Movie reviews
Better Luck Tomorrow — hell yes.
Winged Migration — ih. Birds.
Man on the train — most certainly.
Le Cercle Rouge — sure.
Prelude to Las Vegas? (Or: An Insert Credit Dream)
Some civilization — Babylonian, I think — which lived in a giant onion-shaped island, with sides that curled up and separated everyone living there from the outside world. Although right in the midst of a bunch of other kingdoms, they had no idea of anything outside the island. After a few tries, the key civilization succeeded in surviving until all of the rival parties on the island were disintegrated. Complex and interesting native music played, as the Babylonian king cast a huge hadoken-style fireball and blew holes in the onion-sides of the island, letting light stream in.
It seemed this was some kind of odd game that I was playing in a place which was a cross between the Insert Credit Fortress, as such, and a prep school dorm. There was a dingy cafeteria and there were older adults in charge. I had trouble getting food to cook correctly, and to find anywhere decent to sleep.
Anyway. Once the remaining webwork of the onion-sides collapsed, there was a flyover of all of the surrounding kingdoms — which were all jammed pretty close together. Princesses were leaning out of several towers, waving. Then I saw The Jetsons. And then Fred Flintstone, dressed as Iori Yagami.
I turned and pointed him out to other members of the Insert Credit crew, who were in what was now a sort of ride with me. They weren’t particularly interested. They had something they wanted to get to, once the ride was over.
So, we all got off and proceeded to walk down a long, carpeted stairway (with rubberized edges to each step, bolted down with large aluminum caps). I inadvertently made eye contact with an asian fellow with a microphone and a camera crew. I think it was the hat that I was wearing which caught the guy’s attention. (Not sure what the significance really was of this hat, aside from the fact that it was given to me shortly beforehand.)
He asked me a question, to which I replied in the affirmative. I stopped, as it seemed he wanted some kind of an interview, dealing with the event we were attention. Everyone else in the Insert Credit crew had gone on ahead by this point; they weren’t paying attention to my absence. I figured that I’d be able to catch up with them eventually, if I could remember where they were off to.
The fellow filmed me for about three seconds, before he became distracted. I was a bit disappointed, as I intended to give him a wholly unexpected impression about the kinds of people who were attending this event.
Bored, I began executing complicated martial arts moves, up and down the stairwell, often using the bannister as a tool. The reporter fellow eventually wandered off, leaving me alone there.
At about that time, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. The boss at Insert Credit — ex-Sega of America honcho Peter Moore — was in the midst of a private meeting (in a very public lounge area, through which traffic was continuously flowing) with someone from SNK. A really powerful Star Wars game was being demonstrated, on Neo-Geo hardware.
Thing is, as impressive as it was, at the end of every level there were still stylized character portraits with cheesy Engrish quotes written underneath. A Jedi would be saying something like “That’s the last time you mess with the force, dweebenheimer!”
They didn’t seem to mind me watching (if they noticed me at all), so I hung around. After the Star Wars demo ended, a full-motion animated version of Ulala appeared, to boogie along to the Talking Heads’ song “I Zimbra”. She kept pawing at her private areas.
A bunch of text and a mostly-indecipherable Japanese voiceover elucidated the start of some facts about Ulala, including that she has a last name which was eliminated before the first game went into production. It was in kanji, though, so I couldn’t read it.
I think this was a trailer for either a new Space Channel 5 game, or an animated movie based upon the games. It was difficult to tell — especially since after only a few moments of this, I happened to wake up.
UPDATE: Read it again, for the first time!
The King of Fighters 2002 (DC/Playmore)
by [name redacted]
I don’t like The King of Fighters 2002. I don’t consider it in the spirit of the series, or more broadly in the spirit of SNK. Especially after the tremendous success of their previous collaboration, I’m pretty surprised — and saddened — that Eolith and Brezza managed to devise such an inane follow-up.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA/Konami)
by [name redacted]
Last year, Harmony of Dissonance presented to me an interesting dilema. Although a better Castlevania game (as such) than KCE Kobe’s Circle of the Moon, Harmony lacks the mindless glee of its (now-apocryphal) predecessor. Indeed, it is rather a heady experience. It’s more well-conceived than Kobe’s game, it has a pleasantly glitchy atmosphere, it’s full of neat continuity. It’s just that it’s not as crunchy; not as much empty fun.
Well, no such dilemma here. Aria of Sorrow is both a good Castlevania game and a fun game on its own right. I daresay, and do say, and am in the process of daring to say, that this is one of the most joyous, well-designed games in the series.
He’s not OK?
Well! I just got my copy of KoF2002 DC.
It’s got really nice packaging. I’m surprised, as the cover art — in recent Playmore style — is only so-so. I don’t know who their new promo and cover artists are. I don’t know why they persist with pushing this stuff on their poor fans when they’ve got Hiroaki, Tonka, and Nona on the bankroll. What, are they all too busy drawing K’ / K9999 doujinshi? Where are they?
So. The packaging is highly decent. The game is… more polished than it is in its more-familiar-to-me emulated form. All of the voice samples and sound effects have been resampled at a really high rate. The music isn’t arranged, nor did I expect it to be. As with 2001, its samples seem of a higher quality than before.
There seem to be a few nice extra modes, though I’ve yet to unlock them. Then there are King and Shingo, again whom I have yet to find.
The reason? I’m still apathetic.
This game… just isn’t that great. Especially not following 2001, which — while a little scuzzy at first glance — is by far one of the best fighters I’ve played.
The engine seems solid enough. But… the game’s just been thrown together. No interaction amongst the characters. They all just… happen to be in the same game. As if the compromised cast listing were really that rosy a start. No solid, coherent world. Barely any intro animations. Terry vs. Andy? Nope. Kyo vs. Iori? Nope. The hell?
And I just miss the strikers, frankly. It’s sad that there’s not even an option for them. The game feels outdated. Frustrating. Incomplete.
Hollow is my word. That works.
I wonder what happened to all of Terry’s move names.
I got it to support Playmore, and to complete my collection. And because it’s for the Dreamcast. And to assuage my emulation guilt. All… some variation of posterity, rather than actual desire.
I don’t think I’m going to play it much.
Dum dee dum.
Ah well. I presume that Playmore is taking the series back internally, this year. Those who once were Brezza, then were part of Sun, which is now SNK NeoGeo, are technically responsible for the grunt work on the past two games, but Eolith has supposedly done most of the design. We’ll see what SNK has to say — officially — about the new Dragon Power story arc. I do hope that it’s novel. I’m not sure I can take another mediocre KoF. One is sad enough for a lifetime.
Fungaloid worms
I’ve been sitting here for over twelve hours, playing with MAME. It initially began as a quest to find and play the Castlevania arcade game. While it is pretty… not-good, I did get me-out a hefty basket of insight on Simon’s Quest.
I’ll let your imagination play with that for a while.
It only took a few plays to fill me as full of Haunted Castle as I wished to be filled. So, I took to seeing what else MAME happened to support. This was the first time that I’d really paid much attention to the program. It used to be a practical nuisance, last it was high on my radar.
Now, though, it… kind of works okay. It’s still not got some features that I’d like, but it makes up for them in how comprehensive it manages to be. You’ve got your Art of Fighting 3 right next to your Asteroids and your Rolling Thunder and your obscure Japanese porn Mahjong.
Through all of this business, something struck me.
I’ve… most recently spent an hour with Centipede when I could have been sleeping. This wasn’t in the plans. After about fifteen minutes, though, it occurred to me what was going on with the levels. Merely by playing the game, I was altering the level design. It couldn’t be helped.
When stage 2 came around, it wasn’t a different stage because of a pre-ordained set of obstacles. It didn’t even rely on a random generator. I made it different, albeit unintentionally. The randomness of my actions was translated, through various side effects, into the randomness of the mushroom field. All I had to do was be there. To exist.
It keeps going on like that. Perpetually. You get the same thing with Asteroids, although with all the moving pieces it’s not quite as evident.
…
Games aren’t quite so poetic anymore, are they.
Hmm, I say!
EDIT:
According to the KLOV, Centipede was the first arcade game to be designed by a woman (a certain Dona Bailey — sister to Justin, perhaps?).
Curious, curious.
Metal Slug Advance (GBA/Playmore)
by [name redacted] and tim rogers
I don’t know if this report even went live on the site. If so, it’s buried in the infrastructure. If not, well, that sort of thing happens at Insert Credit HQ. Either way, it’s here now.
Good gracious! How did this slip through the cracks?
At E3, SNK had a nonplayable demo up of their upcoming Metal Slug game for the GBA. For whatever reason, it seems I’m one of the few people to actually get a solid look at it. (Brandon didn’t even know what I was talking about.)
BioWare!
by [name redacted]
BioWare consists of the most Canadian people I’ve seen in my life. I’ve heard it elsewhere, but it’s true! This is as much an underhanded compliment as it is an abject observation.
Honestly, I expected something a little different from our meeting. I wanted to talk more extensively with some of the developers, to ask about the whole process of running a company of their specific ilk. Unfortunately, we were hit with yet another dose of scheduling difficulty.
Turtles Redeux
by [name redacted]
For all of the booth space and PR devoted to the new Turtles games, they’re really… not all that thrilling, at least if we go straight by the E3 build. Dom might steer you differently. Don’t believe him!
Nor should you believe Donatello, for he is far out-of-character in the E3 trailer. If anyone is to declare the game “fucking rad” under natural circumstances, it should be either Raphael (for the first of the description) or Michelangelo (for the second). For Don to act out so — well, it had to have been scripted.
I don’t know. Playing the games, I’m struck by both a general sense of competence and a sense that these games aren’t receiving quite the amount of care as Konami’s original Turtles lineup.
You can ring my Belmont.
Anyone out there who still thinks The Matrix is deep or original in any legitimate respect — I’m talking about the whole franchise (as it’s come to be) — then watch Dark City. Please. If you’ve already seen it, then watch it again if you haven’t recently. You probably haven’t seen it since the second Matrix movie was released. Since no one seems to remember the film, I feel this is a pretty safe assumption.
Every single theme encapsulated within the first two movies is present in Dark City — only there’s even more. And it’s tied together more well. It’s more elegant. It’s more stylish. It’s more original. It’s made with more talent and more heart. It’s got a better sense of narrative. Not only that, but it understands what it’s talking about. It doesn’t just dump freshman-level philosophy directly out of a class discussion. It doesn’t get is special effects from TV commercials. Although they’re just as much tools of the narrative as in The Matrix, its characters have personality.
It doesn’t pretend to be hip, by borrowing its hips from all of the most obviously cool ziggurats of popular culture. And it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It is a self-contained short story, because that is the nature of its message. The Wachowski brothers, in contrast, don’t seem to understand the useful limits of their material. Kind of like George Lucas.
And — again — they don’t have anywhere nearly as much to say. Not that they understand what little they do have. Nor do they seem to understand that their words are not their own.
Let’s kill Timothy!
Without Orson Welles, we would have no Touch of Evil. Without Touch of Evil, we would have no Peter Gunn. And, relatedly, no Blake Edwards, as he came to be. We wouldn’t exactly have Henry Mancini, in the form we know. Without them, we’d have no Cowboy Bebop.
Another big piece comes from Peter Max (and The Yellow Sumbarine).
Another big piece comes from Saul Bass.
So. Philip K. Dick and William Gibson took late ’70s/early ’80s punk culture and other then-current societal trends and newish technologies (such as Arpanet), projected them a few decades into the future, and came up with the Cyberpunk genre.
Shinichiro Watanabe took early ’60s post-beat jazz and mod culture, and detective and kung-fu films of the era, and projected them a few decades into the future to create The Work, Which Becomes a New Genre Itself.
So. We’ve done punk. We’ve done ’60s cool jazz/bebop/mod culture. Perhaps next we can project the mid-1800s romantic classical music scene a few decades into the future. That might have some possibilities.
No, hold on. The Victorian thing is starting to get overdone. How about the turn-of-the-century ragtime era? The clash between classical and blues; between performance and recording; between vaudeville and cinema.
What other archetypical, musically-related period cultures can we tap into? This is important. We’re creating a NEW CLASSIC here.
“Kauf, Kauf…” (or: Malkovich Gaiden)
Mm. I’ve been kind of scared to watch Adaptation again. I’ve seen it two and a quarter times now — once in the theater, once at home, and the rest in French. The dub was strange.
The point is, I really liked it in the theater. It was one of the only movies that I’d seen which honestly impressed me on an intellectual level. I identified with it in a number of ways. I was, however, uncertain of how stable this might be.
It defeated me the first time. I enjoyed it the second time. Still, the movie isn’t exactly perfect. There are some qualities which are a little annoying — even though it accounts for them just fine. It wouldn’t be the same movie otherwise; it wouldn’t hold together in the same way.
I was afraid that my patience wouldn’t last through those bits and that the movie might start to fall apart, if I picked at it too much. I know that it doesn’t hold up for a lot of people — otherwise rather perceptive people — in a couple of specific places. Towards the end, especially.
Perhaps only in my vanity, I’d like to think that I more clearly understand what the movie is trying to do (and succeeding, as far as what it intends). Was I just tolerating those bits in favor of the larger structure? Did understanding them do me any real good? How about understanding that the movie sets itself up to allow me to watch it any old way that I like? To pick a level (if I wish) and stay with it? To ride it through to the end? Was I merely tricked into outsmarting myself?
The answer: I think, no. I’m watching it yet again. It’s paused right after the last “muffin” line. And… although this is early, it still works. I can project out from here. I think I’m appreciating it better each time. This film isn’t as fragile as I feared that it might be.
Further, it’s… oddly encouraging. Just as it’s depressing.
BONUS NOTE!
Try filtering The Matrix through Adaptation.
You can use the movie as a colander, you know. It’s fun!
Either Matrix will do. Your choice.
Note the bit about broken mirrors.
Choice is good.
The Wachowskis do indeed possess a certain flavour of genius.
I’m not sure if it’s a constructive kind, but it’s undeniably there.
And to think I just WALKED ON HIS FACE!
Good lord! I just watched Sherlock Holmes battle the Nazis!
He was certainly spry for his age! He didn’t look much the worse for his fifty lost years or so. Nor, for that matter, did Watson or Inspector Lestrade. Moriarty, of course, was the one operating on the side of the Nazis. He also looked reasonably well, considering.
Gazdooks.
Odds Bodkins, even!
When did Holmes become an action-packed master of disguise, anyway?
I’m going to have to go back to sleep, now.
Did I mention (and I didn’t) that I finished up everything there was to do in the first, normal-mode quest in Aria of Sorrow? Every soul; every item (at least one copy). Am now starting hard mode, with all of the items and souls from last time around. It’s going… more quickly now. I fear that I might not make it to as high a level as last time (that being around 75, with all of the wandering and whathow). It seems that the clock is still going even through this second quest. It’s now at around 18:30, I believe.
… Sounds like a good time for a nap!
Bigger, Badder, Back!
Yes, that’s Vince’s aborted title. I needed to use it somewhere.
So. I’ve not yet finished transcribing the interview, but for those of you who downloaded the .mp3 — recall that question that Brandon asked Ben Herman & Co., regarding Playmore‘s future now that they’ve got back the rights to the SNK name?
I wondered, based on what Mr. Herman told me earlier, whether Playmore intended to revert their name to SNK since they’ve now got the opportunity. When Brandon asked (in my absence), they were… immediately and suspiciously quiet. They weren’t allowed to comment.
As it turns out, Playmore remains Playmore. It’s Sun who’s now become SNK NeoGeo (to match the US, Korea, and Hong Kong branches) — the Sun who publishes all of Playmore’s games; the Sun who manages all of the NeoGeo Land arcade centers; the Sun who recently absorbed Brezza (as I had guessed), making them an in-house team; the Sun who, as a result, was now responsible for developing most of the material that they were publishing.
Sun is Playmore’s main practical division. They handle pretty much everything. And now they’re SNK again. Take a look. If you recall, a year ago the Playmore group was a perplexing web of names. I devoted several entries, just trying to work out what was where. You had Playmore at the top, and then Sun, Brezza, and Noise Factory jointed off of them on the one end. SNK NeoGeo Korea, USA, and Hong Kong stretched out in the other direction. Megaking was more closely involved; the Korean branch of the company was a joint venture between them and Playmore. Evoga and Uno Technology also seemed pretty closely tied into things; it was hard to sort out who had a share in what.
Now, Brezza and Sun are one unit; Sun is now SNK. We’ve got two US branches (arcade and consumer). Aside from Noise Factory and Playmore prime (as it were), everything’s SNK again.
So. Yeah. Some more confirmation for my intuition.
I’m going to go finish that transcription, now. Seems about time.