Cyberpunk 2077: a review that lack coherency, pacing, and direction to lampoon it's subject: not because I'm still bad at writing shit!

 

Neuromancer is your favourite book that you finished on your second attempt. William Gibson spews prose that can charitably called dense, its bathypelagic quality made the genre stick. It’s called cyberpunk, emphasis on the punk; emphasis on the rough, unrefined, raw quality of the medium, punk is an aesthetic for artists, and art appreciators, not for consumers. It is not content, and it is far from content. It’s the gold standard against which we can measure anything claiming the label of cyberpunk. Punk is a dork’s idea of what’s cool; punk is sublime in its rejection of what is; and it's ugly as hell.

There was a point when writing this review, I got a cold; my tones altered a tad, fyi.

Cyberpunk 2077, much discourse has already been sung about its troubled launch, and the quirks of the RPG system it was based on. I’m perfectly willing to rethread old hash, but I’m not doing the research. It’s 2025, And I’m ready to jack in.

I was told to play the game, because it looks nice. Ray tracing, smoke effects, post processing; I’m not a fan, I’m sure these are all very titillating to people that have never visited a gallery and starred hungrily at a tapestry for half an hour. I run on vibes, moods, and mouth-feel: which is why I was banned from said gallery after they finished plucking the fibres from my snarling maw.

Because of my “feral” behaviour, I had to start running merc gigs for two bit clowns. I met sympathetic character doing my first such job and the following montage made sure I understood we were now best buds. All was going swimmingly, and we waltz gaily towards our big job; free from ominous foreshadowing.

Skipping ahead, friend died, and there is now nihilist persona invading my brain; taking over my consciousness trying to turn me into an unhinged self-destructive ego driven psycho, but more-so: I play games to get away from the news cycle not to embody it.

The game is still buggier than my second year entomology course. The Temnothorax of the matter is that I got into a car from the wrong side during a sequence, and the car decided to brick itself. A mood I can only describe as ‘too relatable’ (editor’s note: I’m going to remove the other ways you described this anecdote, saves about 400 words)

I’ve sunk too many hours into this game to dismiss it outright. In my estimation its closest relative is the elder scrolls: oblivion, a technically ambitious project for it’s time that had a noticeable jank to it, which is nonetheless charming, despite and because of its total disregard for game balance. I had to crank the difficulty up just to keep it interesting, so maybe the inverse of elder scrolls there.

The graphics being polished to a chrome sheen only makes the glitches and odd NPC behaviour more noticeable. Just as a ceiling to floor canvas, and period accurate 18^th century Venetian paint palette   only serves to highlight the fact you can’t draw a horse.

The story and the gameplay are at odds, flipping between slick hyper violence and the struggle of finding meaning and connections in a world where we are alienated from our own minds and bodies.

There are some highlights like when then human fleshlight program decides you need and existential pep talk more than a greasy handy. And when the chrom’d up glitter pop starlette says shit “I like what’s happening to me,” after murdering her manager Bf in a fit of rage.  I keep being told the dlc is better, which is a bit of a downer to anyone trying to enjoy the base game knowing they’re not playing the best bits.

The nihilist invading my brain kept telling to fuck the corporations; so when I got an text from one of their employees telling me to meet them at the no tell motel for a fade to black bang cut scene I decided to go along with it out of spite. To my horror the scene did not fade black, and I was treated to a full bang montage. But in the end it was worth it to know that Johnny had to watch in the corner.  

In fact most of my choices in game were the product of my loathing for the digital whinge bag try to worm his way into my neo-cortex. I favoured working with a soulless manipulative corpo-swine, who clearly hated me, rather than trust the parasite one bit. I know where I stand with the corps, but Johnny is playing a hot and cold abusive manipulator that I can’t get away from: and I play video games to avoid such issues not embody them. Credit to the writers for really making me hate someone.

4.The Trans-humanist project will not challenge our cisnormative heteropateriachal binary? I wrote this in my notes as a criticism of the setting. Something I found really disappointing. I’ll keep it to a single paragraph. But after some Foucauldian analysis it actually makes total sense. YES, Trans-humanism could undermine the whole shtick, but tech itself is neutral, even with its implied use cases. It’s a conduit for existing bio-power, not the liberator itself.

They have this thing in the “LORE” called the Datakrash! when the internet get’s 9/11’d and fucked up to all high hell. Some gonk spunked it off because the old internet was a vector for corporate power. The glib cynicism of that event is that corporations just made their own separate networks, nothing changed about the power relations. The nuking of the old net, though colourful, was entirely meaningless.

History in this world is a set of events in which the world gets worse but the power structures remain unchanged. Cisheteropatriarchical (word just rolls off the tongue) power is the same, if not stronger, simply because it is the power structure that co-opts the technology. Your super sex fuck cyberware comes in boner building blue or pussy power pink, they could build anything they like; but capital flows, queerness is marginalised, and the world keeps turning.

The Setting’s pointed re-enforcement of these norms and total inability to challenge orthodoxy on society in general and gender more specially is how an actual trans-humanist version of our existing social relations would function. Tech is co-opted into, and therefor reinforces existing hierarches of power. The internet did not set us free. The wild hinterlands of forums were quickly eaten by the corporations of our own world, just as trees shade out heath.  

The well spring of capital heavy LLM companies, playing with another dot com bubble; creating corporate use cases of their buggy malware is another example of ideology shaping the technology. Could be used better, don’t you agree?

Social liberation and egalitarianism is not, nor has it ever been a factor of technological development. No egalitarian system with dynamic social roles ever emerged by accident, but history shows they do emerge. These systems do not require post-scarcity, nor do they require the conquest of the body through tech, they never have. The solution has always been there: fix your fucking hearts. Strive for something better. Waiting for tech to fix it? It won’t. Maybe the parasite had a point.

As I unplug my Ono-Sendai, and stare up at the mould dotted ceiling of a sprawl apartment, I wonder; in a place far behind my eyes. Why we walked this path? Knowing where it would lead.

Game is okay ;)

 

 

Elden ring: or how the path of spiritual enlightenment was found and subsequently lost

 

The Elden ring.

I sit, cloaked in autumns fading rays, watching a pair of pigeon’s squat in the grass. I think, caressed by the crisp air, of the words that are to spill forth on the subject chosen. I feel: dread. I am not yet well from this ordeal.

I went into Elden ring just a touch cocky. I rolled up a Samurai, because I think their swords look cool. They do look cool, history be damned, swordplay be damned. I am exactly the sort of troglodyte to love a katana, but my love is without fact or pretence.

We start roaming about a bunch of rolling hills, strewn with rock and meanies. I was at a total loss. My old haunt, Dark souls, had been linear in its progression; yet I was expected to explore, without any guidance on where to go or what to do: the information may have been present, but I was not; so I wandered aimlessly; A Ronin if you will; some kind of vagabond. Having no sense of purpose for myself, I could not deny by blade its purpose so began to paint my own path in streaks of crimson.  

 At one point an NPC told me not to go into the lake, with nothing else to on I heeded this warning and missed about half the content of the area as a result. How then did I progress? Well, a cyno-bacterium propelled by a singular flagellum is still capable of navigating its medium using chemical gradients, it cannot know where it is going, it does not plan or consider. Where things are good, it moves towards, where things are bad it spins about and tries again.

I employed this same technique, taxis using satisfying combat as my chemical of choice. I moved reflexively away from steam-rolls or dick flattening zones, and pressed deep where the thrill of battle was at its best: a goldilocks zone, if you will. There were maps that could be unlocked at set locations, but I hadn’t figured that out yet; but with the inevitability of persistence I beat the first boss main boss on my second try. Bit lame, but it was a decent encounter.

This is not a story of man overcoming monsters, but of man overcoming himself. But BVGRONTI, surely the self is just another monster? Well, dearly beloved reader: FUCK OFF!!! How dare you try to outdo me in my own blog post you insolent turd. This is my domain.

I was warned by a friend that the second major boss was guarded by a powerful knight that made the boss itself easy by comparison. Intrigued I sought out this new foe and upon encountering him, lifted up his face plate, leaned in and with a heavy baited breath, bit his nose and rammed my sword through his chest, noob. I had real trouble with the boss proper; whilst my sense of swordplay is par excellence I lack that most basic of skills, dodging death rays. This won’t be a problem later.

The third boss lives in the “oh no” zone, named for the two syllables that kept slipping from my lips whilst fending off myriad horrors that craved the consumption my supple flesh. This mushroom hell-scape was by far the most fun of the bunch. The boss is slated as the toughest boy in town, and the NPCs suggest you summon a bunch of peeps to help you in one big murder festival, and so I followed their advice, and they all killed the boss for me; which left me feeling hollow and down, there I promised to never summon any help ever again. This was my bushido.

As the game crept on a number of bullshit bosses started creeping in, highlights include, two flying golems, two flying tree knights, two pumpkin heads in a very small room, but surprisingly not the two foreskin priests from planet fuck. This is because fighting the same flying health bar twice is tedious but fighting hells own Laurel and Hardy is test of my mettle, and my blade’s metal.

The game has a lot of magic now, various spells schools and ways of integrating it into combat; I didn’t use any of it; not because I look down on it, I’m just too stuck in my ways to change. Every time I considered putting a single point into something like faith, arcane or intelligence I found myself unable to part with the potential, it all went into the hit harder, hit more, or don’t fucking die attributes.

It was whilst roaming around the Silly city at the base of the big tree that I came across a discovery most startling, a wiki; in which lay all the erudite secrets of the game, and more profitably: the locations of the stones that make you hit stuff real good! It was then that my game became a cursed mirror of supermarket sweep. I dove face first into the sewers, met the crazed kaka consumer, and battled the shit marinated lobsters all to acquire said stones.  

I was a stoner, the man seeking stone! Rock hard in soul and constitutions (editor’s note: wtf?)

Now with the power of the wiki at my side I discovered the secret location of the really big katana, it had been carefully hidden in a place no one would ever think to look: at the start of the game in the big lake!

Powered up with a blade that had more reach than a bigoted article on BBC news, I made my way to the really big bowl. There a lady set a tree on fire for reasons that escape me, and as a result, for reasons that also escape me I was transported to the land of winds and decaying shit, and dragons. They need a better name for it.

I cut my way through dragons the same way a metaphor for efficiency cuts through the need to describe what actually happened.

And it was here, on the precipice of victory, caressed by the crisp air of ancient winds that I must now prostrate (editor’s note: not prostate) myself, and utter my confession. I used a summon, I did it, I summoned, it was I! The bastard black blade had laid me low time after time for the better part of five hours of gruelling slug matches, his first stage was tough but sword of destined death was pretty aptly fucking named.

I had long ago abandoned the philosophy of bloodshed that had guided my hands, and slowly at first, game had begun to rot away from the inside. The thrill of combat, once so strong, had become a raging frustration; the fruit of victory had become ash in my mouth. I had wailed, and cursed, and finally given in; summoned aid. I was defeated in my victory, left hollow, going through the motions of what remained. Forever lost, shattered like the Elden ring itself.

Game is too hard towards the end, but otherwise fun!

Is dark souls 3 the discursive framework we need to end late stage capitalism?

 

I’ve reviewed Dark souls three before, and honestly I think review one holds up alright. But I’ve been playing it again, and I’ve been thinking on the symbols of it all. I’ve run up against something of a wall in certain respects with the writing of reviews. The volume fell off after 2019, but the quality rose; well I fucking hope it did.

I’ve perversely decided my writing should be, in some way, ‘good’ or valuable as a text: and honestly that’s the biggest hurdle to write one can ever put in place. I long for the days when I could uncritically churn out hit or miss chaff. That urge makes writing progressively harder as one improves, as you realise everything you ever wrote was not quite good enough, as the future expectation of improvement chokes the life out of you, but in a very unsexy way.

So anyway this one’s about capitalism.

There’s a certain academic phrase you’ve never heard of because you’re not as smart as I am called: The foreclosure of the imagination. Basically I mean you’ve got no fucking ideas. You cannot because of your own hang ups, or the prevailing social conditions imagine an alternative, or how to go about doing it. It’s normally used in relation to neoliberalism, the modern form of global capitalism since the seventies, nineties whatever? Or so? IDK I’m a wanker on the internet, not a historian. I SWEAR THIS IS ABOUT DARKSOULS.

SO this NEO-liberalism thingy, they say is foreclosing our imagination as to the possibility of other social orders. Or so ‘they’ the bourgeoisie academics sometimes say. It is claimed that the logic of the market is so all consuming and defuse it has gone beyond merely corroding social fabric and given us all the tiktok brain rots.

Dark souls 3 is about an endless cycle of sacrifice in which an age of fire is perpetuated by immolation of its most important figures to renew the ever (about to end) age of aforementioned fire. WOW that sounds rough buddy, we should find an alternative status quo. Over countless eons it has constantly been tending towards this end but never quite achieved it, the age of darkness has never come. To this end there is decay, rot, grotesque abominations; but no end ever comes. Instead they are saved, at least for now, and the cycle repeats. The rot deepens and everything grows teeth where is never should.

No one in dark souls manages to put an end to the endless series of sacrifices, or the ever worsening state of the world needed to keep the system stable; someone, somewhere heads off the ever approaching end. It is, therefore, an eternal pre-apocalypse. No one can set out an alternative system, at least until three, and even then.

In capitalism infinite growth is, quite intuitively laughable. The system cannot grow forever, can it? We must all believe it cannot, because if we do things get weird. Speculative bubbles occur when such assumptions take hold, infinite growth implied infinite returns and how much would you spend to get unlimited money?

This logic is deeply damaging to the society it takes route in, they expose flaws in the markets and prompt lawmakers to change their approach in some way. They sudden reveal that are imaginations are not foreclosed, and the market logics is not inevitable, and the neoliberal status quo seems about to give way only to find the stability is resorted by our scepticism as we all start to become ‘realists’ again, throwing around phrases like late stage capitalism, whilst nothing materially changes other than the concentration continuing to accumulate. The rot deepens.

The system of extraction is built on an assumed and mostly implicit scepticism. Any day now, the system will fail, and the age of dark will begin. We are at the end, and have been for over two hundred years now. There has always been a looming end, social uprising, communist inflators, the atomic bomb, the climate crisis. I have successfully criticised capitalism! But my criticism is subsumed like so much ash. We continually put our intellectual efforts not into imagining what comes next, but the fall itself. That doom gooning is the act of foreclosure. It will not change the status quo, no matter what we do or say, the market is eternal and you should act accordingly!

IS dark souls 3 the discursive framework with which we end capitalism? Well yes, actually, Idiot! What does the age of dark look like? Well: The high prince Lothric and Lorian sit upon the throne of the castle barring the way to progression, having refused to link the fire in their cycle; they are the instigators of the games events. They have no fucking idea, and TBH they don’t care, they’re just really not down for this shit. They just want to hang, let the fire fade, and listen to the spice girls and honestly I’m here for that.

They understand the larger material cycles they are a part of, and understand the coercive systems of power that perpetuate it. From that alone we can unpick the systems of power as methodically as repeatedly ramming a great sword through my chest. But what comes next isn’t really up to us. Future history and present necessity only allow us to choose how to begin the calamity: as Caesar knew full well: the creation of a new social order ultimately comes down to a roll of the die, and a willingness not to be the herald of the ever approaching apocalypse, but its instigator.

“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings.” – Magic mommy.

But that begs the question. Should we?

If you go to hidden places in Lothric castle, and fight your way past a mad old dragon man and his baby there is a place where everything is ever so… different. Here there is no light. Here the age of dark has taken hold, and the first boss of the game is alive and well and just aching to kick your shit in fifty times harder than he did at the start. Here one can find the fire keepers eyes, which allows the player’s blind attendant to see at last, but what they can see is darkness. The social order of the world blinds the fires keepers to prevent this, violating bodily autonomy and foreclosing the imagination. But the vibes here are- off.

The age of dark was supposed to be peaceful, but there’s something wrong with the tranquillity. In the world above there is talk of dreg sorceries made from heaviest elements of the human’s dark soul, having sunk down and coagulated far below. A cannibal twink munching worm named Aldrich writes of an age of the deep. It might be future age promised has already been consumed by the burning flames and what is left isn’t what was promised. Also the hollows of yondor are defo not trying to use you as a puppet to usurp the fire flame and build a new order where they can send people they don’t like to south American country of Elden ring.

Despite what mentally deficient forum users say it’s all left very ambiguous, other than the vibes. And that’s for the best, there is room to interpret and into that space seeps the imagination. Our best shot is not that of categorical certainty but a willingness to navigate uncertainty. That is the frame work needed. 

Are you comfortable in the pre-apocalypse? So long as I have dark souls I might be.

Can civ 5 cure the sickness deep in my soul? A second look at the much loved classic.

 I wrote a review of Civ 5 a few years ago. My fever addled brain cannot begin to comprehend the fuckery I was laying down at the time. I think something is terribly wrong with anyone who writes in such a fashion. And yet. Maybe I've improved, time will tell. I’m a little poorly right now, so we'll see how this pans out. Here’s the story of my recent playthrough:

Part one, one hundred ninety turns in the splendid shell of isolation. As the name implies the first few hours (2000 years) were spent in a state of peace. Siam to my north had the Hun to their north; meaning that if they ever dared attack me they would be unable to hold off the inevitable opportunism of their far greater foe. The Ottomans to their south, myself, were just hiding away peacefully in a sweet shell of solitude; after all why would that ever be a cause for concern? 

Act one, normally I don't play quite so passive, but I had no natural resources, no iron and only a few crabs. You can’t make war with just crabs, believe me. The continent was covered in a thicket of impenetrable forest. This meant I had nothing of value to anyone else. So whilst the Hun gobbled up the polish, I sat and read Tolstoy in the hope of growing my borders. Whilst making a modest profit selling crabs and industrializing the interior. 

All alone I decided to found an Islamic sect called Ultraliberalism, to reflect the fact I had no friends. A core tenant of which its followers had to pay a tithe, which isn’t taxation because it’s spelt differently. My early emergence into the world oceans didn’t initially result in my building a huge navy,  as was my habit, for the simple reason that I still had no iron. Ironic really. 

Instead I focused on trade and fostering good relations, cleaning the coastline of pirates, all the better to trade with you, and exploring the oceans, seeking new lands, where resources were to be more plentiful. As I traced the shape of the land and sea beyond, I settled small colonies that I hoped might be close to strategic resources. 

I should note, by the start of the 1810’s I had already built my first submarines and had one sat off the coast of Attila's court watching the triremes come and go. My coffers were fuller than a TB ward in Victorian London, and I had the industrial output to match. It was fair to say I was sufficiently advanced, but I was getting towards the maximum output one could hope for only four cities. 

As my podcast on the build up to ww1 entered its stride, I too made preparations for war. I had acquired oil, and lots of it. Naturally, being both smug and English i felt a good fleet was necessarily twice the size of Germany's. Then came my caucus belli. I saw American settlers coming to intrude upon my precious isolation, so I warned them not to settle near me, but my words fell on deaf ears. My next utterances would not be so easy to ignore, be they through the muzzle of cannon. 

Act 2. On the morning July 3rd of 1858, Boston harbour was set upon by a cannonade from 8 battleships, as the dawn's early light rose it exposed a city in flames. An ottoman destroyer had seized the city, but it had quickly changed hands. It had been given to the Germans, in exchange for their joining the war on my side. The Americans lost five cities during that war, including the little pesky colony they had set up near my homeland. 

Simultaneously, I had bribed the Huns to join in the war. And they had belatedly deployed an attack force to sea. It was five turns out of port when I also enticed them to attack Siam; the Huns were gluttons for war. Stretched thin after declaring against two minor powers, with their fleets away to sea, yet more of my battleships emerged from the fog of war to sink them in a bloody double crossing massacre. The Ottomans only pay a third of the upkeep cost on navy units, so I hadn't just built one fleet, I built three. 

The submarine off their coast began sinking frigates as my fleet arrived and swiftly took control of the capital. It was then that I noticed the Hunnic territory was overrun with rebel forces, and that they had sent most of their remaining army down to Siam. So I decided, benevolently, to liberate Siam's capital in the name of freedom and co-operation. Which cleared away my warmonger penalty and set me up as a great liberator, I love freedom. 

Seeing the Hunnic state had mismanaged its diplomatic and local affairs, I had no choice but to stabilize the region, and set up a restored rump Polish state that I came to call the duchy of Warsaw. I did this out of kindness and love of the Polish nation and not because I wanted a buffer against Sweden. All the while the other powers praised me for showing the warlike Hun's what for.

It was about this time other cultures were no longer termed friendly, or guarded; but scared or guarded. I was still selling crab for eight gold per turn, but now with the lingering threat of a nuclear holocaust the mood turned noticeably more apprehensive. They dared not touch me, I was selling them a lot of crab, all my cities were sat on the coast and so I gathered enough to slake the world's thirst for crab. The pincers of economic necessity gripped them so tight the idea of rebellion became impossible. 

Conflict destroyed resources, a lack of resources led to unhappiness, so they turned to me to sell them enough crab to keep their people plied, which kept them poor, fuelling yet more conflict. He who controls the crab controls the world. Through the stalked eyes of my colonies I saw all that was wrong in the world and knew Carcinization was at hand. 

It was fine.

Act 3.  I was setting up an easy space victory when German decided to denounce me. Now, I should explain that a little world war was taking place between the powers of freedom and order. And that I was the only freedom power sitting it out because I wanted to max out my trade. Despite our ideological differences German and I had been firm friends, we had clowned America together, and I had sold them crabs for eight gold per turn. 

But now they felt the need to insult me; to question my benevolence, peacefulness and just rule. I waited until their fleet was mid transit before I began my five fold attack pincer. A global trade embargo, nothing major. An invasion from the north, sensible. A sea attack in the south, necessary. A submarine ambush in the open ocean, cunning, and a nuclear firestorm in their heartlands. Some might debate the necessity, but I would like to remind those readers they had it coming; none escape the bucket, not before me. 

CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB CRAB. 

And that’s my civ 5 experience. No, I won’t play six, 

My obligatory tie in to Alien Romulus: Rome total war

 

I made actual notes for this review, are you proud? No, me neither, basic due diligence is an alien language to me. I want to take you back, deep down to the front line: the year is 230bc, and shit is kicking off.

On a boring out of the way peninsular of Europe, a bunch of really aggy dudes are about to smear their shitty attitudes into the collective imagination of the known world for the next two millennium. In the east twinkius Maximus: Alex the gr8 has gotten too crunk and passed out for the finial time: his empire fractures between his generals. Everywhere else people are fine actually, thanks for asking; things are chill and will remain so indefinitely, or so they believe (foreshadowing notice).

 This is world of Rome: total war: the jeopardy answer to, ‘what was the equivalent of fentanyl prior to the 2010’s.’

I haven’t played this game since I was sixteen or so. How old am I now? Fuck off. Needless to say I might be a little rusty (editor’s note: this sentence refers to itself as needless, and undermines your gripping- hand of the reader’s junk - style of hard hitting journalism. reword or remove!) So I went back to my old reliable the Julii.

They start the game in north Italy which put them right next to the uncultured and aggressive Gauls, a rap battle quick ensued: trans or cis alpine we don’t discriminate, against their hostile acts, I will recriminate, their armies large and keen to charge, but they’re about to be wacked, so who will have the gall to get territorial? Better to be the Caesar, than the seized, I'll drop those fr*nch bastards to their knees.

And with that rap battle over and done with I swiftly conquered the region, depopulating it, and enslaving its people in a campaign devoid of any historical parallels.

It all seemed good, but what I glossed over, like a fine layer of varnish onto a rough grain wooden deck, was the problems with my economy. I let the computer run the show, and by the gods they were inept. Settlements revolting, the people didn’t smell great either. They were building catapult ranges by the dozen. This was rampant corruption. Money that should have gone into public purse instead was shed out to an entrenched class of consultancy parasites that made their living shepherding meek and feeble projects through a labyrinth of bureaucratic swill, whilst draining them dry. A campaign of fiscal mismanagement devoid of any historical parallels.

Despite this a slow lumbering rhyme-less campaign in spai… Iberia followed. Much like unbuttered bread I remorselessly chewed with mechanical persistence into Pyrenees, i took little joy in it. From there I cross the straits of Gibraltar, into North Africa and all the way to Carthage. I strolled into the senate head held high and said proudly “Ceterum (autem) censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” and they said in reply I was using the wrong tense, which sparked and all out civil war.

Due to my chronic mismanagement my territory couldn’t stand up the might of the other roman powers, the hitherto unnamed Brutii and Scipii. I ended up being the jam in a roman sandwich. All was lost I gave up and went on with my life.

That was until election night, a friend was distracting themselves from Peter Mandelson’s dulcet tones using the might of roman arms: he was fighting the civil war and was winning.

My imagination sparked. I had learnt so much the first time around, surely I could take another crack at it, and this time WIN!

Once again I chose the Julii but instead of the verse about the Gaul’s I ignored them, turned south and chose the true path to empire building. I named my save file ‘greek_fucker’

You see dear reader I am a master of history, no I don’t have a masters in history- or even a GCSE. But. I have Wikipedia articles, and the will to read them. Instead of trailing in the shadow of Caesar I followed the path of the true masters of empire: the east India Company. Not literally, but in principle. I waded into war torn Greece, where a three way struggle was on going, instead of playing the peace maker I turned that shit up to eleven! Played the sides against each other and took their territory whilst making one-sided peace deals.

You see, I had previously thought of empire as simply land holding by force to monopolise the agrarian surplus. How wrong I was. The truest meaning of empire is about forcing people to grow opium so you can trade it for bits and bobs. I built sea ports, and traded hard with everyone I could find.

Ancient Greece was in the money, they had the swag and now they were in my bag. Next up was Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Byzantium. Next I noticed the Pontic faction in Anatolia was running low on troops in a long war with Egypt so I scooped them up into the imperial fold. Gold flowed in like raw sewage in the streets: which I could now afford to fix, so I did.

Spending big on public works and turning all of my warlord generals into urban planners. Not out of a sense of love for my people, but to reduce the force needed to occupy them. Plus more people makes for a bigger tax base! Stocks in Jullii.corp were looking bullish.

My next move was simple; I launched a decapitation strike on the Egyptian Nile. This is a move attempted four times during the crusades in the twelfth century. Though unlike them, I won.

Now my empire went from expansive to bloated. There is no ghoulish word for peace, they had been hammering on northern Italy the entire game. They were starting to get a proverbial concussion from smashing their head into my proverbial wall. It only took a half-hearted effort to roll into their lands and seize their centres of commerce. I also swallowed the entire Middle East, partitioning it in a campaign devoid of any historical parallels.

In a parallel thread of this story, I had spent the entire game assassinating every Brutii I could get my hands on; it was causing a slight animosity between our factions, for some reason. This all came to a boil triggering an early civil war. The scippii had fucked off to west Africa. They wanted no part in the brutii’s temper tantrum; whereas I now faced down a greatly weakened faction, inexplicably lacking leaders, having been undermined at every turn.

My mistake the first time around was not treating a civil war as inevitable; today’s allies are tomorrow’s enemies, I knew that now: I had become truly Roman. So my muscular hands closed around the Brutii throat, killing my twin faction.

Accompanied by my armies I cross the Rubicon and visited the senate in Rome, to discuss the events so far with them. My speech was recorded as such.

“Their attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed, but I assure you my resolve has never been stronger! In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the republic would be reorganised in the first Galactic! I mean *cough* roman! Empire. For a safe and secure society.”

They would have applauded, had I not already slit their throats. So I logged off and went outside, the end.

Game is good btw!!!

Napoleon: blown apart by my scathing review

 

I have a soft spot for strange, awkward, not quite Italians that yearn to be dictator of France. My interest in Bonaparte is less grounded in historical fanboying, and more a way to use an impossibly lofty aspiration to beat myself over the head: until my self esteem is as lively as so many protesters after so much canister shot. Why am I not supplanting the directory? Why have I not pushed the Austrians out of Italy with an army that lacks for footwear? Oh woe Ect ect.

 

I watched the film Napoleon with a modest understanding of the events, and spent much of my time working out who was being depicted before the film name dropped them, and from that game I got a fair bit of enjoyment. In that regard the film is fine, stop reading now.

 

The film has two threads, one is that Napoleonic warfare looks fucking sick, and the other is that he really liked his hot poshGF. Somewhere in this mix, the myth of ‘master of Europe’ gets lost. The film is taking liberties with its depiction of events, I know I was there. Which is ‘fine’ each scene could be a film unto itself, some short hand there can be forgiven.

 

Though it commits the cardinal sin of making Boney boring. You don’t try to take over the world without a pretty messed up sense of self-worth, and ego. Write a megalomaniacal bratty sub and have it come out dull, how? His historical one liners are bitchy as hell. At a time of fervent nationalism this chucklefuck took the cake left to him by Marie Antoinette, and carried it to Moscow and back. Humanizing such a figure is of course an interesting endeavour, but making him feel like a sales director at a stapler company is certainly a choice.

 

I am a bit of a josey-stan, admitted. Aren’t we all? Josephine is, in my unqualified speculation, more influential in events than historical accounts imply. As good as Boney was in reading the battlefield, she was at reading people and the Parisian scene. The film is interested in her, but only insofar as it relates to her romance with napoleon, apart from her fucking; which the film even down plays. The fixation ends up flattening her interesting and complex personal character (the being limited scope, not the fucking)

 

The thing that I feel makes Napoleon interesting is his Rizz. Boy had no game, and had the diplomatic skills of a fermented herring. Though he was hugely popular both with the French people in general and his troops in particular. It’s hard to imagine exactly how a person must have acted in their day to day life, and to the film's credit, it doesn’t really try. I feel like they nailed the bully boy bluster, but not the personal magnetism, or headline grabbing fabrications he spun. The film knows these qualities exist, but tells not shows them. It is unable to reconcile them into its narrative.

 

The film's overarching conclusion is that Josephine was the beauty and he the beast, which does them both a disservice, and is more reductionist than the British tabloids of the day, at least they were humorous. It’s the lack of mannerisms that I found to be the lost eagle standards. Whether it was Boney rubbing his painful stomach, or Josephine covering her awful teeth these little character details are strikingly absent. In trying to ‘humanize’ these painfully flawed people they made them into other people. The only time he really felt like Napoleon was when he was going out his way to be a dick to other emperors.

 

A lot is done to create a man behind the myth, but I'd argue that the myth is an intrinsic element of the man. Imagine dear scholars A, D.J. Khaled: Beyond the hype.

 

So my question is why bother? A deconstruction is normally used to lay things bare, though this isn’t quite that. If we’re going to slot any-old awkward romance in there, rather than one plausibly theirs, we could have instead watched a two and half hour recreation of waterloo (i know it exists), or austerlitz or jena or leipzig. They’re all bangers, apart from borodino. Much as I long for big cannons, frontal assaults and total encircling’s of the left flank; I’m certainly not against cringe romance, in principle, and I’m not an expert (yeah, i know you knew that you smug pricks) but it feels like they read the letters but didn’t really understand them. Which I also didn’t, but I also don’t make films about the dude you ‘know.

 

Despite having warped the history to make these two threads complimentary, they end up being anathema. Each disrupts detracts and contorts the other. Though I have to give the film credit for its achievement, I never thought I'd find Napoleonic history lacklustre.

 

Okay, so that’s actually a lie, SHOCKER I know. The book that turned me onto reading about the period was called “Napoleon and the awakening of Europe,” published in 1954 and bought for a fifty pence in a second hand bookshop that used to be a public toilet: the book is weirdly paced and assumes, at least of the bits of it I read, a fair heft of background knowledge. So maybe out of the clear and chasmous gaps in the narrative of the film, other people will be inspired to learn more.

 

There’s a 2002 miniseries on Napoleon which is worth watching, it’s about six hours long and ends up being far more emotionally compelling, even if the budget is noticeably lacking.

Dynamite this film was not, get it? napoleon dynamite? Urghh. Not cool you guys.  

 

 

Thopa gunner: maverick, bitch

Thopa gunner: maverick, bitch

 

Bear with me a moment, I swear this tangent is going somewhere. So, there’s this Simpsons gag about military recruitment. Where the recruiter explains they use subliminal, liminal and super liminal messaging. When asked to explain what super liminal messaging involves, he leans out a window and screams at a passer by telling them to sign up. Ha. Ha.

 

If I was to try and slot top gun maverick into one of those categories, it’s got to be super liminal.  If only because everyone already is well aware the original was also a recruitment tool for the navy. 36 years down the line, the cat has had kittens and those kittens have had kittens, and the proverbial bag was recycled into a coke bottle that was then used as a gravity bong before being discarded into landfill. Yet Top gun refuses to move on, so much so the film’s theme (join the navy) was about how little anyone in top gun had actually moved on… from the navy, which they joined…

 

I appreciate the mental gymnastics a screenwriter today would have to go through to write anything as corny and un-ironic as a top gun film. Though in that regard I feel they fall a bit short in places. The film has more cheese than the US food stamp program in 1986. While I'm down for an 80’s cheese fest, my lactose intolerant friends will attest there is such a thing as too much cheese. So let’s examine the post pizza depression of Maverick.

 

Much as the film tries to convince that there are actual narrative stakes at play you can feel the kid gloves of the soft writing underneath. I’m not saying someone has to die a sudden dramatic death, but the film telegraphs itself as too much of a feel-good flick to really do that. The only death in the film, join the navy, is forewarned and the most respectful adoring funeral one could hope for.

 

The messaging across the film is not only can you return to the past, but it’s as vibrant and good as you remember it. Nothing exists there to fundamentally challenge you, your sweet heart is still waiting, and you can comfortably be a big fish in a small pond, sticking it to your old man (Jon Hamm) by joining up, shipping out and flying boats at mack too. Needless of me to point out, that isn’t how the 80’s was: I know I was there. Like a lot of media, it’s riding nostalgia for a time that never was, which isn’t what the nostalgia of my childhood used to be, it used to be good, you’know, it was a purer kinder nostalgia, people nowadays use it as an escape but.

 

 A good portion of the film is characters lining up to metaphorically jerk Thomas Cruisé off with flattery and praise. Which I’m chalking up to the military recruiters knowing that no one under the age of thirty five was ever led to believe that they were good enough. If anyone can be used to symbolize a black hole of praise seeking insecurity, it would be the now 61 year old Tobias Cruz.

 

Paradoxically, the sheer volume of affirmation that Tommy Crush, maverick, is in fact the best fighter pilot of all time forever and ever left me with lasting imposter syndrome. I am now resigned to never being a top of the line fighter ace. The worst part of that is I've never even flown and have a totally unrelated fear of heights. Though that might speak to the boat having sailed on my own sense of self-worth.

 

Speaking of, Tumnus Crash does have a boat sailing scene. Where it is revealed that he doesn’t know how to sail, so that his new old girlfriend can girl-mansplain the basics to him. Doesn’t learning to sail boats sound like a great idea for a date? A good way to learn those skills would be to join the US navy.

 

It has occurred to me that pointing out the film as propaganda isn’t particularly clever. Critics like to think of themselves as clever people, because they’re people and everyone does that. The sheer obviousness of it goes some way to neutralizing the criticism of it being propaganda. Hence making it more effective propaganda: this is a super liminal thing I was talking about; awareness of advertisement doesn’t neutralize the effectiveness when it’s not trying to be subtle. If anything the knowledge goes some way to encouraging the same complacent mindset that made the original so effective.

 

If we’re on the subject of criticism, and this being a review; I think we are, blowing your nostalgia song on the opening sequence is crumby as hell. I’m fairly sure, based on nothing other than my own notional sense of entitlement; that if danger zone started blasting during the maverick dog fight sequence, it would be incredibly cringe, over the top, and quintessentially 80’s nostalgia perfection.

 

The other easy angle with Cruise is his cult affiliation, which I'm sure I could be scathing about, but I'm not putting in the research (reading wikipedia) to get enough material for a paragraph on the subject. I can stomach reading about the US navy, but thinking about that other aquatic organization gives me the ick.

 

I’m fairly sure Maverick won’t have the same lasting impression as the original, but I also know it’s not trying to. A sequel in the narrative sense moves the story on; keeping some underlying themes and concepts, whilst developing them. Ultimately they aim to supplant the original, successful or not. Tenga Topa gun maverick isn’t interested in moving forwards, it and a lot of modern sequels to 80’s classics have got more in common with a prequel if anything, ticking off a set of references and nods to the status quo. This is how modern ‘generative AI’ works; a scatter shot approximation of what it was fed. If the machines were trained on our cultural, no wonder they’re not creative.

 

Tron legacy was more forward looking. Yikes.