Repost: Michael Jackson and the Music of Sonic 3

This is one of the geekier things I've posted in a while, but as a fan of video games, video game music, and Sonic the Hedgehog in particular, I found this video by GameTrailers fascinating. As you'll see below, the debate about Michael Jackson and Sonic 3 has been raging for years, and it's great to hear some (semi) official words on what went down.

I won't spoil it for you, check out the video below, it's worth the watch. And here is the link to the music-comparison video by Qjimbo they cite.

GameTrailers

Repost: Anita's Irony

Joseph Reagle has coined a new Internet law (à la Godwin's law) called "Anita's Irony," which states that "Online discussion of sexism or misogyny quickly results in disproportionate displays of sexism and misogyny." The rule comes in response to the ridiculous and depressing backlash against Anita Sarkeesian over the Tropes Vs Women in Video Games video I posted about previously. It's amusing, accurate, and all the more depressing for that.

(Via Feminist Frequency)

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'Reposts' are inspired by other articles or blog posts around the Internet. They are used here with accreditation as the basis for short bursts of Max's interests.

Repost: "There can be only one [rooster]"

Business Week has put up an inspiring story about the meteoric rise of Huy Fong's "Rooster" Sriracha hot sauce. I love me some Sriracha, so I was excited to learn more about my favourite/go-to brand of the stuff. It turns out that the actual term "Sriracha" is generic, and the actual "rooster" brand is Huy Fong's Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. Good to know.

The actual article is a fascinating read, telling of Huy Fong's humble beginnings and its unprecedented rise in popularity in the West. Interestingly, it turns out the entire hot sauce industry is experiencing something of a renaissance, with it ranking as the eighth-fastest-growing-industry (behind for-profit universities and solar panel manufacturing, randomly). Anyway, give the article a read if you have any affection for the one and only "rooster" sauce, it's a good bit of background info on my condiment of choice.

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'Reposts' are inspired by other articles or blog posts around the Internet. They are used here with accreditation as the basis for short bursts of Max's interests.

Repost: Dead Space 3 Microtransactions Break Internal Logic

Ben Kuchera of the (fantastic) PA Report wrote an interesting post about the recent news that Dead Space 3 will include microtransactions allowing players to purchase materials to craft weapons. The article touches on some of the qualities I most enjoy about the Dead Space series, and so I figured I'd chime in a bit here.

Kuchera notes how the Dead Space games have always been particularly effective at establishing and drawing players into a coherent and self-contained world: the menus appear in the game, all information typically conveyed via a HUD are contained within the game world, etc. The point of all this is to more effectively draw players into the world of the game and hold them there. The most superficial effect of this is to increase players' tension by refusing to allow them to put the action on hold while they access their inventory (as was the convention prior to Dead Space). However, Kuchera argues that this tension is but one symptom of the greater immersion that the game creates by forcing the player to participate in its world in the same way as the fictional characters within it. At no point in the game does the player engage in activity that their fictitious character does not also undertake; in effect the game world is constructed so as to force player immersion by limiting their interactions with the game world to those of their character.

The availability of microtransactions in the upcoming Dead Space 3 breaks this immersion via the deus ex machina availability of crafting materials. When players use a terminal they are told they can access "Downloadable Content" by which "A god-like hand is introduced and drops supplies in the lap of the character." This whole availability breaks the immersion spell that the Dead Space games have so effectively established, and moreover upsets the delicate sense of isolation and desperation that the survival-horror genre is premised upon.

The offending intrusion on Dead Space's fiction.

Kuchera's argument is compelling, and though even he acknowledges the nerdiness of getting hung-up on such a detail, I think it's a significant sacrifice on the part of the developers. A big part of what made Dead Space unique was its uncompromising immersion, forcing them to exist in the game world. It's unfortunate to have that quality diluted for the sake of some extra income and a further attempt at attracting a wider audience by dumbing-down the experience.

Tom Phillips at (the also fantastic) Eurogamer has also chimed in with a counterpoint, arguing that the kind of gamers who will be bothered by this feature are also not the types who are likely to use the it. Rather, Phillips argues, the microtransactions will only be taken advantage of by more casual gamers while more hardcore players will likely ignore them. While I think Phillips is right practically speaking, at the same time I'm more in line with Kuchera in feeling that there's a more significant cost to the sacrifice. I don't think "hardcore gamers" will take advantage of the microtransactions, and while I do feel there's a somewhat legitimate argument to be made against their existence at all I'm perfectly happy to simply ignore them. However the fact that they're implemented in such a way as to break the immersive fiction of the series will bother me if/when I play Dead Space 3. From all accounts the menus make their existence painfully clear so as to attract potential buyers, and that fourth-wall-breaking advertising is necessarily going to take away from the sense of isolation and immersion that the series' horror is based upon.

What do you guys think? Is it too early to tell, is Phillips right and are Kuchera and I just whining EA-haters, or is this a legitimately intrusive dilution of one of Dead Space's most unique qualities?

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'Reposts' are inspired by other articles or blog posts around the Internet. They are used here with accreditation as the basis for short bursts of Max's interests.

Repost: The Alien Beauty of Les Arènes de Picasso

An architecturally-inclined friend of mine pointed me towards Untapped Cities, a site that examines interesting and largely unknown qualities about major travel destinations. It seems sort of like a mix between a cultural blog and Lonely Planet, and that seems like a pretty awesome little niche. In particular I was directed towards a post from January 2012 about mass housing units in the suburbs of Paris, and despite how boring that description sounds it's actually a really cool piece.

The whole article is worth a read but I just want to focus on the bit about Les Arènes de Picasso. It's the building pictured at the top of this post, and as author Charles-Antoine Perrault explains,

In the post-Modernist tradition, Spanish architect Manolo Nuà ±ez Yanowsky intended to break with standardized, functional modern architecture. The overall setting is highly symbolic–the two circular modules are aligned on an axis parallel to the Equator and are meant to represent the wheels of an overturned chariot.

 The building is strikingly unique, especially when you consider that this is a mass housing unit that contains "540 dwellings, a kindergarten, a high school and a few convenience stores." I would love to see this place used as a set in a movie, either in a Bond flick like with Hashima Island in Skyfall (check that link out by the way, it's a really cool story itself) or as a deserted setting in a post-apocalyptic flick à la London at the beginning of 28 Days Later. Sadly, given the fact that Les Arènes de Picasso is a housing unit and at least one school, it's unlikely that it would be used as a film setting. Still though, the design of the place is just so out-there that it would be beautiful to see on film. I could imagine a really interesting tracking shot that takes advantage of the columns seen at the bottom of the image up top. They've got kind of a Sagrada Família vibe (see below), very cool stuff.

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'Reposts' are inspired by other articles or blog posts around the Internet. They are used here with accreditation as the basis for short bursts of Max's interests.

Repost: Why are women scared to call themselves feminists?

Salon recently ran an article asking "Why are women scared to call themselves feminists?" If you'd asked me a few years ago whether I thought "Why are women afraid to identify as feminists?" was an important conversation to have, I would have called you crazy. Completely immersed in university culture, most of the people I associated with were openly (and actively) feminists. It got to the point where I mentally resituated feminism to the default politics I assumed in people. After all, who doesn't believe in female equality? If someone legitimately didn't then I would find that surprising and repugnant, and that became something I actively did not expect in people.

But things don't stay the way they are in undergrad. A few years out, I've had more conversations than I care to recall that pretty much go something like this:
Them: "No, I'm not a feminist."
Me: "Oh? Why not? Do you believe in gender equality?"
Them: "Yes, of cours, but feminism just... I don't know, it just seems like something for lesbians."
Me: ...

Yep. I shit you not, that's a conversation I've been a part of. More than once. I'm now at the point where, upon seeing Salon's headline pop up on my newsfeed, I immediately thought, "That is a damn good message that more people should be exposed to!" Hence this repost.

It's not that people don't believe in equality for women, generally I've found that most people still believe in that (or at least claim to). What I've found startling in recent years is the sheer number of people I've met, men and women alike, who claim not to be feminists as though that identifier is a dirty word. I've had numerous conversations with people who actively don't want to be associated with feminism because they see it as some sort of radical ideology. Sure, there are radical feminists, just like there are radical anythings. Radical liberals, radical atheists, radical [insert noun]. That doesn't mean that the underlying assumption of feminism is inherently associated with such radicalism. More than that, I still believe it should be shocking for someone in this day and age to say they are not a feminist given that doing so equates to not believing in gender equality. Is that really a message that is still mainstream acceptable in any way?

I think the major issue is that people don't understand the difference between feminism and the abstract notion of radical politics, and that's a very serious problem. I'm certain there are very good arguments that such misunderstandings are the result of misogynist attempts to undermine the goals of feminism, and while I don't think it's my place to make those arguments, I will say that if people (women or men) in positions of power continue to say that they are not feminists then that is straight up evidence of and a victory for the patriarchy. It literally means you don't believe in gender equality, and when people say it what I think they're actually trying to convey is that they want to be successful so they don't want to be associated with a political ideology that has been cast as radical and therefore repugnant. Is gender equality a radical notion? That's for you to decide, me I'm a feminist so I'll let you guess what I think.

I'll leave you with what I think is the best paragraph from the article, it really hits the nail on the head:

Let me just point out that if you believe in the strength of women, Ms. Perry, or their equality, Ms. Mayer, you’re soaking in feminism. If you’re like Ms. Bruni-Sarkozy and want to explain that “I imagine I am if feminism means claiming one’s freedom. But I am not if it means being committed in an active way to the fight that some women are still leading today I admire their bravery a lot, but I have chosen to commit myself elsewhere,” you should know that “the fight” is just being an autonomous person in the world. And if you’re like Ms. Fenton and think feminism means being treated like “anyone else,” remember that there aren’t a whole lot of “anyone else” options out there. You’re basically admitting that masculinity is the norm and that all we can do is aspire toward some kind of equitable footing in a man’s world. This sounds like a job for … feminism!

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'Reposts' are inspired by other articles or blog posts around the Internet. They are used here with accreditation as the basis for short bursts of Max's interests.

Reposts: Destructoid's Top 10 Castlevania Songs

I'm a big fan of classic video game music. It's engaging, energetic, and my history of playing games has conditioned me to feel active and want to accomplish things when I hear it. When I go running I use a mix of 8 and 16-bit era tracks as I find they provide a great impetus to keep going and push yourself harder than you would otherwise. Now Destructoid has put together a list of their all time top 10 songs from the Castlevania series (which is deservedly renowned for its music, among other things), and the list has inspired this post in more ways than one (geddit?).

Their number two pick, "Bloody Tears" from Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, is my personal favourite. I particularly like the 16-bit remix of the track using instruments from the Mega Man X2 soundtrack, embedded below. The enhanced sound quality of the 16-bit era really brings out the best parts of the song and ups the foreboding quality by highlighting the pipe organ opening. In putting this post together I also stumbled across another great remix of "Bloody Tears" using the instruments from Sonic 3. It takes a few more liberties as a remix by adding a electric guitar-style melody at various points throughout the track, and the addition gives the song a new, '80s hair metal-esque twist.

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'Reposts' are inspired by other articles or blog posts around the Internet. They are used here with accreditation as the basis for short bursts of Max's interests.