Intro
The screen on the MacBook broke this week. No clue how or why, it just decided to so now I'm typing this ignoring flickering lines all over the screen. The work laptop that would get replaced for free if it broke? Thats all okay. The TV that I want to replace? Still ticking on. Such is the way of life.
Culture!
So I went to London with my wife for culture; we went to the West End and watched a play, an actual play not a show. It was Best of Enemies, an actual play about something, essentially the birth of political punditry in America and the first step of what led us to Fox News. And it was good!
To expand on that a little bit, it was good once I settled into it; the setting is 1968 and focuses on the televised debates between two intellectuals of the time, Gore Vidal played by Zachary Quinto and William Buckley Jr by David Harewood, during the Republican and Democratic party conventions. There is, of course, a lot of other shit going on at the same time; the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Vietnam, protests and the growth of television. The stage is set up with screens where we get projections of archive footage, characters cut to previous speeches mid sentance with the sound of of TV static. Its not a surpise to find out it was based on a 2015 documentary as it feels like it really wants to be a film in the way it uses jump cuts in a live theatre environment.
And for the first 15 minutes or so it was a bit bewildering; I have no context for these characters that are much more a part of US culture than UK. It was later in the play that I remembered the Aaron Sorkin film The Trial of the Chicago 7 that I had some context of the time, but Buckley Jr? No clue, I had to fight the urge to ask for the play to be halted for a moment so I could check a few things in Wikipedia and catch up with what was happening on stage. But then it was fine, the action took a breath to lay out some context and I was in.
So it was good! The point the play is trying to make, about how media now bases things on opinions rather than facts and how it started during that time of history, is very interesting and well made. But sometimes it goes over that point a bit too smugly, especially towards the end when Vidal talks about what may happen in the future:
This would mean that you might have the most disastrous man in the country who just so happened to be an entertaining television performer . . . and he could beat a virtuous person of no telegenic charm.
I mean, its so obviously about Trump its not even funny, and the way its delivered with an eyebrow raised to the audience so everyone knows how smart they are for realising he’s talking about Trump was a bit too on the nose. And I would love to know if that was a direct quote but I can't find anything to confirm one way or the other. If it was added in, then it didn't need it. At least, thats how I felt.
But it was good! We also went to the M&M store and bought sweets so I feel that balanced out the high brow.
Touch screen controls are still rubbish
So no one mentioned Vampire Survivors was out on mobile from the original devs and it was free. I played it and then realised why it didn't need to be on mobile.
Mobile gaming is best when you can get into it in short chunks, grabbing a minute here or there. Vampire Survivors, despite it being on the surface a straight forward game, doesn't feel best in short chunks. Once you've unlocked a few things games can go 20 minutes or so at a time, and its a bit hard to step out of that. The game also isn't adjusted to take into account mobile play; a lot of time where you have games with touch screen controls when you let go of the screen it pauses; none of that here. if you do drop of out it mid game when you go back in its paused so thats something.
And yeah; touch screen controls. Given how simple the game is (just move around) they do work but you lose that twitchiness you get with physical controls. Sure, you can hook up a pad on your phone but at that point why not just play it on a console or computer?
So, its still good as at a base level Vampire Survivors is awesome and that has carried over to mobile, its just not where the game should be.
Speaking of games where they should be
New Pocket Card Jockey for Apple Arcade? Oh, yes please. The original on the 3DS was amazing (amazing!) so more than happy to have a bit more of it. Still early days but the game goes in hard straight away:
Expect more thoughts soon.
Outro
I can’t say if there will be as much culture next week, but we’ll see.
Anyways, bye!
Phil Doyle