This Week in the Media

Boom Blox:

Boom Blox is a game made for Nintendo’s Wii by Steven Spielberg and Electronic Arts. It is a puzzle game that involves the player knocking over, pulling, sliding, colliding, and blowing up blocks. There are hundreds of puzzles to solve by yourself and many games to play with friends, such as shooting games and a Jenga-like mode. There is also a creation mode where you can build your own puzzles.

Puzzle games are one of my favorite genres of games. That may make me a nerd, but when they’re good, puzzle games can be addictive and lots of fun. And Boom Blox is a good puzzle game. The Single player mode is a lot of fun, mostly thanks to the motion controls of the Wii. The motions to move a block or tile mimics the motion you'd use in real life very well. The game simple and enjoyable, a lot like Tetris. The best part of the game is the Jenga multiple player mode. I have been playing it with my room mate most nights since we got it, and it’s exciting to see who’ll mess up first and make the structure crash. It's as exciting as Jenga is, at least. Bonus note- It makes a fun drinking game, too.

The game is good, but it costs $50, and I can’t endorse that price tag for a puzzle game. It probably cost so much because Speilberg’s name is attached to it. If you’re interested in it, either rent it or wait for it to go down in price.

Choke:

Choke is a 2001 novel written by Chuck Palahniuk, who is also the author of Fight Club. It is about a man named Victor Mancini who purposefully chokes on food in restaurants in order to con the person who saves his life out of money. Victor does this because he works at a terrible minimum wage job and needs the money to keep his mom in the nursing home she is in. Also, Victor is a sex addict. I’d go deeper but I don’t want to give out spoilers just in case somebody reads this and wants to check out the book.

I never read any other books by Palahniuk, but this one hasn’t made a fan out of me. It isn’t bad, though. The story is interesting enough, although I have a slight phobia of nursing homes which made it hard to read at times. Victor being a sex addict and knowing other sex addicts added a lot of interesting material, but in the long run I just didn’t like it.

I don’t like Palahniuk’s writing style. He spends the first chapter telling the reader not to read the book. That’s a unique way of starting off a book, true, but I don’t like being toyed with. If you tell me not to read your book, odds are I won’t. Reverse psychology is dangerous that way. Also, he repeats a lot of things. Stale isn’t the right word, but it’s the first that comes to mind.

Palahniuk was a very popular author amongst my friends, so I guess I was just expecting something more. But like I said, it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t my style.

Season 1 of Burn Notice:

Burn Notice is a new show on the USA network. I have a long history with USA, and it’s a good history. The War Next Door, a show about Kennedy Smith, a super secret agent who just wants to retire, becomes next door neighbors with his seemingly indestructible nemesis, Kriegman, debuted on the USA network. It was a fun show, but only lasted 13 episodes. As a side note, it was made by the people who created The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Also, USA brought me Monk and Psych, both shows I like a lot. Especially Monk. I watched that show religiously for a while. But anyway, on with Burn Notice.

Burn Notice is about spy Michael Westen who gets fired for an unknown reason. The government virtually banishes him to Miami to start a new life, but Westen wants to know why he was fired. The show is good. It has a great blend of action, intrigue, and comedy. The writing is smart and the actors were well chosen my favorite casting job being Bruce Campbell as the lush best friend. The first season is over, but the second will premiere on July 10, 2008.

World War Hulk:

World War Hulk is a Marvel comic book miniseries that takes place after Planet Hulk. In Planet Hulk, the Hulk was sent against his will to an alien planet where he could live in peace without injuring anybody on Earth. The planet turned out to be ruled by an evil King, and the Hulk led a revolution against him. Once the revolution was won, Hulk was crowned the king and married his love interest. But then the spacecraft Hulk was sent on exploded, killing Hulk’s wife and unborn child. The Hulk suspects the spacecraft was detonated by the people who sent him to the planet, the Illuminati. The Illuminati is made up of some of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe, such as Professor X, Blackbolt, Iron Man, Reed Richards, Namor, and Dr. Strange. Enraged more than ever before, the Hulk decides to come back to Earth to get revenge on the ones who did this.

I really liked the story line of the miniseries, and the writing was good enough. It wasn’t the same caliber of the Civil War miniseries, but it was above average. There were plenty of good fights, culminating in the fight between the Hulk and the Sentry. The art was different from what I was expecting, but still good. It was just cartoonier than I was expecting. Overall, if you are in the need of a comic book miniseries, this is as good as any other.