Mercs Just Wanna Have Fun

Time for a videogame entry. I've been playing two videogames lately, World of Warcraft and Mercenaries. World of Warcraft can wait for another entry, because I'm sure I'll be playing it for a while. Mercenaries is just plain fun, which is surprising to me, because its a lot like Grand Theft Auto. As I've written before, Grand Theft Auto is a 'kitchen sink' type of game, like the Sims (though diehard Sims players would be horrified at the comparison). You have an environment and a plethora of options for your playable character, and the player makes his decisions and watches the fun. Whereas the Sims is enjoyably inventive and endlessly amusing, though, Grand Theft Auto becomes less and less impressive the more you play it. At first its like, 'I can drive! I can shoot! I can steal!' Then it becomes more apparent that its a mediocre driving game welded to a suub-par shooter connected to a shoddy control/aiming system. In a way, its impressive that it can do all these things at all, but in another way, its less than the sum of its parts. Mercenaries, on the other hand, which could be described as 'Grand Theft Auto in a War Zone' , is far superior. The driving parts are solid, the combat is fun in and of itself, and the destruction is so darned FUN that it puts the game that inspired it into the shade. Here's the deal: some crazed psycho has taken over North Korea and is threatening to nuke Japan, so the US, China, and South Korea invade. In the ensuing mess, you operate as a free agent, doing tasks for each of the invading armies (and also the Russian mafia), playing each of them against the other as you attempt to find the evil North Korean bad dudes. Okay, so its not Kafka. What it is, though, is fun. It enables you to apprach so many missions from different angles in the sandbox it provides that it becomes more than the sum of its parts. Here's an example. The South Koreans wanted me to capture/kill a North Korean nuclear scientist who was hiding in a far-flung village. I tracked him to a particular building and my first approach was through the front door. Unfortunately, the scientist had 20 bad guys guarding him, and they shot me up within an inch of my life. My next apprach was sneakier. I stole a nearby helicopter and landed it on the roof of the building, and started blasting my way into the scientists lair from the top down. this didn't work either, as the scientist had laid a booby trap in the penthouse. For my 3rd attempt I abandoned all finesse and planted C4 around the building. When I hit the switch the entire building exploded, vaporizing the scientist. Now, I lost half of my reward for killing the target, but man, it sure was a pretty explosion. The entire game is like that. You can play it as creatively as you like, and the game won't break. Plus, the explosions rock. After a hard day at the office, that sounds like the perfect game.

Now, Mercenaries isn't an 'important' game like The Sims or World of Warcraft or Half Life 2. It doesn't appeal to non-gamers and it doesn't really innovate -it just perfects the innovations of those games that have come before it. But its not trying to reinvent the wheel. It's just trying to have some fun. And at that it succeeds perfectly.

The Oscars...how they’ll go.

I saw Million Dollar Baby the other night and firmly believe that it should win best picture. However, I’m pretty sure that The Aviator will win it. Why do I think that? Two reasons. Firstly, Martin Scorcese is probably the greatest American Director to NOT have an Oscar (apart from Orson Welles). The fact he doesn’t have one is an embarrassment to the Academy, even though, by all accounts, The Aviator is far from his best film. The Oscars have always been partly about make-up calls. The examples are endless. Russell Crowe loses for The Insider, which he thoroughly deserved, and wins the next year for…Gladiator. Now, I love Gladiator, and I think Russell Crowe was great in it, but the best actor of the year? No way. Or how about Denzel Washington? He loses for The Hurricane, and wins… for Training Day. Again, he was good in Training Day, but not THAT good. So yeah, the Academy will honor The Aviator to make up for ignoring Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. Unless they split Best Picture and Best Director, and give Marty the Best Director nod. An outside shot, but possible.

The second reason they’ll stay away from Million Dollar Baby is because of controversy. I’m not gonna spoil the movie (as many have), but suffice to say that Clint Eastwood’s character does something that many people find deeply immoral. Now, whether or not it IS deeply immoral I’m not getting into here, but that really isn’t the point. Enough people are ‘outraged’ to make it a little risky to honor. Which is a real shame, because it’s a phenomenal movie.

Best Actor will almost certainly go to Jamie Foxx, who apparently is great in Ray. I haven’t seen it but I have to problem with that. Best Actress I would love to see go to Hilary Swank, but I doubt it will, because of the aforementioned controversy, and also because of a makeup call for Annette Bening, who lost to Swank when she was nominated for American Beauty.

The screenplay awards are wide open. I’m rooting for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Animated Feature should hopefully go to The Incredibles, which I think is far superior to Shreck 2.

Visual Effects should be a lock for Spider Man 2. Art direction will probably go to The Aviator.

The whole show should be interesting because Chris Rock is hosting this year and IU have a feeling he’s going to want to shock people a little bit. We shall see.