"If there is such a revival of 2d beat em ups it is because creating a good 3d action game that orbits in combat is something that only a select group can do."

-Homogies 3/12 or something like that
It's strange that sometimes people refer to this game as "the precursor to Bloodborne", I don't see anything substantial that leads to this thought beyond the setting. Castlevania 64 had a similar settig as well, its internal clock triggering gates and important events, suggesting the importance or insignificance of your presence and feel of the world, something Bloodborne does as well.
What could have been top action at the time only seems correct right now. Not because of "it has aged badly" but because at least solutions have been found -not so elegant- to how to plan the action in pseudo-naturalistic orographies within the gamy logics. in Nightmare creatures you cannot take high ground, there is no place for it in almost any situation, you cannot control hordes or even pairs of enemies because their attack and defense mechanics only contemplate 1 vs 1 and, having no control over the camera always has to guess that attack will come from outside the frame the game chooses and there is no encouragement to express yourself (because you basically can't) or to behave like an aggressive hunter. More like a kid playing with a bo. Not that I want to praise the post Ninja Gaiden Black post Devil May Cry 3 structure because that would be choosing the easy way out but... Look at The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge or Van Helsing, They have the Capcomnian structure and half the problems are solve by themselves (generously speaking) and they don't encourage you to go beyond generating moments of explosive action without many nuances, but at least it's functional within 3d.

Arduween 1x07

psychotic bishounen, HIGH&LOW in a world of horror

-The most natural evolution of action-horror ever developed. Its spaces respond to that attempt at polygonal evolution of flat and reflective corridors to give a cleaner and more sterile sensation, not as charismatic or dirty as in the first Galerians, more aware of its diegetic and Futurist possibilities and limitations, Y2k after all, empty space, reflections and liquids become something mystical again. FULL 3D, a sense of grandeur with cameras and cutscenes - limited, but visually seductive - replace controlled motion planning in the psOne's pre-rendered backgrounds, and its kinesthetic orthotics also move toward agile gameplay.
Nothing very naturalistic, however: the corridors and rooms do respond to a certain habitability logic, but the menus get in the way of the action, the protagonist's portraits appear as reflections on the screen when we pick up an object (looking at us) and the characters act differently. robotics. I think of these things when someone says "ps2 desing" I think of the start of the BIOS immersing myself in a virtual world. I think of a universe built without pretensions to hide in what medium it is based, embracing the digital in its presentation, out of necessity or conviction.
-The game is full of brutally interesting images, (this is only from its first hours https://twitter.com/Ardwyw/status/1575538820933906432) something in the middle between Event Horizon, BLAME!, Matrix, Cronenberg (that body horror ), something from the old Squaresoft and a J-Pop concert... Although this is seen more from the cinematographic (Cutscenes) than from the cinematic (in-game camera and scenery) and it's a shame because if sections like the final boss were more abundant the canned structure in labyrinths whose transit is not so interesting from a spatial point of view, it's not that I don't appreciate slow gaming but those corridors... I don't know.
- The action is only interesting with the bosses or sub-bosses, the rest were exercises to control resources and my nervousness, something that I already have very internalized. I also don't ask for the incredible exploration of objects and their effects on my avatar and enemies that BAROQUE had but, meh

I really appreciate this Galerians: Ash, but through sight, not so much when I play it
Although I will definitely return.

Arduween 1x03

Those who see art as a shortcut to prestige have a very distorted idea of ​​what is "prestigious" - Look Kojima, creating spiritual connections through eschatology, total genius -, And few of this horrible ilk exist like Neil druckmann or conrad roset. Guys who use the medium of video games as a platform to satisfy their hunger for prominence and recognition. and incidentally, along the way, dividing in a problematic way the reception and conception of "arthouse" and pop games

I'm not going to blame them for Little Nightmares being read as an empty and morbid trip, because before that there was Playdead with his Limbo.
Neither of the obsession with the tone and fixation with photorealism without a plastic sense more typical than seeing the pores of Nathan Drake's skin, but, God, how I would like a timeline in which Roset and Druckmann are considered the worst in a way unanimous. Because they may not be the worst in general in the horror pile, but their popularity exposes the sad reality that some are interested in video games being validated by those who do not appreciate them in all their aspects, and those who need them to carry an HBO series cosplay or Milanese exhibition box
____________________
the idea of ​​how necessary any author was -beyond programmers- in videogames came to me for the first time playing Dragon Quarter "the shape of this game does not seem to be the product of chance or trends" said little Ardu at one time where he assumed that experimentation was the standard and the methodology to follow, the correct choice. Poor ignorant little Ardu.

In 2013 Little Ardu also said: "In the same year as Attack of the friday monsters, Drakengard 3, TW101, Proteus and Resogun... There is The Last of Us, this game that has enchanted me for its solidity and surprising humanity ( little Ardu didn't see that coming) but it's also the pinnacle of the formally conservative tv prestige show wannabe game type, which seems to be the way forward for pop games. mmmm maybe it's not that bad either? I mean it has overlapped many games that I consider better, but that always happens to me haha ​​if one day justice will be done, but meanwhile, if the AAA are like that, maybe we will advance something "

Poor ignorant little Ardu.

One of those games that are somewhat familiar to the hands but refresh the eyes and mind

-One of the last games on a dead Nintendo platform is a collection of unfinished levels, featuring a gameworld that seems to somehow fit a dead Metroid. Well, not dead, an unborn Metroid Prime more like. A copy with no original. An untimely and unborn digital world, a simulation of the worst for those who want to create video games in an industry that demands results and for those who are looking for content and hours of play. throws some sensations that I had with those that already existed in the 80s (Zelda, Xanadu Revival) until the end of the last decade with Connor Sherlock, Kojima and Taro: a ghost zone where the content -if there is any- can kill your interpretive creativity from within, reach an icon, a collectible, a new area and that the reward is emptiness.
Where is the Lore?
Any. There is not.
Constant movement and no linear thinking. I think that is what we need, that they give us less and put more on our part. And now, I know that we give a good part of our energy to overcome challenges and, why not say so? A good deal of our money goes into this, but our meaning comes in many forms.

-I honestly don't know what the title refers to, but playing it in the month in which Splatoon 3 is launched, which finally seems to find something in its own saga -3 deliveries have taken a long time- beyond a more or less original concept and in the that the latest ranges of Graphic Cards are announced at exorbitant prices and... It's just a micro event, yes, let's go with Automated Lungs

-In something if it looks like the first metroid: The world is only transited, you do not get to dominate. The discomfort of moving through this unborn world of unfinished spaces has the consequence that picking up a simple collectible on a narrow catwalk can become a challenge that is highly dependent on our ability to maintain somewhat rigid inertia through the joystick. The character of this reminds me of Nagoshi's Super Monkey Ball (yes)

-I've never laughed so hard at those sections where they put a collectible in a place you can almost touch but it's hidden behind a transparent wall or whatever, in an area only accessible after a hell of a takeshis challenge. Not even VVVVV's. And at the same time a strange terror. And relief. If the void is like that, if the richness and texture of these dead zones is only a catalyst for sensations and the most literal content is scarce, I am relieved.
On the other hand, this void is not as resounding as the literalness that floods the interpretation and design of contemporary video games. I wouldn't blame anyone who saw the game as a product of "a little polished indie series dealing with self-contained challenges" to be honest.

-Negative areas. Dark green void. Towers that lead to cities driven more by a dreamlike sense than by a gamy logic. I go where I want as I can and that scares me, again it's very strange. I am invaded by the thought of how much contemporary pop culture and the era of immediacy have clearly guided us and have marked a path of more evident and linear readings.
I will definitely come back to this game when its PC version comes out

-the idea of ​​creating action by putting yourself right in the middle is nothing new -I mean pretty much every switch pre Kill Switch or even something post Gears of War does it- now they force you to do it? It's probably due to the lack of an accurate and reliable aiming system, but standing still in the face of hordes as a requirement to shoot madly with the frame serving as a giant random "sight" works better than I'd like to admit for creating. moments of powerful exploitative action

-Most of the scenes that are visited incite me to interpret each moment as most of the shooting scenes, from the 50s to the 2000s. There is this section in the Chinatown stage where the action puts you back in the half surrounded by flammable kitchens in which, as in those movies, I am in the center of everything, the bullets do not touch me and my shots arrive by magic. auto aim spatial manipulation replaces video montage
And speaking of scenarios and Stages, start from a grave to an oriental altar, carrying a corpse character that moves like one... kinda rules. It is a game more thought than it seemed

-Soy un hombre muy honrado
Que me gusta lo mejor
Las mujeres no me faltan
Ni el dinero, ni el amor
Jineteando en mi caballo
Por la sierra yo me voy
Las estrellas y la luna
Ellas me dicen donde voy
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Ay, ay mi amor
Ay, mi morena
De mi corazón
Me gusta tocar guitarra
Me gusta cantar el son
Mariachi me acompaña
Cuando canto mi canción
Me gusta tomar mis copas
Aguardiente es lo mejor
También el tequila blanco
Con su sal le da sabor
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Ay, ay mi amor
Ay, mi morena
De mi corazón
Me gusta tocar guitarra
Me gusta cantar el son
El mariachi me acompaña
Cuando canto mi canción
Me gusta tomar mis copas
Aguardiente es lo mejor
También el tequila blanco
Con su sal le da sabor
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Ay, ay mi amor
Ay, mi morena
De mi corazón
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Ay, ay mi amor
Ay, mi morena
De mi corazón

Leaving aside the fact that my previous reviews Itagaki's Ninja Gaiden 2 and WET were the result of drunken nights and carousing, I still have a genuine interest in how some video games confidently carry a "Vulgar" aesthetic in times where the masses concentrate on photorealism, pixel art or cutewholesomethang (maybe?)
Let's also leave aside the fact that for video games, exploitation, in every sense of the word, is like a lung.

________-_
Both Itagaki's ninja gaiden and WET have the will to inherit the most vulgar and savage aesthetics of Asian exploitation cinema, and its derivatives, only one does it passively and the other seems to be desperately looking for it, like comparing Chang Cheh vs Tarantino.
God forgive me.

Itagaki's ninja gaiden is at its core, in spirit more like the films it wants to be a playable response to -let's say Chang Cheh's cinema-, Ninja Gaiden is a wild, aggressive product for the player, who doesn't really care in excess for pleasing everyone and that guards its greatness in deep places that not everyone is willing to reach, although visually it is everything that at the beginning of the HD era and the great recession was asked of an AAA; it relies on clean, powerful imagery, a hyper-stylized plastic sense with attention to toned bodies, fluids, fabrics and movement, and had a strong cinematic component.
instead, WET is more like a Tarantino movie. Not like it stays in an egofalocentric pastiche that depends on the ignorance or incuriosity of people like Kill Bill was, but although it hurts me the reality is that WET has a -great- very interesting action premise that is tamed by a worthy planning of an AAA or study budget-at best-where the epidermal is the substance. Littering the already-suffering 30-frame image full of jagged edges and blurriness with burnt filters, stock sounds, and transitions that attempt to emulate a Grindhouse experience is certainly daring for a game whose playable core is efficiency and reflexes. the result pushes the game to exist as a short, cheap and unhygienic party, but very enjoyable, which unlike Tarantino does have a somewhat vulgar rebellious spirit.
Not that good as NGII, but hey.


2022

Notes on Stray forcefully anti-intellectuals because it is necessary to think about video games outside the logic of video games or something like that

-I talk too much about spaces, their construction and exploration and I barely realize how important the height and size we use to move through it is, but I have always felt that small avatars are a little more interesting. Maybe because I'm 1.85, I have no idea.

-When Stray was released I saw a tweet that said something like "it's a game about being a cat but in BoTW you move more like a cat" or something like that. I found it a bit ridiculous because it seemed to disdain Stray's navigation based on pseudo-realistic logic, but in BoTW almost any surface is "sticky" and you can scale it like a lizard. That's not very catty bro

-The environments are excellent on their own, but they also seem to me to be an excellent architecture that reflects the dilemma of the automata.
There is a lot of beauty in walking around the district and just sitting next to any inhabitant, a robot, an npc, a mannequin. an inhabitant.

Why fool ourselves, if the game had been a cat Playground most of GamersTm would have been annoyed for not having objectives, "nothing to do".
goodoo.

-The complaint of many is that the game should have been a playground instead of a directed adventure with some freeform moments. I think so too, but against everything I believed, I ended up liking the direction, despite being quite conventional.

-Creating a fictional world through the aesthetic and cultural appropriation of countries with problematic political pasts (is there a country that does not have it?) can be problematic, but it is true that many countries have done it to a greater or lesser extent. It doesn't matter how; Turbo-capitalist revisions of Marie Antoinette of Austria, JRPGs with bucolic aesthetics or those martial arts movies where completely anachronistic techniques and movements are shown. Perhaps it would matter more WHO takes that culture to use it as background and decoration

-Alexis Ong's text isn't bad to be honest


-Sisi Jiang's text wouldn't be bad either. But back to the same.
It's not that I want to play the parry that we should be permissive with the romanticization (and appropriation) of a problematic aesthetic and culture for the sake of a freer and more experimental fiction... But if I'm doing it a little?? maybe?
Why complaining about the appropriation of pizza or the word (k)Otaku would be silly but doing it about Hong Kong architecture is smart?

-In the past, some Asian countries, by necessity or imposition, have also absorbed too much Western culture, now they appropriate it and, by necessity or because of the turbo-capitalism in which we live, they market their own culture.
I apologize if this may offend anyone but it is something that I see very real.

I guess the people who understand Kurosawa as "the guy who made vintage black and white Japanese movies" are the same people who understand video games as "SUISSSS SWOOOS PIUM PIUM HAHA... Wait I'll make this into real art"
On the other hand, our relationship with video games is as fucked up as that of these guys I'm commenting on

NO? well

drunk thoughts:
- our spectacle is entirely metatextual

-The game is a fail at the beginning. the drama adopts the triads as an aesthetic element rather than as a real device for conflict. Any protocol or issue related to the triads is taken more from the collective imagination, more from and closer to the mafias of Europe than to those of Asia.
Of course, in the end, the bad guy was the Occidental.

-Less vulgar (vulgar images and spaces are good) than it appears and more organized (poorly) than it should. Any moment is approached from the same common ground as all modern action games with open-world structures: (efficient) fights and (horrible) shootouts here, chases there, on foot or in vehicles. Follow the line on the minimap, don't get lost.
and bro, nothing really matters when no set-piece takes advantage of the architecture. Why Hong Kong? I play because I'm supposed to be Hong Kong, but until I raise the camera slightly I can't tell these digital streets apart from others I've already seen. The camera does not emphasize anything or let me take a look on my own, it is hermetic and protocol business.
And how can it be? There is pampering here. Yes there is architectural mime (I guess)

-the True -True Crime Hong Kong: the city is a zombie set where the little life of space begins and ends with its references to the cinema. God, what a pain to see PTU reduced to a couple of fights and encryption minigames
Anyone who has seen Johnnie To knows that the monster, the titan and the biggest character in HK cinema is the city itself.
but here is just a wallpaper.

The apocalypse as party and fantasy. No philosophy or worries. in the city, of course, because modern shooting festivals have to be in south east asian countries or the american city in total shit, or unscrupulous mercenaries or zombies reimagined, very sad.


Imsomniac Games seems to be made up of 12-year-olds or 45-year-olds, or something like that, with no middle ground because the overall aesthetic oscillates between unrestrained noise and extravagant weapons that 12-year-olds would imagine as "cool" (perhaps) and the shameful idea of "party" and "hip" that 40-year-olds have in mind (for sure)
And it is curious the strange dichotomy generated by that gloomy vision is reflected in its displacement mechanics; tremendous verticality and smoothness with a lot of support points. I jump to several levels in the architecture, and suddenly the rails rule, and the architecture flattens.

This is one of those games that block my thoughts because of the grime they generate in me, no matter how hostile it sounds

Ellas pierden mas.

Ficcion interactiva imperativa para todo el mundo, en conversacion y reivindicacion.

Thoughts have arisen playing this, more aesthetic than the game itself
A couple of notes:
-The vast majority of confrontations in fighting games are raised under an ultrafictitious logic that the aesthetics of combat is something similar to "a dance", perhaps that is why tremendous animations are designed with an almost liquid fluidity of movement, that's great, the body, as a flexible element disconnected from logic, should always be explored, but it is very far from the truth; Martial arts training, adapted for sport or not, is remotely similar to dance in that both are rehearsal and rehearsal, to feel and perfect a physical technique, but not much more. And the direct and real metrics of a fight are opposite to those of a couple dance. The aesthetic satisfaction that comes from seeing performers at their peak of skill is the only link between the two arts, and that too is probably inaccurate, because fighters must fail and dancers cannot afford it.

-The fights on martial arts action movies , THAT is dance. complete and absolute

- The possibilities of space and its pleasures in video games are a long way from being fully resolved or discovered and clinging to combos and the metagames has resulted in an unconscious disregard for topography and the impact it has on 3D action. Devil May Cry 4 and the trickster style are somewhat to blame for this by proposing a game of juggling, and partly because we have focused a lot on the sensations of weight, jumping and the impact of the blows, which is perfectly fine, but What about the ground we land and step on?

-From the point of view of competition, the best is an infinite arena, without obstacles or topography as such; smooth floor, colorful backgrounds.
But then the hitboxes of each fighter should be more imprecise and chaotic, right? obeying the bodies and less computer codes.

-That's bullshit, digital bodies are made of computer code

-F.uck

Savaki, Tekken 4 and Hellish Quart are my favorite 3d fighting games for approaching space combat from the flexibility and chaos of collisions and location, rather than hitbox and perfect distances. That's the only thing I have more or less clear lol

Beyond the end, beyond the absurd, there she is. and puppies, many puppies, toilet water tasting dogs, magi dogs, writing dogs, bodybuilding dogs, stewardess dogs, counter clerk dogs ...
the end of the world is a space full of color and joy, empty and full at the same time, rare, full of curiosities. World's End. there is me, her, and dogs. It doesn't take more to make me smile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgyVpijwvZw

El prologo al capitulo perdido de esa saga que medita sobre la dualidad.
Inesperado plot twist. Ground Zeroes es un reflejo del primer episodio de MGS2, pura pornografia de accion y espionaje que deriva hacia un final turbio y extraño que parece enganchar la fantasia con la realidad. Tambien es, como MGS2, un reflejo sobre la imposibilidad de desligarnos de las nociones de lo que es "un buen videojuego"

Jugar con la linea que separa la explotacion, la parodia y la autocritica parece estar prohibido en los videojuegos, la necesidad de brindar un punto de acceso asequible para el jugador por medio de un centro moral facil donde se acepta antes la accion cartoon que la posibilidad de manejar la pornografia estetica y la abstraccion. Casi todos los acercamientos formales parecen basarse en la calidad del apartado, el tejido en si, por encima de la expresion y el retrato, confundiendo forma con materia y calidad con profundidad que, partiendo de ahi, ese razonamiento se arrastra hasta lo narrativo, lo literal y lo moral. la sustraccion selectiva a la que juegos como MGSV se ven sometidos es prueba de lo poco que en ocasiones entendemos realmente (me incluyo, por supuesto), ya no de videojuegos, si no de posibilidades. Con Sustraccion selectiva me refiero a la focalizacion de aspectos concretos que nos hacen salvar o condenar un videojuego concreto, en MGSVgz:

-La bomba en la vagina como condena.
-La jugabilidad como redencion.

Para mi ninguno tiene sentido.
La cuestion de la misoginia interiorizada de Kojima es evidente y una absoluta lastima, tan evidente que el mismo la reconoce de forma casi abierta. ha intentado varias veces de manera honesta tratar la sexualidad como parte de sus mundos, siempre una mix entre la nocion japonesa y Norte-americana del sexo y los cuerpos, el exhibicionismo y el empoderamiento, tanto para hombre como para mujeres, aunque claramente al ser MGS una saga que maneja la masculinidad y el mito del heroe, la peor parte se la lleva el genero femenino.
Dicho esto, el asunto de la bomba me parece mas una super-dramatizacion de un acto atroz que sadismo sexual en si. Quiza me equivoque, pero no veo mas atencion en ello que la incomodidad y el retrato de una tragedia de guerra, crafteada dentro de un momento intencionalmente incomodo, Y Quiet me hace sentir demasiado incomodo, entiendo que forme parte del punto de TPP, me gusta la teoria, pero no comparto las formas.
La cuestion de la jugabilidad es el punto de sustraccion selectiva mas grande y en la que mas "Criticos" caen: Apuntan a una ausencia de autocritica mientras alaban las posibilidades del gameplay cuando ven un video de Dunkey, sin pensar en disociar o hilar lo que sucede con nada que no este dentro del videojuego, siempre desde la relacion avatar-jugador. lo que vemos es lo que hay y los videojuegos son literales.
Es un modo de ver las cosas con el que cada vez concuerdo menos.
Aparte,hay algo mas anti- americano que ofrecerte guantanamo como un campo de juego para despues desatar un 9/11 sobre el hogar del avatar/protagonista??
Bastante genio.

La posibilidad de crear mundos digitales donde el autor pueda integrar personificaciones de sus predilecciones, preocupaciones y, por que no? Fallos y problemas personales como un mashup se ve lapidada por las cuestiones de tono, necesidad de un ancla moral y la necesidad de satisfacer al jugador, claro, un juego se supone que debe ser divertido.
Pues No.
No necesariamente.
En que punto perdimos la capacidad de entender que el contenido ideologico cuestionable que un autor incluya en su obra no tiene que ser una personificacion 1 a 1 del mismo? Ni idea, pero en videojuegos es algo extendido. Quiza porque gozan de menor reconocimiento cultural? Por sus cualidades inmediatas? Porque son divertidos?
En ocasiones uno debe separar para ver con perspectiva, encontrar ese algo especial, pero habria que empezar a pensar como separar mejor para reencajar mejor todo.


That nonexistent game that a random kid plays on an X360 with a PS4 controller in a random movie. randomly made up for that random movie. Almost metatextual.

It looks like a remake of 007 Nightfire, constantly changing (that section in the fancy spy car with built-in missile launcher) and moving with ideas "borrowed" from absolutely every fps that has had relative impact. from the approach to the kinesthetic gunplay and set-pieces of Infinity ward and Raven software, through the parkour of Digital illusions and Respawn entertainment, to the powers of attraction and gravitational push of Chinese online shooters, and, of course, also Dark Souls lol. All in one, mixed and scrambled. A tasteless aesthetic mashup that finds a meaning like a rabbit hole towards a wonderland that fits as a prima, with all the influences in plain sight and without a defined aesthetic identity that personally inspire me with a certain tenderness, since although they denote a lack of personality At times, their ideas to create mechanical mashups with the ideas of others end up on interesting grounds by not having the need to innovate or be accountable to a public that demands "innovation" or "essence", and perhaps this is not the case, and if , this game is fetishist for the purest technical muscle.

Zack Snyder would like it.