GameMisinformer (article)

One day, comrades, we will live in a worker's paradise where we are all equal and money will have no value. Yes, one's value will determined solely by what they are able to produce for everyone else to use as they need; not by the amount that they are able to horde, comrades. It will be a new utopia, free of avarice and amorality, once only the fevered dream of Marx or Rousseau. Until that day, however, I will continue to have my money plucked away by GameStop.

Ever since the messy fiasco that was Brink, I've avoided buying video games new (Skyrim being the exception - soul sucking, meme generating, life destroyer that it is). In this used game buy-and-resell-a-thon I've wound up with the GameStop discount card affair. Which is useful and all, but like a clandestine tab of LSD lodged in a cheese curd, there's something extra that struck me by surprise. And has left me uncomfortable. And it was made of paper, also.

A free subscription of GameInformer is the subject of the acid analogy (obviously). While I appreciate magazines, and all of the charm that a paper version of the internet holds, this and similar publications reek heartily of a distinct lack of integrity. There's a million reasons for it, and I don't blame the writers. No real writer would ever want to beat their integrity over the head and leave it bleeding in the moonlight. The soupy, red, puddle that forms around the 'zine when I leave it on my nightstand is very telling, though.

I have to wonder what it's like to write for a mainstream video game magazine/e-zine. Each month I thumb through the odd article in GameInformer, and I just feel bad for the poor mooks that paint up the downfalls of the video game industry like it's a good thing.

"We've experienced the pivotal Racoon City outbreak through the eyes of Jill, Chris, Leon, and Claire, but what was it like for the Umbrella operatives?" opens Tim Turi of GameInformer. "Let's see how Capcom is going to siphon the last few putrid juices out of the dead horse this year!" seems like it would have been more appropriate. My true hope is that Turi is as disillusioned with unnecessary sequels as I am and his opening was a tongue-in-cheek jab at the game; like a movie critic wondering if George Lucas' next project will be to show remake The Clone Wars from the point of view of R2D2.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD received attention in the same issue, and for a brief moment I was excited. The article opened with a, call it what it is, shameless hit of nostalgia for people old enough to appreciate two minute level timers. Then, transitioned nicely into beating on the franchise for its eventual derailment into sophomoric hijinx, and name dropping, over gameplay.

To my chagrin, the reporter blithely went on to say that THPS:HD was a carbon copy remake of all of the most popular levels from the first few installments. There's no way that I'm the only person in the world that has bile rise in their throat when a remake is announced. Who reads this and is excited by it? Who decides to write this stuff? Who gets excited and buys this crap at launch?

You see, the problem with these magazines is that they reinforce the idea that repetition and big titles are good. Yes, yes, I'm aware that I'm flirting with the pretentious "indie or bust" type crap right now, but put the pitchforks down, the beret and turtle neck are staying in the closet. Information is what originally drove these magazines; hence, the "informer" in GameInformer. Now, though, the line between information and marketing is so badly skewed it looks like a roadmap of Europe. Every problem that is strangling innovation out of the video game industry is squarely perpetuated by this kind of shameless ad mongering.

Articles like these instigate excitement over something that is simply not exciting. There's no question that each year's new Resident Evil or Tony Hawk or any other heavily franchised game installments will be playable, but that's all they are. They are average. They are nicely put together and provide fun distraction for around 10 hours. Painting average games up like they're going to revolutionize the way we play games is doing nothing but putting a cork into the creativity bottle. When something original and fun finally does come along, it doesn't get so much as the time of day from developers.

Remember when the first Guitar Hero came out? Get the hell out of my office, you do not. Why do you not remember? Because it was weird, and new, and freaking hard, and likely to be crushed by Dance Dance Revolution so no one cared to push it. Look at it now! Well, its churning out half-baked installments and doing exactly what I’m against, but that’s not the point. The point is that things that are new and original never get the attention they deserve, and that’s squarely because of media publications that won’t quit drooling down our earholes that the next annual Call of Battlefield and Forza Worldcup Batman is going to make us forget our families they're so good.

So who is to blame in all this? Who is responsible for the bleeding magazine on my table? Again, I don't blame the writers for all of this, what I truly feel is sympathy. I'm sure that they are just doing their jobs and writing what is assigned to them. What they write is smudged by their editors. And their editors have it smudged by the ones above them. And they, the ones above them, and so on, with the all-important ad revenue having the final say. I can only try to sympathize with the writers that have their hard polished work muscled over by the signers of their checks; like greedy children plunging their smearing fingers into a refined, clay, statue.

World of Warcraft Abuse (article)

World of Warcraft is the closest a person can come to doing hard drugs without ever actually taking any drugs. That's not to say that it's a mind altering, euphoric, rush that can't be described. It's actually pretty easy to describe WoW; imagine clicking pixelated dragons for six consecutive hours and you've got endgame content. It's saying that it ruins people's lives.

I've always considered myself a weekend warrior when it came to the World of Warcraft epidemic. I've played off and on since shortly after launch, but never for more than a month or two at a time. In the hundreds of hours I've frittered away running around clicking gnolls, I've wrestled into submission a pretty daunting image of what effect WoW has on people.

I really first noticed it after coming out of a multi-day binge of quest grinding and instance running. For three days I'd done nothing but play the game, sleep a few hours, and hastily eat enough to keep my stomach quieter than my speakers. Eventually, I emerged, blear eyed, from my bedroom; squinting against the light of the hallway. I remember my internal monologue spouting off "Well... time to get my life back together.".

Because that's what World of Warcraft does to people. Like a drug addict coming off a long stint of some conglomeration of household cleaners cooked on a hotplate in a dropout's basement, I realized how filthy I was, how badly my clothes smelled, how little I'd eaten, and how many of my friends' calls I'd ignored.

I'd like to say, "Online games like WoW appeal to us at a most basic level.", but I know that in reality I should just say that "WoW appeals to us at a base level" because the Warcraft Jabberwocky spends its time either consuming money, or picking competitors from its teeth. Either way, there's shockingly simple exchange happening when a person plays the game; that is, they click a button and something good happens. The parallel between B.F. Skinner's pigeons and teenage shut ins with skin problems is stifling.

World of Warcraft has always designed itself to take a long time to play. This really works to their advantage. With a difficulty curve as gradual as a hole in the Amigara Fault, it's easy for players to learn and adjust to what's happening to them; never wanting to stop clicking their buttons for rewards. Three expansions later the length and gradualness of the game's curve rivals Mt. Fuji. That's a long time to lose yourself.

None of this is to say that World of Warcraft is bad. I can't blame the game for people ruining their lives. There are messages in the loading screens explicitly telling you "Go outside, you loser", you can dictate the number of hours per week you can play; since the outbreak of deaths due to online games, Blizzard has tried to remain something of a harbor.

I've actually renewed the old weekend warrior status myself in the last week. I also haven't missed any school, have seen friends regularly, and, oh shit! wrote an article. I don't exactly know what to derive from the hard drug analogy and my own "middle way" approach to Warcraft. I don't want to say that doing heroin or crack is cool as long as it's in moderation, but, well, I have a newly rolled Orc warrior that needs to explore just how overpowered the Fury tree is now, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Horror in the Atmosphere (rambling)

Genres are something of an enigma to me. I've heard a million people argue that genres aren't important. Just go with what you enjoy! Music is a pointed example of this. Plenty of times people have told me, "Jeremiah, listen to music that is pleasing to you, don't listen to the genre!". And that's beautiful on paper, but fascism is beautiful on paper, too. Have you ever tried to carry a conversation with these people? Their massive inability to specialize leaves them babbling incoherently about the single of the week on the radio. I'm not saying that everyone needs to be boxed into their genres of choice, like it was a social caste, but for the love of God, choose something and get to know it.

For quite some time now horror has been my genre of choice in most things (he said, in an elegant transition). Maybe it appeals to my innate tendency to be morbid in nature, but scary things have always been my bag. Even when I was an apple cheeked, little, boy, I remember staying up late and watching The X-Files, alone in the dark; huddled under a quilt.

The X-Files isn't exactly dictionary definition horror, but I think it has held up the spirit for a long time. Horror has gotten the short end of the proverbial stick as far as genre identification goes. With so many facets in the horror jewel, it's hard to identify what's what. A person could argue that Hostel is horror, but someone could also argue that I Am Legend is horror. I like to think that examples like those two are movies with horror elements, but not crisp, straight line, horror.

Elemental horror, horror broken down to its most basic piece, is something that is hard to find these days. In America, at least. Without coming off like an annoying, tail wearing, "kawaii ^_^", Japanophile, let me say that Japan has been destroying America in terms of horror for ages. This is because the Japanese have a long cultural history of scaring the hell out of each other, and have learned that monsters are scary when you can't see them. Let's bring this back to a video game perspective quick.

Everyone and their nukekubi has been blowing a lot of air about how Amnesia: The Dark Descent is the most terrifying thing since Opera forgot to put her make up on. And while I'd sooner flay my own fingernails off with a flat head screwdriver than become another honking goose in the hyping flock, yes, it's scary enough to have made me rethink just how thirst I really am on a few late nights. The point is, literally nothing happens for the first few hours of Amnesia. I don't think you can take damage even if you try for at least the first hour. And even then it happens because a section of all doesn't like you getting to cozy to it.

The antithesis of Amnesia: The Dark Descent in this regard is most likely Dead Space 2; a game that opens with a person being impaled, having their face melt, tendrils poke out, and then scream in agony not 6 inches from your freshly woken eyes, all while the intro credits are still on the screen. What happened to pacing? This isn't to say that Dead Space is bad. I played the absolute shit out of Dead Space 1, but it just wasn't scary. Sure, I jumped the first time a possum playing Necromorph sliced my knees off, but by chapter 3 I was just shooting every corpse I came across from a distance out of insurance.

Living in anguish of the thought that grotesquely misshapen nightmare creatures are waiting to give you an impromptu tracheotomy is the vessel that drives proper horror. Being to afraid to explore a small room because you're so sure that when you turn around there will be an abomination standing in the door frame is the atmospheric hole-in-one.

This atmosphere is what makes or breaks the entire experience. Hearing the tiny creatures that you've read about in a bloody journal scurry around the insides of the walls is scary. Knowing they're there, and that at any moment they could break out, skitter sharply up your chest, and plant serrated fangs into your throat, is scary. Being lost in a dark basement, trying desperately to relight your lantern, hearing boards break in the distance and not knowing if it's the rotting weight of disrepair or the subjects of nightmares breaking from their prisons, that's terrifying. That is atmosphere.

Yes, I'm aware of the irony that Frictional, the company that made Amnesia, and its spidery predecessor's, is not Japanese (they're Swedish, for anyone keeping score). This just goes to show that country of origin isn't a big deal, though. Unless its America.

Like I said earlier, The United States has been dragging its heels on the pacing and atmosphere front; and I feel this is most evident in movies. The professional-ish writer that I am, I researched what Americans called the scariest movies of last year. Contenders were Paranormal Activity 3, a third installment prequel (in the industry known as a "cash cow") trying desperately to get in on that atmosphere that overly critical jerks bang on and on about, by throwing in humor and fake-out startle scares. And Insidious, a Poltergeist clone with startle scares. Shine on you crazy diamonds.

Orange Goblin's "298 kg" Analyzed (misc.)

1 I've seen your illusions, just like you've seen my desires
2 There has got to be much more burnin' in tomorrow's fires
3 I just sip the potion, hope it takes my blues away
4 So I just keep on rollin', 'til I find a brighter day

5 I see your sun is shinin', heavens smilin'
6 There's never been a way for me to say
7 I've got to find the feelin', start believin'
8 There's got to be a way for me to say that I know

9 If a blind man sees tomorrow, like a deaf man hears the sun
10 Then we must choose if we were born to lose, or if we're the chosen one
11 I can't find the feeling, that'll take my blues away
12 So I just keep on rollin', 'til I find a brighter day

13 I see your sun is shinin', heavens smilin'
14 There's never been a way for me to say
15 I've got to find the feelin', start believin'
16 There's got to be a way for me to say that I know

17 A blind man sees tomorrow, like a deaf man hears the sun
18 We must choose if we were born to lose, or if we're the chosen one

1 The "you" in this piece is the world as a whole. Humanity, society, nature, the Earth. The speaker saying that he's seen their illusions and that they've seen his desires implies that he's disappointed in the world. He finds the inherit beauty in life an illusion, and is saddened by that. His yearning to believe in said illusions, and to be happy, are the desires he's shown to the world.

2 Disappointed by the world, the speaker turns his hopes to the future, hoping maybe it'll be better tomorrow.

3 For the time being, he tries his best to be happy with small luxuries like drinking, partying, et cetera.

4 While the hedonistic life makes existence in a disappointing world tolerable, makes him able to continue each day, the speaker can't truly be happy, and continues to hope that some day it'll be better (as referenced in line 2).

5 A juxtaposition of the speaker's wish for a "brighter day" and a literally bright, happy day. All the world and society enjoys a beautiful day without the speaker.

6 The subject speaks directly for a line and begins to make a point, but cuts himself off.

7 He realizes that he can be as happy as everyone else, but is unable to let himself. He knows that he needs to find the same feeling everyone else seems to have but...

8 He's simply unable to say that he understands them.

9 The speaker uses two examples of two people missing senses are a metaphor for his standing. Just as they're unable to experience aspects of enjoying life, neither is he.

10 Reiterating that he's not someone who has fallen into a pit of despair, the speaker reminds the listener, and to some degree, himself, that life is what you make it. Being upset all the time is on the choice of the individual.

11-15 See 3-7

16 The same as line 8, but with a different meaning. Coupling this line with the next two, the speaker means to say that he while things are dark for him at present, he knows that he needs to learn that...

17 A person can't be happy if they constantly sever their attachments to the world...

18 Nor if they think that they are meant to be joyless.

Lady Gaga Announces New Album! (article)

Since the unprecedented sales of Born This Way in May of 2011, Lady Gaga has spent the past eight months proving herself to be one of the busiest ladies in the industry.

Yes, hardly a day goes by where she isn't making an appearance at an event or on television, and when she's not doing that, she's touring, recording videos, or working on a piece of her own unique show art.

On Tuesday, January 3rd, however, she surprised fans when she announced, in an interview on MTV, that she has been secretly working on her next coming album for the past two months! While Gaga was cautious to give to many details, she did reveal that the new album will be a return to form for her in-your-face style.

"My first two albums were just a taste of my creativity... now the gloves are really coming off and my intense side is coming out!" Gaga told interviewer Sway. When asked about her new ideas, she only said, "I have not even begun to be obnoxious yet."

Lady Gaga was hesitant to give any exact release dates, but said to expect the new album, "Please, For the Love of God, Pay Attention to Me!" to his shelves late this summer.

Do's and Don'ts of Zombie Writing (essay)

I love zombies. I love everything about zombies from their bone chipped, flesh clogged, teeth down to their decomposing toes. They come in all shapes and sizes these days; the fast angry zombies of 28 Days Later, the slow, mindless, brain eaters from Land of the Dead, and everything in between. And you know what? I think it's great! This surge of new zombie related content makes me glow with warming light down to the pit of my caustic, cynical, soul. Or rather... that's what I would be saying if I was still 17.

Yes, back in 2007, 17 year old me was very excited about zombies. I had a large collection of zombie video games, regularly watched new and old zombie movies, had more than one zombie related t-shirt, and would typically try to crack open my friends skulls to get to the warm jelly inside. Though that might have been a unrelated disorder entirely.

Today, though, zombies are the proverbial dead horse that every film maker, game producer, clothing magnate, and novelist, is bent on savaging until the last few dimes are belched from its decomposing corpse. Honestly, I'm embarrassed that my stance on zombies now amounts to, "I liked them before they were cool."; but in my sordid history the shamblers, I've picked up on the right and wrong things to do when it comes to writing anything about the beasts.

Don'ts

No Chainsaws
A very wise man once observed that chainsaws have been used against zombies in media more than they've been used against wood in real life. I have to audibly groan every time I see one of the carbon monoxide leaking machines being revved up by the group's strong man as he laughs triumphantly. It's getting to the point in this genres dimwitted life where the chainsaw is getting as predictable as the token slut getting buffed off shortly after the black guy in slasher movies.

Shotgun ≠ Invulnerable
Before leaving the idea of the character that's built like a brick shed to much, the subject of shotguns needs to be brought up. When did shotguns become the end all zombie destroying weapon? Why are they always carried by the Ving Rhames character? How many rounds does a typical shotgun carry, eight? Then you get to reload one bullet at a time? While zombies have already eaten your intestines are are moving quickly to your upper limbs? Thanks, I'll take a clip fed weapon.

"Tough Chicks"
I know it probably makes those of you with matched chromosomes feel good about your gender, and probably even solicits the occasional "You go, girl!" on pajama clad movie nights, but can we please get past the whole "tough chick" thing in zombie movies? I always had a lot of respect for Samus Aran from Metroid because her gender was never the focal point; it was always a matter of "She's a lady. She kills monsters. Let's watch her kill monsters.". The tough character is never particularly interesting, anyway. Taking a predictable, uninspired, blueprint and thinking that making it a girl will somehow make it interesting is flat out poor writing. I'm all for strong women in stories, but there is a line between a character that's a strong woman, and a strong character that is a woman. I guess what I'm saying is that my disinterested eye roll that used to be reserved for the entrance of the steroid pumped, "I'm a man!", character is starting to be shared with the equivalent female character.

Helpless Chicks are Passe
The flip side of that rather long argument is my frustration with the ever present prissy girl in zombie movies. The fact that there's always at least one bumbling female character prancing around in an outfit that was just fed through a lawn mower is criminal. Why has sex wormed its way into every genre? I'm trying to get my zombie on, I don't need a typical dumb blonde taking a shower whenever the writers feel like adding 15 minutes of padding because they don't want to work.

These last two points have been a bit tangential, but they're honestly just cries for gender equality in zombie media. Characters being carved out of the tough guy, sensitive guy, deep girl, slutty girl, etc. molds are completely unrelatable, not interesting, and most importantly, don't develop.

Don't Call the Zombies "The Nightmare"
Maybe this is more a video game thing, but I know I've seen it in at least one zombie movie. Unless you're going for silly campyness, for the love of your last shotgun shell, do not drop the "n" word when the characters are talking about the outbreak of zombies. Moreover, don't let them say it like it's supposed to be capitalized. "I wish everything could just go back to the way it was before The Nightmare!", cry, cry, obligatory sex scene between tough guy and helpless chick.


"Ya Gotta Shoot 'em In the Head!"
I've never been one to stand on tradition, and this one tradition that stupids seem to not only stand on, but stand on, chain to, and make out with. As with most other things that weigh zombie media down, the reason for ousting this dusty cliche can be summed up in one word: camp. It was delightfully grotesque to think that you'd have to blast a rotting corpse in the forehead to end their onslaught in the 70's, but it's just predictable at this point. And a character declaring to the others that it's the only way, and the others responding with confusion is just short of film makers insulting the audience. We know it, you know it, we know you know we know it. Get on with it.



Do's

Originality
Say you want to make a zombie movie. Imagine the key elements of every zombie movie you've ever seen, every zombie story you've ever read, and every zombie video game you've ever played. Now, don't do any of that. No tough guys with shotguns, to blondes getting their tits out when they think it's safe, no sensitive guy sacrificing himself to save the group, no maddened rush to a helicopter, no shopping malls. The status quo is destroying ever facet of media. If you really need to make a zombie anything, make it your own.

Break the Mold
Make the audience give a shit about your characters. If I had some change for every time a character I had no emotional investment in was fed to the zombie horde only to have their death be followed by sad music I'd be eating nickel soup. It's cool to feed a few characters to the woodchipper for its own sake, but expecting a reaction other than "Go, zombies!" is about as realistic as expecting me to tear up when the mailman drives away.

Sidestep Zombies Entirely
Going back and re-reading over some of these, this is starting to read like Baby's First Zombie Guide. These are all things that regularly frustrate me in zombie related media though, that's the frightening thing. I'd like to think that the hired professionals that are paid to write the tripe we see on shelves every few months are familiar with things like developing characters, but I'm really not seeing it. So for that reason, the best "Do" I can give you when it comes to writing anything about zombies it to not write about zombies at all.

"But Jeremiah, I want to write my story about a core group of survivors with complementary skills stranded by zombies in a mall waiting for a helicopter to pick them up!" Well, lets do the same basic thing, but make it the least bit good. How about instead of survivors with complimentary skills, they're cooperative strangers who don't excel at anything; that way they work together, develop, and have struggles. Instead of zombies, how about Japanese style ghosts, which have physical form. And instead of a mall, how about a logging camp in British Columbia? Lots of makeshift, log walls, and spooky forests. And instead of a helicopter saving them, make it a river boat that will take them to a stronghold in Washington State? Hold on, I need to write this down.

Soviet Girl 1 (fiction)

Back in the days when I was a little girl in Soviet Russia, I used to live just outside the village of Kimjeco. It was a pleasant ramble of shacks and huts nestled in the cliffs of the East, just above the jungle. Each day I'd climb down the sides of the rocks and boulders to play on the edge of the dense foliage, and in the swamps. I climbed up trees, swung on vines, and talked with the Indian Gavials that would lazily meander by. It was a delightful area of a war torn country, with no exposure to the hardships that plagued Moscow and other cities. That is… until that one day...

One day while clinging to a thin tree, I heard a bazaar sound. Something familiar, like footsteps in the mud. I turned around to see a man, an American, standing in front of me, clad entirely in camouflage right down to the paint on his face. My tiny lungs filled with air as I prepared to scream, but at the last minute, he clasped a firm hand over my mouth.

"Don't be afraid." he said in flawless Russian. "I'm a CIA operative, only hear to learn; not hurt anyone. I know this might seem scary to someone as small as you, but you need to keep the fact that we met a secret, okay?"

I looked up at him contemplatively, and for a second I almost agreed.

"Wait." I told him. "I won't tell anyone, but I want to come with you. I want you to take me to the other side of the iron curtain."

"That's impossible!" he said.

"Maybe. But the very fact that you're here is a violation of international law. If you were exposed, your government would deny knowledge to prevent Khrushchev from becoming belligerent. Really, who wouldn't be angry that they were having spies invading their country? And you, Mr. CIA would be left to the mercy of either the jungle, or the KGB, who would eventually come to pick you up."

I have to say that I was a smart little kid.

The agent looked at me aghast. He knew it was all true, and that he had no choice in the matter at this point. He'd been painted into a corner by an eight year old. His continence shifted to desperation. His brow furrowed. It was clear he was trying frantically to think of a response. We stood there, ankle deep in warm mud for several seconds, never breaking eye contact.

Finally, he sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again he was looking to the left, over my shoulder. He stared into the distance for several long moments. My vision stayed locked him. That is, until he squinted his eyes and a look of shock and surprise crossed his face. I whirled around to see what he’d spotted.

Nothing.

I glared, and turned around to meet him again, but I wasn't met with an American. I was met with nothing. Not a man. Not an American. Nothing left behind. Not even footprints in the muck. He was gone without a trace.

And there I stood. I felt like I stood there forever - betrayed, and ignored. Left with only the feeling that my stomach had been cut open, and my guts had fallen out; hearing only the chitter of swamp frogs.