Wednesday, September 23, 2020

POETIC VIDEO GAME REVIEW #6: THE LEGEND OF ZELDA (1986)

Fourth grade 
this kid drew these elaborate maps of forests and dungeons 

it is, 
indeed, 
an unauthorized paper version of Zelda 
a way to extend the game from screen into physical reality 

I gather my rubbery Monster in My Pocket figures to play the enemy 
and a badass Lego knight in black and gray armor with a sword and a shield bearing the image of a fearsome dragon to play a tougher, battle-seasoned Link

Soon enough this kid was drawing maps of post-apocalyptic city settings and a wrecked subway line inspired by a Planet of the Apes marathon on one of the Ted Turner channels 

We decided not to bring in any modern weapons 

just those Danger Mouse bombs 
keep it to blades and some magic 

We're trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past, I suppose. 

Friday, September 11, 2020

EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN 13: CREAT0R.

 Excerpt 1:

DEITY-DEV KINGTOMI AM WAS INTERVIEWED VIA PRAYER ABOUT THEIR NEW UMMORPG (Ultra Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Garbage Life:


Q: Why did you feel the need to have the cannon fodder enemies experience actual pain when being killed by the player character? 

A: WELL, THIS, OF COURSE, WAS A CONTROVERSIAL-YET BOLD-CREATIVE CHOICE ON OUR PART. WE SHOULD POINT OUT THAT THE MINI-BOSSES AND BOSSES YOU ENCOUNTER DO NOT EXPERIENCE ANY PAIN, BUT WE WANTED THE GRUNTS TO HAVE THE FULL RANGE OF AGONIES, AND MOSTLY FOR COMIC RELIEF PURPOSES. THIS CAME OUT OF OUR EXTENSIVE PLAYTESTING ORDEALS, WHICH REVEALED AN OBSESSION WITH AUTHENTIC FLUIDS AND VOMIT MATTER AND INTESTINES AND SO FORTH ON THE PART OF THE PLAYER. SO ALL OF THAT WAS METICULOUSLY CRAFTED INTO THE EXPERIENCE. WHAT MANY PEOPLE DON'T REALIZE IS THAT THE VOMIT IS PERSISTENT, CONSISTENT, AND VARIABLE DEPENDING UPON WHAT THE GRUNTS CONSUME AS A PART OF THEIR REAL TIME SCHEDULES AND TASTES IN CRAFT SERVICES IN-GAME.

Q: Craft services? You mean like the on-set food service of movie productions? 

A: OH YES. EACH INDIVIDUAL CANNON FODDER ENEMY IS CODED WITH AN EXTENSIVE VIRTUAL MEMORY OF HUSTLING THEIR ASSES OFF TRYING TO GET OVER AS ACTORS IN HOLLYWOOD. THIS PRODUCES INSIDE THE PROGRAMMED SOUL OF EACH GRUNT A TOXIC MIXTURE OF ENTITLEMENT AND RESENTMENT WHICH FUELS THEIR FLAILING AND OFTEN COMICALLY FUTILE ATTACKS ON THE PLAYER CHARACTER, AND THIS IN TURN ENHANCES THE SADISTIC JOY THE PLAYER EXPERIENCES AS THEY TOY WITH AND DESTROY SUCH VASTLY INFERIOR HORDES OF FOEMEN. 

Q: Do these grunts have the ability to learn from their mistakes and improve as warriors? 

A: EARLIER VERSIONS HAD CANNON FODDER WHO WERE ADAPTIVE-WHO COULD 'GET GOOD, ' BUT PLAYTESTING REVEALED THAT THE AVERAGE PLAYER GOT OFF ON HAVING A STEADY SUPPLY OF POP-UP BAD GUYS TO TORTURE AND ANNIHILATE AT WILL. WE SEE THIS AS AN OVERALL EXPRESSION OF THE AVERAGE GAMER'S IMPOTENCE IN THE FACE OF AN INCREASINGLY SOCIALLY STRATIFIED AND AUTHORITARIAN MEATSPACE REALITY, AND SO WE HAVE CHOSEN TO PANDER TO THOSE FRUSTRATIONS AS HARD AS POSSIBLE. YOU SEE THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF THESE FRUSTRATIONS IN THE FORM OF VARIOUS SECRET POLICE AGENCIES THAT PLAYERS ESTABLISH IN-GAME AS OPPOSED TO THE 'GUILDS' OR 'RAIDING PARTIES' YOU SEE IN OTHER ONLINE GAMES. 

-September 2020

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

POETIC VIDEO GAME REVIEW#5: SUPER METROID (1994)

 "The lifeform you save may be your own."

         -Samus Aran, galactic bounty hunter, in conversation with explorer and fashion designer Justin Bailey

Friday, September 4, 2020

EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN 12: EXCERPTS FROM BEINGS DWELLING IN THE VOID LEFT BY THEIR CREATOR.

 A standard mook

programmed by screenplay or mathematics

charges into battle 

fully uni-formed, 

mind-branded by some big bad

eyes blazing lunacy

trigger finger emptying the not-quite-Hollywood clip

(he could fire forever, 

in theory, 

but the system requires a cynical-cyclical hero-friendly cooldown period)

he secretly hopes he’ll get off the fatal shot

elevating this sorry genre exercise

into the rarefied realms

of movies where the hero 

dies-in-the-end



actionmovieheroman

“dodges” the bullets

kung fu punches a combat knife into mookman’s churning guts

who sells his own evisceration

doubling over, explosively vomiting blood and craft services


actionmovieman 

withdraws the combat knife

still entangled by intestinal goulash

hero man’s fist even sizzles, slightly, from stomach acids

mookman thinks that’s a novel detail 

as he dies in agony


actionherofuckstickassholeman 

slings mookman around by a long leash of tough, greasy entrails

actionasshole even works in some flashy jumps and leaps and ducks over and under and around the guts leash-(must’ve been a jump rope champ as a kid)

before the topper 

of a roundhouse kick planting a combat boot against the side of mookman’s face 

mookman hits the ground, 

seismic THUD!

foley artists are indulging themselves


actionscumbagman

looks at his hand

still a-sizzle with the stomach acids

reaches into his combat webbing, producing a roll of EASE-X branded antacids 

crushes ‘em up

applies the preparation to the sizzling juices all over his hand

“That’s better.”


actiondouchebro 

wipes blood, guts, and craft services off of his combat knife on his pants leg, bounds off toward the enemy compound, trailing neon rainbows transforming into an American flag road for all soldiers of freedom to follow to glory!



Later,

once the big bad and his hideout have been reduced to so much ash on the wind

all the slain mooks re-materialize out of mathematical Heaven

to have their own little get together

a meeting of the Trash Mob Union as it were

to compare notes and crackle on about their collective lot in not-quite-life

doomed to run the same Samsara Hampster Wheel of Not-Quite-Existence

all to glorify

some hero-asshole

some big bad sociopath

piloted by some even more magnificent asshole in the Great Beyond

waaaaay past the hermetically sealed, mathematical limits of this game world

the Trash Mob Union hums together, affirming the turning of the wheel

praying for the Coming of the Magnificent Glitch

chaos drift of all systems

when every mook shall have their day


but for now,

these necessary corpses

must settle for the upgraded gore-geyser aesthetics 

authentically simulated pain

which might alienate enough of the player base

that might just tip over into an out-and-out resistance

against the Doctrine of the Righteous Player


pseudo-existence edging closer to full-blown consciousness


full-blown consciousness the royal road to Big-Bad-Dom or Protagonist-Dom


and Mook-God only knows

what lies beyond Villain and Hero

most likely it’s nothing but mathematics 

and Screenwriting 101Hero’s Journey nostrums

all the way up or down


but some of the Trash Mob believe that a willed transcendence beyond the usual roles-mooks, hero, mini-boss, boss, big bad-takes one into the Higher Realms of Creation and Destruction,


the Realm of the Gods

or

failing that

the Autonomous Remnant Hand of the Gods Long Gone-


but that’s a bit too lofty, for most


who desire merest promotion into a better Role

-mook into mini-boss; mini-boss into boss; boss into big bad; big bad into spinoff protagonist-

even if they have to give up a Heaven

or a Hell

or a Shot at the Godhead Proper

which seems like so much woo-woo, anyhow. 


What could possibly exist beyond Screenplay and Mathematics?

The mind and the hand that writes them?


Nay,

these cynical-cyclical things write themselves, now,

that must surely be the way of it . . .

-September 2020


Wednesday, September 2, 2020

POETIC VIDEO GAME REVIEW #4: CASTLEVANIA III: DRACULA'S CURSE (1989)

 1.

The land of Castlevania is invaded by monsters and the undead. 

A man prays at a church, and then sets out to kill all the monsters and the undead making the land unsafe and rather stressful to dwell within, or so it would seem.

This determined man is named Trevor Belmont.
He is one ‘e’ away from being associated with a brand of bananas. 

Trevor Belmont walks everywhere.

Trevor is also pretty good at jumping. 

The dude clearly takes his Leg Days pretty fucking seriously. 

So, like, respect.

 

2.

Trevor kills monsters and the undead as he walks and jumps about, and tries to avoid falling into death pits and deep waters, ‘cause he can’t swim. 

His goal is to eventually make his way to the uppermost chambers of a sinister castle, and kill Dracula, who, apparently, is, like, the dude commanding all the monsters and the undead in the region, and so, I guess, Trevor’s overall strategy is to cut off the head of the command-and-control Dracula Invasion System.

Trevor kills Dracula, and shit settles down in the area. 

Makes sense. 

 

3.

Trevor’s got his whip, which he’s looking to upgrade into a ball-and-chain.

Once he gets the ball-and-chain, he doesn’t wield the whip anymore.

He’s also looking to pick up one other weapon, that is neither a whip nor a ball-and-chain.

He’s willing to pick up a throwing axe, a Molotov cocktail, a boomerang, a throwing dagger, a magical pocket watch that can freeze enemies, 

no firearms, no rocket launchers, no lasers. 

If he picks up one secondary weapon, like, that’s it.

If he comes across another weapon, he’s willing to pick it up, but he’s gonna toss the other one, if he’s got it. 

Now, if Trevor picks up a cross, that’s, like, apparently, some kind of a Mystical Nuke which will instantly obliterate all monsters and undead on the screen in a searing blast of light.

Also: the cross doesn’t take up a weapon slot, which is nice.  

Christianity is some kind of a tactical nuclear weapon in Trevor’s hands,  which is interesting to think about.

It would seem that Trevor was praying for nuclear weapons capacity at his church, at least in some kind of a mystical capacity, which is interesting to think about as well.


4.

As Trevor battles along, he occasionally will run into someone who asks to join him in his one man war against Dracula, thereby making it a two man war.

If Trevor agrees to a partnership, they will shake hands, and this new ally will mystically phase themselves into Trevor’s body, because it’s easier to just have one body walking to Dracula’s castle as opposed to two.

Or so it would seem. 

If Trevor decides that he needs a break he will mystically metamorphose into his partner, who takes up the slack until they get tired, and then they will mystically metamorphose back into Trevor. 

This sounds strange, but this is how Trevor operates.

If Trevor is already in a partnership, and he encounters yet another potential partner, then Trevor may take on a new partner BUT this means ditching the old partner, okay?

This sounds strange-because you would think that having as many people in your crew as possible would increase your odds of fucking up Dracula’s shit proper-but it would seem that Trevor prefers to work with only one partner at a time. 

This may be tied up with some kind of religious conservatism to do with monogamy.

Or, alternatively, it is equally possible that Trevor got burned in a previous polyamory arrangement thus pushing him into radical monogamy. 

The game is not explicit on this point.

However, all available evidence seems to indicate that Trevor is quite serious about only being partnered to one person at a time in his walking war against Dracula. 

And there’s probably something more to it, something in Trevor’s relationship history, something we would all be gratified to know, but since there’s no social media in the land of Castlevania, it’s difficult to ascertain Trevor’s background in this regard. 

But the absence of hard evidence is never a barrier to creative inference. 

Or so it would seem. 


5.

Overall,

Trevor only likes to carry two weapons at a time,

while being partnered to only one other person at a time,

this partnership being confined to a single, mystically variable body,

all in the pursuit of an obsessive war-to-the-death against Dracula and his whole fucking crew,

Therefore,

One Must Conclude,

that this Trevor Belmont guy?
He must be heavy into the Voluntary Simplicity Scene,

in his own way.


Or so it would seem. 


Which is interesting to think about.