1/1/2023-1/7/2023
The Atari 50 Collection
Now, of course, I
haven’t played the full Atari 50 Collection, but I have gone
through all the supplemental material. There are some videos with the
people who made Atari what it is and giving their honest opinions on
each era of Atari. This is probably the first time I’ve heard
people talk about how terrible it is to try and program things for
the 2600, or one of the guys instrumental to creating the Jaguar
saying that he finds the modern-day appreciation for it strange. I
feel like Atari may actually be in pretty good hands, especially if
they’re willing to have the original developers go out of their way
to bury the 5200 as one of the biggest mistakes in video game
history, implying that it was a big part of why the entire industry
crashed in 1983. In addition to that there are some great supplements like fliers, advertisements, and full-3D models of the game boxes. Why you would need that, I'm not sure, but it's here if you want it.
I do have to chastise this collection for featuring an interview with Ready Player One author Ernest Kline. What Kline has to say isn't actually all that horrible, but the fact that it takes place in his garage where he has a DeLorean with a Ghostbusters logo painted on the side of it just enforces how creatively bankrupt he is as a person. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but I fucking hate Ernest Kline and everything he stands for.
Pong (part of the Atari 50 Collection)
It’s pong. It’s
not complicated. It’s not impressive by today’s standards, but I
can completely understand why it would’ve caught on like it
did. I’m
sure you can think back to various times where you and a friend get
caught up playing the simplest, stupidest game for hours at time. If
I was in the right mood, or perhaps just had another player with me,
I could see this taking up hours of my time.
Wild 7, Volume 3: Motorcycle Knights Part 1 by Michiya Mochizuki
Okay, so this volume features a gang of 7 evil motorcyclists (evil being relative, considering our main characters kill people whenever they please) that use motorbike-mounted lances to kill people. The person behind the subtitular Motorcylce Knights is also behind a kickboxing league where people have lead-lined pads and brutalize TV producers. Also, they’re the real force behind the villain of the first two books, and it hints that there are people higher up than him. Why do I sense a pattern forming?
I have to say that I might’ve been wrong about how reactionary this series might have been as, even though our heroes are criminals-turned-secret police that are allowed to kill people, the big villain of this plot arc is saying that he's going to try and crush all the left-wing parties in Japan. But he also gloats about putting sex and violence on TV? It’s kind of hard tor track, but I don’t know what Japanese Politics were like in 1969. I’m still interested to see where this series goes, but I doubt I’ll try and hunt down more volumes after I get past the two volumes I already own.
Unison by Paraadiso
Confession by Christophe De Babalon
A Buried River by Leo
Deep House Spotify Playlist
Lowkey Tech Spotify Playlist
Really good!