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War & Peace & Mega Man
Tristero | 6:17 AM on 09.26.2008 15 comments


I started reading War & Peace this week. I figured you're supposed to read the damn thing at least once before you die, right? I'm usually game for a challenge, and I've never let a book's size or prestige throw me off the scent before. I figured it would tie in nicely with a week of Mega Man 9 and Bionic Commando: Rearmed on Super Hard. You know, a week of honest to God hard work. I rolled up my sleeves to get down to business.

I had high expectations for War & Peace. Tolstoy's a vegetarian and an anarchist, a nasty pair of romantic outdated ideologies that I also happen to subscribe to. Let's go! Break it down for me Tolstoy!



Hmmm, the first 20 pages were slow going. About 15 different characters are introduced, all with mouthfuls of consonants in their names, and no noticeable differences in their personalities. There's the prince of this and the princess of that, who has a son named Raskadhokalovich who married the count's sister Andadonia who had a falling out with the Duchess Anna, who died in childbirth. Not really, but you get the idea. And they're all at this grand party and they're all jockeying for prestigious positions and favors from one another. They wax intellectual about the war and Napoleon. They drop French phrases like they're hot to flaunt their aristocratic credentials. Kind of reminded me of a bunch of videogame journalists descending like a pack of vultures on a press conference from a noted designer. Everyone's gotta puff out their chests and act important in the hopes of scoring a contact, interview, or phone call.

Wasn't really feeling any of this. I kept flipping to the back of the book to note the page length. How long was this again? 1000 pages? 1200 pages? Holy shit. It's 1436 pages. If all those pages rattle on about debutante balls, I don't think I'm gonna be able to stick with it. I didn't like it, but I also didn't like myself for not liking it. What are you, Tristero? Some kind of philistine? It's War & Fucking Peace. Just read the damn thing. I took a break and downloaded Mega Man 9.

Everyone here but Dexter has probably fallen in love with the game by now. Like most of you, I found the first 30 minutes a peculiar kind of torture. After the initial adrenaline rush from hearing those adorable tunes chirping away, all the new bosses doing their chest thumping dances, the hot shit opening story with the Swiss Bank jokes and retro sarcasm ... after all this dust settles, you begin to realize: oh, I'm gonna actually have to play this thing and it's actually gonna to require genuine work on my part. This ain't the power of love. You ARE going to need a credit card to ride this train.



After huffing and puffing and climbing my way up through Wily's prestigious ivory tower (he's such an elitist, isn't he?), I finally blew his ass back down on his knees where he belongs, begging for my robo mercy. HUGE SPOILERS And you know what? I wasn't just rewarded for beating this particular Mega Man game. I was rewarded for beating all of the Mega Man games. A project that's sprawled over the last decade and a half for me. I roughed it threw every damn one of those fuckers and I'm so glad I did, because there was a huge reward waiting at the end. DJ Mega Man cuts Mixmaster Wily down to size. Dr. Wily's sobbing for forgiveness and Mega Man lays it all out on the table for him. Remember the first time you screwed up, Wily? And then this time? And this time? All of those hard earned finale shots from over the years cascaded across the screen. I was there for each of them. I was in the shit. And Capcom patted me on the back for it. While it's an ending almost anyone can appreciate, if you've stayed with the series over the years, you're gonna get an extra tingle in your pants from bitch-slapping Wily with some serious sass. END SPOILERS

How does this tie in with War & Peace? Motivation, my friends. Sometimes the really precious moments in life take hard work to appreciate. Thelonius Monk said, "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light." I'm feeling him on that. Sometimes you have to struggle against odds to get the ultimate prize. You've gotta pierce the heavens with your spiral drill, even if Rossiu's being a huge dick.



War & Peace sucks for the first couple of dozen pages. So what? Maybe you've gotta earn the good stuff. After the nicotine high from thrashing the latest Mega Man, I dove back in to Tolstoy's send-up of European politics and hubris. And you know what? It got good. These dudes got drunk after a party and made a crazy bet. They were both going to sit out of a window on the third story of this house and drink a whole bottle of rum. The catch was, they weren't allowed to touch anything with their hands except the bottle of rum. No grabbing onto the window ledge to save them from impending doom. That's a goddamn bar bet! They both survive and go out for a night of carousing, but they've got these bears that they stole from the circus and they go hunting down famous actresses to scare them with the bears. And then the police come and the drunk dudes, get this, they tie the fucking police man to the back of the bear! And they send the bear down a river with the helpless police man just stuck on its back, splashing around. That's quality literature.



Next time you're faced with something insurmountable, hang in there until you see the pressure-guage start to fall. Strap on your dust goggles and fire up your blow torches. Then fly towards grace.



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14 comments | showing # 1 to 14

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Jonathan Holmes's Destructoid Blog
So, why isn't this on the front page?

It's certainly more awesome than anything I've ever written.
aborto thefetus's Destructoid Blog
HOLY SHIT TRISTERO'S BACK!
the GAMEGOBLIN's Destructoid Blog
DON'T YOU EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN ;_;
Char Aznable's Destructoid Blog
This was a great read, and the Back to the Future reference was very much appreciated.

I've never really been into Russian literature since I read Crime and Punishment in high school and wanted to blow my brains out. Every person seems to have five different names, and they're all like Mr. Andreyovichovski Petrovolaskidanya III.

I'm not really that intrigued by stories about aristocrats being rich and spoiled, either. Have you read Eugene Onegin by Pushkin? The whole thing is this overblown drama over an unrequited love, as if the world will end because some dude's obsessive love for a woman isn't returned. It just annoys me when there are real problems to be worrying about, not some rich asshole's love life.

This is probably the one time in my life when I can compare Russian literature to an episode of The Hills, so I'd better savor the moment.
Tristero's Destructoid Blog
@Char: I'm sorry Crime & Punishment made you want to blow your brains out. It's supposed to have the opposite effect. It's one of my favorite books, but there are a ton of terrible translations floating around. That's the kicker with a lot of this Russian stuff. The translators can make or break it. I've read some Pushkin. I think The Queen of Spades. Pushkin's not very much up my ally, either. So I can totally relate.

If you want to read an excellent Russian novel, I highly recommend We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It's a distopian future novel that influenced Brave New World and 1984. Those books couldn't have existed without We, and it's easily their equal, if not greater, in quality.
Professor Pew's Destructoid Blog
I think I will skip Mega Man 9 and watch the 5-disc movie version of War & Peace instead. Hey, I'm lazy and a graphics whore!

Nice writeup in any case :)
Char Aznable's Destructoid Blog
Alright, We sounds far more interesting than any other Russian lit I've checked out before. I'll have to give that a try. I see what you mean about the translation, as that is an art unto itself. Maybe I'll give Dostoevsky another shot at some point, because I probably wasn't mature enough at the time to appreciate it anyway.

Also, how in the hell do you tie a human being onto the back of a bear without the person being mauled to death?
bloodylip's Destructoid Blog
@Char

It's like if someone glued a mouse to the middle of your back. You can't really reach it. And the bear has a more limited range of motion on its arms. So it can kind of wiggle around to try to get you off of it, but it can't reach you with its teeth or claws, the things that really matter.
NihonTiger90's Destructoid Blog
Tristero confirmed to be back!

Also, MM9 and War and Peace are two versions of the same thing: slow torture.
Char Aznable's Destructoid Blog
@Bloodylip

I'm sorry, I'm not buying that. The bear could just flop around on the ground and crush the guy, or smash against a tree or something.

If cartoons have taught me anything, it's that bears can rub themselves on trees and shit to scratch an itch on their backs. Come on, now. Are you telling me that Yogi Bear is scientifically inaccurate?

Also, based on the avatar, have you been watching the new episodes of Always Sunny since last Thursday?
king3vbo's Destructoid Blog
+5 points for Gurren Lagann reference
bloodylip's Destructoid Blog
I'm insulted that you felt the need to even ask that question.
Dexter345's Destructoid Blog
Very inspiri--hey wait how'd you know I haven't fallen in love with Mega Man 9 yet? I've been slogging through it, (I'm determined to play through at least once) and while I imagined I'd hate it, I have caught myself smiling on an occasion or two. Of course, it makes sense to smile when you kick the ass of something you hate.

No further mention of Bionic Commando: Rearmed on Super Hard though? I'm playing through that with five more levels to go. It's another feat of perseverance, but for some reason it's one that I thoroughly enjoy and am not embarrassed to say so.

I hope to see your score on my friends leaderboard soon so I can thoroughly crush it.
walnutthewise's Destructoid Blog
I did not even know you had started up the dtoid blog again! Man, now there are too many games out to right. I have started a seemingly insurmountable book myself: Anathem, the latest tome from Neal Stephenson.


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