In review
Warm Up With GOne HOme (Valentine's Day Issue)
By Marty Forbeck
Gone Home is a romance game about exploring a house. Alone. The only information you get going in to the experience is that it’s been a year since you left home to study overseas.
It’s 1995, and you’re just off the plane heading back. Your family should be at home to greet you, but instead there’s no one. There’s no immediate evidence as to your parents’ whereabouts, and your sister has left a note on the door asking you to not coming looking for her.
That’s not a typically romance set up, but this isn’t a typically romance.
It’s a 90s one. All grunge and heart and strangeness.
Instead of telling you a story the game leaves you a story to find. Gameplay consists entirely of from room to room in your family’s massive house, and reading every discarded journal, notebook, and discarded piece of tissues paper to piece together where your family is, and why.
Your sister’s story is the central one, and the romantic one, but all your family members get a fully fleshed out story.
No one is neglected here. Even your dead grandpa has complex emotions.
The full game only takes about 2-3 hours to complete, depending on your thoroughness, and it’s available on PC, Mac, Xbox One, and PS4 for $20. That’s admittedly a stiff price for a 3 hour experience, but the game earns it. If you’re looking to cozy up, either with someone or by yourself on a cold February 14 night, and just feel uncertain, but optimistic for the future, there is not many a better experience $20 could buy.
It’s 1995, and you’re just off the plane heading back. Your family should be at home to greet you, but instead there’s no one. There’s no immediate evidence as to your parents’ whereabouts, and your sister has left a note on the door asking you to not coming looking for her.
That’s not a typically romance set up, but this isn’t a typically romance.
It’s a 90s one. All grunge and heart and strangeness.
Instead of telling you a story the game leaves you a story to find. Gameplay consists entirely of from room to room in your family’s massive house, and reading every discarded journal, notebook, and discarded piece of tissues paper to piece together where your family is, and why.
Your sister’s story is the central one, and the romantic one, but all your family members get a fully fleshed out story.
No one is neglected here. Even your dead grandpa has complex emotions.
The full game only takes about 2-3 hours to complete, depending on your thoroughness, and it’s available on PC, Mac, Xbox One, and PS4 for $20. That’s admittedly a stiff price for a 3 hour experience, but the game earns it. If you’re looking to cozy up, either with someone or by yourself on a cold February 14 night, and just feel uncertain, but optimistic for the future, there is not many a better experience $20 could buy.
Hamilton: Off-Broadway, ON-Quality
By Marty and Kenneth Forbeck
It turns out that it is actually possible to get tickets to Hamilton. That is, it’s possible if you order them when they open a new venue, the very second they’re available, and are willing to take balcony seats for a Wednesday matinée.
The musical tells the story of the life of Alexander Hamilton, the founding father who was the first Secretary of the Treasurer, author of most of the Federalist Papers, the architect of our nation’s financial system, and the face on the $10 bill. All told through fierce rap music.
It’s pretty hard for anyone to make any sort of critical argument against a Grammy, a Pulitzer Prize, and 11 Tonys. Frankly, we’re not inclined to try. The show’s about as close to objectively good as any piece of media can be.
But, at the very least, it was interesting to see just how and why Hamilton won all of its non-music-related Tonys.
The set design and choreography live up to the narrative’s quality.
Every theatrical element has been clearly and meticulously designed to fit with every other element. When Hamilton is on a campus, there’s people in the background reading. When Hamilton sends a letter, a team of background dancers get it passed around the entire stage’s perimeter in a second.
When the music drops a beat, the lights start making throbbing, rhythmic patterns all over the stage, as if a rave had suddenly broken out.
Somehow, through all that, they still managed to balance those upbeat moments of flashy lights and heavy audience applause with tragic, silent moments, without the tone ever feeling set against itself.
Even though a lot of the musical’s original player’s have since left the company, the current cast retains all the fun, energy, and poignancy present in the old recordings. None of them are afraid of experimenting, of letting a dramatic line land in a different, but appropriate way, or even just accentuating a joke.
As a final note, of the new cast, Wayne Brady deserves a special mention. He just started playing the role of Aaron Burr a few days before the performance we caught, and he’s already managed to pick up all the complexities and gravitas of Leslie Odom Jr.’s original Broadway performance without missing a beat.That is, right up until, a couple days after we saw him, he injured his calf and, embarrassingly, had to be pulled of the show mid-performance due to horrific levels of pain. But he was back at it within hours, and hopefully the new cast and crew will be able to continue their work without any further hiccups.
They’ve certainly got a full house for every performance in the foreseeable future.
The musical tells the story of the life of Alexander Hamilton, the founding father who was the first Secretary of the Treasurer, author of most of the Federalist Papers, the architect of our nation’s financial system, and the face on the $10 bill. All told through fierce rap music.
It’s pretty hard for anyone to make any sort of critical argument against a Grammy, a Pulitzer Prize, and 11 Tonys. Frankly, we’re not inclined to try. The show’s about as close to objectively good as any piece of media can be.
But, at the very least, it was interesting to see just how and why Hamilton won all of its non-music-related Tonys.
The set design and choreography live up to the narrative’s quality.
Every theatrical element has been clearly and meticulously designed to fit with every other element. When Hamilton is on a campus, there’s people in the background reading. When Hamilton sends a letter, a team of background dancers get it passed around the entire stage’s perimeter in a second.
When the music drops a beat, the lights start making throbbing, rhythmic patterns all over the stage, as if a rave had suddenly broken out.
Somehow, through all that, they still managed to balance those upbeat moments of flashy lights and heavy audience applause with tragic, silent moments, without the tone ever feeling set against itself.
Even though a lot of the musical’s original player’s have since left the company, the current cast retains all the fun, energy, and poignancy present in the old recordings. None of them are afraid of experimenting, of letting a dramatic line land in a different, but appropriate way, or even just accentuating a joke.
As a final note, of the new cast, Wayne Brady deserves a special mention. He just started playing the role of Aaron Burr a few days before the performance we caught, and he’s already managed to pick up all the complexities and gravitas of Leslie Odom Jr.’s original Broadway performance without missing a beat.That is, right up until, a couple days after we saw him, he injured his calf and, embarrassingly, had to be pulled of the show mid-performance due to horrific levels of pain. But he was back at it within hours, and hopefully the new cast and crew will be able to continue their work without any further hiccups.
They’ve certainly got a full house for every performance in the foreseeable future.
Marked: a new take on vampires
By Dee Maden
This month’s book is not only a different genre, it was written within the last ten years. Marked, part of the House of Night series, is the first of 12 books, not counting spin-offs and related books.
It was written in 2007, and follows a 16 year old girl named Zoey Redbird as she receives a blue crescent moon on her forehead, a mark that appears when adolescent hormones trigger DNA, starting a transformation into vampyre. Zoey, however, doesn’t receive just an outline, like fledgling vampyres are supposed to. She receives one already filled in, which only adult vampyres have, signifying the Goddess Nyx has blessed her with extraordinary gifts.
She is sent off to the special boarding school for fledglings, The House of Night. The first book follows Zoey as she meets new friends, learns her powers, and generally attempts to survive the change, as one in ten fledglings die horribly from their body’s rejecting it.
Marked is original, though taking from many other vampire stories before it, it manages to take a new look at it. There’s the school, and the heavy influence of both Paganism/Wicca, and Native American religions that play huge roles. The religions help with the amazing world building, and P.C. Cast and her daughter Kristin accurately represent the age group and teenage drama.
I recommend this series to fantasy lovers, vampire fans, and those who enjoyed Rainbow Rowell’s ‘ Carry On’. Some say the writing style is strange, but I myself have read the series twice already.
It was written in 2007, and follows a 16 year old girl named Zoey Redbird as she receives a blue crescent moon on her forehead, a mark that appears when adolescent hormones trigger DNA, starting a transformation into vampyre. Zoey, however, doesn’t receive just an outline, like fledgling vampyres are supposed to. She receives one already filled in, which only adult vampyres have, signifying the Goddess Nyx has blessed her with extraordinary gifts.
She is sent off to the special boarding school for fledglings, The House of Night. The first book follows Zoey as she meets new friends, learns her powers, and generally attempts to survive the change, as one in ten fledglings die horribly from their body’s rejecting it.
Marked is original, though taking from many other vampire stories before it, it manages to take a new look at it. There’s the school, and the heavy influence of both Paganism/Wicca, and Native American religions that play huge roles. The religions help with the amazing world building, and P.C. Cast and her daughter Kristin accurately represent the age group and teenage drama.
I recommend this series to fantasy lovers, vampire fans, and those who enjoyed Rainbow Rowell’s ‘ Carry On’. Some say the writing style is strange, but I myself have read the series twice already.
KRZ: Americana Ghost Theater
By Marty Forbeck
Last month, in the book review column, I made a promise to review something in a non-sci-fi genre for once.
That promise is now kept, but I inadvertently switched mediums in the process, so… yeah.
Give it some time. We’re all trying to shake up the formula a bit over here.
I had planned to review Dishonored 2 for this month but it turns out there’s not much interesting to say about a game that, while completely satisfying as a stealth gameplay experience, contains a plot so uninteresting and cliche that bottles of white paste are lining up to say that it could use a little flavor.
So instead, imagine if Johnny Cash and Shakespeare had a kid, and that kid was raised by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s a point and click adventure game set in a magic realist version of Kentucky that tells the story of an old delivery man named Conway, on a trip to make his final delivery before retirement to the mysterious 5 Dogwood Drive. Trouble is, the only way to get to 5 Dogwood Drive is to take the Zero, a strange “highway” that seems to comprise actual roads, boating trips, and several caverns.
Along the way Conway meets people and places that mystically exemplify many of the great and terrible aspects of American lives in the 20 and 21st centuries.You can talk with a glowing skeleton that’s just trying to make enough money to pay for food from the company store. Gameplay, rather than being about logic puzzles or quick reaction times, is almost entirely comprised of dialogue choices, not just for Conway but for every major character he meets along the way.
It evokes the feelings of both writing and participating in a great American play. In fact, the game is broken up into 5 “Acts” only 4 of which have been completed and released to date. It took the 3 person Dev-team 2 years to put out Act 4 last July, and unfortunately it’s likely that another year might go by before the finale. But even as it stands this thing is worth an order of magnitude more than its $25 price of admission.
That promise is now kept, but I inadvertently switched mediums in the process, so… yeah.
Give it some time. We’re all trying to shake up the formula a bit over here.
I had planned to review Dishonored 2 for this month but it turns out there’s not much interesting to say about a game that, while completely satisfying as a stealth gameplay experience, contains a plot so uninteresting and cliche that bottles of white paste are lining up to say that it could use a little flavor.
So instead, imagine if Johnny Cash and Shakespeare had a kid, and that kid was raised by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s a point and click adventure game set in a magic realist version of Kentucky that tells the story of an old delivery man named Conway, on a trip to make his final delivery before retirement to the mysterious 5 Dogwood Drive. Trouble is, the only way to get to 5 Dogwood Drive is to take the Zero, a strange “highway” that seems to comprise actual roads, boating trips, and several caverns.
Along the way Conway meets people and places that mystically exemplify many of the great and terrible aspects of American lives in the 20 and 21st centuries.You can talk with a glowing skeleton that’s just trying to make enough money to pay for food from the company store. Gameplay, rather than being about logic puzzles or quick reaction times, is almost entirely comprised of dialogue choices, not just for Conway but for every major character he meets along the way.
It evokes the feelings of both writing and participating in a great American play. In fact, the game is broken up into 5 “Acts” only 4 of which have been completed and released to date. It took the 3 person Dev-team 2 years to put out Act 4 last July, and unfortunately it’s likely that another year might go by before the finale. But even as it stands this thing is worth an order of magnitude more than its $25 price of admission.
Book Review: Dune Remains a Sci-fi and fantasy Classic
By Marty Forbeck
Book Review: Hyperion, a Simmons classic
By Marty Forbeck