impressions: left 4 dead

I confess I had initial misgivings about a first-person shooter involving zombies. While, from a shooter-game-design perspective, it provides perfect premise sense for an inexhaustible supply of hostile cannon fodder, I wasn’t all that excited about mowing down the shambling, decaying undead. I suppose it stemmed from my childhood distaste of zombies in general, what with my father being a fan of movies like Re-Animator and George Romero’s classics. And no, I still have not seen the more recent films like 28 Days/Weeks Later, or even Shaun of the Dead. Yes, I know. I’ll watch them soon, especially now that I’ve gotten hooked on Left 4 Dead.

But I get ahead of myself. It was Oneal’s prompting that finally got me to try out L4D for the PC when Steam had a free-activation weekend. I was impressed enough by the game that I went ahead and bought it (on 40% sale that weekend, yay), firmly establishing my presence on Steam.

first impressions: Aquaria

Aquaria is the story of a young aquatic girl named Naija, and how she discovers and comes to terms with the world she inhabits. It is a visual and aural feast that combines beautiful artwork with an evocative soundtrack, wrapped around a narrative that is pleasantly rich in familiar fantasy tropes and social commentary.

I fell in love with this game from the moment I came across its launch trailer back in 2007. The visuals, the music and the atmosphere drew me in, and I waited impatiently for the proper release to come out. When I finally did get the chance to play it, I adored it even more. Something about the way it conveyed its world and story struck a chord in me, and I was caught up in a quiet giddiness that only the most appealing games draw me into.

I was further impressed by how the game itself was made by only two people: Alec Holowka and Derek Yu, under the Bit Blot banner. They made everything themselves, from the story and programming to the graphics and music. They had no creative staff working with or under them, and no other trappings of a gaming design company. The only other person involved in the project was Jenna Sharpe, who provided the voice for the game’s lonely, restless protagonist. The whole endeavor had a romantic feel to it, and that deepened my appreciation of the game.

trust in the ice

I went ice skating with Shey yesterday, and it was loads of loud, silly fun. I hadn’t been on the ice in over a decade, but I felt confident that I could at least not fall on my ass right away. I asked Shey to go skating a couple of weeks back because I knew she’d always wanted to, and yesterday was when our schedules finally lined up after Holy Week.

We spent our first lap around the rink mostly glued to the support railing. It was faintly embarrassing, but we both soldiered on and refused to give up. Shey had never been on the ice before, and she was alternately exhilarated and mortified. We complained constantly at our initial discomfort and lack of skill, muttering curses every other minute, hoping that the children sailing gracefully past us wouldn’t pick up our, ah, colorful vocabulary.

review: Monsters VS Aliens

[Minor spoilers present.]

Monsters VS Aliens takes a cue from the insufferable series of parody films that have been plaguing Hollywood cinema over the past decade, putting together a mishmash of pop culture references involving, well, monsters and aliens. And the military. It doesn’t fall into the usual pit of inanity and self-deprecating slapstick that smorgasbord parody films usually reside in, though. Instead, it puts together a story with sincerely amusing and inventive situations that have become the baseline for animated films today.

The creators borrowed heavily from both old-school B-movie sci-fi films and contemporary fare, and did so unapologetically. What’s interesting about how they brought everything together is the way they managed to poke fun at the now-familiar tropes without coming across as insulting to the source material. The movie feels, in terms of its individual aspects and as a whole, more like a homage than a roast, which is a very welcome outcome for its openly parodic premises.

Any animated feature worth the money spent on it these days should cater not just to the natural audience of youngsters, but to adults as well. MVA does this splendidly, with countless inside jokes, from the subtle (a quick bar of the ET theme while the camera focuses on a missile that has “ET Go Home” painted on it) to the obvious (the musical exchange from Close Encounters of the Third Kind segueing to the “Axel F” theme from Beverly Hills Cop), alongside the straightforward, non-joke cross-media references (Insectosaurus as a permutation of classic Godzilla, B.O.B. as a spinoff of The Blob, and so on) . There’s plenty about the movie that can make a kid laugh and enjoy himself as it is, but for adults there’s a lot more, bringing nostalgia and wit to the table.

voiceless, part 2

After rereading my prior post and going over my friends’ replies, I am certain now that it wasn’t my freelance writing that got me into this rut. It’s not even specifically what’s keeping me stuck anymore: it’s just the paradigm that my writing mind has been defaulting to for lack of any other options.

The reason why I ran out of options is, well, I chose to.

Back in the first quarter of 2008, I went through a crisis that left me with a great deal of disappointment and disenchantment. As I tried to come to terms with what happened, I retreated into myself. I pulled away from my regular crowd at the time, and I kept my thoughts and feelings to myself and a very select few. I needed to gather my wits and recover my sense of self-worth, because they were effectively mangled by what I went through.

Over the course of 2008, I did manage to heal and move forward. My freelance work picked up, as did my social life. What I didn’t get to restore, however, was  my willingness to open up in my writing and in terms of my online presence. This blog went dead for most of 2008, as did my Facebook account. I’d add to my Multiply account on occasion, mostly photos from the social events I’d go to, but not anything of narrative or expository substance.