blog dot ry

a journal of games // anime // films // television

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Wildlife

2018 Film Directed by Paul Dano Written by Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan

Wildlife is a quiet film about the intricacies of a struggling lower class family. Much of the story is told from the perspective of Joe, the young teenage son of the family. We watch as he navigates a life in turmoil, having recently moved to a new town, watching his prideful father attempting to find employment, while his mother has to step in to support the family. The increasingly fraught marriage dissolves in front of our eyes - Joe’s eyes. 

This film frames their conflicts incredibly well, with subtly and depth. Everyone in Joe’s life is flawed; they make poor decisions. However, much like in real life, it’s more complicated than to simply label them as bad people. Jeanette’s infidelity, and Jerry’s determination to make something of himself is just another way of surviving those difficult times. And from Joe’s viewpoint, we’re always left trying to understand the why’s. These whirlwind of events, his mother disappearing at night to presumably, another man’s home, or his father leaving for a long period of time to fight a terrible forest fire, as well as just trying to figure out how to live as a teenager leave a lot of questions to be answered. We know that these questions don’t always have answers, but the admirable strength that Joe shows is that despite these frustrating times, he tries to be the adult that neither parent can be, to be the bedrock of the family. 

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EXAPUNKS

2018 Video Games Produced by Zachtronics

As I mentioned with Opus Magnum, EXAPUNKS segued perfectly from my interest in scripting with Python. Though this game shares the same mindset and framework as Opus Magnum, it is vastly different. You are literally scripting. In EXAPUNKS, you have to learn the language they’ve created for this game. It is extremely limited and that’s why its approachable, but challenging nonetheless. 

EXAPUNKS ramps up in difficulty quite quickly. Essentially, each puzzle challenges you to parse data in specific ways. There’s a visualizer for your script, but unlike Opus Magnum, the concepts are abstract: the solutions are largely worked out in your mind. One of the first missions requires you to retrieve a file from a Russian research network. You’re not sure which host this file is in, so you soon resort to brute forcing your way through Canaries (I learnt this real programming term a lot later on the EXAPUNKS wiki). Another mission has you dispensing all available cash from ATMs. The challenge here is that the number of connected ATMs are random, and you must dispense only the amount that each ATM has, or else it’ll cause an alarm.

The latter missions increase their complexity by several fold. One has you entering the US Government DNA database, to make it seem like one person is the clone of another. The final mission itself is absolutely ridiculous. There’s usually an exponential but steady increase in difficulty between each mission. The jump between the penultimate and the ultimate mission, however, is incredibly high. I had to shut the game down after realizing what the challenge was. 

What makes this game interesting is that your code needs to be robust. Each puzzle has 100 test variations, so you can’t make any specific references. At times, EXAPUNKS feels like a chore. I can only handle doing 1 or 2 puzzles in a session as it expends most of my brainpower. But when you do accomplish the task, it feels incredibly satisfying! That is until the results screen tells you the size of your solution is too big, so you cannot compare your results with anybody else... This happened to me twice. The first time, I went in and optimized my solution so I was slightly under the size budget, but the second time was the final mission, and I did not have any more energy to look at that script again. 

The game is wrapped in a nice aesthetic package. Its set in a retro cyberpunk world, where most of the story is told through a chat server. The story itself is interesting; at times you must hack your own body because you have a debilitating disease known as the Phage, which transforms your body parts into computer parts. I also bought a limited edition package of zines (there are also digital versions) which furthers the world building, as well as being necessary in understanding how some of the systems in the puzzles work. It’s a strange game with very disparate parts, but one that is highly rewarding. 

+ The greatest thing about this game is that, although it doesn’t teach you a programming language, it teaches you scripting logic. Learning scripting usually involves two components, the syntax and the logic. Learning the logic is by far the hardest, and these puzzles helps you wrap your head around it.  

- It took me until the second last mission to realize that Activities play in sequence, and calculations are played in sync across multiple EXAs. (I knew the former, but didn’t know the latter. It would have made counting cycles less random.)

- My final solution is such a mess. I hope I’ll go back one day to figure out a better solution. I’ll probably end up watching someone else’s solution instead.

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Adventure Time: Stakes

2015 TV Miniseries Story by Pendleton Ward, Kent Osborne, Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis Produced by Cartoon Network

I started watching Adventure Time around 4 years ago. That was around the time Steven Universe started hitting its stride, and my friends wouldn’t stop talking about it. I decided to start watching Adventure Time in addition to Steven Universe, because I’ve always had a passing interest in it, and I knew of its immense influence (for example, Rebecca Sugar, the creator of Steven Universe came from working on Adventure Time). 

Over the next year, I watched about 5 seasons of the show, and slowly fizzled out of it. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it, but the episodic nature of it made it a bit harder to keep up with. Despite the boundless creativity, there wasn’t a hook to keep you coming back other than the visual spectacle. That’s what made Steven Universe so enticing, it was mired with filler episodes, but at the right moments, it kept doling out pieces of its world in important ways. 

Watching Adventure Time throughout those first 5 seasons, you can see that it does some of that world building, but never in substantial ways. When the series announced its final season, I thought it would be the right time to see the series to its conclusion. And I’m glad I did! With their miniseries Stakes (and a bunch of episodes leading up to it), they answered my need. It is unfortunate that when I stopped watching the series in 2016, was when they started doing more world building on a regular basis. But I am here now. 

Stakes is everything I wanted from Adventure Time. A good story that had room to breathe with some of my favourite characters in the series. I enjoyed the focus on Marceline and Princess Bubblegum, as well as the unique character designs of the vampires. This run of episodes made me realize how heavily influenced the show is by video games and Dungeons and Dragons. Finally, the song at the end sung by Marceline (written by Rebecca Sugar!), “Everything Stays” is simply beautiful. 

This is the first of three miniseries, and I can feel a sense of momentum building with their storytelling. I cannot wait to finish the series.  

+ The new intro is a great change for the miniseries. It’s also animated by Science SARU. As well, the end credits use an instrumental part of “Everything Stays”. 

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All Our Asias

2018 Video Game Created by Sean Han Tani

It was only natural that when I first heard of All Our Asias, I would be attracted to the subject matter. I am Chinese Canadian, and questions about belonging and nationality have recently been on my mind. I thought, being of similar origins to the creator and the subject, I would gain a lot from it. 

Ironically, that line of thought is challenged by the game’s thesis. In its final moments, the game expresses the notion that sharing the same origin does not equate to instantly connecting with one another. 

The game starts with the omniscient narrator asking, “Does it mean anything to say you’re both Asian?” All Our Asias is set in the near future, where Yuito, a Japanese American seeks to understand his estranged father, who is lying on his deathbed, through entering his memories. There is an implied frustration with Yuito, where he feels he should be able to implicitly relate to his father, but slowly this line of reasoning starts to dissolve. 

At the start, Yuito finds himself unable to communicate with anybody in a Japanese government building, because he is unable to speak the language. By the end, he is tasked with helping out struggling restaurants, and he finds himself wanting to help out a Korean restaurant in particular. His father’s friend bluntly challenges this notion. What makes the Korean restaurant a more favourable choice? Is it because Yuito shares the same colour of skin, the same regional origin? Why should he feel any sort of bias towards them over any other ethnicity? 

The game is quite simple, the controls are archaic, and the pacing is slow, but the message is profoundly relatable. I am guilty of such line of thought and often it is entirely an unconscious bias. Throughout primary and secondary school, I was friends with every Chinese kid. There wasn’t many of us, so this wasn’t difficult. When it came to university, there was a substantially larger ratio of Chinese/Asian students. From there, most of my friends were Asian. Part of the reason was wholly understandable, our group had mutual interests (more on the side of video games and sports, less on the side of drinking and drugs), but at the same time, there’s something to be said about the drastic change in environment; there were more people that looked like me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found my niche, so the types of people I meet and befriend have grown broader. But the bias will always be there, and I have to be conscious of it.

+ Nostalgic retro graphics that harken to the PS1 and N64 era. It really does set a unique mood for a sombre game. 

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Dragon Ball Super: Broly

2018 Anime Film Directed by Tatsuya Nagamine Written by Akira Toriyama Produced by Toei Animation

Dragon Ball Super: Broly follows the long lineage of Dragon Ball movies: shallow representations of the classic series. Broly doesn’t manage to escape from this trajectory, however there are several positive takeaways from this movie. As a retelling of the last days of Planet Vegeta, it is by far the most engaging story told by any of the Dragon Ball movies. It is also supported by the best and most coherent visual style in all of Dragon Ball, often both visually loud and restrained in colour palette variation at the same time. 

Despite all of that, the biggest issue is how uneven the pacing is. It spends the first half of the movie dumping all this history on the viewer (mostly with dialogue, which isn’t Dragon Ball’s strong suit), and the second half with a single confrontation. Dragon Ball is known for its overlong dragged out fights, but this takes the cake. So you end up with the first half of the movie with too much dialogue, and the second half with ridiculously unsettling screaming. This is at its most absurd when Broly manages to get an upper hand on Goku, and we end up with a seemingly endless sequence of Goku screaming as if being exorcised. 

It is what it is. Funny enough though, despite my reservations with Broly, I am satisfied that this movie is part of the canon, and they’ve introduced Broly as a permanent cast to the series. I’m excited for what this means for the future of Dragon Ball Super, and await its return. 

+ Part of the reason to watch this movie is that with a bigger budget for a movie, we get to see greater detail in animation for the fights. It largely delivers, with the most memorable moment being when Goku is getting ready for the fight by jumping up and down. 

- Until it doesn’t deliver. The production seemingly used up all its budget when 3 prominent fight scenes resort to 3DCG. It’s incredibly jarring, especially since one of flashiest moments, when Goku and Vegeta uses their signature moves in tandem is rendered in this way, feeling anti-climactic. It also just looks like the video game Dragon Ball FighterZ, which makes me wonder if there was any involvement with Arc System Works. 

- Two songs from the soundtrack were oddly distracting. It’s the one where they’re chanting either KAKAROT or GOGETA. 

- Freiza killing Paragus as a humourous moment is a strange choice.  

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Maquia

2018 Anime Film Directed by Mari Okada Written by Mari Okada Produced by P.A. Works

Mari Okada is one of the rare writers in anime that is recognizable by name. Whenever she is attached to a project (usually with studio P.A. Works), interests are peaked. As prolific as she is, her body of work is often divisive. Her writing style seems to work perfectly with few scenarios, often involving teenagers in modern-day Japan, yet as she’s become more prominent, many of her projects have come at odds with her strengths. Perhaps our fascination with Okada is when she is in her element, she is able to create stories that push the emotional boundaries of anime. No one does it as good as her, in the same way as her, and every project she takes, we’re hoping that it’ll reach those heights. 

Maquia is an incredibly interesting project from its announcement, primarily because it serves as the first project where Okada has stepped into the role as director. Unfortunately, Maquia is one that misses the mark. For a directorial debut, it is perfectly competent: it’s a beautiful looking film. However, as it often does, it comes down to her writing. I think this is one of the cases where the scenario does not match Okada’s strength. 

The world building, large in scope, becomes unnecessarily convoluted. Not only does the movie encompass the lifespan of a single character but there is a deeper lore that feels largely inconsequential. I never understood what the significance of the Hibiol was, or why Renatos weren’t just called “dragons”. Treating all of this with less reverence would have shifted the focus more onto Okada’s strengths, that of characters and their emotions. 

Yet, when it comes to the characters, one can’t help but feel that her trademark emotionally manipulative writing is too obvious and laid to bare without any of the subtleties and intricacies seen in her best works. The titular character, Maquia is of a clan of people that live several times longer than a typical human. She adopts a baby boy, Ariel, amidst the chaos of war and by the end of the story, she finds Ariel, an aged old man, on his deathbed and must suffer the pain of living long past her son. The scene is engineered to make you weep uncontrollably, yet it felt so disingenuous. The whole construct of this movie was created for this single scene and I can’t help but think there could be a more elegant way to achieve this.  

+ Beautiful visuals and setting. The Iorph village, the forging city of Dorail, and the castle of Mezarte.

- Over abundance of shallow characters that aren’t given room to breathe. To the credit of the movie, these characters are largely unpredictable, but without justification, it’s hard to empathize. Leilia’s devotion to her kidnappers as a consequence of being impregnated by the Prince is an interested plot point that never goes rewarded. 

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Hirune Hime

2017 Anime Film Directed by Kenji Kamiyama Written by Kenji Kamiyama Produced by Signal.MD

When it was announced that Kenji Kamiyama had a new film project, I started to remember and reflect on his previous projects (Ghost in the Shell S.A.C., Eden of the East and Moribito). I was excited, but tempered my expectations. The pitch sounded like it could go either way, and though he had directed excellent series, most of his best work were adapted from source material (and I would say his original work, Eden of the East, was his weakest). 

Unfortunately, I was correct in my original assessment. The movie ends up being full of interesting characters with story elements with great potential, but it never fully lives up to that. Kokone is a wonderful protagonist. She’s smart, confident, knows what she wants, but isn’t overly bratty about it. Morio is a great supporting character too, and I like how they never feel the need to focus on a romantic relationship between the two. The sole focus is on family: Kokone’s relationship to her father, mother and ultimately, her family history. 

What never worked for me was the dual concurrent settings. There was already seeds of interesting storytelling within their version of Japan, and layering a fantastical alternate setting seemed completely unnecessary. It never added anything to the film and felt tacked on because of some misguided principle that an animated film needs to be fantastical and have visual flair. It posed a very distracting question as well, whether this dream world affects the real world, which is was largely inconsequential. All the major resolutions happen within reality. The robot “Heart” that was featured prominently in the promos for the movie never really gets much screen time. 

+ I’ve always enjoyed Satoko Morikawa’s character designs (Eden of the East) so it’s always nice to see more of that, especially on the big screen which affords more budget for animation. 

+ There’s a great variety of settings that gets explored in this film, from the countryside to the dense cityscapes. Along with the colour palette and lighting, the movie makes the world very inviting. 

- As a someone who enjoys cultural tourism, I was dismayed that the trip between the countryside to Osaka, to Tokyo was compressed to transition scenes. 

- The possibility of self driving cars, and AI-controlled vehicles could have been a “fantastical” subject in itself.

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Castlevania

2017-2018 TV Series (Season 1 & 2) Developed by Adi Shankar Written by Warren Ellis

Over break, I managed to catch up on Castlevania. I’ve long heard about the series and the praise that it has been getting, and as an intersection between animation and video games, I was eager to check it out. My history with Castlevania has been very short. My only experience is with Castlevania: Circle of the Moon on the Gameboy Advance (which was great), though I couldn’t tell you anything about its story. Story isn’t the reason we play these games.

So imagine my surprise when the first episode is explicit with lore and mythology, and it’s very well done! I was fully engrossed in learning about their version of the history of Dracula. 

The premiere episode was relentless in pacing and tone, yet immediately afterwards, starting with the second episode, it shifts to something much more sombre and quiet. It was an unexpected direction that you would probably not associate with this franchise, but it was much appreciated. The focus on the characters and their listlessness in these dire times was extremely appropriate and served to highlight the horror of the hell that they are in.

Despite that, for me, it never recaptured the magic of the first episode. The ending of the first season was satisfying, though it was largely setup for the second season. For me, I enjoyed the tightness to the story that comes from being constrained to four episodes. With eight episodes in the second season, they had much more room to breathe, adding more characters and expanding the lore. It felt bloated, since much of the focus of the second season was on setting up these new characters. It falls back to the type of pacing that plagued season one; though I appreciated the subtle quietness of the series, it mostly became too much about setting up the final confrontation, or on characters I didn’t find as interesting as the main ones. 

They do wrap up the story quite neatly at the end, so it’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here when next season arrives. 

+ Castlevania is a wonder of a piece of architecture. It’s so exquisitely designed, that I find myself fascinated every time it’s on screen. 

+ The anachronistic qualities that Belmont discovers when he first enters the underground made me realize how strange the architecture of Castlevania really is. It really makes the castle mysterious and enchanting, yet eerie and dreadful at the same time. It’s the perfect quality to heighten this atmosphere: the fear of the unknown. 

+ Continuing on from the futuristic architecture, Alucard’s resting place is an amazing piece of set design. 

- I never quite bought into the characters of Hector and Isaac. The second season spends a lot of focus on building their characters up, yet I find that it lessens the focus on the core characters. As a result of that, they put too much emphasis on the final confrontation between Alucard and Dracula, when there could have been smaller confrontations throughout the series to expand their relationship. 

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Roma

2018 Film Directed by Alfonso Cuaron Written by Alfonso Cuaron

I originally wanted to see Roma during TIFF, but tickets were quickly sold out. However, I learned that sooner rather than later, I’d be able to watch it on Netflix. Though I’m sure the theatre experience is vastly different, the immediacy of being able to watch it was a bonus. 

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron, this movie is any but similar to his most recent projects. The subject matter is far removed from the grand futuristic scales of Children of Men or Gravity and is centred around reality, based on Cuaron’s memories of his childhood neighbourhood in the 1970′s. To that end, the painstaking details to recreate 1970′s version of Colonia Roma in Mexico City perhaps surpasses his previous productions. 

This film is very self indulgent. It is clearly a movie for the crafts. It is gorgeously shot, with very memorable compositions. Running through the city streets (Avenida Insurgentes), the forest fire at the hacienda, or the beautiful fields in the countryside right afterwards. Though ultimately, it’s the house that we return to. The way the film is shot, you really feel like you understand all the intimate details of the house. The layout becomes very familiar.

At the end of the day, the film is called Roma. There are characters, and there are intertwining stories, but they come together to tell the story of this particular neighbourhood in Mexico City. It seems cliche, but the city is the main character, and never has that been truer than for this film. 

+ One of the best techniques used multiple times in the film, is a wide shot depicting a busy part of the neighbourhood. The shot is long, and your focus ends up wandering, looking at the different actions in each part of the frame, until suddenly, you recognize one of the named characters walking prominently into view. The camera starts to move as you’ve acknowledged the character, but that’s when you realize that that the character was there all along, making their way through the bustling cityscape.  

+ For all the detail that goes into understanding the layout of the architectures presented in the cinematography, the final shot, as the camera tilts up in the courtyard, is an amazing reveal of the walkway to the rooftop. 

+ Plenty of Cuaron’s trademark long shots.

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Opus Magnum

2017 Video Game Produced by Zachtronics

This was my first foray into a Zachtronics game. I played it near the beginning of 2018, finished a chapter, and stopped. It was a terrific experience, but not something I was entirely in the mood for. At the beginning of 2019, with their release of EXAPUNKS, I thought I would go back into Opus Magnum before delving into their latest release. And boy, was I in the mood for it.

Over the last year, my interest in programming increased. I slowly learned a bit of Python, and something clicked. Scripting was fun. That’s why EXAPUNKS interested me (but we’ll get into that in another post). And with Opus Magnum, I found that after I returned to it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I could have optimized my last solution, how I could have used less area or less materials. 

Zachtronics games are in a completely separate category of video games. Their puzzles are essentially sandboxes where they give you the most robust toolkit with the smallest amount of parameters. This ultimately creates a wealth of possibilities. With measurable results, you can endlessly tweak your solutions until they are perfect. 

They also neatly wrap their puzzles within a storytelling framework. I have to say, though the story told in Opus Magnum isn’t a revelation, how they work the puzzles into the story, and the world they’ve created, it’s quite a feat. The steampunk aesthetic, especially with the GIF-able puzzle solutions, create a mesmerizing result. 

+ A well packaged experience. From the game design, to the aesthetics, to the writing, everything has been thought through to the highest degree.

+ I only finished the main chapters. I haven’t even begun to explore “Production Alchemy” and the “Journal” which presents the most difficult challenges. 

+ I rarely used the pushers because they felt like cheating. I also never mastered the multi-grabbers or the use of tracks. 

+ I almost always focus a lot of my time into making the organization look good, when most of the time the end result always looked good regardless. 

- This game requires a lot of thinking, which could sometimes be a chore. If you’re in the mood or you revel in that, then great. If not, you’d best play something else for the time being. At least it is very visual, allowing you to test experiments on the screen.

PS. These are some of the more mesmerizing solutions I created. They’re not optimal, but they look decently cool!

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The Gardens Between

2018 Video Game Produced by The Voxel Agents

Puzzle games usually have a single solution. This is usually obscured by the variety of tools you can use or a series of logic gates you have to progress through to arrive at the answer. When the toolkit or number of rules are robust enough, multiple solutions arises to solve that puzzle

The Gardens Between is not that. It is a deterministic puzzle game with very linear and narrow reasoning. There is only one way to finish each puzzle, and because of that, you can largely solve each level without needing to truly understand the reasoning behind it. 

Looking at it from that lens, it doesn’t seem like a very good puzzle game. However, it is a subtly beautiful and surreal adventure game. The interplay between the layers of elements in the world are very novel. Each level usually has a unique mechanic that isn’t repeated in future levels. That in itself is worthy of praise; none of the mechanics overstay their welcome, and make the base mechanics feel less repetitive. 

+ The splitting off of the pathways between the two main characters add a slight twist to the linear progression of the level. Requires you to think about the appropriate sequence of events. 

+ Examples of how the layers of the level interact with each other: Figuring out the code to the computer, or the storytelling within the graffiti affecting the world.

+ The story is very vague, reminiscing on memories, ultimately leading to a sad but satisfying end. It works particularly well with the ephemeral dreamlike aesthetics. 

- From a presentation standpoint, it seemed like they were going for seamless transitions from menu to map to level. However, they weren’t perfectly seamless (there were cuts), and playing it on the Switch had long load times which effectively ruining these transitions.

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This Week in Anime : 1/13/2019

This past week was the start of the new season of anime. Here are some quick thoughts on the shows I’ve started to watch:

Dororo

It’s incredibly nice to see this 1960′s manga from Tezuka Osamu get a modern adaptation that works this well. It’ll be interesting to see if this series is more episodic or serial.

Mob Psycho 100 II

With Tachikawa Yuzuru and BONES returning to helm the sequel, it was a given that this would be every bit as great as the first series. It’s amazing how densely packed this premiere was, going through three subplots with perfect pacing, ending on a spectacular sequence that’ll be talked about for the rest of the season.

Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki Atama no Ue.

The show starts off fairly slowly with a character that isn’t instantly likeable, however it slowly wears you down with the genuine loving interactions from the cat. Switching to the cat’s perspective and retelling the first half of the episode was a novel choice that certainly elevated the storytelling. It’ll be interesting to see if they continue with this formula. I’m also surprised how much I like the cat’s design, given that they just slapped human anime eyes on her. 

The Promised Neverland

This episode moves. They start the series off with a bang, and though it is expected that this idyllic setting isn’t what it seems, the twist still had a strong impact. Although the story isn’t unique in itself, it’ll be interesting to see how they up the ante going forward. 

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai

Of the premieres, this episode was the most questionable one of them all. The production of the episode was quite good, with a lot of unique camera cuts and snappy pacing. However, it’s hard to say how long this premise can go on for without being tiresome. Is the trick then to get the two main characters together in a relationship earlier? 

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Night on the Galactic Railroad

1985 Anime Film Directed by Gisaburo Sugii Written by Minoru Betsuyaku Produced by Group TAC

I recently finished Mawaru Penguindrum and it references Night on the Galactic Railroad. So, I decided to watch the 1985 anime version of it. It helped clarify the connections to this literary work in Penguindrum (and consequently 2014′s Giovanni’s Island, which I watched a while back), though I haven’t fully grasped all the imagery and metaphors prevalent in this movie.

It could be my lack of understanding, but I found this a chore to sit through. The pacing is plodding, and the action is often static. With a focus on ruminating dialogue, the severe lack of facial expressions in almost all the characters bars any emotional connection to them. Often, I was staring at a lot of blank faces for an inordinate amount of time. At that point, I might as well be reading the original book. 

+ The festival scene is the only lively piece of animation. It serves as a reminder, that even though pacing was different 30 years ago, it shouldn’t be so different that it would necessarily bore the viewers.

- As been said above, the lack of facial animation limits the movie. There are examples in the movie, like the devilish Zanelli, where characters can emote with their faces. Staring off into the distance in anime during the 80s is hard...

- Why are the characters cats? A few humans show up later in the movie, so why aren’t all characters cats?

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Into the Breach

2018 Video Game Produced by Subset Games

I had waited very patiently believing this game would inevitably be released on the Switch. I immediately picked it up after its surprise launch at the end of August as it seemed like the perfect game for the road trip I was about to embark on.

We played it briefly, with a friend who had already finished the game on the PC when it was released earlier in the year. I knew I immediately liked this game, more so than Subset’s previous game FTL, but I had yet to find the rhythm and understand the idiosyncrasies of the game. So I only played one brief run for about 30 minutes to an hour, and probably met my doom in the first island. 

I continued a second run when I got home, and showed it to some friends at work. By the third run, something clicked. I understood exactly how to play the game. It wasn’t about keeping your Mechs alive, it was about keeping all your buildings untouched. It wasn’t about killing the Vek, but about keeping them from attacking properly. I got to a point where I innately understood the importance of positioning and keeping your Mechs centrally located so as not be out of position. 

By the time I got to the third island, I was completing all the objectives and virtually took no damage. My pilots were almost max level, and I had all the upgrades I needed. I was in the groove. I finished the third island, and then... I stopped.

I think it became very daunting to be playing so perfectly, but knowing you’re near the end, and that you can still lose it all (mostly because the next two islands were still unknown). I finally returned to my playthrough recently, amidst all the game of the year conversations, and fully determined, I pushed through and finished it. 

+ The thing I love about this game is that it is more puzzle like than strategy like. Everything feels solvable, nothing is left to chance. Much like in chess, there is a necessity to think (sometimes for a very long time) before making your move. 

+ To that end, I didn’t appreciate the limit of one reset per mission, until realizing the joy of taking the time to think and plan. As well, the problem is easily avoidable since you can infinitely undo movement; your moves are locked in only when you use your action (attack, repair etc.). If you had infinite resets, you’d be making moves without thinking about the consequences.

+ The focus is on the low level micro gameplay, but the high level macro gameplay is fascinating as well. You need to apply the same principals of planning to which mission you choose, which pilots you choose, and which upgrades to have. Which mission you choose will have an effect on your resources, which will in turn affect which upgrades you’ll be able to buy. 

+ I’m excited to try out all the different squads. It seems daunting at first, because all the interactions are now different. But knowing that if you just take the time to think, the game is still ultimately the same, makes it easy to jump into. 

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Patema Inverted

2013 Anime Film Directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura Written by Yasuhiro Yoshiura Produced by Purple Cow Studios Japan

I finally got around to watching Patema Inverted. After seeing Time of Eve and Pale Cocoon, Yoshiura established himself as a provocative science fiction writer, that created a futuristic believable world with a lot of depth, but focused on the individual human stories. 

Unfortunately Patema Inverted does not live up to these expectations. This movie ultimately is an amazing premise that never fully executes on its potential. The idea that there are different levels in the world with inverted gravity relative to each other, speaks to the game designer within me. Not only is it game like, but how the shots are framed with two very opposing perspectives of the same location is a very novel challenge. It’s coherent, most of the time.

Where it fails is, sadly, the world building. Everything feels very cliche. A dictatorship that espouses a utopia based on the rejection of flying. There’s a distinct lack of character development, all the characters are shallow, and even the most dramatic shifts are unwarranted. Age, the main hero, changes from a calm quiet kid, to one with a hot headed temper when dealing with Porta for the first time. 

In previous projects, Yoshiura was a master of leaving a lot of things unsaid, whether it was character interactions, or exposition dumps of the world. Everything was revealed very naturally. This film, however, felt the need for the viewer to understand as much as the world as possible. 

+ By the time the world fully unravels the truth near the end, your head becomes very twisted, trying to sort out the different layers of the earth and their respective gravity. I was fully expecting a third civilization to crop up, only to realize after the twist that I was wrong to think that.

- The story is held together by terrible coincidences, the worst of which is when Age miraculously opens a locked fence (how?) just as Porta shows up from the underground.

- There’s a lot of strange cuts and editing techniques. For a movie that could already be very confusing because of the inverted perspectives, having a muddied camera language really doesn’t help. Many scenes fade out strangely and some scenes are half frame rate (to denote a memory, but I found it very jarring). The strangest of editing choices was when multiple times throughout the movie, it would unceremoniously cut from one scene, to a very brief scene of a different location with different characters (sometimes wordless and confusing), and then directly to a third scene (to another location and other characters). 

[rlhy]

Mass Effect Retrospective

2010-2012 Video Game Produced by BioWare

Mass Effect 2 is one of my favourite video games ever. Despite that, DLC add-ons were a fairly new concept at the time, so I was pretty resistant on buying any of the content that came out. I’ve heard how great of an experience Lair of the Shadow Broker was or how vital Leviathan was to the lore, so after I got used to the new landscape of paid add-ons, I had every intention to return to these one day.

I finally played them ... 8 years later. 

The good news is, the games still hold up! I had to replay the first half of ME2 because my saves were deleted and I was filled with a gleeful nostalgia. It’s also interesting jumping from Mass Effect 2 and 3, and seeing the subtle and not-so-subtle changes between the two. 

The addition of 4 directional combat roll and indicators for changing cover. This is a major overhaul that made movement much improved. Camera is still quite tight around Shepard, which makes it hard to be aware of your surroundings, and easier to get stuck in level geometry. 

ME3 felt like a quieter game. As such, it felt less epic and more lonely.

ME3 has what seems to be more loading doors. Either that, or the new animation for bypassing doors make it much more obvious that they were loading doors. 

ME3 also made use of seamless camera transitions at the end of most of their cinematics. This wasn’t used in ME2. 

As a general note, all the DLC missions exacerbated the issues with level design that to this day we’re still struggling with. That is to say, the mission flow follows the basic progression of Combat Arena > Cinematic > Repeat. The best missions got away from this by starting with a low-key search for clues in a smaller environment. This resulted in a stronger story exposition.

ME3 DLC felt larger in scope than the ME2 DLC, but with the same budget. As a result, it felt like the cinematics lacked the same impact and polish.

Kasumi - Stolen Memory

+ The mansion is one of the more exquisitely designed locations in the series and the objectives of the mission are a nice diversion away from standard combat interactions. There are also multiple ways to accomplish each objective, which I learned afterwards.

- The vault area devolved into combat way too soon. I was hoping to spend more time in it with more meaningful interaction (similar to the mansion). 

- The majority of the mission involves a series of overlong combat arenas, ending with an exhausting fight with a helicopter. 

Overlord

+ The story line of the rogue VI is an interesting and ambitious premise though falls short of the expectations that come with this classic sci-fi conceit of man merging with machine. 

+ The visuals of the rogue VI are very cool, especially during the boss fight. It reminds me of Rez. 

- The Hammerhead controls better than the Mako did in ME1, but ultimately did not make for better gameplay. Platforming over rivers of lava, though a fun diversion at first, were quite annoying by the second or third time.

- The overworld between the missions (where you would drive the Hammerhead around to find one of the three stations) became tedious quickly. Bad checkpointing made accidental deaths a bigger hassle. 

Arrival

+ Great environment design in the final battle, with the looming Mass Effect Relay in the background, getting closer and closer to your location. 

- This DLC was the most dubious of them all, as I mostly remember it as just being a blur of endless combat arenas. It also begins with linear corridor sequences (though it tries to mix it up with a few puzzle switch mechanics). 

- After the vision from Object Rho, fighting 5 waves of enemies felt endless. However, I learned afterwards that you don’t have to survive for the mission to continue.

- It’s also surprising to see that the reason Shepard was back on Earth and being tried in court at the beginning of ME3 was the result of this optional DLC. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one confused when ME3 started. 

Lair of the Shadow Broker

+ By far, the best of the ME2 DLC. Expertly paced with striking improvements in cinematic direction. Dynamic camera shots punched up the action in most of the cutscenes, most noticeable in the Tela Vasir chase. 

+ The skycar chase through Illium is a scenario that I’ve always wanted to experience in a video game. Despite the subpar controls, it nails the atmosphere. 

+ Ending the DLC with a hub room that you can endlessly revisit was a very smart way of ensuring the DLC had a lasting impact on the world. Research Terminals, Dossiers, and conversations with Feron and Liara were very welcome, as well as extra interactions with Liara on board the Normandy. 

- Despite the great pacing, the infiltration of the Shadow Broker base was a slog. The roof of the ship felt labyrinthine to the point where it took me out of the experience. At least the designers had the foresight to keep the interior of the base very short. 

Omega

+ For a package mainly consisting of combat arenas, the mission flow is tightly paced. Each combat encounter doesn’t overstay its welcome, and is greatly helped by the improved combat system in ME3. There are also periods of respite where you regroup at Aria’s base. 

+ They vary up the locales quickly, more so then any other DLC package. The streets of Omega are vivid and it’s a nice touch to end the mission with a return to Afterlife. 

+ Aria and Nyreen are great additions to the team. They do a good job with their relationship, with a lot of words unsaid. 

- Nyreen’s death scene felt very unearned. It felt unnecessary, campy and didn’t serve any purpose.

- After playing Shadow Broker, having the game dump you out to the Normandy unceremoniously after the mission is over, is a slight letdown. 

Leviathan

+ Of the DLCs, Leviathan had the most amount of varied gameplay. Rummaging through the lab to find clues to the Leviathan project, and then using those clues to filter for a location were very welcome. 

+ They establish a decent mission flow, with highs and lows. Combat missions are followed by fact-finding non-combat missions. 

+ I was very glad that the mission ended after the final revealing cinematic. I was half-expecting to fight a few more waves of Reapers. 

- This is a huge omission to the regular game, and arguably should have been included in the base package with a more integrated and fleshed out storyline. 

- Though it’s clear that the end times are coming in the Milky Way Galaxy, this was a DLC that felt like they could have kept combat to a minimum. They do a good job with varying up the gameplay, but each section ends with the Reapers finding you, and you miraculously escape after waves of their horde. 

- The escort mission where you have to guide the drone wasn’t really made for a Vanguard build. 

[rlhy]

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

2018 Film Produced by Sony Pictures Animation

I walked away thinking this was one of the most positive movie-going experiences I’ve had in a long time. It was colourful, energetic, enthusiastic, and incredibly fun. It’s also rare that I come out of something actively wanting a sequel or spin-off, but when they inevitably make a Spider-Verse 2 or a Spider-Gwen feature, I’ll be first in line. 

There’s been enough said about the art style: it’s amazing. With CG animated movies, a lot of the conversations about the visuals usually centre around the technical boundaries that have been pushed. Spider-Verse re-centres the conversations back onto the artistic style and vision. Hopefully this inspires future large productions to focus more on bold artistic styles. 

+ Spider-verse seamlessly blends several different styles together within a single film (comics, manga, film noir, cartoons etc.) Also, Spider-Ham’s outrage at being called “only a cartoon” is a great moment. Will this film be seen as only an animated film?

- There wasn’t enough Spider-Gwen. I didn’t even realize she had a unique art style until the ending montage when her universe was shown. 

- Watching this in 3D was actually quite detrimental. The movie uses a lot of blurring and colour separation around the edges of the frame, which makes for bad stereoscopy. I surreptitiously adjusted my glasses thinking that was the issue, which took me out of the experience.