GOTHAM KNIGHTS (2022)

March 8, 2023

Let me be upfront about GOTHAM KNIGHTS: this is not a great game. The primary issue isn’t its lackluster visual design of the major characters, which some have generously stated as looking like a generic mobile free-to-play game. Nor is it due to Gotham feeling oddly empty for a metropolis. (That said, given the fact that Gotham seems to be a villain paradise, why would one choose to live there as a civilian?) It’s simply that the game is trying to do too much, and manages to falter at almost every step. I feel for the devs because this is very clearly an extremely expensive game that took a lot of time and effort and money to make, but it never quite manages the effortless flow of the Rocksteady Batman games.

It doesn’t help that the game commits multiple cardinal sins such as bullet-sponges, bosses with fake-out health meters, cheap insta-deaths, and is brazen enough to recreate a spiritual successor level to one of the worst Batman levels of all time: the Batmobile levels of BATMAN RETURNS. (Ironically, this is definitely one of the most enjoyable Batmobiles of any Batman game I’ve played, but the one Batmobile level goes on for way too long.)

To be reductive, GOTHAM KNIGHTS feels like it’s cribbing from the recent ASSASSIN’S CREED games: it features a new leveling system, including superficial crafting of armor and weapons, on top of what was already a byzantine litany of combos and combat approaches. Every minute you get some new alert or notification or useless mod or unlockable. It’s not just that it’s overwhelming, but that very little of it actually matters.

Additionally, goddamn, some of the boss fights are the roughest — and I played the game on easy mode because life is too short. I hard-quit during both the Mr. Freeze and Clayface fights, and the end of the game — while abiding by the rule of threes — felt like a tad too much.

However! It is a very playable game with a gripping gameplay loop. I went solo as Batgirl and genuinely glowed during the Harley Quinn fight, mostly because of the brilliant cover of Ricky Martin’s -Livin’ La Vida Loca- by NOBRO, and I am not alone:

That is an absolutely perfectly commissioned needle-drop. I’ll also note: the Harley Quinn here? Not my favorite Harley, but I still found her to be intriguing!

I’d also like to note that, unlike many other games, GOTHAM KNIGHTS has a bunch of women goons of all shapes and sizes, and I can’t help but appreciate that because — usually — it’s all dudes.

I bought GOTHAM KNIGHTS despite having read the lukewarm reviews because I was in a mood where I just wanted something I could zone out to and mindlessly mission back-and-forth to and it delivered, as so many middlingly-reviewed games are prone to do. It’s not perfect, but it does have moments of brilliance, and in-between it’ll rarely frustrate you which, frankly, is all I need from a game, and hell, I may just replay it with the alternate characters! (I’ve read that Nightwing is especially delightful to play as.)

GRIS (2019)

March 7, 2023

(PC/Xbox/PS4/PS5) GRIS is an atmospheric platformer that is also emotionally devastating.

As many kids, I was an absolute space nerd; still am, to be honest. One of my favorite memories as a youth was reluctantly seeing Halley’s Comet — the cosmos is scary, y’all! — then getting donuts at Dunkin Donuts. I still have the sketch of the comet that my father asked me to draw on a napkin afterwards and it’s one of my treasured objects.

This game? It will fucking wreck you. If you aren’t crying by the end, you aren’t human.

It helps that the gameplay is so damn fluid, the character design so dynamic, the visual style evoking Mœbius, the audio design so spacious, and the animation is astounding. I do not want to replay it it, but …re-watching these trailers definitely tempted me. This is one of the most brilliantly realized games I’ve played in some time, but geez, also so tough to deal with.

If you aren’t a gamer, jump ahead to the ending, linked below, because it will decimate you:

ETERNITY GIRL (2018)

March 6, 2023

This is a brutal six issues penned by Eisner nominated Magdalene Visaggio and illustrated by Sonny Liew of an Orlando-esque being who feels they have lived too long, and they just want to die but cannot. It is a very maudlin series that perfectly fits several mindsets.

The colors are pitch-perfect, it’s lettered by Todd fucking Klein, and the inks are heavy; it’s Vertigo 100% of the way. (If you’re too young: Vertigo is the the DC imprint Young Animal mimics!)

But goddamn: the paneling.

The fucking panel work is amazing.

It recalls the amazingly dynamic graphic work in Alan Moore’s PROMETHEA, by the ever-astounding J.H. Williams III, but absolutely peppered with Kirby dots.

I have no idea how much of that’s in the script, but holy hell, it’s astounding. It’s all about splintering and feeling fractured and it’s literally there splayed across the page: the sides you show to people, the facets, and it’s right there in the visual storytelling.

Like I said, it’s brutal, but it is a very worthwhile read.

PULP – AFTER YOU [SOULWAX]

March 4, 2023

Unpredictably, I fucking love PULP. Them + Soulwax? Perfection.

That is all.

SHIPPING UP TO BOSTON/ENTER SANDMAN – Bagpipe Cover (The Snake Charmer x Goddesses of Bagpipe) (2019)

March 3, 2023

My wife: “Hey let me pull something up on YouTube— wait, what is that?”

Me: “Oh, it’s a weird bagpipe mashup cover video that I love.”

My wife: “…and you didn’t think I’d be interested?”

Ah, married life.

But I digress. What I adore about this is: they are all amazingly talented musicians who make this work across nations, and they’re also absolutely showing the fuck off. They have pride in what they do and how they do it — as they should! They’re performers performing and reveling in it — holy hell, their finger work is brilliant — and it’s astounding, and it’s brilliant, and they’re also absolutely fearless in public and I cannot get enough of it!

“Do you have a metronome?”

“I do, but I have to warn you: it’s cursed.”

“…whatever!”

Yup. My kind of folks.

THE PIPETTES – CALL ME (2011)

March 2, 2023

While I really miss the old-school THE PIPETTES, goddamn, this hits me hard and I love it.

Also, it’s a great video to get severely high to.

I don’t love admitting that, but … it’s true. I can’t number the times I’ve rocked out to it while fucking numb. All arms lashing out and silently shouting about!

It’s absolutely mind-blowing. The echoes, the reverb, the reiteration and colored-copies! It’s a cacophony of cascades! And if you’re high? Holy fucking hell, it’s so much fun! It feels like you’re just all wrapped up, while also acting out! I realize that’s an antithesis, but damn, it’s 100% comfort food and I will not apologize for that! My eyes grow absolutely wide every time I hear this and I just …glow.

“Us, me — oh no — let’s try to make it thr—ooooough!”

HARLEY QUINN – BEING HARLEY QUINN (S01E05 – 2019)

March 1, 2023

To be fair, I did warn everyone that I would not shut up about this show.

This was the episode that clarified what this show was going to be for me, and also crystallized a lot of feelings for me, while still making me endlessly laugh.

I don’t love that my personal emotional emblems are the women of Gotham, because I am a middle-aged dude. It’s not a great look, I admit, but I can’t help it.

HARLEY: “Okay, here it comes; here’s when that piece of shit pushes me in the acid.”

IVY: “Woah, woah, are you okay?”

HARLEY: “This whole time I thought he pushed me, that it wasn’t my choice. But it was!”

That said, this episode did a lot of self-reflective good for me. Being Harley Quinn is 100% trauma therapy, and exactly what I needed when I watched it. It is an absolutely perfect depiction of disassociation and also of repair.

Seriously, and sadly, the entire ep is an encapsulation of my youth:

HARLEY: “Oh, I wasn’t sweet at that age — or any age, really. I was a total shit back then.”

HARLEY: “Hey Ive, I think there’s something really screwed up about me.”

IVY: “I want to say this in the most loving way possible, but there’s no way this is just occurring to you now.”

IVY: “You know, in a way, it’s almost comforting to know that you’ve always been this fucked up.”

HARLEY: “Yes, isn’t it? I’m starting to realize why my mother recycled so many wine bottles back then!”

And the B-story! Gilda and Sy trying to dispose of everyone’s inert bodies is fantastically hilarious. I’d love to get a flashback to their spy days, but sadly, seems like they’ve been cast away from the show.

All of that said, you have my wife to thank or hate for this post, as she commissioned a surprise gift to me of Harley’s reckoning from one of my favorite artists, Dijana Granov — who also illustrated an astounding recreation of Catwoman’s creation from BATMAN RETURNS that gives me me endless comfort — which spurred me back to revisiting HARLEY QUINN S1. (See the featured image above! No that is not a screenshot!)

I’ll briefly note: I fucking hate feeling like this. It is unrelenting and terrible, but I am who I am, and I can’t pretend to be anything different and to do otherwise would undermine the positive work I’ve done towards getting better.

I’m lucky enough to have a supportive partner and friends and I have my therapists to aid with it, but goddamn. It does not get any easier. I’d be lying if I said it did. That said, it’s not getting harder, and I’m still fucking here, just like Harley Fuckin’ Quinn.

HARLEY: “My mind. My rules.”

conner4real – F**K OFF

February 28, 2023

POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING is — like JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS — a criminally underrated cult film about pop music and musicians. I could write forever about it, but instead, I stupidly want to focus on the deleted musical number FUCK OFF, which isn’t even in the film proper.

You might want to watch it first:

I have no idea why they filmed this. The lyrics alone — which apart from the FUCK OFF anthem also features the line ‘you think I look like a punk, when your face looks like an elephant’s c**t’ — automatically guarantees an NC-17 rating. (I especially appreciate the cut-away to a youth singing along to the lyric.) They spent a lot of money and a lot of time on this one weird number that — checks notes — well, it has almost nine million views, so maybe that’s why.

This song is wall-to-wall filth, pretending to be pre-teen-friendly, which is in-and-of-itself absolute perfection. I swear like a fucking sailor and even I was astounded by this song. (In a good way, though!)

Even better, it is visually perfect, featuring amazing choreography and eye-popping colors, crop-tops and Britney schoolgirl skirts and screaming audience members, all moving in-sync. It’s a perfect encapsulation of coming-of-age youth stadium shows.

My favorite incredibly stupid detail is the one audience member brandishing a GameBoy Color standing in as an iPhone.

It is a gloriously dumb-smart bit that was too good for the world, relegated to the bin of DVD extras, but is definitely worth your time if you have the stomach for it.

I hope you get butt-fucked in prison! Be good to each other — peace!

LIFE IS STRANGE WEEK: OUTRO

February 27, 2023

The LIFE IS STRANGE games have been incredibly difficult for me to deal with, much less write about. They’re literally manufactured to trigger grief and sadness and re-invoke lived trauma and, while I know the developers meant well, it’s still brutal to confront matters.

I’ve always hated the ascribed name ‘LIFE IS STRANGE’ because life isn’t strange at all and I feel like the game doesn’t even believe it as it has never invoked that phrase. This is just life. This is just living. Abuse and neglect and abandonment have been normalized, have been for a long time and fundamentally that’s what these games are about, as well as the coping mechanisms surrounding them. We tell ourselves it’s strange to justify the calamity of our lives, of exploitation, of unfairness and inequality, when it doesn’t need to be like this.

It is life. While I may be strange, this is not strange.

However: while these games do make me sob, they help me. There aren’t many games that are intentionally meant as therapeutic means but these are games about people feeling too hard, hurt by life and circumstance, but also about finding ways to mend and reach out. I’m shocked they even exist — because how do you even pitch that? — much less have become an actual franchise. As someone who has lived through a bit too much shit, I’m happy to see a game that portrays working through shit, and portrays people surviving it.

I love reading the YouTube comments for these games — well, 75% of the commenters, the other 25% can go fuck themselves — because they are all beaming and realizing that video games can help and heal in their own way. These games have made me feel like I’m not alone, just like those comments have made me feel like I’m not alone, and just like how I’m writing this: you are not alone.

I can’t wait for the next one.

LIFE IS STRANGE: WAVELENGTHS (2022)

February 26, 2023

Hey, remember Steph? No? It took me a little while to remember her as well.

I didn’t mention her in my initial write-up of LIFE IS STRANGE since she’s a very ancillary character. Hell, I didn’t even think of her being a callback character while I was playing TRUE COLORS and I was actively trying to romance her.

So much of the LIFE IS STRANGE series is about pretend and role-playing and escapism due to the trauma of reality, so it makes sense that they’d have a character who was fascinated with all of that, even if they existed on the out-skirts, and this bonus episode is all about that!

If you aren’t familiar with Steph, she’s a very queer Dungeons & Dragons role-player who will lead you through a game she penned. That’s it, that’s her only role in the first game. She usually plays with her best friend Mikey, but is always eager to share with others.

One of my favorite things about LIFE IS STRANGE is that it’s absolutely gender neutral. Everyone loves what they love, and when you see the spark in their eyes when they’re conveying why they love it, you want to love it too. That’s the best thing a game can do; to transmit their love for gameplay and their audience.

However, there’s always a downside: one of the very stupid things I have said to my therapist is: “Danger always finds me,” because it has. So I couldn’t help but wince when Mikey tells Steph “Adventure will always find you.” because I’m like “There’s a terrible side to that! And these games are completely all about that! That is not a comforting thought!”

But I digress. This is a perfect coda to the Arcadia Bay games, and it’s particularly poignant. LIFE IS STRANGE has always been exceptional with their scores and soundtracks — they’re brilliantly evocative and melancholy — and to shape one entire episode around serving up music is inspired, as WAVELENGTHS sees Steph as a local DJ, living her best life, but also realizing that it’s a transitional one.

We follow her through four seasons of a year, solely through her work and we watch her become more comfortable with her job. It also dovetails with the empathic emotions of TRUE COLORS as people reach out to her over-the-phone and she learns how to placate them.

It’s a fantastic little slice of life, one that more game developers should learn from.

“I am not alone in the universe!”