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6A - Wednesday, February 20, 2013 The Michigan Daily -michigandaily.com

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L Ordal: Because you're worth it.
Not so solid 'Gear'

Latest installment of
popular video game
lacks in content
By JULIAN AIDAN
Daily Arts Writer
It's about time someone capital-
zed on the distinct lack of sword-
wielding cyborg-on-cyborg action
in the gam-
ing industry. ,
Half-human,
half-robot mer- Metal Gear
cenaries are few Rising
and farbetween,
and fortunately Revengence
superstar pro- Playstation 3,
ducer Kojima 360 and PC
Productions
decided to fill KONAMI
that niche.
The newest
game in the "Metal Gear" series
focuses on cyborg sword-for-
hire Raiden as he tries to keep
an overzealous private military
company full of bloodthirsty half-
man half-machine warmongers
from igniting a new war in the
name of profit. Ignoring conven-
tional weaponry in favor of flashy
swordplay, "Revengeance" and its
frantic hack-and-slash gorefest are
in stark contrast with the series-
defining stealth focus.
Oscillating between high-speed
dashes and slow-motion eviscera-
tion, battles in "Revengeance"
require split-second decision-
making. Often outmatchedboth in
number and in size, Raiden finds

himself constantly flanked by roid-
raging bionic hitmen and their
massive mechanical allies. Once
weakened, an enemy can be cut
in half during a bullet time-esque
sequence that challenges players
to exploit enemies' soft spots and
subsequently reduce them to quiv-
ering piles of trash.
Set in varying locales world-
wide, players are greeted by stun-
ningly detailed environments
that are every bit as susceptible to
Raiden's blade as his foes. Every
clash is orchestrated by a sympho-
ny of metal-on-metal clangs and
the sounds of tearing sinew, high-
lighting the top-notch aesthetics
expected of a "Metal Gear" game.
While all this is great, and while
it's difficult to argue that half-
human, half-robot, ninja-sword
wielding mercenaries tearing
each other to pieces would consti-
tute anything other than top-tier
entertainment, "Revengeance"
falls short in a number of areas.
Raiden's "Ninja Run" trivializes
combat by automatically deflect-
ing oncoming bullets and, to a
lesser extent, exploration by allow-
ing him to avoid obstacles without
additional input from the player.
Even worse, the mechanic fails
intermittently, leading to frustrat-
ing deaths.
Saying that Raiden's sprinting
mechanic hinders exploration is a
bit of misnomer. The game is pain-
fully linear, with the series staple
of being able to approach a situ-
ation from multiple angles being
reduced to trying to determine
whether or not it'd be possible

to one-hit kill an enemy before
engaging the rest and environ-
ments offering few to no alternate
paths to advancement. Invisible
walls plague engagements, artifi-
cially confining the player within
their bounds.
The previously mentioned
slow-mo cutting apart of enemies
(think "VATS" from the "Fall-
out" series) isn't just a bonus - it's
the most efficient way of dealing
with enemies as well as the best
way to earn points (which allow
Raiden to buy upgrades). It's fun
as a novel tool for taking care of
frustrating baddies, but after the
200th time it starts to get a bit old.
The boss fights - against consis-
tently more difficult and chal-
lenging enemies - unfortunately
always boil down to a quicktime
sequence and slowed-down juli-
enning, slicing and dicing.
The other characters in the
game are almost as forgettable as
the combat. Various token allies
and foes make an appearance, with
overdone accents and some of the
worst writing this side of "Twi-
light." The hero and antagonists
alike are privy to terrible voice act-
ing and cheesy lines. Raiden espe-
cially stands out, sounding more
like a wimpy smoker from a 1950s
sitcom than a morally conflicted
killing machine.
While a fun and mindless foray
into the hack-and-slash genre with
top-notch aesthetics, "Reven-
geance" isn't to be pursued if
you're seeking varied gameplay,
interesting characters or remotely
decent scripting.

"Man, beaches are so last year."
Signature Beach Fossils
sound on Truth'

By THOMAS KLEPACZ
DailyArts Writer
Several years ago, the greater
New York City area caught an
unbridled obsession with the
"beach." Surely
the city had t
always roman-
ticized sandy Cash the
getaways, from Tuth
the glamorous-
in-1950 Rocka- Beach Fossils
way Beach to Captured
the constantly
battling-for-
chieness Hamptons. But, for some
reason, 2009 encouraged every-
one in the city (the young adults,
specifically) to lavish the burning
August beach days of their fan-
tasized youth - the Beach Boy-
soundtracked and Snoball-dieted
years they were born 40 years too
late to ever actually experience.
The city was culturally bom-
barded, from trendy minimalist
surf shops in downtown Manhat-
tan (Saturdays Surf NYC, the surf
shop that no actual surfer has
ever been to) to suddenly cool ice
cream trucks offering the latest
gluten-free alternative to salted
caramel frozen yogurt (a food that
isn't healthy no matter how much

organic cream is used in it). Even
the area's music was affected by
this contagion: A sleepy New Jer-
sey band named Real Estate cre-
ated a beautiful, strummy, beach
opus in its self-titled debut. A
Florida band named Surfer Blood
crafted a not-as-good coastal
punk album named (unsurpris-
ingly) Astro Coast. And a single
man named Dustin Payseur,
going by the name Beach Fossils,
created (but did not release until
2010) another self-titled debut of
chordal beach-guitar elegance.
The supposed corniness of a fam-
ily beach vacation was cool again,
restored to its Americana glory
through the wonderful combi-
nation of modern irony and lo-fi
recording.
Fast forward four years, how-
ever, and the New York "surfer"
scene is quite different. Like any
other NYC trend, the illusion of
urban beachiness soon washed
away with the coming of new
iPhone editions and the dete-
rioration of the very bands that
helped make the scene what it
was (one of the members of Surfer
Blood was later arrested for beat-
ing his girlfriend in Florida). The
goody-goody strumming of vin-
tage coastal times wasn't so fresh

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Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

RELEASE DATE- Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
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and happy anymore, and the
scene - along with the sounds of
it - evolved into the electronic-
infused mish-mash we now have
today. With the exception of
Beach Fossils, that is.
The band itself has grown and
changed with coming and going
members, but its overall beach-
influenced sound has remained
remarkably solid - as illustrated
in its latest commercial album,
Clash the Truth. The album
opens with the group's char-
acteristic swaying guitars, the
chords singing back and forth in
1980s-influenced oceanic harmo-
ny, mimicking the attitude of Pay-
seur when he croons "All of what
you said / It went right over my
head" - as if the supposed death
of surf rock never even happened.
Payseur
preserves
beach theme.
The entire album seems to
carry this beach-proud attitude,
from "Clash the Truth" all the
way to "Crashed Out" With
the exception of three tracks -
"Modern Holiday," "Brighter"
and "Ascension," each similarly
graceful in its heroin ambience
- the songs of the album follow
a similar heavy-chord to riding-
drum to skipping-guitar break-
down, often beginning subdued
and harmless only to rise into
severe instrument-filled climax.
They shift in tempo and feel
- "Generational Synthetic" is
proud and exuberant in classic
speedy-punk bassline, whereas
"Sleep Apnea" is laconic and
mesmerizing. But they all paint
some larger beachy picture,
from their squealing aquatic
guitar sounds to the muffled
singing of Payseur himself, as
if the Rockaway's sound system
has been clogged with sand par-
ticles on a melting July Sunday.
None of the tracks are bad,
per se, but they all begin to fade
together into one dragging gui-
tar strum by the fourth song (at
least). On an individual basis,
they're actually quite incred-
ible - a track like "Careless,"
edgy and abrasive but some-
how soothing in its chordality,
would stand out as perhaps one
of the deepest and most soni-
cally diverse singles this year.
However, it nearly gets lost in
the overtly beachy fervor that
is Clash the Truth. The album's
sound - what it stood for amid
the fall of the once-unstoppable
trend - gets slightly repetitive
with strummy-guitar climax
after strummy-guitar climax,
sort of like how the beach gets
tiring with sandcastle after
sandcastle in burning sun. Iron-
ic how that all works.
Nonetheless, Clash the Truth
is a very solid album. It stands
for the sound it delivers, and
stays behind it throughout its
near-45-minute entirety - for
better or for worse. Like the
fossils its name represents, the
group remains a relic of the
beach while nearby blood from
surfers drags away in white-

washed waves. Beach Fossils
doesn't seem to be changing any
time soon.

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CLUMSY HEARTS
A slightly misguided romance
By Hysteria Molt
Available via Amazon.com

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