cinema

Summary for September 2023

– Thanks, Snake.
– Don’t mention it, Cat.

Kipo, a pink-haired girl, strikes a superhero three-point pose with a look of joyful determination on her face. Behind her on the left is Wolf, a girl in a wolf skin cape, and on the right is Benson, a boy in a baseball cap. In the foreground are “mutes” (mutants): Mandu, a four-eyed and six-legged pig, and Dave, a four-armed bug person with a grin on his face. All five are in shallow water, with the ruins of a city and a huge moon behind them.

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is awesome! All the main characters are people of color, voiced by actors of color (fuck Avatar, btw). The only romance in the show is between two gay boys. How rare is that?! It is also just a very fun cartoon in itself, with great animation, an amazing soundtrack, goofy characters, and, maybe a bit simplistic, but overall good message. It got all the important parts right, for sure!

First-person view, with only a double-barreled shotgun and no visible UI. Three fiends, ape-like enemies, with dirty beige skin, single talon-like hands, hoofed legs, mouths with huge teeth occupying half of their heads, stand between the player and the exit gate.

In contrast to its sequel, I have even less to say about the first Quake. But I finished it and all the official mission packs, including the new ones from MachineGames.

Point of Mew is a little silly free game about a cat that helps its human. No, really helps. Sure, there is some destruction along the way, but who cares! Ahem.

First-person view, with ammo, health and armor indicators in a panel at the bottom. Firing a double-barreled shotgun at two approaching enemy soldiers wearing gas masks. The location is some sort of military headquarters with a bulky computer on the left and a holographic projection of Earth above it.

I played Chasm: The Rift back in the day, but never finished it (probably got stuck in one of the maze-like levels). It was a sort of an answer to Quake. It has a similar hodgepodge of levels and enemies, tied together by a more coherent story, puzzle bosses that were dropped in Q2 and even enemy dismemberment and some destructible environmental elements. On the other hand, it has flat, Doom I/II-like levels. Is it worth checking out? As a piece of first-person shooter history, sure.

Zombie Hill Race seems very similar to Earn to Die games, to the point of confusion. Drive a little, earn some money, upgrade your car, drive a little more, repeat. Turn your brain off kind of game.

Summary for July 2023

Robots are animals too!

Aloy, the protagonist of Horizon: Zero Dawn, wearing red braided hair, animal skin clothing, a bow, and a quiver, stands in a moonlit jungle and looks at a giant giraffe-like robot in the distance.

While Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom shake up the open-world formula, Horizon: Zero Dawn proves that if you have a good checklist, icons-on-a-map, classic-style open-world game, I probably still like it.

And to call it just classic is unfair: it aptly borrows some gameplay from the Monster Hunter games, and while the story isn’t entirely unique, it has plenty of its own takes on post-apocalyptic genre tropes. Is it Nausicaä-like? Without a doubt!

But the game is not without its flaws: unfortunately, it borrows very heavily from indigenous cultures. I’m not the best person to go into the details, but there are plenty of articles about it. It is doubly unfortunate, because it does good representation too.

Nausicaä, a small figure in heavy protective clothes, helmet and mask, flies a white albatross-shaped glider over alien-looking plants.

Speaking of which, I finished reading the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind books and rewatched the movie. The difference between the two is quite significant: sort of like between the pilot for the TV show, with an early version of a script and a different take on the characters, maybe even different actors, and said TV show.

The whole thing is kind of huge – and maybe this is my only complaint about the books, that some of the storylines are a bit complex, and some stuff can be cut down without much loss – so I just want to mention two things that I particularly liked.

First, while Nausicaä is a very proactive character, she also inspires other people, but not through words, but through actions and just being. I am not sure how intentional this was, but this is what I get from sociology: this is what changes people’s minds, not arguments or debates, but the existence of people with different opinions.

Nausicaä, her helmet and mask removed, which is dangerous in the situation she is in, her short red hair blowing in the wind. Nevertheless, she looks at the viewer with bright brown eyes, a smile, and a thumbs-up gesture.

Second, is it’s take on nature. There are a lot of people who use words like “fix,” “repair,” and the like in relation to climate change. But that attitude is what got us into this mess in the first place! We must learn to be part of nature, not above it. Including the things we have already broken, they are already part of it too. Pretty big topic to go into right now, but yeah, people should read the Nausicaä books carefully.

The completionist in me forced me to finish the original Twin Peaks. By social osmosis, I knew it was weird. Now I know that it is weird. There’s some cool stuff, a lot of bad stuff, overall kind of pointless, both as a show and as a story. In other words, I have no desire to see a movie or a third season. The completionist in me is fine with that.

Two cars are speeding down a sandy road. Both heavily modified and covered in extra armor and dirt. Prairie with patches of small vegetation stretches far into the bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

I can’t really say that Fuel is a good game and I recommend it. It is mediocre or decent, depending on how generous you are. So I’ll just explain why I finished it and enjoyed it.

I like games where you travel. Fuel has a huge map, one of, if not the biggest one. I just did races – there are some cool ones, but a lot of them are just a chore – so I could uncover collectibles, and then I would drive around while listening to a podcast or a video.

This other part is debatable, but from this game I get vibes of what I call quiet apocalypse. The first paragraph of the plot of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō on Wikipedia explains it very well, and it is easy to see why something like this can actually be not terrifying, but comforting. It is also the least spoiler-y example I can think of. No, Fuel is not Nausicaä-like :)

I also finished Sudocats. The developers found their thing (their company is called Devcats, very subtle), it’s not a bad thing, but there is not much beyond that. Also, in this game I just switched to working with numbers instead of cats, you know.