Last night mirth and merriment were to be had in the heart of the Mission. Tasty tapas were eaten, litres of sangria were drained, and then the high-class lowlife a-go-go mecca the 500 club was patronized. So this morning while I was recovering I finished off Silent Hill 2 (PS2). I got the “In Water” ending. I would say that Silent Hills are a pretty good series of game - apparently falling into the genre of survival horror. So, so dark. The new one just came out, but I’m not going to pick it up yet as I need to get the imprint of my butt out of my futon.

Every time some kid shoots up a school or steals a car there are always three convenient scapegoats: video games, that music they listen to, and those movies they watch. Recently here in the Bay Area there has been an upswing of service vehicles being stolen: ambulances, police cars, etc. Now normally I’m of the school of thought that says parents who parent well are to blame for kids stealing cars or being miscreants, not RockStar Games, Eminem, or Quentin Tarantino. Nonetheless, stealing service vehicles is a core part of the Grand Theft Auto series (III and Vice City in particular).

Homeboy Mike left a copy of “Ico” with me upon his return to Texas. I won the game last night and really enjoyed it. It was really conceived in a Japanese style. What do I mean? Well, when I was in college I went with a nice girl named Ashley to the Texas Union’s late night movie showings. They would show foreign and independent film as well as eye candy for the acid-dropping / mushroom dosing freshmen (“The Wall”, “The Hobbit”, “2001” - some things never change). One of the films I saw with Ashley was “Maborosi” by Hirokazu Koreeda.

Dodongo dislikes smoke

Legend of Zelda-themed tatoo: I wrote in a previous entry that I thought Elyse Luray-Marx was an ideal woman (still think she is, but married :) ). I think that Zelda is certainly a Platonic ideal of a woman, er, elven woman - er 8-bit-video-game-elven woman. When kidnapped by an evil machinating wizard (Ganon), Zelda had the Triforce of Wisdom broken into several pieces that were hidden in several dungeons throughout her kingdom (Hyrule). The only way these pieces could be reunited was by a cutting display of wit and and flash of elven steel. And it would truly be a most munificent (Thanks Sid Meier’s “Civilization” for that 25-cent word) leader that chose to hide the Triforce of Wisdom not of Power – because power is always overcome by wisdom (a fact apparently lost at the Pentagon).

A speech from the president that doesn’t appeal to “freedom” or “resolve” when some straight talk is sought and warranted or creativity in the video game industry.

I’ve been using up old notebooks and came across this puzzle notes page from Silent Hill 2. Best survival horror game EVER. I owe my love of it to Michael Sobczak. Silent Hill 3 was pretty amazing too. I hope they make one for PS4. Fans might recognize the noose puzzle at the bottom.

At the cartoon museum! How much did I love the Sam & max adventure game!!

Spoiler Warning: Light spoilers in the introduction. Full spoilers past the jump. For Valentine’s day 2017, Lauren bought me a PS4 and “Dark Souls 3,” [From Software’s][from] final offering in the “Souls” universe and, at the time, the game to get for the platform. It follows the standard platform of taking the D&D that I used to get teased for, wraps it in amazing graphics, and sets it in a story universe that’s engrossing, fantastical, and labyrinthine. As I came to find, “Souls” fans are die-hards, not just to master the game’s complex mechanics and to best the punishing bosses, but also because of the lore of the game.

[http://www.okami-game.com/][1]

“Dark Souls” ideas in the style of “Cuphead.”

Revisit: I’ve always felt like I didn’t quite get the original post on this topic quite right. So I’m revisiting!

Spoiler Warning: Light spoilers in the introduction. Full spoilers past the jump.

For Valentine’s day 2017, Lauren bought me a PlayStation 4 and “Dark Souls 3,” From Software’s final offering in the “Souls” universe and, at the time, the game to get for the platform. It follows the standard design of taking the D&D that I used to use polyhedral dice for, wraps it in amazing graphics, and sets it in an expansive, fantastical, and labyrinthine world.

As I played (and re-played) the game, I saw many elements of Nietzschean philosophy surface that I kept mulling even after I’d finished. Months later, I contend that “Dark Souls” is a narrative exploration of Nietzsche’s “Last Man” thought experiment.^* I’d like to record how and why here.

For more about Nietzsche’s presence in “Dark Souls” read on…

A Caryll rune that transcribes inhuman sounds. ‘Blood Rapture’ is the raw euphoria of the warmth of blood. #bloodborne #bloodbornememes

With the release of Last of Us 2 Remastered and the announcement of Kaitlyn Dever as Abby for Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us, my mind’s been (yet again) swimming in reminiscences of how outstanding LOU1/2 were. They are the gold standard for story-driven, triple-A video game properties. They are also incredibly, and arguably justifiably, violent. In their adaptation to TV in HBO’s The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin glossed-over, foreshortened, or excised many of the long-running, violent episodes from the game. I think this is a narrative mistake that has weakened the characterization of Ellie and imperiled the story mechanics of a second season (and beyond).

Spoiler/Content warning: Obviously, spoiler warnings for the first season, first game, and the second game. Also, I’ll discuss a very post-apocalyptic horror hellscape of person-to-person violence…that also includes zombies

Over the years, I’ve played lots of video games and loved a great many of them: from side-scroller bliss with the Mario series to adult meditations on humanity (The Last of Us), Nietzschean philosophy (Dark Souls), and surviving grief (Silent Hill 2). While some of these were moving if not profound, the game that changed my life the most was “LOGIC LEVELS.”

This game stands out because it ultimately presaged my interest in logic and gates and also making hands-on learning fun. This seed would lead to the dial-up internet on a SCO V Unix in a shell; it would lead to the BBS era; it would lead to the philosophy degree and the IS degree and all those elective hours chocked full of foreign languages … just pretty much everything that I like. In some ways, there was a seed of me-ness on that Commodore 64 5¼ inch diskette.

As for the game play, perhaps showing is better than telling:

But what’s been so vexing about this game is that for the last several decades, I couldn’t remember its name and had the frustrating task of describing something that meant a lot to me, but which the world, largely, seemed to have forgotten.

I’ve been wondering: What would a library look like in a culture that still communicated its most important cultural institutions through music versus prose?¹ What if the language of music were to define how that culture organized knowledge so that speaking (singing?) of the organization of knowledge imparted some metadata about the knowledge itself? What if we crossed solresol with the Dewey decimal system?

This idea was inspired by my playing, this past Spring, "Horizon: Forbidden West.“² With its superb world-building and the graphics/audio capabilities of the PlayStation 5, the development team at Guerilla games helps us imagine a world where music is a dominant and uniting cultural thread:³

The game’s heroine, Aloy, enters in the Utaru tribe’s home village of “Plainsong” to beautiful choral music.

Universally regarded as a masterpiece of the fantasy video game genre, Dark Souls not only features deep reflections on the nature of mankind, but also provides instruction on the proper character of a leader in a way that recalls The Republic or The Prince.