MIDI Week Singles: "Dr. Dupes and The Odie Clones" - Garfield and His Nine Lives (GBA)

 

"Dr. Dupes and The Odie Clones" from Garfield and His Nine Lives on the Game Boy Advance (2006)

Composer: Allister Brimble, Anthony N. Putson

Album: No Official Release

Publisher: The Game Factory

Developer: Lucky Jump Games

I have zero information about this game before I looked it up as I was writing this article, so I am not sure why Garfield finds himself in a doctor's robotics lab trying to find Odie amidst an army of robotic Odie clones.  I mean, I guess there is playful darkness to the melody as it bounds along, following Garfield as he beats/diffuses the Odie clones while collecting hovering cupcakes; you know, classic platforming stuff here.

What draws me to this song though are a couple elements.  First, there is the melody that kind of does its own thing from the start of the song until the 20-second mark when it gets interesting. That is when there is the first semblance of anything that could be hummed after the song is over.  But then, interspersed with the melody are boinging noises and two wonderful electronic hand claps.  Then at 52 seconds, right when you think that the song is going to loop back to the beginning revealing itself to be on a 25-second loop, we get this 1950s science fiction tone reminiscent of a percussive/xylophone Theremin that seems to be in nearly any sci-fi movie made since Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space along with that great boots'n pants beat.  For whatever reason, all three of those combined elements just endear this song to me even though I have never played Garfield and His Nine Lives and I really have no interest in playing it.  But this song, I dig it, and that is really all the justification I need.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Of This Lorded Agony

Why Am I Reading So Many Dungeons & Dragons Novels: A Novel Theory

Over the last six months or so, I have been reading a lot of older novels written in the Dungeons & Dragons, specifically the Forgotten Realms campaign setting populated by characters such as Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster the Mage.  Why I have been reading these primarily stems from the fact that the Rime of the Frostmaiden and Legacy of the Crystal Shard modules references events that took place in The Crystal Shard as well as other books.  "The Crystal Shard" is part 1 of the Icewind Dale Trilogy, but The Dark Elf Trilogy is a prequel to the Icewind Dale Trilogy so I decided to read those books first even though they were written after the Icewind Dale Trilogy; that is just the way my brain works most of the time.  So while I was waiting for "The Halfling's Gem," the third book in the Icewind Dale Trilogy to become available through my local library, I checked out Elminster: The Making of a Mage being the first book in the Elminster Trilogy and written by Ed Greenwood who created the Forgotten Realms campaign setting circa 1979.  I later found out, while looking up information about R.A. Salvatore's writing of the Icewind Dale Trilogy, that he had originally had his story take place in the Moonshae Isles thinking that that was all there was to Faerun because the only novels to exist in the Forgotten Realms was Moonshae Trilogy. 

So my reading list for the next couple of months (possibly the rest of the year?) looks as follows:

• The Halfling's Gem - Icewind Dale Trilogy Book 3 - The Legend of Drizzt Book 6
• Elminster - The Making of a Mage
• Darkwater on Moonshae - The Moonshae Trilogy Book 1
• Black Wizards - The Moonshae Trilogy Book 2
• Darkwell - The Moonshae Trilogy Book 3
• Elminster in Myth Drannor
• The Temptation of Elminster
• Elminster in Hell
• Elminster's Daughter

There will likely be other Drizzt books interspersed with books from the Legacy of the Drow series between the Elminster books since those are not a specific trilogy.  Pentalogy?  But then since the module Legacy of the Crystal Shard, which proceeds the events in Rime of the Frostmaiden, deals with the events of The Second Sundering, there is that book series too. Hmm.

All of this brings me to a couple of points.

Apparently, I am drawn to books that are trilogies, or possibly that the kinds of stories that I am drawn to, end up being ones that are written as trilogies.  It mostly ends up being that I find out about a particular story, character, or event that I want background information on, and that story ends up being a trilogy.  I guess publishers also like trilogies?

I love history, which is probably why I found myself drawn to reading books that were referenced in a module that I may not end up reading for another year.  In the Forgotten Realms universe, there was an event called the Spellplague which I have heard about, but always as something that happened in the past.  I know that it has to do with the Goddess of Magic Mystra being assassinated by the God of Lies, Cyric, but I have never read anything about that event and the events leading up to and after the Spellplague seem very interesting.  Which is one of the reasons that led me to start reading the Elminster books as they deal heavily with Mystra and I felt like I wanted to know that character before she was killed off.  I want to have a baseline for this world that was chock full of magic and then what it was like when magic just ceased to be a thing for a decade.  That, to me, is just a buck wild concept, that a world where magic seems so fundamental to the game and the story, that it no longer exists was a thing.  Now I want to see if there were any official D&D campaigns that took place during The Wailing Years that would allow players to play as a Wizard/Mage without the ability to cast magic.

The second is that I enjoy reading about stories that take place within a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting.  I have been playing D&D off and on now for 30 years and am fairly familiar with high fantasy tropes along with mechanics for at least the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th editions.  I find it entertaining to read a book where I can imagine the story being played out as a tabletop game, where if a character tries to attack a Bugbear and the Bugbear just stands there unaffected, I can imagine that the player rolled a 10 on their attack roll and probably only has a +3 to hit against the Bugbear's AC of 5 (this is 2E, in the days of THAC0, where a lower AC is better).  I also enjoy reading stories that take place in locations that I have visited in a video game, which in turn is why I like playing video games that take place in a D&D campaign setting if I have played that setting in a tabletop game. 

Since I have been unable to play D&D on a regular basis, the last time being around autumn 2020, these books scratch that itch of either playing as a PC or the DM.  It is not an itch that any fantasy series can fulfill, although I am also rereading The Lord of the Rings, because I like hearing about locations like Neverwinter Wood, Candlekeep, and the Spine of the World that I am familiar with.

Why do I feel I have written all of this to justify reading 30-year-old fantasy novels based on a tabletop role-playing game?

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Instrumental

P.S.  Around the time I was introduced to D&D from Dellanos, I remember borrowing some books of his that were Dungeons & Dragons based, but I cannot remember anything specific about the stories.  I know one book had a Black Dragon acid-spitting on a cloth/leather-clad person who likely had a shield up, and at least another book that probably also had a dragon on the cover.  It would not surprise me if Dellanos still had those books because I know I too have kept most of my 2nd edition Ravenloft books.

MIDI Week Singles: "Cheerful Tavern" - Fantasy Life (3DS)

 

"Cheerful Tavern" from Fantasy Life on the Nintendo 3DS (2012)

Composer: Nobuo Uematsu

Album: Fantasy Life Original Sound Track

Label: FRAME

Publisher: Nintendo, Level-5

Developer: Level-5

Fantasy Life was a really fun game that I immediately recall any time any of the music crops up on my computer and I think back to how I played 90% of the game as a Blacksmith, then decided to mix things up after feeling like my life as a Blacksmith was waning and became a Paladin and the game felt completely different.  This song is wonderfully cheerful as the title states and it makes me want to start a new Life and then end my day back in the tavern to hear this song and see all of the other patrons just throwing back a pint after a long day at the proverbial office.

I honestly do not know if Nobuo Uematsu based this song off of anything from our real world, and if the words that are being sung are an actual language or if it is just near-sounding enough to any conglomeration of languages that it sounds like you are on the cusp of understanding what they are saying.  Maybe after another pint it will make sense?  And I love the accordion intro, which is helped by the fact that I do love accordion music.  The only downside to this song is that the official recording on the album only plays through one time and fades out on the repeat.  Ah well, I guess I should find a tavern then to hear this on repeat and sing along.

I should have another pint.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

I'm a Rhymin' Mercenary

Demo Time: Agent 64: Spies Never Die (beta)

Agent 64: Spies Never Die 

Release: 2022

Systems: Steam

Publisher: Replicant D6

Developer: Replicant D6

I think it is safe to say that I had a progressive and mixed reaction while playing Agent 64: Spies Never Die (just referred to as Agent 64 from here on out).  I had read a couple of articles touting how this beta demo hits right in the GoldenEye 007 nostalgia feels, and from what I could tell from the handful of screenshots, it did look a lot like a modernized (but not a ray-traced 8K glow up) version of the 1997 release of GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 (and not the atrocious 2010 remake that fell on the DS, although the Wii, PS3, and Xbox version were apparently better).  What I was expecting was at least the Facility level from GoldenEye but with smoother animations, less blocky graphics, and playable on my laptop with mouse/keyboard controls, played as a modern fps with a similar feel.  Agent 64 was not quite that experience.

First off, I did invert the camera because I actually wanted to be able to play the game, but then the camera movement with the mouse felt beyond sluggish.  It literally felt like I had to swipe from the middle of my non-existent mousepad (because I am a savage and was playing on my kitchen table without a mousepad) no fewer than ten times to do a complete 360-degree turn.  Imagine trying to turn around while standing in a shower filled with jello up to your shoulders and not being able to lift your feet off of the ground.  That was what looking around in this game felt like.  I adjusted the mouse look option from where it defaulted at .20 up to .83, and while that felt better, it still did not feel the way I wanted it to feel, which as it turns out is not how it would feel on the N64.  GoldenEye 007 was not designed as a dual analog shooter, although with the 1.2 Solitaire control setting, you could have the joystick to look and the C buttons to move, there were still limitations on how the game moved and felt compared to a game like TimeSplitters from 2000.  That was the key distinction that I think might be a huge turn-off to people who did not play any fps on the N64, let alone GoldenEye.

Because GoldenEye 007 was designed with a controller in mind and not mouse/keyboard, Rare implemented an aim assist feature that automatically slid the gun barrel in the direction of any enemy you were within range of shooting.  It may not lock on to their head but it would aim the gun at their torso allowing you to generally hit your target.  Manually aiming the gun required you to press and hold, in most control configurations, the R shoulder button which then gave you a looser freedom of movement, and also placed a reticle on-screen showing where you were specifically aiming.  I bring all of this boring nonsense up because this seems to be how Replicant D6 approached looking and aiming in Agent 64.  Once this was their approach to moving/looking/aiming, the game became a lot more enjoyable and less like I was trudging through chest-deep sludge.

The second aspect of the game that I was initially disappointed about was that this was not a level in GoldenEye, but an entirely new environment with new albeit similar weapons, all still heavily inspired by GoldenEye.  Once I got past the initial, "Ah man, I wanted something different than this," and got used to the controls, I found that I actually enjoyed the environment and the intuitiveness of the level design.  Enemies standing at attention with their back to you, shattering glass, exploding barrels and boxes, multiple guns (although only two that I found), no jumping, different missions depending on the difficulty setting, simplistic weapons reloading animations and sounds.  And exploding couches, because anything that can be shot and damaged is capable of exploding.  The level design actually reminded me more of the first stage in Perfect Dark (dataDyne Central: Defection) where you land on top of a skyscraper and traverse down to the bottom floor where you take an elevator to the research basement.  The music too was reminiscent of a James Bond-themed game, although I do not recall the characteristic anvil-hit from GoldenEye, again, this is not a James Bond or even a GoldenEye game, but just one inspired by GoldenEye 007.

From what I have played, Agent 64 does not feel perfect, but then again it is not supposed to be.  It is demo from a game that is in active beta testing.  It is a single level with three different difficulty and mission settings for a game that is not finished.  As a proof of concept, I think Replicant D6 has accomplished what I believe they set out to do, which was create a faithful homage to GoldenEye 007 playable on the PC.  But again, that faithfulness to the feel of the N64 controls and how the game operates might need some accessibility features and smoothing out if they want to win over people who are not nostalgic for the feel of an N64 FPS from 1997.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Bow Down Before His Eyes

P.S.  And be wary of getting shot because in proper 1997 FPS GoldenEye fashion, your health does not regenerate, there are no health packs, and oddly enough I wasn't able to find any body armor, which might mean that I just need to look around a few more corners.

MIDI Week Singles: "Safe in Beregost" - Baldur's Gate (PC)

"Safe in Beregost" from Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition on Windows, MacOS, iOS, OSX, Android, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One (1998, 2012, 2013, 2014, & 2019)

Composer: Michael Hoenig

Album: Baldur's Gate The Original Saga, and Baldur's Gate Soundtrack

Label: Interplay Entertainment, and Hasbro

Publisher: Black Isle Studios, Interplay Entertainment, Beamdog, and Skybound Games

Developer: BioWare, and Overhaul Games

You first hear this theme played in this relaxing manner when you reach The Friendly Arm Inn, being your first real sense of peace and rest after you are attacked and Gorion is killed in front of you.  This theme is played again upon reaching your first large city, Beregost, which at least for me served as my primary hub outside of Nashkel in the south for a good portion of the game.  I just have so many memories of when I first played this game, stumbling upon the house infested with spiders, selling used and unneeded gear at Thunderhammer Smithy, either saving or fighting off Silke, or oftentimes forgetting that Kagain's Shop is a thing on the west side of town.

It is a little bit more fanfaric than the arrangement used for "The Friendly Arm Inn," which I believe is the same piece of music used in Nashkel, but that makes sense because both of those places are more rural compared to Beregost and having a slightly grander version of this theme might be out of pace.  That is just an assumption as I could be wrong.  The theme again plays when you finally reach the city of Baldur's Gate, and that arrangement loops faster than any of the other versions, lasting less than a minute as there is less buildup.  Maybe that is why I was drawn more to "Safe in Beregost," with its slightly longer build compared to "Streets of Baldur's Gate," and has a fuller, richer sound compared to "The Friendly Arm Inn."

This song just exudes all of the fond memories I have of playing Baldur's Gate 20 years ago, and this soundtrack is one that I am frequently drawn to and will have playing in the background whenever I am reading a Dungeons & Dragons novel (currently it is The Halfling's Gem).  That is really all I am trying to say.  If you really think about it.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Into the Night We Shine

Game EXP: Vampire Survivors (PC)

Vampire Survivors

Systems: Windows, XBox S/X, Android, macOS, Linux

Release Date: December 17, 2021

Publisher: Luca Galante, Games Delta, poncle

Developer: poncle, Luca Galante

I was initially turned off of Vampire Survivors for pretty petty reasons when I first started hearing about it a few months back.  Knowing nothing about the game, all I saw was a screencap or two and the title screen art which rips off the pose of Bayonetta from Bayonetta 2.  Not that I have any loyalty to Platinum Games, but I immediately made the assumption that if the title card on the Steam Store page was going to what I felt amounted to plagiarizing Bayonetta 2, then there was a chance that the game involved stolen assets of one kind or another.  So I ignored the game.  Then a few weeks ago, I actually looked into the game as I saw that it was not getting review bombed and everything else I saw online seemed to be favorable and then I recalled a video from Polygon's Clayton Ashton about power creep and how it is handled in different games, often to the benefit of the game and not always the detrimental type of power creep. 

I considered picking up the game because it genuinely looked like fun as I liked the premise, although I am usually not one to play rogue-likes due to their often infinite play models and I like games to have an end game so I can feel like I accomplished something (there are obvious exceptions of course).  The game was and still is, in Early Access, and that was only a little bit of a turn-off as I tend to prefer to play games that are finished.  But then I noticed that the price of the game was only $2.99.  I could live with losing $2.99 if I ended up not liking Vampire Survivors as that would be the cost of a video game rental in 1995.  So I went over to Steam and purchased Vampire Survivors.

The premise of Vampire Survivors is pretty simple.  You select a character (only one character is available at the beginning of the game) and you select a stage (only one stage is available at the beginning of the game) and you wander around an infinitely sized area that is constantly being repopulated with enemies.  All you do is move around and survive.  Your attacks happen automatically so there is no button mashing required aside from either the controller or WASD and the occasional click of the mouse.  As you kill enemies, they frequently (but not always) drop gems that you pick up which give you experience points.  When you level up, you choose from a randomized selection of skills and upgrades.  The longer you survive, the more you level up, the more skills you have that you can upgrade.  There are also gold coins that you can pick up which are used to purchase permanent buffs and access to additional characters in between games.

Confession time.  In my first run-through of the game, I survived only 2m09s.  Despite knowing the basics of the game (move, auto-attack), I found controlling the first character of Antonio Belphaese, who uses a single whip that strikes out in one direction to be difficult to control and plan attacks, coupled with not knowing or understanding what the various buffs were, which ones to prioritize and any kind of survival strategy left me dead in just over two minutes.  My second game I fared much better, knowing how much damage I would take from enemies while walking through them and I focused on trying to earn more gold so I could unlock additional characters.  I also discovered that like Castlevania, you could shoot candles/torches/braziers for gold and floor chicken.  I played a handful of games with Antonio, unlocking additional buffs and weapons that would become available on subsequent playthroughs, although I hoarded my lackluster gold pile thinking that unlocking additional characters was the way to go.  

Once I unlocked Imelda Belpaese, I really felt the game click and in the Inlaid Library, I had my first 20+ minute game where I genuinely felt invincible, mowing down hordes of enemies simply by walking as weapons fired off left and right while a maxed-out ring of Garlic protected me from anything getting within an entire body-width around my character.  I ended up making the mistake of not being in constant motion this time and the ever-increasing in strength/HP monsters ended up closing in around me very quickly and I was killed in seconds.  A couple of additional unlocked characters later (Gennaro Belpaese, Pasqualina Belpaese, and Suor Clerici), adding a couple of permanent buffs, and formulating a general strategy that feels like it hinges on getting the Garlic early on, I feel like I had a general grasp on the game.  In my last playthrough, I lasted 30:02, at which point all of the enemies on screen die, and the Grim Reaper spawns who then flies straight towards your character and essentially kills you.  I have read how you can have a glimmer of a chance of killing the Grim Reaper, but that seems pretty difficult as the enemy is there to end your game no matter how powerful you are.

But not everything about the game I feel is sunshine and cauterized rainbows.  Having reached the 30-minute end-game point, part of me feels like, "Well, I beat the game then I guess," even though I know there is a lot that I still would like to unlock, which just requires more playing to earn more gold to buy more characters and permanent buffs.  Lasting as long as possible to acquire all of that gold really means two things, or at least I think that it does.  The first is that you need to have the Garlic buff which generates a damaging barrier around your character that grows in size and damage output as you get upgrades.  Both times I have made it past the 15-minute mark, I have had Garlic, and I do not think I have managed to make it past 10 minutes without it.  In my head, it is required to make any real progress and there have been a number of runs where the Garlic never came up when I leveled up.  

The second is that you need to be lucky with the chests that are dropped from killing the larger mini-boss-type enemies.  Each chest will always have a combination of gold and an upgrade to a skill you already have.  However, each chest also has the chance of awarding you an additional two skills (for a total of three) along with more gold, or even four more skills (so five in total) and a lot of gold.  Apart from your luck skill likely having some effect on the frequency of the three and five-item chest drops, I do not know if there are any additional factors, but I am pretty annoyed because in one run, I received at least three of the three-item-chest-drops and one of the five-item-chests, but since that run (one of my first five runs), I have only gotten a three-item-chest on one run and the rest have all been single-item chests.  Yes, I am whining.

Vampire Survivors is a really fun game that makes you feel powerful, almost invincible for a minute or so before nearly overwhelming you with stronger enemies that immediately make you question how you built your character up until that point.  Vampire Survivors is doing something right with the combination of Castlevania-inspired pixel graphics, concept and execution, controls, game balancing, and music that create a satisfying experience.  A lot of my drive to continue playing is to unlock additional weapons and play other characters and to see if I do end up favoring the magic users as much as I am as I tend to play as Imelda Belphease, Pasqualina Belphease, or the recently unlocked Suor Clerici who was the character I made it to 30:01 with.  Now let us just hope that on my next run I might be granted a couple of three and five-item chests.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Doch was, wenn man nicht sterben kann?

First Impressions: Diablo Immortal (Android)

Diablo Immortal

System: Android, iOS, Windows

Release Date: June 2, 2022

Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment, NetEase

Just a quick disclaimer.  If you are looking for tips or information about specific builds of characters, the best way to min/max your build, or how to subvert the $110,000 requirement to get all the swankiest gear in the game, we are not the site for you.  Everything you find here will be rudimentary information about a game that I have played for just about a week and put in maybe an hour or two in total; I just unlocked the bounty board.  That is where I am coming from.  I just wanted to mention that off before we got any further and you end up being disappointed because I did not say anything about the best places to farm Legendary Gems or Eternal Orbs outside of giving real money directly to Blizzard.

Now, some quick background information about my history with Diablo, which I already covered a bit in my review of Diablo III: Eternal Collection on the Switch.  I first played Diablo in 1996-97 although I do not think that I have ever beaten the game the handful of times I started characters in the past.  I have played Diablo II mostly as a single-player game and I did beat the main campaign although I never finished the DLC (pints of beer and laptops do not make good bedfellows).  I then played Diablo III: Eternal Collection on the Switch and beat the main campaign, started the Reaper of Souls DLC but only made it to the first village before stopping to give myself a break from the series.  I should probably go back and beat the first Diablo as I have it on GOG and restarted a new Warrior character.  Again. 

So, Diablo Immortal.  I am sure I could go on about playing this on a cellphone, as I do have a cellphone to play the game on and was pleasantly surprised that my phone (Samsung Galaxy S21 5G Model # SM-G991U) is still new enough that it was compatible and the game runs very smoothly capped at 30fps.  I tooled with the option to play it at 60fps, but the game warned me that this could overheat my phone and drain the battery a lot faster, so I left it at 30fps.  I did look at the display settings and saw no reason to change the tint of the game from Classic to Vintage or Cooler.  I left the rest of the settings alone since the game seemed to run fine on my phone.

Because this is Diablo, I was tempted to choose a mage as my class, but this being a mobile game and I was not sure how MMO and PvP the game was going to be, I decided to be the tanky Crusader and I liked that the default female Crusader used a BIPOC for the animation, and as often is my penchant in RPGs where you can choose gender and class, I decided to play as a female Crusader named Jaquonæn, which is the name I like to use if I am going to play in an online game with a female-presenting avatar.

The way I am playing Diablo Immortal is to have fun in short spurts.  If I have access to the internet (as opposed to gobbling up my WiFi) and I have 10-15 minutes to spare (say, during a break at work), I know that I can drop into whatever the game, do a lollipop loop, kill some monsters, open a daily login chest, open a first kill of the day chest, claim some items for doing something or other, and maybe head back to a town where I can talk to a blacksmith and deconstruct all my lootz that are not better than what I am currently equipped with.  It looks like a Diablo game.  The controls are simplified for mobile play.  There are no mana potions, but instead, there are cooldown timers for health potions and each skill, which makes sense if you do not want to overcrowd your gameplay screen with icons and buttons that your large fingers are going to have to swipe over so you don't rage-die.  I have found the button/icon placement of both the virtual directional pad and the skill buttons to not be intrusive and I have not noticed my fingers or hands being in the way while playing.

I personally am not concerned with not having the best gear or worrying about having to grind for endgame quality gear by the time I reach the endgame (which shouldn't surprise me that people have already reached the endgame for a game that was released just over a week ago).  I also have not run into any loot boxes or anything outside of what I would expect from a free mobile game that is looking to monetize its free-ness.  Maybe I am just being naive, but I have yet to experience anything predatory about how Diablo Immortal is designed regarding loot boxes, microtransactions, or other P2W behind the scene shenanigans.  

But what do I know?  I'm just here playing a mobile game and not cross-playing it on my 16k screen with my 47 teraflop octocore processor and 128GB of RAM like a real Diablo game should be played.  I am just here to have fun in a Diablo game, and for what I want, Diablo Immortal is a fun Diablo game that I can play on my phone regardless of how much I care or not about my endgame max build.  

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

I'm Breaking Through the Pain

MIDI Week Singles: "Who Killed the World" - Hard West (NS)

[I had originally written this article back in June 2020 while I was working from home.  The sarcastic and dark part of me was fine with featuring a song titled "Who Killed the World" but then I had some time to think about the title of the song and figured I would hold off on putting this article out, if only because I wanted to be a bit more thoughtful regarding all of the people who had died up to that point.  Plus there was a lot of anti-Asian hate going on, and still is for that matter, regarding COVID and I did not want this song to come across as fueling that fire.  I have somewhat edited that original article to what we have below which contained references to articles I had just written and mentions about working from home as I am now back to working in an office.  Just thought I would mention all of this first.]

"Who Killed the World" from Hard West on the PC, OSX, Linux, Nintendo Switch (2015, 2019)

Composer: Marcin Przybyłowicz

Album: Hard West Original Soundtrack

Label:  Laced Records

Publisher:  Gambitious Digital Entertainment

Developer:  CreativeForge Games

A while back, this song from Hard West came up and I knew that it would need to be used for two reasons.  First, the title is on point with the state of the world (except not really, just stressful for a lot of populations and I just happen to be fortunate enough that I don't really fall into that category as much as other people), and because there is a pipe organ!

What can I say, I am a sucker for a good backing organ.  It doesn't even have to be the main attraction for my ears to perk up and immediately make something out of a song that I might have otherwise passed over as just good dramatic background music.

Now, I have no idea when or where this song crops up in Hard West because I have yet to install the game, but it has a lot of elements that I love, like an old west horror tactics game.  Eventually, though, I will see how hard the west was and who in fact, killed the world.

~JWfW/JDub/Cooking Crack/Jaconian

Instrumental

Monthly Update: June, 2022

And here I briefly thought that May might be a better month for whatever reason, but that turned out to not be at all true for large swaths of the US.  

On Wednesday, May 4th, the United States reached 1,000,000 COVID-19-related deaths with a total count (as of June 1, 2022).  That is a lot of people.  That is the only way I know how to say that, so we will leave it at that.

While it might be easy to say that there were only (fucking hell, "only") two mass shootings, an event where ... multiple, firearm, homicide incidents, involving 4 or more victims at one or more locations close to one another", occurred in May in the United States, in Buffalo, New York on May 14th, and again in Uvalde, Texas 10 days later on May 24th.  But no.  There were 63.  63 separate incidents across the United States where someone decided that using a gun against someone else was their only recourse of action in whatever was going through their minds.  Sure, no one died and 12 people were injured in Lafayette, Louisiana on May 1st, and no one was killed in Henderson, Nevada following a Hells Angels shootout with the Vagos motorcycle club.  And this doesn't even touch on the mass shooting that was reported after I wrote that last sentence while I was driving home from work.

Sure, the Constitution of the United States does state that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed", but it doesn't specify what constitutes an "Arm" that can be beared.  For all of the pearl-clutching that Originalists do (who are often those who are outspoken about any and all 2nd Amendment infringements), the Constitution does not specify what that "Arm" is.  So why could I personally not have a switchblade?  Sure they're illegal, but doesn't the 2nd Amendment protect my Constitutional RIGHT to bear this type of arm?  The Constitution doesn't specifically say anything about switchblades.  Well, you're right, it's not a gun.  So the Constitution doesn't say anything about sawed-off shotguns, and that is an arm the same way that the Constitution protects my right to own a DDM4 Rifle along with any number of high capacity (10-15 rounds of ammunition) magazines.  Do I want to actually own a sawed-off shotgun or a DDM4 Rifle?  No, because the only purpose of either of those weapons is to kill someone and feel free to tell me how I'm wrong that they're really there to protect me from intruders, both foreign and domestic.

Let's jump to a different topic now that feels like it happened longer ago than May 3rd, and that is what feels like the inevitable rolling back of privacy rights and access to women's reproductive healthcare written and advocated by people who do not have ovaries or think that you can fix an ectopic pregnancy simply by putting the fertilized embryo back where it's supposed to be.  "Well, they could just give the baby up for adoption" argument is about as asinine as it sounds because it's not like someone just gestates a fetus into a birthed baby after nine months.  Are these people going to front all of the financial costs of pregnancy including hospital costs, medical costs, lost work costs, and emotional therapy due to forcing someone into giving birth?  And if you come at me with, "Well then they shouldn't be having sex if they're not ready to have a child" then someone will inevitably yell about birth control needing to be outlawed or that they shouldn't have to pay for insurance that covers someone else's birth control pills "AnD AReN'T BiRTh ConTROl PiLLs JusT An ABORtIoN PiLL AnyWAy!?!?!?"  First off, no.  Second, seriously, just say that you want to control every aspect of someone else.  Period.  But don't teach kids about periods, because that's gross and they're too young to know about heterosexual sex.  And homosexual sex.  And take the word "homo" out of Homosapien while you're at it because science makes me uncomfortable  (I hope someone takes those sentences out of context because you have no other recourse but to distort anything to create a point).

And then the likely attempt by socially conservative members of society to then try and roll back additional privacy protections and say that each state should be able to say whether or not two people of the same gender can legally be married.  What about if two non-binary people want to marry each other?  What will you do then?  Say it's against your god's will or that you personally find it disgusting?  Or will you just go back to yelling that your book of god doesn't allow marriages that aren't a man and a woman by citing out-of-context passages?  Ignoring the fact that those are your beliefs and they are infringing on the rights of others.

I am not being of any use right now because all I seem to be doing is getting upset at other people and their socially backward opinions.  Yes, saying you need to have a gun and that the only solution to the 234 mass shootings in the United States in the last 153 days is to give everyone guns, take any form of decision-making process away from women or any group that isn't a cis white male and to convert everyone to Christianity or else.

And I am playing some video games, that is what we are here to talk about normally.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Wrathchild's Afterglow

MIDI Week Singles: "Nerevar Rising" - The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)

 

"Nerevar Rising" from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind on Windows & Xbox (2002)
Composer: Jeremy Soule *
Album: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Original Game Soundtrack
Label: DirectSong & Steam
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Yeah, it's this song.  The Elder Scrolls song.  First written by Jeremy Soule* during the development of Morrowind and released in 2002.

This song holds a lot of meaning for me.

I first knew it as a theme used in "Dragonborn" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim soundtrack and I was immediately drawn to this song when I started Morrowind in 2013.  I would often listen to the entire song upon booting up the game and just take in the distant drums as the piano and flute come up with the melody and is built upon playing through three times before fading out.  When the song randomly comes up in the game, it would just make the world feel so expansive and grand, and then once your character is "cured' of corprus, it feels like an anthem for this character.  Not a marching band national anthem, but a personal one with a full-on accompanying orchestra for deeds that would likely end up being attributed to other people as your character is forgotten by the population at large and remembered by only a few within a hundred years.

This was also the song that I and the rest of the wedding party sans Conklederp walked down the aisle to, although I spliced the song to itself so it would repeat with the opening drum beats rather than truly fading out.  I think it played two-and-a-half times, my memory of specifics of that day is a little fuzzy.

Goblino also enjoys this song, at least I think he does as we will sometimes just watch the trailer for the original release of Morrowind which plays the song in its entirety without Goblino saying "next!" when he is bored with either the music or the video.  It is something incredibly special when I know that I can share this music with Goblino and he is perfectly content settling in while this song plays.

Nothing but good feelings all around on this day.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Un Bon Voyage