Culture Consumption: July 2024

Books

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited and introduced by Ada Limón, is a beautiful anthology with poets from around the world, who explore the natural world and our connection to and place within it. These poems present a lovely variety of perspectives, and I would highly recommend this book to all poetry and nature lovers. Here are a few sample fragments.

It’s often said that it is a miracle any video game ever gets made, and Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier reveals exactly why that true by showing the behind-the-scenes frustrations, challenges, and determination that makes major video games possible. Each chapter focuses on a specific game and it’s production process, including both AAA (large projects with hundreds of developers), like Uncharted 4, Diablo II, and Destiny, and indie games (with only a few developers), like Stardew Valley and Shovel Knight. Sometimes the challenges come during production, such as a lack of creative focus or tight funding, while other issues occur after the game has launched, forcing the company to dive right back in to fix the problems for players. Each story shows the unique issues that come up during game development, and it’s fascinating to see the ways these companies fail and/or succeed despite it all.

Books Finished This Month:

1. You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited and introduced by Ada Limón

2. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier

Total Books for the Year: 24

Still in Progress at the End of the Month:

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders, Procedural Storytelling in Game Design edited by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams, The Source of Self Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches and Meditations by Toni Morrison, Wandering Games by Melissa Kagen Fullerton, and The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel

Short Stories & Poetry

A selection of works I recently read in journals and online publications, with a few lines from the text shared here.

“The Dream of Fly Agaric” by Melissa Coffey (Crow & Cross Keys):

“The Ever-Drowning” by Ren Powell:

Movies

MaXXXine is the conclusion to Ti West's X trilogy, which included the previous two films X (2022) and Pearl (2022) — all of which star Mia Goth. After surviving the events in X, Maxine has achieved renown as a porn star, but she wants so much more. She finally gets her big break when she wins a role in a feature horror film. But success is not so straightforward. A private investigator is digging up Maxine’s bloody past, and a serial killer, known as the Night Stalker, is murdering young women throughout the LA area. Maxine has to contend with the looming threat of her past, while also pursuing her drive for fame.

While not the strongest entry in the trilogy, MaXXXIne is an entertaining horror film that explores how far a person is willing to go to obtain fame. Maxine herself is an interesting character, driven to get what she wants and not afraid of resorting to violence (in some cases even embracing it).

The movie also leans into the ‘80s vibes, from the music to the costumes to the way the sets illustrate the gritty seediness of LA glowing with neon lights. Even the blood and gore is filmed to visually reflect the special effects of the era. A lingering theme is also the moral panic of the ‘80s in regards to porn and violent cinema. The film touches on this theme and Maxine’s place within this world, but doesn’t quite connect all the dots. Nevertheless, the movie was a fun time, and I’m happy with how the trilogy concluded.

It’s no surprise that Deadpool & Wolverine is doing phenomenally well in theaters. The movie is big, bombastic, bloody, and so much fun. With a hilarious opening that immediately mocks Wolverine’s demise in Logan while Deadpool dances to NSYNC's “Bye Bye Bye,” the movie manages to thread the needle, providing a heartfelt center, while also layering in kick-ass battles (with several between the two main characters), innumerable Marvel and other movie references, and a perfectly synced soundtrack. This movie is not deep, but so what, because it is endlessly fun.

New-to-Me Movies Watched Last Month:

1. MaXXXine (2024)

2. Malevolent (2018)

3. The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)

4. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Games

Every time you jump into a new game, you have to learn how to play it, not just the controls, but the rules of the world in which you are playing — and that has been especially true for me with Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar Games).

Because it’s an older game, the controls are a bit less smooth than I’ve become accustomed to, and that was mildly annoying at first, but I figured out the flow fairly quickly. And now I really love my horsie, who is a good boy and always there for me — and I enjoy most of the gun battles and can wade my way through a number of dudes without getting totally obliterated.

There were a couple of other gameplay things that were a little more frustrating. First, is the Dead Eye mechanic, which is actually fantastic and incredibly helpful for getting through certain quests. But the game doesn’t tell you how to use it early on. I mean, it makes reference to the Dead Eye meter being full or how to refill it, but I had to google how to actually use it — and once I figured it out, everything changed for the better and gunfights became even easier.

Another issue is partly just a me thing. In other games, I have a habit of aiming the weapon to zoom or focus in on something I want to see — normally not a problem. However, this is a terrible habit in Red Dead Redemption, because the NPCs are very reactive to such things and if you accidentally aim at someone, suddenly you’re making threats and people are running away and sometimes you even fail your quest (with no way to repair the damage). So, I’ve had to unlearn that habit in order to avoid getting myself in trouble throughout the game. On a related note, sometimes the player has a companion with them, and it can be difficult to tell if they’re an enemy or not. I’ve had to restart a quest several times, because I accidentally shot a friend, thinking he was a foe.

Outside of these few minor frustrations, the storyline is pretty great. John Marston is an interesting character, with his checkered past as an outlaw and gunslinger. His desire in the game is to close the door on his violent past, so he can return home to the quiet life with his wife and kids. As he works to hunt down an old “friend,” who almost kills him at the start of the game, he gets some help from a local rancher who nurses him back to health and a Marshall trying to keep peace in the region. Along the way, Marston gathers together a collection of quirky allies, including an old swindler selling fake medicinals, a treasure hunter willing to dig up corpses to find his treasure. and a drunk Irishman with access to heavy artillery.

I think I’m maybe halfway through the game, and it’s a fun time. Now that I’m accustomed to the gameplay, I can enjoy the experience. I’m loving the characters, in particular, and am looking forward to seeing how this story turns out.

I finished off The Outer Worlds (Obsidian Entertainment), first completing the Peril on Gorgon DLC and then the final quest of the game. Peril on Gorgon was fun enough, but is also felt a little samey to the previous DLC, in that the overall mystery involves a corporation conducting questionable experiments to turn people into better workers — only for it to go horribly wrong. But Gorgon also had the benefit of a family drama that added an interesting layer to the narrative.

After finishing the DLC, I jumped into the ending of the game — which felt a bit abrupt. I don’t necessarily think this is an issue with the ending itself, but rather has to do with the fact that I left the DLC as the last quests I completed prior to the ending. While both DLC are fun, they’re disconnected from the main storyline. So, if you leave them for right before the end (as I did), then it messes with the narrative flow. If I had completed the DLC earlier (which was an option), then the ending sequence following the final “The City and the Stars” quest would have felt more cohesive.

Anyway, I had a really fun time with The Outer Worlds — and now I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with the sequel. I’m hoping they explore some different factions and social structures beyond the corporation hierarchy. But I’ll just have to wait and see.

Inside (Playdead) is one of my all-time favorite games and I’ve probably played is half a dozen or more times. Recently, I replayed it yet again in order to study how the game expresses its narrative without any text or dialog — and performing this deep analysis was really enlightening. The way the game uses its gameplay, sound design, and level design to evoke the sense of the world and create an emotional journey for the player is brilliant. The game is also fantastic at using visual and sound cues to create foreshadowing of future threats and gameplay elements, while also making disparate areas feel more connected. I plan on writing more extensively on this in the future. If you haven’t played this game yet, I highly recommend it.

“A Toy Story” is a charming little browser game created by Michelle Kwan. The game is from the POV of a puppy, who is gifted his favorite toy at one years old. As the puppy grows, we also see his owner grow, move on to collage, and start to create a life as an adult. It’s a genuinely sweet tale, and it’s impressive how much it moved me for such a short game.

That's it for me! What are you reading? Watching? Loving right now?