Welcome back to another episode. Glad to see you both made it.

Last week saw the release of Halo 3 and with it the enormous amounts of praise and platitudes one could reasonably expect from a product hyped so much that God Himself had to wait in line for a copy of the Legendary Edition.

When a release of this magnitude drops, one can’t help but take a look at the game reviewing business as a whole and think that maybe, just maybe, there’s something just a wee bit off. Not to cast dispersions on my fellow reviewers, but it seems strange to me that a game could score a 9.5 and have a final stage so bad that the reviewer states that he’d never want to play it again. Similarly, if the 4-player co-op, one of the game’s much heralded features, was bad to horribly laggy, to paraphrase, should it really have gotten a perfect score?

Far be it from me to suggest a better way to do things when it comes to reviewing games. Instead, I say we take the very same keen, critical eye applied to Halo 3 and view other consumable products through it.

In other words, what would it be like if everything were reviewed like Halo 3?

Theatre

When playwright Stephen Knickerson planned his two week honeymoon in Scotland, it’s doubtful that he counted on it being completely rained out, but theatre buffs are the better for it as his latest masterpiece “Brigadon’t” is a towering achievement of one man’s railing against the elements as he desperately fights to maintain his humanity. “Brigadon’t” is the story of a magical Scottish city that only appears when it stops raining in Scotland. As such, the stage is devoid of sets, actors, actresses, lighting and really, anything at all.

Theatergoers are treated to an empty stage, that perfectly mimics the feelings of hopelessness Knickerson and his new bride must have felt at being cooped up in a Scottish Marriott for two weeks. Yes, some may balk at spending 72.50 to spend three hours in an empty theatre, longer even, given that it’s not clear when the show actually ends, but theatre is a shared experience and with “Brigadon’t” Knickerson shares with the audience his feeling that all of Scotland had ripped him off. “Brigadon’t” may have its faults, but in the end, we’re better for having seen them. Or not seen them, in this case. 5 stars.

Music