PIST OFF BOOK REVIEWS: Angels and Demons

-Thrillers Can Entertain and be Redundant-


Not everyone can craft a masterpiece their first time out. Just ask William Shakespeare. His debut work, Titus Andronicus is so bad people argue that it didn’t come out from his camp while others say it shows his style, work, and everything else that would later develop.

I’m from the latter camp. He wrote it, and it really isn’t as bad as critics say-just violent. Very violent and the characters lack any depth at all. The point is though, it certainly doesn’t hold up to his later work which shows why he’s the greatest writer of all time. Bill obviously developed as time went on and when we got the masterpieces of Macbeth and Hamlet. As bad as some people may think Titus is, it certainly shows potential from a young writer, which any critic can be quick to point out, and if he’s seasoned the pay off for supporting him will be worth it.

Dan Brown is very similar today in that category. Contrary to what many may think, he wrote two books before DaVinci Code hit and it shows they were his first…two…books. Laden with plot holes and boring prose, without even reading the DaVinci Code I can tell a lot of what works in that novel came from him finding what didn’t work in these novels. Angels in Demons is his second attempt at the Great American Novel. It aint bad, but when you’re an arrogant snob like me that knows plots pretty well-it’s easily predictable.

It didn’t exactly sell well either. This being Brown’s sophomore release, it sold in the realm of 10,000 copies (mere peanuts in the industry) until DaVinci Code spring boarded it’s sales into more respectable numbers.

Angels and Demons doesn’t really have anything original with its plot devices. It’s mostly about another mad man trying to blow up another large area of land, and the conspiracy said mad man works with. We’ve seen it before, we know how it ends, but this time the setting isn’t a gathering of leaders at a U.N. Summit or The Pentagon. No, Brown reaches down, grabs his balls and sets the story in Vatican, Rome-headquarters of the Catholic religion.

It’s not just the Catholics this place has either, Rome has over 2,000 years of Christian history in its archives and hundreds of ancient sculptures and chapels within. For one guy to say he’s going to blow it up could easily erase half of mankind’s relationship with God-and that’s where the story is praised. It’s not like it’s just a battle of good and evil either, the Vatican has probably the most dysfunctional group of cardinals and guards that one has to wonder how the Pope ever ran the place to begin with. And yes, all of those guards, cardinals and whoever find themselves caught into the conspiracy plot somewhere along the way.

Most of it is because of the Illuminati. A group of cultists who pointed out how the church was full of shit and science proved everything. In retaliation, the church killed a few of their members and branded them with iron to wash away their sins. It’s implied the great scientist Galileo was part of this group before it became bloodthirsty, as well as others. The Illuminati have been esoteric for quite awhile, so long that everyone thinks they no longer exist, that is till they hold the Vatican hostage with a canister of Anti-matter. A Macguffin used to blow up the entire city. So how do you find the canister? How do you stop this group of people who pointed out the church was full of shit?

Enter Robert Langdon in his first book to make sense of everything—and it’s very clear since he’s sane that he’s not welcome in the city. From there, Langdon needs to find these Illuminati chaps, get the canister, save the girl, and get ready for his NY Times smash-hit sequel.

CHARACTERS:
This is the one thing Brown really needs to iron out. He has great character archetypes, but they are all 2D. I’m yet to see any of them learn a moral, or grow by the end of the story, but then again I’ve only read AaD. At least they aren’t annoying by any means, most of them are just cookie cutter protagonists and antagonists that move the overall story (which is the novel’s main emphasis). I won’t complain though, these guys get the job done.

PROTAGONIST
Robert Langdon:
A Harvard Symbologist who has written a book about those Illuminati fellas. Langdon is an extremely bright professor who loves his job, his life, and generally enjoys finding new information on his research. When the events of the book get moving, it’s stated Langdon was trying to get into the Vatican Archives to do research but has been denied (it’s difficult to get in there no matter who you are, FYI).

Langdon’s intelligence though is what turns off some. He has an answer for everything. He can’t find a clue-then off the corner of his eye is a document, a statue, a certain church made by a certain somebody. He’s in the open, what now? That’s it! There’s a chapel that holds the key!

For someone to find and join the Illuminati, they had to decipher a series of clues that lead to their church within Rome., which happens to be the main objective through most of the book. I can only guess it took them days, weeks, months, and for some years to find this church. For Langdon, it only takes a matter of hours. And I can bet you some of these guys are smarter than even Bob Langdon here.

The other problem with Langdon is that he really has no problems or flaws so to speak (essential for the best characters of fiction IMHO). He’s that perfect. The only thing I can think of is that he’s still a bachelor in his late age, but then again that makes me think of him as a pimp, and since he’s also a badass swimmer who plays a mean game of water polo, that assumption is almost entirely accurate. With the exception of getting bruised up towards the end in the finale against his antagonist and passing out in a coffin (which was done to avoid getting burnt up in the middle of a widespread fire) Langdon comes out of every situation unscathed.

My assumptions are more correct when I find that this guy was meant to be the man “Dan Brown wishes he could be.” So in essence, you’re reading a story with Dan Brown as the main character. There’s nothing wrong with that, half of the stories have the author as the main character even if you don’t realize it. But it’s obvious Dan Brown is Langdon, they were born the same day, went to the same school. It’s like Brown said. “I’m going to take the stuff in my life that sucks, and make sure it isn’t going to be implemented in Langdon. Then I’m going to take all the stuff I wish I was good at or interest me, and make Langdon be a god at all of it.”

Not bad, just shallow.


The Angel: Langdon is basically a throwback to Superman comics of the 1960s. He has nothing wrong with him and is always nice to the people who are nice to him. He can get out of trouble at any time, he does the right thing, always, and is there to save the day. For that reason, there is little to not like about Langdon, the person. There is much to not like about the character-but that’s all digging deeper into the context. For the protagonist of a plot driven story, Langdon gets the job done. At least we don’t hate him. If, unfortunately, you do hate him, I suggest going to a psychiatrist because you got some serious fucking problems.


The Demon: Langdon has no demons to speak of. Well, unless you count that stupid Mickey Mouse watch he has. I believe the book says he got it at a young age, but I don’t know of watches with Mickey’s arms showing the time that are equipped with alarms. You think Disney would make something that advanced in the 60s or 70s when Langdon was a child? Let alone one without a price tag Disneyland merch would get? I thought the watch was cool, until Langdon passes out in a coffin and sets the alarm to get the authorities to find him and save his life.

That’s when I was like “How does that have an alarm?” Leave it to Langdon, sure…but It feels like Brown was stuck in a scene and thought of the alarm as a quick fix.

There is also a flashback of Langdon as a child falling down a dark well which apparently is supposed to resonate he’s claustrophobic of sorts. But when writing that character flaw, Dan Brown forgot that Langdon is supposed to be flawless, so that plot piece is never heard from again.

Speaking of that well, was I the only one who found it to be a total rip-off of every Batman movie showing The Dark Knight’s origin? I mean I was waiting for Langdon to run out of the hospital and head to the Bat-Cave to figure some of this shit out after I read the scene.


Television Equivalent: MacGyver, but better at cracking puzzles than making handy gizmos.

CERN:
The European Organization for Nuclear Research. Cern’s purpose is to throw a Macguffin into the mix in the form of Anti-matter. It’s ran by Maximilian Kohler and lays claim to having invented such toys as the internet (take that American History!). I’m not sure what’s true or not from this group of nerds, but their latest invention-a canister of anti-matter- is stolen. Anti-matter can basically make a blast larger than a hydrogen bomb in a canister roughly the size of a venti starbucks cup. So obviously a murder happens and the bad guys get the weapon…uh-oh.

Maximilian Kohler: The DIRECTOR (caps provided by me) of CERN. Kohler is an arrogant jackass who seems to enjoy a condescending behavior towards everyone else. The guy is allegedly brilliant, though he’s confined to wheelchair and gave me the appearance he’d croak any day. Apparently he’s not a very popular boss as most of his employees fear him and try to avoid him whenever possible. He’s always quick to flaunt his toys, even putting Langdon into a Jet that can get him over to CERN headquarters quicker than any commercial jet. From there is a nice walk around the complex with The DIRECTOR showing a CERN of happy and cheery coworkers.

That is until Langdon finds the body and the missing eye of Leo Vetra.

Kohler is quite dedicated to his work; the guy preserves the corpse of a murdered coworker REFUSING to let INTERPOL or any sort of police in to investigate (for fear of top secret projects being uncovered, let alone Anti-Matter). Instead he finds and calls Robert Langdon (how, only one could guess) and starts him on his quest.
Kohler later is the one who uncovers The Illuminati’s plot to kill the pope and do all the evil things thus setting off to Rome to confront the man known as Janus (who is actually the Carlmengo). We, the readers are left to think that Kohler was, in fact, the mastermind of everything, but with 30 pages left, Langdon uncovers forty subplots, one of which reveals Kohler as a good guy.

The Angel: Kohler appears as a nice enough chap with a huge problem involving nuclear bombs and The Illuminati. While his intentions seem sincere, albeit wacky (why aren’t you going to let the fucking police in to start an investigation if you’re innocent…which you are), there’s no denying that this vegetable has made significant strides in science.

The Demon: Kohler really doesn’t do anything but provide another suspect in the whole “Whodunit” case on getting this wacky day going. For fucks sake man, just give us two more pages so we know you’re a good guy. By the time we find out Kohler really was on Langdon’s side the whole time, our head is spinning with Pope children, chopper evacuations with help from God, and a million other strange ass things.

TV Equivalent: X-Men: The animated series’ Professor X

Vittoria Vetra: Adopted daughter of the late Leonardo Vetra, a scientist/Catholic priest who gets murdered to start the first story arc of the book. Leo designed Anti-matter and researched science for the better of religion (huh?!) which was what led to his death. Vittoria shows up in CERN to take the role of Langdon’s side kick (read: love interest and damsel in distress).

For the damsel, Vittoria really doesn’t need much taking care of. She’s as tough as they come. In fact, I’d say she’s a polar opposite of Langdon’s thinking process. Langdon thinks things through, Vittoria just darts after the first thing that pops in her mind. She gets the first firearm in the book, and is hell-bent on finding her father’s killer. Her rough mouth though, gets everyone into trouble on more than one occasion as she really isn’t down for idle chit-chat and always has to get things done.

That said, she is still the damsel. By the fourth quarter of the book, the tough, non-thinker, more doer girl that was a joy to read gets abducted, strapped to a table for non-consensual sex purposes, and continually thinks of Robert Langdon rescuing her. By the time you get to scenes from her point of view, you’re gagging about it because she wants her hero, even if she’s not saying those exact words.

The Angel: Vittoria has a strong sense of justice and is willing to put her life on the line to find more information. While this also gets her into trouble a few times, it’s a joy to read. Well, until she reverts to “SAVE ME ROBERT!”.

The Demon: If Langdon can’t get out of something-Vittoria can. When Langdon is stumped on where to go next, Vittoria suggests a sculpture leading them to their next clue. When Langdon fights the badguy who kidnaps Vittoria, at the site of Langdon getting axed, Vittoria dislocates her shoulders to get through the bindings she’s in and causes an assist. Shes’ kinda Langdon’s fallback sensor. When Dan Brown knows Langdon has had the puzzle piece too many times in a row, he lets Vittoria step in and take us to the next area. While it’s refreshing, you gotta laugh at Langdon’s intelligence. Here’s a guy who can find the Illuminati, identify symbols, be a knowledgeable badass through most of the book, but he gets shown up by a labrat who suggests a sculpture by Bernini to get them to the next area.

I’d probably tell her to fuck off out of pride too.

TV Equivalent: Dragonball Z’s Bulma

The Illuminati:
History says that some people were non too happy with the way Catholicism ran the land and conspired peacefully to point out all the holes in the bible. Naturally, Popes don’t like this, and it gets worse if this is in the Renaissance. Using their power (which was quite a bit back then). They hunted down these “Illuminati,” branded them with hot irons, then left them for dead.

After seeing they weren’t going to get to be a major political party, the Illuminati became entirely esoteric (Galileo being one of it’s better known members). They had a church that took quite a bit of ingenuity to find , hidden within Rome an donly by deciphering a series of clues could you find the church and join your Science loving bretheren.

While the Illuminati are believed to be dead-it’s not good when someone at the start of the book (Leo Vetra) gets his eye stolen and has the Illuminati seal branded on his chest. Those fuckers are back, and they are none too happy with Catholicism standing the test of time.


The Hassassin: AaD’s 2nd tier bad guy. The Hassassin is a throwback to the middle east’s version of Ninjas, and if you played Assassin’s Creed, you’d tend to think they are still around today. Not much is known about him besides the fact he was contacted by a guy named Janus to cause all the trouble AaD is thrust into.

The Hassassin has a simple pattern-kill the four cardinals that are up to become pope by using earth, air, fire and water in that order. For example, he stuffs dirt down one cardinal’s throat, suffocating him to fulfill the earth requirement.

He seems to like his job too, and on the rare phone calls or conversations he has with Langdon, you can tell he enjoys the chase and watching Langdon jump around to him like a cat on dangling yarn.

Of course, we don’t know much about the guy. He’s a contracted killer who made a better antagonist than the book’s final antagonist showdown. His death is premature, in my opinion-and if Langdon was set up as this awesme guy to begin with, we should have had their confrontation at the end. When he dies, the book feels finished for the most part, that is until Dan Brown sneaks in that final plotline that was way better than the entire book.

The big problem is that this guy isn’t that good of a close-range fighter. When I think of ninjas or Hassassins or people like this douche, I think of this guy:



Now call me crazy, but if the Hassassin had a bullet shot into his foot a few hours earlier, and had to fight a college professor before he could rape the juicy Italian brod he strapped to the table, don’t you think he could work through the injury? Aren’t these guys trained to be deadly even if their arms are cut off?

Maybe I’m just thinking about this way too much.

The Angel: There really isn’t anything good about this guy. Much like Vice from Marlowe plays, the Hassassin seems to be doing everything for Illuminati pride and a paycheck.

The Demon: this is one seriously bent dude. The one problem with him is-we never hate him. Yes, he’s doing bad things and needs to be stopped, but we never once get to hate him, or like him for that matter. Kidnapping Vittoria was a good first start, but if he actually raped her or did something to violate her-he’d be on his way and make us more emotionally involved in Langdon kicking his ass. Unfortunately, since this book was predictable, we knew Vittoria would get out before bumping uglies with this guy.

TV Equivalent: The Shredder

Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca AKA Janus
The boss of The Vatican in The Pope’s absence or something. This is where AaD gets very confusing. I’m never sure who is who through all the Italian names. Double when they speak Italian. Look, if you’re gonna speak Italian, speak it, don’t go in and out of it in the prose. It doesn’t make it more accurate, it just makes it ridiculous. No one is going to care if you have Italian dudes who should speak Latin speaking English. We can suspend disbelief on that.

This guy follows the age-old cliché: If he’s super nice and gets you out of a jam early in the novel, chances are-he’s going to be one of the main badguys at the end of the novel. The moment the Camerlengo gets word of Robert and Vittoria arriving in the Vatican and having good info for the anti-matter crisis, he orders his goons to free them and then acts very warm and kind hearted to the duo. Right there I knew we were going to finda total douchebag when this was over with.

A douchebag he is. This guy is the mastermind of the entire plot AaD is known for. His plan is simple-kill scientists, then make sure everything gets blown up towards the end. There’s also a subplot involving being the pope’s son through artificial insemination (a part I didn’t catch till I read a synopsis).

Where Robert Langdon is the official do-gooder, Camerlengo is the bad dude. He almost does things for the sake of being evil, but does have some motivation. He’s not for the science and God motif AaD preaches and wants science to just disappear. He’s very against science, so against it that when the late pope voiced his like for the anti-matter, Camerlengo poisoned the poor sap.

See, Leonardo Vetra discovered Anti-Matter and researched it to confirm God’s existence. The Pope thought the idea was grand and gave his seal of approval, something the young Carlmenlengo didn’t really like. So he did what anyone would do when someone’s religious beliefs grind against their own with potential to change the very face of power: He goes on a rampage in the name of God. He kills the pope and makes his death look like natural causes, murders Leo Vetra and makes it look like The Illuminati are back, then hires the Hassassin out to execute the cardinals in order to instill the public faith in him.

Camerlengo’s main purpose of everything was to have everyone back him, then put him in as the Pope where he could right the wrongs caused in the last few years. Like any villain-he had good intentions, but had to do some really asshole stuff to get there.
It isn’t until Kohler finds him after reading Vetra’s journal that Camerlengo’s plot goes to fruitation. This guy gets cardinals framed, people killed, and does more dirty work-just to save his own skin. If it wasn’t for Langdon’s curiosity, Camerlengo would have gotten away with the whole thing. His death however ends a few minutes after he’s crowned as pope-getting burnt to a crisp in the middle of the Vatican alters. Yummy.



The Angel: Camerlengo is probably a decent chap deep down. He thinks in his mind he is doing the right thing, but he can’t make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. I do think if no one caught onto his evil deeds when he became pope and everything went unsolved-he’d be a decent, although bitter ruler. Call me crazy, but wipe away his little evil stuff and he would have been a great pope.

The Demon: Langdon may have the answers, but Camerlengo changes the questions. This guy is seriously calculating, to a point I just don’t believe him. I can believe the pope, Vetra, and the antimatter thing. But once we get Kohler involved to make sense of everything, it still goes far too smoothly for me to really buy it. Some priest is able to be a master of human psychology to the point he has a security guard, a master scientist and others killed to make him look like a victim? There’s just too many variables for the kind of person he is. I mean, who the fuck does he think he is? Cade Vanity?

Yes, I went there. I actually compared him to the villain in my own novel: A sadistic, calculating douchebag who also happens to be a perfect clone of Jesus Christ-at least we can believe HIS motives.

Television Equivalent: Inspector Gadget’s Dr. Claw.

THE VATICAN:Outside of groups and outsiders, we’re left with Vatican employees. I don’t think this building needs an introduction, but it’s a wonder how it’s still standing with these incompetent pricks.

Montieri Olivetti:
Captain of the swiss guard. Olivetti has a rough start with Langdon. How rough a start? Well Olivetti simply imprisons him with Vittoria inside of a vattican office. This is rather humorous considering that Olivetti was the one to call the two to the Vatican in the first place when he found the Anti-Matter canister with CERN’s name slapped on it. If he knew this was going to be bad information (If a camera is focused on a can and you have no clue where the camera is located-that’s probably a good indication), why call them in the first place? What follows is Olivetti looking bitter and assholeish and The Camerlengo looking like a saint. The roles are switched halfway through, and Olivetti gets shot by the Assassin shortly after showing he’s not such a bad guy at all.

Olivetti really didn’t do anything for me, and I kept getting him confused with The Camerlengo. It’s not a major difference, but I think his character could have been developed more than it was. Then again, he serves only a purpose to get shot so who knows.

The Angel: Olivetti is the captain of the guard and a good one at that. He cares about the security of the city, even if he gets a bit rash in doing so.

The Demon: What kind of morons do they have running this place? Who in their right mind finds something belonging to CERN, invites representatives over to get it, then locks them up. You’d think they’d know they aren’t going to like what they are about to hear, and that if representatives were captured-the folks back home are going to blast the news out anyways. And don’t give me that “Panic” bullshit. Olivetti is an idiot.

TV Equivelant: Night Court’s Nostradamus “Bull” Shannon

Cardinal Saverio Mortati
Boss of the conclave; a college of cardinals used to elect the pope. Mortati is frequently referred to when they have the helluva time selecting who the new pope would be and throughout the story, it’s apparent the cardinals are hopelessly in deadlock. Other than that, he says a few words to The Camerlengo, after everything is revealed. Mostly things about morality and how God is going to strike people with lightning.

The Angel: Cardinal Moriati really doesn’t do anything but be an angel. Through the whole book he’s basically your do-good, “I really have absolutely nothing to do with this storyline”

The Demon: Cardinal Moriati really doesn’t do anything but be an angel. Through the whole book he’s basically your do-good, “I really have absolutely nothing to do with this storyline”

TV Equivalent: Kung Fu: The Legend Continues’ : Kwai Chang Caine (big difference Caine had something to do with Kung Fu’s storylines)

Gunther Glick and Chinita Macri:
A reporter and a photo journalist partnership looking for a big scoop. For the first half of the book, the Assassin contacts the two sending them to where he plans on killing Cardinals and having them report on the whole thing. From there they basically report on what’s going on with the crazy day in Rome. Eventually Langdon gets ahold of them and uses them to his advantage. To film some good stuff.

The Angel: Everyone loves the press in real life, and in fiction/film everyone seems to find them meddling and troublesome. At least Gunther is just an everyday guy swept into the whole thing.

The Demon: Let’s call these two what they really are: The Paparazzi

Television Equivalent: Pokemon’s Team Rocket

And Three Clues:
AaD is your normal “Hostage situation, mass death” thriller, set in Rome with the distinction of God having a hand in everything. I can see where people could bag on this book though. It doesn’t have the shock value of DaVinci Code, it doesn’t have the appeal of The Lost Symbol and it doesn’t have any sort of writing passages you’re going to remember.

I’ll take a story any day of the week, if it’s done well and doesn’t have the feel of a big budget action flick. This is where AaD falters-it has those action movie moments, those “Oh yeah right” points where you gotta say “WHAT THE FUCK?!” I got three of them, and these three are enough to point out my disdain with AaD to the point I probably could never see myself re-reading this again.

1: The Assassin is a shitty assassin: I’ll again bring this up, he’s really not a good killer. At all. If he were what he should be-Robert Langdon should still be in a coma right now, Vittoria should still be having counseling for her rape attack and Camerlengo should be blessing America on Easter Sunday.

Have Langdon smart, have him as a swimmer, but he gets boring as a protagonist when he doesn’t get his ass kicked once in awhile, and he doesn’t. He can go toe to toe with a TRAINED killer, even when he shot said killer in the foot of all places. I can suspend disbelief for so long before I get fed up with the feud. This is one coming dangerously close. Had Langden had a mutilated arm, had Langdon took a few bullets and got the stray gun to sway the momentum in his final confrontation with the killer-we would have a villain. But right now, all we have is some guy who grabs four powerless, weak, old farts and kills them in creative ways. Hell, any serial killer could do that.

2: Langdon’s handy man tricks get very old: In any piece of fiction, even those that resemble a sort of plot, we need something out of the main character to give us weakness, vulnerability. Or, at the very least, we need them to be absolutely stumped and hit rock bottom. Even Sherlock Holmes or James Bond find themselves in a fix at some point in their stories. Maybe it’s the short deadline before the bomb, errr anti-matter goes off, or maybe I just nitpick the hell out of Langdon, but the guy just never does anything wrong. It never gets more ridiculous than this plot piece towards the end:

While The Camerlengo is still masquerading as a do-gooder, he finds the canister, hops into a chopper (with Langdon in the co-pilot seat) and ascends to the air. From there the canister drops with only a few seconds remaining and goes *ka-boom*. The Camerlengo gets out via parachute and survives (which people call an act of God) on the same token, Langdon grabs a piece of glass or some sort of long, webbed piece of equipment and sails into a river or a street or some shit, hell I don’t know, and survives also.

I would buy that if it wasn’t for the fact this guy has had a fucking answer for EVERYTHING in the book. I mean once to save yourself in a freak accident is fine-but this is a SYMBOLOGY (or however you spell it) prof we’re talking about. He’s not a physicist. His life has been in danger, I don’t know how many times-by now he should be traumatized, by now he should be panicking and have someone else fly up and save him, by now he should stop being fucking MacGyver.

3: No setup between the protagonist and the antagonist: Well not really. The Hassassin is basically Devil-Langdon and loves taunting his foil. The problem is, we never get anything personal between the two. Furthermore, the battle between the two, while not intended to be epic, happens before the real villain shows up. From there, The Camerlengo takes full reins of bad-guy duties and while set up well beforehand, never sets into his villainous roll long enough for us to really get a feel for him once he sets himself on fire. It was more of an ending to a story rather than a showdown (which, let’s face it-that’s what Langdon needs since he’s Superman). Plus if you’re going to save Camerlengo as the main bad guy, for the love of God, reveal all his plot twists throughout the story rather than the last 30 pages.


The Prose:A lot of people want to call Langdon’s prose clumsy (well one from what I saw) and I find it interesting. Yes, the guy writes in a very confusing way, but it’s like I said-we’ve seen all this before, are you saying every thriller writer in existence is clumsy?. I don’t see why people today place so much emphasis on poetic prose. There’s purple prose and then there’s out of the way description and poetics, one you shouldn’t do, and one it doesn’t matter IF you do.

Brown’s prose doesn’t really win any awards, but it isn’t really that grating either. It gets the job done. Yes, some of his POV changes are questionable (nothing wrong with multiple 3rd person limited, just needs to be contained to 2 or 3 heads), but it’s nothing annoyingly difficult like a Stephen King novel.

The thing Dan Brown does do-that drives me insane is his use of passive writing. How many phrases of “Was going to” or “Was eating” do we need to stomach? No editor nowadays likes that crap and the only time we should see it is when they emphasize something-well he emphasizes just about every action Langdon does like he’s God or something (which makes sense when you think about it).

Overall though, I don’t need poetics, I don’t need five paragraphs of character monologues and I sure as hell don’t need him to make things more difficult than that book already is. It passes. You know what’s going on, until the last surplus of subplots. The only thing really grating is how he describes a few things-I didn’t know exactly how The Camerlengo immolated himself until I saw the movie of all things. There were a few other areas I felt lost in as well to say “What the hell is the architecture of this place, how did they get here? Can I have a writing GPS navigator?”

Speaking of the movie…

Angels and Demons: The Movie
I’ll admit, I never saw The DaVinci Code’s film adaptation, but once I finished with AaD I figured, “Let’s see how it translates to screen.” To be honest-not that bad. AaD isn’t going to make any awards, but it’s good popcorn entertainment.

Gone first of all is Kohler, CERN’s egotistical brains. With that out, several key points are omitted, found or welded together to make sure the storyline doesn’t have a dozen holes. Olivetti no longer makes himself a complete doofus (via not locking everyone up upon arrival) and is kinda more badass in his movie incarnation.

The story actually holds up pretty well, though there are just a few small changes here or there. The scene where Langdon actually gets into the Vatican Archives-and gets locked in (with no air) is changed, or at least different from how I envisioned it. And The Camerlengo is no longer Italian and instead Irish to keep up with Ewan MacGregor’s role in it. A decent change that shouldn’t piss off purists.

The Assassin however has the main alteration. Apparently, looking for a built agile badass was out of the question, because movie goers would realize Tom Hanks wouldn’t stand a chance. So they went out and hired Bill Gates, errr, Nikolaj Lie Kaas. A decent and threatening pick, sure. But again he’s just not who I’m thinking of for the role. He just looks more at home in a Dungeons and Dragons party than to be taking part in this plot. Thankfully, Robert doesn’t get into the chopper with The Camerlengo either-no director is going to let that scene go into a movie-everyone would groan.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
AaD isn’t a bad novel, but it isn’t a good one either. I think I’ve highlighted enough plot pieces that are questionable to prove that. Hopefully within all this you were able to figure out the semblance of a story, which actually entertains nicely. The problem is-AaD is predicatble. When they say they got 4 Cardinals that will be killed at intervals-you know all four are dead. When there’s a canister of anti-matter that’s going to blow at an exact time-you can bet they’ll get down to the crucial seconds to toss it. What it does surprise you with are the few maniacal villainy twists like The Camerlengo being The Pope’s kid. But it’s mute. The only other surprise is just how agile Langdon is in this whole mess. But who cares? I read this stuff daily I KNOW what’s going to happen. Joe Book Reader wants something entertainig-and guess what? AaD is pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, this is just an appetiser for The DaVinci Code. A book I have not gotten to, but know it’s far superior than this. Take out Rome and you have a normal run-of-the-mill thriller.

Then again take out space in Star Wars and you have an everyday fantasy…so there you go.

SCORE:

3.5/5

UP NEXT: I got vampires on the mind. I think we need to look at a certain vampire novel that made a certain author become a household name. The setting is a small unknown town where some fucked up shit happens to it. There’s also some bad romance in there too….

Ys Book 1 & 2

For about a decade I've been really wanting to play Ys Book 1 & 2. I was first introduced to Ys with the Super Nintendo port of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. It's really not a bad game, but it's nothing great either. I liked it because of the world. I think Falcom (the developer) does a tremendous job building their world and making it accessible to fans. The soundtrack was top notch also. So while I don't consider Ys III a wonderful game, it certainly is a personal favorite.

The same couldn't be said about Ys Book 1 & 2. These games are worshipped by hardcore gamers as some of the greatest RPGs ever made. Just about ever magazine you read in top 25-50 lists you'll find Ys Book 1 & 2 somewhere in there. I mean they are so obscure but loved, I had to play them. I neglected Ys VI on the PS2 simply because I wanted to play the games in order.

Anyways, about five years into this decade I found the games for a steal price on ebay ($45 as opposed to about $80 or higher) and decided to buy them. Of course then I had to get a Turbo Grafx-16 CD, which is also hard to find. I settled on the emulator Magic Engine which cost me $20 but was better than the $150 and up prices on ebay.

Then it had to take me another four years to actually play it. When I first got it, I made it through Book 1, which isn't saying much since Book 1 was only four hours. With some time, I finally sat down and played it, and well, it was pretty good. Overrated, but pretty good.

Yeah, I said it. Ys is overrated. I'm not dogging the series at all. The first two games are excellent titles, and I enjoyed them for what they were, but there are A LOT of problems with these games.

For one thing, it's the fact it's an 8-bit game. Now there's nothing wrong with that. As an 8-bit game, you're used to some cryptic bullshit on these, but none annoyed me more than Ys. Even at the end when you've done everything you need to, you need to navigate through a maze a fourth time just to get the best sword in the game. It's extremely tedious and I think going through this sewer maze, twice was enough. I also thought the level design was a bit annoying and lacked much depth. Again, this is an 8-bit game, so I can't be expecting much, but how many dead ends do you need in a dungeon? I'd rather the game be non-linear than have all these dead ends and rooms. I know the purpose of the large dungeons is to overwhelm the player, but come on! Look at Zelda's, even Dragon Quest doesn't get this confusing. I may be whining too much because I'm accustomed to maps, but I guess we can equate this to me being a lazy bastard.

But back to the cryptic stuff. The game seems to thrive on just doing stupid things. For instance, when you go to Burnland (creative title guys) you find a bridge guy who is acting strange since the goons (Ys name for the monster population) came by. So you transform into a goon yourself and speak to the bridge guy, who says he's going to make sure Adol (the character you control) won't cross the bridge. Ok, great! From there I go do something else not knowing what to do, but I'm supposed to turn back into Adol and talk to him AGAIN! In a game where the last 7 hours everyone has said the same thing since I first ram into them to talk, this guy changes his story? How confusing is that? If I knew these guys changed what they said I'd be more inclined to hit him. But it's from there you get an item that helps you finish the area.

Most of the game though, the puzzles are a bit hard, but never hard to where you just go to an FAQ. I only used an FAQ when I just wanted to make sure I had all the items in an area. The game seems to love putting you on backtracks and if you don't fully explore each area, you're going to miss an orb or a statue someone is going to want four hours later and then be forced ALL the way back. Even if you have what you need you get forced back. In Darm Tower (whoever came up with that place should be shot) I'll spend an hour fighting monsters and finding my way to the 18th floor, only to find a dead end. I didn't know what to do, I checked a few rooms, nothing. It wasn't until I checked gamefaqs that I realised I had to go ALL the way back to floor 11 and talk to an NPC for the way to be opened up. I'm sure as a kid, I'd just go there after not knowing what the hell to do, but really-that's game design? Things like this in the game really annoyed me.

The ending is just as ridiculous. After you de-stone everyone the Goddesses just say the final battle is approaching and to get ready. What you NEED to do is go see the unstoned NPCs (which I never caught onto and blame myself) and then get the best sword. Throw me a bone here! I don't mind puzzle solving and vagueness, but you don't do it to the player at the end of the game-that's bullshit. If you are at the last guy, you DON'T make them do stuff beforehand. I hate it when games do that, it's like they wanted to cram more material in, even though the last boss/dungeon is right there. They did this in Chrono Cross where you couldn't access the final boss without making an artifact called the crono cross. Of course no one can tell you anything but really vague hints-and you just want to kill the boss at this point and finish the game. These are momentum killers-don't do them.

I know it sounds like I'm dogging the series, but I'm mostly nitpicking. Again this is an 8-bit game. Yes, the definitive versions are on TG-16, but these games were made for the Famicom and Sega Master system, and even more archaic computers before that. They fit the time period.

Of course there's the music-which I can't ignore. I can only say, it's pretty good. That's it. It's definitely not up to par with the amazing soundtrack of Ys III, and it definitely doesn't stack up with genius like Final Fantasy or Castlevania out at the time, but it's still pretty catchy and soothing. I got it onto my ipod, and for a soundtrack ot make it there-it can't suck. I still don't think it belongs in a top 10 best soundtracks of all time, but definitely a top 50.

Then there's the battle system everyone praises. Ok, it's innovative for it's time, and different...but it hasn't aged well. I don't think I really have grasped the concept of how you're supposed to collide with enemies, but I got the general gist of it. Ramming enemies was fun, until i got to the end and it was all I did. It's just the same strategy every encounter-ram them. They don't have projectiles (though that would be a nightmare if they did) they don't do anything but just have more HPs and do more damage. Add in the game is VERY unbalanced. I don't mind having a bunch of swords for sale at the start, but when I can grind for an hour and come back to buy all the best equipment-then that means something. There's even a place in Book 2, where you can sit and plow through 8 enemies every few seconds and just watch your gold multiply. I've read that it took longer to gain levels in the original games, and I really do appreciate how simple it is to get beefed up, but the gold should have been cut down with experience. After you gain a certain level, enemies go to dropping only 1XP and the XP requirement to gain a level multiplies. They drop the same amount of gold though, and I think that should have been decreased as well.

The other problem is like I said, the game DOES get boring with the battles, unless it's the bosses, which are just fucking amazing. Each boss brings something different and is a joy to fight. The music gets you pumped up, and the bosses themselves get you pissed. The final boss is an absolute dick until you put on the goddess ring (and no, I didn't need a FAQ for that, true story-put it on and walked towards the room then checked to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong since I died 8 times). A lot of the 8-bit RPGs lose steam about now, but I think Ys really deteriorates worse than say, Final Fantasy. You're just doing the same thing-but the battles are fun, and I never really thought this until I got to the last boss.

Storywise, this is pretty interesting. I'm not going to say it's phenomenal, but for an 8-bit game this felt almost like a 32-bit caliber story. The land of Ys is very interesting and you are actually interested in why it vanished. The world is amazing and one I'd love to live in (which says something because I hate most fantasy worlds). I would have liked a bit more interaction with Feena and Adol, becuase I thought their farewell at the end was a bit forced (They only meet once in the game, and at the end Feena is almost in tears). The ending was well done, and the voice acting, while a bit raw, was actually pretty good for the time period.

So like I said-I liked Ys, and I definitely could play this again in a year, but I do find it overrated. It's got clumsy balance and a strange way of doing things, it's a good game though. It does have a lot of the problems Ys III has but no one really complained until Ys III hit. People bitch about how linear Ys III is and I prefer that to these mazes, what's the point? It's available for download on the Wii Virtual Console, and I highly recommend picking it up. It was worth the wait and think it was worth paying th emoney for a used game. Just know what you're getting into. Does it belong in the conversation of greatest RPGs of all time? No, no way, but it does belong in the top 25 and top 50s. It's pretty short, only took me five hours for book 1 and half a day for book 2...so it won't be too taxing. Go play it on VC...NOW!

Next, I'm gonna go ahead and play through Ys III...again.

Emulators Are a Pain in The Ass

So I'm writing an article focusing on franchises Square-Enix has overlooked in favor of yet another Final Fantasy rehash. For the longest time i've either A: taken screenshots from a PR site (where it is public and fine) or B: Strayed away from anything in the PS2 era-onwards and focused on using emulators to get screenshots.

Now for disc based games, I was asked to get this DVR doo-hickey from Amazon that costs a whopping $300 and then I can take screenshots of current gem games.

Eh, no thanks.

I instead found a USB TV card off Ebay that I installed into my computer and used to rip images. Well it's component and the PS2 doesn't exaclty look well on it (don't ask me, I'm not getting into it.). So when I had to get screenshots for Xenogears-the shots looked like utter dogshit. After I realised that this peripheral was good for component games only, I went another route. I decided I'd have to download an emulator.

So today I figured "Well, I'll just download a PS1 emulator, put in my Xenogears disc and rip some screenshots from it."

Of course doing that is nothing more than talk. It took me about four hours to get one working to the point where I can play Xeno, and even then I wasn't really feeling right.

I started by downloading EPSXE which (allegedly) is the best PS1 emulator around. Of course after that the bloody thing won't work, and I find out I need plug-ins, a bios (which I believe is illegal), and then I gotta specifically put all these files in certain folders. After that's done, I need to configure things using some configure dilly-whopper and I'm ready to go.

Except for the fact my CDR won't read a PS1 disc. Wonderful. So now I have to get a DIFFERENT plug-in that will read the disc. What happens is something that has a notorious skip problem right from the get-go, and plays music from the games opening cinematic indefinitely.

Realising this plug-in won't work (and also listneing to three layers of Xenogear's opening song play over each other) I look for another emulator. This new one is called pSX and it's a bare bones emulator that doesn't have the bells and whistles of the EPSXE.

"Great!" I said. "I just need three screenshots. This will work"

So I download that and again run into problems. Configuring the thing was a bitch and once I got it going it wouldnt' recognise my disc. At all.

"Fuck" I said. I puleld the disc back out (again) and put it back into the jewel case (btw, Xenogears has some ugly box art for a PS1 game). I realised now I was going to have to download the ROM image somewhere to get this whole thing working just so I could get THREE FUCKING SCREENSHOTS.

Back to Google I go, running into nine or so porn sites before I find a Xenogears image I can download. I download the damn thing and spend 20 minutes getting it configured and voila! The game loads. After all this was figured out, I loaded it and tried playing the game--but there's no fucking full screen. I'm limited to this window, which was my main complaint with my USB capture card I bought.

I sighed and took it anyways and got my images. The pSX emulator is now on my harddrive for work purposes only and I'd never use a PS1 emulator for anything else.

Here's the point of the story: I have a decent PC. Yes, my CD drive sucks (it's a DVD-R that had trouble ripping Wrath of the LIch king off the disc), but it isn't decent enough to let me play PS1 games. I don't know how you guys manage to get this shit for free. I'd rather take it up the ass in Ebay prices and have a material game to play on my TV then go through this shit again.

God help me if I ever have to download a PS2 emulator. For one I don't know how my PC will run that shit when I stick in a PS2 game, for another-if I gotta go through all the plug-ins and extra crap going with it. I'm screwed.

Just go buy a PS1. Don't download emulators, theya re a pain in the ass and they suck.

Bram Stoker's Dracula-the film.

When Halloween rolls around there's a usual regime I follow-Tim Burton movies (Nightmare before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Sleepy Hollow) and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Depending on time I sometimes get the original classic with Bela Lugosi.

The Original:

I've always been a Dracula fan. I don't really say I'm a vampire fan, but just a Dracula fan. It's part of the reason all my vampires in Phoenix follow Dracula rules (stakes, crosses etc.). I've always liked Bela Lugosi's role in Dracula, and the 1950s original mostly because of what it stands for, but I've never once found it really creepy. It's mostly that after you hear so many vampires with widow's peaks and Hungarian accents seeing the man who started that whole tradition is pretty cool. It's a good movie, but I never really regard it as my favorite because it strays so far away from the original novel. I'm not dogging the movie, most people think if a movie goes away from the novel it sucks. Most of the time that's true, but I think Dracula is that rare exception where it's an ok movie by itself.

It's just not scary, I watch it for what it is, I still want to know how people get creeped by this. Though it is spooky. This is back when horror films didn't rely on making you jump five feet in the air, but rather a spooky atmosphere, which in my opinion is a better movie.

Bram Stoker's Dracula:

A lot of people have dogged this movie, and for the longest time I never really knew why. Dracula is one of my favorite novels ever. While I never draw much inspiration from Stoker's prose, or his writing style, I still think it's one of the best gothic horrors and best books ever written. I usually have Dracula on in the background while I'm doing something else like writing or making dinnner. I watch the key parts, but I've seen this so many times I just never have a need to sit down and watch it. I finally sat down to watch it after God knows how long and after one sitting I just realised something-

It's boring.

It suffers a lot of what I gripe about the novel (despite it being my favorite). The best part of the movie is the best part of the book-Jonathan Harker's journal and his travel to Transylvania . That entire group of chapters/scenes is easily the best part. For those of you who haven't read it, it's all about Harker going into Transylvania and meeting the count. In the original 1950s version Harker was replaced by Reinfield and while the travel there was pretty dead on-once the two enter the castle situations are totally different.

The book describes this massive castle with hallways and cobwebs. It's a very empty feeling you get reading about it. It feels like nothing is there, and during the day when Harker is awake (or night when Drac is nowhere to be found) without Dracula there, it feels very lonely and desolate. Harker eventually realises it's a prison just for him, but by then you feel like you know the layout of the area. It culminates both book and movie (Bram Stoker's) with Harker falling into the ocean hoping to find his fiance. It's amazing.

That feeling is nowhere to be found in the movie. While I love the costume and the castle they made, they should have added 3 minutes of Harker exploring before him and The Count have some social problems. The fall into the ocean is delayed rather so Harker could have the gypsies offer some kinky undead sex and watch an infant get devoured (which is a good choice). It just felt different, like something was missing.

From there the movie gets incredibly boring. There's good scenes that add tension, but they do a terrible job explaining things. In the book, Harker finds Dracula as a young man very early on and can't figure it out. In the movie, Dracula shows up as a young guy and it's a bit difficult to grasp what just happened or is happening (another point to add 3 minutes of Harker exploring and he finds this). Lucy's rape by Dracula, his morph into wolf, just...everything, it happens so fast and without any time to guess or say "wait, what?" (the novel does this a few times too) that it really gets annoying.

I realised Bram Stoker's Dracula is just a collection of scenes from the book, made easy to follow by someone who read or knows the plot. If you sat down to watch this movie without knowing a thing-you'd be lost and bored after the castle scenes. That my friends is a problematic movie. It sucks because I still like this movie, I LIKE it. I don't think it's bad, but it's average. It follows the novel better than any of the others, but that's not really saying much.

It's obvious if they make another Dracula movie to follow the novel-it needs to be 3 hours. There's no way around it. We need a 3 and a half hour movie to tell this story. There's so many rules and so mcuh to figure out it's the only way. SLim it to two hours and you get this-a choppy animation, very unexplainable, pretty, mess. If you haven't seen this, I recommend it. It's good for what it is-a strange and weird vampire movie.

But while it gets nearly unwatchable for first time viewers, it's very similar in style to the novel where it's hard to follow in some parts, and the scenes following the excellent Castle/guest scenes just pale in comparison. In fact, if you read just the first 60 pages of Dracula, and nothing else, you'd be satisfied. I love it, I love Dracula just cuz he's a badass.

The BCS is a joke.

We'll do a sports note, if you don't mind. I don't go into sports much here, because outside of the NFL, I never care.

At least that was till this season. Let me state some facts here: I hate college football. It's a joke, plain and simple. The BCS is a night club with the SEC and Big-12 on the guest list and they won't let anyone (WAC) because that building is "full capacity." It's a money thing, but the bottom line is that the big conferences don't want equality, or a little school going in and kicking their asses (read: 07' Fiesta Bowl).

I also hate Boise State. It's a good reason, I received a degree from the University of Idaho. We hate the Broncos, in fact just about every rivalry game we have results in brawls in the parking lot. Fuck Boise State.

But since I hate Boise State doesn't mean I can't hate what Boise State Football is standing for. I'll admit, I'm swept up in the bandwagon. I want BSU to do well, even if it means beating us (Vandals) to get there, it's good for college football. I agree some of this hype is blown out of proportion, and that BSU may be slightly overrated, but I accept that on a neutral feild they could take anyone.

So could TCU, and probably Utah. But we'll get to that in a second.

The only way the BCS is going to change is if the NCAA steps in and puts a stop to it. Either that or we get the feds involved. It's very well documented that a Utah senator started filing stuff saying the BCS violated Federal Anti-Trust laws among other things, only to get a statement from the BCS President saying something along the lines of, "The BCS has done nothing wrong. We have done everything according to our specifications."

Didn't Roger Clemens say something like that when the feds went after him for steroids? What was the end of that tale?

Anyways. It's obvious that the BCS is in deep shit. In the 1960s, this system would have worked. There was only 10 or 15 good teams in the whole country. But not in 2010, there are too many great teams in this country, in different conferences for them to blacklist them from a championship game. I give it a few more years and things will change, but it may be too late for me to care then.

I hoped BSU would be the shining horse to do it. If BSU were to go undefeated, get invited to the National Championship, there would be widespread bitching in the southern states, which would end in a playoff. It would happen if BSU won, which they could do against the teams in 2010, there isn't anyone that good. Oregon? Are you kidding me? They are beatable, just look at what an unranked USC did last night, they didn't win, but they showed that it's possible.

So it looked great. BSU went in and beat Virginia Tech at the start of the season, for all intents and purposes, in their house, and returned to Idaho with a win against a top ranked team. Now for a team like Virginiat Tech, that's a loss very difficult to recover from. Especially when the Broncos let you score 17 unanswered points and have victory in your grasp, only for Chris Peterson to snatch it in the final drive of the game. So Virgina Tech lost to a no name school the next week and dropped in the rankings which now HURTS BSU (what?).

BSU stayed at No. 3, it got annoying when they kept having teams jump to No. 1 over them, (Auburn, Ohio State, Oklahoma) but they showed their stuff and it sort of made sense.

Then Oregon leap-frogged BSU. Keep in mind they had the same roster last year that they have this year. And last year, Oregon showed up on the Blue Turf and got pwned. Blount punched a BSU player who wouldn't shut his face and we all know how that ended. Again, annoying, but we can let it pass.

Now it's ridiculous. TCU has just jumped to the No. 3 spot over BSU. Now TCU helps my cause cuz they are in the same position as BSU-a non-automatic qualifying school, but it doesn't help what's right in the system. All off-season we're hearing about how things are carried over, how they need to look at things last season as they figure out rankings this season. Any relevance to it? I would hope so, since several key figures said this on ESPN.

But if there is a look at last season how does Oregon jump BSU? Strength of schedule. Ok, we can give them that. Oregon has punked some good schools and they are the team to beat. THey arn't that great of a team, but I'll give them that. But TCU? Flashback: Fiesta Bowl 09' TCU got owned by Boise State. TCU fell victim to the trick plays, excellent coaching, and hornets nest defense that is the Boise State Broncos, and looked really fucking good doing it. I'm saying TCU played pretty damn well in the Fiesta Bowl. So why, oh why, is a roster that is virtually unchanged ahead of BSU?

Because this system is archaic. TCU should be behind Boise State and they can't beat the Broncos again. Really, I just don't see it happening. Make matters worse, they are No. 3 and BSU is No. 4 leaving us with another bowl game between TCU and BSU, the third one in five years. Wonderful, can't wait to watch that again. Does anyone remember how people got sick of the Rose Bowl a few years back because it was USC v Penn State? Yeah, point exactly.

But we'll never know. Why? because they can't do a playoff. Why won't they do a playoff? Money, plain and simple. To institute a playoff, even an eight team playoff with champions from across conferences (and maybe some wild cards for the independants and unknown division 1A schools). would cost money, they'd have to slash some games fromt he season, and they would be games where teams like Florida hosted Rice for a slaughterfest. Both of those schools make a pile of cash from those games, so they can't toss those.

The whole season is no longer BSU vs the big schools, it's what's right and wrong about the system. TCU doesn't deserve to be there. BSU beat them and probably could still beat them. The only thing BSU has left is Hawaii (a decent team on their own) and Nevada (which can be a solid win if Nevada can go up a few more spots). I am for what BSU is doing which is opening the doors for other schools like my Idaho Vandals (who would never get a shot in the current system) I am not for the way things are going. TCU going to number three shows how ridiculous this whole thing is, it's partly to set the stage for another BSU/TCU bowl game, but it's also so stupid that they hypocritically screw BSU out of their shot. BSU is the better team, TCU isn't. It's also making me wonder if they are setting up the fall man if one of the smaller schools should go to the National Championship-TCU would lose, BSU wouldn't. If TCU loses, the BCS could stick around, BSU wins-they got a lot of explaining to do.

The bottom line is, this whole thing is stupid. BSU fans shouldn't be getting pissed about it because contrary to what analysists will tell you or what you read, it's all political, and it's all designed to draw money. Why do you think the FIesta Bowl took one for the team last year and put the two small schools into the same game?

It only proves my point. The BCS is setting everything up for a National Championship that isn't BSU. They dont' want BSU there. They don't want TCU or Utah there, but they'll put them there if they have to cuz TCU and Utah will get the shit kicked out of them while BSU will hang on.

Fuck the BCS, just don't watch it. I dunno if I made a point in any of this, but that's what I think.

Go Vandals!

Final Fantasy...the Playstation releases.

So I did a marathon of sorts for the last few months trying to play through the PS1 installments of Final Fantasy. These were probably the more memorable ones because people were playing RPGs and I could actually talk storylines with them. In a decade since setting the controller down on these though, I can look at them with differet opinions. There's no denying that all three of them (even IX) outdo the PS2 installments, and there is no denying that they are games you'd play again. Here's my thoughts on each one, years after their release. I'll post VIII and IX later...

Final Fantasy VII: It's not overrated, period. FFVII still holds up well today and it makes me laugh that Square Enix is feeding us this dogshit that remaking this would be too much money/too many resources. Sure it would, but you'd get that money back by your fanbase that has in unison said you need to make it.

Note to Tetsuya Nomura: Less is more, look at your designs here. The character designs in FFVII are without a doubt, his best. Cloud and Sephiroth are simple, yet detailed. Vincent doesn't have an overabundance of zippers on his clothes, and Tifa, despite her top-heaviness is a good design. The graphics took a bit to get used to again, but that was just the in-game. Those pre-rendered backgrounds continue to hold up and are always pretty.

I'd be lying if I said Phoenix doesn't open the same way FFVII did, and rightly so, my novel was me trying to do a story in Midgar...but since I don't own the rights to it, I made the continent of North America Midgar. FFVII's story is its strong suit, but it has a few kinks. For one thing, a decade ago, I got turned off on the second half of disc one just traveling the world map in pursuit of Sephiroth, and it's no different here. They just insert party members with a storyline blurb and keep you moving. All of this could have been cut and the characters could have stayed in Midgar for a much longer time. Midgar IS FFVII. I agree with what Pat R on SMPS.net said where it would have been a lot more disorienting if Cloud and co were locked in the city a bit longer. I wanted to explore that city.

Sephiroth wasn't exacatly hated by me, but he got the job done. I felt more sorry for him than anything because it wasn't his fault he went insane, but I hated the Shinra Co. for their shananigans in the whole shindig.

Cloud in itself is the posterchild for main characters. From the moment he steps on the screen and says "I don't care what your names are" he's in control and he's intriguing to keep you going. While I hate the fact his storyline ends towards the middle of disc 2, up to that point he makes FFVII. That and his sword is awesome (again, LESS IS MORE).

Finally the combat. This game felt like a SNES FF game with a fresh coat of paint-and the battle system really never got broken. Yes, some materia combos made the game easier, but it wasn't near as ridiculous as the Junction system and being able to kill bosses in three hits by hour 3. FFVII can still kill you if you'r e not careful, though it's rare. Furthermore, I'm always compelled to DO EVERYTHING in each playthrough of the game...well minus chocobo breeding.

Overall, I liked Final Fantasy VII. I still like it. My favorite Final Fantasy is tied between IV and VI, but FFVII is my second favorite game of all time. If you still haven't picked it up-go give it a whirl, you'll be happy about it.

Fantasy Football Teams

I'm in two leagues as I said. One league is an automated draft that gave me Joe Flacco, and through trades awarded me Reggie Wayne, but as of now is benched with Aaron Rodgers. I did the big one, the big, trash talking, hating, out of control draft last night. Here's my Team:

QB: Drew Brees, Matt Ryan (Backup)

RB: Cedric Benson, Ronnie Brown, Pierre Thomas, LaDanien Tomlinson

WR: Reggie Wayne, Devin Hester, Jericho Cotchery, T.J. Houshmandzadeh

TE: Vernon Davis, Tony Gonzalas

K: Garret Hartley

Defense: Saints and Titans

Running backs, as usual, were drafted crazy from the beginning. I was pick 4 in the draft and rather than take an RB, I put my money onto Drew Brees immediatly. I dominated with him last year, and pending a Madden curse, expect him to come near his amazing season last year. When my turn came up in the third round, Cedric Benson was the best availible, so I bit the bullet for him.

So I got a decent QB and an overrated RB, but I think Benson could do well this year. With Ochocinco and Owens around, Benson could get the ball more for that reason alone just to throw defenses off. He's a wild-card and overrated, but he very well could deliver.

As far as Ronnie Brown, one word: Wildcat. If Brown can stay healthy and uninjured, he will be putting up points since Miami loves using that formation.

Pierre Thomas will be good. I think this year with the increased workload (as a starter if his work wasn't enough) he will be going places this year. While Brees will want to pass the ball, Thomas works well in goal line situations and he was a steal as late as I got him.

LT...well I took him late in the 9th round I believe, and I thought that was a steal. If he can do what I hope he does with the Jets, he could be flat awesome, or he could suck. I"m not starting him this week since he's a wildcard, but after this we'll know.

I took Reggie Wayne in the second round because I thought he was a steal. Peyton Manning loves throwing to Wayne and the guy loves catching passes. Wayne will be downright nasty this year and I'm surprised he didn't go in the first round.

I'm weak on WR besides that. Hester and T.J. are sort of a "wait and see"guys. T.J. In particular could be awesome on that Baltimore offense, but we'll have to see it first.

The cool part about my league is we have a WR/TE flex posiiton so when I realised we were weak on WR, and Tony Gonzalas was availible, I took him instead of a WR. Vernon Davis is a no brainer, I picked him 3rd last year because I had no clue who to take and he put up mad points on my team. I took him again out of spite and Gonzalas for a double team. I dunno about two tight ends, but if I'm doing it-these are the two to do it with.

I was planning on getting the Jets defense early, but someone took it earlier, so I was screwed. I went for the Ravens, but again someone grabbed it just before me. I settled on the Saints and think it was a good choice. That defense is nasty and a decent alternative to Baltimore and NY's tribe they got running this year.

Overall I think I did pretty well, hopefully Brees doesn't get fucked over by the Cowboys when I'm in the playoffs this year so I can actually win.

CHAMPIONSHIP!!!