The Renaissance of “Interactive Entertainment”

Video games are sort of in an awkward place in their growth cycle, the equivalent of those gawky teenage years we all go through.  As a medium it continues to grow in leaps and bounds in artistic and creative achievements.

When you consider fantastic new releases such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, the term “video game” seems almost derogatory.  Modern games on current generation consoles Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have come a long way from the 8-bit Mario-tastic glory of their roots: running in full HD glory, these “games” are much more like interactive movies these days.

Just last night I got a few minutes with the living room all to myself, so I fired up the PS3 and popped in Uncharted for a few minutes.  Picking up the game a few hours into it, I found myself in the middle of an intense scene lifted straight from Hollywood: running gunfights, a chase through the cars of a moving train, the beautiful damsel in distress, a bitter betrayal… and a helicopter gunship trying it’s darndest to blow me to smithereens.  All in about 30 minutes of gameplay!

And man, talk about the Hollywood factor… while I was playing the game, my wife was in the other room doing some tidying up.  I’m proceeding happily along this train, thinking I know exactly what my goal is, and then BOOM.  The car I just jumped from blows up.  Confused, I start “looking around” the game world to see what in the world is going on, and in a moment that would have inspired a “Jinx!” from my younger self, I see a helicopter in the air about to fire another missile into the car my character is currently in and I shout out “OH CRAP!” at the exact same time my character, Nathan Drake, does.  My wife stops what she’s doing and asks what’s wrong… and I excitedly yell out “A HELICOPTER IS TRYING TO BLOW ME UP!”  To which I get a “Huh?” from my poor bewildered wife.

Speaking of Nathan Drake, he is the “star” of the Uncharted franchise, which began a few years ago with Uncharted: Drakes Fortune on the PS3.  I say “star’ instead of “main character” because that really is the feeling you get from playing these games.  Nathan Drake doesn’t just feel like some 2D cartoon character you’re manipulating on a screen, he feels like a fully fleshed out, almost Indiana Jones-ish character you’re watching in an adventure.

Don’t get me wrong though.  This isn’t just watching a movie, this IS a game, and a very tightly polished one at that.  The Uncharted series is a sort of combination of two classic gaming archetypes: the shooter and the platformer.  You mix up your time as Drake either engaging in gunfights with crowds of goons and exploring varied environments (from deserts to frozen tundras to ancient ruins) and having to climb and jump over obstacles to find your way to the next level.  The controls are tight and well refined.  To steal a quote from Apple, “It just works.”

If you have a PlayStation 3 (which recently saw it’s price slashed to $299 in the US for newer, redesigned and slimmer model) then you owe it to yourself to pick up one or both Uncharted games.  Whether you are the type to view them as “video games” or “interactive movies” or “eye pleasing time wasters”, you’ll get a real kick out of the story of Nathan Drake and his various adventures.

 

I give Uncharted 2: Among Thieves a coveted   5 Mr. Hands out of 5!

Christianity and Obama

I’ve heard from several place both before and after the election the phrase “There is no way a Christian could possibly vote for Obama.” The reasoning behind this is that Obama supports abortion and gay rights.

This was an issue I struggled with in this election. As a follower of Christ, I am told that every life is sacred to Him and that gay relationships are an abomination in His sight. Therefore I am supposed to refrain from both of them. That isn’t a problem for me.

Here’s a problem for me though: I’ve known and loved both gay people and people who have had abortions. Therefore they are more than just a statistic or group to me… they are representative of real people in my life.

Ultimately my stand on this issue boiled down to this: If we make abortions and gay relationships against the law, then what we’ve done is give the government the say so in both our healthcare choices and in our choice of who to pursue a relationship with. It is a very slippery slope.

If we give the authority to the government to decide what one group of individuals can and can’t do, homosexuals for instance, then where does it stop? If they can dictate how gays and women can live their life, then why stop there? Why couldn’t they then dictate to Christians how to live THEIR lives?

Think about it, fellow Christians. Do you really want to give our government that kind of authority? Are you naive enough to believe that a secular government would stop with gays and not extend that level of control to all walks of life?

Just because the law would allow for abortions or gay marriage doesn’t mean you have to participate. You CAN’T force non-Chrisitans to live by Christians standards. We derive our standards, or morals, from Christ. Non-Christians, obviously, don’t recognize Him as an authority. Why then would they submit themselves to His ways?

The answer to combating the sins of abortion and homosexuality is -not- to force Christ’s standards onto the people. The answer is to introduce the people to Christ.

My vote for Obama was a vote against Government making decisions about my life for me. In an indirect way, it was a vote for my religious freedom… my freedom to choose, for -myself-, not to have an abortion or to be in a homosexual relationship.

Government shouldn’t decide how I live my life. Religion shouldn’t decide how the non-religious live thier lives.

We, as Christians, should worry less about changing the law and focus more and changing hearts.

Feel free to disagree with all of us. That’s your right. The Body of Christ is a diverse group, made up of many different parts. So too is America. Try to remember that.

Who Would Ever Want to Be King?

For the last five years i’ve sat at work at 5am on Black Friday and watched sadly as the Wal-Mart parking lot filled up with deal seekers, wishing I could be among their ranks.

Not this year my friends. This year I am the one making the work schedules, and I will be taking that weekend off to seek and hopefully find all those wonderfully cheap electronics that desperate retailers almost give away on Black Friday. I am on a quest… I can almost taste the adventure now. Mwah ha ha.

In case you wondered about the title, I was listening to the wonderful “Viva La Vida” song by Coldplay.

Shout out to (not for long) Big Dan as he recovers from his surgery.

What A Week

It’s been quite a weekend for the Wallins.

Firstly, we moved from our apartment in Muscle Shoals (where I proposed to Cassie in fact… Attached picture is the spot where it happened after the furniture was moved) to a 3-bedroom apartment in Florence. Unfortunately no one was available to help so the bulk of it was moved by us and Cassie’s poor, poor Dad. We started Friday afternoon and didn’t “finish” until like 10pm Sunday night.

On the gadget side, Overstock.com had a price mistake on this great device called a “LocationFree” base station. Basically you hook it up to your Tivo and you can access it and watch your recorded shows from anywhere with Wi-Fi. It was supposed to be $154.50 but they left the zero off so I got two for $15.45 each. Hehehe FedEx delivers today.

Yesterday several executives from my company, Murphy Oil, arrived at my store on their “Customer Service Tour” in a giant tour bus. They stayed for about half an hour handing out beads and free drinks to customers and gave me a signed mug, plaque, and tools pictures and video to be shown at our managers meeting in Orlando in January. I worked from 4am to 5pm straight getting ready for it. Blah.

As soon as I was freed from that I went to vote in my first Presidential election. I didn’t vote in the last two because I never registered and always missed the deadline to.

I had been a rock solid Obama supporter the whole election, which netted me much flak from folks (especially my Fantasy Football league where I’ve been called such things as “Baby Killer” *sigh*). However here at the end I was a little conflicted as to who I was going to cast my vote for.

In a jaded sense I knew it didn’t really matter because McCain was going to carry Alabama no matter what. The night before I read a great essay by Derek Webb that talked about Christians and voting responsibility and how Christians should not feel required to vote, especially if it caused them to violate their conscience by voting “the lesser of two evils”. (EDIT:  LINK HERE )

Because of the Murphy bus I didn’t think I’d have time to vote anyway. I was then informed that polls were open until 7 so I met my wife at Highland Church as soon as I left work and decided to cast my vote. (side note: I think it’s funny that we vote in churches. Seperation of church and state?)

In the end, I did vote Obama. As much as I like some of McCains ideals I ultimately decided that Obama has the best chance of making positive change in our country (especially with the new Democratic monopoly in Washington). I hope he can be flexible with some of his ideas to change some of them that may not work so well if they don’t. I think he will.

I cooked dinner (Shake & Bake!) Ironically linked to that meal, the wife and I then watched “Step Brothers” and a little election coverage before going to bed around 9.

My alarm went off at 3am this morning and I immediatly opened Yahoo! News on my iPhone to see that I’d woken up to a new country that had just elected it’s first (half) African American president. I got up, made some coffee, and watched a little CNN.

It’s a new era America.

.

In Between

With the help of Cassie’s family, we finally got everything moved out of my apartment last night.

Our lives now are in a weird state of flux… I’m stating in Cassie’s apartment, which has boxes of stuff and wedding presents crammed in every corner as we wait to move into our new apartment in the middle of October. So until then we’re living out of boxes and suitcases. (Cassie is staying with her folks until the wedding)

Nothing will ever be the same again…

It’s kinda exciting.

An End, and a Beginning

Got a busy day today, running around and getting everything ready to move out of my apartment tomorrow. Today is the last day I’ll ever have an apartment only to myself, as the wedding is less than a month away.

WOW.

Starting tomorrow I’m gonna live in Cassie’s apartment and she’s gonna commute back and forth to her parents house in Athens. Then around October 15th we’re gonna move into a 3 bedroom apartment in Florence. (we’ve already put the deposit down on it)

Well, I’d better get started… gotta turn the power off, rent a storage unit, check on my Alabama license, buy Soul Calibur IV, etc etc.

In closing… a pic of the living room of my last bachelor apartment I took the first time I looked at it. *sniff*

My Great Friend, Mr. Justin Jones

I was absolutely floored tonight by a text message from Dan Marsh informing me, by way of his brother Joe, that my friend Justin Jones is not expected to make it through the night.

Justin has been fighting brain tumors for more than a year now.  The last time I saw him was at my Dad’s funeral visitation back in May.  Justin wasn’t able to drive due to his medication so he’d gotten his parents to bring him up there.  It spoke volumes to me.  I mean, some of my oldest friends who lived only a few minutes away didn’t take the time to come to the visitation, and here was Justin, sick, who’d went to so much effort to be there.  Wow.

We hadn’t gotten to see each other much in recent months because i’d been spending all of my free time in Alabama with Cassie.  We made plans to maybe catch a movie a few days later, and of course with everything going on (and me just being me) I never called.

Now that may have been the last time I got to speak to him.

That thought makes me sick inside.  Justin and I first became friends at Kossuth High School, where we would meet during break and discuss (of all things) Sailormoon and Gundam Wing.  I helped spark what would become Justin’s lifelong love of anime and japanese culture.  In recent years we both wound up working at EB Games together part time.  Full time he worked for Wal-Mart overnight and I worked the morning shift at the Murphy USA station in the parking lot, so he got to where he’d stop by on his way home and we’d discuss Naruto and just life in general.  In fact, when I first starting getting serious with Cassie Justin was the one I talked about everything with.

He was a great friend to me.  And I am immensely, terribly sorry I wasn’t as good a friend back to him.

I wish I could be at the hospital with him, but I’m told he’s in Jackson, MS which is a good 5 hours from here.

We used to have long discussions on religion.  I hope he’d finally found the peace with the Lord he was always seeking but couldn’t quite reconcile with his intellect.

I love you buddy.

I’m beyond blessed to have been able to call you my friend.

I already miss you.

-Jared

Sci-Fi did WHAT?!

I just read on Aint It Cool News that they’ve canceled Stargate: Atlantis.

I friggin LOVE this show.  And it’s the only science fiction show that I can actually get Cassie to watch. 

Argh.  I’m so angry.  And depressed.  Stupid Sci-Fi Channel.

My Family

A snapshot of my new family… my fiancé Cassie and our poodle Row.

The wedding is in 29 DAYS people. Gah!

Testing the Waters

Ok, I started this new blog because there is a WordPress app for the iPhone. So I thought it might be convenient to be able to blog easily from ole Phoney here.

Speaking of the iPhone, Cassie and I made the trip to the Apple Store in Huntsville last night so I could pick up my new 3G baby. A guy randomly offered to buy my old iPhone with the cracked screen about two weeks ago and I stupidly sold it (and regretted it immediately) so I’ve been having to slum it on an old Razr I had.

But now I’m back where I’m supposed to be… with my little touch screen beauty.