Let's Breakdown: Half-Life 2 [part 1 - Point Insertion, A Red Letter Day and Route Kanal]

Wake up and smell the ashes.

                What is this?

                You see, naming things is not one of my talents, which is why I’ve decided to give this a nice and simple name ‘Let’s Breakdown’, which isn’t an invitation to dance but an attempt by me to breakdown and analyse various videogames. Why? Think of it as me doing a bit of my bits as an aspiring game designer… that and I rather enjoy playing games analytically, it can be fun to examine the gears and cogs that make everything work, as well the various obstructions and chinks that hold things back.

Psychorner : Addictions

Of man and things.

                What are ‘addictions’? Well I suppose I’d say they seem like rather nasty things. Why? Well because they are ‘a dick’. Haha, get it? I’m sorry, please lower your gun.

I just played... Dark Souls 2

Never have I felt so Hollow (haha, get it?)

A new world to explore (and die in)

                Have you ever fallen for someone? Become so mindlessly engrossed in another human being that he/she begins to dominate all the thoughts in your mind, become such an omniscient presence in the canvas of your mind that you begin to feel like he/she is like an infection scouring your brain? Furthermore, have you ever wanted to just say something, perhaps blurt out your feelings, so bad that you felt a little pin oscillating in your heart, constantly pricking it?

What is Gaming?

 (This article is a Stream of Consciousness, which means that I took a topic, formulated a thought or three and just wrote out whatever came to my mind – which means that you can expect a fair share of typos, syntax errors and logical errors in the entire thing – I’m not a spontaneously bright person after all.)

The nature of the beast and other randomised contemplations.

SupergiantGames' two games: Bastion and Transistor are examples of story+gameplay done right. 

                I love games. I love games enough that I wouldn’t make a saucy ‘I’d marry it if it was a person’ remark because it’s fucking stupid. But the point being is that I love games.

I just watched... Ghost in the Shell

 Existential Breasts.

                I have existential issues. I found that out when I was having a pretty good time one day and then suddenly the words “THIS TOO WILL PASS” resounded in my mind. Now, of course, that is a line to get out of those times when you’re feeling overly angst-y and melancholic about something that isn’t really even something to be melancholic because you have to just walk it off like a human being and not whine about it and feel that every sad song is about you, you self-absorbed miserable prick, but it’s also a line that you can apply to anything in life. Got a Dog? That too will pass. Thoroughly enjoying a new book, game or whatever? That too will pass. Finally whitened your teeth? That too will pass. I suppose an inevitable reality of our life is that everything ‘passes’, which is probably why we say that someone ‘passes away’ though I tend to prefer the more eloquent ‘existence terminated’ and when I’m feeling brash and rebellious I tend to prefer ‘died’.

I just played... Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

 Featuring more cuts than a movie by an OCD crew.

                I seem to be making a lot of confessions these days, mostly to myself and the wall that I seem to enjoy talking to so much, and I’m continuing the trend here. I have never played a Metal Gear game before, is my confession, and Metal Gear Rising is my first Metal Gear game. And having the boxes stacked as such is much like confessing your love to your school crush on the day of her funeral.

I just played... Transistor

 A sword that is not a sword, with an awesome voice.

                I seem to be following my trend of existential sci-fi even when I don’t go around looking to do so. I am an existential person but I do like to go about occasionally experiencing something rather life-affirming, though a whole lot of the life affirming works plaguing me these days makes me want to do a root canal on myself using a buzz saw, but I suppose I can’t help the world. As the world buckles and heaves out yet another vampire-teenager-supernatural oestrogen centric work, I do turn around and enjoy showing these sci-fi works a fair bit more love, though I’d probably withhold on showing them such love considering that it is not love they are looking for.

I just watched... Bladerunner

 In the future: Indiana Jones became a bounty hunter after tiring of being President

                I find myself reaching a conclusion: Harrison Ford doesn’t play characters, he’s just himself in all the movies that he seems to find himself in. Let’s take a look at all his most iconic roles through adjective-based inquiries. Are they smug? Rogues? Sly? Non-Paragons? Of questionable base morality? Not quite the lover of rules? Now, which role am I talking about? Solo? Jones? How about all? Despite all this I find it amusing how he manages to still fit the role well… or does the role fit him? Oh dear the paradoxes.

I just watched... Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

 And I’m writing this after a long, drawn-out battle with a cockroach… which the cockroach won.

                Like a high school girl at her prom I have a confession to make: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which I don’t have a proper short-form for since just calling it ‘Nausicaa’ is going to lead to all kinds of confusion that isn’t going to end well for you, is the second Ghibli and Miyazaki movie I have watched, with the other one being Princess Mononoke. And if I were to summarise my opinion of Princess Mononoke in a single frenzied word it’d be ‘wowzers’. Yes, I enjoyed the movie that much that I had to go beyond the reach of English language and draw out a word from the shadowy nether-reaches to summarise how much I loved it. Needless to say that my expectations rose as quickly as a man leaping to his death from atop the Eiffel tower, in reverse, and sped up 5x times. And thus I went to see the studio and Miyazaki’s first movie with lofty expectations: and spoiler-alert, I now have a man-crush on two Miyazakis.

I just played... Bioshock Infinite

In this reality, much wasted potential.

                I find pineapples rather interesting. How externally they are coarse and sharp, capable of leaving you with cuts to rival that of your average depressed teenager’s wrists; but the inside is something else, soft, sweet and delicious, with only a tinge of prickly fibre to remind you of its exterior. What does this have to do with Bioshock Infinite? Nothing, I just wanted to talk about pineapples for a moment.