Author Archives: Zoe_E_W

May 8, 2015

My problems with indie platformers…

By Zoe_E_W

This week I bought They Bleed Pixels, and after three chapters, I gave up and walked away in frustration. I didn’t play enough to make a proper review, but the experience did help bring to mind several complaints I’ve had with indie platformers, and I want to talk about them after a few days to calm down. If I had written about this immediately after leaving the game, about 80% of every sentence would have been variations of fuck.

To begin, I love platformers. Back in my youth, Nintendo was full of these side scrolling gems, and I think back on how many of my favorite games were the 2D jump/attack variety. Among some of my favorites were Super Mario Bros. (And 2 and 3), Castlevania (and 3, screw 2), Bionic Commando, and Contra (And Super Contra). Those titles give you some idea of the variety of the formula, with each game having a very different feel and look, and they were glorious. They had a great blend of challenge and fun, and to this day, I can still go back and play some of them over just because I love them so much.

Then at a certain point, all the new consoles coming out created a shift away from the 2D side-view platform in favor of the 3D environment. I’m not knocking this because there are a lot of 3D games that I’ve loved over those consoles as well. But the dearth of the familiar platformer was always something stuck at the back of my mind. I wondered why we lost this particular style of gameplay when the increasing hardware capabilities should have made it possible to have some really pretty games on the 2D plane. Continue reading

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May 7, 2015

Book review: Growl by Ashley Fontainne

By Zoe_E_W

Growl started off stumbling for me, then recovered and ran fast and intense right up until the end before it once again stumbles and drops the ball entirely. The events leading up to the conclusion are so good that I was staying up later singing the “one more chapter” song, and I still consider it a good book for the most part. But the parts it mishandles are to my mind the most important for any book, and they take down the whole story by a couple notches.

Growl is about a battle between two ancient entities who have each used two small town families as their avatars for many generations. Sheryl Ilene Newcomb is the next inheritor of this ability, and her story begins by telling you how the book ends, who will die, and who will survive. This kills any sense of dread or fear for the characters. Worse, these first few chapters are chock full of infodumps that could have been handled better if they were part of the story as it happens instead of being shoehorned in at the front.

After the first three chapters, the story shakes off some of these slow infodumps, but not all of them. The story works in spite of them, and as I said, I was reading until I had dry eyes for two nights in a row. Sheryl’s family and life are interesting enough to make those constant digressions forgivable. She’s got a boyfriend already, so there’s no need to clutter the story up “finding the one,” and after a very brief flashback to a tragedy striking the family when Sheryl was nine, the story jumps ahead nine years to get to the real conflict. Sheryl’s discovery of her lineage and duties are fascinating, and I like the monsters even though they stay hidden for most of the book. Continue reading

Leave a comment | posted in Book, other peoples' stuff

May 5, 2015

Music: Ibeyi

By Zoe_E_W

Ibeyi album coverIbeyi is a music group made up of French Cuban twin sisters Naomi and Lisa-Kaindle Diaz. Their songs blend English and Yoruba, and the name Ibeyi translates from Yoruba as twins. The songs are made up of percussion beats and piano melodies, and it’s a mellow style that I really love. Ibeyi are on tour right now, and I’m hoping to see them at Unaltrofestival in Milan July 7th, where they’ll be performing with Of Monsters and Men, Christopher Paul Stelling, FYFE, and Dardust.

You can find out more about Ibeyi on their website, which has links to their eponymous first album, a list of upcoming tour dates, and a collection of photos of the artists.

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May 3, 2015

Mini-movie review: Tucker and Dale VS Evil

By Zoe_E_W

I saw the trailer for Tucker and Dale VS Evil last year, and I knew I had to get it on DVD eventually. We finally found a copy last week, and I thought it was fantastic. I love how the classic teenagers going out in the woods trope is subverted because the “evil rednecks” are actually just normal guys going on vacation, just like the teenagers are. They look different, so the college teens are all making wild assumptions about what they’re thinking and doing, and the misunderstandings resulting in copious gory violence is brilliant and hilarious.

That said, I have two problems with the film, the first minute of the movie and the last thirty seconds. The first minute gives away the ending and the “twist” and that really sucks. If that first minute of found footage wasn’t there, I would have been pretty surprised by the twist. But as it is, that intro makes the big reveal a huge let down.

The last thirty second scene is just not funny, and it makes both Dale and Allison look pretty shallow and self-centered. After spending most of the movie building on the premise that appearances can be deceiving, and that these two characters from vastly different worlds are both good folks, the finale basically goes, “Nope, they’re both assholes after all! Hyuk, hyuk hyuk!”

Setting those complaints aside, I loved the movie and spent most of the film laughing so hard I was coughing. So I’ll give Tucker and Dale VS Evil 4 stars. I hear a sequel is in the works now, and if that’s true, I’m looking forward to seeing where the next film goes.

Leave a comment | posted in Movie, other peoples' stuff

May 2, 2015

Visual art: Eric Lacombe

By Zoe_E_W

I follow Eric Lacombe on Facebook, and I very much look forward to all the images and videos he shares of his artwork. He’s got a very distinct dark style to his paintings, and you can check out his galleries on his web site:

http://www.ericlacombe.com/

Leave a comment | posted in other peoples' stuff, visual art

May 1, 2015

Let me start over…

By Zoe_E_W

Long time visitors are going to feel a bit disoriented, disappointed, disillusioned, or otherwise dissed today because the rest of my blog just disappeared. First let me apologize and assure you that this change was intentional and not the result of me screwing up my blog. You know, like all those other times in the past when I screwed it up.

Part of what motivated me to take this drastic step is that as I’ve moved this site from one host to the next, there’s always some sort of technical gotcha that’s made the transfer fail. Sure, I read the documentation and tried to follow the instructions, but it never really worked out like I hoped. The only time that didn’t happen is when the techs working for Infinity Cloud did the transfer for me, and those poor souls went out of business. (A damn shame, really, because they were great people to work with. (Not that my current host is bad, mind you. But they did make me do my own blog transfer, and look how that turned out. *Sighs*))

The rest of the times, the only reason I could still recover the site is that I never gave up on updating my mirror at the WP-hosted address. This recovery method has problems because when I import the files over to this site, I’m not actually importing the graphics to the new server. There’s now this forced connection between the two sites, and to fix that kind of thing would take a long time. I’m far behind on several other projects that should have been done already, so I’m not too keen to get all up in the guts of my blog to untwist the kinky bits of code.

The other reason is more a matter of my changing perspective. In the last few years, I’ve tended to look at some of my older rants and think, “Wow, I really was too pissed to think straight, wasn’t I?” Being angry is one thing, but being incoherent to the point where I can’t find the connection from one idea to the next is…well, it’s cringe inducing. Continue reading

Leave a comment | posted in personal projects, random mental floss