Accidently Awesome

Yesterday after work I was utterly exhausted. I went home and just fell asleep, not waking up for almost three hours. After grabbing some dinner, I still felt out of it. But I sat down to my Xbox 360 expecting to just dork around with the odd game and not really accomplish anything.

I had downloaded the demo of the indie title Vorpal, a game of one-on-one bullet hell battles, sort of like Senko No Ronde except you are always oriented facing straight up as if it were a scrolling shooter. As much experience as I have with shooters, this demo had been giving me trouble. The demo only includes the first level/fight and I couldn't even get past that before. I don't know if my tiredness allowed me to slip into 'the zone' or what, but I managed to finally clear the demo. I'm still unsure I like the game well enough to download the complete version. The soundtrack is pretty cool though and got a little stuck in my head.

So I then have a go at the demo for another indie game, Revolver 360. This game has a pretty unique mechanic allowing you to rotate the axis on which your ship is hurtling, adding an extra dimension to the dodging aspect. It has REALLY great graphics and sound for an indie game, though the enemy designs are simplistic, being just basic geometric shapes. Again, REALLY kicking soundtrack... like Vorpal's tunes, a beat-heavy electronic score that doesn't quite veer into EBM or industrial dance floor stuff.

But it got me inspired to put Rotersand's album Random Is Resistance on the surround system. Much of the stuff on this record is dark, stomping music. I then fired up Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu 1.5 (translation: Angry Bee Boss Great Resurrection 1.5) listening to Rotersand instead of the in-game music. DDF1.5 is a full release game (not a download) I got over Christmas. It is arguably the flashiest, most spectacular STG (ShooTing Game) ever made.

Something about being tired or relaxed and not giving a crap about doing well, coupled with the rhythm of the music, made some magic happen. I like Cave's 'pachi' series, but I'm not a slave to playing them for score. I usually just play them for survival, which is tough enough. I don't have time available in my life to learn and practice all the ins and outs of the pachis strict scoring systems, which involve mainting successive hits (chains) throughout the levels as much as possible. If you go too long between hitting enemies your 'chain' drops and your scoring suffers. Super players basically know patterns to maintain their chains undropped through the whole game. I'll never play at that level though the new game, Daifukkatsu, IS less strict about how much time you get before your chain ends.

As noted I was tired and really just messing around. I figured I'd just play informally, as it were, and go for a simple goal instead of trying hard to survive the game on as few credits as possible. Daifukkatsu has two routes through each level, the regular path and a hidden (ura) path. If you fulfill certain requirements, the game warps you over to the ura path, swapping out the midboss for an end boss from a previous game in the pachi series, Dodonpachi. After each mid-boss battle the rest of the ura path includes more enemies and an extra pair of bee items to be found before the level terminates at its boss. My goal was simply to recover as many bees as I could and hop over to the ura path on each stage. I'd done it here and there on previous runs, but I wasn't sure I'd seen all of them. Really? I just wanted to see the 'old' bosses, who I know from their lower resolution Saturn incarnations, done up in new HD-friendly graphics.

So I'm playing and the rhythm of the music I've put on is really suitable to the onscreen action. I'm uncovering and grabbing bees and being largely successful at moving onto the ura paths. The Xbox throws an achievement notification up onscreen periodically that I've hit an ura boss that I hadn't before, so I'm managing my modest goal.

Then it throws up a new notification. 'Achievement 5000 hit chain'. Total surprise. A goal I've never really tried for, not knowing if it'd be particularly difficult to achieve. The next 'chaining' achievement is awarded for a 10,000 hit chain. So when I finally die, I restart the game and figure what the hell, let's see if I can get the 10K chain. I'll pick up bees (they can fuel your extra strong Hyper fire), but I won't be as religious about it as I was trying to get the ura paths and bosses. Just grab whatever you can while looping around to maintain the hits. I didn't accomplish my goal though I got very close several times during the run.

Here's what DID happen: In hitting my stride and trying to cack every enemy in a logical sequence I 'accidentally' got through the entire first loop with only one life lost. And somehow managed to pick up almost all the bees. I sort of woke up out the zone when I saw I was fighting the level five boss. I hadn't noticed the progress up to that point. That's also when I realised I hadn't died getting there. Then a mere 60 hits from getting the 10,000 chain the level five boss DID kill me, ending my chain and squashing my goal. BUT. After she got dusted by my second ship a minute later... I was crossing my fingers that in my dazed play I had managed to collect enough bees to actually enter the second loop. Then when the common 'poor' ending would've started, the screen asked me if I wanted to move forward yes or no. Of course I selected 'yes' and then entered Daifukkatsu's 'tsuujou' second loop.

I somehow managed to keep my nerves in order and battle my way nearly to the end of the third stage before finally succumbing and having to use my first continue. But I was pretty happy. I had 1-ALLed Daifukkatsu before, but not well enough to enter the second loop. And the coolness didn't stop there. After having to credit feed twice, and after killing the level five boss again, where the ending sequence would then play, my ship carrier (a sort of flying HQ) suddenly went down in flames and I was left to face the almost-TLB (True Last Boss) Taisabachi. If a player manages to play better through the first loop than I did they can reach the ura (as opposed to tsuujou) version of the second loop and face Taisabachi first, then the TLB of all the pachi games, Hibachi.

Finding and then fighting Taisabachi was exhilirating. Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu is not Cave's most difficult game. The requirments for getting to Taisabachi are not ridiculously demanding (for experienced shooter players). I didn't play anything near world class levels. But it was awesome FOR ME. And even moreso because it totally caught me off guard. You better believe I'm going to try (to no avail probably) to duplicate the mindset under which I did this well.

I'm not bad at shooters, but I'm rarely able to put in the kind of time to learn details and patterns to be *truly* good. Getting a 1CC (One Credit Clear) or a 1-ALL (one loop cleared one credit) is a kind of triumphant moment that trumps almost any other video game victory. It isn't just 'finishing' a game like you'd do with an RPG, or an FPS. You've made the game your bitch. This felt even better than that. The game handed me my ass near the end, but it was still so much more awesome because there was more to do having played that well. I've had a fair number of 1CCs in my time, but this was one for my books... and I can't even imagine how awesome a 2-ALL (both loops cleared one credit). It almost seems goshdamn do-able on this game now. I'd probably go jump off a tall building moments after a Cave 2-ALL just so the high was savored through my last moments of life.

Okay. Not really.

Even if I hadn't done so well... and please video game Jesus, please don't let that hour in the zone have been a fluke... I'd still heartily recommend this game. The scoring is complicated, but I think it is a damn fine time even played for survival. A more spectacular, eye-searing shooter you will not find... though it may not be for folks with absolutely no STG experience... I'd probably recommend the equally great Deathsmiles or Mushihmesama Futari as entry level Cave games because of the easier modes and level choices they offer.

I'm almost afraid to play the damn thing again now because of the almost-certainty I will be unable to match that last game!

(pic cribbed from the Shmups! forum)

The Metal Path Nears Its End

I finished the single-player campaign for Brutal Legend last night. Given all the ranting I usually do about game length, I find myself in the unusual position of being sorry it is over. Technically I don't think the game is too short. And like a lot of open-world games it puts you back into the game world to finish finding whatever you missed, replay side missions, and generally explore to your heart's content. But I actually would like THIS main game to go on for a bit more.

So I don't HAVE to leave, but the save-the-world narrative is complete. I like the game enough to definitely travel around in it to finish up all the loose ends. I don't even care that it'll net achievements or gamerpoints for me, it is just plain fun!

The last few dreaded RTS 'stage battles' were much less awful than I feared. At one point I was reading the BL guidebook, looking for any help to just get through a battle that was kicking my ass, when one particular tactic sort of leaped out at me. I tried it, and it got me through the shitty part. On the next battle I applied it again, and it made it much easier than the one before, though it had much tougher enemy troop types involved. I died once total through all the rest of the games stage battles.

Basically, my problem before was overthinking the battlefield, and trying to do everything at once. The key to Brutal Legend single-player stage battles turns out to be simplicity. I took the time to amass a large force at the get-go, before sending any one of them to any objective, THEN tackling each objective whether it was a power source, a bottleneck, or whatever, with my entire force in turn... one at a time. Since the AI opponent doesn't build forces faster than you do (at the normal difficulty level anyway), keeping everything you have together is going to roll over anything the enemy has. The AI DOES split its forces a bit, but if you're whole army is hammering away at his main force, Eddie can break off to crush an enemy splinter force on his own. Finding a good bottleneck or main route on the field and blocking it with your entire army does wonders for how much running around Eddie has to do. Very little. And that's what was so frustrating before. I couldn't keep tabs on everything. So my epiphany basically was 'don't try to cover it all, keep everyone together'. Stopping up a bottleneck with my entire force, always sending reinforcements to that exact same place, and then rolling them forward towards the enemy HQ, the AI can't get around you, so the resources on your side are all safe. I definitely felt my nerd-boner push out my pants when I learned this!

Anyway, blah blah blah. The final fight, a one-on-one action confrontation (NOT a stage battle) was a LITTLE on the easy side, but Tim Curry's dialogue and awesome death scene ('deeecaaapiiitaaaatioooooon!) made that section rock anyway.

Too cool. I'll putz around in BL world for awhile as I decide what my next 'big game' is. Current contenders are Darksiders for the Xbox 360, Baroque for the Wii, and Epic Mickey for the Wii. Probably I'm going to have to strike Mickey from the list since my kids are both currently working on it, and if I get ahead of them it'd be shitty for them to see any spoilers. I've been spending a fair amount of time on Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu (Angry Bee Boss Great Resurrection) the newest Cave home port. It is absolute awesome, but as with all shooters, something I sit down with for a half-hour to an hour at time, between forays into 'the big game'.

Future entries will cover my thoughts on all the 'pachi' (bee boss) games. I've also ruminated on what I think my Game of the Year for 2010 is. And y'know? MY award for GOTY is the one all the developers should be courting. But they're dumb. I read this roundtable discussion about what should be GOTY between several high profile writers and reviewers and their points (and most of their choices) were utter ass. So it is up to me, in THIS 'blog to fix that.

Scribbles

I've added a few more entries to the mini game reviews.

Psycho-Biddies

At the time of this writing I've got the film 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?' listed over in the 'just watched' section of the blog. Normally I only list movies I've seen for the first time. I'm watching through the Terminator films currently and I'm not listing them.

But I'm making an exception for 'Baby Jane' because it has been a long time since I've seen it and I want to draw a bit of attention to it. It is one of the earliest and probably the seminal work in the peculiar little sub-genre known as 'psycho-biddies'. Most psycho-biddy films are horror movies (yay!), but they poke into other genres too. I'm finding it interesting that certain scenes of psychological torture in this film are at least as excruciating and suspenseful as a lot of the modern uber-grue that I've been watching lately. This from a film released in black and white in 1962. Like I'd say with the original version of The Haunting, don't pass up quality films just because they're old, kids! The quality of the performances (though a bit melodramatic) from Bette Davis and Joan Crawford really help.

This is probably NOT the start of some cycle for me where I try to cram as much psycho-biddy watching as I possible can, but I probably will try to at least get the companion film, 'Hush...hush, Sweet Charlotte', under my belt.

Brutal Hybrid

Mommy

Daddy

Baby

As I knew they would, the Real Time Strategy aspects of Brutal Legend are giving me fits.


If you have been reading this blog for a while you may remember some ranting about my general lack of skill and/or patience with strategy-based pursuits (and some puzzles or puzzle games). I like the idea of being an armchair general, and in fact I have a decent track record with tabletop wargames like Warhammer. But Warhammer and 40K are turn-based. You take a turn, then I take a turn. You have time to think about what you are doing. The ‘real time’ aspect of RTS games kicks me in the nuts.

It shouldn’t. Emotionally I think an RTS is a good idea. If you were commanding a real battle, the enemy doesn’t pause while you consider your next move. Not that video games are really like actual war, but the continual unfolding of events whether you direct it or not, is a feature in warfare (and so many other things) that video games are uniquely able to duplicate or simulate.

But I’m terrible at it. It is the whole resources management and control facets that suck the fun out of it. Almost universally, there’s a ‘cost’ to building or acquiring units in RTS fames. Usually it is money, energy, fuel, or some other facsimile of a real-life resource. In Brutal Legend, the resources are the fans, as in concert fans. The more ‘fans’ you have pouring power into your ‘show’, the more frequently you can call up troops. RTS games also frequently have time delays to the arrival of your units (representing travel, build, or recruitment time), and depending on the technology represented, command and control limits… ie, your general can’t be everywhere at once.

All these restrictions are a fundamental part of the genre, simulating the limitations that might be imposed on real commanders, and composing much of the challenge. You have to learn to make do with what you have, and learn to adjust on-the-fly as the situation changes and your resources wax and wane. But for me, that shit just isn’t fun. It is too much like real work! I don’t think the genre should change for me, but I usually steer well clear of these games. My video game enjoyment is almost entirely predicated on immediate feedback, physical coordination skills, and memorization. That’s why the preponderance of my game collection comprises 2D shooting games, racers, fighting games, and platformers. With a few first person shooters and third person action games thrown in. I have a mere sprinkling of RPGs because I don’t cotton to the lack of immediate, direct control. So for real-time video wargames I think I have three… and that’s including Brutal Legend. My gaming background springs from the arcades, ‘twitch gaming’ as it were, and on home consoles I’m happiest near my roots.

So I’m running around BL, enjoying the utterly spectacular and badass scenery, getting in the occasional small fight, and finding the hidden items. The game makes finding stuff really rewarding because they aren’t just items collected for some long-term goal, you frequently get new abilities and entire new music tracks. The game keeps throwing something cool or interesting at me. My kid is just blowing through the story mode and it's a shame because a lot of work went into making this world. A player really needs to slow down and look around in it.

Then it comes time to fight one of the major battles. The RTS battles. I don’t feel like they are just shoehorned into the game like some reviewers have opined. The designers did an okay job justifying the mechanics and integrating them into the story. BUT. I hate this kind of battle nonetheless. They shove me all the way from having the time of my life to getting apoplectic with frustration. It isn’t that I can’t learn how to play the RTS battles… but I really don’t want to. Like I said before, it is too much like work. Everyday life is an exercise in resource management. Balancing a checkbook or juggling priorities at my job might not be as cool-sounding as ordering a unit of Razorgirls to annihilate enemy Grave Diggers, but it comes off even more of a hassle because its landing square in the middle of my fun. I’d feel the same way if someone handed me that checkbook to balance just as I was climbing aboard a rollercoaster.

So I’m being a total lame-ass and using the guide to help me. I just don’t have personal ‘resources’ to get good at this on my own. And using the book isn’t sailing me through these parts either, because it is terrible… one of the worst game guides I’ve ever seen. The map poster is useful. Everything else about it, the organization, descriptions, everything is jank. In effect, even making the book useful (during the battles) is WORK.

This isn’t killing my enjoyment of the game as a whole. The rest of the game is just too much fun for that. This game could’ve easily just been a total joke. A game about heavy metal? How did that even get greenlit, much less turn out to be fucking awesome?

From the point where I am in the game I think I have three more of these ‘stage battles’ to go. I’d rather they’d made the RTS stuff a separate mode, but its obvious a shitload of work went into that part of the game too, so that might be more than I could reasonably expect. Hopefully I can shut up about it now, get through the RTS battles as they come up, and remember the game for its strong points after its over!

The Limit

As something of a film buff, one of my interests is viewing extreme or so-called transgressive cinema. Always looking to see what is new and different (dare I say hip) in the genres most likely to be controversial or offensive. Usually this is in horror or 'thrillers'.

Currently France with its loosely-grouped 'New French Extremity' films is the forefront of my, uh, educational viewing. Most of these I've found to be pretty good, delivering as advertised; shocking, compelling horror that goes places US releases fear to tread.

I have a strong stomach and an ability to handle (at least for the viewing duration) different messages, themes, and subtexts... but if done 'effectively' I still react to this material something like the way intended by the film. All the stuff I've seen has certainly built some level of tolerance and immunity to screen horrors, but I'm not jaded. All my social and cultural boundaries are intact and in place, I'm just able to lift them up enough to see whatever screen controversy is next on the list. I don't really like poor filmmaking per se, and there are plenty of extreme films that are just dumb or cruel. Occasionally one comes along that makes me think about acceptable limits.

I think I've just seen the signpost for my limit. The film 'Irreversible'.

With all the difficult-to-handle stuff I've seen the first twenty minutes of this movie probably the most harrowing of all. Movies like 'Salo', although well-made, are held out as immoral and repulsive. 'Wolf Creek' is considered utterly bleak and misogynist. 'The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things' is perverse and nihilistic. Yep. Maybe true for some and all depending on your view. I can see the point for anyone reviling these films for the above listed reasons and more.
But they are all pretty tame, ultimately, compared to 'Irreversible'. There aren't many things I wish I could un-see... and I probably don't really want to un-see this movie either, but I'm damn close. As any internet search can tell you, the movie is about the events leading up to a rape and subsequent revenge, but told in reverse chronological order. A very early film in what would become The New French Extremity, the movie is well-made (apart from an overabundance of swirly between-scenes camera work) not some back alley straight-to video-quickie, though it looks it. It is grimy-looking on purpose, with improvised (French) dialogue that was effective for me.

The first scenes are set in a gay 'club' and features some disturbing scenes and characters, (the place is called The Rectum, so you figure out what kind of activity's going on there), as the two male leads march through the place looking for a rapist. These rapid-fire handheld shots culminate in a very effective, horrific act of violence that makes the viewer flinch the way seeing real violence on a war documentary might. So that in itself is pretty grim.

But moments later, Monica Belucci becomes the victim in the rape scene. THE rape scene. Notorious. It is nine excruciating minutes of unblinking, hyper-realistic degradation that the viewer is given absolutely no respite from. The camera just sits at ground level as if dropped there by some passerby in a hurry to get off the location. I guess Belucci should get some kind of kudos for having the guts to do this scene. She's been interviewed dozens of times about it, and seems pretty unaffected. But husband (and co-star as her vengeful boyfriend) WAS affected. Belucci asked him not to be on set when this was filmed, and he was in tears during the screening at Cannes.

I want to give props to the filmmakers too, because the film IS some kind of art, but it is difficult. Art can be difficult, I know.

The rape isn't the only thing in the movie, the rest of it is interesting, and it does some cool things with foreshadowing in reverse. The story would probably be strictly exploitation fare if it weren't for the methodology in ordering the scenes. Belucci and Cassel (and the third lead) are all pretty funny and kind with each other... which of course makes the shit you've already seen even worse. The film shows Cassel just go ballistic and loose a bunch of verbal abuse on gays, a transsexual, and a chinese cab driver. I won't say his behavior is literally justifiable, but the subsequent scenes make it more and more understandable... and I'd say the more idyllic stuff that comes AFTER the rape make the point perhaps even more because they show how HE thinks about her... what he may have lost.

But the rape dominates. It just fricking sprawls all over this movie. As it is supposed to. And given the absolutely horrible way it is depicted I'm not sure I CAN give props to the filmmakers. There is a message in here about the fleeting nature of ordinary lives... maybe even a 'hey ladies, be smart when you're alone' deal in there somewhere. I could definitely see this movie inspiring some women to think twice about their own security. Hopefully constructively. But it just hard to drum up a recommendation on any level for this thing. I suppose it could be used to 'teach' someone how horrible and destructive the crime is... I dunno.

I actually feel bad about the guy playing the rapist. It'd be easy to say he has something in him to be able to play the part... he sure is 'good' at it. I'm sure he had to dig down and do it the same way Belucci did. And the scene is one long take. She said it was done like six times or something. I'd feel horrible about 'going there' to do that scene... like Bill Moseley did during certain scenes of 'The Devil's Rejects'.

Couple of additonal notes about 'Irreversible'. Screened at Cannes, the movie was extremely divisive, as one would expect. No one 'liked' it, but some people walked out (fair enough) and others shouted at the screen or at the filmmakers afterward... including Belucci. Now I can't speak for anyone else, but whatever one thinks about the film and its motives, the rape scene is not exploitative. Its about as far from that as is possible to get, in my opinion. So shouting expletives at Belucci *feels* a bit like someone telling a rape victim they deserved it. She did a job, and she did it (too) well. There is barely any nudity in the scene, it isn't explicit in the sense usually meant when describing a sexual screen topic. People blame HER for the film getting made? Like the director wouldn't be able to find someone else? Or what? I'm kinda bewildered by that... not that Cannes audiences don't have their loonies.

That brings me to another bit of looniness. Roger Ebert. Reading his review, I largely found myself agreeing or at least understanding his points... until he starts talking about women's 'wisdom' in how they dress. WTF? Here is one of the most-read film critics in the world, a man who is known for his tolerance for genres that other critics dismiss, and HE throws in a passive reference to 'she was asking for it'. Belucci IS dressed provocatively. She was attending a pretty debauched party. If Roger saw the same film I did, it'd be obvious that how she was dressed made absolutely no difference to the attacker. The rapist, was an extreme abuser and hater and Belucci was a bystander to his horrible behavior. Being female she was going to get it even if she was 85 years old and dressed in a roll of astroturf. Not that Roger has never said something asinine before, but cripes! Here is the actual error on the character's part: going somewhere in a big city unfamiliar, alone, late at night, particularly as a woman. I'm not saying she doesn't have 'the right' to do so, but if there is wisdom lacking... to me, THAT course of action was it. Even then, the film sets up what happens as pretty believable. She isn't far from friends and she takes the route she does on advice from a young woman, after failing to hail a cab. Running across the rapist (a pimp berating a whore) in an underground street crossing was pretty much just the worst luck.

And THAT is the point of the movie, necessary or not, enlightening or otherwise. Through circumstances beyond your control, your life can be wrecked in an instant. Watch this film if you want the point made in the worst possible way.

Brutal At Last

Finally.

I'm getting around to playing Brutal Legend, the exploits of Jack Black's muscled roadie character in a world based around heavy metal. A comical, but extremely loving tribute to the songs, artwork, and attitude associated with the musical style.

Anyone who knows me (in real-life) would think my playing this game is not only a no-brainer but probably necessary to life. That's not far off. I managed to survive not playing it, but I'm not sure how. I put it off because the game is yet another major investment in time when my game playing mood is clearly bent towards shorter score-based sessions. But I've had this thing a year and figured it was high time I cracked it open. I DID play through the demo when it first premiered on XBLA.

I'm a little put off by the idea of how much real-time strategy stuff there is here. RTS games are not my thing, and ordering your army of headbangers around in medium-scale battles is a big part of this game. But I'm so enamored with the style, humor, and of course the music, that I'm eager to give it a go anyway.

This is the role Jack Black seems closest to in real life. You can just feel how much he loved doing this and that he totally gets what the designers of this game were going for. He has dozens and dozens of on-the-fly lines that totally rule. Whatever one thinks of his movie roles... his acting not really BEING acting because he's always Jack Black... here is a context where Jack's actual personality fits perfectly. The co-creator of Tenacious D has landed at his place in the universe. Near the beginning when he 'prays' to the evil powers that rule this strange world he's found himself in (while driving a demonic walker vehicle) I thought I was going to pee it was so funny. Watching Jack's promos for this game on the talk shows via Youtube (complete with him dressed in long black wig and muscle suit to match Eddie's appearance) are pretty hilarious.

There's an option to bleep out the swearing. I chose yes to that because I have kids who might be around occasionally while I play it, but as the game states it also makes it even funnier... in the same way South Park is funnier because they censor the language. The kids are totally gobsmacked too that all the weird music their Dad listens to suddenly has a high-profile, flashy presence right up there on the TV. Like, wow, there must be a world of people who listen to that noisy shit Dad likes.

I can so 'identify' with this game (except the strategy/command parts) that playing it is two-thirds nostalgic for me. And the game is only two years old!