On Nomenclature

Friday saw the release of a special 'Wii Edition' of Project Zero 2 - an update and rearrangement of the 9-year-old PS2 game of the same name.

Of course by 'the same name', I mean the same name in Europe. This is one of those games that has pretty much a different name in every territory.

The core game mechanic - present in every Project Zero game (of which there are four so far) - revolves around an item called the 'Camera Obscura'. That's not a typo of 'Camera Oscura', they did actually name it 'Obscura'. It's a camera (big surprise) that is capable of photographing ghosts and other 'things that should not be seen' and, in doing so, cause damage to any harmful spirits in its viewfinder. In the States, these games form the 'Fatal Frame' series, and that's a title that seems to suit the game more readily than the rather bland 'Project Zero'...

...Or does it?

It seems that, in its home territory of Japan, the series is known simply as 'Zero' because the Japanese word for zero - rei - is (to Western ears) identical to one of many Japanese words for ghost - rei.

And people think English is strange?

'Fatal Frame' is, perhaps, still a better - or, at least, more dramatic - title and it has the advantage of an obvious tie to the game: a certain kind of 'lucky shot' (or skillfully-timed shot) is referred to within the game as a 'Fatal Frame', and does significantly more damage to your non-corporeal opponents.

One would think that the Wiimote would make the perfect aiming tool for use in a camera-based videogame. Strange, then, that it plays a small and frankly frustrating role. In the camera-targeting parts of the game, the analogue stick on the nunchuck operates as tank controls - forward, back and turn. The Wiimote does very little - tilt it up, the camera tilts up; tilt it down, the camera tilts down - although there is a strange kind of lateral drift that I haven't quite figured out. In effect, you're playing Battlezone, but with the ability to turn your 'turret' up and down.

Aiding you in your ghost-snapping - and furthering the Battlezone analogy - there's a four-part 'ghost radar' thing which tells you where the ghost is - if the left or right lamp is lit, that tells you which direction to turn. If the lower lamp is lit, it's behind you (wooo!) and if the uppermost lamp is lit, it's somewhere dead ahead (pardon the expression). The thing to remember is that these spooks really act like traditional ghosts - walls and doors don't stop 'em.

Oh, and they can turn invisible.

And teleport.

Still, when it works, the Camera Obscura interface is quite a fun feature - it even records your finest moments as actual photos within the game and, while the basic film is infinite, you can pick up other types along the way which, while limited, offer various special abilities. There are also lenses and camera upgrades which, thusfar, appear to be earned more than found randomly.

The walkabout parts of the game are... strange. While the PS2 version was very cinematic, the camera following the protagonist as if it was on a boom of some kind, the Wii version has been reimagined as a far more 'intimate' game. You view the action sort-of over the shoulder of the protagonist. I say 'sort-of' because she actually occupies a good chunk of the screen, and you can't see what's directly ahead of her. In some respects, this heightens the tension - it really is as if you're running (or ambling) along behind her. But that brings me to my biggest whine so far: the speed of movement. The protagonist's running speed would be the walking speed of almost any other protagonist, and her walking speed is truly a snail's pace. Thankfully, the ghosts - the early ones, at least - aren't very fast until they get up close... but even then, it can be reasonably easy to get away.

Examining or picking up the objects you find along the way is another element I have mixed feelings about... In the original, it was just a case of clicking a button to pick up anything... For the Wii version, you have to hold the A button and watch the protagonist reach out, gingerly, for the item. Initially, I wondered why they'd add in such a time-wasting feature... but then I discovered 'Ghost Hand'. It seems that, at random times, a spectral hand will try to grab the protagonist as she reaches for an object. Release A quickly enough, and you get away... let her be grabbed, and you lose a good chunk of your health.

I wonder if this means the Wii version was just too darned easy without such a strange addition.

The story is predictably hokey... There's one little twist that's very strongly hinted right at the start, but I don't want to reveal anything since this version is only just out, and some story elements may have been changed from the original. Suffice it to say, there's a good reason that the protagonist and her sister have become embroiled in the mysterious events in this lost village.

I'm quite enjoying it so far... it's similar enough to other Survival Horror games to feel familiar, but with enough unique gimmicks to feel fresh. Some of the jump scares are effective, some are too predictable... I just hope I get used to the controls, particularly in viewfinder mode, otherwise this game is going to become very frustrating.

Graphically, I'm in two minds... On the one hand, it looks nice and crisp, it's very atmospheric (the 'dirty lens' effect in some of the spookier scenes can be distracting) and, while there is some popup, it's kept quite successfully to a minimum with an appropriate level of distance fog. On the other hand... it's all so very beige.

It is strange that they've chosen to port PZ2/FF2 rather than one of the more recent entries... but I guess this is paving the way for something more up-to-date for the WiiU.

Getting this out of the way...

There are times when my enthusiasm and confidence get the better of me.

I know, that may not sound like me, but it's very true. I'm an optimist at heart, and I like to think that everything is going to work out in the end.

And, sometimes, things seem to be working out so well... everything appears to be moving in the 'right' direction, and I start to get comfortable. I start to get happy.

Then, and only then, does the rug gets pulled from under my feet.

For example, the job I'm doing at the moment: Perhaps I should have suspected something was up when the company switched a 9-month contract for one month on my day rate. Possibly I should have detected something more in the note of uncertainty about putting me on a contract even after a solution was agreed that was equitable to the company, to me and to my agency... But I was too wrapped up in loving the work and the product.

It was announced last week that the particular product I'm working on will cease print publication, possibly with the next issue.

I'm not the only one who's flummoxed by this decision - literally everyone on the team cannot understand this move, least of all the sales team who have doubled last year's takings. Last year, the company gave them champagne for bringing in one million pounds. This year, after bringing in two million pounds, the company is essentially handing them their P-45s.

Most of them are actually being redeployed within the company, but one - who had devoted a third of his lifetime to that one product - has already been let go.

Amusingly, I just had a phone call from (a salesperson employed on behalf of) one of the charities I support. I told him his timing couldn't be worse, and that I'd just been made redundant, and he still tried to get me to increase my regular donation. I cannot express how much these people aggravate me now.

It Had To Happen

So, last night, I had my first dream set entirely in the office I'm working in now. I forget the details (it has been more than 12 hours since I woke up, and I didn't take notes at the time) but, essentially, I had a difference of opinion with one of the Salesmen. A loud one.

Funnily enough, it was one of the Salesmen who's just gone on holiday, so that just makes it seem like the typical 'defragging of the subconscious' sort of dream... the situation was more the kind of thing that I'd expect from my old place, rather than this one.

Strange.

Finished watching Torchwood: Miracle Day this evening and have to admit it wasn't half as terrible as I'd thought, based on what I'd heard about it from people who watched it when it was originally broadcast. My main complaints would be the jumbled, flabby story with far too many loose ends (the Soulless are pretty much a one-episode thing, the 45 Club only rates one mention, Dead Is Dead gets left for dead) too many extraneous characters get introduced just so they can get killed - blown up, generally - and far too many serious vacillations in personality and motivation.

What's really weird is that, having sat through it, I'm all the more convinced that Torchwood should and could continue, and it seems that, far from pulling the plug, Starz is willing to wait for it, rather than rushing to produce a new series.

Time to get working...

I Am A Trampoline, My Niece Is A Hat

Continuing on from my last post, since I didn't exactly go into detail about the weekend... It's very interesting to watch my young niece develop.

She'll be turning three next month, and is very much in the throes of The Terrible Twos, playing up for her parents while at home, but being nice as pie when visiting Grandma and Granddad and Uncle. Other than the typical contrariness, refusals to go to bed and refusals to get out of bed, I'm not sure of the precise details of her offences. Whenever I see her, she's bright and lively and (largely) polite, but clearly has the affliction of all children: she firmly believes she is - or should be - the centre of everyone's attention, all the time. That's kind of how it should be, at that age.

The funny thing is, one of my birthday present books discusses the way we are all born with infinite imagination, and that it gets drummed out of us with facts and statistics and procedures and all kinds of learning, to the point where we are afraid of expressing ourselves. Being terribly old now, I don't really remember experiencing the great sense of freedom that I see in my niece.

But then, chances are, she's not aware of it - it's all just 'normal' to her, the way the world works around her, and bends to her will.

To wit: I placed a plushie toy lion upon my head and declared that it is my hat... Niece denies my reality. I place an old ice cream tub upon my head and declare that it is my stylish new hat, emphasising my truth by posing dramatically and stroking my chin. She giggles and decides that my father, too, needs a hat... but not just any hat... and certainly not a junk mail leaflet hat. Oh, no. Granddad must have the borough council's glossy magazine as a hat.

But then it goes further... because the ice cream tub is not sufficiently stylish. Niece decides that she must make the ultimate sacrifice and become my hat. She clambers onto the sofa behind me, up onto my shoulders, then flops down, her belly upon my crown, her face dangling in front of mine. "I'm your hat!"

This happens two or three times before she gets bored and moves on to something new.

If course, this noble gesture comes at a price. Later on, she decides that I must be tickled... and not just that, but I must lie prone upon the floor for this to happen. She didn't find a single ticklish area (but, to be honest, I had kept my shoes on, so that wouldn't help) but I giggled along nevertheless. By the by, she stands upon my chest and, without a care in the world, proceeds to bounce.

My sister immediately grabbed her and pointed out that "we don't bounce on people", while I proceed from coughing to spluttering to laughter...

I am a Trampoline, my niece is a Hat.

This, gentle reader, is magic.

She also fibs, ever so slightly. While brandishing her plushie toy lion and growling at me, she instructed Granddad to "tell off the lion" and, being a dutiful Granddad, he complied... but then she went all mopey and subdued (but it's that kind of mopey and subdued, so you can tell she doesn't really mean it). When someone asked what was wrong, she mumbled that Granddad told her off.

Maybe she meant for him to tell off the plushie toy... but the distinction is sometimes difficult to make.

In other news... Work still going smoothly... Watched another two episodes of Torchwood: Miracle Day. Still not very impressed with it. There are moments of brilliance (Vera's death is particularly chilling, but the events leading up to it are rather poorly done, and overplayed), but it's spending far too much time and effort in irrelevant things under the guise of 'characterisation' and that bête noire of genre television, 'conflict'... And Jack is just coming across as a colossal dick.

He's also veering from chummy-jokey-flirty to overly earnest and, for a pansexual traveller in time and space, there's a rather gratingly homophobic focus on his apparent preference for homosexual flings ("Oooh, Rex doesn't like his jokes too gay"... "Do you turn everyone around you gay?" "That's the plan..."). I don't know whether it's the American writers making the assumption that his sexuality must only work one way, or just plain bad writing...

...Or maybe I'm missing something, and it's a rough attempt at pointing out that Rex is making the outdated assumptions (a) that Jack is gay and (b) that it matters, and the writers are lampooning his attitudes? I dunno... something about it just doesn't sit right with me...

And Oswald Danes... I really can't figure out what he's doing in the story, and who thought it was a good idea to turn him into a figurehead. I mean, I know it's a very twisted world in Miracle Day... but he's stretching credulity already.

And The Soulless? Do they turn up again after Episode 3? I'd have thought that, in the midst of Oswald's rise, and the controversial 'Dead Is Dead' movement, The Soulless would me more apparent... but so far it's been little more than one candle parade of masked people.

Ah well... At least I'm watching it this time... And, I have to say, Murray Gold's score is awesome.

Another Mile on the Clock

My family have a strange way of doing things. This is particularly evident around birthdays and Christmas.

Most of the time, these days, every member of the family asks every other what they'd like as a present. It's not through lack of care, just the reality of our lives... We all live separately now, have our own lives and, while we probably communicate more (and better) that we did when we all lived together, we no longer have the same connection, the same sense of each other's interests and desires.

So, while it's pretty safe for anyone to get me a TransFormers toy, they can't be sure if it's one that I want, or one that I don't already have. It's equally safe to get me the latest book by Terry Pratchett... though even that has led to me receiving the same book twice. Clothes are essentially out of the question, because the clothes I buy myself are nothing like the clothes family will buy for me. I tend to get something Dragon-y for my mother, and either DVDs of a documentary series, science-y books or Benedictine for my father. Those are kind of fallback presents, though... I'd like to get something more interesting/less obvious. My sister... is a bit more complicated, but there are even fallback presents for her.

Whenever a birthday is rolling round these days, we tend to direct each other to our Amazon wish lists. This, at least, assures us that we're getting something that the recipient really wants, and doesn't already have.

Thus, for my birthday this year, I got two books from my sister (and niece and brother-in-law), and the Torchwood complete boxed set from my folks.

The former pair are a book on writing (or, in fact, any form of creative output) and a book on cooking (specifically Rachel Khoo's The Little Paris Kitchen), neither of which should be any surprise to anyone. The last, considering how much I loathed the TV series, might seem a little strange, even though I like Sci-Fi generally. Even considering the thoughts I've had on a reboot for the series, why would I want to own a boxed set of the stuff that I didn't like... and why would I ask someone else to buy it for me?

Well... as I start to watch the series all over again (beginning, as it happens, with the most recent series, Miracle Day), I hope to be able to provide an answer other than "research"... Certainly, having watched the first disc today, I have to admit that it's more interesting and entertaining than I remember. Still poorly written in places, still full of gratuitous nonsense (it is a co-production with Starz, after all... I had the misfortune of watching the first couple of episodes of their Spartacus series yesterday... It's overly talky, as porn goes, but the music is better than average) but I'm thinking (for the moment - this may well change) that I should have given it more of a chance when it was first broadcast...