Monday, September 30, 2013

A raising, snow-ladened wind

Of all things, what's just happened in Infinite Jest brings the SNES version of Harvest Moon to mind.

It's currently snowing on the morning of 18 November in the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, and the way Wallace focuses on this weather is evocative for me of the 16-bit farm/romance simulator. His descriptions of the snowfall and the coldness of the outside world call up the same feelings as that game's background music for the last season of the year. That's what I think the relation comes down to.

But this part of the book's apparent obsession with weather is also odd in and of itself.

Aside from the odd mention of rain or cold or sunshine here and there, I don't recall weather ever being so foregrounded in the book. The weather's just been there. But now it's been given nearly center stage. Hal is still front and center as the last few sections' "I" after all. 

Things with Hal are coming to a head, it seems. He contradicts what his wraith of a dad told Gately about his being perpetually silent, claiming that he would speak but his dad wouldn't hear. Though later it's implied that Hal's face is starting to express without his conscious consent.

Along with Gately dreaming about the alleged point of J.O. Incandenza's Infinite Jest (V) (based on nothing other than his knowing Joelle V.D. (who happens to star in the film)), it's pretty clear that this book is bound for a whirlwind wrap-up.

Getting the goods

In my quest to get all of the "Rupee Goods" in Rosy Rupeeland, I have nearly reached completion. I have just two more to get and then the most important of the game's extra challenges will have been achieved.

Unfortunately, the two remaining "Rupee Goods" are rewards for fetch quests. One quest requires me to get all of the game's empty bottles (surely only two or three are currently outstanding). For the other, I just need to cook up all of the local specialities recipes and sell them to the merchant who's working with the pirates. Between the two of them, the bottle fetch quest is going to much easier.

Cooking things as complex as local specialities (complex because they sell for quite a few rupees) requires many ingredients. Even if each speciality's raw parts are in the same locale, it can be hard to wrangle the necessary beasties. A lot of enemies shy away from you as you get near, and only drop worthwhile items when taken on in groups. Other enemies, like the vaguely demonic wood ducks in the Steamy Marsh, do things like up and fly away from you before exploding in midair (because of the ducks' "Explosive Claws" they sometimes drop, I guess).

Needless to say, I've got one more session with Tingle and his very own game before I face down Uncle Rupee in boss form.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

The continuing wonders of the Oraclos Chain

The second tower in Pandora's Tower, the welcomingly named "Sheerdrop Spire," does not make you wait for servant beasts. They don't launch themselves at you from the time you enter the tower either, but they do come out swinging. One of them even grabs a sword that just happens to be laying on the ground next to it. 

At first, I thought armed servant beasts would herald the point at which the battles in this game became challenging. Some quick dodging and powered up sword strikes later, I was proven wrong. Until a few rooms deeper into the tower, anyway. That's where three wolf-like beasts laid in wait. Three servant beasts, with their bipedal form and top-heavy gait would make for an easily evaded bunch, swords or no. These wolves, though, they're much quicker on their paws. 

So, the game laid the next little tutorial on me: linking enemies together. Doing so holds two of the three up for a few seconds, in which you can attack the unbound one. Attacking either of the chained beasts will release them. Linking two of the wolves did help soften the damage I wound up taking. 

Unfortunately, though, the chain, as it is right now, doesn't strong enough to throw the wolf beasts, though it's more than able to slam ore into mineral seams and eagle beasts into walls. The game's operatic sound track covers up some of the sound effects, but there's still something satisfying about slamming enemies into walls. 

Readily destroying everything with the hookshot in Link's Awakening stirs similar satisfaction, but a controlled throw just has more oomph in that department.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Gately and the ghost

Today's post is sponsored by Grammarly. Use Grammarly to ensure that your writing's error-free because sticks and stones can break bones, but poorly edited words hurt more.

Infinite Jest has had some dense sections. There have been whole parts where pages and pages get flipped without a paragraph break in sight. The most intense so far (probably because it's clearer just what's going on) is the part wherein Gately is visited by a series of people while in the Trauma Center of a hospital. These visitors include the wraith of the late J.O. Incandenza. At least, that seems to be the earthly identity of the wraith that appears to Gately as he dips in and out of consciousness.

The wraith reveals his issues with his dad, mentions a childhood in the Southwest and on the West Coast, and that, of all of his offspring, his youngest son is the most like him. The wraith also talks about his career as a film maker. In fact, specific mention is made of a certain entertainment of his, too. A final project designed to pull his youngest son, whom he thinks is falling into figurant silence, back into the spotlight of life. A film that will make the son speak out again, even if only to ask for more. The whole scene is extremely revelatory about "the Entertainment," the film known as Infinite Jest (V).

At a guess, this whole business with the wraith related to the ghostly interventions found in Hamlet.

Why guess that?

Well, for starters, the novel's title is a nod to that play of the Bard's. Gately also remembers that it's Tiny Ewell's favourite Shakespearean play when Tiny Ewell visits him and vents about being a third grade extortionist (810-814). Then, when Gately has a bunch of words that he's never encountered before flash through his mind "Laertes" and "Yorick" are among them (832).

Indeed, there is more in this scene and in this section than words and characters, David.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Payoff from bridges and maps

Surprise after surprise has rolled out as Rosy Rupeeland wraps up. The two biggest ones are related to sidequests, but the game's rupee-based play greatly rewards such quests, so they're much closer to the game's main line than such things can be in other games.

The first surprise came with the discovery of Duke, Duko, and Judge's dad - the Foreman. He demands that his sons pay you back the rupees that you paid them to build bridges, and they pay out handsomely. A nearly 80,000 rupee boost made the battle with the Oinker Boss absolutely no problem. It was a battle that relied more on evasion than anything else, but as mentioned before, Tingle's not the most agile of video game heroes. So it was a challenging bout nonetheless.

The second shock came as I bought back the final finished map. The map making shop in the game's hub town is run by the map maker's widow. Each time you buy back a map you've finished she mentions that it was their dream to map the whole world. Well, once you help them to accomplish this they reunite.

The mapmaker's widow dies on the spot, her ghost appears on the top screen and then she says that she's going to her husband's grave. A phantom map drops into her grasp from above, she says that she won't get lost thanks to it, and then she vanishes. This sequence slackened my jaw pretty successfully - you don't expect such emotional scenes in a game about a guy in a green one-piece leotard running around collecting cash, jewel by jewel.

Now, with the game's maps being completed, I'm now going to get all of the Rupee Goods before I bring down a rain of pain upon Uncle Rupee.

Tension in the Treetop

I'm rather like Aeron of Pandora's Tower. In weapon of choice, that is.

Given the choice, I'd go with a sword almost every time. It's what I'm familiar with from Zelda games and countless RPGs. Plus, some real life fencing and martial arts training has given me a taste for swordplay.

So having to resort to the chain in the battle with the master beast of the Treetop Tower made for an intense experience. Primarily, this is because of the delay involved. Striking an enemy with a sword in a video game generally registers as a hit, or as blocked - and (in good games anyway) immediately so. The chain introduces a delay between your attack and the damage done. That delay is what did it, for sure.

Partially because any delay introduces uncertainty into a fight. There's no way of telling whether or not your attack will be successful until you've done it. A few times I was at a bad angle, or went too far in an effort to evade the master's attacks, and the chain toss had no effect. Thankfully, hitting the master's only general target wasn't as difficult as I'd guessed it would be. 

I had time to bide, too, and used it as much as I could. By its nature, using a ranged weapon increases the anticipation of landing a hit. Perhaps some sort of mental spring is coiled when you have to lay in wait to attack, and this tension (like most) seeks release. With all of my waiting and watching, that spring got pretty tight by the end.

Further, perhaps from my martial arts training (or, more likely, simple self-preservation instincts), I'm inclined to take as little damage as possible. Faced with a hulking, horror show Ent, this inclination came into full swing. Its presence during the fight definitely upped my sense of excitement.

No doubt (and hopefully) the second master mixes things up a bit, but I believe that by then I'll have adjusted to the chain as a weapon. Unless the water-themed tower is next and the boss is a fish who can pull you into the water with it, I'm guessing its master will offer a calmer experience. 

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Notes on fading out

Infinite Jest continues to let its plot unravel. Its notes also continue to get more involved. Curiously, though, there are (so far) two sections that aren't included in the main text, but are, instead, notes. What's really weird about these sections' placement is that their content is pretty essential to the story. 

One noted section shows a conversation between Hal and Pemulis, and the other shows Pemulis' meeting with DeLint, Nwangi, and Watson. In the first, the two are discussing Hal's withdrawal from marijuana (aka Bob Hope), and Pemulis tries to convince him to take something stronger under the thinking that Hal'll need it less than his regimented daily Hope. The second scene pretty much wraps it up for Pemulis, as his narcotics use and pre-drug test sterile urine selling are found out. What's more, the cause for his being found out is that ETA's top player took the tenuates that Pemulis was keeping for himself. 

As is pretty plain, some major stuff goes down in these noted sections, and it's not like they aren't set up by main text, either. We see Hal taking his concern with his withdrawal to Ennet House and a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. There's also a whole bit where Pemulis is talking Todd "Postal-Weight" Possalthwaite through an existential crisis. 

So, as far as I can tell, the reason that those noted sections are in the back of the book because Wallace is trying to have Pemulis fade out of the story. After all, he's Hal's enabler, and if Hal goes off of drugs completely as he plans to do, it seems that Pemulis would lose his function.

Of course, I'm half expecting one more main text section from Pemulis' perspective. Maybe a meeting with Avril, or his bidding farewell to Hal.

Map making and skullduggery

Tingle, the character first introduced to Zelda fans as a map seller (and maker), must have some kind of auto-detailing app installed in his map-drawing pencil. Whenever you come across a landmark all you need to do is crack open the map and draw a circle around it. The actual details appear in a sparkle of fairy dust. Nonetheless, the game's mapping gets tricky later on. Landmarks are still fairly obvious, but as areas get bigger, those landmarks become more and more out of your way. Thankfully their price with the town's map seller goes up accordingly.

Although the Auros Ruins can't be finished until the Oinker Boss has been dealt with, I figure that finishing the rest of the maps will be preparation enough to face him again. If I can break 100,000 rupees, then I'm sure that I'll be able to make it through.

Brewing up some Mega Tingly's a good idea, too. In fact, it's an especially good one since it sounds like it can revive a bodyguard who's lost all heart. Getting the skulls needed for it isn't as easy as getting the bones needed for Tingly, though - those things can be found all over the place.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Have some cakes!

I've been playing Pandora's Tower for just over two hours and I'm still in the first tower. Granted, I'm all ready for the tower's master, I just had to beat feet back to the Observatory to keep the curse at bay. Less than a half "C" was left in the little "curse progression" meter in the lower left of the screen, and I knew that facing the first boss with so little left in the tank, so to speak, would be disastrous. 

Back in the Observatory, things veered a little into micromanagement, though. 

I just discovered that you can use some of the basic stuff you find to make other basic stuff - all basic stuff being ingredients for more complex items. The micromanagement emerged from the game's creation system. You see, this system is such that if you have a very specific end item in mind you can combine some basic items to create the basic items you need, and then combine those to get something of a higher echelon (working your way up from nothing but "dryad berries" to an "elixir"), for example. So I was caught up in that for a time, seeking ways to make what I needed to upgrade Aeron's sword again, or to create something useful. 

In the end, I just bought some flower seeds, decided to give the "dawn chorus" (a dawn-blooming flower) to Elena, had her give me some dryad berry cakes and an elixir, and shuffled some things between my bag and the trunk. 

I was also a little weirded out by Aeron's being able to equip "beast fangs" and "large bones." Though, it does make sense to me that they'd bring down his defense - they're monster remnants after all, I can't imagine such a well-groomed Final Fantasy IV's Cecil-like knight character would be comfortable with them on his person. Also, I really enjoy the puzzle aspect of having to put equippables into a limited grid.

"You, catch hold of him by the testicles!"

Greek wrestling truly was brutal. The quote that is this post's title is from a second century BC master's handbook (quoted on page 175). But it isn't the strangest thing about Hellinistic phys ed.

I was never good at track and field in school. But had the long jump been done in the Greek way, I'd never have even made a valid jump.

Since they did their exercises in the nude and on softened soil covered in sand, a long jump only counted if you left impressions of your feet (side by side) upon landing (171). Plus, you had to land straight and firm, a stumble would ruin your impressions, after all.

Also, oiling up and then massaging dust into my skin would be a strange warm up. Stranger still is that different dusts apparently had different properties. For example, pottery dust was said to cause sweating (179).

Antiquity is an alien place. But, in learning about its education, it seems more like an alien planet.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Foiled in smashing the piggy banker

Tingle's no action hero, but I wish he could walk faster. In part this wish comes from his slow waddle through town being a bit tedious to watch when you're trying to hurry through the last few sidequests. But, I also wish that the guy in green could move faster so that his dodging would be better.

The game's penultimate boss (or so it seems right now) is the Oinker Boss. This guy looks like something of a hippie but has a huge sprite - so you know he's a boss or just not in his right mind. Actually, his design is reminiscent of the two young oinkers that he forced out of the group, both dressed like flower children on the cusp of being wed. Which, as per the story, that exiled couple in fact is - but they need someone to retrieve their special item before the wedding ceremony can take place. Of course, Tingle's all too happy to oblige.

Facing this Oinker Boss really seemed like a good idea before I knew about his devastating 3000 rupee burning attack. 20,000 rupees just wasn't enough to try to finish the Auros Ruins with, since the two mêlées that came before the duel with the Boss brought me down to a mere 10,000. Luckily, though Tingle's slow he's not foolishly heroic, and can ride his balloons all the way home in such tight spots.

After selling everything that wasn't nailed down or required for a later recipe, I've regained something of my previous wealth. 80,000 should be enough to march in and flatten the Oinker Boss. Then, then, it's onto the no doubt easier final boss. At least, so long as the final boss is faced in an arena other than the usual overworld map.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Infinite charm (eventually)

Wallace writes about a film that's so entertaining its viewers can't turn away. His book is coming dangerously close to being the same. I'm about 180 pages from the end and if I could I'd just sit and read until it was finished.

As a book of whopping length, one of Infinite Jest's appeals is its vast contents. Because the book has so much going on, it's easy to theorize and postulate about what's coming next. Actually, this same depth through length quality is present in almost all of the books considered "English Classics." The room to speculate combined with broad targets for a reader's hypothetical darts gives a reader a great deal of impetus to keep reading; finding out that you were right (or even just onto something) is incredibly exhilarating.

Though there is a difference between predictability in a story and those that invite such speculation. More often than not those that are predictable fall into the trap of hewing too close to the everyday. Such stories can offer you a perspective you might otherwise be without, but their subject matter is simply dull.

Though a good story doesn't need anything supernatural to lift it out of the everyday, it just needs to be in a different shade of the common experience. Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness is a great example of a book about the everyday (in modern "literature" what's more everyday than quirky families and coming of age tales?) that is nonetheless entertaining and insightful.

Infinite Jest is a few more shades off the common and everyday, and is all the more enthralling for it. Once it gets going, anyway. It's kind of like Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Progress made beneath the moon

Is it because it's night at the great chasm known as "The Scar," or simply because I'd missed that door before that I'm now progressing in Pandora's Tower?

The question's a rhetorical one. Though, chances are I'd just missed that door. As far as I can tell, the only difference that the time of day makes in the Treetop Tower is that certain enemies are stronger during daylight hours. I doubt that certain rooms would be affected by the sun or lack thereof.

Bits and pieces of the game's story continue to come in through found texts. The most revealing of my recent finds being one about the "Master Flesh." The book tells of how this flesh appears to be attached to some sort of organ that may help to increase strength and that changes colour when in use. Of course, the found book on this topic is sure to include mention of the military's interest in such flesh. Though, the way that this interest is phrased makes it sound like the master monsters of the towers were being bred for the sake of their flesh.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

The pull through

I have seen the dizzying heights of rupee wealth. Now, now I am once more on the bottom of the barrel. Uncle Rupee's designs to get rich off of the sweat of the working "Tingle" class aside, the costs of things near the end of Rosy Rupeeland are exorbitant. How anyone could get to a million rupees in this game is beyond me, to do so you'd need to grind so hard that were it broadcast on a prominent awards show you would end up the focus of incredible backlash.

Though, the cost of the last few bits of Rosy Rupeeland is the only thing that's difficult about them. There are some tricky fights ahead, to be sure, but they aren't going to require much more than well timed and furious tapping to get through them. Nonetheless, this apparently anticlimactic remnant is what I've come to expect from the end of most adventure games.

After all, once you've been playing for long enough, the mechanics become familiar. You'll learn their ins and outs, and maybe pick up some tricks or shortcuts to get through particularly sticky bits over the course of an adventure, then, come the end, you just use what you've learned and face the final puzzle that is that last baddie.

A Link to the Past offers a great example of what I mean here.

Once you've reached the point where you're about to fight Ganon, the savvy player will get the golden sword along with the silver arrows, dive into the Pyramid, and use what he or she knows about all of the game's items to handily deal with the trident wielding pig demon. That last fight has some challenge to it, but it's the same sort of challenge offered by a cumulative maths test in high school; only in the rarest case will such a challenge include new material.

As such, my current feeling of Rosy Rupeeland's story pulling me toward the end rather than any further deep challenge is just what I've come to expect from these last bits of such games.

A bureaucracy of examples

The military basis of Hellinistic education is pervasive. That's all that can really be said about the latest chapter of A History of Education in Antiquity.

Marrou does tuck a word or two about state control of schools into said chapter. But that's all that seems necessary. In fact, Marrou points out that much of this chapter is evidence rather than analysis. 
Such example heavy chapters are fine, but rather dry. They're particularly so when all of the examples are bureaucratic in nature.

A city official being called the cosmete ("keeper of order") is pretty neat, though.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The car that runs on consequences

Irrefutable evidence that Infinite Jest's main text is written from its characters' perspectives can be found in note 315. This note states that the main text's "living staff" is Marathe's mishearing of "live in staff." That the writer of the book's endnotes is aware of such a thing is quite revealing.

But the book's last section isn't just home to such a note. This section sees the net around the plot loosely close about the narrative's shape. Marathe is about to find Joelle and might have come across the master tape of "the Entertainment." Plus, there's the real threat of the night staff's seeing and succumbing to "the Entertainment" while reviewing newly donated cartridges. The book's main thrust has real consequences now!

That is, though "the Entertainment" was watched earlier in the book, we had no idea what it was when it killed the doctor and those who looked in on him. Some 600 pages later, we know just what "the Entertainment" is, can do, and what some groups' designs on it are. So now "the Entertainment" is laden with consequences, and those make the book's motor run. Actually, with just over 200 pages to go, it's set to tear, full tilt, down the plot Autobahn for the remainder.

Long tall mystery cocktail

Infinite Jest's biggest draw is that Wallace creates so many mysteries. Not necessarily about events, but about characters. Of all of his figures the best example of a character rich with mystery is Mario Incandenza.

Mario is the youngest of the Incandenza brothers*, and not quite normal in any way. He's a person with a lengthy list of maladies and deformities - so lengthy, in fact, that it's hard to visualize just what he looks like. On top of that, any section from his perspective has this odd sense of childhood longing about it, as if Mario is the personification of Hal's feeling like he's missing someone he's never met before.

This mystery laden character is nonetheless the richest on in the book. Along with his utter uniqueness, and the paradoxical ease with which you can identify with him, I think the book's length is another major factor in Mario's draw. After all, anticipation and gradual pay off are two important elements in any good mystery resolution.

Speaking of mysteries and their resolutions, the book's title is indirectly explained on page 765. Yes, "infinite jest" is what Hamlet describes Yorick being a man of in that old Shakespearean gem. But, Wallace adds a spin to the phrase when Avril (the Moms) explains to Mario that people afraid of certain emotions could fear them because they seem bottomless - infinite.

Infinite Jest is now considered an encapsulation of the 90s. If there's one thing that characterizes that era, it's a sense of needing to be politically correct, to make sure you offend no one. This felt need lead to self censorship, and a lot of people taking themselves way too seriously. Wallace upends that and dares to laugh at everyone for 1000+ pages: Alcoholics, addicts, the disabled, sports proteges, women, children, teachers, executives, the government, the homeless - everyone.

But he does so in a way that makes his jesting deeper, a long form comedy nuanced with characters and subplots. Then he makes the book's subtext into a text in the form of "the Entertainment," a thing so infinitely entertaining people die from watching it. Plus, this transformation happens over the course of the novel.

It's definitely no mystery as to why the book's so long.

*[Correction: Mario is actually the middle child of the Incandenzas. His true place in the birth order only deepens the mystery around him, particularly because Hal, the true youngest, seems to be physically usual.]

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

A tingly theory

As it turns out, Uncle Rupee's grand plan isn't to bring Tingle to the paradisical Rupeeland. In reality, Rupeeland is a place of slavery. It's what Uncle Rupee wants to turn the world into so that everyone will be forced to gather rupees to feed his greed. In fact, Uncle Rupee's ultimate goal is to turn everyone into a Tingle - something especially terrifying for Western gamers.

All of that doom-saying aside, the game says, precisely, "a Tingle." Yes, "a Tingle," not "Tingles." This means that "Tingle" isn't a person, but rather a thing, some sort of entity; an entity possibly like "The Hero of Time."

This little insight, though questionably canonical, does suggest that there's some sort of cultural bleed through between the worlds of Termina and Hyrule. After all, Tingle first appeared in Majora's Mask, the game that introduced the land of Termina. He then appears in Minish Cap and The Wind Waker.

Setting aside the former game, Tingle isn't the only thing from Termina in the Hyrule of The Wind Waker. The game's Phantom Ganon uses a sword apparently made by Zubora and Gabora, the blacksmiths from the foot of Snowhead in Termina.

Clearly there's some kind of dimensional crossover here. Perhaps the reason Tingle's not in so many of the Zelda games if looked at chronologically is because of Hyrule's cultural cycle. Tingle could be a one-off in Termina, but recurs in Hyrule whenever the Master Sword needs powering up. Perhaps it's a process that requires an influx of energy from the Termina dimension, thus causing the idea of Tingle to enter Hyrule's zeitgeist, and imprinting Phantom Ganon's sword with a maker's mark from Termina. Thus, Tingle is an entity born of an energy influx (or exchange) between dimensions (at least in mainstream Zelda titles).

What do you think? Feel free to leave your own thoughts on the question of what Tingle is in the comments.

Further notes on narrators

It's been a while since I came across them, but another two of Infinite Jest's endnotes offer clues to the book's narrator. These two are 293 and 294.

Both of these notes refer to a section of the book that follows Joelle van Dyne. One note offers an explanation of Joelle's background in such a way that it's clear that the note's not written by Joelle (293). The other note offers a parenthetical addition to one of Joelle's thoughts. This latter one makes its writer/speaker seem omniscient. The earlier one is definitely in the third person, and comes from an outside perspective.

So, assuming that all of the notes are written by the same person, it seems that the book's master narrator is someone outside of the story. Yet, there's at least one note that is a regular section unto itself (sections being from certain characters' perspectives), suggesting that if all of Infinite Jest's notes are written by one person,that person isn't just omniscient, but also in control of the characters themselves. In other words, the note writer is simply the author himself.

This figure isn't necessarily David Foster Wallace, however. He could be yet another character whose background and description are built by what's annotated and what's not.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Wondering how the loop will close

In most novels the plot is dropped into the reader's hands like grains of sand out of an hourglass of unfathomable size. By their 2/3-3/4 mark, their readers have most of the sand in their hands and don't need to be told how much was in the hourglass to begin with.

Infinite Jest practically dumps a beach's worth of sand on its readers before the plot is revealed. But, Wallace has filled the book's first 700 pages with so many characters and scenes that the revelation of the Wheelchair Assassins' motive really isn't as disappointing as it otherwise might have been. Not to mention that from the first scene at Antitoi Entertainment it's been plain that those Assassins were after the master tape of "the Entertainment."

Still, knowing that the book's first chapter is also it's last has me wondering just how things will come full circle.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Away game special: A dreamy start

Every time I go to see a 3D movie, I walk out disappointed. I just don't get the full 3D experience in the theatre. On the 3DS, though, that extra dimension is fully appreciated.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team doesn't use this feature much, aside from in battle and during some cutscenes. But, when it does, it's quite lush. Though I've only just reached the point where you first enter the dream world, so there're likely many much more stunning visuals ahead.

Aside from the game's look (the cleanest and clearest yet in the series), it plays similarly to the others in the series. That is to say, you wander, fight, and talk, though the game's railroaded me so far.

This seems to be the way of it with handheld RPGs, freedom comes slowly. Especially in the Mario & Luigi series. No doubt it's because they always involve a slow build of out-of-battle abilities.

Nonetheless, the game's first hour and a half's been smooth on all fronts. I expect the rest to be the same.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Where the novel begins

I've been warned from the start that Infinite Jest's plot doesn't really kick in until around page 700. Having passed that point, I can confirm that this is mostly true.

It's definitely so in the sense that the section about Hal sitting alone and watching Interlace cartridges is the perfect place for the average reader to start. That is, this section is the one that would probably open your standard "coming of age" paperback. It's a scene that introduces a range of characters, has one that could be a main character, and has quite the hook: the film Blood Sister: One Tough Nun.

BS: OTN is one of James Incandenza's films. Rather than the usual art house, indie stuff J.O. did, BS: OTN is a piece of grindhouse schlock about a nun in a tough, street-wise Toronto order who tries to continue said order's tradition of saving repentant toughs. It sounds like an incredibly ridiculous piece of film, full of violence and cheap movie blood, and all tied up with a far too convoluted story. Nonetheless, it grabs your interest and holds it tight.

The section's ending with Hal's flash of memory helps to build plot momentum to boot. What significance might that particular child actor have?

Friday, September 13, 2013

A tense tower

It might be too early to be a good judge of it, but Pandora's Tower's timer is stressful.

In my last session I brought Elena some flesh and it didn't budge the little indicator of her curse's progress. No big deal - I was still in the observatory, so the curse was slowed to stillness. But, once I left, the gauge remained unchanged. I came across more meat in the towers, but feel like I'm missing something since there's a locked door in my way and no clear key. Though there is an elevator in a room that didn't seem to be there before.

Maybe it's my familiarity with the Zelda games, but now that I'm into the meat of the first dungeon, I feel like the better analogue for Pandora's Tower is something like Castlevania or possibly (based on nothing but trailers and the box containing the as of yet unplayed) Baroque. Not necessarily in its design or mechanics, but in its mood.

Zelda dungeons can be stressful, but overriding that stress (even in Majora's Mask) is always a sense that exploring will be rewarded. With its fixed camera angle, Pandora's Tower just doesn't exude the same feeling. Aeron has a clear mission, and there's no time to dilly dally, even if it seems doing so could yield stronger items that might help you work faster. Link has a clear mission, too, but somehow there's no urgency, even in Skyward Sword when Link is chasing after Zelda through dungeons to try to get her back to Skyloft.

With all that said, Pandora's Tower also brings a sense of real threat. I haven't found any auto-revive items yet, and gangs of enemies (especially guardians) don't necessarily queue up for Aeron's meat-grinding sword moves. I find this frantic quality to the battles refreshing, and enticing.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Freshly picked prognostications

Pinkle (from the Zeldapedia).
Rosy Rupeeland's
Great Fairy (from the Zelda Wiki).





So the Great Fairy of whatever world Tingle lives in (Termina?) looks like Pinkle. Or Pinkle, the female Tingle who lives inside the computer in Tingle's house, looks like the Great Fairy. The elemental fairies themselves look like power rangers, each representing one of the game's five Super Rupees.


Sinking deeper into Rosy Rupeeland's strange likenesses, Uncle Rupee's latest appearance was striking. Rather than another show of his increasingly empowering wealth, he's shown with only his loins girded, surrounded by floating rupees on a background of concentric rainbow circles. That most recent appearance, and the Great Fairy's complaint about the world's balance of rupees being off has cemented good ol' Uncle Rupee's place as the game's final boss.

It'll be revealed that he's been having Tingle on the whole time. Then, given how the game's gone so far regarding women, Uncle Rupee probably tries to buy Pinkle with all of his money, she refuses, is kidnapped, and needs to get Tingle to step in with the righteous power of balancing rupees to save her, defeat Uncle Rupee, and restore the world's rupee balance.

What I'm left wondering is, as an accessory to Uncle Rupee's scheme, will Tingle get any comeuppance?

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Parallel institutions

It's hard to believe, but another character is introduced, this late in  the game. This character is Pemulis' brother, a prostitute. As of now he's just offered an extra perspective on an event and on Pemulis.

But that event is small, and the abuse their "Da" doled out is of a different flavour of that which other parents doled, but had similar toxic effects.

More interesting are the constant parallels Wallace draws between ETA and the Ennett House. Most recently Hal and Gompert are the ones running parallel, both sharing similar feelings of anhedonia. Neither of them can feel joy at the moment.

Emotional likenesses aside, I wonder if there's a larger point being made here, something like: inborn sport talent is as dangerous as substance abuse. It might sound odd, but this point neatly aligns with ETA's teaching goals. Preparing their students for the pros and for the celebrity they face will help them to keep control in the outside world. As a halfway house, it's Ennett House's job to do the same for its residents, at least re: keeping control in the outside world.

Re-entering the Tower

The controls in Pandora's Tower are going to take some getting used to. I can appreciate the developers wanting to use all of the buttons, but I still don't see why devoting the "C" button to picking things up is necessary.

Also, the combat has a slight sluggishness to it at early in the game. I don't see this as a problem, though. Instead, I think it's a realistic representation of a knight starting to go up against supernatural enemies. At first, he's going to be a bit sluggish, since he's used to fighting opponents who are sluggish themselves. So far, though some of the thus far armour-less monsters in the first tower have proven agile, they're not quick enough yet to give me any grief.

I do wonder about the first tower's Master, though. What sort of beast will it be, and will it, as was suggested in the NWR forum discussion of Pandora's Tower, be easier than the common enemies?

I might only be able to play this game in snatches over the coming days, but I feel like I'm going to relish doing so each time.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

A shared culture?

Is the aim of education today still the creation of a true human being? The imbuing of a student with a culture in which all can share?

I'll try not to rant here, but from the way Marrou describes the Hellinistic culture as something that persisted into the education of his own day, it sounds as though it's another thing lost in modern North American education.

Of course, education has more practical ends here and now. Its primary goal is to give people the knowledges they need to enter the workforce in whatever capacity they choose to do so. But that doesn't mean it should lack culture.

Actually, on the whole it seems that human enthusiasm for human ideals has waned. When we talk of being a "real man" or "real woman" now it's not in reference to achieving some lofty Platonic ideal, but rather to sexual potency. As might be expected, there's no lack of enthusiasm for that.

Yet, if the modern West's culture is more than ever and increasingly explicitly about sex and sexuality what does that say about what we have as a unifying culture?

Most every country in the world today enjoys some sort of diversity, and yet things are generally (mostly) peaceful. Where there is conflict, a clash of cultures is at its root (see the middle east, especially Syria). So is the secret to world peace making a culture of sexuality, something we all truly have in  common?

But even then, we run into trouble. Some countries are matriarchies, others give women no say in what they can do with themselves and others still are a cacophony of voices calling for opposing measures regarding sexuality.

This is what the humanities are for. It seems esoteric and wildly unworldly, but if we could figure out the common cultural element among all people - within them, even, so one group doesn't impose their ideas onto another - upon that base all the world's unique cultures could be set and secured. Then, perhaps there could be peace.

A mad magma dash

Thankfully, the latest dungeon, Desma's Labyrinth mixes things up. The puzzles are multi-floor since the dungeon's set in a giant mountain, the enemies require some strategy, and the boss is completely unlike any other before it.

Incredibly annoyingly, the boss isn't a battle so much as it is a frantic escape sequence. You're at the base of the mountain's interior and the Fire Monster Dora Dora appears, at which point you need to slingshot Tingle from handle to handle to escape Dora Dora and the rising lava. At the end of this race to the top (during which Dora Dora will stop at nearly nothing to knock you off of your handle and into the rising fiery tide), the Fire Monster follows you into the open air where it cools off, turns to stone and breaks down into glorious glorious rupees. Then, because this is Rosy Rupeeland, you control Tingle as he free-falls through the air collecting rupees.

So the game's picking up again as it winds down in terms of its mechanics. This feels like a final dungeon, since the boss was so different from the rest and it took about an hour to finish (including a detour into the Bodyguard Salon to change my medium-sized guard for a small one so I could clean out Desma's Labyrinth. So what comes next should be easier, or at least quicker.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Another ETA philosophy break

Curiously, little happened in the last 16 pages of Infinite Jest. That's been the book's m.o. for the most part, but after so many pieces had been falling into place in previous sections, I was sure that more would continue to do so.

There might be something to the under 14s' subterranean garbage clean-up and rodent hunt. But right now, the pay off was just the discovery of rancid food.

The continuing view of the Hal/Stice match from the perspective of one Helen Steeply brought more to the table. Particularly in its feeding out a lot more info on Hal and ETA's philosophy. This sections' end, where it's implied that DeLint says Hal's game is being held back by too good a memory, does bring closure to why he's struggling. But it does so in the same way that an elastic band stretched over a lidded, screw-cap jar height-wise does. Hal's being emotionally distracted is definitely an open secret at this point.

What Poutrincourt, the woman Steeply has suspicions about, has to say nicely clarifies the ETA philosophy, though. Apparently, Hal's physical game could easily be on par with ETA top player John Wayne's, but because Hal finds trends in his game he constructs projections of what will happen next in them. These projections then constrict his play. Wayne's lack of memory for points and plays, on the other hand, allows him to keep his game fresh all match long.

I don't know much about tennis, but really appreciate ETA's philosophy around how the game should be played. Plus, I think there's a connection between J.O. Incandenza's motives to make "the Entertainment" and this philosophy. But that's just a hypothesis for now.

Yes, I'm an English major

"[T]he best pupils in our literature classes are chosen and brought up to be teachers themselves" (122). This is one thing Marou considers a inheritance from the Classical education system. Since he was writing over 50 years ago (and in France) I can only guess that's how it was. Today, in Canada we've broken with that tradition, and for the worse.

At present (in Ontario) the standard (read assumed) career path of an undergraduate English major is teaching. That has not changed. But are only the best getting through to teach? Not by a long shot.

Instead, nepotism and seniority are the primary reasons for new teachers getting off the substitute list and into full time positions. The latter can (and no doubt often does) yield fine teachers, whereas the former is a cancer on the system.

It's gotten to the point, in fact, that the Toronto District School Board now only takes in candidates from the wait list for interviews in order of seniority. I can't say if other boards have done the same, but at this point it's clear that English majors should be given more information regarding career options. The University of Waterloo offers them co-op like options, including entrepreneurial grants - why don't other institutions do the same?

Surely English majors are among those graduating with the fewest clear career choices, and thus English programs must appear to universities as one of the most disposable compared to programs in the Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, and Technology. But English majors are trained to communicate clearly, a skill that is incredibly useful when it comes to making those four areas' discoveries understandable and yet interesting to non-specialists.

In short, at this point in time it seems that the best course of action is to give English (and History and Philosophy, etc. majors) more career choices outside of teacher, barista, or "Customer Experience Representative." Such a course of action would keep those who shouldn't teach from doing so, thereby allowing those who ought to into the profession.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Briefly on endnotes

Infinite Jest's endnotes are  a huge part of the novel's fun.

Admittedly, they don't seem as such at first, but I've found myself anticipating the latest longer note with bated breath. Each time I come across the superscript calling me to the back of the book, I wonder if it will perhaps be the one. It felt like a strange sort of indulgence, something that shouldn't be enjoyed, but was.

Though, maybe note 269's being all about the Incandenzas helps. Having such a subject makes for a rich reading experience, after all.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Super Rupees?

I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a mark of primitivism or of a super advanced civilization, but on Mt. Desma there's a village of rupee loving people. These people love rupees far more than those living in the town because they don't just trade rupees for useful items and information, but for every little interaction. The one beside the village entrance charges for a greeting, three vendors charge 150 rupees for relatively common items, and in the village inn there's a person who charges you to listen to him snore. Truly, this, the Yamatami tribe, is a people which loves their rupees.

Other than that, it feels like I'm just playing this game to finish it. It's not that I don't enjoy it, but there's another dungeon coming up, and outside of featuring the Tingle-slingshot minigame used to get up parts of Mt. Desma, it'll probably the same as the other dungeons. After all, each dungeon's just a means to get big rupees, and the next Super Rupee. Though, come to think of it, I'm not even sure what function the Super Rupees serve in the game.

When you throw rupees into the fountain to access new areas, you don't throw in your latest Super Rupees, just a set amount of regular rupees. They don't grant Tingle any extra abilities, and you can't sell them to get more readily usable rupees. What are they there for?

The only obvious answer is that they're Macguffins. Even then, though, just how they're arbitrary items you're collecting to move the game along is unclear. They've got to somehow relate to the final boss, but in just what way remains unclear.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Contemplating Plato

Once Marrou comes to Plato everything stops. He dwells on this titan of classical history for a full 22 pages, the longest chapter yet. However, he still keeps things short, and his sections deal with chunks of how Plato and his style of education affected education throughout the rest of the classical era.

The hallmark of Plato's system is its emphasis on education as moral cultivation. His system involved an elementary level of study, but also several intermediate levels between the beginner and the philosopher. In fact, according to Marrou, it would take a pupil of Plato's until they were 50 before they were considered a "true" philosopher - someone well versed in the reality of pure reason and fully able to puzzle out morality.

Such a lofty goal seems unachievable, but Plato also innovated with an addition to the standard curriculum: mathematics. At every level of his system, mathematics were taught. Starting with simple numeracy, these mathematics became increasingly complex and abstract, until, as was the idea, they showed the student the underlying mechanics of the world and the relationships between its moving parts.

All of this information is delivered quickly though Marrou's short sub-sections. But it is, nevertheless, dense, and even Marrou's voice, editing, and style can't mask that fact.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Lazulis City 101

We're still not particularly far into The Last Story, but at least now I can say with confidence Zael's motivation to be a knight is clear: they're cool and majestic.

The thin (thus far) main character aside, The Last Story's Lazulis City is a fairly huge hub city to explore. There are tons of alleyways and narrow passages all around it, so that the city resembles an actual medieval town. Though I'm not sure about its major streets being circular and angular rather than grid-like.

Two things about Lazulis City aside from its design also struck me.

It's altogether too easy to bump into people as you walk through streets and alleyways, and what's more they actually call you out on it. This is a really cool feature, since it makes the city seem all the more lively, but I can't help but wonder if indiscriminately bumping into people will somehow have a negative effect down the line.

Before you even step out of the tavern and into the streets, though, you'll notice white stuff floating down to the ground. At first, it seems that this is snow. But, later on Zael is told that it's actually the dust from worn out land flaking off of said land, blowing away, and falling in Lazulis City. It's a rather depressing, though also simplistically beautiful phenomenon once you've learned about it.

But, along with adding a nice visual touch, there are things to catch the dust-bearing breeze. As far as I can tell these are minute status boosts (offering something like +0.02% per bit picked up). From what I've heard, the game offers little in the way of traditional grinding opportunities, but catching fractional status boosts could be considered a curious substitute.

The ever tightening net

After several previous in-book mentions, the match between Hal and Stice ("The Darkness") came up in Infinite Jest. Was it as exciting as all the build up suggested? Did I get the sense of a psychic imbalance in Hal from the way that he played? 

Not really. 

Honestly, action scenes are difficult to write in a compelling way. The scenes of pure chaos that Wallace wrote for Infinite Jest definitely work, and work well. Part of the reason for the success of these scenes is that they're describing events without rules, unlike an organized and systematized game. Plus, any conflict so bare as a fight or a free-for-all is much easier for the lay reader to follow. 

Thankfully, though, Wallace knew that not everyone who read this book would know as much about tennis as he did himself, and so there are enticing embedded sections throughout the description of the Interdependence Day match. Some of these sections run for a line, others for a paragraph. But what makes them obviously important is that they're about character locations. Taken together, these digressions from the game (aside from the snippets of conversation between Steeply and DeLint) offer a list of who is where while Ortho and Hal play. 

Though one of Steeply's thoughts suggests that the reason that he's at ETA is because it's somehow featured in "the Entertainment." This thought reads thusly: "It was unlikely that any one game figured much in the Entertainment" (658). Maybe this is meant more generally, and a section of "the Entertainment" involves a montage of various games being beautifully played. 

Whatever the case may be, things are starting to gain focus, and that net widely cast over the plot from early on in the book is finally tightening around its target.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Pushing onward in Rosy Rupeeland

It's never been a big deal in Rosy Rupeeland that Tingle's just a normal guy. His outfit is commented on every now and then, but otherwise he's never really noted. Among the amalgam of Tingle's non-notable characteristics, his strength is a great candidate for the most unremarkable.

Now, barrels full of gun powder are definitely heavy, but Tingle's lack of strength means that he pushes them around as slowly as everything else he pushes. Normally, the speed at which you can push things around doesn't matter. But in the mini-boss fight on Tingle's second visit to the Pirate Ship, his begrudging shoving around of barrel-sized grenades is terrible.

The only way to progress the battle is to catch the bug-possessed captain skull in a chain explosion of at least five of the grenades. However, along with Tingle's moving the barrels about, the skittering skull nudges them when it bounces off of them, and your bodyguard pushes them out of place as he or she walks past. So to finish the battle I had to patiently line up the barrels, use my bodyguard to nudge the boss into the enclosure and then quickly set off the chain.

Looking back, it's fair to say that that miniboss is Rosy Rupeeland's Moldorm. Yes, the incredibly frustrating boss from A Link to the Past and The Wind Waker. It's had other appearances, but those two are the most difficult since it thrashes wildly about and either knocks you off of its platform, or is just simply frantic in 3D.

With a mountaintop dungeon ahead, though, a giant multi-sectional worm boss isn't out of the question. So there may be something more Moldorm-like on the way.

No more game

It seems that my sense of timing is off. Starting at around 11, I figured that I could get through the final stretch of No More Heroes in under three hours. What I didn't factor in was the extra time I'd need to fully upgrade the final beam sword. Oh well, doing so made the end of the game ridiculously easy (even if it's already on the lowest difficulty setting).

At full power, the Tsubaki Mk-III is practically unstoppable. It's fast enough to get through most defenses, powerful enough to take out multiple enemies at once, and the easiest to get unbroken attack chains/combos with. Though, even more to its credit, it punishes button mashing by having Travis swing it around in huge arcs, leaving him wide open in between each swing. However, if you're a good judge of distance and combat timing, then that's no problem.

That sword definitely made easy work of the final three bosses.

Of Bad Girl, Jeane, and Henry (the "secret" real final fight), the most difficult was definitely Bad Girl. Not because she was the most powerful, but because the bout with her puts you into a small space with a fighter that uses a variety of unblockable and blockable attacks. So it becomes a matter of waiting for the right time to step in and strike, or to block and dark step so that you can get a slash in edgewise. Not to mention, of all of the game's bosses Bad Girl has the most vigour - even the usually super effective wrestling moves only take out slivers of her health bar. Jeane and Henry on the other hand were practically pushovers.

The challenge to Jeane comes from her speed, but any landed hit, it seemed, was a hit felt. The same went for Henry. In fact, dark stepping around Henry's attacks was far more effective than it was against Jeane. They actually landed and had some effect.

After watching both of the game's endings, all I can say is that the bad one is bad and the good one is all right.

For a game that's relatively short (by no means did I get everything, but I finished all that counts and did so in 17 hours), it's fairly story-heavy in its start and its ending, but leaves the story to the player in the middle. It also gets very meta, with fast forwarding cutscenes, references to other games that at the time of No More Heroes' initial release had been long delayed, and open references to "the player." Having these patches of story and development at opposite ends of the game makes it pretty unbalanced though.

I mean, having been away from the game for at least a year, I can't say whether or not the game's opening would still be fresh in your mind after 16 hours. Even then I can't see too many people binging and beating this thing in one long session. Though, curiously, it is just long enough to fill an entire day, even with quick meal and bathroom breaks factored in. Along with a six hour sleep beforehand.

Nonetheless, for all of its imperfections, No More Heroes really grew on me as I played through it. The first five or so hours (before all the shops were unlocked, and grinding for cash between title bouts became easier/faster) were fairly dull, but after that it really picked up. So long as the game's sequel carries on with the original's late-game playability right away, I'm definitely interested in it. Even if it doesn't, I'd still be willing to give it a go. Wielding the Mk-III is kind of intoxicating, after all.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Descending into hard history

The rubber's just hit the road. When Marrou turned to a discussion of the Sophists and their contributions to ancient education, all of the marks of historical writing were marshalled together in full regalia. Dates were quoted. Names were dropped. But, in spite of this intimidating array, Marrou's points remained clear.

The Sophists were the first to successfully make education into a job and a business. The Sophists introduced mathematics into the standard curriculum. The Sophists, with their detailed and systemized rhetoric, laid the foundations for the later importance of grammar in education.

Nonetheless, the best part of this chapter is Marrou's explanation of how sport fell out of the educational spotlight.

In short, sports became too popular and too specialized. When the Sophists appeared, sport was an exclusive domain, but the broadest goal of education was still to prepare pupils for survival in their community. It just so happened that the means of that survival had shifted to politics, the Sophists' speciality.

So, though ancient history is hardly my area of expertise, Marrou contines, Virgil-like, to be an excellent guide.

Further thoughts on Infinite Jest's central editor

Infinite Jest is a work that heavily relies on characters. One way that Wallace makes these characters stand out is through eye dialect. When a character like Marathe is speaking, his syntax and word choice are what you'd expect from a Quebecois. Though, it is a bit of a caricature.

Nonetheless, writing in so many voices in dialogue and in narrative description, gives Infinite Jest the flavour of a collection of interconnected scenes and anecdotes. Not to mention the book's endnotes. Including errata and extra information with a book underscores its compiled nature, lending further strength to the argument that the book has a central editor rather than a central narrator.

Of course, Infinite Jest's not the only book to have multiple viewpoints. Each entry in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire features several perspectives. Yet, the books in that series read much more like a traditional narrative. Equal emphasis on character and plot is definitely a factor in the traditional quality of that series. So too, is A Song of Ice and Fire's being an epic fantasy series; such works traditionally have an extensive scope, including their cast, and so A Song of Ice and Fire fits into its genre handily.

Aside from being "literary," Infinite Jest has no genre. Thus, a drive to classify it, and my sense that there's some central editor rather than central narrator behind it all.

The possibility of a central editor seems especially likely after seeing endnotes like 264 (on the word "recircling" (643)): "Sic, but it's pretty obvious what Marathe means here."

Fewer rupees, further along

My progress through Rosy Rupeeland continues unabated. There's really very little else to say.

The third continent's been opened up, and the end of the game (though still weeks of play away) rises into view.

My rupees took a serious hit, recently though. I'd just passed 100,000 and then had to give some 80,000 away to grow the tower higher. At least now it's at the same level as the cloud ceiling. Tingle must have some serious pipes to be able to breathe while up that high.

Also, there's been a marked lack of aggressive mid-sized bodyguards in the salons lately. The large ones are now just about useless (aside from their size) since the Tingle Bomb recipe's been found. But Tingle himself still has no means of unlocking doors. Or of squeezing into small places, mind you, but the small bodyguards are too often dogs and they can't be brought around the skeleton pirates. That's only problematic when you've got a local speciality cooked up and ready to sell, but there's also a bit coming up where Tingle helps them out somehow. The rock telepath on Mt. Desma's reference to a pirate's cannon makes that pretty clear.