Metal Monday

Nine, Nine, bust a rhyme!

YouTube Obsession

I don’t believe in “guilty pleasures” per say but I am a bit shy to say that I love watching Mr. Fruit videos. He introduces his videos with “hideeho”, he says things like “sussy bakka” and most deplorably, he screams… a lot. Yet, for some reason, his videos work for me. First off, his videos are very well edited and paced. And secondly, Fruit reminds me of playing games in high school with friends.

Anyway, as with any YouTube creator, my engagement with Fruit ebbs and flows but with his recent outpouring of Deadlock videos, we are flowing baby!

Fun game, fun commentary, I regret nothing!

Watching

When you watch Sam Rami’s 1990 original IP superhero movie Darkman, it is easy to see why he was handed the reigns to a major Marvel hero like Spiderman.

It’s colorful, campy and clearly pays homages to comic books. Throughout the movie you can see all of Rami’s inspirations: Universal Monster movies, Phantom of the Opera and Batman among others.

As with most Rami movies the practical effects are great and so fun to watch. When Peyton’s mask begins to fail (as seen above at 2:08) the make-up work is far more effective than any CGI could accomplish. That being said there is some pretty gnarly long shots with a lot of early 90s greenscreen going on. It is ugly and wholly unnecessary when rear projection would have worked so much better. The bad greenscreen is even more egregious when paired with some amazing shots during a helicopter sequence that blew me away. I could not wrap my head around how some of the shots were achieved. Using a mixture of miniatures, forced perspective, explosions, smoke and mirrors, some of these shots really need to be seen to be believed.

I can’t end without giving Liam Neeson some props for delivering a pitch perfect camp performace. Considering Darkman is right before his “serious role” era of Schindler’s List and Kinsey, and it is well before his action hero bent of the late aughts à la Taken, this role truly shows his abilities as an all-around actor.

Reading

Cosmic horror and IT meets The Virgin Suicides, with a smattering of Degrassi. That’s how I would describe Negative Space by B.R. Yeager. Interestingly written from the perspective of 3 high schoolers into their early 20s, the story revolves around these 3 characters attempting to make sense of a world that does not want them alive.

Highschool is a perfect setting for Lovecraftian horror. I was a queer kid growing up in conservative Indiana and that feeling of dread, that the other shoe is always about to drop, was a constant in my life. Something felt intrinsically wrong with my surroundings and myself. Stifling oppression.

When you’re in high school, the whole world is high school¹ . When your crush snubs you or your friends hurt you, as a kid it feels like this is just how the world is and it will never get better. That gravity well tug of your hometown in teen years feels inescapable and inevitable.

It is a dark but quick read and I highly recommend if you like high-strangeness.

Playing

Few games in the modern era have caused me to sink hundreds of hours into them and other than MGSV, I can only think of Risk of Rain 2. While I have spoken about my love for MGSV before but it’s time to give Risk of Rain 2 its flowers.

It’s the perfect rogue-like. It’s a game I will always have installed because I can bang out a few runs before I have to leave for work and it is my go to “catch up on podcasts while I play” game.

One of the things that makes RoR2 stand out from other rogue-likes is that it’s progression is not tied to unlocking items. Yes, you unlock items but each item you find (even the base items) can drastically improve your odds or even change you run. The player is not forced to grind for a weapon drop that gives a 2% crit chance. In RoR2, progression is tied to discovery and exploration. It wasn’t until I was 20 hours into the game that I discovered how to access the final boss. I was 200 hours in before I discovered a certain kind of hidden chest. I was 500 hours in before I figured out how to access a side-quest activity. I must stress that I was not going into each of these runs expecting to find anything new, these were just things I discovered because I was playing a fun game. I’m sure I could have read a wiki and gotten everything unlocked in 12 hours but it’s far more of a meditative game for me. Less about the destination and more about the journey.

The art work harkens back to low-poly games of the PSX era and the music is excellent. I would recommend this game to anyone who wants a new experience with games.

Anyway, the newest DLC Seekers of the Storm just dropped and despite a rocky launch² , it’s great! Adding new characters, levels and items for me to put hundreds of more hours into just figuring out how they work.

Listening

Other Notables

** AI trained to run DOOM

** This entire situation (other than the movie) is hilarious…

1  I’m not sure how different this is today, what with a billion internet communities to join for every niche interest available.

2  THANKS GEARBOX