Rather than muddling my last post with jabber...

For the first time in a long time, I've been playing lots and lots of video games. Mass Effect 2(enjoyed), Battlefield : Bad Company 2(love the multiplayer - when it works), God of War 3(fun but not the magnum opus the gaming press led me to believe).

ME2 was my first Bioware game. Well the first that I actually played through. I'm not big into the fantasy stuff and I was not a fan of the first ME at all. But ME2 struck a chord with me. I didn't love it in the way that I loved FFVII or Chrono Trigger, but there was definitely a Deus Ex flavor to the game that I really enjoyed. I like the little branches that make my character me, but then again, I never really cared for the characters in the way that I did in FFVII or Chrono Trigger. That might be the nature of the beast though...

There was a really cool video piece on GameTrailers.com where Dave Jaffe, a game journalist(no idea what his name is) and one of the BioWare founders discuss the two ways of selling of story in game. It comes down to: are you playing someone else(Snake, Kratos, Master Chief) or are you playing you(Mass Effect, The Sims, etc.)? Is it a roller coaster or is it a whole theme park? A lot to think about in their comments.

As usual also hitting the theaters a lot.

Shutter Island is probably the darkest thing I have seen in years. It's "twist" ending manages to not undermine the rest of the film, something few twist endings ever seem to pull off for me. The soundtrack is brooding, dark and catastrophic...a perfect match for the film. I purchased it within minutes of leaving the theater. The imagery and performances in this movie are unmatched by anything else I have seen in 2010. I will be buying this day 1 on Blu-Ray.

Green Zone was a movie I was looking forward to and while I enjoyed the texture and artistry of the film, the story veers into opposing traffic and collides head on with nonsense. If you haven't seen the movie, it essentially takes a real event(the US invasion of Iraq), overlays a totally fictional conspiracy on top of it and then presents this conspiracy as though it were a real historical narrative.

This one bothered me.

I'll explain...

The idea of merging reality and fiction is at the heart of many great stories dating back to before Shakespeare. However, when entertainment is presented as truth...is this a responsible act??? Is it a film makers responsibility to tell stories that are truthful or are they just producing entertainment? I'm on the fence on this one, especially with this movie. I'll let you know if I come down one way or another...