Daft Punk or: How I Grew Up And Embraced All Kinds Of Music

Jag sitter och lyssnar på Daft Punks liveinspelning Alive 1997, en 45 minuter lång inspelning från ett framförande i Birmingham 1997. Kristofer Andersson skrev en text om Android-duon på siten Throw Me Away.
-Bäste herr Andersson, du lyssnade på Alive 1997 och jag på Alive 2007(för det är så han börjar texten till Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo och Thomas Bangalter, med ett låtsassamtal).
Jag tyckte det skulle var en fyndig start.

Andra halvan av året 2007 går jag min tredje termin på gymnasiet. Mitt musiklyssnande byts under den här perioden från alla olika sorters Metal och klassisk Rock till något mycket bredare.

Jag gick från att gå runt med en cd-spelare innehållande Helloweens Keeper of the Seven Keys, Judas Priests British Steel, The Jimi Hendrix Experiences Axis: Bold as Love eller någon annan skiva ur den stora CD-katalog jag spenderade mina studiepengar på.
Till att ha en Mp3-spelare i fickan fylld med så väl Heavy-Metal Legendarer som Iron Maiden som det animerade bandet Gorillaz eller radioplågan Crazy av Gnarls Barkley.

Tycker även om att utöver övergången från cd-skivor (höll medvetet kvar i dessa ett antal år längre än vad som behövdes) till Mp3 det faktum att det sista paketet skivalbum jag köpte via internet (även fastän jag höll fast vid det fysiska alternativet gjorde jag inte det som skivor har över datan; skivbutiken) innehöll The Strokes och The Killers debutalbum. The Strokes med dess nakna kvinnohöft på omslaget var något jag hade missat framtill nu, hade tidigare sett deras Heart in a Cage-musikvideo och avfärdat dem som musik jag inte lyssnar på. Det är också anledningen till att jag dissade dem när vi samtidigt befann oss i Hultsfred sommaren 2006. Och vad gör The Killers idag? De släppte en singel med medvetet dålig grammatik och så verkar de sedan dess ha gått upp i rök.

Jag vill minnas att det var genom Queens of the Stone Age och en klasskamrat vid namn Andres som jag fann ny musik att ta in. Kommer inte riktigt ihåg om det verkligen var via Qotsa som min musiksmak förändrades, men de är ett bra band för en människa som gillar hårdrock att finna det mer poppiga då de är ett band med lite av vardera. Och den otroligt bra, otroligt sönderlyssnade låten Crazy av Gnarls Barkley. Den duon fick ur sig ett gäng bra grejer och medens den ena går runt och samarbetar med allt och alla så har den andra fastnat sittandes för att lyssna på någon som sjunger från bakom dens rygg (för det är väl vad det där programmet går ut på?). Måste även nämna att det var via en felsökning av Danger Mouse som jag fann bandet Modest Mouse, usch vad tråkigt det hade varit om jag hade hamnat rätt den gången. Även här någonstans som jag såg filmen Big Nothing för första gången och omfamnade The Eels, som faktiskt råkar ha en ny skiva ute just nu och låten True Original tyckte jag var helt OK (albumet heter Wonderful, Glorious).

Någongång i december 2007 vaknade jag upp och från sängen råkade se Fredrik Strage sittandes i Tv4'as morgonsoffa. Fredrik Strages medverkan i tv-rutan kändes då alltid som att den slog rätt, jag visste inte att den skulle komma men där är den och den ger mig vad jag behöver, ungefär som filmen High Fidelity verkade komma på enbart för min och mina kärleksproblems skull. Denna gång visade han upp en kommande live-skiva från den franska house gruppen Daft Punk tillsammans med en video av en stor fest med en enorm ljusshow och två robotar ståendes på en pyramid framför tusentals människor som dansar, gnider sina svettiga kroppar mot varandra och har en skön stund.

Det var aldrig som att jag ville vara den där personen nu, inte som att jag gick ifrån min långrock och mina kängor för att slänga ur mig den svarta färgen jag använt i håret och börja lyssna på annan musik, klä mig mer "mainstream" utan jag har alltid velat ha allt jag finner intressant. Visa saker fastnar som Daft Punk, Jimi Hendrix och Slayer andra saker gör inte det, de blir ointressanta efter ett visst antal lyssningar och man släpper dem och tar upp någonting annat. "I want it all and I want it now!"
Sedan jag släppte min svartrockar identitet (over it) så har jag alltid varit emot kategoriseringar. Jag känner folk som är hårdrockare och det är allt de är. Eller folk som känns som ett politiskt en-fråges parti. Det är hela deras upplevelse, och det tycker jag är synd. Kanske låter jag nedlåtande när jag pratar om dem som trångsynta medlemmar av vårat samhälle som vet vad de gillar och håller sig till det, men det är bara så jag känner om dem. De känns även förutsägbara på ett ytterst tråkigt sätt.

Så hur som helst Daft Punks album är på väg, ett album som fans har väntat på i åtta år. Och jag måste medge att jag känner en enorm hype inför denna release. Inte en lika enorm förväntan som jag känner inför Shane Carruths första film på nio år, men nästan. House-makarna har släppt sekund-långa teasers för albumet och nu har även en videoserie kommit. Ett gäng rörliga bilder där artister som medverkar på skivan blir intervjuade. Två har kommit än så länge, den första med den äldre italienska producenten Giorgio Moroder och den andra med Todd Edwards, en yngre amerikansk producent.

 

Så där, jag kände för att skriva och tur att jag har en plats att göra det på. Hoppas att den som läser detta (troligtvis ingen) inte har rivit ut sina ögon över det här.

/Simon Persson
Ha en bra dag!

Zvenne's Homies: It's just a bunch of organised noise! (Dec '12 - Feb '13)

Inlägg skrivet för Zvenne's Homies:

http://zvenneshomies.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/its-just-a-bunch-of-organised-noise-dec-12-feb-13/

Let's get it on!

This is a little something special, now that March (first month of spring) has begun. And as we feel the cold dead claws of winter melt away to give room for happier times, why don't we take some time to reflect. Reflect on what I've been listening to these past three months. Some of these tracks got released pre-December and I included them anyway.

MY music, MY RULES!

Caravan Palace is a electro-swing group from France. According to wikipedia they got started back in 2005 after three of the members got offered to make soundtracks for silent pornographic movies. I wonder how big this silent porno-scene is, one should research.

This track is from their latest album, Panic, which got released a year ago.

Foxygen is a experimental indie-rock band from the states. This track is from their second album, 'We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic', (catchy titles right?) which got released back in January.

I like how this track transforms between different styles. Beginning in one place to transform into something else just to quickly change again.

FIDLAR is a punk-rock band that seems to come from some surf/skate-culture scene in the sunny Los Angeles. This is a fast song with the simple chorus "I drink cheap bear, so what, fuck you", a chorus which always manages to get me to sing along to it.

Disclosure is a UK electronic duo. This track being a colaboration with another UK electronic duo, AlunaGeorge. Both groups have albums set for release this year.

James Blake released his self-titled debut album 2011 and got a lot of attention for it. I had a short intense James Blake-period beginning with the first time I heard 'Limit To Your Love'.

Now this is his new single giving you even more of that electro-soul.

A$AP Rocky is one of the rappers from New York based hip-hop collective A$AP Mob. He put out a critically-acclaimed mixtape back in 2011 and in January got his debut album released. This is Hell a song from that album witch also features singer Santigold(you might have heard Disparate Youth). His album got some mixed reviews, but I've listened to this track and F**kin' Problems, mostly as I'm working out.

John Grant is great! I really enjoyed his solo debut album Queen of Denmark and here is the title-track from his upcoming second album Pale Green Ghosts. He has left the folk-rock sound of the first album behind to here make a more synth-pop sounding record. The album comes out this Monday (11/3).

Phosphorescent is a american singer-songwriter. I haven't listened all that much to his music but I LOVE this track. It's a beautiful soft-rock sounding song about heartbreak. It's without a doubt the track that I've listened most to out of this list, just behind John Grant's Pale Green Ghosts.

The Strokes is probably the band on this list who doesn't need any introduction. They got their success back in the early aughts with tracks like Someday and Last Nite. Here we hear a up-beat fast-paced synth-heavy track. They also release a more traditional Strokes song called All the Time, but out of the two I like One Way Trigger more.

Yeah and then I just want to shove this in here as well:

Yeah it's a little peak into Daft Punk's current project. I've had the looped version running all morning: http://www.infinitedaftloop.com/

So there you go, 9 tracks and a fifteen seconds teaser.

Have a nice spring now!
/Simon

Zvenne's Homies: Simons x3 13/03/01

Inlägg skrivet för Zvenne's Homies: 
http://zvenneshomies.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/simons-x3-130301/

Here I am, back again. This week I’ll be sharing a space-opera comic, a game for your phone and the newest film from director Martin McDonagh. Enjoy!


The ocean is a strange and horrible place, and sometimes from that big and deep space we get a glimpse of the kind of strange, weird, disgusting ”animals” that spend their lifetimes down there. They get born and die in a pitch-black hole underneath the pressures of the oceans. Now if we take our eyes away from this hell-hole where we dump all our poop and waste and instead look up into the depths of space. If you think that the ocean is big and scary what do you think of the vast eternal last frontier? And now as you’re looking into the abyss you don’t want to know what’s looking back at you. Or do you?

Saga gives you a glimpse into this undiscovered territory and shows you a fantastical, somewhat scary world. Through the beautiful art by comic-book artist Fiona Staples and Brian Keller Vaughan’s writing we explore these unfamiliar lands. They let us follow the journey of a newly formed family of three as they try to escape the war between their home worlds. It’s an Romeo and Juliet inspired story. Here told with the characters; Alana who’s a former female soldier for her home planet Landfall, her people got wings which grants them the power of flight. And Marko a former soldier for his home moon Wreath. His people grow horns on their heads and have magical abilities. Together they made a half-breed between their two different species, their daughter Hazel.


The comic is narrated by Hazel as she tells you the story of her life, starting from the very beginning. Her parents are on the run from numerous people who are trying to capture them. And as much as we get to follow Alana and Marko, we also get to see the lives of their pursuer. A bounty-hunter named The Will and his companion Lying Cat and IV Prince from the Robot Kingdom (he’s got a TV for a head).
I like the epic adventure of this story. How you don’t really know which way things will go next. You don’t know what kind of problem will arise at the end of the issue, nor how they will get passed it in the upcoming issue. And all the characters/monsters that we see as well. A character named The Stalk is one of the more horrifying characters I’ve ever seen.

Apart from the chaotic nature of the comic there are themes of war and pacifism. How do you stop a war that has gone on for so long? A war that’s passed on from generation to generation.

I love this comic and will keep on reading it. The 10th issue just came out, and I haven’t read it yet, but I really need to.

Also this is the first digital comic I’ve read through the digital comics app Comixology. I use it on my phone, and I think it works fine. Sure I would like to buy myself a Nexus 7 or some other tablet to be able to read it on a bigger screen, but my phone will do for now. The first 47 page long issue of saga is also free on Comixology, so that’s a good thing.


My name is Simon Persson, and I haven’t stolen any virtual golden idols in a Indiana Jones inspired video game in the last ninety minutes. The first time I got my avatars hands on a golden idol in a Indiana Jones inspired video game, oh I don’t remember it was so long ago. It might go back to my childhood with one of the earlier Tomb Raider games. Back then it wasn’t anything all too serious, me, my brother and my cousin would gather round my grandmothers computer and occasionally giggly as the camera would get squashed between Lara’s pixelated bottom and a wall.

Back then it wasn’t all that much about the golden idols in a Indiana Jones inspired video game, it was more about having access to something new and something fun. Then years later, having Lara’s old poorly portrayed bum far in the back of my head Nathan Drake came along. We got to follow Nathan Drake on three very exciting thrilling adventures as he chased down hidden treasures. But while I played for the adventure I re-played for those virtual golden idols. They were everywhere you just had to look, and oh how I looked.

Less we forget the harsh mistress Spelunky, a Indiana Jones inspired game that made us suffer for those virtual golden idols. Spikes, darts, monsters, steep falls just to come close and when we grabbed it, the virtual golden idol, then we had to run. Holding it tightly in our virtual arms we fun passed the spikes, dodged the darts and climbed ropes to get away from the deadly stone that sought to break us.

Oh, virtual golden idols in a Indiana Jones inspired video game, what won’t I go through to get you?

Temple Run 2 is basically the end of the opening set-piece of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You grab thegolden idol then the games character starts running. The running is away from a black bear-ish looking creature. And while you’re on the run you have to avoid different objects that lies in your way. Swiping down to glide under fallen trees or up to jump over holes in the road or to the sides to round a corner. You must also tilt you’re device to change the position of your runner. And because running away from a murderous monster frankly can be quite boring there are coins or different upgrades for you to grab. The coins can be used to upgrade those upgrades, which consists of for example magnets for more coins or a speed boost.


After each death (because you’re escape is down an endless road) you are brought to a page where you’re score is summed up. There are also different missions you can try and achieve during each game, for example you could grab 5 gems during one run or gather up a total of 1.000.000 coins grabbed. These missions grants you experience which grants you new character levels which in turn gives you better upgrades.

This game has some flaws. The one big complaint I’ve got is the tilt controls, I feel that there’s a bit of an latency to them. This I think is most noticeable during the parts where you’re in a mining cart going down some rails in a tunnel. These areas requires some quick reflexes from the player. You have to tilt you’re cart quickly from one one side to the next or you’ll go down a dead end and die. I also don’t like the missions very much, they feel uninteresting. Most of them don’t require any skill just that you invest time and play the game alot. Look at an other endless high-score based game, Jetpack Joyride, which has some really fun missions for you to try and complete during each game.

Yet I’ve probably played this more then I should have. It’s just so easy to pick up thinking you will play one game ending up playing multiple different runs before you put it down.

The game is a free download for iOS and Android.


Seven Psychopaths, I’d heard some good things about you and that’s what made me seek you out to spend some time with you. I honestly can’t say that they lied about you, you have some good things to offer. But what they didn’t tell me about you was the rest outside of those things. You’re rather uneven and while I might keep those better parts in mind the overall experience will probably fade away.


It’s a black comedy with lots of blood-spurting violence. A tale of Marty (Colin Farrell) a writer and hes friends Billy (Sam Rockwell) and Han (Christopher Walken) as they try to get away from murderous mafia boss (Woody Harrelson). Marty is in the early stages of his latest script, Seven Psychopaths.

There are some cool short stories told from Marty’s script through out the script. And at one point an idea for the script is told by Billy, it’s a scene with lots of fun action. Sam Rockwell gives a great performance in this film as well.

Besides these two things I can’t really think of anything positive to tell you about this movie. I just found it to be really uneven and sloppy. It doesn’t have any weight to it and besides Sam Rockwell I didn’t really care that much about any of the other characters. And towards the end even his character started feeling boring to me.

I really didn’t like this movie, it just felt like it tried to be a fun corny action comedy film with a commentary on the violence in film. But failed at being a fun B-movie action flick and instead it’s just another B-movie action flick.


Well there we have it a fantastic comic, an OK addictive game and an bad black comedy action film.

Hope to see you again soon!

Ha en bra dag!
/Persson

PS: If you haven’t played Spelunky yet, do it! It’s free, it’s fun and it will probably work on you’re computer. There’s a version out for x-box 360 as well, but it’s not as free as the PC version.

Zvenne's Homies: Simons x3 13/02/08

Inlägg skrivet för Zvenne's Homies:

http://zvenneshomies.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/simons-x3-130208/

Well hellloooo! La, la,la! (start it of with an Seinfeld-reference, they'll get it)

So here we go with three new entertainment-thingies. We've got everything you need, your romance story, your claustrophobia, your monsters. Come up come up, don't be shy and read through this weeks post of Simons x3!

Paperman is an Academy-awards nominated silent black-and-white animated short-film from Disney. It was shown in theaters in front of Disney's Wreck-It-Ralph, but can now be found on the internet. The animation is based on a new technique called Meander. It combines hand-drawn animation with CG-animation. How? I don't know, sorry. But what I do know is that I like it, a-whole-lot.


The story centers around a young man who one day has an encounter with a cute woman. They share a moment while waiting for the train. But with an blick of the eye she jumps on her train and our hero is left alone on the platform. He then later sees her from his office window and tries to get incontact with her again.
It's a film about not giving up to easily while trying to get romance.

John Karhn, the director of Paperman, says in a video that the inspiration for this short-film came from when he took the train to work every morning. And that there sometimes would appear a woman with whom he got some sort of connection with. But who then would get lost in the chaos of the morning subway traffic.

You can see Paperman for yourself over at Youtube.

Prison Architect is an upcoming prison-management game from Introversion software, who has previously made such low-budget indie games as Uplink, Darwinia and DEFCON. It's in alpha right now, but was made available to the public back in September. You will have to pay to get access to it though, 30$ will get you into the alpha and you'll also get the full version later when it gets released and "if we're lucky enough to get on Steam we'll also give you a steam key". So it was not the final version of the product that I played, and changes will probably be made to it as time goes on.


I've had some experience with these kind of games before. It reminded me of Simcity but mainly of a game I used to play a bunch as a child, Theme Park. In a, some-what amusing, video that the developers has released they jokingly call it the world's first "lock-em up" and that it was inspired by Theme Hospital, Dungeon Crawler and Dwarf Fortress.

You are in charge of a prison. It's up to you to construct all of the buildings and rooms, hire all the staff and keep all the prisoners locked-up. You can also hire a psychologist to get inside the minds of you're inmates and see what kind of needs they all have, and choose whether you'd like to fulfill those needs or not.

This game has quite a steep learning-curve, or rather a lack of guidance. It opens up with a tutorial where you learn a lot of the basics like constructing buildings and installing electricity. And about what defines a specific room. But then when you are suppose to start you're own prison it (at least it did for me) can feel a bit stressful to go from the tutorials pre-built prison to you're own blank slate.

I had to figure most of the game out on my own by clicking through all of the menus and just by doing. My brother also played the game the same time as I did and having someone to exchange experiences with really helped.
Just the fact that you can have some money-support in the beginning if you choose to meet certain standards, is a huge leg up. And it's never presented to you in any effective way.

In my experience while playing this game prisoners fight A LOT. Almost all the time. And when you haven't even built an infirmary or hired any nurses yet all of the staff and the prisoners will all just go around injoured or just stand there uncountious. This game, just like Theme Park, is fun just to watch. It's like you an ant-farm but with violence. And the very basic art-style adds a lot of charm too.

So if you've got an itch only a lock-em up prison management game like prison architect can scratch then maybe get it early and have that itch scratched right now. Or just wait until the game gets an official release. It will probably take a while but then you'll at least know what it is that you're getting.

Fringe is an science-fiction police drama. It follows a small unknown branch of the Homeland Security that specializes in cases having to do with fringe-science. These can be cases involving a human mutated into some weird transhuman being, attacks from a parallel universe or a character with the ability to foresee peoples deaths.


This x-files resembling show started its first season in 2008. Being produced and created by J. J. Abrams who at the time was the genius behind the hit TV-show Lost and who you might know is the director for the next Star Wars movie.

I started watching the series the summer before the premier of it's third season. The first two seasons were a fun procedural-series that would often times cause me to eject an audible gasp. It has always had a huge on-going story-arc with some smaller arcs to keep you entertained during the long trip. But after the second season the series changed into more of an serialized-format and picked up some great momentum story-wise and offered it's two greatest seasons thereafter.

The series aired it's final episode just a couple of weeks ago and during it's five seasons this series has given it's fair share of great character developments, oh-shit moments, playful stand-alone episodes, different title-screen variations and fun twists on scientific theories. The greatness of the show lies in the contrast between monster of the week and characters with great depth and interesting backgrounds. And it was with teary eyes that I watched the finally, and I will always remember Fringe as one of the greatest.

Please, if you like science-fiction then give it a chance!

Yeah so that's that then chaps!

Ha en bra dag!
/Simon

Zvenne's Homies: Simons x3 13/02/01

Inlägg skrivet för Zvenne's Homies:

http://zvenneshomies.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/x3-130201/

Greetings everyone! I'm here once again to taste your entertainment for cyanide. Because we don't want you to die when all you wanna do is be entertained.

So it might seem like I'm playing a game of 'How late can I get?' even though I've actually been playing...

Don't Starve is a survival game by a development studio named Klei Entertainment. The game is in beta right now and you can get access to this beta if you pre-order the game for 13,99€ (as I'm writing this it's available for 11,19€) through Steam, and you'll also get a second copy which you can give away to a friend. That's how I got the game, it was donated to me by my friend Andres.

So when you first start the game you are lying asleep(?) on bare ground and a man in a suit wakes you up and you're asked for how many days you'll be able to stay alive. The beginning of the game might remind you of the beginning of a Minecraft-game. You start in the middle of a randomized world by cutting down trees and mining stone. You can build a little camp with chests, farm-lots and your very own science-machine if you want. You use the science machine to research(gather science-points) so that you can get new recipes and build new things and survive and explore more efficiently.  Though Minecraft stops being a game of survival and starts being a game of creativity pretty quickly, whilst this game does not.

For example this game has a day/night-cycle that spans over eight minutes and the longest I've managed to stay alive is eight days, so that's just an hour long game. On average I probably just survive for three to four days so that's about 30 minutes per game. When death happens, whether it be because you didn't eat, you didn't have enough material to make a fire or some monster just appeared and took what was left of your health, you will have to start from the beginning again. The only progression that you get to keep from game to game are your science-points and your researched recipes.

There are a lot of different monsters and creatures all around the world; pig-men, spiders, toads, birds and a goat who wanders around with a sack on his back and gathers stuff. So when you decide to kill something you click on it and your character hits it. It's almost like a dungeon crawler, like Diablo or Torchlight in that sense. And Wilson (a play-able character) will have a line like "It's you or me". There are also cages so that you can capture wild animals and perhaps one day will be able to tame them, though I haven't been able to figure out if that's even possible yet.

The art-style of the game is rather Gothic and Tim Burton-esque and everything in the gameworld looks like it was made out of cardboard. I actually think it looks like it could have been taken from some kids pop-up book.

Well it's an interesting world to adventure through so get the beta or convince your friend to buy it and steal the left-over copy.

Batman: Dark Knight Returns is the newest direct-to-video movie from DC-comics. It's an animated film retelling the story from Frank Miller's cult-classic Dark Knight Returns. It got distributed in two parts, the first came out September 25th and the second part Januray 29th. It's the fifteenth direct-to-video animated movie to retell a DC-comics book.

So the Dark Knights starts ten years after the last batman sighting and Bruce Wayne is an old retired man by this point. Gotham is overrun with criminals and a new gang, the Mutants, are ruling the streets. Harvey "Two-face" Dent has undergone a huge facial surgery and his psychologist from Arkham Asylum deems him to be ready to go out into the real world again. Of course Bruce Wayne decides to put on his cape and cowl and the story continues from there.

I think it's an interesting take on the Batman universe for three reasons.
1. Bruce Wayne is now an old-man who's haunted as much by his parents death (Yes, still. It's fucking batman what did you expect!) as by his former partner Jason Todd's (The 2nd Robin). And I think that more in the comics than in this movie we get a view of Batman having to push himself far beyond his limits. And not just physically but a Batman who fights his own mental demons and insecurities. Having a constant struggle between reason and will.

2. We get to see Batman's villains later in life with many of the gone through years of psychological treatments. And the effects this has had on them. They don't seem to be the same as they were ten years into the past.
3. The view-point of the media. We get to see a bunch of news reports reporting on the Mutants and on Batman. Also a lot of televised debates on the topic of Batman, masked vigilantes and psychology. And the debate on whether the former crime-lords from Arkham should be let out to reunite with society again.

I've really enjoyed most of the direct-to-videos that DC has provided so far and can really recommend them to anyone who wants to get into DC's world some other way than through comics, or if you're a fan of the comics already, I really think it works both ways. Some of my favorites so far has been Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern: First Flight and Batman: Under the Red Hood so go check them out if you're interested.

It's been a while since I read Dark Knight Returns and the story wasn't all to fresh in my head when getting into this movie. I've found that these books are really close to their source-material and don't stray too far away from the comic-books. Though I thought one of the major characters seemed to be a bit older in this version than I remember her being in the graphical novel.

Atom Zombie Smasher is a post-apocalyptic zombie strategy game from Blendo Games. They've also released the great games Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving, which I've talked about before. It's a low-budget game where you are set with the task of saving a city's inhabitants from the on-coming zombie-horde. It was released in January of 2011.

The game is played from a top-down perspective where you see the whole city as almost like a board with buildings, streets, people and zombies. Before the zombie horde begins to creep into the city to feed on it's inhabitants you get to position you're troops throughout the city. You can put out barricades and bait to steer the direction of the zombie-waves. Get your gunmen out into the field to protect the people. Place explosives to, you know, turn the undead into blood-splatter on the concrete.

When you complete your mission and have saved the required amount of civilian lives you're brought back to the world-view. Here you can see a map with different areas. Areas which have people to save, areas which you've saved or areas which are controlled entirely by the zombies. It also keeps count of how many humans have been saved and how many have been turned into the undead through out your play-through.

I haven't been playing this game all that much I have to confess. It's a mix of me having a shitty computer which can't run it all that well. It doesn't seem to be a game that requires that much from you're machine, but however my computer don't have what it takes. And secondly this game also gets really tough really quickly, I've gotten stuck on a mission which I've played through multiple times and just can't figure out which approach I should be taking. It's similar to a puzzle-game in that way.

It's available through Blendo Game' own website as well as through Steam. I think I got it from some Humble Bundle but I'm not sure.

There we go, just a week behind but also just on time. Just like some sort of wizard one could say.
One could say.

Ha en bra dag
/Simon

Zvenne's Homies: Simons x3 13/01/20

Inlägg skrivet för Zvenne's Homies:

http://zvenneshomies.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/simons-x3-200113/

It's Sunday the 20th and here comes one movie, one film and a piece of visual entertainment.

Beasts of the Southern Wild tells the story of young Hushpuppy who lives in the Bayou-swamps of Louisiana with her tempered father. They live there as part of a smaller community of people who doesn't want to be part of the modern society. And as the climate crises gets worse most of them begin to move away for fear of the coming floods. But Hushpuppy's father Wink stubbornly decides to stay. And things gets worse as Wink's health starts to deteriorate.

This indie-film has been nominated in four different categories by the Academy Awards; best picture, best actress, best directing and best adapted screenplay. It's director Behn Zeitlin's first feature-length film and it mostly stars a bunch of first time actors.

Its an interesting movie with an interesting location, interesting characters and an interesting view of the world which we get reflected through the young protagonists child-mind. Behn Zeitlin has really succeed in creating an original atmosphere and feel in this movie. And the performance he gets out of young actress Quvenzhané Wallis is great, and the acting over all is great in this movie.

Something from Nothing: the Art of Rap is a documentary film about hip-hop music directed and starring Ice-T. The documentary is an interview heavy one where Ice-T meets up with different hip-hop artists and asks them questions about the art of hip-hop and lets them speak about their passion for the music-genre.

This documentary is mostly just a list of names from the hip-hop world. I didn't like it very much, it all just felt to basic and I didn't feel that it dug to deep into the art of hip-hop. It mostly just felt as if they wanted to put up a list of different artists and not necessarily to use the medium of documentary film to tell a story, the story of rap.

The questions Ice-T asks each artist he meets doen't vary to much from person to person. And the questions in them self feel really poorly thought out and stupid. I can't see any reason why anyone would want to see this movie. Maybe if you're a novice in the world of hip-hop and want to learn more about it you could go on to the movie's wikipedia page and use the staring list to use as a suggestion list for music to listen to. But the movie you can live without.

Ruby Sparks is a comedy-romance movie directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, written by Zoe Kazan and stars Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan. It's a movie about a famous writer named Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano), who wrote a beloved book when he was nineteen years old and now ten years later struggles to top his debut. One day he has a dream of a girl named Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) and gets inspired to write a story surrounding her. This magically gets her to materialize, unknown to Calvin's story and the origin of her creation.

I really liked this movie, it's an interesting story of relationships, power and self restraint. I thought all of the characters in this movie were greatly written and well acted. Even Paul Dano who's acting I can have a problem with in some movies (Looper, I love the movie but didn't really care for Paul Dano's performance). Yeah, so this movie about a fictional character becoming a real person has a lot of realistic fiction characters in it.

This movie I really liked a lot and thought I would go away from it thinking that it was one of the greatest movies of 2012, BUT then came the final scene and everything changed. This movie has one scene to many, a single scene that changed my oppinion of it so greatly. I went from loving the movie to hating the movie and all it took was one single last scene. It really is a shame, but well that can happen. I would like to know why they wanted that scene in there, oh well.

That's my post for this week, see you next weekend.

Ha en bra dag

/Simon

Zvenne's Homies: Simons x3 13/01/12

Inlägg skrivet för Zvenne's Homies:

http://zvenneshomies.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/simons-x3-120113/

Hello there reader, I'm Simon and here are three pieces of entertainment which I've chosen to share my opinions on. Here goes:

Live is a 30 minute stand-up set from Comedian Tig Notaro. It's an audio recording of a show she did in Los Angeles this August. I'd never heard of her before a 'This American Life'-episode (476: What Doesn't Kill You) were they aired some parts of this album. I haven't got the  biggest knowledge of Stand-up comedy, I've watched some live shows including all of Louis CK's live DVD's (I'm a really big fan of his) and some others. But I haven't got a huge knowledge of the more obscure comedians out there.

Well, this stand-up album can probably be seen as a little unorthodox. It's a set in which she tells the audience that she's just gotten the news that she's got breast-cancer. And the whole 30 minutes is just her talking about her life and cancer and the effect this has had on her life. It's a perfect balance of tragedy and comedy delivered in a really sincere way. And she seems to be speaking straight from her heart instead of just going through some old routine.

So if you, like me, like to listen to something different then go purchase Tig Notaro's newest album Live. It's available over at iTunes for $4.99.

Enjoy!

The Unfinished Swan is a artistic adventure game from a small independent game-studio, Giant Sparrow. In the game you play a young boy who walks into a painting and finds the fantastical world which exists inside. When the game begins you are put in front of a completely white screen, and by pressing a button the boy throws out a ball of black paint. This paints the world around you so you can navigate through this otherwise white, empty-looking, landscape.

I first saw this game in a video from the Independent Games Festival back in 2009 and it won me over straight away with it's original look. The game came out this October and I didn't get around to playing it before last week. I purchased it because I wanted to support that little game which got me so interested a couple of years prior. And I wasn't all that excited about it now, I thought that if they haven't got anything else to offer me apart of that one mechanic then this game will be rather short or really tedious to play. And well, they've put in some-other things in there that are kind of nice. They got a neat little story to tell about the boy and his decease mother, and the king who created the world that you're exploring. And there are some other mechanics in there as well.

This game looks amazing. It's a minimalistic style that works really well and it's nice to just walk around take in the scenery in this game. Visually it reminded me of DICE's Mirror's Edge at some points.

Well, this game is hard for me to recommend whole heartedly. It's not a bad game and I had fun seeing its world and hearing its story. But it feels like the best point of this game was seeing the first dot of ink being tossed on that white background in that video back in '09. The wonderful, amazing shock-value which this mechanic could have giving me had been spoiled. This game does have other stuff, like a OK story and some great visuals. But well, I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would. Oh, yeah and also, the ending of this game felt really rushed.

So that's The Unfinished Swan a game with a foretold opening and an abrupt ending with some good things in the middle. It's an Playstation 3-exclusive that can only be bought through their online store.

Safety Not Guaranteed a movie directed by Colin Treverrow and written by Derek Connolly, starring Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass. It's a quirky comedy-romance movie with some science-fiction twists to it. The movie is told from the perspective of Darius, played by Plaza, who's an intern at a magazine company. She's a quirky person who doesn't really like her place in life. One of the journalists at the company one day suggests that they could write a story about a guy who put in a classified ad, seeking someone to assist him on his journey back in time. And Darius and another intern gets brought along.

I have a hard time with this movie. Most of it was just uninteresting to me. First of all I can have a hard time with Aubrey Plaza as an actress sometimes. I love her character in Parks and Recreation, and by that I mean I have a crush on her. Yet in this I go back and forth on her acting, sometimes I find it to be too detached, maybe, I'm having a hard time describing it. I think that Mark Duplass does a good job in this movie as do all the other guys.

Although there's one who really stole the show for me and that was Jake Johnson. He plays a douche-bag journalist who pitches the idea of interviewing the guy who put in that classified ad. But what he actually wanted to do was to go back to his hometown just to hook up with his high-school ex-girlfriend. The sub-plot of this character really got me, for some reason.

So I've thought about this movie a lot and I remember how I used to love movies like this one. These weird quirky comedy-romance movies that usually also comes with a great soundtrack including a lot of indie-pop music. I'm thinking of movies like Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Garden State, 500 Days of Summer and High-Fidelity (Eternal Sunshine being the only one which I still really like, one of my all-time favorite). It might have been that there were a part in my life where this movie would have fit right in and that I've now have out-grown it.

That's that then Tig Notaro's comedy album, Giant Sparrow's video-game and a comedy-romance movie with a touch of science-fiction.

Ha en bra dag!
/Simon

Zvenne's Homies: Simons x3 13/01/05

Inlägg skrivet för Zvenne's Homies:

http://zvenneshomies.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/simons-x3-050113/

Hey there! Back again, new year, here are three pop-culture suggestions for you to kill some time with. Or gain some entertainment from, however you like to view it.

Telltale Games' The Walking Dead is a modern point-and-click adventure game based on the famous zombie franchise by the same name. It came out episodically with the first episode starting the series of in April and the fifth and the season-ending fifth episode came out this past November. It's a modern point-and-click adventure game, in some ways rather similar to Quantic Dream's Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) and Heavy Rain. The story starts of with the protagonist Lee Everett in a cop car getting taken to jail and then the zombie-infestation literally gets in the way.

This is a fantastic game, and if you're even mildly active in geek culture or read some video-game websites you probably already know this. But  I really think and hope that this is a landmark game that will bring a lot more of these game out. Games that offer us great story instead of fantastic graphics and a high amout of gun blazing action. Yeah, so this game isn't a graphical achievement and it can be quite laggy in some parts. But really that doesn't matter all that much. You're here for the character interactions and the story. I just said that this game doesn't have a high amount of gun-blazing-action. But what this game has are some really nerve-shaking interactions with zombies. Because every time there's a zombie on-screen this means that the characters in your team might all be in jeopardy. So this game can really keep you on the edge of your toes. And I found myself screaming at my TV when these moments came up.

I just finished this game earlier this week and the end of this game got me really emotional. This might be the only game that has made me feel like I did. Games can often make you feel powerful or tense, but sad, I can't think of any other game that has brought me that emotion while playing.

Yeah, so go and get The Walking Dead. It's out for PS3, X-box 360, PC and Mac. I played it on PS3 and as mentioned had some lag, but I wouldn't recommend it any less because of this.

GOTY(Right, Andreas? Haha...)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey stands as a prequel to Peter Jackson's grand and epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's the first of three movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit. I actually like this book a lot more than the bigger trilogy that Tolkien wrote afterwards. Well it's been awhile since I read any of Tolkien's works but I just felt that the Lord of the Rings books had a lot more unnecessary information than the shorter The Hobbit had. That said The Hobbit also suffers from some very detailed scenery descriptions.

Well now, that a-side let's me tell you about this movie. It's the FIRST of THREE movies to be made from this ~300 page long book. When I first heard this back when the news broke I got really worried. I was worried that this was done for the money and not for the story. I was worried that this story wouldn't be able to support a trilogy of movies. Peter Jackson has put in some of his own writing in here to try and stretch it out and I think this shouldn't be a thing to look down on. I respect the choice to not stick to the original material to a hundred percent. It's just a shame that it didn't work all that well. For me it just feels like he tries too hard to make a stronger link between these movies and the LOTR-trilogy. There is a joke in Clerks 2 about the Lord of the Rings, were Randal compares it to Star Wars and complains that all they do in the fantasy trilogy is walk. It's a funny joke that I think is true in retrospect but you don't really feel it when you actually watch the movies. In this one though I was thinking about that joke a lot, but without any laughter. All they do in this movie is either lots of walking or running. Gandalf utters the words "Run!" a-whole-lot in this movie.

I just want to share a view I had while siting in the cinema watching the movie. I was so bored that I thought of tweets I could write about this movie (yeah, I'm weird in that way I guess) and the one that stuck with me was: "The Hobbit is the longest, most boring porno I've ever seen. And the first one I'll have to watch all the way through." And what I mean by this is that the movie just felt like it wanted to remind the audience of the later trilogy. A bunch of throwbacks and fanfare. Everything from cameos, to talking about stuff that will take place in Lord of the Rings-movies, to the music and even camera shoots which were used in the exact same way here as in Jacksons earlier Middle Earth-films. If he can re-write the book to fit, maybe he should experiment a little with his own cinematic style as well. I don't know, all I know is that it made me feel full on Lord of the Rings and I wanted to watch the original trilogy before watching The Hobbit and now I don't.

I also saw this movie in 3D and with higher frame-rate. This was my first 3D experience, and I actually didn't mind 3D as much as I thought I would. But I really did mind the higher frame-rate. At first when the movie starts it just feel uncomfortable to watch, because it felt as if everything was speed up. And then when I got over that I just thought that everything looked too polished and clean. Kinda reminded me of those soup-opera TV-series. Also when the big action set-pieces came up I couldn't help but feel that I was watching a cut-scene from a video-game. Speaking of feeling like I watched a video-game. Peter Jackson has written in a new character into this movie that's not taken from the book. And I just have to say that I could not help but think of Kratos from the God of War video-game series when I saw this guy.

Well onto a movie that I actually liked.

Life of Pi  is the newest movie from director Ang Lee and it's based of a book from writer Yann Martel. It's a movie about a boy, by the name of Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, who after a shipwreck finds himself stuck on a lifeboat in the middle of the pacific with a Bengal tiger. The movie has very strong religious themes as the Indian boy not only exercises Buddhism but also, Christianity and Islam. And the story often is refereed to as a story that will make you believe in God.

I actually read the book this fall and really liked it. The first half of the book is all about Pi's upbringing, about his family, his fathers zoo, how he got his name, and his religious something-something. And this is sometimes intercut to the present were Pi is actually interviewed by a write who wants to write a book about Pi's life(see what I did there, beacuse it's called Life of Pi, bah you'll get it eventually, it's a thinker). And then the later half of the book is all about Pi being stuck on a lifeboat, all alone, with no-one but this dangerous Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker.

This movie is a feast for the eyes, a visually stunning piece of cinema. And this I also saw in 3D, and it was great! The movie starts up with different shoots of a ton of different animals that lives at the Zoo that Pi's father manages. This colorful Indian park with all these different and fascinating creatures really sets the tone for this movie. Then when the story is brought out into the middle of the pacific Ang Lee really treats us with some amazing eye-candy and just some unique and fantastical imagery. And the Bangal tiger Richard Parker doesn't disappoint either. This unpredictable force of nature that will win your heart over and at the same time scare you to death.

All this praise a-side I don't help but find some flaws in the way that the book was translated to the film-media. And I really felt that some of the acting performances was lacking a bit, but either way this is a great movie that I really think should be seen in 3D. Oh my, that sequence with the flying fish, my heart is really racing right now. Stunning movie!

Yeah so that's my first post of the new year. And the actual first Zvenne's Homies 2013 post. I foresee a great year without any apocalyptic dreams.

Ha en bra dag
/Persson