Spira Mirabilis
Oct. 15th, 2004 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xyzzysqrl...or, In Which I Talk In Circles.
Let's get this out of the way, because my ego demands fodder:
Medieval Conquest review
Myst IV review
My inherent biases will show through, but this is probably not to be helped.
I'm starting to feel I'm a slightly more mature writer, anyway. Not -better- as such... well, perhaps a little. When I was younger, I wrote some -really awful- stuff, reviews and poetry and fiction. I was of course quite positive that these were all excellent because they came from me and they made ME happy, so clearly they would do the same to everyone else on Earth.
No.
Now I think I know better. When I get assigned something for WP (or, hell, to an extent just when I'm writing for fun here on LJ) I revise and I nitpick and I still get stuff wrong. (Example: Crash Bandicoot review? A New Zealand friend of mine pointed out that Bandicoots aren't actually from there. Stupid mistake. Should've researched more.) So every review that goes up, I spend about a half-hour going "Yes! I rock!" and then I get down to working out how the next one can be better. What I should be doing is letting each "Finished" review sit around for a day or two and then going back to it, to make a second critical pass before I send them off. Must remember that.
I feel as if I'm sick. I feel like two toy cars are parked in my sinuses. And not Matchbox cars either. Like, Tonka.
On a completely other tangent, some techno music ("Finished Symphony" from the SSX snowboarding game, for the curious) just went by on the MP3 player, and I'm wondering when techno music stumbled upon the Heavy Metal Holding Pattern. Maybe I've just been listening to more active and involved music lately, but...
...I should explain the HMHP.
The Heavy Metal Holding Pattern is that portion of a loud rock song in which one guy with a guitar and maybe a drummer stops the song to go "dun-da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-DAAAH DAAAH dun-da-da-dun da-da-dun..." for about five minutes while the lead singer is in the bathroom, having a smoke, making out with the drummer and/or members of the audience, etc. It ends whenever the singer can be bothered to wander back to the microphone and finish the song.
The techno version is even simpler. It just goes "bumpaBOMPAbumpaBOMPAbumpaBOMPAbumpaBOMPA" until someone stops that drum loop. I want to know why these exist prolifically enough that I can identify them in a great many songs, and then I want them to go away.
Not that they will. I'm just saying.
It's starting to turn fall here in MA, and it's getting very red and orange out there. I am impressed. Looks good. I do wish that midway through... say, August... MA didn't start to hit freezing cold levels of suck in the weather, but that can't be helped. New England is made up of so much evil that it sucks the heat out of the SUN ITSELF to fuel its darkness. Or some damn thing, I'm metaphorically unsound right now. Evil. Yes.
I just felt I should be posting about something. I still exist, which feels important. That's all.
Let's get this out of the way, because my ego demands fodder:
Medieval Conquest review
Myst IV review
My inherent biases will show through, but this is probably not to be helped.
I'm starting to feel I'm a slightly more mature writer, anyway. Not -better- as such... well, perhaps a little. When I was younger, I wrote some -really awful- stuff, reviews and poetry and fiction. I was of course quite positive that these were all excellent because they came from me and they made ME happy, so clearly they would do the same to everyone else on Earth.
No.
Now I think I know better. When I get assigned something for WP (or, hell, to an extent just when I'm writing for fun here on LJ) I revise and I nitpick and I still get stuff wrong. (Example: Crash Bandicoot review? A New Zealand friend of mine pointed out that Bandicoots aren't actually from there. Stupid mistake. Should've researched more.) So every review that goes up, I spend about a half-hour going "Yes! I rock!" and then I get down to working out how the next one can be better. What I should be doing is letting each "Finished" review sit around for a day or two and then going back to it, to make a second critical pass before I send them off. Must remember that.
I feel as if I'm sick. I feel like two toy cars are parked in my sinuses. And not Matchbox cars either. Like, Tonka.
On a completely other tangent, some techno music ("Finished Symphony" from the SSX snowboarding game, for the curious) just went by on the MP3 player, and I'm wondering when techno music stumbled upon the Heavy Metal Holding Pattern. Maybe I've just been listening to more active and involved music lately, but...
...I should explain the HMHP.
The Heavy Metal Holding Pattern is that portion of a loud rock song in which one guy with a guitar and maybe a drummer stops the song to go "dun-da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-DAAAH DAAAH dun-da-da-dun da-da-dun..." for about five minutes while the lead singer is in the bathroom, having a smoke, making out with the drummer and/or members of the audience, etc. It ends whenever the singer can be bothered to wander back to the microphone and finish the song.
The techno version is even simpler. It just goes "bumpaBOMPAbumpaBOMPAbumpaBOMPAbumpaBOMPA" until someone stops that drum loop. I want to know why these exist prolifically enough that I can identify them in a great many songs, and then I want them to go away.
Not that they will. I'm just saying.
It's starting to turn fall here in MA, and it's getting very red and orange out there. I am impressed. Looks good. I do wish that midway through... say, August... MA didn't start to hit freezing cold levels of suck in the weather, but that can't be helped. New England is made up of so much evil that it sucks the heat out of the SUN ITSELF to fuel its darkness. Or some damn thing, I'm metaphorically unsound right now. Evil. Yes.
I just felt I should be posting about something. I still exist, which feels important. That's all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-15 11:33 am (UTC)ROFL! :) Ah yes, the GALLOP! A rhythmic guitar device that lulls the listener into "riding along," so that when the guitarist pulls out of it into a hard chord change ("CHUGchuggaCHUGchuggaWAAAAAHHHH -- WAAAAHHHH! CHUGchuggaCHUGchuggaCHUGchuggaCHUGchugga..."), the audience is tricked into believing that something exciting happened before their eyes! It was also referred to in my teenage wanna-be-band past as the "whackoff," due to the repetitive hand motions.
Ronnie James Dio is notoriously bad for abusing the Gallop. Actually, come to think of it, he's notoriously bad for abusing every tenet of quality music. He's the Jim Steinman of Metal. ;)
CHESTY, dammit!
Date: 2004-10-15 11:59 am (UTC)Which you should send them as an ongoing review anyway. It would be the greatest game walkthrough ever written in the history of mankind.
Re: CHESTY, dammit!
Date: 2004-10-15 11:47 pm (UTC)0%.
Given the general lack of reaction to the last couple of posts, and the general "sit around"ness of spending four hours writing up ten minutes of gameplay, it's been hard to motivate to write those. (This didn't help much.)
It's not dead. Just slowed down. I have other things to do.
Re: CHESTY, dammit!
Date: 2004-10-16 07:39 am (UTC)