Earn This

When I saw Dan’s predictions, I felt compelled to follow up with a batch of my own.  But I knew I had to one-up him somehow, so I went for the old snazzy-synonym-in-the-title trick.  Works every time.  I’m gonna classify these as “Temerarious (But Not Lunatic).”

I predict that, in 2012…

1. Five different dance albums will reach the number-one spot on Billboard, and one of them will hold it for two (or three) weeks.
2. The video game industry — and reviewers — will take Naughty Dog’s challenge seriously and begin building a new age of story-based gameplay.
3. If there’s a slow news day and no elderly royals are on their deathbeds, Kate Middleton will divorce her husband.
4. In the mode of Rocky Balboa and Live Free or Die Hard, we’ll receive word of another manly reload in the making with a title that distracts from the age of the franchise.  I’d probably guess Lethal Weapons if it weren’t for this, which may or may not end up with a number in its name.
5. Equestrian events at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London will be delayed to the point of infuriation by rainfall and fog.
6. There will be a movement on Twitter and Facebook suggesting that Americans should be allowed to cast their votes for president via Twitter and Facebook.  Many will sign the online petitions, but none of those who do will get out of bed on election day.
7. Six months in, Ashton Kutcher will reveal that his starring role in Two and a Half Men is all part of an elaborate prank for the premiere of a new season of Punk’d.
8. A few progressive American high schools will make available loaner copies of e-books in place of the hard copies for English students with Kindles and Nooks.
9. Taylor Swift will not attempt a nationwide summer tour as she focuses on her acting, which will earn her no accolades whatsoever.
10. Within Q2 of FY2012, Apple will finally top last October’s stock prices and continue rising as Tim Cook finds the secret notes Steve Jobs left hidden around his office: “Northern European indie music,” “All-black exterior,” etc.
11. The minimum latitude at which a person may admit to following NASCAR will jump up to 43 degrees north.
12. Lady Gaga will, by sheer concentrated mystique, form a supergroup including Stevie Nicks, Don Henley, Meat Loaf, and Afrika Bambaataa, but still will not produce a single track as compelling as what Ke$ha recorded into her laptop mic while alone in her bedroom with the lights off.
13. Simon Cowell will leave The X-Factor before its second season to rejoin American Idol, simply because he can no longer abide Steven Tyler as his replacement.
14. “Greece Voted Out of EU” will appear in millions of Google Reader feeds right below The Daily Bunny.  One of those things will be forwarded by thousands.
15. I’ll be one of about 500 people who notice when Spock’s Beard goes into studio with their new lineup; one of about 5,000 who buys tickets to a brief Gatsbys American Dream tour, hopefully with a stop on the eastern seaboard; and one of about 500,000 who hear about it when Eve 6 releases their fourth album.

I know I’m delinquent on my end of 2011 posts, but after seeing this post on Grantland, I couldn’t resist interrupting my countdown to make a few predictions for 2012, mostly in the pop culture department. Like Grantland, I will classify these predictions as “Fearless (But Not Insane).”

I predict that, in 2012…

1. JK Rowling will announce a non-Harry Potter project.
   I’m still convinced that there’s at least a 10% chance that she has already released something else under a pseudonym.
2. One of the following people will die:
   Chuck Berry, Elton John, Billy Joel, Ringo Starr, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie
3. One of the following people will have a big public meltdown (an arrest could be involved):
   Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, The Situation, Jennifer Aniston, John Mayer, Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Paula Abdul, Steven Tyler
4. The Dark Knight Rises will get an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes
   Brave, meanwhile, will earn an impressive 94%
   
5. At least six sports-related child abuse scandals will emerge — at least one of them major
6. There will be a failed assassination attempt on a major public figure
7. Major competitors to both Steam and NetFlix streaming will emerge
   And they’ll both be Amazon, which will release a slick, unified content manager
8. I will get married
9. At least half of the following long-running comedies will announce a date or a year of their final episode:
   The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, iCarly, South Park, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Daily Show, The Simpsons, South Park, 30 Rock
10. There will be a major Facebook backlash
    And a sexy new competitor with a name of five characters or less will emerge
11. Relient K will release a top-ten album and a top-twenty single
    I think it will be a back-to-basics album packed with catchy hooks that will make some radio noise
12. The world will not end
13. Mass Effect 3 will earn an 89 on MetaCritic, far from the year’s best score, but will go down as the 2012′s best game
    Discontent over EA’s DLC habits and co-op bugs will drag down the score a few points
14. A non-SEC team will win the national title
    And I have an inkling it will unexpectedly be Boise State
15. 2012 will be remembered as a fantastic year for movies, music, games, television, and writing
    For at least some of those media, 2011 was a soft year. 2012 will is shaping up to be great on every one of those fronts, though.

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things, in which I discuss what I enjoyed the past year, regardless of when it was released.

Hammersmith Odeon, London ’75

Album, 2005

In his retrospective of The Arctic Monkeys’ first three albums, Grant cites a theory about artists’ third albums.

It’s not a perfect rule, but it’s interesting to think about bands’ trajectories after their first three albums, especially artists whose legacies we more or less already know.

Grant listed Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen’s third album, as an example of a standout third effort. I’d go one step further and call it the ultimate third album. That’s not to say it’s the best third album of all time — Rolling Stone lists it as the second best behind London Calling – but it epitomizes and perfects everything that’s special about third albums in an artist’s creative trajectory.

Let’s look at Bruce’s first three albums and the career arc they set up:

• Greetings from Asbury Park – Bruce sounds like a Dylan knockoff, but shows off his prodigious aptitude for romantic poetry and profound rock. He concerns himself with adolescent passion.
• The Wild, The Innocent, and The E-Street Shuffle – A magnificent sequel. Suddenly, he’s less of a troubadour and more of a groundbreaking, jazzy bandleader. He sentimentalizes youthful idealism as he bids it adieu. His sonic palette verges on sprawling.
• Born to Run – Bruce leaves behind his youth and its over-optimistic ideals. But instead of abandoning romance, he recaptures it with a “last-chance power drive” — a willful exultation of passion. The music matches the theme, carefully constructed and monumental.

It’s almost too perfect a three-album arc. Where does he go from there? As it turned out, he had plenty left. Maybe that’s the point of third albums; they demonstrate an artist’s proclivity for developing craft and building something meaningful over time.

And so we find Springsteen at this crux for his first trip concert trip to Europe. Springsteen is very likely the most notable and influential American artist of the post-Beatles era, but he was greeted with skepticism in England, the hotbed of rock greatness.

It’s difficult to call this time frame Springsteen’s “best era” as he’s re-peaked many times since. But, for my money, Springsteen was never better than the he was at the release of Born to Run. He would later plumb some mighty dark, mighty American depths. But never truer, purer, better. Never as melodic or romantic or intoxicating.

Hammersmith Odeon, London ‘75 records Bruce’s first ever concert in Europe, if I’m not mistaken. It’s hard to imagine anyone, even the most skeptical listener, leaving that concert hall with any doubt that Bruce Springsteen had earned his hype.

Bruce sounds irrepressible on every track. He captures the spirit of every song and delivers it in an exciting package that sometimes closely resembles the studio version, sometimes doesn’t. Almost every song is improved over its studio original. The complete absence of a lull in quality is very impressive.

There’s music that I like, but that I understand if people don’t get. I think Lady Gaga’s first two albums are genius. I think Be Here Now is damn close to five stars. I think the Grease soundtrack is a masterpiece.

You could present solid reasoning and convince me out of any of those assertions. And I wouldn’t begrudge you for it. All of those claims are disputable. You might not get that music, just like I don’t really get Kashmir by Led Zeppelin or Sympathy for the Devil.

But Hammersmith Odeon, London ‘75, anything less than great? I wouldn’t buy it. I can’t think of anyone I know who would dislike this album. It’s the single most concise, most accessible account to Bruce’s ability to transcend genre and entertainment into art. If you don’t understand Bruce’s hype after this album, chances are you won’t ever.

If nothing else, the live album earns this spot because of the stripped down rendition of “For You.” The new arrangement transforms the song into a heartbreaking climax of love. It’s a top 100 track for me, eight and a half minutes of perfection.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t call the entire album “perfection.” It’s too sprawing and complex to have smooth edges. Thirteen minute jams, like “E-Street Shuffle” here, are, by their very nature, imperfect. But if not perfect, every inch of Hammersmith Odeon, London ‘75 is indispensable and dazzling.

Previously: #10 Adventureland

Up next: An epic conclusion, an end of an era

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things, in which I discuss what I enjoyed the past year, regardless of when it was released.

#10 Adventureland

Movie, 2009

That Thing You Do is one of my favorite movies of all time. Maybe even my favorite. And it kept popping in to my head as I was watching Adventureland.

It’s not because because the two are especially similar in plot or content. What the two have in common are fantastic control of tone, instantly memorable characters, and a well-told, small-scale story.

Adventureland was marketed as a raunchy teen comedy, which was probably a poor choice and certainly somewhat deceptive. It’s unlike the current breed of most R-rated comedies: The comedy elements are understated, and it has the structure of a character sketch or extended riff rather than a tightly plotted arc.

This has the effect of Adventureland playing more like a John Hughes movie than a Judd Apatow movie, even though it was branded as similar to the latter. It’s the story of a summer stuck at working at a cheap amusement park for the newly-graduated James Brennan.

James’s family falls on a bit of financial hardship and so he has to abandon his planned tour of Europe with his college pals. Instead, he’s stuck manning a games booth at Adventureland, where he gradually gets to know the rest of the people who work there. As he gets involved in their personal lives, things start to get complicated.

I’ll leave my synopsis at that. One of my favorite things about the movie is how it doesn’t follow standard procedure. For example, it’s kind of a romantic comedy, but there’s no “meet cute.” And, after setting up Adventureland as the central location for conflict, the climax takes place entirely away from the theme park.

All of this gives Adventureland an unpredictable, almost natural tone. There isn’t anything particularly special about these people. There’s no magical contrivance driving them together. They’re just a few young adults, equal parts passionate and confused, who bump into and out of each others’ lives.

Adventureland reminded me there can be movies that are both conventionally funny comedies and artistically significant films.

(I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a kudos to the uniformly superb acting in Adventureland. The AV Club’s excellent review covers the standouts. )

Previously: #11 Mount and Blade: Warband

Up next: A retroactively revealing live album

Need a last-minute Christmas gift for yourself?

Look, Jews et al., any occasion you can come up with is fine — Scientologists have Freedom Day to look forward to on the 30th — just find a reason and make sure you’ve got The Whole Shebang ready to tap on New Year’s Eve.  This is the 2011 release from Audiostrobelight, a bunch of energetic speakerbusters from Virginia Beach, and it is going to stay up all night with you.  Remember fun?  Remember loud, dance, party, and rock-out?  Those guys remember you too, and they want you to buy Audiostrobelight’s album.

If you’re too busy to read this article, just check out the band’s own promo.  (Also, quit your job, you’re wasting your life!)  You’ll hear immediately what you can expect from The Whole Shebang: driving pop-punk that’s stuffed to the liner with hype, and not the empty kind.  Every song has that classic tug-of-war between fast, danceable rock and half-time breakdowns when you get to jump up and down and pump your fist and taste the sweat flying off the girls and guys all around you.  Did you see in the promo when they dropped the balloons on the audience, or the confetti and streamers?  If you aren’t into that, we can’t be friends.

“Okay,” you say, “Mr. O.,” because you and I aren’t on a first-name basis, “but the fast electronic dance-rockcore pop-punkadelia scene came and went, and hasn’t been heard from since 2005!  So why make such a big hubbub about one on-the-rise revivalist band?”  Two reasons off the top of my head.  First, I wasn’t done with that scene yet when it died.  Second, Audiostrobelight fits into the leading edge of that movement, not the middle, and looks set to evolve it into something more expansive.

Just check out their line-up:

• Bass, guitar, guitar/keys, drums.  (Ho-hum.)
• Dual vocalists.  (Okay, standard fare for the genre.)
• Electric violin/mandolin.  (Now we’re talking!)

And, since you mention Yellowcard, that’s an apt comparison.  Some of these songs would’ve fit perfectly on Ocean Avenue, and Audiostrobelight also gives us plenty of Fall Out Boy’s Infinity on High, Cartel’s Chroma, and the rowdiest bits of Simple Plan’s No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls.  But we also get rhythms that sample the escapist banner-waving of Less Than Jake’s ska-born Anthem and the alt-metal demolition drive of The Receiving End of Sirens’ Between the Heart and the Synapse.  Variety is packaged in to keep your body parts moving four or five different ways every song, which adds significantly to The Whole Shebang‘s replay value.  Plus, Yellowcard didn’t have a mandolin.

Combine this ability with the kind of live show that the band themselves describe as “ridiculously debaucherous,” and you can see how, on the strength of their State of the Art EP from 2009, these guys have developed a ravenous fan base who gives them a run for their money in passion.  Along with Warped Tour credentials, Audiostrobelight has opened for Cobra Starship, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Anberlin, and the aforementioned Fall Out Boy, to name a few.  While they’re not national headliners yet, take them seriously when they sing, in A Fifth of Feelgood, “This town won’t be the death of me!”  (“This town” being VA Beach, which fits nicely when you remember how Less Than Jake was always repping Gainesville, FL.)

Hey, is that the first lyric I’ve dropped?  Let’s open up these seven tracks.  Because it’s always worth mentioning when a band starts their album with a song called You’re Not Funny, You Stupid Clown.  It’s well positioned: when Audiostrobelight makes it big, you’ll be able to listen back to this one and hear “Give me the chance / Give me the time,” “We ain’t on top but we ain’t bottom,” and “We’re gonna reach for the stars / We’re gonna look past mountains.”  I’d love to see that premonition come true.

A Fifth of Feelgood lays all their cards on the table.  Keys are featured, the violin is used as an effective instrument and never a gimmick, and we get smacked in the face repeatedly by the JE-JUN, JE-JE-JE-JUN, JE-JUN in the bass and drums.  They’re singing the same adolescent dreams that we were crooning along with half a decade ago.  Whether they’re giving a friend a long hard send-off in Anchors Aweigh or begging for another chance with an “old flame” in Argyle, the constant in Audiostrobelight’s pushes and pleas is emotion.  All the bands they learned from used to be called “emo,” didn’t they?

While Drop the Act is the most anthemic shout-along, those last two songs I mentioned might be my favorites.  Argyle gives the band the chance to show that they’re perfectly capable of bringing things down and singing sweetly; they’re just happier when it’s all about “Going pound for pound / I bring the noise like your nightmare sounds.”  And the album closes on a fade-out at the end of Anchors Aweigh with three layered vocal lines carrying three strands of feelings.  Two-man harmonies assure “You’re better off without me” while the lead undercuts the sentiment with “I never want to trace this back / And let the record show I’m happy once again” and the gang vocals chant “Anchors aweigh, my friend!”

Where the f*** are they???

Audiostrobelight caught my attention by throwing back to beloved bands gone by, but what really hooked me was the depth of The Whole Shebang.  Every turn on my iTunes shows new traces of a band I didn’t know they had in them.  Excellent arrangements reward a careful listener, who will find every instrument playing a carefully crafted role to make you answer the call: “Let’s go / Let me see you put ‘em up right now / Tonight we’re gonna have some fun!”

Do yourself a favor this holiday season and pick up a copy for yourself.  The Whole Shebang also makes a great gift for anyone on your list who doesn’t suck.

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things, in which I discuss what I enjoyed this year, regardless of when it was released.

11. Mount and Blade: Warband

PC game, 2009

When I think of indie games, I think of twee platformers and lo-fi tactical games. I think of Darwinia and Super Meat Boy and Atom Zombie Smasher.If you were to have asked me earlier today what my favorite indie game is, I’d have been stumped. I might have settled on Super Meat Boy — a gem I somehow sunk about 25 hours into.

But as I was reading about Mount and Blade: Warband to prepare for writing this, I was shocked to find it referred to as an indie game. I guess I just didn’t consider that the Mount and Blade series was, in fact, made by an small independendent developer. The term “indie” doesn’t refer to a small-scale aesthetic and scope, even if that’s something that most of indie games share.

The Mount and Blade series is certainly not small-scale. It doesn’t feel indie, but I think it’s kind of cool that it is. It shows that an small developer like this really can provide depth, detail, innovation, and replayability to match the big boys. And, yeah — the Mount and Blade games are easily my favorite “indie” games I’ve ever played.

It’s kind of hard to describe exactly what the Mount and Blade games are like, but here’s my best shot: They’re kind of realistic medieval RPG’s. You have a main character who battles opponents and raises an army. There are no real goals — it’s open-ended, almost a sandbox.

Like an old-school RPG, there’s an overworld with different towns you can visit and a separate battle screen. But the dynamics are a lot more complicated than something like Final Fantasy 6. While the overworlds of classic games are essentially paintings that you can maneuver around, Mount and Blade’s is a dynamic, breathing world that functions on its own.

As you wander around the Mount and Blade world — vaguely inspired by medieval Europe — you’ll constantly come across different parties doing different things: peasant farmers, bands of thieves and deserters, armies of one of the six or so kingdoms. You can engage any one of them at any time.

Whenever you go into a battle, the game generates a large battlefield based on the terrain you were on; it’s basically a zoomed-in, high-def square from the overworld. Your party takes on the opposing army, but the battle engine can handle up to 150 soldiers.

Battle itself is pretty engaging. It’s real-time, third- or first-person action. By default, you ride a horse, though you don’t have to. You attack with a sword or axe or bow or javelin or a plethora of other weapons.

The game starts pretty fun right away. You land in the world with rags and a cheap wooden weapon. Generally, a pathetic group of looters will engage you, or else you engage them. You steal their loot, which you can sell or keep. You go from town to town trying to recruit villagers or hiring mercenaries with whatever money you can collect. Slowly, you build power and momentum.

But where the game elevates from “fun” to “epic” is in the late game. In most games, you don’t encounter any new game mechanics after the first several hours. Mount and Blade is an exception; in fact, you only get a small glimpse of the game until you really starts to get powerful.

That’s when the game’s most fascinating and addictive elements open up. For one, as you accumulate wealth, there’s actually stuff to do with it other than buy loot: You can hire bigger armies, purchase real estate in cities, invest in growing towns.

But there’s an entire political aspect to the game, too. When you become strong enough, you’ll be recruited to be a mercenary for one of the five or six kingdoms. If you do well enough on the battlefield for the king, you can become a vassal, with an entire new set of objectives and mechanics.

Mount and Blade: Warband was advertised as a sequel, but it’s really more of an expansion pack or a supercharged remake. It takes the original game and adds a few features that drastically expand the game’s appeal and replayability. First, it includes a sixth kingdom to further deepen the political web.

Next, it introduces a multiplayer component. You can play with up to 64 players in a single battle. The multiplayer battles don’t include the RPG elements; instead, they focus on a single battle. Still, it’s a fascinating and thrilling tactical experience.

Warband also expands the late game options even more. Beyond becoming a vassal, you can rise through the ranks within the kingdom’s elite and become a general or rule over different towns. You can even be made the heir of the throne and become the king.

Or, if you have a more independent streak, you can start your own faction. Just as any real-life rebellion movement, it’s hard going at first; be prepared to actively defend your towns and castles for weeks. But it’s extremely satisfying to slowly expand your boundaries, develop a military, promote your trusted soldiers to self-controlling officers who run their own brigades and follow you to a battlefront.

Each higher level of the game has its own set of balanced mechanics. There are so many features and ways to play, it’s almost intimidating. But the game eases you into it. That’s what makes the gradually expanding scope of the game so accessible and addictive: Just when you figure out how to do something well, there’s a new set of variables to deal with.

And a bit of icing on the cake is that the game is fully moddable, with dozens of great, game-changing mods available for download: Expand the economic structure and play strictly as a merchant. Introduce naval warfare. Immerse yourself in a fully created world with a deep backstory and expansive cast of character. I even played a Game of Thrones full conversion, leading an army from Winterfell to Lannisport and taking on Tywin Lannister myself.

It’s not as polished or cinematic as something like Skyrim, but Mount and Blade is at least as ambitious and deep. The series, especially Warband, gets my highest recommendation.

Previously: #12 Grantland

Up next: Rides Rides Rides! Games Games Games!

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things, in which I discuss what I enjoyed this year, regardless of when it was released.

12. Grantland

Sports and pop culture web site (debuted 06/2011)

I was hitting 40, and I was like, “What do I want to do long-term?” I always wanted to create a site that was sports and pop culture. 30 for 30 had a big impact because I loved how that was about finding, empowering and working with these incredible directors, and I thought the same thing could work for writers. I researched different sites and looked through all of my favorite magazines and tried to find people who were on their way up.

(from The Hollywood Reporter)

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things, in which I discuss what I enjoyed this year, regardless of when it was released.

#13 Larry And His Flask

Self-described “hillbilly band”

I remember reading an article somewhere — maybe it was in the thought-provoking Ripped — that the role of opening acts has greatly diminished in the past forty years.

During the adolescence of rock, people were often just as curious to see the opening act as they were excited to see the headliners — according to the writer. The opening acts of major bands served as a sort of farm system, allowing bands to build buzz as they improved their craft on the road.

Nowadays, the article generalized, people just show up about an hour after the start time listed on the ticket in order to arrive when main act goes up on stage. Opening acts are a largely unnecessary relic of the past. As technology improves and barriers to discovering new bands fall, the necessity of building buzz on the road diminishes.

But the most unexpected, joyful musical discovery of the year for me was the opening act for a concert of one of my all time favorite bands, Streetlight Manifesto.

The show had two opening acts. The first was forgettable. The second one, however, immediately caught my attention when it went up on stage wielding a rather unusual instrumentation: banjo, mandolin, string bass, standing drum kit.

Then they started playing, something like this:

The following progression approximates my reaction.

The Streetlight show afterwards was great, but after the show I went to the Larry and His Flask booth. I bought a T-shirt, met the bass player, and genuinely thanked them for rocking my world that night. When I went home, I downloaded their free EP and found YouTube clips of their shows. I looked up their future show dates and learned more about them.

In short, I lived the “opening act” experience as it was originally conceived.

Larry and His Flask will never rank as a historic favorite of mine, but the band is a gem. They have the trappings of both a bluegrass band (instrumentation, attitude) and a Jersey ska/punk band (composition, scene). It’s a blend that, frankly, seems like such an obvious recipe for success that I’m surprised I didn’t think of it before I heard them. You can buy the first album (since their reinvention; they started life as a straight-ahead punk band) on iTunes, among other platforms. It’s also on Spotify and Grooveshark.

Larry and His Flask earn their spot on this list for filling an inventive musical niche with expert craft and a killer show, but also for reminding me of the joy of the unexpected discovery. I so often find music based off of raving reviews or other positive recommendations. Sometimes it’s more fun to have low expectations surpassed than high expectations matched.

Previously: #14 Portal 2

Up next: Simmons starts a silly site

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things, in which I discuss what I enjoyed this year, regardless of when it was released.

#14 Portal 2

Video game, 2011

I normally don’t buy games near their release dates, but Portal 2 was an exception for a few reasons. First, I got it on sale quite early in its release cycle at $30, a far cry from the $60 of most new games. Also, my friend Hunter offered to play the co-op game with me.

But the main reason I didn’t wait to buy Portal 2 is because the original is freaking awesome. If you read about video games at all, you know the story: An add-on to a Half Life pack ends up stealing the show, winning numerous awards, and going down as one of the most important games of the decade.

Strangely, the original Portal reminded me of another underdog landmark: 1977’s Star Wars. Both have the feeling of a ramshackle, unexpected work of genius over which the stars magically align. The end product feels completely original and fresh, almost pivotal.

The design in Portal, particularly the final chapter, is brilliant. It guides you without ever making you feel like you’re being guided. Even a single poorly designed moment could have ruined the immersion, but it never happened, right down to the balls-to-the-walls ending.

Best of all, the original is packed with personality and humor often absent from video games. Antagonist GladOS, dark and hilarious, steals the show.

Portal clocks in at a scant three hours, assuming you don’t diddle around too much. Full of dark humor, mind-bending puzzles, and a heart-racing ending that won over even the harshest critics, Portal feels something like the gaming zeitgeist of the late aughts. The “Still Alive” credits song seals the deal.

Oh yeah… the sequel? It’s great. More of everything that made the original fantastic. The game is about four times as long. The puzzles are expanded with physics-altering surface gels. GladOS gets more charact development. We meet a few new characters, most memorably Cave Johnson voiced by JK Simmons.

It lacks the impact of the original because the expectations are higher and the series tropes are now in place: Increasingly complex puzzles, increasingly funny voiceovers by GladOS, fantastic ending, etc. Speaking of the ending, I’ll say it actually outshines the original. Cinematic, well-designed, and epic, the ending includes a few absolutely unforgettable moments.

The world also feels bigger and more interesting. The new exploration bits are pretty bland on a gameplay level compared to the best puzzles, but I actually enjoyed exploring the world and unraveling how it went to hell.

Put simply, Portal 2 a very worthy sequel for a fantastic original. It vastly expands and deepens the experience. It’s not quite The Empire Strikes Back, but it’s just as enjoyable and memorable as the era-defining Portal.

Previously: #15 LOST

Up next: A hillbilly band steals my heart at a Streetlight show

This is part of my 2011 wrap-up series, A Few of My Favorite Things, in which I discuss what I enjoyed this year, regardless of when it was released.

#15 LOST

TV series, 2004-2010

(The soundtrack to this article)

Lost is kind of a great show. It’s also kind of a terrible one.

On the one hand, it’s remarkably cinematic and thrilling. Its cast of characters is varied and well-drawn. You’ll come to love and hate the many members of this cast; you’ll celebrate their victories and suffer their defeats. They react, overall, pretty plausibly to the show’s outlandish premises. There’s also an intriguing set-up that proves full of mysteries, many of which are unraveled with expert pace and tension.

On the other hand, Lost botches its self-mythology and convoluted sci-fi explanations by constantly blowing up the scope and twisting somewhere strange (a quick rundown of the first four seasons). Worse, it really tries to make you care deeply about all of the zaniness.

I normally praise shows for pushing their boundaries later in the series, but Lost is the exception. My fiancee and I gave up a bit into the fifth season because we didn’t care about the mystery of “the island” and its inhabitants anymore. An entire premise-altering twist could occur any week, and often did, so it stopped affecting me. The scope of the show got blown up so many times that it didn’t raise the stakes, it just raised the silliness.

And yet… I can’t help but love Lost. It’s goofy and over-dramatic. It’s also tons of fun. Maybe I enjoyed it so much because I watched it with someone I love, and we made fun of it together. But there’s something magnetic about the show at its best: Exploring great characters, watching them bounce off of each other in a mixed-up, muddled-up, messed-up world.

Jack is the central character (to the point that we hypothesized his name was “Dr. Jack Lost” for awhile), and his arc takes center stage. I didn’t always like him, but I liked that the writers tried to take him different places throughout the series. His emergence as group leader then devolution into an alcoholic, paranoid madman  – and presumably back if I ever finish the series — served as a strong core.

But it’s the prolific cast of other major characters that really makes the show tick. To name a few of the big ones: Kate can consistently serve up nice love-triangle-of-the-week. Locke is a hyper-intense shaman who believes everything so strongly that you have no choice but to go along with him. Sawyer is a tragic, southern James Dean — a swaggering, self-destructive rebel. Hurley is Hurley. And there were dozens more by the time I stopped watching.

The show often worked best when its plots were simple. Many of the best plots — the first season comes to mind — had less to do with solving a mystery and more about digging deeper into the characters’ motivations. The simple plots became decreasingly common as the show ran its course. But when I think back on Lost, I’ll fondly remember exciting adventures with great, complex characters. A great example:

Previously: Honorable mentions

Up next: I’m making a note here: huge success