The Top 100:
Enjoy!
An immediately immersive game.
Sydlexia’s Ranking: #2/100
My Rating: 
Gahh. I’ve been ill all week.
Since I was quarantined in my bedroom on the third floor, I decided that I needed to simulate some kind of social interaction. I ended up playing Super Metroid where you are a sole explorer on an isolated planet with no intelligent life forms. I did end up making friend with a larva, though.
While it might have been an overdosage of Dollar General Store Brand Effervescent Cold Relief, the draw into planet Zebes core was immediate — all I wanted to do was explore, be rewarded, and explore more. You could say that the gameplay was almost as contagious as my flu 😷.
Continue reading “Top 100 SNES Review: #2 – Super Metroid (1994)”
The characters in FF3 are superb — I feel like I’m saying goodbye to dear friends.
Sydlexia’s Ranking: #3/100
My Rating:
Man, has this weekend been junk. I took a practice board exam to only be border line pass/fail again, had to create a research presentation on clinical education that I’ve put off for a month, and had to write a PICO (Patient Intervention Comparison Outcome) on the effects of cardio rehab on pulmonary function. At least I got to save the world while bawling my eyes to 16-bit characters; that really brought me back down to earth.
Something really has been lost in the sandbox era of RPGs — with open worlds and forge-your-own-path plots, no one needs to tell a good story anymore. The allure of Elder Scrolls and Fallout isn’t the characters, it’s that you can do whatever you want.
FF3/6’s back end is non-linear, but infuses each moment with meaning and significance through finding each of its 14 characters. The subtle discoveries and deeper understanding of the characters you play burgeon them from simple pixels into case studies of human nature.
Continue reading “Top 100 SNES Review: #3 – Final Fantasy 3 (1994)”
Graves’ novel is worse than a milk-toast, disinterested-historian narrative.
My Rating: 
This book was supposed to be made for me.
One Summer, I read 30 books with many of them being about Greek and Roman history. I never made it past Augustus, so how excited was I to learn that there was a novel about the Roman Emperors from the perspective of Claudius. Not only that, it was historical fiction and should have all those cool thing you can do within the genre: dialogue, themes, story arcs!
Graves pulls off an impossible: I’ve read dull, straight historical accounts that had more pop than this book.
Continue reading “Top 100 Novel Review: I, Claudius – Robert Graves (1934)”
A couple of witty lines in a sea of lame, vaudevillian gags.
American Film Institutes Ranking: #85/100
Awards: Nope.
My Rating: 
Groucho Marx is ubiquitous with anyone instantly recognizing the dark-rimmed glasses, painted mustache, and requisite cigar. One of the earliest film stars to transition from stage to film, how does the material hold up?
Not well.
Continue reading “Top 100 Movie Review: #85 – Duck Soup (1933)”
While a bit self-indulgent, this double-LP contains so much good material it’s impossible to listen to it all in one sitting.
Rolling Stone’s Ranking: #56/100
My Rating: 
I had a three hour drive ahead of me, and I thought I would be able to get through all of “Songs in the Key of Life,” but halfway through the album I was exhausted. It is a pit of endless material.
If I had to register a minor compliant — some of these songs are just too long, which contributes to the exhaustion level. But hey, if I put together a 21 track album, some of which would live on forever as a quintessential-American soundtrack, I might do whatever I want, too.
Continue reading “Top 100 Album Review: #56 – Songs in the Key of Life (1976)”
Afraid that I would dislike “the greatest album of all time,” The Beatles deliver in spectacular fashion.
Rolling Stone’s Ranking: #1/100
My Rating:
The Beatles are mythical. Growing up before a wave of Americans, their career spans decades from a boy band, to quintessential hippies, and finally finishing with solo careers. The Beatles are the biggest band of all time — no argument. But, would the hype lead to oversight? Would weak tracks and poor music be wiped under the rug, powered by the musical force that is The Beatles?
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is everything as advertised: a complete album representing a perfect cross-section of avant-garde arrangements, lyrical content, and song writing.
But is our protagonist even capable of doing that? He always misreads the situation, using pity to guide actions.
My Rating: 
I felt bad at the end of this book. Scobie is a man who mostly wants to be left alone, but others keep pulling him in multiple directions. He isn’t a bad person per say, but his laissez-faire attitude matched with his inability to read the direness of situations leads to a combustable situation; he slowly gets pulled down an unscrupulous path, over relying on pity to guide decisions.
Continue reading “Top 100 Novel Review: The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene (1948)”
