<![CDATA[Low Five Productions - Greg\'s Journal]]>

<![CDATA[Low Five Productions - Greg\'s Journal]]>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 11:56:18 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Future Diary – The Anime that Makes you Question if Anything Matters at All]]>Mon, 01 Feb 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/future-diary-the-anime-that-makes-you-question-if-anything-matters-at-all

This weekend, man. Holy shit this weekend. To say the absolute least, it’s been a journey, and all from a few psychological thrillers I watched. But I digress. I really can’t say enough good things about the anime Future Diary, but I have resolved that I’m going to keep this post as spoiler free as possible. I will say, however, Future Diary is a mature anime. I don’t mean you have to be over a certain age to watch it or enjoy it, though it is a 18A show; what I mean is that in order to get into it, you have to be okay with a gritty, basically uncensored, version of the world. Things are bloody and messy, people are complicated and don’t explain every motivation, and the world, well the world certainly has a lot of happiness to be had, even in the darkest of places, but for most of the characters in this show, it all stems from darkness. So if you’re down for anime that likes to fuck with everything you know and love about anime and your mental and emotional well being, keep reading.

The premise of the show is that the God of Space and Time is dying and in order to decide who will succeed him, he decides to conduct a survival game. If you’re unfamiliar with survival games, they’re essentially competitions that pit an eclectic group of characters together who are forced through various means to kill or be killed. Think Hunger Games or Battle Royale. In Future Diary’s survival game there are 12 participants chosen by effectively three criteria: he/she has to be highly observant, he/she must have a passion/desire to document, and he/she have to be a bit of a loner. The 12 contestants chosen are then given a device, typically a cell phone, which tells them the future of the next 90 days. To make the game even more interesting, each contestant’s diary focuses on different details of the future. If a future reads “Dead End” it means that a contestant is going to die by one of their opponents; although, the future is a fluid, especially for people who readily know it. If becoming a God isn’t enough motivation for people to play the game, there’s also the added bonus that the world will end if a new God isn’t chosen before the old one dies.

Just by the premise alone, I was willing to give this anime a shot, and boy, was I not disappointed. It’s seldom that I’ll text a friend to watch something immediately, but after I watched this first episode of Future Diary, I knew two things. I have friends who are going to absolutely love this show, and I don’t think I could watch this whole 26 episode series without the ability to vent to someone who knew the mental fuckitude that was this show. With that in mind, I texted Low Five’s one and only Penner at two in the morning and told him he needed to watch the first episode, and he happily obliged. The next couple of days became a string of texts between us filled with rage, happiness, laughter, sadness, and the consistent use of “Super Devil” to describe one of the characters in the show. As you watch the series, you will come to understand.

To put it into perspective, this show has tones and subplots, backed by an incredible soundtrack, which sometimes mimics a romantic comedy, a shounen action, a detective story, a drama, and a whole bunch more. All of which effectively tosses your emotions into a dryer with steel-toed boots and set to its highest spin cycle.

No jokes though, there are moments in this anime that may make me never sleep the same again. It’s pretty early on in the series and once you get to that part, you’ll know, you’ll understand. But it doesn’t peak there. No, no, it’s far from peaking. Future Diary likes to make you think that it really can’t get more intense, then episode two comes along and it’s all like, “we’re going to crank this shit to 11.” Come episode three, though, it’s laughing at you, saying, “you thought we were done at 11? 11 is for bitches.”

Penner and I have both agreed that we’ve never talked to our T.V.s as much as we talked to them while we watched this series. Typically, it was to yell ‘no’ or ‘stop’…repeatedly. Uhg. I want to say more, but I just can’t. I don’t want to give any spoilers.
I hope that you watch it. Go watch it. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here for you, just comment down below. Just try to keep it as spoiler free as possible.

Keep Strong.

I’ll also leave you with Penner’s words after we took a small break from the show “I hope the edge of my seat is ready ’cause that’s where I’m going to be for the next X amount of hours.”

P.S. you’re probably wondering how the pictures in the post correlate to the anime…they don’t. I just wanted to leave you with something happy and good.

]]><![CDATA[Quick Thought: How I Measure Great Games]]>Sun, 24 Jan 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/quick-thought-how-i-measure-great-games

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before in any of my posts, but when I play a game, I try to play my first run of the game without a walkthrough. I go in as blind as possible. Mainly, I do this because I relish in the feeling I get when I accomplish something completely on my own merit. If there’s a difficult puzzle or challenge in a game, it feels all the more rewarding when conquered with your own knowledge and abilities. It’s kind of the same feeling I get from beating games on Hard Mode, despite that Hard Mode can be bullshit sometimes (here are my thoughts on that matter).

However, this method of playing through games does have a major disadvantage; you absolutely will miss some stuff.I hate missing stuff, especially optional characters and the like. As a result, I’ve become a bit incessant on exploring every area and every object I can when I’m playing through a game. Unfortunately, this method can be pretty time consuming, which forced me to become a little less incessant and a little more choosey. I’ll still explore as much as I can and check every object, but when I’ve beaten a game, I’ll start checking walkthroughs and forums. I’ll then realize I invariably missed some side quest/item/character and I’m left with a decision to make. Is it worth it to replay the game to acquire the things I missed? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no, but whatever my decision is, I realize how I felt about the game. It’s one of my major criteria on what games I think are truly great.

Some of the games that hit that point for me that I’ve played recently have been:

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Zero’s Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Fire Emblem: Awakening

Nier

There are definitely others, but these are ones that some gamers may have missed or skipped, but I highly recommend.

Saying that, I also want to hear what other peoples’ measure of great games may be and if they have any recommendations. Let us know in the comment section!

]]><![CDATA[Rant – Critiquing Video Games]]>Fri, 15 Jan 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/rant-critiquing-video-games

I should tell you, I’m not the biggest fan of reviews, especially about video games. I find that reviews rarely give an accurate insight into whether I would personally enjoy something and furthermore, I’m not a fan of unchecked criticism. Recently, I’ve noticed a particular review of video games has become a prevalent critique online.

It can be said in many different ways, but basically it boils down to something like, “this game is too easy because it’s too easy to break the game.” ‘Breaking the game’ in this case is usually attributed to exploiting a design flaw in the game.

Now before I get into the meat of my rant, I fully acknowledge that for the exact same reason I don’t like most reviews, people can feel any which way they want about a game. If they feel like it’s too easy, then that’s a valid critique for them. I get that. The critique becomes all the more important when there is a multiplayer component to the game as well. If the majority of players are being punished for not exploiting a flaw while those who are exploiting a flaw are benefiting, something needs to be fixed immediately. However, the critique loses a lot of luster when flaunted over games that are single-player orientated.

With the amount of issues developers can patch post-launch of games today, we as gamers have become less forgiving over mistakes made in game-design. In some cases, this has been a huge boom for the gaming industry. Instead of spending an additional six months in testing, they can release a game, and allow the first players to give them the necessary feedback to fix any issues that may arise. I don’t love this style of development, but all things considered, so long as it doesn’t take an inordinate amount time to patch the major issues, I can understand the business and design benefits to releasing games this way.

The major problem with releasing games before they are fully tested behind close doors is that gamers have to spend hard-earned cash on a product that hasn’t been fully developed. Testing is a crucial step of game development; and instead of paying testers to do a necessary job, game developers have flipped the script and are now getting gamers to buy into a product that needed testing. Game developers not only are saving money by not hiring a full team of testers, they’re now making money on gamers paying to test their games.

I fully understand this level of critique on games and the gaming industry as a whole. However, it doesn’t seem like that is at the heart of the argument when discussing ‘breaking a game’. The reason that one critique is valid criticism and the other seems flimsy is that ‘breaking a game’ usually is a result of a conscious choice made by the gamer.

Sure, there is a design flaw that should’ve been fixed and in today’s world of gaming, it most likely would get fixed eventually; but regardless of the flaw’s state, unless the problem prohibits gameplay, there is no reason that a player needs to exploit the flaw.

The game could be great in every other component, story, gameplay, graphics, sound, mechanics, yet if there is an exploit that negates the game’s pre-designed difficulty, all of a sudden some people will lower their review over the game or even discredit the game entirely. Difficulty of a game is a large part of its mechanics and should be consistent and upheld by developers, but a mistake is a mistake. Developers rarely give easy-outs when they’ve decided on the level of difficulty of any given part of a game. It’s their fault for not catching a mistake, but that doesn’t mean we as gamers need to punish them for a mistake that sometimes even a great testing team can miss.

One of the reasons why releasing a game to be tested by the gaming public is great is because there’s no better testing group that could ever be created. You get a wide demographic and more eyes on the product than you could ever have if you had just hired a larger team of testers. So, if a gamer experiences a flaw, then hell yeah they should discuss it with fellow gamers and with the game’s developers, but as far basing your final review of a game because of a flaw, it’s the equivalent to saying a book was no good because there was a grammar error. It happens. This critique becomes all the more frustrating when people apply the criticism to older games.

This critique becomes all the more frustrating when people apply the criticism to older games. Looking at you, people who think Final Fantasy VI is too easy because of the vanish//death trick. In general, if an exploit exists that makes the game easier and you want more of a challenge, then don’t exploit it. If it’s still not challenging enough, the modding community has typically got your back. I only ask gamers who find games “too easy because it’s too easy to break” to keep that shit away from arguments or reviews about the game.

Rant Over.

Yearning for you tragically,

Greg Pilkington
P.s. If you want good reviews, check out readintoit or Jeremy Jahns on YouTube

]]><![CDATA[Ode to the Old – I Love FFVII]]>Fri, 08 Jan 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/ode-to-the-old-i-love-ffvii

First and foremost, older games aren’t inherently better than newer games. Sure, we have our nostalgia and back in the way back, you most likely only had a handful of games to play over a year or two. When I was a kid I only really got new games for Christmas and occasionally my birthday. It meant I was typically playing one game for a lot longer than what I do these days. These days I have a stacks of games sitting on my shelf and half of which I haven’t even played yet. I, like most, I’m sure, have every intention of burning through all those games, but, for me anyways, Rainbow 6:Siege came out, and well, I kind of got hooked.

It’s okay though; those games on my shelf aren’t going anywhere, so I can sink some time into Siege. I know that’s my rationale anyways.

However, just last week I started replaying Final Fantasy VII, and damn I’m hooked. I’m so hooked that I spent a solid 20ish hours straight playing just a few days ago. And let me tell you…it was totally worth it. The game absolutely holds up. In fact, it’s so good that even though I was sleep deprived, the game was telling me to get some sleep.

True story. I was walking around the Forgotten City trying to go through the giant conch shell, but there was a fish in my way. I kept trying and trying, but I couldn’t get past the stupid glowing fish. I was in party chat with Billy and even he was stumped as to what was wrong. He finally suggested that I should just get some sleep and deal with it when I was rested. I promptly told him to fuck off and that I was getting this before I got any sleep. After twenty or so extra minutes past that point, I finally caved and consulted a walkthrough. And you know what the walkthrough said?

That’s right! It told me I needed to nap…god dammit. I had declined to nap in one of the houses outside the giant conch and once I did that, the path was cleared. The game is so smart, so well designed that it told me that I needed sleep in order to realize what to do next. I mean, I didn’t go to sleep. I’m no slave to some robot master…not yet anyway.

But I digress.

Regardless of how the Remake does, the original will always be cherished. It’s an amazing game and replaying it has given me the chance to see why. My quick answer is that Final Fantasy VII truly embodies what an RPG is, a Role Playing Game. The game isn’t just discovering the mysterious back stories of beloved characters or going to save the world from an indomitable villain, in this case it makes for great story, but the game also has amazing game mechanics too.

Look at the magic system, for example. Magic is a staple in the Final Fantasy series, and it’s always handled slightly different in each installment. In FFVII, they implemented materia, which are stones of condensed life energy that grants people magical powers. In the materia system, there’s a sense of progression. Not only do the materia get stronger as you wear them into battle, but eventually they even asexually reproduce to grant a duplicate starting materia. Down the road, high level materia even become the highest priced items to sell in the game.

Somewhere in the middle of the game they also introduce Chocobo breeding. Chocobos, for those who aren’t in the know (Cole), are essentially bad ass horse-sized chickens. This mechanic doesn’t only introduce a new side quest but it uses several previously established mechanics in order to get the best Chocobo. You need to be able to use materia, your knowledge of the world map, and the new stats and items based on Chocobos. If you succeed in getting a Gold Chocobo, you will be able to get some of the best materia in the game.

Why do I bring these examples up? Well, it’s because it’s side knowledge to rest of the game. You don’t really need to know how to use materia or how to breed Chocobos in order to enjoy or beat the game. However, there are rewards to understanding more about this universe. Not everything said or done in the game is profitable to some end means, but most do lead the player to some fruitful gear or item. In order to gain this knowledge, the player must play many roles, not just the hero, but also a mage, a strategist, a breeder, and more.

Good RPGs aren’t just about collecting a ragtag group of adventures to save the world; they allow players to experience many different roles. The really great RPGs are designed so that when a player does choose to experience something apart from the main story, they will be rewarded, and FFVII not only gives you many hats to try, it also rewards handsomely.

For me, this is a huge difference between the old and the new, especially in the case of the RPG. A lot of RPGs these days will have many different side quests and objectives, but unfortunately the side quests become a lather, rinse, repeat cycle. You go to a new area, you meet NPCs, and an NPC has a problem he needs a hero to solve. So go get him 10 apples so he can make his pie. It’s all very linear and due to its repetitive nature, it becomes stale, boring, unnatural, and most importantly unrewarding. The benefit hardly outweighs the time needed to do half the menial tasks NPCs set out for you. Because of this, it also breaks a player’s suspension of disbelief. If you’re supposed to be some sort of destined hero, why are you getting this guy 10 apples? Why can’t he do it himself or get literally anyone else to do it for him?

FFVII and games like it didn’t rely on that sort of linear system. They didn’t punish you for not doing the side quests either. They used clearly designed reward based in-game mechanics. In FFVII case, the Square Soft team essentially gave one game, the main game, a large selection of mini-games to play in order to support the player. It was genius. Unfortunately, it’s not what we see in games these days; however, like I said at the beginning, this doesn’t make new games ‘bad’, just different, and for me, I wish more games followed FFVII’s lead.

Thanks for reading.

Sorry the ending felt a little rushed. It is. I’ll revisit this next week because there’s so much more to say on the topic.

Love, el Presidente

]]><![CDATA[Unsafe Fiction]]>Sat, 31 Oct 2015 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/unsafe-fiction

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how writers are kind of like serial killers and in light of recent developments in pop culture, I wanted to revisit the topic. In my previous post (you can read it here), I drew the comparison that writers who kill their characters have an M.O. of how they murder. Their M.O. turns into a pattern, and thus, they’re kind of like serial killers. But really, in literary terms, this “pattern” is actually just foreshadowing. It’s a critical part of storytelling and is often one of the hardest aspects to grasp when creating a story. I’ve read and watched a lot of fiction where creators have confused foreshadowing for foreboding.

Foreshadowing is when someone alludes to future events. Foreboding is very similar to foreshadowing; it too alludes to future events, but with the obvious predicate that the future will be bleak, negative, and just generally bad. Foreshadowing is the covert, while foreboding is the overt. Don’t be mistaken though, though they’re similar, using foreboding instead of foreshadowing is like using a nail when a screw was needed. The difference might be seldom noticed, but when comparing strengths, screws last longer and hold faster.
Before I go on, I should say there are spoilers for Season 5 of The Walking Dead and Battle Royale. I digress…

In fiction, this strength is revealed in the story’s ability to maintain its audience’s suspension of disbelief and leave a lasting impression. Foreshadowing isn’t only meant to allude, it’s also meant to make an audience feel uneasy and unsafe when considering what may happen to their favourite characters. Audiences crave unsafe fiction. It creates great tension, which is the fundamental building block for all stories. Unsafe fiction is dependent on the mystery of what may happen to characters; so if foreboding is used instead of foreshadowing, the mystery is broken and tension is relieved because it’s known something inherently bad is about to happen.

I bring this up in light of a conversation I had with Billy about how characters should die in fiction. With recent deaths in popular fiction,

Billy was arguing that not all characters will die like a hero, despite what we might feel for them, and I completely agreed. However, saying that, there’s a lot to consider around the death of a character.

In serial fiction, a pitfall for many writers is, once s/he has decided to kill a character, s/he will give that character more time in the spotlight. With AMC’s The Walking Dead for example, for no particular reason, they give a character who’s about to die more screen time and they’re M.O. starts to be applied. However, they’re M.O. is often rooted in foreboding rather than foreshadowing.

They often get a character to sign their death certificate many times over before offing the person. Things like mentioning the past, being too hopeful for the future, or questioning the protagonist’s decisions are some of the death certificates a character can sign to ensure their demise. These are well known indications that bad things are to come for the character; hence, why they’re considered foreboding rather than foreshadowing. It’s heavy handed, and it automatically pulls the audience out of the moment because they start to realize that something nefarious is coming down the pipeline.

However, this isn’t the worst way a writer or a group of writers can kill a character. The worst way to kill a character is forgoing any foreboding or foreshadowing, all in order to incite shock in a loose attempt to maintain mystery. Typically, this comes when writers change core aspects of a character or create a situation of convenience.

[Spoiler here to a previous season of The Walking Dead]

When they killed Tyreese, he isn’t the badass we once knew, but he’s no pushover either. In his death episode, he forgets to clear a house before listlessly reminiscing over some vacant thought as he stares at a picture of Noah’s little brothers.

As a result, one of the zombified brothers come around a corner and chomps on the arm of an unaware Tyreese. I really hated this death. They essentially rolled two of the worst ways to kill a character into one scene.

Tyreese is a veteran survivor of the zombie apocalypse and is, therefore, well aware of the dangers of an unclear house. To kill him in such a way changes core aspects of his character. He has survived because he understands these dangers and the writers decided to override his learned knowledge in order to establish a situation of convenience. Greg Nicotero, one of the executive producers of the show and the episode’s director, said in an interview that Tyreese was reminiscing about a world once lost, but that’s certainly not what comes across in the scene.

There are many pictures that catch Tyreese’s attention, but the one we’re shown most is where one brother is looking pensive and possibly anger, and the other is quite happy. By focusing on that photo instead of one of the many others that showed both brothers looking happy, it implies that Tyreese wasn’t remembering a better time, but rather something entirely different, which again, doesn’t make sense for him to be doing in that time and place.

It’s unfortunate that Nicotero didn’t change that part of the episode because otherwise, the establishing shots of the episode did a decent job of foreshadowing a death. It made you feel unsafe as the title sequence rolled. Unfortunately, the mystery does break a little because the show’s M.O. initiates after the title sequence. All those feelings of unease disappear.

Now I understand why this show is still very popular, and I’m not saying it’s bad, but the main cast deaths really frustrate me. I’m not expecting hero’s deaths for any of the characters or that any of their deaths mean something for the story, it isn’t that kind of show, but I at least expect their deaths to make sense and be set up well.

On the other hand, take the hit Japanese novel Battle Royale, written by Koshun Takami. If you’ve never read it and you’re okay with violence used to tell a great story, do yourself a favour and pick it up. The foreshadowing isn’t a model all stories can use by any means, but Takami uses the story’s sensationalism to create an interesting form of foreshadowing.

[Spoilers for if you haven’t read/watched Battle Royale]

He basically tells you in the first fifty pages of the book that the entire class of kids, sans a winner, is going to die. Because the story is about kids and a protagonist who is fighting against the system rather than his fellow classmates, we maintain hope that most of the kids are going to survive and escape. Even after the administrator of the game kills two kids before the game even starts, we still maintain hope. It’s only when about half the class is killed that hope starts to waiver, yet hope never completely fails either. Personally, I had a character I was rooting for the entire time and even when it looked bleak for him I still held out hope. When the character died, I threw the book across the room.

Now, there’s no doubt in my mind that the trick of foreshadowing so much death by blatantly stating it can only exist in a text with very sensational content–I mean ‘sensational’ as something beyond our norm, not that killing kids is great. However, in this context, it fits in perfectly.

It makes readers feel unsafe for characters they may start to really enjoy. The mystery is maintained throughout, and the only detractor to the suspension of disbelief is just how awful the government is treating kids.

Like many other stories that create unsafe fiction by using the threat of death, Battle Royale doesn’t really have any character die like a hero. It doesn’t even try to attach greater meanings to a death. For all intents and purposes, the killing is senseless, and considering the message Takami was aiming for at the time, it leaves a pretty lasting impression on a reader. As a result, the book–and the movie–Battle Royale have become cult classics.

Why?

Well, it’s the same reason we love shows like The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, or American Horror Story (sidebar: check out Scott’s ideas for season 6 of AHS, it’s pretty damn good). Audiences love unsafe fiction. Not all fiction has to make us feel unsafe to maintain tension in a story, but it definitely is tied to some of our favourite fiction. Hell, take Lord the Rings, when Tolkien kills Boromir we’re left with the fear that someone else in the Fellowship could be next.

Anyways, this seems like a good place to end for now. I’ll most likely revisit this topic again in the future, but my computer is currently electrocuting me as I type, so I’m done for now.

Check out my other posts!

]]><![CDATA[Shift #2 – Preview]]>Fri, 23 Oct 2015 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/shift-2-preview

So, Shift has been on a little bit of a hiatus the last couple weeks, and as a reward for peoples’ patience while we get ourselves sorted, here is a preview to Shift #2.

Asphalt and sand stretched from horizon to horizon. Cacti were spattered about the desert, but despite the hazy greenery, the land was barren; which made the truck stop just a few meters from the road all the more desirable. It was a man-made oasis in the sea of extinction. During the day, the stretch of road was boring, arid, and hot, but at night, it was cold, treacherous and even slight curves could kill. The desert had way of absorbing everything: water, thought, life. It would all soak into the sand and disappear forever.

Smart truckers knew the peril and would stop for the night at that little man-made oasis. On a long cross-country haul, it was like staying in a Hilton, for most of the truckers anyways. In reality, though, it wasn’t much different than just pulling off to the side of the road; truckers still slept on beds tucked away in the back of their cabs. But in the morning, those groggy drivers would wake up to maple smoked bacon and coffee that drifted with the desert winds. It was a small pleasure, but it made all the difference.

If a driver was really blessed on the barren stretch, a stranger might even share a bed for the night. Sometimes it was payment for a ride to some paradise with greener grass, but sometimes it was just about two people, or more, needing some company. Just strangers passing in the night.

Amidst the rows of rigs that stayed overnight, a pair of long, freshly waxed legs dangled out of a passenger side window. They swayed to an imaginary rhythm, tapping lightly against one another. Inside the woman who owned the legs fingered through a day old paper.
“Call me ‘old fashioned,'” she started, “but love is facing the barrel of a gun and choosing the gun over the alternative every time. You know what I mean?”

She patiently waited for a response and was awarded none. She pulled the newspaper to her lap and shot the driver a daggered-look. Her plaid shirt was still mostly unbuttoned from the night previous. Red was smeared from ear to ear and splattered down her neck.

“You don’t get it,” she stated bluntly, wiping away some of the red liquid that was beading at the tip of her chin. “That’s okay.” She folded the paper and threw it on the dashboard.

“Anyways, thanks for the night,” she paused before exiting the truck, “and the meal.” She patted the slack-eyed, truck driver. Blood still poured from the man’s neck.

The woman stepped out of the truck and onto the sandy ground. She slammed the door without a second look, took a deep breath and held it. Her cheeks puffed and then she disappeared into the chaos of steel and sand. Her footprints leading to the road were the only trace of her, but they too disappeared as the morning coffee rode the rising desert winds…

To be continued…

]]><![CDATA[An Intro to Terra Formars]]>Sat, 17 Oct 2015 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/an-intro-to-terra-formars

Imagine if scientists perfected the process of making Spiderman and sent a hundred modified humans to Mars to do battle against hordes of mutated and evolved humanoid cockroaches. Except the group doesn’t just get modified with spider powers; some get spider powers, but each individual is given a different animal’s genes depending upon compatibility with the host’s genes. On top of that, there’s a political plot unfolding due to the mission being a joint operation that spreads across several countries. I know, sounds awesome, right?Honestly, it’s the kind of science fiction that’s right up my alley. I love the concept of terra-forming planets so that future humans can expand our scope across the galaxy. And I know that makes me sound like I’m pro-colonialism, but I’m not. I like the concept of a planet that didn’t hold life being modified in order to produce and sustain life. And that’s what Terra Formars is all about. The humanoid cockroaches that inhabit Mars were actually a part of the process of terra-forming. Unexpectedly, the roaches rapidly evolved to be akin to proto-humans, but they started as regular run-of-the-mill cockroaches; and now there’s a stage for a very intriguing story to unfold.

The series covers a breadth of sci-fi themes, but it also delves into colonial, military, and political themes too. It actually reminds me of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers–the book, not the movie; if you’re a fan of sci-fi and haven’t read it, do yourself a favour and jump on that, it’s fantastic. Anyways, Terra Formars’ drama is well layered and it expands well outside the scope of the story’s cast, which makes it feel very three-dimensional. However, there has been controversy around the series.

The first controversy for the original release of the anime was that it was heavily censored. Before I knew Crunchy Roll offered an uncensored version, it was comical to watch, which was a problem because the series is pretty serious and heavy-toned for the most part. There’s a lot of death in the series and do the nature of genetic-based science fiction, there’s a lot of gore too. I wouldn’t say it’s excessive by any means, but it’s definitely not PG-13. However, to make sure the anime was shown on TV, they black-barred basically everything. Regardless of the censorship issues, the series keeps you on your toes as to who might live and die; I have yet to uncover the writer Yu Sasuga’s pattern as to how he decides who will die, which is refreshing in regards to my last post about Killer Writers.

The second controversy, and this covers the series as a whole and not just the anime, is the accusation that the cockroaches depict a stereotyped version of black men. If I’m being completely honest, I get why people might think that due to the artist Kenichi Tachibana’s style the series comes off as racist, however, I don’t agree with the accusation. Now, this is completely up to interpretation and I completely understand if this would put off some from enjoying the series, but I really think we have to consider the intention of the series’ creators.

I think they applied some science and a bit of imagination to how the cockroaches might evolve and landed where they did because they were trying to depict a creature that was very akin to proto-humans. They were establishing an analogous form to tribal Neanderthals and the creatures’ aesthetics seem to reflect that intention. More so though, from a story perspective, I don’t think the creators are implying in the slightest that the humanoid cockroaches that resemble black Neanderthals are evil or even bad.

Much like any horde creature attacking humanity, the creature that makes up the horde isn’t an antagonist or villain to the story; they’re more of a foil. Though the cockroaches are fighting against the humans, they really seem to be reflecting humanity itself; not negatively nor positively, but as a species young to heightened intelligence and protecting themselves from invaders. Don’t get me wrong, the characters aren’t making any reservations to killing and capturing the cockroaches, but the motivation to do so makes sense in the context of the story and it has absolutely nothing to do with the cockroaches’ looks or culture.

Saying that, I haven’t caught up on the series as of yet and I will most likely write a critique for its story next week. I’ll also talk about why sci-fi loves creating impractical solutions to problems we most likely have the technology to solve even in today’s day and age. So stay tuned.

P.S. I got to give thanks to Scud for his analysis on hordes. Check out his stuff. He’s wicked funny, and we’re working together on a project. Love you, Scud! I swear the editing is almost done.

]]><![CDATA[Killer Writers]]>Sat, 10 Oct 2015 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/killer-writers

I love characters dying in fiction. I hate it too though. I love the realism that in a dangerous situation, you don’t know who’s going to make it and who’s going to bite it. You hope it’s not your favourite characters, but if they weren’t a possible target then the drama wouldn’t be nearly as compelling. Although after catching up on both the comics and the TV show The Walking Dead, I started to notice something with Robert Kirkman’s decisions to kill certain characters. There were patterns in his kills. Of course, sometimes it was the stereotypical pattern. You know, the rookies claiming their desire to be the best or vets talking about how they want to spend their future once this is all over. Those characters are just begging to be the victim of some terrible fortune. And for the most part, Kirkman doesn’t rely on those tropes. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a pattern for when he’s going to kill one or many of his characters. That’s when it hit me. Writers who kill their characters are serial killers.

Well, not actual serial killers. I wasn’t try to imply that writers like Kirkman and George R.R. Martin are living out there dark seeded fantasies of killing people when they write Tyreese’s or Ned’s death. I mean, they may be, but I certainly don’t have that information and I’m not implying it either…please don’t hurt me Mr. Kirkman and Mr. Martin…I’ve seen what you’re capable of doing to people like me…

Now joking aside, I do mean what I said. In a way, writers are serial killers. Some are messy and kill almost indiscriminately and others are precise and calculating, but all have a pattern they follow. At least, that’s what I’ve learnt from reading and watching years of crime, mystery, and horror fiction. Detectives and protagonists alike will search for the M.O. or modus operandi of a serial killer and in doing so it helps to discover who’s the killer. We don’t have to do that when enjoying fiction like The Walking Dead, though. We all know who’s doing the killing. It’s our favourite characters’ unsanctimonious creator, and I’m not talking about whatever god the character believes in; no, I’m talking about the writer.

Alright, here’s my warning for all who wish to read the comics of The Walking Dead: SPOILERS AHEAD.

I could probably discuss this topic without the use of spoilers but it’s difficult and I would start talking around my point a little too much. So here goes nothing. Glenn dies about two thirds of the way through the comic series where it is to date. I won’t give an exact number for the issue just in case, but it’s around that mark. Look it up, if you’re interested. Anyways, by far and away Glenn was my favourite character in the series. He was one of the longest lasting survivors from the original group Rick initially found. Whether it was on the road or shacked up in a farm, prison, town, or whatever other walled area, Glenn was a supply runner who got shit done. He was, from a reader’s perspective, the best at what he did. He was also a loyal Rick follower and a loving husband and adopted father. Near his end, he was essentially the last beacon of a paragon the series had to offer us without being a complete nut job. So, he had to die.

Since Kirkman’s story is at least tangentially so popular because he keeps readers’ on their toes as to who might die next, he had to kill Glenn. He was too skilled a survivor and an all around likeable character for Kirkman not to kill him. And that’s the start of profiling Mr. Kirkman’s pattern of killing.

Well before the publication of Glenn’s death, Kirkman knew that Glenn was going to die most likely due to how much readers adored him. He was a ripe target. After Kirkman locked in his target, he had to start preparing a death that would elicit a sizable emotional response from readers. So as the situations of the story unfold, we are shown certain sides of Glenn that may be familiar but are ultimately the steps that will lead to him being killed. In Glenn’s particular case, we see a range of steps. His wife is pregnant, he questions Rick’s capability to lead, and he becomes apologetic for his change in character. This is Kirkman’s pattern.

He can’t kill a character doing the thing they’re really good at, especially someone like Glenn. So instead, characters from the main cast who are slotted to die are given a new outlook or chance for things in this terrible world to look brighter. As a result, they will most likely start to question Rick’s motives and leadership because they are afraid of losing what they were just given. However, everyone who rides with Rick knows that questioning Rick is a bad idea and so the character will become apologetic that he or she has had a change of heart or opinion. From what I can see, in one scenario or another, this is how Kirkman sets up his kills. I don’t remember ever single death that occurs in the main cast, but in sixty chapters I read last night, that was his definitive pattern. George R.R. Martin and other writers who kill their casts will most likely have their own unique patterns, but like I said they definitely have a pattern.

Saying that, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to have a pattern. From a writer’s perspective, our job is to elicit emotional responses and if you have a formula that works for that, you don’t want to fuck with it. However, if you’re aware of something you do, then you have a chance to change and manipulate it. Throwing in a curve into a well formulated pattern will keep readers guessing and uneasy about who might die next. For if writers are serial killers, then their audiences are detectives. So, writers of the world, keep your audiences guessing. Try to know your patterns better than they can, so your stories stay fresh and eliciting emotions right to the bitter end.

And if for whatever reason Robert Kirkman reads this, I want to tell you that you are talented man and an inspiration. Now go fuck yourself for killing Glenn, you heartless bastard. Live on Steven Yeun’s Glenn.

]]><![CDATA[I Think you Should Watch Rokka: Brave of the Six Flowers]]>Sat, 03 Oct 2015 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/i-think-you-should-watch-rokka-brave-of-the-six-flowers

If we’ve ever had a conversation about a TV show or anime, you’ll know that I hate waiting week-to-week to watch a show. I don’t need the show to be entirely done when I start watching, but I need to have an arch complete before committing. I mean, sure, I’ve fallen for the trap of a friend saying that I “just have to watch it now. It’s so good.” Recently I fell for it when Is it Wrong to Pick Up a Girl in a Dungeon? and I refused to do it again, despite that show being spectacular…for this season at least. So when Billy started raving about this show Rokka: Brave of the Six Flowers, I asked one question “is the first season done?” He said “no” disappointedly and we went about our business, but the minute Billy finished the last episode, he texted me that I should watch it immediately.Now I trust Billy’s opinion. He gets a bit more emotional towards shows than I do, but just by a bit; and he does have different taste than mine, but when he adamantly recommends something to me, I trust the man.

As is my typical fashion, I planned to watch just a couple episodes and then get on with my day, but I’m always lying when I say that. I watched all thirteen episodes in one go and I don’t regret it even for a second. The show has incredibly interesting premise, but its setup is what really got me hooked and now I’m dying for the next installment.

Rokka basically starts like any other fantasy anime. The world has a great and powerful entity that kills people and heroes must assemble to kill it before it wreaks havoc. Nothing new. In Rokka, the story specifies that the heroes rising to defeat the demon king are a part of a cycle that has continued since the first champion. After she defeated the demon king, she split her powers six ways in order to make sure future generations would also be able to defeat the demon king. However, the show doesn’t start on the six heroes intrepidly battling towards the heart of evil; instead, it starts before the six heroes have even been selected.

his where I think the show reveals its genius. It doesn’t rush into the main action, nor does it try to provide a slow burn into what might eventually get intense. It opens with the protagonist interrupting a holy tournament that would usually result in the victor being selected to be one of the six heroes. He brazenly strolls in and claims he is the “Strongest man in the world” which if you looked at him, you’d most likely think otherwise. However, the show really does like to play with the word ‘strength’ and how it isn’t necessarily measured by the density of your muscles. Strength can come from power, intelligence, diligence, technical skill, or from any number of different traits; though, I’ll let Cole delve more into how that kind of mentality can benefit your life. Like I said, the show has genius, not just for its idealized characters, but for its story and pacing.

Adlet, the protagonist, is chosen as a hero and the tale begins. For a brief while anyways. The heroes are fabled to meet at a specific location before setting out for the demon lands, but instead of being six of the world’s strongest warriors, there’s seven. Due to plot, the heroes are locked in their meeting spot until they discover and rout the faker. Boom. I thought I was watching a fantasy anime but in an instant I was watching a who-done-it mystery.

Not only was this transition an interesting twist, but it was done so smoothly, you almost forget what the characters were doing there in the first place. I was immersed in how the heroes were going to discover the imposter. All the while, the audience isn’t given any dramatic irony as to who it might be. Our only guarantee, and even it had holes, was that Adlet was most likely not the fake. For me, this was the Reese’s Phenomenon done perfectly, but it didn’t stop there. The show also has a compelling and fully realized cast; each character is three dimensional. On top of that, they even managed to slip in a subtle love subplot. In fact, it was so subtle, I wasn’t even sure if I read the situation right in the first place. As a result, it only fueled my distrust to the characters who hadn’t been cleared of guilt.

Rokka did have its pitfalls though. I want to avoid spoilers, so I won’t mention many, but I will note that after the mystery is solved, the very ending is a little disappointing. However, regardless of how they left the ‘to be continued’ stamp, I’m excited to see what happens next. Rokka hit that sweet spot in the Reese’s Phenomenon, but it also built a great foundation in its first season.

I’ll touch on this storytelling technique more in the weeks to come, but in reference to Rokka, the show made us ask the question “will the demon king be defeated?” And it didn’t even come close to answering that question in its first season. It instead developed its cast, themes, and tone all while keeping interests piqued and making its audience ask questions that may help us discover its overarching question about the demon king.

I have more to say about this show and about the storytelling technique of making an audience ask a question, but this is all I have in me for tonight.
I’ll talk more next week; and hey, in the meantime, you can go binge watch Rokka.

You know you want to…

]]><![CDATA[Tutorial Levels: Bullshit or Really Bullshit?]]>Sat, 19 Sep 2015 07:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/gregs-journal/tutorial-levels-bullshit-or-really-bullshit

I should preface this rant by saying that having tutorial elements in a game isn’t bullshit. However, when there’s a whole tutorial level cordoned off from the actual game, that is bullshit. The reason this particular issue is on my mind is that I downloaded Super Time Force from the Playstation Store. The big perk of the Playstation Plus account is being able to download some free games that you may not have played unless they were free. Some games are excellent, like Rocket League, and some are not so good. I hesitate to say bad because, well, I haven’t downloaded all of the games they’ve offered and the ones I downloaded were never really bad; some didn’t interest me, but that doesn’t mean someone somewhere isn’t enjoying the hell out of them. But I digress. So I downloaded the game Super Time Force, courtesy of the PS Plus account, as a trial because the game looked interesting and indie platformers have been some of the best titles in the last few years. I tried to go into the game with no expectations; I hadn’t heard anything about the game, but the trailer looked entertaining.

So I eventually decided to boot the game up and see what I was gifted with this month. My first thought was that the aesthetics looked great. It was pixilated, but by design, and in the brief prologue it establishes that the game has an over the top sense of humour akin to shows like an Adventure Time. I was intrigued…However, the first thing you’re thrown into once you’re given control of the characters is a god damned tutorial level. I was confused because the game seemed pretty similar to a Contra-like action platformer and I certainly didn’t need a tutorial level to teach me how to jump and shoot. Alas, Super Time Force shanghaied me through the basic motions of jumping and shooting, and how each character has different abilities that would be best suited for a range of situations. Once I finished that part I was a little frustrated, but I could understand why the devs wanted to explain the design of the cast. I sat back and was ready to play…except I couldn’t because that was only half of the stupid, fucking thing. I then had to be taken through the more complicated portion of the game mechanics that involved time loops and switching characters during said time loops. It was an interesting mechanic, all things considered, but by that point I was bashing my head against my desk just wanting to jump into the action rather than hear the surly and ridiculous scientist General blithely rattle on about the game mechanics I had to apparently know right fucking now.

With all the information about how the game should be played all jam-packed within the first fifteen minutes of the game, my head hurt, albeit I probably didn’t help my head by smashing my face against my desk. Before the first level could even be fully loaded, I popped the menu and exited the game. No game, not even games that try and destroy all forms of subtlety like Super Time Force, should ever beat you over the head with their game mechanics.

The days of old Mario or Zelda are long gone, we can’t just plop a player down with a task and expect them to know what they’re doing for the next 10 hours, but we shouldn’t force feed them the mechanics either. Games are supposed to be one of the most immersive forms of entertaining, if not the most immersive, and tutorial levels just decimate all forms of immersion. Tutorials should be integrated into the gameplay and if the mechanics get more and more difficult to understand, then those concepts should be gradually introduced. If you want a great example of that, look at Super Meat Boy. Sure, the controls are pretty simple, but the mechanics get exponentially more complicated as the game goes on. How do they prepare you for this? By creating interesting and immersive levels that slowly introduce how to overcome the more complicated challenges in the future.

I know this topic has been given more time by others, like Egoraptor in Sequelitis, but I just wanted to rant about it briefly and definitively say that tutorials are really bullshit.

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