Indie-Cember: Receiver

Receiver

• Developer: Wolfire Games 
• Release: PC, 18 June 2012 
• Genre: 3D Action (First-person shooter) 
• Players: 1 
• Rarity/Cost: DLC, US$5

So many shooter games these days tout realism in some form or another, be it in visuals, physics, or what else have you. But in the end, they're still bound by rules which, whilst necessary for making the experience accessible to gamers of the public who may never have used a gun in their lives, may lead themselves to criticism when observed often enough. Your avatar can withstand multiple gunshot wounds and, by virtue of a fixed (or regenerating) numerical health quantity, come out none the worse for wear. You can reload your gun's magazine and no matter how many bullets were in the old one, the remainder won't be subtracted from your total. And of course, in real life, guns are complex machines, with more parts and functions than can reasonably be mapped to a conventional controller. I'm not saying these traditions should go away entirely, but when something does come along to sweep them away, it makes you think. And in the case of Receiver, I did enjoy the way it made me think.

Receiver has a crew of only four people, just one of whom did the actual programming. But unlike similar cases (including Cave Story, Fez, and Dust: An Elysian Tail, at least one of which will also be covered on Indie-Cember...) where the game stood in development for up to five years, the first version of Receiver took just one week to create. That's right. Apparently there was something called the 7-Day FPS Challenge, and the team in question took the opportunity to explore gun mechanics like no video game had done before. Sure, the story and graphics are presented at the bare minimum level, but I'm not picky in that regard; if a game can still manage to provide a suitably endless source of fun and intrigue, I'm in! So in the case of Receiver, am I?

The goal of Receiver is to collect and listen to a series of 11 cassette tapes, which with any luck will explain what's been going on in this world. (Don't hold your breath.) The problem is, all the tapes are presented in a random order. As are the locations where they may be found. As are the enemy drones guarding them. As are the order of the rooms themselves. So yeah, in lieu of a structured, pre-prepared plot, Receiver does the randomly-generated levels thing, and it's a good thing, too. If you take just one shot, or one fall from a sufficient height (read: one storey), it's Game Over, and you lose all your progress. But like I said, the levels and object placements are reshuffled with each new game, so it's not like you're playing in the same setting over and over. And if you somehow manage to find all 11 tapes, your next playthrough won't take you down the exact same path. The problem with this approach, however, is that if when you do fail, you can't use the experience of your failure to conquer the same challenge again. But you might notice similar object placements in different iterations of the same room, so at least there's some opportunity for learning the best approaches. But on the other other hand, that also leads to loads of empty rooms, meaning the majority of your experience could very well be walking down the same path for each room with the pickup key held in the vain hope that you'll pick up something, even if it's just one spare bullet.

The realism is such that you have to check your remaining ammo by ejecting the magazine.

As of the latest software version, you start each game with one of three randomly-selected weapons and a random number of bullets. The Colt M1911, the only gun available in the original version, is a semi-automatic pistol that takes eight bullets at a time, including the chamber, and ironically for being the first gun included in the game, it's the most complex to use. Take reloading, for example. You can't just press one key to start the entire process. You have to eject the magazine, insert rounds one by one, re-insert the magazine, and if the chamber was empty when you started, unlock the slide, then pull the slide before you're ready to fire. (The default key sequence for all this is: E, Z (repeat), Z again, T, and R.) Later updates added two new guns for you to potentially spawn with: a Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver, which is far easier to use, and a Glock 17 pistol, which works like the Colt but has a much larger magazine and a surprisingly impractical full-auto mode.

You'll need these guns to defend yourself against two types of enemies: automated turret drones and automated flying drones. Both kinds have individuals parts that can be shot to either handicap them or disable them completely. For example, shoot their camera and they won't be able to find you, and of course they can't shoot what they can't see. The turret drones, which track targets in a 360-degree sweep, are predictable and even easy to take down once you know where to hit them. But the flying drones? Don't get me started. They wobble while flying about, making them hard to hit precisely, their airbourne position gives them a wider area in which to find you, and when they do find you, consider your goose cooked. It may be possible to escape a flying drone by hiding behind a corner, but don't rely on it. I'd rather just avoid them altogether.

If a flying drone spots you, you're pretty much dead in advance.

It's no small task to make a working video game in only seven days, much less with only four people, but it shows. The graphics are basic, eschewing image textures in favour of single-colour surfaces, and rather washed-out colours at that, and in-game objects have a severely low polygon count, almost to PSone-era levels. I wouldn't mind so much -- really, I wouldn't -- except they didn't exactly pass the savings on to the customer. Even on a ho-hum graphics card (we're talking 256MB of video memory), with the graphics set to the lowest quality and screen resolution, the frame rate still managed to chug every once in a while. At least the sound design's not so shabby. There's only one looped electronica track throughout the entire game, but it waxes and wanes in intensity as you move closer to enemies or casettes. And in a game whose heads-up display is reduced to the bare minimum, you'd do well to rely on it. The same cannot be said about the totally bored voice-over performance, but to come back to the recurring theme of this review, what do you expect for a $5 game made in seven days?

In playing Receiver, I was most reminded of Rogue, a classic role-playing computer game dating back to 1980. As a matter of fact, despite my relatively young age I still have fond memories of playing a Java port of the original Rogue. I guess its appeal for me lay in its nigh-endless replayability. In this age of modern conveniences I've read critics say a lot of nasty things about other Roguelikes (i.e. the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, according to Game Informer magazine), no doubt due to the heavy consequences for failure. I'm not saying there aren't things I'd like to see in a Receiver 2 (which Wolfire sadly does not seem to be making at the moment), most notably a save system. But I kept playing Receiver over and over nonetheless, perhaps because it suffers the exact opposite balance of DLC Quest: it's not the story that makes the game this time around, but the experience of playing it that makes it worthwhile. Just as long as you steer clear of those [verb]ing flying drones.

Positives:
+ Detailed gun mechanics.
+ Randomised levels and means no two games are alike.

Negatives:
- Randomised object placement means you could go a long time in between finding items.
- The graphics are low-detailed but somehow ran slow on my machine.
- Those [verb]ing insta-kill flying drones!

Control: 4 cassettes out of 5
Design: 3 cassettes out of 5
Graphics: 1 cassettes out of 5
Audio: 4 cassettes out of 5

Value: 3 cassettes out of 5
The Call: 70% (C+)

Indie-Cember: DLC Quest

Folks, I've been a gamer for almost two decades now, and as such I've been getting closer and closer to a clear idea of what I want from video games. Unfortunately, the game industry seems to be going in a different direction for the most part, with seemingly 90% of all triple-A game software going for the same monochromatic, hand-holding paradigm that's big on cinematic flair but short on content. Just now we've had to deal with the back-to-back releases of two new gaming machines which, in terms of both hardware and software, have done little to excite me personally. So the way I see it, I've got two options: either become a virtual hermit and sequester myself in the older console generations, or explore the uncharted territory of the independent games scene. As it happens, in 2013 I've found myself doing more of the latter, thanks in large part to that sugar daddy Steam and its no-holds-barred PC game sales. That's why I'm dedicating this month to all the interesting indie games I've had the pleasure to experience. And since this is a month-long event, I've got to name it after some month-based pun. So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado... welcome to "Indie-Cember".

DLC Quest

• Publisher/Developer: GoingLoud Studios
• Lead Designer: Ben Kane
• Release:
• XBox 360: 2 November 2011
• PC: 6 February 2012
• Genre: 2D Action
• Players: 1
• Rarity/Cost: DLC, US$5

A word of caution to anyone attempting to play DLC Quest: The purchase of downloadable content (DLC) is required to complete this game. Future areas will be blocked off, abilities will be disabled, and overall your progress will be halted unless you pony up extra to buy stuff that wasn't available out of the box. Heck, even sound, animation, and the ability to walk left require DLC. Oh, did I mention that all this DLC is actually purchased in the game itself with coins laid about the levels, and that the only thing you, the player, have to pay for is the upfront cost of the game? Bet that'll take a load of your mind.

Certain events unlock new "DLC" packs to "buy".

Alright, so, what is this game about, and what do you do in it? A bad guy has stolen a princess right in front of your (character's) eyes. That's your motivation. All presented in a quick, practically wordless cinematic, at that. So then you take control and discover that the only thing your keyboard or controller will let you do is walk to the right. There's not even any animation, your guy's basically just sliding. In doing so, you'll collect four coins and run into the guy who sells all the game's "DLC", named Nickel. (He's got a brother named Dime. Get it, they're nickel-and-diming ya.) And wouldn't you know it, the movement pack which enables you to walk left and jump costs exactly four coins. The nice thing is, both he and the first few coins are laid out in a way that, even without the ability to walk left or jump, you can't mess up. Seriously, Nickel is placed right next to a waist-high hill, so it's impossible to pass him without the ability to jump. Now that's good design right there. (Also, when you get the gun later in the game, you can kill the merchants and still buy DLC from them, which they openly advise you to not think too much about it.)

For the rest of the game, you'll follow the... following pattern of play: Get all the coins from an area until you can't get any more, go back to Nickel or Dime to buy the latest "DLC" that will let you access these areas, and so on until you save the princess. The gameplay with which you accomplish all these goals is as simple as the developers could afford to make it. You jump to collect coins. You find a sword and cut bushes. Proceed until you hit some sort of roadblock. "Purchase" the "DLC" needed to continue. Repeat as necessary. In essence, this is a action-exploration or "Metroidvania" platformer, and despite some very good examples of the genre, I've always been annoyed at their propensity for having you travel all over through places you've already been, and despite (or perhaps because of) DLC Quest's short length, much of your time will be spent backtracking in some fashion. And that's not good, because the game can be finished in just 20 to 30 minutes. Yeah, it has an Internet ranking system, so you have an excuse to replay it and set record times, but that's about it.

Remember when video games were about collecting coins? DLC Quest remembers.

Ideally, a video game should be remembered best for its gameplay experience as a whole, not for specific momenst strung together by bouts of generic, uninspired gameplay. It is in this arena that DLC Quest, sadly, fails. (See also: Spec Ops: The Line. Still good though.) It's not that DLC Quest's controls are broken or anything, it's just that... Well, back in the 8- and 16-bit eras, what was the "default" form of a video game that you could just slap any setting or intellectual property on, and call it a day? The 2D platformer, that's what. And DLC Quest practically runs on the joke that it is one of those games, only simulating the logical conclusion of modern gaming trends while at it. And hey, some jokes need to be told! We can't very well have companies forcing us to pay extra for essential content when we've already ponied up the full purchase price for their base product. It's just that in a perfect world, DLC Quest would marry that memorable idea with some memorable gameplay. Then again, in a perfect world, we wouldn't need a game like DLC Quest and its morals, but let's not think too hard about it.

I should note that there is a sequel episode to DLC Quest, called Live Freemium or Die, which is available as (ironically enough) real-world DLC for the XBox version of the game, or built-in to the PC version. It's about twice as long as the original game (which is good), although admittedly much of that is backtracking (which is bad), the double jump was replaced by a wall-jump (which is... different). More importantly, the game's sense of humour is as sharp as ever, mocking such concepts as memes (the town comedian's act is merely repeating one certain line from The Legend of Zelda... you know the one), colourless HD graphics (the "High Definition Next Gen Pack" simply turns everything sepia-tone), product placement (Pop Zone, brought to you by Pop!) and online-only games (the antagonist "kicks" you off the "server" in one cutscene, resulting in a fake re-connection sequence). If your copy of the game didn't already include Live Freemium or Die, I'd highly recommend it, if only to prop up the meagre run-time of the original DLC Quest.

Positives:
+ Biting and humourous satire on the video game industry.

Negatives:
- Generic 2D-platforming gameplay.
- Both episodes are short and offer little replay value.

Controls: 3 DLC packs out of 5
Design: 4 DLC packs out of 5
Graphics: 2 DLC packs out of 5
Audio: 2 DLC packs out of 5

Value: 2 DLC packs out of 5
The Call: 70% (C+)

Dance Dance Retrospective: Class of 2009

It's almost as if Konami was afraid to make the jump into the seventh console generation as far as Dance Dance Revolution was concerned. Sure, there was the Universe series on XBox 360 and Hottest Party on Wii, but the core series remained solely in the domain of the PlayStation 2, even after its successor console came onto the market. That was all set to change in 2009, when they released a trailer trumpeting a new DDR entry for all the consoles that mattered at the time. With features such as Balance Board support for the Wii, and eight-panel modes for PlayStation 3 and 360, it was set to inject some much-needed fresh blood into our franchise.

Except... it never happened.

Sort of.

2009 did indeed see new DDR titles, namely DanceDanceRevolution X2 for the PS2 and DanceDanceRevolution Hottest Party 3 for the Wii, both released in North America on 27 October 2009. But its PS3 and 360 counterparts took their sweet time until eventually they were unofficially declared as cancelled. Well actually, they did come out in some form later on, but that's another story. But at the time, the games we did get felt like the opening act for a main event which never showed up. So now that time has passed, let's analyse the games on their own merits.

We shall start with DDR X2. Not to be confused with the future arcade edition of the same name (again, another story), the 2009 X2 is essentially a direct sequel to DDR X, inasmuch as a rhythm game with no plot can have a direct sequel. Its interface is a re-skinned version of X's, focusing on violet and gold colours and funky city motifs. The new single-player modes are Dice Master Mode, a pseudo-board-game interface for playing missions and unlocking new content, and Request Mode, a simpler affair more like the Mission Mode in Extreme. I couldn't tell you more about these modes because I never bothered to play this game -- I know, shocking. Maybe it's the music setlist: with a total of 62 songs split between licences, new Konami originals, leftover Konami originals from X, and a smattering of revival songs which no one cared about. Seriously, "Tierra Buena"!? Oh, and the Groove Radar Specials from SuperNOVA2.

Meanwhile, Hottest Party 3 made significant changes in both design and gameplay, compared to its own predecessor. HP3 is the first DDR game to use a "Cover Flow" layout (popularised by iTunes) in its music select screen, displaying album artwork in a 3D-ish line. And in addition to the traditional dance-pad gameplay, there's a separate mode where you use the Wii Balance Board, swinging your centre of balance to hit notes. I've never owned a Balance Board, so again I couldn't be bothered to try this game. The song list is also 62 large and shares many of the tracks from X2, but instead of pre-existing Konami originals, they threw in new licenced songs not found in X2, thus trapping fans (myself excluded) in a proverbial rock-and-a-hard-place quandary. And a (not so) Fun Fact: the Japanese version of HP3, Dance Dance Revolution Music Fit, is as of this post the last home DDR game made for Japan.

I know what you're thinking (and if I'm wrong, allow me to put words in your mouth): "Kevin not buying the new Dance Dance Revolution game? What has this world come to?" Well, I've grown a lot more cynical for one thing, especially since SuperNOVA came about and Konami decided to stop innovating. (As a matter of fact, SuperNOVA2 was the first game in a while which I didn't pick up within the first few days of its release, if you want to split hairs.) But it's not just the unchanging experience which turned me off. Content is nine-tenths of the law when it comes to music game sequels, and neither did I feel a connection in this area. Whereas the licenced songs in X were in short supply and generally the products of lesser-known artists, X2 and HP3 reversed this trend by shifting the focus onto top-40 hits from the past year or two. Acts like Ne-Yo, Pitbull, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna are represented in both games. However, this approach sometimes lends itself to picking less-than-danceable selections. Seriously Konami, I like Coldplay's "Viva La Vida", but it doesn't have the kind of energy that I could step to.

Also, I'd like to discuss a certain trend which really became noticeable around this time: the edited versions of licenced songs appearing in DDR games, mostly the American and European home versions, are generally bollocks. As you might know by now, most songs in DDR run for about a minute and a half, less than half of their original runtimes. A good editor would excise verses and choruses to get to the target length, and leave no indication that anything was cut unless you were familiar with the full version. However, the approach Konami has taken as of late is to just run the song from the beginning and just fade out whenever it felt "right", usually in the middle of the second verse. Does the song have any profanities, even mild ones? Just skip over the offending verse and use the next one, they would say, no need to track down the clean version. And then there's Vanilla Ice's sarcastic-quotes magnum-opus end-sarcastic-quotes "Ice Ice Baby", which possibly has the worst edit out of all licenced songs in DDR. For some reason they used only the first verse, avoided the chorus whenever possible, and ended with thirty seconds of a lyricless outro. See for yourself:

And it gets even worse: X2 and HP3 also introduce* remakes of some classic Konami originals, such as "Brilliant 2U", "Keep On Movin'", and "Dynamite Rave". And by "remakes", I mean they cheapened up the production, wrote new lyrics, and got their in-house singers du jour to give a half-hearted performance. Now, I'm not equating the original versions with the best records out right now, but they did have their own nostalgic charm because that '90s-flavoured camp is what I grew up with as a DDR player. And being offered something that's presented as one of those old favourites but turns out to be something completely different is disappointing, like when you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca cherry cola. And even worse worse (didn't know how to phrase that), they had the ballsy temerity to make new stepcharts for them as well. Again, charts like "Dynamite Rave" expert had a familiar hardness to them, and when they get replaced with something easier and more generic, well, allow me to redirect you to my previous comparison. Yeah, they might've had to remake these songs because of rights issues involving the original recordings... somehow... but knowing that doesn't lessen the hurt for us consumers.

Konami, I am disappoint. Oh well, looks like it's up to the arcade series to karmically balance out this franchise. Find out if they make it happen, next time on Dance Dance Retrospective!

*NB: These remakes first appeared in the Japanese version of Hottest Party 2. That is except for "Dynamite Rave", which was used in the arcade version of DDR X , but with the old stepcharts untouched.

Editorial: Hand-Drawn vs. Computer Animation

Longtime fans of mine, assuming I have any longtime fans, may recall my vendetta against the Shrek series of films. I believe my review of Shrek the Third made that quite clear. After the release of the first entry in 2001, an unfortunate trend grew in the animation market. It seemed as though in order for an animated film to sell in America, it had to appeal exclusively to the lowest common denominator. Concurrently, on an aesthetic level, traditional hand-drawn animation was being phased out by the Hollywood machine in favour of computer-generated imagery. This being the case, I eventually associated CG animation with the evils that the Shrek franchise appeared to have brought upon the market, and the force that was subduing 2-dimensional, or quote-good-unquote animation.

Of course, my objections to Shrek, and everything that would claim inspiration from it, aren't just their contributions to the dumbening of our collective culture. Nope, it's also personal. I can't stand to look at even a still image from any of said movies lest I reserve a ticket for some night terrors. Personally, I chalk it up to the Uncanny Valley. You know the one. As we add human characteristics to a thing, we like it more and more, up to a point where we don't like it. (Refer to the graph below, replacing "zombie" with "Shrek" and "humanoid robot" with "any non-Gonk anime character".) It is my belief that characters like Shrek, Donkey, and most other non-humans from the films are smack-dab in the nadir of the Valley. This has nothing to do the technical qualities with which Dreamworks Animation renders its image; it's how they chose to stylise their characters which came off as creepy to my warped set of tastes. (Also I had discovered anime a few years before then and was slowly starting to identify with its animation style, but that's just coincidence! ...Right?)

The Uncanny Valley graph.

But not too long ago, I did some soul-searching on the matter. And I discovered: what is 3D animation but an extension of 2D animation? However you stylise a 2-dimensional drawing, its essence can still shine through when you use it as the basis for a 3-dimensional model. For example, I believe at an early stage of development, the first Shrek film was to be done in a traditional 2-dimensional animation style, but I can't guarantee I would've found the results less creepy. As such, let me state for the record: there is CG animation I like, for example the cutscene movies for Final Fantasy and other video games. Not to mention, nowadays I'm seeing characters in works like Disney's Tangled and their upcoming Frozen, and Dreamworks' own How To Train Your Dragon, of all things, which are stylised in such a way that I can bear to look at them for more than a fleeting glimpse out the corner of my eye -- quite more, in fact. On the flip side, there is also hand-drawn animation I don't like, for example The Wild Thornberrys, Rocket Power, and pretty much everything ever made by Klasky-Csupo which doesn't involve the Rugrats. My enjoyment of a piece of animation thus has more to do with the end result and less with how they got to that result.

So with that excuse knocked out of the picture, you might assume that I favour foreign (read: Japanese) works over the Hollywood movie machine. And for a moment, I'd be tempted to agree with you. After all, I have expressed bouts of cultural cringe regarding what the Red, White, and Blue have collectively become. But it's not as simple as that, either. The West has produced works I'd be proud of, make no mistake about that. A good part of the Disney and Pixar ouvres, obviously. Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are not only some of my favourite animated TV shows of all time, but critically some of the best series I've ever seen (like, Dragon Award-worthy), although to be fair, they did use their Asian counterparts for inspiration. Heck, even the nefarious Dreamworks Animation has put out a movie I personally like, every once in a while. I liked Kung Fu Panda, and whilst I was less than impressed with the story of How To Train Your Dragon (mayhap the sequel will fix this?), I liked its art style and character designs, as mentioned before.

Of course, I still maintain that the vast majority of anime programming can trump the weakest (and therefore most commonplace) of its American counterparts. Maybe it's the fact that they don't feel the connection that cartoons have to be made only for children, as seems to be the case around here. This is a phenomenon known as the "Animation Age Ghetto", and I will be miserable about this to the end of my days. But the content of anime, on the other hand, is about on the level with our live-action primetime TV. In fact, the reason (as I'm aware of) why animated subject matter is so wide-ranging in Japan is that over there, it's apparently more expensive to film live-action programming than it is to make animated features. [citation needed] So I'm like, why not just run anime programming on the Big Four networks? I suppose it could be a conflict of interest with our studios in Hollywood, what do I know. Also I really should stop answering my own rhetorical questions.

But, as always, it's not as simple as "non-American = good". Look, when anime, good, it's *really* good, I'm not trying to deny all the Hayao Miyazakis and Cowboy Bebops they've given us over the years. But more so in recent years, it seems as if the anime market is falling back on fanservice and concepts like "moe". You know, stuff that makes it harder to be taken seriously. Believe me, I've got another rant in me to commiserate the directions in which anime is heading, but that rant's for another day. So in the end, I guess the only way to go is to call them like I see them, support anything which I see as good, and leave the rest hanging.

Why am I writing about all this? Perhaps I'll review one or more of the other Shrek movies someday. Or perhaps I'll just dunk my head in a bucket of frying oil instead, it would be less painful. (It would be more painful, don't do it.) After all, you could say my fury at the Shrek franchise is merely scapegoating. And you know who else is guilty of scapegoating? Hitler.

...

Oh my God, I just compared myself to Hitler. I immediately take that back. No one deserves to be compared to Adolf Frickin' Hitler. (Besides, Stalin was worse.) At any rate, it's my blog, and anything's in the cards. Until then...

This is IchigoRyu.

You are the resistance.

Music Review: Roar

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed the latest output from one of our pop princesses, Britney Spears. Now to take on another!

"Roar"

• Artist: Katy Perry
• Album: Prism
• Release: 10 August 2013
• Label: Capitol (Universal)
• Genre: Pop
• Writers: Katy Perry, Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, Max Martin, Bonnie McKee, Henry "Cirkut" Walter
• Producers: Dr. Luke, Max Martin, Cirkut

It seems that the pop divas come in easily comparable pairs. In the '80s we had Madonna vs. Cyndi Lauper, the '90s was... mostly Mariah Carey with a bit of Paula Abdul thrown in, and the 2000s gave us Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera and a host of others. Now it is the 2010s and we have on our plate Lady Gaga vs. Katy Perry, with acts like Ke$ha and Nicki Minaj on the side. The reason I'm outlining this is because you can get a pretty good idea of someone when you ask him or her which they prefer. For example, I'm more of a Lady Gaga fanboy, because the music she attaches her name to is more interesting and innovative. Meanwhile, my dad is more of a Katy Perry person, presumably because she's less stimulating, but more of a safe bet musically. And with the odd exception like "Waking Up In Vegas" or "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)", I find most of her stuff boring and overplayed. None more so than her latest number-one single, "Roar".

Remember over the past couple of years how we got a glut of pop songs revolving around the subject of self-esteem? First there were songs that could be boiled down to "You are good although you don't know it", and from them evolved the sub-genre of "I am good and I know it" songs. Good messages to espouse, yes, but even they can be played out when over-used. In the case of "Roar", however, I don't only mean "overused" in reference to all the previous examples over the years, I'm talking within the same song. For example, let's count how many cliched metaphors this song packs:

• Eye of the tiger? Check.
• Dancing through the fire? Check.
• Zero to hero? Check.
• Fighter? Check.
• Thunder? Check.
• Other giant cats? Check.
• I am woman, hear me roar? Partial credit, but hey, it's got the title of the freakin' song in it!

Cliches aside, "Roar" doesn't work because it's just too cute for its own message. Katy's sprightly staccato delivery on the verses, and the way she drags out the word "roar" in the chorus, for example, contrast with the potential intensity which the words themselves hold. And while I'm on the subject, the melody is just boring; most of it is just three notes rolling over and over and over. Now that a lot of songs on the radio also have repetitive melodies, this is something I'm really getting bugged by. There's nothing interesting happening at the bottom of the track either, just a bunch of random, dingy guitar chords which I think are supposed to evole the great power-ballads of the '80s, but in practice serve as nothing more than background noise. Seriously, it might as well just be Katy singing a capella.

Let's get back to the lyrics. There's a reason for all those self-empowerment cliches I listed earlier: in this song, Katy's persona has been metaphorically [verb]ed upon, and now she has built up the mental strength to stand against it. It works in the music video, where she lives through a plane crash in the middle of the jungle (filmed in Los Angeles) and gets over her fears to survive. Campy, yes, but it works in its own... campy way. But without that superfluous context, one would imply this to be about a breakup. If that's the case, where does the guy stand in all of this? I mean, he's doing stuff like this:

I let you push me past the breaking point
[...]
You held me down, but I got up

And not much else, admittedly. See, that's the thing with bad breakup songs, not enough to give us a clear idea of the opposing party. And the worst part is that "Katy" let "him" do that:

I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath
Scared to rock the boat and make a mess
[...]
I stood for nothing, so I feel for everything

For the record, Perry herself has stated that she wrote "Roar" after undergoing therapy for her break-up with Russell Brand. [1]  Now, if she says she had a lot of pent-up emotions after the event, and she did, that's one thing, and I can understand that. But was your relationship with him so bad that you had to portray him as some domineering meanie? I mean, I'd expect that about Chris Brown, but Russell Brand? That's news to me! "But Kevin", you hypothetically retort, "this isn't a song about Katy herself! You're supposed to project yourself into her role!" Well in that case, we're going to see this in a wide load of movies, TV shows, and adverts as shorthand for overcoming a personal struggle. And whilst at least the whole of the lyrics support this message, it's just going to vindicate the use of all those cliches I just railed on!

I should also mention the similarities between this song and "Brave" by Sara Bareilles. Now this was another empowerment anthem, albeit this time directed at the user instead of the singer. I don't know about you, but having Bareilles telling me "I wanna see you be brave" is more of a pick-me-up than Katy asserting "you're gonna hear me roar". Apart from the message, the key signature's the same, the tempo's the same, it's even got the same plinky piano line (although the chorus melody is more than just the same three notes repeated over and over). So it should be no surprise that accusations of plagiarism have been bandied about regarding "Roar". Bareilles played down the accusations since, you know, both songs are about positive messages, [2] and Dr. Luke, co-writer and co-producer of "Roar", claimed that his song was written and recorded before "Brave" released. [3]  As for my two cents, I'll take their word for it, and even if I were to learn that it was plagiarised, it wouldn't change my opinion that "Roar" is a mostly dreadful song.

It's not that "Roar" is terrible in the same way as being mauled by a real tiger, or even sitting through a pop song performed by said tiger. But still, nothing in this song works the way it should. Whilst the message it attempts to espouse is admirable in its intention, all the cliches it is expressed with undo the seriousness it deserves. Let me put it to you this way: I'm not a huge fan of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger". (U mad bro?) Mainly that's because the ways it's been used in popular culture since its creation, and the frequency with which it has been used, have turned the product into a walking, singing cliche. And for "Roar" to use it in turn, almost literally, create a new layer of cliches. Worst-case scenario, this process may be repeated with other songs down the road, creating an Inception-esque network of cliches and collapsing all other music into a point of cliche singularity. But for now, it's more of a whimper, really.

Lyrics: 1 roars out of 5
Music: 1 roars out of 5
Performance: 2 roars out of 5
The Call: 2 out of 5 (D)

---

[1] "Katy Perry new song called Roar". Mirror.co.uk. 12 August 2013.
[2] Pavlova, Victoria. "Katy Perry And Sara Bareilles "Brave"-ly "Roar" In The Face Of Plagiarism Speculation". Contactmusic.com. August 13, 2013.
[3] @TheDoctorLuke. "too bad .....". Twitter. 14 August 2013.

Music Review: Work B**ch!

Previously on the SDP, I reviewed "Scream and Shout", the collab between will.i.am and Britney Spears which no one was anticipating. Now let's see whan happens when she goes solo... again... in "Work B**ch!".

"Work B**ch!"

• Artist: Britney Spears
• Album: Britney Jean
• Genre: Pop, Dance
• Label: RCA (Sony)
• Single Release: 16 September 2013
• Writers: William "will.i.am" Adams, Britney Spears, Otto "Knows" Jettman, Sebastian Ingrosso, Anthony Preston, Ruth-Anne Cunningham
• Producer: Otto Knows

As you can see by the above list of writers, William "will.i.am" Adams is credited as a co-writer on "Work B**ch!" -- and of course, no pop song these days can exist without at least five writers, I said in sarcasm mode -- but not as the producer. So I don't know how much influence he holds this time around, but one thing's for sure: something's rubbed off on Britney. Much about this new song appears to have been carried over from "Scream and Shout", the last song they worked on together. There are similarities in the song's structure, the production style, and even Britney's performance. Case in point: we start off with Britney doing that British-accented quasi-rapping she first broke out in that other song. The hook revolves around listing all these upper-class name-brands and other luxuries, as is de rigeur these days... but with a twist.

You want a hot body
You want a Bulgari
You want a Maserati
You better work, [noun]

Yeah, it turns out the finer things in life require current to obtain! Whoda thunk? And why has it taken our celebrities so long to publicly acknowledge it in their works? Probably because of all their product placement endorsements or something. Present company included, apparently; the music video for "Work B**ch!" features the Planet Hollywood resort in Las Vegas, where she had just started a residency show, plus the Beats by Dre Pill speaker. Okay, this is a hard change to make (unless you're Macklemore). But answer me this, Britney: just what kind of work are you commanding us [noun]s to perform? Taking the lyrics on their own, it would be safe to interpret "work" as your day job. But this being a club dance song, well, something tells me you didn't exactly have our contributing to our nation's GDP in mind.

I will however give credit to this song's sense of command. Her use of the word [noun] (...you're just gonna have to take my word for it) is meant not to belittle women, as is the usual case, but to belittle you. Yes, you, the listener. She is asserting dominance over you and playing the role of the dominatrix, made especially plausible by the return of her haughty, out-of-character accent. And I, for one, enjoy this use of personality, compared to so many other songs, "Scream and Shout" included, which neglect this aspect. So tell me what else I may work for, master (mistress?) Britney.

You want a Lamborghini
Sipping martinis
Look hot in a bikini
You better work, [noun]

I'm gonna have to stop you there; you already mentioned an appealing bodily figure as something that requires work on the part of [noun]s. And that's not the only instance of recycled examples, but I'll get back to that later. So the chorus continues in a similar fashion until the line "Now get to work, [noun]!" and a "dirty bit" musical bridge ensues. But among the "dirty bit"s I've encountered in my life thus far, the one here is a cut above the usual fare. There is some semblance of a melody for once! A repetitive melody that's just a continuation of the bassline from the chorus before it, yes, but it is a proper release of the intensity built up during the chorus. Compare that to other examples of the "dirty bit", even "Scream and Shout", which just kill the momentum when they arrive, and this is at least a step in the right direction.

Speaking of that song, as was the case with "Scream and Shout", I'm tempted to say the lyrics in the verses don't matter. I mean, the hook already made a rather strong statement, amirite? In comparison, the lyrics to the verses consists mainly of egging the crowd on to have a good time and bragging about how earth-shatteringly awesome the beat is. You know, just like in "Scream and Shout". And besides, given the poor balance between the thumping beat and Britney's soft, sirenic voice, I can hardly make out what she's saying at just about any point in the song, much less the verses. For example, let's go back to the start of the chorus, or wait for it to come around again, and listen to the line "You want a Bulgari?". I thought she was saying "Bugatti", yet another luxury car brand, instead of "Bulgari", a luxury jewelry brand. Then again, that would make three car brands in the same chorus, so at least she and her writers have some standards. Not good standards, mind you, we're still left with two car brands, but I guess we should take what we can get.

"Work B**ch!" is no example of high art, let's get that out of the way. The melody is repetitive, although so many songs in the Top 40 these days get away with such a crime, and while the message of the lyrics is interesting, the chorus does most of the work in getting it across. That said, I will say that this is what "Scream & Shout" should've been like. Simply put, "Work B**ch!" has personality -- something so many hits are lacking in. And if you expect me to stick around and listen to an entire song on the radio or plunk down the dollar-plus to download a copy, you had better bring some personality to set you apart and provide a memorable listening experience. So in conclusion: Yes Britney, may I have some more?

(You better work, [noun].)

Lyrics: 2 Beats Pills out of 5
Music: 3 Beats Pills out of 5
Performance: 2 Beats Pills out of 5
The Call: 3 out of 5 (C)

Game Review: Gal*Gun (First Impressions)

Gal*Gun (Demo)

• Publisher: Alchemist
• Developer: Inti Creates
• Release: PlayStation 3, 23 February 2012 (Japan/South Korea)
• Genre: First-person action
• Players: 1
• Rarity/Cost: Free

NB: I should note that the following text reflects not the full version of Gal*Gun, but a free demo available on the Japanese PlayStation Network store. It's possible for foreigners to create and use a PSN account, to not only buy the game but get its free demo, but it takes some doing. The late JewWario of You Can Play This has uploaded a video to instruct you on doing such, as a matter of fact, so go watch that. Oh, and the title is listed in Japanese, so search for "ぎゃる☆がん" ("Gyaru Gan").

Everyone done? Good. Now, on to the review, inasmuch as I can call it one.

A little Fun Fact about me as a gamer: I love light-gun shooters (Japanese-made ones, that is), as evidenced by the fact that I have an article tag for them. My favourite has to be the Time Crisis series by Namco, and I shall have to review them sometime. But stay in love with a genre for long enough, and sooner or later each new experience starts feeling like the last. Not to mention, a lot of these games are bloody short! Of course, that's because most of them are ports of coin-op arcade games, which are short by their nature of being designed to get players on and off as fast as possible, but still. So it's about time for some new blood in the genre, I say, and then along comes Gal*Gun, an Asian-exclusive PS3 game, providing a cute quasi-parody of the genre. Is it the new blood we need? Let's find out.

Gal*Gun started life not as an arcade game, but an XBox 360-exclusive from early 2011. However, somebody forgot to make a light-gun controller for the 360, so you have to play it with a traditional controller. Not that it's inherently a bad thing, I mean, a lot of these games have traditional controller support. Not very good traditional controller support, but hey, the spirit of inclusion is there. Besides, this version is region-locked against non-Japanese XBox 360s, and they made a patch to censor the panty shots... more on that some other time. But then along came a port for the PlayStation 3 a year later, bringing along with it Move controller support and the ability to play on non-Japanese consoles. But would you want to? Again, let's find out.

You play as Tenzou, an Ordinary High School Student who gets accidentally shot by a bunch of magical arrows by a cupid named Patako. Although according to the opening cutscene I don't think it was that unintentional. But anyway, Tenzou is blessed with super sex appeal, although he has to find true love before the magic's affect wears off, he'll be lonely for the rest of his life. Now, I actually had to find that last part off of the game's Wikipedia entry, because its story is presented visual-novel style in spoken and written text, which of course is presented entirely in Japanese. But the end result is that all the girls in Tenzou's school go crazy over him, and he has to fend them off with the use of Patako's Pheremone Gun. And I'm like, what is your problem Tenzou?  Why are you even fighting them in the first place? Aren't you supposed to find love before the day is out or whatever? Maybe you're one of the few among us who know the difference between love and lust; that's the best explanation I can manage.

Enemy "bullets", in the form of text characters, are easy to block.

But anyway, here's where you come in. You move a cursor with the Left Stick and press a button to "shoot" at girls, whereupon instead of dying they swoon with delight and disappear. It even does that Virtua Cop thing where the camera automatically zooms into certain targets. And you know how in most shooters you can deal more damage with head shots? Well to that effect Gal*Gun has "Ecstasy Shots", which are located around the front of their skirts (you know... where they hide their lady parts), and bring them down with one shot instead of the usual three or four. The girls' attacks consist primarily of launching various kana and kanji characters that drift lazily towards the screen, and you must shoot to block them or incur "damage", inasmuch as I can call it damage given the context of the story. But whatever it symbolises, if it falls to zero, it's Game Over, of course. However, unlike most shooter games, light-gun or otherwise, your Pheremone Gun has unlimited ammo; you don't even need to reload its magazine or anything. Combined with the lethargic sense of danger, and based on the demo alone, Gal*Gun shapes up to be an unfortunately boring experience. Maybe the pace picks up in the later stages of the full version, I don't know.

In addition to your health meter, there's a heart-shaped meter which you can fill up multiple times with successful hits. Once it fills at least one, you can hover your cursor over a girl and press Triangle to enter what's called "Doki-Doki Mode". As the setting shifts to a different plane of existence or something, you move your cursor between various pre-set points along the girl's body, and press the fire button/trigger to, I don't know, poke her there or something, filling up a separate meter on the left. But you have to do it before your heart meter runs out of juice and you get kicked back out to the main game. And you can't just button-mash your way to success like in the main game; as you place a hit and the girl, ahem, "reacts", you can't fire again until her animation completes. This partial denial of input makes for a truly boring, tedious diversion. So anyway, assuming you manage to complete this mini-game (don't forget to press Triangle again to deliver the, ahem, "finishing blow"), and do you want to know what the reward for all that was? A bomb, inasmuch as I can call it a bomb. All the girls on-screen, ahem, "cleared out" simultaneously. And I'm like, *why* couldn't I just launch a "bomb" instantly when I press that confounded button!?

The Doki-Doki Mode takes way too much time to get through.

If I ever purchase the full version, I'll make a part-two of this review, but the demo hasn't given me much to be excited about. Let me put it to you this way: this isn't a game that should make you buy a Move system if you don't already own one. Rather, if you don't already own a Move system, then give this a pass. The unorthodox setting is cute, either in the sexualised spirit with which it was intended, or in its camp value for attempting the former and failing. But as a game, let alone a light-gun game, it's rather boring and slow-paced. Maybe the full version ramps up the challenge something decent, but otherwise I can't quite recommend this game, inasmuch as I can call it a game.

Control: 4 Ecstasy Shots out of 5
Design: 2 Ecstasy Shots out of 5
Graphics: 5 Ecstasy Shots out of 5
Audio: 3 Ecstasy Shots out of 5
The Call: 3 Ecstasy Shots out of 5 (C)