Echoes and reflections

Wading through heartbreak's swamp is a daunting task. Also a depressing one. It becomes a more difficult one when you realize that you've been here before for the exact same reasons. The only thing that's different is the amount of gray hairs you have now.

There must be something hilarious to those cosmically in charge about someone who hasn't learned.

But what about it can be funny? Maybe because the joke's on me, I don't know why it's so funny. If anything, it's pretty sad to see someone try the same thing, recognize the problem, and still fail to come up with a solution. Maybe I just suck at recognizing comedy because apparently I wouldn't know funny if it bludgeoned me in the face repeatedly with the same thing over and over.

But can these echoes and reflections be distorted and misconstrued and interpreted differently from the point of origin? Surely something like "You suck!" can in time become "You rock!", right?

Despite appearances of not progressing forward, each second is valuable. It just takes time for the big picture to be fully revealed. Was the Great Wall of China built in a day? Was the Grand Canyon formed in a matter of hours?

Time heals all wounds. But one has to make the effort to pass the time and reach for the medicine instead of letting the cuts fester and bleed out until there is nothing but an empty shell of the self pretending everything is fine and dandy.

Review: Murdered: Soul Suspect

Murdered: Soul Suspect

Square Enix

2014

Many months ago, I pre-ordered this game because I thought the premise was fantastic: A detective gets killed and has to solve his own murder... from BEYOND THE GRAVE as a ghost with ghost powers and possessing people and detective work and ghost powers! So I pre-ordered it and paid it off in full and waited, eager to play as a motherfucking ghost cop with ghost powers.

The wait was not worth it.

There was so much lacking from the game that the wait only produced a middling experience at best, and that's if you're really reaching. Everything from the controls to the voice acting and everything in between seems very bare-bones and rail thin. The main story campaign can be beaten very quickly and with one eye open because it's honestly not THAT engaging.

There is a common complaint regarding modern video games that they are becoming more and more like "interactive movies" than actual games. What many mean is that the player is treated to a more cinematic experience by way of more cutscenes and increasingly minimal and less engaging gameplay (even then, you end up pressing a button every now and then).

Murdered is no exception.

All you really do is walk around collecting stuff, making guesses in a piss-poor attempt to create something that vaguely resembles detective work, without a sense of urgency, or even penalty if you fuck up.

LA Noire took the detective concept and made it work, especially with the penalty concept. It's rewarding to mess up because you're treated to a shred of more content each time but if you don't fuck up, your score improves at the end of each case.

With Murdered, if you mess up with your "investigations", nothing happens. No failure music, no angry "GODDAMN IT!" from the main character, no score penalty, etc. You can fuck up all you want and you won't notice a difference.

Even the collectibles don't really do anything cool. While it isn't fair to compare LA Noire to Murdered, it has to be said again. Collecting stuff in LA Noire actually gets you stuff like suits and content. Murdered treats you with audio ghost stories which even then are very few and in the end not that worth it considering all the searching you had to go through with narrow spaces and such. And god forbid you should get so far into the story you can't go back to other places which brings me to my next point.

The game is so linear it hurts. You can't truly explore every nook and cranny because you haven't unlocked a specific ghost power which in turn leads to a lot of dull backtracking through areas you already visited and must visit again if you want to get all the collectibles. I'm not judging because I did the same thing so I could get all the trophies and get every penny's worth of my foolish purchase. And even with the game being linear, you'd think the game would get better but it just stands around with its hands in its pockets like some lame-wad.

The story is probably the only thing with a shred of redemption. It's all right and has a pretty good twist but even then it feels so contrived that the people behind the game just tossed it in to make it seem more interesting.

There was a lot of potential. The ghost powers could have been better, the stuff with the demons and combat could have ACTUALLY EXISTED instead of "move really slowly and then press these buttons." It would have been a much more engaging and interesting experience if one could have played with a better combat feature. Ghost punching, ghost weapons, full possession, etc. Instead it just feels like some decent movie with a few point and click elements tossed in to meet someone's minimum standards.

If you're one of the people who haven't played the game, count yourself lucky and just watch a playthrough on YouTube.

The cat possession stuff was okay. Funny for a few minutes but then quickly descends into tedium.

4/10

SSSS

En una isla
entre arena
de bajo del mar

me encuentra

sol

edad

soy

seré

siempre la serpiente venenosa

el sol que arde
y quema

el perro que ladra y no muerde
y muerde sin ladrar

la espada
sin escudo

el viento que aúlla
aun ya

el silencio que te abraza
y te besa

En esa isla
hay arena

hay piedras
arboles, frutas, y diamantes

El viento sopla suavemente
como un beso tierno

el agua limpa
el cielo claro

Te rindes a lo lindo y lo precioso porque por fin has topado con placer y amor
Te rindes sin creer en el fin, la noche violenta, las tempestades que ofrece el mar
Te rindes sin saber que el sol te quemara, que el leon salvaje te comerá

Te rindes por un beso

Tierno
Suave
Dulce

tu isla

Thin Gray Line

I'm at that age where I can still be considered very young but still "kind of old" while I process the fact that I have moved from one age bracket to another. And that ultimately means nothing.

However, it is still a strange time because I've been expected to let go of a lot of habits and tendencies and embrace a completely different set of behaviors and customs. The problem is I still don't feel sufficiently prepared to face the new horizon as I'm still stuck under the bright but ever dimming skies of whatever the hell it is I'm trying to hang on to.

I don't know what I'm doing nor do I know what I'm saying. Clarity eludes me.

Put it this way: I can't even jokingly quote Matthew McConaughey's character from Dazed and Confused without sounding like a total fucking creep. If I do quote Wooderson my age will totally fuck things up. It will muddle my intentions because I'm beyond the age where it's 60/40 funny/weird to 20/90 funny/weird which really just translates to: "That's not something you can say out loud anymore." Saying it now wouldn't elicit a chuckle but an uncomfortable stare. And definitely response that only makes things worse, despite having good intentions (read: just wanting to make someone laugh.) Even if they understood the reference, there would be a disapproving stare.

Vulture.

Gray hair.

They're probably unable to drink without The Man harassing them (but smokes and lottery tickets are fine for purchase.)

That being said, morality. As I get older I notice that the things I held so steadfast aren't things others hold in the same regard or even a similar regard.

That being said, I shouldn't take it so hard that I'm aging. It's as natural as breathing, unless you're Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4, in which case you're really getting screwed with the accelerated aging.

I have to accept, as do you, that aging is natural and inevitable. But that doesn't mean I have to yield to a mindset that demands me to be weak, frail, bitter, and joyless.

Navigating a sea of heartbreak

I've fallen down again. The echo makes no noise. I'm greeted with silence and sounds caused by shreds of my imagination sustaining themselves through blind optimism and intense naïveté. I'm seeing and hearing things that probably aren't there.

I've fallen down before but never like this. Everything seems much more intense now. More vivid, more... "more." So much that apparently, I can't even think of a word to use. Everything is sharper, more intense, more fragrant, more tasty, more alive. Alive.

I came back to life. But as I navigate through this sea of heartbreak am I dead? Have I been knocked unconscious? Am I broken? Did I break long ago and never get around to fixing myself? Or is the me I am now the me I'm supposed to be? Have I found myself yet?

I don't like falling down because shit like this happens.

Doubt.

So much of it.

Doubt in proportional measures is fine because doubt is the fire that tempers a man's armor but this can get fucking ridiculous and makes doubt lava which in turn obliterates any armor and the man himself.

The sea is not infinite. There might not even be a sea but a puddle or a lake at best.

There will be land eventually.