Selfsurprise

The new Doom.

The Deadspace franchise (I'm talking predominantly about the first two games, the third one was deeply flawed and basically a kind of scary equivalent of Ratchet & Clank only with more half-arsed sitcom-esque drama) is one series that I only ever seem to find negative commentary on. People claim the controls are too clumsy or that it over relies on jump scares. Personally I found the tense atmosphere, sense of lurking threat and the moments of sheer stupid panic in both initial titles to be extremely effective, and the design and concept of the flesh-appropriating necromorphs ticked all of my alien body horror boxes. There's something repulsively appealing about a plague that callously reshapes human corpses into numerous specialised aberrantly nightmarish predatory forms, purely to engender more dead body resources to further propagate the contagion - from a casually evolutionary standpoint, why isn't all life on Earth like this? Also, in regards to jump scares, Deadspace utilizes them in surprisingly unpredictable and unrestrained manner. There are few sections of the game you ever feel truly safe.

"Some people just want to watch the world burn..."

Really difficult to listen to if you haven't got anything to hit it with.

There may well be elements of horror in this new game, the dead cetaceans, an implication of desperate survival, the mysterious levitating figures point to some rather P.T.-ish uncanniness. I'm enjoying all the rather premature theories the trailer, especially the one that proposes the whole thing was a symbolically coded middle finger to Konami and Kojima's self-imposed severing from his past work (the vanishing infant standing in for the cancelled Silent Hills, the beached whale and dolphin carcasses an analogy for the Metal Gear Solid series). As for the inevitable guffs and guffaws this trailer will no doubt engender, it's best not to pay much heed to that gallery of sneering asses we call public opinion. I'll be keeping a finger on this game's pulse, for now.

I was thinking more positive in the cosmic-meditative sense rather than in the Abrahamic sense. That being said, given the potential of nuerous epic themes and mythology to draw from, Abrahamic Metal could potentially be awesome. A progressively heavy style with doom/melodic influences and Judeo-Christian-Islamic themes. Not necessarily in a creepily optimistic fundamentalist tone (this needn't be "conversion" music) but more terms of the innumerable figures and stories the faiths are associated with.

@ Jeb: The artist Damien Hirst dropped out of high school and only due to his art teacher's encouragement did he take an A-Level course on the subject, which resulted in an E Grade and an initial rejection into the Leeds College of Art. Whatever people think of his work or career trajectory, I can't think of many other artists whose oeuvre has been as commercially and critically successful. If there hope for a YBA ex-delinquent like him then there's hope for us all! :3

Snortz by Capricorni Pneumatici

You might recall that book written by Hal Foster titled Bad New Days, which I talked about in the threads first post, which was an art criticism attempt at defining certain tendencies and occupations in contemporary art. Since reading that I've been rather taken by Mr. Foster's extremely broad minded and cyclical interpretation of art history, he writes a kind of history of art informed criticism and literature that purposefully foregoes the usual hoary cliche of "movements" and individual artists "phases" and instead presents modern art as some inextricably linked to its cultural setting, regardless if it's conceived in establishment (i.e. the gallery and museum, political consensus, even the previous neo-avant-garde) or as a reaction to given set of social standards. In The Return of the Real, Foster (having written the book in the mid 1990's) Foster reacted to what he perceived as an unusual return to and demand for "reality" in art - often as a adversarial mode held by both an older generation of Greenbergian formalists and latter-day defenders of abject realism (i.e. the one thing minimalists and pop artists had in common despite their antipathy to one another). It's not too often that you come across an art critic and writer beyond the late 70's who presents a genuinely refreshing and original interpretation of the field, even many great writers on the subject who are informed of past literature and discourse tend to fall into two categories; firstly those that experimentally attempt to set a "new paradigm" of thinking in relation to art, or secondly a somewhat those that cast a mournful dejection of what they perceived to be a lost opportunities of past artists and philosophers. "Since the Industrial Revolution a contradiction has existed between the craft basis of visual art and the industrial order of social life. [...] With minimalism and pop this contradiction is at once so attenuated (as in the minimalist concern with nuances of perception) and so collapsed (as in the Warholian motto "I want to be a machine") that it stands as a principal dynamic of modernist art. In this regard, too, the seriality of minimalism and pop is indicative of advanced-capitalist production and consumption, for both register the penetration of industrial modes into spheres (art, leisure, sport) that were once removed from them." - Hal Foster, The Return of the Real: Chapter 2, The Crux of Minimalism "[...] this ethnographer envy is shared by many critics, especially in cultural studies and new historicism, who assume the role of ethnographer usually in disguised form: the cultural-studies ethnographer dressed down as a fellow fan (for reasons of political solidarity, but with greater social anxiety); the new-historicist ethnographer dressed up as a master archivist (for reasons of scholary respectability, but with great professional arrogance)" - Hal Foster, The Return of the Real: Chapter 6, The Artist as Ethnographer "Modernism has never meant anything like a break with the past" - Clement Greenburg

^ It's okay BTG, we believe you... Capitol by TR/ST

i2nuHEGhwiw I don't suppose anyone here has seen this trailer of Hideo Kojima's newest to-be-released title, from his new self-titled production company? What do you guys make of it? I have to confess I never fully enjoyed playing any of the MGS titles after the third outing, but I do love the philosophically barmy and bizarrely casted lore of the entire MGS series - I often wish it were a TV series rather than a game franchise. If this exceptionally mysterious trailer is anything to go by, it seems like Kojima has really taken his newfound creative freedom and slackened the reins on his imagination to town. There's dead sea animals all connected to what appear to be umbilical cords, a naked dude covered in handprints, five enigmatic human figures hovering on the horizon, a vanishing baby... just another day in Kojima Productions offices then! But is all seriousness this trailer has got my attention. I'd half-heartedly argue that MGS slightly lost it's footing in later iterations, it's cinematic-to-gameplay ratio being disastrously off, the narrative and plot elements having become something of an overinflated balloon animal. Time will only tell if this game will prove to be something as inspiring and ubiquitous as Metal Gear Solid, but I certainly embrace the opportunity to rekindle my gaming homage to Kojima. Any thoughts on what on the blinkin' blue earth is happening in the trailer though? :3 EDIT: That song is pretty nice, too.

Maybe I'm just such a misanthropic arsehole that I sometimes forget that many people are just natural pessimists rather than card-carrying Houellebecqian entropy advocating nihilists like me ;p I know how annoying it can be when people spout chirpy but ultimately unhelpful gibberish about "every cloud having a silver lining" or "looking on the bright side of things" or any other number of overutilized and vomit-inducing platitudes. Just don't let other people's snowflake egos and self-centered slights against you turn into self-loathing. If you are going to hate yourself then do it on your own terms, not on other folks uninteresting and artless standards. Also, though I'm certain you are a civilized and fundamentally kind person who wants no trouble, don't bother trying to not piss off the general populace and even half-familiar acquaintances. They aren't worth the hassle.

"If any of you hairless pseudo-apes ask me if I want a banana one more time, I'm spirit bombing your entire species into the afterlife."

Play them some Deicide. That ought to allay their doubts. Nobody wants to help me start an Amish Industrial band. How do convince people that it's actually a really great idea?

Nervous Keeper and Feeder of The Title Eater.

Is extremely modest and humble about his digital talents.

You shouldn't beat yourself up so much Jeb! I don't drive and I couldn't be happier. There are certain undeniable benefits that owning a car has, but it really isn't for everyone. It strikes me that you and I have reasonably similar personality types (i.e. worrisome, a greater-than-average distrust of people, a "the glass is half empty" * outlook, etc), can you honestly say you'd be happy with the many overarching pressures owning a car would entail? Fretting if you've got all your taxes paid off, roadworthiness checks and MOT's, the underlying fear that some human pondlife with vandalize your vehicle, etc - and that's before you even take driving the sodding thing into account! I took driving lessons about ten or twelve years ago and aside from exciting incident where I drove over a roundabout, the only thing I aced at was parking the car. I spent a lot of money on lessons and failed two theory tests to reach the eventual conclusion that driving definitely wasn't for me. * Or alternatively, a "the glass doesn't exist AND NEITHER DO I" outlook.

Oh no! :c He's so young. I know the new Star Trek movies aren't to everyone's tastes (personally I really enjoyed them) but I think if you take the whole "alternative universe" sthick it's really not that bad, a bit blockbuster for traditional Trekkie fare actually rather enjoyable. I particularly thought the casting was very spot on, including Mr. Yelchin as Chekov. That's a real shame, thanks for letting us know Daniel.

You know, doom metal with an overwhelmingly positive vibe would be pretty dope. Enlightenment Metal? Saṃsāra Metal?

This thread keeps me sane and happy everywhere else. Sorta. As for gender, either pronoun is fine. We all employ ways and means of staving off "the hate". I'll refer to you as "their pangenderness" from now on... :3 That was glorious Selfsurprise. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I'm glad you saw the funny side of it Helio, thanks mate He found it less amusing. I try not to bring my problems with me when I'm on this forum, it was a kind of a new year's resolution that I'd stop complaining about my job so much. If I am going to whine I should at least bring along a snarky anecdote or two.

Tell me about it. Talking to most people strikes me as a massive waste of ones own breath, and listening to the campaigners and politicians with their nakedly obvious agendas is even less worthwhile. The recent murder of Jo Cox this week is certain to fuel the remain-fundamentalists fire and insistence that all Brexiteers are right-wing nutcases. Well that exact sentiment was one of the reasons I've seriously considered a leave vote. Because the EU is a democratic union, it relies on it's members choosing to comply with its policies, and I think with a few major exceptions Britain has abiding rather faithfully to those policies. I don't think any of us can forget the stink kicked up by other EU countries when Cameron made his rather cynical voter-carrot bid to curb EU migration into the country. But the manner in which some the EU's other members implement these policies, arguably leaves a lot to be desired. Do we want to be a sinking ship if the hulks wiser population of ennobled rats are already scuttling off the decks? Immigration has never been a particularly pertinent issue for me, both in my personal life and in my ethical considerations. For a large-ish West Midlands town Tamworth isn't a particularly diverse place, bucking the trend for the region somewhat, and it's only in the last ten years or so I've noticed a steady (yet rather transient) community of Polish migrants settling into town. If there's some sort of evil cabal of swarthy-skinned foreign conspirators instigating some kind of cultural takeover in England, I must not be looking hard enough I guess... ;p

10/10, like, seriously... I wish more people who are fundamentally atheistic would read that quote, and in doing so hopefully reach the understanding that religion and spirituality aren't, in of themselves, the source of all society's ills. “Joy untouched by thankfulness is always suspect.” - Theodor Haecker

9/10, IT'S OVER 9,MOJOOOOOO!!!

Bolts. It might the Warhammer 40k/Bolt Thrower bias in me, but it has to be bolts. Pastel Pink or Hot Barbie Pink?

"So this policeman tells me to pullover, but I's tells him that it's actually a starfleet uniform..."