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starr-fall-knight-rise · 6 years ago

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Humans are Weird “Astrodust”

Hope you guys have fun with this one. I’m currently taking a class on this sort of thing, and its really quite fascinating. I thought it would be fun to do a story based on the idea :) Tell me what you think.

Hurry it up, Convict, damn if this goes any slower ill have evolved and regrown my leg by the time you finish.”

The outer hull cameras flashed with movement as “Conn.” Flipped the captain the bird and went back to his work, the true meaning of the gesture was rather dampened by the fact that Conn only had four fingers. Thousands of white tendrils billowed into space behind his thin white frame. Large black eyes glittered in the light of the nearby gas-giant as he worked. Krill shifted nervously as he watched the creature work, floating eerily over one of the outer panels of the ship, a tool belt strapped about his thin waist, he looked oddly out of place with the tools gripped in his thin fingers.

Conn, as was his moniker, was a Starborn, a member of a sentient telepathic race of space creatures capable of surviving in the vast blackness of space. They had come across them not so many months ago, and during those few days of contact captain Vir had been, in order, saved by them, induced into aggressive tonic colonic seizures, burned by the cold, driven into a near crazed state, and then almost killed brutally by way of functional brain wiping.

He was not particularly fond of the Starborn to say the least. Turns out Conn, or “Convict.” As the captain so fondly called him, was not far off from the actual idea. When the captain had come into his life, he was only a day away from execution on accusations of, “Attempting to maintain secret thoughts.” Not only was it a delinquent, but it may as well have been a convict, and, according to the Catpain, Conn was an absolute ass. So far, he was the only person Conn had been able to contact telepathically, and he seemed to glee in annoying the captain to no end. Krill was under the impression he only kept Conn around because he had agreed to help with dangerous exterior repairs for the ship.

“Shove it up your ass, Convict.” The captain grumbled turning towards the controls to the ship. On the screen, the glowing white creature bared its teeth in a sick approximation of a grin shoving the tool back into the belt loop and slamming the panel shut in the silence.

“What did he say?” Krill wondered.

“Nothing useful.” The Captain muttered before leaning back in his seat, “You know that gasline that broke before we ran into the Starborn, yeah, anyway, in all the confusion, we forgot to fix it, and it may take a couple of days if he wants to do it correctly. He will want to go through my ‘memory bank’ for the instructions, and he suggests that we don’t travel during that time. Seems that the warp destabilized the mainline enough that he’d be worried about doing another one because, as he says, our stupid little air-heads would explode…. Little bitch.” He added as an afterthought.

“What are we going to do till then captain, the admiral won’t like it if you’re late to your own ranking ceremony.”

“Yeah, I know, which is why I’m not particularly happy about it, but I’ll call it in and we can check out one of those moons we scanned in on when we warped in. It looks like there might be a breathable atmosphere, and that means….”

“Life?”

“Bingo…. Get the HELL out of my head, Convict!”

Krill stepped back a little in surprise. It was really disconcerting when the Captain did that. He didn’t tend to talk to Conn inside his head, and voiced his thoughts aloud out of habit. It lead for some very interesting outbursts in the middle of a quiet morning.

Vir motioned to Sunny, “Grab a team of your Drev and the marines, get a landing party ready, and set up my gear. I’ll be down as soon as I requisition the parts for repair, and tell this asshole how to fix the ship. Krill.” He turned away from Sunny and glanced over at Krill, “I want you with us this time. It seems like every time we end up planet side someone has to stick their squishy bits into something painful… me…. Mostly me.”

Sunny nodded, “Yes sir.” Stepping off the deck and clattering down the hallway. Krill sighed but followed after trying to decide just exactly which medical pack he should be taking. It didn’t take him long to decide he should take the extra-large size. He would have to find one of the marines to carry it for him seeing as it weighed more than Krill overall.

***

Captain Vir had strapped himself into the pilot’s seat flipping switches and turning dials like he had been born in the cockpit. The rest of the crew sat back joking and laughing quietly. After the first few months of unease around each other, the marines had become good friends with the Drev soldiers. It didn’t really surprise Sunny, she knew the marines, and if anyone had a Drev mindset, it was those men. Krill sat with them, his diminutive frame dwarfed by huge, muscle bound marines, and the 7-10 foot tall Drev. Sunny stared straight ahead at the wall unwilling to acknowledge the figure that sat next to her.

Moss, once upon a time she had liked him, and fancied him a good match as a future partner, but now, she could muster up nothing more than mild contempt for the Drev that had spurned her advances. She was one of the clan’s greatest warriors now, and she would not go sniveling back, no matter how many times he insinuated he would be interested. Perhaps she would find a better match, perhaps she already had.

Too bad, she thought, maybe if you had bothered to consider me BEFORE I became the greatest warrior the clan has known, than I wouldn’t be so inclined to reject you. She felt the engines below her rev, and Captain Vir maneuvered the ship into the airlock. Ahead of them, space opened above.

The captain jerked in his seat with a yelp. The crew turned to look, finding that Conn had snuck up against the side window and was making faces at the captain. Vir slammed his fist against the glass where the Starborn’s face was, “F*** off.” The Starborn gave a cheery wave at them as he floated into the airlock to retrieve the tools he would need for the repair, and then they were off, coasting through space.

The captain was the best pilot that Krill had ever known, and their entry into atmo was remarkably smooth. He easily maneuvered them through different layers controlling the ship as it tried to shake. Looking out the window, the sky above was blue; that was a good sign. They rocked into the landing sight not minutes later, and the captain powered down the ship running a quick atmospheric scan, “Oxygen content is a bit higher than normal, but it’s definitely breathable.” He said as he unstrapped form his seat. The marines and the Drev racked their helmets in response before moving back to preparing their weapons. Marines secured magazines into their rifles, while the Drev prepared a more eclectic variety of weapons.

The captain grabbed a rifle off the rack, and loaded it falling into a bent knee isosceles stance at the back of the group rifle down and ready finger hovering over the safety. The rest of the crew stacked up on the door while Krill watched, “Go.” The captain ordered flicking the safety off his weapon, as someone shoved open the door and the group of them flooded outwards weapons held at the ready fanning out into a wide half-circle. The captain fell in behind the marines taking a deep breath of air and scanning across the horizon.

“Report.”

“No signs of life sir, well, no animals anyway, tons of plants though.” One of the marines said nudging a nearby plant with his boot. It was an odd looking thing, a collection of roughly tubular stocks branching out of a single point. Each of the tubes had a channel running through the middle most closely resembling some sort of underwater sponge. As the marine’s foot came in contact with the plant, one of the stocks contracted lightly making a light puffing noise. The Marine took a step back.

“Careful, marine, we don’t know anything about this place, so it’s best to keep our hands and feet to ourselves.” The captain said coming forward to examine the plant, “Alright everyone, this is a simple recon mission. We walk around, maybe we take some samples with us back to the ship. If we see any wildlife, do not, I repeat, do not approach it. Do not touch any of the planets with bare hands until we have samples, and definitely do not put anything in your mouth….”

“Speaking from experience, CF?” One of the marines responded cheekily. The captain flipped him the bird, and the motioned them to move out. Krill remained at the center of the group where he would be most protected. Off to his right, one of the men carried the medical bag. As he floated, he clung to one of the Drev soldiers so that he wouldn’t slow them down or be left behind.

They adventured on the surface of the planet for some time, finding an eclectic array of plants getting bigger and bigger and taller and taller as they went further in. Those large sponges reached the height of a man’s chest by the time they decided to turn around. The captain lamented that they couldn’t stay here after dark as it seemed there was evidence of bioluminescent proteins in the plantlife.

They were almost to the ship when one of the marines let off an explosive curse. The group turned to look at him to find him shaking his foot and hopping up and down. The plant next to his foot was smoking.

“The hell, marine.” The captain demanded,

“Sorry sir,” He stammered, “I scuffed my boot on the ground, steel toe you know, and there were sparks everywhere.”

“Shit, get this under control till we burn down the entire planet, the higher oxygen content will make the fire worse than it should be.” At his order the group quickly surrounded the, now smoking, plant trying to create a barrier so it wouldn’t be able to move. It was a good sized sponge thing, and by the time they were done, the entire plant was up in flames billowing smoke left and right.

The group of them stood back to watch it burn glowering at the marine who had started the fire in the first place. He awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, “Sorry, Captain.” They all shook their heads at him. The captain reached up and wiped at his forehead with a hand. A light sheen of sweat glittered at his hairline, “Damn, it’s hot.” He remarked absently. One of the marines took a deep breath and nodded, he was sweating too.

“Worked up a bit of a sweat there.” Another commented hand over his chest, “I didn’t think we were working that hard.”

The man glanced down at his watch in confusion, “Hm, that’s weird.” One of the other marines looked over his shoulder, “120 bpm, dude, you’re out of shape.”

The captain glanced down at his watch, “Shit, me too.” He commented, “Anyway, we wait to make sre this burns out, and then we head back towards the ship.” The marines nodded, and the group of fanned out sitting on rocks or standing in the light of the sun.

The captain stood next to Sunny and Krill rifle resting lightly in its tac-sling. A trail of sweat trickled down the side of his face. “Hot.’ He muttered again.

“No it isn’t. “ Sunny said, the surface of the planet was at 65 degrees by her reckoning, as far as she was aware that was within comfortable temperature for a human. The human turned to look at her mouth open in protest, but as his eyes fell on her face her jerked back in sudden startlement nearly tripping over himself and back onto the burning sponge. Sunny caught him by the arm. The captain rubbed his eyes, “Thanks sunny, I thought I saw…..” He looked up eyes going wide, he jerked away from sunny violently backing away with his hands up. His pupils had contracted.

“Captain, are you ok?” Sunny asked.

One of the marines screamed.

Everyone turned to find the human hopping around batting at his uniform screaming, “Get them off, get them off GET THEM OFF!” There was nothing there.

Off to the side one of the marines was resting on a rock staring upwards into the empty air tilting his head back and forth as if he was following some unknown object back and forth across the sky. Another stood next to him her hands outwards staring at them with wide eyes, “When did my hands get so…. Massive?” She wondered idly.

Sunny turned to Krill, all of the Drev did, “What the hell.”

Captain Vir had backed away a few steps, tripped over a rock and landed flat on his back. He was staring up at the sky an expression of memorized wonder on his face. Krill jabbed a hand at the Drev soldiers, “Get them onto the ship, NOW. Something is effecting them, and if it’s effecting all of them, than it has to be in the air.” The Drev soldiers did as told each scooping one of the humans up in their many arms. It was a rather odd image, Drev soldiers cradling fully-armed marines like you’d carry a child.

Sunny approached and hoisted the captain into her arms. The man lolled listlessly against her arm. His skin was tinted a warm pink about the cheeks. They hurried onto the ship just then. Some of the marines struggled, others commented on things that weren’t there. The one who had commented on the size of her hands earlier gave a wide-eyed look at the ship, “its breathing.” She commented, “The ship is breathing.”

The door slammed shut behind them. One of the Drev soldiers slipped into the captain’s chair. He wasn’t a particularly skilled pilot, but he could make it out of there.

By now Krill had begun looking over the captain. The man was warm to the touch, and indicated an abnormally high body temperature on Krill’s equipment. His heart hammered away at an unreasonable pace as he lolled in his seat. He found similar things on the other marines, not to mention clear evidence of visual and auditory hallucinations going right along with changes in perception.

The Drev looked on uneasily at the humans as they shifted and squirmed seeing things that weren’t there and responding to conversations they weren’t having. Captain Vir lay on his side now, “I can’t move, head, too big.” The marine who had been screaming about getting them off earlier, was now crying. They were crawling under his skin now, he saw them.

One of the marines had to be restrained. He wanted to step outside to, get some fresh air.

Krill used the coms to call up to the ship, demanding that the medical staff be waiting for them when they got there.

By the time thirty minutes had passed, all of the humans were completely overrun by unknown images and stimuli. The female marine was smiling and rocking, while one of the other marines had to be restrained from digging at his skin. Captain Vir lay with his cheek on the floor absently stroking the cold metal with one hand. He repeated the action over and over again as if he was stroking a cat or a dog, or something particularly fluffy. They approached the ship, and Conn idly floated over to meet them, likely to annoy the captain for a fifth time that day, as he grew closer, the starborn stopped in id space and slowly began backpedaling. His head tilted back a little and he stared upwards at the sky, mouth open hands out to either side. Whatever was affecting the human had clearly made it through the mental link and into Conn’s head.

They floated past and pulled into the docking bay where the medical team was waiting just beyond the airlock. Krill barely had the patience to wait as the compartment was filled with air. The medical team rushed inwards and to the door as it opened. The humans were carried out squirming and babbling. One of the marines had to be strapped down.

“Get them on a saline drip.” Krill ordered, “They’re losing water fast from the high body temperature, get some blood samples. Don’t touch them if you don’t have to, we think they caught it from the air, but we can’t be sure.”

The female Marine was still smiling staring up at the ceiling like she was staring at a choir of angels. A tear dripped down the side of her face.

They were wheeled away into the interior of the ship as the crew stared on in confusion. Captain Vir was rolling from side to side against the orders of the medical staff looking up at their faces with wide eyes, “Aliens,” he whispered.

They were all pulled into the medical bay and transferred to the beds. Space suits, and uniform jackets were pulled off as they were started on saline drips. A few of the marines were relatively calm, but others not so much. Symptoms of paranoia grew and grew and grew until one marine was convinced they planned on stealing his liver.

“What the hell is happening here!” Krill demanded, but none of the medical staff seemed to have an answer. They had been working a while, the captain had curled into a tight ball and refused to uncurl. The symptoms of whatever it was didn’t seem likely to abate any time soon.

As they were working, one of the young airmen walked into the infirmary. He was holding a bleeding hand at elevation, but as soon as he saw what was going on he paused, “Shit, sorry, I can come back later.” Krill growled but shook his head and came over to examine the young man. he sat down for Krill and craned his neck at the captain in the next bed. The man was staring at the edge of the bed with a look of fear in his eyes, “Damn, who gave these guys the bad acid?” the airman wondered

Krill stopped bandaging his hand long enough to look up, “What did you say….”

The man shrugged, “oh sorry, nothing.”

“No, do you know what’s going on.”

The boy blushed, “I well no, but I know what it LOOKS like.”

“And what is that.” Krill demanded impatiently

“Well it looks like all of them are tripping acid.” He paused when Krill stared at him blankly, “Like drugs, you know hallucinogens Lucy in the sky with diamonds, golden dragon, Looney Tunes, Tab, Purple Heart, stardust. Come on magic mushrooms, Molly, angel dust.”

Krill shook his head, “What are the words coming out of your mouth.”

The kid shrugged, “I mean what I said, it looks like they are on acid, you know hallucinations, changes in perception, synesthesia, high temp, and increased heartrate. These guys have got to being some weird shit right about now…. Don’t tell me they didn’t know what they were doing?”

Krill remained silent.

“Well shit, better put on some calming music and hope it doesn’t get bad. You don’t let someone on a trip when they don’t know about it cause….”

Just to the side captain Vir began to scream eyes wide staring at the edge of the bed, he pulled back scrambling away like something was crawling at him over the edge of the bed, the crew had to grab him and hold him as he tried to fight them off convinced of something only he could see.

“Because it could turn into a bad trip really fast.”

The captain was shaking spouting nonsense as they strapped him down. While some of the other marines seemed content to lay there and stare at the ceiling, while others, like the captain fought against something only they could see.

Krill turned to the young man, “How do we get rid of it.”

The kid shrugged, “Far as I know, you can’t just have to wait it of might take six maybe eight hours, but that’s assuming they smoked something conventional and THIS does not look conventional. These guys are tripping hard. No funny perception problems, no special colors. He looks like he’s seeing Satan.”

Krill was not pleased, and the kid turned out to be right. The humans were like that for the next six hours convinced of the things they were seeing fighting against the medical team when they could. Captain Vir seemed suspended in a bubble of absolute horror head moving around breathing hard like THINGS were crawling over the ceiling tormenting him. The Drev soldiers seemed absolutely fine, and Krill didn’t have problems either.

When the humans finally started to come down the young man had convinced them to play some music. Groaning and shaking their heads, the marines started to look around in confusion. Sunny sat next to captain Vir patting his arm as he slowly began to recognize her. The visual disturbances slowly faded until he was lucid enough to look down at his restraints, “This shit again?”

They untied him, and he leaned back looking exhausted, his stomach growled, “That must be what hell feels like….. what happened?”

Sunny frowned, “That kid said to tell you…. Tripping acid, said you would know what that means.”

“F***, really but, how. I’ve never…. Wait. That plant, the one that caught fire.” He glowered over at the marine, “Sanchez! You went and f****ng got us all high.”

“Sorry, Captain.” The man groaned

Captain Vir sighed breathing deeply, “And people do that shit for fun? No thanks, not on your life, no thanks.”

He paused head cocked to the side, “Couldn’t tell if you were a hallucination or not.” He muttered into thin air, “Well SORRY, didn’t mean to accidentally get high and disturb you. You know what, maybe I will. Next time you piss me off, I’m going to get high, then maybe you won’t root around in my head so much.”

Krill wasn’t totally sure if the Captain was still coming down or just talking to Conn. Either way, he vetoed any and all trips back to the planet, at least by humans. It was too easy to mess with the neurotransmitters in a humans head. From what he learned from later research, hallucinogens supposedly acted as a serotonin agonist, and serotonin had a lot to do with perception. The increase serotonin was suspected to cause hallucinations and perceptual disturbances. Some humans were said to do this for fun.

Captain Vir didn’t seem amused, and had to have a long conversation with the crewman who knew about it.

At least Conn seemed less inclined to annoy the man…. even if just a little.

Street name: Astrodust

Classification: hallucinogen

Cite of action: Serotonin 5-HT re-uptake transporter

Taken: Smoked, trans-dermal application

#humans are weird #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #earth is space australia

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for-honor-steel-hack-4z · 2 years ago

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Gameplay | For Honor Wiki | Fandom

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 They say money makes the world go round and, from what we've seen in For Honor , this is true for the fictional world of Knights, Viking and Samurai as well. Steel is the in-game currency in For Honor and players earn steel from winning battles and completing missions in order to use it to purchase character outfits, experience boosters and more. Of course, Ubisoft offers microtransactions to players that are willing to pay for a little bit of convenience, but there are other ways too. Namely exploits. If you can make it past the seizure-inducing intro, Sir Meme eventually breaks down what it takes to perform the glitch. First, open a Multiplayer Dominion match as it is the most effective game mode for the particular glitch. However, it is important that you invest in Champion Status, which will start at steel for three days. Once you win a match in Multiplayer Dominion, quickly disconnect from the internet as soon as the screen begins to load from victory to the rewards screen. An error will prompt and tell the player: "The network connection has been lost. Please check your internet connection. Returning to title screen []. According to Sir Meme, the glitch will earn 80 steel the first match, steel the second match, steel the third, and so on. Except when Sir Meme tried to start a second game of Dominion to replicate the glitch for the viewers, his PS4 prompted another error and he goes into another seizure-inducing tirade. In conclusion, the glitch was never proven and even I ended up wasting my time trying to figure out if a For Honor steel glitch even exists. As far as I know, it doesn't and no one has been able to replicate the glitch properly. Earn your skill like the rest of us — through legitimate hack and slash. Want some tips on how to improve your game in For Honor? Be sure to check out our multiplayer tips and tricks guide. For Honor Achievements Ubisoft. Join the Discussion. Trending Now. You Might Also Like. Top Stories. By Jason Nieva. A new anniversary event gives players the chance to get their hands on a new character. There are also some new limited-time events that offer cool rewards. The franchise gives players the chance to relive some of the famous scenes in One Piece canon while offering a new and original storyline. The series is also known for the use of simple controls and being able to bring down a lot of enemies in a single stroke. By Kenneth Araullo. Tencent Games and Logitech will be creating something very much different from what has been the norm from other handheld PC makers. Xbox Game Pass for August features several titles that are sure to appeal to fans of open-world shooters, weird racing games, cooking sims, economic RTS titles, and wannabe principals. Five titles are also leaving the service by August Game Reviews. The Super Mario Bros. Animated Film Releasing Invalid email address. Twitter Facebook Instagram Tumblr.

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antiques-for-geeks · 6 years ago

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Atari 8-bit lucky dip!

The Atari 8 bit was never a popular machine in the UK. Given its relative obscurity here (...if there's one thing I'm a sucker for it's the obscure) and the fact that it's a product of a fertile period for one of the most famous gaming brands, I've always been interested in getting one to play with.

After a bit of fishing on Ebay I managed to get a 600xl for a reasonable price; old hardware is getting pretty expensive and A8's seem more expensive than most. The 600xl is the smaller brother of the flagship 800xl, and is appealingly diminutive for an 8 bit micro. It does have one main disadvantage - it only comes with 16k of ram, so until I can upgrade it to 64k I'm left with a machine that will only be able to play simpler, earlier titles.

Scrubs up quite well!

I bought a flash cart (an UNO cart, which has worked flawlessly) and loaded it with games that should play on my 16k machine. Among the conversions of popular arcade titles of the time, there were many that I didn't recognise. Over the coming weeks I'm going to trawl through all of the games I can get to work and give them each a short review ...for better or worse...

Abracadabra

TG Software / 1983

Wander round a single screen maze blasting wizards with your magic, collecting keys and treasures. To make things more exciting, the walls move periodically, changing the layout of the maze.

I really thought I was going to like this game. These single screen maze shooters are often a lot of fun, but sadly the movement of main character is stiff and awkward here. He seems to want to follow a narrow path even where it looks like you have a wider area to move in, leading to frustrating moments where you push a direction and nothing happens. If there's one thing an arcade style maze game needs it's precise control, so I can't recommend this one.

Alien Ambush

DANA / 1983

This is a fairly basic vertical shooter with a scrolling star background. The graphics are chunky, but a bit muddy - more like an early C64 game. One or two aliens appear on the screen - simply shoot them and avoid their wreckage. Sometimes they split into smaller enemies when hit. It’s competent enough, but there's not much to make this one stand out.

Alpha Shield

Sirius Software / 1983

This seems like a simplified Star Castle rip-off, and is a game which I remember previously playing on the Atari 2600. This version is very similar, though a touch more colourful. The original version seemed like a clunky attempt to get around the limitations of the 2600, substituting the Asteroids style point and thrust controls of the arcade for more traditional directional control. While it qualified as a decent effort for that machine it’s a bit out of place on the much better equipped 8-bit.

Anteater

Romox / 1983

Extremely similar to the arcade game Dig Dug with most of the excitement sucked out. A single anteater follows your ant through the tunnels left behind as you dig through the layers of earth. The goal here seems to be to collect ant eggs from a pile on the surface and bring them back to your nest. It might well get more exciting as the levels progress, but I found the first one so tedious I refuse to give it any more of my precious time ...especially as I know there are 2 different official conversions of Dig Dug itself coming up later!

Asteroids

Atari / 1981

F-ugly but functional take on one of my favourite games ever. Asteroids is one of the handful of early arcade games I always enjoy playing. It's an ageless classic, so a mediocre conversion like this is a real shame. It has chunky and jerky graphics, and the movement of the ship is too crude to properly capture the feel of the original. It's not the worst game ever, and has a handy 4 player mode if you're using an Atari 400/800 with enough joystick ports... but it's not a patch on the 7800 version, and even the cut down Atari 2600 is probably more playable despite it's inaccuracy.

Astro Chase

First Star Software / 1982

Can I skip the intro where astronaut walks slowly to their ship and takes off please? This has quite nicely drawn graphics for an early game. You fly through a maze of planets, scrolling in 4 directions. You can shoot some enemy spaceships... but what the hell am I supposed to be doing here? I’m not sure instructions will improve matters, because there seems to be no urgency or excitement to this game at all.

Atlantis

Imagic / 1983

A conversion of the Imagic Atari 2600 classic - like a simplified version of missile command designed to fit in with the limitations of the VCS. You have control of 3 defensive turrets protecting a city from an attacking space fleet. When I say ‘control’ what I mean is that you can choose to fire lasers from one of the turrets, but you cant change where they fire; one goes left, one right and one straight up. It’s purely an exercise in timing shots, made more difficult by the possibility of one or more of your turrets being destroyed. This is just a small graphical upgrade over the 2600 version. It's a playable game for sure, and gets quite frantic, but I never found it quite as fun and well balanced as its inspiration.

BC's Quest For Tires

Sierra On-Line / 1983

A sort of proto-typical endless runner, this has very bold cartoon graphics for early 80's game. You control a cave-guy riding ever rightwards on a single stone wheel. You start off by jumping pot holes and ducking under branches. There are some sections later where you have to time a jump over a river on some bobbing turtles backs. It's got some entertainment value, but I found it pretty repetitive stuff and I got stuck timing the river jumps. Bit of a theme forming here - games that wowed people with fancy cartoon graphics are often exposed as hollow experiences after a few decades have passed!

Beamrider

Activision / 1984

This is more like it! A solid version of a fun old-school shooter. This could be described as being like a simplified version of the arcade game Tempest, played out on a flat plane. You fly over a grid toward an infinite horizon, blasting enemies as they travel down fixed lanes toward your ship. I liked this one on the Atari 2600, and I like it here too. It's got the right mix of stylish but abstract graphics and frantic game-play to feel like it could have been an arcade effort of the time, something that many of these games clearly aspire to.

Berzerk

1983 / Atari

<Thwak!> ... boots Atari across the room ... I can't get this to work on my flash cart for some reason. I love this game, and I know from past experience that this is probably the best home version around (or at least the best that was released at the time). The game-play is spot on, and it has quite a bit of the metallic robot speech that livened up the arcade version. When I get a working copy of this it will get the full review it deserves.

Blaster

Williams / 1984

The only home version of a really obscure Williams into the screen arcade shooter, this is blocky and slow, with crazy psychedelic line drawing graphics. Apparently this was made before the arcade version, but was never officially released. It’s as basic as they come; you avoid things and shoot things. The game-play is shallow, the controls are treacly and the graphics are possibly seizure inducing .... and yet I somehow found this one quite appealing!

Boulder Dash

First Star Software / 1984

A stone cold classic dig-a-thon. You move through a scrolling level, hollowing out the earth a behind you to collect all the diamonds. Once all are collected you can exit to the next level. Making things more difficult, rocks dotted about will fall when undermined - a crush danger - and butterfly like enemies follow you through the tunnels you leave behind in the earth. The levels take on a heavy puzzle element - much more so than in Dig Dug, from which this takes some inspiration. The patterns of rocks have to be worked round with careful consideration to get all the diamonds. This seems like a great version that I'd like to spend more time with.

Bristles

First Star Software / 1983

Here is quite a likable single screen platformer where you catch lifts to visit different parts of the screen in order to paint all the walls. As expected, there are enemies to avoid who will bump you down a level on contact. There's also a 'lady' who wanders the halls leaving dirty hand prints on your new paint work. These have to be repainted to complete the level and she'll make you swear with rage before too long. When all the walls have changed colour on move to the next level with more walls to paint and more enemies to avoid. Being repeatedly bumped down the levels by errant enemies and lifts can frustrating, but once you have the hang of what the game expects of you it's fairly compelling.

Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom

SEGA / 1983

A conversion of the early SEGA into the screen shooter. This one appeared on many of the computers and consoles of the time, no matter how primitive - there's even an Atari 2600 version. The arcade game must have been very impressive at the time, using scaling sprites to convey the impression of barriers and enemies rushing toward you from the horizon. Sadly, like most of these home conversions, this version looks crude in comparison, sporting flickery graphics and jittery controls. It's also missing a 'trench run' stage present in the arcade which I'm sure could have been re-created in some form on the home hardware. It's not a terrible game, but has aged poorly and is ultimately pretty dull. I did like the colourful psychedelic flashing when a level is complete!

Captain Beeble

Inhome Software / 1983

This one didn't look much at first viewing, but turned out to be quite good fun, if frustratingly difficult at times. Fly around caverns on a jet-pack, fighting against the effects of gravity and blasting all the aliens on each scrolling level. Making things much more difficult, large crushing blocks fly across the level and deadly walls fry you on touch. I've always enjoyed games where you had to fight against gravitational effects, and it adds quite a bit to what would otherwise be a simple game. The graphics are quite plain, and this would be an easy game to overlook - give it a go.

#review #atari #8-bit #retrogaming #antiquesforgeeks

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richardmperry88 · 4 years ago

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10 Ways to Make Your Website Accessible

Every website owner wants to attract as many visitors as possible. However, few take the steps necessary to ensure their site can be used by everyone. There are millions of users out there who rely on sites being accessible, and if you don’t take the time to understand their needs, everyone will be missing out.

Fortunately, accessibility isn’t difficult to implement. You just need to understand the underlying issues that can make a site hard or impossible to use by certain people. Once you do, you can take steps to avoid those mistakes and make your site welcoming to all visitors.

In this article, we’ll look at what website accessibility actually involves and why it’s so important. We’ll also outline the most important accessibility guidelines and show you how to implement them on your site. Let’s get going!

A Brief Introduction to Web Accessibility

Ideally, everyone should be able to use any website on the internet. It shouldn’t matter if they have a condition that affects their capabilities or what hardware and software they need to use. This is the main tenet behind the concept of web accessibility.

The fact is that millions of internet users have special needs, disabilities, and impairments that can make it difficult or even impossible for them to use certain types of websites. By designing your site with these challenges in mind, you can ensure that it’s welcoming to as many users as possible.

While there are a lot of disabilities and conditions that can affect the way people use websites, let’s take a look at some of the most common categories of impairments:

Visual Impairment: This includes a partial or total inability to see or to perceive color contrasts.

Hearing Impairment: Some users have a reduced ability to hear.

Motor Skills/Physical Disabilities: Users may have difficulty moving parts of their bodies, including making precise movements (such as when using a mouse).

Photosensitive Seizures: Conditions such as epilepsy can cause seizures that are often triggered by flashing lights.

Cognitive Disabilities: There are also many conditions that affect cognitive ability, such as dementia and dyslexia.

To work around these issues, many people use assistive technologies to browse the internet. This includes screen readers that vocalize the text on each page, speech recognition software that converts speech into text, Braille terminals, and even alternative keyboards that accommodate special needs.

As such, it’s possible for almost anybody to browse the web. What’s more, you can make their experiences significantly better by designing your site with accessibility in mind.

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Why Making Your Website Accessible Should Be a Priority

As you can imagine, the benefits to the user of making your site accessible are huge. This is an important thing to do simply from a humanistic perspective, as it ensures that you don’t shut out people with disabilities.

Of course, improving accessibility on your site provides you with a lot of benefits as well. Crucially, it immediately expands your potential audience. The math should be evident here. If more users are able to use your site, you’ve just grown your potential user base exponentially. This could put you one step ahead of competitors who may not have taken the same steps towards accessibility.

By thinking in terms of accessibility, you can also benefit all your visitors, not just those who fit the categories we listed earlier. Many of the considerations involved in making your site more accessible will also improve its overall design and usability. Plus, you’ll be making your site more flexible and “future-proof” along the way.

Finally, it’s important to note that many countries have laws regarding web and software accessibility. As such, you may be legally required to match specific accessibility standards.

Thankfully, you’re not alone. The Web Accessibility Initiative project has been working since 1997 to help improve accessibility online. Be sure to check out the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, also known as WCAG, on their site. These guidelines specifically outline steps you can take to make your site more user-friendly.

Similarly, WordPress has its own Make WordPress Accessible team that focuses specifically on the platform. There are also countless other community-driven projects, such as A11Y, that provide guidance and resources to help you create highly accessible websites.

10 Ways to Make Your Website Accessible

Now we’re going to look at a few ways you can make your website more accessible right away.

First, we should mention that one of the most important things you need to do is choose the right Content Management System (CMS) to run your site on.

When it comes to accessibility, few CMSes can top WordPress. As such, we’ll be referencing a number of solutions specific to the WordPress platform throughout this guide (although you can find accessibility tools for nearly any CMS).

1. Make Sure Your Site Is Keyboard-Friendly

This step is also the most important. Put simply: for a website to be accessible, it must work without the use of a mouse. This is because many assistive technologies rely on keyboard-only navigation. As such, it must be possible to use all of your site’s major features via a keyboard and nothing else. This includes accessing all pages, links, content, and so on.

The most common way of navigating using a keyboard is with the Tab key. This will jump between areas on a page that can have “keyboard focus,” which includes links, buttons, and forms. Therefore, your goal should be to ensure that all web content and navigation can be accessed using Tab.

This is easy to test — simply use your own site without a mouse. If you find that you can’t access certain elements or that navigating is difficult, you can pinpoint those issues and address them. To help you out with this, WebAIM provides a handy guide for keyboard accessibility design.

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2. Make Sure All Content Is Easily Accessible

In addition to making your site keyboard-friendly, you also need to ensure that all content on the page is actually accessible. While this is usually not a problem, it can be an issue when a page contains dynamic content.

In short, content is dynamic if it can change without the page it’s on reloading. This can become a problem if the site doesn’t inform assistive tools of the change. For example, many screen readers will only “read” the site as it appears when it first loads. As such, you need to make it aware when something shifts, or the user will miss the new content.

One way you can do this is by using ARIA landmarks. These are tags you add to content in order to clearly define it on the page. You can tag dynamic content as a “live region,” which enables screen readers and similar devices to understand the content as it changes.

ARIA is also useful for making navigation more straightforward as it lets users skip directly to specific content. This way, they won’t have to tab through every menu item just to get to your main content and can easily pass over other link-heavy sections. The same effect can be achieved using skip-to-main links, which are invisible links that let users skip menus. However, ARIA tends to be more flexible and efficient.

The Make WordPress Accessible handbook contains a section on ARIA landmarks that you may want to check out. It’s also worth noting that all WordPress themes with the accessibility-ready tag will have ARIA landmarks added by default.

3. Add Alt Text to All Images

When adding images to WordPress, you’ve probably noticed this field.

Here, you can enter the alternative text for an image. This text acts as a replacement for the image if it fails to load.

However, alt text (sometimes called alt attributes, alt descriptions, or alt tags) is also accessed by screen readers to “read” the picture. You can, therefore, use this field to describe an image, giving context to users who would otherwise miss it.

As if that weren’t enough, alt text can also help you improve your site’s SEO, giving search engines more information to crawl. Just make sure to write descriptive summaries of each image, and try to include your keywords whenever it makes sense.

4. Choose Your Colors Carefully

We often talk about color blindness as if it’s a, no pun intended, black-and-white issue. However, it’s more of a spectrum since different people perceive colors in unique ways (remember The Dress)? As such, you need to make sure the colors you select on your site contrast well to ensure that everyone can distinguish between various elements on the page.

The most pressing issue is making sure text stands out against the background. Ideally, you should set a dark color against a light one, making sure that they don’t bleed into each other.

Let’s say you want to use a blue color scheme. You’d want to avoid creating a palette where the shades are too similar in hue and saturation, like this:

This is very difficult to read. Instead, a clearer color contrast works much better.

You’ll also want to avoid clashing colors that could cause eye strain. Check out this headache-inducing album cover if you don’t believe us.

There are plenty of online tools you can use to find and test color combinations. WebAIM has one, and we also like Contrast Checker because it gives you a score in real-time. The latter tool also enables you to switch to monochrome to get a rough idea of how effective any given combination is.

5. Use Headers to Structure Your Content Correctly

Another key task to make your site accessible is structuring your content by using headers carefully. Doing this will make your content much easier to understand and digest and improves flow.

Additionally, clear headers also help screen readers interpret your pages. This makes it much easier to provide in-page navigation. It’s also simple to do as you only need to ensure you use the correct heading levels in your content.

For instance, you should only use one H1 per page – usually as the page title. This can be followed by subheadings starting with H2, which can then be nested further with H3, followed by H4. These should always be used in order so you should avoid using an H4 directly after an H2 (and so on).

6. Design Your Forms for Accessibility

Forms are a useful addition to most sites but must be designed carefully. What’s most important is to ensure that each field is clearly labeled. You should also aim to place the labels adjacent to the respective fields. While a sighted user can easily match a label to the corresponding field or option, this may not be obvious for someone using a screen reader.

You should also aim to provide instructions and information in a clear way that the user can easily understand. To create accessible forms in WordPress, you can use a tool like the Caldera Forms builder. This is a plugin specifically focused on accessibility, which will make your job much easier.

7. Don’t Use Tables for Anything Except Tabular Data

When it comes to displaying data, tables are handy. They make it much easier for all users, including those using assistive technology, to parse a large amount of data. To get the maximum benefit, however, you’ll want to keep your tables as simple as you can.

In addition, it’s best to avoid using tables for anything but tabular data. For example, you should never use a table for layouts, lists, or anything else. This can be confusing to screen readers and similar devices.

If you do need to create more complex tables, you can follow this guide from W3. It shows you how to code a table while maintaining accessibility standards.

8. Enable Resizable Text That Doesn’t Break Your Site

Most devices and browsers will enable users to resize text, which can be helpful for those with visual impairments. However, if you don’t build your site to support this feature, resizing text could break your design or make it difficult to interact with your site.

A good practice is to avoid absolute units, such as specifying text size using pixels. Instead, use relative sizes, which enable the text to scale depending on other content and screen size.

You should also never turn off user scalability as this will make it difficult for users to resize the text at all.

To make sure your site meets these criteria, test your font sizes thoroughly by increasing the zoom level in your own browser. If you notice that content becomes difficult to read or navigate, you can check out this guide by WebAIM that discusses font size.

9. Avoid Automatic Media and Navigation

Automatically-playing media files have been a bane of internet users since the days of MySpace. As annoying as it can be to have music or videos start when a page loads, this is an even bigger issue in terms of accessibility.

For example, figuring out how to turn off the media can be difficult when using a screen reader, while other users could simply be confused or even frightened by the sudden noise. You should, therefore, avoid including elements that start without the user first prompting them.

It’s also best to avoid automatic navigation, such as carousels and sliders. This can be incredibly frustrating if the viewer needs more time to absorb all the information before moving on to the next slide or section.

Related: Leveling the Web: 12 Questions with Accessibility Expert Gian Wild

10. Create Content With Accessibility in Mind

Finally, we come to the core of your site: its content. While designing your site for accessibility is hugely important, you should bear the same considerations in mind when creating content.

This means paying attention to relatively minor things, such as always fully writing out acronyms, to more important points, like making sure you give all your links unique, descriptive names and anchor text.

If you’ve read through this entire tutorial, you’ll already have a clear idea of the potential issues that can cause certain users trouble. Keep in mind that — just as your site should usable by anybody — your content should be approachable and readable no matter who discovers it.

Web Content Accessibility Matters

Making sure your site is welcoming to as many people as possible should be a top priority. There’s no reason to exclude anybody, especially since it’s relatively easy to avoid doing so. Not only will your users thank you, but you’ll also likely see benefits in the form of increased traffic and conversions.

By taking the time to understand the possible flaws in your design and content, you can make sure your site is optimized for accessibility today.

At DreamHost, our mission is to empower people to get online. That means we take accessibility seriously. If you’re ready to set up a site, consider DreamPress, our managed WordPress hosting solution. With automatic updates and strong security defenses, DreamPress takes server management off your hands so you can focus on what really matters: creating a site that can be used (and enjoyed) by everyone. Learn more about plan options today.

The post 10 Ways to Make Your Website Accessible appeared first on Website Guides, Tips and Knowledge.

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term7itmedia · 5 years ago

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Research - Health and Safety

Health and safety is a mandatory precaution that is taken everywhere in the world, ranging from workplaces with dangerous equipment to media with flashing images or certain colour patterns.

The key factor with health and safety is to take measures to ensure that the experience is somewhat safe for everyone, while not causing discomfort, injury or death to the person.

Here, I will cover the health and safety process for photosensitive epilepsy, which is a huge concern in the movie/gaming industry.

If you don’t know (I don’t know how you don’t), photosensitive epilepsy is a lifelong condition that causes person affected to have seizures triggered by flashing lights or certain colour patterns. Symptoms of epilepsy can include confusion, fatigue, memory loss and headaches.

Be aware that the following footage contains rapidly flashing images. If you are prone to seizures induced by digital media, you may want to skip this post.

Earthbound

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Earthbound is a video game where a boy named Ness goes out on an adventure to save the world from the curse of Giygas, an entity so powerful he controls everything his mind is set on.

When fighting in Earthbound, some attacks have a strobing effect. While they doesn’t last more than 2 seconds, it is still fast enough to trigger discomfort or seizures in epileptics.

One of the worst cases of Earthbound’s flashing images is the Giygas fight itself. During the fifth phase of the fight, Giygas starts flashing red, blue and yellow all over the screen, similar to what you would find in that of TV static noise, which is only black and white. While doing this, his background also moves at set speeds. This combination of imagery makes even the most healthy players dizzy after a while.

When Giygas is dying, the same principles apply to his background image, which will often turn into static, flashing the same colours and moving at the same speed.

I don’t know of any cases that someone had a seizure or death from playing this fight, and even if there are... I’m surprised they made it that far into the game.

Because of the generation the game was made in (1994), HAL Laboratory and Ape (the developers of the game) didn’t take epilepsy into account, as it wasn't much of a known concern in the gaming world back then. But with the re-release of the console it was published on (the Super Nintendo Entertainment System), there is a built-in feature that can detect when an image of a strobing effect is present, after which it blurs the image greatly. However, that doesn’t mean it is perfect, as it is still sensitive to some flashing images, but those only show for about 3 seconds.

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So it goes to show that old-time game developers do take things seriously and they implement measures to combat these disabilities from doing any damage.

osu!

osu! is a rhythm game where players have to click circles to the beat of the song they are playing in-game, the setup of which is created by map creators in the built-in editor.

This video is ONLY to show the epilepsy warning, not that the game should be played in this manner. The game is MUCH easier than this.

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As you can see, upon selecting a song, an epilepsy warning pops up while the song loads. If the song finishes loading before the epilepsy warning fades away, the warning will only disappear after its timer expires, which is only 3 seconds.

Aside from pros, there are also cons. The pros are that this is actually talked about within the osu! community (unlike Earthbound) and implemented into the game. Another pro is that the player can dim the background completely, so they’re playing on a black canvas with no worries. However, if the player has certain mods applied to the song, there may be issues. For example, the Hidden mod allows circles to be seen for a brief period of time before disappearing. It is still clickable, you just can’t see it. So if there are hundreds of these circles under this effect while playing on Double mode, the song is no longer that safe.

The cons however, are that it only shows for a short amount of time, so people who cannot read fast (like people with dyslexia) definitely don’t have enough time to read the entire thing in one go. Another con is that the epilepsy warning HAS to be set by the map creator in the map settings, as this isn’t something internally programmed like the SNES re-release I mentioned earlier.

UNO

UNO is a game where four players have a hand of 7 cards, and they try to empty their hand completely by playing cards under certain restrictions.

When the game starts up, after the titles roll, this message appears. It is a long one, but it goes into detail how some players will suffer from seizures when playing games. It is shown for about 10 seconds as the game loads, which is still not enough time for some people to read through, as stated earlier when referring to osu!.

It’s a good thing that this shows before the game is played, as with Earthbound, there is no warning whatsoever throughout the entirety of the game.

There are no flashing lights in this game, but there are certain light patterns that may cause discomfort in those with epilepsy.

Tetris

Tetris is a video game where players attempt to clear lines by moving falling tetrominos into place.

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Whenever a Tetris is cleared (or 4 lines at once), the screen flashes rapidly for half a second. While this isn’t that harsh on those with epilepsy, it is still fast enough to cause any symptoms in those with it, considering another Tetris clear could follow and make symptoms worse.

Why?

Because epilepsy is a huge concern for gamers, I will be including a feature in my game that disables all flashing imagery... that is if I put any in to begin with. I probably won’t. If you are making a game as well, I hope this taught you a lesson... or gave you more reason to include images of a strobing nature.

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thefilmsnob · 7 years ago

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Tomb Raider: ** out of 5

The first Tomb Raider video game released in 1996 was considered a ground-breaking title. The graphics and gameplay were stellar for the era and it featured a tough, adventurous female protagonist, something quite unique at the time. It was also released when 2D side-scrollers had been dominating the industry for more than a decade, so having a lush, sprawling 3D environment full of imposing caverns, mysterious tombs and underground cities to explore with the help of a beautiful, young lady was revolutionary, the sense of adventure unparalleled.

Adapting this game into a movie, in theory, is a no-brainer. But, this task almost always leads to failure. Michael Fassbender tried to change this in 2016 as the star of Assassin’s Creed, another movie based on an acclaimed video game, and his wife Alicia Vikander is out to do the same as Lara Croft in the rebooted Tomb Raider. But, although the couple has every right to brag about their exceptional acting skills at the dinner table, neither can claim to have saved the video game movie.

And it all comes back to that sense of discovery and adventure, something this movie lacks. What we get with this reboot is a generic action film with a paint-by-numbers plot, one that leads our heroin to the mysterious island of Yamatai in the Devil’s Sea, the supposed resting place of a mythical queen called Himiko who’s said to command the power over life and death. Such a setup has limitless potential and conjures up images of the aforementioned caves, tombs and lost cities; primitive tribes; perilous jungle; hidden treasure; rope bridges; dangerous flora and fauna; and loads of opportunities for exploration. But director Roar Uthaug and his team of writers squander these possibilities, instead giving us a bland island that’s barely explored save for the final sequence.

Say what you will about Lost’s confusing plot, but the writers on that show knew how to take full advantage of their setting. That island was brimming with wonders; characters couldn’t walk two feet without finding another secret hatch or smoke monster (ya, that’s right). The island was so thoroughly explored and detailed that it became another character itself. Of course, the film makers here have much less time to work with, but even a slightly more capable team could’ve breathed at least some life into this place.

Before we get to the island, though, we’re introduced to Lara as a bike courier of all things. After taking part in a weird bike race through London, for some reason, she’s arrested. Her father’s business partner, Ana Miller (Kristin Scott Thomas), posts her bail and convinces Lara to claim her inheritance from her father, Richard (Dominic West), who’s gone missing and is presumed dead. She gains access to Croft Manor as well as Richard’s hidden office where she finds his research on Himiko and a recording with instructions to destroy said research. But, there wouldn’t be a movie if she did, so she’s off to Yamatai, but not before a pit stop in Hong Kong where she hires Lu Ren (Daniel Wu) to sail his ship Endurance through the treacherous Devil’s Sea that proves too violent for the vessel as it capsizes and leaves Lara washed ashore on the island with Lu nowhere to be found.

The point when Lara wakes up would be a great opportunity to introduce us to the island, but, instead, she and the audience are immediately introduced to the villain followed by the obligatory hired goons in a most anticlimactic fashion. Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins) is her shady wake-up call and he’s neither menacing nor interesting. For that matter, Lu Ren isn’t much of a character at all but merely a plot device, a means of transportation and the writers’ lazy way to get Lara out of jams. Vogel works for the shadowy organization Trinity who wants to weaponize Himiko’s power and this forms the core of the frustratingly straightforward and lifeless narrative.

After Lara’s story on the island commences, it just doesn’t let up; there’s one crisis after another with no time for her or us to catch our breath or learn more about these characters that are constantly running, jumping and hanging on for dear life. Considering this, you could say the film’s at once overwritten and underwritten.

The latter trait is most frustrating with regards to Lara herself. Vikander is a great actress as evidenced by her work in Ex Machina and The Danish Girl, for which she earned an Oscar, but the writers let her down. We know what Lara’s capable of physically—although we don’t really know how—and some flashbacks do an adequate job at building the father-daughter bond, but we never know exactly who this character is, so consequently don’t really care what she does. To be honest, the 2013 video game reboot does a better job at fleshing out the character. Vikander, though, is as tough and charismatic as she can be with this material. She’s especially effective after tumbling down a hill or, you know, being impaled. Her screams of agony are never less than utterly convincing.

And the movie gives her plenty of opportunities for this kind of acting. In fact, all the action in the first half consists of three uninspired chases. The first is the aforementioned bike chase that feels like the worst kind of filler, the second takes place in a Hong Kong harbour with loads of wasted potential and the third forms one of the most ill-advised getaways in the history of getaways; some of the decisions in this film you wouldn’t even make in a video game with unlimited continues. The seizure-inducing edits don’t help either. Admittedly, there’s a fairly thrilling set piece at the end of chase three involving a crashed airplane perched atop a waterfall. The green screen is very obvious, but at least there’s an ounce of suspense. Cheers to the film makers, too, for at least trying to incorporate classic Tomb Raider puzzle solving even if the one sequence feels like a poor man’s version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

It’s hard to pinpoint why it’s so difficult to make a great video game movie, but Tomb Raider is not it, even though its pixelated counterpart seems like a cinematic goldmine. Halfway through writing this review, I was completely shocked to learn that, to date, this is, in fact, the best reviewed live-action video game movie of all time. Considering that the ‘best film’ of its kind feels like a completely unnecessary and generic product, it might be time for studios to change a little more than the actress and her wardrobe.

#tomb raider #lara croft #movie review #alicia vikander

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spynotebook · 8 years ago

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Art by Tsuneo Sanda. Visit his website here.

Bonjour, my bonny mailboxes. Thanks to your abundance of excellent letters, I have an extra big mailbag for you today! So let’s get right to it: What’s the best Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack? Who could save the Transformers movie franchise? Why did WB decide to make the DCEU’s Batman so damn old? And more of your excellent and/or nerdy questions answered!

Machete Kills

Arnold C.:

Mr Postman, how do “Rogue One” and “The Force Awakens” affect the “Machete Order”? Start with “Rogue One”, and then move into “A New Hope”? Or, not even worry about R1? TFA after RoTJ for sure, right? What do we do about Episodes VII, VIII, and IX?

What if this does keep going on? If it extends forever, is there a point where you just watch all of SW numerically?

Let me start by informing anyone who might be unaware that the Star Wars “Machete Order” posits that people should watch A New Hope and Empire, then the prequels, and then Return of the Jedi, which is all essentially just to preserve the Vader-is-Luke’s father reveal. Some people even drop The Phantom Menace entirely. How to include The Force Awakens and Rogue One in this order is obviously causing some people some consternation. But I, as always, have the answer.

Arnold, over my many, many years as a nerd, I have discovered a truth, and it’s that only you know the best way to introduce someone to the Star Wars movies. Trust your feelings. Retract your targeting computer. Listen to the voice of the deceitful old man in your head.

I’m only partially kidding. We can say there’s a “perfect” order to watch the ever-increasing pile of Star Wars movies, but there really isn’t. I could almost argue that having the sequel trilogy makes the Machete Order better, in that Return of the Jedi wouldn’t just be hanging out there alone, only watched after the prequels, but Rogue One in particular has messed everything up.

Does anyone really think that Rogue One is the best entry into the Star Wars universe? Sure, it’s a hilariously direct prequel to A New Hope, but without seeing New Hope first, much of Rogue One would be weird if not outright off-putting. Seeing Star Wars first gives Rogue One the dramatic weight it needs to be truly exciting. And what the hell happens when the Han Solo side story shows up? It’ll almost certainly be set before Rogue One, but a Star Wars viewing order that starts Han Solo, Rogue One, then A New Hope does not sounds good to me—and certainly no way to potentially create a fan. And what about all the cartoons? Now that everything is canon, don’t they belong to be somewhere in here too?

But here’s the truth: There is no perfect order to watch these films, at least for everybody. But there can be a perfect order for you, or whoever you want to show it to. I will always want to start with A New Hope, because that’s my first, and my lynchpin to the Star Wars universe. But kids who grew up with the prequels are likely perfectly fine watching Episodes 1-3 and then the original trilogy. Meanwhile, some people will be fine—maybe even significantly happier—if Episode 1 is omitted completely from the viewing order. And maybe the best way for you to watch Rogue One is by watching the original trilogy, then the prequels, then Rogue One, and then A New Hope again. My point is there isn’t a universally correct answer here.

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Let me tell you guys something: I have two adorable nieces who love Star Wars. They’re much too young to watch the movies, but they devour the licensed children’s books constantly. I cannot wait to show them the movies, but how? Obviously, my instinct is to start with the original trilogy—but given how kid-friendly The Phantom Menace is, I find it most likely their parents would let them see that first. (And I bet they’ll love it. We adults can complain as much as we want, but all little kids love The Phantom Menace.)

But if they watch TPM, it’s not like they’ll necessarily be ready to check out the original trilogy the next day. It may take a few months, maybe even a year, but eventually they’ll be able to handle Luke getting his hand cut off in Empire, at which point I imagine they’ll be able to handle Anakin’s similar hand problems in Attack of the Clones. Maybe that’ll be a good point to have them watch Clone Wars, but I think Rebels is a bit more kid-friendly and we’d probably do that first. Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One are going to have to wait years later, because they’re so damn violent. But I bet they could watch The Force Awakens right after Return of the Jedi.

So here’s my potential order for them: The Phantom Menace, the original trilogy, Rebels, Attack of the Clones, Clone Wars, The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and then Revenge of the Sith. And likely a ton of repeat viewings of the movies they’ve gotten to in-between the new ones.

Basically, it’s going to be a mess, and it’s going to be fine, because they’re kids and they’re going to love it all, and one day we’ll have a little marathon so they can see them all together. I’ll ask them which movies they want to start with, and I’ll bet you anything they say the sequel trilogy. They are going to grow up with these sequels, and it’s more than likely the adventures of Rey, Finn, and Poe are gonna be their Star Wars movies.

Trust your instincts. Keep your audience’s needs and desires in mind. And remember, the goal here is to give the viewers, even if it’s just you, the best Star Wars experience possible. It’s not about order. It’s about enjoying these movies.

Mixing It Up

Katie K.:

Greetings, Postman. I hope you have found something more nutritious than mail since your last dispatch.

Which soundtrack is better: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 or Awesome Mix Vol. 2? Please show your work.

Vol. 2. This is a tough call for me, because Vol. 1 has Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, my favorite album of all time, and adding the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” makes for a strong combo.

Vol. 2 doesn’t have Bowie, but it has “Surrender” by Cheap Trick, an all-time great. It has George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord,” his best work outside of the Beatles. It includes “Mr. Blue Sky,” which isn’t my favorite E.L.O. song, but I very much appreciate ELO being included. Plus, Parliament! Also plus, that wonderfully ridiculous David Hasselhoff disco song (above)! And Looking Glass’ “Brandy” is about 900 times better than Rupert Holmes’ “Pina Colada Song,” included in the Vol. 1 soundtrack.

But the biggest reason I prefer Vol. 2 is because it introduced me to “Father and Son” by Yusuf, formerly Cat Stevens, which is simply amazing. One of my favorite things about a soundtrack is when introduces me to a song I’ve never heard before, and I discover I completely love it (a Tarantino soundtrack is usually good for this). All in all, I gotta give it to Vol. 2.

Some indeterminable Transformers. Image: Paramount.

Bay Watch

Neil S.:

If Michael Bay gets hit by a bus or more likely killed by one of his own explosions tomorrow, is there anyone that can take the current profitable but otherwise totally fucked Transformers cinematic universe and basically un-fuck it?

Like could a Justin Lin or James Gunn - someone who knows a thing or two about good movies that also make yacht-loads of cash - come in and turn things around? Soft-reboot and a Unicron story or something? Or is this franchise lost forever to gaping plot holes and seizure-inducing action scenes?

Nothing is irreparable, at least until the apocalypse arrives. However, there is no need for Hasbro and Paramount to make any changes until these movies stop making money, which almost certainly won’t happen until after Michael Bay finally leaves, which he’s not going to do until Paramount stops sending dumptrucks full of cash and precious jewels to his mansion, which they won’t do as long as Bay stays on board. Something’s going to have to give, whether Bay finally really quits, or Bay finally puts something on-screen so offensive and/or horrible Paramount can’t hire him again. He survived the Racist Twins of Revenge of the Fallen; I’m having a hard time envisioning what he might do in the future that’s more inappropriate than they were.

If/when Bay leaves, the poor director who tries to emulate his footsteps will fail, because he/she will not have made the same pact with the devil that ensures Bay’s continues success. Sooner or later, it will be time for Transformers to be rebooted, and since this incarnation has been all about explosions and gibberish, it makes as much sense as anything that Hasbro might try to focus on the Transformers as characters.

I may have said this before, but in my profession as a professional nerd I’ve had occasion to rewatch all the ‘80s cartoons of my youth, and the best one by far is Transformers. The Autobots and Decepticons all have more depth and personality than G.I.Joe, my beloved He-Man, the Thundercats, all of ‘em. A movie where the Transformers are real characters, with real personalities and motivations instead of being the simplest of clichés? I’m down.

Honestly, Justin Lin or James Wan would be great—anyone who directed a Fast and Furious movie should absolutely be considered to direct a movie about vehicles that also turn into robots. Also, after somehow making a live-action movie about the infamously difficult-to-interpret Wonder Woman, which is genuinely good despite whatever nightmare interference WB surely attempted, I think Patty Jenkins would be an amazing choice. I trust her implicitly to direct just about anything right now.

Pipe dream, Kathryn Bigelow. Seriously, she’s one of the finest directors out there, period, and she’s done enough (incredible) action movies and genre work that I think she could truly make Transformers into something special—something great—instead of a mere spectacle. Honestly, though, a Transformers movie would be a bit beneath her.

A Mash of Kings

Matthew B.:

Here’s an idea. Create an entire TV or movie universe based off Stephen King’s novels. He’s already laid most of the groundwork through the Dark Tower series. It could revolve around a Randall Flagg being thwarted again and again. Maybe take a little license with some of the characters. Who wouldn’t watch that?

Each season could be a different book. I know there are probably some rights issues with all the new King movies coming out but I have zero faith that any of them will be franchises. Curious for your thoughts on a King-iverse.

Well, this will likely come as good news: Hulu is making a show that’s mashing up many of Stephen King’s works into one world—well, one town, really—called Castle Rock. The trailer is above, it’s being produced by J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot, and right now the word is that it’ll debut in August.

However, a mash-up isn’t exactly a shared universe; having Danny from The Shining, Dolores Claiborne, and Pennywise all living in the same suburb is a fun idea, but if you’re looking for something that stays truer to King’s novels, I have an idea you’ll probably like better, although Castle Rock means it isn’t going to happen anytime soon, if ever,

If we want a real Kingiverse, we need to be able to tell King’s stories and tease those light connections they share, but not go overboard with them, since his books primarily stand by themselves. There is already a model for this, exactly, and it’s American Horror Story. It’s an anthology seies, and each season tells its own tale, but there are enough hints at them sharing one world that it thrills fan while not making it impenetrable for people who merely enjoy each season on its own merits.

Each season of a King anthology series could tackle a new novel, which is honestly the best way to present them anyway (they need space). Throw in a few Easter Eggs—maybe have The Dark Tower’s Gunslinger and Man in Black pop up briefly once per season (certainly recasting them with much less expensive actors)—and you’ve got King gold, my friends.

If this ever happens, I fully expect you guys to sign my petition demanding I get recognized and paid for my genius.

Now, if you haven’t seen The Flash finale, you might want to skip to the next letter.

Wells Established

No Oddjob:

Ahoy, Postmaestro. I’m a life-long fan of the Flash (superhero, not indecent exposure), to the degree that I even own the 1990’s series starring John Wesley Shipp in the title role, and I still like it.

That said, I’m also a huge fan of Tom Cavanagh, to the point where I *would* own the old NBC series ‘Ed’ where he was in the title role if anyone ever released it on any medium anywhere.

But instead I settle for the second best of both worlds in DC’s ‘The Flash’ on the CW, a show that rests comfortably on the shoulders of a diverse cast. But what’s up with Tom Cavanagh on that show? He’s played Dr. Wells/Thawne, Harry Wells, and H.R. Wells, not to mention all the little micro-Wellses when they were multiverse-fishing for the Wells to beat all Wells.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Cavanagh’s natural frantic energy plays well into the latest, neurotic “H.R.” version of the character, but now I’m worried we’re just going to get a new Wells every season, and that this whole show will have just been a contractually-obligated range exercise for Cavanagh.

Well, your worry is reasonable and 100 percent justified by the finale. Without going into detail, it looks as if we may get a new Wells next season, as played by Tom Cavanaugh. That will be the fourth Wells, introduced in the fourth season, and that’s enough evidence that this is going to be the TV series regularly thing. So I believe your fear is entirely justified.

My counter-argument is: Would that be so bad? I think we’re all in agreement that the best Wells would season one Wells, when he was secretly Eobard Thawne. Season two Wells was smart and cold, but that made him an interesting new mentor to the SuperSTARs, especially when season one’s Wells seemed to be so kind. Season three Wells was comic relief virtually all of the time, but that certainly made the finale twist something I didn’t expect.

Whatever the case, The Flash would lose something special if it lost Tom Cavanaugh, and I would be shocked if the showrunners didn’t realize that. That almost certainly means yet another Wells for season four (or maybe Earth-2 Wells will stick around?) but I’m confident Tom Cavanaugh is up to the challenge of making Wells v4 interesting, funny, ominous, or something else entirely.

Freddie Stroma as the perpetually baffled H.G. Wells in the late Time After Time TV series. (Image: ABC)

The Time After That Other Time

Mike:

Hey Rob! In scifi scenarios involving time travel to the past, oftentimes the time traveler is transported to the EXACT location of where the current-day machine is located. A time machine at 100 Park Ave, New York City would transport the subject to that exact location in the past.

Shouldn’t this NOT happen, like ever? If time travel involves time AND space, wouldn’t the subject end up choking in the middle of space (where the earth and subject ACTUALLY were during that time in the past)?

The earth is constantly spinning, rotating, and revolving around the sun. Wouldn’t the earth’s coordinates during that specific time factor in?

Yes, it shouldn’t happen.

…

I’m sorry, you wanted more? Only a time machine that can move in space—like the TARDIS—should be able to stay in one location while traveling through time. You can’t even pretend that a time machine could travel to the same day each year, on our rotation around the sun, because our entire solar system is moving because the galaxy and the universe is expanding. Even if we ignored that, we orbit the sun at 67,000 mph, or 1116.6 miles per minute. Time traveling for a minute, and staying in the same space, would have you floating in the least level of Earth’s atmosphere, the exosphere.

The problem is this makes for terrible time travel stories, because it’s painfully complicated and uninteresting, and trying to explain it away requires way too much time.

So yes, you’re right, gold star for you. Now live with the knowledge that this will never, ever be corrected.

I don’t know why this photo cracks me up, (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

I’m Too Old for This Murder

Cheryl J.:

Dear Postman,

Will you please explain to me why WB/DC chose to go with “Old Man” BatFleck? I (kinda) understand all the love for Frank Miller’s Dark Knight, but choosing an old version of Bats, as opposed to a younger, less murderer-y version doesn’t make sense to me. I thought they wanted to form a true franchise universe with plenty of JLA action, but I find it stupid to pick Batman (the most mortal of the group) to be the grandfather of the pack. He’s already retired once and has years of poundings under his belt. How many movies can the old man really do that doesn’t have him rolling around on a Bat-Rascal?

Also, do you have to answer to a Postal Apocalypse Postmaster General?

Two reasons: 1) The DCEU crew thought about their favorite Batman moments, which were mostly his most well-known moments, and came up with the Batman/Superman fight from The Dark Knight Returns. They decided they had to put that in a movie and reverse-engineered the film around this fight.

2) Batman is old in TDKR, but I don’t think WB execs were actually determined to have an older Batman... until they scored Ben Affleck for the role. Affleck is a huge box office draw, has mass appeal, and (at the time) was potentially willing into write and direct a solo Batman film! A beloved Oscar-winning director making a Batman film? Oh, the Warner Bros execs must have done plenty of the happy cocaine that day. I’m sure fans like Zack Snyder and David S. Goyer also didn’t mind putting an older, wiser Bruce on-screen to further the TDKR homage, but honestly I think Affleck could have demanded to wear Groucho glasses during the entirety of Batman v Superman and the WB would have let him, happily.

Making sure they put a Dark Knight Returns-esque Bat vs. Supes fight was job #1, followed closely by getting Affleck in the cowl. Planning ahead for the rest of the DC Expanded Universe was probably a distant #8 on the list.

As for the post-apocalyptic Postmaster General, remember, I am a fake mailman… which means there is absolutely a fake Postmaster General running around, trying to steal my shtick. If I find him I will kill him… unless he’s really polite. Or offers me a snack.

You guys sent a ton of great letters this week, hence the extra long “Postal” this week. Care to keep it up? Then please send your questions, concerns, arguments that need settling, pleas for advice, whatever the heck you want to [email protected]!

#IFTTT #Feedly

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flyrtreynolds · 8 years ago

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Passion of the Weiss: Revisiting ‘nostalgia, ULTRA’ Six Years Later

When writer Jeff Weiss, who started the Passion of the Weiss blog, tweeted out this story, he accompanied it with a caveat: “I was never going to publish another Frank Ocean essay but Reed wrote a great one.”

I was hesitant in the initial pitch, too. There’ve been plenty of essays on Frank, most of which too overwrought. The world didn’t really need another ode to the man’s temperament or sexuality. Yet I’ve always felt attached to his debut, and when its sixth anniversary rolled around, I decided to pen some words on it.

Clicks are hard to earn these days. It’s not like in ’02, when a “YOU WIN!” banner would flash in seizure-inducing colors on your screen and you’d actually think about claiming your prize. Or when an email with the subject line, “HAHA CHECK THIS OUT,” would land in your inbox and you’d open it and contract a virus that’d send lewd, grammatically incorrect solicitations to your 81-year-old grandmother and everyone else on your contact list. People are now more guarded than ever about the rabbit holes they fall down online. When’s the last time you clicked on something without entirely knowing what you were getting into? And what’d it take for you to do it?

For me, it was about six years ago. I clicked on a random link tweeted out by Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco, who was just starting to get prickly toward the industry but still had some clout. The tweet has since been deleted (most likely a casualty of one of Lupe’s online tantrums), but I remember it being simple and straightforward, something along the lines of, “Yeah, this is dope.” His words were irrelevant. It was the image that accompanied them, a candy orange BMW roadster nestled against a leafy background, that suggested there might be something special on the other end. My curiosity was rewarded when I was taken to the Tumblr of a then-unknown singer named Frank Ocean, who had just posted his debut project, nostalgia, ULTRA.

I was a senior in college at the time. I lived with three other guys in Eugene, Oregon, in a house that had bedrooms tacked on in weird places so the landlord could squeeze as much rent money out of it as possible. My room, tucked away at the end of the driveway, looked like it was once part of a small garage and had cheap wood paneling for walls and a floor covered in green felt, giving it the feeling of an old cardroom. I liked to imagine its entrance was hidden behind a bookshelf. I would spend hours there, often feeling pretty shitty and alone, as my seemingly insurmountable awkwardness carried over from high school to college. But I’d also devote long, wakeful nights to discovering and listening to new music. I was reaping the benefits of the Blog Era, constantly debilitating our house’s wireless with loads of .zip and .rar downloads.

I remember playing Ultra on my desktop speakers and laying down on my bed, as I often did while listening to something new. The first thing that struck me was its moodiness. I’d felt pain in R&B songs before, but mostly in over-the-top, cheesy ways, centered around break ups and cheating lovers. Here was something much more complex in its sadness and, in turn, real. I racked my brain for what it reminded me of, and I landed on a cherished figure from my childhood: Marvin. Growing up, my mom loved to play Motown around the house, and Marvin Gaye was always her favorite. She would pop in “What’s Going On” while she was getting ready to go out and, in between putting on her chunky jewelry and taking sips of red wine, would clap along with it and tell me to do the same, to which I’d smile shyly. I loved how calming the song sounded. It’s opening, with that silken soprano sax, drew an image in my mind of Marvin grinning broadly between the upturned collars of his shearling leather jacket. At the same time, it sounded sensitive. Within his honeyed pleas I heard confusion, as if he was really bummed out by the actions of both the world and himself.

I felt the same kind of inner turmoil in Frank. This may be in part because I was feeling something similar at the time, a constant struggle between self-appreciation and -deprecation. Songs like “There Will Be Tears” and “Novacane” struck a chord for their mixture of sincerity and virility. A young boy trying not to cry in front of his friends; a young man popping Viagra and doing drugs to impress a girl. These were sonnets ridden in guilt. In Frank’s mind, nostalgia can run the risk of dredging up old demons, at which point you can either face them or ingest hydrochloride to numb the pain. This served as the struggle at the heart of ULTRA’s narrative: A 20-something trying to make peace with himself, but often coming up short. In the wake of his failures were enough broken hearts to fill a Lincoln town car’s trunk.

The production behind these failures was what made the tape so compelling. The little gold kernels of lyrics, the memorable ad-libs (“YIKES!”), the bold decision to rework not one but two of the sappiest rock bands of all time… it was obvious that Frank had major label chops when it came to songwriting. Perhaps his craftiest move was to keep some of the covers’ vocals in place, having a dialogue with their original composers rather than cutting them out completely. He uses an auto-tuned hook by M.I.A. G.O.O.D. Music singer Mr. Hudson as a starting point to lift off from and tenderly recount his relationships with his late grandfather, who was a “PLAAAAAAAYER” in a pair of gators, and father, who was nowhere to be found. On “Strawberry Swing,” a Coldplay summer strum turned into a love story based in a science fiction disaster film, he relinquishes singing duties to Chris Martin at the last second, just as the song’s strings swell and the metaphorical Earth combusts.

Listening to “Strawberry” while lying on my bed, sun pouring through my bedroom windows, I felt like Ken Watanabe in The Last Samurai, staring at a gently swaying cherry blossom while a sword was being injected into my gut. I tried to share that feeling with others by playing at a party in our house later that week, but it was shut off almost immediately. A Coldplay cover isn’t the most compelling thing for a bunch of kids blitzed on Pabst, sure, but the more offensive part was its R&B makeup. We all had to recondition ourselves to understand that someone with a voice like Frank’s, unique but not vastly different-sounding than those of the hackneyed singers on the radio at the time, could build something beautiful and dark. If we didn’t learn that with Ultra, we surely began to understand with House of Balloons, which dropped only a month later.

In the grand scheme of things, both projects were hugely influential, but Frank’s debut remains patient zero for the temperamental shift in pop music that would take place in the following years. It’s also the record that’s stuck with me the most. This was proved to me over the summer when Blonde, his forever-in-the-making sophomore album, finally dropped. I listened to the new project while wandering the streets of a small town on the Oregon Coast, where I spent many wistful summers as a kid. Its drum-less ballads, shimmering and nuzzled comfortably within the sonic soft spot we’ve learned to love him for, were the ideal soundtrack for my walk. “Nikes,” with its high-pitched vocals that eventually normalized, served as a “guess who’s back?” moment; “Self Control” sounded like the under-the-radar jam that would become every DJ’s go-to closer. “White Ferrari” was calming and gorgeous.

But my mind was cluttered. I was at a crossroads in my life. I had just quit my job back in New York and completed a drug-fueled cross-country road trip with my friends, one of which was moving to L.A. after months of threatening to do so. I had also just learned that my father had cancer; my parents, after a decade-plus of divorce, were reuniting to tackle the disease together. As I began to worry, I found myself scrolling back through my phone to ULTRA and hitting play. Suddenly, everything—my life, my family, the Pacific that lay in front of me—stopped moving so fast. The gentle clicking of a Nintendo cartridge, the quiet plucks of a guitar as Frank’s voice comes into focus, the blasting off of spaceships and, finally, the loud buzzing of an alarm clock. The dream is over but the feeling lingers.

http://www.passionweiss.com/2017/03/03/nostalgia-ultra/

#frank ocean #Passion of the Weiss #r&b #nostalgia #odd future

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