Well, some skills are better than others and if you did not select the skills which would allow you to win the boss battle, then it just sucks to be you. It is like real life. If you are trained in nuclear physics, you are unlikely to survive a fight with a ninja.

This is a paraphrase capturing the gist of the original statement. I do not cite because it would open issues I don’t want to deal with. I’m going to explain why this opinion is terrible.

First of all, all games manage the degree of realism in such a way that the game is actually enjoyable instead of being a chore. Health packs, potions or what-have-you instantaneously restoring your health or automatically regenerating while you are out of danger is not realistic. If someone replies that health packs and potions are okay because the game is set in a Sci-Fi or fantasy setting, they are just making my point: fantasy and Sci-Fi are not realistic! So perish the idea that realism, in and of itself, makes it okay to force a specific skill set to win a boss battle.

Second, the opinion expressed above does not consider the fact that games should not come across as capricious. Now I’m going to go out on a limb and assert that the vast majority of people do not find it enjoyable to have their efforts reduced to nil due to mere chance. Chance is a desirable part of gaming but it must not come across as capricious chance. Let’s take a 400 meter race. Add an additional challenge: the finish line is closed off by a gate which can be opened only by doing one of the following:

1. Breaking a target by hitting it with a javelin. Breaking the target opens the gate.

2. Lifting a heavy weight to reveal the key. (The weight cannot be rolled or dragged.)

3. Solving a mathematical problem which gives a number combination to unlock the gate.

4. Any number of other possible challenges.

Now, the contestants do not know that there will be an additional challenge at the end. When they get to this surprise challenge, will they think it is fair? Will anybody want to participate in future races of this sort?

I can’t shake the feeling that the few people who are of the opinion I paraphrased above are those who will always choose to play a fighter over any other role. Playing a fighter is usually a safe bet. (No, not always but usually.) The fighter is a kind of default role in gaming. The development team will (usually) have worked out the kinks of playing a fighter. So players who play a fighter will invest skill points (or whatever is the equivalent) in fighting skills and think nothing of it. Now, I’d really like to see the tables turned on them. Imagine a game in which the final battle can only be won with a specific device. This device is kept in the vicinity of the final boss but it is in a locked closet. There is no key for this closet and the only way to open the closet is to have complete mastery of the lock-picking skill. What would fighters say then? Going by the logic of the comment above they should admit that they did not select the right skill set and replay the game so that they have lock-picking mastery by the time they get to the end of the game. However, if a developer pulled this little stunt, online forums would crash under the load of thousands of angry posts. Players would argue that they could not complete the game just because they were not able to read the mind of the developers. They’d be right! If a game allows players to play roles other than the prototypical fighter, then the game should not arbitrarily force the player into a different role just for the sake of a boss battle. Doing so would amount to asking the player to read the mind of the developers. In my experience, a game in which an essential device is in a locked closet will usually provide multiple ways to get the device: pick the lock, slyly steal the key from someone, break the lock, hack the lock, incapacitate that person to get the key from them, talk someone into giving away the key, get schematics of the device and build your own, etc, etc, etc. This is as it should be. If the game encourages multiple roles then someone playing any of these roles should be able to progress through the game and not find themselves screwed.

What it boils down to me is the fact that I don’t find mind reading to be an enjoyable challenge. No, I don’t need the plot or the mechanics of the game to be telegraphed to me ten times over. Yes, I do think there should be consequences to decisions taken by the player. However, the consequences of these decisions should be reasonably inferable form information presented by the game. If the big bad boss is especially vulnerable to a specific device or a specific skill, this information should not come as a surprise at the last minute, or even worse, be discoverable only by trial and error.

Discussions about the show have been raging all over the Internet today. Some people (including myself) are unhappy about the lack of proper answers to the questions raised during the show. Others reply that answers were given. Technically, the latter people are correct: answers were given to some questions. However, the answers provided are too thin to be satisfactory. Let’s say someone hits me in the face. I ask “why did you hit me?” They reply “because I hate you!” This is an answer but it does not get to the substance of the matter. Surely I’m going to want to know why this person hates me. Imagine how poorer the Iliad would be if the reason for the war was merely that the Greeks hated the Trojans. One example of an unsatisfactory answer in Lost is why the Man-in-Black wants to get off the island. He states that he wants to “go home” but this sounds rather hollow as a motivation given that he was born on the island and thus has known no other home than the island. Yes, the show provides an answer but the answer is both dubious (insofar as it does not make much sense) and thin. The answers which were provided during the last season of Lost were of this sort: dubious and insubstantial.

The finale itself was not very compelling. So what fans had hypothesized to be an alternate time-line seen in “flashsideways” (by contrast with flashbacks and flashforwards) turned out to be some sort of antechamber of the afterlife, where people have to learn to “let go.” There’s a movie called Jacob’s Ladder which does explore this very idea in a more satisfactory way. Now, the movie is not perfect but the ideas in the movie serve to drive the plot rather than pad an anemic script or create hollow hype. Basically, the movie does concisely and powerfully what Lost has done in a muddled and meandering way. It seems the art of conveying a story or an argument concisely is undervalued in this era of “more is better.” Note here that my beef is not “unoriginality.” If I recall correctly, both Neil Gaiman and J. Michael Straczynski have observed that any story written today will necessarily have something in common some older story, intentionally or not. I think they are right. The issue is not whether or Lost is original in its ending but whether the idea explored by Lost was explored as well as in Jacob’s Ladder.

Apparently, the creators of the show have been claiming that the show is “character-driven”. If Lost is supposed to be a character study, the plot should focus on characters. However, Lost’s setting takes the focus away from the characters because it is so unusual and mysterious. The creators of the show cannot present this extraordinary setting and then claim that really we should have been focusing on the characters instead of the setting. Let me put it this way, in a character study the features of the setting should be only as extraordinary as needed to serve the study. Albert Camus’ La Peste comes to mind here as an example of a good story focusing on characters. Sure, the setting is extraordinary insofar as the characters are besieged by the plague. This is not a normal occurrence. However, there is no extraneous mystery in the story. If the story incorporated some sort of red-herring plot concerning a possible governmentally-sponsored biological attack on the city, then the focus would shift away from the characters themselves. This is precisely what happened in Lost: extraneous stuff was introduced, shifting the focus away from the characters. I enjoyed tremendously some of the character development in Lost but it was diluted by things which had little to do with character development. Maybe there is a solid character study somewhere in Lost but to be an effective character study the overall story line would have to be cleaned up to remove a lot of fluff.

On a tangential note… Rober Ebert recently argued that video games are not art. Actually, let me correct myself: Ebert did not argue that video games are not art: he defined art so as to exclude video games. Now, if I am to decide which of the ending of Lost and the ending of the first Fallout game is most satisfactory, Fallout wins. The game successfully hints early on which motivations and forces will shape the ending and yet does not give the ending away. At the same time, the story does not substantially go into directions which have nothing to do with where the plot ultimately goes. (Yes, you can meet aliens in a random encounter despite the fact that they play no role in the main plotline. This is an acceptable diversion because random encounters do not form the substance of the plot. It would be another matter if you had to save a town from aliens.) In the end, the overseer recognizes that you saved the lives of everyone in the vault, not once but thrice (retrieved the water chip, eliminated the source of mutants and got rid of the Master), but he is afraid of the influence you would have on the inhabitants of the vault. Consequently your success is rewarded with exile. Fallout’s slap in the face hits more forcefully than the let’s-all-be-happy-in-the-afterlife ending of Lost. Better narrative, period. Probably, Ebert would declare that Lost is not artistic so as to preserve his axiom…

PS: If you are satisfied with Lost overall and with the ending, then good for you. I would not want to convince you that you should not be satisfied. I did enjoy Lost. I just do not find the overall package to be a successful work of storytelling.

PPS: I do not think that Lost is the only show suffering from unsatisfactorily resolving issues raised in the plot. For instance, Babylon 5 was a much better show overall but the resolution of the Shadow War (“LEAVE US ALONE!” “Oh, ok, we’ll stop using you as pawns and leave.”) felt rather bland.

Reality: There is no scientific evidence of a positive correlation between high fructose corn syrup and cannibalism. Quite the contrary, Dr. Fleug of the University of Hamburg has studied the link between high fructose corn syrup and cannibalism. In his study, he found that the control group, the group not fed HFCS, had a higher incidence of cannibalism than the group which was fed HFCS. Additionally, there are many possible causes of cannibalism and these causes are not easily isolated. For instance, zombification, fruit, unicorns and the US tax code are all possible causes of cannibalism. If you filed taxes or had fruit, you could be a cannibal and not know it.

Myth: HFCS is made from puppies.

Reality: Actually, HFCS is made from kittens.

Myth: High fructose corn syrup is high in fructose.

Reality: As a matter of fact, the H in HFCS does not mean “high” but “holy”. HFCS is full of godly goodness. Those who oppose the addition of HFCS in food items are not only unchristian but also hate freedom. They are unamerican and communists, and probably are cannibals too.

Myth: HFCS is made from kittens.

Reality: Actually, HFCS is made from puppies.

Myth: High fructose corn syrup is the sweetest substance known to us.

Reality: The perpetually happy, “think positive” new age types are sweeter than high fructose corn syrup. They taste like peach cobbler while the rest of the population tastes like chicken.

Editor: How do you know what people taste like?

HFCS Executive: We were members of the control group in Dr. Fleug’s study on HFCS and cannibalism.

Well I guess it would sound convincing to someone who never had to manage anything substantial in their life. I think it is perfectly natural and wise to plan for contingencies. A politician could sincerely oppose the bill and yet at the same time sincerely plan for the money to be spent wisely if it so happens that the bill passes. It would actually be irresponsible to do otherwise. A politician’s constituents are not isolated from the effects of a bill because the politician who represents them opposed this bill. The politician should actually make representations so that if the bill passes, his constituents are served.

Now, this does not mean that there are not other opportunities for these politicians to be inconsistent, or to dissemble. If a congressman opposed the stimulus bill and then while campaigning for reelection later claims that a project which benefited from stimulus money owes this benefit to him, without further qualification, then this claim is a misrepresentation. Because then he would be hiding the fact that he initially opposed the bill. However, this scenario is absent from the AP article.

It troubles me to see this kind of sensationalist journalism published. It troubles me even more when people believe it. It fuels a kind of knee-jerk mentality. This is a mentality which divides the world in well delimited and static polar opposites: us vs them, good vs bad. This is a mentality which seeks reassurance of its own worth. This is a mentality which can never be surprised but has already decided the outcome of all situations.

Study after study shows companies operating business aircraft outperform competitors that don’t.

The implication is: buy a business aircraft for your company and you’ll outperform your competitors. Dear Cessna, is this really the logic you want to espouse? Has it occurred to you that maybe causality runs opposite to what you imply? Could it be that companies which are successful due to other factors are enough money to spend it on planes and on frivolous purchases? Does this seem possible? Maybe?

Yeaaahhh, I thought so.

Bloody… hell… In which universe is this a winning strategy?

Captain Morgan: the choice of horny creeps everywhere.

I like to look at old ads for fun. A good deal of our culturally based assumptions do not stand the test of time and so look ridiculous seen from the vantage point of a later age. I’ve seen the ad above many times on sites dedicated to old ads. Today, I ran across it again on vintage ads.

Now, the utter stupidity of this ad is nothing short of mind blowing. Blowing smoke in a woman’s face will win her over??? Really?!? But hey, what if she’s “playing” hard to get, eh? What then? Are there more advanced methods of “seduction”? Like spitting in her mouth? Or peeing on her?

Yesterday, during a séance, the Amazing Bernanke predicted that the recession will “probably” end this year… but “maybe not”. Bernanke explained that “if” the government turns out to be successful at saving the banking system, then “perhaps” the recession will end this year. He added that “maybe” the foreign investors will stop being afraid of investing in America and that there is actually “more than a snowball’s chance in hell” that CEOs will stop flushing taxpayer money down the toilet.

Bernanke also predicted that by the end of the year we “might” be able to end all wars, “if” everybody agrees to play nice, and that we “may” find a way to instantaneously travel to the other end of the universe, “if” an extraterrestrial race finds us and gives us their technology. He also said he will “probably” grow tentacles within ten minutes, “if” he spontaneously mutates.

Bernanke then offered to contact the spirits of the departed for members of the audience.

(Inspired by this story.)