So I've fallen behind a bit on the Professor Layton series, and before I play the next one in the series, I've been finishing up all of the puzzles I hadn't finished in the previous four games. (After all, a gentleman leaves no puzzle undone.)
The Layton games are the first puzzle games in a long while that have gotten "mainstream" recognition, and there's a good reason for that. They're extremely friendly and accessible. The puzzles themselves, which range widely from sliding-block puzzles to tangrams to word puzzles to plain, clever riddles, are mostly on the easier side, although there are some optional stumpers. More importantly, they're all extremely well-hinted, and you can usually skip one if you hate it enough.
But puzzle games remain a niche genre, and many of the good ones are (ironically) still pretty well-hidden. So I thought I'd spend a few posts outlining some of my favorites, and maybe even some of the not-so-great ones I grew up with.
You can trust me - after all, I'm a mathematician, so puzzling is more or less my job these days.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Monday, June 9, 2014
Sherlock: Series 3 (BBC, 2014)
I'm a fan of Sherlock, but I have to admit that I find its popularity a bit mystifying. In an age where computers have effectively taken over our lives, it's strange that people would want to watch a man behave like one. Holmes (in the show, at least) behaves a lot like Watson - the IBM artificial intelligence, not the man - in that he works not by carefully constructing logical chains, but rather collecting huge amounts of data and making free and random associations. As such, the show would rather we marvel at Holmes' ability and hilarious personality rather than try to follow along with the mystery.
In fact, this season, the mysteries themselves take a backstage - there's barely one at all in the first and third episodes. Instead, the show seems to focus on...bromance? Not that I don't care about these characters - Martin Freeman is pretty good (and Cumberbatch is alright, I suppose) - but why bother with the 90-minute format in that case? I suppose they're just trying to keep things fresh, yet there can be only so much "personality study" before it starts to seem like they're just spinning their wheels.
In fact, this season, the mysteries themselves take a backstage - there's barely one at all in the first and third episodes. Instead, the show seems to focus on...bromance? Not that I don't care about these characters - Martin Freeman is pretty good (and Cumberbatch is alright, I suppose) - but why bother with the 90-minute format in that case? I suppose they're just trying to keep things fresh, yet there can be only so much "personality study" before it starts to seem like they're just spinning their wheels.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Demon's Souls (From Software, 2010, PS3)
As I mentioned a few times before on this blog, I was pretty bad at games when I was a kid. The games that I liked were the ones, like adventure games, that gave you access to cool content without much work (or at least without much work that couldn't be outsourced to a walkthrough). When it came to JRPGs like Final Fantasy VIII, I could only tolerate the gameplay because it held the promise of another sweet, sweet CGI cutscene.
Demon's Souls nicely inverts this mentality. Most of the beautiful content comes early in the game. Incredibly detailed vistas, giant fire-breathing dragons majestically flying overhead, mysterious characters, and a spare, but not meaningless backstory - with a few notable exceptions, all of this can be found in the first quarter of the game. But the real content, the real reward for investing yourself in this setting, is a series of challenging, but rigorously fair boss battles. These bosses run a wide gamut. Most of them require a great deal of practice with the core mechanics, as well as a not unreasonable amount of leveling. A few of them feel more puzzly, where simple pattern memorization is more important than your level. And a couple of the later bosses will feel quite easy, compared to what has come before.
By the time you get to the final boss, you will be so good at Demon's Souls that it will be not be nearly as challenging as you were prepared for (in my case, I didn't even realize that the final boss was final). The ultimate reward of Demon's Souls is your own great skill at playing Demon's Souls. There is no accidentally beating this game - you will feel no more or less than the great demon hunter that your character is.
Demon's Souls nicely inverts this mentality. Most of the beautiful content comes early in the game. Incredibly detailed vistas, giant fire-breathing dragons majestically flying overhead, mysterious characters, and a spare, but not meaningless backstory - with a few notable exceptions, all of this can be found in the first quarter of the game. But the real content, the real reward for investing yourself in this setting, is a series of challenging, but rigorously fair boss battles. These bosses run a wide gamut. Most of them require a great deal of practice with the core mechanics, as well as a not unreasonable amount of leveling. A few of them feel more puzzly, where simple pattern memorization is more important than your level. And a couple of the later bosses will feel quite easy, compared to what has come before.
By the time you get to the final boss, you will be so good at Demon's Souls that it will be not be nearly as challenging as you were prepared for (in my case, I didn't even realize that the final boss was final). The ultimate reward of Demon's Souls is your own great skill at playing Demon's Souls. There is no accidentally beating this game - you will feel no more or less than the great demon hunter that your character is.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
The Moon Rang Like a Bell (Hundred Waters, 2014)
A terrific album for a rainy day like today. The background is moody, ethereal electronica, a calmer version of Silent Shout, with a James Blake-style dub influence. But the real highlight is Nicole Miglis' wide-ranging vocals. I usually don't have a clue what she's saying, but I love the way she pronounces certain words, with emphasis added mid-vowel, bringing to mind classical Greek cadences. According to Wikipedia, this group has toured with Julia Holter, and while their stuff is not heady as her's, it does seem like a pretty good match sonically.
There's also some pretty fascinating stuff going on harmonically. "Innocent" is a real highlight. The lyrics are about dealing with jealousy, and as the singer wonders if it's all in her head, the rhythm is lost and the key changes up into the stratosphere. It's haunting stuff.
There's also some pretty fascinating stuff going on harmonically. "Innocent" is a real highlight. The lyrics are about dealing with jealousy, and as the singer wonders if it's all in her head, the rhythm is lost and the key changes up into the stratosphere. It's haunting stuff.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Nebraska (Alexander Payne, 2013)
Alexander Payne has gradually become the new "it" director - one which critics of all different stripes have rallied behind. My feelings about him are a bit more mixed. I haven't seen all of his movies, but I certainly like all of those that I have seen well enough. They're beautifully shot, well-plotted, and elicit great performances from their casts. My problem with Payne is that I never quite connect with his characters in the way that he wants me to.
Take his latest film, Nebraska, which is about an old man, one who embodies the word "cantankerous," and a trip he takes with his son to collect upon an imaginary lottery winning. Along the way, he is forced into an impromptu reunion with his extended family in the titular state. The film is quite beautiful, with its crisp black-and-white landscape shots and nouveau-folk score*. And Bruce Dern and Will Forte give great performances. Like Emmanuelle Riva in Amour - and more famously, but in an example I haven't seen, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man - Bruce Dern's performance is a bit over-hyped simply because his character lies on the extreme of human experience. Forte is the real lead here. But both he and Dern do a great job.
There is a great ambiguity about whether Dern's character really believes the fiction - if you watch his expression when his wife is excoriating him, it seems clear that he knows full well what's going on. I guess this is the aspect of Nebraska that I relate to the most; my limited conversations with my grandfather reveal that he can at times be extremely lucid, with a good memory, but there are often slips that make one question whether he isn't making things up.
In any case, what I've mentioned so far makes up the reason that Nebraska is my favorite Payne film. But there's a lot I find unsatifying about it as well. Certainly, I applaud the decision to cast Forte, but his character as written seems so unnatural to his environment that I immediately have trouble believing him. (Similarly, I could never quite buy Clooney's character in The Descendants, or Giamatti's in Sideways.)
I know there's a good reason for this: Payne himself is a Nebraska native who doesn't fit the mold. Yet so much of the humor of the film comes from contrasting Forte with his lethargic, simpleton family members, and that contast seems entirely artificial. I too am a small-town kid trying to make it in the city, and like Forte's character I can't always relate to my family, yet I can still see the similarities.
*The score was actually composed by a member of Tin Hat (formerly Tin Hat Trio), a fact that I could recognize instantly. It's excellent stuff and it fits the movie perfectly, although it's always distracting when you have a personal, separate attachment to a film's music.
Take his latest film, Nebraska, which is about an old man, one who embodies the word "cantankerous," and a trip he takes with his son to collect upon an imaginary lottery winning. Along the way, he is forced into an impromptu reunion with his extended family in the titular state. The film is quite beautiful, with its crisp black-and-white landscape shots and nouveau-folk score*. And Bruce Dern and Will Forte give great performances. Like Emmanuelle Riva in Amour - and more famously, but in an example I haven't seen, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man - Bruce Dern's performance is a bit over-hyped simply because his character lies on the extreme of human experience. Forte is the real lead here. But both he and Dern do a great job.
There is a great ambiguity about whether Dern's character really believes the fiction - if you watch his expression when his wife is excoriating him, it seems clear that he knows full well what's going on. I guess this is the aspect of Nebraska that I relate to the most; my limited conversations with my grandfather reveal that he can at times be extremely lucid, with a good memory, but there are often slips that make one question whether he isn't making things up.
In any case, what I've mentioned so far makes up the reason that Nebraska is my favorite Payne film. But there's a lot I find unsatifying about it as well. Certainly, I applaud the decision to cast Forte, but his character as written seems so unnatural to his environment that I immediately have trouble believing him. (Similarly, I could never quite buy Clooney's character in The Descendants, or Giamatti's in Sideways.)
I know there's a good reason for this: Payne himself is a Nebraska native who doesn't fit the mold. Yet so much of the humor of the film comes from contrasting Forte with his lethargic, simpleton family members, and that contast seems entirely artificial. I too am a small-town kid trying to make it in the city, and like Forte's character I can't always relate to my family, yet I can still see the similarities.
*The score was actually composed by a member of Tin Hat (formerly Tin Hat Trio), a fact that I could recognize instantly. It's excellent stuff and it fits the movie perfectly, although it's always distracting when you have a personal, separate attachment to a film's music.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
The Evil of the Daleks (Doctor Who serial, 1967)
Evil of the Daleks is a seven-episode serial from the fourth season of the long-standing time travel sci-fi Doctor Who, during the tenure of the "Second Doctor", played (marvellously) by Patrick Troughton.
The Daleks, of course, are alien, fascist robots that wheel around, threaten humans with extermination, and look like a bit like salt and pepper shakers. They are indeed quite evil. They were also extremely popular ever since they appeared in only the second ever Doctor Who serial, and by the time of Evil of the Daleks they had already made several appearances. Evil was actually meant to be their last, although of course, they couldn't stay away for long.
The plot of Evil is actually quite convoluted. Suffice to say that it takes place both in modern-day (i.e. 1960's) and 1860's Britain, as well as the Dalek homeworld Skaro, and stars a 19th century aristocrat (complete with top hat) obsessed with turning iron to gold, an antiques dealer posing as a Victorian fob who sells suspiciously accurate forgeries, and a mute Turkish strongman with a fez. Of course, it's marvelously cheesy even for 1960's sci-fi, but Troughton is a fascinating Doctor to watch, and the unusual plot keep things from getting too staid.
Unfortunately, watching the serial is a bit tricky, given that only one of the seven episodes currently exists in full. Due to the BBC's policy of wiping their video tape archives in the 60's and 70's, a total of 97 early Doctor Who episodes are lost. What we do have from the first few seasons exists pretty much by accident; the second episode of Evil was a fan-made recording found in a garage sale, according to Wikipedia.
But, in fact, full-length fan-made audio soundtracks exist for every Doctor Who episode. In addition, we also have "tele-snaps," which are photographs of certain scenes made to put in the actor's portfolios. Remarkably, Doctor Who fans have stitched these together with the soundtracks to reconstruct the missing episodes. (The BBC has done this themselves with particularly important episodes.) These reconstructions can be found online. I've actually found these pretty watchable. Where the soundtrack fails to clue us in, a bit of text scrolling will narrate the action. Quite amusingly, there's even a few live-action shots, with actors who hide their faces, and some just to replace a shot of someone walking down a corridor.
I know this doesn't sound fun to watch, but remember that early sci-fi was filled with inventive premises that were usually quite disappointing in execution. Consider the Daleks themselves - although the idea of a Nazi robot frightened the heck out of British schoolchildren, actually watching them roll across a floor yelling "Exterminate!" is pretty giggle-inducing. So with these reconstructions, it was a pleasure to use my imagination to enhance what was on-screen. Frequently, I would close my eyes, and recreate the scene in my mind, probably making something much better than the BBC could do anyways.
Does that make Evil in the Daleks an essential sci-fi classic? Well, not really - like I said, the show is still pretty cheesy. But it's still very cool to see fans add something worthwhile to their beloved franchise.
The Daleks, of course, are alien, fascist robots that wheel around, threaten humans with extermination, and look like a bit like salt and pepper shakers. They are indeed quite evil. They were also extremely popular ever since they appeared in only the second ever Doctor Who serial, and by the time of Evil of the Daleks they had already made several appearances. Evil was actually meant to be their last, although of course, they couldn't stay away for long.
The plot of Evil is actually quite convoluted. Suffice to say that it takes place both in modern-day (i.e. 1960's) and 1860's Britain, as well as the Dalek homeworld Skaro, and stars a 19th century aristocrat (complete with top hat) obsessed with turning iron to gold, an antiques dealer posing as a Victorian fob who sells suspiciously accurate forgeries, and a mute Turkish strongman with a fez. Of course, it's marvelously cheesy even for 1960's sci-fi, but Troughton is a fascinating Doctor to watch, and the unusual plot keep things from getting too staid.
Unfortunately, watching the serial is a bit tricky, given that only one of the seven episodes currently exists in full. Due to the BBC's policy of wiping their video tape archives in the 60's and 70's, a total of 97 early Doctor Who episodes are lost. What we do have from the first few seasons exists pretty much by accident; the second episode of Evil was a fan-made recording found in a garage sale, according to Wikipedia.
But, in fact, full-length fan-made audio soundtracks exist for every Doctor Who episode. In addition, we also have "tele-snaps," which are photographs of certain scenes made to put in the actor's portfolios. Remarkably, Doctor Who fans have stitched these together with the soundtracks to reconstruct the missing episodes. (The BBC has done this themselves with particularly important episodes.) These reconstructions can be found online. I've actually found these pretty watchable. Where the soundtrack fails to clue us in, a bit of text scrolling will narrate the action. Quite amusingly, there's even a few live-action shots, with actors who hide their faces, and some just to replace a shot of someone walking down a corridor.
I know this doesn't sound fun to watch, but remember that early sci-fi was filled with inventive premises that were usually quite disappointing in execution. Consider the Daleks themselves - although the idea of a Nazi robot frightened the heck out of British schoolchildren, actually watching them roll across a floor yelling "Exterminate!" is pretty giggle-inducing. So with these reconstructions, it was a pleasure to use my imagination to enhance what was on-screen. Frequently, I would close my eyes, and recreate the scene in my mind, probably making something much better than the BBC could do anyways.
Does that make Evil in the Daleks an essential sci-fi classic? Well, not really - like I said, the show is still pretty cheesy. But it's still very cool to see fans add something worthwhile to their beloved franchise.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Unexpected Humans
At the end of the Queen's Tower level of Demon's Souls, you climb a spiral staircase to a chapel-like area. It's oddly covered in chairs (perhaps an Almodovar reference?). Anyways, just before you enter the area, you see a cutscene, where the ancient lord of the tower summons some kind of phantasmic human to fight you, before collapsing from agedness. The cutscene's actually kind of annoying, since unlike most cutscenes in the game, it's quite long, and you're forced to watch it every time you die and restart from the bottom of the staircase.
Oddly, most times I began to climb the staircase, I would get a notice that a Black Phantom has invaded my world. A Black Phantom is a human character that has come to try to kill you. I have only a little experience with them, since Demon's Souls is four years old, and probably not a lot of people are online with me. The Black Phantoms couldn't seem to get on the staircase with me. They must not be allowed to interfere with this part of the level.
In any case, the first time I fight the summoned monster I'm destroyed almost instantly - he carries a giant sword and fights extremely well. The second time he's changed to a smaller sword and shield. I notice this but don't think much about it, because Demon's Souls requires quite a bit of concentration while you're fighting. This time he's running around like crazy. He's not doing a lot of damage, but he's pretty good with that shield, and it's quite difficult to get hits in. Plus as his health goes down, he starts shooting magic bullets from around his head. So it's still a pretty challenging fight, although eventually I get him.
When I win, I get a message "The Black Phantom was Slain". I'm stunned. That whole time, I've been fighting against a human opponent. Of course, it's easy to see in retrospect. There's no reason I shouldn't have guessed, except that the boss just didn't seem like a human opponent. Sure he was running around like a fool, but he used the same tactics the whole time, even when he was low on health and it was clear that things weren't going well.
I've never confused a human for an AI before. It's definitely an eerie feeling.
Oddly, most times I began to climb the staircase, I would get a notice that a Black Phantom has invaded my world. A Black Phantom is a human character that has come to try to kill you. I have only a little experience with them, since Demon's Souls is four years old, and probably not a lot of people are online with me. The Black Phantoms couldn't seem to get on the staircase with me. They must not be allowed to interfere with this part of the level.
In any case, the first time I fight the summoned monster I'm destroyed almost instantly - he carries a giant sword and fights extremely well. The second time he's changed to a smaller sword and shield. I notice this but don't think much about it, because Demon's Souls requires quite a bit of concentration while you're fighting. This time he's running around like crazy. He's not doing a lot of damage, but he's pretty good with that shield, and it's quite difficult to get hits in. Plus as his health goes down, he starts shooting magic bullets from around his head. So it's still a pretty challenging fight, although eventually I get him.
When I win, I get a message "The Black Phantom was Slain". I'm stunned. That whole time, I've been fighting against a human opponent. Of course, it's easy to see in retrospect. There's no reason I shouldn't have guessed, except that the boss just didn't seem like a human opponent. Sure he was running around like a fool, but he used the same tactics the whole time, even when he was low on health and it was clear that things weren't going well.
I've never confused a human for an AI before. It's definitely an eerie feeling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
