dot dot dot - four: Absolute First Obsession

A bit off-topic this week, mostly because I need to put more thought into the longer piece I wanted to write about. With this generation of consoles finally coming to a close, I’d like to reflect on a game I think marked this generation the most. I still need to figure out how the blog will go though, especially considering it’ll be an opinion piece. Objectively, I think Call of Duty 4 would be the game but subjectively, well... you’ll see sometime in the coming weeks, I suppose.

That aside, I do want to put some thoughts down on a few other things. I’ll try and close it out with some game stuff.

First and foremost: House of Cards. The show “premiered” on Friday and I sat down to watch the first two earlier today. I had this stupid idea in my head that because it was original programming by and for Netflix, it would be of some sub-par quality. That the lead is Kevin Spacey and the first two episodes are directed by David Fincher flew over my head. Although the first 30 minutes take a bit to get going, the show’s pace picks up almost immediately after that and has been consistent in its quality since. I had planned on getting some kind of work done today but before I knew it, 10 PM happened and I found myself at the end of the sixth episode. It’s way more captivating than I thought it would be.

Not to say it doesn’t have its flaws. I think the direction post-Fincher (only the first episodes were directed by him) is spotty on occasion. It’s good but Fincher’s touch on his directed episodes really showed. They complimented the writing and acting very well. And while the acting is terrific across the board, the writing can feel flat on occasion. It would be fine in any other situation, but the strength of the performances make it so that the faults contrast a little roughly whenever it is a problem. Fortunately, that’s happened once or twice that I can recall. It is, otherwise, an excellent show. It’s a political drama, so you’ll most likely know whether or not you’re on board to begin with, but if it does pique your interest, watch it. It is well worth your time.

Netflix original programming also got me thinking: I wonder if this is what direction television will slowly progress towards. While I doubt Netflix will turn into a one-stop-shop for all programming in the future, I welcome a scenario where I can go onto a service like Netflix, Youtube, or Hulu (Ahahaha... Hulu. Funny, right? Haha.) and watch the entire season of a show if I want to the day it starts “airing”. Especially because it potentially cuts out a television network overlooking every decision, possibly forcing the content or quality of a show to suffer or change because of its policies and whatnot. (Which is why, again, ahahahaha Hulu.)

So yes, House of Cards is great. It took up most of my time today and because of that, I got no schoolwork done. I suppose I’ll be in an all-out rush on that tomorrow. My final semester is picking up some. I’ve got a Seoul Fashion Week poster to design, a commercial for Gillette to pitch and work on, a classical composer portrait to re-imagine, a magazine featuring Dubmood to create, an animation to animate, (durr) a title sequence to start in After Effects, and an environment to create concept art for. A lot of work, in essence. The magazine has me super excited, though. The theme for it was some vague non-sense but the jist of it was that we needed to create a cover and two-page spread that features a musician of our choice. I picked Dubmood, a chiptune/electronic artist who made Overlander, one of my favorite albums last year. We’re free to use photography instead of illustration for our designs, but it was (obviously) enforced that we needed the rights to use the photography if it wasn’t ours to begin with. As a shot in the dark, I emailed Dubmood’s label, which he operates himself, asking if he had any press shots to send that I could use with his permission. He excitedly replied, supplying me with some incredibly well-photographed shots from one of his live shows. Now I have all these wonderful ideas for the design and I have some really amazing assets to back them up!

While working on all that school work this week, (in addition to every other possible second, really) I dove into some more musical exploration... which consists entirely of one band.

A bit off-topic this week, mostly because I need to put more thought into the longer piece I wanted to write about. With this generation of consoles finally coming to a close, I’d like to reflect on a game I think marked this generation the most. I still need to figure out how the blog will go though, especially considering it’ll be an opinion piece. Objectively, I think Call of Duty 4 would be the game but subjectively, well... you’ll see sometime in the coming weeks, I suppose.

That aside, I do want to put some thoughts down on a few other things. I’ll try and close it out with some game stuff.

First and foremost: House of Cards. The show “premiered” on Friday and I sat down to watch the first two earlier today. I had this stupid idea in my head that because it was original programming by and for Netflix, it would be of some sub-par quality. That the lead is Kevin Spacey and the first two episodes are directed by David Fincher flew over my head. Although the first 30 minutes take a bit to get going, the show’s pace picks up almost immediately after that and has been consistent in its quality since. I had planned on getting some kind of work done today but before I knew it, 10 PM happened and I found myself at the end of the sixth episode. It’s way more captivating than I thought it would be.

Not to say it doesn’t have its flaws. I think the direction post-Fincher (only the first episodes were directed by him) is spotty on occasion. It’s good but Fincher’s touch on his directed episodes really showed. They complimented the writing and acting very well. And while the acting is terrific across the board, the writing can feel flat on occasion. It would be fine in any other situation, but the strength of the performances make it so that the faults contrast a little roughly whenever it is a problem. Fortunately, that’s happened once or twice that I can recall. It is, otherwise, an excellent show. It’s a political drama, so you’ll most likely know whether or not you’re on board to begin with, but if it does pique your interest, watch it. It is well worth your time.

Netflix original programming also got me thinking: I wonder if this is what direction television will slowly progress towards. While I doubt Netflix will turn into a one-stop-shop for all programming in the future, I welcome a scenario where I can go onto a service like Netflix, Youtube, or Hulu (Ahahaha... Hulu. Funny, right? Haha.) and watch the entire season of a show if I want to the day it starts “airing”. Especially because it potentially cuts out a television network overlooking every decision, possibly forcing the content or quality of a show to suffer or change because of its policies and whatnot. (Which is why, again, ahahahaha Hulu.)

So yes, House of Cards is great. It took up most of my time today and because of that, I got no schoolwork done. I suppose I’ll be in an all-out rush on that tomorrow. My final semester is picking up some. I’ve got a Seoul Fashion Week poster to design, a commercial for Gillette to pitch and work on, a classical composer portrait to re-imagine, a magazine featuring Dubmood to create, an animation to animate, (durr) a title sequence to start in After Effects, and an environment to create concept art for. A lot of work, in essence. The magazine has me super excited, though. The theme for it was some vague non-sense but the jist of it was that we needed to create a cover and two-page spread that features a musician of our choice. I picked Dubmood, a chiptune/electronic artist who made Overlander, one of my favorite albums last year. We’re free to use photography instead of illustration for our designs, but it was (obviously) enforced that we needed the rights to use the photography if it wasn’t ours to begin with. As a shot in the dark, I emailed Dubmood’s label, which he operates himself, asking if he had any press shots to send that I could use with his permission. He excitedly replied, supplying me with some incredibly well-photographed shots from one of his live shows. Now I have all these wonderful ideas for the design and I have some really amazing assets to back them up!

While working on all that school work this week, (in addition to every other possible second, really) I dove into some more musical exploration... which consists entirely of one band.

Sounds like you and several of my friends had a night's worth of schoolwork missed for that show. I might have to watch it instead of politely ignore it. I'm gonna have to go give Emancipator's new album a listen. I was so focused on Tomahawk's new album I was kind of blinded by anything else. I was sadly disappointed by that album, it's got a few really great songs on it but a few songs I could pass on. Shame, but whatever. As for the simple day games, man, they're totally out there. You just gotta dig around for them a little bit! Actually, I'm going to dip into some Retrovirus, I grew up randomly playing descent and it's following games when I was just a little kid, so we'll see how that goes for catching the old vibe. Oh, I've got a little more Post-Rock for you if you're interested, Gifts of Enola. I never actually listened to their epic (in the traditional sense) tune Trieste. It moves between hard and soft seamlessly. It travels from soft and spacey to heavy and earthy pretty well.

@aurahack said:

It’s just that the first thing you’re greeted to in Hot Wheels’ main menu is YO PICK A CAR, PICK A TRACK, JUST FUCKIN’ GO. I miss that simplicity in games

Could not agree more, And it always makes me super happy when I can find a game that has that "old-school" feel and still plays well.

My favourite example of that in the generation is probably Earth Defense Force: 2017 That game just feels right, It's cheesy and kinda lame but damn does it feel like playing a game when I was a kid playing on the NES, It just puts a smile on my face.

I thought House of Cards was merely captivating and then I watched that Labour Union episode. It's a really special show. I will say no more, go watch it.

I fucking love T-ARA, as you may have noticed. I'm glad you could get into them.

Not sure if slower music is your thing but you should at least check out their collaborations if you haven't yet, especially with Davichi.

@EarlessShrimp: Oh I know the games like that are out there. There's actually probably a greater number of them now thanks to indie development, too. It's just that it's what the mainstream used to be and it colored a lot of similar development at the time. Indies can bring us some wonderful things, but I think the era of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, San Francisco Rush 2049, and Need for Speed III is all but gone.

As for the tunes, I'll check them out later but it'll have to go on the backburner. The list of stuff I have to listen to is already so large. :<

@Coombs: Yes, absolutely! EDF 2017 is a great example of that. Though... man. Those graphics. I suppose that's all part of the appeal, really. Now that I think of it, it made me feel pretty similar to how Crackdown was like for me originally. Though even that fell trap to the "Well, it needs some kind of story." thing that's been plaguing those types of games.

@thabigred: It's a slow start, but yes, the labor union episode is terrific. That arc's conclusion is pretty fucking amazing. The arc that follows is pretty great, too.

@onimonkii: What? Insanity. I never could have imagined. I've been meaning to check out the Davichi stuff, too, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I don't know how much it'll stick with me, though. I don't care as much for the slower stuff.

Ugh, I really don't look forward to having to pay taxes. And I don't really care about the next generation of consoles right now. I have so many transitions going on in my life right now, I think I'll be good on missing out on the new stuff for a while.

@aurahack:

Ah, my Kpop radar brought me here. Roly Poly is one of the best pop songs and dances ever written.

And I would suggest checking out IU if you hadn't heard her before. Sweetest voice in the world.

t-ara is boss mode and also i always wanted one of those fuckin hot wheels games. not sure why i never got em but i guess CTR was more than enough kickass PS1 racing for me.

also i don't care if you're 20 years old or 3 years old--weather forecasts are off the friggin chain and i will throw down with you if we are not mutual on this

@MetalGearSunny: Taxes aren't so bad. It's an afternoon's worth of work and you get to look forward to a nice tax return paycheck which is always SUPER cool. It's like free money! And I'm more excited about seeing new consoles just because I like new things. I'm actually still alright with the consoles I have now, mostly because I'm getting a new PC soon.

@McGhee: Roly Poly is pretty great, but it's no Sexy Love. I actually kind of like I Really Really Like You most off that mini-album.

@AjayRaz: The absolute end-game raid boss, man. And you should eBay Turbo Racing or some shit. It's fucking awesome. CTR is pretty great too, though.

Also no, fuck you. Weather forecasts are terrible. That's what I have the internet for. I don't need some old dude to wave his screen around for no reason and waste my time telling me what I can know in mere seconds.

I'm not ready for new consoles for a number reasons, I'll probably rant about that on my own blog later on. But one of those reasons are because I got a Vita. Hopefully they have more stuff for the Vita at E3, but for right now I'm really satisfied with it. Seriously, I haven't turned on either of my consoles since I got it. That's probably weird for a lot of people but whatever.

@aurahack said:

@MetalGearSunny: Taxes aren't so bad. It's an afternoon's worth of work and you get to look forward to a nice tax return paycheck which is always SUPER cool. It's like free money! And I'm more excited about seeing new consoles just because I like new things. I'm actually still alright with the consoles I have now, mostly because I'm getting a new PC soon.

@MetalGearSunny: Well, that's kind of understandable. I mean, it's a new thingy to play with so the other ones get pushed to the side. It's not like there's anything interesting out for consoles right now, save for DmC.

Hot Wheels Turbo Racing? WE NEED TO BE BEST FRIENDS.