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Following up on last week's essay regarding a "starter kit for beginning game critics", I instead ponder about a starter kit for game arts instruction.
This prior Thursday I addressed GoodGamesWriting’s community question of a “starter kit for beginner game critics”. My focus was on the potential downside of putting specific games as examples to study, creating a sense that only certain types of games were worthy of being considered deep or artistic.
I want to specify once again that it is not my intention to suggest the goal of GoodGamesWriting was gatekeeping of any sort – be it of the taste of the would-be critic or the type of game a developer might make. However, while my advice in that essay was for would-be critics, I must acknowledge that it removes the potential necessity for instruction or guidance.
How do the "crummy" visuals of Megalo Box compare to something like, say, Legend of the Galactic Heroes?
The anime Megalo Box could intentionally be using a lower video resolution compared to other current shows. I personally have not picked up on such details, but other sharp-eyed viewers with technologically superior televisions seem convinced of the more pixelated nature of the picture. Citation is needed, and as of this writing no admission on the part of the animation studio has surfaced.
There has been a lot of backlash to this aesthetic choice. My first praise of the title was that it felt in line with “that VHS swapping era of anime”. A time when you had to rent two episodes per tape from Blockbuster, buy the bootleg fan-subs at the sketchy comic shop in the even sketchier local mall, or collectively purchase an entire series to be shared with your friends. Megalo Box is intentionally calling back to this era and beyond. The digital brushes resemble the old inks on paper, giving it a slightly “sketchier” feel in parts. Character designs portray the adult rounded eyes, nose, and chin of 80’s protagonists while the antagonist possesses a narrow face, beady eyes and chiseled jaw inspired by the Aryan villains of Cold-War action cinema. The setting emphasizes a line-shaded and water-colored slum detailed and populated with trash and broken machinery. The only smooth, clean, and fashionable technology around belongs to the wealthy. Everyone else is stuck with rust.
None of these flourishes disguise the fact that it’s a digital creation. All inks and paints are still done on a computer, and the in-betweens maintain a smoothness not found before the new millenium. Instead, what really solidifies that old-school feeling is the setting and execution of the narrative. Our characters are full grown adults living like cockroaches in the shadow of a wealthy city. There’s no school of plucky kids or Otaku protagonist unintentionally tripping into some girl’s boobs. Tropes are not intentionally being applied in order to appease the fans. It’s straight-up science fiction with Western inspirations but a uniquely Japanese telling. It’s precisely the sort of anime that would have hooked me like a fish and tossed me into a bucket of newly minted fans of the medium.
In my desire to do good I was only causing harm and securing failure.
"Christ and the Rich Young Ruler" by Heinrich Hofmann
Let’s talk about some self-imposed pressure, brought on in part by a burst of zealotry.
And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?†And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.†He said to him, “Which ones?†And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.†The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?†Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.†When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.†When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?†But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.â€
Over the past few weeks I’ve encountered this story twice: once through my pastor’s Sunday sermon and once through my own personal readings. Between those lines I found a call to action. This same trumpet sounding distracted me from what the lines themselves were saying.
If you were to pick a list of games to go into a beginner's "starter kit" for games criticism, would you pick any at all?
It figures that the first concept to break me of my writer’s block is one that I cannot chance to scamper away like that annoyingly quick insect that flees beneath the couch never to be seen again. As I begin this it is 11:11p.m., time for me to go to sleep so that I might have some semblance of conscious thought reserved for my day job, and yet I fear that if I do so I shall never tap and tack these thoughts into a document.
GoodGamesWriting.com is a Twitter account intended to cultivate and share exemplary pieces of video games journalism and analysis. It is a project run completely by volunteers that has suffered the misfortune of more ups and downs than a broken carnival ride. Today they have sought to kickstart a new weekly conversation starter in the Twitter community, beginning with “what games would you include for a beginning game critic’s ‘starter kit’?”
“Which games,” the Twitter account ponders, “demand closer examination to sharpen your skills?” The common go-to’s of Bioshock and Spec Ops: The Line are mentioned, as well as recent hit The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
I wonder what my response would have been had the #GamesStruck4 hashtag not trended those past twenty-four hours? It had already driven me to consider the four greatest games to not only stand as the cornerstone for my tastes, but drove me to appreciate and study design to begin with. The games that had given me the all too common dream of being a game developer only to be crushed by dreadful reality of College programming courses and my inability to speak the language of mathematics. While each of these games is cherished by me, I’m not sure any of them save Final Fantasy Tactics begs the “starter kit” status.
Turns out you gotta be a real master to make a stupid fun movie.
I don’t think Pacific Rim: Uprising knows who its core characters are. Based on promotional materials it’s most certainly banking on audiences recognizing John Boyega from the latest Star Wars films, and as such he is the closest thing we have to a central character. However, it does not build any sort of arc or partnership between he and the other two characters key to the climax in the same manner that the first film developed Mako Mori and Stacker Pentecost through the conduit personified by Raleigh.
This is, perhaps, the most curious aspect of the first film. Raleigh is positioned as the main character, but he’s more of a cipher. His arc is largely complete once he agrees to return and pilot a Jaegar. From then on the story is more about Mako, her drive to become a Jaegar pilot, and Pentecost’s simultaneous wish to keep her out of danger and to see his mission complete before he passes away. The climax brings these – and other relationships – to a… functional conclusion, though the satisfaction of it may vary depending on how much you care about the human drama.
The weirdest things can give way to unexpected escapism.
It’s kind of weird to refer to a series of film reviews on YouTube as escapism. Perhaps it is even disturbing once you take into account the fictional sketches that bookend these movie analyses.
Rest assured, this fiction is not what interests me in an escapist sense.
I should first note that the primary reason I enjoy the videos of Red Letter Media is the opinions of the various personalities. After all, it was their reviews of the Star Wars prequels that put them on everyone’s radar. Not only were the critiques organized like a proper academic analysis, but they were informed by a deeper knowledge of film-making. They were funny, but as someone growing increasingly frustrated with the ignorance on display of many games and media journalists at the time, they were refreshing.
As time has progressed and they’ve grown well beyond the character of Plinkett, they’ve continued to be well-informed and provide solid reasoning to their perspectives. There’s always that sense of humor, and even their conversational reviews are well-edited.
The real appeal comes from the camaraderie presented on camera. A pair or group of friends sit down, roll film, and just talk about a movie. They crack jokes, shrug off Internet outrage and culture war, and have no problem with disagreements. They just get to sit around and talk movies in a way I don’t often get to.
Enjoy this hastily written column resulting from having no idea what I'm doing.
Back in January my Pastor invited me to participate in a book study. I had only attended the Church a few times, and having him not just show up on my doorstep one day but send me a text out of the blue like this… it felt incredibly pushy. Never had I known a Church leader to be so intrusive and seemingly desperate to get someone to come to their services. This sort of behavior was like a step-by-step guide to get me running.
At the moment I read the text, I sighed and thought “there’s no way I’m going to an 8a.m. book study with a bunch of older men I don’t know”. I’m rarely an impulsive person, and when I am I like it to be my decision. If I had a plan to spend a day doing something solo and someone extends an invitation to do something with them, my internal CPU crashes. The pie chart I’ve made of time per activity needs to be redrawn. If I lose one activity, can I make it up later? If I turn them down, will I come off as rude? How do I avoid being rude? Is it more worth it in the long term to just accept the invitation? What am I going to discuss? What do I want to discuss?
So I gave my pastor a non-committal response even though I had already decided to be a no-show.
Chris and Steve resume their nostalgia-fueled discussion.
A new column focusing on something very important to me: my faith and my journey of it.
Uh oh. A column of faith? That can’t be good. Several pages of hot-air proselytizing when all you come for are opinions regarding video games, anime, or film. Guess it’s time to stop following!
Only this isn’t about telling you why I’m right and you’re wrong. I mean, I don’t even know who you are that’s reading this! It’s about finding a way to discuss something important to me. Something important that I’ve continually kept hidden out of fear of judgment. Too much of my life has been spent worrying what others think of me, modifying my behaviors to try and become a person more easily loved.
Some of these adjustments have certainly had benefits. Others have given birth to anxiety, frustration, and even existential crises. I know the manner in which I dissect entertainment is going to have a limited audience, but I still sought to appeal to as broad a group as possible. As such, I began removing bits of myself from my critiques. Effectively, I began to deny myself aspects of what made me who I am, which in turn lied to everyone about who it is they’re reading.
A report on the trials and progress of March and plans for April.
I managed to get the new video out within March, but a lot later than I had originally hoped and anticipated. While I am glad to finally have gotten it done – and quite frankly, am a lot happier with it than I expected to be – I am still disappointed in the amount of time it took.
Of course, there are a multitude of reasons, including the need to go back and rerecord some footage. I discovered later that I had somehow accidentally permanently deleted the entire first video file, which included all of Samus’ adventure up to the first save station in Agon Wastes. Video editing was delayed until I could record this footage and then convert the files.
Why is the Infinite Forest in Destiny 2 so bland and tedious? What made the Prison of Elders good fun?
I hope you like the aesthetic of rock, because everything here is rocks.
Why is the Infinite Forest in Destiny 2’s expansion, Curse of Osiris, such an affront when compared to the Prison of Elders from the prior game? This question dug into my brain like a tick after writing last week’s Game Log.
Boiled down to their very basics, each is a modular experience composed of repetitive environmental assets where the player is tasked with little more than fighting opponents. In regards to the Prison of Elders, the repetition is apparent as you’ll largely fight the same foes and bosses every time. Unlike the Infinite Forest, the Prison of Elders was such an enjoyable co-op experience that a new variant is at the top of my most wanted list in Destiny 2’s future expansion.
I think the plain and overused visual assets are a misdirection of the senses. Everything in Destiny 2 becomes repeated content, and therefore familiarity with the environments is bound to happen. Moreover, every mission and strike will make use of the planet’s public world. Repeated visuals is pretty par for the course. I simply think the bland and simple rock formations are an easy substance to latch onto. “It all looks so boring”, one might say. Indeed, the only part of the Infinite Forest worth admiring for its aesthetic is the entrance and exit.
It only took over half a year, but I finally have my analysis on Metroid Prime: Echoes available for viewing.
There is so much more that can be said of Metroid Prime: Echoes, yet now that the video is complete I find myself with a cavernous cranium. Thoughts and words have fled, and I am unable to grasp onto them.
There have been hardships which I shall cover in the next RambleLog, but on the whole this project has honestly been a great one despite the stress. I’ve found a new appreciation for the Metroid franchise as a whole and have learned quite a bit about its creation. It has only made the series that much more fascinating to me.
It may not be a great film, but Tomb Raider is certainly a fun one.
At a pure basic level of enjoyment – dismissing the brain and soaking the film up like a sponge – I’d say Tomb Raider is the first video game film to be successful as a film. While I can give credit to Ubisoft’s execution of Assassin’s Creed, it is also guilty of the same flaws of its source material. Primarily, Assassin’s Creed is just so self-satisfied with its pretentious Chariots of the Gods backstory that it has become a clueless beacon of everything wrong with games narratives. I’d like to endeavor to watch the Warcraft movie in full, but what I have seen looks like a middle-schooler’s favorite fantasy novel adapted using the most expensive of cosplay armors.
In comparison I had completely forgotten I was watching a video game adaptation throughout most of Tomb Raider. There were a handful of obvious callbacks, but under most circumstances they felt more like homages rather than gimmicks. Perhaps the best thing the filmmakers did was cherry-pick plot pieces from the new Tomb Raider and its sequel and fashion them into a story of their own. “Lara’s dad is dead, and in searching for him she gets a boat to Yamatai that crashes there. Not only does she need to escape, she needs to stop an evil corporation from uncovering the tomb of Japanese death Goddess Himiko”.
Simplified so that it can fit suitably into a film’s running-time while allowing enough freedom to modify the events as necessary.
All this energy and no clue where to expend it.
My greatest current frustration is having a buffet of things I wish to do and having no idea what it is I actually want to do. Every evening once I’ve signed off of work I feel myself struck by a sort of paralysis, uncertain how it is I wish to spend my time.
Why not watch something? An anime or a film? I do, after all, need to make sure I have a Silver Screenings column lined up on Monday. If I am spending all of my time watching things, however, I will fail to have sufficient material for GameLog on Fridays. Perhaps I should play a game then instead? Only everything I wish to play I’d also like to record footage of so that I might make a video of it, and my hard drive is low on space until I’ve completed my analysis of Metroid Prime: Echoes. Speaking of, shouldn’t I be editing that?
So I sit down to edit the video, and I feel as if I am letting the blog down.
The use and misuse of anime's three-episode rule.
My schedule was unfortunately less conducive to anime or television viewing this week. I only got to watch a few episodes of KADO: The Right Answer with my brother, which is not enough to really have something noteworthy to say.
However, it did incite me to think a bit on the “three episode rule” that is discussed in anime viewing fandom. It actually seems specific to anime fandom, as I can find no discussions of it in regards to Western television. No one says they give a show three episodes on Netflix before deciding if it is worth watching.
I imagine this is in part due to the length of the episodes. A Western television show has roughly twice the amount of time in which to work, meaning you can get a better feel for the characters and story in one episode. Were Supernatural an anime – I mean, in an alternate universe, not as as a nifty side thing – the first episode likely would not have ended with Sam joining Dean on his cross-country trek to find their father. That single episode would have been the first “arc”, and perhaps stretched out to be the first three episodes total.
