Distraction/Annoyance/Anger Turns to Fun

It so happens during the production of almost every piece of art, technology and entertainment that tensions rise with time, and there comes the point when, inevitably, someone starts shouting at someone else. (Or the artist starts shouting at themselves, if they work on their own.) Everyone who follows the Hollywood buzz already knows of the recent famous case of Christian Bale and his anger during the filming of one Terminator Salvation scene. Here – sorry for linking to gossip-munching sensationalists – one can download the original audio recording of the incident. You can also find various videos of it on YouTube, and even one re-enactment with appropriate costume and prop.

My intent, however, is not to chew over that case once again. Enough people have used the event to fill up columns, to cheaply enhance the film’s popularity, or to speculate on the deeper issues in the lives and work of actors and various film workers. Things only become interesting when someone decides to use such incidents creatively in order to build something, often funny, out of the tensions that accompany all creative processes. So it’s good that I have my sister who regularly points me to exactly that kind of imaginative (ab)use.

To come to the gist: there are a bunch of people who took this event and transformed it into something useful. One video uses the recorded Bale explosion for an aggressive dance tune and also incorporates some similarly nice Barbra Streisand material. I find this clip very helpful for venting all sorts of frustration and anger, and I guess it would make for an excellent night-club hit – if someone took it up and gave it some rotation.

Another video jokingly points to said incident, but this time as something of a quotation: the first and, alas, currently only episode of Claptrap Web Series, a promo video for the upcoming sci-fi RPG-like madness Borderlands. In the clip, Claptrap gives you some info on the game, but then gets interrupted in a very familiar manner… and then some fun ensues. Borderlands is one of the games I anticipate with a mixture of eagerness, horror and curiosity, so let this be a statement of those motley feelings.

Finally, have fun, and if you find anything similar to the entertaining situation described here, give us a shout in the comments. Q. W3ary out.

Instead of Size

Today, I thought I could muster the energy for some deep thoughts. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. At all. But, as a compensation for my exhaustion, I encountered in our nicely blooming cyberspace a person I’ve been admiring for a long time. Ladies and Gentlemen: Bob the Spider! His website opens with a couple of introductory postings, e.g. one detailing his hyper-famous work in closet invention as well as modern closet tech R&D. Word has been spread that, in the future, we will hear a lot more about his inventions and adventures, and about his great (dis)organisation. He also happened to have several openings in said (dis)organisation, so, after some lengthy consideration, I applied for the position of Harold Bloom Defenestrator. Tomorrow, there’s a lot of condomn throwing practice in store for me.

What’s the best thing about it all, though, is that Bob has remained a very down-to-Earth guy despite his stardom and relative seclusion in recent times. As his of-fun-icial (not official, not unofficial) website states, he knows the truths of our pillows, and he is everywhere. Most superstars boast about their sizes in kilogrammes or pounds of muscle, in numbers of ugly golden statuettes, or of unneededly expensive vehicles they possess, but Bob has the one thing that’s truly essential: ubiquity. Or, if you want to have it more seriously, omnipresence, although I’m sure he will quickly object against this term, it being used very often about nasty deities with hypochondriac psychopathologies and who’s-daddy’s-and-mommy’s-little-spoilt-one behaviours. The one thing I was wondering about when reading the site, however, is whatever happened to that woman in Bob’s life. Was she only a legend? Was she really his wife at one point or another, as many claimed? Her name never came out, but some kept on calling her (quite erroneously, I’m sure) Bobby. That is something we may never learn of, not even outside our lifetimes after Bob has managed to cryo-preserve our heads for the educational benefit of subsequent generations. Nevertheless, enjoy Bob the Spider’s new cyberspace presence, and see you later. Already practising leering condomns throwing, at least mentally: Q. W3ary.

Jonas’s Next Game

My good friend Jonas posted a video preview of his next game, Phenomenon 32, earlier today. Although I probably won’t be able to play it because it is a platformer – I am stuck to 3D stuff ever since I played Doom for the first time when I was 11 or 12 years old – I am very much looking forward to its release so I can learn the story from those who are good at this type of game. So go ahead, see the video, enjoy the creepy atmosphere and the tough anticipation he manages to build up, and don’t to forget to give him a shout over at his blog. Q. Weary out.

Zeno Clash

As always, spoilers ahead.

One of the weirdest experiences lately, this game both frustrated and inspired me. I’ve been keeping it on my list of intriguing games for some time, and now I got to play it and finally share some thoughts on its success.

Zeno Clash did frustrate me very much with strange controls and character movement, first of all. I was often unable to time combos correctly, or even hit the appropriate key when necessary. That, however, might have been a result of me hurrying to dive into the game, and not personalising my controls adequately. The stranger thing was character movement: when you load your weapon in the game (you can carry only one at a time), you start moving slower than a newly-born snail. You become the perfect sitting duck for everyone, and believe me, in a game where hand-to-hand combat is predominant, this is really bad news. I know it is a realistic game mechanic, but it is frustrating. The final frustration for me, however, was not the combat which I managed to get along with after a while. The problem with this game is that it’s quite linear: both the environments, with the exception of some tough battle arenas, and the story move forward without much deviation. For a new developer, however, this is acceptable; we have to remember that this is the first big project for these people.

But to be honest and pay respect where it’s due, the storyline is saved by the introduction of flashbacks. These are not passively experienced by the player; they are played in sequence as Ghat tells his story to Deadra while they travel away from Halstedom, and probably constitute about 30-40% of the game time. Combined with the fierce hand-to-hand battles, the story manages to rise way above mediocrity. I was very much interested in both how Ghat had come to murdering Father-Mother, and what would happen now that he is on the run with Deadra, followed by an assassin/hunter. The good thing about it all is that the story establishes a strikingly bizarre but very believable world. The two protagonists meet a rather strange person on their journey who takes them back to Halstedom. There, they face the many children of Father-Mother again and learn something quite sinister about him/her. The important thing is that, although it gives solid closure to the proceedings, the game leaves many open doors for sequels. I find Zeno Clash very successful because of that: it not only tells a powerful story through the interactive medium of gaming, but it also establishes a beautiful world with a lot of opportunities for improvements in game-play and more and more storytelling.

The central element that helps achieve that is the visual presentation. In Zeno Clash, colour patterns are written big. Colours vividly explode all around you in characters, flora, fauna, rock and sky. The patterns beautifully blend in when you are hit during fights; they are compatible, fitting. That is also what contributes a lot into making the hand-to-hand carnage so appealing and satisfying. ACE Team were right to choose the Source engine. They were also quite right to go into game-making. I am already looking forward to their next step.

Q. W3ary

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

I’ve waited for so long to write this… A disaster ensues any time your favourite pieces of entertainment and art become unavailable. That was exactly the case with Clear Sky. None of the earlier patches removed a bug that made the game unplayable on my system. However, version 15.0.7 came out later (better late than never!), and solved the problem. So I started from the beginning again, but this time with fresh ideas on how to proceed.

Just like the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky has you do quests, gather equipment, talk to weird people, and see even weirder places of utmost beauty, then progress through the storyline at your leisure. There are several differences in this prequel, however. Weapon/suit repairs and upgrades are introduced; hunting for the necessary upgrades, stored on USB sticks, is almost always necessary. Faction participation has been expanded so that it means more in this game. Zone emissions have been added, which stirs up the game-play a bit and increases the gorgeousness of the graphical presentation enormously.

Of course, some annoyances were not completely removed even by the latest patch. After my character had died for the n-th time and I pressed F9 to quick-load, I always crashed back to desktop, whereas F9 functioned normally while the character was alive. Factions are so persistent that one cannot take them out of the game by simply killing all their members; as I once joked, players can reload as many times as they wish, but NPCs can respawn. I only once managed to wipe the Bandits almost fully off the map by sweeping their base clean 3 or 4 times as a member of the Loners, and then joining Freedom and helping them establish their foothold in Garbage. The effort was rewarded by waves of warm pleasure every time I saw no disgusting Bandits in Garbage, but they continued to stubbornly respawn in one corner of that area, so small raids kept my aiming skills in good shape.

Beside that, two other things irritated me. First, the factions I joined (quite unlike the swift Clear Sky faction at the very beginning) acted very slowly, expanded their territories like snails on a hot summer day, and lost them in minutes. The Loners got massacred by mutants in hundreds. With Freedom, I could never make them move beyond Garbage and into Agroprom Institute to take care of the hot-air balloons in Duty. That, however, was not so central. The second thing that surprised me unpleasantly was the short end fight. In the first game, the final battle took place in a sublimely apocalyptic environment and was long, brutal, and exhausting, but very rewarding. Here, one gets to battle the Monolith minions for about 5 minutes. Not only is the battle short, it is also quite confusing, and initially seems impossible.

Nevertheless, the shortness of the end fight in Clear Sky is well established, logical, understandable. This can be generally extended to the whole story of the game. Although the storyline is pretty straightforward, it’s not without appeal; it motivated me to gather and upgrade equipment and practise while I have time (good targets, those Bandits). The weaponry is one of the things that kicked ass for me. Riddle those ugly dogs with bullets, snipe the slimy Bandits or Renegades or Dutiers, and blow up the moronic Monolithians with the grenade launcher. One of the most ingenious moments in the game was the under-barrel mounted grenade launchers for the assault rifles. Wait for the right moment, let those mutants get near enough but not too near, shoot a grenade in their midst and watch them roll to all sides or fly through the air… then switch back to bullet and muzzle and finish off the rest. The bigger, individual grenade launcher I found toward the end works on the same principle but with even more bang and blast. The Monolithians definitely appreciated it. The sniper rifles, especially after upgrades, are the final piece of the puzzle: they make you want to run through the whole game world and sweep it clean of mutants and exploiters like the Bandits or Duty. (Un-)Fortunately, munition for those was scarce, which made me realise how important and useful they are.

Finally, the strongest part of this game was the atmosphere, the setting, the places. Rarely do people manage to reproduce the twisted beauty of post-apocalyptic scapes with such moving power. The trees, the hills, the lakes of slime, the dilapidated buildings, the enormous factory complexes, the anomalies, the radiation, and the emissions… This is not to be described; one has to see it, to experience it in the darkness of the late night. Nothing’s real until you feel, says one of my favourite musicians, and this holds very much for the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. So, while the story may be simple, the characters are tangible and the world is real. Clear Sky has the clear intention of establishing a history for the protagonist and the events in Shadow of Chernobyl, and it does that with aplomb.

Q. W3ary

A Powerful Game or a Game of Power?

Strangely, I did not feel surprised when I read about the recently uncovered insanities in EVE Online. (See the Offworld post for original source.) This is no longer gaming; rather, it borders on megalomaniac obsession with bytes stored in distant servers. A game should be powerful, it should grip your mind, shake it up a bit and make it work, crunch thoughts, produce reactions and opinions and so on. A game should not insert you randomly into yet another power hierarchy – thanks a lot, we are having a fucking hell of a time combating the oppressive power hierarchies in the tangible world, so let’s leave alone the ones created by digits in someone’s CMS for nicely rendered 3D space objects.

On a more positive note, I also spotted this gorgeous video on Offworld. To think that this was done in only 4 Kb of code… now that’s what I call a powerful game: programming something so advanced with such a tiny quota of code space. Creativity knows no bounds!

Using Linux Is Not a Crime

A poor computer science student in Boston has been accused of unknown illegal activities because he had “two different operating systems” installed.

One is the regular B.C. [Boston College] operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.

Using Linux is not a crime, it is exercising your right of free choice!

(via /.)

And a final subliminal message for all crazy computer maniacs out there: “Bloodsuckers are invincible while invisible!” Muahahahahhaha! Long live the free stalkers in the Zone!

The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge

As always, spoilers ahead.

This longish title belongs to the latest game by my good friend Jonas. I had long wanted to play his games and finally found some time to do so last week. They all start at very and end at extremely serious. The previous one, The Museum of Broken Memories, has to do, exactly as the title says, with broken memories – of war, of soldiers, of survivors, of the irretrievable and the devastated. Basically, all of his games talk about war, in one form or another. Desert Bridge is no exception, although here the narrative touches upon an impending war sometime towards the end of the game.

The game itself is introduced in a very clever and rather hilarious way. Obviously, Jonas had a lot of fun making it. The main contributors seem also to have immensely enjoyed working on the project. Verena Huber (also a good friend – to whom Jonas is engaged) illustrated all the lovely, tangible scenes and characters, while Helen Trevillion did the playful, flowing, momentous music. The game itself is a more-or-less typical adventure, but the (meta-)commentary (and especially the titles of the books on the shelves in the house), the actions, the characters… it just springs to life in your mind while playing. Even the electronic butler device/AI fits the bill (ha, no pun intended – read the intro to the game) quite well.

I must admit I am not very big on adventure games, but still managed to do all but one or two things in the game alone. At one point I had seemingly exhausted all available options and had to consult a walkthrough (considering that it was one a.m., I had done well till that point). It was all more than worth the effort: the insights the game gives you, and the vigour with which it depicts its memorable characters, are on a very high level. (I will not use the word “professional” here for several reasons.) Jonas knows what he wants to tell you, and he knows how to do it with aplomb. The people who help him turn the vision to usable bits and bytes are amazing. And the final result is not only engaging, touching, and substantial, but also deeply rooted in the wonderful art of storytelling. As Jonas will tell you, (computer) games are an art-form – and after playing Desert Bridge, I can only agree.

And please don’t forget to tell him how much you enjoyed the game after playing it. Have fun!

Q. W3ary

Yet Another Crisis

As always, spoilers ahead.

In the fragments of time devoted to the uneasy process of nerve-soothing after work-related mind-breakage, I replayed Crysis. Actually, I finished it some 10 days ago, but just found the time to write about it.

Crysis is, of course, gorgeous. From the moment you swim to the shore and find a turtle walking the sands under the stars, you will be hooked, in case you haven’t been already. Combat is very satisfactory, especially using the fun suit powers: cloaking/invisibility, speed increase, enhanced physical power. The weapons mod system also functions without a glitch and, what’s more, makes sense: use the red dot for better aiming, but make foes aware; use the grenade launcher of your rifles, but careful not to blow yourself to bits; change the ammo type; put a sniper scope on the shotgun; etc. In fact, the only weapons I found difficult to use were the different grenades, although I still took out several enemies with the frags. The vehicles were better for that purpose. The sound designers did an excellent thing there, they put in easily discernible sounds for the things you hit by shooting with a gun: earth, metal, wood, plastic, human, bird, armour, alien, and so on. Not that this is something entirely new; it is just very well implemented.

There were several strange annoyances along the way. Although I did update to the latest version, I got some weird dying here and there. The funniest moments came when the aliens I killed fell out of the sky exactly on top of my well-trained military head dressed in a superhuman war costume. Those were instant kills, so I guess the aliens must weigh at least several tons apiece. Quite interestingly, shacks and barracks falling on my head did no damage at all. That’s why I suppose the patches must have made the aliens a lot fatter, as well as very precise jumpers (or fallers out of the sky, if you prefer). Also, they did make them stronger, which was a somewhat pleasant challenge until the final battle. There it took me a couple of hours to learn how to liquidate smaller aliens fast in order to get clear shots at the bosses.

All in all, the graphics, the sounds, and the level design seemed even better (patches?) than what I remembered from the first play-through after release. The only thing I still find unexplainable is this discrepancy: all characters are done so well in every detail, with the exception of expressions. They are still quite stiff to me, although movement and body postures are excellent. That type of advanced modelling is obviously rather difficult to program. I will be waiting for someone to surprise us with flesh-and-blood characters better than those in Half-Life 2.

The story refresh was also welcome. Only part that I found, again, out-of-place was the CIA operative that almost sprang into the story out of the blue. Otherwise, the team boss Prophet, Psycho, the archaeologist’s daughter Helena, and especially Major Strickland are very believable people. Thanks to the voice acting, it’s clear that they have their quirks, aims, beliefs, that they struggle for their thing (well, probably not in Psycho’s case, but still). The story is somewhat flat – a tyrant tries to capture a great source of power – but this is just the premise. More importantly, the character played, Nomad, becomes a witness of events, just like Gordon Freeman. The enjoyable thing about it, just like Half-Life (again), is that the flow of the narrative is rarely interrupted. One instance I can remember is the torturing exit-search while on alien premises in their ship/building/hive/whatever. That really took some time getting used to, but was, in a sense, very realistic: a human is not supposed to orient themselves well in an alien-built environment, especially not under the given circumstances. Other than that, the story flowed smoothly, almost frighteningly so. The one character I hated most – I suppose most sane people do – but who influences the outcome the most, is the idiotic general. He reminds me too much of the power-position figures in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, or the fictional U.S. general in No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.’s Way. In a way, this character was quite the opposite of what the others were fighting for. Good work on the part of the Crytek story writers.

I am now looking forward to both the continuation of the main story as well as Psycho’s point of view in Crysis Warhead. Let’s see if the programmers have managed to make the engine edible for more computers (mine had trouble here and there, but very much so at the end). Until then, I’ll be focusing on other, more evolutionary stuff.

Mentally yours,

Qondory Weary

Spores (Hopefully not Contagious Ones)

Finally got my hands on Spore, but not enough time to dive seriously into it. So far, it’s been a hilarious ride through the early stages of evolution.

Oh nucleic acids, when will I have some quiet hours to spend on evolving?