ve probably listened to OFP’s self-titled debut a good 5 or 6 times at this point and “no”, I’m not tired of it yet.

This will easily be one of my top ten albums of the year, but don't just take my word for it,  you should definitely check it out over at Dischord Records’ site and hear some of it for yourself. Anyway, let’s start at the beginning:

Salamander
In describing this album to my friend Mark over Facebook I mentioned that Darren Zentek’s drums were the first thing you heard and it really sets the tone. You see, Mark is a big Fahrenheit 454 fan from back in the day and thus a big fan of Darren’s. The mistake I made was in thinking that this song actually started out with a drum intro, which it does not. Here’s the thing, while not a factual statement, it is at least somewhat “true”. The drums in this song have such an impact that it really does set the tone, not just for the song but for an entire album. Simply speaking, this song comes on like a freight train. I expected good things from this release, but Salamander blew me away in every way possible. It’s an ensemble song that sees every element played to full effect from the aforementioned drums to J’s token minor key strumming.

Lorelei
Here’s what gets me about this band; it’s the intricacy of the arrangements on some of these songs. Just listen to what’s going on here, especially during the chorus. This is a group of musicians at the top of their game and exhibiting virtuosity that is unfortunately absent from more celebrated bands.

Harden Your Heart
As an introduction to OFP on the 7” of the same name this song was probably a perfect choice. If there is one song that sounds most like what we’ve come to expect from J. Robbins it’s this one. There are shades of Jawbox, Burning Airlines, and Channels throughout this song. Gordon Withers being the sole out of place element, but to the point where it almost becomes a mission statement: This is J. Robbins doing what he does best, but it’s also something completely new and you’re going to love it!

Ambitious Wrists
This is the song I had stuck in my head this morning and another example (like Harden Your Heart) of a song that definitely has those expected touches of J’s former bands, but ultimately emerges as a venture unto itself. The staccato of the verse sections recall Channels for me in a big way, thanks in no small part to Darren’s drums of course. Once again, this song breaks from my initial expectations with a driving, melodic chorus and a great bridge that continues to express just how qualified these musicians are.

The Loyal Opposition
This song takes me back to the beginning of the album after a brief trip to J. Robbins nostalgia territory. This is a song that sounds uniquely OFP to me and it’s just catchy and fun.

Your Several Selves
I have to admit, I liked this song better acoustic. Having heard this recorded at an acoustic set by J and Gordon from a year or so ago I’m still getting used to this as a full band song. The bridge just doesn’t work for me for some reason, but like the full album version of Channel’s Chivaree vs the EP version I’m willing to bet I come around to liking this newer recording more in the end.

Abandon
And this is the song I had stuck in my head as I was leaving the coffee shop this morning. The album definitely takes a mellower turn at Your Several Selves and continues with this wonderfully layered meandering stream of a track. This is a track that simply could not exist without Gordon Withers. The cello and J’s vocals intertwine here in a beautiful way.

You’re Not Alone
“Your monkey mind/all “fight or flight” may be one of my favorite lyrics on this album. There’s something clever, but deep about it.

The Beautiful Barricades
Still kinda mellow, but getting back into rocking territory with this song. I don’t know if it’s just the lyrics or if it’s something happening in concert with the music, but there’s a kind of anxiety or a sense of impending action going on in this song. I think I need to lyrics for this one to really get the full effect, because I feel like it’s more than just what I hear on the surface.

FEMA Coffins
This is what really I mean about a return to rocking territory and it's probably the most punk of all the songs on the release. This is another one that I really want the lyrics to. First off, the name “FEMA Coffins” has to be the best track title I’ve heard all year, talk about “loaded”. This is definitely a song about the times we’re living in, there’s a defiant anxiety in this song that recalls the panicked frenzy of Channels’ “To the New Mandarins” for me.

Dumb it Down
This almost reminds me of late era Jawbox. Maybe it’s just J’s impassioned growls, maybe it’s the refrain of “Dumb it down for me”, but it feels angst-y to me, but with that same punk defiance we just heard in FEMA Coffins.

Riddle Me This
I don’t what to say about this song at all. It’s not bad, but it’s different than everything else we’ve heard up to this point. Somehow it just feels like a bonus track to me. This song would totally feel at home popping in randomly after 5 minutes of silence following Dumb it Down. A strange, but interesting end to a great album.

Smart. Phone.

not my iphone ... yet

I hate my iPhone 3G, I absolutely hate it. There was a point in time when this wasn't the case. Two years ago when I first got the phone it was still pretty decent, in fact it remained pretty decent up until the OS4 update. At that point Apple basically decided that they no longer cared to support the 3G and 3GS and launched an update that was great for the iPhone 4, but caused the older phones to chug like an old Ford Model T. They released an update shortly after that alleviated some of the problems, but unless you had a 3GS, you weren't going to feel it. My phone instantly became a paper weight with minimal computing power. Opening most apps (even the phone settings) took forever, often long enough to make the process time-out on the first try. Forget about anything net related, I was going to have to wait extra long for those apps to work. My phone, which had once been quite adequate, was now a thorn in my side. It was obvious I needed an upgrade, but what to upgrade to?

Existentially speaking I am not a Mac, I'm a PC. I'm what some might call a power user. I build my own computers, I tweak settings, I like knowing what's going on and how to fix it. Apple doesn't want you to have to think about any of these things and they make you pay for the privilege. As my first smartphone, the iPhone was the right choice at the time, but the Android OS and phones have come a long way since then; enter the Samsung Galaxy S2. For all intents and purposes this phone took Europe by storm this past spring. If there was a phone that could rival Apple's best efforts, this was it. There was only one problem,  no one knew when it was coming to the US. Regardless, I knew this was the phone I wanted to upgrade to and I was willing to wait. Rumor-filled months passed and the Galaxy S2 was always just around the corner until finally in September it launched for Sprint, with the AT&T released rumored to be right around the corner. A couple weeks later a date was finally announced: October 2nd. If my iPhone could sweat, it would have been drenched, its days were numbered.

The morning of October 2nd comes and I head over to the AT&T store when they open at noon. Immediately I ask about the Galaxy S2.

"The Galaxy S2 isn't available in the South region yet. We don't expect it to be available till the end of the quarter."

The end of the quarter? Really? The quarter that just started? I realize that large swaths of the South might not be what us New England ex-pats might consider to be tech savvy and thus not as interested in an iPhone killing smartphone, but can't we at least make an exception for Austin, the Northeast of the deep south?

The answer (by the way) is apparently no, but you can order the Galaxy S2 online. Given the alternative of waiting until the end of the quarter, waiting for shipping on an online order doesn't seem so bad. Let me just fire up the old PC here and see what we can see. Oh well this looks easy, there's a link to upgrade my phone. Oh and the S2 is one of the options, perfect.

Type type ... Click click

What's that? You need my work email in order to carry over my discount? No problem.

Type type ... Click click

Wait ... the next step is to click on the link in the email you sent me and verify the address? The email you sent to my work address? The work address I won't be able to check until I go in to work tomorrow? Well then ...

So now I can't complete the order for my new phone until tomorrow and I still don't know how long it will take to get here once I do. Whatever it is, it will be quicker than THE END OF THE QUARTER! I just can't win. Curse you Steve Jobs, you've won again! Seriously though, this whole experience with the Galaxy S2 launching in the US has been absurd and I guarantee you that when the iPhone 5 is released, they won't be telling people "The iPhone 5 isn't available in the South region yet." There's a lesson here:

AT&T hates you if you're not Apple. And Apple sucks, except when they don't. And the South ... you're on notice ...

Human Revolution

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS FOR DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION

Anyone who knows me knows that the original Deus Ex is one of my two favorite video games of all time, the other being the original Legend of Zelda. In the last 11 years I have played Deus Ex from start to finish at least 9 times and each time I’ve discovered something new about the game. Never before and never since have I played a game that so perfectly matched an intelligently written and poignant science fiction story that introduced concepts worthy of philosophical and social discussion beyond the bounds of the game world with the kind of guided (yet still open ended) game play that rewards player’s decisions through more than just trinkets and score increases. Deus Ex should not only be considered a model for modern game development and how to provide players with a wealth of choices while still managing narrative direction and overall scope, but also a model for how to tell a smart science fiction story in the digital age.

I won’t get into details here, but as most who are familiar with Deus Ex know, the sequel (Deus Ex: Invisible War) failed to even come close to the greatness of the original title. While it wasn’t a total loss from a sales standpoint, the perception of Deus Ex as a property had been soured and if the world had ended without another title in the series, there would be few regrets. Enter Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a prequel to the series under development by an entirely different team, nearly a decade removed from the original and in a gaming landscape that had all but left games with the depth of the original Deux Ex behind.

Initially I was skeptical, we all were, but as I saw more of the game and heard more from the developers it seemed that the crew at Eidos Montreal might just be able to pull off a title worthy of the Deus Ex moniker. Having recently completed my first play through of the game, I have to say that they succeeded on almost all fronts and even the parts that I have complaints about are still far in advance of Invisible War.

The first and easiest thing to talk about when examining Human Revolution is the game play. On this front, the developers absolutely nailed it to such a degree that if you were to remake the original Deus Ex using Human Revolution’s systems (mod makers: hint, hint), there would be very little you’d have to excuse. Playing the game on the PC I had few complaints (after a mouse lag patch and adjusting my FOV from 70 to 90) and the addition of cover mechanics and 3^rd person camera cutaway take downs (console gaming staples for the current generation) both felt completely natural. In fact the cover system turned out to be a much more welcome addition than I had anticipated and in addition to fitting in well with the combat, I felt it added a LOT to the stealth game. Missing is the skill system and health management from the original Deus Ex, the former having been removed complete and the latter replaced by a more modern wait-and-heal system. To be fair, I miss neither system. Sure, the skill system made the original Deus Ex more of an RPG, but curtailing my shooting skills based on skill points always felt odd for an FPS. Granted they could have found more ways to convert the old skill system over to options in the augmentation system, but really … it’s a small complaint. As far as the health system goes, I can take it or leave it. The debate here actually has nothing to do with Deus Ex and more to do with old health bars vs. new health bars. These days I just expect to heal up if I can stand still long enough. It doesn’t phase me at all in Human Revolution, but I’m a quick save whore anyway so when push comes to shove, I just reload.  Beyond these minor differences I feel like I get virtually the same amount of depth from the game play of Human Revolution as I did from the original title. My only complaint might be with some of the level design. The city areas in general are fantastic, with tons of secrets to uncover for the industrious explorer, but the actual mission areas almost made it too easy for me to get around. I felt like the various stealth, hacking, and run-and-gun options were usually rather obvious. If you want to stealth past an area, look for a vent, if you want to hack, find a computer. I feel like the original game had a little more variety. Still this is a minor complaint.

If I have one major complaint with Human Revolution (and in the grand scheme it’s still minor compared to Invisible War) it’s the story. The main storyline never really managed to hook me as a player and I feel like this is a failure on two fronts. The first failure is in attaching me to the story and the characters. I never feel there is any reason to care about any of the characters I run across and it’s not for the game’s lack of trying. They immediately try to get you to care about the character of Megan Reed by mentioning the player character (Adam Jensen)’s relationship with her, but this is not a relationship the player takes part in at all. Almost as soon as we meet Dr. Reed, she’s taken out of the picture and when she shows up again later, Jensen’s reaction makes sense, but I don’t feel it as a player. I feel like the original Deus Ex did a much better job of endearing me to various characters. The very first conversation in the game with the player character (JC Denton)’s brother Paul allows you to play out a big brother/little brother dynamic and forces you to either take Paul’s non-violent posture or actively side against it. This dymanic plays out several times over with other characters as well. The original Deus Ex is always subtly asking you to make choices based on other character’s personal agendas and motivations. The most interesting character in Human Revolution is Frank Pritchard, the asshole IT guy who you find talking in your ear most of the game, but who you only physically interact with once. Had they enhanced the relationship with some of the other characters (specifically David Sarif, Hugh Darrow, Ben Taggart, and Megan Reed) to make those characters more than just exposition devices, the story decisions I had to make late in the game may have held more weight. Another HUGE missed opportunity exists with the 3 mercenaries you encounter at the very beginning of the game and who show up successively throughout. These are your core rivals from the start, the object of either your justice or revenge. Then only time you ever hear from them however is right before you kick their asses. Granted the situation is somewhat different in that these 3 are antagonists from the start, but the original Deus Ex’s Gunter Schultz and Anna Navarre are much better developed villains and because of this, the interactions with them as Deus Ex’s story unfolds carry much more weight.

The second failing of the story is that it throws too many links at you without fully developing them. The original Deus Ex unfolds very naturally with the Grey Death plague initially taking center stage and eventually implicating FEMA, MJ12, the Illuminati, and ultimately Bob Page as the ultimate villain. Human Revolution throws information your way, but rarely asks you to comment on it. When Human Revolution does ask for your opinion, the resulting comments feel more like flavor text than character building. In the end, the story of Human Revolution is almost a comedy of errors that more or less culminates with you cleaning up one man’s misguided mistake as opposed to thwarting an international conspiracy. The real problem, is that the international conspiracy angle is present, but largely undeveloped. It’s to the point where the final boss of the game is a key player in this conspiracy, but until that final battle you have little idea of her ambitions leading up to it. When I got to Area 51 in the original Deus Ex I knew what Bob Page wanted to do and I was there to stop him. In the process of doing so I was given several options for exactly how to accomplish this by various characters I had connected with earlier in the game. These connections along with the fact that the story had been preaching to me in regards to these various viewpoints throughout the game and that the options were physical paths for me to take and not simply and button to press, all contributed to the weight of that final decision. While I am prepared for the choices at the end of Human Revolution to a certain degree, they feel weak not only because I have little connection with the people involved, but also because the game doesn’t make me do anything different to achieve these objectives. You get to the end of the game and push one of four buttons after which you see a bunch of stock footage with some vaguely philosophical voiceover.

I suppose one of the difficulties of making a prequel, especially as (and for) a game that relies so heavily on player choice to determine the outcome of it’s narrative, is ending it in a way that is both interesting and yet doesn’t encroach upon the sanctity of the pre-existing property and it’s world. It’s actually because of this that I feel Human Revolution really dropped the story ball at the end. The Illuminati are the one major thread (besides augmentations themselves) that carries between both games. Throughout the game we are treated to notes, and broadcasts speaking about characters from the first game that we know to be involved with the Illuminati. At this point in time, these people are very much pulling the strings, but by the time we get to the original Deus Ex there has been a schism within their ranks that ultimately creates the situation whereby Bob Page becomes the core villain. While I can see that they didn’t want to associate the two games too closely in order to avoid certain pitfalls, I think this is an aspect they could have played with a bit more, especially considering how much the Illuminati figures into Human Revolution’s end game.

Regardless of these concerns, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is not only an excellent game, but a worthy successor to the original title and one that I hope gets expanded upon with future DLC and hopefully does a bit more to bridge the gap between the world of 2027 and 2052.

ACL 2011 - Worst Year Ever?

I bought my tickets for ACL 2011 hoping that the schedule would fill out a bit and that we'd get some bigger or at least more recognizable indie and or rock acts to fill out the middle hours of each day. This did not happen and for the most part I find myself staring at a roster of acts that I don't recognize and (after some cursory investigation) generally seem to play the kind of music I stopped listening to the radio over a decade ago in order to avoid. I may be wrong however and there may be some gems in there that I'm not aware of. Since I have the tickets for Friday and Sunday and since I'm still going to show up to see the few anchor acts I was initially interested in to begin with, I've decided to see if I can find anything else in this mix to get excited about. To this end I've created a few Spotify play lists, one for each day (even Saturday, because while I'm not going ... I'm a nice guy like that) and with any luck I'll hear something interesting that doesn't conflict with my existing (albeit thin) schedule.

ACL 2011 Friday
ACL 2011 Saturday
ACL 2011 Sunday

Honestly, there's no way to look at this and not realize that this is the worst ACL line up at least since I've been in Austin. I have to wonder if this has anything to do with the expansion of FunFunFunFest this year, because their lineup is spectacular. We'll see if my playlists don't change my mind, but as it stands right now (if it wasn't for the few acts I know I want to see), I'd be unloading my two ACL tickets to recoup the cost of my already purchased FunFunFunFest 3-Day Pass.

The Ballad of the Jelly Donut

Yet again I have missed my chance at a Jelly donut. This is the third week in a row. To give a little background: my job gets a bunch of donuts and a bunch of breakfast tacos every Friday morning for the studio. Breakfast tacos (while tasty) are an oxymoron for reasons I won't get into at the moment and when given the option to grab something sweet I'm going to go for it. I like jelly donuts for reasons that I will get into later, but they always seem to be the first to go and for the past three weeks the only filled donuts left have been creme or what appears to be some kind of lemon concoction. I am left with no choice but to grab a regular frosted or sprinkle donut instead.

I know I shouldn't complain about free donuts, but when your world has involved free donuts one day a week for years, you start to feel a certain privilege. I think I understand the reason why the jelly donuts disappear quicker than the other though and it's probably the same reason that I'm drawn to them. There are several factors at work that make a jelly donut more appealing than a regular frosted or sprinkle donut. First off, there's no hole in it. Yeah, I know. Donuts have holes. No big surprise there, but when you compare a jelly donut to a regular donut, it's hard not to feel like you're getting ripped off with the regular donut. Secondly, the jelly donut is filled with jelly. My regular donut is just filled with ... more donut. I mean sure it's still delicious, but when given the choice between added jelly and no added jelly I'm going to choose jelly every time. Finally, a jelly donut is just more donut. Yes this is a recap of point one and two in a way, but when you have mentally prepared yourself and your diet to allow for just one donut you want that donut to be all that it can be. The jelly donut is like cheating. It still counts as a donut, but you're getting much more out of the deal.

Anyway, I'll enjoy my chocolate frosted donut just fine while pining away for jelly instead. Maybe someday I'll arrive early enough to catch the donuts as they arrive or maybe my other favorite, the coffee roll, will show up. Mmmm ... coffee roll. Don't even get me started. It's a donut and it describes the golden section, the mystical and mathematical significance cannot be denied.

Stumbles

I know, I am behind two blog posts now after having missed the last two weekends. I'll make it up somehow. Hell, let's count this as one! Seriously though, This weekend and last were a little atypical in that I was busy for most of the day on Saturday and Sunday was rushed by a) being completely worn out by Saturday and b) having to line up at Alamo for movies by 6pm. To compound all that, I just haven't had that narrative inspiration to write like I did with those first summer posts. It was all I could do to keep myself from writing several posts in a row a few weeks back and now (while I have a list of great topics) I can't seem to muster the will. I suppose that was sort of the impetus for the "summer project" anyway, to force myself to write something while also getting out and seeing some new places around Austin. Technically I'm only behind by one coffee shop as the last post was written in a week where I visited two, but I still need to get out there. Anyway, we'll see what next week brings.

The Zero of Time

I’ve recently started playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time some 10+ years out of sync with the rest of the world. This isn’t the first time I’ve attempted to play Ocarina, but it’s the first time I intend to finish. When The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker launched back in 2003 I attempted to play the GC version of Ocarina that I got as a promotional item. What I discovered, much to my shock was that Ocarina of Time was a frustrating mess. I got maybe a third of the way through the game and stopped, not for any specific reason, but because it didn’t captivate me enough to continue despite being a core Zelda game.

For years I’ve heard nothing but praises for Ocarina of Time. There are many that herald it as their favorite Zelda game and my only explanation for this is the same I give for the preponderance of people who claim Final Fantasy 7 as their favorite of that series: Ocarina was the first Zelda game for an entire generation of gamers. Having been alive and playing through most of the commercial history of gaming, I don’t really experience this effect so much with games. I’ve certainly had it happen with music, where my first exposure to a band is one of their later albums and it ends up being my favorite. Regardless of that effect, if Ocarina is the favorite Zelda game of an entire generation, they’ve really lowered their expectations compared to mine.

Now let’s be frank, the basics of Ocarina are the same as any other Zelda game and at that level there is nothing out of sync in this title with other games in the series. The general thrust of any Zelda game is that you explore a large overworld area and delve into a series of puzzling dungeons that require you to unlock access to a special item in order to be find and defeat the end boss. It’s the very model of a purely item-based progression. The more you put into a Zelda game, the more you get out of it. Feeling a little weak? Go exploring and find new ways to get more hearts on your life bar. Stuck as to how to get ahead? Find new ways to use the last item you received from a dungeon and explore the new areas that open up. It’s a great format that has stood the test of time and almost never gets old in any permutation. So why am I so unimpressed with Ocarina?

The first problem may just be a problem for me. I grew up a console gamer in the days of D-Pads and two-button controls. Just before the N64 and PS1 came to prominence, I made the switch to being primarily a PC Gamer. The first real 3D games I played were on a PC and therefore, my mind is wired for mouse controls … smooth, reactive mouse controls. If you put me anywhere near an analog stick I’m going to have trouble, but I’ve learned to manage it. For 3^rd person games I don’t tend to have much trouble these days, but I’ve learned that controlling a 1^st person game with anything but a keyboard and mouse will lead to broken controllers and endless rage. That being said, Ocarina shouldn’t be a huge problem for me as it’s mainly a 3^rd person game. Sadly this is not the case. I’ll chalk it up to the newness of the system for which Ocarina was developed and the lack of consideration in the controller for proper camera control (as displayed among most Japanese developers in my experience) but controlling Link in Ocarina makes me want to hurt someone. First off, there is no such thing as precise movement in the game. Every twitch of my controller sends Link careening in one direction or another and often way off whatever mark I want him to hit. Secondly, the camera fails to follow where I’m looking, which would be almost forgivable except that it does so in such an extreme manner. I understand that I’m not always going to want to be looking where my character is looking, but the camera in Ocarina lags so far behind that I’m constantly hitting the target button to face it forwards again. At the very least the designers should have realized that when I’m moving forward I’m going to want to see where I’m going and that the camera should behave with less elasticity in that situation. Granted, I eventually got used to the controls, but I was a good 1/3 to ½ of the way through the game when I did.

My second problem is the tone of much of the game and the way it keeps butting in to “help” me. Yes, a lot of this is just hate for Navi, a useful but ultimately intrusive game system/plot device that’s constantly interrupting me with inane tidbits and hints about things I’ve already figured out. Beyond that though the tone of the early game especially is far too childish for my liking; or rather it’s childish without being fleshed out. There’s a definite appreciation for and attempt to emulate the works of Hiyao Miyazaki in the early sections of the game. The character design, the themes, everything is owed to Miyazaki’s masterful animations, but there’s just not enough meat here to bring it to life in the way a Miyazaki film does. I get these boring fragments of clichéd and all-to-obvious exposition from almost everyone I speak to. I feel as if every sentence should culminate with “wink, wink” in acknowledgement of the overly cartoonish way that the story is being handed to me on a plate. This isn’t to say that I need a grim and gritty Zelda game with tons of prose or extended cut scenes, but either say less or say more in a better way. Additionally, the overall story has never thrilled me. Ocarina is essentially a rehashing of Link to the Past, which rehashed, but greatly expanded upon the original Legend of Zelda. I realize that Zelda games and their stories are formulaic, but as someone who has been exploring Hyrule for 25 years, I like it when things are changed up a bit. This is likely why I thoroughly enjoyed Link’s Awakening and The Wind Waker especially so taking the time-tested formula and giving it an interesting spin; at least geographically.

I suppose my final gripe about the game is how confined the overworld feels. Without any exaggeration, the overworld in Ocarina of Time is composed primarily of several linear levels with various secrets that can be uncovered. Compared to the original Zelda, which throws you to the wolves in a completely open world, Link to the Past which does a similar thing albeit with more story, and Wind Waker with its vast ocean, Ocarina may as well be on rails.

It may pain me to say it, but as I’m nearly done with the game now, I have to admit that Ocarina isn’t all bad. The expected item based progression (while dulled due to the linear nature of the world building) is as compelling as it’s been for 25 years. I find it confusing how other open world and sandbox games don’t try to emulate this. The Zelda style of item progression (also on display in the Metroid-Vania style of games) is incredibly compelling as it only requires very little of the player, but baits them with so much more should they choose to put in the extra effort. Typical open world games just give you more missions for playing the game, a Zelda game does that while also enticing you with abilities and tools that will make that added game play more interesting and fun. Additionally many of the dungeons in Ocarina of Time are (once you get past the control issues) as thoughtful as ever, with boss fights that are both familiar and innovative at the same time. And once you get past the early sections of the game, there’s far less hand-holding and frolicking and while the story is nowhere near as powerful as it tries to be, it’s still marginally compelling.

Anyway, that’s my take on the game at ¾ of the way through. It could change in the final couple dungeons of the game, but I doubt it. Maybe it isn’t the worst Zelda game of all time (and “bad” for Zelda is still miles ahead of most game) but if Ocarina was your first exposure to Zelda, you really owe it to yourself to play the original game, Link to the Past, and Link’s Awakening. Despite 25 years and numerous technological improvements, the original Legend of Zelda still remains one of my two favorite games of all time and unlike many older games it still holds up in my mind as both fun and challenging.

Summer project update: Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about my summer project. In fact most of this post was written at Houndstooth this past 4^th of July and while I finished writing it at home today, I did spend some time at Dolce Vita earlier.