So, my fiancee got mad at me and asked why I never remember things she tells me. I responded as straightforwardly, saying that I genuinely have a very poor memory for spoken conversations and that it's not in the least personal, just that I have difficulty remembering things if I haven't written them down myself, particularly when they're mentioned offhand without any notice drawn to them. I've tried to change that in the past -- I'm actually trained in a number of mnemonic techniques for memorizing things when I put a conscious effort into it -- but after 32 years of being like this, I don't know that there can be a change. After I withdrew from a conversation that was getting very rancorous, I got a message saying that she needs to rethink things.

I hope that I don't lose her over something that I have no control over, particularly something I thought she was fully aware of. I guess I'll find out soon.

Martial Arts: Capoeira is a 2011 sports/action game by Just A Game. Despite the claims on their website, it's not the first Capoeira PC game (there's been three iterations of the Flash game Capoeira Fighter and there was also Capoeira Legends. That said, I think this is the game that's come the closest to reproducing the style of Capoeira. That said, it still falls short.

First off, the flow of the movements is good, and the actions are well-animated. The characters are interesting story-wise and differentiate nicely. The game mechanics... I'm kind of up in the air on that. The controls are stiff and mildly unresponsive. Also, the game only accepts keyboard input, but also requires being able to press up to three keys at the same time, something the keyboard works badly for (for historical reasons and reasons of hardware limitations). I'll explicitly state that because of my difficulties with the controls, I've gotten almost nowhere in the game... which means I can't really talk much about the career mode or the story mode. On a side note, the game eschews a traditional health bar in favor of determining the winner by a combination of landing the attacks, dodging one's opponents, and avoiding unnecessary movements.

And, of course, as with every fighting-game implementation, including Capoeira Legends, which claims to be tracing the history of Capoeira, they take a style that's about demonstrating ability as much through artfully just missing one's opponent while showing off one's skill and turn it into a game about beating the other person up. *wry grin* You really can't escape it, I suppose. It's like trying to make a game on philosophy debate... sooner or later, you have to introduce a mechanic for determining who won, and combat is an easy way to solve it. The aforementioned avoidance of a traditional health bar does help a bit. And frankly, Capoeira is sometimes practiced as an actual martial art complete with victory being determined by beating down the other guy. Lastly, the game does portray the bouts as violent street fights. That said, it still feels a bit odd.

Ultimately, the game is an excellent attempt. It's not going to become a best-seller I suspect, but I hope that it makes back its budget at the least. I gave it a solid B, possibly toward B-.