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?

Renovation (part1)

Renovation

March 17^th 1987

Hello. Hi. My name is Mike.

The doctor has told me to start writing this dumb diary because he thinks it might help. As if I've not got enough on my plate already! He says, “Mike, I know what it's like, sometimes you want to say things but you think they are things you can't say – you think people will make fun of you for saying them, but you don't need to show them to me or anyone, just write them down.”

I guess the doc has a point, but it still feels dumb.

I'm gonna try and keep it up maybe a week or two at the most, before I get real busy. Work is good at the moment, Joe and Charlie say we've got projects to keep us busy up until August, which is good 'cos Louise has some time off around the end of August and I think we could both do with some kind of holiday, it's been a long year.

Anyway, this week we're up at some old house way out in the woods somewhere. I'm not a very good writer, I don't describe so good, but it's beautiful: real old style house, all wood with a raised porch and that kinda thing. One half is modernised, and that's where the family who are paying us have been living, but they want the rest renovating and made hospitable for the winter.

The Woods

It was a warm and proud autumn afternoon. I stood gazing down some forgotten opening that seemed to beckon me invitingly, like some deep and curious lagoon. Mottled leaves lay strewn over the path towards the opening as though they were pages from old discarded books. I cast a timid glance over my shoulder.


Far behind me, the party was still in full swing. Chatter and laughter floated on the humid breeze, as light and delicate as bubbles fizzing in the glasses held amongst the many guests. I had slipped away from my own celebration after being admonished in my advances upon a female guest I had been assured was of the same mind as me, that I was handsome and she was fair, and we would both be interested in a small dalliance. I had clearly been misinformed, likely intentionally, and was greeted not with a soft caress of the cheek but with a cold, sharp explosion from a glass of some cocktail or other. She left in quite a flustered state and all about me guests pointed slack jawed or giggling. For a moment I felt embarrassed, betrayed even, but life goes on and I had merely retreated to let the guffaws and cat calls simmer down. It was during my reflection on the events that had passed that I shortly came to notice a faint and sickly smell coming from a part of my garden that I could not quite recognise, not that this surprised me as I did not frequent my garden other than on social occasions. Intrigued by the odour, and uninterested in returning to the party any time soon, I mopped my brow with a handkerchief and set out into the shaded retreats of my estate.

This album is forgotten

According to a recent BBC article, Nottingham is the second worst city in the UK for illegal downloads. the most shared artist in my fair city is Ed Sheeran. In fact, the entirety of the UK seem to think that they can't last without Sheeran in their lives, so they've decided to illegally download his album instead. I could go on about how I dislike Ed and his novelty micro-acoustic guitar, his beige demeanor, his MOR, milquetoast, pointless, translucent music, and his fan-base, who mistook his rendition of Wish You Were Here for a 'new track' of his at the Olympic Closing Ceremony (there is a special kind of stupid happening there, and it probably needs an entire post to get to the bottom of) but really I just wanted to use the article as a jumping off point for a bit of spiel.