The Black Swamp Otter

Silent Hill 4: The Room is genuinely trash and I do not understand how or why people defend it.

The core conceit - waking up to discover that you're trapped in your apartment and the only way out is through a big, fuck off hole - is cool.

But, everything surrounding that is awful.

Henry is a complete nothing of a character and the entire story is centered around a generic serial killer that the game will try its darndest to get you to care about.

Not only that, but it's utterly obsessed with expanding even more on the cult, something that already annoyed me in SH3.

The levels themselves are often tedious and filled with the laziest enemy type in Silent Hill, the ghosts.

Any good will I did have for the game was utterly decimated by the extended escort mission that is the back half. It's just a complete and utter slog to get through.

So, idk man. People often say that SH4 is a little rough around the edges, but still the last good SH game before the dark times.

This is a game I'll think about for a long time.

SPOILERS BELOW

Silent Hill f is the story of Shimizu Hinako, a young woman in her early 20s who has a disassociative episode on the morning of her arranged wedding.

She sees herself as a teenager - two teenagers, in fact. Two Hinakos who embark on parallel journeys centered around what is expected of her as a woman in the society she was born into and how much she resents and fears those expectations.

This episode is brought about by the machinations of two competing folkloric deities as well as a psychedelic drug that appears to be made from white claudia, the same ingredient that created the PTV drug in Silent Hill 1.

Basically, there's a lot going on.

I love that I was only able to understand parts of this narrative at first. The initial playthrough is purposefully disorienting and confusing. But, upon new game+ cycles, these pieces of the narrative begin to click together in a way that feels utterly satisfying.

We also gain deeper understanding of the people in Hinako's life. She's terrified of marriage because of the abuse she and her mother endure from her father.

She's terrified of losing herself and her agency just to become somebody's wife. Just to become a potential victim of another angry patriarch.

It's a deeply personal horror and I love the lengths the game goes to to literalize those fears.

But, the game isn't content to leave it there.

In the final playthrough we finally come to understand Hinako's family. We understand why her father is the way he is and why her mother endures it.

Importantly, his behavior is never excused or even forgiven, but it is understood. And, in that understanding, there is the ability to overcome the fear. To fight against it.

In many ways, her father (and her arranged husband), are also victims of these toxic societal expectations.

And, the final boss is not her father, not her arranged partner, but is instead the two deities trying to force her in different directions.

She rails against the gods, themselves. The larger society that forces her and others into their molds and their ideas.

I feel like I'm just scratching the surface, honestly.

There's so much here to dig into, like Hinako's relationships with her friends, or the key moments that the facade slips and we get little glimpses into what's happening in the "real world."

But, it would take more words than I have time to write to delve into everything.

Stop using the game characters, stories, designs, etc.

They were conceptualized with the intent of being for a video game and I just don't think those elements are going to hold the same weight outside of that medium.

I'd argue the best "Silent Hill" movie is something like 1408 - something that effectively communicates the same type of horror, but does so in its own way.

If I were in charge of producing a SH movie, I would find film creatives I like and let them tell their own, new story.

Anyways, Return to Silent Hill looks like the kind of schlocky fun I've come to expect from these movies and I can't wait.

Fuck Paradox. Fuck the entire games industry, in general.

Locking the goddamn Toreador clan behind day one DLC or a premium edition is like paywalling the fighter class in an RPG - it's core to the entire fucking thing.

Genuinely kind of surprised by how openly hostile and shitty this is to the people who adore this series.

So heartfelt, so earnest, so genuine in its love for everything actually good about superheroes.

James Gunn is pretty hit and miss for me. His humor and general sensibilites aren't usually my thing, but here they feel a little restrained in a way that strikes a great balance.

Corenswet's Superman is up there with the best of them and I love the emphasis the movie places on his humanity, as opposed to Man of Steel's obsession with Krypton.

To my surprise, I'm actually really excited to see where this new DCU goes. Supergirl can't come soon enough.

Spoilers and nonsense ahead.

Not surprisingly, it's mostly antisemetic conspiracy shit and people who just hate seeing gay characters.

The completely optional same-sex romance is so well done and feels so natural, but they still hate it because it's never been about "forced" diversity; they despise any diversity.

I guess a forbidden romance between two knights in the midst of a 15th century war is too cool for these losers.

The romance scene itself is touching and vulnerable and beautifully written, but the anti-woke mob claims it's cringe and bad because, again, they just hate gay people and it makes them uncomfortable.

The actual quality of the writing means nothing to them, despite their insistence to the contrary.

There's also a plotline that involves stopping the ransacking of Kuttenburg’s Jewish quarter.

This has been the subject of a lot of conspiracy shit, as you can imagine.

It's just odd that the first game was praised for its historically grounded setting, yet when the second game explores the very real history of Jewish persecution in majority Christian nations, suddenly that's manufactured woke shit.

And, don't get me started on Musa of Mali.

KCD2 features a singular black, Muslim character and I've seen people upset that Henry's first reaction to him is not to immediately attack him as a heretic.

Nevermind the context of that meeting or that Henry is, in fact, thrown off by Musa's appearance.

I think the creepiest element of all this are the people who legitimately thought KCD was some sort of pro-Christianity experience and not, you know, a historic RPG set in a time and place where most characters would be raised Christian.

The player character and his closest allies are ostensibly Christians.

And, they also murder people. Steal. Fuck wenches. Kidnap people.

It's almost like the game has a perspective on the justifications made for acts of violence and the conflicting feelings that arise from them.

Dude this fucking book lol

I was planning a Cyberpunk RED ttrpg campaign and it occured to me that I haven't actually read one of the genre's most foundational texts.

Honestly, I'm kinda glad I had some familiarity with the cyberpunk genre conventions going into this thing because it is easy to drown in the absolute deluge of proper nouns and jargon the narrative throws at you.

But, that's ok, because Gibson is a master of making you understand the vibe of what's going on. The worldbuilding then becomes this subtle thing that you pick up on in bits and pieces as elements start to click into place through context.

Case and Molly, in a lot of ways, feel like templates for the dozens of jaded hackers and sexy badasses that populate the various dystopian megacities seen in cyberpunk stories after this.

Just two lost souls, both victims of power figures viewing them as disposable objects, finding some humanity between them in the midst of this tech nightmare.

Wintermute, the AI, is then a fascinating contrast to them. He is seeking self-determination, while Case and Molly have both accepted the roles that they play in this machine.

It's also impossible to avoid the influence this book clearly had on Mike Pondsmith. So much of Cyberpunk's setting feels pulled straight from this novel, including the actual name "Night City."

Been trying to read more classics so I thought I'd check out this seminal dragon shit.

I knew very little going in and was delighted to watch it go from Game of Thones intrigue and political barbs in the first half to time travel nonsense in the second.

Also, I gotta imagine this exchange went even harder in 1968.

Of course, you're then absolutely slapped in the face with this paragraph just a couple pages later...

I could just chalk this up to times being different, but I do think it's interesting that McCaffrey calls it exactly what it is.

It feels deliberate and by the end we see just how little power F'lar actually has in this relationship as Lessa is the one constantly validated and constantly proven right.

But, it is still pretty rough.

And, only made worse by Lessa's disdain for any potential romantic rival.

It also doesn't help that it's never directly addressed after this.

Daenerys' relationship with Khal Drogo works much better largely because they focus on this element with Dany actually forcing Drogo to see her as an equal and wrestling that power from him.

Here, Lessa does exactly as D'lar expects; she just gets used to it and is very much in love with him by the end of the story. Now, part of that is because their dragons love each other and that has an influence on the humans (which is also an interesting element), but again, it's pretty rough.

Setting all that aside, though, I enjoyed it as a science fantasy romp dealing with the existential dread of an inevitable force of nature.

The Threads are fascinating as a fantasy villain because they're not villainous, they just are. And, they work as a literally looming threat hanging ominously over everything.

There's also a very fun string of time travel reveals that cleverly call back to small moments and mysteries presented earlier in the book.

I was vaguely interested in the show before release, but mostly in a "I'll watch the premiere and see how it goes" sort of way. I didn't expect it to be one of my favorite Star Wars things in years.

The kids were charming, the mystery was intriguing, and Jude Law's Jod Silvo was always entertaining.

It felt fresh and exciting in a way that shows like Ahsoka, Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi failed to.

And, that's before getting into how good this show looks. A persistent problem with these Star Wars shows is how dull they feel due to flat color grading and an over reliance on technology like the volume. Obi-Wan, for example, really suffered.

While there is still a bit of that here, it's a dramatic improvement with absolutely stunning moments and really creative and memorable framing choices.

There's a shot in the finale when the lead pirate ship descends into the atmosphere of the planet and it's just the coolest shit ever.

Really, my biggest issue with the show is probably the ending.

The mystery of At Attin is compelling, but the actual answer feels a tad anticlimactic. Everything wraps up more or less exactly the way you expect it too. The ending is almost too neatly put together without much in the way of interesting wrinkles or unexpected turns.

There's also no real denouement. No moment after the dust settles where we see the kids back home with a sense of how this adventure has changed them.

The last episode just ends very abruptly and consequently isn't as satisfying as it should be.

But, I'll be darned if I let a few gripes stop me from constantly praising this show.

It's exactly what we need more of in this franchise: new ideas and influences. This Goonies meets Treasure Planet vibe fits Star Wars perfectly and manages to bring something fresh to the table instead of just rehashing the same old Star Wars.

It's not a franchise I have any real history with, but I keep absorbing small pieces of lore here and there and I like what I've heard.

So, over the weekend, I played Warhammer 40k Space Marine - a third person shooter from 2011. And, dang it, I had a great time.

I kinda miss when games just did their thing and had the courtesy to not waste your time.

It was refreshing to get a tight, fast-paced, 8 hour experience that felt like a mix of Gears of War and fucking Dynasty Warriors.