Gunslinger: A Tall, Improbable Tale

"Oh, Death... won't you spare me over 'til another year?"

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger has no right to be any good at all. It just hasn't earned it. There was no pre-release hype, no barrage of stylish trailers, no DLC promotion or any of the trappings of a hit, big or small. It doesn't even have a lineage that it can be proud of. Its forebearers are games that have all been given middling to poor reviews, with 2011's The Cartel being critically slammed. It goes without saying that Techland's fourth outing into the Juarez world was fated to be terrible.

And yet...

Stoker

Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode (Stoker, 2013)

Cakes are a staple of Park Chan-Wook's films. The tantalising Baker's Shop in Lady Vengeance reflects the delicious intricacies of the titular Lady's plan, and the dazzling white cake symbolises a purity she is desperate to regain. In Thirst, a fat patient regales us with a tale of generosity, of how he gave up his cake to a starving mother and daughter, foreshadowing his charity of blood later in the film. At the beginning of Stoker, the cake is a birthday cake, and it's candles are choked out as the life of Mr. Stoker ends, and the innocent of another is snuffed.

Language Games: Clones

"I'm a clone, I know it and I'm fine."

After dabbling for a few years in writing my thoughts on games down in words and forms that other people could understand instead of keeping my feelings restrained exasperated abandoning of pads and grunts of joy/despair from in front of a screen in the safety of my own home, I've progressed onto tackling the idea of consistently trying to review games, and I'm starting to think about how hard it is to actually write about games well. Part of the issue resides in the idea that a game is inexplicably tied to its mechanics and presentation in a way that other mediums aren't (bear with me) and this poses a unique challenge to a reviewer, with three of the choice issues being: how do I explain these mechanics which at there most basic are “Push A to do B” without boring people, how do I separate the my inability to control a game well from the actual quality of the control scheme, and how do I talk about something that is mechanically similar to dozens of other titles without falling back on those titles?

I think these are all fairly interesting ideas so I decided to postulate a bit on them and write about them, and tackle them in three separate bits. Obviously I don't write for any big sites or anything, but these issues have cropped in my very basic communications about games with others, and are issues with the vocabulary around gaming that exists so far. So maybe there are examples of reviewers out there doing it right, or maybe I've missed communities where these issues are resolved through deft prose and delicate syntax, but as far as I'm aware that isn't the case. Anyway, onwards.

Atoms for Peace - Amok

 

Before I get into this, where do we stand on Radiohead, and inimitable, pipe-cleaner-construct-attached-to-a-subwoofer front man Thom Yorke? As a band, they’ve managed to attract as much ire from people as they have praise, with decade old letters page bickering spilling out on to YouTube comments:

“Thank Radiohead for real music!” vs “If I wanted to bore myself to death I’d listen to paint drying.” “Thom’s dancing is transcendent…”vs “He looks like a washed up hippy on a vibro-plate…”

Music Journalism also seems to be undecided on how to treat them. Everything they release is scrutinised as a grand gesture, a bold epochal statement, a dinosaur of a band managing to function on the good will of a slavish following of fans much like the grinning bears that jostle for space in so much of their associated artwork. Is it possible to just ignore this reverence that has been thrust upon them, and digest their music in a totally neutral zone?