This blog is a fusion of personal, work, and professional subjects taking the form of conversations that we might have had -- hence the name -- on so wide a variety of topics that it defies description.
The mysterious and widespread illness that severely impacted rail and air transportation, the financial sector, manufacturing, and public services industries in nearly every major city in the United States this Tuesday AM has been identified as a previously unknown variant of “G4M3r Flu.”
Researchers at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the CDC National Center for Environmental Health, with assistance from CDC Division of Bio-Terrorism Preparedness and Response in Atlanta, succeeded this morning in identifying the virus.
“What we have here is a previously unknown strain of the G4M3r Flu,” Dr. Benjamin F. Pierce of the CDC's rapid-response unit, explained to the assembled news media outside the CDC′s Roybal Campus in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
“Interestingly enough, agents from the Division of Bio-Terrorism Preparedness and Response were able to walk-back what develops was a series of simultaneous infection vectors,” Pierce revealed.
“It appears that all of the vectors originate from the very same Patient Zero -- or rather Patients Zero, as in plural.
“It seems that some time last week the pair were initially exposed to the new strain of a previously unknown secret virus due to improper sanitation habits -- they shared a bottle of champagne without using glasses -- at a development studio located at Calton Square 1, Greenside Row, Edinburgh, Scotland.
“Patients Zero -- they are brothers from the same mother but with very potty-mouths -- have been identified as Dan and Sam Houser -- and were evidently celebrating some sort of event related to their businesses, and giving a speech to staff at the original infection vector in Edinburgh.
"I would also like to add Hotel Oscar Lima Yankee Sierra Hotal India Tango! just because I like to sound cool that way," Pierce said.
After quaffing an ice-cold can of Rockstar Energy Drink -- available in over 20 amazing flavors in over 30 countries -- Pierce continued his address to the press while smacking his lips audibly and repeating "Nom, Nom, Nom!"
“As near as we can determine, the pair then proceeded by private business jet -- the bastards -- to perform similar talks at locations in Leeds, Lincoln, and London, before departing the UK.
“They then traveled to North America, making stops in Andover, Massachusettes, New York City, and Toronto, before flying on to San Diego, and finally to an undisclosed location in Japan.
“It appears that at each of these stops the pair delivered the same speech, and then proceeded to repeat the same very unsanitary sharing of beverages -- champagne,” Dr. Pierce explained.
“What we can be sure of is that the virus was both created and spread -- the distinction is not clear at the present time -- by the Houser brothers, who then passed it on to wave after wave of apparently willing victims throughout the world.
“The rapid spread of the 0-Day virus -- which has now been formally named as GTA-V -- transitioned to epidemic levels by 23:59 this past Monday -- that would be 16 September -- and as unbelievable as this sounds, within 24 hours infected something on the order of nearly 14-million first-wave victims!
“No wonder nobody showed up for work on Tuesday morning!” Pierce declared.
Willing Victims line up to be infected with 0-Day GTA V Influenza, increasing the odds that they will not be in for work the in the morning by, oh, I don't know? 100 percent?
Unique Circumstances to Blame for Simultaneous Global Infection
In this case a startling but unique set of circumstances permitted nearly simultaneous global infection and the subsequent spread of the virus before any national agencies became aware of the dangers.
Calling the official reaction a “Colosse au pied d'Argile” members of the French version of the CDC called for a retreat while Congress in the United States and Australia held emergency sessions to determine if video game violence could somehow be related to the nearly 14-million dollars in sales for GTA-V.
Sources close to the studio that created the game offered this official response to those allegations: “Duh?!”
While hard numbers are presently unavailable, sources in the know at parent company 2K speculate that the numbers for 17 September 2013 will easily exceed the infection rate from the previous outbreak of 29 April 2008, and pointed out that nobody held them responsible for the massive loss of productivity and man-hours during the GTA-IV Pandemic, so it would not really be fair to do so for this one...
The “0-Day GTA” virus -- now understood to be a variant of the “G4M3r influenza virus” has been reported to be more effective than Viagra in at least 439,721 cases reported in the United States, including 14 in Indiana, 2 in Michigan, 1 in Illinois, and 1 in Ohio, in which the effects lasted for way longer than four hours.
There has been one hospitalization due to a panic attack caused when the victims Xbox 360 displayed the "Red Ring of Death," though no actual deaths beyond that one documented Xbox 360 have been recorded among the patients.
It should be noted that absolutely NO human-to-human spread has been identified because that capability will not be available until 1 October of this year.
When this virus occurs in teenagers, it is called “unauthorized access to an M-Rated Title” by the ESRB, whose approval is sought but entirely superfluous considering how bent the rating board is in Australia -- we are just saying.
Infection Vector - Insert Disc 1
Too much time on my hands, it's ticking away with my sanity
I've got too much time on my hands, it's hard to believe such a calamity
Last year when Disney Studios added the newest epic animated feature film “Brave” to their stable of girl-focused and romantic animated epic motion pictures, the film was released to theaters to a very wide embrace by fans of the studio, and it ended up being one of the (on average) three films I saw that year in a theater.
This post is actually about Brave, but before I can address my points in that area, I have to digress into a completely unrelated set of thoughts and observations because that is how I roll. You, the reader, are encouraged to read this digression largely because you might enjoy reading it but mostly because I asked you nicely and I spelled all the words correctly.
Another point in favor of you actually reading all of this instead of just skipping ahead to the bits about Brave would have to include the fact that I have made considerable efforts at being amusing while at the same time keeping the threads of this post and its observations on-topic, and that my Nanna would very much appreciate you reading it. Just saying...
Film Viewing Habits of the Australian-American and Parenthood
My altered film viewing habit is an interesting (to me) statistical anomaly that may very well be one of the prime markers of old age and change - largely because it represents a major alteration of lifestyle.
In my salad days it was not uncommon for me to take in fifty or more movies a year at theaters, but now three is actually on the high-end of the statistic. Film has always been a weekend passion for me and especially good film, though I found after having children my willingness to tolerate bad film had somehow and without warning evaporated.
In fact my newly noted inability (or perhaps unwillingness?) to tolerate this sort of thing has altered my own personal entertainment patterns to the point that, it has partially redefined what I consider to be acceptable and polite behavior. This is particularly true as it applies to my interaction with tradesmen and managers at service-providing institutions.
A perfect example of this change can be found in instances where I find myself sitting in a theater and the film turns bad; the previous incarnation of me would have tolerated the badness, even looking for something good in order to replace that bad opinion.
The present-day incarnation of me is a lot less likely to seek out the good in the bad. In fact I am very likely to calmly retreat to the box office and insist that they return my money for the ticket AND provide me with a sincere apology for selling me said ticket!
This reaction is, I suspect, largely prompted by my growing acceptance that life is short and, for me, growing increasingly shorter, and that being the case when I am confronted with substandard or what I personally feel are unacceptable standards, such as the clearly flawed and inadequate efforts on the part of everyone involved in creating the complex series of events that resulted in my purchasing a ticket to a movie called "Bring It On" for the massive amount of $12.50 that, while I could get the ticket cost refunded, still left the matter of the 35 minutes I spent watching it in the theater which I could not get refunded to me.
My best mate Geof says this new behavior is a manifestation of the snobbery with which I was raised - an observation that may appear on its face to be an insult but which, I can assure you, was actually intended as a compliment.
The proof is in the pudding, and in this case the pudding is that when Geof is contemplating viewing a movie he often will text or ring me to ask if I have seen it first, and if so, what did I think of it?
Geof believes that my opinion has distinct value. He feels that it serves as an assessment that is far more reliable than the commercial efforts of movie reviewers both online and in print in other words. You hear that Mister Boston Globe Managing Editor?! “Distinct Value!”
The Changing Measure of Tolerance
As I aged and began the complicated process of procreation - which I define as a planned team effort between my wife and I in which I pretty much did all of the heavy lifting - it all comes down to the vanishing of my previous willingness to seek out reasons to be pleased by that and other social experiences.
I don't want to fluff-over the whole having kids thing like most adults of my generation tend to do, because it was not the simple practically automated experience it is often presented as. I can assure you that a lot of serious effort when into creating our children!
Being a parent is complicated
There was the planning out of the genetic markers to be passed on; sculpting of physical appearance and other important traits; allocating brain structure components to ensure spectacular results in the areas of memory, learning retention, hand-eye coordination, and the many other complicated elements that are absolutely required when your aim is to create brilliant children.
When you consider that most of the actual engineering that went into the design and creation of my son and daughter took place at night, with no safety nets, no OSHA supervision, utilizing the sort of focus and concentration not to mention patience that is normally only found in Pokemon Games, and you cap that off with the observation that almost all of the work took place in an environment that was hot, sweaty, tightly enclosed and noisy (when we were doing it right anyway), I am confident that you will easily appreciate the effort and self-discipline that was required to obtain the favorable results that we did, and for which I take nearly full credit.
Since you understand the care and effort that was taken in actually creating the children, the ongoing concern that we have and the responsibility we have accepted in providing them with a proper upbringing and education, including passing on proper moral values should not come as much of a surprise, right?
Modern Parenthood
There is an easily defined division in society when you reach this point in the circle-of-life; it rapidly and automatically sorts the good from the bad and you quickly discover who is a good parent and who is not.
The simple definitions are almost always the best, and in simple terms there are the 10% of parents we all know we are part of that do an excellent job of creating and raising their children, and then there is the remaining 90% that is made up of everyone else - basically they being couples who are destined to take up their ignoble place as follows:
The Victims of Parenthood - this class consists of 70% of the remainder, widely perceived as casual parents of the sort that get the job done with noted success. There is nothing wrong with this group or this segment of society!
In fact the legitimate case can be made that while the previously mentioned 10% from which our own children are placed represents the grease that keeps the world and our society functioning, this even more important 70% arguably represent the cogs, gears, dust bins, conveyor belts, and other machinery with which society simply cannot function lacking.
Besides that, just where do you think all of the support personnel sourced for everything from corporate culture to the military comes from? India?
Well, alright you have me there; a significant percentage do in fact come from India, but that is not the point; the point is the answer to the following very crucial question: If they did not exist, would YOU want to do their job?
Ozzy Osbourne (left) and wife Sharon (right) - with first wife Thelma Riley Ozzy is dad to Jessica Starshine Osbourne Hobbs (1972) and Louis John Osbourne (1975), and adopted dad to her son Elliot Kingsley (1966). With second wife Sharon (pictured), Ozzy is dad to Aimee (1983), Kelly (1984) and Jack (1985).
Joking aside, for most couples family comes first - or it should. Especially if you are a rock star. Just saying...
The 50K Volt Cattle Prod
The Fifteen Minutes Brigade - the remaining 20% of parents who provide their society with the literal momentum to move forward in the form of crucial elements of offspring who help reinforce and define the meaning behind the expression “15 Minutes of Fame” while at the same time offer us the badly needed examples with which are formed the moral values and fears of our own children (Go to bed now or the Smith boy will climb through the window and slice off your thumbs!) and how was that for a really good run-on sentence?
Before you throw down your computer and declare “That bloke is doing nothing but repeat stereotypes and it is all utter nonsense!” consider this: if you throw down your computer it will probably get broken! But I see your point.
The 20% in all of its many subsets really does do a lot for our culture and for the society of the world. Or is that world society? I get the two confused; I know that they both mean different things, but there you have it.
The important thing for you to understand is that this remaining 20% is clearly divided into smaller groupings that range from the far-left to the far-right and all that exists in-between on the moral spectrum.
Portions of that divided population being very valuable to society (some might even argue that they are crucial considering that one of the smaller elements measuring less than half of 1% is the group from which Presidents spring), this and other factors are thought to be behind the unilateral justification for the unspoken support for which this group is clearly provided by society in general.
To be clear here, this is the grouping made up from the parents of the children who are absolutely
necessary - one is tempted to say critically important - to the ongoing battle against boredom in western culture and society.
They are the segment of society from which politicians, actors and actresses, law enforcement, musicians and singers - in fact entertainers of all types - and in particular from which talk show hosts and other role models spring forth! It is therefore a worthy effort and one we can feel if not proud, than at least not ashamed, for supporting in its fullness.
One very good example of our continuing support for the 20% is the Rhodes Scholarships (and the slightly less well-known but no less important Marshall Scholarships) that are largely responsible for ensuring that the temper tantrum popularly known as the American Revolution did not result in the permanent loss of the exchange of popular-culture to the point that Americans are unable to appreciate British Humor.
There are other awards, prizes, efforts, subsidies, make-work programs (Congress anyone?) and the like but we need to get off the train at this stop because the rambling digression that this post has become actually ended up somehow taking the right train and thus has resulted in our arriving in about as close to the address we wanted in this neighborhood anyway, so here we go!
The Disney Effect
When Brave was released my daughter was still 14-years-old, but more important, she was still on the side of 14-years-old that retains that innocent and wide-eyed view of the world that happens to be just about the best thing about being a 14-year-old that there is.
That being the case, taking the family to see Brave not only made perfect sense, but it also provided what has to be the best opportunity to expose a still formative 14-year-old to a strong but positive female role-model -- well, OK, technically that would be a strong but positive ANIMATED female role model in a film, but still, you get the idea.
Now here is the thing... I knew that the character of Merida in the film was a strong and positive female lead character and, hey, let us be honest, a HERO of a female lead role and character.
I also knew that with the exception of Lara Croft (pictured left and whose role in the most recent prequel, though a bit on the breathy side, was still WAY better than how she was portrayed in the first game in the series) there are so few primary and lead characters in film OR in games that are both positive AND happen to present the character with both a realistic body type and the sort of emotional flaws that are often found in general in the human population, that no matter how you sliced it Merida was a good role model.
Not that I wanted my daughter to be running around the woods behind our house with a bow and bunch of lethal arrows looking for a werewolf to slay or anything...
The thing is I really and genuinely liked and admired the character of Merida - who is played and voiced by the Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald. You might recognize her from some of her other roles, but I mostly know her as the second-cousin of my mother-in-law, and for her appearance in a variety of interesting roles in film and on TV.
For example she played the character of Helena Ravenclaw (aka the Grey Lady or the Ghost of Ravenclaw) in the Harry Potter films, and she was Carla Jean Moss in the film No Country for Old Men which I liked a lot but mostly because Tommy Lee Jones is one of my favorite actors.
She was Evangeline in Nanny McPhee, Diane in Trainspotting, Mary Maceachran in Gosford Park, and Kelly Drummond in the film In the Electric Mist, but the role for which most American movie and TV viewers are the most likely to recognize her voice from would have to be that of Margaret Thompson in the Sopranos-influenced epic mob/OC tale Boardwalk Empire.
Before you even think of going there, I freely admit that yes, it did happen.
When Brave started and we began to become immersed in the characters that were being presented and introduced to us on screen as the voice of Merida narrated I experienced an inappropriate mental vision - a fleshy snippet if you will - of an attractive and well-endowed but very nude young woman standing in the middle of a dress shop surrounded by couture that was decidedly of the 1920's era.
That was it - there was nothing blue about it - and while I knew that this was a memory of something that I had actually seen somewhere, I could not place from where.
At first I thought maybe I was seeing someone who sounded like Merida, but clearly not, and as I was not aware of who the actress was who was voicing the character on the screen (I would have made the connection instantly if I had known) I was at a loss to explain it. So I leaned in and whispered to my wife “Does her voice sound familiar to you?”
Nucky and Peggy from Boardwalk Empire - the voice caused great confusion for me.
Yvonne gave me her patented and secret Pirate Smirk which is itself too cute for words (you have to see it to understand but it is a very endearing expression that never fails to cause my heart to race) and she says to me: “Can't get the naked girl out of your mind?”
Right, let me explain something first... My wife knows me. She knows me well. She knows me better than any other human on the planet, including my mother. To my wife I am an open book of well-worn if dog-eared pages. Emotionally I may as well be a DNA printout, because that is how well she knows me. But this? This was too much.
As convinced as I was that she knew me, I really sincerely did not think she knew me THAT well, and I freely admit that for the briefest of moments I was absolutely convinced that my wife was somehow able to read my mind.
“Ahrrrrr?” I said.
“Shh!” my daughter Autumn hushed.
“There is a special place in Hell for people who talk in movie theaters,” my son Peter cautioned.
“It's Nucky's wife Chris,” Yvonne whispered back.
“Nucky's wife is not named Chris, her name is Margaret,” I replied.
“No, you're Chris!” Yvonne said in exasperated whisper.
“Shhhhh!” Autumn hushed.
It finally clicked into place for a Kodak Moment...
The reason I was seeing that naked girl was because that naked girl was now the ginger-haired heroine on the screen. Her voice was triggering the memories, and the disturbing bit was I had not been able to make the connection.
Now the connection was made the mystery was solved, and I could go back to enjoying the story. But then I mentally paused to consider something.
“How do you know I wasn't seeing an image of her with Nucky in a pink dress in a restaurant?” I asked.
“Shh!” Autumn hushed.
A Positive Role Model
The character of Merida - if you have not yet seen the animated motion picture Brave from Disney - is that of a teenaged young Princess.
This sort of Princess...
Not the Princess Di sort of Princess mind you, more like the two girls from the mini-series A Game of Thrones sort, being that she is a member of the ruling family of a small mountain holding (actually there are a lot of similarities to AGoT if you think about it, and I was).
She was innocence and light and coincidentally also happened to be on that side of fourteen I was previously hinting about; the side of fourteen my daughter was at when we were seeing Brave.
It is a fleeting all-too-brief period in which the young girl has an imperfect understanding of the world and how they relate to it yet retains the wide-eyed innocence that when combined with a wide-ranging optimism and the notion that life, whatever life means, is wide open and full of opportunities for them.
Oh sure, life will beat that out of them pretty quick once they get past High School and enter University, but hey I am one of those fathers who thinks that we should nurture that outlook for as long as we can, so providing a role model - even an animated role model - of a girl who has a genuine girlishness about her, and who was not carved with a surgeon's blade to present the unrealistic (I personally think it is also unattractive) hourglass shape... Well, you get the idea.
Not this sort of Princess...
Merida had a lot going for her. For one thing, she had a wide-eyed fascination for the world. Of even greater importance she was not allowing the world to dictate to her who she was. While that really was a foundation element for her character it also happens to be a big deal for girls that age.
Of course I am speaking only from the slightly less-than-confused position of an observer, but I remember being a fourteen-year-old-boy and I cannot imagine that the process of surviving that stage of life is any easier for girls than it was for boys, right?
Rather than spend her days knitting or cross-stitching (or whatever it was that girls did then) she had a favorite war horse she liked to ride whose name I am pretty sure was Angus, and she had her bow and arrows - after watching the movie a bunch of times and paying close attention to her weapons as only a true SCA Geek will do, I have come to the conclusion that her bow is a composite recurve and maybe just a little on the small size for her height.
A capable girl with the right tools makes for a pretty awesome hero!
In addition to her bow and arrows, Merida had a biodag (it is pronounced beedak) that was around 25cms (or roughly 9 inches) in length, which would have been appropriate for her height. The Biodag is a traditional weapon for the affluent Highlander of which Merida would have been considered, and was often kept in a sheath with one or more smaller knives, attached to a special dirk belt which was called a criosan biodag (pronounced creeshan beedak) - which we actually see in the movie.
When you factor in her bow, her knife, her horse and other pets, her sense of adventure, and a willingness to promote the idea that just because that was not the way that OTHER girls looked at life did not mean that it was wrong for HER to look at life that way, you get the whole package - a great role model for girls.
Then you add in her intelligence and quick grasp for the solution to avoiding the wedding she clearly does not want right now - watch the video above - and you really see the hero in the girl!
Disney Meddles
Due to all of those positive images and qualities, Merida very rapidly became the hero for little girls of a certain age everywhere. Not only that, she became the hero of the parents of little girls of a certain age everywhere.
Obviously we cannot wish for our daughters to be an animated ginger-haired girl princess from some out-of-the-way holding in the mountains of Scotland, but by gosh we can hope that our daughters would have the positive self-image, the adventuresome spirit, and the genuine pure quality of soul that this girl has.
Clearly Merida was not interested in experimenting with the drugs in the medicine cabinet in her parents bathroom. She had no desire to obtain a tramp stamp before age 18, and her idea of a good time involved fresh air, and not a YouTube of a girl enjoying fresh air - hey, it had to be said.
Disney decided it was time for Merida to join the ranks of its other Princesses...
The blokes at Disney are far from stupid, and they quickly realized that in Merida they had found their next Disney Princess. The blokes at Disney are dumb as a bag of hammers.
The reason I say that is that having recognized Merida as the next obvious recruit for the Disney Princess Brigade, which includes luminary princesses celebrated on a site(1) Disney created just to celebrate their other princesses who are drawn from previous epic animated movies, including Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Cinderella, Jasmine (Aladdin), Mulan, Pocahontas, Rapunzel, Snow White, and Tiana (The Princess and the Frog), adding Merida to the troop makes a lot of sense.
In fact adding Merida to the Disney Princesses does make sense, it is just how they decided to do it that makes no sense! And therein lies the rub. They recognized in Merida the qualities of a Disney Princess, and then they took her and gave her the required makeover in order to turn her into a Disney Princess.
Basically ALL of the qualities that made her popular in the hearts of the young girls who found in Merida a hero and a role model are the antithesis of the qualities that are found in a Disney Princes!
Look at the following BEFORE and AFTER image and you should pretty much get the idea:
Her first procedure was cosmetic eye surgery to add a more almond-like appearance to her eyes in order to remove the rounder peasant-like eye shape so typical of the Scottish Highlands. After she healed up she next went under the knife to have her cheeks re-shaped, raising the upper ridge of the cheekbones in order to present a more striking and pronounced facial shape. After she healed from that, plastic surgery for her mouth obtained the more desirable bow-shape and a smaller mouth size overall.
Her hair was heavily treated to smooth it out and add curls, and a lapband procedure followed by liposuction to shape her hips and belly more in line with the patented "Disney Princess look" almost completed the package. All that was left was to have her undergo breast augmentation to create a bustline that was more sympathetic to the off-the-shoulder dress, and voila! A Natural Disney Princes! Total cost in surgery and procedures: $190K. Results: Priceless!
A friend of mine who works in a doctor's office reviewed the procedures that must have been done to get her to look this way (read the caption above) and worked out the total cost at something like $190K if she used a Hollywood surgery group with a solid rep. She notes though that if she had the procedures done in Boston it would have only cost around $100K.
Though the miracles of modern cosmetic surgery an innocent wide-eyed hero of a girl who was the star of the film Brave is now a carved and artfully arranged "Hottie" fit to work the pole at the finest of gentleman's clubs. Way to go Disney!
A Princess in the Rough?
In an email recently sent to the editor of the newspaper the Marin Independent Journal, the writer and co-director of the film “Brave” and the woman who helped to create the character of Merida, Brenda Chapman (I personally suspect that her getting an Academy Award for Brave was partly to recognize her help in creating this more realistic and healthy role model that is Merida), had this to say:
“Merida was created to break that mold -- to give young girls a better, stronger role model, a more attainable role model, something of substance, not just a pretty face that waits around for romance …
“They have been handed an opportunity on a silver platter to give their consumers something of more substance and quality -- THAT WILL STILL SELL -- and they have a total disregard for it in the name of their narrow minded view of what will make money.”
I think that we can safely paraphrase that sentiment in another way: Disney, this was a test. You failed.
Due to a combination of circumstances that include ill-health and the fact that I never actually had the opportunity to fully play-through the video game Dishonored on my Xbox (I played it on PS3 when I did the review), and due to my curiosity about whether it would feel different on Xbox as opposed to PS3, I finally got around to playing Dishonored on my Xbox.
Being ill sucks. That is not a gray-area issue. Having a video game to play that you can really and truly immerse yourself in - and especially when that game has a good story line and interesting alternate play options - well, let me just say that when you are ill that sort of thing really can go a long way towards helping you get through your day.
The mask is about the story and the protagonist shifting from protector to avenger and assassin!
Gotta Hide the Body?
The way Dishonored is engineered, there are basically two ways you can play the game...
(1) As a stealth action-adventure title in which your primary goal is to be a literal ghost, not be seen at all, not set off any alarms, not kill anyone and not allow any of the bodies you incap to be discovered.
(2) Play it as a bloodbath adventure in which you go all out, killing everybody.
While it may seem like the latter would be the more difficult method, considering the huge number of enemies and potential targets in the game, it turns out that it is the former that is really the challenge.
I have a lot more respect for CIA wetwork agents now, particularly when I consider the potential issues that are associated with hiding bodies.
What I mean by that is that it is easy enough to not kill anyone - that is basically a choice you make - while it is slightly more difficult to not kill anyone AND not trigger any alarms or be seen not killing anyone, but not killing anyone while you are not seen not killing anyone and at the same time not setting off any alarms while AT THE SAME TIME finding places to hide the bodies so that none are discovered, well, that is hard.
I say it is hard EVEN while acknowledging the mechanism in the game that causes the previous bodies of the targets you have incapped past five to disappear (basically the game will only allow you to have five bodies in a zone at any one time, so each time you incap or kill a new one, the oldest body in your collection despawns).
Game play is surprisingly fluid and the game is largely bug-free. But you expect that from Arkane.
Remember the Hitman Series?
The whole stealth action-adventure approach in Dishonored was not a real challenge until I reached the mission called "Return to the Tower" which was, let me tell you right now, a bitch. Really really challenging.
In fact it was so challenging due to the random patrol pattern of non-combat NPC's who somehow kept stumbling upon incapped bodies and sounding alarms - even when those bodies were on the other side of walls, hidden in shadows - that I finally came to the realization that I was going to need to really hide the bodies well.
The solution I devised was to kill the pack of rats in the Torture Chamber after incapping the Wolfhound and Torturer, and then haul every body down there after I choked each out. Granted there was never a huge stack of bodies due to the five-body limitation (in the Hitman games I would often end up with a HUGE stack of bodies), it was still close enough to the feeling that I used to get playing the Hitman games to give me pretty decent flashbacks to that series.
I should mention that I have always been a fan of the Hitman games - it being a game series that somehow took on a subject that IRL I would never go near, but due to the approach that was used in the game and its back story, really helped to define "entertainment" for that genre.
But getting back on the subject, if you happen to have played Dishonored AND you did the no-killing and no-alarms play through AND you managed to do the "Return to the Tower" mission without staking bodies in an out-of-the-way location, would you please email me and tell me how you did it?
I am particularly interested in hearing from you if you managed to do this level in full-on stealth mode by avoiding dealing with any (or very few) enemies.
Seriously, I couldn't figure out how to play that mission without clearing the enemies floor by floor, so it took me longer to complete that one mission than it did for me to do all of the previous missions combined. Which was really odd when I thought about it later.
While the selection of enemy types is very narrow for this type of game and its genre, there is still plenty of challenge and variety to be found in Dishonored, which is one of only a handful of games to earn a perfect 10 out of 10 review score.
Achievements in Dishonored
One of the really cool aspects of the game was the collection of Achievements / Trophies that they devised for the game.
While the Achievements are not really divided into logical groups with respect to which set of goals you ended up choosing (either the no-kill / no-alarm approach, or the bloodbath approach) what I discovered was that they really do sort of split into three distinct groups: (1) the ones you will unlock during the no-kill / no-alarm play-through; (2) the ones you will unlock during the bloodbath style of play-through; and (3) the ones you had to go out of your way and do things you would not ordinarily do in order to unlock them sort.
Actually there is a 4th type but it does not really count, being as it is the small number that are part of the story and so will unlock no matter what method you chose to play...
If you are playing the game (or are contemplating playing and I really recommend you do play if you are looking for an immersive and fun stealth game that you can replay Rambo-style after you beat it all Ninja-Ghost style), I recommend the following Achievements / Trophies logical grouping:
Note: There are 70 Achievements worth a total of 1,420G for the Xbox 360 version of Dishonored, with 50 of them (worth 1000G) from the base game, and 20 (worth 420G) from the DLC.
Category I: Stealth Run Achievements
These include all of the Achievements that are unlocked as a natural consequence of playing through the stealth action play through. There are 10 in total, worth 330G and when you add the 170G from the story-based automatic ones, you get a grand total of 500G, which appears to suggest based on the other numbers that the Stealth Play is really the intended method of play.
Clean Hands (100G)You completed the
game without killing anyone
Faceless (20G)After escaping Coldridge
Prison, you completed a mission without alerting anyone
Ghost (30G) You completed all missions
after the prologue, alerting or killing no one but key targets
Just Dark Enough (50G)You completed
the game in low chaos (S)
Poetic Justice (30G)You neutralized
all key targets using indirect means (S)
Political Suicide (10G)You brought
about the Lord Regent's fall from grace by broadcasting his crimes
Shadow (30G)You completed all missions
after the prologue without alerting anyone
Specter (20G)After escaping prison,
you completed a mission, not alerting anyone and killing less than 5
people
Surgical (30G)You played from the
first mission through Kaldwin's Bridge killing fewer than 10
characters
Vanished (10G) You escaped prison and
navigated the sewers undetected (S)
Category II: Bloodbath Run Achievements
These include all of the Achievements that are unlocked as a natural
consequence of playing through the bloodbath (killing-action) play-through. There
are 4 in total, worth 80G and when you add the 170G from the
story-based automatic ones, you get a grand total of 250G, which is like half of what you got on the Stealth play-through, and that appears to suggest that this is the secondary approach at least in terms of G, and maybe the fun-factor too?
Cleaner (10G)You fought 5 enemies at
once and none of them survived
Dunwall in Chaos (50G)You completed
the game in high chaos (S)
Razor Rain (10G)You killed 5
characters with Drop Assassination
Rogue (10G) You assassinated 10 unaware
enemies
Category III: Achievements you have to
actively unlock
These are the ones you will need to actively work towards unlocked, which means in theory they are missable. There
are 28 in total, worth 420G.
Alive Without Breath (10G)You took
possession of a fish (S)
An Unfortunate Accident (10G)You
killed Morgan Pendleton with steam (S)
Art Dealer (50G)You collected all the
Sokolov paintings
The Art of the Steal (10G) You got the
Art Dealer's safe combination for Slackjaw, but robbed the safe first
(S)
Back Home (10G)You grabbed a live
grenade and threw it back, killing an attacker
Big Boy (20G) You killed a tallboy
using only your sword
Bodyguard (10G)You protected
Callista's uncle, Captain Geoff Curnow (S)
Creepy Crawly (10G)You used a rat
tunnel (S)
The Escapist (10G)After Coldridge
Prison, you eluded 5 pursuers at once without killing them or leaving
the map
Food Chain (10G) You assassinated an
assassin (S)
Gentleman Caller (10G) You completed
all the Granny Rags side missions (S)
Harm's Way (10G)You caused 5
unintentional suicides
Hornets' Nest (20G) You killed 4
enemies in less than 1 second using the crossbow
Inhabitant (10G)You stayed in
possession of others for most of a 3 minute period
King of the World (10G)You reached the
top of Kaldwin's Bridge (S)
Lights Out (10G)You deactivated at
least 5 security systems on Kingsparrow Island (S)
Manipulator (10G)You made others kill
5 of their own allies
Merchant of Disorder (20G)You acquired
15 equipment upgrades
Mercy is the Mark (10G)You spared
Daud’s life (S)
Mostly Flesh and Steel (50G)You
finished the game without purchasing any supernatural powers or
enhancements, besides Blink
Speed of Darkness (10G) You traveled 30
meters in less than 1 second
Street Conspiracy (10G) You completed
all the Slackjaw side missions (S)
Tempest (20G)You killed 6 enemies in
less than 1 second
Thief (20G)You pickpocketed items
worth a total of 200 coins
This Is Mine (10G)You recovered your
belongings
Versatile (20G)You killed characters
with each weapon and offensive gadget
Wall of Sparks (10G)You killed an
enemy with the Wall of Light
Well Mannered (10G) You completed the
Boyle Estate mission without spoiling the party (S)
Category IV: Automatic (Story-Based)
and the like
These are basically automatic Achievements unlocked as a natural
consequence of playing through the story, so they apply to both styles of play. There
are 8 in total, worth 170G.
Capturing Genius and Madness (10G)You
abducted Anton Sokolov, Royal Physician
Child Care (10G) You located Lady Emily
Kaldwin, heir to the throne
Dishonored (5G)You escaped Coldridge
Prison
Excommunication (5G)You eliminated
High Overseer Campbell
Long Live the Empress (10G)You saved
Empress Emily Kaldwin (S)
Occultist (20G) You collected 10 bone
charms
Regicide (10G)You assassinated the
Lord Regent, Hiram Burrows
Resolution (100G)You completed the
game
Category V: Optional DLC Achievements
These are unlocking inside the two DLC expansions for the game - note that to obtain these you will need to spend money (well, Microsoft Points on Xbox Live anyway). If you did not pay for these, and then download them, you cannot unlock them!
Assassin Vs. Machine (15G) Complete
Train Runner before the train arrives at the station*
By My Hand Alone (15G)Get to Wave 13
in Back Alley Brawl killing all combatants personally*
Cleaner Hands (40G)Complete The Knife
of Dunwall without killing anyone**
Daredevil (15G)In Bonfires, perform
all the special combination jumps in 1 round*
Headhunter (15G)Complete Assassin's
Run with 100% accuracy using only head shots*
Just Business (15G)You got the
information you needed from the Rothwild Slaughterhouse**
Long Way Down (15G)Perform a drop
assassination of at least 150 meters in the Kill Cascade challenge*
Message from the Empress (10G)You
performed a drop assassination from atop the Empress statue in The
Knife of Dunwall** (S)
Missing Pieces (15G)You obtained
Delilah Copperspoon's identity from Thalia Timsh** (S)
Mrs Pilsen's Remorse (30G)Find Emily's
doll hidden in each of the 10 challenges*
Natural Talent (15G) Finish Mystery Foe
without using any active supernatural powers*
No Regrets (35G) Complete The Knife of
Dunwall in High Chaos**
Rare Collector (15G)Find all of the
collectable figurines in Burglar on Expert*
Rats and Ashes (10G)Attach an arc mine
to a rat, resulting in a kill**
Redemptive Path (35G) Complete The
Knife of Dunwall in Low Chaos**
Stone Cold Heart (10G)You spoke with
the statue of Delilah in Timsh's estate** (S)
Time Management (15G)Finish Chain Kill
or Bend Time Massacre without failing any wave, including bonuses*
Void Star (50G) Complete all Normal and
Expert challenges with a 3-Stars rating*
Well Connected (10G) Purchase all of
the Favors in The Knife of Dunwall**
Whisper Ways (40G) Complete The Knife
of Dunwall without alerting anyone**
(S) Secret Achievement.
* DLC: Dunwall City Trials (10
Achievements worth 200G)
** DLC: The Knife of Dunwall (10
Achievements worth 220G)
The image embedded above is from the Trials DLC - if there is any question in your mind as to whether paying for the DLC for this game is worth it, well, yeah, it is worth it. Big time!
Hindsight is Not Always 20/20
My first exposure to Dishonored was a bit unusual in that unlike almost all of the other AAA titles for console that released in 2012/2013, for some reason I was not on the press release and PR list for it, so my first experience was at last year's E3 (2012).
After we sat through the presentation for Dishonored I remember thinking three things:
(1) It looks like a Steampunk approach to the stealth-shooter genre;
(2) It is being developed by Arkane, and they made the new Batman series, so it is going to be a well-built, graphically sound, and very impressive tight story;
(3) I am probably not going to like it.
So yeah, it very much is a steam-punk-influenced title, and yes indeed it was made by the same studio that made the new Batman series, which means it is very tight in the story, well built, and has very pleasing graphics as well as effective use of game mechanics (which is not always the case when a game combines traditional swords and sorcery with the shooter-fusion-genres). Ah, but as far as number three is concerned, I got it wrong.
It turns out that I liked it a LOT. Well, there you go - cannot be right all the time, right?
If you are interested, Dishonored was one of only a handful of games that actually earned a perfect score in its review - you can read my review of Dishonored here - and I should note that in addition to scoring high, Dishonored also happens to be an economical game (due largely to its high replay potential and score) coming in at an average admission cost of just .74 cents an hour, which is really good for a modern shooter. Just saying.
Regular readers of the gaming side of my writing will be aware that I recently completed the Unofficial Walkthrough / Guide for game play in the title Hitman: Absolution, which is the much anticipated and long overdue next game in the Hitman video game series, but is also oh so much more than just that.
I say "oh so much more" for very good reason, because when you read between the lines and if you are even just a little familiar with that game series you will be aware that Absolution is not only the 5th game in the main series, but also presents the wrapping up of basically all of the plot, story, and sub-plot elements for the previous four titles in the series, being intended to provide a measure of closure for series fans as well as serve a more practical function: providing the tabula rasa that is required when a studio is about to embark upon a new and previously un-hinted-at massive change of focus.
In a nutshell, the Hitman series began with a pair of games that revealed in violent detail the origins of the character after which the series is named -- The Hitman who is a legend in both the underground organized crime community and the world-wide law enforcement communities, being widely considered to be if not an outright myth, then very likely a catch-all character who has been given false credit for the perfectly executed actions, contracts, and hits of a dozen or more different men, with the end result being what most experts in both communities consider to be a fraudulent and undeserved reputation for a man who probably does not exist at best, or the outright theft of many of the most spectacular hits of the past decade being wrapped like a mantle of reputation by a third-rate mechanic with no right to that glory at worse.
The truth of the matter is not the middle-ground rationalization that is often the case in such creations, because the truth is that every one of the legitimate stories is just that -- and most of the widely embellished stories based upon unsubstantiated rumor are also true and factually laid at the feet of the man who was responsible: the ghost figure known far and wide as The Hitman, and more intimately by the shadowy entity that serves as the broker for his special talents, The International Contract Agency (ICA) as Agent 47, the true identity for that ghost.
The Tragedy of Agent 47
With all good stories there is often a bit of tragedy and poetic origins behind the story, that foundation often being lost in the noise of the events or, more likely, never being known or shared precisely because the man who it is about chooses not to share it. Such is the case with Agent 47, who has no real name; the product of genetic engineering in a secret lab in eastern Europe, 47 lacks even the comfort of some certainty that somewhere, somewhen, there was a man and a woman whose love or relationship spawned him. Obviously not, since the only thing that 47 can legitimately write on a Mother's day card is "My Mother was a Test Tube" and on a Father's Day card, "My Father was a scalpel."
Starting with that lack of biological bonding, the legend that is Agent 47 cannot even lay claim to the origins of many a fictional and historical hero, since he was not born in a dark corner of the world and then raised in an orphanage, but rather was born in a well-lit lab having been created by the selective culling of organic material from a single female who provided an egg that was initially stripped of all of its genetic details, intended to serve exclusively as the foundation of organics that is required to create a human being, but as a neutral foundation, offering that human no traits or other biological links with the donor.
All of the traits, and in particular what was considered to be the important traits, such as physical capabilities, mental acuity, a lack of moral compass, and a willingness to use violence as a tool to attain the ends that he is programed to attain -- the entire exercise in leveraging the bleeding edge of genetic science was oriented towards a single goal: create the perfect killing machine in the form of a chameleon of a man whose entire focus was the art of the hit.
All of this was accomplished by a defrocked physician and scientist named Ort-Meyer, who it should be noted, used his own genetic materials as the underlying focus for the mental portions of the design for Agent 47. In the end, while there were literally hundreds of failed efforts, the success with Agent 47 -- who is if you have missed the point that I have been hammering home all along a clone -- was not simply a lucky stroke, nor was his ending up in the employ of the ICA, but all of it, including the rather bloody exit by which he parted company with Ort-Meyer, was the results of carefully engineered and executed plans created by Ort-Meyer.
Oh, there were a few bumps in the road, and it is pretty clear that Ort-Meyer was not expecting his creation to systematically assassinate every one of the men who contributed to his genetics -- including Ort-Meyer -- but that is material for another article, for another time.
You now have a pretty clear grasp of who Agent 47 was at the start of his career as the ICA's star hitman and special field operator. It goes without saying that the first almost 30 years of his life were spent in a densely packed series of special training, and his perfect record of contract assassinations for the ICA speak to the success of those efforts, but there is on additional factoid that you need to know about Agent 47: much of the underlying cause for his success as a hitman is thought to be the result of the fact that he was intentionally created with an extra (47th) chromosome.
The 47th Chromosome
If it seems that I am writing about Agent 47 as if he were an old friend, the reason for that is really because in a way that is precisely what he is. Well, if not an old friend than by all means a lengthy acquaintance with whom a great many adventures have been shared. In fact that is the point of this piece, because I have just embarked upon the replaying of many of those early adventures in the form of the just-released new game compilation that has been called the Hitman HD Collection (a trilogy consisting of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman: Contracts, and Hitman: Blood Money).
I will very soon be reviewing each game in the collection over at The Cape Cod Time's Game On review section, where I recently reviewed both Hitman: Absolution, and the new and related mini-game called Hitman: Sniper Challenge that was created as partly a promotional vehicle for Absolution, and those reviews have fomented the to-be-expected sense of nostalgia that one tends to reserve for events of a personal nature that while not really shared with others, still tend to have had a rather formative impact on you.
In the case of Agent 47 that impact was to instill in the gamer in me a decided respect for the stealth approach that can be used when playing shooter titles (whether they are intended to be stealth-based or not) and the result has been an interesting effect on my game play style. It would be fair to say that the experience of playing as Agent 47 has had a lasting and interesting impact upon my general outlook and attitude when it comes to combat shooters in general, and the civilian mob/OC shooter in particular.
When a medical type speaks of the 47th Chromosome (normally humans have just 46) there is a very good chance that the conversation is about the disease known as Down's Syndrome -- largely due to the fact that the existence of that extra chromosome is thought to be the cause. What you may not hear -- it is pretty unlikely -- is that the presence of a 47th chromosome does not necessarily always result in retardation or Down's Syndrome. In fact there have been a very few isolated cases in which the extra chromosome actually served to enhance the human who possessed it rather than damage them. Sadly that enhancement tended to be accompanied by some other undesirable side-effect, like the person lacking any moral sense or being inclined towards a career as a serial killer...
Of course those negatives did not prevent certain countries with strong military feelings to underwrite experimentation in the area of genetic science, with an eye towards creating super-soldiers by installing that extra chromosome. The idea was, obviously, that they would experiment with it until they caught a breakthrough that allowed for a better understanding of how it does what it does, and how to get it to do desirable things.
Forget for the moment that to do this it was necessary to experiment on human beings, and forget for the moment that there are international treaties whose basic function is to prevent that sort of thing.... It happened anyway. Hell, so does cloning, but nobody talks about that, do they?
It is rumored that the US has completed a long series of cloning experiments, and may be the second most knowledgeable nation when it comes to understanding how the process of cloning works. You did note that I said "second" right? The first would be Russia, or more accurately the former Soviet Union, who it is reliably reported had tremendous successes with developing a reliable system for cloning to the point that they could not only clone desirable organs with an eye towards transplants to extend life for individuals who were judged worthy of the great expenses involved, but the former Red State could also just as easily clone entire humans.
It is even rumored that the ex-Soviet cloning programs uncovered interesting data about genetic memory, a subject that previously was spoken of in only the most basic and speculative of terms. Today it seems that there is a wider acceptance that in addition to passing on trait-based data that is used as part of the blueprint for making a new human during the normal reproductive process, the mother also passes on a large amount of what is called foundation memory -- why hot is dangerous, the large collection of instinctual reactions to biological and animal threats, and a bunch of other low-level emotion-based reactionary types of information.
Basically the memory that is being passed on is not really memory as such, but skills, or perhaps more accurately reaction-based data, but also -- and this is where it gets interesting -- muscle memory.
It has long been thought that when one or both parents are gifted with expert skill in something like playing a musical instrument, any children that they have might also enjoy an easier process for the acquisition of similar skills. While the Russians have not fully mapped out the genetic areas that are involved in this process, this exchange of mother-memory if you will, they were able to succeed in isolating and passing on the music part of it. There is a rumor that they also have successfully mapped out some of the physical skills areas, including the sorts that are of interest to athletes who desire to compete at the Olympic level...
Can you imagine a generation of clones of Alexander Popov, Anna Kournikova, or even Evgeny Plushenko? I bet the Russians can...
While I am not sure that the folks over at IO were completely unaware of those programs, it does make for interesting speculation and an amusing notion that they were more than just a little aware of them.
Either way, when I get to the point of writing the game reviews for the new HD Trilogy you should consider yourself invited and encouraged not only to read them, but to play the games. While they are not fully remastered (that is to say they have not been redone, but rather have been converted to run on the new platforms and in HD quality) they do offer you a chance to step back in time and experience these games in much the same way that we did a decade ago, and that is certainly worth the cost of admission...
I have to go now, there are contracts to be completed...
