We All Fall Down

The Real Thing

  • Reading time:1 mins read

My word — Trent’s new single is… accessible. It sounds at once more pop-metally than I’d ever associate with nin (other than in the PHM era) and portentous of something “important.” I’m really curious, now, about The Fragile.

Strictly on an associative standpoint, it almost sounds like Trent is playing Faith No More songs and being produced by Richard D. James — although I mean this in a better way than it sounds.

I like the splendid, ironic bitterness in Starfuckers, Inc., now that it’s actually sunk in. Hehe — he plays the part well, too. I was wondering why the heck he did put the Carly Simon reference in there. I missed entirely his sarcastic tone.

Hehe — probably his most obviously “political” song. It’s hilariously, bluntly witty, when I read the lyrics.

Hi, there.

Tarzan

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Really dug the characterization of Jane in the recent Disney incarnation of Tarzan. Actually, the whole thing was surprisingly well-handled, with the only strong gripe, allowances made for the traditional sigh-enduing Disney touches, being the segment from about five minutes into the film (once baby Tarzan is found and picked up by his ape mother) until Tarzan is an adult. That whole bit of the movie — about fifteen or twenty minutes’ worth — could have been completely excised, to no detriment (rather, to an improvement). Like that they kept the Weissmuller yodel (though it’d be near-impossible to not do so by this point). No “Oongawah”s, however.

I’m certainly no expert on the character or on Edgar Rice Burroughs in general, but wasn’t Tarzan supposed to actually be somewhat of an English gentleman (contrary to his depiction in the old JW films)?

I don’t mean to go out on a limb here — ahem — but I’d say that Disney is starting to come back, somewhat, in the cartoon department. After the first four of their “new” movies there was a deep lull. Mulan seemed to be a turning point of sorts, and Tarzan appears to be following its lead. Both strike quite a bit from the established and annoying formula. The “experimental” films made between Lion King and now have apparently paid off in a sense.

Consumption

  • Reading time:1 mins read

It bugs me when people make a habit of getting rid of things. Whenever I see this, I can’t help but wonder. What else do they discard?

Jarhead

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Finally got around to viewing The Phantom Menace, just to help out a struggling indie film — not any worse than the other three movies, really. And no, Jar-Jar was fine; ignore the slashdot crowd.

Maul was a puppet. He worked well in his role as a puppet, but he didn’t appear quite enough and in important enough ways to act as an effective red herring. Lucas should have used him more — though keeping him basically mute was a good decision. The emperor — jeez. I think Lucus intended the theater chairs to see through him from his first scenes. Ditto with “Padame” — “The Queen wants to investigate!” Ahem.

The anti-intellectuality of the series continues to grate on me.

The parting between Anakin and his mother has been pounded for being overly unemotional. The people reporting this certainly aren’t very perceptive or comprehensive. Given the situation they were in as slaves, the relationship they had, the attitudes she seemed to have as a mother toward the boy, the opportunity presented, and the sheer suddenness of the whole business, the Skywalkers were more than adequately emotional; any more and the whole business would have been melodramatic and boring. Anakin’s mother basically seemed in a bit of shock throughout the whole thing. She appeared to intentionally withhold any strong impulses from processing fully until Anakin left; she knew to escape slavery and find a real outlet for his skills would be in his best interest, and she didn’t want to overly worry him, possibly scarring his future. She simply wasn’t that selfish; the boy needed strength and comfort, not paranoia that he was hurting her. While the movie didn’t show it, it’s evident that it would be hitting her any ol’ time what had just happened. The scene cut a bit too quickly, however. I was expecting a huge change of countenance to pour over her as the jedi walked away.

The special effects bugged me — I expected a lot more, from how Lucas had been describing things. They were mostly pretty obvious, despite what everyone else seems to think. Why is it nobody can seem to either correctly texture-map a wireframe, no matter how high-res the source image, or to remember to blur and de-res digital images enough that they look analogue and real? In addition, what on earth were they doing with the lighting? The photograhy and rendered light rarely seemed to synch correctly. I’ve seen Win95-based games with better integration of elements. I’m not being hyperbolic here, either.

I welcomed the return of the Jawas.

The Buck Rogers outfits the queen and the pilots had were kind of keen, too, as a bit of an allusion to the series’ original inspiratory material.

The beginning part of the movie, involving the Bela Lugosi-ish aliens, reminded me strongly of The Last Starfighter (which was, in turn, heavilly influenced by Star Wars).

This keyboard is annoyingly layed-out. I don’t feel the keys’ locations correctly. The key sizes are molded differently, I think. I prefer my own…

Not very interesting prose today (article blah; article blah; article blah). Sorry.

Trilobyte

  • Reading time:3 mins read

The 11th Hour is all of the worst aspects of The 7th Guest, amplified. Where Myst and, more so, Riven create a logically-balanced world to comprehend and explore, these games give you lots of bad FMV, very arbitrary riddles (suddenly throwing in an anagram in the center of the second riddle you’re given, right near the beginning, for instance), and random puzzles which impede progress, not even a hint of context, half the time, provided as to what the point/goal is (that is, no context even within the puzzle itself, after careful and lengthy analysis) — the only way to solve several puzzles is to whack around, hoping to crack them by force. The end result of the expended effort is to, again, allow the player to, say, examine a table or open an otherwise-unblocked — or even partially open — door in a hallway on the other end of the house. Right.

I really hate this type of game design. It’s unimaginative, shallow, lazy, and just plain poor. Myst had a few “puzzles” in it, but, with only very few exceptions, the game effectively told you what to do if you merely read everything carefully and added up, analytically, everything you experienced, interrelating as much as possible. Riven was a vast step up in that it didn’t contain any of those sort of artificial roadblocks. Every difficulty in the game was based in the structure of the place. If the player couldn’t get past something or if he couldn’t figure out what the purpose was of a certain device or item or bit of architecture or writing, there was a completely rational, logical reason why not — he was an outsider, stepping into someone else’s world, filled with a culture he didn’t recognize, devices he had never used, and geography alien to him. Given enough study of his surroundings and a bit of insight, it was perfectly simple to deduce how things were, why they logically were the way they were, and, by relation, how to manage that which was encountered.

The 11th Hour is not like this in any respect. It is not for the thinker; it is for the sadomasochist and the game designers’ egos. “Hah — see anybody figure THIS out. Aren’t we clever?” It’s not clever to simply withhold every speck of information and player control within normal gameplay.

I suppose that’s the real difference between the serieses — Myst/Riven (with, as stated, a few exceptions in the first game) is based upon giving the player as much information as possible but no overt connecting threads. The player is mostly set free to explore, as the point is to internalize and interweave information until an overall comprehension is achieved. Guided understanding is more important than precise methodology. 7/11 is based upon almost the opposite concept; that series gives nothing but connecting threads. All information has to be conjured up in speculation, based upon these often completely baseless clues. The player is mostly confined, in fear that he encounter too much information and spoil the puzzles. Method is more important than comprehension.

I find this general kind of mindset to, frankly, be a combination of sad and injust. It masquerades as a test of brain power, when it more accurately a test of obedience. (I’ll not bother meticulating why this is — I’ve provided the data.) Whereas Myst and Riven compell the question “why,” The 7th Guest and 11th Hour compell the question “what?” It’s shallow and manipulative. Never trust he who actively hides his intentions.

101010

  • Reading time:1 mins read

okay, now tell me — what do you get when you multiply six by nine in a base-thirteen system?

Now, what does this say? Actually, taken metaphorically, it synchronizes very well with the universe-view proposed in that particular reality. Base-thirteen is a very awkward number system; 13 is just an uncomfortable integer, for various reasons you can determine on your own. Assuming this is a suggestion that thirteen is the natural root of everything in the universe, mathematically, this would explain a lot of the awkwardness and unease and, to stretch and extrapolate, bureaucratic nonsense inherent to the process of existance. And there is an awful lot of it in the universal exhibition of the trilogy.

[Later note: This appears to be very common knowledge. Well. I had to figure it out on my own…]

Pod Bay Door

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Tomorrow at 3:00 PM, 2001: A Space Odyssey finally comes on again. Have to set my VCR. . .

Triangle

  • Reading time:1 mins read

That was the best episode of X which has ever aired, no exceptions made. Third episode of season six — the real-time, letterboxed Bermuda triangle episode with the peculiar phrase in place of “trust no one.”

“Scully… I love you.”

There were no flaws. One of the best storylines. Great gimmick, and executed perfectly. Exactly the right characters used, and in exactly the right way. The “real space” which the characters occupy, and how they interplay in real-time, was terrific to see. The most imaginative episode ever shot. This is the episode to show people who’ve never seen the show before. This and “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” if that’s indeed the title. . .and “Night,” assuming that’s the first-season tree mite episode which came the week after the werewolf one. Those two, I think, remain my other favorites, but this one tops the cake. I have no clue how they could top it.

Dust

  • Reading time:1 mins read

It snowed today… and I walked outside, allowing the cool wind to dust my face and hair, extending my arms outward to the precipitory bellow, a grin plastered across my maw.

Luma

  • Reading time:1 mins read

You can tell The X-Files is being filmed in California, now; it doesn’t look drizzly and Canadian anymore. Plus, the music is much more thematic than it has been in the past. Rather than re-re-re-reusing the same synthesized “creepy noise” cues, it’s much more like movie score.

Riders On the Storm

  • Reading time:6 mins read

It’s strange how “last albums” always sound completely appropriate as such. You can hear what was going on, here. They sound tired, beaten down, burned-out. They sound like they’ve given up, and have pulled all of their remaining energy to make one last effort, to make one more really good album. I really like “Hyacinth House” — that shows, especially, what I mean.

This album is really good, in a resigned, tired, out-of-touch way. It doesn’t sound like the Doors, but then the Doors didn’t sound like the Doors at all anymore after the Soft Parade. It’s got a completely different vibe and musical focus than anything else they did. While early on, on the first three albums, they had a lot of energy and were focused on writing inventively, doing things which had never been done before, here, on L.A.Woman, they plod on in a constant, non-stop mumble of music which sounds only sloppy the first few times you listen to it.

But it’s different. There’s more to it than that — it’s just the listener is so used to the Doors jumping out, making a scene, and showing off their music, that when the doors turn inwards, blatantly ignore everyone around them, and huddle in a corner quietly, it’s a little bit of a jolt. You get to wonder what happened, what they’re doing. It doesn’t sound right to you. They should be coming to you — you shouldn’t have to go look for them. They should be on stage, and you have to go look around, only to find them tired out, sitting in a small room in some house somewhere on the other end of town, telling you to leave them alone.

After listening to the album about four or five times, it really begins to sink in.

Where everyone else ended, it seems, with some big bang of closure (the Beatles, with the second side of Abbey Road, culminating in a song titled “The End”) or just fizzled, it’s spooky, in context, to hear the final song on the final Doors album, “Riders on the Storm.” It’s such an unconventional album-closer for anyone, but most especially the bombastic, theatrical Doors.

Jim’s death was really timed well, also. It’s all very curious; there’s little question as to why such a mythology has built up around the band. Any way you look at it, the whole deal is just plain creepy. And Jim never even heard the album — the last thing he did which had anything to do with the Doors was sing the final vocal take to Riders on the Storm, which was not only the last track on the album but also the final track they had to record. And it was the final track on the last album they were obligated to make under their contract; with the recording of that track, they were free. Then he suddenly left for Paris right off, practically as soon as the track was recorded, not even hanging around so they could all finish up the album post-production together, something they had always done as a group. The album soon was a hit, only there was no Jim. While the other three doors did interviews and talked to the press and got excited about their success, and while they were preparing new material, suddenly re-energized, Jim was in Europe somewhere. But nobody seemed to notice. The other three Doors never said anything, because nobody really asked. Everyone just assumed Jim was hanging around somewhere, and never thought about it too much. Then he suddenly just… died. Only two people saw his body, and the physician gave only the vague diagnosis that “his heart stopped.” Not that he had a heart attack, but just that he was no longer alive. And he was buried there, in Paris, in a sealed coffin, an ocean away from where everyone thought he had been for the past few months.

It’s all very odd. It seems almost hard to believe, just from how everything was timed and the entire lack of details in some important places, with the details in the remaining places being out-of-character and strange. It’d be hard to write a more peculiar, creepy, and mysterious scenario for the end of a band.

It almost seems like some grand script was being acted out in real life by the band. 1971 almost seems manufactured, somehow, as if they all sat around somewhere saying “we’re not doing well right now — how can we make sure nobody will forget us? I know — we’ll kill Jim off, suddenly and mysteriously. But how do we make anyone care? Well, we have to scrape up the energy to write one more album — a good one, the way we used to make them. This one has to be great.” Then, being masters of dramatics, they composed the album not only well, but in exactly the right way that, in retrospect, it would send shivers up and down a person’s spine, even though until people heard of Jim’s death it would sound fresh and new, as if the Doors were finally back again, thereby creating enough of a huge sensation that people would be genuinely shocked when Jim turned up dead.

That whole period in American history was sort of strange, that way. It’s no wonder we have such a wacko-conspiracy culture these days, after having gone through those years.

The piece “L’America” is enjoyable for me, as well — that is another crucial track in establishing L.A.Woman as an unnerving album, just from its creepy “Night on Bald Mountain” tone, occasionally lapsing strangely into other musical styles.

Almost every track on the album is a variation on the “epic” theme they used to reserve for about one song per album (the closing track) earlier on. Almost all of them drone on at length, rather than consisting of tight, compact, efficiently-composed-and-arranged verses, choruses, and bridges. It all creates a similar blended, “here it all is — this is all the rest you’ll get out of us” effect that side two of Abbey Road, to compare that album again, makes, only in a much subtler way. The whole album of L.A.Woman is amazingly subtle in comparison to what someone would probably expect from the Doors. But then “Riders on the Storm” is suddenly tight, thoroughly thought-out, relatively short, and clear. And it just fades out with quiet noises of rain and some unnerving tones.

The lyrics to many of the songs on the album also allude to the resignation which followed the album and some of the problems the band were having anyway at that point.

“I need a brand new friend who doesn’t bother me. . .
I want a brand new friend who doesn’t need me. . .”

“Riders on the storm —
Into this house we’re born,
into this world we’re thrown. . .

like a dog without a bone,
an actor out on loan,
riders on the storm. . .”

We’re only here for a while, and then we have to return to there from whence we came.

It Comes Down To This

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I just listened to the Sin and TPD singles again; I’ve not really listened to Trent Reznor in a few months. Whew — I’d almost forgotten how amazing a musician that man is. No wonder he spurred me into music. Just listening to PHM-era songs is akin to swimming in a river of inspiration and energy. His material is so ridiculously simple, yet impossibly effective, that all I can think when I hear a nin song is “I could do that,” and I really want to try, as well. I’ve strayed somewhat lately, but I guess I can’t help returning to nin as home base. . .

The contrast of nin and the Doors is great, as well — while Trent is all keyed-up and neurotically precise, as I am, Jim is all laid-back and more lenient, musically, while still not sparing any melodicism or rhythm. Then there’s Elfman, to amplify the inherent playfulness behind a lot of nin and Doors material.

It’s all fun. I’d forgotten about that. Music is fun.

Competition

  • Reading time:1 mins read

To what state has gaming dwindled?

Why is it every game developed is rated on its multiplayer capacity, and why is it every game which is obviously meant to be a real game rather than a brainless net-arena is met with bewildered surprise? “It doesn’t have a multiplayer option, but don’t worry — it doesn’t need it. It holds up as a single-player game.” Bring back the days when multiplayer gaming was constrained to a subservient second controller and the quality of a game in and of itself was what mattered.

Split Direction

  • Reading time:3 mins read

I keep seeing everywhere — in reviews for Riven — that the game is supposed to be impossible to play without a walkthrough. Everything I’ve ever read on the game instructs the reader to find a hint book or walkthrough, as the game is, otherwise, too difficult and frustrating to play. The game isn’t made to be played on one’s own ability.

What the hell? Riven’s not a difficult game. All you need is a small amount of patience and the capacity to think. It can become frustrating, yes, but that’s a part of the whole point of the thing. You’re supposed to find and follow the game’s inner logic — and not very complex logic, at that. How hard is it to realize if two objects are shaped in the same, uncommon way that they probably are somehow related? To follow tubes and turn valves to change the flow of steam? There were only two or three small things in the entire game which seriously stumped me, and those were completely my own fault; I just didn’t see something relatively obvious.

Myst, while a little easier, was a little less obvious about things, and, as such, was more annoying to play. Riven is streamlined to the point where, given a couple of weeks and some quiet time alone, a person of average intellect should have little trouble completing it. All you have to do is, to a very small extent, think. I mean, I know how some games can drive a person nuts by their complete lack of logic or near-impossible (and irrelevant) puzzles, but Riven isn’t that way at all. It has a total of one or two “puzzles” in the entire game, if you could call them that; those are solved basically just by being thorough and exploring until enough data has been collected that connections can be made and some picture begins to form.

I mean, really. The typical excuse is “well, I don’t want to spend my life playing a game — I just want to walk around and have fun.” Look — anyone who says that is completely missing the point. If you don’t have any patience and aren’t willing to think, you shouldn’t be playing a game like Riven. It’s not a hard game, but it’s not made for bumble-minded brats. That’s why they make Doom clones. Go net-play or something. If you’re going to play a game, play the fucking game. If you want to turn off clipping, fly, and shoot things, they make these games — play them. Have your fun.

A Myst Opportunity

  • Reading time:4 mins read

Myst:

Okay — done. It works fine in win98. I’ve not bothered looking at all of the endings, though. Myst is a much easier game than is Riven, though I did end up turning tail to a hint page because of stupid blunders and oversights on my part. Here they were, in total:

1 — somehow, it never dawned on me that one could walk behind the elevator shaft in the rotating tower on Myst island — a somewhat big oversight, and the same kind of problem I had that one time in Riven. Actually, I do remember walking back there when I was playing the game long, long ago, but I only remember this now, after the fact.

2 — I was a little too jumpy. I had the time and numbers for the clock code on Myst Island, again, written down, I knew that the clock was probably tied to the gears, and I knew it was the last puzzle on the island. I had been trying to figure out what was the correct time to which to set the clock ever since I saw the damned thing the for the first time, but, for whatever reason, something in my brain didn’t click for a few moments and I went back to the hint guide prematurely. The dumb thing is, I actually knew what I was looking up; I knew where to rotate the tower — my brain was just fuzzy.

3 — I scoured Channelwood about eight times over, trying to figure out how the hell to get onto the spiral staircase and how to operate the elevator right next to it, knowing that the two were probably intertwined. I also couldn’t find the red and blue pages in that age and knew they were probably on the upper-upper level which I couldn’t get to without using the staircase. blah, blah. Ends up that, somewhere in that mess of huts on the upper level, there was a lever which opened the door/gate which had been blocking my way. I walked by it (the lever) a hundred times, and I would have walked by it a hundred more. There’s no possible way I would ever have seen the lever, no matter what state of mind I might have been in. I was supposed to spot one unnotable stick amongst thousands and know it to be of signifigance?

4 — I did, early in my progress, notice the left half of the note which told how to obtain the final page of Atrus’ Myst linking book, but didn’t immediately know what it was and told myself to remember it for later, knowing I’d come across the second half at some point in the future. Ends up the second half was in Channelwood — in a drawer under a bed in the same location as the red and blue pages. I was just so annoyed and impatient about not seeing the previously-mentioned lever that I walked right by the note, grabbing the pages and getting out of there in frustration. I’d wasted enough time in that place. If the lever were more obvious or I’d otherwise just seen the damned thing in the first place, I’d have been more cautious, as I usually am. But I was irritated and I ran in and out, barely looking at anything. Later, when Atrus told me to find the missing white page to his book, I had no clue what to do. I thought it was dreadfully unfair of the game to just randomly tell me to find something which could be anywhere in the game with no clues at all. By this time, I’d been irritated enough that I forgot all about the half-note I made sure to remember for later. So, after dinking around and pouting for a while, I looked up the hint guide once again. Oh. That’s right — the note. Oh. Channelwood? Sigh. And it was in the one room in the game which I didn’t scour mercilessly.

Anyway, I think those were pretty reasonable hints I took; mostly my own fault and (with the exception of the frustration-related blunders) basically the same mistakes I made in Riven. Thing is, in Riven there were about five ways to do everything, so when I overlooked a few details, the game just made it a bit more difficult for me rather than blocking progress completely.

The ending of Myst is. . .well, strange. After Playing Riven, it’s a perfect intro to the second game, and it doesn’t annoy me very much because I know what comes next. I can imagine, however, if Riven didn’t exist or I’d never played it, that the ending could be disappointing, as I’d heard it rather was.