UNDER CONSTRUCTION…

Excuse the mess.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II…

With the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops has traditionally featured stronger campaigns than Modern Warfare, but has received flak for weaker multiplayer options. Black Ops II continues to deliver engaging storytelling—with a great villain with whom we empathize, but still hate—but the welcome surprise is a robust multiplayer experience. The campaign weaves gamers between the late-1980s and 2025 and stands as a prime example of developers pushing the limits of current-gen console hardware to deliver excellent graphics—though at this point it must feel like wringing blood from a stone. There are also optional real-time-strategy/first-person-shooter mashup missions that are incredibly fun and alter the story. Taking a few cues from Modern Warfare and running with them, the multiplayer features league play, various new game modes, unlockable emblem and gamer-card customizations, and—most important—some amazing maps. Almost every map exceeds expectations, but “Hijacked” is poised to become a longtime favorite. The perfect mix of close quarters and mid- and long-range combat options make it a crowd pleaser with great versatility. Watch out, Modern Warfare, Black Ops just grabbed a flak jacket and has you in its sights.

Red…

In the six years since her debut album, Taylor Swift has come across as a country Cinderella with the wrath of a Southern belle and the humor of a liberal-arts geek. Over time, we’ve seen some of the honeysuckle twang drip away, but Swift continues to honor both the glass slipper and the Sharpie’d Converse sides of her personality. Red begins with “State of Grace,” a perfect stadium-show opener that pumps you up but doesn’t leave you exhausted for what’s to come. Heading down home, “Sad Beautiful Tragic” seems born from the creative saviors that are moonlight, a half-empty bottle, and raindrops on the window. While “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” acts as the album’s big breakup song, it fulfills a more critical role—one it shares with “22”—as the unselfconsciously silly song you belt out only among friends who really know you. More important, these songs humanize a wonderful album and serve as reminders that Swift earned the fulfillment of her dream and wasn’t born with a silver guitar in her hands. The album opens with the pop princess and closes with the country girl-next-door’s “Begin Again,” a song about the hope and promise of letting your guard down to love again—a softly inspiring reminder we all need to hear from time to time.

Borderlands 2…

Ignore any skags who insist less is more. More is more, and this sequel to the 2009 surprise hit proves just that. A new group of Vault Hunters is at your command to foil Handsome Jack’s evil plan, but the real appeal—once again—is the unrestrained humor and outrageous guns. Gun manufacturers now feel and look more distinct from each other. Some guns sport increased fire rate and others explode like a grenade upon reload. The RPG elements remain with a few new twists such as Badass Points (global buffs for completing objectives) and character skin and head customizations. The combat is tried and true, but we get to topple more building-size monsters, which gives boss battles an epic oomph. While the overall story is bland—though better than the first—the towns and quests are overflowing with sexist, homicidal and perverted characters, and quests that drive us to kill while murdering our funny bone. Unlike any other game out there, the unapologetic humor and distinct visual style creates an over-the-top adventure that fuels replayability not with filler objectives but with a desire to let loose continually in a world that is as inappropriately crass as we all love to be sometimes.

Havoc and Bright Lights…

For me, Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill was the right music at the right time—an album that will be forever flawless in my mind. Nothing else has ever matched those first few notes of “All I Really Want.” After seven years of holding out hope for lightning striking twice, Havoc and Bright Lights has found its way into my rotation, and though it’s not lightning, there are some serious sparks. Morissette seems to have found the middle ground between the angst of Jagged Little Pill and the spiritual mundanity of its follow-up, 1998’s Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. There’s enough raw discomfort in “Woman Down” (great crescendos!) and “Lens” to balance out the retrospective and almost too-personal “Win and Win” and “Receive.” “Celebrity” is a perfect example of the melting pot that is her style, with its touch of Bollywood sound mixed with almost-screeching vocals and a mellow but poignant discourse that punches home the story of its title. In many ways, it seems that this album would have served as a great bridge between Jagged and Junkie, as it introduces the dominant sound in the latter while appeasing fans with a touch of the former. Regardless, Morissette always creates unique sound filled with honesty, and this album is no exception.

Zombicide…

Before sparkling vampires and their diaries hypnotized us, you couldn’t swing a chainsaw without hitting a zombie in pop culture. For people who miss those days, Zombicide is a collaborative board game that allows one to six players to fight for survival using classic zombie-shredding weapons such as axe, shotgun and Molotov cocktail. The heroes and zombie archetypes—Walker, Runner, Fatty and Abomination—have special skills, and it’s a credit to the game mechanics and detailed miniatures (created by CoolMiniOrNot) that they all feel unique and valuable. As players rack up kills, they gain levels and new skills, but with higher levels come more zombies. At first, a few trickle through the streets but soon dozens block every path. One misstep and the punishment is merciless. Don’t be surprised if each game features an “Oh, crap” moment of realization that no matter what you do, things just got bad. Real bad. Oddly, the rulebook has more than a few typos, but it’s a minor blemish on a game that embodies the horror, hopelessness and guiltless zombie slaughter found in our favorite walking-dead films. With Guillotine Games and the online community already supporting complimentary smartphone apps and a map editor, Zombicide has brought the undead back to life…again.

Botanicula

Video games overflowing with explosives, T ’n’ A, and action get a gamers’ adrenaline pumping and their hands sweating. But the point-and-click adventure Botanicula is more like a vacation on a tropical island. It’s a relaxing and rejuvenating game that reminds us what life—and games—can be like without the sensory bombardment. Set in a breathtaking mystical woodland, players control five forest friends who solve puzzles to help their fellow creatures while outsmarting a growing threat. From the art direction and sound effects to the creature design and puzzles, everything has a sprinkling of natural magic—reminiscent of what you might see in a Hayao Miyazaki film. There is no dialogue here, so exploration is the key. The creatures, situations and music that you encounter along the way are often hilarious, and you find yourself revisiting completed puzzles as you would an old friend. Botanicula is an imaginative, challenging, adorable and accessible game that dares to strip away the violence and excess. In doing so, it becomes a game that not only benefits our mind and soul, but our blood pressure as well.

Adventure Time – Complete First Season…

Come along with Jake the Dog and Finn the Human, two adventurers saving princesses and battling monsters in the Land of Ooo. Simultaneously intelligent and juvenile (the lonely, but pervy, Ice King looking for love ends up kissing Jake’s butt because he thinks it’s a princess), the show thrives off random hilarity. From the characters and one-liners to the battle cries—“Algebraic!”—and mature, but appropriately handled content, Adventure Time is one of the best animated shows on the air. Beyond the humor, Adventure Time recalls an era when nobility, honor and adventure were all a boy required. This King Arthur and Huck Finn mentality is refreshingly simple and pure. The Land of Ooo is a place where boys can be boys and girls can kick butt, be a princess, or rock out as a Vampire Queen. Some may accuse it of advocating violence or reinforcing gender stereotypes, but at its core, Adventure Time is about people trying to enjoy life and do the right thing. And to all those naysayers? As Jake might say, they have “poo brain.”

“Weird Al” of hip-hop?…

When Turquoise Jeep came ridin’ into Sacramento on Thursday, August 30, many still questioned whether it was all a big joke. Even after 9 million YouTube hits for the band’s most popular song, “Lemme Smang It,” it’s still unclear whether the over-the-top hip-hop artists planted their tongues in cheeks before taking the stage at Ace of Spades.

Amid big beats and bigger dance moves, a couple hundred fans freaked on the dance floor, but even in the presence of the band, many seemed to be unsure if they were there for the music or the punch line.

Turquoise Jeep, whose members include Flynt Flossy, Whatchyamacallit, Yung Humma, Pretty Raheem, Slick Mahony and Tummiscratch, takes the oddities of rap and turns them up to 11. With gimmicks such as Flossy’s Groucho-like mustache and Yung Humma’s incorporation of the oh-too-familiar moan-hum of hip-hop into his name—“Mmm, Yung Humma”—as well as physics-defying dance moves and their songs’ sexual subject matter, everything they do is taken to silly extremes. Turquoise Jeep is just one stop short of becoming the Weird Al Yankovic of the hip-hop world.

The band’s music videos are low-budget, green-screen dance fests that aim to further prove that any innuendos within its lyrics are so thinly concealed as to no longer classify as innuendos. “Cavities” is a between-the-sheets slow jam that is not about proper dental hygiene. Lyrics such as, “You’ve got that chocolate fever / Feigning for a Hershey dose / I got that remedy / An ounce of me / So open up wide for these cavities,” offer the oral proof of innuendo, but the video also features a close-up shot of a pair of bikini-clad breasts as the lady runs a Hershey bar between her cleavage—don’t forget that T.J. is so sexually proficient, it had to invent a new word for its style of lovemaking, smang: it’s a smash and bang fusion.

While the Jeep may be flamboyant and flashy to the point of absurdity, it’s still completely believable in the current world of hip-hop and rap. So, in the end, we’re left to question whether its music is satire or just the natural peak of hip-hop’s current hypersexual hyperbole.

Still, all of this would be intellectual masturbation if their music, well, sucked. The Ace of Spades show proved that Turquoise Jeep could blow the roof off of a club. Taking the “it’s true ’cause we say it is” approach, the members of T.J. act like high-budget mega superstars and sex symbols, and the crowd gladly plays along, because they sell it so well.

Even if T.J. is parodying its genre, it’s putting out music with better beats and hooks and more intelligent lyrics than Lil Wayne and the clones that flood the market. If a few of the opening acts at Ace of Spades that night were any indication—one group was so incomprehensible, it was almost laughed off of the stage—Turquoise Jeep are the rappers that the world needs. Such opulent absurdity seems the perfect vessel to satirize the often outlandish hip-hop atmosphere, but who cares?

In the end, we all just love to dance. “Clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, snap,” indeed.

Dungeon Fighter Online…

A chaotic, unpolished mess, this free-to-play title with cosmetic microtransactions (you pay for character extras) offers almost everything that MMO, RPG, and beat-em-up fans would ever want. Unfortunately, Dungeon Fighters Online spreads itself so thin that it fails to do any of them expertly. The professions are confusing and unnecessary; the soundtrack is a weird mix of anime and ’80s sitcoms; the costumes border on copyright infringement; and the user interface is overly crowded—your inventory screen alone has five tabs. Dungeon Fighter Online succeeds in spite of these flaws for one reason: It is very, very fun. Gamers can play as a gatling-gun–wielding schoolgirl, a slayer with a sword three times his size, or a mage who commands the elements. Each character can create explosive combos that wipe out waves of baddies with apocalyptic precision, and it’s this visceral delight that makes it one of the best free-to-play games on the market. It’s a gamer’s wet dream. There may not be a lot of depth and substance to Dungeon Fighters Online, but damn it if you don’t wake up wanting more.