Anime Review: Gurren Lagann - My MacGuffin Shall Pierce the Heavens

Gurren Lagann is a strange beast. It’s a 26 episode anime that is self-aware yet sloppy, childish yet undeniably clever. The same studio that created the critically acclaimed half-season anime FLCL is responsible for Gurren Lagann. Whereas FLCL aggressively subverted genre norms to the point of nearly disowning it altogether, Gurren Lagann is not quite as daring. It ends up relying heavily on winks and nods to the absurdity of giant fighting mech animes combined with a blistering pace to keep viewers interested.

The vantage from which one views Gurren Lagann will have a drastic influence on what you see. I have little doubt the show was created for those with an appreciation of (as opposed to disdain for) common anime themes and tropes. Various fighting robots in downright silly designs attack each other with their signature moves while yelling the move’s name in a way that reminded me of watching Digimon when I was eight years old. Characters regurgitate inspirational “good guys win through fighting spirit” babble and “resistance is futile” taunts. No one (well, almost no one) seems to face ultimate defeat when they lose. They’ll be back.

From my perspective, there are three real reasons to watch Gurren Lagann.

The first reason is the pacing. Even if you find yourself predicting the outcome of the episode or even the next five episodes, your prediction stretches further into a story than many shows would dare go in two entire seasons. Just as Gurren Lagann has a hyper-sweet anime flavor, it also has a skim milk sensibility for getting to the point. The story travels outward (figuratively and literally) at an alarming rate, functioning as both an element of the plot and a great way to avoid boring those who feel they’ve seen much of it before.

The second reason to watch Gurren Lagann is the way it subverts expectations. This does not contradict the earlier point about playing into the hands of the classic hero-with-special-abilities-versus-evil plot skeleton; on the contrary, the story relies on the way the protagonist has a special power and drives nearly the entire plot forward using this MacGuffin. Gurren Lagann uses the ham-fisted and full-frontal anime elements to deliver sucker punches at several key points in the series right where viewers least expect it.

As opposed to Game of Thrones, in which it becomes apparent for better or worse that anyone is fair game for any kind of misfortune, Gurren Lagann has some internal consistency issues. Still, it keeps the story fresh and signals unexpected shifts in tone and motivation. These dramatic shifts are why many Gurren Lagann fans will say they loved one portion of the series, but were lukewarm on another.

Finally, Gurren Lagann is an anime for people who like anime. The hero has an explicable power making them better, but they have to grow as a person. Pilots will have long-winded conversations in split-second timespans. Epic fights full of overblown carnage will generally leave anyone important unscathed. Everyone thinks grunting and nodding is a valid response. Events that don’t make sense visually will be explained in completely unapologetic forced exposition. And if you watch much anime, you’ll see that even when events take an unexpected turn, they’re turning from homaging one kind of played-out anime storytelling to another. 

The show knows what it’s doing. It’s just checking to see if you do too.

I enjoyed Gurren Lagann, and I can appreciate what it was trying to achieve. However, after 26 episodes, I had become frustrated and bored with the laziness of the storytelling and the constant stream of nonsensical escalation and plot devices. One can't hold a conversation entirely with winks and nods. I can recommend it primarily because it’s short and because after this review, you should know what you’re getting into: if you don’t watch anime, Gurren Lagann will not change your mind. 

Book Review: The Cuckoo's Calling - From Wizards to Detectives

“The Cuckoo’s Calling” has received more than its fair share of buzz following the news that Robert Galbraith is actually a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling (which is, itself, a pseudonym). The book is simply too solid to be a true debut, as many critics agreed upon release. As the author of a series so famous and universally loved as the Harry Potter books, it’s no surprise then that Rowling has created an enjoyable novel that scores high on easy readability while still providing quality storytelling that readers crave.

The Cuckoo’s Calling is a lean story. Like Rowling’s previous books, there’s very little fat dangling off the edges, ready to bloat the reader with unnecessary information. This is quite a feat for a 464 page detective thriller, a genre that Rowling had not yet touched and now attempts for reasons unknown. The result is a story that starts where it should start, ends where it should end, and keeps the reader guessing and turning pages the whole way through.


Private Investigator Cormoran Strike is not a man who is friends with good fortune. A leg lost to a landmine in Afghanistan, a rollercoaster romance ending in a wreck, and his struggling business leave him with almost nothing. It’s only when he is approached to reinvestigate the months-old suicide of world-renowned super model Lula Landry that he finds an outlet for his energy. All the evidence points toward suicide, with little information to lean on. He throws himself into this high-profile case that has long since been closed because he desperately needs the money and distraction, but soon finds that perhaps there’s more happening in the high-flying world of the super rich and regrettably famous than meets the eye. His temp that he can’t afford, Robin, brings a contagious enthusiasm for detective work helps keep Strike on the right track and sane.


Rowling makes the shift from the puerile though enjoyable wizard fiction of Harry Potter to the world of the reader, shared by this detective. Removing the whiz-bang of wands and puberty, “The Cuckoo’s Calling” instead offers an edgier, grown-up and worn-down character in the form of Strike that succeeds spectacularly considering how much more practice Rowling has in the realm of coming-of-age and ministries of magic.

As mentioned, Strike doesn’t have much going for him at the outset of the book:


“Other people his age had houses and washing machines, cars and television sets, furniture and gardens and mountain bikes and lawnmowers: he had four boxes of crap, and a set of matchless memories.”


Despite his troubled childhood of frequent free-spirited uprooting and shabby parenting, Strike is a cool, calm, and nearly unshakable figure. With nerves of carbon fiber (because steel isn’t strong enough), he extracts what he’s looking for from witnesses, suspects, family members, and friends-of-friends. Each new encounter is a pleasure to read, as Strike exercises his practiced and perfected art of gathering a thousand little puzzle pieces and fragments of memories from eccentric figures throughout London’s social strata.


From his office in London, Strike embarks on a distinctly modern detective tale. While historically famous investigative thrillers might take place before the advent of the computer or even electric lighting, Strike gathers information with the help of London’s ubiquitous security cameras, smart phones, and Google. Deducing the past with the help of designer brands and records of who-called-who while chowing down on a Big Mac helps lend the drama an air of recency.


Strike’s emotional duress also ensures that our expert detective is a human with emotions and needs. Of course, his stoic avoidance of self-pity both endears him to his reader and keeps him going through a time that would crack most people. In a moment of self-reflection, Strike considers:


“Seven and a half million hearts were beating in close proximity in this heaving old city, and many, after all, would be aching far worse than his.”


“The Cuckoo’s Calling” is littered with “Strikisms”, little observations of human nature and the modern world vaguely pertaining to the case. His thoughts, even unspoken, always reveal themselves in the calm and clinical verbiage of a detective accustomed to considering and including all available information:


“Couples tended to be of roughly equivalent personal attractiveness, though of course factors such as money often seemed to secure a partner of significantly better looks than oneself.”


The story tightly follows a theme of social class, income and privilege. Strike himself has a complex background reaching both up and down the social ladder. Each person he interviews is clearly represented as having their own unique destitution or opulence, each placed in stark contrast as Strike alternates from speaking to the homeless to investigating a night club.


And yet, Rowling (and by extent, Strike) stays refreshingly far away from the temptation to editorialize about the superior lives that the wealthy and famous live. If anything, it makes clear the toxic nature of fame and money on both those who seek it and those who have it. As Strike ponders:


“How easy … to capitalize on a person’s own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life.”


The story breathes life into London as Strike walks down Charing Cross, takes the tubes, grumbles at construction and grabs a pint. With each new character testimony introduced, readers find themselves slowly piecing together the tragic life of Lula Landry. Disaffected and detached, The Cuckoo’s Calling presents the glitz and glamour of the celebrity life in all of its dismissed irritating details, casting a garish light on our infatuation with rich humans.


“The Cuckoo’s Calling” deliberately defies and subverts many genre norms of crime fiction. Far from a hard broiled detective in a noir world of dames and robbery, it features a protagonist with real problems, real (though stereotypically masculine) responses, and a tragic crime. The suspects, the secretary, everything about the supporting cast doesn’t just fall into a lame trope. It’s down to earth and so is Strike, which is to his distinct advantage in his investigation.


The book may be lean, but it also sticks insistently to the kindergarten advice of using words instead of violence. In our day to day lives this is excellent advice, but in a detective thriller tailored for modern audiences one might expect a bit more action instead of pure, Holmesian deduction. Rowling puts the weight of developing the investigation almost entirely on characterization and conversation for most of the book, and like Strike’s hulking frame on his prosthetic leg, carrying such a burden for so long can cause irritation.


Without giving away too much, I also found the conclusion of the story to be unsatisfactory. After putting so much effort into making a detective novel fresh and exciting, it felt like a cheesy about-face.


Taken together, “The Cuckoo’s Calling” is a modern detective story about fame, fortune, and family ties. It’s not a heavy read, it features “tell me more”-worthy characters, and it’s all tied together with that inherently suspenseful IV drip of clues for the case. While some might complain that they expect more zip-bang-pow action for their buck in crime fiction, I think the book is more palatable, interesting, and universally enjoyable as a result of the shifted emphasis.


Despite the few disappointments, I still like the idea of a sequel with Cormoran Strike. If Rowling grew as attached to the characters as I did then perhaps she will oblige.

#19: Hotline Miami - Some of That Good Old Fashioned Ultraviolence

It might seem a tad strange to begin my own review by borrowing the words of someone else's. However, with a description as fitting as the one made by Sophie Prell over at The Penny Arcade Report, I feel I might be excused:


"Hotline Miami is the split second between an inhale and an exhale. It’s the rush that comes from planning, thinking ahead of how you’ll react once that door in front of you is busted open and the white-tux, bald-headed baddies are heading your way."


Brutally murdering bad(?) guys in Hotline Miami is simple yet rewarding in a way that even the most visceral and eye-candy-bloated triple-A action games fail to achieve. Barging from room to room and ruthlessly cutting down your enemies with increasing efficiency, players have only the most basic control functions combined with a hair-thin margin for error. It's twitchy, reflex-driven, with a hint of sadistic plotting.

Good job, everyone is dead!

The brilliant art and sound direction shines even brighter through the limitations of pixel art and 8-bit bleeps. As you don different unlockable animal masks that grant unique powers, you'll witness blood spattered against every imaginable surface, shades of neon and dirty light at every turn. It draws heavy and obvious inspiration from Drive and Miami Vice. In particular, the psychedelic soundtrack merits a listen or three even if you never touch the game.


Your journey through this trippy, hazy tale of an unstrustworthy narrator will become ever more perplexing. While some have hailed Hotline Miami for its story, I believe that the story and the message of Hotline Miami are two subjects that need to be divided.


The plot struck me as a deliberately incoherent trip designed purposely to leave the player confused. It resulted in a tale akin to those magic eye illusions on children's cereal boxes and magazines: if you look but don't focus too hard, you'll see something cool. From what I can tell through some basic background research, the story may very well have no correct interpretation. Some people appreciate this narrative trick; I tend to feel betrayed.

As you might guess, you ordinarily do not survive even one bullet.

Separately and more importantly, however, Hotline Miami makes the player feel uncomfortable. The game doesn't glorify violence, and it doesn't even reward it; it's simply necessary to play. Everyone on each stage must die, full stop. There's an unease that settles in, I hope, with every player as they plumb further into the depths of Hotline Miami. With that unease comes this question: "Why am I having fun doing this? Do I even care what reason I have?" Unlike, for example, the Uncharted or Assassin's Creed series', no effort is made to hide the player from the fact that they're assigned to murdering dozens of people at a time.


At only $9.99 and available on PC, PS3, and PSVita, Hotline Miami brings a lot to the brain-splattered table. Though I played it on PC with an Xbox 360 controller, its blistering pace and short sessions strike me as perfectly suited to a handheld; if you've got a Vita, you have little excuse for not picking it up.


4 out of 5

Movie Review: Elysium - Self-indulgently Macho Sci-fi Satire

Elysium stands as an excellent example how to fashion a brilliant setting welded to a political statement and then largely waste the effort. While Neill Blomkamp succeeded in social commentary via sci-fi in his previous outing, Distrinct 9, his new movie Elysium failed to convince me that this splendid society of economic inequality was created for something more than furistic gunshots and exo-suit powered fist fights.

The story takes place in 2154. Matt Damon is the Earth-bound Max, a man with a criminal past just trying to make his way on a planet that has long since been abandoned by the wealthy elite. This patrician class has fled the desolate and ruined surface to a luxurious man-made habitat satellite in the sky called Elysium. When he finds himself with only a few days to live, he makes it his desperate mission to travel to Elysium where his solution awaits.

With Jodie Foster playing homeland security chief for the satellite promised land, the two soon find themselves at odds. Max battles an agent in her employ, Kruger (Sharlto Copley). Kruger is amoral, lives for combat, and has a terribly confusing accent. And of course, he has a major case of JWD (Just Won’t Die).

This conflict steals the show, but not for the better. The brutality of their back-and-forth devours the intended satirical effect of the movie. I was left longing for more exposition about the fascinating state of Elysium, or the day-to-day toils of those down on the surface of Earth. Instead, I got explosions, guns, and fistfights. These could have been lifted from any number of movies you’ve seen before. For example, within the whole fascinating world of Elysium, Blomkamp chose to put a protracted ten minute fight seen on a barren patch of dirt. Not only are the fights nothing special, they aren’t even performed on the proper stage.

With a premise as promising as Elysium’s, every punch thrown and shot fired felt like another wasted opportunity. It seems to me like Blomkamp might have taken the wrong lesson from his previous movie, District 9, ascribing its success to the action-packed bits at the end. What made that movie splendid was its attention to world-building and the characters that lived there. On the other hand, Elysium teases a dystopian future with depth to spare, yet barely dips a toe in the pool and fails to deliver characters that can carry the story. Perhaps next time Blomkamp ventures back into the realm of bleak sci-fi as social commentary, he’ll give his viewers a bit more credit.

#18: The Showdown Effect - Carnage and Cliche

The Showdown Effect is a mish-mosh of action movie tropes proudly assembled in the form of a 2.5D action sidescroller. Surprisingly, it focuses on fast-paced multiplayer matches with several unique game modes, with no true single player mode. These games are no longer than your average session of Call of Duty, with an equally impressive body count. Competition is fierce, and the skill required to be the best is deceptively high. If you're into skill-based multiplayer games and have a hankerin' for something fresh after you've exhausted Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and Natural Selection 2, then The Showdown Effect delivers.

There are two basic varieties of weaponry: ranged and melee. Ranged weapons hit the opponent only if you click directly on the opponent, not behind them, a task that can be more difficult than expected. Melee weapons, on the other hand, deal massive damage and can be used to deflect incoming damage but are by their very nature more difficult to touch an opponent with. Add to this mix some dodge rolls, dives, bandaging, special moves, customized loadouts, wacky game modes, and active reloads a la Gears of War and you've got a Showdown.

Why shoot while standing when you can shoot while wall-jumping?

The basic deathmatch mode did not impress me. I found it to be relatively slow paced and uninteresting. With no single-player to speak of, the choice cuts of Showdown Effect lie in the less-played modes of One Man Army and The Expendables (referencing this). One Man Army is a different take on the classic FPS variant called Juggernaut. Everyone gets one turn per round as a super-powerful character while everyone else gangs up on them. The One Man Army who gets the most cumulative kills during their turn is declared winner.

My favorite, however, was The Expendables. Both teams are the same size, but one is stronger, spawns with their loadouts and special abilities, and can self-heal. How could the other team possibly win with their weaker characters and randomized weapons? Simple: they have instant respawn times while the super-team respawn timer gets longer and longer. Then teams switch. A sample game:

I join a game and choose Dutch McClone, whose terrific and intentionally generic backstory involves having no memory, being a clone and trying to figure out who took away his memory. My loadout has me using dual hand-crossbows, a rifle, and a golden ax. I load in on the overpowered team, where we fend off the henchman hordes for about twenty or thirty points. Suddenly, things go downhill: two team members fall, with respawn times above forty seconds.

Blue here is on the "Heroes" team, so if he dies to that rocket, he's got a long
respawn timer ahead of him. 

I flee from the marauding hordes of rocket-toting rabble. They outnumber my remaining teammate and me, and we both know our only hope is to run, try and pick them off one at a time, and stall until we can re-assemble. The tension of holding out against the endless henchmen as long as possible is one of the most enjoyable multiplayer moments I've had in recent memory, made even better by playing on a team with a few friends.

I do doubt the long-term replay value of the Showdown Effect, but I would have also said the same about games like Call of Duty. Many gamers continue to play the franchise with only glacially slow modifications to the formula, so what's fun may stay fun.

There is also the issue of map variety and the amount that player skill can be tested by awareness of surroundings. There are limits to how much these factors matter in a game that only moves from side to side. Bringing some buddies will drastically improve your mileage; when you get tired of gibbing folks with your shotgun, you can always get into a healthy diving-enemies-off-of-cliffs competition.

Its shortcomings aside, the Showdown Effect is a kitchen sink-salad of disparate game genres that shouldn't work nearly so well as it does. The simple deathmatch I first jumped into underwhelmed me, but my experimentation with the novel game modes alongside my friends made it clear that the risks Paradox took making this were rewarded. As I often find myself saying in my reviews, for $2.50 on sale or $10 full price, it's a worthy purchase. I'd more strongly recommend a 4-pack though; this is a game best played on a team with three friends.

3.5/5

#17: FTL: Faster Than Light - Boldly Go Where You'll Go Many Times Again

In FTL: Faster Than Light, you captain a starship on a secret mission. You carry information critical to the success of the last stand of the Federation fleet. As you can imagine, the "Federation" isn't doing too well if they're having a last stand. Outer space is full of people that want to shoot missiles, lasers, and people into your spaceship until it blows up. Once it blows up, it's game over, and it will blow up. And you will start over. But that's how the game works.

You see, FTL is randomly generated each time. As you jump from waypoint to waypoint across the stars evading the advancing rebel fleet, unpredictable encounters with enemies and conditional-friends will help you collect fuel, missiles, weapons and scrap with which to upgrade your ship. Upgrading is essential: the opposing ships rapidly increase in power and will leave you in the dust unless you use every trick in the book to stay alive and make your ship battle ready.

The UI is initially overwhelming, but you'll quickly be rerouting power from healing bay to shielding like a pro.

A typical game sees me starting out in my bare-bones ship, sending my crew members to their stations and warping to the nearest point of interest. I encounter a basic automated drone; because knocking out the oxygen will do nothing, I opt for the simple and direct approach of blasting at its shield generator until it explodes in a shower of debris, awarding me with some scrap.

Next, I find a slave ship. It offers to sell me a slave for a sum of scrap I cannot afford. My other two options are to fight it or leave. I opt to fight it; after beating their ship within a few seconds of death, they offer me terms of surrender: I take a slave for free, or else they will all die. Acknowledging my need for another crew member more than scrap, I agree to their terms. My crew member is not human, though; he's a rock-person, with 50% more HP, fire resistance, and half speed.

Jumping to the next waypoint, I encounter a planet of strange, six-legged, doe-eyed creatures. I am given the option of harvesting them to sell or attempting to communicate with them peacefully. In my greed, I opt to harvest them for money, only to have them turn aggressive and kill one of my crew members.

The best part is that eventually, your ship will be unprepared. You'll be boarded and your crew overpowered, your ship obliterated by overwhelming firepower, or simply gimped by an opposing ship that knocks out your engines and has defenses you can't penetrate in time.

"That's the best part?" you might be justified in asking. "Dying?" 

Of course it's impervious to heat. I mean, why wouldn't it be?

Yes. It is the knowledge that your ship is woefully unprepared that makes the run when the stars align and you power your way through the universe that much sweeter. For those who have ever played The Binding of Isaac or another rogue-like, it's the blistering difficulty and element of the unknown combined with permanent death that makes every attempt intense and enjoyable.

If it was not already obvious, I've enjoyed my time with FTL. I admit it was improved by my appreciation of sci-fi TV shows like Star Trek and Firefly, but I think that's more of a cherry on top than anything. However, the game has a few snafus.

After a few runs, it starts to feel like there are too many ship fighting events and not enough of everything else. The way ship shielding works can create a brick wall for players that, through sheer luck, are unable to properly equip themselves with appropriate weaponry in time, and this can be frustrating when it puts an end to an otherwise flawless run. And lastly, without revealing too much, you may very well never fully complete the game, and I would not blame you.

Despite its flaws, I think FTL is one of the most bold. inventive, and lets not forget fun indie games around. I recommend it sincerely and particularly because it is only $15 even at full price.

4.5 out of 5


If you found this review useful, please comment below, follow me on twitter @CraigCainkar, and follow, share, bookmark, staple, or lick this blog if you enjoyed it! And if you have any suggestions for what you would like to see in future entries, please leave that in the comments as well. If you suggest a game and I own it, I'll play it for a future entry.

#16: Dust: An Elysian Tail - A Furry Case of the Metroidvanias

Dust: An Elysian Tail is an exercise in genre-blending. With its 2D platforming elements and slowly trickling supply of new tools to navigate hidden areas, it quickly prompts comparison to the famous Metroid and Castlevania games. Where it diverges noticeably, however, is in its approach to combat. Put simply, it's a brain-melting frenzy of projectiles, sparks and numbers, with combo counts in the hundreds for even basic enemies.

There's probably a Dragon Ball Z move to reference here,
but it's not one that I'm familiar with. Missed opportunity.

Within minutes, I was hitting X, Y and B in essentially random arrangements, with my Dust (the name of the protagonist) soaring into the sky, comboing baddies with my talking sword, and flooding my screen in a manner I would normally expect from a Japanese bullet-hell shooter. I was expecting the classic game design trick of "now that you know how powerful you can be, we'll take away all your powers!" But it never came. You start Dust: An Elysian Tail with most of your combat skills, and quickly gain those that remain. The rest of the game feels like that final hour of most RPGs when the player is a nigh-indestructible demigod. Once you gain a basic grasp of how to fight, the game actually expects you to achieve 300+ hit combos: you gain bonus experience for chaining hits! And you will. It's easy and satisfying to alternate between covering the screen in projectiles to stack up your combo meter and attacking foes directly to recharge your special gauge.

As you can see, the whirly-blur is using lightning to create
yellow numbers out of the purple smears.

The RPG elements spill over to the quest-driven nature of the game, with towns full of NPCs just chomping at the bit to send you off on a fetch quest. You equip Dust with various armor which enemies can drop or by crafting recipes using specialized materials (that enemies drop and are sold in stores). Level ups let you prioritize your favorite stats first, although for the most part it doesn't make a huge difference.

In fact, there were only two occasions I wasn't enjoying myself during Dust. The first was any time I was being forced to
backtrack because enemies respawn in rooms behind you.
Luckily, this did not happen too often.

Beware: for better or worse, this critter follows you all game.

The second issue, unfortunately, was more front and center: the characters and plot fell completely flat for
me. Within the first ten minutes, Dust is established as an incredibly talented warrior with amnesia who is mysteriously united with a sentient, talking sword. Without going further than that, I can assure you things don't get much better. If that weren't groan worthy enough, your flying orange squirrel companion has an appearance and irritating voice straight out of Digimon. In fact, all the main characters had melodramatic voice acting combined with hackneyed writing that made me want to play with subtitles only. Additionally, the decision to make every single character an anthropomorphic anime animal did not fit the attempted seriousness of the story. If you were wondering why the subtitle says "tail" instead of "tale", that's why.

It's my opinion that Dust: An Elysian Tail is an excellent expansion upon the 2D platformer explore-a-thon genre typified by games like Metroid, adding incredibly stylized combat to the mix and empowering the player with more RPG elements. The attempt to introduce a serious plot using essentially cartoon animal characters, though it fell flat, was at least an admirable risk. For $7.50, I'd certainly recommend giving it a shot. Go grab it while it's on sale.

4 out of 5