Reading doesn’t seem to come so naturally to me anymore. I have Black Powder War in front of me on the desk for the past few weeks, after starting it and then stopping after just a few chapters. Meant to continue a few days ago, read one more chapter and then left it again. Until recently it was intentional, had just a couple of books I could still read and wanted to make them last. But since I now have a few more I actually mean to read but it’s like I just never think of it.
When I do read a little I get so excited that I can hardly focus on what I’m actually reading. But then I put it down after a chapter or two and forget all about it, even if it’s right in front of me. It’s like my brain doesn’t consider reading as a potential activity anymore. I’d sometimes be bored out of my wits, have the book within reach and it just doesn’t cross my mind that I could pick it up and read. Went too long without a decent supply of books I think.
I just finished Final Fantasy VII Tuesday. Despite being no less than ten years old, retaining the console controls and relying on a system that doesn’t suit my playing style (I’m mainly talking about materia), I found it really enjoyable. The things I didn’t like made me not focus too much on character development and side quests, which is strange for me, but the story and message kept me playing and made this one of the few games I’ve ever finished without taking a long break (“long” meaning weeks or, more likely, months). Despite being rather simple and a lot of things being lost in the translation, it had something to say and did so well enough.
I have also recently read an interview posted on IGN about the upcoming Diablo III and glanced at their review of Final Fantasy XII (which I’m not going to be able to play since there’s no PC version). Then my mind compared something said in that review, namely that it can take several hours to actually “get going”, with the talk about the story elements from the interview. The difference is significant, though it’s nice to see that more complex story elements will exist in Diablo III, despite the player not being required to pay much attention to them.
It’s certainly true that many people these days have short attention spans, especially the younger ones, who make up most of the gamers by any stretch of the term. It’s also true that another large number of people don’t usually have the time for complex and involved storylines. I guess that’s how things stand and, as nice as it’d be if people would develop longer attention spans and slow down their hectic lives, they shouldn’t be forced to do so in order to play a game. But neither should those who like to immerse themselves into deep and complex stories and worlds be forced to make do with the simpler ones created for the others.
That said, I have a question: Why don’t high profile games feature separate “action” and “story” modes? The companies that make them could afford it and it’d be a nice way to give everyone what they want. The “action” mode would pass quickly through the non-critical story elements, perhaps skip some movies, highlight relevant portions of text (or even display only those portions) and feature shortened versions (or even only summaries) of most dialogues, allowing those who don’t care too much about the story to focus on the other things. On the other hand, the “story” mode would offer a complete experience, including detailed character and NPC backgrounds that you can uncover, very involved dialogues, “books” to read in-game on topics that are not exactly relevant or in any way related to what you need to do and longer and frequent movies and scripted scenes whenever they could immerse you further into the story and atmosphere of the game.
That way developers would no longer need to find that elusive balance between action and story, which usually results in leaving both sides somewhat dissatisfied even on the rare occasions when it is achieved. Those who just want the action won’t be slowed down by story elements that aren’t truly necessary, while those who desire the full experience would also be able to enjoy it.
It shouldn’t be hard to code, just add one more condition for each event in order to choose the version to load according to that setting. It would make games take up more space, but that shouldn’t be much of a problem these days. And creating the separate versions shouldn’t take a noticeable amount of extra time either since coming up with a story usually requires having both a summary and a lot of details in mind.
As a next step in the international plan of bringing the iron fist down over the Internet, the British government wants to block pro-suicide sites. They’d also like ISPs to automatically redirect those who want to access such sites to organizations who try to prevent suicide.
I won’t rant about the right to die again, did that plenty of times so far, the real problem this time is greater than that. This is controlling the Internet, controlling what people can say or see according to the government’s views of right and wrong, even blocking things that aren’t illegal. We’re talking about stamping out free speech!
What’s even more worrying is the wording used, assuming the quotes were accurate. Who exactly decides what is “harmful or distasteful” or “offensive”? (From my point of view, such an initiative fits that definition perfectly.) And if those who decide that information on suicide is harmful are allowed to block it because of that, how long before they’ll decide to block other “harmful” things such as revealing incriminating information about those in power, criticizing the government, the opposition’s political campaigns and other such things, to focus only on a single issue? This is thought police, as simple as that!
Moving further down that line, doing something like this implies total monitoring of the Internet and each person’s on-line activity. No warrant, no proven illegal activity (actually, no illegal activity at all), just permanent monitoring to see if anybody ever does anything that they’d consider to be “wrong”. That’s a police state, and thought police at that! Any “guidance” that might benefit the receiver under some circumstances becomes censorship that only benefits the giver when it’s forced…
I guess the Internet is a big thorn in their side, because it allows people to speak out and encourages free thought. Certain people who have gotten too used to having power over others really don’t like that. So the assault on the Internet is likely the priority right now because it’s the quickest way to spread information and any tyrant knows that informed people are a threat to their continued reign…
First it’s protecting people from terrorists, now it’s protecting them from themselves… It’s easy to find some reasons to take away fundamental freedoms, but next to impossible to actually find good reasons. That said, why do we stand for it, letting them nibble away at our rights and freedoms little by little until it’ll be too late to do anything meaningful about it?
I know I’m becoming more and more bitter about this and am starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I see the pattern, the slope and the quicksand at its base. Once we slip past a certain point, there’s no going back…
I have a problem with awareness campaigns for already well-known causes, even very “catchy” ones. They cost a lot of resources of all kinds, be they money, time or manpower, and that reduces the chance of something actually being done for the cause they’re trying to raise awareness about.
I think that, at least when it comes to the big issues, those who are going to care already do, and those who don’t right now won’t give a damn even after being “informed”, so it’s a complete waste. But even if some people would start caring, they’re very unlikely to actually do much of anything about it all of a sudden, so the simple fact that they care doesn’t do much for the cause. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who care but don’t really get involved. Making those who already care get (more) involved would be a much more worthy way to put those resources to use, don’t you think?
Maybe the next time an organization will think about what to do next to support a certain issue, they’ll think of providing their current supporters with the means to have an impact themselves instead of trying to come up with and broadcast an interesting ad in hopes of gaining more “empty” support. They should find ways for each to do something for the cause according to their own skills, resources and dedication.
Some can’t afford to donate, or are too shy to take part in public activities, or don’t have a way with words to write letters, or are too busy to allot a noticeable amount of time, or simply aren’t dedicated enough to follow a plan of action. Yet there must be something each can do to help, if only they would be given the opportunity. People are far more useful when given the opportunity to help while staying true to who and what they are instead of being forced into the patterns determined by others’ expectations of them.
Also, organizations should offer opportunities for all those who support the cause, including those who don’t endorse the organization itself! After all, it should all be about that cause, not about who’s in charge, so it doesn’t matter if those who wish to help follow your lead or not. Yes, all those who fight for a certain cause are united under one banner, but that banner is the cause’s banner and not any other. It’s simply an issue of not letting your ego get in the way, but many still have a lot of work to do when it comes to this.
This is going slowly. If I find something good I get stuck on it for a while, if I find something bad I get jaded and it’d be a bad idea to listen to something else too soon… But I am finding interesting things.
I’d like to start with the changes since the previous post. I have since found the second Demether album, Beautiful. I’m wondering if it’s the same band I liked after the first one, because they seem to have lost all their drive. My favorite Atargatis song has also changed, it’s Through the Mists of Oblivion now, mainly due to the part where their voices mix.
Moving on to the actual new finds, I’d like to start with one that’s certainly not so new for plenty of people, but was new for me: Delain. I’ll have to admit that what first caught my attention was recognizing Marco Hietala‘s voice. After I started paying more attention, it didn’t take long for Charlotte‘s voice to impress me, especially since it seems to be better suited for another genre and the result is quite interesting. The fact that you can actually hear the bass distinctly is another plus. According to the poll on their site, most fans seem to like The Gathering best, followed by Frozen. I think those are both really good, but if I’d have to pick a favorite it’d probably be Shattered right now. Their acoustic performances are also notable, check out Frozen and, especially, See Me in Shadow.
The next find would be a Romanian band called Tiarra. They probably caught my attention mainly because I was surprised by such a solid sound and good production from a band of this genre from here, especially on a demo, since their demo, Drama Per Musica, is what I found. It seems to be extremely hard to find anything to post here as links since the only properly recorded (as in not live) song posted on YouTube has just been taken down for copyright violation. You should be able to listen to the demo versions of Requiem pentru un Erou and Everything for Her (which is the one that really caught my attention) on Imeem. You could also go to their MySpace page, where they have the intro and five full songs from their first actual album, Post Scriptum, released earlier this month, but let’s just say that if I’d have heard that instead of the demo I wouldn’t have even listened to half of it before deleting! It sounds like, well, shit, and the new versions of Requiem pentru un Erou and Everything for Her bother me the most since I know they can sound much better! I’m used to being disappointed by my new finds’ second albums, but it’s strange to say the same thing about the first (and only)! Still, that demo sounds pretty nice, despite rather harsh male vocals (but certainly not as bad as on the actual album).
After a band that only interests me because of their demo, here’s one that doesn’t have anything but demos: Once There Was. If you go to their download page (or her download page, since Jessica is pretty much the band, the rest just lend a helping hand now and then) you’ll find everything I listened to. Good luck finding anything else anywhere, unless you’d buy the demos directly from her that is. I should note that all the songs from the first album are only samples and Nights is incomplete. The rest seem full versions, though. Awesome voice and not a bad skill with the keyboards either, but I guess she’ll have a hard time actually getting anywhere with this band when it’s not an actual band and couldn’t really perform anywhere. As a fun fact, Jessica does the Swedish translations for the Nightwish site.
And now for something even more obscure: Soulslide. They total eight songs on three demos. You can watch a video for Into Despair on YouTube and download Soldiers of Reality, their latest song, from their site. That latest song is with a new vocalist, after Sandra joined Elis and left them, and not so good in my opinion. What really caught my attention was their first demo, Dreamshade, and especially The Dreamer. Listen to it if you can find it anywhere… That said, I guess I’ll have to look for Sandra’s other bands, Siegfried and Dreams of Sanity and hope there aren’t a noticeable amount of growls to cancel her nice voice.
Finally, for anyone interested, one (former) band that did initially get my attention but proved to have a too “weak” sound to hold it for any amount of time: Chalice. The songs that made me interested in the first place were As Power Turns to Dust, Interlunar Dreams, The Amber Twilight and Memorial Embers. Sounds nice, but I know I won’t listen to a band again unless at least one song gets firmly stuck in my mind the first time around, so it was pointless to keep their songs around.
This would be it for now, sorry for not being able to post links to some better samples… I guess I’ll keep looking now and then, though of course my interest in the search diminishes each time I find something I like. One specific thing I’m looking for and can’t find is a certain kind of folk metal that I can’t seem to find anywhere. I’d like the “folk” part to be very noticeable, but not make the song sound too “happy”. This coming on top of my usual “requirements” when it comes to music, namely that I strongly prefer female vocals, any male vocals that do exist should be clear and that (almost) all songs should be in English so I’ll clearly understand what it’s all about. All of this seems to rule out everything of the kind that I’ve listened to so far…
