Mr eel
Games for the Tail End of 2008
I feel a bit spoiled for good video games. There is so much great stuff about at the moment, I literally don’t have time to play all the ones I want to. A good problem to have. So here’s some of the stuff that I’ve enjoyed the most lately.
Gears of War 2 [Xbox 360]
A sequel to the original… um of course. Not much to be said about this is you’ve played the first one. It’s still essentially the same game, but louder, bigger, more explodey. I really enjoyed playing this one. I still have some complaints about the combination of needing precise aiming and the twitchy controls, which can be frustrating at times, but all in all a blast to play.
Grand Theft Auto 4 [Xbox 360]
I honestly did not expect to like this game at all. I hadn’t played the previous ones and wasn’t taken in by the open aspects of the game. I don’t know if this is because GTA4 is an improvement or just because I was missing the point, but I finally got the appeal of GTA. It’s basically a bunch of mini-games with some open-ended car driving. GTA4 adds a genuinely interesting story-line — not without it’s flaws, but more than passable — and solid character development, which went a long way to keeping me playing.
Wario Land - The Shake Dimension AKA Wario Shake It [Xbox Wii]
A competent and solid platformer. Not terribly original, but extremely well made and beautiful to look at. All the sprites are cel-animated — not the clichéd 3D version, but actual hand-drawn animation — which look really awesome. I also really appreciate the fact that it has an extremely simple control-scheme — a nice change considering how complicated some games are.
Dead Space [Xbox 360]
OMG. This one caught me by surprise. I was aware of the game and understood it’s premise, but wasn’t really hooked on the idea of playing it. I was a bit cynical about the fact that it was EA producing it I guess. Well, looks like the company is finally serious about making something other than sequel-ware, because Dead Space rules.
Sci-fi Survival Horror. The protagonist is stuck on a malfunctioning space ship full of corpse-eating mutants. Nice! You get to patch up the ship and fight off said mutants. A really horrible/beautiful looking game, clever design, plenty of variety and at times genuinely scary.
The scares are mainly from being terrorised by freaky monsters, there is none of the creeping-horror that you might find in games like Silent Hill. Sometimes this works, sometimes it’s a little predictable, since you know that given a certain set-up — say supplies at the end of a hallway — monsters are gonna jump you. If you know it’s going to happen, it’s a bit harder to be scared by it. That said there is some genuine tension, largely due to the environments — the lighting effects are important and extremely well done.
Enjoying this one a lot.
Black Metal for a Terrifying Future
I haven’t done this for a little bit and I do like talking about music, so I thought I might go over some of my more recent Metal discoveries.
Somehow I’ve found myself listening to more and more Black Metal. Like most forms of music, pretty much all of it is awful. For Black Metal it’s pretty obvious where things can go wrong; the awful production values, the temptation to just play the same riff for minutes on end, the blast-beats ticking over through every moment in the song, the at times ridiculous mythologising and ugh… the corpse-paint.
Just the same, when it’s good, it’s fucking awesome. Sometimes when it’s meant to be scary or oppressive, it really is. Sometimes it really does express the horror and sorrow of living. Sometimes it really does touch something inside your heart.
So here are some of my picks for awesome Black Metal and related releases. Admittedly some or most of these aren’t strictly BM according to your more boring fans and critics, but whatevs. At the very least BM is the axis they swing around.
Wolves in the Throne Room - Diadem of Twelve Stars
I put this release first because it’s my favourite. Much BM is weighted down by what I consider frippery — the stupid mythologies and uniforms. WITTM eschew most of that thankfully.
To be honest I find it a little difficult to articulate why I like this album, after all, there is so much that could have gone wrong with it. It has the dim screechy vocals, the operatic backing, the blast-beats thrumming away under everything. The difference here I think is that WITTR’s skill matches their intent. It is oppressive, it is sorrowful, all without being ridiculous.
Having some beautiful chord progressions and really epic breakdowns also helps. I really dig it. If you only listen to one album on this list, make it Diadem of Twelve Stars.
Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters
Again with WITTR, they really are that good. Basically, what I said above. Seriously check these guys out.
Krallice - Krallice
This is what happens when Prog and Black Metal collide — an explosion of awesome! This album basically takes the spazz-prog-metal of bands like Behold… The Arctopus and Oct and applies them to the BM format. The similarities aren’t surprising considering that Krallice shares members with the aforementioned bands. The resulting songs are built of complex and shifting guitar-lines. They stay true to the demands of the genre by repeating to the point where you think you’ll go nuts, then moving in a direction you hadn’t expected.
I honestly didn’t expect to like this one, since on first listen seems very dense and uniform. But since listening often means patience and adjusting your frame of reference, I gradually came around to it.
At it’s core this is actually a very taut and emotional album. The final song Forgiveness in Rot really seals the deal for me. Just beautiful stuff.
Live in some guy’s backyard… or something.
Sunn O))) - Black One
Well yes, I had to get a bloody Sunn O))) release in here somehow. FYI, the name is pronounced as just ‘Sun’. They’re a polarising band. Some people really love them and most people who’ve heard their stuff hate ‘em. It’s pretty easy to see why. Sunn O))) typically operate as a drone, doom, noise outfit. No drums, lots of low end, very very slow and typically sans vocals. Basically, you either like letting bass-noise fuck you over, or you’ll hate this stuff.
Personally I’m on the fence. I may come to like it, but right now I’m more curious. This particular release however, I do like. Strictly speaking this is not BM, but it does riff on the atmospherics, vocals and general aesthetics of BM. Basically it’s BM sans-drums, terribly slow. It’s also frankly scary shit.