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| Tuesday, September 13, 2005 11:56 AM |
| In the name of Harman... |
 by Fëanor |
- I should have mentioned before, as I'm sure all of you following the saga of my video game playing were awaiting news on my progress--I beat Killer7. By "beat," I mean that I got through what looked like the final mission, watched a credit sequence, then went through yet another mission, watched another credit sequence, unlocked a whole other game called Killer8, and started playing that only to realize that it was just the same game over again, but this time at a higher difficulty level, and including a new playable character. So, yeah. I'd actually still like to play through the entire Killer8 at some point and see what happens at the end of that, but at this point I've had Peccable's game way too long and it's time to give it back. Besides, poppy gave me a new game (Tales of Symphonia) as an early birthday present, so I've got to get started on that now. I don't think I'd heard of this game before, but an 8.8 rating on GameSpot is a pretty strong recommendation!
Anyway, to get back to Killer7--I liked the game very much, despite the fact that I still feel a little lost as to what exactly was going on in there, or what it was really about. The ending clears up certain central mysteries, but not others. For one thing, I never got a feel for the exact shape of the political conspiracy I was investigating. Something about a Japanese group trying to take over America? But sort of a future, parallel universe America, or something. It was a strange and kind of disturbing storyline, considering that this is a Japanese video game released for American consumption. Are they trying to tell us something?
And what were the villainous Heaven Smiles, exactly? An actual terroristic religious cult? Just enemies of the state my character had been brainwashed into seeing as dangerous monsters? Or regular people my character only imagined were threatening due to his own insanity?
A more general and perhaps more important question is, which things in the game were supposed to have really happened, and which were meant to be pure mental delusion? It's possible the entire thing was all just a nightmare of past events taking place in the mind of a lunatic. Or maybe most of it really happened, with just some of the details obscured by lunacy, or represented metaphorically by monsters and ghosts.
It's hard to say, and maybe that's the point. Regardless, it was still a good, entertaining game, with an involving story that, while ultimately a bit frustratingly inconclusive, was still pretty smart and interesting. It's a very strange and imaginative game, but at the same time, a lot of the weirdness is just masking some very basic, comfortably familiar shooting and puzzle elements. It's creepy, but not too creepy, and challenging, but not too challenging. An all around good game. I'm considering buying a copy, to show my support, and to have it around, in case I really do want to play through Killer8 one of these days, or even play the game over again from the beginning. There's a choice you have to make at the end of the game between two paths, and I'd be curious to know what happens if you follow the other path. My path led to America being conquered, I think, but for all I know, that might have been the happy ending.
- Hey, remember those two things I said I was going to tape last night? Well, yeah, no taping went on--I just stayed up and watched them. First, there was the Eagles game. Ach. That could have gone better. But then again, it could have gone much worse, too.
The Eagles looked really disorganized and confused in the first quarter, but then they pulled it together and started playing like the team I remember from last year. They shut down Atlanta's offense, and managed to score a few times themselves...just not enough. Basically, the Eagles made too many mistakes, gave up too many big opportunities. The Falcons, on the other hand, played a strong game from start to finish. For a while there, Vick just seemed untouchable and unstoppable. Philly needs to start playing like those guys.
- The other thing I watched last night was the latest episode of "Battlestar Galactica." I enjoyed it. The whole "reporter doing an inside story on Galactica" concept was a little gimmicky, and the execution slightly corny, but overall it was an entertaining episode.
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.) And now, if I'm remembering right, we've seen six different human models of Cylon--the guy they identified in the pilot miniseries, that other guy who's always hanging around with Six, the black doctor guy Starbuck met on Caprica, Six herself, Sharon/Boomer, and now Lucy Lawless's character. I could be counting wrong (are those first two guys I mentioned really just one guy?), but I think that's three men and three women. I seem to remember that it was mentioned at one point how many human models exist, but I can't remember now. Three of each sex would seem to make sense, but is there a final seventh model--you know, one to rule them all? Or are there eight, one more of each sex? Anybody? Comments?
- As a person who listens to music constantly at work (I've got headphones on right now, with my iTunes blasting mp3s into my ears), who is getting even more into music recently than he has been at any other time in his life, who goes to concerts relatively often (in fact, I've got tickets at home for two upcoming shows), and who is considering buying an iPod so he can listen to even more music, this article about a new trend of hearing problems amongst music-loving young people is troubling indeed.
- I'd been looking forward to Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit anyway, and there was no chance of me missing it, because I'm a huge fan of Nick Park's films, his Wallace and Gromit shorts in particular, but reading about all the great reviews it's getting is very encouraging.
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