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Feb. 7th, 2020 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sideways• I finished killyhawk's gift of An Unkindness of Ghosts, which proved a thought-provoking sci-fi debut bursting with diversity, and also one of the grimmest things I have ever read. I'm glad to have experienced it but I don't know that it's one I would re-read, in the same way I don't feel compelled to re-read Toni Morrison's Beloved - it lands like a blow and you never quite forget the bruise. Kudos to the author for pulling no punches.
• On a lighter note, Killyhawk also put me onto the new Netflix-Dreamworks animated series Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts! The story follows a 12 year old Kipo who finds herself stranded on the surface world some several hundred years after an undisclosed cataclysm has left the world overrun by "mutes" - mostly anthropomorphic animals of various wacky description - and has many adventures while seeking a way back to her underground home. Where Over the Garden Wall was an autumn fairytale making homage to various Western animation styles, Kipo is a similar level of humourous fever dream but in the flavour of neon afroculture anime. It's easily digested and a visual treat with some surprisingly deep character moments scattered throughout. Also, Wolf is the best.
• I finally threw on Klaus a few weeks ago, having heard the animation lauded here and there, and found it really enjoyable. Certainly the visuals are the big highlight - it is so goshdarn pretty, and a solid feed for the 2D craving - and the story had some messages in it that I appreciated seeing. I do wish they'd been just a little more willing to stray from formula, though; the romance felt more like a happenstance of expectation than something with real chemistry and was nowhere near as interesting as the various platonic relationships that developed, and the Third Act Misunderstanding honestly felt downright silly when the character in question had put the barest possible effort into hiding his secret. Still very much worth a watch.
• I didn't find myself clicking with Witcher III despite my efforts, so I switched tack and had unexpectedly huge amounts of fun with Titanfall 2, which in retrospect is not that surprising because I love shooter mechanics more than hack-and-slash and am just always the biggest sucker in the world for bond companions. Allowing me to run around with a 30 foot tall war machine who is my Friend and Pal will get me to overlook any number of cliches, I tell ya. The campaign was quite short but the level designs were genuinely very entertaining, and after running through it the first time in about 7 hours I immediately turned around and burned through a second time on the hard difficulty just to see if I could. (I could!) Can't recommend picking it up for full price unless you think you'll get lots of mileage out of the multiplayer, but luckily it's easy to get at reduced cost; I nabbed it for free on one of the PS+ runs.
• I also picked up What Remains of Edith Finch and Transistor on sale - finished the former and am nearing the end in the latter. Edith Finch is a masterclass in the storytelling possibilities inherent in video games as a medium, and also broke my heart in about four different ways.
• The next Unsounded chapter has started, hooray! Feeling very [teeth] about what this one promises to cover, but [teeth] is honestly the central Unsounded experience, so.
killyhawk's gift of An Unkindness of Ghosts, which proved a thought-provoking sci-fi debut bursting with diversity, and also one of the grimmest things I have ever read. I'm glad to have experienced it but I don't know that it's one I would re-read, in the same way I don't feel compelled to re-read Toni Morrison's Beloved - it lands like a blow and you never quite forget the bruise. Kudos to the author for pulling no punches. • On a lighter note, Killyhawk also put me onto the new Netflix-Dreamworks animated series Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts! The story follows a 12 year old Kipo who finds herself stranded on the surface world some several hundred years after an undisclosed cataclysm has left the world overrun by "mutes" - mostly anthropomorphic animals of various wacky description - and has many adventures while seeking a way back to her underground home. Where Over the Garden Wall was an autumn fairytale making homage to various Western animation styles, Kipo is a similar level of humourous fever dream but in the flavour of neon afroculture anime. It's easily digested and a visual treat with some surprisingly deep character moments scattered throughout. Also, Wolf is the best.
• I finally threw on Klaus a few weeks ago, having heard the animation lauded here and there, and found it really enjoyable. Certainly the visuals are the big highlight - it is so goshdarn pretty, and a solid feed for the 2D craving - and the story had some messages in it that I appreciated seeing. I do wish they'd been just a little more willing to stray from formula, though; the romance felt more like a happenstance of expectation than something with real chemistry and was nowhere near as interesting as the various platonic relationships that developed, and the Third Act Misunderstanding honestly felt downright silly when the character in question had put the barest possible effort into hiding his secret. Still very much worth a watch.
• I didn't find myself clicking with Witcher III despite my efforts, so I switched tack and had unexpectedly huge amounts of fun with Titanfall 2, which in retrospect is not that surprising because I love shooter mechanics more than hack-and-slash and am just always the biggest sucker in the world for bond companions. Allowing me to run around with a 30 foot tall war machine who is my Friend and Pal will get me to overlook any number of cliches, I tell ya. The campaign was quite short but the level designs were genuinely very entertaining, and after running through it the first time in about 7 hours I immediately turned around and burned through a second time on the hard difficulty just to see if I could. (I could!) Can't recommend picking it up for full price unless you think you'll get lots of mileage out of the multiplayer, but luckily it's easy to get at reduced cost; I nabbed it for free on one of the PS+ runs.
• I also picked up What Remains of Edith Finch and Transistor on sale - finished the former and am nearing the end in the latter. Edith Finch is a masterclass in the storytelling possibilities inherent in video games as a medium, and also broke my heart in about four different ways.
• The next Unsounded chapter has started, hooray! Feeling very [teeth] about what this one promises to cover, but [teeth] is honestly the central Unsounded experience, so.
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Date: 2020-02-09 09:13 am (UTC)