With The Eyes Shut, Looking Through The Rust And Rot And Dust.

[rionaleonhart]

I get a lot of misdirected e-mail intended for other people with my name. My new favourite instance: a few days ago, someone accidentally sent me what looks like their design for a porn website logo. They did not, alas, respond to my 'whoops, I think you have the wrong person' e-mail.


I just remembered that Sam Winchester canonically slept with his actor's wife. That is canonically a thing that happened in Supernatural.

Other canonical events in Supernatural that sound completely made up:

- A man slow dances with an alien.
- The Winchesters investigate reports of a yeti and instead discover an enormous, living teddy bear.
- One of the protagonists is trapped inside an advertisement for herpes medication.
- Someone writes incestuous slashfic about the protagonists onscreen.
- An angel rewrites history so the Titanic never sank, because he really, really hates the film.
- The Winchesters attend a Supernatural convention.
- The show introduces a character who represents the show's creator, and a character who represents the show's fandom, and then pairs them up.

Anyway, here is the trailer for the upcoming Scooby-Doo crossover episode.


I have started playing NieR: Automata! Interesting game. Very weird. Switches wildly between 3D and 2D, and between RPG, action, platforming and bullet hell. Lots of interesting mechanics and charming attention to detail; lots of odd fetishistic stuff. You have the option to explode at any point. It won't actually kill you, but it will put you in critical health and burn off your clothes.

I was thinking 'hmm, which Linkin Park lyric should I use for the title of this entry?' and then remembered this line from 'Forgotten', which is weirdly perfect for a post-apocalyptic game with a blindfolded protagonist.

Something it's worth being aware of, if you're planning to play this yourself: there are no save points until you're past the first area, which takes maybe an hour and includes multiple bosses. Don't start the game unless you have an hour to spare (I wish I'd known this before my first attempt!), and it might be worth starting it on Easy, to reduce the chances that you'll get killed and have to do the entire opening again.

You can change difficulty at any point without penalty, which is nice. I switched from Easy to Normal after reaching the first save point, and then I switched back to Easy because I was just so bad at the shooty spaceship sequences. Easy it is!

Important question: why can't I stroke the moose? I bought an item that would keep moose from running away from me, but I still can't stroke them. How is this acceptable?

Comments

[dracothelizard]

Was it at least a nice design for the porn website?

...I may have to watch the SPN/Scooby Doo crossover despite not having seen any SPN since season 6 or so.

[rionaleonhart]

I wasn't that into it as a logo, but it's not as if I'd be any better at porn website graphic design.

I've been thinking 'am I going to catch up on all the many Supernatural episodes I haven't yet seen?' and I suspect I might have to if a Scooby-Doo crossover awaits.

[dracothelizard]

Hmm, that would be a lot of catching up (for me anyway) and it seems like the Scooby Doo crossover might be more of a standalone.

Also, the other weekend I played The X-Files: Resist or Serve on a PS2 and it had the 'you can only save in certain locations!!' thing that Silent Hill 2 also had, and I finally feel your Silent Hill 2 saving frustration. (Unfortunately, I was not able to find a wooden plank to hit zombies with :( )

[rionaleonhart]

In the days of Silent Hill 2 it was rare for games to let you save anywhere, so I could handle it! (Although the save points were unnecessarily spooky.) Now, though, playing NieR: Automata, I realise I've been thoroughly spoiled by the fact that most modern games save automatically. (The game yells THERE'S NO AUTO-SAVE, REMEMBER TO SAVE, SERIOUSLY, YOU DON'T WANT TO LOSE HOURS OF PROGRESS at you pretty much constantly. Given how concerned it is, I have to wonder why the developers didn't just... include auto-save.)

How was the X-Files game?

[magistrate]

In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which I have not played but have watched a lot of other-people-playing, you can only save by using a specific alchemical potion (which I believe also makes you slightly drunk?) or by sleeping in a bed you own. Not just any bed. One you own.

This in a game with die-and-you're-dead combat, long quest lines which take you very far away from your home bed, and a slew of game-breaking bugs.

[dracothelizard]

It was kind of fun, but the camera-work was weird and sometimes you'd go around the corner and the camera angle would be so different that you'd get lost all over again. I mostly wandered around a town, picked up random items and kicked zombies :D

Auto-save is THE BEST.

[wolfy_writing]

You could have taken the logo and started your own porn website!

Wow, I think I missed ninety percent of the real weirdness in Supernatural. (Also, I'm with the angel. I hate that movie!)

...why is the protagonist wandering around the apocalypse while blind-folded?

Important question: why can't I stroke the moose?

Something (possibly your earlier references to porn websites and odd, fetishistic stuff) made me initially read this as more euphemistic than you intended.

[rionaleonhart]

You could have taken the logo and started your own porn website!

Curses! I miss out on so many business opportunities.

...why is the protagonist wandering around the apocalypse while blind-folded?

AN EXCELLENT QUESTION. I think the blindfold is actually a pair of high-tech goggles or something, but it definitely looks like a blindfold. This is possibly not unconnected to the odd, fetishistic aspects of this game.

[wolfy_writing]

Does the blindfold stay on when they get their clothes burned off? Because if so, I'm suspicious.

(Also, I was immediately assuming it was some sort of "pervasive catastrophic thing that only works if you see it" scenario.)

[magistrate]

I read this entry just after reading this entry, and now I feel like I'm stuck in some kind of Transmissions From Surrealist Fiction dreamwidth reading list. Send help?

[rionaleonhart]

That... definitely sounds like a strange novel. I love the German review.

[rosa_heartlily]

N:A is a beautiful game but not one I'm ever going to play. I watched it on YouTube. It still hit me. VERY hard. I keep meaning to find a YouTube video that shows all 26 'endings' :)

[rionaleonhart]

I'm really curious about all the endings as well! I already know about the 'blow yourself up on the spaceship' one and the 'remove your operating system' one (an unusual case where it's possible to die in a videogame's menu), and I want to know how many more of them hinge on doing something that's clearly extremely silly.