Crenellation

Edition eleven of the amazing column is now up, and it is my way of celebrating a new year.

This time, I travel to 2019 and discover some surprising stuff while there.

THE SEMI-DECONSTRUCTION
Goto read the column over GameSetWatch before reading below, this does not contain the entire column and spoils the entire experience. And it is missing at least a couple of things and does what is does rather not-so-greatly, thus the label of "semi."

As you may have read, I recently traveled a few months to the future, but I did not really venture beyond the couch where I typically type my illustrious prose and MacBook Pro (which has the Time Travel widget I use for temporal exploits) I typically utilize to type my illustrious prose.

Sets up as a sequel to "Press Releases" column. The conceit of the Time Travel widget is a continuation the technological conceit of LiveWire from "Tall Tales," but whereas that is a gateway to exploration, this is a form of empowerment for the lazy. In this column, there is an intentional repetition of diction and structure as a metaphor for the repetitive mechanics of games that make a point about the medium's fungibility.

And since this is a Mac, the widget was sadly only limited to two options— “Williamsburg” and “Silver Lake”—because people assume only hipsters use Macs (not true, shallow people verisimilar to hipsters like me and Bay Area residents use Macs too).

Self-deprecation and a disguised complaint about the very few options Mac gamers like myself have.

By the way, I chose “2019” because I was curious to see how accurate those predictions from the Superstruct are. And as a semi-Angeleno, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in the accuracy of Blade Runner.

The process of time-travel is relatively simple: set the options, click “ok” on the widget and wait a few minutes (and don’t shut or disconnect or interrupt the computer, otherwise you might mess up your keyboard and get permanently stuck in the famed white room where Mark Mothersbaugh is on loop).

Yes, in the future you have to carry around the computer if you care to get back, but one does not have to keep the laptop open.

The complex, fantastical yet ridiculous and peculiar plotlines of my columns are a tribute to the storylines of games, which more often than not have these qualities. Again, that whole fungibility thing.

Okay, one exception to that “no visible gentrification” thing—this minuscule exemplar of bastard postmodernism that looked from the outside in like one of those sparse shops on Melrose that only has eight articles of clothing. And maybe one of those eight articles will be an awesome hat.

Beyond Gehry, I know nothing about architecture, so this arrogance on the subject is an ironic contrast. I went to one of those shops weekend before last, and that is my actual thought process when entering a clothing store - I hope to find "awesome hats."

Upon closer inspection, I noticed an array of screens and some twentysomething hipster sitting on a Mr. Nilsson sofa appearing to play some portable gaming device. If that hunch proved true, I had the next “Bell, Game, and Candle” column by just talking to a guy about games.

Starts a string of furniture references, I make the mistake of regarding myself as a twentysomething hipster - a fear I have that people will dismiss me as such - and the hipster is a play on the prior self-deprecation.

“Pata-pata-pata-pontificate,” roared his sleek portable device that bore the lettering “two” on its backside. “We’re not indoctrinating; we’re just improving nations. No such thing as moral relativism; your appalling, archaic way of life is our much-needed cataclysm.”

Costumed colonialism - how far is this from guised militarism of Patapon? That games are such a revered medium that such a thing does not bother people. Also, it implies that Sony made another PSP.

“Oh, my name is Alex Litel and I’m an extraordinary extraordinaire,” I muttered to dissociate myself from established hipster enthusiasm.

"Extraordinary extraordinaire" is a continuation of the self-important introductions I have in previous columns.

Christ fucking Jesus, it should have been obvious with his gymnastics and incongruous yet expensive style that that was me in the future, and likely fate trying to teach me some sort of lesson.

I describe myself in the present.

“Oh, what happened with the whole writing thing?”

I express a sincere disappointment with who I have become, and how it is contrast to my ambition.

“I did not want to be amongst a litany of aeolists penning adoxography.”

A concern I have.

“What about my Great American Novel?”

Actual aspiration.

“Well, I realized it was too commercial and mannered; it was not myself.”

Eschewing success is a contrast from my interest.

“Not even a peculiar screenplay?”

Actual aspiration.

“You settled for working at an art gallery?”

“No, this my art gallery.”

“You became an artist?”

Disappointment.

“Yeah, I just did a painting one days—‘Steven Seagal in Cosby Sweater’—and it ended up selling for $2.4 million. I was inspired by The Neo-Pen & Pixel Aesthetic employed by Ubisoft in promotional materials for their Imagine series”

An expression of my love for random pop culture references, Pen & Pixel, and Imagine: Party Babyz (Ubisoft, can I have a sequel please?).

“Explaining yourself is for teenagers get home past curfew; proselytized coherence is nothing short of artistic extirpation. Some rich hipster.”

Sentiment I have felt at times. Irony that the one I labeled a hipster is decrying a hipster.

I wanted to be Thomas Pynchon or Donald Kaufman, but became Julian Schnabel; I turned from elaborate dilettante to deliberate elitist.

These are my genuine aspirations, and I even - privately - regard myself as the Thomas Pynchon or Charlie Kaufman of games writing (those who read my mind may also come across come Ron Mael comparisons).

“There seems to be a lack of paintings or sculptures or traditional art stuff.”

My ignorance about art is a reference to a prior blog post where I profess my ignorance of art.

“Yeah, I am in my game simulation phase—game simulations that can be played on devices like those you see throughout the gallery. Would you like a tour?”

I had to force a gaming angle somehow, which is a joke that references previous columns where that was apparently not obvious.

Tandem stations, one with a microphone and the other with headphones.

Notice the repetition of description of the game simulations.

“Public Radio Station Pledge Drive Simulation” the caption read.

Coming back home from a Thanksgiving dinner deep in the OC, two things struck me—a Left 4 Dead billboard adjacent to the KABC building and Jason Bentley’s shift on KCRW being interrupted by a pledge drive. These two things would take form of initial ideas of opining on advertising and schematics for a two-player game in which one player is the radio station requesting money and the other player is the listener.

I think you can guess which one won out, but schematics alone are not enough for a column (maybe they are, but not for personal satiety).

And of course there is a recurrence of public radio references in my columns, which evolved from This American Life references.

“Well, I was driving around one day and my Morning Becomes Eclectic was being interrupted by this pledge drive—and the idea struck me to simulate the feeling that pledge drive incites in the average listener.

"Morning Becomes Eclectic" - another LA reference.

“What’s next—a crenellation simulation?”

“No and yes, I don’t have on display here, but Crenellate Me, Cornelius a collaboration between Keita Takahashi and Nintendo for WiiWare Next-Gen. I have it on the Wii in the back if you want to see.”

Terrifying art game from the future that makes monies.

“How is this a game or a simulation?”

“It is a both in their most absolute form—a competition for the willing—and you are really experiencing it.”

“So, you just sticking people in front of a TV and having them watch a movie? That’s not a game or a simulation.”

Jab at academic conversation over what constitutes a game.

“That’s shoddy pedantry, this is absolutely a game simulation.”

"Game simulation" is a redundancy is that is intentional.

“Litelbulb, really? Are you, like, encouraging people to mispronounce the last name? They have a hard enough time as it is.”

People do have this problem, it is pronounced "Ligh-tell."

“So, I have always been impressed by his keen musings and I wondered what he would observe in various environments, so I collaborated with Ray Kurzweil to create an authentic digital recreation that shares his vocality and mental process.

Namedrop futurist in column about future.

You are inserted to an environment procedurally generated culled from Google Maps data, and you put on the glasses and things flash that Andy finds interesting and you point your Wiimote over them and collect them. At the end you get a Rooney commentary generated from your collecting.”

The thought process of Andy Rooney fascinates me.

“I don’t think that is a game or simulation eith—nevermind, nevermind, but it is sad to hear he died.”

My resignation not to correct myself and just engaging in assuming.

“Oh, he’s still alive, but he wouldn’t contribute to the game simulation.”

I have a theory that he is like the Energizer Bunny.

My experience of Andy Rooney at the Summer X-Games was fairly accurate, until he started going wonky and ranted on about LSD use in the 1970s.

Andy Rooney at the X-Games is an absolutely hilarious notion to me and going wonky joke does not go above heads of those familiar with Andy.

“This one is based of the source code of Harmonix’s Soft Rock Band that they released into the public domain a few months ago.

It’s from the first-person perspective and you are playing your songs at the Hotel Cafe.”

Multiple horrible things - public domain for the business man, soft rock and Hotel Cafe (another LA reference) for the music fan, and FPP for those who were traumatized by "first-person football."

“Why can’t I win at this game?”

Joke about the attitude of gamers - and a stereotype.

“That’s intentional, you cannot win because you—Hope Sandoval—make terrible music.”

My actual opinion.

“It’s music criticism under the guise of a music game mod?”

“I guess.”

Future me is semi-uncertain, a contrast from his established behavior.

“Woah, Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene.”

“That’s not him.”

Brendan kinda looks like mike.

“Oh, Chuck Klosterman.”

“What would Governor Klosterman be doing here?”

“Governor?”

“Yeah, of North Dakota.”

What some may regard as a horrible occurrence for a horror tale, and Chuck kinda looks like Mike.

Future me greeted the man, “Yoloha, Mike Moose.”

Members of a fashion company dubbed with nicknames related to said enterprise.

“Well, who is that?” I demanded with all of the indignation of a commenter on a gaming blog.

Quite possibly the poorest metaphor ever and intentionally so.

Future me gave a reply that took a few minutes to parse, “Michael ‘Moot Moose’ McWhertor.”

A joke about the lack of straightforwardness I employ.

Michael greeted me and seemed not at all off-put to the ridiculous truth, as if a career of writing about games accustomed one to expect fantast in reality.

Just introducing an a though.

“So, are you still at Kotaku?” I inquired, despite an unimpeachable hunch that no one would stay on staff at a blog for ten years.

Pondering the longevity of blogging.

“No, I did not want to be amongst a litany of aeolists penning adoxography,” he said. “I am fashion designer full-time.”

The recurrence of future me's words about writing. It should be able to be derived by now that his fashion line is named "Moot Moose." Why that name? It sounds like a jam rock band, and I am regurgitating stereotypes.

“What is the last thing you played?” I asked in a reckless attempt to make small talk.

That's traditional me, I am a very awkward person. And I needed an excuse for the next paragraph.

“The last thing I played was this seriously depressing game from Quantic Dream called Hurray, I am on the precipice of something lavish that is about this cube who travels ten years into the future and meets himself and discovers he becomes a sphere—the exact opposite of who he is,” Michael answered as if he were giving an embarrassed confession.

Meta-joke. I tried to imply that this is for the Wii NG, and a joke about developers just giving up on realistic beauty from an apparently "graphically inferior" machine.

“That doesn’t sound like much of a game, or at least something that could sustain itself for very long,” I countered with listless cunning.

Contrast this to the "game simulations" and their longevity.

“But I only played the first twenty minutes,” Michael admitted.

Remark on the common criticism of critics (personally I don't finish many things, so I am in support of the non-completion camp).

The multiple endings are intended to be a jab at the poor implementation of those in Fallout 3 (which I sorta made a joke about the inevitability of in "The Only Honest") and the length of this column is also a jab about the protraction of that game with mediocrity-at-best rather than focus on quality.

The ending I intended

It is a complete rip-off of the ending of Life on Mars (missing one part though), where I not only become complacent with the change but actually prefer my established MO.

The ending of futility

My admission that no one will read this and a concession to the words for the fake press releases that seem to appear in proximity when I have pitched something as of late.

The ending with pies

"Pies" interchangeable with "games" and a reference to a blog post below this; it is a criticism-of-sorts. And I am "owned" by a future version of myself. Some other stuff about discourse and criticism too.

The ending of simultaneity

Cutting room floor material.

The ending of inevitability

The backlash that seems to appear with every column.

Robots, the film industry, and me: a (very) short story.

“You’ll work never in this business again as long as Cohntron’s sensory circuits are working,” barked a patently peeved Cohntron to a first-time director who only delivered on three out of the eight promised quadrants. “You have all the talent of a brain-dead prostitute and all the efficacy of an asexual gigolo.”

“Cohntron should have gotten Roman Coppola’s left foot fresh off his Oscar win instead of your measly dumbass who directed some un-fucking-American Swiss Gatorade spots. Since we are cousins, your very existence defames that of Cohntron’s.”

The film in question was actually Cohntron’s dream project—a biopic of esteemed musical artist turned diplomat Cornell Haynes Jr., remembered best for his efforts that eventually rid the world of nuclear weapons.

“You wrote the fucking piece-of-shit script,” the first-time director growled back. “It’s not my fault you didn’t acquire any actual education other than a thirteen gigabyte Bachelor’s Degree add-on from Stanford.”

“Hold on,” Cohntron retorted. “16.3 gigabytes.”

“Whatever, I and my Doctorate in Film from USC have every damn right to be indignant,” the director whined. “It is beyond the ability of any director to turn your banal dialogue derived from some softcore pornographic film. This does not show any reverence to the subject; you do not show any reverence to the subject. At least there is some artistic value to those Gatorade ads.”

Unfortunately for Cohntron, he did not contain the faculty for apology—and a manufacturing error prevented his firmware from acquiring such. He felt remorse but didn’t know how to assuage.

“Hell, those episodes of Lucasbot’s Star Wars/ Baby Adventures Presented By Play-Doh had more fucking artistic integrity than this shit,” the indignant artiste continued. “All you fucking robots are fucking hacks who cannot write to save their fucking processor.”

Cohntron was infuriated by those last four words.

“Back when I was in the robo-pornography business, I personally oversaw the production of fifteen entries in the Save the Fucking Processor series, which was commended by the Robo-Peabody Awards to proliferating the concept of robo-procreation.”

“I was going to handover that inspiring tale of the robot who paid her way through Harvard by being a prostitute. But Stephen Daldry is clearly more deserving.”

“So, it is pretty much like Network with, uh, robots,” I told the studio executive whose name I had forgotten.

“You know I don’t do that Charlie Kaufman shit,” the executive responded. “I don’t want a return of ten dollars on my five million.”

“What the fuck?” I indignantly barked. “You greenlighted Town & Country.”

What is games journalism?

Often I am asked, “Alex Litel, how can I recreate your exquisite game journalism couture?” Okay, so I may I have never actually been asked for “advice” on games journalism, but it would be nice if someone did.

Firstly, there is an established dichotomy between “journalism about games” and “games journalism”; simply said, the two are not the same. Having a journalism background may actually put you at a disadvantage.

This leads to the prolific misconception that “games journalism” has something to with “games” or “journalism”; it does not. Games journalism is primarily concerned with growing an already impenetrable taxonomy (the ultimate goal is our own Merriam-Webster volume) and, to a lesser extent, cultural elitism.

“Like, cultural elitism in that we have a greater experience than those who do not play games?”

No, cultural elitism in general. You are halfway there, and use want to use “experience” rather than “play,” since games are an experience-oriented medium. Also, instead of saying “games” as a whole, use the word “medium” or “art form” as both are far more dignified; dignification is our occupation.

Since “gameplay” is a banal redundancy and patent newspeak (like “filmwatch” and “musichear”), the term had to be replaced with “mechanic” and “system.” We really love that duo to describe the interactive elements.

“Ludonarrative dissonance” is a biggie that means, like, the gameplay elements contrasting the narrative elements to break cohesion, and “ludonarrative” of course comes from “ludology,” which is the study of games. Speaking of study, I cannot emphasize enough that what we do is not academia, but it is journalism.

It was arbitrarily decided that one has to have knowledge of every film where a layman becomes or runs for president—Dave, Being There (okay, it is only implied), Bob Roberts, Bulworth, et cetera. I presume it is because these films are typically very good and rewatchable.

Other than that just know about The Godfather and Citizen Kane, and you are well off. Anything else Orson Welles did with his life is obviously unimportant, and I am pretty sure he died after Citizen Kane won nine Academy Awards—or something.

The only channel name I know by heart is HBO—The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Oz and The Wire are the musts—and there is this Battlestar Galactica that airs at night on this skiing channel with this weird name, and of course Lost.

For proper cultural elitism, you also need to be an aural aficionado with an affinity for indie rock.

“Um, the Flaming Lips?”

No, they are obviously too popular—but they are good.

“What about Fleet Foxes?”

Yes! Emphasize how they are completely unlike My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses because Fleet Foxes are not from the South (they are Seattleans)—and are thus peculiar oddity. And Crosby, Stills, and Nash are a supergroup, while Fleet Foxes are a super group.

Likewise, Gears of War is different from Halo because it has steroid-laden masculinity interspersed with overtures to gay culture, and uses the third-person perspective. Likewise, Fallout 3 is different from Oblivion because it is set in a post-apocalyptic future with a lot of guns, and Fallout 3 is different from prior Fallout titles because it is a post-apocalyptic Oblivion with a lot of guns.

“Naked City? John Zorn?”

Excuse me, but that is not indie rock—and Pitchfork is over there. You cannot read “Fuck the Facts” into Braid, nor even No More Heroes.

“Jonathan Fire Eater?”

Aren’t you the perpetual du jour? Go ahead and around professing they are better than The Walkmen and how the critical establishment ignored the Cheekbone Hollows. If you were not aping me, you would be creating a new elitism to make the prior proclaimed elitists falter to laity.

Likewise, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream used a malevolent robot overlord twelve years before Portal and tackled ethical queries twelve years before BioShock, and did both of these things in a manner that was far more profound and moving than either of those games (and perhaps any game ever). Noteworthy that it is an adventure game, and the death of that genre’s commercial viability stupefied the medium.

“What about Mozart and Bach?”

We are trying to buck the stereotype that we are nerds, and that type of attitude is quite the obstacle to our ambitions. I did not abstain from a social life just to complete Fallout 3; I am taking my time and will probably be done in, like, March.

“Daniel Johnston?”

Game developers do not work like that, and they need their personal tales to be wrapped up in layers of metaphor so they are not derided as being “emo.” And don’t you think you are rather obsessing over this music thing? It is just a simple juxtaposition. Also, games are most like Radiohead.

But saying that music is as valid an art form as games, if not more valid and venerable, is heresy, and you will have your license revoked by the gaming journalism illuminati. Saying any other form is more valid is pretty much heresy, as you have to an advocate rather than a suppressor.

In terms of literature, anything you needed to read in school is pretty much it, and anything beyond is purely superfluous.

I don’t know the slightest thing about art, the visual drawing type kind, except some names, and I suppose you don’t have to either.