Halloween 2013: Edgar Allan Poe

It’s my favourite time of year, where the dying Autumn meets the silence of the Winter, it is All Hallow’s Eve tomorrow and where loud children will screetch and howl at your door, refusing apples and demanding money and everybody wears ridiculous clothes that are a few shades darker than ordinary clothes. It is a night of peril and… poverty. Also it’s this site’s 1st Anniversary, so, in order to celebrate these two dreadful unisonous occurrences, I am going to introduce you to the terrible, macabre world of my favourite author, Edgar Allan Poe.

Widely known for his poems and short stories concerning horror, he is an Author’s author, known to have inspired writers from the likes of Jules Verne and H.P. Lovecraft and is even the inventor of detective-fiction and lost world genres, his most popular work is The Raven, a poem about an ominous raven, but you could find that anywhere, we are here today to look at some of his other, lesser known stories.

Stories like Metzengerstein, a delightful little tale about a newly appointed duke of a long lineaged family, the Metzengersteins, whose feud he has gleefully inherited with the local rival family Berlifitzing. Upon a recent mischievous venture, the rival’s head is killed in a stable fire, shortly afterwards a mysterious black steed appears that strikes fear into the hearts of all it encounters.

This is one of the various Germanic-influenced pieces of Poe’s, of which there are a number, the story is interesting and has a sinister vibe, with little information being divulged about the character’s and experiences. Unlike Lovecraft, Poe often affects an emotive personal and physically descriptive tone to the horrors of which he speaks, whereas Lovecraft prefers to just speak of “undescribable” or “unimaginable” horrors that the narrator has seen and proceeds to go in depth about the exact kind of fear they are now feeling. Poe still manages to describe the fearful object despite much of the tale being expressed through other characters. It’s a great little piece and would make a great ghost story for children.

Edgar Allan Poe is often known as greatly contributing to the foundation of Science-Fiction as a genre, The Unparalleled Adventure of one Hans Pfall, is an example of Poe figuratively and literally pushing the boundaries of fiction. The story follows the strange happenings in Rotterdam, where a young indebted man takes to the skies in a home-made hot air balloon to escape his creditors. His aim is to reach the moon, which he believes is possible if he keeps going higher.

Obviously balloons of this kind were on a recent invention when Poe wrote the story, so the very idea of reaching space was unhindered with any solid scientific fact, however clever use of the then-current information and seemingly logical thinking offers unique and clever tale concerning journeying to space.

A rather short, relatively unknown and rather demanding piece is “Why the little Frenchman wears his hand in a sling”. Poe frequently wrote satirical stories, with many of his horror tales aimed at poking fun at tropes, groups of people or in some cases, individuals. This story is an outright comedy, and is an unusual example of phonetic writing. The entire length is written in Irish Brogue of the 19th C. It tells the story of an Irishman’s rivalry with a Frenchman for the attentions of a lady they are both amorously attempting to pursue, with hilarious consequence.

As the inventor of “Detective Fiction”, Poe’s stories of C. Auguste Dupin predate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock, and as previously mentioned in my review of A Study in Scarlet, inspires and informs Doyle’s most famous creation. The most well-known of Poe’s detective tales is ‘The Murders in Rue Morgue’, but the lesser known ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’ is much less dated and confusing. Based on a real life crime, the novel concerns Dupin’s investigation of the murder of a girl, whose body was found dumped in a river in Paris.

Yet another accomplishment was the first ever “lost world” story, well at least the beginnings of one. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only novel Poe ever wrote, about a young man who stows away on a whaling ship and many misadventures ensue, but further talk of this novel will be for perhaps another time.

And lastly, my favourite of his short stories, The Cask of Amontillado. This was the first ever piece of adult fiction I ever read as a child and, along with the Evil Dead films, is what got me into horror in such a big way.

The tale begins at a carnival, where a vengeful Montresor leads a drunkenly disillusioned Fortunato down into a cellar under the guise of retrieving an expensive pipe of Amontillado sherry wine.

The piece was written from the viewpoint of the perpetrator and is notable as being a literary attack on a writer at the time with whom Poe was having a public feud.

I love this story, its incredibly dark and the foreboding Montresor bounces fantastically off Fortunato and his jovial mood, making the story wonderfully twisted. As a child I had never seen anything which so straightly portrayed an obvious bad guy as the protagonist, however the complexity of some of the story meant it wasn’t for a while that I could enjoy it fully.

Whatever your terrible fantasy, there’s something here for your diabolic needs this Halloween, so stop browsing yet another cthulhu-based card game and set your sights on the macabre, and somewhat more imaginable world of Edgar Allan Poe…

Halloween 2013: Edgar Allan Poe

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies

Finally fans get to see the return of our beloved Phoenix Wright, the defence lawyer who featured in the first three games of the Ace Attorney series, who took a bit of a backseat with the DS instalment, Apollo Justice. It’s been a long wait for the latest Ace Attorney game, I have been highly anticipating this next release on the Nintendo 3DS, especially after I got to try out a 45 minute demo at Hyper Japan 2013 earlier this year.

The Ace Attorney series debuted in Japan on the Gameboy Advance back in 2001, but didn’t reach our shores until the remakes on DS were localised and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was released in 2005. It was an unexpected success for Capcom, the conservative party of bullshit, and they decided that they would release the rest, Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations, with similar positive reception. The game is a typical visual novel styled Adventure game, set in two segments, the courtroom appearances and the investigations. After a change of protagonist, Apollo Justice was released on the DS set seven years after the events of Trials & Tribulations and Phoenix Wright has retired as a lawyer.

With Ace Attorney’s focus on the new crossover game with Level 5′s Professor Layton, I thought we wouldn’t be seeing more from my favourite lawyer, but then Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Turnabout Trial 5, the Japanese name of Ace Attorney) was announced. Unfortunately, the lacklustre sales of a spinoff Ace Attorney game and the refusal to release its sequel has meant that Capcom have essentially lost faith in the series in the west, so for the first time ever, Ace Attorney is going to be a digital release only here.

For the first time in the series, there are animé cutscenes – Ace Attorney is looking better than ever.

Dual Destinies sees Nick return to practising law after the events of Apollo Justice and has a new assistant lawyer to boot. Athena Cykes has recently passed the bar and is starting at Phoenix Wright’s law firm Wright Anything Agency. Apollo also features in the game, making a return to the Trials & Tribulations style of multiple protagonists. It has a number of new features to boast, apart from being in 3D, Athena brings her ‘Mood Matrix’ to the table which allows you to judge the emotions of a witness during their testimony. This is fairly similar to the also returning ability of Apollo’s from the previous game, slowing down time to ‘perceive’ the nervous sleights of characters, and like Athena’s, allows you to hone in on specific sentences during cross examinations.

With three characters to play as in the game, you’d be surprised to find that it hasn’t cramped the game’s style and pacing, you can’t change between them at will, each is assigned his/her own case, all of which are as airtight as usual and the new characters are just as exuberant and odd as before, the new features have given a fun change to the game mechanics,  this mostly feels like a fresh update to slightly dated gameplay, but it comes with a risk of trivialising some of the important characters in the game. It’s a little ludicrous the amount of semi-supernatural occurrences with almost everyone having a gift of their own, perhaps the designers felt that the characters wouldn’t be interesting or serve the gameplay without special powers, but the game would have done nicely without the plot clutter.

Something for all the ladies…

Things have taken a darker turn in this instalment, with more sinister emotional conflicts with key characters as well as the cutscenes offering up a grimmer depiction of the murders involved. Courtroom sections feel much the same especially as there are no animated cutscenes, however the investigative sections are peppered with them as well as the enjoyable approach to the 3-Dimensional crime scenes which you can change your perspective of. You can also check notes in order to keep on track with progress. The criminals are just as guessable as ever though, but it’s still fun to see how each one manages to inevitably implicate themselves with their own testimony. It makes me wonder whether criminals in the Ace Attorney world wouldn’t just always get away with it if only they just didn’t testify! The translation has undergone a somewhat different tone than previously, with more colloquial terms and phrases being used, but ultimately works well.

Music has become less bit-inspired and more orchestral, much like the Miles Edgeworth Investigations series, it is somewhat less catchy possibly due to this, but it is interesting to hear new versions of older songs in the new format. Sound effects are much the same as in previous games, but the courtroom exclamations are now different as this game has some limited voice acting during cutscenes. The voice acting is not particularly great, but that’s not a bad thing as it fits the tone of the game. People sound different to how I expected and are pretty cheesy, the only negative is that there is now a bit of a Professor Layton-ey vibe about it.

The biggest departure is the presentation, the upgrade in the console and the 3D emphasis have allowed the series to make some relatively superficial adjustments in terms of visuals. Now there are semi-3D models in the stead of the old 2D sprites, which still retain the animé aesthetic. For those with the fortune of being able to experience 3D fully, it isn’t eye-popping as other titles on the 3DS, but as someone who is stereoscopically impaired, I thought that it was the closest I ever got to seeing 3D, so is therefore, good. The game looks good, even with nostalgic, retro goggles on, the animations are true to the original and everything feels consistent with other games in the series, the only issue being some between screen dissonance with some of the moving objects not looking quite so crisp on the upper screen.

Progressively a much more mature approach to Ace Attorney games, amusingly offset with the signature ridiculousness and endearing characters that we all love from the series, which isn’t showing any signs of slowing down; Dual Destinies does much to improve the mechanics and be more welcoming to newbies, while also giving fans the Phoenix Wright we deserve. Anyone who has followed thus far won’t be disappointed.
We can only hope Capcom does the right thing and gives us our currently untranslated Ace Attorney Investigations 2 we’ve been waiting for in the wake of this stunning and immersive adventure.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies

To Kill a Mockingbird book & film review

Written in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel written by Harper Lee, which is loosely based on her own upbringing in the Deep South of America, Alabama and was quickly adapted into a film released in 1962, both were released to critical acclaim and enduring success and popularity.

The novel is well known for its themes of racial injustice, prejudice and coming of age, and is taught widely at schools all over the world, however, the novel wasn’t featured at my own school.

“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

The book is told from a first-person perspective, that of 6 year-old Jean-Louise Finch but colloquially referred to as ‘Scout’ and her experiences growing up in the fictional town of Maycomb County in Alabama. Her brother ‘Jem’ and friend ‘Dill’ who stays in Maycomb during the summer begin to obsess over a mysterious and reclusive neighbour, Boo Radley, whom they are both terrified of and fascinated by, the overarching plot concerns the stories and adventures that Scout, Jem and Dill have concerning the Radley house and its occupants, while Scout & Jem’s father, lawyer Atticus Finch is busy with a case concerning a young black man accused of raping a white woman.

The young children undergo many ordeals due to their father being the representation to the defendant, the town still exhibits racist attitudes towards black people and any associates of them, like Atticus Finch. As the case goes on, the children learn about prejudice, social standards and growing up.

The title of the book comes from a quote from Atticus Finch in the book, when he is having a conversation with his children about using guns. As the book is set in the Deep South, guns are a frequent possession and hobby of even children, Atticus, who is opposed to violence, allows his children to have guns and use them, but under the condition that they ”Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

This is because Mockingbirds do not cause any harm and only entertain people with their song.

The imagery of birds is apparent throughout the novel, the surname Finch and mockingbird allusions throughout the book, however it could indeed be accidental, as the author’s mother’s maiden name was Finch. It is interesting to note that the actor who played Atticus in the film adaptation was named Gregory ‘Peck’. The use of the word sin is also interesting in the context of the quote, as it is noted that despite being southern, Atticus doesn’t use the word sin, indicating that religious views are things he respects but does not brazenly adhere to.

The mockingbird in the novel has been disputed, on first reading I understood the allegorical bird to be the innocent defendant, Tom Robinson, whose trial is a result of his freely helping a young woman with her chores, without payment, and potential condemnation would be ‘to kill the mockingbird’. However some have noted that, at the end of the novel, Boo Radley was the mockingbird as he helped save the young children, not without much personal risk.

The film adaptation was released only two years after the book and has gone on to become one of the crowning pieces of cinematic history. The film stays true to the novel, cutting out only the most time-consuming and unnecessary parts of the narrative, such as the Finch’s visit to the Gospel church and the inclusion of the false-drunk who has married a black woman. There are some parts of the book that were unfortunately taken out that had major impact on the book’s story or the message, for example, the woman’s missionary group meeting and the whole visit of the aunt. It lent much depth to the character and growth of Scout as a woman in the South.

Perhaps one of the key messages that was absent in the film was the development of the character, Mrs Dubose, a vile and hateful woman whose racist taunts and insults to the two young children culminates with Jem’s destruction of some of her prized flowers. Their subsequent reading visits (that they were ordered to do to apologise) were unknowingly intended to help her get off her morphine medication addiction. She wanted to die without the feeling of dependency, as she was a proud and independent woman. With her death, she teaches a valuable life lesson to the pair in courage, despite what other people’s views are or even that not all of one’s actions might be successful. She shows that people are not always what they seem.

In the film she only appears briefly and serves as a way of showing Atticus’ calm and personable manner.

Harper Lee, was so fond of Peck’s performance she gave him her father’s watch, on whom Atticus Finch is based.

The most famous theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is that of racial prejudice, the handling of the matter is interesting to note, as it is written by a white southern woman who grew up seeing the treatment first hand, as opposed to other works like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, something we did read at school.

To Kill a Mockingbird is satirically condemnatory of the racism prevalent in Maycomb, literally conflicting the humour of the children with the aggression of the adults and their prejudice.

The book can be summarised as about morality, however it vies for the title of the Great American novel in that it handles the wider implications of the era, putting a spotlight on the zeitgeist, all while from a fairly modern viewpoint. Perhaps that might exempt it being considered, however the book still manages to evoke a sense of awareness and immersion that other would-be Great American novels so often express.

Merging the genres of children’s adventure, coming-of-age and gothic drama, To Kill a Mockingbird is a rare feat of understanding, that everyone could find something to love and something to learn from nestled within its pages.
It probably is the last of the true American novels.

To Kill a Mockingbird book & film review

Pokémon X/Y Impressions of X

The first ever fully 3D Pokémon game has finally arrived and it only took 17 years!

From humbler beginnings of the Gameboy, Pokémon Red & Green were a cultural boom for children throughout the 90′s, creating a craze spanning collectible trading cards and even condoms. The Pokémon series has had its ups and downs, with the Color games noted as a high point and Gameboy Advance generation meeting negative fan reaction.

Despite the differences in between games, it is a rather traditional series and hardly changes; the core mechanics are the same, the games main series continue to release on the handheld consoles and the Pokémon count always increases with each generation.

However the newest instalment has been particularly hyped, not only does it now feature beautiful cel-shaded 3D polygonal graphics, but the playable character (Pokémon Trainer) is now fairly customisable from the start. Other features include being able to choose from one of the original three starter Pokémon from Red/Green, Mega-evolutions and the new Pokémon elemental type: Fairy.

For me this is the first Pokémon game I have started since the horrendous GBA game Sapphire, which I thankfully have little memory of, and the remake GBA game Fire Red. I have never played any that have had online functionality and there are approximately 300 more Pokémon since I last played. Splendid.

For those that are not aware of Pokémon, it’s a turn-based RPG which uses monsters that you find as your party members, but you have to switch them out. It’s really simple and has very stripped down Japanese-style RPG mechanics, but retains the old Dragon Quest motto of “easy to learn, hard to master”. Features like status ailments, buffing stats, levelling and exploration are prevalent but the mojaority of the time is spent managing and fighting enemies. The series is predominantly aimed at children but the challenge and fun attracts adults too. The main selling point of the game is to catch all of the Pokémon available and also to progress and beat the in-game Pokémon Trainers until you are the best.

Chespin – My starter. He’s an ugly boy.

The initial start-up of the game is much shorter than any I have previously played, Professor chatting is cut short and you are instantly able to get your Pokémon and move out to exploring in less than 5 minutes. The abundance of Pokémon available (all at low levels) in the first piece of grass is extraordinary, as well as the ease in which you can catch them; you just throw the ball, there’s no need to even lower their health or inflict status ailments!

Due to the large number of available Pokémon however, if you wish to collect them or simply even level up and round off your party, then you are in for a lot of time-disposal. It takes a while to get to the next areas, with lots of trainers, Pokémon to catch, items to find and one of the highest encounter rates I have seen since Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast. The design of the map and the style of the town’s are different too, the routes are shorter but with more content and there are now lots of different towns, villages and cities of much more varied size and shops than before.

There are lots of things to do outside of the main quest of catching and progressing, there are plenty of mini-games to help customise levelling such as Pokémon Amie, where you can creepily stroke your Pokémon and play mini-games with them or there is the Super Levelling which is basically even more mini-games to make your Pokémon specialise in a certain area. There are also plenty of in-town stuff, such as purchasing accessories, going to hairdressers and making PR videos to personalise your character, or even your party, like going to a dog grooming parlour for Furflous.

My character on Pokémon X has blonde hair, because $3000 is just too much for a dye job.

The game mechanics have always been solid, but the extras haven’t, this game has proven that it can add to the core game without becoming too distracting, even the ludicrous extensive online stuff doesn’t even need to be touched to get on with the game. The functionality of online trading and battling has vastly improved and is very simple and quick to get going. For the most part the management is easier in this game, but still there were a few issues with some of the tools being permanently equipped and also the HM permanence is made largely redundant and time-consuming now that TMs are unlimited use.

It feels like it’s going to be a long one, so far I am 15 hours in and only have one badge, there’s plenty to do at least and I’m not at all bored, the game isn’t lengthened by padding or long treks, it’s filled with content, exploration and things to do. Getting around doesn’t take long as in one of the first towns you are handed some rollerblades, which quickly speed up moving along routes.

As I have only just really started this adventure these are just some thoughts, so far Pokémon appears to be outselling GTA V and I’m already enjoying it a lot more. The series has come a long way but there are certainly improvements that ought to be made if they ever want to knock Dragon Quest of its perch in the east. Final thought: Pikachu’s “Pika!”. It’s not cute, please stop.

 

Pokémon X/Y Impressions of X

Iain M. Banks & Consider Phlebas

The death of revered author Iain M. Banks earlier this year, marked the beginning of the end for a brief era which resurrected the popularity of Sci-fi and his passing has sadly and inevitably left a wealth of creativity unrealised.

As a writer of both mainstream and Science-Fiction, his most popular and well-known novel is The Wasp Factory, his debut fiction from 1984, which depicted a young teenager who is reflecting on his life. Banks was known to write as Iain Banks when publishing his modern fiction and Iain M. Banks when doing Sci-Fi, a distinction which was comically noted for Bill Bailey’s dualistic character in Hot Fuzz which is shown reading both sides of Banks’ work.

Touted as one of the founders of the New Space Opera; sci-fi works that excels as fine literature and incorporates strong depth of characters and relationship developments, Banks’ first science fiction work was Consider Phlebas, a sharp and thrilling novel that is a beginning set-piece to the spanning Culture novels of which he is known for.

Published in 1987, it was originally started around the time of The Wasp Factory and took many revisions to perfect, the name of the novel is based on a line from T.S Eliot’s poem The Waste Land which share few themes, being mostly chosen as it sounded euphonious and was his favourite of Eliot’s work.

Consider Phlebas is the first Culture novel, a set of sci-fi novels featuring The Culture, a society of humans who are intellectually and financially esteemed and whose beliefs and practices appear to frequently put them at odds to the other races and peoples of the interstellar galaxy. This novel’s backdrop is the suburbs of the Idiran-Culture war, a large war (in our terms but not quite so in story terms) between the Culture and Idirans, a race of warrior non-humanoids, whose faith and lifestyles greatly differ from the Culture, whose atheistic and utopian ideals were becoming too suffocating.

The main protagonist is Bora Horza Gobuchul, neatly shortened to Horza in the book, he is a spy/mercenary for the Idirans whose contempt of the Culture’s symbiotic relationship with computerised machines he shares.

He is a Changer, a human who over the period of many generations has been genetically enhanced to visually imitate that of others, this ability allows him to slip into enemy ships in disguise of its inhabitants unnoticed.

He has just returned from a botched mission in which his identity was discovered and subsequently imprisoned when he is luckily saved by the Idirans who sent him out. During a briefing however, there is a sudden military emergency which ends up leaving him stranded in space, not too dissimilarly to in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He is saved by a pirate vessel which arrived to vulture some of the supplies which may have been abandoned by the fleeing Idiran ship.

During his stay on the ship, Horza decides it would be best to keep his being a Changer a secret as the knowledge might lead them to suspect him as the race has implicative natures of espionage, the novel covers his adventures with the crew while still attempting to carry out his Idiran mission.

As the majority of the novel covers Horza, it is interesting to note that despite this being one of many novels concerning the Culture, the main protagonist is an enemy of them, which throws bad light on to some of their ways, while conversely, the close-mindedness of the Idirans and the morally compromised Horza also mean that the Culture isn’t necessarily an all encompassing evil that is safe to hate. Before being forcibly evacced from the ship, Horza was charged with returning an important Culture Mind; an artificial intelligence which is usually harboured in larger Culture vessels.

At times the novel focuses on two other characters and scenarios, that of the Culture Mind for whom Horza is searching and a Culture official named Fal ‘Ngeestra, whose intelligence rivals that of the Culture minds, she is employed to help with the direction of the war, but often her thoughts come back to the plight regarding the lost Culture Mind and the people after it, the other “character” is the Culture Mind itself, which after a narrow miss with an Idiran ship, managed to eject itself safely and travel to a nearby planet.

Unfortunately the Mind is now housed on a “Planet of the Dead” named Schar’s World, and is one of many which is owned by a mysterious race called the Dra’ Azon, a group of sentient yet immaterial beings with Godlike powers. Schar’s world is an ode to futility as it was previously occupied by a race which wiped themselves out, the Dra’ Azon have comandeered it for sentimental purposes and do not wish for it to be disturbed. Both the Culture and Idirans are aware of the catastrophic dangers that interfering directly with the planet can cause and the situation has become rather difficult for everyone.

The novel features a lot of action and violence, as well as handling taboo subjects such as cannibalism, rape and… well it’s only one part of the book that has most of these bits, so if you can imagine a couple of chapters of some of the most shocking things to occur, then that basically happens. The rest of the novel handles the main character and his actions as he faces most situations, not often are we privy to his thought processes but much seems to be able to be worked out from the results.

Overall the characters are enjoyable and there is a surprisingly good representation of women without becoming overly dramatic or sexualised as so often is the case with this genre, the technology and culture of the various races and the integrity of the story’s setting were solid, enjoyable and immersive.

For a first go, it’s very admirable, the action makes it a good entry for beginner sci-fi readers and the Dune-esque characters help ease in Sci-Fi fans, it’s hard to say where the Culture series goes from here, but I am looking forward to it.

Iain M. Banks & Consider Phlebas

The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker

The cruising adventure on the Gamecube is back and has been luxuriously remastered for the Wii-U, more than just jacked up graphics, the new Wind Waker now boasts a tonne of tweaks and enhancements to justify the effort.

Originally released late 2002, The Wind Waker garnered fantastic reviews, however it suffered comparatively low sales for a Zelda game, mostly due to the visual style they opted for. Many fans considered it toony and childish, creating an uproar during the development stages, these fans were later catered for with Twilight Princess.

The decision to give this particular title special treatment is strange indeed, however, I am glad they did.

The story is based in a land that is mostly ocean, known as the Great Sea, with Link growing up on a small island called Outset where boys who come of age are dressed in green garments to celebrate the hero of time. It is Link’s coming of age when he sees a large bird flying over the island and drop someone in a forest on the mountain peak, he investigates and saves a young girl, only for his younger sister Aryll to be mistakenly kidnapped by the bird. The young girl is a pirate captain and agrees to take Link to the Forsaken Fortress where he will find his sister.

The Swift Sail is 50% faster.

Modelled similarly to Ocarina of Time, the game features the same combat, lengthy dungeons and lots of sidequests, however has a larger emphasis on discovery and exploration due to the inclusion of the sailing of the ocean which is the main aspect of the game. The sailing involves using the direction of the wind, which can be manipulated using the Wind Waker, the sail is hoisted and the boat moves in the direction you’re facing, speed depending on the wind’s direction.

The world map is much larger than any other Zelda game and is sorted into squares, each with a land piece, most of the islands are pretty small and there are only 4 inhabited islands, making most of the others quest-based. The map can be unlocked square by square by visiting each of the fish that you can find, the fish can tell you extra information to help you with general tips or even secrets involved with the game.

Like other Zelda games, The Wind Waker features most of the equipment from earlier titles such as the bow, hook-shot and hammer, found in dungeons, unlike Ocarina of Time however, there are only 4 large dungeons and a number of smaller ones. The aim for the larger dungeons are story-based and surround saving someone or something, but later on the smaller dungeons are done in order to gain objects such as various equipment and later pieces of the Triforce.

Combat has been made much smoother and the Z  targeting is less problematic than I found in Ocarina, for the most part the camera stayed in the right place and there weren’t often times that I felt I was cheated due to the game’s mechanics. There were a couple of negatives about the targeting, as it seems that although faster and more accurate, the distance was much shorter, meaning you have to get rather close before you can begin attacking and the target switch is slightly better by it now changing by pressing the button multiple times, however there were still instances when it would focus on the nearest enemy despite them being behind me and my target showing on a front facing enemy.

The game features new “Selfie” Pictograph mode as well as the tingle bottle system, allowing users to communicate and share images and messages in-game.

New Features

The game is now over ten years old and most people have probably played it, so for those that have, the main interest in this game are all the new features that are involved.

Firstly, the graphics have had a much larger overhaul than simply upgrading them for HD screens, formerly the game was a cel-shaded and bright aesthetic, however there has been much bloom added and colours are now deeper variants, making the game look slightly less toony and more modern. In areas this has affected the style of the characters, particularly the eyes, they are as expressive as before, just a little less unique like they were before. Following the visual upgrade, there are adjustments made to the screen to accommodate widescreen.

There are various tweaks made to make the experience flow better, the Wind Waker will play shortened versions, animations for treasure hunting are shorter and the Triforce quest has been made shorter, adding more treasure maps to the sidequest in its stead. For more differences there’s a comprehensive list on NeoGaf here.

As this was my first time playing I found hearing about the changes to be a good improvement, the gameplay and story is all straight-forward and paced well, giving a clean and hassle-free experience. Perhaps due to this, the game felt much easier than Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, the enemies do little damage, the boss techniques are simple and rarely become challenging and the fairies are pretty abundant. Perhaps being a slightly higher difficulty or having more difficulty modes outside of the newly implemented “Hero” mode would help break the lull of ease. The new “Hero” mode is a tad too excessive, with the damage dealt being doubled and hearts not being able to be found or dropped by enemies anymore.

For those that have already played this, I don’t think a recommendation is needed, the changes could or could not make you purchase the game at full retail, but for those that haven’t played the original, The Wind Waker is in my opinion vastly superior to Ocarina of Time, a game which was hampered by poor design and terrible pacing, which is not apparent in this game. There are some times when it appears that there might have initially been more to a dungeon during the development phase, but it doesn’t impede the overall enjoyment nor do you entirely wish it was there, the game exactly what it needs to, to keep the player coming back and playing, right up until the credits roll.

The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker

Slaughterhouse Five

It’s hard to describe the importance of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, not only as a novel, but as a transcendental piece of Science Fiction. Slaughterhouse Five is one of those rare books, that elevates above genre fiction into modern fiction and uniquely attracted the attention of literary critics going on to become one of the most important pieces of literature in existence.

Science Fiction has long eluded the lists often reserved for writers of classic and modern fiction. It seems that the ideas and themes alone are not enough to excel the genre behind its trappings of negative perception.

Written in 1969, the novel is semi-autobiographical and non-chronological it exacts a dark and dry humour, as well as explores themes of fate, war, trauma, mortality and sanity.

The novel follows Billy Pilgrim, a man who, through no fault of his own, becomes unstuck in time, meaning he freely and controllessly flits between periods of his own life. The novel feels more like one of those recap episodes you often get in Sci-fi programmes, in that it covers various important parts of a man’s life, up until his death.

Billy is an optometrist that was an American soldier in WWII, the majority of the book concerns the time during WWII as POW who is moved to a slaughterhouse in Dresden which is where the book gets its name. Billy is present at the Dresden bombing which profoundly effects him in his life after the war. He is not interested in fighting in the war and doesn’t ever make bold attempts to save himself or avoid dangerous predicaments.

The novel jumps to many different time periods of his life, after the war Billy marries a woman whom he doesn’t love and has children, he starts his own company with the help of his father-in-law, he also has many visits with an alien species known as Trafalmadorians, who possess strange powers not unlike Billy’s being unstuck in time, where they can jump at will to different time periods. He also becomes friends with an unknown sci-fi author, whose work he is a fan of. After a significant event in Billy’s life he begins to disclose information about the aliens and his experiences and garners a large following.

Every stage of Billy’s life is punctuated with themes, the World War segments shows him as weak and ineffectual, struggling to come to terms with the nature of war as well as the notion of free will in a war environment. The scenes with the Trafalmadorians act as a buffer for these and their philosophy of “no such thing as free will” as fate is inescapable give Billy solace as he is then able to accept the indescribable horrors of war. He also learns to accept death by taking on their idealogy that death is just one instant in many with others, as linear time is inconsequential to beings that can time travel.

While reading the book, I was unaware that the Trafalmadorians are a recurring feature in some of Vonnegut’s books, so are meant to be taken on face value.

However, I thought that as they were being described as looking like Toilet plungers and only seem to appear after the main character suffers from a head injury that his peers were correct in thinking he was actually imagining them and merely created them in his head in order to deal with the pain and memories of WWII. He is put into mental healthcare on two separate occasions in the book, which makes the likelihood of hallucinations as a part of post-traumatic stress disorder quite high.

There are similarities between Billy’s experiences on Trafalmadore and the stories he reads by the unknown sci-fi author, Kilgore Trout. One of the things that happens to him is that he is kept on display at a Trafalmadorian zoo with a famous actress of the time with whom he alleges to have made love and conceived a child. Since he has married an obese woman that he admits he does not love and considered himself mad for proposing to, it seems to make more sense that the whole Trafalmadore business is a huge fantasy he wasn’t able to contain after the head injury.

Slaughterhouse Five has historical importance relating to the war as it was one of the first pieces of literature to acknowledged the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany as well as describing the horrors of the bombing of Dresden which was previously regarded as little more than a necessity of war. In modern teaching of the Allied countries regarding World War II, little of the horrors that were committed on our side have been noted and it is interesting to read about them in the form of fiction from a person who has a first hand experience of it, especially as Vonnegut being part German it might have implicated him.

There are precious few genre books that can successfully explore the depth of subjects involving war and the human condition, however Slaughterhouse Five is a powerful tool of story-telling and thought. There hasn’t been a book more undeservedly banned.

Slaughterhouse Five

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2, the reputed peak of the series was released in 2001, not too long after the original on the Playstation, the game is set after the events in the first game and shows a different part of Silent Hill, offering up more touristic sites such as lodges, Toluca Lake, park and hotel, with the return of the hospital, but not the same as the one in the previous game, so perhaps there are two large hospitals in Silent Hill?

The main character is James Sunderland who has arrived in Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his wife, asking him to come and meet him in their “special place”. The only problem is that she’s dead.

He arrives in the everfog town and decides to go to the park, the place where he believes she may be, as he isn’t clear on where exactly this “special place” is. On the way he mights a couple of strange individuals as is the usual case in Silent Hill games.

The game shares many gameplay elements as the first game, the camera is moveable and is fully 3D unlike in Resident Evil, the game is a mixture of puzzle and action, it features a male protagonist who is looking for a female who is close to him and the hellish psychological horror is of the same ilk.

The upgrades to the game include better rendering of character models and fog effects, there are a different range of weapons and the gameplay is a little smoother, with the gun being more accurate. The story is vastly improved and the game design has been made a little more linear and the puzzles have dropped in difficulty and are less abstract. The radio static is less noisy and aggravating too, which is probably the greatest improvement.

The game is heavily influenced by Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the whole of the game was built around the story and its characters as opposed to the other way round like before, the enemies are designed to reflect the psyche of the main character and are much more humanised, like the mannequin legs that are stuck together and the nurses with deformed faces.

The Silent Hill we see in this version is much more personal and tailored to James Sunderland, he is more integral in this story, the people he meets are more involved, with him and their own ties to Silent Hill, one woman is the exact image of his wife, but has a different personality.

Silent Hill is without a doubt, the scariest game series ever.

The closest to it, are probably Amnesia, Siren and Zero series, all of which are great and terrifying in their own right, but none but Silent Hill cover all the bases of the truly horrifying, difficult, visual, psychological and suspenseful, while also provided a rich and intelligent storyline.

The game’s horror is slightly different than in the first game but stylistically the same, it’s pretty divisive which out of 1 or 2 is the scariest, but I found the second to be more frightening and the former more unnerving and creepy. The beauty of Silent Hill is that it is primarily a Japanese horror game, with the paranormal and grisly aesthetic of the East, but it fuses this with the Western setting of the town and distinctive well-developed story.

Psychological horror is used not only as a plot device but also as a gameplay element as the teleporting rooms of the first game make another appearance as well as the sudden appearances and disappearances of a certain well known enemy.

Music was once again by Akira Yamaoka, who provides haunting and memorable pieces as themes and openings, with atmospheric music dancing between scenes involving characters with slow and steady violin and the industrial effects of the dank Silent Hill.

This game is a major achievement in not only games but horror as a platform, it’s influence can only grow with the rise in popularity of horror games, although Team Silent are no longer working with the series, we can always hope to see other titles inspired by this crowning piece of gaming.

Extra thoughts. SPOILERS!

I really think this is the first ever spoiler warning I have seriously issued and it’s one of the most important ones as this game was spoilt for me before I had had a chance to play it, so I wouldn’t like to ruin it for others.

Pyramid Head has now become a staple character of the Silent Hill series, where he serves as a constant reminder of James’ deed, the use of him is one of the many incredible uses of game mechanics in horror, with various encounters that include running away avoidance or simply just not being able to react, however I have a bit of an issue with the first in-game encounter. You have to avoid him for a certain length of time, which is really long and when you’re able to do this, you have already figured out his movement AI, making a threatening adversary quickly reduced to a game component in a very early stage of the game.

The addition of the character Maria was brilliant and allowed the much needed perspective on James, outside of the usual bunch of nutters found in Silent Hill, she was the sexual version of his dead wife, the envisioned guilt of the reasons behind why he killed his wife as opposed to the punishment that Pyramid Head serves as. However despite her appearance in the strip club presumably coinciding with James’ arrival, it leaves me the question is Maria a conjuring of James’ or Mary’s? Is she really James’ desires or might she be Mary’s own fears of ugliness? Maria is after all very overt sexually compared to the nurses which express a more subconscious desire.

There are multiple ends to Silent Hill and a lot to the game in terms of analysis, so it looks like I might one day have to return to Silent Hill 2…

Silent Hill 2

The Man with Golden Gun

When you’ve decided to read an Ian Fleming novel, like this one for instance, you expect the smooth James Bond to be a capable and efficient spy, that charms all around him and effortlessly exudes cool everywhere he goes.

So why is Bond such a loser in this book?

The Man with the Golden Gun was the last Bond book written by Fleming, who died in 1964 before he could finish going over the novel fully, it’s noticeable in ways without any foreknowledge of the books due to the thin plot and sparse characterisation of the protagonist and his love interest.

James Bond was nearly killed off  in the previous novel, “You Only Live Twice”, and was left as an amnesiac that wanted to go to Russia to get his memory back, this book starts with Bond going through the motions of getting back into contact with M, who believes Bond to be dead after an encounter with Blofield. After finally being confirmed as legitimate and put in a room with M, he then is discovered to be brainwashed and is subdued before he succeeds in his attempt to assassinate M.

After the restoration procedure, M decides that the best thing would be to throw Bond into the deep end, to prove that he is loyal and also still useful to MI6. He is tasked with the mission of taking out Scaramanga, a dangerous assassin who has killed many agents and often disrupts espionage activities employed by the service. Scaramanga is in Jamaica and is about to enter talks for a lucrative business deal with other criminal high-flyers.

I think the first inkling of the book being a little bit off, was probably in the explanation as to what happened to Bond to make him what he is at the beginning of the novel. It’s said that he got hit on the head, experienced amnesia, then lived for several months as a Japanese fisherman complete with named identity, before realising something was wrong and jetting off to Russia. Living as a Japanese fisherman? What part of the not being Japanese or having skills as a fisherman gave the game away? I’m surprised he lived for even a week as one before figuring something wasn’t quite right.

Then we have the  whole going to Russia and then becoming brainwashed, surely some of his attributes are reflexive? How come he was caught so easily? And how is it that he was brainwashed? Don’t they have some kind of anti-brainwashing training at MI6? Speaking of MI6 why were’nt they able to find him when he was living as a Japanese Fisherman? He wasn’t trying to hide, yet he was able to evade detection by a major secret service?

After all this, he is given a hard assignment, with no sympathy from M, who claims that it is “Better for him to fall on the battlefield”. The brief of Scaramanga is then possibly the most singly hilarious and detracting set of descriptions put to paper. On the face of it, Francisco (Pistols) Scaramanga is a product of dissension in Cuba, mixed with antagonism of the Cold War, he is best known as “The man with the Golden gun” due to his gold-plated Colt. 45 which uses gold core, silver jacketed bullets. Then as before, it starts to descend into the odd as he is described as having a third nipple, a sign of sexual prowess and he often has a quickie before a hit to improve his eye, things get progressively weirder as the story of his becoming an assassin unfolds as he was once a circus performer when an elephant went berserk and ended up shot down by local law enforcement and ever since he has been exacting his revenge against man.

You think that strange? It gets worse. The gentleman writing this appraisal then goes on to talk quite frankly about the sexual nature of Scaramanga, initially noting that his gun fetishism is an expression of self doubt in regard to his own piece, then goes on to allege that as the man cannot whistle, this was a sign that he was sexually abnormal and reveals this to mean that Scaramanga may be gay. Because he can’t whistle. I am not sure if it’s because the book was written in the 60′s or if Ian Fleming had started to get bored, but this is ridiculous and the abnormal part is just simply offensive. I think the thing I love best about this is that duriong M’s reading this, he whistles to himself as if in affirmation of his own heterosexuality.

I am not sure if it’s because the book was written in the 60′s or if Ian Fleming had started to get bored.

Unlike other books in the series, this iteration’s film counterpart has almost no resemblance to the original novel. I can’t say if it’s a good thing, as the film is equally ridiculous, the only difference is that the film has an aim, whereas the book seems to just linger on without much direction. The only noticeable similarities between the two are the main antagonist and the Bond girl are the same. I’m not sure what Bond girls are like in his other novels, but this one was completely useless, forgetable and had no page time whatsoever, except in the final scene, which amusingly Bond reflects that he wouldn’t linger with her, because she wasn’t good enough. I love how, with Bond, it’s got to the point where he’s whimsically discarding the girls before he’s even bedded them.

The writing style is slow and attention is fleeting, the whole affair is treated with little weight and the final confrontation was one of the worst and most pointless in all of action anythings. I expected a gunfight, but was treated to a scrabble and some plot inconsistencies instead. The fact that there are discontinuity issues inside of one book is really bad.

This wasn’t a great way to start the series, mostly because it’s the last bloody book, but also that this one is regarded as unfinished and pales in comparison to earlier works. Although lack-lustre, the experience isn’t off-putting, it’s just a little disappointing.

The Man with Golden Gun