Choose Or Die? I choose die

 We all know that video game movies are generally pretty bad.  There may be the odd exception here and there but generally speaking a movie based on a game is almost guaranteed trash.  What's worse than video game movies, however, are movies about video games.  The most famous example of this is probably Ready Player One.  An unfathomably shit movie about a bunch of morons looking for some thing inside a VR Metaverse that will give them a bunch of money and allow them to escape their shit lives or something.  It's an extremely poorly written plot surrounded on all sides by trite video game references and a bunch of money men trying to seem relatable by pointing out that they looked up a thing about Adventure on Atari 2600 one time.  But then Choose or Die got made and it makes Ready Player One look like a fucking masterpiece.

There's a short story published by Steven King in 1983 called Word Processor of the Gods.  To cut a short story even shorter, some dude has a word processor that has the magical property of making whatever he types into it turn into reality.  The guy in the story basically deletes his shitty kid and shitty wife and makes a more well mannered kid his and a woman that's a bit nicer to him into his wife and then the word processor runs out of magic juice and breaks down forever.  I think that's what happens anyway, it's been a hot minute since I read it.

The reason I bring up Word Processor of the Gods is because Choose or Die basically rips off that idea wholesale but instead of it being a magic bit of 80s tech, it's an old video game that bends reality. The film follows some woman finds a game called "Curs>r" in her friends failing retro shop and on the back of the box there's a promise of a cash prize for anyone who can beat the game.  They call the number and find that it's still in service (with the audio recording being delivered Robert Englund of all fucking people) and so the woman takes the game home and tries to beat it to get the money and pull herself out of the shit, broke life she finds herself in.

"Curs>r" is a text adventure, kind of like Zork or any of those ancient purely text based adventures that you controlled by typing in shit like ">walk north" into a command prompt only this game creates its situations based on where the user is and then asks them to make some kind of horrible choice under the threat of death if they fail to choose in time.  For example when the woman first gets hold of it shes playing it in a bar and the game is like "you are in a tavern, should the waitress take a break?".  So she types yes and by "take a break" it meant that it forces the waitress to start picking up random glasses off the shelf and smashing them off the floor.  Then when asked if she should clean up by the game, the woman picks yes and Curs>r forces said waitress to pick up the shards of glass and eat them.  This is probably the only effective moment of the entire movie because I have to admit, watching a woman being forced to chew glass by a reality bending text adventure did make me wince.  

After that moment it's entirely downhill.  Instead of ramping up the stakes of the choices the game starts doing all sorts of weird shit like making the main character control a rat that's trying to eat her mother and somehow teleporting the characters to alternate fog dimensions to tease her about past traumas.  The core premise of the film isn't even that bad but the execution of the movie after the initial couple of scenes is just completely fumbled.

There's one really funny scene where the game traps a character in what I can only describe as "the lag dimension" and kills him by making him puke a never ending stream of casette film.  Base Film is soft and fairly brittle but somehow it kills him because this movie things that the inside of old casettes are made of barbed wire.  

The whole production feels like it was made by someone who has never actually engaged with anything outside of wikipedia synopsis. Like the writers know roughly what a video game is, have seen tech from the 80s in Instagram reels and maybe have a vague idea of the existance of horror movies and with this vague surface level understanding of these things attempted to make a film.  

Choose or Die is a boring movie trying to pander to middle aged men who will eat up any old bullshit if it has things from their childhood in it.  It's sad, embarassing and if you were going to make me choose between watching this film again or putting a bullet in my head, I will log out of my Netflix account and you can watch me die.

 

Missing E3 Hype

E3, the biggest gaming event of the year basically, is around the corner and unfortunately I don't give a flying fuck about it, at all.  I'm not making this post to be all controversial and hate on the show but I'm here to lament how what once was a truly exciting time for me has been reduced to nothing more than a slight blip on my radar.

I remember back in high school I had a group of friends that I'd play games like Counterstrike with.  When E3 rolled around we'd all jump on a Ventrilo server and watch the live coverage and discuss the games that were announced.   I also remember in my second year of university, a friend coming down to my apartment and we stocked up on large amounts of pizza and soda and then watched the event while we played other games, tons of fun.  Even a few years ago, when I had a short stint of living in Sweden, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the conferences live and then spending the best part of the next day talking about the event with friends.  

Even before all this live streaming stuff was popular, back when I was just a wee child, I remember seeing footage on TV from E3 and getting incredibly exciting about the idea of something like that even existing.  I'm sure I gave my parents an earful about how badly I wanted to go to LA to see the show for myself but unfortunately it never came to pass.  

E3 now however is a sad shell of what it once was.  Nintendo have pulled out of the show and this year Sony did the same.  That alone is enough for me to stop caring because I live in Japan and no one gives a fuck about Xbox over here so I have no interest on need to watch a conference from Microsoft.  Sony and Nintendo are doing their own thing at the same time as the show.  I'll just go and watch their shit directly rather than waking up early to catch some bullshit talk from EA or Bethesda.  The last few years have also seen the event marred by various controversy over things like gender, race or identity politics.  I'm trying DESPERATELY hard to avoid any of that bullshit but if the last few years are anything to go by, it means that following the news closely will guarantee that I walk face first into a wall of clickbait bullshit.  If we get through the entire event and there isn't some claim that "X game is racist" or "Y company is sexist" or something like that, I'll eat a shoe

That's not to say I'll be ignoring it completely, once the show is over, the Nintendo Direct done and the Sony thing aired, I'll be sure to at the very least look at a list of games and follow up on things that interest me.  Personally I'm hoping to see some Shin Megami Tensei 5 news during this whole period but to be brutally honest I probably have a better chance of finding a chicken that lays golden eggs.

Gaming Is The Best Platform For Horror

So as you may know, I'm a big fan of the horror genre.  Doesn't matter if it's a horror book, movie, game or whatever, if it's horror I want to at least check it out.  However out of all the mediums that the genre of horror can come in I feel that video gaming is the best way for it to delivered.

That's not to say that the other mediums aren't fit for horror.  A good horror story in the hands of a talented author like Steven King or Koji Suzuki can do a fantastic job of freaking you out.  Koji Suzuki is a particularly good example for this because video games of Ring suck massive ass and the imagery that my head conjured up for the cursed tape based on his descriptions in the novel did a much better job of making me feel uneasy than the movies depiction of it.  There are also TONS of great horror movies, way too many to even attempt to list off.  I have a friend and every time we go drinking together we talk for HOURS about different horror movies each time.

But gaming though, gaming is special.  It takes all these things like these mediums have, the writing, visuals, music etc and makes YOU actively be a part of it.  You're the one that has to fight for survival and brave the nightmares ahead.  You can watch a movie like Friday the 13th where you can just watch someone run away from the murderous killer or you can play a game like Amnesia where YOU have to run away from the monster lurking in the shadows.  If you play something like Silent Hill you can all the excellent parts from the other mediums AND you have the horror compounded by the fact that you are the one that has to navigate your hero though.  You're not just a passive observer in the terror, you're right there experiencing it with the character.

Also because gaming is an interactive medium it can use this to its advantage to further enhance the fear that you feel.  Resident Evil did this early on by turning the games save system against you.  In most games you just save as much as you want but in RE if you didn't have an Ink Ribbon then tough shit, and your first time through you never knew when you were going to get your next spool.  Fatal Frame does it by forcing the player to get right up in the grill of the ghosts that you're fighting.  Not only that, if you want to really succeed at the combat, you have to wait until right before it's going to hit you.  Amnesia did it by making the player freak out if they were to stare at the creature for too long.  It's not like a movie where someone might say "Don't look at that thing you'll go mad" and you just have to sit there going "wow I sure hope he doesn't look at that creature", the responsibility for the characters sanity is entirely on you.

All this said though, I'd much rather have an excellently crafted horror novel or a well made horror movie over a mediocre or shit horror game.  I'd much rather have a copy of Nightmares and Dreamscapes in my hand or The Shining on my TV rather than some shit like The Evil Within or Outlast.  But when a horror game does get it just right it really is unforgettable.

Tau and Friends Play Advance Wars Part 12

Why I Enjoy Video Games So Damn Much

The above image was selected for this post because that was the first game I ever owned.

Anyway, over the last couple of weeks there's been a lot of shit going on in the world of gaming.  Almost every day on every site people have been talking about this GamerGate stuff which basically involves a lot of people flinging shit and not really getting anywhere, at least not that I can see at time of writing this article.  Not that the whole issue about women in games and honesty of gaming media isn't a topic worth discussing but there's so much bile involved.  If you take a look through my recent posts then you can even see that it was starting to get to me, where I'm guilty of blogging about all the bullshit and actually getting quite angry about it.  Usually when I rage at stuff it's not REAL rage but this whole situation was getting my pantaloons twisted.

But then I took a step back, stopped reading these fucking "news" sites and forums and I loaded up a game.  I played that game for a good few hours and you know what? I had fun.  The drama over the course of the last two weeks made me forget for just a second why I love this medium and why I play video games.  So in a way of kind of getting myself back on track with what I'm here for and to look a bit sappy on the internet, I thought I'd write this post today about just why I love gaming so damn much.

Gaming is a thing I've been doing since I was 4 years old starting with the Megadrive then going a generation or two backwards before eventually getting my hands on a SNES and subsequently a Saturn/PS1 etc.

As a person I enjoy challenging myself and gaming as an entertainment medium fit that bill entirely.  I could watch a movie or read a book and I enjoyed it, sure, but books and movies never quite gave me the same sense of satisfaction that a game did.  When the characters in a book or a movie succeed, that's because it was written for them to succeed while in a game it felt like the characters success was based on MY input.  Sure the stories were basic and/or shitty but the challenge was there and that's why I personally enjoyed them the most.

Gaming evolved and things started to change, the visuals and technology was getting better and developers were getting better at writing stories.  As I got older games stopped just being about beating a level or overcoming a boss battle but  they were affecting me emotionally as well.  Not only that but there was such variety and every experience I had in a game was a memory made either alone or with friends and they are memories that I cherish.

It's not so much like that now though, over the years I think the game industry has become just a little bit shittier by hitting the mainstream.  Games aren't about innovation and experiences any more as much as they are about making safe shit for the lowest common denominator that will make the most sales.

But that doesn't mean gaming itself is shit, I still love the fuck out of video games.  Nowadays I use them to relax after a long day of work.  I can just sink into a chair and enjoy a game or if I play a shitty one and can come onto this blog and tear it a new asshole so even lowest common denominator bullshit has its place.  Gaming is also that one hobby that all of my friends had and it's that one thing that has kept us all together despite me being halfway across the globe from most of them.  I've heard about lots of people falling out of contact with each other but within my circle of friends we always try to make a little time to have a game of something with each other or collectively get excited or rage at latest gaming news, and that's great.


Don't take this post as an indication of me going soft.  If someone posts something stupid or a game sucks I'm still going to get on my soapbox and yell, tough love and all that.  But games journalists are always going to be shit, they always have and there's always going to be massive dickholes shitting up a given space but just don't forget to enjoy a fucking game once in a while, will ya?

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go play some Transistor, that game rocks!

Being a Budget Gamer

The one thing I hear quite often from people when it comes to gaming is "it's such an expensive hobby".  Well partly, they are right as gaming can be pretty pricy.  However, if you are on a budget or have no money, that doesn't mean you can't game or have to give up gaming in order to save the pennies as there are plenty of ways to get your digital entertainment for little to no money.  So here's a couple of points on how to manage as a gamer on a budget.

1.  Face the fact that you ain't playin' the latest shit

See that Xbox One and PS4 sitting on the shelf of your local video game retailer?  Yeah, fuck that shit, you ain't playin' that for a while.  One of the disadvantages is that there is no way in hell you're going to be able to play the latest stuff but there is a workaround to this situation.  If you are lucky enough to have friends who own PS4s, Xbones or WiiUs then head round to their house and go play their shit.  Don't be a mooching little asshole though, buy them a 6-pack or something for their trouble.

2. Go Retro

Gaming has been around for a pretty long time now and that means there is TONS of old shit for you to be playing.  If you're like me and you live in Japan, the retro shops can sell stuff for pretty cheap.  Splash out one time for a Famicom dual system thing and then there are tons of 100-500 yen carts for you to be enjoying.

But lets say you don't have ANY money to spend, there are tons of emulators and sites that provide ROMS that can give you plenty of shit to play for free.  Some would argue this is piracy, which is kind of true I guess but then again if you emulate something like the fucking ZX Spectrum I'm sure no one is really going to give a shit and those games are plenty fun.

I mean we're talking about a system so old that the games came on fucking TAPES.  To be brutally honest, if you're going to complain about piracy on a tape-based system from 1982 then you need a fucking slap.

3. Get Steam

I don't care what your stance is on DRM or whatever the fuck, Steam is great.  If you have no money to spend, then steam provides a load of shit free to play and while some of these games are a bit hit and miss, the point is that they all cost ZERO FUCKING MONEY.

If you take the two biggest free to play games which are Team Fortress 2 and DotA2, then there are actually ways that you can make steam credit by playing these games.  Sit there and grind out some cosmetic items then trade and sell your way up on the steam marketplace.  Once you have some steam credit, wait for a seasonal steam sale and BAM! now you're rolling in fucking games and you didn't spend a penny.

There are plenty of other ways to save money if you're poor or even just a cheap bastard but these are just 3 of the best in my opinion.  Enjoy your cheap video games