Shutting down a country

South Korea's national sport (it's a video game) has a home in Houston: Are youready for Starcraft II fever?

This week's launch of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty was one of the most anticipated video game releases this decade. While the old stereotypes of gamers being pasty, pimply, introverts is quickly fading — thanks to the fact that 67 percent of Americans admit to playing video games regularly (including more and more women) and that the average video-game player is 34 years old — the games that created the old image aren't leaving the stage.

It took over a decade for Blizzard Entertainment to bring the real-time strategy game Starcraft back in a sequel with improved graphics and charm.

The game is expected to sell 4.5 million units by August. It had midnight launches worldwide — in every continent except Antarctica (always so far behind the times) — which brought large crowds and doubts that many would even get the game in their hands.

It all brought back memories of the original Starcraft that was released worldwide on March 31, 1998 and has sold over 9.5 million copies since its launch. It is widely considered to be one of the best video games of all time.

Starcraft is a real-time (not turn based) strategy multiplayer game that essentially is like a Risk-type board turned interesting. You raise an army of either Zerg, Protoss, or Terran races and plot attacks against other armies while gathering resources, creating units and getting the shit beaten out of you by Koreans.

The game is hugely popular in South Korea and is best characterized as a national past-time there. The country holds nationwide Starcraft tournaments and even has a televised competition of the game annually. CNN called Starcraft' South Korea's national sport. It's that serious in K-town.

South Korea might actually become a ghost nation with Starcraft II out. Video game blog, Kotaku.com reposted a photo from The Straits Times (a newspaper in Singapore) of the very first South Korean player in line for the game, who broke down in tears as his dream of getting the game first came to fruition.

Security around the game was more than Secret Service tight. Even if you happened to somehow get a copy of Starcraft II earlier than Monday's midnight launch, Blizzard Entertainment blocked the installation of the game on PCs and Macs.

For Houston's Reuben Rodriguez — a 23-year-old recent college graduate — getting his copy turned out to be much easier than he thought.

"I actually pre-ordered it about a month back in order to get access to the beta; but then a week ago, I found out my order was canceled because Best Buy screwed something up," Rodriguez said. "I went to Best Buy (Tuesday) hoping they might still have a copy — I thought they might be sold out — but no, they had tons of them apparently.

"I thought they were out because there were none on the shelf. Then I asked someone and they said the sales had been so popular that day, that they just had them at the cash register."

Even though it still hasn't been installed on his computer, Rodriguez states that the game is great. "I have been playing the beta which just ended a week ago. I like the game. It looks pretty cool, has great strategy elements — it's like chess on steroids, and with guns and aliens."

Although the very recent computer science graduate from University of Houston-Downtown is looking for a job, Rodriguez doesn't think that Starcarft II will inhibit him for earning an entry-level position.

"I don't think this one game is going to hurt," he said. "I've been doing OK managing my time. I might have a day or two where I take a productivity hit but I should be OK."

Employers in the IT sector may see more employees than usual calling out sick though. Hey, it takes time to strategize against a Zerg rush. Who can fit a 10 a.m. meeting at the office around that?

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Movie Review

Elizabeth Holmes' doc You Can See Everything is an audacious genre-bender

Photo courtesy of A24

Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything.

Elizabeth Holmes faced one of the most public downfalls in recent history after she was accused of defrauding investors in her health technology company, Theranos. Her subsequent indictment and conviction drew the interest of many, including, it seems, comedian/actor/filmmaker Nathan Fielder. Fielder somehow convinced Holmes and her husband, Billy Evans, to make a documentary about her final days of freedom, called You Can See Everything.

It’s not immediately clear why Fielder — who only has one previous feature-length documentary to his credit — is interested in profiling Holmes, but the approach that he and co-director Lance Oppenheim (Primetime) take is one that puts Fielder in the spotlight as much as her or Evans. Fielder looms over the couple — sometimes literally, sometimes from afar — as they care for their children, make meals, try to re-establish business relationships, and prepare for Holmes’ prison sentence, which is due to start about a month after the film begins in 2023.

Fielder quizzes Holmes and Evans about predictable subjects — such as how Theranos worked, her relationship with COO Sunny Balwani, and her conviction — and ones that are slightly off-kilter, including the miniseries The Dropout, which dramatized Holmes’ rise and fall. He is met with seeming openness by both of them — the title of the movie is uttered by Holmes at one point — but there are times where their idea of transparency doesn’t jibe with Fielder’s expectations.

Through it all, the quirky reputation that Fielder has from TV shows like Nathan for You, The Curse, and The Rehearsal colors his participation, as well. He appears sincere, if surprisingly intense, in his questioning, but there are more than a few moments where it’s fair to wonder if the whole thing is an act of performance art. That suspicion grows in the second half of the nearly three-hour film as Fielder and Oppenheim go down roads that stretch the definition of what a documentary is or can be.

The film is utterly fascinating as the filmmakers go on what seems to be a full-on exploration of the meaning of truth. Holmes and Evans, either intentionally or unintentionally, carry on conversations with Fielder with wide-open, unblinking eyes, something that conveys honesty and creepiness in equal measures. Fielder meets them with squinting expressions, looking like he’s trying to determine how candid they’re actually being.

One of the biggest things the film reveals (or does it?) is that — if she’s not a sociopath — Holmes might be someone who’s either oblivious or naive. As cryptic or strange as she can be in words and actions, Evans is even more so, and as the film progresses it’s him whose motives and ideas are called into question. Control over the narrative of the film wobbles back-and-forth between Fielder, Holmes, and Evans, and even at the end it’s unclear whose perspective has truly won out.

There is no way to accurately get across what it’s like to watch You Can See Everything for the first time. The motives of everyone involved are up in the air, resulting in a roller coaster ride that’s full of astonishment, laughs, and a number of surprises. It’s an audacious film that can’t be categorized, one that will challenge the thinking of voters when it comes time for awards season.

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You Can See Everything opens in theaters on October 16.

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