Portal 2 (2011)

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When I recently wrote up my experience of playing through a number of Valve games, I mentioned that I had thought Portal 2 had overdone it and wasn’t as good as its predecessor, the clean and slim Portal.

Having just completed Portal 2 on a second playthrough – commenced, weirdly, a year to the day that I first played it – I have to say that past me is a dick. Or, maybe I just needed to play it close on the sprung heels of the first to figure out how great it is. Continue reading “Portal 2 (2011)” →

The Typing of the Dead: Overkill

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There’s a certain perverse joy found in killing digital zombies. They’re people, but they’re monsters, so it’s OK to annihilate them because if you don’t, you become one. Fair enough.

It’s something that’s fuelled a lot of games of late, but nowhere perhaps more enjoyably than in the rejig of The House of the Dead: Overkill called The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, which I picked up for cheap on Steam a while ago, but have only just been able to move to the top of Mount Backlog for its moment in the wintry sun. (I figured I needed a break from crowbars and headcrabs.)

The main attraction of the game is that it is fantastically over the top, even by the fairly low-culture standards of zombie media. Basically, it’s presented as an adults-only grindhouse-style series of films, with all the out-of-focus film, bad sound and clichés which go with the territory.

Let's all go to the lobby.

Yep, down to the Intermission sign. Continue reading “The Typing of the Dead: Overkill” →

Recent gaming: Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and Portal

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I’ve been playing through a couple of Valve’s games over the past few months. They’ve taken longer than I expected due to, you know, Life, but I’ve enjoyed them enough to consider posting some thoughts about them.

The games have been played as part of my ongoing attempt to minimise my frankly terrifying to-play list. It spans generations of consoles and about the past two decades of PC gaming, so there’s more than enough to be going on with. The PC playing has ramped up in the past little while as I built my own computer and now can play modern games at at least the native resolution of my lounge TV, with all bells and whistles on.

Continue reading “Recent gaming: Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and Portal” →

Fleeting flute moments

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I am learning the shakuhachi.

That is probably a misrepresentation of the development of my ability to this point, however. Because really, even though I’ve owned a plastic shakuhachi – for there’s no point in owning a bamboo one, worth thousands, until I can play something worth a damn on a PVC, injection-moulded copy – for a couple of years now, only the most basic tones and articulations are within my reach.

A Good Use for Sundays.

Continue reading “Fleeting flute moments” →

Book review: My Lovely Ghost KANA, Volume 3

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My Lovely Ghost KANA, Volume 3.My Lovely Ghost KANA, Volume 3 by Yutaka Tanaka
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This review is brief, as there’s not really all that much I can add to my previous two reviews of this manga. This, the third volume, brings to a close the supernatural romance’s run, and leaves us with little more knowledge than when we began.

The problem with My Lovely Ghost KANA is that there’s not much of an overarching story. Guy meets ghostgirl, they drink beer and shag, and the background of neither is explained very well. Continue reading “Book review: My Lovely Ghost KANA, Volume 3” →

Book review: The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure

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The Book of the Dead.The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this for a birthday present, and have only just completed it. I don’t know why it took so long for me to pull it off the shelf, but I’m glad I did. It’s full of wry humour and life lessons, though it imparts these without being preachy. Plus, it has a boss front cover. I mean, a skeleton wearing a dunce cap? Nice.

This book is a Who’s Who of dead people. Except rather than being an alphabetical collection, it’s thematic – the corpses are bundled together by theme rather than surname, which means you get to have a section where Epicurus rubs shoulders with Benjamin Franklin and Moll Cutpurse (because they were all happy-go-lucky), as well as a section where the dead are united by monkeys. Continue reading “Book review: The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure” →

There will be blood (but not in me)

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Orinoco flow.

Today I will catch the train to Chatswood and let a Polish woman stick a big needle into my arm, in order to remove a bunch of my blood. Not enough to leave me deflated on the bed like some kind of Flat Stanley character, but enough to make me feel dizzy, maybe.

I think it’s my tenth? I’m not sure. I’ve donated a bunch of times over the past few years, and by their reckoning (or is it my misremembering?) the lives of three people are saved from each donation. That means if it’s my tenth, I’ve saved the lives of thirty people. I’m a regular fucking Superman, except my superpower is the ability to withstand being used as a human pincushion. For a period. Continue reading “There will be blood (but not in me)” →

Synergy Percussion and Noreum Machi: Earth Cry 15/8/2015

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Waiting.

Last Saturday evening I spent a little over an hour watching two percussion ensembles perform at Sydney’s City Recital Hall. It was the culmination of a couple of years of joint study and development between Sydney’s Synergy Percussion and Korea’s Noreum Machi. This show was the last of the tour, with the Korean trio set to fly out the next morning, so I was interested to see how the two would come together. Continue reading “Synergy Percussion and Noreum Machi: Earth Cry 15/8/2015” →

Book review: Amnesia (2014)

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Amnesia.Amnesia by Peter Carey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve long been a fan of Peter Carey’s work, so I was pleased to be given Amnesia as a birthday present. I was further pleased to discover that, though the work is flawed, he’s created here one of his more memorable characters – Felix Moore, a weakling, a drinker, a leftie and crucially, a journalist.

Having worked in the industry for years, the portraiture is remarkably accurate. There’s a quote in it,

“I had a lifetime of hard-won technical ability but was my heart sufficient… Did I have the courage for something more than a five-column smash and grab?”

which pretty much encapsules the mind of the jobbing journo in a few scant lines. Continue reading “Book review: Amnesia (2014)” →

Perambulation and mortification

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I’ve previously mentioned that I’ve had a thing for podcasts. I find they’re the best thing to have in my ears when I’m taking my daily walk, because they’re less predictable than music for when you’re strolling; it’s easier to avoid clock-watching with a podcast because even though you might know the length of the things, the content isn’t as familiar as music you’ve heard before, where the verse/chorus/verse that you’re familiar with become clock-stopping impediments.

So lately, I’ve been listening to one called Mortified. It’s made from recordings of live events, where people get up on stage and read out parts of their teenage diaries in front of groups of strangers. It’s in the same ballpark as a local event called Confession Booth, now also a podcast, except Mortified is strict about using adolescent writing as the source. Continue reading “Perambulation and mortification” →