This Japanese animation showed me the importance of being open to alternative views. The theme and pace of the movie is completely different from the western animations.
The story is about 2 girls (and their dad) moving to a new house. Nearby there are some fantastical creatures that co-exist in this world.
The pace is super slow. But not dragging-type of slow. It is contemplative kinda slow. They present the characters step by step, through small events. The two kids will slowly conquest your heart. They are so adorable. It was a great pleasure to care about someone, on the contrary of many of the western movies and games, that I could not care a thing about them. I loved Mei and Satsuki.
The visuals are great. Like watercolor paintings and classic anime style of drawings. The Totoro character is particularly funny! The other creatures are cool, but they are not thoroughly explored, so I cannot say they are great. The music is a bit sparse, with long moments of silence.
My mainly, maybe only, complain is the abrupt ending. With many spoilers, at a certain point of the story there is a big problem that the characters try to solve. But at any point it as said it was the major final concern. I was personally expecting to, after solving it, to get to this issue. It ends in moment that I was not expecting to happen. It left the story with too many open questions, too many mysteries. When the credits started to roll I was shocked.
It is a short excellent movie. It ends suddenly, but the whole ride is an enjoyable one. Totoro (the character) is now among my favorite anime characters ever.
I wanted to watch the latest Mel Gibson movie as a director because… it was Mel Gibson. I understand that Gibson plays a nuts role in most peoples minds, but as a director, he is a quite talented one. I did not know much about the movie, except it was about a war (probably second great war, based on the trailer) and Gibson was the project leader. It was enough to make me curious.
After 30 minutes into the movie, I had to admit that I was hooked. Cool characters, cool story, very nice production.
Now, after seeing it entirely, I have to say: WOW. What a great movie it is! I was not expecting this quality.
Gore
If you have heart problem, have kids with you watching or do not support violence and gore, keep away form this picture. It has it all. Like some super-realistic WWII movies (like the superb Saving Private Ryan), Hacksaw Ridge shows the battles in a visceral way. Gibson is very familiar with this, because Braveheart and Passion of the Christ are also displaying violence in its crudeness.
But for all of these movies, the crude violence is informative. It sets the tone of despair and importance of simple acts. You can see the real courageous and the cowards. The cost of the victory and the burden of the defeat.
Religion
One of the major themes is about religion prejudice. It dedicates half of its time talking about how the military (and society in general) are very prejudicial against religious people, especially those fanatics. It tries to convince that, despite the fanaticism, all people should be respected. Quite bold and powerful message in times that Muslim fanatics are doing so many terrorist acts.
But the political argument was not about Muslins, but about Gibson himself. It is well knowing that Mel is a very religious person. In the last past movies, he always touched the subject. Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto address some religions views and practices. I felt that Hacksaw Ridge, sometimes, seems to be made only for the purpose of justification of his own behavior and believes.
But despite the original intention a violent aesthetics, it is a must-see.
I bought The Swapper yesterday because I heard good things about it. And man, I loved the game.
It is a platformer puzzle game, like the classic Braid, but the major feature is the ability to create a clone of yourself and migrate the controls to it. It might be considered a form of teleportation, but your old ones will still be there. It opens opportunities for several interesting challenges. It also uses, [minor spoiler alert] at mid-game, a similar feature as VVVVV that is changing the direction of gravity. The puzzles have a nice and steady evolution in difficulty, combining the new features each time they are added to your repertoire.
The only thing that I was a bit confused it the collectible orbs. For a completionist like me, and a pleasing game like The Swapper, I felt compelled to collect of them. But the counter that shows in the UI does not have a one-to-one relationship to the amount of orbs you collect. At the beginning of the game, it is one-to-one, but in later stages, each orb you get adds you dozens into the orb counter. It is confusing to track the general progress you are making. I guess the developers wanted to make the reward the player more the more complex the puzzle is, but I did not feel this way. These orbs are not just optional. In order to progress, you have to collect a certain number of them to open locked areas. But in most cases, you have to collect almost all orbs possible to reach the required number, so it turns out to be even more useless the multiple orb value per orb collected intended feature. Minor complain thou.
The game have a very great visuals. Dark and a bit spooky, but not in the way of horror games. It is designed to be just uncomfortable, just like Limbo and (presumably Inside, but I didn’t play it yet). But unlike Limbo, it rarely inputs pressure. You are always in a lonely and calm journey. It imprints the sense of loneliness, desolation, mystery and insanity.
The overall theme is a science fiction. During the game you face several dialogues and recordings of a technological discovery. It presents the theme in a more philosophical approach, similar to Talos Principle. However, due to the super short texts and obtuse ways to tell it, it does not feel very mind melting like Talos. It was a bit unsatisfying. A professional scientist would never write a log in such enigmatic way. It would be much clearer and direct to the point. This obtuse style of storytelling is typical on horror and mystery games, novels and movies. They rely on telling the audience so little that you do not understand the meaning way to the end. Despite it, I like the approach.
The game is short, which I would say that is a plus, because it gives the sense of completion and that it is not dragging you for hours for the sake of appearing more substantial.
I recommend this game. One of the best indies and best games overall I played this year so far.
It is a comprehensive visual of mankind. Several sub-subjects are in my top interest subjects, like religion (from a scientific perspective), politics, economics, and scientific advances. It dedicates several initial chapters explaining what we know about the origin of our species. The point when we forked our hereditary tree from other primates and other man-like species, like Neanderthals (in fact, he argues that it is not exactly like this). It is a 50000+ years analysis of the importance of agriculture, language, and religion. The origin of states. It is mind-blowing.
Then he enters a revision of the known history, also, focusing on one layer at a time. He explains why the Homo Sapiens because the rulers of the planet Earth. Why we managed to be so successful? The book is very centered on religion and religion-like lines of thought, like capitalism (yes… very thought-provoking).
The book is mostly founded on science and data. But also on plausible extrapolations and reasoning. And his writing style is quite convincing.
It is not an accident it is a bestseller. It is not an accident it is a loved book by many.
Beautiful. This new expansion of my favorite game of all time, The Witcher 3, have a major single adjective. It all happens in a different territory of the main game. A vibrant and colorful Toussaint. It was clearly (and admittedly) inspired by southern France and Italy. The very first minutes into the expansion and your head will probably explode. It is gorgeous. The city of Beauclair is amazing. The mountain that is always at the horizon looks stunning (is it possible to climb it? I did not try)
I started a new game dedicated to the expansion. Mostly because I’ve played the whole game in the original TW3 game but when I bought the Season pass including both expansions, it made available the TW3 complete edition for me. However, it does not include all the playing data from the original one, including achievements. Unfortunate. So I decided to test the feature that it generates a new game, but the main mission was already finished. It works fine. Geralt started the game in level 25 or so with a basic high level armor and sword kits.
I also wanted to test the game using the Brazilian Portuguese audio, and English subtitles for the sake of from-to mapping of concepts. I was impressed the not only CD Projekt Red did a text translation of the game but a full voice over and the same for the expansions! That’s why they are my top 3 favorite developers. However, the Brazilian audio is a hit-and-miss. The actor choices are not perfect (Geralt is really cool, but there are some that are weird) but the most critical point is the pronunciation of the Witcher 3 specific things. They are a mess. Beauclair, Toussaint and even Geralt are pronounced differently actor from actor and even from the same actor in the same dialog tree. Using the English subtitles helped be to surpass the confusion.
[this post mentions the game story]
The gameplay continues top-notch. Added some extra features in the leveling system and the possibility to have your own vineyard. And getting a custom armor with the banners of your family is a very Game of Thrones coolness. However, I personally disliked one of the main recurring enemies: the giant centipedes. Not obvious why they are so difficult.
There are more jokes and culture references that the main installment. The mid-game side story in the world of fairy tales is super-hyper-mega bizarre. And I loved it! No further spoilers. Even inserted there as 100% out of nowhere plot.
The story is original but not particularly fun. The main villain is forgettable. It is a legendary character that you have to meet very few moments, so you are never convinced that he is so good and powerful and charming and wisdom and cool as described by almost all NPCs that managed to know him. I would love to have more interactions with him, becoming friends and then being betrayed. The way it is now, I don’t care much about him. You companion, however, is much more likable.
The final mission (no spoilers) was a bit disappointing. There are a few problems: It locks the player in a series of events, the final boss have a multistep fight and if you die in the last stage, you come back just before the first. Even worse, it brings you back before a cinematic sequence. Arg. CDPR used the same technique on the main game. I hated it. I would never pass this unnoticed if I was called to do beta testing. I was a mix of relief and satisfaction when I finally managed to finish him.
Now I’m going to play the first expansion, knowing that I might be too powerful. If it half of the fun that I had, I would love it too.
