Media Consumption 9-22-17

Hi everyone! 

We've got a hot batch of videos cooking in the oven, but until then, here's a look at what we've been playing, watching, and thinking about this week. 

Rick and Morty (Grace) 

(In case anyone is worried, this is going to be a spoiler free discussion. I will be talking about broad themes of the show.) 

It’s been all over my YouTube suggestions for weeks, so I finally decided to check out Rick and Morty. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I jumped in on Season 2 because I head heard the earlier part of Season 1 is weak or, if I could paraphrase a friend’s warning, “A bunch of bullshit meanness for what? A punchline?”. 

Wow! He’s drinking and driving on a spaceship! How fantastical and transgressive! 

Honestly, I am not sure if Rick and Morty gets over it’s meanness. I’d say that meanness is the whole point of the show, in a sense the characters are struggling to overcome their genetic predisposition to coalesce as a family unit. The show’s basic premise, that the universe is infinite and therefore nothing matters feels wasteful to me (though it’s a clever way for the writers to get out of various narrative pitfalls). 

The characters of Rick and Morty are mean to each other and their various dependencies are spotlighted as the butt of a joke. But, a lot of the time the joke boils down to shock humor. It’s good enough, and obviously many, if not most people, seem to like it. What’s interesting to me is the disconnect I feel watching this show. This is the sort of humor I used to enjoy. I used to like staring into the crusty-eyed abyss of life and finding it all pointless, absurd, and laughable. There’s a place for it, but now I am finding myself wanting more from media. I’m not impressed by a show that points out the hopelessness of the world. I’m impressed by a show that sees that hopelessness and finds a reason in it to hope. 

Silent Hill 3 (Grace)

We’ve been playing Silent Hill 3 on our livestreams lately (you can watch archives here!). I love both Silent Hills 1 & 2, but I am having some difficulties understanding their wayward sequel. 

What strikes me the most about my playthrough so far is how inconsistent it is. I’m not even talking about tone, what I mean is that the rules of engagement don’t track, and the game seems a little too liberal about sprinkling in cheap deaths that can cost you a lot of progress. 

For example, we ran into an issue during our first stream where I (Heather) died by running off the edge of a platform. The problem is that I had been running around already for two hours encountering invisible walls that prevented me from falling off of other walls, edges, etc. 

I’d be tempted to think this is a technical mishap, but other gimmicky deaths abound. Coupled with starter areas like the mall and the subway that are a bit too unwieldy to navigate properly, I’m starting to think this is part of the way Silent Hill 3 wants to scare me. While Silent Hill 2 relied on unnerving psychological horror, SH3 gaslights me by making the world hard to navigate. Dawg, I’m a pro at being lost, that don’t scare me. The grocery store I shop at has two different aisles labeled “Soup”. Get good Silent Hill 3!

That’s not to say there aren’t still things I’m enjoying about the game! Heather as a character is a delight; I like how she feels fleshed out and teen as hell. 

Pictured: teen as hell.

Overall, I’m still in it and I’m interested to see what kind of a ride Silent Hill wants to take me on. 

RetroBlazer (Derek)

As you may know, we finally got a PC gaming rig! And in between refreshing the analytics on the Red Ring of Death video and working on new videos, I’ve been prowling hard drives for every game and demo I’ve amassed over the years. Some I hoarded in preparation for the day we finally had access to a PC, other’s are for potential SSFF fodder. One such game was RetroBlazer, whose demo I played in a Starbucks after we had just moved to Seattle. It was one of the few games that was Mac compatible, but I had downloaded the demo so long ago I’d forgotten about it!

I really loved this game’s style and use of color!

Stumbling upon it again, I booted it up and immediately remembered its majesty. RetroBlazer is a gorgeous, fast-paced FPS throwback to the good ol’ days of Wolf 3D and Doom. Great music too! It fits right along with the likes of Strafe and Dusk but here’s where things get sad, after a failed kickstarter this game appears to be pretty much abandoned. Maybe it was just a little too early to the 90’s FRS revival party. The creator has mentioned they’re still working on the game on their facebook, but a lot of its official sites and download links appear to have expired. If you do some digging, you may be able to find a link to the 2015 demo, which I highly recommend you do. I was just as impressed with it in my comfortable Seattle apartment as I was in a busy Starbucks.