The Darkside Detective – really fun and funny (I mean LOL funny) adventure game, with a small town detective and his idiot sidekick solving paranormal / occult mysteries. (See review.) No voice acting and super-chunky pixel graphics, which work surprisingly well. Solutions to puzzles are often bizarre but well-cued, making the playing a very enjoyable experience. A well-deserved winner of the 2017 Aggie awards for Best comedy writing, and a runner up for the readers’ choice Best adventure of 2017.
The Age of the Image – repeat of BBC documentary series presented by James Fox, taking a trip through twentieth-century image-making and image-use, part history of technology, part semiotics and cultural studies – nothing revolutionary, but just very, very well told. What also struck me on this re-viewing was the effort the production team put into getting Fox constantly into the frame: handling unique works of art and craft such as a matte painting used in Star Wars, walking round gallery installations, standing in the actual street locations of classic photos. Contrast this continual presence with the style of Adam Curtis, who is only ever a voiceover in his documentaries.
‘Science Fiction Audiences: Watching “Doctor Who” and "Star Trek”’ by John Tulloch and Henry Jenkins – proper academic book from Routledge freely available as a PDF. Slightly dated (1995), but some observations which are still interesting, for example how the original Star Trek self-consciously merged three genres (the technological utopianism of ‘hard’ SF, the social utopianism of 1960s ‘soft’ SF and the action adventure of space opera). An interesting chapter on MIT students who see Star Trek as an embodiment and validation of their scientific technical outlook, much interested in reconciling scientific inaccuracies and in the quality of special effects, and misogynist in their humour. And two interesting chapters on how female and gay fans, far from the passive consumers of classic literary theory, have wrestled with the many respects in which the show did not live up to its progressive social values, not by rejecting the show but seeking to resolve these tensions within the fictional world: first by fan fiction, focusing on female characters marginalised in the television series, and second by agitating for the inclusion of a gay character in The Next Generation cast, not just an “issue” show about homosexuality (such as ‘The Host’ or ‘The Outcast’).
Syberia 3 – a decent game, as I was pleasantly surprised to find, given the poor reviews, though perhaps not up to the quality of the first two. The weaknesses are the non-player characters, especially the clichéd villains and the infantalised generic members of the Yukol tribe. Its strengths are what they always were: the graphic design and the mechanical puzzles, now with a simple but satisfying twist in that you have to accomplish tasks physically: you have to use the joystick (or mouse) to rotate keys, turn handles, pull levers, instead of just clicking on them. The story is perhaps a bit linear with the next step spelled out in a list of objectives, but I have no objections to an easier game. Well, I’m up to date now, and ready for the much-anticipated and well-reviewed Syberia 4: The World Before.
Proofreading Theses and Dissertations, by Stephen Cashmore – a CIEP guide for editors working with university students. Very good on establishing with the student exactly which aspects of their work you will check and which you won’t, and on ethical aspects such as dealing with plagiarism (including unmarked and unacknowledged quotations, which is its most common form) and querying facts (as distinct from checking facts, which you should definitely not do).
Heaven’s Vault – two-volume novel by Jon Ingold, based on his well-reviewed and award-winning adventure game. Although I liked the game, I enjoyed the novel more. The game is quite emotionally flat, whereas the novel has peril, tension and tender resolution, and I’m sure there are entire sequences which have no equivalent in the game, such as Alysia’s childhood in Elboreth and the origins of her friendship with Oroi which is a major theme in the book. There are also many things which I didn’t understand properly, such as that the robots were not made in Alysia’s time but were a product of an earlier civilisation, unearthed on Iox and reactivated. Perhaps these were things I was supposed to infer or work out for myself in the game? In which case there was a great deal that I missed. Perhaps I’d better play it again…
Dear Esther – classic game, the original “walking simulator”. There are no dangers, no puzzles, no objects to pick up and use; just a Hebridean island, with a flashing tower-top light in the distance and a path to follow, and an occasional man’s voice – yours? someone else’s? – reading out letters to the titular Esther, or perhaps thinking aloud. There is a back-story of some kind, though the authors left it deliberately unclear so that all you have is suggestions, hints, clues. The island is really beautifully realised; I found myself repeatedly stopping just to watch the waves breaking on the shore, the plants waving in the wind, the mist rolling across the sea, the flickering of lighted candles as the night slowly falls. A true classic, which paved the way for later walking simulators such as Gone Home and Firewatch (played by me in February 2015, with discussion, and April-June 2019). See review on Adventure Gamers, the story of its development, and various attempts at explaining the story, see especially the post by Prismfalcon (Sept 17 2018).
Live from London Summer – another fine series of livestreamed concerts from those nice people and most excellent singers Voces8.,though I have to say the knock-out performances were their own single-piece videos, recorded at various locations around the world while on tour. The best were Giovanni Croce’s double choir ‘Buccinate in neomenia tuba’ and a clever mash-up of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ and ‘Come Fly with Me’; those videos are unfortunately not on YouTube, but their beautiful rendering of Grieg’s ‘Ave Maris Stella’ happily is.
Let’s Talk: How English Conversation Works, by David Crystal – lovely, accessible but academically-founded book by everyone’s favourite linguist on the pragmatics of how conversations are started, maintained and ended. Some nice points, such as that interruptions, fuzziness and imprecision, and parenthetical comment clauses (such as “you know”) are not only normal but actually critical to keeping a conversation going. Great examples, lots of fun.
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