ctrl+alt+defeat
ctrl+alt+defeat may-jun 2012
Six
Games. Stuff.
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ctrl+alt+defeat Issue 6 (May-Jun 2012) Rock
contents
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Dilyan Damyanov Vanya Damyanova
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Dilyan Damyanov
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Andrew Vanden Bossche Bill Coberly Vanya Damyanova Brad Gallaway Scott Juster Amanda Lange Richard Naik Shawn Trautman Daniel Weissenberger
Dark Stalker
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Dilyan Damyanov
Heroes In A Half-Shell
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Pedro Belleza Adam Bowie Peter Deltondo Tomas Gunnarsson Jaymie Koroluk Deborah Monique
Charmaine Morgan Enrique Rodriguez Skyler Stanley acoustic--screamo PhntmDark
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Amouranth Lenalee-chwan
Rowan Wills
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Anna Anthropy
Blake Henriksen
+ ROCK STARS
Artwork & photo index 1 rock by ~deborahMONIQUE on deviantART 4 Zombie by *PerpetualReverie on deviantART 6-7 Horse Call by ~Amouranth on deviantART 7 Skyward Sword-042.jpg by PhntmDark on Flickr 8-9 TMNT vs Zombies: Michelangelo by ~dolphinboy2000 on deviantART 10 TMNT vs Zombies: Leonardo by ~dolphinboy2000 on deviantART 13 TMNT vs Zombies: Donatello by ~dolphinboy2000 on deviantART 14-15 TMNT vs Zombies: Raphael by ~dolphinboy2000 on deviantART 22 One Nation Under CCTV by adambowie on Flickr 25 Banksy by Pedro Belleza on Flickr 27 Guitar Hero Heaven by jaymiek on Flickr 28-29 Nathan Drake 03 by *FluffyLtd on deviantART 30-31 Shrimp Scampi by ~PeterDeltondo on deviantART 33 Broken Road by ~acoustic--Screamo 34 Girl’s Guitar by ~acoustic--Screamo 35 sign of stop by ~acoustic--Screamo 36 6506e by ~acoustic--Screamo 38-39 Hatsune Miku - E L R by ~Lenalee-chwan on deviantART Contact
dilyan@ctrlaltdefeat.me vanya@ctrlaltdefeat.me http://ctrlaltdefeat.me/ @ctrlaltdefeatme
Support us If you like ctrl+alt+defeat, there are several ways to help make it. You can buy stuff from our Amazon store at bit.ly/cadstore, donate via the appropriate button on our homepage ctrlaltdefeat.me, or contribute to future issues by submitting to the editor’s email above. Thank you! You make this so worthwhile! Disclaimer Every effort has been made to ensure that all artwork and texts used in this issue are either licenced under a Creative Commons license or permission has been obtained from the copyright holder. We’re sorry for any mistakes we might have made. Unless it is somebody else’s artwork or text, all content in this issue is licenced under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Non-commercial license.
Brad Gallaway has a chilling encounter as he tries to interview one of gaming’s most fearsome metal legends, on pp 4-5
Skyward & Down
Has Link still got it? Scott Juster chats with the masses’ favourite hero about his latest piece of work, on pp 6-7
Rivalries. Vanity. Greed. Three-fourths of the original TMNT gang spill it all out for Richard Naik, on pp 8-15
Auntie Pixelante
Outspoken game designer Anna Anthropy talks to Andrew Vanden Bossche about politics, game design and diversity, on pp 16-21
+ RIOT A Beautiful Lie
Shawn Trautman unveils the dirty secret of open-world riot simulator Jet Set Radio Future, on pp 22-25
+ BLOWING IN THE WIND Games Taught Me To Love Guitars
Bill Coberly reminisces on how he became a rock convert because of video games, on pp 26-27
+ COLUMNS The Morbid Gamer: Uncharted
Dan Weissenberger examines the moral aspects of killing 604 enemies in Drake’s Fortune, on pp 28-29
Eat, Play, Love: Earthbound
Amanda Lange teaches you how to cook a pasta dish straight from the cult RPG, on pp 30-31
+ FAN FICTION Strings
Vanya Damyanova uses fan fiction to explore the ways we learn to play, on pp 32-37
faces Andrew Vanden Bossche is a freelance writer, teacher, and MFA student in nonfiction in Spokane, Washington. He controls the @MammonMachine and its final boss form at mammonmachine. blogspot.com. His work appears with some regularity at Gamasutra, Paste, Medium Difficulty, and many others.
A dedicated gamer since the tender age of six, Richard Naik is a writer and reviewer for Gamecritics.com. His personal blog can be found at Systemsoperational.com, and he can be reached at richard@systemsoperational. com.
Bill Coberly will write about anything which sits still long enough, but focuses most of his energy on gamescriticism for The Ontological Geek, GameChurch, and anywhere else foolish enough to display his scribblings. He currently lives in Savannah, GA, with his wonderful wife, and can be reached on Twitter @WombatofDoom42.
Shawn Trautman is a pre-law student who diligently avoids schoolwork by writing about the art and culture of videogames at hyrulechozo.tumblr.com. You can find him on Twitter @smtrautman.
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lord | raptor
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Dark Stalker
t a small café near Place Denfert-Rochereau in Paris, I sit at a tiny circular table with a cup of espresso resting on a saucer that takes up most of the available space. I was tempted to order a croissant while I was waiting for rock’s most infamous bad boy to arrive, but I’m glad I didn’t. The table is so small, I literally wouldn’t have had any place to put it. After an hour of people-watching , I was about to phone my editor and tell him that the subject of this interview was a no-show when a lanky man with long, greasy-black hair and a filthy trenchcoat slumped into the empty chair across from me at a frightful speed. For a moment, I thought I was the target of an overly aggressive panhandler until I realised that his skin was a singular shade of frostbitten blue. A rock star isn’t a rock star if they live life on someone else’s timetable, so I don’t make mention of our late start while Raptor flags down a waiter burdened with an armful of empty dishes and a towel about to fall off his shoulder. Words are exchanged. The waiter insists that they don’t serve Tooheys -- he says he doesn’t even know what it is -- but my brunch partner won’t take no for an answer. I sit silently in my chair as Lord Raptor asks again, this time with voice slightly raised. I think I can hear traces of an accent, but it’s probably my imagination. His vocal chords aren’t right. Shaking his head, the waiter motions as if he’s
going to turn his back on us and head to the kitchen. In truth, I’m a little surprised at two things. The first is that our server doesn’t seem to recognise his thirsty customer, and the second is that Raptor keeps his cool as long as he does. It’s wellknown in promoter circles that the metal god’s hair-trigger act isn’t an act, and that the riders put forth by his agent aren’t negotiable for a reason. The trenchcoat flies open and the thick scent of the grave assaults the area. Bolts of electricity crackle and spit. Although I’ve seen it several times over the course of my career (not including the hours of footage I crammed in preparation for this interview) watching the flesh on his body tear and recede before my eyes is something else entirely. The snapping of ribs wresting away from their sternum and jutting out from a gaping chest cavity didn’t even register -- I was too focused on watching the darkly handsome face hanging in the rooms of a million Goth girls wither and rage until the waiter and I were staring straight at the cover art for Noise of Heaven.
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haken up (but no worse for wear) as I flew over the Atlantic en route to my next assignment, I kept staring at the single line I managed to jot down in my notebook, over and over. Being a freelancer means getting paid in a feast-or-famine cycle, and no matter how I spun it, I couldn’t quite convince myself that the features editor would cover my per diem for “Write whatever you want, but if you call me Zabel in your piece I’m gonna fuck you up.” Damned rock stars. Text by Brad Gallaway Photo by Skyler Stanley
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rock | stars want to say that Link’s always kept his feet on the ground, but it’s hard to make that claim while standing on a magical island floating above the clouds. I’m here to talk about Skyward Sword, Link’s latest project. It’s been five years since I’ve last chatted with him, so I’m not sure what to expect. Thankfully, we fall into a familiar routine: we chat about Moblins (and their continuing stupidity), the best way to catch fairies (nets, he reminds me), and his latest musical interests (he’s recently picked up the harp). I rib him about his early-1990s purple hair phase, he fires back with a crack about my unfortunate obsession with cargo pants. “Hey! Be careful with that thing!” I yelp, only halfjokingly. Link’s picked up some new sword tricks since we last met and is intent on showing off. He waves the blade around in a broad circle inches away from my face. I have to admit, he looks spry. “Well are you just going to show off or are you going to use it?” My question is answered when two Stalfos spawn across the room. The skeletons shamble towards Link, cycling through a number of defensive postures, requiring him to swing his blade in specific directions to land hits. It’s novel, but I’m never truly worried that he’ll get hurt. It’s kind of like a slightly dangerous, yet choreographed version of Simon Says. I’m interested in what’s been influencing Link since we last spoke. “What do you think about Dark Souls?” I ask over the clang of swords. “It’s kind of bold, right? I mean, dealing real damage to the player, requiring that they learn by trial and error rather than call and response?” The last Stalfos is guarding its lower left flank, and Link quickly dispatches it with a diagonal strike. He sounds a bit winded and I notice a strange green meter depleting as he lands the killing blow. The battle ends before I can ask about it. The expression on his face, part satisfaction and part expectation, suggests he didn’t hear my question. “Never mind,” I shrug. “Show me around the new world!” Seeing as how we were already on a floating island, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Epona was nowhere to be found; horses aren’t much good without land I suppose. Soon, we’re swooping through the clouds on large, goofy-looking birds. They’re extremely sensitive to my motions; any slight shift in my weight sends them careening in the corresponding direction. It’s a struggle to even keep these birds level, and their gawky movements make me think that they must not have any natural predators. “My wrists are starting to hurt, Link!” He hears my complaints but assures me that I’ll get used to it. Our bird’s eye view of the surface reveals something strange. “I don’t see a path from the forest to the desert. How do you get from one place to another without flying?” My question is swallowed by the wind,
Skyward & Down as is Link’s answer. I look down again and see every earthbound region is its own little cul de sac. They’re nice looking, but they’re dead ends nonetheless. Such a segmented environment is weird when it’s
coming from someone who was doing the whole “open world” thing before it was cool. I ponder this until it comes time to dismount. “Are you sure we can just dive off these things? It’s a long way down!” Link chuckles and then vaults off his bird. I grit my teeth and do the same. My eyes sting and I hold my breath as the ground rushes to meet me. Just as I begin to make out the individual trees, everything fades to white. When things fade back in I find that we’ve gone through a load screen that’s deposited us safely onto a predetermined landing spot, far away from
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link Remember when Link had a horse?
where we started our drop. Suddenly, Skyward Sword seems smaller, less bold. I decide to get a little more pointed in my questions. “Hey, Link? What kinds of games have you been playing over the past ten years? Don’t take this the wrong way, but Halo had equally huge environments without any load times. Remember how mind-blowing it was to be able to fly over to that huge scarab tank from the other side of the level and then fight your way inside it seamlessly? What gives?” Again, I get no response. Link’s fid-
dling with his new robot companion, Fi. She reminds me of a huge, less functional iPhone. Link taps through the dialog options (the text of crawls by at a maddeningly slow pace) and tries to show me some of her stat-tracking and hint features. Out of politeness, I ask what one would use such things for. He tries to show me but accidentally presses the wrong button, resetting her and forcing us to sit through her explanation of the map for a second time. “Hey, let’s just explore a little bit,” I suggest for both our sakes. Thankfully, he agrees and I finally get the grand tour. Skyward Sword seems like a pretty nice piece of work once you get to know it, and I can tell why it’s been such a long time coming. Bugs skitter through the grass and all the townsfolk seem ready to offer some kind of diversion. Link makes sure I hear the details of every item I pick up, even the duplicates. He’s starting to ramble more as the years go on. Then I see it again: that little green meter. It seems to be draining as we dash and climb around the environment. I finally get it: Link is getting tired! After all these years, I am seeing a little glimpse of my old friend’s mortality. It makes him seem so vulnerable and the world so much more dangerous. My own aching feet help me sympathize. Link starts to explain Skyward Sword’s simplistic crafting system, but I’ve already zoned out. I know what actually makes his latest work unique, but I’m not sure he does. Skyward Sword is going to give us a glimpse of a superstar’s mortal side. After two and a half decades of tireless fighting, climbing, running, and falling, we’re finally seeing some of his limits. Skyward Sword is perhaps Link’s most mainstream work to date. The visual style isn’t as experimental as Wind Waker’s, its world not nearly as freaky as Majora’s Mask’s. Everything is laid out clearly, including a small window into Link’s frailty. Of course, he’s far too much of a professional to draw attention to this fact. The idea that he’s mortal, subject to the same kind of fatigue with which we all struggle is hidden in plain sight. Twenty-five years of toiling under huge expectations that only grow with each passing release would wear anyone out. Seeing his human side makes me feel closer to him than I’ve been in years, but such familiarity comes at the cost of blind admiration. Link remains a monu-
ment, but I’m starting to see the cracks. I realize I’ve been zoning out for the past five minutes and snap back to attention. Link pulls something out of a chest, holds it above his head, and arches an eyebrow at me. “Oh yeah, that’s the new hookshot, huh? Yeah, that’s pretty nice,” I say with a smile. I hope it doesn’t look as melancholy as it feels. Text by Scott Juster Cosplay by Amouranth (costume and model) & unknown Photos by Enrique Rodriguez & Fanboy Photos
Flying is tiring
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rock | stars
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tmnt
Heroes In A Half-Shell
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owabunga. Let’s kick shell. Pizza power. If you’re at all close to my age you probably know what popularized these phrases. Through comics, TV shows, films, toys, idiomatic sayings, and (of course) video games, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became the preeminent symbols of adolescence for kids that grew up anywhere near the 90s. The story of their meteoric rise rivals that of The Beatles. From humble origins in a New York City sewer the Turtles attained impossible fame, having a presence in nearly every entertainment medium. For a time, the Turtles games (and by proxy, side-scroller beat ‘em ups) were the rage of arcades and game consoles everywhere. However, as the 90s drew to a close so did the Turtles’ grip on pop culture.
The original group has reunited only once (for the 2007 film) in the past fifteen years. While the film was somewhat wellreceived by both critics and moviegoers, the rift between the four was said to be wider than ever. The stories surrounding their breakup are vague and often conflicting, as they have never given a full public account of what happened. Until now. By some stroke of luck or divine intervention, three of the four original Turtles agreed to speak to me on a wide range of topics, including the fate of the original group. What follows is the surprising, amusing, and sometimes tragic stories of the reptiles that helped shape my generation’s collective childhood.
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ctrl+alt+defeat eonardo has been the most publicly visible of the four brothers, and thus was the easiest to track down. In contrast to his former companions, he is more than willing to speak to anyone and everyone who will listen. Still, the one subject he has always avoided is his brothers, fuelling speculation about where things went wrong for the group. Leonardo has been involved in every major Turtles-related project (including some very poorly received games) since the original group disbanded, delighting some fans who wanted more Turtles but irking critics who accused him of compromising on the quality of his endeavors in exchange for paychecks. Either way, he still fills the role of Turtles pitchman with aplomb, eagerly inviting me to his Beverly Hills home. Richard Naik: First, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. Leonardo: Yeah, no problem man. Before I ask about the games, I want to talk about the new movie that’s coming out. Yeah! It’s gonna be a blast. Way bigger than the last one. Michael Bay has been coming up with a lot of great ideas that I think are going to rock. I mean, *rock*. [He pumps his fist.] A lot of people haven’t been happy with the things that have been coming out about it actually. But you’re OK with everything? Well, I mean, I think you kind of have to be flexible with this kind of thing. Focus groups have actually been really positive towards the changes we’re proposing. The kids love it. The adults dig the explosions. What’s not to like? I know, but… aliens? And removing the “Teenage”? [Shrugs.] Whatever works. OK, so why aren’t the other Turtles coming back for this one? You guys all got together in 2007. What have you heard? I’ve heard everything from fistfights to wife-swapping. [Laughs.] Oh man. I guess the imagination can run wild can’t it? Well, the simple truth is I wanted to keep this franchise going, and they didn’t. We were -- no, *are* -- one of the biggest names in all of… well, everything! And for whatever reason, they wanted to turn their shells on it. I don’t know… it’s hard. I really had a great time with the guys on TMNT, but I guess maybe they’ll tell you something different. I guess they just don’t care about the name as much as I do. And ever since what happened to Mikey… I guess it’s just a little strange now. Do you still talk to Michaelangelo? Yeah. Well, not really. I haven’t seen him since 2007 when we did the movie, actually. He looked good. He got through all his scenes with no problems. So I guess he’s doing well
enough. So you never go see him? Not even on holidays? Well… I mean… he’s told me where to find him. And I know he doesn’t like people dropping in on him or anything, so I give him his space. What about the others? Donatello and Raphael? Like I said, they don’t care about the name, so we don’t have anything to talk about. The name? Yeah, you know: the Turtles name! TMNT! Heroes in a half-shell! All that fun stuff. We’re still a brand, even after all this time. We gotta take advantage of that! We can still get back what we had. You want things to be the way they were back in the 90s? Yeah! I mean who doesn’t want that? We have fans, even if they’re all grown up, and there’s a whole new generation out there that needs some pizza power, am I right? That’s a lot of marketing potential. I was actually talking to [Michael] Bay about this, and there’s still all *kinds* of potential for new shows or games -- hey, you’re a game journalist right?
tmnt I like to think so, yes. Man, I think we could rock that again. The games were as big as big could get once. I’m sure we could rock the arcades again! Arcades don’t really exist anymore… Really? Damn. Well, we’ll figure something out. The past few games weren’t all that successful. Battle Nexus, Mutant Nightmare, and that Turtles In Time remake... Yeah, well… we knew those weren’t going to be any good, honestly. We needed the original crew back to really make this work. You were the only original Turtle to participate in those games, and you knew they would be bad? Well… see… someone has to keep Turtles alive. If we’re ever going to come back, if we’re ever going to be what we used to be, then we *have* to stay on the stage. I’m apparently the only one willing to do that, since they obviously don’t care. And if I have to do it with a bunch of no-names from some sewer in St. Louis or wherever, then I’ll be the responsible one and do that. I’m sorry, but I don’t follow you. How does releasing bad games under the Turtles name help the Turtles name? I told you, man! We have to stay current! Those side-scrollers were the shit back in the day, so we just have to tap into what’s hot today! You’re a game guy, what’s on the front burner these days? Well, I guess first-person-shooters… Hell yeah! We’ll do one of those! Firstperson only means one player right? So we don’t even need the other guys! A Turtles shooter? Like, with guns? Yeah! No… sword guns! My gun could shoot swords at robot aliens or something. Man I should call Michael, we need to work this into the movie! At that point he took out his cell phone and began ignoring me. No one else was in the house, so I excused myself.
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rock | stars espite all four being named after famous Renaissance men, Donatello is the only one that truly embodies the idea. Far from the bookish archetype he seemed to personify back in his TMNT days, he has fully embraced the “artistic” part of his career. His resume is easily the most varied of the four brothers’, ranging from film roles to writing poetry (under a pen name he refused to share with me) to even a few Broadway appearances. Even the northern Chicago hookah lounge in which he chose to meet me seemed to add another layer of mystery to the Turtle with the longest attack range. He has recently tried to break back into the gaming world, though not with the TMNT name. Donatello’s flirtations with the gaming industry have been frustrating at best and stifling at worst, and he was more than happy to share the tale. Donatello: Do you like hookah? Richard Naik: Yeah, I do. I have my own pipe. I really like it, which is really strange to me because I hate smoking. I think it’s the smell. Yeah, something like that. It actually tastes good too, and unlike cigarettes I don’t feel like crap after smoking one. You come here often? Sometimes, when I’m in town. Anyways, you have questions. I do. First, why go back to games? Well, I think games are a very unique medium. There are so many things that a game can do
that a film or a book can’t, and there are a lot of things I’d like to do there. I really think they’re the next great artistic form. Do you play a lot of games? Oh yeah. It’s probably my number one hobby when I’m not working nowadays. I play a lot of RPGs, a couple MMOs. I did just finish this DS game called Ghost Trick and, holy crap, that was awesome. That is the kind of thing I’ve always wanted to make, and someone beat me to it. I also just finished Mass Effect 3, that was pretty cool, though the ending was kind of weird. Fallout New Vegas is another winner, always loved the Fallout games. Any takers for your ideas? None so far. They all just want more stupid Turtles junk, and I’m done with that. It’s all a bunch of soulless shit. When I spoke to Leonardo, he also said he wanted to get back into games. [Snorts.] Leo doesn’t want to make games, alright! He wants to make cheap crap that he can make a quick buck off of. I mean, I don’t want to rag on the old beat ‘em ups, OK? I think they worked for their time. But that genre is over. It’s just over. If I were to make another TMNT game, it would have to be like that very first one. Really? The one everyone hates? Yes! There’s so much more going on there. Lots of exploration, it just feels so much more *free* to me, you know? In the other games, which, again, I don’t want to knock on them too hard, because when I knock on something I really want to just *pound* it into the ground, you know? And I don’t want to do that here, because I don’t think it’s deserved. Anyways, the other games were all about walking in a straight line and beating up a bunch of things. That’s it. There’s nothing else to them, nothing. No soul, no art. But lots of people had fun playing the beat ‘em ups. Ugh. Look, I think they’re important milestone in games, especially for multiplayer. Since, unlike something like Street Fighter or whatever, you had to work with the other players instead of fight them. That genre was one of the first true co-ops, I think. But gaming has moved on. They have nothing left to give us, and frankly from an artistic standpoint I don’t think they had much to give us in the first place. So you’d never get back together with Leonardo and make more beat ‘em ups? Not a chance. Even though you’re always the Turtle everyone loves to play as? [Laughs.] You know, that’s always been kind of funny. When the Konami guys were putting Turtles In Time together, they were super worried that nobody would ever want to play me. You’re kidding. Nope. They thought Leo’s two swords were just too cool, and that Raph was too much of a badass. And Mikey was the fun one
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back then. They were just like “you’re slow and all you have is a stick, why would anyone ever pick you?” So I think it took everyone by surprise when the kids always fought over me. But anyway, for Leo the games aren’t about art, and it isn’t about challenging anything. It’s about putting the TMNT name on crap and making money so he can keep adding shit to that damn mansion of his or whatever. It’s a damn franchise for him and for everyone, and I don’t want to be a part of it anymore. I made the mistake of letting him talk me into that movie we did in 2007. Never again. For what it’s worth, I thought that movie was decent. [Pauses.] ... I guess. Is disagreement over the direction of the group what originally drove you guys apart? It’s what drove Leo and I apart. I mean, it was a lot of things. There were tensions about little stuff and just personality conflicts. But for me it was that he was perfectly fine with TMNT being this massive cash cow and nothing else. I wasn’t. I wanted to reach higher. I can’t speak for Raph and
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Mikey, but for me it was about integrity. It was about being authentic and not selling out. Do you still talk to the others? For a while I couldn’t get Leo to leave me the hell alone. Last I heard he was going on about some Michael Bay bullshit.
If you’re lucky, Raph will maybe return your calls after about a week. As for Mikey… sometimes. When I’m around New England I’ll go see him if I have time. How is Michaelangelo doing these days? He just... he has his good days and his bad days. During the last movie he actually had a lot of good days, though there were times where we just had to get him out of there. I don’t think either one of us were really liking what we were doing in the movie, so that’s why he and I had smaller parts.
Last question: there’s a rumor going around about you and Hideo Kojima collaborating on something. You do still have partial ownership rights for TMNT… care to shed any light on that? [Sighs. Long pause.] Yeah, I know. There’s probably a good answer I can give here that will be informative and keep people in the dark at the same time. Something that Hideo would probably say. [Another long pause, then he breaks into a huge grin.] But wouldn’t that just be the *greatest* thing? I mean, a Kojima Turtles game? I guarantee you that would blow some minds.
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rock | stars aphael is the most difficult Turtle to track down. He has no agent, no personal assistant, and no public contact information other than a phone number that is a task in and of itself to get. Sometimes he calls you back, if he feels like it. If you’re lucky enough to get a return call, you go to a Boston bar that he uses only as a place to put up with people like me. For lack of a better phrase, he just does not give a fuck. He has only given three extended interviews in the past decade. Two of them ended with him throwing a piece of furniture and storming out. The third was from a jail cell in Cleveland. In a nutshell, when dealing with Raphael, you never know exactly what you’re going to get -- you just have to hope he’s in a good mood. Richard Naik:Thanks for being here today Raphael. Raphael: Sure. What have you been up to? Any new movies? Nope. Any new projects you’d like to talk about? None in particular. OK... what do you think about the new Turtles projects being spearheaded by Leonardo? I think they’re a bunch of money-grubbing Hollywood garbage. [I wait for him to elaborate: he doesn’t.] And the rumors of Donatello’s possible new game? Don has his head so far up his shell he can see what he had for breakfast. Alright then. I suppose I should just ask what you would like to talk about. I don’t want to talk about anything. Excuse me? You asked me here because you wanted to ask about the guys. I don’t want to be here, but I feel like I have to, since Leo and Don are out there spinning so much garbage I figure I have to set things straight about Mikey and everything. OK then, let’s hear it. Leo and Don both have big egos. Once we got big, Leo wanted the money and Don wanted it all to
be some stupid artsy crap. Mikey was just about having fun though. In fact, for a long time at the end, Mikey was the only one having fun. I see. So what did you want? [Long pause.] You know… I never knew. I still don’t know. I guess I just tagged along with the guys. I mean, being famous was what every young guy wants, right? I had all the women and booze and drugs and whatever that I could ever want, so I figured it was the good life back then. So did Michaelangelo, I take it. Yeah… and eventually that got to him. Always having to be this high-energy guy, always needs to be “on”, the pressure just mounted, and eventually he couldn’t take it anymore. I saw the warning signs, but… I really didn’t care back then, so I let him live it up with the rest of us. Then the breakdown happened. Were you there when it happened? [He looks at the floor.] Yeah, I was. He really hasn’t been the same since. The doctors said it was a combination of drugs and stress, but whatever it was he wasn’t the same after that. Sometimes the old Mikey comes out, but he mostly keeps to himself now. I heard he was in rehab for a while. He was in and out. He’s had a few relapses over the years, but lately he’s been keeping clean. Fortunately he’s still got plenty of money from the last movie, so he’s mostly taking care of himself. I mean, compare what he is now to what he was… god, was that really thirteen years ago? I think so, yeah. Damn… time flies. Anyway, he’s doing OK now, but I don’t think public life suits him anymore. Do you still talk to him? I’m the *only* one that talks to him. Leo and Don always say nice shit about him to the media, but they don’t ever go fucking see him. I think the only time they’ve seen him in the past like ten years was that damn movie Leo talked us into doing. Why did you agree to do the movie? I needed the cash.
That’s it? What, you’re surprised I’m not bullshitting you? For Leo it’s always about the damn money, and in a way I think it is for Don too. I’m just honest about it is all. What about Michaelangelo? Why did he do it? Well, he wanted to have fun again. I don’t think there’s any more to it than that. It was the first time we had all been together in a long time,
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tmnt [Sighs.] Fine. I kind of like you, so I won’t kick your ass. Go ahead. [I think I gulped a little here.] Sooo… any desire to do any new games? Leonardo and Donatello seem to be pretty dead set on it. Like I said, Leo and Don both wrecked everything with their stupid fucking dickwaving contest, so I don’t want to get mixed up in that again. I’ve still got plenty of money from the last movie, so I’m doing fine. I’m not young and stupid anymore, so I didn’t go blow it all in Vegas like I used to. Any fond memories of the old games at all? Anything? Now that you mention it… what was the one where the two players could hurt each other? I think it was one of the older ones. I think that was Manhattan Project. Yeeaaah. That’s it. I always loved it when people would turn on the setting where we could hurt each other. It gave me an excuse to kick the shit out of Don and Leo. That was fun.
and for a while I was really worried about him doing it, but I think it was good for him. He drew off of it, and I saw more of the old Mikey than I have in a long, long time. Speaking of which, I did ask him you know.
Pardon? I asked him if he wanted to talk to you. I didn’t lie about that. I don’t fuck around when it comes to Mikey. Oh, yes. You told me he said no. And he did. A lot of people think I’m making shit up about Mikey, but I’m not. I’m just the only one who talks to the guy. One more question, and, forgive me, but I have to ask about the games you and the others did.
At this point, Raphael decided the interview was over and left. Without kicking my ass. As he said, Michaelangelo refused to talk to me. He has not given a single interview since a 1999 incident that has been described most often as a “breakdown” by his brothers. In a way, Michaelangelo is representative of TMNT themselves: rising to impossible heights and then losing it all as the 90s drew to a close. If there’s one thing I was able to take away from my time with the Turtles, it’s that the spark within the brothers that fueled their 90s drive has all but fizzled out. Despite recent interest in reviving the franchise, it appears that the old magic will never be recaptured. In one form or another time has passed the Turtles by, and perhaps that’s for the best. Text by Richard Naik Art by Blake Henriksen www.dolphinboy2000.deviantart.com
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rock | stars
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on’t call her punk. Try Dot Matrix Dominatrix. Try Pixel Provocateur, Artdyke or Mischief Maker. Anna Anthropy is a freelance scratchware game creator and critic and allpurpose pervert. She writes exclusively in the lower
Auntie Pixelante case, makes games ranging form the arcade throwback Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars to the intensely personal Dys4ia to the hilarious and biting satire Realistic Female FIrst-Person Shooter. She’s not punk, but she makes games in two hours with whatever she can get her hands on. She’s a champion not just for games as art, but for games as a way to give voice to the voiceless. She speaks her politics most loudly to those who least want to hear them, to rescue games from the culture
holding them hostage to an insular cabal of corporate blandness and privilege. Anna Anthropy learns from the past, but she doesn’t copy it, and that’s why she’s not punk; she’s whatever comes next. Andrew Vanden Bossche: Artistic and counterculture movements (like Punk) spring up in urban areas in times of political and social unrest, and you’ve
been directly involved with the Occupy Oakland movement (and created the game Keep Me Occupied in support of it). Can you tell me about your relationship to the city? anna anthropy: i love the city. i moved here a couple of years ago, so i’m definitely a transplant, but i immediately fell in love with the culture and the politics of the city. people here are very active. they’re taking care of their shit. it’s really inspiring to be around people who are mobilizing to protect themselves and get their communities the things they need. it definitely inspires a lot of my work. the energy of the city is really good. Within Oakland, do you have a community of fellow game developers, or has the Internet made these sorts of physical gatherings obsolete? no, there’s a lot of really rad people around here. the other day i just met david [kanaga] who wrote the music for proteus and has been living around here for a while. my friend sparky is sitting right next to me eating pizza, and he lives in berkley now but he used to live like two blocks away from me, so he used to just come over all the time and we’d make games together and it was really rad. there are hella creative game people in the bay area specifically, but particularly in the east bay, and we try to get together for game jams and things like that, because just being around all these other super creative people is incredibly inspiring and wonderful. What is it about Oakland’s politics that meshes so well with your approach to game development? oakland has this long history of political struggle. this is where the black panthers were founded, and it’s like... this city has roots, and they’re really strong. and seeing people recognize that they’re part of an ongoing history of struggle is really empowering and i try to make it transparent that the things that i am doing today, as an artist, are rooted in things that people have been exploring for a really long time. i always try and make my games be signposts to other, earlier
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anna | anthropy
On 28 January 2012 the Occupy Oakland movement attempted to find and occupy a vacant public or bank-owned building that wasn’t being used and transform it into a social community centre. As part of the Move-In march, an arcade cabinet -- the OAK-U-TRON 201X built by Alex Kerfoot and Mars Jokela and earmarked to become part of the new social space -- was paraded on the city streets. People were welcome to come and play Keep Me Occupied -- a game designed by Anna Anthropy specially for the occasion. games, as part of a sort of invisible history of game design, because the history we have is written by the winners. it’s a history of corporations, not a history of experiments that creative people did. i sort of connect that with the history of movements within the united states, and the fact that they are often invisible and overlooked or discounted by a capitalist empire forever marching on. but i think it’s important to always have a connection to that, to remember that creatively and politically we’re all connected to a larger history of struggle. So you’re calling on the past to be heard again in the present. yeah, so the thing is that there are so many games and designers that have solved problems that are still problems, because we never learned from those games. we haven’t really studied our past as game designers and game creators. we have this myth that the
that was a social space where you interact with other people, you play games with other people; even someone watching you play a game is a social experience. spectators are an important part of gameplay. and we’ve lost a lot of that, i think, as games have You’re very interested in creating social multiplayer games become home experiin a culture that overwhelmingly favors single player. Can ences, or play online you talk about why you find that interesting? games are social. games are social experiences. we, as human beings, with someone you never see. want to have social experiences; we want to play games with other i’m really interpeople. and this is something that board games understand really well (by necessity) because board games don’t get to have a comested in the ways that puter referee to keep track of all the rules. but i think that it’s really games can set up the unfortunate that we’ve allowed that to lead us into making games dynamics between exclusively for single people to play by themselves. back in the day people. i always come if you wanted to play video games you were going to an arcade and history of video games is a history of technology, and we’re really focused on the technology that’s been developed, and we don’t look at the history of design and that people have developed really intelligent things to solve problems again and again, and we forget about it. we don’t study that shit. if my game mighty jill off can point people toward bomb jack or if lesbian spider queens of mars can point people toward wizard of wor, they can kind of explore that and see that those games were exploring interesting conceptual space long ago. there are interesting things in those games that are worth learning and exploring for the creators of today.
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rock | stars back to board games because they’re really good at setting up complicated dynamics between people. you are ultimately on it to win as individuals, but you might have to be temporary allies with another player. when you want to break the alliance is an important thing. choosing when to make an alliance is an important thing. i feel that video games have just as much potential for that kind of really interesting layered dynamic, and i try to make games that have that, that are for human beings to play with other human beings, because i think that’s important. i think it’s important that they have this level of social interaction instead of being perpetually led more and more inward. i think that’s actually a really irresponsible thing on the part of many game designers. Do you think there are socio-political implications to encouraging an environment where people only play by themselves, that it might feed into some of the other problems with games? the problem that the culture of games is only interested in playing with itself? i think that it definitely does. games and the culture An avatar Anna surrounding them are so insular. when you’re Anthropy dedesigning 80-hour games to be played on controllers with twelve buttons to be played by signed of herself a single person, you’re perpetuating this cycle in the game Aniof games becoming more and more insular, mal Crossing. becoming more and more for young dudes who have been playing video games all their lives and have the disposable income and the together, and that’s more important than leisure time to buy and play through these 80-hour games. i think something polished or sterile that you can it’s worlds apart from a game that actually encourages you to maybe sell for $60. glorious trainwrecks has always meet a stranger and maybe strike up some kind of relationship with been about creation before anything else; it’s them. and games that are designed to be really simple and clear so about empowering people to do it for themthat people can approach them and play them instead of needing all selves. i think that’s both really important in this prior knowledge and prior vocabulary. i think these are a lot of the current climate of games culture. the things that these kind of games bring to the table that 80-hour this past week, someone who read my games don’t bring at all. book, who was sixteen years old, made a games are incredible at helping people connect. any fucking game in klick-and-play about how he was usgroup of kids can start playing a game of tag. ing a game creation tool that was older than he was and that was really fucking beautiful. Moving back to community, can you tell me a bit about i want to live in an age in which any fucking Glorious Trainwrecks? It seems to really represent the dokid can just pick up a computer and make a it-yourself movement you talk about. video game. that’s really amazing, and gloriglorious trainwrecks has always sort of positioned itself with that ous trainwrecks is a proponent of that kind crap-art philosophy. presentation and polish are not important; of world. creating a game is about the creative act of making something, and that is really important: that you can just make something and have Part of what I like about Glorious something that is your own and have the experience of putting it Trainwrecks is that the games that
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come out of it are very personal but they also don’t take themselves very seriously, which is in total opposition both to AAA games and the indie movement. Are the people in Glorious Trainwrecks reacting against that? i don’t think that it’s a reaction to that as much as it’s about making stuff and the excitement and enthusiasm of making things. it’s not about telling indie games to stick
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anna | anthropy it, or aaa games to fuck off. although there’s certainly room for that sort of thing and i like to do it a lot. but glorious trainwrecks is not a kneejerk reaction. it’s just about people making stuff and allowing people to make stuff. but by the fact of what it is, it is very different than the indie scene, which is very celebrity focused and very exclusionary. and it is the opposite of big publishers and aaa games which are made by a few people with budgets of millions of dollars. so just by virtue of being about as many people as possible making games it’s completely different than all these other things which are about a few people making games. It seems that there’s something political in the do-it-yourself movement inherently, that you get all these voices speaking that normally wouldn’t, and those voices wouldn’t be so much welcome in other communities. the culture of games is really insular and really monolithic. most games are written from the perspective of people who are straight cisgender white dudes who never have to deal with oppression. it’s hard as a queer person, as a woman, as a queer transgendered woman, i have a hard time connecting with anything that i see in that mass of privilege. i think that having other peoples’ voices, having marginalized perspectives, that contribute to games and contribute to culture, is incredibly important and transformative and exactly what i want to see more of, and that’s why i really like places like glorious trainwrecks, which are about anyone being able to make a game, about empowering anyone to make a game, because i want to hear those voices in games. So the Pirate Karts, which you organized as a way to enter these games into contests like the IGF and conventions like GDC, aren’t so much a way to “stick it to the man” as they are to say “hey, we exist”? yeah. it’s more about having a space, having a safe space, participating in this and feeling that we have room to participate in this, it’s not about sticking it to the man. but if the man happens to feel stuck as a result, that’s fine with me.
my favorite is realistic female first person shooter, which is based on a forum post on a men’s rights forum about the way we’re being forced to deal with portrayals of women characters in video games as competent and capable of performing tasks as well as men and how that’s utterly unrealistic. and he wrote this pargraph about what a realistic portrayal of a woman in a first person shooter would be like, and how the gun would be too heavy for her to carry around and she wouldn’t be able to figure out how to reload it, so she’d have to flirt with her commanding officer to get her to do it for her. i saw that, and i realized that it actually needed to be a video game. because a lot of my agenda in making these satirical games is to make a game that shows the absurdity of this argument by taking it to its logical end and to point out how ridiculous this is. that’s where the it’s not about sticking it to the man. but younger scrolls came out of, and the dan if the man happens to feel stuck as a savage game; it was result, that’s fine with me. all trying to point out how ridiculous these ideas were. i think nothing points out the absurdity of an idea like that other than actually doing it, and being faced with the thing you describe, and being forced to acknowledge how absurd and nonsense it is.
I won’t use you as a representative of Glorious Trainwrecks, but I know that you do stick to them with some regularity. Could you tell me about some of your short -- “satireware” I guess I’d call them -- little games like Realistic Female First Person Shooter, ones criticizing Dan Savage and copyright trolling.
The shortness really helps as well. It’s got this great potential to just be thrown out there and quickly absorbed. yeah, most of those games i did in like two hours or so. that’s a big deal, if i can make a stupid little game about an idea like that in two hours. if it took me six months to make a game, i might not spend six months of my life making a stupid game about dan savage. but if i can do it in a couple of hours really i have no reason not to. so yeah, another good thing coming out of glorious trainwrecks and all that really quick dirty do-it-yourself attitude to making games is that it’s easier to make satirical dumb political games because they don’t take up a lot of my time. they can be quick and dumb and stupid and just as effective. You’re never afraid to voice your opinion, and you’re always talking about your beliefs, particularily to the people who don’t necessarily want to hear them. What do you hope to accomplish by doing so? i think that when you’re talking from the margins you have to shout in order to be heard. one of the reasons that i make games that are about me, that are about my identity, about queerness, is because i want other people who are marginalized in games culture, people who are pushed away, to feel less uncomfortable, to know that
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rock | stars Kid Rad
there are other people out here doing this shit, who might come to think that video games aren’t as scary or unapproachable as i thought. but i’m also doing it to make the people who are holding games culture hostage to acknowledge that queerness exists, that trans people exist, that we are making games, and you can’t stop us. and you should probably expand your understanding of the world because you are going to have to accommodate us. on some level i’m speaking to people whose experience are like my own, but i’m also speaking to those who are very different from my own. Many modern games are trapped in a worst of both world scenario, in which they’re not only imitating the past without thinking about it, but they haven’t even understood what made those games good in the first place. i think it’s true that game designers sort of pick up on trends
in game design without understanding the purpose of them. i remember when gears of war came out and it had that cover system that whenever you were in cover you wouldn’t die, and your health would come back. and so many games after that picked that up without understanding why that worked in that game. so there are all these games in which your health regenerates after a while but they aren’t about finding shelter or moving from one point of cover to another. they’re just there because they’re cruft that’s been accumulated. a lot of what contemporary commercial video games are is the accumulation of that cruft. it’s all borrowed material that’s been completely divorced from its original context. we’re not looking carefully at our history, we’re just taking the shiny thing and running with it. it has just made video games more and more of a clusterfuck. and less and less like something that my mother could look at and understand and appreciate and start playing. it’s just really incestuous and it doesn’t have a lot of meaning to people who haven’t already been keeping track of video games and investing in video games for the past twenty years. It sounds there are political implications to that sort of repetition as well. in my new book, i do a comparison of the nintendo entertainment
system controller from 1985 to the xbox360 controller. and the difference is really striking because they’re the same sort of model; you hold it with two hands, and you have navigation on one side and buttons on the other. the xbox360 is the same idea, but instead of one compass rose you have a navigational stick, and then you have another stick on the right side, and instead of two buttons you have four buttons, and then you have two more buttons on the top, on either side! and then you can click the sticks in and those are additional “secret buttons”, and then there’s three more buttons in the middle. you can’t hand that controller to someone who doesn’t play video games regularly and expect them to know what to do with it. and it’s the result of building and building on the same ideas for years. it’s the same kind of controller, but it’s so layered because it’s the result of doing the same thing forever, and expecting your audience to keep up with it. just trying to ever more challenge this same audience with the same kind of games that makes no sense to anyone who is not already immersed in that culture. and that’s really damaging. my mother can’t play those games. a lot of people can’t. and that really sucks, because video games can be speaking to so many more people than they are. It seems like video games aren’t just silencing voices that want to speak with them, but they’re also silencing themselves. Will it require technological solutions (like touch screens, mobile devices) for video games to become more accessible? i think that if video games are ever going to
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anna | anthropy Dys4ia people who are making more games, the idea of what games could be will change, and we’ll start seeing games that look very different from the stuff we’ve been playing for the past twenty years.
be accessible, it’s going to be through more people making video games. it’s going to be from people who aren’t already entrenched in this culture making things not for the people who are already making video games, but for themselves and for people like them. it’s going to be outsiders -- just people making video games, and those games will make more sense to people who aren’t gamers. i think that those voices are going to change our expectations of what games are and who their audience is. i mean, i wrote a fucking book about that, and i think it’s going to be important. i’m looking forward to a future in which maybe i can play a game that my mother made. that’s an exciting idea for me. our expectations and ideas of what games can look like are so small right now. when i put dys4ia online, which is a game i made about hormone replacement therapy, so many people were like... ”ummmm, i like it, but it’s not really a game, it’s more like an interactive movie” and it’s a game in a lot of very traditional ways. you move around an avatar on a screen to perform tasks. it’s a very tradtional video game in a lot of ways. but people are blinded by their expectations in a lot of ways and don’t see it as a game. and because they don’t see it as a game they would never make something like that. our expectations about what a game should be are limiting us in a lot of ways, creatively. i think that, with more
Those limited expectations seem so ingrained. I’m in a creative writing program, and one of the things that I find is that even those in it who love video games would never think that games would be capable of the same sort of expression that they find in writing. actually one of the big reasons that i wrote the book is that people who have experiences like mine, people who have experiences that resonate with mine, often completely disregard video games because they are so hostile and inbred and most of the time they just look like dudes shooting dudes in the face. so one of my objectives was to convince those people, the people who i would like to see making games, that games are something they should care about, and games are a form with as much potential for expression as the ones that they are familiar with. i think it’s important for more people whose values are different to realize that there can be video games that express their values and identities. it doesn’t always have to be about dudes shooting dudes in the face. I know you don’t like labels, but do you think that the punk rock label is applicable to what you’re doing?
well, what i told rock, paper, shotgun when they asked me the same question was that there’s this danger in trying to fit the history of this one thing into the history of this other thing. i think it flattens what people are actually doing with the diy spirt of video games to tie it to punk music. i mean, i like punk music. i think there are often similar values between people getting together and making a stupid band and people getting together and making a stupid game. but i would refrain from actually playing the punk label, because once we’re in that mindset, it starts constraining our viewpoint and understanding of this thing. when all you’re looking for is these connections, all you’re going to see are these connections. to try and push that metaphor is to flatten what’s going on in all its beautiful diversity. Questions by Andrew Vanden Bossche Photos by Tomas Gunnarsson & Shaun Roberts Art by Anna Anthropy
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riot
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jet | set | radio | future
Y
A Beautiful Lie ou are hip, brash, and brazen. You tear through the streets of the city with a reckless disregard for legal authority and personal safety. In the world of Jet Set Radio Future, you are a member of a group of “rudies” -- street gangs that skate a stylized version of Tokyo, spray painting small tags and grand murals, all while avoiding or outright fighting the police and those in power. In this futuristic Tokyo, a corrupt and powerful business magnate, Rokkaku Gouji, has infiltrated the government and recruited a maniacal police chief and his overzealous enforcers to institute a repressive police state, bringing terror to the streets.Your gang become reluctant freedom fighters, braving the guns and tanks to take down the authorities and preserve creativity and personal freedom for all of Tokyo. There’s just one problem: this is all a lie. JSRF presents a funky aesthetic, “rebellious” in-game actions, and a freedom fighting narrative, all with a unified purpose: creating a hip-hop/ punk-rock, “stick it to the man” ethos. But in all of its core components this rebelliousness belies a design that is linear, controlled, and every bit as repressive as the Rokkaku Group itself. “OPEN” WORLD Take, for instance, the pseudo-open world environment the game presents. As you progress in the game, you are able to unlock more and more areas of Tokyo to skate around in, and by the end you have access to a fairly large chunk of real estate. You essentially have an entire living city and outlying areas at your disposal, and can skate anywhere and do anything at any time -- at least, that’s what the developers would like you to believe. In truth, you can do only what the level designers want you to do. With alarming consistency, your objective (a tag to cover, a finish line to
a race, an enemy to fight or a collectible to get) is accessible by one -and only one -- path. The mix of rail grinds, wall rides and trick jumps you use to get there may make you feel like a special snowflake, but be assured -- you have done exactly as you were expected to by the designers, and you never had any other choice. In case you were looking outside of the stated objectives for your freedom, you will again be disappointed. Sure, you can skate around aimlessly if you’d like, but despite presenting a city the size of a modern Grand Theft Auto, complete with shops, skyscrapers, and a bustling populace, you can’t interact with any of it in any meaningful way. Unlike GTA, you cannot enter buildings, talk to strangers, pick up objects or even remove your skates. You can do nothing, in short, except what the level designers allow and command you to do. GO HERE, PRESS ‘R’ TRIGGER, REPEAT Perhaps the most egregious examples of this faux freedom are contained in the core gameplay mechanics, chiefly tagging and combat. On the surface, it appears you are creating funky works of street art, under the noses of rival gangs, and in open defiance of the powersthat-be. Your tags and murals represent the creative spirit of the freedom fighter, that which cannot be stamped out by the robots -- both figurative and literal -- of the police force. But this creativity is as much an empty facade as the buildings you can’t enter. Because you do not decide the placement or content of your paintings -- you paint exactly what the developers tell you, when they tell you, and where they tell you. In the Dreamcast original, Jet Set Radio, you were given small directional prompts when it was time to paint, to create the illusion that you have something to do with the final product, but even that illusion was removed for this sequel. In JSRF, you simply grind along the linear path laid out for you and, when you reach the designated spray area, hit the ‘R’ trigger. The game then fills the designated space with the pre-determined tag, and you are sent on your way. The “combat” sections fare no better. At several points in the game, you are tasked with defeating a group of Rokkaku police. Their leader sends them in to put a halt to your subversive activities, through arrest or murder, and you must stop them -- ironically and poetically -- using tagging, the very crime they have been sent to put down. An underground rabble-rouser using his or her hip creativ-
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riot ity to put down a repressive regime might work as a gameplay hook if you could seek out or avoid the police as you saw fit, alternately sabotaging and running in a tense game of cat-and-mouse. But as it is, the developers decide when you will have You do not decide the placement or content of your a confrontation with the Rokkaku Group, sealing off a small confined area with electripaintings -- you paint exactly what the developers fied fences, and forcing you to do battle the tell you, when they tell you, and where they tell you. one way they allow: skating to the enemy and pressing the ‘R’ trigger until they tell you smooth and joyous flow of movement would have been lost. If you to stop. Once again the player is fed an illusion of being a freedom could actually paint whatever you want, wherever you want, the game fighter rebelling against authority while performing exactly as the might have turned into a creation tool or graffiti sim, rather than an developers demand. action game. And if you truly had full control over how and when you FREEDOM FIGHTERS? Nowhere is this freedom fighter ideology pushed quite as hard as in the game’s narrative. To hear DJ Professor K (the broadcaster of the eponymous underground pirate radio station who acts as the game’s narrator) tell it, the rudies are all that stand between the citizens of Tokyo and a dystopian dictatorship, and every tag you paint is a blow against the establishment. But the gameplay says otherwise. The story wants you to believe that the more you paint, the more you threaten, and the closer you come to destroying the evil Rokkaku Group, but something happens within the game itself that gives this lie up. Two-thirds through, when you have finally traversed every area and tagged over all the rival gangs’ paint, taking about 10 game hours to do so, nearly every one of your tags is covered over by anti-graffiti messages. Instantly. Your gang has spent the equivalent of several weeks, plastering every inch of the city with your underground messages, only to find it all gone overnight. The Rokkaku Group clearly had the power and resources to do this any time they wished, and if they had the ability to cover the entire city instantly, they could never have been threatened by a few stray pieces of street art. Indeed, the fact that you can skate throughout the entire city unmolested most of the time says that the police state you are supposedly destroying simply isn’t worried about you. It should also be said that this Robin Hood, “fighting for the people” idea is completely bogus. You are never fighting for the citizens of Tokyo, only for yourself. Throughout most of the game, you are covering the city, including people’s apartments and businesses, in paint, without any regard for how that might affect them. In the process, you are knocking over people, displays and kiosks. It’s difficult to justify the idea of helping the common man when you are running over homeless people and destroying street vendors’ livelihoods. Far from a saviour of the people and a threat to the establishment, the citizens are terrified by you, and the corrupt powers seem more amused by your activities than threatened. LIE TO ME But here’s the thing: yes, the entire free-spirited, rebellious character of the game is all a lie, but it is a beautiful lie. Jet Set Radio Future is an unquestionably brilliant game, and it is so precisely because it lies to you and suppresses your freedom at every turn. If the levels had been truly as open and unstructured as they appeared, the
would fight the police the game may well have turned into a stealth combat game -- Metal Gear Solid on skates. Instead, the developers made the game they needed to make, regardless of the apparent contradictions. In order to make it seem like your choices mattered, they took those choices away. In order to make you feel free, they stamped out your freedom. And it worked. The game does feel remarkably free, even though you know that to be untrue. George Orwell, in his seminal novel 1984, called this “doublethink” -- the act of holding two contradictory ideas in your mind simultaneously, and believing both wholeheartedly. Creating this belief in the minds of players proves that the developers are true masters of repression. Because any dictator or autocrat can suppress freedoms or put down rebellions, but the most brutal, skillful and complete form of repression is forcing your subject to actually believe the lie, to buy into your system. That concept was demonstrated most elegantly in 1984. In the novel, we are shown a nightmarish version of our own world, where all activities are monitored, all thoughts policed, and all freedom suppressed by “Big Brother” -- an all-seeing, benevolent representation of the government. The protagonist begins the work unaware of the breadth of the repression practiced by his government, and spends most of the novel learning of and trying to find ways to fight it. The closer he comes to understanding the system, the more dangerous he becomes to those in power, and eventually they are threatened enough by him that they lock him up. It is at this point that the regime shows its true mastery of the art of repression by turning him completely to their side. They subject him to extensive and brutal torture, until he becomes so brainwashed that not only does he cease his resistance to their lies, he actually believes them, and becomes once more an active part of the repressive system he had formerly fought, expressed neatly in the last four words of the book: “He loved Big Brother.” Similarly, in Jet Set Radio Future, the developers took away my freedom, took away all choice and individuality, and forced me to do only their will at all times. But I believed the lies; I bought into the propaganda, becoming a willing and grateful participant in my own deception. And any novel written about my experiences would most surely end thus: He loved this game. Text by Shawn Trautman Photos by Adam Bowie & Pedro Belleza Graffiti by Banksy
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jet | set | radio | future
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blowing | in | the | wind
Games Taught Me To Love Guitars
I
grew up telling teachers and other kids that I only listened to classical music. Some teachers would humor me, asking me which composers I preferred (Tchaikovsky, of course), while most would simply narrow their eyes and say “I see.” The other students used it as yet another reason to avoid talking to me. I was a weird kid. I’m not exactly sure how it happened. My mother is an operatically trained soprano, and it is true that she doesn’t seem to have much love in her heart for rock music. She had a tendency to shake her head and snort in disgust whenever popular music would come on the radio, but she never exactly told me that I wasn’t allowed to listen to rock music. She certainly never told me that rock music was Satanic. But as a talented and trained musician herself, I think she was skeptical of the musical ability of the average rock star. I don’t know what my dad was doing
during this time. He liked and likes rock music quite a bit. His record collection includes quite a bit of Moody Blues, some Bachmann-Turner Overdrive, and probably lots of other things. I don’t know what all is in there, he rarely played any of it. It may be that it was just easier not to play or talk about rock music in my mother’s presence. Regardless, I grew up thinking that rock music was somehow beneath me, and I wouldn’t realize how ridiculous I was being until I got into video games. It was Final Fantasy VII that first taught me, indirectly, to quit sneering at electric guitars. Nobuo Uematsu’s score is possibly the best
part of Final Fantasy VII, and I will always maintain that it is one of the greatest video game soundtracks ever written. The soaring Highwind theme, the moody basslines of Midgar, the silly jazz riffs in Cait Sith’s theme, the stately march of Cid’s theme, the bombastic One-Winged Angel to the tear-inducing strings of Aeris’s theme -- Uematsu’s score is a testament to the power of the leitmotif, and showcases a truly eclectic and talented composer. One track is variously translated as Still More Fighting or Those Who Fight Further. It’s the theme that plays whenever Cloud and company are fighting a boss, and it’s characterized by a lousy MIDI rendition of an electric guitar and a rock organ. It’s catchy and driving and effective, and by the end of the game, just hearing those first few bars gets your blood flowing for a difficult fight. But while I do remember enjoying the track while playing the game (and feeling vaguely dirty about it), it wasn’t until I started poking around outside the game that I really began to understand. Uematsu received such adulation for his Final Fantasy scores that he formed a band, The Black Mages, which performed instrumental metal renditions of most of Final Fantasy’s best battle music. While looking for Final Fantasy sheet music on the Internet, I happened to stumble on the Black Mages website. On the front page was a load of text (all in Japanese, of which I can’t read a word) and two embedded .mp3 players, one of which contained the English tag Those Who Fight Further. Curious, I clicked play. The transition from crummy MIDI synthesizers to real electric guitars was nothing short of epiphanic. I sat perfectly still and listened to the whole thing, and when the music stopped, I no longer
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pretended to hate the electric guitar. In retrospect, while it’s a pretty good song, it’s far from the greatest thing to happen to rock music. It’s actually a little bit embarrassing that my moment of revelation wasn’t caused by a better song. But because I knew the song in question, it got through my defenses and forced me to sit down and listen to it without dismissing it as somehow beneath me. It proved to me that the electric guitar can do wonderful things, that that tingly sensation in the back of the neck when you hear bass and guitar and drums all working together is a Good Thing. Post-Black Mages, I went through high school tentatively try-
ing out rock music, but way too embarrassed to talk to my parents about it. I listened to rock music the way other teenagers engaged in sex: awkwardly, secretly, and very, very badly. Still operating under the nebulous assumption that mainstream rock music was somehow bad or beneath me, I started listening to the Christian rock bands my friends listened to. At one point, I furtively purchased a Relient K CD which I would only listen to in my room, away from my parents’ ears. When my parents eventually discovered I had purchased it, of course, exactly nothing happened. They shrugged and asked to listen to it, at which point my dad decided he thought some of the lyrics were funny. Once I realized I would not be disowned for listening to rock music, I purchased a few more CDs. A little Switchfoot, a little FM Static, a few other things I don’t remember. Let me make it clear that none of these bands are really any good, but to someone as inexperienced with rock and roll as I, they were wonderful, and all the sweeter for their supposed forbiddenness. So all through high school, I wallowed in the ghettoes of Christian Rock, thinking I had discovered all there was to rock. But then came Guitar Hero, and the walls came a-tumblin’ down. When I started college, Guitar Hero was new. There were no sequels, no Rock Bands, no weird knock-offs. There was only Guitar Hero, and my roommate had a copy. Our primary friend-making strategy freshman year was to play Guitar Hero with the door open. I picked up the plastic guitar reluctantly, at first, but as it happens, years of playing the cello and the piano, coupled with a generally competitive spirit, made me very good at it very quickly. That was enough to keep me playing Guitar Hero for quite a while. I was pretty lousy at most competitive videogames (Halo 2 was primarily an opportunity for me to embarrass myself, and I still have nightmares about Soul Calibur III from time to time), so I seized my chance and played whenever I found time, alone or with friends.
Thus, and finally, I came into contact with real rock songs. Serviceable covers of Cream, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult, The Edgar Winter Group and the Red Hot Chili Peppers worked their way into my daily routine. After finding myself humming bits and snatches of Sharp-Dressed Man and Smoke on the Water, I decided, naturally enough, that I wanted to hear what the originals sounded like. Thus did I spend an entire evening on Ruckus downloading every single song from Guitar Hero (except the White Zombie song, because, well, White Zombie), and then the albums wherein the songs originated. Then, I downloaded other highly-starred songs from the same artists, and then songs from other artists people described as “similar,” and so on and so on down the rabbit hole until it was five in the morning and I had to go to class in three hours. Once I started listening to these songs, my childish aversion to rock was over. It was replaced with a deep and abiding love for Jimi Hendrix and Cream and Rush and Brian Kahanek and Muse and Jefferson Aeroplane. I went straight out and bought an electric guitar (which I proceeded to neglect, but that’s another story), and I spent many a late night listening to originals and covers and collaborations on YouTube, reading about David Bowie or Bruce Dickinson on Wikipedia, and listening to All Along the Watchtower on loop. I am a convert, now. Though I will never stop loving classical music, or jazz, the electric guitar has become a fundamental part of my listening habits, and it’s all because I played video games. It’s a testament to the power of both video games and rock, a testament to the ability games have to change a player’s life. By making me listen to music I wouldn’t otherwise have given the time of day, games like Final Fantasy VII and Guitar Hero opened me up to whole new modes of expression, brilliant musicians and a great deal of fun. Video games taught me to love rock music and, for that, I am eternally grateful. Text by Bill Coberly Photo by Jaymie Koroluk
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the | morbid | gamer
I
Uncharted f game design can be read as the developer’s intent, then the people who make video games must imagine that the people who play them are a somewhat jaded and cynical lot, happy to blast through hordes of enemies with only the slightest justification offered. When the slaughter itself is the whole point of the game, then the story surrounding it can come across as little more than a pretext, a flimsy figleaf allowing players to imagine that they’re accomplishing some positive goal by making all those heads explode. While it’s all well and good to look at videogames as wholly harmless experiences, power fantasies in which desperate odds are overcome by stalwart heroes, I think it’s worth considering the simulated human cost of those victories, as well as the kinds of fantasies we’re choosing to indulge in. To that end, I’ve begun keeping records of the number of human (or otherwise sentient/ nonsynthetically intelligent) people who must be killed by the player in order to complete various games. I will use those numbers, along with an analysis of the game’s context and tone, and the plot’s stakes to determine whether or not playing the game is a moral experience, and whether the player should feel bad about themselves for taking part in it. First up -- the Uncharted franchise. For those unfamiliar, the Uncharted games (developed by Naughty Dog for the PS3) tell the story of Nathan Drake, who is like Indiana Jones, if one subtracts the patriotism and love of ancient cultures and replaces them with an almost pathological level of greed. He first appeared in--
Photo by Charmaine Morgan; Cosplay by Rowan Wills
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daniel | weissenberger
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune When Nathan Drake goes searching for his (supposed) ancestor Francis Drake’s final resting place, he finds clues leading to the deadly secret of El Dorado!
Total Body Count: 604 Which breaks down as: - 11 pirates - 516 fortune hunters/mercenaries - 77 mutants.
In what context is all this killing taking place?
W
hen the hero and the villain have the exact same motivation, it can be a little difficult to assign good and bad to their respective roles. Recognizing this, the developers attempt to paint Drake as sympathetic in comparison to Roman by making the latter more vicious and putting him in charge of a large force of henchmen, leaning on the natural inclination of players to side with the underdog. While Roman may shoot an unarmed man at one point in the game, he doesn’t successfully kill anyone, and that’s hardly any worse than Drake’s habit of sneaking up behind people and breaking their necks while they rest. Perhaps realizing the shaky moral ground their main character is on, the developers attempt to up the ante right at the end of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. At the climax of the game it’s revealed that El Dorado is not a giant golden statue at all, but rather the resting place of a nasty rageinducing virus, one that, along with hundreds of years of inbreeding, reduced the island’s population to bloodthirsty near-animals. It seems that Roman’s henchman knew about this virus all along (somehow?) and plan to sell it as a biological weapon. This is an obviously evil move, and stopping it definitely makes Drake look good -- but only for the final twenty people he kills. When you’ve killed five hundred people arguing over who gets a big pile of gold, those actions are not washed away because at the last moment the gold turned out to be poison, and you dropped it in the ocean, rather than sell it to the villains. Making this problem even worse is the fact that the virus is never properly established as a threat.Yes, it killed a colony of Spaniards five hundred years earlier, but so did influenza.
Frankly we’re never shown anything to suggest that this is a problem which couldn’t be solved by a stiff drink of tonic water and some antibiotics.
Any extenuating circumstances?
T
he only absolutely clean kills in the game are the eleven pirates who attack during the tutorial, moving in to kill without provocation, and implicitly threatening the rape of Drake’s sidekick. The player is absolutely justified in using deadly force to repel them. The pirates encountered later in the game are counted among the mercenaries, since they’re all under the employ of the main villain. Things get a little less cut-and-dried with the host of mercenaries who make up the vast majority of the game’s foes. On the most basic level killing them is a morally neutral act -- as mercenaries, these are men who have elected to embark on a career in which human life is measured only as a dollar value. Without principles or values, mercenaries fight, kill, and die only for personal profit, so in order to judge whether their deaths are a moral or immoral act one has to consider the motives of their employer. In this case, they work for Roman, who is, like Drake, a fortune hunter desperate to find treasure to which he has no legal or moral claim, solely for the purpose of personal enrichment. The mutants, on the other hand, aren’t difficult to judge at all. Killing them is absolutely unacceptable. The descendants of the island’s original inhabitants, while the mutants certainly seem animalistic, they retain clearly sentient abilities such as complex planning, knot-tying, and trap construction. While no longer entirely human, they’re clearly intelligent, and their violence is motivated solely by a drive towards self-preservation. Yes, Drake only kills them because they attack him, but Drake is the one trespassing on their territory without good cause. Besides, these mutants are the descendants of a group that -- some 60 years earlier -- killed a host of Nazis, preventing them from setting up a submarine base. A far sight more heroic than anything the player is asked to do in the game.
So... should I feel bad about playing it?
N
ot especially. While Drake is by no means a good person, the fact that he’s killing people as bad or slightly worse than he is makes him a mostly acceptable main character. With the exception, of course, of the time he massacres the spooky natives of an island, which paints him as kind of a coldly brutal imperialist profiteer, like the ‘heroes’ of a King Kong movie.
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eat | play | love
W
Earthbound
elcome to Eat Play Love, my new regular column! This column is all about the crossover between games and food. My goal is to eat my way through the most culinary games, beloved classics and newer titles alike. I also hope to explore real-world trends where games and food collide. In honor of this month’s topic, I’d like to explore the food of a rockin’ game: cult classic RPG Earthbound. Earthbound, called Mother 2 in Japan, is a rare game in the USA. This game is typically only known to American players as “the game with Ness in it” since the psychic kid with the cool cap is famous from his appearance in Super Smash Brothers. But the original game is well worth checking out: Earthbound’s quirky story and systems have made it a favorite among the fortunate few that have played it. But enough about the game. How about the food? To recover health, Ness and friends must eat. Food items are plentiful throughout the game. Food can be a drop from an enemy, bought at the game’s many markets and stores, or, well… found in the trash on the city streets. Sometimes food also serves as quest items, like the Signed Banana Peel or the Trout Yogurt. Appetizing, right? Each food item restores a set range of hit points to a character that eats it (except for one party member, Poo, who being a monk prefers to subsist on psychic powers and plain water). The RPG could have stopped there, but takes food one step further with its condiment system. Buy a cheap condiment from a store (say, a Carton of Cream or a Sprig of Parsley) and it might improve the restorative power of the food it is combined with. The effects depend on whether the item in question would taste good with the
condiment. This can be a brain-teaser to a young mind. While it’s obvious that a Bag of Fries would be improved by a Ketchup Packet, what food on this list could use more Salt? You mean the Cream doesn’t go with the Coffee? Maybe Ness just doesn’t like coffee. Earthbound tells a story about leaving home, and growing up. The food in the game follows the same pattern as the adventure. Ness’s travels take him first from his home in small-town Onett, to neighboring towns and the big city of Fourside. From there, he ranges to more exotic locations, like the resort town of Summers, and the deserts of Scaraba. As Ness and his friends travel, their food options change. Early starting areas offer familiar kidfriendly fast-food: Burgers, fries, sandwiches and cookies. Later areas only offer exotic local delicacies. The people of the Scaraba desert survive on lamb liver Kabobs, Bean Croquette, and Molokheiya Soup (likely, a strange spelling of a real Egyptian soup dish more often called Molokhia). What’s a kid to do? Develop deeper tastes and try new foods? Or use a psychic teleport to return home for his favorite meal, straight from Mom? If neither option is convenient, Ness can always order a pizza. Mach Pizza can be called on the road and will deliver just about anywhere -- even in the depths of some of the game’s dungeons. It’s a little slice of home, even in the farthest reaches of the Deep Darkness. Food has the power to help us remember where we are, and where we’ve been. Sometimes, comfortable favorites can be a wonderful thing. But if you do ever end up travelling the world like Ness, try the local food too. In real life, and in Earthbound, it’s a big part of the adventure.
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Photo by Peter Deltondo
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amanda | lange
For more Earthbound-inspired cuisine, you can also visit my blog www.secondtruth.com, where I’ve created a version of the famous Summers Magic Cake.
PASTA DI SUMMERS
H
ere is a dinner dish inspired by the resort town of Summers. Local dishes here include a popular soup made from the fin of the Kraken. Kraken is a little hard to come by in my home town, so I chose to recreate another local specialty, the Pasta Di Summers. It was said to be a favorite dish of King Summers the Third back in the 16th century, at least if local tour guides are to be believed. This version can be cooked as a vegetarian meal, or with a little shrimp or your favorite seafood added for that seaside appeal.
INGREDIENTS 8 oz packaged linguine 6 cloves garlic 1 small cooking onion 1 ½ tbsp olive oil 1 zucchini, cut into thin medallions 1 yellow summer squash, cut into thin medallions 1 ½ cups heavy cream ¾ cup grated parmesan cheese Dash of black pepper/salt to taste ½ pound small shrimp, peeled (optional)
DIRECTIONS Cook linguine pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside, reserving a small amount of pasta water. Mince up the onion and garlic very fine, and put in a sauté pan with tablespoon of olive oil. Cook at medium heat until fragrant and translucent. Add zucchini and summer squash.You may want to add a splash more oil here. Cook the vegetables until they are just wilted, and slightly translucent. Add heavy cream to the pan. Cook on medium to medium-low until cream and oil thicken and form a sauce. A pinch of flour can help with the thickening process. (Optional) Cook shrimp in olive oil in a small pan, until just done, but not rubbery. Add to vegetables and sauce. Add the thickened sauce to the reserved pasta. Add parmesan cheese, and stir. Use a small amount of pasta water if the sauce needs help coating the pasta. Serve, preferably alongside a glass of Royal Iced Tea. Makes 3 medium servings, or 2 resort-sized servings. Earthbound also recommends the addition of Hot Sauce to this dish for a little extra kick. I made my iced tea a bit more “royal” with the addition of some Peach Tea Vodka.
I was inspired for this column by some fantastic games & food writers around the internet. Here are two different takes on probably the most famous of Earthbound food, Mr. Saturn’s Peanut Cheese Bar, by Snack or Die and Gourmet Gaming. Scan the barcodes or click on them to see the recipes.
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fan | fiction
Photos by acoustic--screamo
Strings
M
by Vanya Damyanova
usic makes me what I am. It gives meaning to my existence, which many would see as empty and pointless. I am female squatter #16*324, location Crash Zone III, the New Continent. I own two dogs and a guitar. My daily routine is breakfast at dawn, take the dogs and go outside, play guitar on the streets until dusk and then go home, have some dinner, play and drink until I fall asleep. The dogs are always with me. Dog #1 is white and Dog #2 is black. I like them because they are straight up, no lies, no brown spots. They don’t expect me to feed them and I don’t expect them to run away. I think the guitar is the glue that keeps us together. When I play they listen and they listen because I play the truth. Let me start from the beginning. When the Big Crash happened, I was just a kid. Then, I had a name, which I don’t want to remember now because it has no meaning. I had a dress, it was blue with pink flowers. I remember watching my mother’s blood flow in streams between those pink flowers. It did not stop even though I was screaming at it. That’s when I learned that blood does not stop flowing out of somebody when you scream and plead. It cannot hear you. Same with stones that fall from the sky. They just fall and kill, even if you don’t want them to. What happened? What was the big crash? Well, nobody knows. Sky just fell apart or something and killed most of the people and the ones left were far away from each other for a long time. I don’t know and frankly don’t care much how the others made it out alive. At our little house -- just a living room, a bath and a kitchen -- my mum died in my arms. A big rock fell on the roof, smashed everything except me. My mum was under the rubble, she looked at me but did not speak. I was the one who was doing all the screaming. After a while I realised there was no point, so I stopped. I was alone. Walking down the street among the fallen-down houses and look-
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ing at the darkening sky above I remember thinking, “I don’t have to go to school now”. My mum was preparing me for next year when I was supposed to be a first-grader, she was showing me how to cross the street safely and telling me to call her anytime if I needed something. She was worried that I would be home alone until she gets back from work. I was home alone often so I did not understand what going to school would change, but anyway. Bloody, hungry and thirsty like a shipwreck survivor at sea I was roaming around not really sure when to stop and what to do. I was unable to grasp the magnitude of what had happened. I did not, ever. From that day on I just went straight ahead and did not look back, did not stop for nothing and nobody. Except this one time... It is black. Everything is black. Why can’t I see anything? My head hurts. What the heck is happening? My eyes are dead but my ears are working overtime. The sound is excruciating. Some kind of crash, something is crashing and I mean big time! It smells like whisky, somewhere there’s a dog barking wildly, its yells barely audible within the
whole crashing bonanza. My body feels numb, I am lying on my back. The ground floor feels warm and wet. The thought that I am probably bleeding out shoots through my mind, but I skip it. To hell with this, if I am dying I don’t wanna wine about it on top of everything. The world goes dark for a moment or maybe more I cannot tell. I am awake again. Feel better. Open my eyes and yes I can see the world but I kind of don’t want to now. What the heck? Everything is gone -- collapsed houses, my neighbours pool is now a sludge pit. I get up slowly, everything seems to be in working order. I look around and see the dog. It is black and it looks at me expectantly. “The whole world has gone to heck and you want something to eat, dontcha?” It stares at me. “Alright, pal. Let’s go, come on.” I met him on a street to nowhere and he did not know what to do with me. I was a little girl and he was an old man. There was nothing we could talk about. I was crying a lot and was always hungry. I do not know how he was coping with it, but I reckon it was hard on him for a while. We almost did not talk, just walking towards the sunset and hoping to find other people, a future,
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fan | fiction hope... One night, I think he had almost given up one me, we saw the camp -- fire, people for the first time in ages. Their laughter was like music and their music was like heaven. They had guitars and that was what changed everything -- a guitar in his hand. He was strong, but somehow disappointed with life. I did not understand him, I just got his strength and warmth. I went with him, not because he did not scare me off at first, but because I felt protected when I was close to him. He was the first man I really knew. My father, whoever he was I did not remember. He used to stand close, but never too close, never actually hugging me, but thinking of protecting me. I could feel that. Even though we both were kind of scared of each other. This fear, the doubt in each other, that disappeared with the song. It was not a baby song like he said. It was a rock song. The guitar was a heavy duty instrument in his hands, sounded more like metal brushing up against stone than anything else. But it was heaven, because it told his story. Apparently, he was famous before the Crash.
Meeting the other folks was wonderful. The girl loved it and my dog loved it as well. I think I saw her smiling for the first time. I remember feeling relief. Almost all the time I was afraid she was gonna die on me. The dog actually got to meet some friends there, as the folks were travelling in a sort of caravan with dogs, cattle and everythin’. But the best thing was the guitars and the music. When I saw them I remembered how it used to be, you know. The concerts. Playing and screaming at the people below. I had given all that up. Drugs had taken me for a while and from there it was an easy way down to the bottom. I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t drink. For a while there, it felt like everythin’ was over for me. Until the Crash. None of us ever really understood what happened, but it was the thing that made me see clearly, maybe for the first time in my life. And now the world was crumbling around us, but I heard the guitar and I knew I was saved and so was she. The hard thing to admit here is that all my life I thought I needed the fame and the shiny things, but when those things were gone I did not miss them at all. What I missed was the sound and the
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feel of a guitar in my hands. It was the only thing I was ever good at -- playing what I felt. She got it when she learned to play herself. She had it in ‘er. It was as if a light radiated from her and reached me. I was proud. Playing was hard because I was not used to learning stuff and he was not used to teaching. But that’s how good things start, no? With the hard stuff? What do you learn when you play? To take control, to know the rhythm.You learn to follow steps and then repeat and then repeat again and then again and again... When you have repeated the “easy” bits so many times you are actually doing everything without thinking, you can start learning what’s “normal” for musicians. The normal bits contain a greater number of steps to go through, and when you master them you become a part of the tribe. It was all hard at the start, but the real sort of hard comes later. When you feel like you know everythin’ and had tried everythin’ and suddenly there is a challenge. It could be a duel. He challenged me one day to show what I’ve learned. Pitted me against some other kid who
wanted to show off his skills. I felt angry at him, I hated him for doubting me. But I was arrogant. I knew I had the practice and I believed in my skills. I stood boldly in front of everyone at the square of our little settlement. (We had settled down after several years of roaming and scavenging across what was left of our land.) Everyone went silent and we started playing. I noticed the boy was not following the rules, he skipped some notes and was changing the melody. However, it was good, it was very good and then it was amazing. He was not just quick, he was clever. When the final note was played, people started cheering and yelling his name. I felt beaten down. I had my scheme, my plan, my excellent delivery, my clear execution -- no missed notes, no mistakes. But it was just dull.You had heard it played this way so many times. He was brilliant because he was creative. It was amazing how he managed to do it, all the while moving through the well-known maze that no-one could really change. He was using the matrix to create something new, because he was thinking beyond “normal”, beyond “hard” even. He was thinking beyond playing. I ran to my fallen rock star of a teacher and yelled in his face, “Why didn’t you teach me how to do that?”
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fan | fiction “This thing cannot be taught”, he said. Darn! So what was I going to do. I needed to be good, because I was depending on it. I was playing for food. This was what I’ve chosen to do. I could tell she was scared. Her confidence in her own abilities has disappeared in one stroke. She looked at the guitar with doubt and confusion as if it had betrayed her. I knew that feeling of failure and defeat. It happens to everyone when they start out. There’s no way around it. Everyone, even the best ones have to face this moment. When you are a newbie you mostly take hits until you learn how to block. I have never known anyone who played good and had no heartbreaking story to tell about their first time on a big stage or their first time facing someone who was better then them. It hurts but you gotta realise everything in life could hurt sometimes. That doesn’t matter if you know your own self and know you have potential. She had potential, she had the music in her, I knew that, I believed it. But I was in no hurry
to share that information. There was nobody comforting me after my first defeat, why should I comfort her. She has to feel it all and learn to deal with it. I had to overcome it myself and find a reason to continue. I wanted to teach her about life, I was not running a popularity contest. But she took it really serious and did the most stupid thing she could do. She threw the guitar in a corner and stopped playing. For a while I did not say anything. Waited. She pretended that everything was OK and she did not miss it. I was angry at her for being such a baby, but I knew the right thing was to wait. One day she came to me and sat down. She had cried. Although her face was still wet from the tears, she had a stern look in her eyes. She said, “Teach me how to kick his ass!” “You know it ain’t about him, darlin’?” I asked smiling and stroked her hair. “It’s about you.” “I want to know how to kick his ass and the ass of all other smug bastards that I might encounter from now on.” Her fear has become sadness and then had turned to anger. But anger was good for motivation. “I’ll show you some tricks, but the most important thing... And I want you to remember that. The most important thing is to train and follow your instincts. Technical skill is not all there is, you gotta think and feel what you are doing.”
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He was a good teacher and the best substitute of a father I could have wished for. I loved him, but in that period when he was “perfecting my skills”, I really could not stand him. He was pushing me to train all the time, if I made even the smallest of mistakes he criticised and ridiculed me. There was a point I was feeling like I was making no progress. I knew all steps so well I could go through them in my sleep. “Forget dreaming about it.You have to do it without thinking,” he told me. I didn’t understand at first, but then it became clear. One night I was out playing. People were walking in the streets. I was standing in the small illuminated circle that was designated for street musicians, it was a blueish light coming from the ground. The prostitutes circles were green and I dreaded them. Suddenly, I saw my challenger. I instantly felt the need to hide, but there was nowhere to go. By the time I’ve finished the song he had noticed me and come closer. He was smiling. “Do you want to try again?” he asked. I froze for a moment, but then just nodded. We went back to the small square and played against each other. I knew it was important to win, I was nervous and scared and angry at the same time. At first it was rough. I couldn’t follow him at all. I was weak to the point I wanted to just quit. Then he said to me, “I think soon you have to choose a green circle to sit in and beg, because you sure as hell cannot play.” But I could play, I knew that. Why wasn’t I able to show him? And then it hit me. I followed what he was doing, trying to top it, beat it, but this was not who I was. I did not play like that. My music was different. I was afraid that he is so much better than I and I had respect for his skill and I thought his was the right way. But who says there’s only one right way? I started playing my songs, my music, and everything changed. His melody, swift and light, met mine, rough and sharp. I was playing not to show people that I could do better, but to show them that I had found a way to play and win, knowing my own skills and using them right. It was different, but it was mine and I believed in it. Life is rough but it makes sense. I am not a girl anymore. I am older and maybe wiser, I don’t know. But I am stronger for sure. I don’t know for other people, because I am not really a people person, but I have found my peace with the Crash. Whatever it was, it took my mother away, but gave me a chance to prove I can survive. Being yourself is the only important thing in life, because nobody else is living it but you.
THE END
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Cosplay by Lenalee-chwan
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