#north by northwest 2 disc special edition!!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

breakingarrows · 6 years

Text

Media Journal Week of July 16-22

Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception

My love for the Ace Combat series is deep. Shattered Skies remains one of my favorite games of all time for its depiction of an occupied city from the perspective of a child who has grown up and is writing about his life during this troublesome time. The Unsung War is one I haven’t played as much or as recently, but I have fond memories of the tight group of fighter pilots you form progressing through its very long campaign. Ace Combat X has a story that has failed to engage me so far, but makes adjustments to gameplay missions that are keeping me interested. A special weapon requires you to keep the target in your reticule until it makes contact, which is suddenly a much more engaging mechanic than the simple lock on system. Missions require you to avoid enemy radar, defend sections of a ground force, eliminate enemies with on and off radar/lock on capabilities, and wipe out the enemy before they can make it to a certain location. This variety has already gone far and beyond above previous entries in the franchise, and make the portable entry feel like it wasn’t held back by the hardware, even if the missions do feel like they contain way less enemies and dole them out in waves during specific ones. The narrative from the civilian perspective this time involves a journalist who seems a bit resigned to his post covering a one sided war that is just now tipping in favor of my playable character’s nation. The journalist discovers the poverty the rogue nation is experiencing is fueled by their leader siphoning foreign aid into the military and pushing war as a means of funding his own production company which, sure, I guess nobody else found that out beforehand. It feels early and that there is still more ground to cover, but it lacks the immediate engagement of Shattered Skies, whose introduction had our narrator treat his parents deaths as passively as Yellow 13 did when he shot down the fighter that crashed into their home.

Demon’s Souls

I still laugh whenever I think about the title. Due to playing Dark Souls with Trevor for a video series I have been itching to spend more time with that series, but can’t with Dark Souls since that is cheating so after watching hbomberguy’s video on Dark Souls 2 and some other ancillary media I ended up booting up a new game in Demon’s Souls whose servers have been put to rest. Nevertheless I found myself enjoying the game and cutting through the early content at a much better pace that I expected, mostly thanks to a two handed Bastard Sword, my latent knowledge from my original playthrough, and the occasional guide hint from my phone. I made it through 1-1 and 1-2 with relative ease, got to the boss of 2-1 after some difficulty and decided to start 3-1 and made much more progress by myself than I ever had before. Something hbomberguy discussed was about playing the game “right” which wasn’t so much a disdainful statement towards those who are playing “wrong” but more about adjusting the way you play depending on what the game is throwing at you, such as when and when not to use a shield, lock on, dodge rolls, etc. This is why I chose a Barbarian class to start out instead of the usual shield and armor focused classes I always gravitate towards. As soon as I found a two handed weapon I knew I wanted to try to take my armor-less barbarian as far as she could go using large weapons and rarely holding a shield up. And its worked out pretty well. Despite dodge rolling sometimes feeling a little cheap, such as getting hit when dodging backwards more often than not, I still have found that I like making my way around enemies for openings more than blocking and attempting parries with a shield. I still have one on-hand in case of emergencies but I would say a large majority of my playthrough has been either two handed or with a catalyst for soul arrows in my left hand.

Final Fantasy VII

This was also inspired by another source, this one being the Abnormal Mapping two part episode covering this PlayStation classic. I’ve always had a fond love of Cloud’s adventure, especially the first disc, and decided to start a new game on my PSP in order to relive that magic once again. The beginning sections are as charming as I remember, and also remind me how silly the game can be. The sprites aren’t exactly the most detailed and rely on exagerrated movement to show emotions. This is mirrored by the dialogue. Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie continue to endear me with their attempts to break through Cloud’s tough guy facade. They’re so genuine in their mission as well as their attempts to befriend someone who, even when I choose the less mean dialogue options, still comes off as aloof. That is what makes their loss so impactful when it happens, Cloud never truly opened up to them even though that was all they desired was another friend for their group. Jessie and her gadgetry, Biggs and his own tough guy facade, Wedge who wore his feelings on his sleeve. These were characters I liked and wanted to learn more about and see succeed in their goals, but instead they get killed off by Shinra and are never really mentioned again, another casualty of Avalanche’s war. It even manages to fit this loss into the tone, which can very often get silly as I previously mentioned. Things like Cloud’s crossdressing quest where he scavenges female clothing items from various individuals throughout the wall market have humor to them, even if the actual crossdressing is treated as just something people do without unnecessary judgement from those aiding you. Barrett punches Biggs into the camera, the weapons shop at the intro has various characters referencing the gamepad and save points and treasure chests talk directly to the player explaining their purpose and function. While a majority of the mood, as supplemented by the music, can be very melancholy, it also makes time for more lighthearted affairs which I really appreciate.

Rage

I finally booted up Rage. I’m not quite sure why. I own it so I guess I should get my $2.99 worth out of it. I think the installation was longer than my playtime overall. I played the introduction and the bandit hideout mission. It was okay. That texture pop-in really is a bitch though. The movement feels good even if the pistol feels like it has no bite to it. I’ll get back to this one eventually.

North by Northwest

Another Hitchcock film where a hapless advertising man gets mistaken for a spy and gets involved in some hijinks. Holds the annoying feature I also didn’t like in Vertigo where some woman instantly falls in love with our male lead for no real reason other than the plot demands it. Even then the plot doesn’t really demand it, it just happens? Despite that North by Northwest is still enjoyable even if it seemingly goes on for so long. We reached what I thought might end up being the wrap up but it just continued onwards. Watching Cary Grant bumble around was a lot of fun, especially considering he didn’t even understand the script which Hitchcock loved apparently. The part early on where he is driving drugged is really hilarious. A Fun Fact TM Catelyn informed me of was that Grant is left of center frame for pretty much the entire film, which I feel has some deeper meaning to it but I have’t found or thought of anything yet to explain it.

Godzilla King of the Monsters

They’re making another Godzilla film and the first trailer released and its, fine. The monster on monster action looks like it will be good, as does the shots showing the size of the monsters when compared to humanity which is neat with current CGI. Something I’m still not a fan of is the continued insistence to place human characters into these monster films. Godzilla (2014) suffered mainly for placing a character I couldn’t give a fuck about as the center lead and not giving Godzilla much time. This one is apparently seeking to rectify the latter problem but I’m not seeing much improvement for the former. For one instead of a generic white guy soldier lead they have a preteen who, wow if you wanted to go in the wrong direction you sure have done it. Also we have some women talking about how humanity is a sickness and the giant monsters are presumably nature reacting to remove us, which, is just them spelling out one of the major themes of Godzilla The Franchise: that Godzilla was nature’s reaction to humanity’s capability for destruction. Shin Godzilla’s interpretation has that haunting last image because it was evolving to become the most destructive force possible: its own twisted version of humanity. As a group working together we are capable of much good but also much destruction, and so Godzilla was evolving to take advantage of that power as well for our destruction, and we just barely managed to stop it in time. Shin Godzilla is so fucking good and I hate that most people focus on the silly looking 2nd form.

Speaking of Hideki Anno

Evangelion 3.0+1.0 teaser

Someone got offhand footage of a short teaser clip for Rebuild 4 showcasing Mari in her Unit with new rotating arms shooting and spinning above a red sea with the Next Time remix music playing. It gives a window of 2020 for its release, which, okay sure. I’ll believe it when I see it and the teaser itself doesn’t really do much for me. The Rebuild movies have been up and down. 1.0 is a good remake of the first batch of episodes. 2.0 does its own thing and I really love the finale for that one. 3.0 diverges greatly and I think is kinda a mess. It has been awhile since 3.0 though so who knows what the fuck Anno has planned for this next one.

I discovered this cut of a Return of the Jedi trailer that imagines a world in which David Lynch directed the third Star Wars film and its great.

I mentioned hbomberguy earlier but I wanted to point out his videos are really, really well done. Great editing and humor skits thrown in the midst of great analysis works on movies, games, and media at large. I especially loved his Serious Sonic Lore Analysis that features a very creepy but also hilarious cosplay.

Goodnight Moon has been putting out a bunch of ASMR videos if you’re into that (which I totally am). Her babblebrook series is fucking stellar and I am super invested in seeing whatever she does next with it.

I was reminded Firefest was a thing Mega64 thankfully attended.

I glanced through that Uncharted fan film and came away with the realization that those characters really are just tropes and whatever could be done with them has already been done over the course of five separate games.

Metric released their first single from the upcoming untitled Album named Dark Saturday and its pretty great.

JJJ in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films is the best.

#Criticism #writing

0 notes