Poli sci prof accused of sexual harassment
Note: Super proud of this. Beat the local paper to the story. Hot scoop!
The former head of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette political science department, Donn Kurtz, Ph.D., has stepped down following allegations of sexual harassment in a complaint, civil lawsuit and criminal charges levied by a former student, Kelly May, who graduated in May 2006.
May, a graduate of the political science department, has filed a civil charge against Kurtz, UL Lafayette, the board of supervisors of the University of Louisiana system and the state of Louisiana. The suit, filed on Nov. 3, claims that “plaintiff, Kelly May, was subjected to a pattern of conduct in violation of her civil rights and human rights, caused by unreasonable intrusions into the most private and confidential subjects by Donn M. Kurtz, II, individually and in the course and scope of his employment.”
A criminal charge has also been filed with the Lafayette City Police Department. It was transferred to the UL Lafayette Police Department, where it is currently under investigation. The initial report reads that May alleges "that her former advisor touched her breast on several occasions over a two-and-a-half year period," and that the most recent occurence was on Nov. 4, 2005.
The civil suit reads, “in the Fall of 2003, in one of her sessions with her advisor, Donn M. Kurtz, II, the defendant, inappropriately touched and fondled plaintiff’s breasts while he was alone with her in her office.” It then alleges that Kurtz touched May “inappropriately virtually every time he advised her in his office while they were alone,” and claims this continued until November 2005.
It goes on to accuse Kurtz of “assault, battery, sexual assault and sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, through reckless and outrageous offensive conduct exemplified by a pattern of conduct and particular incidents unwelcomed, non-consensual assault, battery, sexual assault, and sexual battery.”
“There has been an allegation by a former student concerning Dr. Kurtz's behavior, which is currently under investigation by the university,” said David Barry, Ph.D. and dean of the College of Liberal Arts. Barry said the complaint with the university was filed at some point after May’s graduation in May 2006.
Kurtz, who had served as the department head since at least 2000, stepped down following the accusation, and was replaced by his predecessor, Janet Frantz, Ph.D. Kurtz is still listed as the department head on certain sections of the UL Lafayette Web site. He is currently on medical leave for the rest of the semester, according to students in one of his former classes.
According to Barry, an internal complaint relating to the matter is currently under investigation by Patricia Cottonham, associate dean of students at UL Lafayette. Cottonham, Kurtz, Frantz and several faculty members in the department of political science all declined to comment for this story, because of certain restrictions the university has regarding confidentiality for “personnel matters.”
Kurtz graduated from Tulane University in 1971. According to the political science department’s Web site, he was honored with a Faculty Excellence Award given by graduates of Blue Key, an honorary leadership society at UL Lafayette. He has edited a compilation of articles about political families and authored a text on Louisiana supreme courts and their interaction with U.S. justices.
“The Daily Show” – real journalism?
More and more college students, as well as people in general, are getting news from comedy programs such as Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.”
According to figures in 2005, “The Daily Show” garners about 1.4 million viewers nightly. Neilsen ratings put the show’s median viewer age at 35, much younger than traditional nightly news broadcasts.
"There have been a couple academic studies recently of those shows, where researchers study the actual news content in those shows compared to the broadcast news media,” said Rick Swanson, Ph.D., a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “They discovered there was just as much actual news content – news information – given by "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show" as there are in the actual news media broadcasts. And so, believe it or not, students are learning just as much about the news as they would be if they were watching a mainstream news outlet."
The study, completed this year by Julia Fox, a telecommunications professor at Indiana University, showed that “The Daily Show” had about as much hard information during the 2004 presidential campaign as the average nightly news broadcast.
"It is clearly a humor show, first and foremost," Fox said about “The Daily Show.” "But there is some substance on there, and in some cases, like John Edwards announcing his candidacy, the news is made on the show.
"In an absolute sense, we should probably be concerned about both of those sources, because neither one is particularly substantive,” Fox continued. “It's a bottom-line industry and ratings-driven. We live in an 'infotainment' society, and there certainly are a number of other sources available."
“Personally, I think that the shows actually do a service,” said Swanson. “A lot of people have attacked or criticized the shows for bringing cynicism to public discourse, but I don't think that there's any more cynicism they could have than the bitter partisan fights we have had in recent years. What these shows do, I think, is correctly point out the absurdity in a lot of the claims of both those on the left and the right, and I watch the shows, and you often see that they do ridicule people on the extreme left and the extreme right, in general. What these shows point out is the hypocrisies and the absurdities of the arguments on both the far left and the far right, and I think that's healthy. Free speech is always healthy, to expose these ideas for what they are.”
“[College students getting their news from “The Daily Show”] doesn't really worry me,” said Pearson Cross, Ph.D., a political science professor at UL Lafayette. “Frankly, at this point, what you worry more about with getting news in terms of college students is that they don't get any news, or they're completely uninvolved. Obviously, Stewart's show and Colbert are entertainment shows, but if it's entertainment that gets people interested in what's going on in the world, then I have no problem with that at all, and frankly, a lot of our news is pretty funny.”
Some college students do rely on the satirical programs as their main source of news.
"It's really “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” that I get my daily update on what's happening," said Joshua Daigle, a history major at UL Lafayette who said he had political aspirations. “I try my best to read print, but the thing is--about the Daily Show and the Colbert Report--is that they mostly present facts and they make fun of the facts.”
Daigle said he felt that the shows could be more truthful, because they didn’t have any credibility to lose by being accused of biased.
“For instance,” said Daigle, “when Dick Cheney said there was a link between 9/11 and Iraq, that there was evidence to show that Iraqi agents and Al-Qaida agents had met, and then a few months later, never said that? 'The Daily Show' was the only one who could show that, and say they were false. Other news organizations can't really do that, because they'd be called biased and lose credibility, but 'The Daily Show' has its own untouchable credibility. They don't have anything to lose, so they can report the truth.”
“People are getting their news wherever they can, and it is high time that the professional world and the academics respect that fact, and tailor their teaching and their media to suit,” said William Davie, Ph.D., a broadcasting professor at UL Lafayette. “We come from a sacred temple--in our minds--that suggests the traditional journalist shall never dabble in opinion, bias or even humor without violating his sacred vow to the calling. Nonsense.”
Davie said he felt that “people want to feel good when they read the news. We have forgotten that. We have decided since the news is bad, we want you to feel bad. That is stupid. We have to treat the news more creatively. What does Jon Stewart do? He makes people laugh. He pokes fun at newsmakers. So he is not a traditional journalist. Rumsfeld calls him an opiner. I call him a metajournalist.”
A metajournalist, according to Davie, is “someone who takes the work of traditional journalists and profits from it mightily by either using it for humor, or as Rush Limbaugh does, using it for opining, for commentary. The public likes it. The public is not that offended because its intentionality is clearer.”
Davie also said he felt the traditional journalists have to learn to accept the new “metajournalists,” because it is important that the same accountability for facts apply to both. He said one thing he was worried about was the trivialization of the traditional journalist on opinion programs, because the programs get their material from traditional sources while sometimes mocking the same sources. Davie also said he felt the shows were beneficial in their criticism of mainstream media outlets.
“I just can’t imagine anyone being interested in 'The Daily Show' if they weren’t interested in traditional journalism as well,” he said.
Review: Wii/Wii Sports
I triumphantly returned home from Gamestop Sunday morning, carrying my wonderful new Nintendo Wii. Yes, after waiting in line for 10 minutes and hearing the giant dork in front of me fail miserably at making small talk with the people in front of him, the Gamestop girl, and just about everyone there, I received my system, “Wii Sports,” and “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.” The latter will have to wait, however, as I haven’t had nearly enough time to get into that. “Wii Sports” and the system, however, are fair game.
Normally, a game console would not necessitate an entire review, or even half of one, but the Wii has a fair amount of functionality built into its hardware beyond simply memory card management. Various functionalities are organized into channels like the Disc Channel, for playing games, and the Photo Channel, used to view and edit photos on SD memory cards. Other minor channels are the Message Board, where you can post things locally and send messages online, and the address book, which manages your contacts in the Wii’s network, WiiConnect24.
The big feature is the Mii Channel. This allows Wii owners and their friends to create digital alter egos called Miis. Miis are hyper-cartoony super-simplistic polygon people that can be made to look like you, or anyone else. What this boils down to is a free, system-level create a character editor. Creating silly digital avatars of your friends is a blast, and a great way for people to get used to using the Wii remote. You can also send them to your friends over the Wii’s network.
Another big feature is the Wii Shop, where you can buy classic games from the NES, SNES, N64, and Sega Genesis. Eight-bit games are $5, 16-bit games are $8, and N64 titles are $10. You buy a set number of Wii points ($10 = 1000 points) and head off to the store. The selection right now is pretty limited, with “Super Mario 64” and the original “Legend of Zelda” being the really big names, but Nintendo says they plan to add new games every Monday. The emulation used to play the games seems to work well, and it autosaves your place when you exit the game, even if you aren’t at a save point in the game itself.
The unique feature of the Wii’s network is that it’s always online and checking for new messages or other items of interest. It seems to connect every few minutes, whether the system is on or off, and see if there are new messages. If the system is on, a tone plays, and if it is off, the disc drive becomes lit by blue LEDs to call attention to itself.
I do have a few problems with the Wii’s whole online experience right now. I don’t know if they are the fault of my router, Nintendo’s servers being hammered, or buggy software, but the experience has thusfar been very hit-and-miss. Sometimes I can connect, sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes I get messages from people I exchange system codes with immediately, sometimes they just don’t come. Sometimes the Wii Shop is fast, sometimes it’s really slow, and sometimes it freezes up while loading. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that it is not possible to tell whether or not the Wii is online aside from attempting to log into the Shop Channel. I hope these problems get resolved sooner rather than later through whatever firmware updates and server-side changes needed, but right now, things feel a bit unfinished.
However, the real question of any Wii review is “How does the controller work?” The answer: Pretty damn well. “Wii Sports” makes for an excellent demo game to, well, just about anyone.
Bowling is probably the best “Wii Sports” game. It feels very much like you’re actually bowling. You grab the remote, and pretty much pantomime bowling with it. (Just don’t let go.) It feels remarkably similar to the actual game. The way you twist your hand while you release the B button to release the ball actually puts spin on it.
Tennis is a close second. I really can’t say much about how you control it. Your character moves near the ball automatically, and you swing. Coming up from below results in a lob, head on is a straight shot, and you can do a sort of “spike” by coming from below.
Golf is also fantastic, though it is much more daunting than the rest of the Wii Sports fare. It simplifies the game of golf as far down as it can go, but it is still difficult to pick up and play easily. Obviously, it involves miming a golf swing, but you can’t just swing it as fast as possible, you have to learn how to control yourself and hit it just so. Wind and terrain must also be taken into account. Unfortunately, there’s only nine holes and four clubs. It’s hard, but the potential is fantastic, and it makes me want a real, full-featured golf game to come out.
Baseball is a mild disappointment. For the sake of simplicity, the game is reduced to pitching and batting. Controls here are obvious. Batting involves swinging the remote, and pitching acting like you’re tossing it. You can throw special pitches like curveballs by holding down a button as you pitch. The rest is automatic, including catching the ball and running bases. It’s still fun to trade off pitching and catching with a buddy, but this is definitely the “Wii Sports” title farthest away from being an entire game.
Boxing is the only truly bad part of “Wii Sports.” It is also the only title that uses the nunchuck attachment. Grab a remote in one hand and the nunchuck in the other and act like you’re beating the crap out of your friend next to you. Unfortunately, the remote fails here. It’s really hard to tell what’s going on, and to dodge blows by darting out of the way. These pretty much devolve into whatever the motion-sensing equivalent of button-mashing is called.
Overall, though, the Wii shows great promise. I haven’t cracked open “Zelda” yet, but “Wii Sports” is a pretty good single-player title and a fantastic multiplayer game. I can see many hours being wasted on it with my friends, and I look forward to getting normally game-phobic people to try it out.
Editorial: Extraordinary changes met with utter apathy
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." – Benjamin Franklin
In October, President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law after rushing it through in the final days of a Republican Congress. The act, ostensibly designed to allow the administration to “facilitate bringing to justice terrorists and other unlawful enemy combatants through full and fair trials by military commissions, and for other purposes,” is one of the most frightening pieces of new legislation I’ve ever seen--and no one seems to care.
The guts of the act are this: President Bush or the secretary of defense can gather up a group of people he selects and declare anyone an “unlawful enemy combatant.” If you are declared an “unlawful enemy combatant,” you lose one of your basic human rights, that of the writ of habeas corpus. Those confusing Latin words allow you get a lawyer, confront your accuser and hear the crimes levied against you after being arrested, as well as for the court to determine whether or not your imprisonment is valid.
According to the Military Commissions Act itself, it only removes the writ if you are not a legal citizen of the United States. Putting aside the fact that if you’re traveling here you could be snatched up, put in a jail somewhere, and never heard of again, how could you prove your own citizenship were you accused of being an “unlawful enemy combatant?” How could you get in front a judge to prove it? Though the Act may pretend it is inapplicable to U.S. citizens, in practice, there is nothing stopping the government from using it on anyone, for no reason at all. All they have to do is decide you qualify as an “unlawful enemy combatant,” a term which has no explicit definition, other than being someone Bush considers outside of the protections of the Geneva Convention.
Of course, the entire reason for the act was that prisoners thrown in the Guantanamo Bay prison facility wanted to know what they were accused of, exactly, and if they were ever going to be given trial. I have no doubt that the place contains some of the scum of the Earth, but there are innocent people in there. Innocent people have been released as the result of now-impossible habeas corpus cases. Do these people somehow not deserve a basic human right that has been in place since the year 1305, simply because they are accused of being involved in a terrorist act?
The Constitution states, “the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” As far as I can tell, we are not under invasion, nor rebellion, nor is there a grandiose, uncontainable threat to public safety right now. Terrorism? The 9/11 attacks were preventable with our pre-9/11 intelligence capabilities, had the administration actually paid attention to all those memos.
Before 2006, the only time habeas corpus has been suspended was in the midst of the Civil War, by President Lincoln in response to widespread riots and militia actions. Even then, it was only in small areas of the country that were experiencing chaos, not the entire thing. Should we not be up in arms about this? At the very least, we might be aware of the broad redefinition of the Constitution present here.
Ostensibly, President Bush and his administration are doing their best to defend our country from terrorists attempting to destroy our freedoms. I can scarcely imagine a situation the terrorists could create that would damage our essential liberties more than they have been in the name of protecting us. I don't think people are going to start mysteriously disappearing any time soon, but we have (or had) that Bill of Rights for a reason.
Review: Guitar Hero II
Longtime readers, assuming I have any, will remember me hurling excessive praise at the original “Guitar Hero” late last year. I stand by it, it really is that good. I’ve played it on and off constantly since the game’s release, and firing it up and rocking out to some Boston has not gotten any worse over time. I was nearly reduced to a quivering mass of bulbous goo in waiting for the sequel, but it’s finally here, and it rocks.
“Guitar Hero II,” out now for the PlayStation 2 and coming early next year for the Xbox 360, is a rhythm game from the fine folks at Harmonix, who also brought us the fantastic “Karaoke Revolution” series of titles. The studio was originally founded in 1995 with the goal “to create new ways for non-musicians to experience the unique joy that comes from making music,” according to their Web site, HarmonixMusic.com. They made high-end music-based interactives for places like Disney’s EPCOT Center before shifting their focus and making their first home console game, the truly unique “Frequency,” which was released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2. They followed with a sequel, “Amplitude,” in 2003, hooked up with Konami for the “Karaoke” games, made “Guitar Hero” a huge hit, and now have the financial backing of giants like Activision and MTV.
I actually have developed tremendous respect for them, as just about every game they have released has been both innovative and exceptionally fun, as well as showing extraordinary craftsmanship from an artistic standpoint. The only exception “EyeToy: Antigrav,” whose experimental camera-based control scheme doesn’t exactly work wonderfully. The game was outside of their usual music-based comfort zone, but was still quite hilarious to play in a party atmosphere, and it had the usual artistic dexterity applied to a sort of retro sci-fi motif. But enough about all this – this review is about rocking.
“Guitar Hero II” takes everything about the original game and turns it up to 11. The venues, characters and guitars still bear a wonderful and consistent style. Little changes, like a unified high score board between career and quick play mode, come alongside large feature additions and revisions.
In general, this is a much harder game, but a more forgiving hammer-on and pull-off system offsets this, making long solos more manageable. A new practice mode also allows you to select sections of a song and slow it down to really learn to nail those difficult solos you previously had to play through the rest of the song to get to.
The largest change is a revamped multiplayer feature set, now including cooperative play and a pro face off mode. Cooperative play has one player playing lead guitar and the other playing bass or rhythm depending on the song. The game makes sure to crank up the bass track so you can get aural feedback on your gameplay. Though playing bass might sound like a drag, most of the songs have it being comparably difficult to the lead guitar outside of solos, and in at least one song, Rush’s “YYZ,” the bass line is quite a bit harder than the guitar. Of course, some of the songs – “Rock This Town” comes to mind – are very boring exercises in keeping the beat. Rhythm guitar is different, generally challenging as well, though it can get repetitive on some songs. Thankfully, these problem songs can easily be avoided.
Of course, the content many faux-rockers are most enthusiastic about are the new songs – 64 including the bonus tracks. Forty of these are licensed tracks, spanning ‘50s classics like Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” (widely known as the opening music for “Pulp Fiction”) to modern tracks like Avenged Sevenfold’s “The Beast and the Harlot.” Almost every genre of rock gets representation here, from the aforementioned rockabilly to‘70s hippie fare like the Allman Brothers Band’s “Jessica” or Kansas’ “Carry on Wayward Son,” ‘80s hair bands, like Mötley Crüe’s “Shout at the Devil” or Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and more modern fast-paced rock like Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing In The Name Of” and Foo Fighters’ “Monkey Wrench.” (long sentence) And then there are the downright weird choices that are less than famous, like the Reverend Horton Heat’s “Psychobilly Freakout” (a song I have taken a shining to, see title) or Primus’ “John the Fisherman.” The game also chooses obscure tracks from well-known bands, like the Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’,” or Aerosmith’s “Last Child,” since they work well in the game. These all add up to an excellent soundtrack that everyone can find a few songs they recognize and love, as well as discovering a few new favorites.
The bonus tracks are generally much better than last time, “All of This” nonwithstanding. KFC-adorned guitar aficionado Buckethead brings the game’s hardest track, “Jordan,” a song that will make you weep at its difficulty. Several Harmonix bands from “Guitar Hero” return, including the fantastically named “Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives.” Fans of HomestarRunner.com and the Adult Swim show “Metalocalypse” will be elated to see that a metaled-out “Trogdor” and “Thunderhorse” appear here. The rest are generally great fun to play, with several instrumental tracks filling the gap “Frankenstein” filled in the first game.
There are, of course, disappointments with the song list. Many of the covers are, shall we say, less than perfect recreations of their originals. Even the Ozzy impersonator from “GH1” seems to be less dead-on here. On a brighter side, a few of the tracks are actually their original recordings. Unfortunately, there’s no Beatles, no Who, no Zeppelin, no Metallica, and no AC/DC, and the best Van Halen they could get was “You Really Got Me.” (The new MTV backing may help in this department.) Another nitpick (one word?): Many bands featured in the first title do not make a return despite having tracks that scream for inclusion. (Look up “Brighton Rock” by Queen.) In the grand scheme of things, these complaints are no big deal. The track list is in general fantastic.
Of note is the game’s new encore system: at the end of each tier in career mode, your cover band does an encore song to unlock the next set of songs. This is generally a fantastic rock anthem, and it’s awesome to be thrown into songs like these coming off a performance. If you plan to get the game, do yourself a favor and try not to learn the identity of the final track; not knowing it will make experiencing it that much sweeter.
The game’s greatest strength remains: You really feel like you’re playing a guitar. The game is designed so that it is at the same time challenging and accessible, and you really feel a sense of accomplishment after nailing a tough solo. If you have a PlayStation 2, and a remote appreciation for rock music, buy this game. If you have played another music game, like “Dance Dance Revolution,” and thought that it was a fun concept but was hampered by the techno J-pop soundtrack, consider buying a system to play this game. The PlayStation 2 is obviously much cheaper, but you might consider buying a more future-proof Xbox 360 and waiting for that version to come out early next year. It will feature downloadable content (more songs!) added on a regular basis. Additionally, if you’re planning on picking up the game/guitar bundle to add another guitar your arsenal, you might be aware that RedOctane is planning to release a wireless PS2 guitar soon.
Whatever you do, I cannot impress this enough: Play the game. The “Guitar Hero” series is a triumph. It’s a game that lives and dies on the quality of its gameplay, not graphics, and has found amazing success based solely on word of mouth. It’s video game escapism at its finest, in both concept and execution. It’s exactly the sort of game the industry should be striving to produce.
Boustany holds in 2006 District 7 election
Though the Democrats may have won control of the House of Representatives, Louisiana's District 7 did not become one of the number of newly Democratic seats, as incumbent Repubilican Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. earned a second term, besting Democratic challenger Mike Stagg with a 71 percent majority.
Boustany's second campaign amassed 113,486 votes, beating Stagg in all eight parishes located in District 7. Stagg's final tally was 29 percent, or 47,007 votes.
"It is time to put the partisan bickering aside and really get to work solving the problems the American public expects government to solve," said Boustany, 50, at his victory party at Pat's Downtown in Lafayette. "You can count on me to work across party lines as I have done the past two years. I have worked hard and I am proud of the record I have amassed these last two years."
"The fact [is] that he's accepted all this money from the special interest groups and as a result, his votes don't reflect the interest of the district," said Stagg, 54, after his loss became apparent. "The real problem with his campaign is that he refused to debate. The only time he answered questions was in a structured setting."
Stagg ran his campaign without accepting any funding from the Democratic Party or Political Action Committees funded by special interest groups.
"I don't think [Stagg] should have done anything differently," said Simon Hayes, a UL Lafayette political science major and membership coordinator of the school's chapter of College Democrats. "I think he stood by his principles. I think it was just a matter of a candidate with $1 million versus a candidate with $35,000 to spend, and 30 percent compared to 70 percent is pretty admirable."
Boustany's supporters were predictably upbeat.
"I think he crosses partisan lines," said Buddy Bonvillain, a political science major at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who worked on Boustany's campaign team. Bonvillain said he felt that a Democratic house wouldn't affect Boustany as much as other Republicans, because of Boustany's record at working with the opposing party.
"I'm going to continue working in a bi-partisan way," said Boustany of his future plans in office. "I was very successful these past few years in getting a number of bills passed as the primary author. I had Democratic co-sponsors on every one of my bills. I've developed some great relationships across the aisle, and I'll continue to work in a bi-partisan fashion.
"Long-term [plans] for the next two years, obviously, fulfilling my prescription for prosperity, which I started work on in this past term, that's something I laid out before. It talks about economic development, infrastructure, reforming health care, improving education in the district, be very strong on national defense, and protecting our Louisiana values.
"The issue with Iraq is much more complicated than what we get in sound bites, and the bottom line is, we have to do what we can to secure protection of our troops," said Boustany. "Secondly, we need come to an agreement with the brand-new Iraqi government."
Before serving in Congress, Boustany was a heart surgeon based in Lafayette. He was forced to cease practice because of arthritic hands. He graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1978. He was the first Republican elected in the history of his district.
Stagg, who ran an unsuccessful bid for governor in 1998, is a self-described "entrepreneur [and] civic activist." He has lived in Lafayette for almost all his life.
Review: Bully
Outside of North America, “Bully,” Rockstar’s latest free-roaming opus, is instead known as “Canis Canem Edit,” or “dog eat dog.” This is a far more appropriate title than the North American one, which was embroiled in controversy from the moment of its announcement almost two years ago.
Fortunately, “Bully” is not the Columbine simulator it is lauded as being by its critics, all of whom began calling it that immediately after its announcement, before anyone had even seen screenshots of the game. “Bully,” however, is far from that. It’s easily the best riff on the “Grand Theft Auto” formula to date, and definitely Rockstar’s most innocent game, other than the 360’s “Table Tennis.”
“Bully” stars Jimmy Hopkins, a 15-year-old with disdain for his mother and disillusionment with the world. He is dropped off at the Bullworth Academy, a boarding school in what feels like New England. After dumping him at the gates to the school, his gold digging mother speeds off with her new geriatric husband for a year-long honeymoon, leaving Jimmy to get acquainted with his new school.
“Bully” is much more structured than the “Grand Theft Auto” games it draws inspiration from. You have to go to two classes each day, and have to be in bed at 2 a.m. every night. (Well, you don’t have to go class. It’s just encouraged.) Of course, there are also the missions, here referred to as tasks. These will be familiar to any “GTA” veteran.
“Bully’s” missions are generally far more varied and fun than any of the recent “Grand Theft Auto” games. The variety of actions you’ll have to perform is at least as varied as in “San Andreas,” and the controls are generally tighter and smoother to use. I can’t recall being truly frustrated at any mission in “Bully,” unlike “San Andreas.”
One of the things that sets the game apart from recent “GTA” games is the setting: It’s much smaller, allowing for more loving detail to be packed into each area. Bullworth--the school and the small town--feel much more alive and real than San Andreas’s cities and countryside did, though they are much smaller.
Of course, “Bully” would be nothing without a variety of weapons and other instruments of chaos. Aside from the obvious slingshot, which soon becomes ludicrously augmented with a scope, you get marbles for tripping people, stink bombs, eggs, and firecrackers. My one gripe is that the weapons you get later in the game become a little absurd. I can understand having to up the ante and feel like the player is advancing, but a portable potato gun with a eight-potato clip is reaching.
“Bully’s” hand-to-hand combat is a vast improvement over “San Andreas.” It feels much smoother, and new moves you learn are naturally integrated into your fighting style. It also feels very much like schoolyard bullying – you can grab someone by the collar, throw them on the ground and knee them in the unmentionables. The finishing moves are a nice touch. You can grab a character and do classic schoolyard moves like “Why are you hitting yourself?” or an Indian burn. If the setting is right, you can also give would-be bullies a swirlie or shove them into a trashcan.
You might be wondering, particularly after that paragraph, how “Bully” can be at all innocent? Without giving away too much, the Bullworth Academy is not a nice place. It is inhabited with some not-so-nice people and not-so-nice cliques. Jimmy is at first just trying to survive, and later trying to improve the overall situation of the school. Bullying the bullies, as it were.
Of course, one of the great things about “Bully’s” design is that you can be a total bullying curmudgeon. You can choose to accept optional missions like egging the girls dorm and giving people wedgies, or you can ignore them and beat up a bully you see picking on a nerd. The capacity for the player to do good is much larger than in “Grand Theft Auto.”
On the technical side of things, “Bully” looks impressive for a PlayStation 2 game, particularly one built on the aging “GTA3” engine. It has its own style, and there’s never any slowdown. Just don’t expect “Metal Gear Solid 3” or even “Resident Evil 4.”
The sound fares much better. “Bully” has one of the best original scores in recent memory, conveying danger and whimsy equally well, and changing dynamically based on the current situation. I’m still not tired of the bicycle music. The voice acting is similarly exemplary, featuring a cast of unknowns but using them extraordinarily well.
Of note is “Bully’s” careful efforts to seem timeless. There’s no licensed music, no advertisement – nothing to date the game as being set in the present day. It echoes the sentiment of the excellent TV series “Freaks and Geeks:” High schools sucks, no matter what decade you attend in.
“Bully” is a rare find--an original concept, executed almost flawlessly. It’s not perfect (there are some camera issues), but it’s excellent all the way around, and one of the PlayStation 2’s swan songs this fall. Play it.
Review: Sam and Max Episode 1
The classic adventure game “Sam and Max: Hit the Road” is one of my favorite examples of stellar writing, art direction and general quality of presentation in game, ever. The classic Lucasarts point and click adventure game stars a dog with a dry sense of humor and a “hyperkinetic rabbity thing” with a taste for wanton destruction as private detectives, and frames them in a sick, twisted satire of the U.S. filtered through a cartoon detective movie. It is one of the few successfully funny games.
Imagine my pleasure when a new title in the series, “Sam and Max: Freelance Police,” was announced. Unfortunately, the game was canned weeks before its release. LucasArts gave a vague, nonspecific reason, and we all moved on. Fortunately, Telltale Games, a group of ex-Lucasarts employees, managed to get the series license, the blessing and help of the creator of “Sam and Max,” Steve Purcell and “Day of the Tentacle” and “Secret of Monkey Island” vet to design it. The new games were to be released episodically online for $8.95 per episode, or $35 for an entire “season.”
The first episode, “Culture Shock,” was released to subscribers of GameTap this week, and the good news is: It’s definitely worthy of the name “Sam and Max.”
In this game, the duo finally made the leap into the third dimension, and Telltale’s excellent animators and artists have executed it almost flawlessly. The world of “Sam and Max,” a caricature of grungy east coast cities, is moved from pixel to polygon skillfully.
Telltale’s first title, a mediocre adventure title based on Jeff Smith’s “Bone” comics, had little going for it but the excellence in reproducing cartoon art in three dimensions, and this shows in “Sam and Max,” where the art is paired with excellent puzzle design and voice acting for a sublime experience in gaming.
I was worried as I began to play after the credits with cheesy retro ambiance. The voice actors weren’t the same as the classic game! The game stumbles a little with the premise of the first puzzle, which has the rats in Sam and Max’s office withholding the office phone for the price of cheese. The game rebounds for the solution, and after that it is, for the most part, a slice of pure adventure gaming bliss, which is something of a rarity in these times.
My greatest worry is that the title would not maintain the truly distinctive elements that make “Sam and Max” unique. Fortunately, the title features plenty of senseless, over-the-top cartoon violence and pop culture parody. For the most part, the characters maintain their same dynamic, with Sam playing the straight man and moving the story along, while providing bits of dry humor, and Max being an adorable urchin while providing punch lines and acting as a catalyst for humorous solutions to puzzles.
Things are slightly different now, however. Max can address NPCs directly, and is no longer available as an item in Sam’s inventory. I have to say I prefer the old method; telling Max to do something ridiculous or using the nigh-invulnerable lagomorph as a wacky puzzle solution were some of my favorite things in the old game, and often while Sam was talking with a character, Max would wander about the landscape, amusingly bored by the situation. Fortunately, though, Max is still keen on random acts of violence, and the duo still abuses their position as freelance police in the name of entertainment and comedy. (This is particularly fun in the DeSoto driving minigame, where you get to pull people over.)
The classic adventure game interface has been streamlined to the point of perfection. There are no longer separate actions for things like looking, and using, and grabbing. You just point and click. Another interface improvement is the inventory: You click your cardboard box in the corner and it just rolls out on the bottom of the screen. Similarly, options and saving/loading can be accessed through a tab on the top of the screen.
Another nitpick in relation to the original game is the general lack of grandiose locations. There’s certainly nothing as impressively wacky as the World’s Biggest Ball of Twine here. Hopefully, future episodes will feel emboldened to include some new and insane locations for our heroes to wreak havoc upon in the name of justice.
I am happy to say that the new “Sam and Max” game follows competently in the footsteps of greats like “Grim Fandango,” “The Curse of Monkey Island,” and “Full Throttle,” and though it may never quite reach those truly dizzying heights, I can only recommend that anyone who likes twisted humor give it a try. Here’s to the next five episodes, and future seasons after that.
Halloween 2006 humor article
Ah, Halloween. For college students, Halloween can mean many things. For some it is an excuse to dress like a complete moron. For others, it is an excuse to dress like a, to put it nicely, woman of questionable morals. For others still, it is a chance to score cheap one-pound bags of fun-size candy bars. For the subjects of ridiculous urban legends, it is a chance to disguise human feces as the aforementioned candy bars and place razor blades in caramel apples. For movie studio executives, it’s a chance to release innumerable formulaic horror movies. For pediatric dentists, it is the precursor to remodeling or buying a new yacht.
We here at The Vermilion hope to offer you some pearls of wisdom no matter what age you might be or position you might be in on the Pagan-tastic holiday of All Hallows’ Eve.
Tips for Children
Halloween will be the one-night stand that precedes an afternoon of grotesque dental work. (And, if you choose to not take care of those cavities, prepare to experience childbirth-like levels of pain.) In order to get the most out of it, you’ll need a pillowcase. Those plastic jack-o-lanterns with the flimsy handle? Insufficient for handling the volumes of candy you need to be aiming to acquire. They also will break at the point where you will be furthest away from your house. Ideally, use an old pillowcase. Large grocery bags will do in a pinch. The best commercially acquired container is a fancy bag from a department store or specialty shop. Additionally, one must weed out crappy candy like circus peanuts and stale popcorn balls mid-route. Make liberal use of nearby trashcans.
We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, kids. Let’s talk about costumes. If you are a toddler: seriously, the pumpkin is passé. Every kid in the history of the world has been a pumpkin for Halloween. Half of us even had a little sprout for a hat. It’s ridiculously cliché. If you’re older, be sure to get a costume that is not reminiscent of a garbage bag vaguely printed to resemble a super hero or cartoon character. Don’t forget the mask with eyeholes so small you can’t really see oncoming traffic.
Bullet Point Tips for Teenagers
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Do us all a favor and smash those mailboxes with your forehead.
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Dressing like you normally do and saying you’re a “15 year old boy/girl” is not and never will be remotely clever or funny.
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You are an unfunny blight on society if you egg or toilet paper random houses. Vandalizing your friend’s crappy car is encouraged, however.
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Trick or treating stops when you get in high school. No, really.
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Good luck renting all the “Friday the 13th” or “Halloween” movies from the video store before some Ain’t-It-Cool-News-reading dork with too much free time on his hands.
Tips for College Students
For many college students, Halloween is a chance to dress in a manner that might be called “promiscuous.” This phenomenon is not restricted to women; indeed, many men think it would be funny to dress up as, say, a Hooters waitress, or to simply wear a skimpy negligee. A note to you men: Everyone knows that you’re using Halloween as an excuse to exhibit your secret kinky cross-dressing fantasies to the world.
Unfortunately, Halloween usually falls on a weeknight, severely limiting the evening’s potential for satanic debauchery. If you’re worried about coming to class or work with a hangover, don’t worry: Everyone else has one, too.
It shouldn’t need saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Don’t even think about going trick or treating.
Tips for Adults
Do not give out any of the following:
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Toothbrushes and toothpaste. Do you really think any significant number of children don’t already have these things?
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Circus peanuts. They are easily the worst excuse for candy to ever grace a plastic pumpkin, assuming they even make it in there and don’t end up all over your lawn.
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Celery or carrots or another vegetable. You are up against candy here. Tons and tons of candy. No child will ever choose to eat a piece of celery over a Snickers bar, no matter how much peanut butter and raisins you put on there.
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Halls cough drops. Seriously, what were you thinking, dude down the street?
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Homemade goods. Parents will throw them out because of sensationalist news stories about razor blades and laxatives hidden in Halloween baked goods.
Note: This article was intended to be satirical. Do not take it seriously.
Editorial: Evolution
A few weeks ago, I was in my World Civilizations II course, and the topic of science and religion came up, and whether or not they could co-exist. To me, this is a moot point; obviously there are many scientists who also remain religious. However, hearing the class discuss it made me lose some faith in humanity, or at least the U.S.’s higher education system. There are people – people in college – who don’t believe that evolution is realily.
Our professor had brought the topic of science and religion, and how they could co-exist. He began asking students what they thought. I had assumed the lack of discussion on evolution was because it was a moot point; everyone knew and believed it, so they were merely discussing how religion could fit in with it.
About 10 minutes into the discussion, a student in the back row piped up, in an incredulous tone, “There are those people who think we came from monkeys or whatever.” His intonation is that of someone talking about a ludicrous conspiracy theory.
My mind reels. Voices in the class pipe up with laughter. I can only hope that they were laughing at how ridiculous the guy was, for believing this, and not at the content of his comment.
Our professor did not correct him. I realize that this is a touchy subject, but the purpose of college and higher education is to propagate knowledge, and allowing a student to continue to believe something patently false is failing in this.
In this same class, we discussed how people rediscovering science and inventing the scientific method was one of the reasons Europe moved out of the dark ages and into the Renaissance. We discussed how Galileo, when he proposed something as radical as the planets orbiting the sun, opposed to the sun and the other planets orbiting Earth, and backed this up with observation and calculation, was prosecuted by the Catholic church, put through the inquisition and forced to rescind his beliefs because they weren’t in line with the Vatican’s.
The idea that the theory of evolution could be found false is ridiculous at this point. In the 150 years since Darwin published “The Origin of Species,” not a single piece of scientific evidence has surfaced that contradicts it. We had only discovered and identified more modes of evolution. The amount of evidence in favor of evolution is overwhelming, and disproving it would be nearly impossible. Yes, it does say “theory” in front of evolution, but everything in science is a theory.
Modern scientists have even observed microevolution, or small changes that occur within a few generations. A group of birds introduced to a new island environment had, within a few generations, evolved larger beaks allowing them to consume larger seeds. Though the fossil record documenting larger macroevolutionary changes is incomplete, we are getting closer and closer to completing it – gaps are filled in all the time.
Disbelieving evolution, an idea with huge quantities of evidence in favor of it, no evidence against it and the blessing of everyone in the field of biology (you know, the guys that cure your diseases) is incredibly naïve and bordering on complete idiocy.
I will freely admit I don’t understand the intricacies of evolutionary science – I’m not a biology major. I’ve taken two classes in the field in my college career. However, I realize I am no expert, and should defer to experts in determining what I believe. When every major scientist of our time refers to evolution as something that amounts to an absolute fact, I listen.
South Park plus WOW
This week on “South Park,” the boys are addicted to “World of Warcraft.” The episode, animated in the game’s gorgeous engine and artwork, also quantifies the game’s problems, particularly at the endgame. I can only assume that Matt Stone and Trey Parker played the game over the summer.
In the show, the boys’ characters keep getting killed by a guy (in reality, a fat nerd with glasses and a neckbeard) who runs around dancing naked and is such a high level, he can kill anyone he wants. After becoming frustrated, the buys dedicate their lives to the game to become strong enough to kill him. How do they do this? They kill boars. Lots and lots of boars. There’s a boar-killing montage. It’s amusing. In the process, they become pimple-faced, pale and fat.
This exact scenario is impossible in “WOW,” but it quantifies the very real and very lame problems of “WOW’s” endgame. There is always someone better than you, and the reason they’re better than you is because they have no life outside of Azeroth.
To compete in the end of the game, you have to essentially make appointments to meet up with 39 other people and do the same few dungeons repeatedly. These raids can and do take six hours. The truly competitive endgame guilds do this five or more nights a week. This might be okay if it was actually fun, but any fun is quickly replaced with tedium.
The boss fights in these levels are well-put-together encounters, but you have to fight through room after room of enemies that require 40 people to kill for no other reason than they have a ton of health. When you finally do get to and kill the boss, you have him on “farm status,” which means that you and your guild do the series of fights once a week to get whatever crazy-awesome items they drop.
The episode also skewers the players of the game wonderfully. Cartman’s dwarf avatar walks up and announces to everyone, “I just took the biggest crap.” This happens in every online game ever. No one cares how high you are or that you just farted.
The episode also uses an excessive amount of “WOW” terminology, but it’s all real slang used in the game’s culture. To someone who hasn’t played the game, it’s a bunch of funny fantasy gobbledygook, but when Cartman berates Kyle about his character’s spec, it mirrors the same conversation that occurs between “WOW” players daily.
At the end, when the boys are using headsets to coordinate their fight against the naked guy, they speak in perfect monotone voices. They lack excitement and just sound BORED. This is the perfect imitation of actual people using Teamspeak. It’s uncanny. During the final battle, they sound completely uninterested, with Cartman monotonally giving orders to the others. Their enemy eats chips. What earlier was a relatively exciting fight with their avatars running around fighting becomes four fat guys in a basement surrounded by garbage speaking unexcitedly.
The best thing is, at the beginning, the boys are playing moderately and enjoying the game. Once they decide to get “serious” about playing, they begin to have no life, and the game loses its fun. If you play “WOW,” which is a good game, don’t let it dictate the rest of your life. Pretty much, once you hit level 60, you should quit. There’s nothing past that worth bothering with, unless you like showing up at 6 o’clock every evening to do the same thing as the last week for the next six hours, and hey, maybe you’ll get one piece of equipment out of it.
High-tech LITE Center opens
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the Lafayette Economic Development Authority proudly held the grand opening for the Louisiana Immersive Technology Enterprise, or LITE, last Wednesday.
The facility, recognizable due to the large egg-like structure at its entrance, is located on Cajundome Blvd. across from Cajun Field.
"It’s an exciting day for Lafayette, and it’s an exciting day for Louisiana," said Blanco, in an address inside the facility following the ceremonial ribbon cutting. "When Neil Armstrong took that first step on the moon, he called it ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Ladies and gentlemen, today is one giant leap for Lafayette, and one giant leap for Louisiana."
"This is indeed a great day," said Jerry Luke LeBlanc, Louisiana's commissioner of administration and a Lafayette native, "not only for Louisiana, but for Acadiana, this region and Lafayette. [It is] the culmination of a lot of hard work, dedication and belief in a dream."
"Gov. Kathleen Blanco has made education and economic equal partners in her plans for this state’s recovery and renaissance," said Ray Authement, Ph.D., and president of UL Lafayette. "We applaud her for taking the common sense approach and encourage her to stay the course. We’re here because she had the vision, courage and foresight to invest $40 million in LITE."
"The state knows what’s happening at the regional level and at the national level, said Carolina Cruz-Neira, executive director and chief scientist at LITE. "The state knows what we need to be competitive as a state and as a city in the regional and national arena. They are trying to do something that helps people, that improves the quality of life."
The facility, in planning and construction stages for the past six years, is one of the most advanced supercomputing and visualization centers in the world.
"Dr. Carolina Cruz tells me that there are only four states in this country that have similar investments," said Blanco excitedly, "and when I say similar, she clarifies that California, Illinois, Indiana and Virginia perhaps have either supercomputing capacity or imaging capacity, but none have both. No state has as much invested in one place as this one facility here in Lafayette, La. [...] Only Germany and Japan are competing at this level -- this is how powerful this combined investment positions Louisiana in the global economy in technology."
"I was in Germany for a similar supercomputing opening," said Dennis McKenna, CEO of Silicon Graphics, Inc., the company which provided the supercomputers that power the LITE facility, "and this was a supercomputing center funded by the German government, and I must say, being here today, you have something that is state of the art in the state of Louisiana that compares to what the country of Germany has committed to. The potential of this computing center; this visualization center is equivalent to anything I’ve seen in the world today."
LeBlanc said that "a facility like LITE, where you can have unlimited opportunities, unlimited ability to draw business not only from other parts of the country but from around the world, will provide future stability for our state and for our region."
"Imagine you are an engineer, and you are designing a building like [the LITE building]," said Cruz-Neira. "You want to be air efficient. You want to have a good temperature. You want to have all the rooms evenly cool, evenly warm up. We would be able to simulate it, and change the configuration of the rooms and the fans, and then an engineer would be able to see whether or not his design is efficient. He’s going to be able to do that on the fly, because we not only see, we compute."
"I believe that this is a turning point in our economic development history for this state," said Blanco. "The LITE center swings its doors wide open to the next century. This is our future. Make yourselves at home, because we are here to stay. This region is now competitive in ways that we could not even imagine as short a time as five or 10 years ago."
The LITE facility is not the only new technology being introduced this fall.
"On Oct. 31, just a few weeks away," said Authement, "we’ll gather again to install, or to light, the Louisiana Optical Network that gives us connectivity with all of the research universities in the state, and to the LambdaRail (a high-speed fiber-optic network), to give us access to all the research at universities from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean."
Blanco said these two projects would work together to provide an unparalleled opportunity for Louisiana.
"The first major technology investment that I directed after I became governor came in September of 2004, when I announced the state would invest $40 million in a network called LONI, the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative," said Blanco. "LONI is the network that interconnects all our research universities and then moves them out on to the LambdaRail to connect to all the computers in the world. This powerful network, when combined with this LITE system, positions us in such a way that all of our scientists can collaborate."
“The way science and engineering is done is going to change,” said Bradd Clark, Ph.D., the dean of sciences at UL Lafayette. “We are bringing a facility that will speed up the rapid change in science and engineering for the betterment of all mankind. I’m excited about this."
"Those two investments put together position Louisiana in the most incredibly powerful way in the world of technology, which is the world of our future," said Blanco. "It is our economic future."
Blanco defended her decision to continue with the project after the budget problems caused by hurricanes last fall.
"There were many false prophets of doom who didn’t want the state to continue its investment in this LITE project after [Hurricane] Katrina," said Blanco. "I knew it was risky, but didn’t let that stop us. We owe it to ourselves to become a leader in technology. We owe it to ourselves to be flexible enough to attract new opportunities for investors, and we owe it to ourselves not to let our darkest hours shut down our brightest opportunities. "
“This is a really exciting time for the university,” said H. Gordon Brooks II, dean of the College of the Arts at UL Lafayette. “This LITE facility will give us unprecedented access to the most cutting edge visualization technology available."
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Clark excitedly.
Halo 2: A retrospective
It is fall 2004, and there's one game on the collective mind of Xbox owners: "Halo 2." The "I Love Bees" alternate reality game is in full swing, "Halo 2" trailers are playing theatrically and you can't watch TV for 10 minutes without seeing a spot promoting the game.
On the night of Nov. 8, dozens -- myself included -- lined up outside of GameStop and EB Games stores to be the first to get their hands on the anticipated sequel. Once you were allowed into the store, five at a time, you were greeted with a veritable cornucopia of "Halo" merchandise. Lined up were T-shirts, hats, soundtracks, action figures, strategy guides, special edition "Halo" Xbox Live headsets, novels and art books. As people exited the store with their special limited edition metal-encased games in hand, they let out a cheer and quickly got in their car to go home and enjoy the fruits of Bungie's labors.
Now it's two years later, and "Halo 2" can be looked at more objectively. Is it better than "Halo 1?" How does the campaign stack up to not only the first game, but other first person shooters? I'm not going to touch on the multiplayer in this column, as it is extensively and unquestionably miles above and beyond that of "Halo." It is safe to assume this column will contain spoilers.
I think "Halo 2's" campaign has about the same ratio of good to bad as its predecessor. "Halo" was a blast for many of the game's levels, up through the end of "Assault on the Control Room." After that, the Flood showed up. A single Flood level might have been acceptable, but when compared to the Covenant, there's no competition in who is more fun to fight.
The Covenant are intelligent enemies who work together. Sniping out an enemy jackal, cleverly tossing a grenade and routing a group of grunties toward it, or sneaking up behind an elite to deliver a silent coup de grâce with a blow to the back of the head -- these are fun ways to take out enemies, and they require strategy and fluid thinking.
The Flood are the total opposite. They run straight at you. They are not fun to fight. It becomes a festival of running backwards shooting with a shotgun. When contrasted with the advanced, well-tuned enemy artificial intelligence the player encountered for the first half of the game, they're just boring. The only challenge comes from making sure you don't run out of ammunition.
"Halo 2" suffers from the same problem. The first four levels, set on Earth against a Covenant invasion force, are a fantastic series of memorable setpieces where the player must tangle with Covenant forces in an awesome series of on-foot and vehicle combat scenarios. The next level introduces the second playable character, a disgraced Covenant elite called the Arbiter, a title given to elites asked to go on what are essentially suicide missions for the survival of the Covenant.
You're tasked with clearing out a base of heretics, a nice way to introduce the beliefs the Arbiter realizes are true later in the game, after he and his race are betrayed by the Covenant at large. As the Arbiter, you still fight against the excellent Covenant AI and the addition of stealth camouflage opens up interesting tactical possibilities for the player.
And then the Flood shows up. Dammit.
I realize there are interesting thematic in having a force in the story called the Flood. When you consider that there is apparently an object in the "Halo" universe called the Ark which can apparently save people from the Flood, you can see where Bungie's writers might be going with all this. However, from a gameplay perspective, the Flood are simply not fun.
"Halo 2's" Flood are slightly more advanced than its predecessor. They, rather ridiculously, can hold guns, but they don't hide or take cover, they just run at you firing inaccurately. The small, impossible to hit spore creatures can now infest a previously dispatched Flood enemy, raising him from the dead. This doesn't help the Flood's case of being annoying and no fun to fight. On the plus side, the Covenant energy sword cuts through them like butter.
"Halo 2's" low points are once again hailed by the presence of the Flood; in replaying the game, these levels are the mostly a chore, especially on high-difficulty levels. Even when you get to the Flood levels with vehicles, it's really a vacuum of fun. "Halo 2's" library levels, though not as boringly designed as the original's, still stick out as "not as much fun as I was having earlier."
These games live and die on their AI and enemy encounters. Turning the difficulty up to Heroic yields a very different, far more challenging game when fighting intelligent enemies, but the Flood just becomes that much more frustrating.
"Halo 2" is a worthy successor to "Halo." Levels like "Assault on the Control Room" are expertly one-upped in well-designed sequences like the ones set on the Delta Halo or the opening Earth invasion. Though there are never any truly grand open areas like in the level called Halo in the original game, but, overall, the levels are significantly less repetitive. Hopefully, the Flood won't find their way into "Halo 3."
Review: Lego Star Wars II
Legos are pretty awesome. I think we can all agree on that. “Star Wars,” now, not so much. I mean those old movies (finally out unharmed on DVD) are pretty awesome, but the new movies offer a VAST amount of late-night amusement by making fun of their dialogue and acting. They are bad movies, and if you’ve only seen them once and claim otherwise, watch them again and note how the presence of an awesome thing like lightsabers can cloud your judgment. I should probably mention the name of the game in this first paragraph. “Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy.”
The main reason I never played the original “Lego Star Wars” was the prequel setting. It was amusing when I played the demo of the first level as Lego Obi-Wan and got to build Legos with my force powers and slice up Lego droids with my Lego lightsaber, but then Lego Jar Jar showed up, and shortly after the demo crashed and I didn’t care to reload it.
Fortunately, “Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy” focuses, oddly enough, on the original Star Wars trilogy. You know, Han Solo was there and awesome, Yoda was a puppet and not a silly animation, and only 35% of the movie was special effects.
The game itself is an action title reminiscent of the old arcade beat-‘em-ups of yesteryear. Run through a level, beat up a bunch of bad guys, you know the drill. Those games are great fun in cooperative mode, which “Lego Star Wars” excels at. A second player can jump in at any time by pressing start. If only “Halo” worked like that.
Another reason “Lego Star Wars” is such a blast to play is that it takes a cue from MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator): there is very little penalty of death. When emulating classic arcade beat-‘em-ups like “The Simpsons” and “X-Men,” you just press a button to insert a new virtual quarter. You have unlimited lives, and the game remains fun for the time it takes you to play through it.
Traveller’s Tales, the developer of “Lego Star Wars,” reasoned that since it is not an arcade title, and they don’t need to make money by making the game an insanely difficult quarter-muncher, they can make it nice and easy. It’s great to just chill out and play while having idle conversation and berating your partner for shooting you and making Legos fly all over the place. It is also, thankfully, far longer than the average early 1990s arcade beat-‘em-up.
Refreshingly, “Lego Star Wars” also throws in some light puzzle solving, usually involving building things out of Lego blocks and/or switching between your characters to use one of their strengths. Only droids can use certain switches. Jedi have to be used to rearrange complex Lego structures -- stuff like that.
The game also features flight levels, where you control an X-Wing or Snowspeeder or various other famous “Star Wars” vehicles in a simplified flight interface. You feel wonderfully out of control as you dart across the landscape, your ship automatically dodging and banking to avoid hitting walls or rocks or other ships.
One of the endearing qualities of “Lego Star Wars” is the tongue-in-cheek fashion with which the game takes on the classic story that we are all overly familiar with. It’s like a cartoon parody of the original trilogy. There is no dialogue; all drama is handled with silly pantomiming and “Sims”-style gibberish.
I do have a few issues with the game, but they are minor. The first is that lightsabers are not as powerful as they should be; generally, blaster-wielding characters can kick more ass based solely on range. The Force is similar; usually I can’t use it on enemies. It’d be great to have the ability to push them with the Force and have them fly off in various Lego bits.
The camera is also an issue. It has a hard time, at least in multiplayer, keeping both players on the screen, and occasionally it will choose to follow one player and force the other into an abyss. This generally results in much name-calling another playful banter; the lack of a major penalty for death keeps this from being a major issue.
I guess I should make a note: I played this exclusively in cooperative mode. It may suck with only one player, or at the very least be slightly boring. It’s a fantastic cooperative experience, though, and one I would recommend highly.
Sidewalk stalking: A guide to campus etiquette, part one
We here at the Vermilion, being the classy, cultured type, have noticed a startling number of similarly classy individuals who inhabit the campus of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Want to be cool like us? Follow these simple rules, and you’ll be well on your way to a more sophisticated existence.
In college, one generally must walk to get to class. This requires using a sidewalk. Unlike other paths of transport, sidewalks have no clear rules on the specifics of their usage. Feel free to walk on either side of them, and at any speed.
Unfortunately, the inadequately sized sidewalks on our fair campus generally have other students walking on them, and they may get in your way! If you need to get around them, walk at an uncomfortably close distance behind them, and wait for them to move. After they do, feel free to brush against them in a gesture of thanks. The great thing about college is that, due to the university’s grand size, you will never, ever see the person again.
Regarding roads, cars are nothing to even consider when plotting the trajectory of your traipsing. Walk anywhere; it’s not like they’re going to hit you. After all, being a pedestrian, you do have the right-of-way. Crosswalks are a mere inconvenience in the way of getting back to your dormitory 15 seconds faster.
If you’re walking with your friends, feel free to encompass the entirety of the sidewalk. Sensing the camaraderie between you, others will happily walk around in the grass or mud.
If you enjoy the fineries of nicotine, you are among friends. Feel free to blow your smoke and ashes in the direction of anyone, to show off your cigarette’s carefully selected flavor and aroma.
Like everywhere else, it rains at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. You may choose to carry an umbrella. Feel free to shake off your umbrella hastily on your way in, getting water all over the floor.
If you live off campus, you may have to wait in line at the Rex Street bus stop. That section of the sidewalk is entirely for people waiting for the bus. Feel free to lounge around in semicircles with your companions, taking full advantage of the concrete expanse set aside for you in front of the Conference Center while you speak of how many fine canned brews you consumed in your leisure activities the night before. Once you get on the bus, feel free to take an entire seat; the people standing in the aisles will understand that since you were there first, you get the luxury of seating.
Once you do arrive in class, it’s time for you to begin your education. If you bring a laptop to take notes in class, feel free to play “World of Warcraft” in the front row of a darkened classroom while you take notes; it will distract no one.
You might also discuss the finer points of the professor’s lecture with a friend. Don’t worry, your colleagues can easily hear the professor despite his or her shy nature and lack of a functioning microphone.
If you have been blessed with a child at a young age, feel free to bring him or her to class with you. Your classmates will be delighted to see the spawn of your loins, and will certainly not be bothered with your progeny’s boisterous chattering about the topic at hand, or perhaps about his longing for some Go-Gurt.
Many young collegiate scholars in this day and age carry cellular telephones. Feel free to leave your device active in class; everyone in your freshman-level English class will appreciate the poetry of “Hollaback Girl” bursting from the speaker of your pink RAZR. If you must place the phone on vibrate, place it on a wooden surface so you can tell when someone is calling.
Your studies may bring you to the library. Like in class, feel free to speak animatedly into your phone or to your friend. After all, people only come to the library to make copies and print things. If you must get a book out, keep it as long as you like. No one will need it, certainly not a person in your class who might need a book on the same subject.