Sunday, December 9, 2012

EPIC Music Video of the [Insert Time Period]

The "of the week" theme is now kind of misleading. But on the plus side, it's like playing safe Russian Roulette with guessing when there will actually be new updated content on this blog. Just keep pressing F5 guys! Speaking of which, if you have been playing, congratulations, you've struck gold (or possibly just shot yourself, if we're making a direct analogy).

This week, we're taking a look at Nosaj Thing's new music vidoe for "Eclipse/Blue", a pleasantly calming track with accompanying choreography and uniquely designed visuals. Take motion tracking out of the games/entertainment industry bubble for a second, and you might turn some heads. The performers here are moving in real-time as the shapes and lines track and react to their dance. The result is a mesmerizing technological and artistic feat: a combination of performance and new media.


Get with the times folks, this is becoming standard practice. Painting and shit better move aside.

[via. Motionographer]

Saturday, December 1, 2012

REVIEWS! (of Video Games) | The Walking Dead


 Developer: Telltale Games
Lead Designers: Jake Rodkin & Sean Vanaman
Platforms: iOS, PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 

It's been three days since I finished the final episode, No Time Left, of the five-part episodic zombie survival series. Several times throughout those three days, I have become deeply troubled because I kept thinking about this game. I ate a clementine today, which only made it that much harder to swallow. I realized early on that this was the only game to forge such a strong connection with me, deeper than just a superficial desire to play it out of enjoyment. I kept playing this game not because of it's fun factor, because frankly there is no such instance in any of the five episodes out there where fun is ever factored in. You play it because you have to. Like finishing each episode, getting to the end, and sacrificing everything with the choices you make is the only possible thing you can do. 

This is a game that will be discussed in online forums, lecture halls, and gaming websites for a long time. From a developer that's been in the down-low for quite some time, known for several sub-par games (Back to the Future? Wut?), and some memorable ones (Sam & Max), Telltale surprised absolutely everyone when the first few episodes rolled out. Because it just kept getting better. And rawer. And unbareably addicting. What this video game has done for the industry, it is not something to be ignored. 

It is a revolutionary gaming experience. Here's why:

THE STORY

By far, the greatest virtue of The Walking Dead's offering to its players. This is a compelling, loyal story to the source material, and yet it offers something completely new -- it takes advantage of the medium that its produced on. The wise choice to make a new narrative set in the same universe opened up an entire new canvas of possibilities, and the writing team took advantage of it, by the spades.

Set right at Day 1 of the zombie epidemic, instead of watching Rick Grimes in comatose in a Georgia hospital, we follow Lee Everett, a college professor stuck in the back of a squad car, on his way out of the city. The slate is clean. We know nothing about this guy. But at the end of No Time Left, the tether between character and player, avatar and human, it's closer than most games can ever hope to achieve. 
 
The second central character, Clementine, is the lifeblood of this series. She is the core -- Lee might be the player's avatar, the main influencing factor within the game's story, but Clementine is cleverly constructed to be absolutely everything to the player -- the core, the goal, the emotional center. From Episode 1 through to Episode 5, Telltale's story team has been able to strengthen and reinforce that notion with each single dialogue choice for Lee. And her presence just drives the motivation to finish the game, however you're playing it. The amount of investment we put into this nine-year old girl is through the roof. I furiously clicked my mouse button if any zombie or human went anywhere near her -- I felt genuine anger when her life was threatened, and I wanted to hug her to death myself whenever she was sad. One of the best non-player characters in gaming history, and definitely the most deftly-written, organic and complex child characters in any story I've ever read, played, or watched. 

Each episode deals with a chapter in Lee and Clemetine's trials for survival, from the original survivor group of Episode 1 in the drugstore, switching to the motor inn, down to the dairy and eventually into Savannah in the hopes of sustaining Clementine's search of her parents -- its a mirroring of the comics that works so ubiquitously that there is no detachment from the structure of the story. It takes the context of both the comics and the television show, and imparts its own elements, given by the nature of the video game medium, and molds those mechanics to serve the story. The separation of these chapters are natural, gripping cliffhangers. And The Walking Dead is nothing without character deaths -- and they come a-plenty. They are all left-field. They all made me gasp, sometimes yell. They are all heart-breaking in some way or another. There is no extra air being wasted -- all these characters have a part to play, and they're all essential to the story; of course, this being a game structured around player choices and their effects on characters, that's a necessity. And nicely done it was.
Walking Dead screenshot There was never a point in the game where I stepped out of the story. The immersion was deep and satisfying, emotionally draining because of the subject matter, and relentlessly manipulative. Players never get away with a story choice that won't have consequence later on. The 'hints' to notify the player that an NPC will 'remember' certain things -- that's the tease that gives the added tension of the gameplay mechanic. But story-wise, it's an incredible achievement for this amount of immersion to come from a point-and-click adventure, and I truly think its because every element of this game's development has always served the story. By the fourth and fifth episodes, Telltale had mastered that to the tee. And the result was an ending sequence that collectively punched every player right in the feels.

The best part about this story? It wouldn't work in any other medium. It is distinctly a product of its constraints and its opportunities set by the nature of the video game. The interactive storytelling, the branching character outcomes, the poignancy of player choice -- all gone if you transpose or adapt it into another environment. Like the comic takes advantage of the ever-lasting storyline, or the show takes advantage of the power moving images can do for a story, the game puts all its cards on the table.

THE GAMEPLAY


The technical aspects is where a lot of critics would have had parts to nit-pick, but it all becomes moot by the further episodes, where Telltale really figured out how to handle their limitations in an effective and terse way. Using the repertoire they had, they turned simplicity into a complex player-centered experience. The playing of a point-and-click adventure has that level of nostalgia that early gamers in the 90's love, but there was never a Walking Dead kind of brooding storyline to accompany it. What do you do to mesh the two together?

A lot of the studies coming in about why exactly the game is just so good keeps coming back to the decision mechanics of the player. The dialogue options, and the dialogue itself, is the core of the gameplay here. The adventure elements of searching for interactive parts of the levels, or the short action sequences are always there as effects of the initial choices that players make, through these instances where they must make a choice to decide the direction that Lee and Clementine should take.
 
Rooting them in the themes of the game, instead of the progression towards a goal, is how Telltale solved the point-and-click risks. Each dialogue option represents a way to respond to characters that would change their disposition or attitudes towards Lee. The player being in control of these decisions places a unique kind of responsibility in their hands -- not like an sandbox shooter, or a platformer, where the level of detachment is clear and accepted. The Walking Dead is an intimate, personal experience. The detachment instead comes in the form of control. The pre-ordained selections for dialogue are going to be Lee's thoughts, players choose the kind of Lee they feel is the right one for the job. So, players maybe aren't in the shoes of Lee Everett, but are responsible for constructing his attitudes. That sense of responsibility towards a character drives the gameplay.

Everything branches from the choices. The emphasis on full-circle, karmatic foreshadowing help hammer that down for the player. And without a doubt, it becomes one of its central themes - and also it's one of the themes of both comic and television show. Gameplay serving story.

Most of all, it's simple. Icons to represent points of interaction. Four directions of movement within an environment. Optional hints. Everything designed to minimize the focus of the player's attention on what they're doing, but rather, why they should do something.

THE DESIGN


 Aesthetically, the stylized, comic-book art design of the game is the best choice Telltale made right from the starting gate. Importing that connection with the comic book universe not only settled down antsy comic book fans, but it aided the construction of that universe tenfold. It just looks straight out f the pages. Immersion factor multiplies quickly. The gore is so prevalent, but it's never over-the-top, never kitschy or silly. The raw and the grit is there, not in the detail, but the atmospheres and the soundtracks and the colours. Complexity hidden under simplicity is a running visual theme here. The faces emote so well for stylized faces, but the expressions are heightened by the weight of everything that's going on.



The sound design obviously gives the dimension it needs. Jared Emerson-Johnson's sombre and ominous background score punctuates just about every major decision with a melody that, on cue, will bring you back to those fateful decision in a heartbeat. By Episode 5, it's a cue for waterworks.  


The locations are fittingly TWD-esque. The drugstore - enclosed, encapsulated, a boiling pot for tension, waiting to fall down. The motel is wider, but way more dreadful. Dilapidated and tired - just like its characters. The dairy farm's idyllic falsehood represents just that -- there is no safe haven from what they're experiencing. The train is a much more direct thematic connection to the story, and it has a lot of good story moments. Pushing forward to the end, full steam. Until Savannah, with the sewer system, Crawford, and the mansion, it's a variety of locations to evoke a variety of moods and feelings, with all the characters running amok between them, the sense of evolution and emotional progression is supported by steel-thick design and aesthetics that augment just about everything.

THE VERDICT. 

Game of the Year for 2012, it should win all the awards. Just the context of having a second-rate, pseudo-indie developer come out with this gem, it's a direct display of story overpowering flare, sales revenues, marketing prowess, or franchise profitability. Just tell a fucking good story, and keep that goal with every artistic, technical or gameplay choice, and you'll have an amazing game.

In a way, this is the best fan-fiction in the world. The collaborative nature is undeniable - players themselves get to impart their own thinking into the outcome, sort of, of how Lee and Clementine end up. The developers took everything they knew about The Walking Dead, and kept their vision sound and loyal.

Buy this game, if you've never played games before. It's simple to understand and unbelievably addicting from the first 10 minutes in. If you're gamer, play this game because it's not like any other game you've ever played. If you're a person, play this game because having the chance to feel this kind of emotion from fake people gives you a refreshing break from the simplicity of real life.


The Walking Dead will make you feel alive with conviction and motivation. Play it, and you'll know why.

Friday, November 9, 2012

R3VIEZWs!! (of Movies) | Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Directed by Colin Trevorrow
Written by Derek Connolly 
Starring Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson & Karan Soni

THE RUNDOWN  

  • A Festival Entree
  • Anti-Typecasting Gem 
  • Disparate genres working like glue
  • An indie filmmaker's indie film
THE BASICS

"From the producers of Little Miss Sunshine - When an unusual classified ad inspires three cynical Seattle magazine employees to look for the story behind it, they discover a mysterious eccentric named Kenneth, a likable but paranoid supermarket clerk, who believes he's solved the riddle of time travel and intends to depart again soon. Together, they embark on a hilarious, smart, and unexpectedly heartfelt journey that reveals how far believing can take you."

THE BASES

I've already watched this film twice this week. The first watch was complete immersion and emphatic bliss. The second was a deep appreciation for the process by which this film executed its thematic premise, and each of the cogs of the machine that helped pave the way for its well-deserved critical acclaim and Connolly's warm reception at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where he took how the Screenwriting Award for his work on this movie.

There are few movies out there that have truly, "something for everyone". Any movie needs that target audience, and banks on the formulas and story beats that ensure a proftiable turn out for that said audience. We're talking Hollywood machine here -- indie films have it better and worse. The creative control gives you a sandbox of opportunity to play and create. The limited budgets and unreliability (and probably consistently crippling doubt of one's own capabilities) is a necessary trade-off. But if, by divine intervention, the stars align, a movie like Safety Not Guaranteed is the result.

First off, the casting: As director Colin Trevorrow and producer/actor Mark Duplass have stated in multiple interviews, this was before Parks and Recreation had started its legs and skyrocketed Aubrey Plaza and her enigma of a personality into a net-generation sensation. And this was before New Girl even existed for Jake Johnson to be wooed by a huge fanbase. Good thing they did, because they for sure noticed the acting chops these two had. And Mark Duplass' expansive career as just a filmdoer (producer, director, writer, actor) helped in it as well -- and probably his character is the most impressive part of this whole endeavour. But these main guys, including the introduction of Karan Soni -- which again, kudos to the casting director for making such conscious and effective choices in the retrospect -- make this movie bounce off the screen and into your heart. For reals.

The story ties directly into these performances: Connolly has written one of the slickest scripts I've seen on screen. In terms of handling the romance of these characters, it's an onion. Layers on layers. Mark Duplass's character, Kenneth Calloway, screams off the page as this guy who could possibly be the most ridiculous fellow and push this movie into slapstick territory, but as directors and producers have stated in several interviews, Duplass managed to ground him in an honest humanity that captivates you the more screentime happens. Conolly crafted him as the tonal core of the film, and seeing all three characters orbit around him is such a fulfilling experience come the end of the film.

The best movies have recognizable and relevant themes to them, but they're not shoved up into the surface. They float below the water, and you need to change perspectives to actually catch a glimpse of what lies underneath (like a shark. Fuck yeah, sharks). And this is a film that forces you to change perspectives, look at things differently and, if it's possible, take a step back and be aware of that change going on. Connolly does that, in my opinion. And the result? Feels.

This is a story about believing, about the importance and power it can have over someone. It's about what we look at in ourselves when we see our past, our present, and our future. It's about regret, love, and loss. It has some amazing monologues that hit home, universally, and some amazingly funny scenes of physical comedy. The dialogue is razor sharp with wit and spark. These performances heighten everything about what was written. And let's get to the visuals of these brilliant peace:

THE BRASS TACKS

The film was shot on-location in Washington State, and after signing on to be cast, Duplass became executive producer and connected the crew to names he knew in Seattle. As a result, the first half of the film becomes the style I like to call "cinematic tourism" in the cinematographic sense. Static shots of obscure, tacky, tourist-y locations. The Ocean View location gives the film a calmness to it that never takes away from the energy happening over top of it. The forests and horizons are just visual treats you can't get enough of. Put a very pretty Aubrey Plaza in it, sassed up in costume design that got my roommate quite hot and bothered (can't say I didn't either), and you have some bonafide wallpaper material. It's a visual tribute for Seattle -- a noble goal indeed.

It's all slow edits, graceful pacing, and then bouts of innocent energy supported by the characters and the quirkiness of their actions. If you find this explanation pretentious, then go test it out for yourself, and see if you can find a better description of it. The visuals reflect the interior changes going on in each of these characters, and I love how seamlessly the film juggles around the dramatic changes going on in each of our characters' lives. They're intertwined so well, the satisfaction factor is high come the final act.

The original score, supplied by Ryan Miller has that emphasis on subtle energy as well, with up-beat acoustics accompanying the plot most of the way. The action-y scenes even require that touch of sincerity that keeps it away from the fine line of goofballness it could have crossed. Again, costume design worked very well to exemplify these personalities, from Jeff's wearing farm-plaid to fit in with his former high-school girlfriend's lifestyle, to Plaza's all-purpose grey toque -- not to mention Kenneth's mullet and jean jacket -- give those bursts of character right from the get-go. The production design was ubiquitous, always sitting away from the spotlight to let camera and character play within. All tools to make a great sculpture. All sucessfully pulled off.

Aubrey Plaza stars as Darius Britt in Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)THE TAKE-AWAY

Sundance loves this shit -- it was made for that festival. There's so much there for the indie crowd, and it's not conceited in any way, that's just the nature of the film's style and tone. For a beyond-modest budget of under a million, what else can you expect? These were stars-in-the-making, unknown of their talent, committing to a strong, unexpected stoy (with a taste of reality in it, making it all the more awesome). A director and writer team with film-school comraraderie and trust (NYU Grads). Watch this film for its theme, its story, or its characters. They're all winners.  You'll cry. You'll laugh. You'll hold your heart out for them. Movies like this?

They're why I love movies.

Monday, November 5, 2012

R3VI3WZ!! (of Comics) | Saga Vol. 1

Written by Brian K. Vaughn, Art by Fiona Staples
 THE RUNDOWN
  • Space is a big, scary place.
  • Human-Animal combination animels are the best kind
  • FEMALE ARTIST.
  • Concept, you're doing it right!
Comic books are a weird thing, it's so much series to create a new kind of story, an original set piece that could be inspired by different predecessors or contemporaries, but ultimately a creator is making a new kind of story to introduce into the plethora of content saturating the modern comic book market.

And yet, with the power of the Big Two driving most of comic book sales, we have cross-overs, team-ups, cameos, company-wide events, relaunches, reboots, ret-cons, and a ton of other tactics to keep these ninety-year old franchises alive. Well, cause they have too -- there is no world without Superman or Spider-Man (just accept it).

So when a guy like Brian K. Vaughn comes along, or a guy like Robert Kirkman, hash out crazy successful series like Y: The Last Man and The Walking Dead, it's a blessing. Image itself has become one of the indie publishers that get right into the new content to tell audiences, which I am so glad for. Today, there's even more presence of original series not associated with preconceived franchises than ever before. It's such a breath of fresh air for comic book fans. And here's where a story like Saga comes into play.

Vaughn's second big project with artist Fiona Staples is a space epic set against the backdrop of inter-planetary war, though it's technically not, between a planet and one of its moons -- both civilizations are locked in conflict that is heated and never-ending. Unless, a solider on one side and a prisoner on the other end up falling in love and having a kid -- then things get complicated.

The premise of Saga itself is a complicated and nuanced experience. There's a huge reliance on close, human themes amidst an insanely high-concept story world. There's robots, bounty hunters, royalty, secret agencies, magic, wings, horns, and a mixture of genres that dips its toes into everything it can. And it comes out a cohesive read. Brian K Vaughn's conceptual ability is something to be marveled at, and without a doubt, respected.

He ties it together with two central characters that jump off the page immediately -- from panel one. Strong characters are a glue that can hold even the craziest concepts together, and the read gets only more enjoyable form there. Alana and Marko are two backstories that couldn't create more inherent drama even before hearing and seeing them -- they are the proverbial 'star-crossed lovers', only one is feisty as hell and has insect wings on her back, and the other his a horn-bearing magic-wielder who gets into fits of rage when those he loves are put in danger.

If anything, read this book for the cast alone. I love how Vaughn and Staples have gone the route of character designing these foreign worlds in the human form, not only to bring the themes into more relatable territory, but it's just refreshing to see a unique take (ironically, consideirng they're more human than alien) of extraterrestials. It places the plotline in a weird place with these almost-human characters encountering noticably more alien experiences. But a supporting cast of weird-ass bounty hunters and robots with television screens for heads just adds to the intensity of Vaughn's world.

BRASS TACKS: THE VISUALS

Fiona Staples is quickly becoming one of my favourite comic book artists. The fluidity of her linework and how casual it all comes together, not to mention doing the coloring for the first volume as well, is a huge selling point. One could demand a visually overwhelming, double-page spread kind of sci-fi book to boast the story world Vaughn's created, but Staples kind of goes in another direction.

All of it's loose and light, and yet it still jumps off the page. But when those spreads do come, Staples manages to piece together some outstanding images that stick in your mind long after you've turned the page. Her command of movement and pacing in those key action sequences -- trying to wrap your head around armed battle mixed with medieval-style magic in one page is pretty damn hard. But for me, I was stuck on certain pages, finding detail that I would have missed if I didn't browse the goods. And there are a lot.

The last thing that should sell you on this book if nothing else, is Staple's cover art. Of this particular volume, it's just beautifully designed. Simple as that. It puts Vaughn's incredible characters in the centre to pique the reader's interest, and the title and background give enough hint to what a reader can expect. And it's just super pretty too look at.

Note: Female artists in the comic book industry deserve this kind of recognition. Cause they're out there and comic book fans have to motivate more female artists to try it in the industry. It's been long enough that we've either unintentionally, or more disappointing, intentionally ostracized an entire potential audience. Support female comic book artists and writers!

THE VERDICT

The price tag on this awesome book is a measley $9.99 at your bookstore or comic book store. This isn't even a debate. Vaughn and Staples are sacrificing the revenue stream for more of a readership motivated to pick up a brand new property from an independent creative team. This is the definition of bang-for-your-buck. The story is fresh, it's rejuvinating and it captures you from page one. The art is pristine and flows in sync with the storytelling extremely well. The story world is one to marvel at. And it's only $10. Go get it, read it, and follow this book because it's going to blow up very soon.
  
 

Monday, October 22, 2012

Lessons (A Personal Pseudo-Essay)

"Hunter-32, Hunter-32, this is Fanboy-7 requesting confirmation of target, are we clear to drop payload, over?"

"This is Hunter-32, target confirmed. Fanboy-7 you are clear to drop Some Personal Shit." 
--------------------------------------------------------
There was a quote from a movie I watched recently, one featuring the budding comedic genius of Adam Scott alongside the J.K Simmons called The Vicious Kind, which was ultimately a film about people making their choices, and subsequently living with said choices. And it's not a pretty film. There's pretty people, but you get to see the ugliness inside them. It's not that popular, but I'm positive its on Netflix.

Any Adam Scott fan should check it out, because his performance is the best thing about that movie -- you haven't seen his acting range until you've seen The Vicious Kind. Some awesome accompanying songs from Radical Face, who's amazing, to compliment the raw, bare energy of this character drama.

I'm telling you about this because I watched Argo at Rainbow Cinemas on Front and Jarvis a few hours ago; caught the late show after 8 hours of studying today for my midterm tomorrow, that I don't partcularily care about now that I've retyped my five weeks worth of notes. You know, I took Science Fiction for the hell of it, not even sure I'd get the credit. But I took it to learn something. And my professor -- but she likes to be refered to as Doctor -- opened her mouth the first week of class and ever since then she's chipped away at the only thing I really love in life. Thanks, university.

I mention The Vicious Kind firstly because of a quote that's pretty potent in thematic significance that JK Simmons' character says to his son (the one who is not Adam Scott-misogynist-crazy-version).
"Sometimes people do things they know they are wrong, but they just do them anyway. Because doing the right thing would be too painful." 
Thematically, that movie was strong as hell. This quote doesn't relate to the film, it directly relates to my life personally, and (indicating that the writer did their job with this specific line) every other person that watches this film. It's almost a universal truth, in my humble opinion. 

We are humans. We are capable of thinking intelligently -- but intelligently doesn't necessarily mean an objective moral structure of right and wrong dictated by some scripture, or rulebook, or words uttered by a mentor, mother, father, or teacher.

Thinking intelligently is dictated as to what that individual considers intelligent. People are intelligent in different ways, we're wired like that. We can read people well, we can have powers of social manipulation, we can study and memorize with outstanding capability, we can gush out charisma on a whim, or we can sit in a room and ponder life's questions, and be able to actually figure some things out without losing our minds. We are all intelligent in that regard. Some people just use their intelligence stupidly.

I'm being coy because I see it in the real world. Here's where I go into Argo, that, by the way, is Ben Affleck's best film he's ever made, and proves that the man has artistic and directing talent that surpasses a lot of people older than him in the big industry. I won't spoil the details, but I found the themes of the plot centered a lot around the relationship between fiction and reality. Story and life. The fake and the real.

That quote from The Vicious Kind? That's something pretty real. The way it was constructed and manufactured to be communicated to you? Complete fabrication, but it's more real of a sentence you'll here coming out of someone's mouth (let alone JK Simmons') than you've probably ever experienced in your life. I know that's the case for me. While the way it was said is fake, unsurmountably an illusion made by a team of people, what's being said remains true to the core. That is the essence of theme, probably included in the definition of it when relating to storytelling.

But the medium is the message, as they say. What is reality but another media that we percieve the world through? I mean, this day and age, the lines are blurring -- how are your eyes not just another screen you see the world through. How fake is that? How real? My point is, reality can be extremely fake -- it can fool you into believing things, trick you into feeling things, uproot your understanding of things, and change the trajectory of your emotional state, mental state or physical state in a minute, even a second.

We never trust reality, and we rarely trust the characters (actual people) that inhabit that neverending show of This Fucking Life. Unpredictably breeds the desire for reassurance of purpose and direction. Something true amidst all the chaos of fakeness...

Stories. Argo told me that reality and fiction go hand-in-hand in the human experience. One will drive the other, under a symbiotic relationship. Stories can save lives. They can inspire entire passions. They can sooth pain, create excitement, generate genuine emotion. Make those endorphins run rampant through your neuroses. Fire the receptors. Feel something true. It's the drug without the side-effects.

The side-effect of partaking in the experience of a story, is learning something about yourself and the world around you. That comes from a construct of imagination and hard work, made for an audience that craves the drug of feeling and emotion. You sit in a darkly lit room and pay eight dollars for candy and pop for that. You set your DVR in the morning for that. You wait a week for that and complain about it and then come back every week after, for that.

So what's more real? The reliable versus the unreliable. What you can touch, taste, smell, or what you can feel -- not just on the surface, the superficial experience. The interior, intrinsic. The sinking pits in your stomach, the butterflies, the goosebumps and the lightness in your chest. The true.

We say, "life is sometimes like a movie" because of those feelings that are generated. I ache for the day that my life can resemble the fiction that I read, watch, and play. For a fraction of my existence, there's a structure and a cadence to the rhythm of my actions -- that plot points emerge that I can read and analyze and piece together into a fulfilling final act. Roll credits. Happy ending. And there we go.

Sometimes people do things that are wrong... because it makes them feel things more real than their realities. It alleviates the pain of being stuck with the reality that we have, and take that solace, and that escape, of the possibility of getting something more. Of feeling something else. Feeling like in the movies. 

Feel like the characters we so blatantly worship in boxes with blinking lights and strings of data pieced together for a two-storey blank canvas.

I say this to my friends who are going through a tough time, or a tough break-up, or a tough day.
"Characters are what people want to be." - Anthony Suen, Self-Righteous Modern Messiah
Characters, at their core, have definable, categorizable qualities. They have the perfect balance of flaws and virtues. The weighing of their beliefs against their vices, and a carefully planned out exploitation of those elements to create their path towards their end goal. An objective -- characters have that consicous or subconscious dramatic need that always pushes them to go that extra mile.

People? We're reflections of the lives we inhabit. The realities we're stuck with. Our objectives can change on a whim or a bad night out or a worse morning after. They can be as simple and insignifcant as getting a fucking job or as vague and unattainable as changing who the fuck you are as a person. There's no defined path, no grand writer building our character arcs. As much as we want to be a puppet with a purpose, there are no strings attached to what we have, right here, right now.

The wind has purpose, it blows currents and temperatures to where they need to be and stabilize our climate, hopefully for a bit longer than scientists posit, but they do what they're told to because nature tells them too. So, not even "feeling like the wind" in being aimless and ungrounded in your desires is a fitting analogy. You can "storify" anything with symbolism and meaning because that's our biggest vice as a humans -- we embody the qualities we want, or rather the qualities we can't have, in absolutely everything that exists. Again, that's how we're wired.

Reality is worse than wind, it has no course, and no currents that it follows, no crowning namesakes that you can identify and plot on a map. Personal experience is being in a dark room with oven mitts, earplugs, and a blindfold on trying to find that proverbial needle in a room full of shit-all.

Okay, I twisted that one a bit. But my analogy ("storifying", woo!) gets to how story and life, reality and fiction, need each other on a basic level, in our brains and thought processes. Stories plop in that lightbulb with the hanging little string, that you can pull in that dark room full of nasty stuff, and the one singular needle that could very well be your very own dramatic need.

It grounds us. Anchors us. Much like many of my close friends do. My post a few posts ago talks about not letting go of your past for anything, because your past defines who you are right now, and will inform who you are going to become in the future. The past is your story. History, personal or as public as the entire world's existence, is one big stage play. The world's a stage, just like Shakespeare said.

And we, The Players, are stuck acting for as long as we're on it. So you stick together -- you make the most of the story you're in. The reality and the fiction that you're creating parallel to each other. So when you do the things that are "wrong", you have The Players to anchor you back to the "right" path.

JK Simmons' character is right, in some regard. And Argo as an entire movie has it right too -- it's painful to do the right thing -- the thing that a character, and not a person, would do. Not what your friend would do, your father, your mother, your siblings, the person you slept with, your ex-boyfriend, your secret lover, your teacher or professor, your past crush, your boss...or you.

We struggle to be that character we wish we were. The ideal version of ourselves. The camera-ready, script-memorized, fully in-character fictional representation that always made the right choices, the decisions that turned out well for everybody, the paths in life that lead to the least people hurt, and the most smiles made. The one with a destination. A destiny.

But no, we don't have that privilege, or that luxury. We cope with reality against the hope for something fictitious to occur. Our dramatic need is to survive the lives we live with the ability to say, you did it the way you wanted to. There is control out there, control that you and I have, and it's sitting in reality, waiting. It's not fake. Not like everything else around us, out there.

Story versus life. Reality versus fiction. The make-believe versus to actual. What's the damn difference?

Me and you. Your experience and my experience. What's inside there, past the organs and the brain signals. The butterflies and the daydreams. It's not about difference, it's about similarity.

There's a story in everything and everyone. Just pick up a pen and write it.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

EPIC Everything About This of the Week

 Science. 

YouTube's server just crashed from the traffic of watching the live stream of Felix Baumgartner, Austrian pilot and parachutist, breaking the world records for highest balloon ascent and highest freefall, funded by the Red Bull Stratos project.

A man jumped out of a tiny capsule, into empty space, with the curvature of the Earth in his line of sight. If there is any image that represents singular human ingenuity, courage, willpower and inventiveness, it could be this one. But hey, an Olympic athelete ran track with prosthetic legs and we have a robot on Mars collecting valuable space things. So add this to the list.

The world's a shitty place, which makes moments like these all the more sweet. History was made today.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Field Report DES-17734R "Memories"

I've been back and forth between Toronto and Missisauga this week because of Ryerson University's random scheduling this year to include a Reading Week five actual weeks into class. YOLO, one can only assume on the account of whatever asinine leprechuan is dictating how I piece together my life around barely related coursework and pompous, arrogant professor-doctor-authorities.

I digress. I feel like turning this into a personal blog. Because, why the fuck not?

Thanks to a friend for some inspiration on the matter, however. I don't feel like repressing my emotions today, at least not digitally. The internet shall embrace my feelings. I demand it.

-------------------------------------
Disjointed Memory from High School #1

Sandra offers me some Honey Nut Cheerios, key word being "nut" and I take up the offer because it's food and I didn't have lunch that day. Shove some in my mouth, I'm a happy camper. Then I realize the nature of the word nut and how my body may not actually agree with the fact that I'm eating something I'm supposedly deathly allergic to.

Kevin just laughs at me, Sandra freaks out. Ms. McInnis goes into Teacher Protocol Crisis Mode, but I tell everyone to chill out, nothing's happening. And nothing did happen. But it was funny for a few minutes. Yearbook class was always consistently funny.
------------------------------------------
Disjointed Memory from High School #2

She walks with me down the pathway from the mall towards her house. We stop by the sometimes-seedy Wendy's/Tim Horton's combo complex by the stoplight.

She calls me a dick. She hadn't done that before. I was being a dick.

That's all I clearly remember. I remember standing there, not knowing what to do. What I do recall was a sinking in my chest, a foreign feeling that crept up into my brain and seemed to invade it with anxiety and discomfort that drove me into a quiet chaos that stayed with me the whole while I stood there.

She was angry. When my best friend's angry with me, that means something I did was wrong.

So I fixed myself.
--------------------------------------------------------
Disjointed Memory from High School #3

I trek up the west hallway stairs -- I'm not even sure if they were West, I just refered to them as which classes were always there, so probably "Math Hallway". I see Lauren with her friend - I'm going up there to ask what mark she got on the artist statement I decided to write for her out of a little crush I had in tenth grade. She got really good on it, and my own artist statement was considerably worse. The irony still hasn't escaped me after five years. Tenth grade was rough.
------------------------------------------------------
Vague Memory from High School #1

I get spots of it. Pizza Pizza. The trees with bare branches and my Chucks were new-ish at that time. No holes. But there's holes in this. I remember a kiss, feeling bliss. Like I understood the world. I didn't. Didn't matter though -- at that age the world is as big as the moment you're living. Then and there. Nowhere else.

I was a shitty kid.

----------------------------------------------------
Vivid Memory from High School #1

Ms. McInnis and the eleventh grader are snapping pictures every few seconds while I take a step or raise a limb or open a locker and freeze for the photo. We're going to put it together through stop-motion. And I'm going to make up for the self-dissappointment of not contirbuting enough during Grade 12 Yearbook, a class that sticks with me to this day.

We take at least an hour. There's hundreds of photos but I'm excited to sift through all of them. Ms. McInnis saw the lyrics I wrote, the silly scribble that I did as a joke, an afterthought, and she managed to pull my talent out of that. I'm eternally grateful.

We shoot it after school, and it's fun. The most fun I've ever had doing something school-related. It lifts my chest instead of sinking it. Makes everything okay. Everything that sucked, for four years, is okay. I have something here. Keep it.
---------------------------------------------------
Vivid Memory from High School #2

"I'm gonna write you a break-up letter in this."

--------------------------------------------------
Disjointed Memory from High School #4

It's my last year in Model UN. Wenhan's become the leader of the club. It's tripled in size since Grade 10. Seeing her lead something is funny. Seeing her do it well makes me proud as hell.

Vivek and I push forward an amendment to wipe Chile off the map with an bomb strike, or an artifical earthquake, can't remember which. Jason is pleased -- the bleedover from last year's Bhutan escapade gives him some smiles, which is good. We should all smile more, it's our last year.

We go legitimately argue on the podium. I'm no longer bothered by staying after school for things.
---------------------------------------------------
Significant Memories from High School #1-15
1) I mash paper in a giant tub with my hands.
2) Ms. McInnis guides me through the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.
3) I get confused by Final Cut's interface. Mr. Fraser laughs at us.
4) I record lyrics in the back room of the CommTech classroom with Kevin.
5) We skip class to go get burgers.
6) I get into a limo with all of my friends.
7) I enter through the doors of John Fraser Secondary School, and it's bigger than I could have ever imagined.
8) I show my portfolio to Ms. McInnis. She helps me better it.
9) "Hey, Reesha, do you know what this means?"
10) "Is that a hickey? My name's Vivek."
11) "I'm Ashley, kind of new here."
12) "Can I join your group?"
13) "Oh yeah, she's so glad she transfered to RTA. You should think about it."
14) Four of us on the beach at night. All I hear is waves. I'm drifting apart from all of you.
...
15) "Anthony Suen is now studying Radio & Television Arts at Ryerson University."
------------------------------------------------------
The Unforgettable Memories from High School #1-4
It takes all my courage to type out those stories. I text her a time to meet outside school. I drag her away from the rest of them, and we start walking home. She's always lived in the same direction, and I never walked home with her. Because I was a coward, and it was the only thing I thought defined me.

The small talk is excrutiating. I get to it before I lose it. Take the pages out, they're bent at the sides, it bothers me, but I hand them to her. I explain my case. Ignore the craziness of my actions. She turns the corner, says goodbye out of respect. I stand there.

I just stand there.
-------------------------------------------------------
We lie in her backyard, staring at each other. It's cold, but we keep each other warm. The blades of grass tickle our skin. I just keep looking at her eyes.

She starts crying, talking through tears. About losing me, losing it. Afraid of lasting.

Tears start welling up for me too. It surprises me. I console her, I do my best. I'm still the same kid. 
------------------------------------------------------
We stand outside the Guidance office, big backpacks on, large jackets, middle of autumn. We laugh at lame jokes, make fun of each other. I remember the feeling of not needing to be anywhere else. I remember the weight on my shoulders being slight, soft. Lessened because of the strength of companions. Simplicity. Normalcy. Routine. Friendship.
------------------------------------------------------
Tim Horton's at 1 in the morning. We sit there, playing staring games. Talking about nothing. Not high school anymore, not the same kid. For that moment, I get the same feeling though. Everything's alright.

I play the fool and let it trick me into believing so.
------------------------------------------------------
Present 
I sit in the den, my desktop transfered to my interim basement apartment for twelve months. Laptop connected to the ethernet port, addicted to stable internet. I write this blog post with a transparency I've never wanted to commit to before. A mixture of feelings swells inside my brain and body -- coming back here gives me comfort, going back there gives me convenience. The time for opening up is long gone. I have worked on myself and now it's time to play gatekeeper for who's let in and who's left at the door.

The cycle of people continues to make its way in and out. Those who've anchor themselves have become my anchors. They're irreplacable. Some transients I wish had stayed. Clocks don't work backwards. Right now I wish they did. So I could witness that release of weight off my shoulders again.

I've worked on myself exclusively. I've studied everything about me. I'm an expert now. I damn well know the kind of person I am and want to become.

So these disjointed, cloudy and clear images have done their job properly.

Never look back on it? Never dwell on it?

No, always look back. Every day. See what you were and you see what you can become. Keep those cards close, and always long for something different, always dream for repeats and reoccurances. Chance encounters and reonciliations. Pain away at wishful thinking and nostaglic recollection. Because it hurts to remember the scenes you love. You appreciate what you miss and what you didn't miss equally. It's there. And it feels like it's outside you, it's away from you, but it is you.

This is you. Force yourself to stare at it. Never look away, and just keep walking.

And when I stop, when I put down everything I've looked at, I want to know where I've ended up.

Inevitably, it will be the right place. I hold onto that.

You are the culmination of the people you meet and make memories with. Go see for yourself.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

EPIC Timelapse Photography of the Week


Very Little Stars from Timelapse, Inc. on Vimeo.

Ben Wiggins pieces together some mesmerizing landscapes and turns eye candy into a whole other level. These look so amazing I feel like it's wrong for me to be looking at them.
Gawk at it and enjoy! 

Saturday, August 11, 2012

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing In My Life


Sorry for the dust around here.

Finally, I feel the urge to actually write to the Internet about my life, which actually just never happens with me anymore; yes, the concept of blogging itself now disgusts me to the point of personal offense towards the very core of my being. 

All jokes aside, the beautiful four month summers of post-secondary life is mercifully coming to an end, and my God am I grateful because I cannot stand another fucking five seconds of it. It's become this desire to just go out and get shit done because if I don't I'll probably just atrophy and remain stuck in an existential limbo for an undisclosed amount of millennia. I'm not much for melodrama but it seems like the only solution to give this blog any sense of interesting-ness anymore.

Should I invoke a poll system? Because I'd run out of ideas pretty quickly.

What has happened in the four months that I haven't been in media production school is actually not totally banal -- I participated in my first forty-hour work week experience that completely drained me mentally and emotionally. And thanks to my friend who I did not realize was the other intern they just hired until the day before, who gave me much needed laughter and comradarie that I would not have gotten if it was just some random dude or woman who I would be awkward working with for six weeks.

So, I got my first taste of what kind of stuff we actually do as 'content creators' -- I learned very intimately the ins and outs of self-distributing an independent film on a national scale. It is not easy. I like to think that us two being the only main sources of information regarding film distribution, theatre relations, and promotional campaigning, we managed to not suck as much as other people would have. And that is enough to keep me sleeping at night (for like two weeks afterwards, and then everything went back to normal). But it was incredibly eye-opening, I met some damn cool people who let me handle their taxes and budgets, which freaked me the fuck out, and I got a taste of what real people do in this industry. They carry around G-Drives everywhere, and my boss had the biggest wall of geek shit I had ever seen. Also, Studio District in Toronto? Pretty tight. 10 years, tops (if moving Stateside upgrades from Pipe Dream to God is Now Shitting On You).

But I get to put on my LinkedIn, "I was a shipping and receiving department". Because I was. FedEx was like a shitty little cousin who wouldn't go away and do as it was told.

That was MAY. And a bit of June. What of the rest of my life from that point onwards?

I played some video games I had always wanted to. That lasted me about twelve seconds of entertainment, as is the case with video games. Somewhere along the line I had the crazy notion of actually doing something worth my time of being a man-child. Thus, I was writing again.

The reason I've ditched this blog is purely because I'm bad at prioritizing and that I'm still completely in the dark about who reads this shit, since commenting on personal blogs is more taboo than screwing a family member, for the Net Generation. The writing has upped in frequency, to the point of the aforementioned not-sleeping-a-lot. Because I'm just thinking of stories and shit. That's what writers do right?

In the three other months I've had, I bought a bunch of screenwriting books, actually read them, and absorbed information as best I could. Next step was to actually put some words on something -- mind you, my pilot script is still in a second-draft phase. But having a pilot script of anything I like to think makes you at least better than someone. Everyone's better than someone. Glass half full, okay?

My television pilot has turned into an budding project to make it into an actual storyline, with seasons, a plot arc, and multiple characters that keep popping up from my subconscious. The goal is to prepare myself as much as possible for Winter 2013, 5th Semester, when the writing courses actually start. If there is one thing I've learned from my first two years of Radio & Television Arts (now RTA School of Media, because we're not old people anymore), it's that preparation is not some dorky thing only nerds do.

If you write something, shoot something, edit something, or compose something without a plan, you are royally fucked from the start -- unless you are an autistic savant or some particular Asians in our program. This summer has been:
  • Learning how to develop character fully -- flesh out inner motivations through establishing backstory, including psychological, physiological and sociological explanations
    • The Screenwriter's Bible by David Trottier is a great tool for learning about any aspects of screenwriting. But this exercise is exhausting and very fun. You are literally making a person out of nothing.
  • Practicing screenwriting format, form, and convention -- the technical aspects of writing a teleplay or screenplay. What I've found from reading a bunch of pilots as well as feature specs is, everyone breaks convention. It will be an eternal struggle for me to understand when it's okay to, and when it isn't. But that only comes when you keep writing shit.
  • Keep writing shit -- the best thing to come out of this summer is keeping the ball rolling; I constantly have ideas for my fictional universe that I created about a year ago. More spaces are being filled very often. That just leads to more ideas for other things. Balls are rolling.
    • My notebook has about fifty pages left, hopefully I start a new one by the time school rolls around. My mind has become something that thinks in scenes, and the only thing to do from there is to write those scenes down. They're know little aside stories to my main plotlines and characters, and serve as backstory research to refer to in the future.
  • Pre-visualize everything - that's what season outlines and backstory research is all about. Building the story world is more of a challenge than anything else in writing for screen, big or small. Building the blocks gets you into building your world. But it's painstaking and it takes months, and probably years. I'm on my second. I have a ways to go.
    • I have an endgame set up for Hotel Six that will lead into a season finale, and as it stands, a second season that will continue the grand story-line -- which means more world-building and character development. Making people is not easy either.
  • Get a writing buddy - call a friend, classmate, distant relative, stranger who you have seen, or luckily know, has the same short-term goals as you: primarily, writing. Be their bud. Have somebody to talk shop with, discuss favorite anything; ice-cream or scenes from Princess Bride. Send each other process work - scene snippets, character tables, lists of ideas. Just talk. Learn from one another. Be around people who give you a sense that you are not wasting your time and your life has meaning. Quite essential. Everyone should have one. Even if you don't write anything. 
That's just one project. I have two movie ideas I've begun developing, one is a genre mash-up, because I love the concept of taking disparate parts and making something cool out of it. The other is something I decided to want to do after watching 50/50, which is an amazing movie, and also inspired the more grounded creative in me to pursue a story that's close to the heart.

I wanted to write something I feel strongly about, something I can materially relate to. The problem was, 50/50's writer had cancer, and he beat it with the help of his friends and family -- there's a good story already written for him. I don't have the luxury of an interesting past. Or an interesting present. So the only solution is a near potential, possibly parallel future. It's about a writer. And it's about imagination, storytelling, our current generation of content creators, and the problems we face when trying to make nothing into something. Don't know where it'll go. But it'll be something. Bet on it.

This is my life. I'm still technically jobless since I was born, in terms of steady income and working the hours per week that everyone else is, and therefore by default, envious that I am not. And therefore, they tell me to suffer the same amount they do, because if I don't do what they do it means something is wrong with the way I'm conducting myself. They're probably right.

So yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing in life. And I'm not happy or sad. I'm not content -- I'll never be content, that's not what writers are. Am I a writer? Fuck if I know. It's a placeholder at the moment. Everybody I know has placeholders, whether they like it or not. It's a perpetual unpaid internship for being a fucking adult. Which sucks. But it's what we have.

As long as nobody else knows what the hell they're doing, we can all be unpaid interns together.

That's three months of words I've caught up on. Now, please give a fuck. Because I finally think I do.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

EPIC Game Trailer of the Week - The Secret World Launch Trailer



It's here! One of my personally most anticipated MMO's hits wide release today, and chances are you're gonna get more than what you bargained for in terms of a traditional MMORPG game.

I talked about the The Secret World a year ago when the first news leaked that the guys who did Age of Conan (Eh...) where at the drawing board for a whole different take on the game genre. The first news kinda blew my mind when I discovered there was a plan to make it modern-day dark fantasy, set in the 21st century, and centered around secret organizations, conspiracy theories, and mythological monsters that plague the world at night.

Yeah, that sounded pretty dope.

So I've been following the news around as it comes out, and unfortunately because of school and whatnot I've been unable to stay on top of the news for this blog. But I have been posting a lot a while back about it, so hopefully that tickled your fancies.

The Norwegian game developer Funcom has stated a $14 monthly subscription fee, so everything sucks that I can't play it until I get a steady job (lol) or waste all my remaining funds on more games (God forbid).

The best thing this game has going for it is it's completely unique story world, at least in a fantasy-laden genre such as the MMORPG. You've had The Old Republic, but that got botched pretty damn quickly. And while the new World of Warcraft expansion is on the horizon, and Guild Wars 2 in August is arriving, The Secret World still has the upper hand in the MMO front with the earliest release.

Out of the three, The Secret World and Guild Wars 2 both have a good chance of catching a lot of people's attention in the gaming world. Both games have very specific and unique gameplay mechanics that are a far departure from the steadfaast WoW system that's dominated all games that have come in recent years.

Let's hope that changes with The Secret World. And now, Cinematic Trailers galore!





Still gonna write some fanfiction about this game. Honestly though, this story world looks amazing.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Reviews!! (of Movies) | Real Steel (2011)

Directed by Shawn Levy
Written by John Gatins
Based on the short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson




Let me start it off with this: I wish I watched this movie in theatres, I probably would have cried. This film is pretty Hollywood, it's got the flare and flavour--but more surprisingly, especially to me, it's got some pretty solid substance to it.


The turns are expected and it's easy pickings on the critical side if you're a fan of being pulled completely off-guard. But hey, movie goers aren't hard-ass pretentious intelligencia so this film pushes all the right buttons for me. Wanna know why? More after the jump!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Reviews! (of Movies) | Prometheus (2012)

Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Jon Spaihts & Damon Lindelof
  

 
This one was on my list for a while for the must-see summer movies. Even a prospect of an in-universe Alien prequel dumbfounded me when the initial rumours came out -- personally, I'd have no idea how to start or where to begin with broadening the story more so than it should.

But, this is a Ridley Scott film, so it's got some expectations. And it's his core universe, through and through, so I had ample faith that whatever it was, they'd be able to pull it off. The ultimate outcome? They had all the pieces there, and the slate was clean, and the puzzle was put together well. It just didn't shine as much as I think it could have.

Does that mean the film didn't shine (in a tense, brooding and horrific sort of way)? Not at all. The film's great, I think more as a stand-alone than and outright prequel in-universe with the trilogy, and maybe even all those ridiculous AvP movies that are actually included in the canon. Which is actually kind of awesome. But to that point, this movie carries the weight of the three before it and puts it all over. Has a patch on its shoulder parading it around throughout the film, like it wants to be established as the next saga in the stories to tell about the universe.

But that note I feel was misplaced. It kinda skewed the purposes of this movie for me. My main gripe is that I didn't really feel like it knew what it wanted to be. I'm talking about it as if it's a five-year-old child that's confused about life because it may be a little premature. If it had another year of pre-production, brought in some story consultants, could this have been a pit full of terrifying awesome? More after the jump.


Thursday, June 7, 2012

EPIC Top 10 List of the Week (E3's over?)

E3's tiring, I've decided it doesn't matter to anyone. Who won E3? Me. I won E3.

Moving on:


SourceFed is an internet news show led by internet people made for internet geeks. And they're awesome. Subscribe to them.

And watch all the films they mention. They're awesome.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

E3 Coverage One-Stop-Shop: I Don't Know What Day It Is

Day 3. It's Day 3, I'm just joking.

...half-joking.

With the Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA Conferences over and done with, what else is there to do at E3 when you're not actually there?

I assume we spend countless hours glued to our screens refreshing any kind of video services we have open waiting for a new trailer to pop up on something we were hyped up about at the beginning. Or we just lose interest.

But, there have been lots of NEW ANNOUNCEMENTS over the past few days, I think worth sharing because it marginally interests me while I wait for Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World to come out because I am way too stoked for digging my hands into those story worlds, like omg.

  • Wii U will support two separate gamepads, possible 5 player games
    • New Super Mario Brothers U 
    • Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed Spin-off, Zombi U -- all on launch
    • Nintendo has a lot of games
  •  Beyond: Two Souls is NOT a rehashed Heavy Rain
    • If you're offended by the notion that Quantic Dream makes "interactive movies" and David Cage is a "frustrated film director" then you're an idiot and have no place making opinions about anything ever. Let me elaborate.
Video gaming is an incredible medium of entertainment. Its constraints are almost non-existent, it's engagement is what radio and television have striven for for more than five decades. Its speed of development and technological direction is unpassed. There is so much potential in this medium.

And your shitty head can't wrap around the fact that gaming can be more than top-down dungeon crawlers, or achievement-based shitfests where people yell at each other through headsets and kill each other aimlessly in a military simulation. Well, you're narrow-minded. You're a goof. Quantic Dream pushes the envelope on what gaming can be, and should be. Same with Ubisoft Montreal's Watch_Dogs. The fact that they're even making a new, A-Title property out of nothing and putting their cards on the table is a testament to their ambition and loyalty to the industry. They realize something is stale. They want to give it a jump.

Trade exhibitions like this are for developers and businesses hype up consumers and introduce new things they're doing to engage their peers and colleagues in the field. Because we're shitty consumers, not to mention the most demanding, needy, ungrateful and unreasonable consumer base in any form of entertainment, the developers have listened. To the sales, mostly. And sales call for repetitions of established franchises. Your Madden 26's and Call of Extreme Duty: Modern Black Ops Warefare 7 will saturate this market until it can't even breathe out of its mouth.

I'm angry, yeah, but I'm optimistic. At least the current franchises, for the most part, have a respectable developer that we can trust with delivering new, exciting, innovative content. But if you chastise an indie developer, our a non-"mainstream" developer for innovating in their own way, for truly trying something new, then you're a terrible gamer. You don't get the video game industry.

Casual gaming has risen in the ranks to be a powerhouse for the industry. Social gaming you can't even escape whether you're in public, in private, or in outer space. And those developers are ones that understand the nature of the industry, the beast that is this thriving new technology that will drive the global market for interactive entertainment, probably entertainment as a whole.

It's not the games and the creators that need to catch up with you, it's you that needs to catch up with the developer that are winning the race. And I'll tell you, no matter how much Blops II sells, or if there's a Dead Space 5 down the road--the bigger number doesn't mean the better game. We seem to forget that often. Moving on,
  • Speaking of sequels and the like...
    • So far, not just today -- footage for Dead Space 3, Borderlands 2, Assassin's Creed III, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Resident Evil 6, Halo 4,  Lost Planet 3, and more..
  • HAWKEN.
Just gonna stop the bullet lists now, nothing else interests me. I've never been into MechWarrior, or any kind of mech-shooter game, but Gundam is an awesome series, and most of its spin-offs. Hawken's a game made from the ground-up by a handful of devs with a lot of heart and passion and a solid idea to build up from.

What more could you ask for? Glad they're finally to unleash onto the world the fruits of their labor. I hear its free-to-play too, which is too much to ask, but we're getting it. I guess they'll make ample fanboy money from that ridiculous exclusive controller you can get with it?
 
Try me.



And a kickass live-action-y trailer:



So there's that.

I'm trying my hand at responsible blogging here, so give me a break. Also, if you don't like my opinions, please share my blog with people who will. Much appreciated.

Games, everybody!

E3 Coverage One-Stop-Shop: Day 2

Welcome back to another day of E3 in the wraps! You excited?

Well, being the responsible games industry journalist I've suddenly set out to be for this week, I've done nothing but marathon Season 5 of Mad Men for the entire day. So I only caught about three quarters of the Nintendo Conference (but really they have like two more other ones) and there was a whole lot of this:

My body was ready. 


Lots of Wii U stuff. Sweet. Scroll down for a picture of what it looks like. It's just a bulky tablet with bumper buttons and analog sticks. And then this:


And the actual game:


This 3D roaming-camera-stillshot-style trailer trend is really taking off, eh? And surprise, surprise, who's at the development of this zombie game? UBISOFT.

Don't know how the hell they're pulling off what they're pulling off but they should keep doing it.

Otherwise, I'm too lazy to cover what else happened at the Nintendo conference, lots of Mario titles, some Pikmin 3 for those of you to care...and a lot of awkward scripted stage banter. Gives me the shakes when I have to witness that comfort mutilation in my living room.

And living room integration seems to be what Nintendo's pushing with their new console and peripherals. I'm cautiously stoked. Seeing as I haven't touched my Wii for a good year and a half, hopefully I get some spark in my life to pick up Super Smash Bros. and suck my way to the next generation of gaming as Nintendo so confidently totes.

IN OTHER NEWS:
  • Developers are releasing game trailers for their upcoming releases
  • Sony is using two flagship comapnies to support their entire arsenal 
  • Black Ops II still deserves attention (fucking really?)
  • Walking Dead: Episode 2 -- the first one actually does not suck. 
  • People love their sequels.
  • Go check IGN, Kotaku, The Verge, TDW Geek, or any other related blog for some other news.
  • I'm lazy. This is hard. 
THINGS I MISSED YESTERDAY:

 

Yesssssss......so looking forward to this. Storytelling, while it's sophisticated and the best games always employ the best tactics at combining interaction with it, it seems to get a backseat from both audience and developers (most, anyways) when it comes to creating really good games. Games are stories, when we're put into the story, maybe it takes away from some of the glamour of being a spectator--not affecting the outcome. The lure of voyeurism, of non-consequence.

Shove a controller in your hand and a faceless protagonist to move around, and you get ultimate power and control over the story being told. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you. But it definetly changes how we tell stories. Quantic Dream understands that balance.

Beyond: Two Souls looks crafted. Like an artisan's work. Handled with precision, care, and a deliberacy (not a word but fuck it) not found in, let's say, the Call of Duty franchise. Heavy-handed comparison, I know, but fuck those guys. Facial recognition technology and motion capture, new game engines starting to get showcased (Square Enix I heard has unveiled one in preparation for some more Final Fantasy goodness), new IPs being released--E3 is turning out not so bad.


Maybe I spoke too soon, but meh.

TOMORROW:
  • Shit will happen.
  • Exciting trailers?
  • Let's hope.