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danineverwenttoazkaban · 4 years ago

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SE Appreciation Week - Fic 1 (Karol route)

@sweeteliteweek Very late but I just barely ended this not so short fic.

This is Karol’s route imagining some moments like the airport goodbye and days later while they’re at home so Papa Scholar is also featuring. I couldn’t help but add a bit of Tegan too and I tried to put several ideas I had together on the same story. Hopefully the back and forth between present and past is not too confusing. I didn’t know how to name it so I just took a song I was listening to by Wilco that is really sweet if anyone wants to listen to it.

Jesus, Etc.

The familiar vibrant and noisy city was something Scholar hadn’t think she would miss during those months at Arlington’s. Especially not the noises from the neighbor from the floor above as she rowed with her husband for the third time tonight, the people pacing up and down the stairs, the kids playing, the pizza delivery guys and Misses Jones with her 5 dogs. She smirked thinking what Karolina would say if she heard all this noise and reminisced to when they met, smiling at the thought. She would be rich by now if she was given a dollar for each time she thought of Karolina since she got on the plane home.

--------------------------------------------------------------

“That’s my plane, people! Enjoy the journey home!”, announced Tyler as he picked up his heavy luggage. He hadn’t explained what the heck he was carrying on his bags but Scholar assumed it was something artistic.

“Hey Tyler, don’t forget about tomorrow’s match! There will be a 30% buff bonus”, said Tegan.

“Oh man, I told you I have that thing with my parents. I’ll make it up to you later, promise”, replied Tyler.

“… ok”, said Tegan as he gave him a weak smile, clearly disappointed.

“Cheers!”, shouted Tyler as he ran towards gate A27.

Only Scholar, Tegan and Karolina remained in the departure lounge. Neither Tegan or Karolina seemed particularly happy of going home, in fact Tegan was staring at the floor as if he had just been told Christmas had been cancelled this year.

“Hey, maybe I could join? I am not very good at videogames to be honest but you can teach me”, said Scholar putting a hand on Tegan’s shoulder.

Tegan looked up and smiled blushing.

“S-sure, I think you’d make a great cleric”, Scholar had no idea what that meant but she hated the sad aspect Tegan had.

She noticed Karolina was staring at her direction, a curious look on her face. In that moment, she heard her flight being called.

“Well, I guess I have to go now”, she said to both of them.

Tegan nodded.

“I’ll call you tomorrow to set your PC ready for the match”.

“Sounds like a plan!”, she answered before giving him a quick hug.

As she let go of Tegan, she looked at Karolina, unsure on how to approach her. Scholar took a step in her direction, asking for permission, they had barely talked since the night of the basement

“… I-I… goodbye, Karolina. Enjoy the holidays”, she said with slight nervousness, waiting for an answer.

Karolina was biting her lip and seemed uneasy, as if she was making up her mind about something. She leaped forward and put her arms around Scholar. The girl let go of the breath she had unknowingly kept as she felt Karolina’s warm embrace.

“Let me know when you arrive home”, Scholar heard Karolina whisper close to her ear, her breath sending shivers down her spine. She then felt something touching her cheek, she froze when she realized it was Karolina’s lips. The touch was so soft, so slight that it could had just been Scholar’s imagination. They let go of the embrace and Scholar felt her heart sink at the idea of being apart from her so many days.

“I will, you too, please”, she answered. Both Karolina and Tegan nodded and Scholar took her luggage before parting…

The following day, Scholar had to excuse to her father early because Tegan had opened an account for her in the game they were supposed to play, in fact he had even customized her character based on a number of questions he had asked, many of which Scholar wasn’t sure how to answer. As she started her PC and positioned on her seat, she could not help but feel excited, seeing Tegan through the webcam meant also, perhaps, seeing her as well. Tegan’s face as he logged in had a mixture of sadness, exhaustion and defeat, he didn’t have Karolina’s ability of putting on a straight face, Scholar didn’t want to push an answer out so she didn’t ask. They spent a couple of hours playing, Scholar died way too many times in pure noob style but Tegan didn’t mind, in fact he laughed each time as she panicked when the other players surrounded her with attacks.

“Thank you, Scholar. You made my day”, Tegan told her after the match was over.

“I’m glad, I had a great time even though I clearly suck for this…”, she answered giggling. Tegan laughed as well, he covered his mouth whenever he laughed and Scholar thought it was cute but sad at the same time how insecure he could be at times, even among his friends.

“… She’s busy talking to mom and dad, by the way”, Tegan added after a while, “in case you were wondering.”

“Oh… it’s ok. Is everything alright?”, Scholar asked concerned, to be honest their parents didn’t exactly sound like the kind that understood and supported their children.

“They didn’t take well all that happened in FAXION, I almost didn’t login for the game but she wanted me to let her handle it on her own”, answered Tegan, “she didn’t want me blowing up and them… “, he paused, “… doesn’t matter, I will take care of her now.”

“She’s a tough girl, she worries about you too”, said Scholar, “let me know if you need anything”

“Of course, thanks again. I will tell her you say ‘hi’ ”, said Tegan before closing the session.

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Scholar sighed as she wondered how things had gone back at the twins’ house, hoping they were ok. The days that had followed to gaming night not much had happened. Tyler spammed them with funny selfies from the Red Carpet of God knows which movie his parents had taken him to, Tadashi and Alistair sent photos with the Drews, especially the dogs at Axel’s request, and Claire and Neha exchanged recipes for Christmas season. But barely anything from Karolina, still the fact Tegan kept sending memes mocking how bad she was at gaming was oddly comforting.

“Honey, I’m home, can you give me a hand with the bags?”, called Papa Scholar’s voice.

“Sure, dad, coming!”, answered Scholar and she walked towards the kitchen.

The bags were full of materials for her father’s famous pasta recipe but this time with a twist: he had agreed on incorporating one of Claire's many recipes. Both of them prepared everything for their movie night. Afterwards, they settled in the living room as they picked a title. They decided on one of the old movies that Scholar’s father loved “Pride and Prejudice”. Scholar had tried to get his father to watch the newer adaptation of the story but it had been pointless, the 1995 version was the one her mother loved and in a way for him watching the movie again meant reliving the joyful moments they passed together. Scholar had seen it too a handful of times yet this time it felt different, she felt connected not only because it had been her mom’s favorite movie but because the situation was now all too familiar. The pride and prejudice dance.

“You keep looking at your cell phone, expecting someone’s message?”, Papa Scholar asked as he arched an eyebrow.

“N-no, just checking the hour”, Scholar tried to reply, unconvincingly.

“Hmm, don’t forget I was your age once and fell in love at your age too”, the kind man answered giving her a warm smile.

But before Scholar could reply, they heard the alert of a new message coming in. Scholar jumped at the sound and widened her eyes at the name that appeared on the screen: “Karolina”. She quickly unlocked the cell phone, almost dropping it due to the urgency. Not paying attention to her father’s laugh at her clumsy movements, she opened the message:

Karolina: Are you awake?

Scholar: Yes, hi…

Karolina: Can I call you?

Scholar’s heart drop at her message. Almost three days without a message from her and now here she was asking for a call. She really did take that “best way to win someone is to surprise them” to the bone.

“Sorry, dad. Could we drop it here? A friend from Arlington wants to talk to me”

“Don’t worry, girl. Go call your friend”, she really did have the best dad.

Scholar practically ran towards her room and texted her back.

Scholar: Sure.

Immediately her phone was vibrating and ringing. She answered almost as a reflex.

“Karolina?”, started Scholar, trying not to sound too excited.

“… Did I interrupt you?”, asked Karolina. Her voice on the phone was something Scholar couldn’t had foreseen would make her feel weak on the knees.

“No, uhm, I was just finishing watching a movie with my dad”

“Was it one of those cheesy old movies your dad likes?”, Karolina asked on a mocking tone. Wow, she had really paid attention…

“Ha, yeah. Pride and Prejudice… because you know how much I’m into the hate to love trope”, she blurted out surprising herself. Was it too bold to hint at ‘them’ like that? What was it about Karolina that it made her go rogue often.

Silence.

“… yes, I know”, Karolina answered. Scholar wondered, hoped, if Karolina was blushing.

“And what are you doing?”

“Our parents threw a party”

“Wow, sounds like fun.”

“It’s just the usual winter party they throw every year ”

“I’ve never been into a party like that”

“Of course not”, Karolina blurted out, “… I didn’t mean it to sound like that, I-I don’t think you’re missing anything”

“Karolina, not that I mind but why are you talking to me instead of enjoying yourself out there?”

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Karolina was standing in front of the wall mirror of her bedroom. Her new pine green dress matched perfectly the emerald earrings her father had bought her last year as well as the red lipstick. Everything fit together

“Miss, they are waiting for you downstairs”, the maid called after softly knocking the door.

Karolina took her purse and proceeded towards the lobby, across the dining room and into the garden. The surrounding people dressed in etiquette, the tables and the exquisite centerpieces seemed all surreal. She felt disconnected to this usual display of frivolity and superfluous social interactions, greeting people with a fake smile and pretending to care about the chit-chat. These people who if given the chance would rather see them in ruins.

At dinner, she sat with a couple of acquaintances, girls she had known since her childhood, the type her parents considered ‘appropriate’ but could never truly be friends. Her mind drifted elsewhere, back to the chalet, the sensation of safety, of being seen for the first time through the façade of her strong petty attitude, the possibility of being just ‘Karol’. She excused herself as the girls looked at her questioningly, stood up and walked behind a couple of bushes seeking some privacy.

“I heard she is going down her mother’s route”, she heard a voice say from behind the bushes.

“Her scandal at FAXION was disastrous, everyone has been talking about it”, followed another voice.

“Honestly, does it surprise anyone? It was a wonder she got this far”, said a third voice.

Karolina felt the anger and hurt built inside her, she was about to turn around and face whoever felt they had the right to talk behind her back in her own house when her cellphone vibrated. She took out her cellphone and noticed Scholar had sent a message to the group thanking Claire for the last recipe attaching also a photo of Scholar and her father cooking. She smiled at how happy they seemed and got lost in the sparkle of her eyes. She bit her lip debating on whether or not to message her… Screw it.

------------------------------------------------------------------

“… Hmm, Karolina, is everything ok? Can you still hear me”, Scholar asked.

“Yes, I-I just … “, Karolina answered.

“You know you can tell me anything”, Scholar said, “how is everything with your parents?”

She heard Karolina sighed.

“Not good but I’d rather not talk about it”

“I’m sorry about that but it’s fine, what do you want to talk about then?”

“Nothing really, I was just bored, this party is obnoxious”, Scholar’s heart skipped a beat at her words, does she just miss me?

“I see…”, Scholar said. With her heart palpitating like crazy and the excitement of talking to Karolina she couldn’t hold back her emotions and she added, “… I miss you too.”

“I never said… you’re right, I do”, Scholar smirked. Karolina admitting her feelings was so refreshing; Scholar would need one of Neha’s teas to calm down the butterflies in her stomach.

“So dull party, huh? Should I be thankful I didn’t get invited?”, followed Scholar.

“I don’t find this type of parties endearing anymore”

“What? Hanging out with me is harming your social standards”

“Haha, you wished. I’ve never liked these parties but it was a good opportunity to meet important people”

“Oh, did you meet anyone interesting this time?”

“No, I found out that people are still talking about my FAXION fiasco”, Scholar felt her blood boil at that.

“They did? I wished I could beat some sense into that people”,

Karolina chuckled.

“Hey, I don’t mind. It’s better if they talk about me, free publicity. Besides we technically won.”

“That you did, you two were amazing, seriously no one could rival Neha’s designs. Also, you looked so beautiful and classy… even though you weren’t feeling well, you pulled that off despite everything. I can only imagine the big things you’ll do in the near future”

“You’re sweet. But remember I could steal your third place in the Gold Tier if you’re not careful”

“Oh Miss Novakova, we’ll see about that, we could bet to me beating you up in the finals”, were they flirting for real this time?, Scholar thought.

“You’re not taking me to the cafeteria again, are you?”, oh they definitely were.

“Hmm how about taking you to the gardens? Like a picnic?”, oh god, was she asking her on a date?!

“Hmmm… ok, deal”, Scholar heard Karolina answer. She did just ask Karolina on a date and she said yes!

“Deal”, wow. But this time she wouldn’t let Karolina say it wasn’t a date.

She heard Karolina laugh on the other end and it made her grin like an idiot, she wondered if Karolina was blushing furiously like she was.

“Thank you, by the way”, Karolina said after a brief silence.

“For what?”

“Helping my brother stay calm. You didn’t have to do that”

“I’m glad to help, he’s a dear friend and it killed me to see him so sad”

“He has been happier considering…”, Scholar assumed she meant with whatever was going on in their house. She wished she could do more.

“And you? Feeling better?”, Scholar asked.

“Much better”,

“I’m glad. I’m here for you, always”

“I know, I’m here for you too”, her voice sounded soft, to think about how much had happened for them to get to this point.

“I have to hang up now, we’ll talk soon”, Karolina added.

“Oh ok, of course, go back to the party”, she didn’t know what to say, she could had kept talking to her all holidays if she could.

“Good night… Oh, and watch out your door tomorrow”, Karolina said with a curious tone in her voice, almost nervous.

“Tomorrow? What happens tomorrow?”, Scholar asked confused.

“J-just pay attention, ugh. I have to go now.”

“Ok, ok, I will do. Good night, Karolina”, and with that she was left with the usual cellphone tone.

The following day was Christmas’ Eve. To say she had spent the morning ecstatic was an understatement. She kept circling around the call she had with Karolina, the fact she had asked her out on a date and whatever she meant by watching out for her door. Her dad was surprised that out of all the friends she had made at Arlington it was actually Karolina whom she had a crush on (she had to tell him since she couldn’t hide her joy).

“My first guess was that girl Claire who kindly gave us the recipes for Christmas dinner”, Papa Scholar said as he found out about the source of her daughter’s disturbance.

“Funny you guessed Claire, dad”, sighed Scholar remembering the fatal mistletoe incident.

“Why funny?”

“Oh dad, it’s just… a long story”, Scholar said.

“Well, I have to say that Karolina girl is drop dead gorgeous and if you say she is nicer to you, I believe you. When can you invite her here?”

“Dad! We’re not even… I mean, we almost … kissed b-but …”

They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it”, said Papa Scholar.

“Actually dad, can you let me check who it is?”, jumped Scholar as she headed to the door.

She peaked from the door peephole. On the other side there was a guy looking like a delivery man.

“H-hello? Who is it?”, Scholar asked.

“Good afternoon, I have a delivery for a person named Scholar”, the guy answered from the other side.

Scholar opened the door, the man was carrying a golden plastic bag with a red bow on the outside.

“Hi, I’m Scholar”

“Oh great, I’m supposed to deliver this”, he handed her the bag, “please sign here… and here”

Scholar did as he requested and looked at the bag, it looked very elegant for a plastic bag.

“Thank you, merry Christmas, ma’am”

“Thank you too, merry Christmas!”

Scholar walked towards the living room holding the odd bag on her right hand. She took a seat on the couch and placed the bag on top of the table, slowly opening it. There was a card and a small black box on the inside. She took out the small box and opened it being startled by its content. It was an astonishing silver necklace with a sapphire pendant on the center, tiny diamonds seemed to surround the almost heart-shaped figure of the pendant. Papa Scholar couldn’t believe his eyes either, he got the card out and gasped.

“Honey, you need to read the card, look”, Papa Scholar said as he handed it out for her.

Scholar took the card in her shaky hands and opened it carefully:

“Hopefully this starts your way into the better fashion sense you desperately need… Merry Christmas, Karolina”

Scholar lost no time and rushed to get her cellphone. Please answer, please answer, she thought as she heard the dialing tone.

“Hi”, she heard Karolina’s voice answer.

“I-I-… Oh god, I-I can’t even… It’s so beautiful!”, Scholar tried to say forgetting how to speak.

“I am glad you like it.”

“I just… wow… thank you! How did you know where I live?”

“Uh-oh, guess who, Scholar”, she heard Tegan’s voice say.

“Y-you! From the time we played together… should had figured. “, Scholar said laughing.

“You got me, hehe. I’ll give Karol back her cell phone. Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas, Tegan!”

“I am sorry I had to ask him”

“Don’t be sorry, I love it”, Scholar said, almost as much as I love you, she thought, “I didn’t get you anything for Christmas, I feel awful, you went through all this and I-“

“I don’t need you to get me anything, just everything you’ve done for me and … how much I … I can’t tell you on the phone, ok?”, Karolina said.

“… s-sure. Thank you so much, Karol”, was it the first time she called her Karol out loud?

“Besides I already feel like I have my Christmas gift… Anyway, our father is calling us. Merry Christmas, Scholar”

“Merry Christmas, Karol”, Scholar replied and added, “I… you know I do too, for a while now if I’m honest.”

“I kind of knew but didn’t want to see it… Enjoy your night”

“Y-you too. Bye”.

This was definitely the best Christmas she could had ever imagined, she only wished she could had thanked her in person but soon, very soon they will be able to figure it out.

END

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Hope you guys like it! The ending was rushed because it’s super late here so sorry for that.

#sweet elite #karolina novakova #sweet elite week 2021 #tegan novak #scholar #sweet elite fanfiction #karolina x scholar

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Why Evil is the Only TV Procedural Worth Watching

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This Evil article contains spoilers. You can read a spoiler-free review of the show here.

Who knows what evils lie at the heart of CBS’s Evil? Shadows know. We consulted a book of shadows (not the one Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson) skims, too many spoilers there) to cut into the left ventricle of the darkness feeding the network’s supernatural series, now in production for season 2. The blood of the police procedural pumps through the veins of the paranormal investigation show, but Evil transcends the statutes of those limitations. Occasionally by papal decree. The series is intelligent, filled with symbolism, and its main character, who is training to be a priest, drops acid on a semi-regular basis. And he’s not microdosing. Look at those baggies.

Evil doesn’t debunk demonic possession, which is the main thrust of the team’s investigations. It never treats it as campy. The series believes demons are real, even giving the audience a breakdown of the six different forms possession take. But it deliciously stops short of giving full commitment. The show also explores how to parse out personal responsibility when there’s a supernatural being to blame. In episode 7, “Vatican 3,” we learn “the court does not acknowledge demonic possession” in determining guilt or innocence. The series further muddies the waters when the crew has to take a hard look at a murder committed by someone who wasn’t possessed, such as when the parents of what they believed is a demonically possessed child kill him. The series further turns the screw because the kid they killed to save their other children was born evil. It was literally in his genes.

Evil shares DNA with The X-Files, and David Acosta, played with charisma and empathy by Mike Colter (Luke Cage), is the new show’s Fox “Spooky” Mulder. He is looking for answers beyond the veil, which has the same letters as evil, and he is putting the pieces together like a hidden map of old Manhattan. There’s a truth out there and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to understand it. He’s not in it to solve any crimes against venal sins. He is looking for deeper meaning, and this alone puts the series above most procedurals. David’s got a bit of the scientist Dodge from original The Planet of the Apes film in his cinematic character. One of the first astronauts to delve so deep into the outer reaches of space, “He’d walk naked into a live volcano if he thought he could learn something no other man knew.” David is the same. He was a foreign correspondent in war-ravaged Afghanistan who got to know the soldiers whose stories he reported. Truth and knowledge are the most noble of callings, and ultimately come before his religious calling.

While the basic premise of a spiritual believer teamed with a dissenting psychologist is procedural trope, Evil is out to debunk the law of its diminishing returns. First, the show teams David with not just one skeptical voice, but two. Katja Herbers’ Dr. Kristen Bouchard plays the same role Agent Dana Scully played to Mulder, and with a similar arsenal. She comes from a different perspective, though. Bouchard does indeed believe in miracles, but thinks they all have scientific explanations. She is confident the only reason something might defy natural principles is because science hasn’t been applied properly yet. Scully, who wore a cross and took her faith seriously, accepted miracles on faith. David and Kristen rarely come to the same conclusion.

Ben Shakir, played by Aasif Mandvi, brings common knowledge, and shades his skepticism with cynicism. The former Daily Show correspondent takes on the weight of all three Lone Gunmen but with more constructive skills. Before joining the paranormal team, he was a carpenter, just like Jesus. Ben knows how things work, and when everyday mechanisms like sinks or faulty wiring are the root cause of supernatural phenomena, he can turn the screws, and spot the mold. Ben, “the Magnificent,” as Kristen’s children call him, is also tech savvy, and quite capable of hacking hackers.

Evil also throws things at Ben which he can’t easily spackle over with even the best of tests. Try as he may, and he tries, he can’t explain the light of an angel in the frame of a surveillance video. There is no evidence of doctoring, even at the most expert levels. “The world is weird,” David passes off as dating advice when Ben asks about potential girlfriend Vanessa (Nicole Shalhoub), who wants to know she if she should detach from her dead sister before committing to a new relationship. Vanessa thinks she is “tethered” to her phantom sister by the right arm.

Supernatural science is bizarre, creators Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife, Braindead) believe. They push the show to diagnose causes the external evidence of exorcisms and stigmata, the bleeding wounds which correspond to the wounds on Christ’s hands when he was nailed to the cross. Because stigmatics display their wounds as they are portrayed artistically, rather than how the Romans historically would have done the crucifixion, it proves it comes from a psychological source. Internal belief causes the phenomena, not external spiritual forces. Evil explains that, allowing ample room for skepticism, belief, and even poetic reasons for spiritual incursions. David quotes Shakespeare to enunciate his faith. The concept of free will doesn’t come up in most procedurals. Neither does the way sociopolitical issues are turned into supernatural questions and tied to the origins of evil.

Evil is almost a character in Evil, and has relatable entry points. Real demons first get to Kristen’s four young daughters through an augmented reality videogame. A little girl who never takes off her Halloween mask almost gets the sisters to bury one alive. We don’t know how much of the characters’ perceptions is the result of a demon character’s influence on them. Each character is slowly being tempted by the dark side.

Kristen joined the team as a rational thinker but has had to accommodate uncomfortable ideas and adjust her comfort zone accordingly. In her usual line of work, she’s analyzed the criminally insane, but the show has pushed her into close contact with people who are evil in the Biblical sense. She is being pushed incrementally by forces in and out of her control. Her own mother Sheryl (Christine Lahti) sides with a manipulative competitor, Leland, over her daughter, and he’s made direct threats. The first season can be seen as Kristen’s slow corruption. The second season may see Kirsten apply her skills to her own situation, which will delve further into the dichotomy between the spiritual and pragmatic.

This is because Kristen may have already fallen. The final episode includes a telltale blood stain, which she wills Ben to unsee. On any procedural this is considered a clue, but here on Evil, the evidence actually points further than a mere homicide. It is the first sign that a main character has gone to the dark side. It is confirmed when the touch of a crucifix blisters her hand. There’s no such thing as an original sin and Kristen has been flirting with temptation long before this.

Kristen is a married nonpracticing Catholic who lost her faith. She’s sexually attracted to David, a man on his way to becoming a priest. When this subject was broached on the classic 1970s cop comedy Barney Miller, a prostitute who was supposed to be a young priest’s last fling before he entered a monastery said “I break laws, not commandments.” It feels like Kristen reminds herself of this every time the two of them are on screen alone together. Their sexual chemistry is that palpable. Yes, this is very similar to the long-gesticulating romance between Mulder and Scully, but he was no priest and she wasn’t married. Not only is Kristen married, but she’s got half a brood of daughters. Annoying things, really, but at least one of them has an excuse. Another reason Evil is the only procedural worth watching is because everyone on it just might be cursed. That’s not found in the manuals.

Evil towers over contemporary procedurals in how it’s going dark. Most procedurals chase a morally compromised arc, but Evil treats it like an encroaching corruption. Kristen, who is sworn to uphold the law, may have gone more than rogue vigilante. Besides the crucifix-burning season closing, David has visions of a goat demon waiting for Kristen with a scythe. She’d been tormented by her own personal demon throughout the season but when the George, the demon-like creature who visits Kristen during sleep paralysis, falls on the knife, it changes nothing. He is just one of many demons. One of them set up practice and is taking office hours with Leland.

The Demon Therapist is an all-male Goat of Mendes, or Baphomet. The show gets into how different biblical angels look from how they’re perceived artistically and by the contemporary faithful, but won’t present a faithful representation of Baphomet. It’s as patriarchal as Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Evil keeps it vague whether the goat demon is real or in Leland’s head. The Demon therapist appears in Kristen’s dreams as well. Lexis (Maddy Crocco) disabled the house alarm for the visiting devil therapist when he invites her to “the next level,” making it seem she is at least susceptible to underworldly influence. The kids are irritating, but they are a bargaining chip and their father, Adam, put them up for grabs when they chanted together offering an exchange of souls. Kristen was co-opted into evil through protective motherly instinct. She doesn’t see the mark of the devil as a badge of honor. When Kristen puts the cross in her palm, she doesn’t look like she expected it as much as feared it.

While the network show will never have the freedoms afforded cable series, the acting is top notch all around. Series like HBO’s Perry Mason or even Showtime’s reimagined second incarnation of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, provide a wider range of emotion and carnality. But Evil gives us muted, for the most part believable performances, very often underplayed. As are the special effects and use of technology as a narrative device. Too many procedurals treat high tech surveillance and other investigative tools like they are all-seeing eyes which can count nostril hairs. It has become normalized. Evil doesn’t waste intellectual space with unreasonable gadgets. The tools Ben or Leland use to their computerized ends are believable. At one point, Kristen asks Ben to record a cell phone conversation which is already halfway over. She is surprised he can’t with all his special skills.

The series incorporates real world horrors into mundane life. Even some of the most normal looking settings carry a sense of unease, to underscore the show’s thesis that the supernatural is natural but never quite normalized. Many of the scenes are shot vertically, drawing the viewers’ eyes upward and inferring something is always going on above. The series’ many wide-angle shots put a distance between characters even in close-ups.

The show isn’t afraid to wear its influences on its sleeves, and on several occasions has a lot of fun with it. For Dr. Kurt Boggs’ (Kurt Fuller) arrival at an exorcism, they recreated Father Merrin’s introductory scene in the horror classic The Exorcist, shot for shot, even getting an exact replica of the light post and the same make car, though different year, from the film. They gave nods to Rosemary’s Baby, Misery, Cabin in the Woods, and Children of the Corn. The climbing ax which Kirsten grabs on her way out to do damage on the serial killer Orson looks like it has teeth. As did the walking stick Lon Chaney’s Larry Talbot carried in The Wolfman. The demon George looks like Freddy Krueger’s good-looking cousin. The tonality of the show is reminiscent of Charles Laughton’s immeasurably influential Night of the Hunter.

The main reason Evil shines above most procedurals is because it is scary, and those scares have been building slowly and deliberately. Commonplace settings feel off, and the world around is filled with conspiracies and coverup. The Vatican asks the team to determine whether a woman who knows the hidden history of the church is a false prophet. The fertility clinic Kristen and her husband Andy used when conceiving Lexis corrupts fetuses with satanic insemination. A witty but innocuous internet meme, Puddy’s Christmas song, is a hummably foreboding earworm. Anything can go evil on Evil.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Evil season 2 is currently in production. Read more about that here.

The post Why Evil is the Only TV Procedural Worth Watching appeared first on Den of Geek.

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kazkari · 4 years ago

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i'm sorry you had to go through that, and i hope you will never have to again... do you mind sharing your experience? if not, that's understandable, if you don't want to think about it. i hope you can get some justice along with the other victims

This might be a bit rambly, I am currently still trying to sort my thoughts on the thing that are happening...Mind you that I to this point do not have the full info, because even now there’s stuff leaking that makes me go “Oh.”. There’s probably a lot of better and more in-depth accounts by people that were more connected than I am. I might also forget some stuff because wowie this thing goes WAY back. I invite people from back then to add or correct me if I misremembered something!

I am again, going to make abundantly clear that I was neither a close friend of him nor am I one of the underaged people he had inappropriate relations with. I do not claim to be a victim or a survivor. I do not claim to have been abused by him myself. My personal beef with him included that he made me feel like I’m a sad, pitiful loser that nobody would have any interest in besides pity.That my only worth is to be someone’s charity project. Someone you can point to and go...aw, look at this sad lonely piece of shit...Am I not a good person for talking to them?

But I’ve also seen the devastating effect his general behaviour had on people, even if I’m not going to bring up any names.

I was a mediocre artist in the fandom and, to be completely honest, incredibly immature for my age...Otherwise, I wouldn’t have based so much of my self worth on a parasocial relationship to someone playing videogames on youtube. I’m also going to come forth and say that not all of my behaviour in the past was super great myself. I struggled a lot with mental illness, suicidal ideation and did in no way possess the emotional maturity appropriate for someone my age.It became increasingly evident that there weren’t healthy boundaries in this fandom, whatsoever. I’m ashamed of having not spoken out earlier due to my social anxiety and my fear of getting harassed over it. This in no way apologizes that I sometimes have acted as an absolute asshole back when I still had wool covering my eyes, just an explanation. I’ve probably hurt my fair share of people, some of I will never even have the ability to apologize to.

From what I can tell my experiences were pretty similar to a lot of other people leaving that cesspool behind. It was a culmination of seeing someone do nothing while their friends struggled, even to the point of suicidal ideation, to just to keep up the facade of a clean funnyman that can do no wrong, seeing the constant outright gaslighting and manipulation targeted at people that brought up even the slightest hint of criticism. People HAVE spoken up and said their piece about these things even back then when they happened, and even years later, but a lot of time warnings and critique were just swept under the rug. It was made abundantly clear, again and again, that fans weren’t taken seriously. The fandom had the reputation of being mostly made up of teenaged girls, which was constantly used against people that “acted up”. It felt like we had nothing to say and no worth beside churning out ass pats and fanart, tbh. I feel like there was a lot of manipulation going on making it seem like most of his shitty behaviour was the result of chey’s bad influence over him. Which is super fucked up. Sure, she didn’t seem like the most pleasant person to be around, btw she was also still very young and suffering from mental illness. It doesn’t excuse some of her behaviour, but making it seem like she as some dark overlord manipulating a grown ass man from the shadows? Nah. People assumed this was a way to paint her as an unredeemable crazy ex-gf in case she leaked some info on him...I get the feeling that some people are still trying to do that.

I’ve seen the way people he was very close to break and fall apart because of the way he treated them like his personal emotional garbage dump. He didn’t treat them like people, in my opinion. People have come forward on social media to detail how he treated them, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I urge you to believe them, they know what they are talking about.

There was the thing where he went for his best friends GF. Where he watched ppl get bullied out of his crew and giving them zero support. I was aware that he was having sexually charged conversations with fans, even during a time most of us didn’t even know he was in a relationship. But again, I was not aware of the scope until much later. I didn’t know it were so many. Apparently, Snake mentioned around 14 during his latest stream? (And it was HARD to know because people that had contact to him did not bring it up lightly.) Later I’d learn that he also talked to people because he felt pity towards them, more than one. It felt like people did just exist because they had some kinda use, either for direct gratification or because he could feel like a better person for saving them in some weird self-serving way.

I also hope there will be justice for the people he has hurt. They didn’t deserve to be treated like this.

#wowie read more screwed up big time

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oncefelixlestrange · 4 years ago

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6 CONCEPT ARTISTS

https://conceptartempire.com/famous-concept-artists/#:~:text=%20Top%20Famous%20Professional%20Concept%20Artists%20%201,in%20character%20design.%20His%20work%20can...%20More%20

JOHANNES HELGESON

Helgeson is a Swedish-born concept artist and illustrator that focuses a lot on character concept art for games. However he is also able to create art for a wide range of things like landscapes and inanimate objects. his artwork is incredibly stylised and had a lot of character to each piece. i really like his style as its unique and reminds me a lot of an animation style. he also draws a lot digitally as well as traditionally which is a great still to have for character art. Helgeson can also use Low poly 3D modelling and texturing.

DAREK ZABROCKI

“Darek Zabrocki is a Polish concept artist who has been drawing since the age of 3. His portfolio site is full of amazing work from top industry clients like FOX, Sega, Sony, and DreamWorks.” he focuses a lot on landscape illustrations that show anything between beautiful cities and battle fields, aswell as exploring diffierent time periods from all the way back in ancient greece as well as all the way in the future with sci-fi. his work is honestly incredible.

Zabrocki has also produced a few art tutorials that teach concept art and illustrations along with speedpaints of his art work that show his entire process which is fascinating to watch.

i really like Derek's work but unfortunately its not my type of concept art since i want to do character art. however its still really cool to cool at and may help me get a better understanding of landscapes for my own comic art.

JORGE JACINTO

Jacinto is a Portuguese digital artist who has been working on concept art and illustration for at least 9 years. he started his career by working for the video game industry but later moved to freelance where he has stuck ever since. Jacinto's has great passion for cinema, videogame development, cg and the world of creativity.

the artist works primarily on illustration and visual development of different environments around a fantasy and sci-fi. he worked for a console and mobile games as well as several illustrations for books, cd covers, marketing campaigns and other projects. Some of the companies he has worked for include Blizzard Entertainment, Paizo Entertainment, Axis Animation, Ironside Computers, ImagineFX, DeviantArt, SyFy, The Void VR, X-Team as well as a large number of independent clients.

i think Jacinto's work is incredible, I'm a big fan of fantasy and most of his illustrations are filled with so much personality really setting in the fantasy feel. the colour and lighting is also used incredibly which also helps bring the environment to life. i don't think ill ever go this direction in concept art since I stick more to character art but its still a good skill to draw dynamic backgrounds and concepts for environments.

CEDRIC PEYRAVERNAY

Peyravernay is a French concept artist who uses incredible and intense realism to create primarily characters but also does environments. despite being drawing realism he does however mesh it with a sci-fi fantasy theme. I an tell he enjoys going into different time periods and experimenting with topics such as steampunk.

i really like peyravernay’s work. his digital paintings look almost like it was done with canvas and paint as he stuck to that paint like aesthetic where u can see the brush marks. I don't tend to do digital paintings but its still a cool direction to go into when looking at concept art beyond cartoon and videogames. i also really like his steampunk themed work as its something i want to experiment with more in the future.

DAVE MELVIN

Melvin’s is a freelance artists that art work sticks out a lot as he focuses more on digital art involving monsters and aliens.

“I've done my best to establish a niche for myself as an illustrator and concept artist that does not conform to standards, but instead break them and go above and beyond what anyone else has done. Whether it's revitalizing old themes or coming up with completely new ones, I always put everything I have into making the viewer revaluate what something can be. I pride myself on tirelessly pursuing the perfect concept and creating everyday.”

to Melvin, concept art is all about design and this can seen his work. He breaks tends to break down his pieces in order to show his art process to the public and in his portfolio. But while some pieces follow a consistent theme you can always see unique patterns in his paintings.

monster creation is defiantly something I want to do. despite sticking to current themes of vampires and demons, i eventually want to experiment more with the gruesome horrifying side of monster creation. making something really unique out of the depths of your imagination.

CLARE HUMMEL

Hummel is an American concept artist that focuses primarily on the world of game and interactive media. she has been their for roughly nine years. hummel has been contributing to a number of projects including Westworld VR, Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive, and Bioshock Infinite. her artistic passion involves drawing a lot of cowboys, dinosaurs, rocks, and historical fashion.

despite her artwork not being as grand as the others on this list. I do still really like her work. its the kind of art path i want to stick too in the future as its cartoony and works perfectly for both comic and animation.

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Biz Markie

Marcel Theo Hall (born April 8, 1964), better known by his stage name Biz Markie, is an American rapper, beatboxer, DJ, actor, comedian, television personality and spokesperson. He is best known for his 1989 single "Just a Friend", which became a Top 40 hit in several countries. In 2008, "Just a Friend" made #100 on VH1's list of the 100 greatest hip hop songs of all time.

Markie has been called the "Clown Prince of Hip Hop."

Early life

Markie's career began on Long Island and he graduated from Patchogue Medford High School in 1982."Biz Markie Shows, Concerts, & Tickets 2020". EventBrite.com. Retrieved March 29, 2020.

Career

1980s

Biz Markie was interviewed in the 1986 cult documentary Big Fun In The Big Town. Markie released his debut album, Goin' Off, in 1988, which attracted a fair amount of attention, largely due to the lead single, "Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz". The album also featured the underground hit singles "Nobody Beats The Biz", "Vapors", and "Pickin' Boogers".

On October 10, 1989, Biz Markie's second studio album, The Biz Never Sleeps, was released on Cold Chillin'/Warner Bros. Records, produced by Biz, his cousin Cool V and Paul C. The single "Just a Friend", in which he alternates between rap and singing, became Markie's most successful single, reaching #9 on the Billboard charts.

The song interpolates the 1968 song "You Got What I Need" by singer/songwriter Freddie Scott, whose basic chord and melody provided the base for the song's chorus. "Just A Friend" was ranked 81st on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders in 2000, and later as number 100 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop in 2008.

The music video, directed by Lionel C. Martin, chronicles the rapper's woman problems.

1990s

Markie's third studio album I Need a Haircut was released on August 27, 1991, on Cold Chillin'/Warner Bros. Records and was produced by Biz Markie and his cousin Cool V. Sales of the album were already low when Markie was served a lawsuit by Gilbert O'Sullivan, who claimed that the album's "Alone Again" featured an unauthorized sample from his hit "Alone Again (Naturally)". O'Sullivan's claim was upheld in a landmark ruling, Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records Inc., that altered the landscape of hip-hop, finding that all samples must be cleared with the original artist before being used. In accordance with the ruling, Warner Bros., the parent company of Cold Chillin', had to pull I Need a Haircut from circulation, and all companies had to clear samples with the samples' creators before releasing the records. This development reflected the increasing popularity of hip-hop and the financial stakes over which releases were set. Biz responded in 1993 with the mischievously titled All Samples Cleared!, but his career had been hurt by the publicity emanating from the lawsuit, and the record suffered accordingly. Additional bad news came when the video for the track 'Toilet Stool Rap' was labeled Worst Video of the Year on the Fromage show from Canada's MuchMusic.

For the remainder of the decade, Markie occasionally made television appearances, including guest appearances on In Living Color (including as contestant Damian "Foosball" Franklin in the recurring game show sketch "The Dirty Dozens" and as Marlon Cain in "Ed Bacon: Guidance Counselor") and in a 1996 freestyle rap commercial on MTV2. He also made numerous guest appearances with the Beastie Boys on Check Your Head (1992), Ill Communication (1994), Hello Nasty (1998), and their anthology The Sounds of Science (1999). He also rapped on the song "Schizo Jam", on Don Byron's 1998 release, Nu Blaxploitation (Blue Note/Capitol) and worked with Canibus on the first track on the Office Space soundtrack (1999). He also rapped on the track "So Fresh" alongside Slick Rick on Will Smith's 1999 album Willennium.

In 1996, Markie appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD, America is Dying Slowly, alongside Wu-Tang Clan, Coolio, and Fat Joe, among others. The CD, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic among African American men, was heralded as a masterpiece by The Source magazine.

In 1997, a sample of a Markie recording appeared in the Rolling Stones' song "Anybody Seen My Baby?" from their album Bridges to Babylon. His part was shortened on some radio versions. Biz also teamed up with Frankie Cutlass on his third single and music video titled "The Cypher Part 3" with some of Marley Marl's Juice Crew veterans.

In 1999, Markie appeared on Len's song "Beautiful Day" on their album You Can't Stop the Bum Rush, as well as on Alliance Ethnik's album Fat Comeback.

2000s

In 2002, Markie appeared in Men in Black II, with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, essentially playing an alien parody of himself, whose native language sounded exactly like beatboxing. Between 2002 and 2003 he appeared in episode 5 of the TV series Fastlane playing himself as a nightclub DJ. In 2003 he appeared in the international television series titled Kung Faux performing a series of voice over characters featured in a variety of episodes. In 2004, his song Vapors appeared on the soundtrack of Rockstar's popular videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which featured an old school hip hop radio station, Playback FM. In 2005, Biz detoured from his recording duties to appear on the first season of the television show Celebrity Fit Club which challenged celebrities to lose weight by a combination of diet and exercise. Biz Markie lost more weight than anybody else in the competition. That year, he was also in an episode of The Andy Milonakis Show.

Biz Markie was a cast member on Nick Cannon's Wild 'n Out, seasons 1 and 3. Biz also does the beatboxing segment, Biz's Beat of the Day on the Nick Jr. show Yo Gabba Gabba!.

Biz Markie began 2008 opening for Chris Rock's "No Apologies" tour. Biz Markie's act includes spinning records ranging from old school hip hop to Lynyrd Skynyrd and then performing "Just a Friend". Biz Markie's playlist includes the following: "Children's Story" by Slick Rick, "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang, "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, "Holiday" by Madonna, "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!, "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, "The Breaks" by Kurtis Blow and "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk.

In December 2009, Biz Markie appeared in a RadioShack commercial, repeating the line: "Oh Snap! Guess what I saw!" from his song "Just A Friend". That same year saw his debut with Andy Milonakis in television commercials for the commercial Internet service Tune Up.

2010s

In 2010, Biz Markie appeared on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, providing commentary throughout the series. Biz Markie himself was not included on the list. On November 9, 2010, Biz appeared on The Aquabats! new EP, Radio Down! in the title track. On November 11, 2010, Biz sat in with The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and performed "Just a Friend" with actor Jeff Goldblum.

In 2017, Markie appeared several times on the MTV2 game show Hip Hop Squares, a spin-off of the popular game show Hollywood Squares. That same year he made an appearance in the track "2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)" by The Flaming Lips, alongside Ke$ha.

In 2013 Markie toured with the Yo Gabba Gabba! live show. That year, his song, "Just a Friend" was featured in Saints Row IV, which included a Pop station 107.77 The Mix FM.

He appeared on the CN show Mad, as the Hip Hop Hobbit.

He voiced rapper Rhymez and his DJ, Tiny Timmy Scratch It, in the Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja episode "Hip Hopocalypse Now".

He guest starred in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Kenny the Cat", in the episode's title role. His voice acting work also includes the voice of Snorlock the Beatboxing Slug in an episode of Adventure Time.

In 2014, he appeared in the Syfy network movie Sharknado 2: The Second One. That same year, he threw a ceremonial first pitch for an Oakland Athletics baseball game.

In 2016, his song, "Just a Friend" was featured in the Netflix Series Love as an ending theme for episode 4. He also makes an appearance in a song titled "The Noisy Eater" off the album Wildflower by The Avalanches.

In 2016, he appeared on the Fox TV series Empire as himself, where he performed the song, "Just A Friend."

In 2017, he appeared in the season 3 finale of the ABC series Black-ish. He performed a personal version of the song, "Just a Friend", in which he added the names of the characters.

Discography

Studio albums

1988: Goin' Off

1989: The Biz Never Sleeps

1991: I Need a Haircut

1993: All Samples Cleared!

2003: Weekend Warrior

Compilations

1994: Biz's Baddest Beats

1996: Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks

1998: On the Turntable

2000: On the Turntable 2

2002: Greatest Hits

2006: Make the Music with Your Mouth, Biz

2009: Ultimate Diabolical

2009: "Yo Gabba Gabba"

2010: The Aquabats Radio Down!

#04/08

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fox-and-benedict · 6 years ago

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[Fanfic, 100% Orange Juice] Free Lunch

Series: 100% Orange Juice / QPverse Words: 1705 Characters: Aru, Krilalaris, QP, Syura Originally posted: February 13, 2017 (blogspot version) A/N: Apparently this was a joke Valentine’s story. I basically forgot all about it.

Even in a world full of mythical beasts and godlike battle-maidens who could strike down the unworthy with only a few sparse clusters of glittering bullets, there was one rarity greater than any other: the legendary 'free lunch'. Aru knew this. She knew that other, less savoury things often masqueraded as free lunches to trap the unwary, like a mimic assuming the form of a treasure chest before it gobbled down a greedy adventurer. But then bunny in red was, well, in the red, and a lunch she didn't have to pay for in cold, hard cash might be worth the price extracted. “So, Aru,” Syura began, assuming her businesslike smirk. “I assume you want to know why I invited you for lunch today.” “I want you to tell me what you want so I can refuse outright before we start negotiations,” Aru replied grumpily. “That's why I like you, Aru. You always cut straight to the chase. Oh, Krila, if you're hungry you can eat the rolls.” Krila, although bemused at being summoned by a girl she rarely interacted with, needed no encouragement. The lady in black was also, perenially, in the red. Cleared of any obstacles to her moral dubiousness, Syura adopted her most businesslike voice, which was not particularly businesslike at all. “What I want in exchange for this lunch is very simple. From you, Aru, I want information. Specifically, how far you've gotten with QP. And Krila... well, I don't actually know what I want. I felt sorry for you, I guess. Just try to act like a normal person long enough to gossip with me about my best friend's love life, and we'll call it square.” Krila nodded vigorously. “I shall make the attempt, but I warn thee, the mantle of banality may be too great for my dark soul to –” “I'll take it. Aru, you can start.” Aru glowered, and tapped her index finger against the pristine white tablecloth. “The answer is nil. We're friends. We were hungry at the same time and place. We ate lunch together. She paid. The end.” The waiter arrived, brandishing breadsticks and condiments. Krila seized upon them with a force that might well have been demonic. Aru had never before seen a girl consume an entire breadstick without chewing, but she was pretty sure it broke public indecency laws. Aru and Syura looked at each other. “Krila,” Aru said quietly, “Has anybody ever told you that you should consider performing at birthday parties?” “With the right audience, I think we – I mean, you – could make a lot of money,” Syura added. “Of course!” Krila said, squeezing her doll close to her chest. “I have performed my Dark Shadow Boundary Dance on numerous occasions. All I require is a sacrifice of tiny sausages and chunks of cheese, impaled on the same length of unholy wood.” Aru decided that Krila was an utterly innocent babe and, as a gesture of mercy, decided to omit certain words in the last sentence from her memory. After a moment of bemused silence, Syura returned to the point at hand. “But you went for lunch together! There was a time, a date, two pretty women that I most definitely don't feel attracted to on any level. There must be details, and they have to have been scandalous. All details are.” Aru looked around the crowded restaurant, at the linens and the candlesticks and the happily besotted couples surrounding their table, and began to worry about a number of things. Her stomach, however, continued to growl, and she settled for just appraising the nearest convenient escape route rather than fleeing immediately. “What am I supposed to say?” she asked, holding her palms up. “The food was good. The company was good. We talked about socks. She has radical opinions on socks that I don't necessarily agree with and wouldn't want to repeat around innocent children.” She broke off to look meaningfully at Krila, before continuing. “I don't really know what details you expect me to have, or how they could be anything interesting.”Syura heaved a deep, indulgent sigh, like a teacher about to bestow a valuable lesson upon a wide-eyed schoolchild. “Well, there's the question of what restaurant it was, and who picked it. Remember before you answer that I'm buying you lunch.” Aru groaned. There was the leverage she had been expecting. If Syura decided she didn't want to pay, Aru didn't have the funds to cover it. She'd have to dine and dash, and as an upstanding citizen and as a business owner who understood the true weight of the transgression, she couldn't allow herself to do it. Her hands were tied. But, she thought, there was a way out. If she simply ate as many complementary breadsticks as she could, she could leave before the meal was served and still not be a bad person. It was a risk, since if she ate too many breadsticks and stayed she would ruin the value proposition of the meal by not being hungry, but it was a gamble she was willing to take. “We went to that little tavern place by the market. The one where you sit on barrels instead of chairs. QP suggested it,” she answered at last, trying to sound as defeated as possible. If she seemed like she'd lost, she could maybe get away with being sparse with the details and Syura would assume there was nothing else to tell. She quietly stuffed a breadstick into her mouth. Krila's eyes widened. “Oho! I happen to know that those barrels are in fact casks of dark essence, in which swim the Serpents of the Braided Venom Willows. You have my respect for surviving such a trial, as does the Holy Beast Maiden.” “Krila, I don't know what you just said. I just heard a string of nouns,” Syura said cheerfully. “But what I do know is that that place is super romantic.” Aru looked at the candlelit dinners being dispensed around them, and wondered if, like the average videogame character, Syura just didn't have the equip slots necessary for a sense of irony. “What did you eat?” “I had braised vegetables. She had steak.” Aru ate another breadstick. “Ugh. That's so unfair. She should be, like, a ball of dough by now. You get meat, or you get sweets, one or the other. And if you get both, you get fat,” Syura groused. Krila, upon hearing sweets and steak being discussed in the same sentence, began to drool. “Did she try and make out with you?” With the most absolute calm, Aru picked up her glass of water, took a hearty swig, and immediately sprayed it back out. “Such commitment!” Krila murmured. “I guess it's true what they say. A true artist makes their own opportunities rather than waiting for opportunities to show up,” Syura nodded. Aru, having achieved the required dramatic effect, set her glower to stun. “Don't you think that question skipped a few steps? You could have asked if we held hands, or gazed deeply into each other's eyes, or anything, but you went straight to making out?” Syura shrugged. “Go big or go home.” “I agree! What would you rather face, Rabbit of Crimson Moons: a dragon, or a really big dragon?” Krila asked. “Right now I'd rather go home. I've had enough breadsticks to make this worth my time,” Aru said, standing up. Syura's mouth hung open in a little gasp as she leapt to several conclusions, all of them wrong. “She did, didn't she? Did she have dog breath? I bet she had dog breath. You should carry some mints around in case she tries to kiss you. I know I do.” Aru groaned, attracting suspicious looks from any number of surrounding lovebirds. “That is, in order, wrong, probably wrong, and really weird. I'm leaving.” “Waitwaitwaitwait!” Syura gasped, lunging over the table and catching hold of Aru's sleeve. The candle wobbled precariously and would have toppled, but for the timely intervention of Krila. With a speed and clarity that she had clearly purloined from a ninja, she shot out a hand and seized the candlestick. Unfortunately, she squandered any kudos from her endeavour by suddenly realising that not so very far from a sword, and immediately attempting to wield it in the name of the forces of darkness. “Aru, I'm sorry. Listen, I probably pushed you too far, but... I just wanted to do the romantic gossip thing, like in all the VNs I read. I never get the chance to, because my best friend is QP and she's totally like a dense RPG protagonist when it comes to romance.” “I agree with you there. She's like a dwarf star. You just can't avoid getting caught in her gravitational field.” The two looked at each other and, for a moment, smiled. Krila stole a candlestick from another table and began dual wielding, finally living her lifelong dream of leveling in the rogue class, so that one day she could prestige into an assassin. For a brief moment, the world was at peace. The chef, having heard the commotion, marched out of the kitchen with her kitchen knives in hand; Aru recognised her as Natsumi, and briefly marvelled at how small the world was. The knives began to fly, and the world returned to the natural order of things. *** “Hi, Aru! I came again today. Hey, what happened to your face?” QP, her face full of concern, pointed at the band-aid on Aru's cheek. The bunny winced, and searched for an excuse that didn't involve being violently ejected from a restaurant with two weirdos. “I cut myself shaving,” she said, studiously looking in any direction apart from QP's. “You shave?” QP asked, blinking. “My legs, yes.” QP's brain worked for a moment, before filing the anomaly under 'too much effort' and continuing on the path of the conversation she had planned on having. Aru noticed her fiddling with the hem of her dress, and felt her own heart sink. “Sooooo, um, I don't know if you know this, but there's a rumour going around that you and Syura were eating together at a romantic restaurant, and I just wondered...”

#fanfic #100% orange juice #QP #Aru #Krilalaris #Syura #Valentine's #QP Shooting

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britesparc · 4 years ago

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Weekend Top Ten #480

Top Ten Videogame Logos

I like games. I’ve been playing them for a long time; since the 1980s, which was over seven years ago. In that time I’ve seen many ages of gaming come and go – remember full motion video? – but one thing I have noticed is that game packaging has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. From large sturdy cardboard boxes the size of two hardback books back in the early nineties, to slim ‘n sexy DVD cases around the turn of the millennium, to – well – absolutely nothing these days as we oxidise games from the air. And one of the things that used to – and, I guess, still can do – make a game’s box art really pop was a sexy, elaborate, or otherwise just really frickin’ cool logo.

Now, by “logo” I’m basically talking about the design and typeface of the title itself. I don’t really mean the lambda sign from Half-Life, or – to step outside specific games for a second – the famous Ghostbusters symbol. Some games do actually end up with iconography incorporated into their title design, and you might see a little bit of it here; but for the sake of argument, I’m using “logo” to mean “title”, and how pretty that title is.

And I gotta say, some games had very, very pretty titles.

Now, I know, from research, that 8-bit games released in the eighties often had wild and wacky logos. However, there’s precious little of that on my list, because I didn’t really notice it at the time. I can appreciate it now, looking back, but it meant nothing to me forty years ago because, well, I wasn’t born or was simply far too young to notice. I didn’t really pay attention to box art until I had my Amiga, and that was about 1990. So there’s precious little here that’s genuinely old. That being said, I do seriously think that the golden age of logo design was that late eighties/early nineties period, as we transitioned from 8-bit to 16-bit home computers, with a legacy that continued into the PC dominance years of the mid-to-late-nineties. I think at this point the industry benefited from beginning to have certain established patterns and artists, but was still loose enough to allow a huge deal of experimentation and a feel of general lawlessness. It was in this era that Roger Dean reigned supreme, a vastly talented artist whose airbrush style defined the Amiga 500 for me. His work can be seen on this list, and – surprise – it’s at number one. Dean was so good that not only did his artwork grace dozens of boxes, but he also designed the greatest logo for a game developer of all time.

(Just as an aside: I had a lot of Psygnosis games for the Amiga. I remember vividly my cousin and I would desperately try to parse the wording of that logo – “Is it a P-S-V? P-S-V-C?” – during the brief time it appeared on screen whilst the game loaded. Ah, those exotic early years, full of wonder and possibility… but I digress)

Anyway, there were loads of bright, bold, colourful logos in those days. I think they mostly wanted box art that leaped out from a crowded computer shop shelf, and generally there was probably an assumption that the audience would be either young or nerdy, so there was no outward desire to be elegant or minimalist. Huge, chunky logos were popular; large text, airbrushed artwork, characters incorporated into the logo itself; plenty of shading and embossing effects were used to make a logo stand out proud on the box.

As time wore on, and the target audience aged and maybe wanted to appear a bit cooler, logos seemed to grow smaller. 3D extruded block text was replaced with simple white font work and elegant design. As such, into this new millennium, there are very few really exciting logos nowadays. Even my beloved Half-Life has a really minimalist design, which works, yeah, but it’s not exactly an all-timer. We do still get some very good logos now and again; I’ll go to bat for Halo any day of the week, but even that is twenty years old now. BioShock’s was pretty cool, too, with its rusted brass façade, but even that’s, what, 14 at this point? Blimey.

I think the evolution of the game logo can best be illustrated by comparing the original Doom logo to the one used in the 2016 remake. Vibrant colour versus flat white. I know which I prefer.

So there we are; my ten favourite game logos. And as these are game logos, I’ve banned anything that’s adapted from external media, whether it’s a Star War or Spider-Man or even Cyberpunk 2077 (which does have a cracking logo but is more or less a version of the one used in the original role-playing game). Anyway. Let’s have at it.

Shadow of the Beast (1989): not the first Roger Dean box art, but arguably the most famous, and certainly the one that caught my attention. Well, actually, it was Beast II in 1990 that I saw, but I’m picking this original logo as it’s a bit cleaner without the “II”. Anyway, what’s not to like? Dean’s fantasy-metal style is evident, with a logo that’s kind of threatening to look at, the pointed curls descending from the letters connoting teeth or claws, but the brushed, metallic detailing giving it a technological bent. Supremely cool, freakish, and a style carried very strongly into the game (and moreso the sequel).

Elite (1984): a rare example of a relatively minimalist piece of box art for the eighties, but all the same this logo is something else. Huge and bold, carved out of solid gold, its eagle wings suggesting the power of flight whilst the strangely-crowned head suggests something almost majestic or godlike. It’s the perfect logo for a game about space exploration, yet it also has echoes of Nazi symbolism or even Judge Dredd, giving the game a subtle sense of menace.

Lemmings (1991): unlike the other two, this was a fun, bouncy game, whose childish, cartoony stylings hid a dark and fierce puzzling heart (and also supremely distressing scenes of Lemmings getting mutilated). But this logo is beautiful, its jolly, chunky green typeface reflecting both pastoral beauty and the hair of the little critters; the misaligned letters reminiscent of the undulating hills the levels hint at (but don’t actually contain, particularly). And we get the heads of the Lemming poking out, squarely cementing them as an important part of the experience, their character the defining characteristic of the game itself and all its associated art.

Doom (1993): a seminal moment in gaming, and a seminal logo too. Surprisingly colourful for a game about the ravages of hell, this is a bold and bright bit of typography, the extruded letters suggestive of the 3D nature of the game itself; the almost terracotta tiles meshing with the complex mechanical geometry on the letters reminiscent of the game’s merging of the supernatural with the highly technological. And there’s the pointed extremities of the word, directed down like fangs, hinting at the horrors and dangers to come. Quite simply brilliant.

Minecraft (2009): the most recent game on the list, but its logo is almost a throwback. Thick, square, blocky letters reflect the cuboid nature of the gameworld; the angle away from the camera suggests height and importance, subtly hinting at the scale of the game itself. This is an iconic piece of iconography, instantly recognisable by children – to the extent that trying to draw a logo like Minecraft, or recreate the Minecraft logo itself, is fairly common in our house. I also like that one of the letters appears to be a Creeper.

Pac-Man (1980): and here we have the oldest logo! But so iconic. The chunky font, with letters comprised of thick shapes, devoid of some of their detailing, is cool enough; despite being released at the beginning of the eighties it has an almost sixties vibe. The “C”, of course, looks like Pac-Man himself. But what really makes it art is the offset colours, giving it the air of a misprint or of looking at 3D without glasses. It’s a deeply cool effect and helps make the logo feel timeless.

Dizzy (1987): another oldie, making its first appearance in ‘87’s Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure, although the logo design was very slightly tweaked and refined by the follow year’s Treasure Island Dizzy. Simplistic 3D block letters, but what makes it sing is that they’re dizzy; linework suggests them spinning, but it’s how the perspective differs from letter to letter, giving them a confused and discordant feel, that gives it just that little bit extra.

Zool (1992): perhaps a lesser-known and less iconic logo, unless you were a huge Amiga game in the early nineties. The airbrushing to give it a metallic, embossed effect is very of the moment, but what I love is the eyes. The double-O is rendered as Zool’s cross-looking eyes in his ninja bandana. On one hand, making the Os eyes is rather first-base, but partly it’s how they’re executed that I like; it’s also just because the big angry eyes are rather funny.

Pokémon (1996): first appearing on the cover of Pokémon Red and Green in ’96, the general Pokémon logo is a beaut. Again, it gives the appearance of simplicity, but the execution is complex. Chunky, friendly lettering, yellow like kid favourite Pikachu; kids’ll love that. The blue outline and drop shadow help it pop and give it a subtle, almost 3D effect. And the letters are discordant; rather than a regimented logo, it’s all over the shop, different sizes and weights of letter, all jostling for position on the page. It perfectly encapsulates the tone of the game.

Deus Ex (2000): I’ve more-or-less steered clear of the sci-fi design of “metallic logo that’s otherwise just the title”. I like logos with a bit of something extra; hence no Perfect Dark or Halo, despite those being great in and of themselves. Deus Ex takes the spot, though, partly because the letters seem built out of something, cobbled together in a dystopic, cyberpunk-y way. As you play a cyborg, this feels apt. And then there’s the logo itself, a towering corporate-looking edifice, a brilliant juxtaposition of two shapes that together suggest a D and an X. It’s slick and shiny, and is present in the game itself as a gently rotating loading screen, reflective of the advanced 3D graphics the game possessed.

Honourable mentions go to Theme Park, with a logo that’s suitably corporate and also reflective of a roller coaster, and Quake, just for that really cool nail-through-the-Q effect.

#top ten #games #gaming #logos #artwork #titles #box art #retro games

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leftwriteb · 8 years ago

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Industry Trend: Open Worlds & Empty Spaces

With the recent release of both Horizon: Zero Dawn and the impending UK launch of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the WiiU/Switch in the next few minutes, the gaming community is going to be treated to two incredible sprawling universes with little but a handful of days between them. Even if that wasn't enough, a new endeavour into the galactic expanses of Mass Effect: Andromeda could easily be another title to add to the growing list of open world games that have reigned supreme on the "next gen" (or now much rather current) console generation. As someone who plans to get all three of these games, as well as the disc copy of Telltales TWD Season 3, March is going to be an expensive and time consuming month for many.

With the latest generation of consoles having been around for a few years now, we are starting so see games and developers use the tools at their disposal in new and exciting ways. Uncharted 4 showed us that games are prettier than ever. Forza Horizon 3 showed us games are smoother than ever. Games like Limbo and The Witness showed us that older concepts and genres could be reborn and reimagined. Games like Star Wars: Battlefront showed us that you can make stupid amounts of money selling half a game... again.. Oh, and let's not forget that The Witcher 3 showed us games were bigger than ever. That too.

But, that being said, I can’t say I ever completed the Witcher 3. Not even close. And a large part of that was because the game gave me something I had never experienced before: a world that was just too big. That’s not to say the game was bad of course, but I found myself less and less interested in the map and what was held within it because there was no real drive for me to explore and investigate every corner as I often do when playing games. While I absolutely adored the time I spent with the game, in a landmass as vast as it was, much of that space was empty and void of the kind of mystery or intrigue that would usually have its hooks in me.

In all honesty, this is something far too common in this generations lifespan. When I look at the the games I’ve spent the most time with over the past few years, it’s sadly all too clear that they are also the games that haven’t stuck with me. Unlike games before them, they don’t have locations I vividly remember, or locales I could map out from memory. To this day, I could still build a shockingly acccurate model of Outset Island from Wind Waker if asked to. I can still tell you how where the best vantage point is in Armadillo, the first town you come across in Red Dead Redemption, and describe in detail the layout around it. I could even take you on a worryingly precise tour of most of Pandora given the time spent in the Borderlands games.

But when I look at more recent games, feats like that are far more difficult. I couldn’t tell you the name of one location from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, despite the game being my first Platinum Trophy and one of my favourite titles on the Playstation 4 so far. I can’t recall anywhere particularly memorable from the many hours I spent within Far Cry 4. Even having spent hundreds of hours (and £) on Fallout 4, I remember far less of the map than that of it’s predecessor. It’s a problem sometimes referred to as “open world fatigue”. Far too often we see games having open worlds for open world sake, and in an attempt to create more for the player to do, the surroundings these tasks are situated in are dull, repetitive or both.

Having played a good number of hours of Horizon, and around 30 minutes of Breath of the Wild at the Switch event in London a few weeks ago, it does thankfully look like this trend in the industry is about to get a big fat slap in the face.

Let’s start with Zelda, given this is the game that releases around now in the UK (at the time of posting) and is the game I’ve spent less time with of the two. In just the short time I had with the game, it can’t be stated enough how refreshing the game felt, not just as a Zelda title, but within our beloved medium as a whole. Every corner I chose to explore had something waiting for me. While there were plenty of open grassland areas, looming forests and aged rock formations to create the vast stretches of this reimagined Hyrule, they were generously peppered with things of interest too.

The buried remains of an ancient Guardian sat in a cluster of moss and dirt, frozen in mid-animation. Lakes and rivers would cut through the terrain to add some visual variety and to add some complexity to navigating. Goblin camps would often be positioned along commonly used pathways and would be home to a whole host of enemies and loot, should you defeat them.

What’s more, these details within the greenery provided new ways to interact with the world around you. At one camp, I found some large boulders on a hilltop to the west. Pushing these boulders down the slopes meant I squashed two of the three enemies waiting for me, allowing for an easier victory and an even easier path to the wooden chest the blighters had been guarding. The world felt more alive than any iteration I had played before it, and this wasn’t just limited to the environment; characters and enemies feel more alive than ever too! While traversing a canyon during exploration, I found myself within a narrow bottleneck. Atop of solitary rock stood a goblin wielding a wooden torch. After knocking him to the ground with an arrow or two, his lit torch set the grass around us alight and we both scurried backwards away from the flames, waiting for them to die out, before we charged at each other once more ready to settle our little ember-filled spat. What made me fall in love with the game was how this clearly huge space before me felt like it had purpose. It felt lived in. It felt like it had a history. The things I saw felt like they were there for a reason, instead of just to fill a void.

It’s been a long time coming but I can tell you that I am incredibly excited to play what Zelda has waiting for me, and I honestly think you should be too.

On a more Sony oriented note, Horizon: Zero Dawn is also proving to be another highlight in the catalogue for Playstation 4. While the comparisons between Horizon and Zelda will undoubtedly surface, it’s important to keep in mind that while they do a few things similarly, they are two very different behemoths. While Breath of the Wild brings a much-needed freshness to an established series, Horizon aims to build a solid base for a completely new IP and, make no mistake, it succeeds.

Horizon is a game of two tales and it’s one that manages to provide a playground filled with things you’re already familiar with. Scaling a Tallneck reveals the expanse on your map as you’ve seen in many Ubisoft titles. You can traverse the map via your mount which you can summon to you, akin to the Witcher 3′s Roach, though perhaps not as comical as Geralt’s almighty steed. You’ve got heavy attacks, light attacks, special tools and a weapon wheel just as you’d expect. What the game does, it does incredibly well and with a great deal of polish. But on top of this all is a new universe to become complete infatuated with too.

The strange mashup of sci-fi robotics and engineering with more traditional tribal influences creates a kind of harmony in artistic direction you wouldn't expect to see with such juxtaposition. Locales are a cocktail of twisted metal and blossoming vegetation and everywhere you go has a reason to exist and a visual storytelling that ignites your imagination as you try to piece together your own logic for how or why this ruin is where it is.

While there is plenty of familiarity to keep you grounded in the world Horizon offers, there’s so much more depth in what it brings newly to the table. The open spaces are ones you’ll want to envelope yourself in and already, in the limited hours I have spent with the game so far, I have discovered locations and beauty in the environments that will stick with me forever in my gaming endeavours. This world isn’t just beautiful; it’s actually interesting and exciting too.

While there have been plenty of open worlds and empty spaces in videogames in recent memory, we are at a point in time where things are really changing and open worlds are coming into their own. They feel, as they should, more like established worlds than just open ones. With Horizon and Zelda, we are treated to some of the most brilliantly realised worlds we have ever seen in this medium and I think we can all agree that that’s a trend we hope continues.

#horizon #horizonzerodawn #zelda #breatheofthewild #legend of zelda #link #playstation #wiiu #switch #nintendo #gaming #videogames #games #openworld #triforce #ganon #aloy

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ramblesandmumblesofanerd · 8 years ago

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Guilty Pleasures: My Thoughts

Warning: Lengthy Post

Imagine, if you will, this scene: you and your friends are hanging out and having a casual conversation, and the topic suddenly switches over to form of entertainment that did not do it’s job too well, maybe a movie, a song, a book, etc. Everyone around you seems to be picking their target apart, like vultures tearing a corpse apart. But then, off on the sidelines, there you stand when four words escape your lips: “I kinda liked it”. You’re mocked and jeered at for liking something they consider dreg, and you offer a convenient excuse: “It’s a guilty pleasure”. This excuse is thrown around very often when defending oneself from people who hate something they adore in spite of it’s flaws, but I have come to ask myself a question about this: Is there really anything to be guilty about?

Really think about what the phrase “guilty pleasure” implies. According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary’s website, guilt is a feeling that implies that one deserves blame for having committed something terrible, while pleasure is the feeling of “frivolous enjoyment”. To combine the words together seems to imply that having a guilty pleasure means one feels ashamed of liking something everyone else seems to despise, but nothing could be further from the case in my opinion. In fact, why should someone feel they deserve the backlash one can possibly receive for revealing the fact that they enjoy what others find mediocre? I’ll tell you: they should not, just as I do not.

Allow me to give an example of my own personal pleasures. Unlike most who saw the pre-Christopher Nolan live action Batman films, I enjoyed Joel Schumacher’s “Batman: Forever”. I do this in spite of the overall silly tone of the film, unlike the Schumacher’s second and final entry into his cinematic Batman universe “Batman and Robin”. This is due to the fact that the film leaves most of the known Batman mythos intact, even at the risk of pulling some from the past. Case in point, Jim Carrey as Edward Nigma, aka The Riddler. Not only do I like Carrey’s portrayal because I like the actor’s work in general, his version of the character has been seen before in both the older Batman comics and the old Adam West television show from the 1960’s, with the late Frank Gorshin giving a performance which was no doubt the inspiration for Carrey. There is also the performance of Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton’s replacement for Bruce Wayne/Batman, which, while certainly a decent pick, is not as memorable as his predecessor from Tim Burton’s prior films about the Caped Crusader. Even Chris O'Donnell's Robin is bearable in comparison to his second attempt, in spite of some teenage whining coming out of a man who was obviously not a teenager at the time the movie was recorded. The only thing I would have to complain about is the way the writers of the film wanted to portray the secondary villain, Two-Face, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Good Lord, what did they do to the former District Attorney? Rather than doing something clever, like making him the straight man to Carrey’s craziness, Harvey Dent is just as crazy as Edward Nigma. Other than that one complaint, I can still have a good time while watching the film in spite of the overall cheesiness.

But a guilty pleasure can be defined as more than just an average Joe enjoying a bad flick in spite of it’s flaws, sometimes they can inspire cult classics. The best example of this is the ever mystifying, awe-inspiring “The Room”, made by the personified puzzle that is Tommy Wiseau. The film is known as a repetitive, nonsensical, broken, ego-feeding project full of slapdash writing, poor acting skills, and an ego that refused to be stymied by the laws of reality. Yet, in spite of this vague description that does the film no justice, the director/writer/producer/main actor of the film, Tommy Wiseau, does monthly screenings every year in theaters mainly in New York City and is still selling DVDs and even Blu-Rays of his film to this day. And people actually buy the tickets and discs. Why? Because, for some reason unknown to man, “The Room” intrigues people with how odd it is, making it one of the many “So Bad It’s Good” movies that needs to be seen to be believed, as mere description does not really convey how strange the movie truly is. Even one of the side actors, Greg Sestero, is so amazed by the film’s popularity that he has written a book called “The Disaster Artist” to bring to light just what went on behind the scenes of the film, which is currently being developed into a film itself.

But a film doesn’t need to be a chaotic mess that has somehow received critical acclaim to be a guilty pleasure, in fact it doesn’t even need to be that popular. Some films that fade into obscurity have received love from viewers in spite of their quality or the people who made them, such as 1980’s “The Elephant Man”. This was a black and white historical drama film about Joseph/John “The Elephant Man” Merrick, who had been deformed since birth and was on display at a Victorian Freak Show before being found by an empathetic doctor. What follows is the sad tale of a man who is mocked and jeered at for his deformities while trying to live a respectable life as a fellow member of society. Guess who made this film? If you said David Lynch, you are half right. You see, Lynch directed this film, but he was hired by an executive producer who took his name off the credits in order to not give people the wrong idea about the film, as his bread and butter was comedic satires. These satires include “Blazing Saddles”, “Young Frankenstein” and “Spaceballs”. That’s right, Mel Brooks was the executive producer of a historical drama featuring the real life story of a deformed man from London. This goes to show that a man of great talent can make a film beyond their comfort zone and still gain a cult following.

So, in the end, is a guilty pleasure truly something to feel guilty about upon consideration? In my personal opinion, no. Why should someone feel guilty for something you love regardless of the flaws they may or may not recognize? One can have fun with a film that has issues, such as my appreciation for Batman: Forever, which, in the end, is a silly movie that does the exact opposite of the previous director of the films that came before it. Such films can even attract a cult following, like The Room, Moulin Rouge, and a variety of others, all with flaws that oddly attract more people as reviews and stories about them spread thanks to the internet. Even unique films made by people who flourish in a different genre can entice fans to view them in order to see something beyond the norm and appreciate the director(s)/producer(s)’s attempt to branch out beyond their comfort zone. And all of this is only examples for films, other forms of media such as television, music, videogames and literature can be considered guilty pleasures and have cult followings for a variety of reasons. My point, however, remains: one should not feel guilty about something that gives them pleasure. Be proud of what you like, be it a children’s television show, a flawed film, a sub-par video game, whatever it may be. You may be surprised that the people who do not share your interest will think no less of you.

Special thanks to @justthefangirl for helping me write this subject for RaMoaN, she’s a dear friend of mine who knows her way around film and literature. Not to mention she is a pretty amazing artist. Please follow her tumblr, check out her deviantart page, follow her Patreon, maybe purchase something from her Redbubble store, or maybe ask for a commission.

In the meantime, never stop rambling,

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highonbits · 5 years ago

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10 Great Movies to Watch During This Quarantine

Feeling bored in this quarantine??? here are some movies you can watch during this quarantine/lockdown. whenever you google something they show you some movies which you never heard before, so we recommend you these 10 movies which has everything, drama, entertainment, humor, suspense, period films and morals for life.

Avengers: Endgame

Phenomenally entertaining movie and a masterpiece! The movies have everything; drama, uptight, some funny comedy moments, adventure, mystery, and impressive action sequences. The movie will have you off the edge of your seat, surprises, emotional sad events which that you can’t miss at all. Their legacy of the finale is Perfect. Amazing movie!!! If we talk about acting, it was phenomenal and convincing. Beautifully directed and with a fantastic plot. An amazing emotional experience for everyone that has seen all the Marvel movies collected all together with our most favorite iconic characters. What an incredible journey of 22 Marvel movies. I can surely say that these movies will not disappoint you. With a bunch of great twists and turns, these movies leave a great impression on us. To deal with tragedy, disaster, and the consequences of our actions and to overcome our struggles in life. Countless heartwarming moments will make you melt.

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The Godfather Part II

The Godfather Part-2 is a movie/series which has a theme of loyalty, family, and sacrifice. One of the first sequels ever to surpass its forerunner, the movie flows with confidence. Part II takes a look at Vito Corleone’s early years in Sicily, depicting his accomplishments before he became a New York City mafia. Robert De Niro joins Al Pacino in the role of the young Don in the greatest gangster movie ever made.

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Casablanca (1943)

Casablanca’s the great American movie. A brilliant blend of romance, thriller, and warlike field with two of his game’s top-actors in leading roles. You can’t deny the visibility of two world war adventures by Michael Curtis, who sees Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as two lovers who can’t be together. The chemistry like them is chemistry is fantastic, it is the result of his off-set friendship which also gave the film its memorable small joke. Meanwhile, Bogart, teaches his co-star Poker, often repeated the phrase, “He is looking at you,” to Bergman with genuine affection.

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1917(2019)

1917, is a film by acclaimed director Sam Mendes. One can say that the movie is a great combination of excellent editing and superb acting.1917 is an example of absolute cinematic perfection. It gives the illusion of a single take and it works in conveying a feeling of realism in present-day films. It has its own sets providing a dramatic and even shocking contrast between the two. Thomas Newman did a fantastic job with the movie’s soundtrack, which feeds wonderfully into the already immersive atmosphere. I must say that the movie strikes the perfect balance of being calm and soft in some instances, or extremely intense in others. sound design had a great work in this movie. Here, each gun is the weight of the shot ton, making everyone question whether it landed or not. The cast is also brilliant. The story remains consistent throughout the film keeping you guessing all times. 1917 is without a doubt an absolute sensation.

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Bloodshot

This movie is way deeper than its trailer. Trailer only shows the primary 1/2 the movie & it should make us think that this can be just another Sci-fi action movie, but it’s NOT! nobody can even presume a touch about the uptight of this film until it’s revealed after the interval. Fans of Vin Diesel will surely visiting Respect this. The computer graphics during this movie are worthwhile. It’s a big-budget film. they’re amazing and keep us on our toes. This movie is worth expecting its computer graphics. you will see that each scene has been highlight enough to know easily. Cinematography is so detailed that each action scene is felt by the audience deeply. that’s the most effective feature of this film. HIGHonBITS says that is has Neither too slow neither too fast but detailed concepts.

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Top 10 amazing web series to watch in HINDI

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood(2019)

the title says it all! The movie may be a period film and is about Actor Rick Dalton who gained fame and fortune by starring during a 1950s television Western, but he’s fighting to seek out meaningful add a Hollywood that he doesn’t recognize anymore. with a budget of $ 90-96M. movie earns $374.3M. one can say that the movie is blockbuster. there isn’t any shame in watching this movie. Multiple storylines within the modern fairy tale.

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Joker(2019)

Dark as hell, Joker takes you through the journey of Arthur Fleck, from being a clown & a wannabe comedian (with just one joke with him – his life) to be THE “JOKER” this journey never looked fake. As this journey is logical and beautifully graphed also captured. Heath Ledger from the ‘Dark Knight’ was my favorite joker till date & Joaquin Phoenix took the legacy of Heath to a different level altogether. That laugh, that dance, that sprint, that walk! can’t endure that !!! inspite of all this. The movie gives such a large amount of morals to measure life.

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Dolittle(2020)

This movie encompasses a bunch of comedy punches and tragedy (the story of Dolittle’s wife’s fate and Dolittle being isolated for years makes the tone slightly dark.) But overall, the story is extremely light. The chemistry between humans and animals is well illustrated and provides us life lessons. The voice-over artists for the animals are very nice. This movie is a reunion of WWE player John Cena, Oscar winners like Marion Cottilard (La vie en rose) and Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), singer Selena Gomez, Kumail Nanjiani, and RDJ and Tom Holland.

movie is currently available on amazon prime video.

Jumanji: the subsequent Level(2019)

In 2019, three years after their adventure in Jumanji, actors have developed their lives. If you’re someone who likes to watch adventure movies and have an interest in games you want to opt for this one! The movie is a few games where the lead actor and their friends travel from reality to the virtual world of games and the way they enjoy it’s worth watching. The group decides to carry a reunion brunch in Brantford that year. On his first night back, he begins to contemplate returning to Jumanji with a purpose of getting held onto the broken video-game system. The movie begins with the four friends Spencer, Fridge, Martha, and Bethany deciding for a reunion. Spencer, who gets skeptical about the meeting and somehow restarts the videogame! The film keeps you on the sting of your seat almost through the film. Film involves a bunch of hilarious jokes and humorous scenes. This movie may be a good combination of entertainment.

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Toy Story 4

After the heartwarming finale from “Toy Story 3”, one among the best-animated sequels that have ever been made, it had been believed that the beloved saga had reached its end. Fortunately, thanks to how strong of a franchise it means to everyone who’s grown up with great fondness towards these characters, they simply can’t seem to urge enough of them. So with all the build-up and hype for nearly ten years, we’ve got this highly ambitious sequel, which picks up directly after the last film, where all the familiar toys we’ve grown to like are passed onto a brand new generation. A welcome expansion to the story. Children must opt for this movie. Fun entertaining and amazing experience while watching these.

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To know about top 10 HINDI web series Click Here

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

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Alone in the Dark

Most videogame stories are power fantasies. You spend your time getting ever stronger, ever tougher, ever more formidable as you accumulate experience points, gold, and equipment. Obstacles aren’t things to go around; they’re things you go through. If you can’t get past any given monster, the solution is to go kill some other monsters, then come back when you’re yet more powerful and slay the big beast at last. Life, these games tell us, is or ought to be one unadulterated ride up the escalator of success; a setback just means you haven’t yet risen high enough.

That dynamic held true in 1992 just as much as it usually does today. But during that year there came a well-nigh revolutionary game out of France that upended all of these traditional notions about what the medium of videogames can do and be. It cast you as a painfully ordinary, near-powerless individual adrift in a scary world, with no surefire panaceas in the form of experience points, gold, or portable rocket launchers to look forward to. It was just you and your wits, trapped in a haunted house full of creatures that were stronger than you and badly wanted to kill you. Despite its supernatural elements, this game’s scenario felt more disconcertingly close to real life than that of any of those other games. Here, you truly were alone in the dark. Aren’t we all from time to time?

Any story of how this shockingly innovative game came to be must begin with that of Frédérick Raynal, its mastermind. Born in the south-central French town of Brive-la-Gaillarde in 1966, Raynal was part of the first generation of European youths to have access to personal computers. In fact, right from the time his father first came home with a Sinclair ZX81, he was obsessed with them. He was also lucky: in a dream scenario for any budding hacker, his almost equally obsessed father soon added computers to the product line of the little videocassette-rental shop he owned, thus giving his son access to a wide variety of hardware. Raynal worked at the store during the day, renting out movies and watching them to kill the time — he was a particular fan of horror movies, a fact which would soon have a direct impact on his career — and helping customers with their computer problems. Then, with a nerdy young man’s total obliviousness to proportion, he hacked away most of the night on one or another of the machines he brought home with him. He programmed his very first released game, a platformer called Robix, in 1986 on an obscure home-grown French computer called the Exelvision which his father sold at the store. His father agreed to sell his son’s Exelvision game there as well, managing to shift about 80 units to customers desperate for software for the short-lived machine.

Raynal’s lifestyle was becoming so unbalanced that his family was beginning to worry about him. One day, he ran out of his room in a panic, telling them that all of the color had bled out of his vision. His mother bustled him off to an ophthalmologist, who told him he appeared to have disrupted the photoreceptors in his eyes by staring so long at a monitor screen. Thankfully, the condition persisted only a few hours. But then there came a day when he suddenly couldn’t understand anything that was said to him; he had apparently become so attuned to the language of computer code that he could no longer communicate with humans. That worrisome condition lasted several weeks.

Thus just about everyone around him took it as a good thing on the whole when he was called up for military service in 1988. Just before leaving, Raynal released his second game, this time for MS-DOS machines. Not knowing what else to do with it, he simply posted it online for free. Popcorn was a Breakout clone with many added bells and whistles, the latest entry in a sub-genre which was enjoying new popularity following the recent success of the Taito arcade game Arkanoid and its many ports to home computers and consoles. Raynal’s game could hold its head high in a crowded field, especially given its non-existent price tag. One magazine pronounced it one of the five best arcade games available for MS-DOS, whether commercial or free, and awarded it 21 points on a scale of 20.

Raynal was soon receiving letters at his military posting from all over the world. “Popcorn has made my life hell!” complained one player good-naturedly. Another wrote that “I caught acute Popcornitus. And, it being contagious, now my wife has it as well.” When Raynal completed his service in the summer of 1989, his reputation as the creator of Popcorn preceded him. Most of the companies in the French games industry were eager to offer him a job. His days working at his father’s computer store, it seemed, were behind him. The Lyon-based Infogrames, the most prominent French publisher of all, won the Raynal sweepstakes largely by virtue of its proximity to his hometown.

Yet Raynal quickly realized that the company he had elected to join was in a rather perilous state. An ambitious expansion into many European markets hadn’t paid off; in fact, it had very nearly bankrupted them. Bruno Bonnell, Infogrames’s co-founder and current chief executive, had almost sold the company to the American publisher Epyx, but that deal had fallen through as soon as the latter had gotten their first good look at the state of his books. It seemed that Infogrames would have to dig themselves out of the hole they’d made. Thus Bonnell had slashed costs and shed subsidiaries ruthlessly just to stay alive. Now, having staunched the worst of the bleeding, he knew that he needed as many talented programmers as he could get in order to rebuild his company — especially programmers like Raynal, who weren’t terribly assertive and were naive enough to work cheap. So, Raynal was hired as a programmer of ports, an unglamorous job but an absolutely essential one in a European market that had not yet consolidated around a single computer platform.

Bonnel, for his part, was the polar opposite of the shy computer obsessive he had just hired; he had a huge personality which put its stamp on every aspect of life at Infogrames. He believed his creativity to be the equal of anyone who worked for him, and wasn’t shy about tossing his staff ideas for games. He called one of them, which he first proposed when Raynal had been on the job for about a year, In the Dark. A typically high-concept French idea, its title was meant to be taken literally. The player would wander through a pitch-dark environment, striking the occasional match from her limited supply, but otherwise relying entirely on sound cues for navigation. Bonnell and Raynal were far from bosom buddies, then or ever, but this idea struck a chord with the young programmer.

As Raynal saw it, the question that would make or break the idea was that of how to represent a contiguous environment with enough verisimilitude to give the player an embodied sense of really being there in the dark. Clearly, a conventional adventure-game presentation, with its pixel graphics and static views, wouldn’t do. Only one approach could get the job done: 3D polygonal graphics. Not coincidentally, 3D was much on Raynal’s mind when he took up Bonnell’s idea; he’d been spending his days of late porting an abstract 3D puzzle game known as Continuum from the Atari ST to MS-DOS.

I’ve had occasion to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this burgeoning new approach to game-making in previous articles, so I won’t rehash that material here. Suffice to say that the interest so many European programmers had in 3D reflected not least a disparity in the computing resources available to them in comparison to their American counterparts. American companies in this period were employing larger and larger teams, who were filling handfuls of floppy disks — and soon CD-ROMs — with beautiful hand-drawn art and even digitized snippets of real-world video. European companies had nothing like the resources to compete with the Americans on those terms. But procedurally-generated 3D graphics offered a viable alternative. At this stage in the evolution of computer technology, they couldn’t possibly be as impressively photorealistic as hand-drawn pixel art or full-motion video, but they could offer far more flexible, interactive, immersive environments, with — especially when paired with a French eye for aesthetics — a certain more abstracted allure of their own.

This, then, was the road Raynal now started down. It was a tall order for a single programmer. Not only was he trying to create a functional 3D engine from scratch, but the realities of the European market demanded that he make it run on an 80286-class machine, hardware the Americans by now saw as outdated. Even Bonnell seemed to have no confidence in Raynal’s ability to bring his brainstorm to fruition. He allowed Raynal to work on it only on nights and weekends, demanding that he spend his days porting SimCity to the Commodore CDTV.

An artist named Didier Chanfray was the closest thing to a partner and confidante which Raynal had at Infogrames during his first year of working on the engine. It was Chanfray who provided the rudimentary graphics used to test it. And it was also Chanfray who, in September of 1991, saw the full engine in action for the first time. A character roamed freely around a room under the control of Raynal, able to turn about and bend his body and limbs at least semi-realistically. The scene could be viewed from several angles, and it could be lit — or not — by whatever light sources Raynal elected to place in the room. Even shadows appeared; that of the character rippled eerily over the furniture in the room as he moved from place to place. Chanfray had never seen anything like it. He fairly danced around Raynal’s desk, pronouncing it a miracle, magic, alchemy.

In the meantime, Bruno Bonnell had negotiated and signed a new licensing deal — not exactly a blockbuster, but something commiserate with a rebuilding Infogrames’s circumstances.

Something tentacled and other-worldly, it seems, got into the water at Infogrames from the start: Didier Chanfray provided this very Lovecraftian concept drawing for Raynal’s game long before the conscious decision was made to turn it a Lovecraft pastiche. Raynal kept the sketch tacked on the wall beside his desk throughout the project as a reminder of the atmosphere he was going for.

The American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, who died well before the advent of the computer age in 1937, was nowhere near as well-known in 1991 as he is today, but his so-called “Cthulhu Mythos” of extra-dimensional alien beings, terrifying by virtue of their sheer indifference to humanity and its petty morality, had already made appearances in games. The very first work of ludic Lovecraftia would appear to be the 1979 computer game Kadath, an odd sort of parser-less text adventure. Two years later, at the height of the American tabletop-RPG craze, a small company called Chaosium published Call of Cthulhu, a game which subverted the power fantasy of tabletop Dungeons & Dragons in much the same way that Raynal’s project would soon be subverting that of so many computer games. Still, although Call of Cthulhu was well-supported by Chaosium and remained reasonably popular by the standards of its niche industry throughout the 1980s and beyond, its success didn’t lead to any Lovecraftian onslaught in the realm of digital games. The most notable early example of the breed is Infocom’s very effective 1987 interactive fiction The Lurking Horror. But, being all text at a time when text adventures were becoming hard sells, it didn’t make much commercial impact.

Now, though, Bonnell believed the time had come for a more up-to-date Lovecraftian computer game; he believed such a thing could do well, both in France and elsewhere.

Lovecraft had long had a strong following in France. From the moment his books were first translated into the language in 1954, they had sold in considerable numbers. Indeed, in 1991 H.P. Lovecraft was about as popular in France as he was anywhere — arguably more popular on a per-capita basis than in his native land. The game of Call of Cthulhu too had long since been translated into French, giving a potential digital implementation of it as much natural appeal there as in its homeland. So, Bonnell approached Chaosium about licensing their Call of Cthulhu rules for computers, and the American company agreed.

When viewed retrospectively, it seems a confusing deal to have made, one that really wasn’t necessary for what Infogrames would ultimately choose to do with Lovecraft. When Lovecraft died in obscurity and poverty, he left his literary estate in such a shambles that no one has ever definitively sorted out its confusing tangle of copyright claimants; his writing has been for all intents and purposes in the public domain ever since his death, despite numerous parties making claims to the contrary. Prior to publishing their Lovecraft tabletop RPG, Chaosium had nevertheless negotiated a deal with Arkham House, the publisher that has long been the most strident of Lovecraft’s copyright claimants. With that deal secured, Chaosium had promptly trademarked certain catchphrases, including “Call of Cthulhu” itself, in the context of games. Yet as it turned out Infogrames would use none of them; nor would they draw any plots directly from any of Lovecraft’s published stories. Like the countless makers of Lovecraftian games and stories that would follow them, they would instead draw from the author’s spirit and style of horror, whilst including just a few of his more indelible props, such as the forbidden book of occult lore known as the Necronomicon.

The first Lovecraftian game Infogrames would make would, of course, be the very game that Frédérick Raynal had now spent the last year or so prototyping during his free time. By the time news of his work reached Bonnell, most of Infogrames’s staff were already talking about it like the second coming. While the idea that had inspired it had been wonderfully innovative, it seemed absurd even to the original source of said idea to devote the best 3D engine anyone had ever seen to a game that literally wouldn’t let you see what it could do most of the time. It made perfect sense, on the other hand, to apply its creepy visual aesthetic to the Lovecraft license. The sense of dread and near-powerlessness that was so consciously designed into the tabletop RPG seemed a natural space for the computer game as well to occupy. It was true that it would have to be Call of Cthulhu in concept only: the kinetic, embodied, real-time engine Raynal had created wasn’t suitable for the turn-based rules of the tabletop RPG. For that matter, Raynal didn’t even like the Chaosium game all that much; he considered it too complicated to be fun.

Still, Bonnell, who couldn’t fail to recognize the potential of Raynal’s project, put whatever resources he could spare from his still-rebuilding company at the mild-mannered programmer’s disposal: four more artists to join Chanfray, a sound designer, a second programmer and project manager. When the team’s first attempts at writing an authentic-feeling Lovecraftian scenario proved hopelessly inadequate, Bonnell hired for the task Hubert Chardot, a screenwriter from 20th Century Fox’s French division, a fellow who loved Lovecraft so much that he had turned his first trip to the United States into a tour of his dead hero’s New England haunts. One of Chardot’s first suggestions was to add the word “alone” to the title of the game. He pointed out, correctly, that it would convey the sense of existential loneliness that was such an integral part of Lovecraftian horror — even, one might say, the very thing that sets it apart from more conventional takes on horror.

You can choose to enter the mansion as either of two characters.

The game takes place in the 1920s, the era of Lovecraft himself and of most of his stories (and thus the default era as well for Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu game). It begins as you arrive in the deserted Louisiana mansion known as Derceto, whose owner Jeremy Hartwood has recently hanged himself. You play either as Edward Carnby, a relic hunter on the trail of a valuable piano owned by the deceased, or as Emily Hartwood, the deceased’s niece, eager to clear up the strange rumors that have dogged her uncle’s reputation and to figure out what really went down on his final night of life. The direction in which the investigation leads you will surprise no one familiar with Lovecraft’s oeuvre or Chaosium’s RPG: occult practices, forbidden books, “things man was never meant to know,” etc. But, even as Chardot’s script treads over this ground that was well-worn already in the early 1990s, it does so with considerable flair, slowly revealing its horrifying backstory via the books and journals you find hidden about the mansion as you explore. (There is no in-game dialog and no real foreground story whatsoever, only monsters and traps to defeat or avoid.) Like most ludic adaptations of Lovecraft, the game differs markedly from its source material only in that there is a victory state; the protagonist isn’t absolutely guaranteed to die or become a gibbering lunatic at the end.

One of the in-game journals, which nails the spirit and style of Lovecraft perfectly. As I noted in an earlier article about the writer, the emotion he does better than any other is disgust.

Yet Chaosium wasn’t at all pleased when Infogrames sent them an early build of the game for their stamp of approval. It seems that the American company had believed they were licensing not just their trademarks to their French colleagues, nor even the idea of a Lovecraft game in the abstract, but rather the actual Call of Cthulhu rules, which they had expected to see faithfully implemented. And, indeed, this may have been Bonnell’s intention when he was making the deal — until Raynal’s 3D engine had changed everything. Chaosium, who had evidently been looking forward to an equivalent of sorts to the Gold Box line of licensed Dungeons & Dragons CRPGs, felt betrayed. After some tense negotiation, they agreed to let Alone in the Dark continue without the Call of Cthulhu name on the box; some editions would include a note saying the game had been “inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft,” while others wouldn’t even go that far. In return for Chaosium’s largess on this front, Infogrames agreed to make a more conventional adventure game that would make explicit use of the Call of Cthulhu trademarks.

Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet, the fruit of that negotiation, would prove a serviceable game, albeit one that still didn’t make much direct use of the tabletop rules. But, whatever its merits, it would come and go without leaving much of a mark on an industry filled to bursting with graphical adventures much like it in terms of implementation. Alone in the Dark, on the other hand, would soon be taking the world by storm — and Chaosium could have had their name on it, a form of advertisement which could hardly have failed to increase their commercial profile dramatically. Chalk it up as just one more poor decision in the life of a company that had a strange talent for surviving — Chaosium is still around to this day — without ever quite managing to become really successful.

Infogrames got their first preview of just what an impact Alone in the Dark was poised to make in the spring of 1992, when Dany Boolauk, a journalist from the French videogame magazine Tilt, arrived to write a rather typical industry puff piece, a set of capsule previews of some of the company’s current works-in-progress. He never got any further than Alone in the Dark. After just a few minutes with it, he declared it “the best game of the last five years!” and asked for permission to turn the capsule blurb about it into a feature-length article, complete with a fawning interview with Raynal. (He described him in thoroughly overwrought terms: as a reincarnation of The Little Prince from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved novella of the same name.) In a “review” published in the summer of 1992, still a couple of months before Infogrames anticipated releasing the game, he gave it 19 of 20 stars, gushing over its “exceptional staging” and “almost perfect character movement,” calling it “a revolution in the field of play” that “people must buy!”

Bruno Bonnell was pleased with the positive press coverage, but less thrilled by Boolauk’s portrayal of Raynal as the game’s genius auteur. He called in his introverted young programmer, who seemed a bit befuddled by all the attention, and told him to scrub the words “a Frédérick Raynal creation” from the end credits. Alone in the Dark, he said, was an Infogrames creation, full stop. Raynal agreed, but a grievance began to fester in his heart.

Thanks to Bonnell’s policy of not advertising the individuals behind Infogrames’s games, Raynal’s name didn’t spread quite so far and wide as that of such other celebrated gaming auteurs as Éric Chahi, the mastermind of Another World, France’s standout game from the previous year. Nevertheless, upon its European release in September of 1992, Raynal’s game stood out on its own terms as something special — as an artistic creation that was not just fun or scary but important to its medium. As one would expect, the buzz started in France. “We review many games,” wrote one magazine there. “Some are terrible, some mediocre, some excellent. And occasionally there comes along the game that will revolutionize the world of microcomputers, one that causes sleepless nights, one that you cannot tear yourself away from, can only marvel at. We bid welcome now to the latest member of this exclusive club: Alone in the Dark.” By the end of 1992, the game was a hit not only in France but across most of Europe. Now for America.

Bonnell closed a deal with the American publisher Interplay for distribution of the game there. Interplay had also published Another World, which had turned into a big success Stadeside, and the company’s head Brian Fargo was sure he saw similar potential in Alone in the Dark. He thus put the game through his company’s internal testing wringer, just as he had Another World; the French studios had their strengths, but such detail work didn’t tend to be among them. Raynal’s game became a much cleaner, much more polished experience thanks to Interplay’s QA team. Yet Bonnell still had big international ambitions for Infogrames, and he wasn’t willing to let such a remarkable game as this one share with Another World the fate of becoming known to American players simply as an Interplay title. Instead he convinced Fargo to accept a unique arrangement. Interplay and Infogrames each took a stake in a new shared American subsidiary known as I-Magic, under which imprint they published Alone in the Dark.

The game took North America by storm in early 1993, just as it had Europe a few months earlier. It was that rarest of things in games, a genuine paradigm shift; no one had ever seen one that played quite like this. Worldwide, it sold at least 400,000 copies, putting Infogrames on the map in the United States and other non-European countries in the process. Indeed, amidst the international avalanche of praise and punditry, perhaps the most gratifying press notice of all reached Frédérick Raynal’s ears from all the way off in Japan. Shigeru Miyamoto, the designer of Super Mario Bros. and many other iconic Nintendo classics, proclaimed Alone in the Dark to be, more so than any other game, the one he wished he could have come up with.

Arguably the creepiest visual in the game is the weird mannequin’s head of your own character. Its crudely painted expression rather smacks of Chucky the doll from the Child’s Play horror films.

Seen from the perspective of a modern player, however, the verdict on Alone in the Dark must be more mixed. Some historically important games transcend that status to remain vital experiences even today, still every bit as fun and playable as the day they were made. But others — and please forgive me the hoary old reviewer’s cliché! — haven’t aged as well. This game, alas, belongs to the latter category.

Today, in an era when 3D graphics have long since ceased to impress us simply for existing at all, those of Alone in the Dark are pretty painful to look at, all jagged pixels sticking out everywhere from grotesquely octagonal creatures. Textures simply don’t exist, leaving everything to be rendered out of broad swatches of single colors. And the engine isn’t even holistically 3D: the 3D characters move across pasted-on pre-rendered backgrounds, which looks decidedly awkward in many situations. (On the other hand, it could have been worse: Raynal first tried to build the backgrounds out of digitized photographs of a real spooky mansion, a truly unholy union that he finally had to give up on.) Needless to say, a comparison with the lovingly hand-drawn pixel art in the adventure games being put out by companies like LucasArts and Sierra during this period does the crude graphics found here no favors whatsoever. Some of the visuals verge on the unintentionally comical; one of the first monsters you meet was evidently meant to be a fierce dragon-like creature, but actually looks more like a sort of carnivorous chicken. (Shades of the dragon ducks from the original Atari Adventure…)

Dead again! Killed by… Prince during his Purple Rain period?

Then, too, the keyboard-only controls are clunky and unintuitive, and they aren’t made any less awkward by a fixed camera that’s constantly shifting about to new arbitrary locations as you move through the environment; some individual rooms have as many as nine separate camera angles. This is confusing as all get-out when you’re just trying to get a sense of the space, and quickly becomes infuriating when you’re being chased by a monster and really, really don’t have time to stop and adjust your thinking to a new perspective.

The more abstract design choices also leave something to be desired. Sudden deaths abound. The very first room of the game kills you when you step on a certain floorboard, and every book is either a source of backstory and clues or an instant game-ender; the only way to know which it is is to save your game and open it. Some of the puzzles are clever, some less so, but even those that are otherwise worthy too often depend on you standing in just the right position; if you aren’t, you get no feedback whatsoever on what you’re doing wrong, and are thus likely to go off on some other track entirely, never realizing how close you were to the solution. This fiddliness and lack of attention to the else in the “if, then, else” dynamic of puzzle design is a clear sign of a game that never got sufficiently tested for playability and solubility. At times, the game’s uncommunicativeness verges on the passive-aggressive. You’ll quickly grow to loathe the weirdly stilted message, “There is a mechanism which can be triggered here,” which the game is constantly spitting out at you as you gaze upon the latest pixelated whatsit. Is it a button? A knob? A keyhole? Who knows… in the end, the only viable course of action is to try every object in your inventory on it, then go back and start trying all the other objects you had to leave lying around the house thanks to your character’s rather brutal inventory limit.

Fighting is a strange, bloodless pantomime.

Yes, one might be able to write some of the game’s issues off as an aesthetic choice — as merely more ways to make the environment feel unsettling. Franck de Girolami, the second programmer on the development team as well as its project leader, has acknowledged using the disorienting camera consciously for just that purpose: “We realized that the camera angles in which the player was the most helpless were the best to bring in a monster. Players would instantly run for a view in which they felt comfortable.” While one does have to admire the team’s absolute commitment to the core concept of the game, the line between aesthetic choice and poor implementation is, at best, blurred in cases like this one.

And yet the fact remains that it was almost entirely thanks to that same commitment to its core concept that Alone in the Dark became one of the most important games of its era. Not a patch on a contemporary like Ultima Underworld as a demonstration of the full power and flexibility of 3D graphics — to be fair, it ran on an 80286 processor with just 640 K of memory while its texture-mapped, fully 3D rival demanded at least an 80386 with 2 MB — it remained conceptually unlike anything that had come before in daring to cast you as an ordinary mortal, weak and scared and alone, for whom any aspirations toward glory quickly turn into nothing more than a desperate desire to just escape the mansion. For all that it threw the Call of Cthulhu rules completely overboard, it retained this most fundamental aspect of its inspiration, bringing Chaosium’s greatest innovation to a digital medium for the first time. It’s not always impossible to kill the monsters in Alone in the Dark — often it’s even necessary to do so — but, with weapons and ammunition scarce and your health bar all too short, doing so never fails to feel like the literal death struggle it ought to. When you do win a fight, you feel more relieved than triumphant. And you’re always left with that nagging doubt in the back of the mind as you count your depleted ammo and drag your battered self toward the next room: was it worth it?

The legacy of this brave and important game is as rich as that of any that was released in its year, running along at least three separate tracks. We’ll begin with the subsequent career of Frédérick Raynal, its original mastermind.

The seeds of that career were actually planted a couple of weeks before the release of Alone in the Dark, when Raynal and others from Infogrames brought a late build of it to the European Computer Trade Show in London. There he met the journalist Dany Boolauk once again, learning in the process that Boolauk had switched gigs: he had left his magazine and now worked for Delphine Software, one of Infogrames’s French competitors. Delphine had recently lost the services of their biggest star: Éric Chahi, the auteur behind the international hit Another World. As his first assignment in his own new job, Boolauk had been given the task of replacing Chahi with a similarly towering talent. Raynal struck him as the perfect choice; he rather resembled Chahi in many respects, what with his very French aesthetic sensibility, his undeniable technical gifts, and his obsessive commitment to his work. Boolauk called in Paul de Senneville, the well-known composer who had launched Delphine Software as a spinoff from his record label of the same name, to add his dulcet voice to the mix. “We wish to place you in a setting where you will be able to create, where you will not be bullied, where we can make you a star,” said the distinguished older gentleman. “We want to give free rein to the fabulous talent you showed in Alone in the Dark.” When Raynal returned to Lyon to a reprimand from Bruno Bonnell for letting his game’s planned release date slip by a week, the contrast between his old boss and the possible new one who was courting him was painted all too clearly.

Much to Raynal’s dismay, Bonnell was already pushing him and the rest of the team that had made the first Alone in the Dark to make a sequel as quickly as possible using the exact same engine. One Friday just before the new year, Bonnell threw his charges a party to celebrate what he now believed would go down in history as the year when his struggling company turned the corner, thanks not least to Raynal’s game. On the following Monday morning, Raynal knocked on Bonnell’s office door along with three other members of the newly christened Alone in the Dark 2 team, including his most longstanding partner Didier Chanfray. They were all quitting, going to work for Delphine, Raynal said quietly. Much to their surprise, Bonnell offered to match Delphine’s offer, the first overt sign he’d ever given that he understood how talented and valuable they really were. But his counteroffer only prompted Delphine to raise the stakes again. Just after New Years Day, Bonnell bowed out of the bidding in a huff: “You want to leave? Goodbye!”

A couple of weeks later, the videogame magazine Génération 4 held an awards ceremony for the previous year’s top titles at Disneyland Paris. Everyone who had been involved with Alone in the Dark, both those who still worked at Infogrames and those who didn’t, was invited. When, as expected, it took the prize for top adventure game, Bruno Bonnell walked onto the stage to accept the award on behalf of his company. The departure of Raynal and crew being the talk of the industry, the room held its collective breath to see what would happen next. “My name is Bruno Bonnell,” he said from behind the rostrum. “I’d like to thank God, my dog, my grandmother, and of course the whole team at Infogrames for a beautiful project.” And with that he stumped offstage again.

It hadn’t been a particularly gracious acceptance speech, but Raynal and his colleagues nonetheless had much to feel good about. Dany Boolauk and Paul de Senneville were true to their word: they set Raynal up with a little auteur’s studio all his own, known as Adeline Software. They even allowed him to run it from Lyon rather than joining the rest of Delphine in Paris.

Naturally, all of the Alone in the Dark technology, along with the name itself and the Chaosium license (whatever that was worth), stayed with Infogrames. Raynal and his colleagues were thus forced to develop a new engine in the style of the old and to devise a fresh game idea for it to execute. Instead of going dark again, they went light. Released in 1994, Little Big Adventure (known as Relentless: Twinsen’s Adventure in North America) was a poetic action-adventure set in a world of cartoon Impressionism, consciously conceived by Raynal as an antidote to the ultra-violent Doom mania that was sweeping the culture of gaming at the time. He followed it up in 1997 with Little Big Adventure 2 (known as Twinsen’s Odyssey in North America). Although both games were and remain lovely to look at, Raynal still struggled to find the right balance between the art and the science of game design; both games are as absurdly punishing to play as they are charming to watch, with a paucity of save points between the countless places where they demand pin-point maneuvering and split-second timing. This sort of thing was, alas, something of a theme with the French games industry for far too many years.

This, then, is one legacy of Alone in the Dark. Another followed on even more directly, taking the form of the two sequels which Infogrames published in 1993 and 1994. Both used the same engine, as Bruno Bonnell had demanded in the name of efficiency, and both continued the story of the first game, with Edward Carnby still in the role of protagonist. (Poor Emily Hartwood got tossed by the wayside.) But, although Hubert Chardot once again provided their scripts, much of the spirit of the first game got lost, as the development team began letting the player get away with much more head-to-head combat. Neither sequel garnered as many positive reviews or sales as the original game, and Infogrames left the property alone for quite some time thereafter. A few post-millennial attempts to revive the old magic, still without the involvement of Raynal, have likewise yielded mixed results at best.

But it’s with Alone in the Dark‘s third legacy, its most important by far, that we should close. For several years, few games — not even its own sequels — did much to build upon the nerve-wracking style of play it had pioneered. But then, in 1996, the Japanese company Capcom published a zombie nightmare known as Resident Evil for the Sony Playstation console. “When I first played Resident Evil,” remembers Infogrames programmer Franck de Girolami, “I honestly thought it was plagiarism. I could recognize entire rooms from Alone in the Dark.” Nevertheless, Resident Evil sold in huge numbers on the consoles, reaching a mass market the likes of which the computer-only Alone in the Dark could never have dreamed. In doing so, it well and truly cemented the new genre that became known as survival-horror, which had gradually filtered its way up from the obscure works of a poverty-stricken writer to a niche tabletop RPG to a very successful computer game to a mainstream ludic blockbuster. Culture does move in mysterious ways sometimes, doesn’t it?

(Sources: the books La Saga des Jeux Vidéo by Daniel Ichbiah, Designers & Dragons: A History of the Roleplaying Game Industry, Volume 1 by Shannon Appelcline, and Alone in the Dark: The Official Strategy Guide by Johan Robson; Todd David Spaulding’s PhD thesis “H.P. Lovecraft & The French Connection: Translations, Pulps, and Literary History”; Computer Gaming World of February 1993; Amiga Format of June 1991; Edge of November 1994; Retro Gamer 98. Online sources include Adventure Europe‘s interview with Frédérick Raynal, Just Adventure‘s interview with Hubert Chardot, and the video of Frédérick Raynal’s Alone in the Dark postmortem at the 2012 Game Developers Conference.

The original Alone in the Dark trilogy is available as a package download at GOG.com.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/alone-in-the-dark/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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williehoar497-blog · 7 years ago

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How you can Entice Seductive Asian Ladies.

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symbianosgames · 8 years ago

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point, the making of Typeshift & the SteamProphet contest.

Lots of interesting links this week - am particularly taken by the article on the tumultous community of Elite: Dangerous, which I thought was far less tumultuous than Star Citizen. (Well, it probably still is.) But it reminded me that when you make a game that's in a state of constant change, you'll get all kinds of views on its artistic direction - especially on the polarized Internet. Which can be tiring, and rough, but isn't a lot of the Internet? 'Til next time...

- Simon, curator.]

-------------------

Giant Sparrow creative director talks about the freaky beautiful haunting of Edith Finch (David Nieves / ComicsBeat) "What Remains of Edith Finch is developer Giant Sparrow’s (published by Annapurna Interactive) follow up to their critically acclaimed debut The Unfinished Swan. While the first game was a unique tale of an orphan boy who navigates a literal blank world by throwing paint everywhere. What Remains of Edith Finch is an eerie beautiful collection of stories about a cursed family house in the Pacific Northwest."

The Occupation and the perils of politics in games (Chris Priestman / Eurogamer) "At 11.36am on March 22nd 2017, White Paper Games announced The Occupation with a trailer and a press release. Set in 1980s north-west England, it's a first-person narrative adventure that follows a journalist caught up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that left 23 people dead."

Milwaukee's War on 'Pokémon GO' Could Change Tech Forever (Jordan Zakarin / Inverse) "Even now, almost a year later, Sheldon Wasserman sounds surprised when he describes what went down in Milwaukee’s Lake Park last summer. “People are beginning to run across the streets, parking is absolutely overloaded, the police are now ticketing, food trucks are showing up,” the Milwaukee County Supervisor remembers."

Picture in a Frame (Amr Al-Aaser / Medium) "I think a lot about how we frame things... It’s something that feels repeatedly relevant in games, a space where the practice of describing games as “x meets y” or “game x with twist y” is a common format for arriving at an explanation of a title."

Still Logged In: What AR and VR Can Learn from MMOs (Raph Koster / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, MMO designer Raph Koster talks about the social and ethical implications of turning the real world into a virtual world, and how the lessons of massively multiplayer virtual worlds are more relevant than ever."

Meet the superfans still playing Populous: The Beginning (Oliver Milne / RockPaperShotgun) "So how come there’s still an active group of Populous players keeping the flame alive nearly twenty years later? I got in touch with some of the community’s longest-standing members to find out. [SIMON'S NOTE: this one's a bit old, but had no idea third parties got unofficial matchmaking running for the game.]"

RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point (Infinitron / RPG Codex) "Phoenix Point uses willpower as a key stat. A character's willpower rating determines initial and maximum will points for a battle. Will points are spent on most special actions and abilities. Will points can be lost through injury, morale effects (such as comrades dying or facing a horrifying monster) and special enemy attacks."

The future is in interactive storytelling (Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Michael Mateas / The Conversation) "Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what Telltale’s Guardians-themed game did when it was released in April."

How Zach Gage fine-tuned the difficulty curve of TypeShift (Rollin Bishop / Gamasutra) "TypeShift, the latest game from acclaimed mobile developer Zach Gage, is part crossword, part anagram, and all puzzle. Rather than simply ask a player to solve a single jumbled word, or even several, TypeShift — which is available on iOS and Android — instead asks players to create any number of words out of several tiers of letters until they’ve used every single one."

How Final Fantasy 7 Revolutionized Videogame Marketing and Helped Sony Tackle Nintendo (David L Craddock / Paste) "In late July 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment America buzzed with excitement. SCEA was in possession of Final Fantasy 7’s gold master discs, media containing finalized code. Over the next few weeks, they would undergo mass production—pressed to millions of CD-ROMs, packaged inside jewel cases, and shipped to stores in time for the game’s summer launch across Europe and North America."

The state of Elite Dangerous (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "On 25th April 2017, Cambridge-based developer Frontier released patch notes for its two-and-a-half year-old space game Elite Dangerous. Buried within those patch notes, under the section "General Fixes & Tweaks", was a line that set the game's vociferous community alight: Farmed salt from the community for usage later."

Spaceplan - Based on a Misunderstanding Of Stephen Hawking (Scott Manley / YouTube) "It's a 'make numbers go up' game with a bit of a space theme and potatoes, lots of potatoes, solar masses of tubers."

Classic Game Postmortem: Seaman (Yoot Saito / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 Classic Game Postmortem, Yutaka "Yoot" Saito speaks at length about his work creating 'Seaman', a game that left an indelible mark on the fabric of both the game industry and pop culture at large."

What I learned playing "SteamProphet" (Lars Doucet / Gamasutra) "At least 249 indie games have launched on Steam in the past 13 weeks not including VR or F2P games. That's more than 30 games every week, on average. In their first month... 75% made at least $0, 10% made at least $1K-9K, 7.5% made at least $10K-49K, 2% made at least $50K-99K, 5% made at least $100K-999K, Exactly one made > $1M."

Knack 2 is an atonement (Colin Campbell / Polygon) "Knack 2 director Mark Cerny is one of the most accomplished game developers of the last three decades, most especially in platform adventures featuring likable characters. From Marble Madness to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, from Crash Bandicoot to Ratchet & Clank, he's made his mark on a multitude of verdant, primary-hued worlds, where colorful critters boing and bounce."

Game Dev Insight: A Chat with BioWare Cinematics Lead Tal Peleg (Shinobi602 / Shinobi Speaks) "I’m super happy to be able to share a nice chat I had with Tal Peleg, a Cinematics Lead at BioWare. His previous animation work includes a bevy of notable titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us and Dead Space 2 among others. "

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games? (Kate Smith / The Guardian) "And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming?"

Ten Years Ago, Dead Or Alive Launched The Careers Of The Highest-Paid Women Pro Gamers (Maddy Myers / Kotaku Compete) "Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since."

'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: "I Didn't Really Expect to be a Game Designer"(Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) "At GDC, Meier talked to Glixel for almost an hour with boyish enthusiasm about what makes Civilization work, why Firaxis turns to a new lead designer with almost every sequel, and that whole thing with having his name on the box."

Jeff Kaplan reveals the Overwatch Balance Triangle (Here's A Thing / Eurogamer / YouTube) "On this week's episode of Here's A Thing, Chris Bratt talks to Overwatch game director, Jeff Kaplan about the 'balance triangle' his team uses when thinking about hero design."

How Inside’s levels were designed (Alex Wiltshire / RockPaperShotgun) "Playdead don’t design games in the same way that other studios do. They’re the result of a process where nothing is written down. There’s no script and no design document. No member of the team owns any aspect of what they make and what will go into the final game. Everything is up for change."

Why This Very Queer Strategy Game Downplayed Its Queerness While Crowdfunding (Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) ""Essentially the game comes out to the player—if they notice, and not everybody does," said All Walls Must Fall programmer Isaac Ashdown, who lives in Berlin with his husband. "The fact is that the game isn't really 'about' being queer, but it's set in Berlin nightclubs, and those can be pretty queer spaces.""

These are the developers creating new games for old consoles (Andrew Webster / The Verge) "If you want to play Dustin Long’s most recent game, you’ll need a console that was first released more than 30 years ago. As a young musician in New York, Long found himself drawn to the chiptune scene, where artists craft sounds using classic gaming hardware."

Burn The Bikini Armour: Actionable Tips For Better Character Design (Victoria Smith / Play By Play) " By taking a look at the worst and best of costume design in games - as well as primary sources and the basics of visual design - you can elevate your character designs and create something truly unique. Nobody wants to appear on the Worst Dressed list, so why should your game characters be any different?"

I Paid Women To Play Overwatch With Me, And It Was Fantastic (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "Earlier this week, on Fiverr.com, I selected Biu’s “Basic” package which, in exchange for $5, granted me her company for five Overwatch games. In her profile’s image, a helicopter selfie, Biu is wearing a t-shirt with Zelda’s Link and sticking out her tongue."

Designer Interview: Crafting Flinthook's hookshot wasn't easy (Alex Wiltshire / Gamasutra) "There are many ways to express the concept of throwing out a line from a player character that attaches to a surface, something that’s familiar to many first- and third person 3D games, from Ocarina of Time to Spider-Man 2. But the hookshot is curiously underused in 2D platformers. Tribute Games’ new action platformer, Flinthook, might give some pointers as to why. Not because Flinthook isn’t good. Quite the opposite, in fact."

-------------------

[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

#IFTTT #Blogger

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blackkudos · 7 years ago

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Biz Markie

Marcel Theo Hall (born April 8, 1964), better known by his stage name Biz Markie, is an American rapper, beatboxer, DJ, comedian, actor, singer, reality television personality, grartist, and commercial spokesperson. He is best known for his single "Just a Friend", an American Top 10 hit in 1989. In 2008, "Just a Friend" made #100 on VH1's list of the 100 greatest hip hop songs of all time. Biz Markie currently lives in Howard County, Maryland, and has helped support County Executive Ken Ulman during his fundraisers.

Markie has been called "the Clown Prince of Hip Hop."

Early life

Markie's career began on Long Island, New York. He attended and graduated from Longwood High School in 1982.

Career

1980s

Before he got famous Biz Markie was interviewed in the 1986 cult documentary Big Fun In The Big Town. Markie released his debut album, Goin' Off in 1988, which attracted a fair amount of attention, largely due to the lead single, "Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz". The album also featured the underground hit singles "Nobody Beats The Biz", "Vapors", and "Pickin' Boogers".

On October 10, 1989, Biz Markie's second studio album, The Biz Never Sleeps was released on Cold Chillin'/Warner Bros. Records, produced by Biz, his cousin Cool V and Paul C. The single "Just a Friend", in which he alternates between rap and singing, became Markie's most successful single, reaching #9 on the Billboard charts.

The music video, directed by Lionel C. Martin, chronicles the rapper's woman problems. At the climax of the video, Biz Markie's character stumbles upon a girl he was trying to date kissing another man she had previously referred to as "just a friend". It also includes a memorable scene of Biz singing the chorus dressed as Mozart in 18th-century clothing with a powdered wig in a candlelit room while playing the piano. This scene was likely inspired by the video for the 1986 hit "Rock Me Amadeus", which was in turn inspired by the 1984 film Amadeus.

1990s

For the remainder of the decade, Markie occasionally made television appearances, including guest appearances on In Living Color (including as contestant Damian "Foosball" Franklin in the recurring game show sketch "The Dirty Dozens" and as Marlon Cain in "Ed Bacon: Guidance Counselor") and in a 1996 freestyle rap commercial on MTV2. He also made numerous guest appearances with the Beastie Boys, Check Your Head (1992), Ill Communication (1994), Hello Nasty (1998), and their anthology The Sounds of Science (1999). He also rapped on the song "Schizo Jam", on Don Byron's 1998 release, Nu Blaxploitation (Blue Note/Capitol) and worked with Canibus on the first track on the Office Space soundtrack (1999). He also rapped on the track "So Fresh" alongside Slick Rick on Will Smith's 1999 album Willennium.

In 1997, Markie appeared on the Rolling Stones' song "Anybody Seen My Baby?" on their album Bridges to Babylon. His part was shortened on some radio versions. Biz also teamed up with Frankie Cutlass on his third single and music video titled "The Cypher Part 3" with some of Marley Marl's Juice Crew veterans.

In 1999, Markie appeared on Len's song "Beautiful Day" on their album You Can't Stop the Bum Rush.

2000s

In 2002, Markie appeared as an alien in Men in Black II with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, essentially playing an alien parody of himself, whose native language sounded exactly like beatboxing. Between 2002 and 2003 he appeared in episode 5 of the TV series Fastlane playing himself as a nightclub DJ. In 2003 he appeared in the international television series titled Kung Faux performing a series of voice over characters featured in a variety of episodes. In 2004, his song Vapors appeared on the soundtrack of Rockstar's popular videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which featured an old school hip hop radio station, Playback FM. In 2005, Biz detoured from his recording duties to appear on the first season of the television show Celebrity Fit Club which challenged celebrities to lose weight by a combination of diet and exercise. Biz Markie lost more weight than anybody else in the competition. That year, he was also in an episode of The Andy Milonakis Show.

Biz Markie was a cast member on Nick Cannon's Wild 'n Out, seasons 1 and 3. Biz also does the beatboxing segment, Biz's Beat of the Day on the Nick Jr. show Yo Gabba Gabba!.

2010s

In 2012, Markie appeared several times on MTV2's new game show Hip Hop Squares, a spin-off of the popular game show Hollywood Squares.

In 2012 Biz Markie made an appearance in the track "2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)" by Oklahoma band The Flaming Lips alongside Ke$ha.

In 2013 Markie toured with the Yo Gabba Gabba! live show.

In 2013, his song, "Just a Friend" was featured in Saints Row IV, which included a Pop station 107.77 The Mix FM.

He appeared in the CN show MAD, as the Hip Hop Hobbit.

He voiced rapper Rhymez and his DJ, Tiny Timmy Scratch It, on Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja episode "Hip Hopocalypse Now".

He guest starred in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Kenny the Cat," in the episode's title role. His voice acting work also includes the voice of Snorlock the Beatboxing Slug in an episode of Adventure Time.

In 2014, he appeared in the Syfy network movie Sharknado 2: The Second One as Vinnie the pizza shop owner.

Also in 2014, he threw a ceremonial first pitch for an Oakland Athletics baseball game.

In 2016, his song, "Just a Friend" was featured in the Netflix Series Love as an ending theme for episode 4. He also makes an appearance in a song titled "The Noisy Eater" off the critically acclaimed album Wildflower by The Avalanches.

Discography

Studio albums

1988: Goin' Off

1989: The Biz Never Sleeps

1991: I Need a Haircut

1993: All Samples Cleared!

2003: Weekend Warrior

Compilations

1994: Biz's Baddest Beats

1996: Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks

1998: On the Turntable

2000: On the Turntable 2

2002: Greatest Hits

2006: Make the Music with Your Mouth, Biz

2009: Ultimate Diabolical

2009: "Yo Gabba Gabba"

2010: The Aquabats Radio Down!

Wikipedia

#Biz Markie #04-08

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daleisgreat · 8 years ago

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Top 10 and Worst 5 Films of 2014 through 2016

I meant to do this last year, but completely neglected it. When I ran my old podcast, one episode a year, my friends Matt, Jay and I would host our annual best and worst movies of the year episode. We did three installments for films that hit in 2011-2013. The podcast is not around anymore so I have not done it since, but I still have been keeping Word documents on my computer with a list of all the movies I saw each year and constantly update my top 10 and worst 5 rankings of the year. I meant to post the best and worst of 2015 as a blog, but as I said it just slipped past me and I will make up for it now with a triple best and worst list for 2014 through 2016. I had a whole extra year to catch up on Netflix and VUDU on 2014 and 2015 releases I missed so I have seen about 20% more films than I did than 2016. So hopefully that will excuse any glaring omissions that did not make my rankings. That said, I am still feeling pretty good about my 2016 list and there were only a handful of films that slipped by me that I have not seen yet. Movies linked on the lists will take you to my review of the film if you want to see my expanded thoughts on the film. One last thing before the lists, I want to give a shoutout to one of my favorite film critics, Scott Sawitz! I have discussed movies, wrestling and a ton more with Scott for well over a decade and have had the pleasure of having him guest host on my aforementioned podcast several times. I have always been a fan of his reviews and weekly column, Monday Morning Critic, over at Inside Pulse. His latest column is his annual top 10 films of the year I always look forward to. Scott has a twist on his rankings this year because he has been putting a ton of work into his weekly YouTube series, Confessions of a Super-Hero, weekly bite-sized episodic viewing all about what super-heroes do in their off-duty downtime. If you have a moment, please check it out! Now, onto the lists! 2014 TOP 10 10) Wild 9) Nightcrawler 8) Gone Girl 7) Equalizer/John Wick 6) Imitation Game 5) Interstellar 4) Guardians of the Galaxy 3) Whiplash 2) Captain America: The Winter Soldier 1) Boyhood Best Documentary – Life Itself

The two comic book films on the list ranked high with Marvel having a stellar year. Guardians surprised me because the concept just seemed impossible to pull off in live action with an animated tree and talking raccoon, but somehow Marvel did it and it kicked all kinds of ass. Winter Soldier was an awesome modern day follow up to The First Avenger. I seem to be in the minority of people when discussing Interstellar, and while I would rank it a notch or two under other non-Batman Christopher Nolan classics like Inception, I still very much enjoyed it that it made it into the midst of my top 10. Life Itself is an excellent documentary all about Roger Ebert in his final days as it documents his and Gene Siskel’s breakout rise as the go to film critics of the nation. Wild hit all the right nerves for me on Cheryl Strayed’s arduous journey of self-discovery. Nightcrawler shocked me at the lengths Gyllenhaal went to get the ultimate creep-o look down and his convincing transition from wannabe ripoff artist to the quintessential conman. I was expecting Equalizer to be a by-the-numbers action flick, but Denzel Washington proved me wrong by adding on many layers to it, and it is bizarre how John Wick came out within weeks of it and both were nearly identical plots, but both delivered in their own unique way. John Wick also gets my dubious award for best ever Kevin Nash cameo. Finally, props to Richard Linklater for delivering on his film that was literally 12 years in the making with Boyhood. Linklater is a risk taker with his ambitious projects, and he knocked another one out of the park with Boyhood getting my vote as best film of 2014. 2014 WORST 5 5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4) Tekken 2 3) Pro-Wrestling Zombies 2) Amazing Spider-Man 2 1) Transformers: Rise of the Fallen 2014 saw many terrible films, I actually had nearly 10 films as being ‘worst 5-calibur’ material. The TMNT remake had a few bright spots and scene-saving moments from Will Arnett, but he alone could not save a film with so many gut-wrenching jokes and awful retconning of the TMNT lore I grew up with. I actually dug the first Tekken film as a kind of solid nonsense fighting tournament movie that was kind of faithful to the source material ala Mortal Kombat, but the sequel was this awful attempt at a mafia-crime-mystery-drama that failed on all levels. Pro-Wrestling Zombies was a very low budget zombie slashing film starring Matt Hardy, Jim Duggan and Roddy Piper, but with these wrestling legends it was not even enjoyable in an ironic way like most zombie films, and was just flatout bad. Amazing Spider-Man 2 shocked me because I legitimately enjoyed the reboot, and thought this would be another easy follow up with most of the same cast and crew returning. However, Spider-Man and Electro both cast painful jokes and banter throughout that did not exist in the prior film, and there were countless groan inducing moments. The latest Transformers film outdid the straight-up bad humor and moments throughout the entire wreck of a film. Michael Bay somehow found a way to make it a nearly insurmountable task to get through. 2015 Top 10 10) Southpaw 9) Ant Man 8) The Martian 7) End of the Tour 6) Mad Max: Fury Road 5) Revenant 4) Creed 3) Steve Jobs 2) Spotlight 1) Hateful Eight Best Documentary – Tie: Electric Boogaloo & Winning: Racing Life of Paul Newman

Yeah, I like my feel good boxing/sports films as Jake Gyllenhaal shined again this year in Southpaw and Creed surpassed my expectations with its contemporary take on the Rocky franchise. While the lighthearted moments from Damon seemed a little forced, I still very much dug his Mars survival story, but not as much I got immersed into Dicaprio’s and Tom Hardy’s intense wilderness survival adventure that is The Revenant. Fury Road marked the first Mad Max movie I saw and the bombastic costumes initially had me raising an eyebrow, but once the heavy metal guitar semi-truck graced the screen in its infinite glory I instantly went on board with the film and never got off. I recently reviewed Steve Jobs, and if you recall I absolutely loved its use of creative license to tell a nonstop dialogue juggernaut of three big moments in Jobs’ life. Spotlight is the perfect way to tell a slow building mystery film where investigative journalists gradually picked away at their biggest scoop ever. Finally, I am biased towards Quentin Tarantino as I view the man as being one of the absolute best at dialogue in films, and he delivered once again with countless another excellent script and scenes that stole the show in The Hateful Eight. The setting worked perfectly and I was on my toes waiting to see which one of the eight was going to make the first move in a powdered keg filled with characters ready to burst. 2015 Worst 5 5) Fantastic Four 4) Jupiter Ascending 3) Chappie 2) Ted 2 1) Pixels

I was surprised at how bad Jupiter Ascending turned out to be, and did not expect Channing Tatum to be the only decent part of that film. After the dud that was Sucker Punch and now Jupiter Ascending, I am cutting myself off from all future Wachowski-directed films. I am a fan of District 9 and its director Neil Blomkamp and felt burned by his latest film, the insufferable Chappie in numerous ways. I was anticipating bad things from both Fantastic Four or Pixels, but part of me forced myself to go to see how awful they ultimately were. Fantastic Four was mostly drawn out and dull, and had some very head-scratching moments throughout. I cannot remember the last Adam Sandler film I legitimately liked, does the first half of Funny People count? Any marginal hopes of a semi-decent film were squashed the second Kevin James popped up on screen as the dopey president of the USA. Practically the entire film was bad, but I will at least give it minor props for some pretty good use of the videogame CG in the film. 2016 Top 10 10) Purge: Election Year 9) Deadpool 8) Star Trek: Beyond 7) 13 Hours: Secret Soldiers of Benghazi 6) Captain America: Civil War 5) Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice 4) Hacksaw Ridge 3) Sully 2) Fences 1) The Accountant Best Documentary – ESPN 30 for 30: The ’85 Bears

The last two Purge films have turned into guilty Halloween pleasures like the old Final Destination films. Election Year kept up the same gritty, over-the-top tone and pace as Anarchy Reigns before it. Deadpool surprised me at not being a dud, and far exceeded my expectations with tons of great jokes, dialogue, action and unapologetically aware 4th wall-breaking references throughout. It has been awhile since I got wrapped up in an intense R-rated war film, and 2016 had two of them with 13 Hours and Hacksaw Ridge that both get high recommendations from me. I am a wee bit of a Clint Eastwood fan, but I will give him and Tom Hanks righteous props on how they somehow made Sully’s heroic emergency plane landing into the Hudson River a thrilling feature length film. Some of you who saw the list are probably baffled at why I rank the controversial Dawn of Justice over the much-loved Civil War, but the two ranked so close together I just might change my answer if you ask me any day of the week. If I am splitting hairs I did not care for the shoehorned Spider-Man extended cameo, and his dialogue has me worried that Homecoming is going to be filled with an equal, if not worse script than Amazing Spider-Man 2. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis are sublime in Fences. The small, but mighty cast here delivered powerful performances, with Washington and Davis especially delivering in this dialogue-driven-tour-de-force about hard times for a family making ends meet in the 1950s. I did not know too much going into The Accountant other than it had what appeared to be a gimmick of an assassin with Autism. I could not have been more wrong as there is so much more going on with this film that it entertained me throughout its near two and a half hour runtime. Ben Affleck continues his streak of excellent performances, and I cannot wait to see how his upcoming solo version of The Batman turns out. Worst 5 2) Suicide Squad 1) Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

I have only seen two movies this year that qualify as “worst 5-caliber.” I could not get into Suicide Squad. The first third of the film played out like an extended trailer scored with worn out songs that I am use to only hearing off trailers. There were several WTF moments throughout, and add in the film felt compromised after audiences griped that Dawn of Justice was not lighthearted enough. DC/Warner Bros. responded by pasting in several post-production groan-worthy zingers that played more to the mainstream, but made me cringe. I am optimistic for the presumable sequel though, because I did dig Will Smith as Deadshot and Margot Robbie’s portrayal of fan favorite, Harley Quinn and I am even interested in what direction they take The Joker next. Halftime Walk usurped it as my worst film of the year however because of how unlikeable the cast is. About 20% of the film is war flashbacks that I actually liked, but the other 80% is the members of the military squad’s day being honored at a football game, and just being super dick-ish and incredibly un-empathetic throughout it. I know this is based off a book, but I do not know if something got lost in translation or if this was the desired vision of the film. Either way, it yields my worst of the year honors! Thanks for sticking with me rambling all this way, see you next year!

#random movie #top 10 #boyhood #transformers rise of the fallen #the hateful eight #pixels #accountant #billy lynn's long halftime walk #suicide squad #spotlight #captain america #fences

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