I’m not saying it combines genres. That would be terrible. If you combine genres, you get your basic Movie Franchise Video Game. In level one, you are stuck somewhere and must solve a puzzle to get out. Levels two and three have you running around in a first- or third-person POV. Level four is the racing level, where you are either trying to catch up to someone, or attempting to flee destruction. In levels five and six you have to jump on platforms. And it plays exactly like it sounds- like a discordant collection of genres mashed together.

The beauty behind Metroid isn’t that it combines genres. It’s that it ignores them. At almost any point the game can change from a side-scroller to a first-person shooter. That’s not tremendously cool by itself. I’ve occasionally seen that in games before. What really blows my mind is the camera work in Metroid. Not because the camera is always where it needs to be, but because the developers used it the way a movie director does- to change your mood and impart feeling.

For example, there’s an alien that jumps around a lot. It’s easy to avoid being jumped on in side-scroller mode, but I can only shoot my missiles in first-person view. And this thing is really hard to kill without missiles. Which means you wind up avoiding it with a flourish (seen from afar for maximum effect) and then switch to a first person POV to blas it to hell. This is awesome, and it’s exactly how this scenario would go down in a movie:

From a vantage point near the ceiling, we see a wide angle shot of the hero dodging the alien. We watch her leap and roll in a complicated gymnastic display, then bring her gun around. The camera immediately switches to the hero’s point of view so that the audience feels as if they themselves are delivering the killing stroke.

Now, there’s nothing that says I have to play the game that way. But the controls are set up with this perspective switch for a reason, and I’m rewarded for playing in both of them. It also adds an incredible cinematic feel to the game. Sure, some elements I can only see or get to in one perspective or another. But Other M rarely feels as though it’s forcing the choice on me.

Sometimes it does force me into a perspective. It’s clearly done for the same reasons I’ve mentioned. And those times that it does, it’s made me smile.

At one point I had killed enough baddies to trigger a cutscene. I watched my character look around cautiously. It was clearly quiet. Too quiet. Then the game let me take control, but forced me into a first-person view. At first I thought it was a glitch, then I figured out what they were doing. In a movie, this is exactly the sequence of camera angles calculated to build suspense.

We see the hero advance cautiously. They’re moving slowly, looking over their shoulder ever few steps. Then the camera pans back and forth across the area the room- as if we’re seeing it through the character’s eyes.

That’s exactly what was going on. Except I had control over where my eyes swept. The game was controlling the cutscene, but only to a point, allowing me to help write the script in small ways as we went along. Sure enough, something dramatic happened. And it was far more emotional watching it “through my own eyes” than it would have been watching it happen to a character on a screen.

I’m not saying this is perfect. There are times that the developers, in the hopes of creating a mood, disable character controls. And I think that sucks. There are rooms where you switch to a third-person over the shoulder view. There’s no enemies in these rooms, and you move with a cautious, slow walk, gun held at the ready. But you can’t jump. Or shoot. Pressing those buttons does nothing.

Why? Because they want me to respect something about this setting. In most shooters, you can always loose a couple of bullets at something. And that can really ruin a moment.

The hero dramatically enters the room where he will find a final clue. He sneaks around quietly, getting his bearings. Then, becoming bored, he unloads a clip of 9mm rounds into a glass mirror over the dresser, just to see if anything happens.

There goes your ambience.

Still, I’m against disabling buttons. I say replace them instead. Jump would become a lifting of the chin, bringing the ceiling into better focus. Shoot could be replaced by a request to interact with objects, like twisting a locked door handle or rifling through some papers. That would have enhanced the feeling of creepiness and solidtude without making me feel like I had been forcibly handicapped. Same number of options, just different ones appropriate to the scenario. The genius behind Other M is that while I’m seeing things the way the developers want me to, I still retain the ability to make decisions within those scenarios, effecting them in small ways. In these rooms I can’t. And that sucks.

People keep asking when video games will basically become playable movies. I feel like Metroid Other M is the first solid step in that direction. No matter what actions I take, the game is designed to try and make them look cool. It doesn’t always succeed, but the controls, gameplay, and perspective are all woven together in a way that creates the most movie-like experience I’ve had yet with a game.

Also, my brain feels like it’s on fire. Inconvenient.

I am alerting you to this awesome thing, which Warren Ellis alerted me to. Personally. By posting it on his blog. So, not personally at all.

Anyhow.

It’s about an all-but forgotten language. Which was just discovered. Like, two years ago. Awesome. I love shit like this. Have you any idea how many advances our species have made that we’ve already lost? Of course not. Because we lost them. Still, we know they’re there. Like this language. Or the pyramids. We used to be able to move giant freaking blocks of stone that even our greatest 2010 future cranes would be hard pressed to lift today. And we did it without the computer chip. Or electricity. Or plumbing.

Even with all our technology, there are skills that our ancestors possessed that we can’t match. Insanity.

Living in the Information/Computer Age, it’s nearly inconceivable to me that knowledge, no matter how trivial, can be lost. Which I think is why I’m so fascinated by this article. It’s a comprehensive, step by step look at how modern civilization completely and utterly lost the cure for scurvy a mere 200 years after finding it.

It’s amazing what we don’t know we knew.

Someone should write a story about that.

The Wife: So, I start two and a half weeks of nights [at the hospital] soon. Are you gonna write another book?

Me: Yup. This one will be different though. It’ll be a collection of short stories.

The Wife: Oh yeah? And how many do you have already?

Me: Oh, only about 3. Well, 4 counting the detective story, which will probably go in. But I’ve started about 8 others.

The Wife: And how many will you-

Me: But I’ll need a lot more to fill 100 pages.

The Wife: …wait, you’re serious.

See, The Wife doing night shift (flipping our work schedules and effectively making me single again) was one of the factors that influenced the writing of my first book. Another of the factors was my desire to do something I hadn’t done before. Something I had practically no idea how to do.

Both those things are behind my desire to publish another book. Which is why this won’t be a sequel to my last Totally Appropriate For All Ages And In No Way Infantile literary work. It will be a collection of short stories- something I believe I have conclusively proven on this very blog I have no idea how to write. It’s one of several challenges I’m going to have to overcome to make this happen.

Another is the fact that I spend anywhere from 40 to 40 hojillian (totally a real number) hours a week writing for my real job. Which often means that when I get home and try to fire the appropriate nerve synapses for “lets do more writing” my brain instead sends messages to the “let’s pick up the remote and see what’s on tv” muscles.

So if you notice a shorter post here and there, it’ll be because I’m trying to write elsewhere in my life. BrokenJPG will still update twice a week, and possibly more as I get used to just dropping quick, funny posts instead of long-winded rants about how technology screwed me again.

This is Ben Levy, reminding you that I have absolutely no idea what the hell I’m doing. And it’s worked out pretty well for me so far.

No thanks to you jerks.

Seriously, whether it’s been zombies, aliens, or evil wizards, the population in danger has insisted on offering no help whatsoever. I’m saving you bums from total annihilation, subjugation, and/or extinction, and not one of you cuts me a break.

Yeah, merchant with the bazooka who refuses to sell it to me for four dollars less than the listed price forcing me to take on a Sherman tank with a handgun, I’m talking to you. Look, it’s not like I’m asking you to pick up the damn thing and join me in my single-handed fight to save the world from an eternity of darkness. Heaven forbid. No, no, don’t get up, I’ll save humanity all on my own. All I’m asking is that you hand me the freaking anti-tank weapon so that I can KILL THE TANK.

And don’t act all smug, Random Civilians. You’re no better. This may come as a shock to you, but I get shot at. A lot. And it’d be just super if you gave me something to hide behind. A place of cover, if you will. Like, I don’t know, your home? Never happens. Instead, I wind up hunkered down behind a wooden crate in the middle of the street because every door -regardless of it being a mud hut or an apartment in a 20 mile high skyscraper- every door is practically welded shut. I’m not asking for much, I think. Just leave the door open so I can duck inside and restock one of the 10 guns, crossbows, wands or other random projectiles I’m carrying. You don’t even have to do anything special. In fact, I’m asking you to remember one less thing when fleeing for your worthless lives. Don’t. Lock. The door.

Honestly, the only people that ever helped me out were those nice elves from Hyrule. Decent folk, those Hyrulians. Hyrulites. Um, Hyranians? Damn good people, anyway. Y’know what they do? They take all their rupees and leave ‘em in pots. Hide ‘em on their front lawn. Bury ‘em in the backyard. It’s great. All I have to do is break some pots. Money in the bank. Then I can buy healing potions, better swords, a magic shield or two. That’s a population that appreciates being saved. Why can’t the rest of you bastards be more like Hyrule?

Of course, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if you idiots would just stop experimenting with bio-weapons and waking evil wizards. Just saying.

And of course by “pleasured a woman” I mean “unloaded the dishwasher while The Wife watched TV.”

Suffice it to say that I am both unerring and utterly incapable of finding a stud. Utterly incapable, because I’ll tap on the damn wall all day and never hear a difference in the tone. Unerring because as soon as I put the nail or screw in the wall, there’s the damn concrete support beam there, laughing at me.

And I never find it first. No no. I find it second. So you see, I’ve already measured everything, and put one hole in the wall, and now I have to move it. And remeasure. And put another hole in the wall. And then fill in the first hole.

All of which is a somewhat long-winded way of explaining that I was pretty relieved when I got the call from work asking me to pitch in on a Sunday. At least I got to put off hanging those damn shelves for another day.

Alas, PETA had some things to say about it. Below I have transcribed- based on absolutely nothing, and created completely out of whole cloth- the conversation that took place between PETA and W&K:

PETA: We saw that spot you did. With the monkey. We don’t like seeing animals in ads. Do the ad without the monkey, or we’ll complain loudly!

W&K: I see. So you’re saying the ad would be better without a monkey?

PETA: Yes!

W&K: No monkey at all?

PETA: NO! No monkeys should appear in advertisements! It’s cruel!

W&K: Hmm. Ok, we’ll make sure no one sees a monkey in our TV spot from now on.

And then they ran this ad:

I really hope it wins something at an award show. And that they put PETA down for partial credit.