I’ve made no secret of my distaste for writing, and honestly, speaking, about music. I just don’t think I’m that good at it. What I am good at is listening to music. In 2012, I’ve thus far listened to over 80 albums, much to the chagrin of my fellow bloggers. As we approach our onslaught of end-of-the-year lists, I thought it would only be fair to go back a write at least something about the candidates for my list, in no particular order. There are going to be a lot of these, so I’ll keep them brief. P.S: I’ll embed a song from YouTube in each post, so you can sample each band.

Freelance Whales – Diluvia

In his review for The A.V. Club, Marc Hawthorne called Diluvia a “grower” – an album that took a few listens to really click for him. I did not have that experience at all, perhaps because this was the first Freelance Whales record I ever heard. It is a fun, super catchy little record, in the vein of Sufjan Stevens. The songs aren’t short, with most hitting at least the four minute mark, but it works because every song builds – and you know how much a love it when they do that.

Yeah, Freelance Whales is a pretty dumb thing to name your band. It’s the kind of name I’m embarrassed to say, for fear of getting douche shivers. But trust me, this is a really great album, the kind of which I am probably destined to enjoy. Such is the hipster burden, I guess.

Favorite Tracks: “Follow Through,” “Spitting Image,” “Dig Into Waves”

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I really liked Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. I was someone who did not really get into the books, and those movies came out at the perfect time for me to get really into them. But this whole Hobbit movie thing has always seemed like a bad idea. In part because I know how the prequel thing went for Star Wars, another beloved trilogy, and also because that was such a huge step for Jackson as a director, and I wanted him to go out there and do new things. I think he wanted to do something else too, but eventually he yielded to the call of the ring and returned, not for one prequel, but an entire prequel trilogy.

This makes very little sense, since The Hobbit is a shorter book than any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Honestly, it probably happened because Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games already got away with it. But this stretching out of adaptations is quickly becoming a real annoyance, and I hope this trend dies soon. A movie is a chance to change and enhance a story for a different medium, not literally depict every single page. Or, in the case of this movie, every single page, plus a bunch of stuff from The Return of the King‘s appendices, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and anything else tangentially related.

But here’s the thing, I still really like this material. The book of The Hobbit does not have any of the weight that the later books does. After all, that was a quest to save the world, this is a quest to reclaim a mountain full of treasure. It was only in retrospect that author J.R.R. Tolkien embellished the connection between the two stories. Jackson has the luxury of that knowledge, and embellishes that which was only hinted at to make this not only the story of Bilbo’s adventure, but of Gandalf and a few other familiar faces coming to recognize the threat of Sauron’s return.

Of course, that’s only where I think it’s going. Once again, this is only the first third of the story. If you’re not the kind of person who, for example, liked the extended editions, you’ll probably find this tedious. Singing and eating, extended flashbacks, a long vacation in Rivendell, these are all aspects of the movie to either look forward to or dread sitting though. Much of the action of The Hobbit book is saved for the two sequels, although you can at least look forward to a lengthy, wonderful version of the most famous chapter, “Riddles in the Dark.”

Andy Serkis’ Gollum looks really great here, a reminder that he was the first great entirely CG character when he appeared in The Two Towers a decade ago. Martin Freeman, a man who I am always a fan of, steps ably into Ian Holm’s hairy feet, bringing his trademark affability to ground the fantasy adventure. Ian McKellen is back as Gandalf and damn it, he’s still a champion in this role. As for the dwarves, there’s a lot of them. One thing you can say for this style of adapting a book: I never could remember most of the dwarves names in the book. I feel like I’ve got a shot by the time the third movie rolls around.

So that’s An Unexpected Journey. I hate to say it’s for fans only, but I kind of think it is. I tell you, I never planned on this being a saga I wanted to go on, but I guess I’m willing to take it. I guess you could say it’s an unexpected journey for all of us. You see what I did there?

[box type=”info”]Note: As much as it amuses me that people are using the same language describing The Hobbit‘s 48 fps presentation as I used to describe the weird motion interpolation effect on Nancy’s TV, I still want to give it a shot. Because despite it possibly looking like a British sitcom or a daytime soap opera, I think it’s an interesting new technology. I look at video games all the time at 60 fps and it doesn’t bother me, although I guess video games aren’t trying to look real, like a movie does. Regardless, I saw the film at 24 fps in 2D, so I really cannot comment on how successful or not those technologies are used.[/box]

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs is a game that probably shouldn’t exist. A new studio called United Front Games was working on an open world action game that Activision thought looked profitable. So they decided to turn it into the third True Crime game, assuming that would make it more successful, even though the second True Crime game did not sell that well. Then, in 2011, Activision decided the game, which it was calling True Crime: Hong Kong, wasn’t good enough and straight up cancelled it – despite it being virtually finished. In a fortunate turn of events, Square Enix bought the game, renamed it Sleeping Dogs, and put it out about a year later. It’s a somewhat typical industry story, with a very atypical ending. But is Sleeping Dogs good enough to be so blessed?

Imagine Grand Theft Auto set in Hong Kong with the hand-to-hand combat from Arkham Asylum or Assassin’s Creed II. That’s Sleeping Dogs, a game that draws inspiration from a bunch of great games, but brings very little innovation to the table. The story is not as good as Grand Theft Auto IV‘s and the combat is not as fun and Arkham City, but everything is executed well enough that the sum is greater than the individual parts.

Wei Shen is back in Hong Kong after living to San Francisco for many years. After getting busted and thrown into jail, he meets up with his old friend Jackie, who invites him to get involved in his triad, the Son On Yee. Wei takes him up on the offer, but not before meeting with someone else – his boss from Interpol. That’s right, he’s an undercover cop, working to infiltrate and hopefully bring down the whole gang. But, like all undercover cops, as time goes on, Wei becomes conflicted, and his rise in the triad begins to make it hard to tell which side he is really on. Not an amazing story, but a fun enough one, with some solid characters and enough nods to Hong Kong cinema that I can get behind it.

The cast is also worth talking about, I guess. It was a big part of the advertising. The biggest names are Emma Stone, Lucy Liu and Tom Wilkinson. Emma Stone and Lucy Liu both play potential girlfriends, and only show up in a couple brief side missions. Tom Wilkinson plays your Interpol boss, so you see him a few times over the course of the game, but don’t spend that much time with him, because of the whole undercover thing. Of course James Hong is in here too, Hong-ing it up. There are a few other recognizable actors, and generally the performances are strong. The voice of Wei will be playing Silver Samurai in the new Wolverine movie.

When you’re not going though the story, of course there’s plenty to do. There are people looking for help, races to win, dates to go on, and drug dealers to bust, to name a few. Plus, there are tons of collectibles, some of which help you level up a bunch of different meters: one for being a cop, one for being a thug, one for being a martial artist, one for helping people, and one for visiting shrines. Each of them gives you bonuses as you go, and its worth it to work on all of them.

You’ll spend a lot of time fighting and driving, and Sleeping Dogs does it better than most open world games. Driving feels fairly loose, but its pretty fun, especially because its Hong Kong, with its cramped roads and bright neon lights everywhere. Hand-to-hand combat relies on counters, you’ll often be fighting large groups on enemies who attack you one at a time, because they’re dumb. But there’s also a combo system and environmental obstacles which can be used for devastating finishers. For a cop, I sure did slam a lot of people’s heads with car doors. There’s gunplay too, which isn’t as good, since apparently no open world game can have great gun combat.

I’ve never been to Hong Kong, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot bigger than what’s in this game. But what is lost in sheer size is made up for in variety, and beauty. I played this game on PC, and at least there, it looked damn good. With all the lights, on a rainy day with wet pavement, I’d say this is one of the best looking games this year. And as far a size is concerned, the world is plenty big enough, I still found myself taking taxis because my next objective was too far away for me to want to drive, especially toward the end of the story. Speaking of objectives, pressing down the left stick lets you choose between destinations on the fly. This is good, more games should do this.

For a game that Activision called “just not good enough,” Sleeping Dogs seems pretty good. I mean, it’s not Saints Row The Third, but it’s a totally solid experience, with a few moments of greatness. In fact, if the goofiness of Saints Row was too much for you, I’d definitely say this is the game that could hold you over until GTA V comes out next year. So good on your Square Enix, for keeping the dream alive.

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Truly innovated games are going to be imitated, it comes with the territory. When a game does something new and fun, it’s going to catch on. If it’s truly great, it can even grow into its own genre. That’s why we have first person shooters today, not “Doom clones.” That’s why tower defense games became on of the first really popular genres of smartphone games. That’s why there are so many MOBA games coming out, or as they used to be called “DOTA style.” Which is all a whole lot of words to say that Sony tried to make their own Smash Bros. There, I said it. Let’s move on.

Real talk: what’s the first thing everyone asked about each Super Smash Bros. game? “Who’s in it?” Nintendo has done a really good job bringing together a solid cast of characters – a nice mix of the super stars and a few cult favorites. The biggest problem with PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is that it feels like Sony really struggled to assemble its roster. It seems inherent to the game: Sony has always relied on third party franchises, they don’t have a first party stable anything like Nintendo. Crash Bandicoot, Cloud, Spyro, Lara Croft – these are characters deeply connected to the PlayStation legacy, and I’m sure Sony tried to get them, but they’re not here. It’s disappointing. What we do have is a cast of 20 characters… Which includes Cole from InFamous twice.

Some of the choices are good – Nathan Drake, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter. Some of them are quirky – Fat Princess, PaRappa the Rapper, Sir Daniel from MediEvil. Some are weird – Big Daddy from BioShock, a game that came out a year later than 360 and PC on the PS3. In fact, BioShock Infinite is repping pretty hard in this game, which feels strange since A: it’s not out yet and B: it’s not in any way a Sony-exclusive. Similarly, the Dante included in this game is from the new DmC game, also not yet out, and I certainly wouldn’t call this version an “all-star.” In fact, if this game simply aspired to be a collection of the great characters of PlayStation’s history, I think I’d have to call it somewhat of a failure.

Of course, this isn’t simply a Pokemon-esque, gotta catch ’em all scenario. You can have all the characters in the world and it wouldn’t matter if your game wasn’t fun. PlayStation All-Stars wants to be more of a fighter than Smash Bros, it’s fighting system feels deeper than that game. Instead of health bars, like most fighters, or ring-outs, like Smash Bros, this game relies entirely on a supers mechanic. Hitting other characters doesn’t damage them, it raises your meter. When it’s full, you can unleash a devastating attack that gives you two points for every kill and takes a point away from your victims. You can fill your meter up three levels, each one unlocking a more powerful attack. A level one might be a simple one-hit attack, while a level-three could blow up the entire screen. It sounds like a crazy idea, but it works pretty well, and at the very least, PlayStation All-Stars is very fun in a four player setting.

What isn’t very fun is the game’s UI. I don’t usually bring up my chosen profession in these game reviews, but shit man, this is not good. During gameplay, everyone’s score is hidden. You literally have no idea how close a match is until it’s over. The menus waste enormous amounts of screen real estate and many features are weird and hard to discern. Come on guys, get it together.

Outside of multiplayer, there are a couple single player modes. There’s training and a challenge mode for you to hone your skills. There’s an arcade mode that can’t hold a candle to the single player story in Brawl. There is a cinematic that plays before the first match, and another after the final boss. These are all still frames with voice over. More interesting, there’s a rival battle before the boss fight, where your character and another yell at each other a little bit before the fighting begins. I liked this idea, and wished it was played up more in the game.

But Sony isn’t trying to make the ultimate fan service game, like Nintendo does. Sony is trying to make a fun fighting game, starring familiar characters. And they’ve succeeded. The problem is, if you’re going to make a game that so obviously draws inspiration from one other game, you’ve got to live up to it. And right now, this doesn’t. At least, this being a Sony game, DLC is a viable option here. Already there are rumors of Crash and Spyro showing up in the future. I’d love to see PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale grow into the game it is in my head.