Artificial Angels

Sonic Generations for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 is a celebration of two decades of Sonic the Hedgehog, featuring the best of the blue blur’s greatest (and not-so-great) games. This twentieth anniversary title is such an overdose of nostalgia that all but the pickiest fans will find something to enjoy.

What little story exists is merely setup for the game’s premise: Sonic teams up with his younger counterpart to speed through stages from his past adventures beginning with the first zone of the first game, Green Hill. Each stage has an act for the younger Sonic, Classic Sonic, and the contemporary Sonic, Modern Sonic. Besides a shorter stature, rounder belly, and blacker pupils, Classic Sonic also plays differently. Whereas Modern Sonic plays as he did in Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors, emphasizing speed and 3D gameplay, Classic Sonic is pure side-scrolling platforming like the old Genesis games.

Though the game emphasizes their differences, Classic Sonic’s stages are fast-paced enough and Modern Sonic’s are diverse enough that fans of one should enjoy the other. The similarities in appearance and level design might confuse newer players not well-versed into their nuances, but the game is much more forgiving than previous titles. Mistakes that would cost you lives in Sonic Unleashed now usually drop you to a lower, slower path or offer a spring to launch you back on track. Even a new player could complete a stage without losing many, if any, lives, but to finish an act optimally still requires skill.

The game’s presentation in graphics and sound is nearly perfect. Everything, even the different springs, rings with the appropriate sound of their era. The soundtrack is a greatest hits of the series’s most memorable melodies, but it also brings back music from more obscure games such as Knuckles Chaotix. The graphics are beautifully vibrant but not distracting. Even more recent stages like Rooftop Run and Planet Wisp received some polish for this game. My only quibble is with the pixellated cutscenes. Fortunately, the rest of the game does not suffer from such jarring edges. (I played the Xbox 360 version; the PS3 version might differ.)

Sonic Generations is short. The story will take 3-6 hours to complete. Even with the 90 missions, unlockables, and achievements, it’s possible to complete the game in less than 20 hours. However, Sonic games were always known more for replay value than for longevity. The acts are fun to explore and even many of the missions are enjoyable enough to replay. There’s also online leaderboards if you’re the competitive type.

The only real flaw is with the ending. The final boss is the worst one I’ve seen in a Sonic game. It was more confusing than climactic. As with the rest of the story, it felt tacked on. However, it’s such a small fraction of the game that it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker. The rest of the game is fantastic.

Sonic Generations is a game most fans will love. It won’t bring back those disgruntled fans who expect it to play exactly like their favorite game. Rather than rehashing one of the older games, Sonic Generations is a blend of the best the series has to offer. It’s a nostalgic love letter to Sonic fans, but even those who aren’t yet should give the game a try. In a time when most games are derivative of more popular titles or are slightly updated sequels, Sonic Generations, despite looking like a rehash, is so much fresher and unique in what it offers.

My Final Rating: Over 9000!

I received my new iPhone at 8 PM last night. Everything about it is perfect, but the greatest thing about it is Siri. I’m composing this blog using the power of my voice and I’m submitting it up without an edit for my fingers. Has you can see, Siri has the power to understand my mumbles. It even knows when I want to use different punctuation!! It’s pretty cool and just more evidence that the iPhone is the greatest phone in all existence!!

I was at Starbucks when I checked my phone and read that Steve Jobs had passed away. I first thought–hoped–it was a hoax as the Internet loves to prematurely announce the deaths of public figures, but the front page of Apple’s website confirmed the tragic news. Though everybody expected it to happen soon, its suddenness still caught us all by surprise.

Since I was a child, I admired Apple. That admiration is one of the few constants in my vacillating life. It’s grown as has my respect for its founder. Steve Jobs was a man with a vision. Everybody has a vision, but Steve Jobs was one of the few who refused to compromise that vision. He did not take shortcuts nor did he allow popular opinion to sway him. He was a perfectionist who refused to deviate from the path he saw before him.

It’s depressing that Steve Jobs died at only 56, but I am happy he left the world with such a powerful legacy. He built a company that redefined technology multiple times and democratized it for the rest of us. He brought Apple from the brink of destruction and turned it into the most successful and envied company in the world. Critics still see it as the floundering company of the nineties, but the rest of us know that when they have to compare Apple to the sum of all its competitors to make it look like it struggles, Apple is doing something very right. Oh, and there’s Pixar too.

Steve Jobs wasn’t perfect, but he’s a man who inspires me and countless others not to compromise our pursuit of our dreams, but to pursue them single-mindedly and relentlessly. He taught us not only that we can do what we love, but that we must. As he told the graduates of Stanford in 2005, “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith… You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

I pride myself on being a good listener, but too often, I disappoint others who need someone to talk to. I talk too much, I try to be too profound, and I don’t give them what they really want or need. Here are a few suggestions I hope will improve my listening skills.

Listen, don’t talk. Shut up for a moment, even if you’re used to dominating the conversation. Let them dominate for the time. In real life, this is as simple as keeping your mouth shut, and on the Internet, this means not to respond with walls of text. They’re don’t help. Even if you feel those hundreds of words are necessary, you can share them another time, preferably in smaller morsels. Brevity is the course to take when listening.

Focus on them, not on you. We’re all narcissists, so we all want to relate another’s problems to our own life, but it’s better to avoid first-person pronouns altogether. If you must steer the conversation toward yourself, do so quickly and rarely, being sure to steer it back toward them after you make your point.

Suffer them in silence. When people vent, they sometimes say things you might think incorrect; let it slide. Not only will nitpicking at details steer the conversation from its main point, but it will escalate it into an argument. It especially bothers me when people do this as they come across more as opponents trying to conquer me than as friends showing they care. Suffer their wrong ideas and words with patience; you can correct them later if it’s important.

Save the preaching for the choir. Whether it’s a religious passage, a proverb, or just a quote meant to be inspirational, save it for another day. Even the most religious person does not want to hear “Jesus is all you need! Give all your troubles to Him!” when she pours her heart out to you. You only repeat what they already know and oversimplify their troubles as if they were fixable by sound bites.

Respect their differences. We all have different wants, needs, and worries. Never disregard another person’s troubles as trivial, but acknowledge that it’s important enough to bother them and deserves to be treated with compassion and care.

Offer understanding, not answers. You can’t fix other people’s problems. All you can do is listen and make an effort to understand them. You can do this by speaking only to encourage them to continue with questions and only giving opinions and suggestions when they explicitly ask for them.

Listening requires patience. It also requires the empathy to put ourselves into another’s shoes. It can be difficult, which is why some people prefer to handle others with a more domineering, narcissistic attitude, but the rest of us can become better listeners and friends by remembering that listening isn’t about us; it’s about them.

Though fairies are my preferred literary choice, I read the occasional series involving vampires and werewolves. One such series is The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger. Set in a steampunk Victorian England, the first book, Soulless, begins as Alexia Tarabotti, a spinster born with the ability to neutralize another’s supernatural nature, accidentally kills a vampire and becomes entangled in a mystery to displeasure of Lord Maccon, the leader of London’s Bureau of Unnatural Registry and also a werewolf. It’s a humorous series with enjoyably eccentric characters that more than compensated for the wordiness it sometimes suffered.

I enjoyed all the books but the last one, Heartless. It continues from the previous entry, Blameless, with vampires out to assassinate Alexia. The issue is resolved so quickly and cleanly it felt lazy, a reoccurring thought throughout the the book. Alexia has an obnoxiously flamboyant vampire acquaintance, Lord Akeldama, who, to my displeasure, takes a much more prominent role in Heartless. Though he and his drones, a vampire’s human proteges, were always a bastion of information scoured from London, it gets ridiculous with what Akeldama knows, and the only explanation we ever receive is “I’m Lord Akeldama”. He and his drones are also always at the right place at the right time; the excuse is the same. It’s so very deus ex machina.

It’s the weakest of the four books, but it’s not a bad novel. It hasn’t deterred me from awaiting the next book, Timeless, either. Despite the problems with Heartless, the series is worth a read. The world she developed intrigues me as do the colorful characters. Its lightheartedness prevents the premise from feeling ridiculous, and the colorful characters are all worth your interest. Well, most of them.

I hate Twilight but I love the trend it birthed. The teen and young adult aisles of bookstores bustle with paranormal romances that shack ordinary boys and girls with supernatural creatures such as vampires, angels, and fairies. I don’t care about vampires, zombies, or angels, but I love fairies and have indulged in as many of the series as what little time and money I have allows. Though all the fairy series I’ve read so far sported the same premise–a girl discovers she’s a fairy and has a mission that involves a fairy sentry of sorts with whom she falls in love–their varied depictions of fairies alone have made them all very different stories.

The latest series I’ve read is The Modern Faerie Tale trilogy by Holly Black. Set in New York and New Jersey, the series follows Kaye, a teenage girl who discovers she’s a changeling with a mission that goes deeper than she realizes. She also saves a fairy knight who may or may not be an enemy (it’s not a spoiler to point out that he’s the obvious love interest, is it?).

At first, I didn’t like Tithe, the first book of the series. It read as though it tried to be too edgy with all the gritty details and vulgar language of a trashy girl with a nomadic, hot mess life. After the revelation of her true origin, however, the story became much more interesting, and I actually grew affection for the characters.

Tithe was good, but Ironside, the final book and the continuation of Kaye’s story, was better. It descended deeper into the secret world of faeries. She met a character I found fascinating: Luis, a boy who could see through faerie’s glamour. As I read, I hoped that Black would give him a book of his own.

It turned out she already did. Kind of. I read Valiant, the second book of the trilogy, last because it wasn’t at the bookstore the first time, and it also isn’t directly connected to Tithe. Valiant follows the story of Valerie, or Val as she is called, a runaway who joins a trio of teens, including Luis, living in the subway after witnessing a grotesque affair and quickly discovers the existence of faeries. This was my favorite book in the series, though it is the darkest of the three. I sympathized more with Val’s struggle to become a new, braver person as a faery drug jeopardized her life. I also found the characters more interesting even if most of them weren’t faeries.

It’s sad that Black didn’t continue the series. Though there aren’t loose ends that demand resolution, I hate to lose touch with characters who’ve grown on me. Nevertheless, it’s still a wonderful series that has become my favorite out of all the urban fantasy series I’ve read so far.