Vulpes Valentine's Video Game Valley

Tag: science-fiction

  • Recency Bias Volume 5

    Recency Bias Volume 5

    Greetings, boils and ghouls! Welcome to a spoooooooky installment of Recency Bias wherein are found the thrillingest, chillingest, most terrifying…

    OK, I enjoyed some spooky stuff these last few weeks and now I’m going to talk about them.

    <Lightning crashes, a raven cries, a banshee shrieks in the distance>

    Yeah.

    Crow Country

    As I stated in previous posts this month, I’m a relative newbie to survival horror, but it’s a genre I’ve already gained a lot of love and respect for. I spotted Crow Country on The Sphere Hunter’s Youtube channel, where she covers a lot of survival horror classics (I highly recommend her channel!). About a minute or so into the video I closed it and realized I needed to try the game for myself. I added it to my Steam Wishlist with the full intention of buying it when I got my next paycheck.

    Then, I forgot about it. ADHD is really cool like that!

    So imagine my surprise and excitement when I was browsing the Playstation Store the other day and came across Crow Country once again, this time for free to PS Plus members like myself. No brainer. I installed it, played it, and ended up marathoning the game all the way to the end in a single 5 hour session.

    And what an awesome Halloween treat this game is! With a visual style inspired by the blocky, dozen or so polygon based characters of yesteryear (think FFVII)the game perfectly rides the line between fun and spooky. The majority of monsters are genuinely creepy, but when downed by your expert marksmanship they fall flat with a heavy and, frankly, quite funny thud. The interfaces are very reminiscent of early Resident Evil titles as well, in what feels like a great homage rather than a punchline.

    The game is balanced really well, with some tougher and more stressful encounters that’ll test your reflexes, but lots of tricks and ways to get an edge such as the ability to use certain environmental hazards and traps against your enemies rather than stumbling blindly into the fifth trap you’ve been injured by in this one area alone. Hypothetically speaking, of course. There are also quite a few puzzles that are fairly simple and satisfying to solve as well as more challenging ones. This is a break out the notebook type game at times, and I love it for that.

    It also has the option to play on a much easier Exploration Mode if you’re looking for vibes but none of the survival horror stress, and plenty of secret unlockables to reward diligent exploration and repeat playthroughs, and the brief runtime means that you will likely want to go through Crow Country multiple times.

    This was a fantastic game for Halloween season, and I couldn’t recommend it more to casual and longtime fans of the genre alike.

    Until Dawn (Film)

    Sometimes a movie can creep under your skin, and settle in your bones like a bitter winter breeze. You leave the film haunted by its images, its implications; unsettled by the darkness you never imagined could be thought up by mortal beings.

    And sometimes you point at the screen and say, “Ha ha. Look at those hot twenty-somethings get murdered.”

    Until Dawn (which has so tenuous a connection to the video game its apparently licensed from that to call it an adaptation would be a pretty major stretch) is the latter. It is a mindless, empty calorie type of film wherein attractive young people get brutally slain often and repeatedly thanks to a time loop, the one interesting thing about the movie.

    Well, that and the tap water scene.

    While there are moments of genuine schlocky horror joy to be found, Until Dawn is also ruthlessly unimaginative, frighteningly dull, and horrifically under-baked, leaving the impression that this is what it might look like if you made gumbo out of every January release horror film of the last decade.

    Still, the “water wall” joke is an all-timer.

    Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica

    I tried to read this book several years ago. I failed to finish it, and not because it was poorly written (it’s not) or because it fails to tell an interesting story (it succeeds at telling a deeply fascinating one), but because it is the exact type of horror that scares me most: dehumanization.

    I love a good monster flick, and ghost stories are a delight (hell, I’ve read so much Stephen King that I have a whole three shelves devoted to him like a half-hearted shrine), but what truly gets my heart racing, my palms sweating and each breath labored is the repulsive ways in which real human beings are so easily and readily able to depersonalize one another.

    Bazterrica’s novel tells the story of a near future world in which a deadly virus has infected all of Earth’s animals making the slightest contact potentially lethal. To combat the virus, all animals are exterminated from the planet and in the wake of this event, what industry ends up with a pretty big crises on their hands?

    The meat production industry, of course.

    No longer able to breed, raise, slaughter, prepare, package, and sell meat products, the industrious leaders of many corporations begin to sell “special meat”, meat made from human beings bred and raised as cattle only to turned into food for a protein starved world.

    The book is deeply critical of the ways capitalism turns back on those who live beneath it, stripping them of identity, complexity, and individuality to become either machines of industry or another kind of commodity. It is most frightening not only because the premise is so sickening (and explored in such thorough detail that the memory of certain passages is enough to make my stomach churn) but because the metaphor is so thin that one cannot help but be forced to reckon with its implications, with its suggestions, and with its bared teeth accusations aimed directly at the reader.

    I finished “Tender is the Flesh” this time. And I don’t think it’ll ever truly leave me.

    And that is true horror.

  • Recency Bias Volume 3

    Recency Bias Volume 3

    Sinners

    I try to watch movies I’ve never seen before fairly often. At least once a week, if circumstances permit. These can be movies from any era, but when I’m watching something with my mother (as I was a few weeks ago) we like to try something more recent. So, having no context for the film other than my vague recollection that Patrick Klepek who writes for Crossplay and Remap said he really enjoyed it, we tried our luck with Ryan Coogler’s newest feature, Sinners.

    Holy shit. This movie rules.

    It’s hard to talk about the plot without spoiling it, but I will say that the movie had me growing more and more invested not only by the literal text of the film, but by the ideas that were being explored, ideas of ownership, the freedom of Black folks in America to own what’s rightfully theirs. I’ve not been a fan of much of Coogler’s body of work, caring very little for the Black Panther movies, and I can say without a doubt that not only is this his best film, but it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in a long while.

    And the performances from all involved are top-tier. Michael B. Jordan stuns as twin gangsters Smoke and Stack, separating the brothers with subtle physical characteristics that make it immediately clear which brother is on screen and how they differ as people.

    Also they wear red and blue respectively, in case subtlety is not your thing.

    Alan Wake 2

    I am a latecomer to Finnish developer Remedy’s games. My first foray into their weird sensibilities was 2019’s Control, a really fun action game that plays in the same sort of narrative flavor as The SCP Foundation, the Cthulu mythos, and shows like Fringe or the X-Files. Shadowy government agencies battling world-ending paranormal threats, you know the deal. At the time I remember hearing about the ways in which Control made reference to the events of another game, Alan Wake, but a cursory google search of the game did little to sell me on it and I disregarded the game.

    But with the recent remaster and the sequel out and having gotten a fair deal of praise, I decided to dip my toe in the water and try it out.

    I enjoyed the first game in the way that one does when the game is equal parts campy charm and serious jank. I chuckled at the various Stephen King references and the Twin Peaks elements sprinkled throughout, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what awaited in the sequel.

    This next bit I will address to Sam Lake directly.

    Dude. I also loved Twin Peaks: The Return.

    And that show is so tightly woven into the fabric of this game that one could argue it is perhaps its sole influence. There are repeated visual and thematic references to Twin Peaks’ incredible revival season that listing them all would be it’s own series of posts.

    And for the most part, I liked this aspect of the game. The visuals are gorgeous, the same campy voice acting and writing are back and bolder than before, and there are new game mechanics and optional objectives which are interesting if not rather repetitive. Actually, placing notes and photos on the case board in new protagonist Saga Anderson’s mind became actively annoying towards the end of the experience because there were times where the path forward was locked off simply because I didn’t bother to have her repeat to me plot points I’d already had explained to me.

    But one thing puts this game so far up in my esteem that it can never be diluted by any other aspect of the experience. If you’ve played the game, you know what it is.

    The thirteen minute long prog-rock musical number featuring live-action actors performing the dorkiest choreography you have EVER seen. I cackled the whole way through and will never forget it.

    The Witcher

    Many years ago, I was given a copy of The Witcher 3 for Christmas. I booted it up, played an hour of the game, and turned it off. I had no fucking clue what was happening.

    A month later, a friend of mine told me that while the first two games weren’t too critical to understanding the story of The Wild Hunt, they informed me that the books were really important context to have. As a bonus, the books were really good.

    I read them all.

    They are really good.

    So good, in fact, that after I read them all I jumped right back into the game and had an absolute blast. So when I found out recently that Andrzej Sapkowski was going to be releasing a new standalone Witcher novel (“Crossroads of Ravens”) I decided that now was a great time for a re-read of the series.

    It’s always a treat when something you loved before holds up upon revisiting, and I couldn’t be more pleased with these books. Sapkowski strikes the perfect balance between world building exposition and following the emotional and narrative journeys of his protagonists. Entire chapters will be devoted to characters you will never see again, or only hear very little from in the future, yet none of these feel like padding for length or overly expository or indulgent. Complex political mechanisms are depicted in such accessible detail which is honestly shocking to see in a fantasy novel.

    Furthermore, Geralt’s arc from being a stoic neutral actor to realizing how truly inescapable the gravity of world politics is and deciding to take a stance, to protect those he loves and those who otherwise cannot defend themselves is just as relevant today as it was when it was written. In America, it is perhaps more relevant.

    And that will close out this month! Lots of fun stuff coming next month, including our next entry in my First Time Final Fantasy series, out next Tuesday! See ya then!

  • Recency Bias Volume 1

    Recency Bias Volume 1

    In this, the very first of these updates, I want to talk about what you can expect going forward. Every couple of weeks I intend to write up and post a new volume in which I discuss the various media I have been enjoying or have at least experienced between the previous update and the current one. The primary focus will be on video games, but I will most likely always mention a movie or two, or a television series and occasionally some books since I tend to blast through at least one every week.


    And with that, let’s just launch right in.

    Alan Wake: Remastered

    As a child, horror was not a big part of my media consumption, nor was it really anyone in my household’s. The adult version of me mourns this loss, as the horror genre has become a staple of the things I enjoy, from film to literature (Shirley Jackson stan logging on) and, of course, video games.

    But for many reasons beyond my control or understanding, classic horror games can be notoriously hard to get a hold of in the modern era. I was very thankful for the remake of Silent Hill 2, which I thoroughly enjoyed in spite of a few criticisms, and not terribly long ago I had a great time playing through all of the Amnesia games.

    Seriously, The Bunker? So good.

    If there’s another go-to genre for me, it’s camp. My hunger for cheese is insatiable. I can always watch an episode of the original Star Trek. Twin Peaks is perhaps my favorite show of all time. I crave what is earnest and sincere, budgetary restrictions be damned! So after years of hearing how beloved Alan Wake was and how SUPREMELY dorky it was, I knew I had to try it.

    What I got was a fun romp filled with callbacks to Twin Peaks and Stephen King (like, so many King references), a game which employs live-action actors selected from the dev team to perform Twilight Zone parodies and make bizarre, Lynchian recordings of the protagonist struggling to understand the nature of creation and the twisted situation he’s found himself trapped within. It’s a game with a ton of heart; awkward and goofy, not all that scary, with a reasonably fun if at times frustrating combat system.

    And god damn, so many collectibles!

    William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy / Cyberpunk 2077

    Imagine this: you’ve just read the extraordinary trilogy of books often cited as one of the foundational works of modern cyberpunk. Excellent characters, beautiful and tragic concepts of speculative fiction, and questions on the nature of intelligence, of existing in a world which actively wants to crush you under its heels or is otherwise indifferent to you and your suffering.

    You smile. “This is cyberpunk!” You cry to the heavens. “Down with corpo scum!” You dye your hair. You refer to checking social media as “jacking in”. You rewatch the Matrix movies.

    Then you play CD Projekt Red’s controversial Cyberpunk 2077 and are reminded that, oh, this is cyberpunk.

    The rampant Orientalism, the goofy slang, the casual violence done to women and often towards sex workers, the appropriation of West African religious practices; all of the most problematic elements that have rooted themselves at the heart of the genre.

    Here it is, in all its splendor with nothing at all to say except “corporations = bad probably but not in any specific way”.

    Bugs and jank aside, Cyberpunk 2077 is not an un-fun game to play. Combat is fast-paced, the world is full of detail. My favorite parts of the game were just walking around the city streets, seeing the sights and people-watching. I had a great time sneaking through dingy apartment buildings concealing drug laboratories and picking off enemies with precision and a little bit of hacking finesse.

    But that’s kind of where the fun stops. After the opening several hours are gone, the game really starts to show the limits of its imagination. The writing is at times, deeply and profoundly unthoughtful. Its ceiling of quality is “mildly entertaining”, dragged further down by a pathological need to reference other games (and, bewilderingly, “The Office”), not to mention the repeated references to Gibson’s work.

    Can we just agree that this should be the last game to make a “the cake is a lie” or “the cake is a lie” adjacent joke?

    Not even Keanu Reeves can save this.

    Star Wars: Andor Season 2

    As of writing this I have only seen the first few episodes but it is truly awe-inspiring how excellent every aspect of this show was in season one and continues to be in season two. I was one of the few survivors who sat through the entirety of “Rise of Skywalker” (easily my worst movie experience ever) and even though the early days of “The Mandalorian” were promising I was doubtful that Star Wars could ever grow out of its obsession with Jedi and bounty hunters to tell a story that was unique, one focused on the intimate details of living in the Star Wars universe. A story that was altogether more adult-oriented.

    Andor delivers, adding in some of the most gripping writing and performances I’ve ever seen on television. It’s easily my favorite Star Wars property and I can’t wait to finish it up and immediately rewatch the whole show.