Heroes Week Finale: American Gaiman

We have reached the end of Heroes Week (and yes, it’s a couple days late. Sue me), and the final entertainment sphere I must cover is the written word. I originally planned to write about the comic work of one Matt Fraction, one of my favorite current comic writers out there, but I wanted to switch things up and write about books. You know, book books. Like, with words and stuff. And little to no pictures. Shocking, I know. I read lots of books. Many of them, especially these days, are philosophy related, but I still get some time sometimes to actually read a novel for fun. This year has been the year of Neil Gaiman. I love his books. And, of course, he got his start writing comics, and his prose start writing a book about Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The man was destined to be a favorite of mine. In the past year, I’ve read nearly everything he’s written. I’m amazed by the constant quality in his comic work and both his long and short form prose. I’m not really a poetry guy, so the poems in Fragile Things didn’t do much for me. What does do it for me is, well, everything else.

I think his comic work is exceptional. His little two issue run of Batman and Detective Comics (Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?) was a great, weird little aside to the massive weirdness of Batman RIP and Final Crisis, and I also managed to read all 75 issues of his Sandman run, which is just a hell of a thing. I can’t really describe it all that well, but it was certainly an experience. Within the last year and a half, I’ve also read Neverwhere, American Gods, Coraline, Anansi Boys, and Fragile Things. I think what really makes Gaiman work as a writer is his ability to set a mood. All of these works are different in their content and who they appeal to, but there is a unifying mood to all of his books. Much like the subject of day three of Heroes Week, Mr. Terry Gilliam (as an aside, I saw some footage of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus over the weekend that looks simply amazing), Neil Gaiman is a dreamer. You can see why Sandman was such a good fit for him.

There is a way that Gaiman writes his fiction that creates a general sense of unease. Things are never right. They’re usually close to being right, but there’s always something a little off. It’s ephemeral. It’s not always something blatant (though it certainly can be at times), but when you have things like Richard Mayhew slowly realizing he has lost is connection to the real world, or the buttons on the eyes of the Other Mother. It’s not played up to be actively creepy or unsettling, but it’s always there on the periphery and leads to an overall sense that something’s just not right. This is essential storytelling for the stories that Gaiman writes, and he carries it off with aplomb. To be honest, I’m not really up on the release of new novels. It’s not like comics, movies, video games, music, DVDs, etc when I know when things are coming out. But I pay attention to Gaiman. When his next book is released, it’ll probably be the first instance of me buying a novel on the day of its release since The Salmon of Doubt.

Top Five Characters from Neil Gaiman Stories

5. Other Mother (from Coraline)

Other Mother is a creepy character. That’s for sure. Her character is designed to actively subvert the conventions of the loving mother. In her first appearance, she is loving, kind and warm to Coraline, but the black buttons where her eyes should be belie the danger within. She goes through constant upheavals and eventually twists into a truly frightening visage (this is pulled off very well in Henry Selick’s film that was released earlier this year). The great villain of the piece is an excellent example of Gaiman’s ability to have things not quite right eventually lead to a big payoff.

4. Fat Charlie (from Anansi Boys)

Fat Charlie has had a rough life. He is constantly in the shadow of his father, and soon discovers a brother he never knew he had that proceeds to wreak havoc on his life. Fat Charlie is the quintessential sad sack protagonist that has to deal with life acting as an overly aggressive bully toward him at all times. He goes through quite the odyssey during Anansi Boys, and he a nice change of pace from the standard Gaiman hero. It breathes some fresh air into his prose, which was admittedly a needed change. Fat Charlie is an example of Gaiman’s well-roundedness, which is a necessity in storytelling.

3. Door (from Neverwhere)

Door has one of the better entrances for a character I’ve read in a while, and her initial frailty is soon replaced by the courage of royalty. I love her power. The ability to make anything open to her stretches beyond the simple ability to open doors. She makes you feel for Richard and his plight as he fights to get away from London Below before he finally decides to embrace his destiny. Door is the emotional center of the book (I still need to watch the miniseries).

2. Shadow (from American Gods and “The Monarch of the Glen”)

Ah, Shadow. Gruff, a bit simplistic, but so effective as a protagonist in what is arguably the craziest of Gaiman’s non-comics work. Shadow does not act to change things. He is the ultimate passive observer. Everything he does is because he was told. Everything. But in the case of the story of American Gods, this makes perfect sense. I won’t spoil things (and I’m realizing while I’m typing this that it probably actually will spoil things, so this is your official spoiler warning), but for anyone that’s played Bioshock, you’ll understand how having such a passive and susceptible main character is essential to make things move forward. Shadow is a sad individual, and it works perfectly.

1. Delirium (from the Sandman series of comic books)

Ah, The Endless. Death, Despair, Dream, Destiny, Desire, Delirium and Destruction. The family of, well, things (gods?) that are at the center of Gaiman’s magnum opus, Sandman. Dream is obviously the main character of Sandman, and he is a very strong character throughout, full of the Greek tragic mix of nobility and petty flaws that eventually lead to his downfall. But, to be honest, the real stars of the book are the other members of The Endless. Delirium is one of those mentally simple and staggeringly innocent characters that get a lot of pathos from me, and her character design is great throughout. Death was a popular enough character to continue on past the series. Destiny is a classic trope of literature, but his character design and the mood surrounding him is fantastic. They’re all great, but I do think Delirium is probably my favorite at the end of the day. Dream is the focal point of Sandman, but the rest of The Endless is what makes the book sing.

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This post was written to the tune of Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick

Heroes Week: Studio Sorkin on the Sunset Strip

Ah, television. I love me some television. I watch a lot of TV on a weekly basis, but it’s arguable that I watch even more on DVD. When the decision was made to start releasing full television seasons on DVD, the prices were outrageous (remember those old X-Files sets that were about $120 per season? Yeah). The prices have come back down to earth, and I’ve built up quite the little collection of series. It’s been fun to have older series that I hadn’t seen in a while be released on DVD to allow for me to relive some of the glory days of my youth. A perfect example of this would be when the full series of Newsradio was recently released in its entirety. I loved getting to catch up on that series, but it is not the holy grail of my DVD collection. That would be a little show created by Aaron Sorkin called Sports Night.

I didn’t see all of Sports Night when it aired. I probably saw a good 70 to 80% of the episodes, but I missed some things here and there. It’s the best show I’ve ever seen. This unassuming little two season half hour show that was billed as a comedy but was more of a drama with comedic elements (hilarious comedic elements, mind you), and it was nothing like I had ever seen. Why would anyone care about the back stage politics of a struggling SportsCenter rip off? Because Aaron Sorkin made us care. Dan, Casey, Dana, Jeremy, Natalie, Isaac, these were all extremely compelling characters with compelling stories and real growth from show to show. These were not particularly happy or nice characters either. But they felt real. In many ways, especially during this period, Sorkin is the David Mamet of television. His characters feel real, and this is very important for a show like Sports Night that is so much more about the characters than the sports they cover.

The show had a lot of fantastic humor throughout, and some of my favorite witty exchanges I’ve ever seen on a show, but what really drew you back in was the drama. This selection of heroes week is technically about Sorkin, but it’s more about Sports Night than anything. I never really watched The West Wing, and while I thought Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was generally good (loved the pilot), it was not nearly as strong as his work on Sports Night. Considering that Sorkin was involved in the writing of the vast majority of the episodes, he’s getting the love as my hero of the television industry.

Top Five Sports Night Episodes:

5. “The Cut Man Cometh” (Season Two, Written by Alex Graves)

Simple. Effective. Hilarious. Find out what happens when Dan and Casey are covering a big-time prize fight that ends in about twelve seconds. The team has to cover the aftermath of the fight for nearly an hour, and have a completely inept color commentator (the aforementioned Cut Man) to make matters worse. Dana and Casey’s relationship comes to a head, but this episode is all about the comedy. It’s probably the funniest episode they ever did, and even though it might not be up to snuff in some other perspectives, the humor makes it sing.

4. “Quo Vadimus” (Season Two Finale, Written by Aaron Sorkin)

This is a very emotional episode for me to watch, not only because it’s the last ever episode of my favorite show of all time, but because of the way the show moves forward as it reaches its climax. This is Clark Gregg’s second episode as the mysterious man at the bar constantly bothering Dana (and I love me some Clark Gregg). Rebecca returns, and everything slowly unravels as Dan and Casey plan to break up their team and move to different coasts. The ending is bittersweet with a wonderful jab at ABC for canceling them. Great episode and a fitting end.

3. “The Sword of Orion” (Season One, Written by David Handelman, Mark McKinney, and Aaron Sorkin)

You know, I didn’t even know Mark McKinney (more famous for being one of the Kids in the Hall, actually wrote for this show until I looked it up. This episode is all about the way something in your personal life can affect the way you work, specifically pertaining to Jeremy’s relationship with his parents. He becomes absolutely obsessed with understanding what happened to The Sword of Orion, a yacht that disappeared ten years in the past, which is really just an analogy to his attempts to deal with the divorce of his parents. Joshua Malina is so incredibly good in this episode, that it has become one of my favorites.

2. “Draft Day Parts 1 & 2” (Season Two, Written by Matt Tarses, Aaron Sorkin, and Kevin Falls)

Oh, Draft Day. The day that Dan and Jeremy completely fall apart (though it’s not the first time Dan falls apart, technically). Both Dan and Jeremy are heavily perturbed about having to cover the second round of the NFL draft, causing Dan to rebel and humiliate Casey live on the air, and Jeremy to scramble to attempt to save his new relationship. It’s heavily dramatic; there isn’t much comedy in each episode, and it’s all about watching this stiflingly uncomfortable drama unfold. Shows like this (and my number one choice) are great examples of why this show was so incredibly different than any other half hour show on television at the time.

1. “Eli’s Coming” (Season One, Written by Aaron Sorkin)

Remember when I said that Draft Day was not the first example of Dan completely falling apart? Well, this is the first example. His relationship with Rebecca falls apart. He’s constantly beset upon by a fill-in anchor who is convinced he slept with her (who is played by Lisa Eddelstein, better known as Dr. Cuddy on House these days). Things are going crazy all over. What’s so great about this episode is the way that Dan rises above the problems (he agrees to support Rebecca’s choice to go into couples counseling with her separated husband, and apologizes to Bobbi when he discovers she was right), but ends up getting blindsided by the revelation that Isaac had a stroke. He talks about the Three Dog Night song “Eli’s Coming” earlier in the episode and how he misinterpreted it as a song about impending doom, and the musical cue of “Eli’s Coming” is so goddamned perfectly timed that it continues to give me chills even though I’ve probably watched the episode and that scene about 30+ times. This is the best single episode for any television show I’ve ever seen EVER.

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This post was written to the tune of Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf

Heroes Week: The Brothers Gilliam

My DVD shelf is pretty large. That in itself is a bit of a misnomer, as it’s actually three separate DVD shelves at different parts of my room. It’s a pretty simple set up: one shelf for movies, one for TV shows, one for everything else (predominantly pro wrestling and concert films). I love movies. I love TV. I love collecting things. There are quite a few directors whose work I cherish above others. Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell, and so on, but none of them reach the caliber of one Terry Gilliam, the subject of day three of Heroes Week.

Gilliam obviously got his start in Monty Python. He’s probably the least known member of the Pythons in a way, considering that he was less of an on-air performer and more of a behind the scenes animator. The transition to film directing was rough at the start; it would be difficult for anyone to consider Jabberwocky a good film. What it did do was establish the kind of film you would expect to see from Gilliam in the future, with its surrealistic humor and imagery, as well as strong fantasy elements. And things were certainly uphill from there.

There have been hiccups along the way. The third film in his 1980’s unofficial trilogy, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was a bit of a mess. The Brothers Grimm, while I enjoy it for the fun of the concept, is pretty weak. There are serious problems in many parts of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, when he’s on, he’s the best director on earth. Of this I am certain. No one has the enthusiasm of this man. That’s one of the best parts of his DVD commentaries. He cares so damned much.

I hope that some day we’ll be able to see his adaptation of Good Omens. He’s currently once again working on The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and hopefully this time it will actually be finished. It’s a shame that a man who was plagued with so many production and studio problems (his war with Universal over Brazil is legendary, and subject of a pretty damned fantastic documentary on the pretty damned fantastic Criterion DVD release) could be so brilliant and yet so apparently fated to not make films. You can argue about how many of the problems are legitimately the fault of Mr. Gilliam himself, but I wish he would have been able to make more films over the past twenty years. It seemed almost fitting that Heath Ledger died when in the middle of making a Gilliam film (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus), which nearly led to that film not being made either. Luckily, it has been completed and may or may not have a December release in the US. Exciting times to see a new Gilliam film. On to the top five.

Top Five Terry Gilliam Films

5. Lost in La Mancha (2002)

I am fully aware that this is cheating. No, Terry Gilliam did not direct this. He brought a documentary crew with him on his attempt to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote to document the process (one would assume we would have seen something similar to The Hamster Factor from the Twelve Monkeys DVD release. The same crew was involved in the filming). Considering how horrendously the film fell apart, and that the documentarians were filming the whole process, they decided to go ahead and make the film about the destruction of the shoot. So many things go wrong so quickly that it almost seems like fantasy. It’s a fantastic documentary that’s also quite depressing at times considering how enjoyable the scenes that were completed looked, and how strong the concept of the film is. Hopefully the second go around will be more successful.

4. Time Bandits (1981)

The first of three Gilliam films from the 80’s that are considered an unofficial trilogy dealing with age, Time Bandits is the first real example of Gilliam as an honest to goodness filmmaker. Tons of cameos, a great art design chock full of childhood whimsy, and a really fun romp through a combination of situations featuring famous folks both historical and fictional (Ian Holm as Napoleon? John Cleese as Robin Hood? Sean Connery as Agamemnon? Awesome!). It’s a great film for everyone.

3. Twelve Monkeys (1995)

I saw La Jetee (the French film where Twelve Monkeys got its inspiration) when I was in college. I had seen Twelve Monkeys years before, but watching La Jetee certainly added to my appreciation for the film. It’s very well constructed, and one of the tightest examples of time travel working logically you may ever see. It’s the film that solidified Bruce Willis as someone beyond a simple action star, and Brad Pitt as someone beyond a pretty boy. In that respect, it is a very important film, and it’s a good thing the quality is so excellent throughout. Great twists abound, and the ending works out extraordinarily well.

2. The Fisher King (1991)

Jeff Bridges plays a Howard Stern-equse shock jock whose life falls apart when he inadvertently sparks a killing spree. Robin Williams plays a now homeless man whose life was ruined by that selfsame killing spree. What follows is a humorous but sobering tale of Arthurian legend, overcoming obstacles, life on the street, and forgiveness. It’s a touching film, and one of Jeff Bridges’ better performances. It’s also probably one of the most straightforward of Gilliam’s films. Sure, there’s a fantasy element and the cinematography is unmistakably Gilliam, but it’s somewhat tame compared to the other entries in his filmography.

1. Brazil (1985)

The best film I’ve ever seen. Jonathan Pryce is fantastic. Ian Holm is at his unsure, wormy best. DeNiro is charming as all hell. Palin’s great. Everything’s great. Imagine if the ruling class in 1984 were complete and total bureaucratic morons that that managed to take control anyway. The story involves Sam Lowry’s attempts to just live his life and get the girl, but spins wildly out from there as more and more ridiculous things seem to happen to him. He has dreams of courage and conquest but cannot act on them in his daily life. He’s weak. Brazil is the best film I’ve seen simply because it is so strong in every sense. Startlingly well acted. Fantastic set design and cinematography to create a future dystopia just left of center. Brilliant writing with one of my favorite twist endings ever. It’s chock full of things you’ll never notice (let’s thank both Criterion and Gilliam for probably the best DVD package I’ve ever seen and some wonderful commentaries). It is simply the best. Nothing comes close.

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This post was written to the tune of Rammstein’s Liebe ist für Alle Da

Heroes Week: Taking the Downtown Train with Tom Waits

Anyone who knows me should fully expect that this article was coming. My love for Tom Waits is pretty extreme. I consider his music to be of the highest quality of any music I’ve heard in my life. And yes, he’s one of the few I can put above The Beatles. Oddly enough, my first exposure to Tom Waits as such was not through his music. I first became aware of him from his role in Mystery Men. I had seen him in other films like The Fisher King and Bram Stoker’s Dracula prior to that, but I didn’t have an idea of who he was. I was exposed to his music thanks in part to Firewater’s cover of “Diamonds and Gold” from Songs We Should Have Written. I went on a three month Tom Waits binge that summer, buying nearly every album he released in his long career, and just fell in love with his gruff voice, his lyricism, his view of the world. Real Gone was released later that year, and I was fully hooked.

What amazes me about Tom Waits is his constant upheaval as an artist. I always implore people to listen to his records in chronological order (although I usually tell them to skip Foreign Affairs) just to watch him turn from piano balladeer to blues balladeer to carnival barker to grim reaper to folk balladeer to something that can only be described as the work of a demon. It’s an incredibly varied career with constant reinvention, but the quality of the song writing and lyricism exists throughout. Old Tom is best when he’s singing narratives like “Invitation to the Blues” or “Blue Valentines” or “Martha.” His ability to evoke a scene or emotion is legendary, and he’s one of the best if you want to wallow in sorrow with a sad song. That’s not to say he’s a one note songwriter. Far from it. Humor, slice of life, surrealism, it’s all on the table. And it’s all done in such a great way.

Even if you think you’ve never heard a Tom Waits song, there’s a decent chance you have without realizing it. Ever hear Bruce Springsteen’s rendition of “Jersey Girl”? That’s a Tom Waits song. Ever see Shrek 2? The song Captain Hook plays in the tavern is “Little Drop of Poison,” recently released as part of the Orphans box set. “Ol’ 55” was covered by The Eagles. “Downtown Train” and “Tom Traubert’s Blues” were (badly) covered by Rod Stewart. He’s around, whether you realize it or not. It’s not surprising that you see a lot of covers of his songs. The man’s voice can be off putting to an outsider. At some point in the eighties, his vocal chords were apparently replaced by steel wool. Despite this, he still brings the emotion, and the gruff vocals often serve to reinforce the everyman feel of his lyrics. He’s a perfect fit for what he sings.

I’m very disappointed that Tom has not toured the northeast since I discovered my love for his music. His stage banter is hilarious (I’m super excited that the new live release coming next month, Glitter and Doom, will apparently have an entire disc of just stage banter), and he has played some of the greatest live songs I’ve ever heard. I hope to see him live one day. Really, he’s the only one left I actively need to see live. It should happen eventually, and that will be a great day. Here’s to you, Tom.

Top Five Tom Waits Albums

5. Blue Valentine (1978)

Tom Waits in full-on bluesy fervor. It’s the beginnings of his transition away from normal music towards the, well, whatever the hell you call what he did in the 80’s, and is a definite precursor to the dirty, sleazy Heartattack and Vine. “Blue Valentines” is one of his best ballads, and “$29.00” might be the best pure blues narrative he ever wrote. The rest of it is solid gold despite the maudlin cover of “Somewhere.” It’s a vision of things to come, but a full album of goodness in its own right.

4. Rain Dogs (1985)

The apex of the carnival barker years. Rain Dogs is a titanic album, with 19 tracks. It’s the first album he worked with Marc Ribot, and has a very distinctive guitar feel alongside the wild percussive styles that began on Swordfishtrombones. It’s a solid record despite its number of tracks, and very few of these songs are throwaways. This used to be my favorite album of his, but I think there’s something generally missing from his work in the 80’s. It’s still fantastic and damned near flawless, but I don’t listen to it as much as I used to. Tough to deny the power of “Cemetery Polka” and “Tango ‘Til They’re Sore” though.

3. Real Gone (2004)

I liked this album when it was released. I love it now. It’s arguably the most bizarre original release (I’m not counting The Black Rider due to its nature as a musical score thingie), with this odd combination of what can only be described as a take on negro spirituals like “Sins of the Father” and “Make it Rain,” with whatever the hell ‘Baby Gonna Leave Me” is, as well as some more solid as a rock ballads. And there’s no piano to be found. NONE. And it features Tom Waits beatboxing, which might be the most demonic sound ever put to tape. “Hoist That Rag” has quietly become my favorite song in the Tom Waits canon, and this album might continue to creep up the all time charts for me.

2. Small Change (1976)

The transition into Tom Waits’ full-time blues persona that would last for the rest of the 70’s. This features two of the best ballads of Tom’s career, the famous “Tom Traubert’s Blues” and the devastating “Invitation to the Blues,” as well as the spoken word title track and the surrealism of “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)”. Every song’s a hit, and it strongly evokes both the 70’s and the 40’s at the same time. You can’t go wrong with this album.

1. Bone Machine (1991)

This is the definitive album about death. And I mean DEATH. This thing does not mess around. It’s pure perfection from top to bottom, features some of Waits’ crazier vocals (The breathy falsetto of “Dirt in the Ground” is apparently referred to as his “Prince” voice), and the single greatest break up song in the history of music in “Who Are You?”. I can’t gush enough about this record. The percussion is insane, and basically consisted of Waits, his wife and a bunch of other folks banging sticks on anything they could find that would make a percussive noise when hit. The album is dark and mysterious and foreboding, incredibly cohesive and moody. I think it’s the single best album released by anyone ever. I will always cherish it. Always.

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This post was written to the tune of That Handsome Devil’s Enlightenment’s for Suckers

Heroes Week: The Brütal Legend of Tim Schafer

This week, I’m going to be looking at (hopefully) five heroes of mine from five different sections of the entertainment industry. I’ll be covering video games, music, movies, television, and fiction writing. I’m beginning the week with an article about the man that inspired heroes week in the first place: Tim Schafer.

When I was growing up, I played a lot of video games. I still do in some respect, but my life was more centered around gaming back then than it is now. I’ve had consoles for as long as I can remember dating back to the Atari 2600. I have a lot of good memories from the consoles of my youth, but what I actively look back at with the fondest memories was the era of the graphic adventure. Graphic adventures existed and were named as such at the time to differentiate themselves from text adventure games (Zork, for example), because this was the original wave of true adventure games that had, well, graphics. The lion’s chare of these games were so-called “point and click” games for the very reason that they were controlled by a cursor on the screen that you would point and click at things to move your character around and interact with objects in the world. There were two companies that mattered in the 90’s when it came to point and click graphic adventures. Sierra shipped out these games in startling volume, thanks mostly to the “Quest” series of games (King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Quest for Glory, et al), all of which had at least four installments. The other side of the coin was LucasArts, who was stepping out from beyond the licensed property game to create new intellectual property like the Monkey Island series and Maniac Mansion. I played the hell out of games from both companies, but always tended to gravitate toward LucasArts. Their games had more of a feel of whimsy, and were also very famous because it was impossible to die or get truly stuck in basically all of their games. One of the true stalwarts of both the graphic adventure genre and LucasArts throughout the 90’s was Tim Schafer.

Schafer got his start working on the NES port of Maniac Mansion. The first entirely new game he helped design while at Lucas was The Secret of Monkey Island, the original adventure of one Guybrush Threepwood. He also worked on the sequels of both Monkey Island (LeChuck’s Revenge) and Maniac Mansion (Day of the Tentacle), as well as standalone games like Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. This, to me, was the golden age of video gaming. The stories were incredible, the art design was second to none, and Schafer was at the front of the pack, just constantly putting out solid gold entertainment. And he didn’t stop there. Schafer created his own development company, Double Fine Productions, and has since put out two games under that banner, Psychonauts and Brütal Legend. These are the first games Schafer has done outside the point and click graphic adventure genre, and he’s still got it. I don’t think there’s anyone out there working on games right now that can write on the level of Tim Schafer. And it’s not just simply writing jokes (although he is REALLY GOOD at writing jokes). The stories themselves are deep and enjoyable and complex in their own rights, which makes these games rise above simply being jokey with no substance. It’s exceptional design from all aspects.

I’m trying to keep these articles somewhat short, but I’m going to end every one with a top five list. Today’s is…

Top Five Tim Schafer Games

5. Full Throttle (PC, 1995)

I love Full Throttle, but I think it’s on the weaker side of the Schafer canon. I think part of that is because the story itself doesn’t speak to me the way all his other games do. It’s the beginning of his less actively funny period, in that it was not a game that was as abjectly jokey as his previous games. I really enjoy it, and even the weakest of Schafer’s games is a hell of a lot better than most of what gets released on a regular basis.

4. Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (PC, 1993)

Day of the Tentacle is a fiendishly original story. It’s got one of the more iconic villains in video game history in Purple Tentacle, and such a great design gimmick of multiple timelines. It’s such a wonderful way to set up puzzles, trying to figure out how you can change things in the past to affect the future and get things you need to the people that need them. It’s a flawless setup (which is a hell of an impressive feat considering the heavy use of time travel), the humor is there, and it managed to eclipse Maniac Mansion in every possible way ever. The fact that it’s number 4 on this list just proves the prowess of Tim Schafer as a game developer.

3. Psychonauts (Xbox, 2005)

Schafer leaves his comfy home of graphic adventures to release a full on action platformer. The story of Psychonauts would probably be Schafer’s best if not for the first game on this list; you play the role of a psychic secret agent in training at a sleepaway camp where some bad mojo is going down. Just about every stage in the platformer takes place in a different character’s mind, and each mind is specifically designed to reflect that characters mental state, as well as whatever psychoses or instabilities that exist magnified to an extreme degree. The platforming itself does get maddening at one point, but it does not detract from the overall polish of the game. Wonderful.

2. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (PC, 1991)

The best story and the best puzzles of all the Monkey Island games. This wasn’t a Schafer original; he was still working with Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman as on the original Monkey Island title. There are so many memories about this game, from Stan’s used coffin store, to the Rapp Scallion story line, to the wide open portion of the game where you go to find the map pieces, to the final sequence leading to the undeniably bat-shit insane ending. It’s very much the game that set graphic adventures out into the stratosphere and allowed for such games as Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle to be possible.

1. Grim Fandango (PC, 1998)

The highest echelon of PC gaming. This is, in short, the best PC game I have ever played. The art design is absolutely gorgeous. That 1920’s art deco style mixed with the hard boiled narrative noir of the 40’s combined with the mythos and art of the Mexican Day of the Dead, and you’ve got a singular experience like no other. The only possible problem with the game is the fact that the interface, the first of its kind to be controlled by keyboard and not require pointing and clicking with the mouse, is not the best. It’s very apparent that this was LucasArts’ first attempt at this control scheme, and it’s not as elegant as the mouse control. Even still, the art design, voice acting, and story are so overpoweringly strong that it is easy to overlook the small foible of the clunky but still functional control scheme. I love this game. It’s one of the absolute best of all time in any genre. It’s the main reason I consider Tim Schafer a personal hero.

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This post was written to the tune of That Handsome Devil’s A City Dressed in Dynamite