Metal Monday

YouTube Obsession

As mentioned last week I am full-on enthralled by Valve’s upcoming MOBA, Deadlock. I am eating up all the content that comes my way and fortunately, Flats has started making videos on the game.

I’ve been watching Flats for years as an Overwatch creator and I think he is perfect to introduce people to Deadlock. His laid back, welcoming style is anathema to the toxic label often (And deservedly) put on most MOBA communities.

I hope to see more Deadlock videos from Flats in the future as this game continues development.

Watching

Since finishing the Halloween series of mostly trash movies, my partner and I have started a Director retrospective: Cronenberg.

Deciding to forgo his first two traditional horror movies¹ , we started with 1979’s The Brood and 1980’s Scanners, where his individual tastes as a director really start to shine through.

What I’m beginning to discover about Cronenberg is that, though he is often and rightly lauded as a director that knows how to use special effects, he is an excellent director of actors. These two movies exist in a world one degree removed from reality, in weird and specific ways. Just one wrong performance from and actor and the movies would devolve into camp. Yet, Croneberg gets his actors to deliver their lines with gravity and even get excellent performances. I’m specifically thinking of the performances of Samantha Eggar (Pictured above) and Oliver Reed from The Brood; They veer so close to over-the-top but always hold onto an earnestness that grounds their characters.

I have some pushback towards people who tout Croneberg as a “horror director”. With most horror you can see the actors and even the movie winking at the audience, as if to acknowledge its own ridiculousness. Cronenberg forces his audience to accept the reality presented by the movie through his direction and actors. Defining his movies as “Psycological-thrillers” feels more apt, even “Surrealist” on level with David Lynch is far more suitable.

We’re on to Videodrome next, so follow our progress on my Letterboxd.

Reading

Leading up to the release of Space Marine 2 (see below), I’ve been on a reading tear for most of my free time.

I would recommend The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore if you like stories for a story’s sake. It is not deep or profound, but it is an interesting and very weird, even gross story that I couldn’t put down.

Despite some obvious twists in the last quarter I found Trust by Hernan Diaz to be fairly good. It’s construction was interesting though its potential went unrealized. A couple of interesting events in the 3rd part are fun, the writing is competent and it read quickly enough.

I read This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno in two sittings. I probably could have read it in one if I weren’t home alone. This is a genuinely creepy book that I suspect will be made into a movie sometime soon due to it’s descriptive and straight-forward narration. I highly recommend.

Playing

I don’t really fear death. Of course I can have those incontrollable 3am thoughts that make hairs on my neck stand, but in my waking life, I don’t really think I’ll be missing much when I die. However, I do think about video games I will miss. That is my number one thought. Loved ones will always be with me but I don’t want to die before I get to play The Witcher 4.

The most recent game spur my existential dread is Saber Interactive’s Space Marine 2. Long time readers will know that I talk about Warhammer 40k a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. So it’s no surprise that I played and loved Relic’s 2011 Space Marine. I spoke about that game previously.

Needless to say, I have been hyped for Space Marine 2 for a couple years and the reveal trailer gave me high hopes:

Like, the game could be trash but I would still play it because the tone this trailer nails the mood of Warhammer 40k. The look absolute disgust on the face of Titus⁴ as he looks upon the xenos scourge is just chef’s kiss. Muah! From this trailer on I was on a complete media blackout until release.

At the time of writing I have played and finished the main story campaign. You know what? They made Space Marine 2. It’s good, the story is good and it is not weighed down by an obtuse open-world or confusing upgrade trees. It is beautiful and Saber’s “swarm tech” allows the screen to be covered in enemies. The action is violent and heavy.

Is it perfect? No. It’s combat at times feels too clunky, often like there is button buffering, stacking inputs rather than canceling. I’m sure I could play better but a Space Marine game should feel more arcade-y than technical. The overall difficulty is obviously balanced towards co-op play making a solo playthrough extremely frustrating at higher difficulties. Healing items and ammo are sometimes too plentiful during slow parts of the missions then, completely absent long swaths of the more difficult sections (even at the lower difficulties, this was still an issue.).

There are some reviews that complain that the dialog between the Marines is stilted and bland and, my dude, that is how Space Marines talk to each other in 40k. Get into it!

Overall, I recommend this game whole-heartedly, especially if you are a Warhammer 40k fan.

I will say it is weird how this game is being championed as “anti-woke”, “a return to real games” or “what games used to be like.” It’s mostly because, as far as predatory pre-order bundles go, this pre-order was straight forward. Base pre-order got you the game, any future DLC and a small cosmetic pack. The next tier up was $30 extra and was the same, but also got to play the game 4 days early⁵ . So basically, no matter what, all future updates to the game will be free and only cosmetics would be part of the pre-order deal. Apparently, all cosmetics are available to unlock in game by playing the PvP mode. This is cool and it is something you don’t see often in todays gaming landscape but it is hardly an attack on “woke” games. I suspect that the creators touting the game as “anti-woke” just mean that the main character is not a woman or of color.

It’s a dumb Warhammer game. Stop making toys your identity!

Other Notables

** Celebrity #6 has been found. If you’re unfamiliar with the mystery, sully yourself here. But this is Internet History™.

** This is how you weaponize Marx…

1   Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977)

2  More on that next week.

3  It was literally only a couple

4  The guy who takes off his helmet.

5  Say what you want about early access tied to pre-orders but, in this case especially, I don’t see a harm in it.