Never Too Old To Play™

Despite what you may think from looking at the cover art for any of the several DVD or Blu-ray releases of this film, The Princess Bride is at its core a romantic comedy. To those hoping and expecting a swashbuckling fantasy adventure and especially to those who, after reading my previous sentence, dread yet another cheesy lovefest typically driven by some pairing of Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Katherine Heigl, Hugh Grant, or one of the three rom-com Jennifers (Aniston, Garner and Lopez), I say, “Fear not!”

The Princess Bride isn’t your typical romantic comedy. Yes, there’s a guy and a girl who end up together at the end of the movie, but they’re together almost from the very start. Yes, there’s comedy, but it’s the subtle, smart type of comedy that’s typical of director Rob Reiner’s work and doesn’t really have anything to do with the romance itself.

The star-crossed lovers don’t dance around the elephant in the room for the better part of an hour and a half or bumble through relationship after relationship until they realize that they were actually meant to be with the person who only an hour earlier in the film disgusted them.

You see, The Princess Bride is about that rare true love you rarely find in the real world and usually only read about in fairy tales, and the swashbuckling fantasy adventures a young farmhand must go through in order to be reunited with the beautiful young maiden with whom he shares an eternal and unbreakable bond.

This tale of princesses, pirates, giants, geniuses, swordsmen, and scoundrels is told by a grandfather, played by Peter Falk (television’s Columbo), to his sick grandson, played by The Wonder Years’ Fred Savage, who is initially resistant to listening to a fairy tale, let alone a romantic one.

The story centers on the love between a young boy named Westley (Cary Elwes in the role that introduced him to American audiences) who works on a farm and Buttercup, the daughter of the owner of that farm (Robin Wright, who was most famous for this role until she played Jenny in Forrest Gump).

Westley joins the crew of a merchant ship in order to make the money necessary for them to marry but is reportedly killed in an attack by the Dread Pirate Roberts, leaving a devastated Buttercup vulnerable to the advances of the arrogant Prince Humperdinck (Academy Award nominee Chris Sarandon).

When Buttercup is kidnapped by three thieves for hire, the Dread Pirate Roberts gives chase, apparently looking to claim the ransom for himself. Obviously, things aren’t what they seem, but I won’t spoil any of the revelations here as the clever story is part of what makes this movie so entertaining.

The Princess Bride features quite a diverse cast of actors who you normally wouldn’t associate with a fantasy adventure but seem to be quite at home in a comedy. The two most well known members of the cast have relatively small parts: the late professional wrestler André the Giant plays the kind-hearted Fezzik, one of the three kidnappers who possess incredible strength and has a penchant for rhyming, and famed comedian Billy Crystal plays Miracle Max, a former employee of Prince Humperdinck’s who provides a chocolate-coated pill that resurrects a “mostly dead” Westley and pines for “a nice MLT – mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe.”

Veteran comedic actor Christopher Guest makes his first notable appearance in a mainstream feature film (he earlier appeared in a much bigger role in the cult classic “rockumentary” This is Spin̈al Tap as lead guitarist of fictional British rock band Spin̈al Tap) in The Princess Bride as the villainous Count Rugen, the chief advisor of Prince Humperdinck, who has a morbid fascination with pain and suffering and is actually “writing the definitive work on the subject.”

Wallace Shawn, another veteran comedic character actor known to most people as the voice of the insecure Rex in Disney’s Toy Story films, plays Vizzini, the Sicilian leader of the trio of kidnappers who is the brains of the group, boasting a genius-level intellect and a knack for complex strategy. He is the physically least imposing member of the group but belies that with his huge ego and condescending attitude.

Rounding out that group is Inigo Montoya, a highly skilled Spanish swordsman on a quest for revenge against the six-fingered man who murdered his father, a prominent sword maker. Inigo provides the most quoted line from the film: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

Inigo is portrayed by stage and screen actor Mandy Patinkin, most recently seen in television series Criminal Minds but most famous for critically acclaimed Broadway performanices – he won a Tony Award for originating the role of Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita on Broadway, was nominated for another for playing the title character in Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, and won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on television’s Chicago Hope.

Inigo has the most depth of any character on the cast, with a developed backstory (unlike every other character in the movie) and a very defined sense of purpose. Despite his status as a secondary character to Westley’s hero role, I was naturally drawn to his character more than to Westley’s and ended up rooting more for him to finally exact justice upon his father’s killer than for Westley’s to rescue Buttercup. His desire to avenge his father’s death is every bit as compelling as Westley’s quest to be reunited with his true love. Patinkin turns in far and away the most memorable performance in the film.

The Princess Bride is at its core a heart-warming, feel good love story that has enough fairy tale fantasy and adventure to thrill youngsters and plenty of subtle, satirical humor to keep the adults chuckling to themselves throughout. Mix in wildly entertaining supporting characters, a noble quest for justice and a strengthening bond between a cynical child and his kindly grandfather, and you have the ingredients for a classic that you and your family can enjoy time and again.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Experience this for yourself!

• The Princess Bride (20th Anniversary Edition) DVD (Amazon)
• The Princess Bride Blu-ray (Amazon)

What do you get when you combine cutting edge graphics technology, well-designed platform gameplay, production values so high they blur the lines between video game and cinema, and a story line that rivals the most recent big screen adventure of a certain fedora-wearing, whip-wielding archaeologist?

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is easily one of the best games available on the PlayStation 3, rivaled only by its recently released sequel, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. For that matter, it’s one of the best games for any platform – console, handheld and PC – of the past several years. The PlayStation 3 might as well not have existed prior to Uncharted’s November 2007 launch date as the game was the first really solid title for the system, the one that truly declared the arrival of Sony’s console.

In Uncharted, you take on the role of one Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter archaeologist type who is searching for El Dorado, the fabled city of gold, with a diary written by his ancestor Sir Francis Drake, famed sea captain, privateer and pirate. With the help of journalist Elena Fisher, along for the ride to gather notes and film footage for a documentary, and your old friend Victor “Sully” Sullivan, you explore thick jungle, enemy base camps, hidden caves, and ancient ruins all the while fighting off pirates and soldiers on your quest to discover the lost city.

As you can probably surmise from my brief overview of the game, Uncharted offers a mix of shooter and platform gameplay as Drake puts his climbing, jumping, swinging, fighting, and shooting skills to the test against the various obstacles in his way.

In this sense, the game feels like a superior version of the Tomb Raider series of games with Drake navigating along edges, jumping across chasms or pillars, and otherwise exploring beautifully rendered environments.

When combat comes into play, you have the option of taking cover behind whatever objects are in the immediate vicinity. Actually, it’s more a necessity than an option since Drake isn’t a heavily armored, genetically enhanced super soldier in green armor and, when you think about it, even Fenix, Dom, Cole Train and Baird in their heavy armor can’t stand out in the open in the middle of combat for very long – all Drake has is a half tucked-in shirt!

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Uncharted is the exquisite graphics which are more advanced than those of any other console game this generation with the exception of the Uncharted 2. The impressive amount of detail and clarity in the environments, the high-resolution textures plastered across walls and objects, and the layers of animation used to create realistic facial expressions and more fluid motion amount to a veritable bonanza of eye candy like none seen before in any console game.

The high-quality visual experience you get in this game is absolutely mind-blowing and is one of the only real examples of what’s possible when a developer harnesses the potential of the PlayStation 3′s Cell processor. We’re not talking extreme close-ups on a character in a cutscene made possible by diverting resources away from the environments, physics, artificial intelligence, etc. as in a game like Heavenly Sword but organic water effects, natural movement of foliage, and lush and vibrant environments that you’re actually moving around in while you’re playing the game. This is what the PlayStation 3 is all about.

Of course, the best graphics in the world can only take a game so far. Without an entertaining story with well written dialogue and a solid plot, even the best-looking game can fall flat. Thankfully, Uncharted’s story is exactly what we need more of in the video game industry. Granted, it’s not an epic space opera like Mass Effect’s or a sophisticated dystopian tale of the downfall of man like BioShock’s, but it is an action-packed, light-hearted, fun adventure that would have made a better Indiana Jones movie than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (and, incidentally, is being adapted into a film right now by Columbia Pictures under the guidance of Avi Arad, former CEO of Toy Biz and head of Marvel Studios).

Unfortunately, the game is a bit short, leaving players wanting for much more by the time the credits roll. A decent gamer could probably get through the game on the standard difficulty level in seven or eight hours assuming a little time for trial and error as well as taking in the sights. A good gamer could probably burn through the campaign in five or six hours. Add to that the fact that there is very little replay value with no multiplayer modes – subsequent jaunts through the game are really only useful for collecting arbitrary hidden treasures which can unlock alternate costumes, making-of videos and concept art.

Nevertheless, the relatively short time you’ll spend in the South American jungles searching for the riches hidden in El Dorado will be some of the most entertaining you’ll have playing a video game this generation. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is one of the few masterpieces of recent times with all the necessary ingredients for a near-perfect debut of a soon-to-be classic video game franchise.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

The gunplay and a possibly scary development in the last part of the game probably makes this game unsuitable for young children, but there’s really no reason to not let kids who are at least in the tail end of elementary school play this game. Uncharted is essentially a video game version of an Indiana Jones movie with a fun, adventurous vibe.

Experience this for yourself!

• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PlayStation 3 Greatest Hits) (Amazon)
• PlayStation 3 160GB Uncharted Bundle (Amazon)

I purchased F.E.A.R. about two years ago and only just finished the game last night. Much of that two-year period was taken up by a lull in which I had absolutely no interest in playing the game and could find no motivation to complete what I had started. This is a testament to just how disappointed I was, especially considering how excited I was when I first heard about the game almost five years ago (when it was first announced as a PC game).

I went in with high expectations because of both high praise for the game from many video game publications and my respect for Monolith Productions, a previously independent company now owned by Warner Bros. that developed some of my favorite PC games of all time – The Operative: No One Lives Forever and its sequel, Aliens versus Predator 2 and Tron 2.0 - and one of my favorite Xbox 360 launch titles, Condemned: Criminal Origins.

F.E.A.R. sounded, from its description, like a supernatural horror-themed first-person shooter, which got me excited for the game since the first-person shooter genre is my favorite gaming genre and I’m a devoted horror fan. Unfortunately, the game is only a moderately good first-person shooter and, aside from a few cheap “startle” scares and some admittedly decent atmospheric work laid out in the first few levels, decidedly not scary.

Sure, you’re treated to some weird ghost-like beings a few times in the game, and you get to see the somewhat creepy Alma, a demonic girl who seems like some twisted cross between the title character in Stephen King’s Carrie and Kayako from the Ju-on series of Japanese horror films (adapted in the U.S. as The Grudge), every once in a while, but for the most part, you’re just running around dark office buildings, dark sewers, dark streets, dark warehouses, and dark research labs shooting very human adversaries.

At least the enemies are a little smarter than your run-of-the-mill video game cannon fodder – they’ll actually take cover, toss grenades at you from behind obstructions and try to flank you – but they’re still quite easy to handle even with the rudimentary sidearm thanks to your Matrix-style bullet time powers (which honestly you don’t even need most of the time).

Nevertheless, the game is, for the most part, a cake walk. I never once felt like I was in any real danger of getting killed (although I did die a few times during the game due to some stupid decisions) nor did I ever feel compelled to use much strategy or take cover – I pretty much just used run-and-gun tactics the whole time (save for a few fights with rather large armed robot sentries).

I could have forgiven the somewhat easy difficulty and loose controls if the game had nice visuals to look at, but unfortunately the game is fairly ugly. The graphics technology looks very dated, and I couldn’t imagine it looking comparable even to its contemporaries in the PC gaming world at the time of its original release. It seemed like the game used the same version of the proprietary Lithtech game engine as my preferred Monolith PC games, the latest of which came out in 2002, although in actuality it used the same version that powered the Condemned series of games.

F.E.A.R. offers standard multiplayer modes such as deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag in addition to variant modes that allow one player to grab, carry and use a power up that gives them (and their teammates in team-based modes) the slow motion bullet time effect but highlights them for the enemy players.

I didn’t play much of the multiplayer mode so I can’t offer much of an objective opinion about it. It is heralded by many reviewers as one of the more fun multiplayer offerings out there (more so on the PC). Of course, the game itself also receives a lot of praise so make of that what you will.

Ultimately, F.E.A.R. is in my opinion a game not worth even a bargain price of $20 due to rather mediocre gameplay, timid levels of psychological horror despite its marketing and very dated graphics. There is little redeeming about the game, which is disappointing to this Monolith Productions fan. Spend your money on a better game.

Final score: 2 out of 5

Parent to parent

This is supernatural, psychological horror game involving ghosts, terrorists and human experimentation. Need I say more?

While I find the game not very scary, some of the imagery in psychic flashbacks that occur throughout the game could be disturbing to even adults let alone children and the creepy mood is more than enough to spook most children.

Further, you’re using pistols, shotguns and assault weapons to kill people who aren’t overtly evil (most just look like cops or soldiers in somewhat sci-fi-looking riot armor).

You should probably keep your children away from this one.

Experience this for yourself!

• F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon Platinum Hits (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon (PC) (Amazon)

There was quite a bit of controversy in the video game world right after Valve Corporation announced Left4Dead 2, the sequel to their award-winning, critically acclaimed blockbuster Left4Dead, at the 2009 E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) convention in June when a large group of gamers called for a boycott of the game due to concerns that the sequel was coming out too soon such that Valve would no longer support the first game, which was still played a lot online.

Some of the members of the boycott group felt that the additions and changes to the game as described in Valve’s announcement did not appear to be significant enough to warrant a brand new $60 game and thus inferred that Valve was simply trying to milk the young, less than one year old (at the time) franchise. Further, the fact that the release of a sequel inevitably leads to a decline in support for the earlier game(s) distressed Left4Dead fans who lamented that Valve was one of the last reputable game companies that still invested a lot of effort and resources into supporting their games.

As it turns out, the boycott was much ado about nothing as Valve released more downloadable content at the end of September, released a Left4Dead Authoring Toolset to allow gamers to create their own Left4Dead content (which would also be compatible with the sequel) earlier in the summer and proved even in the demo that they made a game worthy of being a standalone sequel instead of a downloadable expansion to the first game.

Left4Dead 2 improves on the amazing first game in almost every way with better visuals, new features and functionality, a new gameplay mode, and of course a slew of new Infected – both common and Special (plus the new uncommon Infected) – to lay waste to.

The most obvious new feature, in my mind, is the addition of melee weapons. This to me is a game changer as the ability to wield hand-to-hand combat utensils completely changes the way you approach the experience. There are a total of ten melee weapons although one, the baseball bat, is an exclusive pre-order bonus. The other nine are, in order of my least to most favorite to use on swarming zombies, the nightstick, the crowbar, the frying pan, the electric guitar, the cricket bat, the fireman’s axe, the machete, the katana, and my personal favorite the chainsaw, which has a limited amount of usage (it is gas-powered after all) but tears through crowds of Infected like a shark gnashing on a baby seal.

You can only carry one melee weapon at a time, of course, and it takes the place of your handgun(s). While I find the ability to rapidly pump an Infected full of bullets from a distance with dual-wielded pistols an asset at times (I tend to stick with a close-range shotgun as my main weapon), I much prefer to take out my enemies up close with a nice, shiny blade. It is, for some reason, more satisfying to slice through any army of enemies than it is to simply mow them down with a sub-machine gun or assault rifle. There’s also something strangely funny about hearing the clang of a cast iron skillet against the skull of an Infected – it helps to lighten the mood quite a bit. Plus, some of the melee weapons are surprisingly effective against the Special Infected.

In addition to melee weapons, Left4Dead 2 introduces a new set of firearms with which to trim the population of Infected humans. The same general classes of weapons are there but now there are more varieties of handguns, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles. True, many of them are just visual variations of the same weapon (I constantly switch between two automatic, rapid-fire shotguns that hold 10 shells at a time) but it’s still nice to see some variety. A whole new weapon, the grenade launcher, also makes its debut in this sequel, and it does just what you expect it to. I always grab it when the Director (the game’s artificial intelligence) decides to drop one in my way, but it’s not always the best weapon to use as it’s exceptionally easy to inflict friendly fire damage upon your allies and yourself. It’s still fun to make the Infected go boom, though.

There’s now a Magnum that can take the place of the standard handgun. It cannot be dual-wielded but it does considerably more damage – one-shot kills on common Infected. It only holds 8 rounds but if you’re accurate with your attacks, that’s more than enough. There’s even a new throwable weapon to join the Molotov cocktail and pipe bomb: the bile bomb, a tube of Boomer bile that contaminates an area and/or the Infected within it and causes other Infected to attack like when a Boomer vomits all over you. An especially useful tactic is to toss it at a Tank or Witch and let your enemies do your work for you.

Speaking of Special Infected, several new specimens join the Smoker, Hunter, Boomer, Tank, and Witch, all of which return in slightly varied (from a visual standpoint) form. The Spitter is a particularly nasty enemy that hurls acidic loogies at you. If you’re fast enough, you can get away from the area before the toxic spittle drains your health, but many times you’re in areas with little room for movement. The Charger is a larger-than-average Infected with one giant arm and one miniature arm that rams into players and repeatedly pummels the one it manages to grab a hold of. It’s essentially a “mini” version of the Tank. And last but not least, the Jockey is an extremely annoying Special Infected whose sole attack is to leap on your head and essentially ride you in directions you likely don’t want to go (for example, around in circles in a pool of the Spitter’s acid).

While the Smoker, Hunter, Tank and Boomer are largely unchanged from the first game’s versions as far as behavior and abilities go, the Witch is a little different in this game. Instead of just sitting around moping about whatever has it all worked up, the Left4Dead 2 Witch shuffles around slowly in a general area, making it somewhat more difficult to avoid. This is especially true in the “Hard Rain” campaign in which one level has about a dozen Witches wandering around throughout the level, some within close proximity of each other.

In addition to the new Special Infected, Left4Dead 2 introduces a new class of enemy known as uncommon Infected. These are essentially common Infected – they deal and take the same amount of damage as their more frequently seen counterparts – with specific attributes that make them a little tougher to deal with. For example, the Infected CEDA Worker wears a hazmat suit that protects it from the flames of a Molotov cocktail or ignited fuel canister (and makes an interesting hissing sound when punctured) while the Riot Infected’s riot armor protects it from bullets and melee attacks (it’s only vulnerable to melee attacks from behind).

Fighting all these new enemies are four brand new Survivor characters who are more developed than the Survivors from the first game. You never learn much about Francis, Bill, Zoey and Louis, who appear more flustered and panicked about their situation. This is perhaps appropriate considering the first game seems to take place at a time much closer to the outbreak of the infection.

In contrast, the second game seems to take place further along the timeline since the new Survivors show they know a lot more about what’s going on through their in-game and cutscene dialogue. Ellis, the youthful weapon-obsessed mechanic who loves telling tall tales about misadventures with his buddy Keith, especially seems a little too comfortable with the scenario, never coming across as scared or distressed about the fact that he’s being attacked by mobs of crazed humans (never mind being disturbed that he’s slaughtering fellow people).

He’s joined by Rochelle, a fiery young journalist with a proper Southern upbringing but no qualms about getting feisty when necessary; Nick, a vain and self-centered womanizer who isn’t cheap with sarcasm, complaints or insults; and Coach, a stocky football coach who looks kind of like Judge Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and is the de facto leader of the group, dispensing common sense and pep talks like candy out of a rotund purple Pez container.

The game is divided into five campaigns (compared to the original’s four) that take place across various parts of Louisiana. You start off in a burning hotel in the middle of a city and make your way across swamps and plantations to reach a final rendez-vous point with the military, who are bombing the entire area as a last resort preventative measure against the infection. As in the original game, progressing through these campaigns with three other players online is the way the game was intended to be played, but the developers included a few other fun modes to change things up.

Returning are the Versus mode, in which a second team of four players take control of random Special Infected in an attempt to wipe out the Survivors before they can reach the level’s safe house, and the Survival mode, in which four players fight as long as they can against a never-ending army of Infected. New to the series is the Scavenge mode, in which a team of four Survivors tries to collect fuel tanks scattered around a map and return them to a power generator to extend the time in the round while a team of four Special Infected tries to stop them or destroy the tanks.

As far as the graphics are concerned, Left4Dead 2 looks pretty good considering it uses the five-year-old Source game engine that powered Half-Life 2 in 2004. The graphics don’t hold a candle next to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, also released in November 2009, but appear better than Left4Dead’s thanks to more chapters taking place in the daylight where players can get a good look at the attention to detail in the environments and an improvement in the animation of the enemies as they advance, attack and react to damage.

Better yet, Valve improved the modeling of the Infected so that when they are hit by gunfire, not only do the appropriate pieces of their bodies fly off like in the first game but flesh tears open to reveal bone and guts underneath. Good times.

All in all, Left4Dead 2 is a marked improvement over its predecessor and an evolution in almost every aspect of the game. The rogues gallery has expanded with some nasty new additions to the Infected army, the new player characters are more fleshed out and entertaining to listen to, the environments are more beautifully rendered and creative in their design, the new functionality fits perfectly and makes it difficult to go back to the first game without feeling handcuffed by limitations, and the overall experience is significantly more immersive.

Valve Corporation should be applauded for their effort and lauded for the results, which are about as good as you can get without a whole new game engine (which I hope Valve will develop by the time the fourth Left4Dead game arrives on shelves in a couple of years as a truly next generation version of this series would be awesome).

If you’re a first-person shooter or action fan, there really is no reason why you shouldn’t have Left4Dead 2 in your game library.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

I didn’t recommend Left4Dead for young children and I won’t recommend Left4Dead 2, either. The sequel isn’t anymore kid-friendly than the first game and is, in fact, less appropriate for children as the gruesomeness of certain aspects of the experience is greater than before. Valve even had to create a less gory version of the game for the Australian market as the original version couldn’t get proper classification (and thus couldn’t be sold in Australia).

Experience this for yourself!

• Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Left 4 Dead 2 (PC) (Amazon)

The “zombie” sub-genre has been a popular one in entertainment, dating back to such classic horror films as George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (and the sequels he directed) and the loosely related The Return of the Living Dead.

These movies influenced video games like LucasArt’s campy and fun Zombies Ate My Neighbors for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, the House of the Dead series that ruled the arcades of the mid to late 90s and Capcom’s ever popular Resident Evil series of games with the latest entry available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles.

There’s even a pair of books by Max Brooks covering an alternate universe in which our planet is overrun by a sort of zombie apocalypse and details how humans were able to survive it. World War Z, which is being adapted for the big screen, is written as if it were a collection of historic accounts from survivors of this disaster whereas its decidedly more light hearted companion, The Zombie Survival Guide, is like a “how to” manual for defending yourself against the creatures of the night.

There’s even a popular version of Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that’s being adapted into a motion picture. You know something’s big when people are creating literary mash-ups with works by revered authors.

Considering almost all zombie-themed entertainment focuses on humans trying to survive a seemingly endless horde of the flesh-eating undead, it seems rather odd that until 2008, no publisher had released an immersive first-person shooter that pitted the player against waves of zombie attackers. Yet in November 2008, both Activision and Valve Corporation released zombie-themed first-person experiences, much to the delight of video gamers everywhere.

From what little I’ve played of Activision’s Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer mode Nacht der Untoten (German for “Night of the Undead”) which puts 1-4 players in a house that they have to cooperatively defend against an unlimited number of Nazi zombies by shooting them and boarding up windows, it seems to be the more “authentic” zombie game (even though it’s just one of a few modes in the actual core Call of Duty game).

However, Valve’s Left4Dead is undoubtedly the more fun gaming experience by leaps and bounds. While the game doesn’t involve true zombies in the traditional sense (i.e. the flesh-eating reanimated corpses introduced to pop culture by Romero’s handiwork), it certainly delivers intense doses of action and the adrenaline-pumping thrills one would hope for from a “zombie apocalypse” scenario.

You play the role of one of four Survivor characters – Francis the tattoo-covered biker, Louis the systems analyst, Zoey the college student and Bill the former Green Beret – who are trying to make their way out of the city to find some sort of safe haven from the hordes of people who have been infected by the intentionally unidentified contagion that turns its victims into mindless, bestial creatures with rage issues.

The enemies you attack aren’t your typical undead zombies with a craving for human brains but are in fact regular people who have succumbed to this mystery disease in much the same way that the citizens of London were affected by the “Rage” virus in the Danny Boyle film 28 Days Later.

You never once see any of the enemies, referred to for the most part not as “zombies” but as “The Infected,” try to eat or even bite you – they seem content just trying to tear you from limb to limb for the fun of it. And when you shoot them, that’s regular old crimson blood spewing from their bodies, not the swampy green bile that you see in cartoony, fun-filled games like Plants vs. Zombies.

Further, the Infected are like the extras in 28 Days Later with regards to their speed and voracity. While you’ll certainly encounter a fair share of enemies just moping about on their own, any who take notice of you and aren’t put down by a bullet from your rifle will come charging at you like a parent who just spotted the last Zhu Zhu Pet at Toys R Us on Christmas Eve.

And that’s just the individuals or small groups you actually see. Every so often, the game will send a raging horde of Infected at you, swarming in from every which way (including behind you). They’ll climb up the sides of buildings and smash their way through doors to get to you – the only thing that will stop them is a fiery surprise from your pistol, shotgun or rifle. If you’ve ever played the classic PC game series Serious Sam, you’ll recognize the frenetic style of combat.

To make things interesting, the developers included a handful of boss-type enemies referred to as “the Special Infected.” These are admittedly less realistic enemies who require a little bit more suspension of disbelief and somewhat bridge the gap between the definitely possible concept of a biological experiment gone wrong and the more fantastic, imaginary realm of scary undead monsters you see in the movies.

The least unbelievable of the bunch is the Hunter, who is not much more durable than a standard Infected but is fast and can leap impressive distances (such as when it pounces on you and starts ripping your torso apart). It basically looks like a person in a gray hooded sweatshirt.

Then there’s the Boomer, a disgustingly bloated individual whose only goal is to vomit green bile all over you which triggers an onslaught of Infected focused solely on devastating anyone soaked in Boomer puke. The Boomer is also not much more durable than the common Infected but explodes in a mess of blood and guts that damages anyone within proximity.

Probably the most annoying Special Infected is the Smoker, a lithe creature typically prowling roofs and upper levels (out of sight and out of reach), waiting for unsuspecting Survivors to target. It attacks by shooting out a ridiculously long tongue and dragging its victim back (and often up) towards itself to be strangled. If you manage to take it out, its demise creates a cloud of dense and gagging vapor which partially obscures your vision.

More dangerous is the Tank, a damage-eating behemoth that charges at the Survivors like a rhinoceros on steroids and tosses anyone who gets caught in its grip like a rag doll. The Tank can absorb a massive amount of damage and moves with a surprising speed. It generally targets one particular Survivor and follows them around until it can pummel them or get put down by the others.

Perhaps the most dangerous Special Infected, however, is the Witch, a rather small and spindly female creature whose sobs can be heard from quite a distance (acting as a warning to everyone to tread carefully). The Witch is always found kneeling on the floor and crying, seemingly oblivious to everything around it. You can avoid it entirely by shutting off your flashlight and keeping your distance, but anyone who startles it with their flashlight or gets too close will regret it as the Witch zeroes in on that Survivor only. The Witch moves very fast and will incapacitate a Survivor with one hit at which point it rends flesh until the others can defeat it. It’s generally not wise to take on a Witch.

What makes the game really fun, though, is the artificial intelligence behind the game. Known as “the Director,” this A.I. will gauge how well you or your group of players is doing and adjust the density of the enemies, availability of weapons and items and frequency of Special Infected attacks accordingly. These things are all randomized such that no two run-throughs of any level will be exactly the same.

Left4Dead offers a few multiplayer modes and is in fact designed as an online multiplayer game. When you first load the game, the default game mode is actually the online cooperative multiplayer campaign – the single-player campaign is just the offline version of the same exact game with the other three Survivor characters controlled by the game’s A.I.

The Versus mode uses the same level maps as the campaign games but pits two teams of four players against each other with one team controlling the Survivors and the other controlling the Special Infected (the one a particular player uses is randomly assigned by the Director). The Special Infected are more limited than the Survivor characters in that they have no true ranged attacks (the Smoker’s tongue straddles the fence) but have more freedom in where they can go (they have the ability to climb buildings to maneuver into better hunting positions) and can see the Survivors through walls to plan their attacks. They also have the Infected on their side, of course, and can use a swarm attack to their advantage.

A Survival mode was added after the fact as a free downloadable update (and included in later versions of the game). This mode is fairly straightforward with a team of up to four players trying to survive as long as possible against an infinite horde of Infected.

I personally never got into Survival mode and I’m not a big fan of online competitive gaming anymore so I didn’t play the Versus mode much. I do, however, enjoy cooperative and single-player campaign games even now (when isn’t it a good time to kill some “zombies?”), over a year after the game was released, which speaks to the longevity of the game and its gameplay.

The game uses a fairly streamlined interface and control scheme. You can only “use” one item – be it a sidearm, a firearm, a throwable weapon (the two types are the Molotov cocktail which lights an area on fire and the pipe bomb which attracts Infected with its beeping before blowing them up) or a health boost – at a time, and you can only even carry one of each type of item with the exception of the standard pistols that you can dual wield. No firing and tossing dozens of grenades at the same time in this game.

To make things a little more challenging, you also don’t just magically heal when you use the first aid kit. You actually have to stop where you are and spend a few seconds patching yourself up (applying bandages and rubbing ointment on your body, I suppose), and hope that the Infected don’t decide to bum rush you (or that if they do your teammates can adequately protect you from the attack). Valve managed to strike a nice balance between fast-paced run-and-gun gameplay and a more methodic, deliberate style of gameplay.

Where Left4Dead shines dimmest is in the area of graphics. The game uses the latest version of Valve’s Source game engine, which debuted in 2004 behind Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2, both impressive games for their time but somewhat dated now. The lighting, the details in the environments and the ability for the engine to handle dozens of Infected onscreen at the same time is quite impressive but the character models themselves are decidedly less impressive than the ones found in games such as Gears of War, which uses Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, which uses Naughty Dog’s latest proprietary game engine. However, you probably won’t notice this much considering how fast you’ll be running or spinning around dealing with swarms of enemies.

Despite its less-than-perfect graphics, Left4Dead manages to evoke a true sense of anxiety and be an immersive first-person shooter experience thanks to the intelligence of the game design and the creativity of the team at Valve. It’s not only one of the best shooters this generation but also one of the most fun games on any of the three platforms – and a bargain at just $29.99 retail.

If you’re in the mood for an exhilarating rush of action-packed thrills, do yourself a favor and pick Left4Dead up right now.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

This is definitely not a game for young kids. Gameplay consists of firing handguns, assault rifles and shotguns at enemies, setting your opponents on fire and blowing things up with pipe bombs.

I would even go so far as to say that some parents may want to avoid buying this game for kids younger than high school age due to the fact that players are not killing zombies but rather killing diseased people. None of the enemies have rotting flesh or missing body parts – in fact, they look like nothing more than grimy people hopped up on a little too much caffeine.

Of course, your mileage may vary – my nephews have long understood the difference between the fantasy in video games and the reality of the world in which they actually live, and assume that they’re simply making the undead dead again, anyway.

You know your kids best so just consider my warning and base your decision on your own comfort level.

Experience this for yourself!

• Left 4 Dead: Game of the Year Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Left 4 Dead: Game of the Year Edition (PC) (Amazon)

Plants Vs. Zombies is a tower defense game created by PopCap Games for the PC as well as the Mac (an Xbox Live version is on the way next year and an iPhone app is about to hit iTunes) in which you defend your home from an army of shuffling zombies trying to cross your lawn, pool or roof.

Instead of using traditional weapons, however, you use packets of seeds for various defense-minded plants with wordplay-inspired names like “Pea Shooter” (a plant that spits peas like bullets) and “Wall-Nut” (a giant nut that blocks enemies who have to chew and claw their way through it).

The traditional concept of money has given way to the idea of collecting falling sunlight, which is used to “buy” a plant for your army. Sunlight also comes from Sunflower plants and Sun-Shrooms, which become absolutely essential for victory in levels that take place at night.

Like many of PopCap Games’ titles, Plants Vs. Zombies is easy to learn but hard to master. The game starts you off with a relatively easy assortment of enemies in the earlier levels where the zombies pretty much just shuffle along slowly – at worst, you contend with a zombie wearing a traffic cone on its head as a sort of helmet (it takes twice as many hits to take this one down).

Later on, however, you start seeing more athletic zombies like the Football Zombie that charges quickly across the field and the Pole Vaulting Zombie that can bypass your first line of defense as well as more dangerous zombies like the Jack in the Box Zombie that carries an explosive toy and the Miner Zombie who digs his way under your defenses to attack them from behind. There’s even a Dancing Zombie that bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain “thrilling” musical artist and summons four Backup Dancer Zombies for you to handle.

Indeed, your head will spin at times during the later levels when your screen is filled with a horde of advancing zombies and the rainstorm-like barrage of ammo going forth from your plants. It becomes very hectic as you scramble to collect all the sunlight as it pops out or drops, figure out where to place your available plants if you even have any room, and decide which of your soldiers to uproot if you don’t.

And that’s just the Adventure mode. There’s also a Survival mode unlocked when you pass level 50 of the Adventure mode, and it’s exactly what you expect if you’ve played other PopCap Games. The difficulty level is ratcheted way up but the rules of gameplay change a little bit – in between each wave of enemies, you’ll have the opportunity to select a whole new arsenal of plants to use with the defenses you’ve already established, which allows for interesting scenarios where your existing sunlight generators are going full steam, protected by your Pea Shooters, Threepeaters (Pea Shooters with three heads each of which fires at a different angle) and Tall-Nuts (like Wall-Nuts only, er, taller), so you can drop in the big guns like the Gatling Pea (shoots four peas at a time) and the Cob Cannon (catapult which hurls a cob of corn like a missile at a particular spot on the field with destructive results).

Finally, there’s a Mini-Game mode that includes relatively brief gaming jaunts that are tied to the concept of the main game but are otherwise standalone experiences. Some are twists on the gameplay of the core game – ZomBotany, for example, sees you defending your home against plant-zombie hybrids that require a somewhat different strategy than your standard, run-of-the-mill zombies – while others, like Wall-Nut Bowling where you roll Wall-nuts down each lane of the playing field (with some deflection physics to allow for multi-kill combos), are actually refresher levels interspersed within the main game. Still others are clever mash-ups like Beghouled, which is a cross-breed of the zombies from this game with the gameplay of PopCap’s most famous product, Bejeweled.

Plants vs. Zombies is a shining example of why PopCap Games is the most successful casual games company in the industry. The game is incredibly addictive (I often find myself suffering from “just one more level” obsessiveness) because of a simple yet brilliant game design that eases players into the more complex aspects of the gameplay by getting their feet wet with the basics first. The game never throws more than one new ally or enemy at you at once, allowing you to improve your strategy and skills at a more reasonable pace.

The well animated, cartoonish 2D graphics work perfectly in tandem with the appropriately campy soundtrack and sound effects to produce a game experience that is as wonderfully cheesy and funny as it is entertaining. Plants vs. Zombies is one of those games that can hook you for months like Tetris and Bejeweled did years ago, and at $20 retail price, it’s a no-brainer purchase.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

Plants vs. Zombies is a safe purchase for children. As simple as the overall gameplay design is, it might still be a little complex at the higher levels for younger children but the appealing cartoon graphics and the creative character designs would definitely be right up a kid’s alley. The “violence” in the game amounts to plants killing zombies by firing giant peas or cactus needles at them. There is no overt gore in the game although right before a zombie dies, its arm and head fall off and disappear.

If you want to be extra certain that the game is right for your kids, you can try out a few levels using their online trial game.

Experience this for yourself!

• Plants vs. Zombies (PC/Mac) (Amazon)
• Plants vs. Zombies (iPhone):

So you’ve finally decided to take the plunge and buy a new video game console.

Maybe your stack of unfinished PlayStation 2 games has finally dried up. Maybe you’ve discovered the joy of playing games while sitting on your living room couch instead of at your computer desk or decided you don’t want to upgrade your 5-year-old video card to play the latest and greatest PC games.

Or maybe you just want to find out if there’s more to video games than sliding your finger around on your iPhone.

However you came to the decision to join the over 125 million people worldwide who enjoy video games on their Wii, Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, you really couldn’t have picked a better time to do so. All three console manufacturers – Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony – cut their prices in the last few months and, for the first time this generation, the PlayStation 3 is at an accessible price point.

My goal here is to try to help you make the choice of which console to purchase according to your interests and concerns. It can sometimes be a daunting task to look for advice on the web because for every unbiased website there’s a slew of immature, irrational forum posts by raging fanboys who are fiercely and unmovingly loyal to what’s essentially a hunk of plastic that spews pretty lights and sounds at them.

Indeed video game console fanboys (and fangirls) can be some of the craziest, most rabid fans in the world, singing praises at their console of choice and hurling insults at people who disagree with them. Often there’s no rhyme or reason to their rhetoric, which tends to be formed out of ignorance to reality.

Why bother weeding through that jungle of idiocy when it’s so much easier to just look at the facts and make your decision based on which console is more suited to your needs? Hopefully, I’ll help you at least a little bit with that today.

The first thing to consider is the kind of games you like to play. The Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 are aimed at generally older gamers who have a lot of video gaming experience and more sophisticated tastes whereas the Wii is aimed at young kids and the more casual gamer who maybe hasn’t played a video game since the Super Nintendo days or dabbles only in lighter fare like Bejeweled or Diner Dash.

While there are certainly children’s and casual games available to play on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well as more mature and complex games on the Wii, you can get a general sense of the style of gaming on the systems based on their marketing. If you like blasting away enemies, going on epic quests with lots of interaction with characters or playing realistic sports or driving simulations, your best bet is to go with the the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

In fact, the software libraries for these two systems are quite similar with the exception of a handful of exclusive games. The Xbox 360 has the better overall library of games with both acclaimed and popular titles like Halo 3, Gears of War and Left 4 Dead (and its sequel), but there are some killer PlayStation 3 exclusives like Final Fantasy XIII and Gran Turismo 5 (both entries in hugely popular series) coming out in the next year.

If you’d rather take a more laid back approach with games that have simpler and more straightforward goals and don’t require you to remember what two control sticks and eight different buttons do, the Wii is probably more up your alley. Another aspect to consider with regards to Wii gaming is that the games available on Nintendo’s system tend to be more geared towards “party play” – they’re not very complex so friends and family of all ages can quickly join in on the fun, no gaming expertise needed.

If you want to play games online with other people, you can do it with all three consoles. The Wii has the most restrictive online gaming functionality in that you can only play with people with whom you’ve exchanged “friend codes.” It’s a relief, in a sense, to parents who don’t necessarily want their children interacting with complete strangers on the Internet. On the other hand, it also means that you have to personally know a decent number of people who own Wiis in order to have some variety and flexibility in your gaming sessions.

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 allow you to send invites to people you already know (by typing in their IDs) or people you’ve played with right from within the gaming session. Even if you don’t have a lot of “real life” friends who own your system, you can still compile a sizeable list of people with whom you enjoy playing.

The Xbox 360′s online network, known as Xbox Live, is the only one that requires a monthly or annual fee (generally $50 per year) in order to play games. This seems like a lot to ask of gamers until you consider that Xbox Live is more mature (Microsoft introduced it in 2002 and has been improving it since then), more robust (there is a lot more content and functionality on Xbox Live than on the PlayStation Network) and more reliable (Microsoft has a lot more servers in a lot more locations for higher performance, greater reliability and more up-time). The online experience is also more consistent on Xbox Live due to Microsoft themselves handling most of the core networking code – developers of PlayStation 3 games need to program this themselves and can do it pretty much any way they want (to sometimes unfavorable results).

Of course, if none of that matters to you and all you want to do is play with some buddies, the PlayStation Network is a fine service indeed and won’t cost you a dime. Just hope that those buddies all have PlayStation 3′s (less likely in North America where there are almost twice as many Xbox 360′s).

On the other hand, the PlayStation 3 has a related advantage over the Xbox 360 in that it includes built-in WiFi, useful for people whose Internet service providers have given them a wireless router (or who have purchased one themselves). You can, of course, use an ethernet cable to connect an Xbox 360 to your network (that’s the same cable you would use to connect your computer if you didn’t have wireless networking), but if you want to get a wireless adapter be prepared to shell out $80 or more.

If you’re interested in doing things other than playing games on your gaming console then you can all but rule out the Wii as there isn’t a whole lot more to do on that little white box. If you have a wireless router at home, you can easily configure the Wii to use that to connect to the Internet in order to read news, check the weather and see what Miis (the little characters that represent you within the Wii’s game “world”) other people have put together. If you leave the Wii in standby mode (i.e. if you don’t unplug it when you turn it off), it will even automatically update itself on a regular basis to get you the latest content.

Disappointingly for some fans, Nintendo once again decided that theirs would be the only console to not play movies in any way, shape or form, despite utilizing discs that are the same physical size as DVDs and Blu-rays. Nintendo wanted to focus on games and target consumers looking for nothing more than a fun gaming system. Their logic was that most everyone has a DVD player these days and that the hardware is so cheap that there was no real advantage to including movie playback functionality. I can understand their viewpoint as easily as I can understand some fans’ frustration.

If you absolutely need to be able to watch movies on your console, you have to choose between the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The PlayStation 3 has the obvious edge here in that it can play movies stored on the relatively new Blu-ray disc format (pioneered, unsurprisingly, by Sony). Blu-ray is a technologically superior format that stores high definition video and audio (perfect for all those HDTVs that are dropping in price by the year) and includes evolved versions of many of the extra features found on DVDs.

Whether you would benefit from that superior quality or care about it is an entirely different matter. I don’t want to get into a meaty Blu-ray discussion here but I will suggest you take a quick glance at this chart circulating around the Internet that shows whether you’d even see a difference between Blu-ray and DVD based on the size of your television and how far you sit from it.

If Blu-ray isn’t a priority for you, then you can still watch all of your DVDs on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. They’ll even upscale the image quality to pseudo-HD which looks quite good (comparable to the quality of the HD television broadcasts from most of the national service providers like DirecTV and Comcast).

You don’t even have to use DVDs, either. Both devices are capable of accepting streaming movies, television and music from your home computer. You can even view all of your photos on your nice, big television set. This is a little easier with the Xbox 360 if you own a Windows-based computer since it utilizes the Windows Media Center that’s part of most Windows installations. There are plenty of free software online that will allow you to do the same things on the PlayStation 3. In fact, I use TVersity (compatible with both systems) instead of the Windows Media Center functionality.

Beyond that, you can rent or buy movie and television episode downloads from Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Many of these downloads are high definition with impressive quality despite not being as sharp as a Blu-ray movie. The pricing is skewed a little high, though, at the moment. If that’s a problem for you, join Netflix and you can stream thousands of movies and television episodes free to the system of your choice as part of your membership! The functionality is part of the Xbox 360′s operating system, but you’ll need to request a special disc for the PlayStation 3 which Netflix will send to you for free.

The final, and perhaps most important, thing to consider is the price you’re willing to pay to enter this generation of video game consoles. The Xbox 360 and Wii have the cheapest entry costs with models priced at $200 whereas you need to spend at least $300 for a PlayStation 3.

You technically get a lot more value out of the PlayStation 3 than you do out of the Xbox 360 and the Wii if you want and/or need the added functionality in Sony’s console (significantly, the Blu-ray capabilities). However, if all you want to do is play games, it’s tough to go wrong with any of the three consoles.

In short:

• If you’re a casual gamer who is looking for simple yet entertaining games that you can play with friends and family of all ages, your best bet is the Nintendo Wii.
• If you’re a more experienced gamer who wants a more robust gaming experience without breaking the bank, the Xbox 360 is a fine choice with the best overall video game library.
• If, on the other hand, you want all the bells and whistles and are willing to pay for them, you won’t regret purchasing the PlayStation 3, which will provide you with a solid library of games from which to choose and one of the best Blu-ray players on the market.

Experience it for yourself!

• Nintendo Wii Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Limited Edition Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Bundle (Amazon)
• Sony PlayStation 3 120GB Console (Amazon)
• Sony PlayStation 3 250GB Console (Amazon)

“You think this is hard? Try being waterboarded – that’s hard,” Coach Sue Sylvester says to her Cheerios, the champion cheerleading squad of the fictional William McKinley high school in Lima, Ohio, after they struggle with the pyramid that rounds off their routine.

And so begins Fox’s Glee, a show about the underdog glee club, derided by most of the students and dismissed by most of the teachers as a waste of school funds. After the former director is fired for inappropriate contact with some of his male students, Spanish teacher Will Schuester, the high school teacher everyone wishes they had, convinces the principal to allow him to take over after he offers to cover the expenses out of pocket.

Will was one of the stars of the glee club during his time as a student at McKinley and wants to bring glee club back to its former glory (and renames the squad New Directions to signify this). He faces ridicule from Sue and resentment from his self-centered, materialistic wife Terri, who complains about the toll his spending time on glee club will have on her. “I’m on my feet four hours a day, three times a week here. Now I have to go home and cook dinner for myself?”

Divas Rachel Berry – “the stunning young ingénue,” as she likes to describe herself – and Mercedes Jones, who doesn’t take crap from anybody, don’t make Will’s job any easier, as they start off on the very wrong foot (quite literally, as Rachel almost kicks Mercedes in the face while practicing a dance routine). Rachel, who has dedicated her life to a future career as a star and takes things way too seriously, believes she should have every female lead. Mercedes disagrees, telling Will, “Look, I’m not down with this backup singing nonsense. I’m Beyoncé – I ain’t no Kelly Rowland!” Not surprisingly, she auditioned for New Directions with Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” Rachel used a Broadway hit, of course – “On My Own” from Les Misérables.

When Rachel demands that Will find a solid male lead worthy to be her counterpart, he realizes what he has gotten himself into and enlists the advice of guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury, a friend who just happens to have a secret crush on him. She tells him to try to recruit some popular kids who could attract other students to the club so he visits the football team who laugh off his invitation to join, but luckily discovers that quarterback Finn Hudson has a secret love of, and talent for, singing when he hears him singing REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling” in the showers. Out of desperation, he uncharacteristically blackmails Finn with some planted marijuana.

While Finn is at first uncomfortable with both the idea of being in the glee club and Rachel’s infatuation (she singles him out during a rehearsal of “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease), he quickly grows to enjoy both despite the disapproval of his best friend, Noah “Puck” Puckerman, a fellow football player, and his girlfriend, head Cheerio Quinn Fabray.

Things hit a little speed bump, however, when after taking the kids to see an impressive, if intimidating, performance of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” by regional show choir champions Vocal Adrenaline, Will is informed by his wife that she’s pregnant. Deciding that he has to put the welfare of his future family before his own aspirations, he resigns from William McKinley to apply for a job as an accountant. Free of his perceived obligation to be part of the glee club and pressured by attacks from his teammates, Finn decides to quit as well, only to realize how happy being a part of New Directions makes him.

Meanwhile, Emma shows Will a video of one of his performances in high school and urges him to reconsider his resignation. An inspiring rehearsal performance of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” (I knew as soon as I watched this that this was going to be my favorite new show of the season) seals the deal – he tells the kids that he couldn’t bear seeing them win Nationals without him.

Featured songs from this episode:

• “Where Is Love” from Oliver!
• “Respect” by Aretha Franklin
• “Mr. Cellophane” from Chicago
• “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry
• “On My Own” from Les Misérables
• “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” from Guys and Dolls
• “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon
• “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease
• “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse
• “Leaving on a Jet Plane” by John Denver
• “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey

Experience this for yourself!

• Glee: Season One, Episode One: or Amazon Video on Demand
• On My Own (Glee Cast Version): or Amazon MP3 Download
• On My Own from Les Misérables: The Complete Symphonic Recording: or Amazon MP3 Download
• Can’t Fight This Feeling (Glee Cast Version): or Amazon MP3 Download
• Can’t Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon: or Amazon MP3 Download
• Rehab (Glee Cast Version): or Amazon MP3 Download
• Rehab by Amy Winehouse: or Amazon MP3 Download
• Don’t Stop Believin’ (Glee Cast Version): or Amazon MP3 Download
• Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey: or Amazon MP3 Download

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association released its 2009 Golden Globes nominations today with a good mix of expected nominees and surprise candidates.

The big news for me is that my two favorite new television shows of the season - Glee and Modern Family - were nominated for “Best Television Series – Musical Or Comedy.” In addition, Glee’s Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele and Jane Lynch were nominated for their lead actor, lead actress and supporting actress roles, respectively.

The “Best Television Series – Drama” is an interesting category in that only one of the five nominees, House, is on a broadcast network while the other four – Big Love, Dexter, Mad Men and True Blood – all reside on pay cable channels. I don’t know if that speaks more to the quality of these cable shows or the dearth of solid dramas on CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox.

On the other hand, the major networks own the “Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy” category with NBC’s 30 Rock and The Office alongside Modern Family (ABC) and Glee (Fox) with cable represented only by HBO’s Entourage, whose most recent season was fairly weak (I still love the show, though).

Congratulations go out to Steve Carell from The Office and Thomas Jane from HBO’s Hung, a show I got into earlier in the season that is also represented by Jane Adams in the “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role” category, for their “Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series – Musical Or Comedy” nominations.

And let’s not forget Neil Patrick Harris’s nomination for his portrayal of the ever-hilarious Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother and Jeremy Piven’s nomination for playing ruthless Hollywood agent Ari Gold on Entourage. I love ‘em both but admit that I’m pulling for NPH this time because Piven has already won 3 Emmy awards and a Golden Globe for this role.

I admit I’m a little disappointed that Jim Parsons was not nominated for his portrayal of Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D. on The Big Bang Theory, one of the funnier shows on television. He got an Emmy nod earlier this year, but I guess the Hollywood Foreign Press Association didn’t share The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ opinion.

On the movie side of things, nominees were pretty much as expected with a few surprises here and there. Movies like Precious, Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker – nominated in the “Best Motion Picture – Drama” category – and Julie & Julia and Nine – nominated in the “Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy” category – have had their fair share of Oscar buzz.

I’m a little surprised, though, by the nomination of Avatar for a top award although I suppose that maybe I should not be since the movie holds an 83% general rating and a 93% Top Critics rating at RottenTomatoes.com. I’ve read and heard a lot of backlash from film geeks about the lackluster story, snail’s pace of development and cheesy dialogue, and especially about the intimidating length (161 minutes).

The nominations of George Clooney (Up In the Air), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire), Morgan Freeman (Invictus), Tobey Maguire (Brothers), and Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) were quite expected considering all the Oscar buzz surrounding each of them.

The surprise was in the nomination of Robert Downey, Jr. for his portrayal of literary icon Sherlock Holmes, Joseph Gordon-Levitt for his part in (500) Days of Summer and Sandra Bullock for her role in The Proposal, and in the number of dual nominees this year: Bullock scored another one for the drama Blindside, Streep got her second for It’s Complicated and Matt Damon was nominated for his lead role in The Informant! and his supporting role in Invictus where he goes up against Christoph Waltz’ portrayal in Inglourious Basterds of Hans Landa, described by many as one of the best movie villains in history.

More interesting to me, though, is the “Best Animated Feature Film” category since I’m a big fan of animated movies. For the first time since the Golden Globes and Oscars started honoring these films with their own category, there has truly been a wide field from which to nominate. Despite how good some of the other nominees are, however, it’s realistically going to boil down to a vote for either Up’s impressive accomplishment of being the film that shows the world that animated movies can be as deep and sophisticated as live action films or The Princess And The Frog’s impressive accomplishment of bringing back the magic of Disney’s traditional animation studio with a generous dash of nostalgia for people like me who grew up on Disney movies. If the people were to choose, I’m sure nostalgia would win out, but we’re talking about critics here so I’ll have to give the edge to Up.

My Wednesday nights were considerably brighter this fall thanks to Fox’s new runaway hit Glee, the hands-down best new show of this television season and one of my favorite shows to watch over the past few months.

A real “feel good” show with broad appeal is a truly rare thing. The last one I can remember in recent history was Everybody Loves Raymond, which was in the top ten in number of viewers for the last five of its nine seasons on the air (and ranked #11 and #12 in its third and fourth seasons). If its numbers since the season premiere in September (the series officially started with a pilot that aired in May) are any indication, Glee looks to follow in Raymond’s footsteps.

Glee takes place at the fictitious William McKinley high school in Lima, Ohio and follows the lives of members of the school’s show choir (also known as a glee club) and their director, William Schuester.

Will, played by Broadway actor Matthew Morrison (best known for originating Link Larkin in Hairspray, Fabrizio Naccarelli in The Light in the Piazza and Lieutenant Joseph Cable in the most recent Broadway revival of South Pacific), is the school’s Spanish teacher and takes over as director of the glee club when the former director is caught being inappropriate with a favorite member. He intends to return the glee club, which is viewed rather unfavorably by most of the students and faculty, to its former glory when he was a member.

Vehemently opposed to this effort is the best new character on television this season, Sue Sylvester. Portrayed with the perfect blend of unabashed arrogance, caustic sarcasm and pure vindictiveness by veteran comedic actress Jane Lynch (she got her start with The Second City comedy troupe and appeared in Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries Best in Show and A Mighty Wind), she is the coach of the school’s championship cheerleading squad, The Cheerios, who is insulted that the school would funnel even the slightest amount of the ridiculous funding for her team (their uniforms are dry cleaned in Europe) to Will’s kids and vows to destroy the club.

Despite all of Sue’s devious and underhanded machinations, Will manages to grow the club and develop them into star performers. Initially, the squad, now named “New Directions,” consists only of a handful of the school’s outcasts, most notably Rachel Berry, an assertive and very talented sophomore with dreams of making it to Broadway. Rachel, the Jewish only child of a gay interracial couple, is strong, ambitious and somewhat spoiled, telling “Mr. Schue” that she wants her high school life “to mean something” and that she cannot waste her time on glee club if he can’t find a male lead worthy of her talent. Lea Michele, a Broadway actress with a Drama Desk Award nomination and a Grammy Award for her work in the hit musical Spring Awakening, plays Rachel with just enough spunk and determination that even when she annoys you with her diva behavior you still feel compelled to root for her because of how much heart she has.

Rachel’s stiffest competition in the club is the vocally endowed Mercedes Jones, played by the talented Amber Riley (who surprisingly was turned down by American Idol six years ago). Mercedes is not quite as big a diva as Rachel is but seems more than up to the challenge, getting in Will’s face when he first puts her in a back-up role and later breaking the front windshield of a fellow club member when she feels his attentions diverted towards another. It seems appropriate that we first meet her during her audition in which she sings Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” In addition to that song, Amber belts amazing solos in her covers of “Bust Your Windows,” “Hate on Me” and “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”

Less combative, and far less developed a character, is Tina Cohen-Chang, played by Broadway actress Jenna Ushkowitz. I hate to say it, but Tina seems to be little more than a token Asian character, even characterized as stereotypically shy and unconfident. She dresses in a notably goth style, has a stutter (which we later learn is fake) and mostly exists in the background. Aside from singing a shortened version of “Tonight” from West Side Story, a task assigned to her character not to show off her singing talents but to set up a conflict which results in Rachel leaving the club for dramatic effect, and getting to perform the lead in “True Colors,” she really has done very little and seems like the only throwaway character of the initial group, which is a disappointment to me as an Asian-American fan.

On the other hand, Artie Abrams, a paraplegic wheelchair user, starts off as more of a background character but slowly and consistently becomes more prominent in the series, even having an episode (the best one of the season so far, I might add) focused on the challenges he faces as a handicapped student at a school that isn’t sensitive to his needs. Played by former boy band member Kevin McHale as a generally happy-go-lucky character with perhaps more of a positive outlook on life than you would expect, Artie seems to be one of the genuinely good-natured members of the club and has a knack for witty observation.

The final member of the original “New Directions” roster is Kurt Hummel, a flamboyant performer with keen fashion sense who comes out as gay to his fellow squad mates early in the series and to his father a little later (few are surprised by this admission). The character of Kurt was created specifically for newcomer Chris Colfer, who auditioned for the role of Artie but so impressed the producers that they invented the new character, named after Kurt von Trapp from The Sound of Music and ceramic Hummel figurines which were popular in the first half of the 20th century. Colfer plays Kurt as a very confident individual, comfortable in his own skin and unwilling to compromise who he is just to fit in better at the school. In fact, at the beginning of the first two episodes of the show, Kurt insists the football squad hold his more expensive articles of clothing and tells them “someday you’ll all work for me” before allowing them to deposit him in the dumpster. Colfer plays up Kurt’s confidence and flamboyance to an entertaining level, making him one of the most popular characters on the show.

Despite the raw talent of his assembled team, Will realizes that they’ll need more members if the team is to succeed at competition and concedes to Rachel’s demand to find a strong male lead to accompany her. After discovering that Finn Hudson, the captain of the football team, has an incredible voice (or so we viewers are to believe despite what our ears are telling us), he uncharacteristically blackmails Finn into joining the glee club, much to Rachel’s delight.

Finn is portrayed by relative newcomer Cory Monteith, who honestly revealed that he got the chance to compete for the part more for the creativity of his audition tape than his singing ability. He is at first uncomfortable with what being in the glee club will do to his social status in the school but perseveres due to his long time (and secret) love for singing, eventually realizing how important it is for him to do what makes him feel happiest. He is also revealed over the course of the first half of the season to be a generally good person who did questionable things in the past just to fit in with the popular kids (and is remorseful for that). During that same time period, he struggles with the added responsibilities of becoming a father in high school and his dashed hopes of leaving Lima to make something of himself.

Meanwhile, Quinn Fabray, Finn’s girlfriend, faces her own struggles related to the pregnancy, particularly the fact that Finn’s best friend, Noah Puckerman, is the actual father (Finn and Quinn never actually had sex but Finn’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed). Quinn, played by Dianna Agron, is the quintessential queen bee – she is the captain of the Cheerios and, ironically, the president of the celibacy club, and she acts as the most popular girl in high school in a television show or movie typically does. Despite her often nasty behavior, Quinn is privately scared to death of what the pregnancy will do to her life and is eventually revealed to be nowhere near as confident as she pretends to be. Her evolution as a character is one of the slower ones on the show, but by the midseason finale she seems to have realized what those she thought were her friends think of her and who really cares for her (hint: What’s the name of the show?).

Quinn joins the glee club with her fellow Cheerios Santana Lopez (played by Naya Rivera) and Brittany (no last name ever given, played by Heather Morris) to spy for Sue but eventually comes to love the group and realize that they’ll accept and welcome her instead of judge her like everyone else. Even the bitchy Santana admits in the midseason finale that she is happiest when she is with the glee club despite her unwillingness to let slip that secret to the public. Brittany, on the other hand, seems to have neither an affinity nor an aversion to being in “New Directions” out of pure cluelessness (recipes confuse her and she cheats off mentally handicapped students on tests).

Rounding out the twelve-member show choir squad are three of Finn’s football teammates: “Puck” (as everyone calls Noah), Mike Chang and Matt Rutherford. Mike and Matt, played by Harry Shum, Jr. (a lead dancer for Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, and Jessica Simpson as well as one of the dancing silhouettes in the earlier iPod commercials) and Dijon Talton respectively, become interested in joining the club after seeing a school assembly performance of Salt-n-Peppa’s “Push It”, but Puck, played by Mark Salling, joins out of desire to be near Quinn, for whom he actually has feelings, and prove to her that he’s more than just “a Lima loser” who can’t help raise a child.

Indeed, the love “polygon” amongst the McKinley high students (Rachel is in love with Finn, who has blossoming feelings for her but is in love with Quinn, who very much loves Finn back but also has feelings for her baby’s real father Puck, who has feelings for her all the while dating Santana, who thinks “it’s not dating if it’s just sex,” with Kurt getting in on the action with a crush on Finn) is a bit convoluted but makes for some interesting scenarios.

On the other hand, the love square involving the adult characters is more straightforward. Will is married to his high school sweetheart Terri, a selfish, narcissistic, gold digging former cheerleader (played by Jessalyn Gilsig) who pretends to be pregnant after finding out what she thought was a real pregnancy was actually a hysterical pregnancy out of fear that she and Will are growing apart. To this end, she convinces Quinn to give up the baby so she can raise her as her own. Hey, I just said that the relationships were straightforward, not the related plot lines themselves.

Meanwhile, guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury, a doe-eyed, unusually bubbly germophobe played by Jayma Mays has a crush on Will, with whom she has what appears to Will to be a very close but platonic friendship. Emma is herself the object of football coach Ken Tanaka’s affections. Ken, played by Patrick Gallagher, is a generally nice, if unrefined, man who realizes that Emma is in love with Will but is willing to be her “consolation” boyfriend, even going so far as to go with Emma’s terms (they’ll still live in separate homes and won’t invite anyone to, or tell anyone about, the wedding) for accepting his marriage proposal.

UPDATE: Congratulations are in order - Glee was nominated for the “Best Television Series – Musical Or Comedy” Golden Globe alongside my other favorite new show of the season, Modern Family. In addition, Matthew Morrison was nominated for “Best Performance by an Actor In a Television Series – Musical Or Comedy,” Lea Michele was nominated for “Best Performance by an Actress In a Television Series – Musical Or Comedy” and Jane Lynch was nominated for “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.”

Source: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association