It’s Sunday, which means figuring out what to do with a small orchard’s worth of apples and pears. Local parks are practically overflowing with untended fruit trees, and last weekend’s harvest was, shall we say, fruitful. The realization is now sinking in: unless I dedicate every meal to apples, start burning them for heat, concoct a questionable apple juice bath, or grind them into a rudimentary filler, my apartment will become a haven for rodents, beetles, and amateur alcohol fermenters.
Likely, a portion will be donated to a local food bank. Freshly picked apples, I’m told, maintain their quality fairly well, unlike pears, which seem to oscillate wildly between rock-hard and a mushy mess. Anyway, let’s dive into some captivating internet content that (mostly) avoids the topic of fruit.
First up is this insightful, concise piece by InFlux creator Joe Wintergreen, discussing the photogrammetry techniques employed in the Metal Gear Solid 3 remake.
The recent Metal Gear Solid 3 redo utilizes Quixel Megascans (a vast and largely free library of exceptionally detailed photogrammetry), which, in itself, isn’t a big deal. However, it’s amusing that the wood Snake gnaws on to set his broken arm is exactly like a plank players step across a lot in InFlux Redux. It’s intriguing how a game originally filled with custom-made items is getting a remake that mostly isn’t.
Perhaps in a more lifelike visual style, it’s not so crucial whose source photos (or scans) are used for standard objects. Still, it feels a bit off knowing that almost everything on screen was once painstakingly crafted, and now, in what’s meant to be a faithful recreation, mostly isn’t.
I’m slipping in a piece of game-focused journalism from August – Claire Evans exploring the surprisingly extensive history of “interactive cinema.” The latter half offers a brief look at Sam Barlow. I’m including this partly because Road To Empress was recently released, and partly because searching for “interactive cinema” led me to this 2012 study from a familiar-sounding author. Anyway, here’s Evans, quoting a vintage Ebert:
Interfilm proceeded to produce four more interactive movie-games. The second, Mr. Payback, penned by Bob Gale of Back to the Future fame, featured soap opera actor Billy Warlock as a cybernetic hero who punishes wrongdoers. Audiences could, for instance, have Mr. Payback force an executive to consume monkey brains from a dog bowl. Similar to I’m Your Man, a ticket to Mr. Payback allowed for repeat viewings, enabling audiences to experiment with different punishments. However, film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert claimed on their show that they would gladly pay double to only see it once. “This isn’t cinema,” stated Ebert, who later declared Mr. Payback as the worst film of 1995. “A movie engages with you.”
Controversial figure Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was killed this week. Much misinformation and cynical speculation arose about the alleged perpetrator’s identity and intentions. Some was spurred on by emblems supposedly discovered on the shooter’s bullets, incorporating an apparent Helldivers 2 tie-in. Considering the situation is developing, I’d prefer not to include any analysis of the suspect here. It seems important, however, to highlight Kirk’s overt bigotry considering his veneration by elements within US politics and subsequent attempts to frame criticism of him as “disrespectful.” Here’s a scathing commentary by Elizabeth Spiers in The Nation.
Many of the common defenses of Kirk and his legacy rest on the notion that advocating hateful ideas, even those urging the persecution of perceived enemies, is acceptable if cloaked in the guise of debate. This is simply a function of class advantage. The individual who declared “Black women lack the mental capacity to be taken seriously. You have to take someone’s spot meant for whites”, made the statement in presentable attire on a podcast, not in worn-out clothing in a rural parking lot. However, that does not lessen the racism.
On the London Review of Books blog, Helen Charman reflects on a similar rightward shift in British politics.
The new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, stated in May (during an interview with Michael Gove for The Spectator) that she feels a ‘natural connection to the faith, flag and family element of Blue Labour.’ Her predecessor, Yvette Cooper, now Foreign Secretary, shared with Times Radio last week that she keeps Union Jack bunting in her garden shed. ‘People should be uniting around our flags,’ she said. When inquired whether people should be erecting them on highway signs, she responded: ‘I would put them everywhere.’ The flags displayed on motorway gantries, lamp posts, and roundabouts nationwide are part of ‘Operation Raise the Colours’, an initiative orchestrated by identified far-right extremists. The BBC queried Keir Starmer whether this was racist or patriotic. ‘I support flags,’ the Prime Minister responded.
Over at Eurogamer, Connor Makar examines Saudi Arabia’s investments in Evo and other esports businesses, considering the nation’s reputation for human rights concerns. Solid reporting on the topic.
There is no governing body to prevent this, and there is no larger entity (or, honestly, considering the esports sector’s profitability, no bigger sucker) to acquire the tournament from its current owners. Therefore, this situation is likely to endure, at least until the Saudi Arabian government concludes that competitive gaming isn’t worth the investment, or that only a few fighting game fans will visit Qiddiya without some kind of financial incentive.
As Endless Mode reports, Gorillaz have revived their classic Flash game site, Kong Studios. I admit to being a somewhat conflicted Gorillaz follower. I occasionally think of them as a middling imitation of a brilliant idea for a fictional animated band. But they’ve released some memorable tracks and are unparalleled in securing high-profile collaborations. They’ve also recently announced a new album significantly influenced by Hindu art. The results could vary widely.
My journey discovering new kinks during my research into the ongoing payment processor restrictions impacting “adult” games carries on with mechsploitation, as defined by Erin.
Central to grasping the history of mechsploitation is Empty Spaces, a collection of trans women whose compositions, largely concentrated on exploitative power dynamics within archetypal roles (witches, dolls, angels, demons, fae, spiders, moths, etc.) explore themes of sex, trauma, abuse, and much more. It was this somewhat defined group and their works during the early 2020s that laid the foundation for WARHOUND. In addition, this group and its “dollposting” cousin evolved, through the idea of the “combat doll” and related fiction, into “mechposting,” a scene still active and closely linked to mechsploitation since the beginning.
Have time for a concise academic text? The complete records from this year’s inaugural Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Game Studies Conference are available, including research on Black millennial fans of Yu-Gi-Oh! and the portrayal of Vivienne in Dragon Age: Inquisition, and reactions to it.
One from the archives to conclude: the founders of RPS, alongside The Boy Quinns, reimagine the endings of their favorite games.