Biased Season Preview: The 2013 Chicago White Sox

With the Village Tavern back to quasi-active status, I decided it was time to send it back towards its roots – in other words, a not very timely or intellectual sports article.  Here is the Village Tavern’s preview of the 2013 White Sox season.

Hitting:

Last year, the White Sox were almost an exactly average offense, finishing 15^th in baseball in runs scored.  They finished 3^rd in the league with 211 home runs, but only in the middle of the pack in OBP and batting average.  Based on following them as a fan, the lineup felt more out-prone than the team’s .318 OBP would suggest, and you’d expect a team that finished 15^th in OBP and 3^rd in HRs to be a top-ten offense.  Part of the problem was that the Sox seemed to struggle to get that big hit with men in scoring position.  A power-heavy offense also lends itself to a boom-and-bust quality, which is not great news for their record, but which shouldn’t affect the aggregate numbers too much.

What’s changed this season?  Tyler Flowers will finally get a chance as the full-time starting catcher.  He’s actually already 27, but his debut in the role was delayed by A.J.’s long tenure and willingness to stay with the Sox on relatively cheap, short-term contracts for awhile.  The consensus on Flowers seems to be that he should hit 30+ home runs as a full-time starter in a hitter’s park (which would be roughly on track with his career HRs/AB to this point, and possibly even low), but that he’s also going to hit around .220.  In other words, in comparison to AJ, more power and fewer times on base, which will skew the offense even more towards power...just what we needed.  Personally, I think the .220s predictions will end up being low; Flowers hit in the .270s and .280s in the minors, and his more recent .220 seasons have come as a young backup moving up and down from the minors to the bigs, which isn’t easy for a hitter to deal with.

The other projected new starter, Jeff Keppinger, will provide almost no power, but hit over .300 in part-time work last year, and should hopefully get on base more than Kevin Youkillis (who at least provided power) or Brent Morel (who didn’t get on base much or hit for power).  Keppinger is also known for being difficult to strike out, so this move may have been made with the Tigers in mind – no team in baseball is more reliant on the strikeout to escape from innings than Detroit, who for the most part has great pitching and terrible fielding.  Keppinger may end up as one of those players who is better suited for a bench/utility role than as a full-time starter that other teams spend time game-planning for, so I’m actually vaguely pessimistic here, although he shouldn’t be the offensive black hole that 3B was for most of last year.

Looking at the lineup in total, this looks to be more of the same.  Power is the most obvious team strength: every regular starter but Keppinger should easily hit double figures in homers, Rios, Konerko, Viciedo, and Flowers have a chance to go over 30, and Dunn should be among the league leaders.  This will be a very scary team for opponents in games where the Sox are tied or trailing by one late, as nearly everyone in the lineup is a threat to alter the game with one swing.  I’m also hearing “regression” thrown around with this lineup a lot, especially with Dunn and Rios.  Frankly, with Dunn, it doesn’t make any sense at all, at least not if you can remember (or look things up from) further than two years into the past.  While Dunn was a feel-good story in 2012 because of his rebound from a truly horrific 2011, his 2012 season was actually right in line with his career numbers – actually, slightly worse in some respects.  If you look at his baseball card, 2011 jumps out as an obvious outlier, and that’s without considering that he had surgery early in the season and was living his first year in a new city.  He’ll be fine.  I do understand it with Rios, and to be honest, I never know what we’re going to get from him, but he seems to have fixed his approach last season and I’m cautiously optimistic there.

However, the offense is average or worse in other respects, and they will probably frustrate us fans by having more than their share of 1-2-3 innings, and teamwide slumps are going to be a possibility when they either aren’t hitting for power or are hitting too many solo shots.  In other words, this is pretty much the offense White Sox fans know and love and loathe.

Fielding:

First off, I’ll say that fielding might be one of the few parts of baseball left where statistics haven’t quite caught up to “the eye test.”  That said, the Sox had good defensive numbers last season, leading the league in fielding percentage and finishing eighth (and within .005) of first in defensive efficiency ratio (which is basically the rate at which balls in play are turned into outs).  However, they were only slightly above average in defensive runs saved.   So, while calling the White Sox defense “mediocre” (as Grantland’s preview did) is lazy and ill-informed, depending on what stats you value more, they were either elite or slightly above average on defense last year.

Having watched most of last season, I felt like the Sox were very good defensively, especially up the middle and with Rios in right field, but they didn’t make me feel like I was watching one of the best fielding teams in the league.  Some of the credit goes to Robin Ventura for putting more effort into positioning the defense for individual hitters than Ozzie did (the 2011 Sox, with a lot of the same players, were also near the top in fielding percentage but were 22^nd in defensive efficiency with an ugly .687).

Fielding is going to be hugely important and needs to be one of the strengths of the team.  For one thing, Don Cooper’s pitch-to-contact philosophy requires good fielders to work, and for another, it’s potentially the only significant advantage the White Sox have over Detroit.  Flowers has generally been regarded as solid defensively to this point, and for once the Sox might even have a catcher that other teams don’t enjoy running on so much.  The Sox aren’t going to have a defensive ace like Morel at 3B anymore, but whatever they come up with will probably not be worse than Youkillis was, and the age of glove-only players like Morel having careers as starters is pretty much over anyway.  However, with Ramirez and Beckham, hitters aren’t going to have much room to work with over the middle.  You’d assume that Konerko is a bad fielder because he’s so aggressively old, white, and unathletic (I can’t really think of a less athletic professional athlete that isn’t fat), but he rarely makes mistakes and seems to have better range than you’d expect, and first basemen need to make hundreds of routine plays for every chance they get at a spectacular one anyway.  The outfield is good, but not amazing, and may improve a bit this year as none of the starting outfielders last season had a ton of recent MLB experience at their specific positions.

Pitching:

The ability to draft and develop pitching is the White Sox’s biggest consistent strength as an organization – the closer and five of the six pitchers expected to start this season have played all or substantially all of their big league careers with the Sox, and there are also Gio Gonzalez, Daniel Hudson, Mark Buehrle, Brandon McCarthy, and Sergio Santos floating around as surplus products of the “perpetually weak” farm system (although in fairness, they haven’t been nearly as successful in developing field players).

Frankly, pitching coach Don Cooper gives this team an advantage and needs to be kept around as long as possible, routinely turning pitchers with one or zero plus-pitches into viable starters – and, in Buehrle’s case, an ace and multi-time all-star.  Buehrle really embodied Cooper’s philosophy more than any other starter – don’t waste a bunch of time on the mound, pitch to contact, force groundballs, and avoid walks.  This is primarily designed to avoid giving up home runs and walks, which strikeout pitchers tend to do more of, and despite U.S. Cellular’s reputation as a homer haven, the Sox pitching staff is generally middle-of-the-pack or better in home runs allowed.

Number one starter Chris Sale is one of the primary reasons to be excited for this season.  The Sox have always had two or more good starters in the time I’ve been following them, Contreras submitted one of the best 12-month runs by a pitcher ever (the second half of ’05 and the first half of ’06), and if you offered me a deal where Sale would obtain the same amount of career and team success as Buehrle did in his White Sox career, I’d jump all over it.  All that said, the Sox haven’t really had a dominating strikeout pitcher since Jack McDowell; while Buehrle and, at times, Contreras, Loaiza, and even Garland made me feel like the Sox had a great chance to win all of their starts, I never really scheduled anything differently to get a chance to watch them pitch.  As an added bonus, his youthful age means that he’s the one White Sox player that experts won’t automatically assume to be declining from season to season!

Last season also gave us a chance to see a full healthy season from post-surgery Peavy.  While it’s a safe bet to say he’s won his last Cy Young Award, he remains a very good #2 starter, and understands how to pitch well enough that his lack of any single killer pitch doesn’t hurt him that much (which is impressive for a guy that used to have three or four such pitches).  Last season definitely took him, in my mind, from “I cannot wait until we are out of this contract,” to “uh, we sort of can’t afford to lose this guy,” sort of like a better version of what Carlos Boozer is doing this year for the Bulls.  Gavin Floyd will have amazing stretches and rough patches as usual, which is the consequence of having a devastating out pitch (his curveball) that you can only sometimes throw for strikes.

So far, I’m basically describing an average rotation for a decent MLB team – one Cy Young contender, a solid #2 starter who might make the all-star team but can’t really be described as dominant, and an up-and-down third starter who will hopefully be more good than bad.  The wild card this season will be how the back of the rotation does.  The last two spots are going to be divided by some combination of Jose Quintana, Dylan Axelrod, and John Danks When and If He is Healthy.   While Quintana and Axelrod have both pitched very well at times and are at the stage in their careers where they should improve, neither is really established yet and I’m still nervous every time they pitch.  In order to have a contending-calibur rotation, the Sox need at least one of the back three to be a reliable starter this year, and no more than one to be a disaster.  Even though his recovery is supposedly going wellish, I’m considering anything we get from Danks to be a bonus given his track record over the last couple of seasons, but if Quintana or Axelrod flame out, it will quickly become a necessity.  The other question mark is whether changing catchers will affect the rotation, as AJ was known for calling games well.  On the other hand, I’m sure that Cooper and the veteran starters have a lot of input on game planning for hitters, so this may not make much difference.

It’s impossible to predict what will happen to any bullpen over the course of the year.  Addison Reed was a mediocre closer last season, but he’s young, he throws hard, and he doesn’t walk people, so there’s certainly potential for him to become a top closer, perhaps even this season.  Jesse Crain and Matt Thornton are both very reliable setup guys who shouldn’t be asked to close regularly (or, in Thornton’s case, ever).  The rest of the bullpen is made up of young guys who could pitch very well or could be disastrous, although it’s a better group than you’d expect given how bad the Sox farm system allegedly always is.  Donnie Veal and Nate Jones are vaguely promising but not really reliable, Hector Santiago is vaguely reliable but not really that promising, and I will probably turn the game off if Septimo or Omogrosso comes in.

Depth/Intangibles:

Robin Ventura enters his second year as manager, which should be good news; he didn’t have much prior experience and may be better at the job this season (not that I have any real complaints from last year).  The bench is mostly made up of young guys who I haven’t heard of before, and pseudo-fan-favorite DeWayne Wise, who is somehow on the White Sox again.  Considering also that Lillibridge has signed with the Cubs, I’m guessing that the Chicago area houses in the MLB bench player price range are hard to sell.  Jordan Danks and/or Jared Mitchell might come up from the minors this season, possibly for good in Danks’s case, but barring an injury neither one is going to regularly start.  Last season’s better-than-expected record, and the fact that most predictions seemed to be using 2012’s original predictions as a baseline rather than the actual results, will hopefully give the team a combination of a feel-good vibe and an “us against the world” mentality that may give them a minor edge, to the extent that stuff like that actually helps.

Expectations/Prediction:

Most mainstream previews I’ve read of the Sox have them at about .500 or slightly under.  Honestly, that seems just a bit goofy to me.  Sox fans are used to being .500 or better (10 of the last 13 seasons), so the thought of a losing record leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  It also doesn’t really seem all that realistic – if you view their young players in the light Royals and Indians youngsters are viewed and their veterans the way Detroit’s old-timers are, this team should easily win over 100 games.  More realistically, I think they win somewhere between 85 and 90 again.  The team hasn’t changed substantially and I don’t see a reason to think they’ll be substantially worse than last year’s 85-77, and that was actually below their expected wins based on run differential, so it isn’t like they were lucky to have that record.

Is that enough for the playoffs?

Detroit is the obvious hurdle in the division.  The Tigers have some problems which could come up to bite them; many of their key players are already getting old, they don’t really have a closer, and their infield defense is somewhere between “bad” and “one of the worst of all time.”  Despite these flaws, the batting order and rotation are so good that they should be a 90-win team or close to it for at least one or two more years, and even without a clear closer, it isn’t like their bullpen is terrible.  Additionally, while Detroit doesn’t look like a super deep team this season, they addressed some of last season’s depth issues by adding Torii Hunter and by developing their younger pitchers.  While the Sox certainly are capable of finishing ahead of Detroit, it’s honestly not that likely unless the Tigers underachieve significantly or one of their “big three” gets hurt.

You'll hear some hype about the other teams in this division from time to time, but to be honest, as someone who follows them regularly, the rest of the division is pretty bad.  Cleveland and Kansas City are supposedly young and up-and-coming teams, but on the other hand, as the old saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me every year for ten seasons in a row, and I must be so stupid that I shouldn’t be allowed to buy my own groceries.  The Royals honestly could end up around .500ish if everything goes right and will put up a fight in every individual series, but their bullpen and the back of the rotation are excruciatingly bad, which will keep them from being close to the division lead over the course of a whole season.  As for Cleveland and Minnesota, I’ll just say that, in my fantasy baseball league (a highly competitive 12-teamer with a roster format that emphasizes starting pitching), a grand total of one starting pitcher was taken from those teams, and that was a late-round flyer on Ubaldo Jimenez.  While it's easy to assume that beating Detroit is priority #1, the type of season the Sox have will largely be dependent on whether they can beat up on the other three division rivals, or whether they end up around .500 in those games.

With two good/decent teams and three bad ones, the AL Central could have a decent chance to produce a Wild Card team, and this might be the most likely way in for the Sox.  The AL East has long been a Wild Card factory, but with Boston and New York declining and the Orioles and (maybe) Jays improving, it’s a hard division to make sense of.  The best-case scenario for our Wild Card hopes is that the East ends up being a division with five good teams but no great or terrible ones, where everybody beats up on each other and nobody is able to get past the high 80s in wins.  The AL East might produce a 90-game winner this year, but I don’t see it producing two of them, like it often has in the past.

The West looks a little more likely to produce at least one Wild Card, although it's also tougher to figure out than the Central is.  The Mariners should still be bad for at least a couple more years, which helps the rest of the division.  Texas continues to have good pitching, but with Hamilton and Napoli gone, this could be the year that their annual free agent losses catch up to them.  The Angels are positively terrifying on paper, but they also were last year and it didn’t translate to anything amazing on the field.  Defending division champ Oakland is the toughest to read – last year looked like a return to Billy Beane’s glory days, where they routinely win division titles with a bunch of players that nobody’s ever heard of.

Looking at the league this way, I’ll go out on a limb and predict that it takes less than 90 wins to get a wild card spot this year.  The final prediction for the season: 87-75, 2^nd in AL Central, and into the playoffs as the AL’s second wild card team.

So Long, Nintendo Power; Let's Pick Apart Your Top 25 List

Well it has been awhile, but I had to comment on Nintendo Power's list of the top twenty-five video games of all time (actually, I already did in response to an email, making this an easy post to write...).  Also, you just watch - blogging is going to become cool again as social media sites chase people away with increasing ads and constantly changing privacy settings, only now people are used to being able to make inane observations about everything publicly!

There actually could be a bit of a comeback in store - I won't promise anything, but you could see three, maybe even four, new posts on this site in 2013!

Anyway, my friend and frequent commenter Rob Malas emailed me the top-25 as well as a list of his most notable omissions.  I'll give y'all the list, then my comments on the ones that I have played.  Not surprisingly, this only includes games released on Ninetendo consoles:

Nintendo Power's Top 25:
25 - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX
24 - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
23 - Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
22 - Super Mario Bros. 2
21 - Street Fighter 2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting
20 - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
19 - Chrono Trigger
18 - Super Mario 3D Land
17 - Metroid Prime
16 - Super Mario Bros.
15 - Super Mario Galaxy 2
14 - Super Mario 64
13 - Elite Beats Agents
12 - The Legend of Zelda
11 - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
10 - Resident Evil 4
9 - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
8 - Super Metroid
7 - Super Mario Bros. 3
6 - Mega Man 2
5 - Super Mario World
4 - Final Fantasy III (VI in Japan)
3 - Super Mario Galaxy
2 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
1 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Notable titles missing from the top 25:
27 - SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV
33 - THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS
39 - MEGA MAN X
79 - GOLDENEYE 007 (N64 - ONLY 79?)
128 - SUPER MARIO RPG
141 - ANIMAL CROSSING
161 - SUPER MARIO KART
212 - STAR FOX
213 - TMNT II: THE ARCADE GAME
256 - F-ZERO
261 - SUPER MARIO LAND 2: 6 GOLDEN COINS
272 - DONKEY KONG COUNTRY
285 - SUPER STAR WARS

 Here's my take, first for the top 25:
25 - Link's Awakening:
 I only played the GameBoy version, but even squinting at that dim, black-and-white screen, this was a good one.  #25 sounds about right.

22 - SMB2: 
Underappreciated game, but I think 22 is a little too high for what was essentially an experiment in changing SMB that didn't work.  Even Nintendo agrees with me as I think the Bob-omb was the only thing from SMB2 that shows up later in the series (although since it is a dream, that may be for continuity reasons?).  Laid the groundwork for Halo 2 as a video game sequel that had some cool ideas but tried to change too much about a great original game.  If Mario 2 is on this list, Zelda 2 should be also.  One thing I take away from this list is that Nintendo Power loves them some Mario series.

21 - SF2 Turbo Whatever it Was:
I have to admit, I was more of a Mortal Combat fan.  Top-fifty for sure, top twenty-five is questionable.  Started an amusing trend of arcade games and their console versions keeping the same number and adding some adjectives when they made a sequel.

19 - Chrono Trigger:
Chrono Trigger is a GREAT game, and kind of makes me want to figure out how to set up an emulator.  I replayed this game at least three times, and it was a pretty long one (you had to play it at least twice so you could have Magnus on your side once and kill him once).  Other than the "combo" attacks, I'm not sure that it changed RPG gameplay all that much, but the plot was terrific - complex enough to be interesting, simple enough that you could follow it even if you weren't a D&D nerd, and in one game it showed you the whole history of an interesting fictional world.  (SPOILER: also, even though you go back and avert it, the main character dies, and the first time, he usually does so with all of your sweetest gear!  I can't think of many video games with legitimate jaw-dropping plot moments like that one END SPOILER).

16 - SMB1:
Tough to rank since video games have gone way beyond it since, but it is actually still semi-playable even now and it might be the most influential video game ever.  When you think about it, probably about 80% of the games released for the 8-bit Nintendo, and a lot of SNES and Sega Games too, used the side-scroller format established by this game.  Somehow, Duck Hunt did not have nearly the same influence.  16 is a little low for for my taste, but they're right not to have it in the top ten.

I refuse to believe that anything called "Elite Beats Agents" deserves to be ranked that high (then again, "Animal Crossing" is an equally uninspiring title and one of Rob's friends swears it is the best game ever).

12 - The Legend of Zelda:
Great game, could be higher, plus, they invented the "open world" game twenty years before it became a trend (In my opinion, an annoying trend.  I can see how kids may like them because they live a fairly linear life, but once you get done with college, if you want to not know what you are supposed to do next, you have real life.  You don't need that from your entertainment.)  Anyway, past dungeon 3, they do not give you a road map for this one at all, plus the dungeons are tough once you finally find them.  Beating this game is one of kid me's more impressive achievements (seriously); I don't know how I did it.  Actually the fact that I'd never try to play through this again probably means the ranking is about right.

10 - Resident Evil 4:
Yes, yes, yes.  Manages the horror atmosphere so well that I was terrified WATCHING one of my friends play this game.  Salazar and his vaguely napoleon-ish henchmen might be my two favorite "one episode" villains in video games.  My one complaint is that the controls on the Gamecube version were horrid (not really that game's fault; that controller just wasn't designed for shooters), but it played beautifully on the Wii and I'd be fine with that version being in the top five.  I guess the Gamecube version fans could argue that it adds to the horror when you need to look down at the controller to figure out how to reload while a guy with a chainsaw and a bag over his head is bearing down on you.

9 - Zelda Windwaker: 
 I didn't play this but watched Mac play through at least 75% of it in college and I was kind of unimpressed.  Nothing ever looked that challenging (then again, Mac was, at the time, one of America's foremost experts on the Legend of Zelda), and it seemed like you spent more time going across the open ocean with nothing happening than doing anything else.  It did have a unique feel that worked, but that alone doesn't put it in the top ten for me.  I could be being harsh on a game that I never played myself though.  I'd be interested to see Lew's rankings for which video games are the most fun to watch other people play.

7 - SMB3:
#1 for me at least among Nintendo games.  It's mind-blowing given the graphics and complexity that this came out for the regular old 8-bit Nintendo.  The most common way to play through it now is to use the Warp Whistles and only play Worlds 1, a little bit of 2 and 5, and 8, but if you play through the whole thing, it's both really challenging (ok, it kind of needed a save mode or at least some kind of password system), and each world has a totally unique feel.  A mind-blowing game at the time (Mario World was also mind-blowing, but it was a console launch game and therefore it was expected to be).  Plus, think of the stakes: coming off a sequel a lot of people didn't like, had this game bob-ombed, the Mario series might have been done!  Pulls off what Metallica's "Death Magnetic" album in that it was both a return to Mario's roots and more complex than anything they'd ever done (SMB3 was better though).

6 - Mega Man 2:
There should be a Mega Man game near the top, but honestly every Mega Man game I played felt totally indistinguishable from all of the other Mega Man games, even across console generations.  Maybe they could just treat the "Mega Man Series" as a fifteen-parter and give it spot #5?

5 - Mario World:
This is about right.  SMB3 deserves to be above it because really, other than Yoshi, what else new did this game bring to the series?  (The cape was the same as the leaf; you're not fooling me Nintendo!)  That said, the hidden world and the ability to change the look of every normal level by playing through it was, well, "tubular" and "gnarly."

2 - A Link to the Past:
This would be my #2 after SMB3.  What a great game.  Like SMB3, every dungeon and even every region of both outerworlds had a different feel, and like SMB3 it redeemed an iffy experimental sequel by returning to, and improving on, its roots.  Probably the first video game that really felt like an epic adventure.  Also, it introduced BOING! the best ranged weapon BOING! in the Zelda series (and one of the best in any game), the hookshot!

1 - Ocarina of Time:
Personally I thought a Link to the Past was a little more fun, and I thought the Dark World/Light World concept was more interesting than time travel over such a brief period.  Actually, if you consider Navi as Al, maybe this game was loosely based on Quantum Leap?  Ok, probably not.  Still, this passes the "mind blowing when it came out" test more easily than anything on the list, and while I haven't played it recently, I'd bet it holds up pretty well now.  Also, it influenced pretty much every third person adventure game that was made after it, even up to the present day, so there's that.  While I would probably have it merely in the top five, this is definitely a defensible #1 pick.

And now, to the omissions:

27: Super Castlevania IV
I absolutely loved this game and I think the ranking is about right.  It seems like an obvious move now, but being able to whip things diagonally was huge at the time.  This is another game that I replayed multiple times.  I always get charged up at the beginning of the last level when it brings back the Castlevania I music.

39 - Mega Man X:
This is actually my favorite of all of the Mega Man games that I can't tell apart.

79 - Goldeneye:
Had this been ranked a year after it came out I think it makes the top twenty.  It really suffers from the fact that it was the last big console shooter prior to Halo, which totally altered the standards for video game shooters.  I went back to Goldeneye once after college, and after being used to smooth-handling shooters with multiple vehicles and dozens of weapons to choose from it felt like an unplayable mess.  Which is sad, because other than Halo and Madden I'm not sure if there was ever a game that was so universally played and liked by everyone for a few years.  There was no point to have an N64 if you didn't have Goldeneye.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there's a game that was enjoyable at the time that has held up worse over the years.

128 - Super Mario RPG:
I actually think this was a Mario experiment that worked.  I was going to express surprise given the franchises' track record that this didn't spawn a huge Mario RPG series, but a quick Wikipedia search reveals that, oops, it did!  Maybe I should try to play those other ones...

161 - Mario Kart:
"Double Dash" is the best version of Mario Kart and should be in the top 25.  For that matter, Mario Kart should be in the top 100.

212 - Star Fox:
Way too low.  Quick, name another airplane/spaceship fighting game that was actually fun to play.

213 - TMNT II:
I played this a lot but it was a little too simple to deserve to be ranked that much higher (it shouldn't be ahead of Star Fox, anyway, although I'm sure it should be ahead of "Luigi's Cookbook" or whatever else is stuck in the top 200).  I'm curious about how the first TMNT game is ranked.  Did they penalize it based on the fact that nobody has ever beaten that game?

256 - F-Zero:
 I'm fine with the low ranking if only because making a racing game without any multiplayer mode is just unconscionable.

272 - DK Country:
Way too low; this should be in the top fifty.  This was the Super Nintendo's version of SMB3, you look at it and think "isn't that an N64 game?"  Plus, unlike Mario and Luigi, Donkey and Diddy required totally different playing styles.

285 - Super Star Wars:
Consensus among my friends seems to that this was an incredibly difficult game; if it actually is the one I'm thinking of, I honestly didn't think it was that tough.  I guess I'm some kind of Super Star Wars Savant.  Before y'all think I'm not humble or something, I will point out that as life skills go, that isn't very useful; it isn't even a game that you can beat your friends at or anything.

Ok, that's it for now.  This did get me thinking that it would be fun to put my own top-25 list of video games together, especially to see where non-Nintendo games like Diablo II and Halo would fit in.  Perhaps that will be one of my next posts here.  Look for it coming soon, in early 2014!

Ek's Top 100 Albums of the '10s: #50-26

Well, it is time to move a little further down the list of my favorite albums this decade. We're through the bottom half of the top 100, but now we're going to slow down a bit to give the top half the attention it deserves.

I've realized, however, that the worst part of lists like these are all of the glaring omissions, so before I go any further, I'm going to give a bonus mini-list of the Top 5 Bands That I Probably Should Have Gotten Into But Didn't This Decade:

1. Radiohead: Not only are they on the top of this list; they're definitely on the top of my personal "Oh my God, I can't believe you aren't into them" list from any decade. Time and priorities were definitely a factor in my not following all bands on these lists, but I'll try to give some other rationales as well. In this case, I got turned off by the overwhelming consensus among their fans that they (1) would always be an indie band at heart (which was obviously not true) and (2) were one of the greatest and most influential rock bands ever (even when their more groundbreaking work was too new to have influenced anyone). The band didn't help by having the highest degree of British self-importance and refusal to accept criticism since Led Zeppelin. On the other hand, I realized when I went through my Pandora phase that they were coming up with a lot of bands I do like, and a lot of their music was actually good. Maybe not good enough to justify their off-putting arrogance, but then again, they aren't really any worse than Zeppelin in that respect. Or Axl Rose. Or Dave Mustaine. Or John Fogerty. Maybe I should give them a shot.

2. Tool: They should be right up my alley as one of the top prog-metal bands ever, and of what I've heard, they have several good songs and at least a handful of great ones. They seem to have an overwhelming aura of negativity and anti-religiousness that has kept me from really wanting to get to them, although there are tons of bands I listen to despite the fact that I don't agree with their politics, religion, and/or philosophy. Part of the problem for me is that they actually come off as anti-God, rather than just criticizing the Church, the latter of which I don't have a problem with (Christians should constantly be thinking about how to make the institutional Church better, and part of that process is listening to and respecting valid outside criticism. Unlike Radiohead.). I haven't listened to them enough to really analyze their lyrics, so if I'm wrong about this, someone let me know.

3. AFI: They are one of those rare really nice stories of a band that paid their dues for a really long time and eventually got huge. Some of their stuff I've heard I've loved; some of it doesn't do that much for me. I don't have a real rationale for missing them this decade other than that every time I've been about to pick up Sing the Sorrow, there's some other album that I'm more interested in or is on sale.

4. Wilco: This is the only band on the list that I've actually seen live (thanks James!), and I have to say they put on a really good show. They are also established local heroes, and in some ways that fact that they haven't become national household names to the same extent as Kanye West, Rise Against, Fall Out Boy, or The Smashing Pumpkins makes them that much more beloved here. I feel like a bad Chicagoan for not listening to them often. The thing is, a lot of their studio stuff I've heard is just kind of boring. Since music is ultimately entertainment, I'd rather be scared, offended, frustrated, or depressed by something I listen to than bored.

5. Rap/Hip-Hop and Country: Look, I like rock music. I won't apologize to anyone for that. That said, on this whole list of 100, there's one country/bluegrass album and one rap album. Even though I won't promise to change my tastes, I have to acknowledge that there are those whole other genres out there, and that they include "songs about real life, with stories you can relate to and words you can understand."

Now that that is out of the way, I can continue to move on with the list:

50. The Killers - Hot Fuss ('04): I'd consider this album to be this decade's equivalent of Pearl Jam's Ten. This is high praise for an album that only came it at #50, but the similarities are there: both were debut albums from relatively unknown bands, both became overnight successes without really having time to figure out how to handle it well, and, although neither really created a new genre of music, both were able to combine an older style of music with recent developments to create a sound that blew away everything else on the radio. Both then were copied to the extent that they couldn't really maintain their sound on their next album while remaining original - Pearl Jam's Vs. and Vitalogy are textbook examples of how a band can expand their sound without abandoning it, and the next two Killers albums...well, they weren't, which is why Pearl Jam is our generation's Rolling Stones and the Killers are less than a decade away from playing County Fairs. Still, that shouldn't take away from how good this album was.

49. Saves the Day - Under the Boards ('07): Remember when I said it is better for a band to depress me than bore me? Well, this is one of the most depressing albums of the decade, and it doesn't help that the follow-up album, which was supposed to tell the redemptive portion of the trilogy, has become the Chinese Democracy of emo. So what's so great about it? Saves the Day had previously established themselves as a band capable of playing a lot of different styles well, pulling off '70s era punk on their early albums, art-pop on In Reverie, and melodic pop-rock punk on Sound the Alarm and Stay What You Are. However, this is the only time where they've managed to put so many different styles together on the same album - I had actually been under the impression that rock bands agreed to stop doing this some time in the early '80s. In fact, I'd put this in the same category as Vs. and Vitalogy were in the last entry - they really push the limits of their sound in multiple directions, but they never stop sounding like Saves the Day. Now put out another album already.

48. Dragonforce - Inhuman Rampage ('05)

47. Black Tide - Light From Above ('08): When I was a little kid in the '80s, the metal genre was dominated by spandex-wearing glam rock bands that had vocalists with immense range, guitarists who could shred, an innate sense of fun, and almost no ability to put an interesting or unpredictable song together. These bands traced their lineage back to Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden, but weren't really talented enough to write songs that enabled them to rival such giants. Then the Metallica, Megadeth, and others blew everybody away and the era of thrash metal began. Metal bands started to focus on dark, lengthy, compositional pieces and shied away from compromising for mass appeal; eventually, many bands in the genre even gave up on traditional singing for cookie monster vocals. Songs about drinking, sex, and rock and roll were out, songs about war, insanity, and conspiracy theories were in.

All of this was all well and good, except that, somewhere along the way, people gradually forgot that metal was supposed to be fun. Dragonforce's biggest achievement, apart from playing faster and more ridiculously than anyone else, and breaking Joel Zumaya's arm, was helping people remember that, and Black Tide gets bonus points for proving that you can make metal fun without trying to bring back the spotty legacy of hair metal. Oh, and more bonus points for making the best album by high school students since Frogstomp. While I'm here, I also have to mention that "Warriors of Time" has earned its place on the list of songs that frequently have their intros cut by radio and in other public settings even though the intro is one of the coolest parts of the song. I hate it when they do that.

46. Dashboard Confessional - The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most ('01): Yes, there is something a little bit lame and pathetic about a guy in his mid-20s writing songs about high school relationships. And yes, the over-the-top sensitive guy routine is at least as obnoxious as the over-the-top alpha male routine. But it is impossible to deny that every song on this disc is well-crafted musically and lyrically, and it is rare to find anything this personal from a band that would eventually make it big, or, for that matter, from any band (at least in 2001). You have to approach this album the same way you approach Rambo II - just enjoy it and try to bear in mind that at the time it came out, nothing in it was cliche.

45. System of a Down - Toxicity ('01): I know I just berated Heavy Metal for taking itself too seriously from the late '80s to early '00s, and this album is a prime example, but I can look past that for an album that seethes with anger without ever losing its overriding sense of melody and musicianship, and that has two or three great riffs on every song, even though I wouldn't call it a "guitar album" in the traditional sense.

44. Shai Hulud - Misanthropy Pure ('08): I don't like hardcore vocals, and I rarely like heavy metal songs that don't have significant instrumental breaks, but in this case, it doesn't matter. There are more tempo and time signature changes in all of the songs here than there are on most prog rock albums, and they somehow manage to keep it from ever becoming unlistenable.

43. Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures ('09): This gets my pick for the best "disappointing but still good" album of the decade. The Queens of the Stone Age sound seemed to take over, which is unfortunate since they're my least favorite of the three big-name parent bands involved. Ultimately, they wound up somewhere between '70s guitar rock and '00s stoner rock, but I'm pretty sure aficionados of either will like this album, although people who wanted it to sound like the next Zeppelin or Foo Fighters album will be let down. On a positive note, every song on this album is different, but there's still an overall sound bringing them all together. So far I've liked it more with each listen, meaning it could probably move up a few spots if and when I ever revisit this list.

42. Underoath - They're Only Chasing Safety ('04): The "Life, the Universe, and Everything" position goes to the best work from a band that managed to be both intensely brutal and easy to listen to, sometimes on the same song. Definitely a "gateway album" for hardcore.

41. Death Cab For Cutie - The Photo Album ('01): There hasn't been anyone else I know of since Bob Dylan that has this kind of ability to put enough emotion for a feature-length movie into less than forty minutes of music. In this case, it only took one year for the best lyricist of the decade to emerge. While musically this isn't a flat-out amazing album, it is solid, and the band manages to match the tone of the lyrics well.

40. The Get Up Kids - Guilt Show ('04): Part of me almost wishes they don't put out a post-reunion album since this one was such a great farewell. A small part of me.

39. Pearl Jam - Lost Dogs ('03): Exhibit A in the case that Pearl Jam was tanking, Vince Carter-like, due to ongoing problems with their label and/or ticketmaster. A collection of B-sides and unreleased material that ranks with their best albums will do that, as the argument that they simply lost their sound or their ability to write good songs is shot down here. This also puts Pearl Jam into the discussion when considering all-time great bands - all of the greatest bands of the classic rock era played all sorts of different styles of music, which is part of the reason I dislike the heavy specialization of bands in the current era. Even as a fan, I can't really say Pearl Jam's catalog was all that diverse prior to this album. Here, though, you get to here Pearl Jam doing things you don't expect from them, like using harmonized vocal layering, playing instrumentals, using singers other than Vedder (which is a plus since non-PJ fans can then understand the lyrics!), playing surf rock, playing soundscapes, and playing acoustic folk. They even manage to capture the sound of The Who (who they had always cited as an influence, but never sounded much like) well on "Black, Red, and Yellow." The only downside is a handful of the stronger songs on it (like "Dead Man" and "Yellow Ledbetter") had been floating around for years before this came out, but there was more than enough to like among the more obscure or totally unreleased material.

38. John Mayer - Room For Squares ('01): As with Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, you have to remember what this album was like when it came out, back when there was nothing obnoxious or frustrating about Mayer, and instead just a great acoustic rock album with a ton of great songs. I think half of the problem is that he's been miscast as a "guitar legend" when he really is more of a singer/songwriter who also happens to be an above-average guitar player. That's not really his fault. That said, I'm still holding out hope that he'll start his version of Derek and the Dominoes with Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

37. Further Seems Forever - How to Start a Fire ('03): This album grew on me once I got used to the fact that it wasn't The Moon Is Down. In some ways, Jason Gleason replacing Chris Carrabba was like Steve Young taking over for Joe Montana - both were perfectly capable in their own respects, and actually brought some things to the table that their predecessors didn't, but they really had no chance to ever be quite as beloved or iconic. (I should mention that, even though Hide Nothing was my lowest-rated FSF album, Jon Bunch deserves a better comparison than Elvis Grbac.) In Gleason's case, he was a hell of a vocalist (as evidenced by their cover of Bye Bye Bye in which the vocals sound as good or better than on the N'Sync version), but his lyrics rarely if ever made any sense, not to mention that he apparently didn't get along with the rest of the band at all. Still, the guitar layering on this album is great, and "The Sound," "A Blank Page Empire," and "I Am" are some of FSF's best songs. We're now well into the albums I very strongly recommend.

36. Sunny Day Real Estate - Rising Tide ('00): I know it isn't considered their best album by most, and it even got made fun of in emogame, but I get to avoid comparing it to their earlier work since it happened in a different decade. Sometimes it is nice to make the rules.

35. Stairwell - The Sounds of Change ('01): I'm not sure which is more fun: listening to the vocal harmonies and interplay or listening to the guitar harmonies and interplay. This album is so good, Girden thought it had to be their Greatest Hits album when it came out. The bad news for Stairwell's career is that it pretty much is.

34. Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me ('06): A 54-minute album that doesn't remotely feel too long. Plus, Eric once described it as the soundtrack to his life (or something like that). This album also proves that just because bands had long since stopped trying to do anything new and interesting with the grunge sound, it doesn't mean there weren't interesting possibilities still left out there.

33. The Mars Volta - Amputechture ('06): The intro and outro tracks are kind of boring, but there's such a feast of prog rock in between that I don't even care. I can't really even describe Tetragrammaton and Day of the Baphomets adequately, and Asilos Magdalena expands the acoustic side of the band beautifully, even if they can't quite resist putting weird feedback and effects in at the end of it.

32. Rise Against - The Sufferer & The Witness ('06): The punk scene was already thriving in the first half of this decade, then Rise Against gave it the one thing it was missing: a really good punk band that wasn't a holdover from the '90s and didn't need to be qualified with something like "emo punk" or "pop punk."

31. Circa Survive - On Letting Go ('07): There's definitely a shortage of vocalists that can sing in the upper register without sounding whiny, but this band has one, and in addition, they just sound better together than most other bands do.

30. Flobots - Fight With Tools ('07): This is the album that made me realized that I actually don't dislike rap at all; I dislike overproduced music. By contrast, this album has great live instrumentation, and is even an innovative lineup by featuring a cello in a rock group (it works, by the way). They might come off a little preachy with their politics, but at least it is earnest and makes you think, and frankly, rap works way better with some kind of social or political message behind it anyway.

29. U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind ('00): Spawned more legitimate radio hits than most bands have in their entire career, in fact, I'm not sure if any of the songs on this album weren't hits. It also helped to make 2001-02 the (school) Year of Bono at Wheaton College and probably many other places. Let's face it, it is impressive for a band to say they are "reapplying for the job of best band in the world" and actually back up their talk (unlike Roberto Luongo). Thanks to this album, U2 would eventually join Dethklok among bands that are also among the world's largest economies.

28. Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism ('03): If The Photo Album marked Gibbard's emergence as one of rock's best lyricists, this is the album that established it fully for him, and for that matter, the band continued to develop their sound instrumentally into something that not only complemented the lyrics but would be worth listening to for its own sake. I know I've said the middle of the album drags a little bit in the past, but that's a minor flaw.

27. Rhapsody - Symphony of Enchanted Lands Vol. II: The Dark Secret ('04): I know we frequently use the term "epic" to describe a rock album, but it is pretty rare that a rock album actually also is part of an original fantasy epic. Since no musical interpretation of a fantasy epic is complete without a full orchestra, operatic vocals, choirs, lengthy guitar solos (including, but not limited to, guitar duels against orchestra instruments), and Christopher Lee, all of those are thrown in as well. At this point, you're probably already thinking "wow, that sounds awesome," or "wow, that sounds terrible," so further description from me isn't needed.

26. Margot & the Nuclear So And So's - The Dust of Retreat ('06): There are two approaches to putting a band together - one is to get a drummer, bassist, one or two guitar players, and a singer in some order and start practicing. The other is to just get everyone you'd want to be in a band with that plays something, figure out what everyone plays, and have that be your lineup. The second approach results in more creative and interesting bands, and, as you'd expect, is almost never used. Well, kudos to these guys for putting together a lineup with bass, drums, electric and acoustic guitar, but also a keyboardist, violinist, trumpet, and percussionist. To make matters better, no three of them looked like they really should have been in the same band together. While you might expect a lineup like this to come up with intricate, compositional, heavily produced work, they actually somehow managed to keep their songs simple and likable without making it feel like any of the band members weren't involved. Their disjointed look and lineup also helped them enjoy a one-year run as the most fun obscure band to see live, crushing forever the myth that bands should have a unified "look." Based on Wikipedia, they've since gone to a more stripped down, traditional lineup. In a related story, nobody I know liked their subsequent albums.

That's it for now. Later, I'll return with #25-11, then the top ten. Have a nice summer everyone.

Ek's Top 100 Albums of the '10s: #51-100

Since the Sports Guy is the spiritual father of this blog, I'll let him introduce the concept: "It's a gimmick that needs no introduction. It's a gimmick that says'I couldn't come up with a real column that has a beginning, middle and end,' as well as 'You're hopefully going to be entertained anyway.' It's a gimmick that insinuates the rankings reflect a nationwide consensus, even though it's the opinion of one person and one person only. It's a gimmick that seemingly relies on a secret statistical formula, even though one doesn't actually exist. That's right, it's a...[giant list] column!" Point taken. The only thing I'll argue with is the beginning, middle, and end thing, since nothing has a more obvious beginning, middle, and end than a giant list (although this may not apply to TSG's lists since he always jumps around so much). Anyway, the '00s were a crappy decade in a lot of ways, but it was a good decade for music, especially after a shaky last few years of the '90s (except for Journey reuniting with a new lead singer. That was a terrible idea).

I also originally intended this to just be a top 50 list, but there were too many good albums to do it. I can see now how Eric's annual "top ten" lists usually end up mentioning fifty different albums. Anyway, in the interest of this not becoming a full-length novel, I'm just going to list #51-#100 in reverse order, then over (hopefully not all of) the summer I'll release the rest in groups with some (I promise) brief comments.

Before we start, the hardest albums to leave off of my list were these:

Velvet Revolver - Contraband ('04):

Don't worry; if I ever get around to making a top-100 list for the '90s, the members of this band will get their revenge.

Alkaline Trio - Remains ('07)

Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs ('08)

Dethklok - The Dethalbum ('07)

Dream Theater - Black Clouds and Silver Linings ('09)

Fall of Troy - Doppelganger ('05)

Unearth - III: In the Eyes of Fire ('06):

All of these have multiple great songs on them, but I had a hard time listening to any of them all the way through after the first couple listens. We're not talking "skip a couple of tracks," either, we're talking "go to another album less than 2/3rds of the way through."

Cute Is What We Aim For - The Same Old Blood Rush With a New Touch ('06)

Damone - Out Here All Night ('06)

Snow Patrol - Eyes Open ('06):

2006 was really a great year for guilty pleasure albums that are a blast to listen to but I immediately forgot about once they fell out of my rotation. I should try to come up with a less cumbersome name for this category.

Sufjan Stevens - Come On Feel the Illinoise! ('05):

This is the The Royal Tennenbaums of albums for me - underrated nationally; overrated by the people I know.

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix ('09):

Disqualified because I'm afraid they're leading us into a "prog rock to synth rock" transition, which would be fine, except that we already tried this in the early '80s with mostly awful results. Think about it - do we really want to see Herman Li or John Mayer writing songs on a keyboard? If it could happen to Eddie Van Halen or Geddy Lee, it could happen to those guys. If it is any consolation, they will be on every other "best of the decade" music list made this year (although, let's face it; there's a decent chance this is the last one since it is already May).

Mastodon - Blood Mountain ('06):

The toughest cut and the only one I feel legitimately bad about. The thing is, I didn't start to like this album that much until after hearing Crack the Skye, and I had a copy well before that. An album on a top-100 list for a whole decade needs to be capable of getting me into a band that I don't have any prior exposure to; it's part of my non-existent secret formula.

To balance that list, the easiest albums to leave off were St. Anger, Dusk and Summer, and Ultra Beatdown.

With that, we'll get started. As you might expect, this is limited to albums that I purchased or otherwise acquired and, in most cases, managed to listen to multiple times before now. For those of you that want music recommendations, I'd recommend any of these:

100. Seume - It Is What It Is ('08)

99. The Showdown - Temptation Come My Way ('07)

98. Megadeth - United Abominations ('07)

97. Coldplay - Parachutes ('00)

96. Dashboard Confessional - The Swiss Army Romance ('00)

95. Portugal The Man - Waiter: You Vultures! ('06)

94. Coheed & Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV Vol. 2: The End Complete ('07)

93. Alkaline Trio - Maybe I'll Catch Fire ('00)

92. Drive-by Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark ('07)

91. Death Cab For Cutie - We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes ('00)

90. Greenchoby - Big City ('00)

89. Alkaline Trio - Agony & Irony ('08)

88. Angels & Airwaves - I-Empire ('07)

87. Foo Fighters - In Your Honor ('05)

86. Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil ('05)

85. John Mayer - Continuum ('06)

84. Killswitch Engage - As Daylight Dies ('06)

83. Dave Matthews Band - Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King ('09)

82. Moneen - The Red Tree ('06)

81. Saves The Day - In Reverie ('03)

80. Pennywise - Land of the Free? ('01)

79. Muse - Origin of Symmetry ('01)

78. Further Seems Forever - Hide Nothing ('04)

77. The Darkness - One Way Ticket to Hell and Back ('05)

76. Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam ('06)

75. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm ('05)

74. Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos ('07)

73. John Mayer - Heavier Things ('03)

72. Death Cab For Cutie - Plans ('05)

71. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand ('04)

70. Copeland - In Motion ('05)

69. Drive-by Truckers - Southern Rock Opera ('01)

68. Say Anything - ...Is a Real Boy/...Was a Real Boy ('04)

67. Alkaline Trio - Crimson ('05)

66. Green Day - American Idiot ('04)

65. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand ('07)

64. Owen - At Home With ('06)

63. Paul Simon - You're the One ('00)

62. Sleeping At Last - Ghosts ('03)

61. Hey Mercedes - Loses Control ('03)

60. Spill Canvas - One Fell Swoop ('05)

59. Jeremy Enigk - World Waits ('06)

58. the lower 48 - When I Finally Saw the Sea ('09)

57. He Is Legend - It Hates You ('09)

56. Killswitch Engage - The End of Heartache ('04)

55. The Detholz - Who Are The Detholz!? ('02)

54. Alison Krauss & Union Station - Lonely Runs Both Ways ('04)

53. Jimmy Eat World - Futures ('04)

52. Copeland - Beneath Medicine Tree ('03)

51. Dave Matthews Band - Busted Stuff ('02)

Ok, that's it for this one. Check back in a week or two and I'll have #50-#26 up. If you have thoughts about any of these albums, or if you can't believe how I had one of them as high or as low as I did, leave a comment.

Rock 'n Jock

After watching the Bulls collapse earlier today, I came to realize that a basketball team isn't that different from a rock band - there's about the same number of people on stage/the court at the same time, and you need the right mix of talent, chemistry, and knowledge/acceptance of roles in order to be successful. So here's my take on how the comparison breaks down.

Scorers = Guitar Players: In both cases, you need to have at least one good one, but more than two always gets complicated over time, and more than three simply doesn't work at all. There's arguably more skill involved here than at any of the other positions, and a great one can single-handedly carry a team or band to the next level. On the other hand, the importance of these guys is heavily overrated, both in their own minds and by casual fans. Plus, everyone filling the other roles has probably at least dabbled in it at some point and deep down thinks/knows they could do a better job. While really great ones are rare, decent ones can be found at every subway stop, and for every one of those, there are about ten guys who think they are decent at it but would probably be better off trying something else.

Point Guards = Singers: There's more than one way to do it right and people need to embrace their own style to have any hope - ultimately, most people either know how to handle themselves here innately or they're unlikely to ever figure it out. The most important rule for both is not to forget that there are other people out there with them, because this position has the most potential to make everyone else happy or miserable. In other words, not being a huge douche bag is half of the battle. This makes the '90s Bulls the equivalent of a badass thrash metal band that was able to kick tail despite the lack of anything resembling decent singing.

Rebounding = Bass Players: Frequently goes unnoticed, except when either dominating or incompetent, which is when most people realize "holy crap, this is actually really important." Also, bass players are almost never the biggest personalities or troublemakers in a band, they generally get along with everyone, and while the rebounders frequently piss off opponents, everyone loves the rebounders on their own team...mostly because it allows them to go do something else that they'll get more glory for.

Screens/Cut/Off-the-ball Movement = Drumming: Watching an NBA team that is bad at this is boring, just like listening to a band with a bad drummer is boring. Actually, the bad drummer might be more entertaining because of the Rex Grossman Entertainment Factor, where you have to keep watching just to see if everyone else can actually manage to keep it together. Either you understand where I'm coming from already or I can't explain it to you.

Defense = Songwriting: Only the real die-hards spend a lot of time thinking about it, and the existing system seems to be increasingly rigged against those who are good at it, but if it isn't there, you aren't going anywhere. There's a few cases where a weakness here has been overcome, but only when every other aspect is absolutely nailed - think the Phoenix Suns this decade or Dream Theater.

Coach = Producer: People always expect changes here to make a drastic difference, mostly because they're fun to speculate about, but in reality, most of them do the same handful of things, so it only matters a lot if you have one of the top five guys in the country or someone that is just horrifically incompetent. Due to the first part of the last sentence, they are always the first one to get the axe when expectations aren't being met, and due to the last part, it almost never solves the problem since continuity here is way more important than marginal improvements in quality.

NBA Officials = The Music Industry: They work hard and there are times when they get it right, but for the most part, they're pretty incompetent, they reward past success and expected future success (a.k.a. hype) more than they pay attention to what is actually happening in front of them, and it is at least possible that they're taking bribes.

A "Master"ful Performance?

In an effort to bring something new to the Village Tavern, we're actually going to make an attempt at reviewing something that came out recently. Anyway, here's my review of Halo 3.

Story: C-

Despite some rumors to the contrary, Halo 3 picks up pretty closely to where Halo 2's (drastically disappointing) ending left off. The game begins with the Master Chief bailing out of the forerunner ship that he was (apparently) on and crashing on Earth, conveniently near a party of marines. The story from then on is pretty similar to the Master Chief portion of the Halo 2 story – you fight your way through the Covenant on Earth (in this case Africa) for a little while, and then eventually end up on a forerunner installation trying to cause some giant explosions and prevent others. That's a little bit of a simplified version – in actuality, the depth of the story is somewhere between those of the first two games. While this game doesn't have a bad story, there were a few things I didn't like about it:

- A lot of the scenarios, and in some cases even level layouts, are really, really similar to stuff that happened in the other two games.

- The arbiter follows the Master Chief along throughout the campaign, and while it's kind of fun to see both fighting alongside each other, it essentially eliminates the arbiter's storyline, which was the most interesting aspect of Halo 2's story. Remember how the story for The Lord of the Rings was entertaining when the characters were all traveling together, but then got really interesting once Tolkein split them up? This is kind of the complete opposite of that.

- I'm not a huge fan of boss battles in shooters as a general rule, but they did a pretty good job with them in Halo 2, and the problem here is that a lot of this game's story seems to be building towards epic boss battles with Gravemind and the Prophet of Truth, neither of which actually end up so much happening. Seriously, how do you kill off the two primary villains in a video game without a boss battle? It's unheard of. I should mention that there is at least a battle with 343 Guilty Spark (the Monitor), which is nice since everyone who plays these games has wanted to kill that thing since 2/3rds of the way through the first game.

- Although the ending is not nearly as bad as the end of Halo 2, it's still a minor letdown, not to mention the fact that the final scene is a little bit confusing, both in regard to what actually happened and how.

Gameplay: A

This was probably both one of the biggest strengths of Halo and Halo 2's most severe weakness, so considering those facts, and the fact that this is what I consider the most important aspect, this is obviously the make-or-break point for this game. Well, I'm happy to report that it's mostly good news. In Halo, the Master Chief was quick and agile, much like Mike Williams at USC. Once Halo 2 started, it looked like the Chief had taken a year off and then trained with the Lions. You have to play the games back-to-back for it to be very noticeable, but the walk speed was substantially reduced in the second game for no apparent reason. While it doesn't seem like a big thing, it not only makes it take longer to walk to an objective in a level or multiplayer game, but also reduces the extent to which dodging and strategic movement is helpful, and basically makes the game a lot less fun. And while I'm not sure if the Chief is as fast in Halo 3 as he was in the first game, he's definitely quicker than in Halo 2.

Another significant improvement is the weaponry available, both in the quality/quantity of weapons available and in the weapon balance. While Halo 2 introduced dual wielding, they attempted to compensate for this by making every dual wielding weapon weak and useless as a stand-alone gun. This took a lot of the fun out of the multiplayer games in Halo 2, since in order to be successful you had to spend as much time looking for weapons and items as you did hunting down the other players. While I haven't played the multiplayer game a lot in Halo 3 yet, the only really useless gun in the game is the plasma pistol, and even that's more of a situational weapon than it is truly useless. The end result is a game which includes all of the added wrinkles from Halo 2, such as dual wielding, vehicle boarding, and melee weapons, but has fixed the major flaws from that game. So basically, you have the game that Halo 2 should have been.

Improvement Over Previous Games in Series/Genre: B+

This game doesn't do anything new that's Earth-shattering (beyond fixing the issues from Halo 2 mentioned earlier), but there are some nice new wrinkles:

- Several new weapons, including a machine gun that shoots spikes, mini-shotguns that can be dual wielded (weld?), and the hammer that Tartarus had at the end of the second game, which is called the “Gravity Hammer,” which is a little bit of a strange name since I thought that was how every hammer worked.

- You can pick up the turrets and walk around with them, although you move at Halo 2 speeds when you do. There are also a couple of other heavy weapons that work this way, like a missile launcher and a flamethrower. Which is always a nice touch.

- A few new vehicles, although with the exception of the Hornet (which is basically a helicopter), most of them aren't that great; the Ghost, Scorpion Tank, and Banshee are still the most fun vehicles in the game to use by a pretty good margin.

-There are now four kinds of grenades, including a fire grenade and a spike grenade, although this was probably the one addition I didn't really like, since you now can only carry 2 of each kind, and I honestly would rather just have more frag and plasma grenades.

- You now can pick up items, like deployable shields and active camo, and use them at strategic times during the game. While I don't think I've really figured out how to take full advantage of most of these, it's a very nice touch.

Graphics: A

While the graphics in this game don't blow everything else out of the water like the first Halo game did, it does look better from a real standpoint than either of the first two and, honestly, almost everything else that I've played. The Brutes actually now look vicious and more resemble the ancient vampire from season seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer than they do evil care bears or ewoks on steroids. I actually saw them and thought, “oh, THAT'S what those were supposed to look like." The flood also has been revamped and are basically a whole lot creepier. Between that and the fact that Cortana and Gravemind occasionally appear in hallucinations throughout the levels, the game seems to be going for more of a Resident Evil/horror movie type of feel. Watching someone play one of those games gave you the feeling that you were watching a great horror movie (which is the exact feeling you don't get while watching the Resident Evil movies) and although Halo 3 never really manages to do that, this is more because it's a space fantasy than because of any problems with the graphics.

Replayabilityness: Incomplete (tentatively C-)

Officially I'm giving this an “incomplete” since it's not really possible to judge how well a game that I've had for two weeks will hold up. But there are a few reasons that I'm not all that optimistic. The campaign is too short – I finished it on heroic the first time in about ten hours over two days, and for that matter I don't remember using the banshee or the rocket launcher even one time during that, which was a little bit of a downer. The other glaring flaw is that it was widely reported/advertised that this was finally going to be the shooter that had a four person co-op mode, and it most certainly does not, or more accurately, it only has this feature online, which is stupid, unnecessary, and completely defeats the purpose. I suppose it's better than nothing, and it will hopefully pave the way for other games that will do this (even though other genres have been doing it for a long time and it should have happened at least five years ago), but it still stands that Bungie had a chance to make possibly the most replayable game ever, and they dropped the ball by not including this feature as a split-screen option. In some ways, they fell into Microsoft's typical approach to customers, which is:

Step 1: Imagine who your ideal client/customer would be.
Step 2: Force as many people as possible into that mold by making sure that it's completely necessary in order to take full advantage of any products you make.

The thing is, I sometimes get the impression that Microsoft (and Sony, for that matter) are trying to kill split-screen gaming in favor of online action, which of course enables them to collect activation and subscription fees on a regular basis. And while it's nice to have that as an option, the fact of the matter is, people who don't mind paying monthly fees for their gaming, not being able to talk trash to someone's face that you're playing against, and spending the majority of your time playing against 12-to-15 year-olds that treat gaming as a full-time job are not big console gamers; these kind of people mostly play PC games. Console gamers for the most part are either kids or more casual gamers who don't really have the need, desire, or even ability to be a big part of an “online community.” Anyway, that's it for the soap box about that...and I will mention that I haven't played the multiplayer game – online or otherwise - very much, so if the multiplayer game is really good (and it seems like that's what they put more of their time into) and the game holds up well over time, this could easily move up to a B or even an A-.

Overall: B+

This is a good game, but I was hoping it would be better, and for various reasons (not all of which have to do with the game), I'd be surprised if I get nearly as into this one as I did Halo, or even Halo 2. I think the legacy of the Halo trilogy could be similar to that of the Matrix trilogy – an awesome, generation-defining first chapter followed by two sequels which were actually pretty good, but didn't quite live up to the promise of the original.


And now, so we can review TWO things that came out within the last two weeks (for the first time ever on the Village Tavern)....

Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace: A

Unsurprisingly, this album includes a mix of numerous hard rock songs, poppy, radio friendly songs, and a couple of nice acoustic numbers, in other words, everything you would expect from a Foo Fighters album at this stage in their career. What is a surprise, and a good one, is that it also includes a lot of things you wouldn't expect from a Foo Fighters album. While it's well-known at this point that Dave Grohl is a great drummer and songwriter, he's also become a very good guitar player and is starting to show it, with some legitimate guitar solos on a lot of the songs and an acoustic instrumental. They also mix their acoustic sound with hard rock on several songs, which I don't really remember them ever doing in the past. While there's some cases where they fall into the “play a nice acoustic song for a couple of minutes, then play something similar but rock it out” style of songwriting, there are also some cases (like “Let it Die”) where they're already doing this brilliantly. They've also gone to a much more classic rock sound, and while the influence of the grunge scene Grohl helped to develop isn't completely gone, this is an album that sounds more like Neil Young or Led Zeppelin than Nirvana or Pearl Jam, which in this case is a good thing.

16 Brothers I'd Like to Smash

Since the VT is on the subject of video games for the moment, I figured now would be the time to write an article about one of my favorite games from the last line of consoles – specifically, Super Smash Brothers Melee. What made this game so great was that it finally provided an opportunity to prove, once and for all, who amongst your friends really was the best at the old-school, platform-jumping games, which had previously not been provided (with the notable exception of the extra head-to-head game in Mario Bros. 3).

The only real gripe with the game to this point is the characters that have been chosen – not that they lack balance or don't allow for different playing styles, but they leave out too many of the iconic heroes of video game lore, while including characters like Young Link, NES, Captain Falcon, Falco, those two Japanese guys with swords nobody had ever heard of, and about sixteen characters from Pokemon.

Fortunately, the Village Tavern is here to help. Here's my top 16 video games characters that haven't appeared in Smash Bros. yet and should...

16.Worm
Series: Worms

While these brave and creative little worm warriors might even be second to Earthworm Jim or (“Puta Earthworm James”) as the most famous video game worms, but after their games took up a solid portion of my freshman year, I'd be more than willing to see a worm running around with the Ninja Rope, Parachute, Bazooka, and Holy Hand Grenade, and I'd be even more excited to pick up mad cows, a Super Banana Bomb, or Concrete Donkey at the end of a close Smash Bros. game.

15. Diablo
Series: Diablo

As my friend Noho was once fond of saying: “Make no mistake: Diablo is a badass.” And while he probably wouldn't be that different from Bowser, he could provide a faster “heavyweight” character, and it would be an excuse to include a Chaos Sanctuary level where a horde of minions came and wiped everyone out every time someone stepped on a seal.

14. Wario
Series: Mario Brothers

Wario has long been one of the more mysterious characters in the Mario Brothers Universe. Wario sometimes appears as a villain and sometimes as a pseudo-hero, and it's unclear whether he's somehow related to Mario and Luigi, if him and Walugi are the Mario Brothers from the backwards Bizzaro World, or if they are the result of a failed cloning experiment by Bowser's scientist kid (at least I think one of the Koopalings was supposed to be a scientist). Anyway, Wario's the only one on this list that I can confirm actually will be in the new Smash Brothers Game, so I'll throw out the idea of having him drive around his Mario Kart in the game...this would make him a different character, as opposed to a slower and stronger version of his alter-ego/stepbrother/original form Mario. I also think a case could be made that the MarioKart spinoff has become an iconic series in its own right on the level of anything but the original SMB series and Zelda, so it should be represented. At the very least, I think the Lightning Bolt and Lead Killer could be incorporated as weapons.

13. Donatello
Series: TMNT

What was great about the Ninja Turtles was that each one had something going for them: Leonardo was the de facto leader and could be considered the “main character” to the extent the series had one, Raphael was the most nuanced and interesting as a character, and Michaelangelo got most of the funny lines. While Donatello's “inventor” gimmick was kind of lame, his true strength was that he was the Turtle that dominated every TMNT video game ever made. This is primarily because his weapon was so much longer than those of the other Ninja Turtles...

12. Shang Tsung
Series: Mortal Kombat

Ok, Shang Tsung's actual powers were a little bit lame, but it would be nice to see the MK series represented, and it's also a fun idea to have a guy in there who could morph into some of the other characters. That, and I would enjoy watching Pikachu getting his spine ripped out.

11. Ryu
Series: Ninja Gaiden

While the 8-bit Ninja Gaiden games may not be among the first old Nintendo games you'd rush to go back and play, they definitely had their following. The series has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years thanks to Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black for the Xbox and Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3 (all of which, by the way, are more or less the same game). I could imagine a character modeled after the more recent version of Ryu being tons of fun to play, especially if one remembers that the purpose of the Ninja is to flip out and kill people...

10. Falling Blocks
Series: Tetris

Ok, I admit that this one is way off the beaten path, but honestly if there's one video game series that you can play for hours on end with darn near anybody, it's Tetris, and I think it would be fun to try and crush the other players with falling Tetris blocks. You could go a few different directions with this one, too – there could just be an item where you drop Tetris garbage on your enemies, or you could get smashed when your blocks get knocked up to the top, or the blocks could morph into some block-man juggernaut once you create a gold square. I might think about this a little too much.

9. Sam Fisher
Series: Splinter Cell

I suppose I'm kind of getting my wish with this one, since Snake (from Metal Gear) is being included in the new game, and he and Sam are essentially the same person at different stages in their careers. Still, Sam possessed a nice array of close-range attacks, and could shoot sticky shockers and sleeping gas cameras all over the place, so I think this would work.

8. Diddy Kong
Series: Donkey Kong Country (among others)

DK's answer to “mini-me” has, for reasons unknown, so far been uninvited to the Smash Brothers Party. I mean sure, last time he was around the rug got some nasty stains and we had to reupholster the couch, but what do you expect, he's a monkey? And besides, if you're going to have Mario and Luigi or Link and Young Link, doesn't it make sense to have Donkey and Diddy, especially considering that there actually were some differences between those two?

7. Master Hand
Series: Smash Brothers

It would be weird to control, and I can't say I miss the ability to use it a ton, but seriously, in what other fighting game can you not play with the end boss after you've beaten it on single player mode?

6. Blanka
Series: Street Fighter

Like most people, I was first exposed to the one-on-one, arcade tournament fighter game by Street Fighter II, which also helped start the trend of making nine sequels to a game and never going higher than “III” on the Roman Numeral count (instead using “editions”). While enjoying and promoting this sort of mano-a-mano violent competition amongst animals can end (somewhat) promising NFL careers, all that it cost me to fight simulated humans against each other was bags and bags of quarters. Anyway, my favorite, and probably the most memorable, fighter in that game was Blanka, who for reasons unexplained was a green electrified mutant. Maybe I liked him because he was one of the few video game personalities with more chest hair than me, or maybe it was because as a kid I couldn't figure out any special moves other than the crouching electric shock.

5. The Master Chief
Series: Halo

As much of a letdown as Halo 2 was, it's hard to ignore the fact that the Chief is the closest thing the new generation of video game heroes has to a potential Mario or Link. And if you give him a plasma pistol, some sticky grenades, and some smash moves with the energy sword, he'd indeed be formidable. Unfortunately, with Sony's gaming division on the fast track to bankruptcy, the Master Chief represents the face (or non-transparent visor) of Nintendo's real competition, so it will probably never happen.

4. Sonic the Hedgehog
Series: Sonic the Hedgehog

Let's face it: the cold war with Sega is long over. I'm pretty sure you can even play old Sega games on the Wii now. And since the Sega really only produced one memorable platforming series (which is probably why it lost), it's high time it was remembered properly.

3. Mega Man
Series: Mega Man

As arguably the most versatile video game hero ever (once you were near the end of the game, anyway) and the star of about twenty classic (if kind of similar) games, this should be an absolute no-brainer. They only hard part is choosing which of the many weapons in the Mega Man series to equip him with.

2. Simon Belmont
Series: Castlevania

This is comparable to Mega Man as a noteworthy slight in the SSB series. Or one spot ahead of it in my mind, apparently. It's so obvious I don't even really feel the need to explain it.

1. Bo Jackson
Series: Tecmo Bowl (among others)

As a sports website first, the Village Tavern would be remiss if we did not include the greatest video game athlete of all time on our list. While one might naturally assume this should be a star from the video game era such as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Barry Bonds, Greg Maddux, Barry Sanders, or Peyton Manning, but instead, it's a backup running back from the Raiders who could also play a little baseball. Exceeding the abilities of even running backs on historical teams like Walter Payton and Jim Brown, Bo Jackson was capable of tossing multiple defenders aside and taking the rock to the house from anywhere on the field, even against defenses schemed specifically against him. Not even the great Jeremy Roenick could match Bo's greatness, and he was good.

Quite Possibly the Dumbest Thing I Have Ever Read

I wasn’t planning to write an article tonight. After all, it hasn’t even been two months yet since our last post. But I saw this article on ESPN.com, and had to respond immediately. Now, it is a commonly held opinion around here that ESPN tends to emphasize coastal-area teams above those in the Midwest and the South. And I can take it when they assert that the AL East is still the best division in baseball, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (for example, the NL Central has had a team in the World Series for the last three years, while the AL Central features a whopping four legitimate contenders this season). And the dubious claims that the Bears would have been completely outclassed by the Patriots, Ravens, and Chargers. But this is not going to stand…so here’s the entire article, with my commentary. (Note: since I am not exactly a formatting genius…and yes, I know that we’ve had this site for almost two years…I’m putting the article in normal type and my comments in parenthesis.)

Putting Kobe in perspective
By Jemele Hill
Page 2
Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan (Wait….WHAT?! I’ve got to hear this).

Not more successful. (oh, ok…so how is he better?)

Hasn't had a bigger economic impact. (Definitely true.)

Hasn't won more MVPs. (Also true – MJ 5, Kobe 0…although you could make a strong case that both players deserved at least one or two more.)

Hasn't won more titles. (Excellent point.)

But he's a better player. (Oh, ok. I’m glad to see that evaluating someone as a basketball player is not based on their success on the court, economic impact, individual awards, or team success…then I guess it’s statistics, the last refuge of people who want to have strong opinions about sports without actually watching them…so, for the record, MJ averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 5.3 assists, and 2.3 steals per game in his career, while Kobe averages 23.9/5.1/4.5/1.5.)

Kobe can do everything Michael did, and even a few things Michael couldn't do. (Apparently winning the same number of titles, winning AN MVP award, and putting up MJ’s #s are not included in “everything Michael did.” I will concede that Kobe has done some things that MJ has not; it’s just that a lot of these were not good things.)

Kobe is just as good a defender (This claim is dubious, although not completely idiotic. While MJ averaged almost a whole steal more per game, he was rarely defending the other team’s best player since he played with Pippen. I can’t recall many instances of either player being lit up). His killer instinct is just as pronounced (Also debatable. MJ’s increased dramatically in playoff games, however, while Kobe’s seems to be relatively constant over the course of the season). He can shoot, finish and explode (along with almost every good scorer in the history of the NBA). And just like Jordan, the more he's pissed off, the more unstoppable he is (the two players were similar in this respect. However, while Kobe’s anger is primarily directed towards scoring, MJ directed his competitive fury towards doing whatever was most necessary to winning the game, be it scoring, defense, rebounding, or hustling after loose balls. "You play to win the game! Hello?!").

At the very least, Kobe's scoring spree over the last week should put to rest any lingering doubts that he's the best player in the NBA (No, it proves he is the best scorer in the NBA, which is different, although I doubt anyone really would have ever said he wasn't. You know, aside from the fact that there are other guys averaging more points per game right now). Yes, better than Steve Nash, who is the best point guard, but not the lethal force that Kobe is (This is subjective, but I would argue that Nash can score 20 and add 50 points to his team’s point total for the game, while Kobe is capable of scoring 50 and adding 20 to the Lakers point total). Yes, better than Dwyane Wade, who is certainly closer to the Kobe-Jordan level than LeBron James, but D-Wade's game is not as polished as Kobe's (I’m not getting into DWade vs. LeBron right now; let’s wait until they’ve been around for a few years).

Kobe's streak of four straight 50-points-plus games is something none of those players can do, and it's something that hasn't been done since Wilt Chamberlain, who had an NBA-record seven straight 50-point games. Truthfully, Kobe should have tacked another 50 on Golden State on Sunday night (Apparently, the Warriors, traditionally a defensive powerhouse, were able to do a better job of shutting Kobe down than – get this – the Blazers, Timberwolves, Grizzlies, and Hornets. By the way, remember when almost half of the teams in the NBA were solid defensively? I mean, don’t get me wrong, the NBA has gotten much more fun to watch lately, but after the Pistons, Rockets, Bulls, Spurs, and Mavs, what teams in the NBA make you think “goodness, we’re really going to have to fight for every basket against these guys?”).

Of course, the idea that Kobe is better than Jordan -- or even the best player in this league -- is as repugnant to some folks as a rectal exam (That’s a horrible comparison. Rectal exams usually serve some useful purpose, and can even save lives on occasion. This is way worse). Even though Kobe has proven himself under pressure countless times, he gets the A-Rod treatment.

Kobe can't please anyone. And it doesn't help that most people suffer from revisionist history when it comes to Jordan, forgetting that he was just as poor a teammate and a ball hog and that he ran off coach Doug Collins like Kobe ran off Phil Jackson the first time (It is true that Doug Collins was run off partly because he couldn’t get through to the team’s superstar, which when you have someone irreplaceable, is as good a reason as any to run off a coach. Incidentally, the SAME GUY who was instrumental in getting MJ to start playing team basketball on offense and thereby win championships was unable to get through to Kobe in any kind of meaningful and permanent way, despite getting him at a more formative point in his career).

In fact, you could argue that Jordan was even worse. Far as we know, Kobe hasn't jacked up any of his teammates the way Jordan punched out Steve Kerr and Will Perdue at practice (see, there’s ANOTHER thing MJ did that Kobe never could have. Will Perdue would have beaten the crap out of Kobe if that happened. It also merits pointing out that Purdue and Kerr both remained productive players for the Bulls after that happened, although I am using “productive” loosely in Purdue’s case…but the point is neither guy got worse to an Odomlike extent, or had to leave the team. Also, if we’re going to criticize Jordan’s ball-hogging tendencies early in his career, I will point out that MJ was a ball-hog that developed into a great team player – and probably improved at the professional level more than any other athlete I can remember. Kobe began his career as a reserve on an average team and eventually developed into something resembling the ball-hog version of MJ).

Kobe will never be forgiven for Shaq's departure, but you're delusional if you think Jordan wouldn't have had any ego issues playing alongside a player with Shaq's star power (The ego issues stem primarily from the fact that Kobe wanted to be the best player on a team, which he never was when Shaq was around - he all but admitted this outright at the time. Which means that Kobe has NEVER been the best player on a championship team, and probably never can be, unless he drastically changes his style of play or the league makes the rules even more ridiculously scorer-friendly. Kobe vs. Pippen might be a more interesting debate. Also, while none of them were the cultural force that Shaq was, Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Toni Kukoc, and Jerry Krause all had massive egos that threatened to tear the team apart every off-season, and eventually did after MJ’s second retirement).

The best-player argument shouldn't be determined by personal dislike. But if you want to take it there, fine. Jordan was hardly the ideal husband, but only the tabloids were brave enough to venture into his personal life. And what about those gambling issues? If Jordan's life had been covered like Kobe's, we would have an entirely different opinion of His Airness. (This is ridiculous. Jordan was scrutinized as heavily as any non-politician in my lifetime. It’s also definitely possible that the New York media tried to manufacture a negative story about MJ towards the end of each season in the early 90’s to throw him off his game for the playoffs. While MJ was, and is, a very flawed human being, I think he had fewer character issues than Kobe, although as the writer points out this shouldn’t be relevant).

Besides a different level of media scrutiny, there was definitely a difference in the level of competition during Jordan's heyday compared to now (anyone that has followed the NBA for the last fifteen years would agree with this, although I am not sure how this helps Kobe’s case…).

Yesterday's NBA player certainly was more fundamentally sound, but there's no question that today's player is bigger, stronger and faster. When Jordan played, he was a singular force that could not be equaled. Jordan was guarded by the likes of John Starks and Joe Dumars, who were fine players but weren't nearly as skilled or physically imposing as LeBron, D-Wade, Tracy McGrady or even Vince Carter (the fact that the person that wrote this is seriously trying to imply that Vince Carter is a better defender than Joe Dumars or John Starks should be all that you need to immediately dismiss the rest of the article).

The NBA is tougher now (you have GOT to be kidding me. MJ played with and against Charles Oakley, Scottie Pippen, Bill Cartwright, Patrick Ewing, Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, Xavier McDaniel, John Starks, Karl Malone, Horace Grant, Reggie Miller, the Davis Boys, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, and young Shaq. Other than Wallace, Nocioni, Duncan, Bowen, and AI, what current NBA players would you put in that class as far as “toughness?” Not to mention the fact that Eastern Conference NBA playoff games were like gang fights in Jordan’s era. In nearly every series, something happened that would result in a ten-game suspension now. Now, you can actually get away with more defensive contact in a pickup game where the offense calls the fouls than in an NBA game).

Kobe, like Michael, is surrounded with mediocre to below-average talent, and Phoenix, Dallas and San Antonio are all better than the Utah, Portland and the Charles Barkley-led Phoenix team that Michael met in the NBA Finals (this is part of the reason that MJ’s Bulls always beat those teams and Kobe’s Lakers lose in the first or second round of the playoffs every year. The other reason was that JORDAN WAS MUCH BETTER THAN KOBE YOU IDIOT!!!!!).

Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Patrick Ewing will be among the best centers ever, but none of them affected the league the way Shaq and Tim Duncan have. There are two two-time MVPs in Kobe's own conference (Duncan, Nash), which is a problem Jordan never faced during his championship runs (mostly because Jordan won the MVP most years during his prime and prevented other players currently in the Hall of Fame, many of whom were as good as or better than Duncan or Nash, from winning multiple MVPs). Seven-footers weren't launching 3s back then. Magic Johnson and the Lakers were on a downward spiral, and the Pistons were on their last legs. It was Michael and everyone else. That's not the case for Kobe (not only have we now offended MJ fans and proctologists in this article, now we’re starting to lose fans of the Knicks, Pacers, Cavs, Sonics, Blazers, and Jazz. By the way, the Pistons were coming off of back-to-back championships when they were knocked off by MJ in 1991. They are remembered as having been on their last legs at that point because they lost...now there's some "revisionist history" for you!).

The shame of it is that Kobe might finish his career without a MVP (that actually would be a shame), even though his ability can be compared only to that of Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain (and T-Mac, and Pierce, and Wade…). All this time we've been looking for a player who is better than Jordan, but most of us can't get beyond whether we like or dislike Kobe as a person to recognize his contributions to the game (no, the biggest thing I can’t get past is the fact that he’s still never been the best player on a championship team, and that his career and playoff statistics are inferior to MJ’s despite playing in a more offense-friendly era. That said, Kobe is an amazing player and should be appreciated for what he is - he’s just not remotely close to what MJ was).

Ultimately the MVP award will go to either Nash or Dirk Nowitzki, who are deserving this season, but neither are as good as Kobe. Dallas and Phoenix are strong enough to make the playoffs without their stars (It’s debatable in Phoenix’s case. They’d probably be a 7 or 8 seed in the West). The Lakers, however, are a lottery team without Kobe (True…but only because Shaq, who would still be on the Lakers, has been injured for most of this year).

Now that's a valuable player (I will concede that there was one truly valid point in this article - although NBA players are worse at dribbling, shooting, passing, and basketball intelligence than they were during MJ's era, they are bigger, stronger, and faster. This is primarily because the talent pool the NBA pulls from has increased drastically since the 1990s. Not only is basketball (although not necessarily the NBA) as big as it ever was in the United States, it has joined soccer, hockey, and baseball as a legitimate international sport. The NBA is now reaping the benefits of its dramatic increase in popularity fifteen to twenty years ago. Now, I wonder who is responsible for that...because that would be one valuable player, too).