MONDOmagazine

Or, Be Glad You’re Not a Fucking CowBy Adam Bourret

Bossie wakes up every morning around five or six. There’s no point in sleeping in, because she might get a sharp poke from the farmer or worse yet, she’ll miss out on all the good grass. Clara, who sleeps to Bossie’s right, is always right out there eating all the real green stuff, and you’ve got to stay sharp to get some good grazing time in.
“That Clara, three stomachs, forget about it,” Bossie would quip, “more like six stomachs!” This slice of wit gets a big laugh from the girls in the yard, as it has every day for the past seven years.

Bossie goes out into the yard and pokes around for whatever she can eat. She gets a good mouthful and heads over to meet Gladys at the west gate.
“Y’hear about Pearl?” Gladys asks in her low, laconic voice.
“Nah. What about her?”
“She’d dead.”
“No shit. You hear about Trudy?”
“Nah. What’s up with her?”
“She had a calf.”
“Oh yeah? You hear about Tina?”
“Nah. What?”
“She’s dead.”

This is how it goes. Day after day, week after week, lifetime after lifetime. One day, Bossie will have a calf of her own, and soon after, she will die. The calf will produce a calf of its own, and they will meet the same fate. They will live by the rising of the sun and the chewing of the cud, because Bossie is a cow.

We’ve made a lot of movies, written a lot of books and sang a lot of songs about cows like Bossie escaping this grim destiny. In these fanciful tales, Bossie would jump the fence, or turn into a princess, or go on a life-changing road trip through the heart of America. But you only need to spend five minutes with a cow to realize that a cow is pretty fucking stupid. You could hug and kiss it. You could send it flowers. If you run at it from a short distance, angle your shoulder forward and strike the right tendon, you could tip it over. Or you could devote your time and energy to an organization devoted to saving its life.

But the cow is indifferent to all of this. You’re better off tipping something that can’t kick you in the genitals, like a coat rack or an armoire. Or you could give your money to the people of Bangladesh, who are also our economic slaves, and they can talk.

You wake up, you get up, you go to work, you come back, you bitch about work, you fall asleep. You drink, you complain, you go to a movie, you complain. You feel helpless. You feel like an animal in a pen. You feel an enormous weight in the pit of your stomach, like nothing short of a jet engine could propel you onward and upward, over that fence.

But the good news is you’re not a cow, so honestly, fuck Bossie. That sad sack cow is tomorrow’s delicious peppercorn steak. You could hop that fence no problem, or shimmy under it. You could run at the cow, knock it over, hop the fence and flee. Wouldn’t that give the other cows something to talk about!

Are you reading a book now? I mean, not for school and not because it has pictures of boobs in it. Do you carry around a book and read a little every day? It’s so free it’s almost a criminal offense. I’ve seen your apartment and I gather you don’t own a car, why don’t you read it on the subway or the bus? You were also very excited about the theatre when we talked, you had a big hard-on for theatre. Why did you look so crestfallen when I asked you what you’ve seen recently? Cheer up. Are you seeing someone new? Did you make the weekend count? Do you have a creative project that you’re working on? Can I see?

Every little thing you can do for yourself pulls a little lead out of your cow ass. Everything you failed to do drags you down. I get up, I go to work, I complain about work. But I’m also reading The Piano Man’s Daughter. It’s a reminder that a day job is just a day job and there’s real things that need to get done.

And now some fun facts about cows.
1. Cows regurgitate and chew their “cud” up to eight hours a day.
2. The Holstein is the most common type of dairy cow in North America.
3. The life of a cow is a dull endless routine devoid of journeys or options.
4. When Jesus arrived on Palm Sunday, he was not riding a cow.
5. A cow is not able to feel joy, nor sorrow.
6. To date, a cow has not been awarded with a BA in Civil Engineering.
7. Cows are so domesticated that they would not be able to survive in the wild.
8. Hopefully you can.

An interview with The Phonemes.

By Daniel Ian Taylor

In the bewildering world of Language, a phoneme is the subtle addition of a single letter that can affect a drastic change in the meaning of a word or sentence. Observe: “My ex-wife is going to kill me! I was supposed to send her my monkey, but I lost it at the racetrack.”
Here in Toronto, The Phonemes are gaining momentum with harmony-driven songs that share the same quiet understatement and stunning impact of the band’s syntactical namesake. Soon to release some new material through the Blocks Recording Club, The Phonemes took some time to discuss their band, their city and their plans for the future.

MONDO: For many a reader, this will be an introduction. How would you like to introduce the band?
Magali Meagher: Introducing Matias Rozenberg on drums and details, Liz Forsberg on bass and books and Magali Meagher on guitar and grammar. Sometimes we have special guests like Shayna on saw, James or Paige on drums, Bob on accordion or Owen on violin. As Cab Williamson once so eloquently put it, “The Phonemes are great.”

MONDO: How did the band come about in the first place?
MM: I lived in a warehouse space at King and Portland that was home to lots of cultural and political activity. Treasa Levasseur, who was my neighbour, organized a show that featured women musicians called Uteronomy. Matias saw me play and afterwards we started playing in my kitchen, he on a tiny palm-sized cymbal, and me on guitar. Liz and I have known one another since high school in Guelph and a year or so after casually playing with Matias, I asked Liz if she’d be interested in playing with me too.

MONDO: After playing in a larger band like the Hidden Cameras, how does playing with The Phonemes compare? Do you take more control over the songs and their arrangements, or is it still collaborative?
MM: My experience of the Hidden Cameras was that a veneer of collaboration existed only in the sense that Joel appropriated the combined energies and contributions of the members of his band and went out of his way to take credit for all of it. Compensation was forced and communication was stunted. Having said this, I think that being responsible for a band can be really hard, especially when your fear of having people mad at you dominates the way you operate. I’m definitely not immune to this. I’m afraid and nervous most of the time. It’s really difficult to negotiate competing needs and desires between friends. I write a song on guitar — melody and lyrics — and then bring it to the group. Once Liz and Matias listen to the song, the arrangements are a collaborative effort. Liz and Matias write their own parts.
Matias Rozenberg: Magali is a communicative, straight-up, compassionate band leader who takes responsibility over her own words and actions.

MONDO: How does the city come into the equation? Are you in Toronto specifically to play music, or do you play music and just happen to be here?
MR: My parents brought me here from Argentina as a kid and I never left.
MM: I came to Toronto for Casa Loma.
Liz Forsberg: Our unrehearsed aesthetic is the result of a lack of free basements to practice in.
MM: Yes. So if we ever sound bad it’s TORONTO’s fault. Seriously. I mean… we should probably get some people together and organize a viable shared rehearsal space. I think this sort of thing happened in Spain once. Of course, there is always that dream of the enchanted, all encompassing building: venue, recording/rehearsal spaces, art studio, roof top garden, water slide, gelatin-free jujube factory.

MONDO: Do you have a specific timeline or plans for this band?
MM: We’ve got a record coming out (likely in February) on Blocks and I will be playing those songs during a spring tour in western Canada and the U.S.A. with Jason (the dad in the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players) and Bob Wiseman. We’re also recording with Steve Kado in a few weeks for a 7″ that will be coming out as part of the Tomlab Alphabet series.

MONDO: Are there any milestones or goals where you’ll feel you’ve made it, or done what you’ve set out to do?
LR: We’ll be happy when Mini-pops puts out a version of our EP.
MM: This would be sooo good. Channel 4, are you reading this?!

MONDO: From what I’ve heard of your music, it focuses more on melody and vocal harmony than filling a room with noise. Does a smaller venue suit you as a band?
MM: I was chatting about this with Steph, who does projections for Final Fantasy, after a show we played in Edmonton. We were playing a large campus bar and the feeling of the place was distinct before, during and after the show, but it was still the same room. This is part of what is both exciting and terrifying about performing — it can be unpredictable once a space is filled with people — so it isn’t inherently about the space but the weather systems that pass through it.

MONDO: What about the show itself? What would you like people to wander away from your performances saying to themselves?
MM: Hopefully they will have received the spirit of Zoltanius in their hearts, the wisdom of Toofgog and the courage of Lakaria and will pass these messages on to the rest of the residents of Tawrana.

MONDO: Uhh…. (backs out of the room)

Developed by Kojima Production
Published by Konami

By Miles Baker

It’s hard to explain the simple pleasures of sneaking up on an enemy soldier, putting a knife to his throat to get information, choking him into unconsciousness, and then dragging his body back to your truck to be taken prisoner.

Maybe it speaks for itself.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops is the latest installment in the long-running espionage series that favours stealth over combat and post-modern plots about nuclear warheads over the standard save-the-princess fare. While the games are popular, the series has a polarizing effect on people — not everyone can get behind a game where you spend a lot of time waiting for enemies to move away and there’s a cast of fake gravely voices. But I can.

The plot sheds further light on the past of Big Boss, a mythic figure in the MGS universe, and papa to the series’ main protagonist Solid Snake. It’s interesting watching this man, who will become a villain, saving the world as a genuine hero — it’s basically what Episodes One through Three should have been.

Set a few years after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the now-retired Big Boss is captured and brought to an abandoned Soviet base near Columbia to be questioned and tortured. He escapes with the aid of a young Roy Campbell and begins to assemble a team of soldiers to help him prevent the launch of nuclear weapon and a walking tank called Metal Gear.

Most often you’ll recruit soldiers by knocking them out and then dragging the body to the back of your truck. In a few turns they’ll succumb to Stockholm syndrome and join your group. Each character you recruit will have special skills that will suit them for your sneaking, spy, medical, or technical teams. You’ll need to recruit all kinds of people in order to move the story along. What I like the most about this gameplay element is that it shows the kind of man that Big Boss is — someone who’s cause you are willing to die for. You can also recruit characters by way of some magic Bluetooth thing that I don’t quite understand.

The gameplay is smartly designed for portable gaming. Instead of a long quest, moving from screen to screen, the game has been broken down to appetizer-sized missions where you’ll have an objective or two to complete before moving onto the next level. Usually the objective is to reach point X from wherever you are, but there are some nice exceptions like sabotage missions where you get to blow stuff up. Then, of course, there are the challenging boss fights. These are actually pretty hard because each character is only able to carry four items at any time, so often you’ll come across a boss fight when you carrying around only tranquilizer darts, which leaves you totally unprepared. I wish that the game gave you more warning when it came to these fights, because often you’ll have to give up, re-equip yourself, and then head back into the level where you’ll fight the boss again.

I imagine those of you who have read this review without playing any of the games must find character names like “Solid Snake” or “Big Boss” to be fairly ridiculous. And they are. But this game is about over-the-top activities, nuclear weapons and walking tanks — the names have to be silly. Like all the others in the series, this game is not only worth getting because of the great gameplay, but also because it raises interesting questions about loyalty, nationalism, and war. I’m serious.

Once again, Hollywood made it look too easy.

By Justin StollerPosted January 28th, 2007

Anyone who has seen Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, will tell you three things: it’s a little longer than most movies, DiCaprio’s accent gets a bit annoying, and it makes you wonder about some things.

DiCaprio plays a diamond smuggler (Danni Archer), who meets up with Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist working on exposing the terrible situation of blood diamonds in Africa. DiCaprio does an excellent job of bringing the audience to the side of a likeable but detestable character, even eliciting sympathy for his plight involving Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), who guides him to a rare pink diamond that can free them both. DiCaprio’s accent is done very well, and true to the character’s history, but even my South African friends were annoyed with it after some time (it was that close to the real thing).

In attempting to justify his career, Archer accuses westerners of having the greater complicity in purchasing illicitly got diamonds by either their negligence or apathy towards the situation in Africa. Fortunately, this practice is common knowledge now, and most occidentals are sensitive to the issue. But in an age where even Cathy Lee is unwillingly part of the problem, what are we to do?

However, there is some truth to Archer’s implication. Some of our favourite toys, like cell phones, are comparable to the blood diamonds from the film. Cell phone batteries use a lot of tin ore, which has been extracted from Africa using comparable means to the virtual slave conditions Solomon endures in the film. Surprisingly, this most recent exploitation of Africa started with the best of intentions.

For environmental reasons, the European Union joined Japan in late 2002 in a movement to ban lead from the solder used in electronics. Lead free solder is comprised of about 95 percent tin, creating a greater demand for tin on the market. As always, the world looked for inexpensive and ready sources. Cassiterite, or tin oxide, is mined within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) under inhumane conditions, by unpaid soldiers and desperate starving workers. Cell phone and laptop computer batteries are made with a very small amount of tin oxide, which — just to make things worse — is difficult and costly to separate from these devices to recycle. The increased demand on tin has contributed to an already unstable situation in the DRC.

Should we all feel guilty for consuming cell phones each year? Probably not. The efforts of the environmentally-inspired ban on lead in electronics, and its negative consequences, teach a valuable lesson: as long as the unjust political, economical, and military situations exist in Africa as they are, no simple measures on our part can elicit any real positive change. There will always be a new mineral, jewel, or other product to be consumed from African nations, ready to rise as the new popular demand.

This lesson is the true message of Blood Diamond, but is forgotten as quickly as it was learned because it comes via a movie. It is too easy to come away from the film thinking that this is a problem of the past (albeit recent), or that we can do our part simply by asking about the diamonds we purchase. Movies have a wonderful way of capturing our minds and swaying our beliefs, but once those doors open and the illusion is no longer maintained, how long do we really remember? Movies that show real problems through a fictitious story preach awareness, but in reality act more like an entertaining Green Peace poster with much higher production values. Of course this is not Hollywood’s fault; it is simply the nature of the beast.

For more information, please see “War, Murder, Rape…All for Your Cell Phone” by Stan Cox, and the link to Jonathan Miller’s award-winning television report within that article. See also the criticisms of the conclusions they draw, following the article online, and discover just how complicated this history is.

By Elisha Denburg

You can use any pasta you like in this recipe, but the important part is the pesto: Making your own tastes so much better and more fresh than store-bought. Besides, everyone agrees it’s fun to crush things.

Blending all the ingredients together in a food processor is an option, but try the rustic handmade method. Pesto has been around way longer than the Magic Bullet, and the advantage is that each flavour in the mix stands out and it’s a bit chunky. Who doesn’t love Chunk? He did the Truffle Shuffle! Please note: this recipe contains no truffles.

1 large bunch fresh basil leaves, washed, very finely chopped
¼ cup pine nuts, roughly crushed using mortar and pestle
3 cloves garlic, peeled, very finely chopped
½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 pinch of coarse salt
Freshly ground black pepper, about 20 turns

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until they form a paste (in Italy, they call paste “pesto” — it’s like they have a different word for everything over there!) Add more or less of any ingredient to suit your taste.

Toss to coat your favourite pasta generously. Grate more parmesan on top to finish. Eat!

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall
Written by Bill Willingham
Art by Esao Andrews, Brian Bolland, John Bolton, Mark Buckingham, James Jean, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Derek Dirk Kim, Tara McPherson, Jill Thompson, Charles Vess and Mark Wheatley
Vertigo, 2006

By Owen K. Craig

I’ve noticed lately that many people my age — or at least the people I know — have been suffering from severe nostalgia. I don’t know why people in their twenties feel a yearning to recapture a childhood that is barely ten tears past, but it is unequivocally so. However, finding the warmth that appealed to your inner child is a tricky business. Simply indulging in childish delights often is not as gratifying as it once was — not everything remains as amusing as Super Mario Bros. 3. I find the best solution is to find something with all of the wonder, whimsy, and imagination that our favourite childhood diversions had but with an adult twist.

Leaving aside Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall’s parent title (the compelling, layered, and brilliant series Fables) for now, Bill Willingham has created an amazing book in its own right. Fables is set in a world inhabited by fairytale characters from Snow White to Old King Cole but in modern times. The book begins with Snow White embarking on a diplomatic mission to forge an alliance with the Arabian Sultan against the “Adversary” who has conquered the lands of the European fables. The background of the conquered homelands is merely backdrop for this story (and covered more extensively in Fables), this book focuses on Snow White telling story after story to the Sultan to stave off a rather unpleasant morning spent with the Headsman. The idea of taking Scheherazade’s story and twisting it as the framing device sets up the perverse tales that will delight the adult mind nicely.

Without ruining the stories contained in this gorgeous hardcover volume, I will say that the sinister aspects of the stories we heard as kids are truly spotlighted. Questions are answered: what was Snow White doing in the cabin with seven dwarfs, how did the gingerbread witch survive being put in the oven, and how did the Big Bad Wolf get to be so big and bad? Tone is played with a lot, too. The stories range from mystery to tragedy to light diversion as fast as you can turn the page. Each of the different artists also helps change the tone, and it pays off. Every one of them surprises me with their uniqueness in style and is well chosen to fit the story it’s paired with. If I had to choose a standout I’d go with Mark Buckingham. In this book he shows off some work I wasn’t aware he was capable of. His painted art conveys a lightness of tone making Reynard’s plan for eluding the Adversary’s minions hilarious rather than silly — a perfect fit and a great-looking story.

If you’ve already been exposed to the Fables world than chances are you’re already a fan. If you haven’t, then this would be a great chance for you to test the waters and see if it’s for you. Expect familiar faces from your childhood, but faces now have potholes and crows feet.

Nostalgia cravings, meet Fables.

Children of Men
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón
Universal Pictures, 2006

By Jessie Skinner

Posted January 28th, 2007

Let us imagine ourselves, you and I, as film lovers who have not yet lost our optimism about the art form. We have before us, with Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, an important choice: one that could raise more debate than anything in the film itself. Before I pose it, however, here’s a brief overview of how I feel about the film in general. It is cold, pointless, and vapid, and has no true concern for its subject matter. It about the survival of mankind in a world of infertility, but is as much about the ramifications of infertility as Employee of the Month is about settling labour disputes.

Cuarón and his intimidating gang of screenwriters (six in total) have envisioned the unpleasant by-product of said infertility as complete chaos and a totalitarian government. And if I drop a bowling ball on my foot, my foot will break. I believe this vapidity to be true without personal qualm, but more on that later. The film is admirably flashy and a wondrous spectacle, but all efforts to inspire debate fall to the wayside. So then, do we as film lovers embrace it? Do we forgive it its sins? I think most of us have, at this point (a 93% rating from Rotten Tomatoes), which is the most frustrating thing.

Clive Owen plays Theo, a London-based activist-turned-alcoholic-pencil-pusher in the year 2027. He must have been a bit of a letdown in the former job, as most of the time he appears to be competing for a spot in the British Order of the Terminally Stunned. It is a harrowing time, plagued with violence. Women have been infertile for almost 20 years, for some reason that no one can discover, and no one seems to want to know why. They pontificate solely for purposes of exposition. Michael Caine’s Jasper is the only one who even really asks, and he’s a farting stoner (a joke that would be worth a chuckle if it weren‘t so out of place).

In any event, Theo quickly concerns himself with getting the last pregnant woman alive across the country, because, I suppose, it is a lot safer somewhere else. Who knows? There is a lot of flash and bang going on, as Cuarón is a very visual director, but way too many questions are thrown in the air with no one around to catch them. References to science versus religion are placated to passes on the street, as crosses are waved around and prayers are chanted. And Theo keeps looking stunned. None of it matters in the end, of course, just that at least a few of the characters find point B.

Many good-to-great films have “McGuffins,” those integral items that create desire and keep the plot going, regardless of what they actually are (think the briefcase in Pulp Fiction). The problem I have with Children of Men is that it is essentially about a woman giving birth to a living, breathing McGuffin. The “last baby” could be anything. It could be the last can of Kraft Dinner. But with the latter, the feeling of pretentiousness that arises with the former is erased, and I could conceivably enjoy the ride. The fact that it is a baby creates vague allusions to the Bible and a Messiah, and whether or not the film works for you depends entirely on how open-ended you want your movies to be. For me and the handful of critics who have derided it, there is just too much vacant thematic space. The possibility of this kind of future is unforgivably alien if the creators fail to plausibly explain it or even try to. I consider watching a chicken cross a freeway for two hours, and I wonder which would inspire more emotion and thought inside of me.

Why have audiences and critics embraced Children of Men so fervently? The concept is audacious and intriguing, but can only go so far. Its philosophical value is not above the best shoot-em-ups, though I suppose in technicality it is. The film probably appeals to many viewers on a mythical level, one that embraces notions of spirituality over philosophy. There are plenty of Biblical allusions, but even an atheist will catch most of them without fail. Children of Men has a lot more in common with Star Wars than 2001 in that respect. It’s also fairly easy for Cuarón to send his camera passing over shots of foreigners in cages to get the audience riled up; he is completely aware of what most people would find detestable. If we love it simply because it inspires emotion, not debate, we might be in trouble.

Menomena
Friend and Foe
Barsuk, 2007

By Allana Mayer

I feel the need to excuse myself in this review — maybe I’ve just been in psychology class too long, but I feel there’s no way to predict what you will think of this album.

As a result of nature and nurture, it’s only normal that we can each receive the same stimulus and come up with wildly different responses to it: When I receive the mental image of, say, an industrial wasteland, that in no way lessens the possibility that you’re seeing daisies. Someone else is probably seeing both.

So when I say that I absolutely love the new Menomena album, I have to say it with the caveat that I’m almost completely certain no one else will feel the same. I can’t say precisely why I’m getting this feeling, but I know I’m coming to this album with a previous bias. In my mind, Menomena are fun, innovative, and odd, and so Friend and Foe is no different. Thus, it could just be belief perseverance: after that adorable video for “Cough Coughing” — which in itself is such a neat song — you can’t help but want to pinch their cheeks and pat them on the head each time they produce another piece of art. Even if the quality is about equal to a first-grader’s finger painting.

Now, I’m not comparing Friend and Foe to rainbow stick figures and thumbprint blobs. Since their debut I Am The Fun Blame Monster! of four years ago, they’ve been a band to watch for brilliant developments. But I have to admit that I’m inclined to consider Menomena as my own young progeny, and therefore tend to search harder for signs of skill in music that others wouldn’t give a second listen. Really, though, the new album seems well assembled and intelligently orchestrated — even if I can only speak for those parts that confirm my initial bias, as I’m sure I ignore the parts that don’t.

I find that Friend and Foe has just the right touches of messy anger — feedbacking guitar, shouted lamentations — squished in with charming ditties on piano. The variety of the quirky vocals graciously undermines the seriousness of the lyrical content, which mainly explores the worst aspects of relationships. And when they split into harmonies it’s easier to ignore that slightly nasal tone one voice has. Plus, there’s whistling! Awwww!

I get a bubbling, breathless feeling in my chest when I hear the slowly-building piano chords and the enchanting little xylophone part in “Wet And Rusting” (just try not to wonder what “It’s hard to take risks with a pessimist” is really referring to). Putting the piano centre-stage and constantly changing the dynamics makes the song swell to epic proportions. “The Pelican” channels an Andrew Lloyd Webber-ist melodrama that others might find cheesy, and their voices squeak, and don’t even ask what they’re shouting about, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to rock out. Like, really rock out.

I feel like the Oatmeal Crisp commercials — “it’s good, but you won’t like it.” Maybe I’m just trying to save myself the hassle of justifying music with such laid-bare personal content, which would probably require me to lay bare how personally I relate to it. But I should really save that for my psychology notes.

Published by Eidos Interactive
Developed by Crystal Dynamics

By Diana Poulsen

“Too much tomb, not enough raiding,” is what my brother said about the original Tomb Raider ten years ago. Recently, I rented the newest addition to the series and, surprisingly, I found myself enjoying Tomb Raider Legend. As for my brother’s statement, in this edition, every time you kill a mercenary, a baby laughs. Of course, this isn’t a shooter; the key elements are exploring, puzzle solving, and platforming.

The story takes off right from the get go with a well-executed tutorial level that invites you into the game without a high learning curve. I’m not going give away too many of the details, other then it has to do with why Lara Croft became a tomb raid— I mean a respectable archaeologist searching for an artifact of legends.

The fighting in the game consists of a mix of melee and shooting. I didn’t use the melee attacks until the very end of the game. The shooting uses a targeting system which works well most of the time, though occasionally you won’t attack the person directly in front of you. But who wants to do that anyway? There is also an over the shoulder shooting mode, but it’s not really meant for fighting, since you can’t move while in it.

The platforming consists of climbing, jumping, rope climbing, grappling hook swinging, climbing, acrobatic and all sorts of other joyously and annoyingly timed stunts to help explore every nook and cranny of the levels. For those with bad timing, you’ll take pleasure in seeing Lara die an awful lot. At least you get to watch her smash into the ground like a rag doll; her breasts don’t act as air bags, apparently. Legend has also managed to include the popular “reaction command” — seemingly becoming more popular — in the cinematics, so you’ll need to be on your toes for those.

In a few levels you get to drive a motorcycle, which is fun as long as you don’t need to back up or do any sharp turns. So really, all you can do is drive straight. There’s also a glitch in the Kazakhstan level involving the bike: if you land on the train with the motorcycle at an odd point, the computer doesn’t know you are on the train, and you lose the mission. So make sure to get in the centre of the train car and not too close to the side.

Graphically, Legend is gorgeous. Like the sexy Lara, there is tons of equally steamy scenery: from the underground castle to the jungle to swan dives off a cliff, your visual senses will be astounded. The texture maps are of such a high quality you can see the water dripping off her body and the sheep wool on her coat.

Sadly, the adventure is short at only 8 hours, and its ending is shockingly abrupt. I thought I had screwed up, and had to unlock more levels, but no, that how it ends, leaving space for a possible sequel. The saves are based off a checkpoint system, so when you complete a complex series of moves you reach a checkpoint, but remember to save because checkpoints are not autosaves. After the game is completed you can’t save in the missions like you could do during the first run through. Meaning if you decided to play for a few minutes, save and leave, you have start from the very beginning of the level, not where you saved.

Despite all of my complaints, Legend is a really fun game and you don’t notice that you’ve spent X amount of time playing it. I never thought I’d enjoy Tomb Raider, but now I am a fan.

Published by Nintendo
Developed by Nintendo

By Danielle Zacarias

Though Metroid Prime: Hunters is one of the most epic and visually stunning games for the DS, it’s not perfect. For everything good in Hunters, there’s something bad. That said, the game is overall worth playing for its graphics, innovation and game play.

We pick up the story somewhere between the original Metroid Prime for GameCube and Metroid Prime: Echoes. As Samus, players visit planets in the Alimbic Cluster looking for “octolyths”, which promise to unlock a great and destructive power. Along the way Samus does battle with other hunters also looking for the octolyths. These, as well as the boss battles, make up the main fights in the game. Whenever a hunter bests you in battle they steal one of your octolyths and you are left with two options: either be cheap, shut off the game and restart from a point before you lost the octolyth, or pursue the hunter, beat them and get your booty back.

The game is designed so that players visit each planet in the Alimbic Cluster at least twice, if not more times. You get a new weapon and then you go back (in typical Metroid style) to unlock doors previously barred to you. There is something a little strange about this set up, though. Every time you fight a boss, you are forced to then make a mad dash off the planet back to your spaceship. The whole thing is timed so you have to be quick about it. But the thing is, nothing really happens once you get on your ship. The whole escape is anticlimactic. Once you get to your ship and save, you can just get right back out and wander around the planet again. So why the mad dash? I’m not exactly sure, but it gets annoying.

The boss battles are also fairly repetitive. There are essentially two bosses that keep repeating throughout the game, the only differences being that they get more interesting weaponry as the game progresses. This, combined with the annoying and seemingly pointless dashes off the planet, can begin to grate on your nerves, particularly since there are no save points after the boss fights and you have to go from the fights directly to the mad dash over and over again.

The other downside to the protracted and repetitive fights followed by the mad dash is that because of how you have to hold your hands (one hand gripping the stylus in order to aim, the other hand working directional keys and a shoulder button, left or right depending on what hand you are), they tend to cramp up. I found that the only way to compensate was to take advantage of the DS’s incredible battery life, pause the game and flip it closed until my hands felt better.

Despite that downside, the touch screen aiming option allows for an incredible amount of accuracy. It is reminiscent of a mouse in a computer FPS. However, since the touch screen that you aim on is also the screen where you change your weapons and select scan visor or morph ball mode if you want it, you have to be careful to not accidentally change weapons or start scanning things in the middle of a big fight.

With regards to the scanning part of the game, I found that having to rescan everything every time I died was a bit annoying. Sure, you don’t have to repeatedly rescan things, but if you want the counter at the save screen to show that you have unraveled a significant amount of the game, you will. For those with an obsessive desire to complete a game in its entirety, this particular aspect of Prime: Hunters may try your patience.

In terms of graphics, though Nintendo has repeatedly downplayed the capabilities of the DS, Prime Hunters boasts some pretty spectacular visuals, definitely some of the best available on the DS right now. The cinematic sequences, which often take up both screens, are stunning and actual game play, though occasionally grainy — and at times a little lagged out — is pretty impressive.

Published by Nintendo
Developed by Nintendo

By Curtis Westman

The story has always been simple but engrossing: Princess Zelda has been kidnapped by the evil Ganondorf, and it’s up to a young boy named Link to save her. This scenario has repeated itself over and over. But after twenty years and a dozen games later, the series remains in high demand.

It has now been over two months since The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was simultaneously released with the Wii launch that compounded excitement and had everybody in the gaming community talking. Even though the game was released a month later on the Gamecube as well, news of highly touted Wii-exclusive control options created a substantial hype around the game that would finally let fans actually swing a sword as if in Link’s hands. But was it worth it?

At first glance, Twilight Princess is simply beautiful. Though graphically, the title is just a port from the Gamecube version, the Wii disc offers a true 16:9 widescreen output, much like the majority of DVD movies, which delivers the epic cinematic experience a Zelda game deserves.

One major thing that sets this new installment apart from previous titles is thatTwilight Princess is the first Zelda game in which Link does not start the game as a young boy, but rather as a teenager. Overall, this makes the tone much darker – and the storyline definitely cements this new direction. Rather than a quest to save the Princess and thus the world, Twilight Princess begins with the world already in ruin outside of Link’s quaint little village. After the children of the town are kidnapped by monsters, Link finds himself trapped in a dungeon in a strange world of darkness, and what’s worse, he’s been transformed into a wolf.

The gameplay is fairly varied as a result of the transformations between wolf and human, and new items that have never before been featured in the series make an appearance, adding to the sense of discovery that made The Legend of Zelda so intriguing in the beginning. The Wii controls are interesting, but feel much like an afterthought (unsurprisingly, because they were), and often it feels as if certain maneuvers would be much easier to perform by a button-press, and not a motion sensitive gesture. This might be a side effect of learning a new control system in general, though, because as the game progresses, it definitely becomes more instinctive.

As far as difficulty goes, this is standard Zelda fare. New gamers will have no problem getting used to the universe and game mechanics, and while the game will challenge them, it won’t be off-putting and frustrating. For experienced gamers, however, Twilight Princess rarely presents situations you’ll have to attempt more than once. That said, there are several side-quests and mini-games that will offer a more complete game play experience. Furthermore, the length of the story and the number of dungeons are enough to keep anyone occupied for quite a while – from start to finish, that is, around 40 hours of game play.

Overall, though there are some flaws in control and ease of play, this is definitely one of the best games of 2006, and undoubtedly the best Legend of Zelda game to date. It’ll be hard for Nintendo to top, but word has it that they’re already on the way to developing a truly native Wii Zelda. With any luck, they’ll continue to provide the kind of updates to the series that both hearken back to the mechanics of the original games and simultaneously innovate those mechanics, and the series will continue to sell out in stores all over the world.

Cat Power
With the Memphis Rhythm Band
at The Phoenix
Wednesday November 22nd, 2006

by Gabrielle Channon-Merritt

Truth be told, Chan Marshall might be the most awkward person on stage. She did a funny chicken-like dance when she was nervous, and kept apologizing for what an awful show she was doing that night at the Phoenix. She even admitted being frustrated from a lack of sex, and that she was PMS-ing hardcore, being four days from her period.

If it hadn’t been for Cat Power’s accompaniment, the Memphis Rhythm Band, she would’ve stopped halfway through each song, unsatisfied with her own playing. This 10-piece backing group – including vocals, piano, sax, trumpet, and violin, among other things – helped record singer/songwriter Chan Marshall’s stunning new album, The Greatest, and kept her on track during the 2006 promotional tour.

After being introduced by the big, ballsy backup singer, Marshall climbed onstage to the opening riff of the album’s title song. I was worried that the concert would sound just like the album, but happily, the songs were quite different. The band even helped with an a capella version of “Where is My Love.” The lead guitarist seemed inebriated and over-powered everyone, but the musicians still had fun. Unfortunately, Toronto just isn’t the right place to hold a blues show; the audience seemed to enjoy Cat Power’s performance, but no one danced.

When Marshall wasn’t performing solo on both guitar and piano, she put a touch of twang into her smooth, lilting voice, getting back to her southern-blues roots. The performance was a clear example of Marshall’s free and improvisatory style on stage. She has nothing to hide, and really doesn’t care what anyone thinks anyway: she knows she can’t dance, and she doesn’t mind stopping one song to start another that she prefers instead. By the end of the night, she had lit a couple cigarettes and passed them to the front of the crowd. Despite ranting about how much she sucked, Marshall’s performance affirmed that she is, indeed, the greatest.